Argument from incredulity and arguments against God's existence

packermann · Feb 13, 2020

Occams Barber said:
Your above points may have some use as subsidiary arguments against the existence of God but the real issue is the absence of reasonable evidence for the existence of God.

My intention on this thread is far humbler than that. I am not trying here to prove the existence of God. I am merely trying to point out that many of the arguments against the existence of God are fallacious.

In the absence of this evidence the above arguments are interesting but unnecessary. This is essentially the same point made by @Ophiolite in his post above (#2)

I can present evidence for the existence of God. But I made this clear in my introduction that this was not my intention in this thread. I will be happy to open a thread dealing with the arguments later.

Also, if my counter-argument against the most popular arguments used by atheists are "interesting, but unnecessary" then would not they have been just "interesting, but unnecessary" for the atheists to use then in the first place? And yet you atheists use them! So you can use the argument such as "how can an all-loving and all-powerful God allow suffering" but we are not allowed to respond? How can our response to your arguments be "interesting, but unnecessary" unless your arguments are also "interesting, but unnecessary"? To tell you the truth, I am suspicious on how confident you are with arguments that are not based on incredulity if you must resort to unnecessary arguments.

However, looking at these statements in isolation; the first, second and fourth points are essentially the same, i.e., an all-loving God allows or causes suffering. The problem with these statements is not their incredulity; it's their internal contradiction.

No, it just betrays the limitation of your imagination. You are assuming that God's love is the same as our love. You are assuming that God's power we see power. You seem to assume that there is no free will, or that we used our free will to bring about evil. And God, being a God of love, hates evil and evil-doers. Should not a God of love hate and punish Adolf Hitler and the Nazi's for killing the Jews? Would not a God of love let someone like Hitler suffer?

Maybe you think that God should have taken away our free will to do evil? Yes, we can all be walking zombies.

Being 'all-loving' and, at the same time, allowing or causing suffering, are, arguably, contradictory qualities.

Well, this is odd. After you say that my arguments are unnecessary, you then find it necessary to respond to them.

When I was a kid, my father once dropped my pants and shorts in front of a stranger. That stranger in a white coat then jabbed me with a needle! That was painful and humiliating. I could not believe that my all-loving father would allow this to happen to me!

Your third point is also contradictory in that an all-powerful God would not need to be worshipped.

You are using the word "contradiction" very loosely. The law of non-contradiction is strictly that the subject cannot be the exact opposite of the predicate. The statement "A is non-A" is false. But you are seeing the predicate to be B, such as "A is not B", assuming that B cannot be this or is that, or A is this. That is not necessarily a contradiction. It is just your opinion based on certain assumptions. Granted, I also make certain assumptions, but that is my point. You are making this apparent contradiction into an objective truth. But it is not.

Such a God would, by definition, have no needs or wants. These arguments demonstrate a common problem, where God is depicted as an all-powerful, all-knowing etc. being who, at the same time, has a set of all-too-human characteristics.

Needs, no. Wants, yes. According to Judeo-Christian thought God created us not because He needed us, but that He wanted us. It was pure wants without needs. In order to love someone is to want someone. If God is a God of love then He would want us to have a relationship with Him.

But this is the problem you are having. You have a limited imagination. You see a God with no wants. He is not a God of love at all. He is a God of apathy. And if He is a God with no wants, then He is a God who does not care if we suffer. He would not want us to spend eternity with Him. No wonder you reject this God! I would, too!

packermann · Feb 13, 2020

Ophiolite said:
Utter balderdash.

I accept as real many things that I have no understanding of how they might happen. Ignorance of mechanism rarely troubles me. I offer you two examples for comparison.

1. I inclined to the view that the continents moved before we had a mechanism to explain how they moved. Why did I do so? Because the evidence strongly suggested that such was the case. In the absence of that evidence I would not have suspected movement. Why would I?

2. I do not incline to the view that "An all-loving and all-powerful God allows suffering". Why not? Well, if he is all-powerful he could certainly act in that way. I see nothing incredible about that. What of the supposed contradiction that an all-loving entity would allow suffering? I don't see that as an issue. Even humans say things like "You have to be cruel to be kind". So, again I find no difficulty in accepting, in principle, that an all-loving and all-powerful God could allow suffering. Why then do not incline to this view? Simple: I see no meaningful evidence that supports the existence of such an entity.

There is no incredulity here, on my part. End of.

I appreciate your consistent view.

packermann · Feb 13, 2020

InterestedAtheist said:
Ah yes, the Discovery Institute's famous List of Scientists. More than a thousand people, eh? But how many Steves do they have on it? Here's a list of over one thousand four hundred scientists called Steve who have affirmed the following statement:

"Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to "intelligent design," to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation's public schools."

There was a time that the majority of scientists did not believe evolution. Now the majority do. Probably the majority will in the future. But maybe not. I have seen too many cases that scientists admitted later to be wrong.

I understand that you yourself accept evolution, but when you say that "there are a growing number of scientists who reject it," you are, to say the least, being misleading.

Not at all. I can hold to a position without believing that a different position is without any validity.

Ah, here we are - I found the list.
It's got eighteen Steves on it. Eighteen Steves against one thousand, four hundred and forty-eight.

What is it with Steves?

Nihilist Virus · Feb 13, 2020

packermann said:
Atheists use this argument from incredulity, a fallacious argument, to attack believers. For instance, the believer may not understand evolution and therefore find it incredulous, and so evolution does not exist. Although I have no problem with evolution, I think this is a straw man. There are a growing number of scientists who are very well-read on evolution and yet reject it for sound reason.
See Some of the Growing Number of Scientists Who Doubt the Darwinian Theory of Evolution Speak Out

But I find it ironic that atheists use the argument of incredulity against us believers, since most of the aruments the atheists use are based on the argument of incredulity.
This argument is defined as follows:

"The fallacy lies in the unstated premise. If a state of affairs is impossible to imagine, it doesn't follow that it is false; it may only mean that imagination is limited. Moreover, if no one has yet managed to imagine how a state of affairs is possible, it doesn't follow that no one will ever be able to."

Argument from incredulity - RationalWiki

Statements made by atheists that are to them incredulous/difficult to imagine/increditable/absurd and so must be false:

⦁ An all-loving and all-power God allowing suffering
⦁ An all-loving sending anyone to hell
⦁ God "needing" us to worship Him
⦁ God would send a person to hell for being a free-thinker demanding evidence for God's existence before "believing" in Him

All these are incredulous to the atheist, and so such a God cannot possibly exists. It is the same as some believers in God not understanding evolution and so find it incredulous to them and therefore evolution must not exist. But what is gravy for the goose is gravy for the gander. If believers can be accused with this fallacious argument so can atheists.

Many of the Christian beliefs are unimaginable to the atheists. But what is absurd to an atheist is creditable to the majority in society. It does not prove that the these beliefs are false only that it shows the limited imagination of the atheists. Also, as stated in the above quote, if no one has yet managed to imagine how a state of affairs is possible, it doesn't follow that no one will ever be able to.

Argument from incredulity, also known as argument from personal incredulity or appeal to common sense, is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition must be false because it contradicts one's personal expectations or beliefs, or is difficult to imagine.

Argument from incredulity - Wikipedia

The divine fallacy, or the argument from incredulity, is a species of non sequitur reasoning which goes something like this: I can't figure this out, so a god must have done it. Or, This is amazing; therefore, a god did it. Or, I can't think of any other explanation; therefore, a god did it. Or, this is just too weird; so, a god is behind it.

divine fallacy (argument from incredulity) - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com

Almost all the arguments I have read or heard from atheists are based on the argument from incredulity. An all-loving God who would send me to hell is preposterous; so that God must not exist! A God who is so "insecure" as to need me to worship is too increditable, so that God must not exist! It more tells us the limitation of the imaginations of atheists than whether God exists or no.

I am not arguing here that God must exist. I am just saying that most of the arguments against His existence are based on what atheists themselves would say is a fallacious argument.

Statements made by atheists that are to them incredulous/difficult to imagine/increditable/absurd and so must be false:

⦁ An all-loving and all-power God allowing suffering
⦁ An all-loving sending anyone to hell
⦁ God "needing" us to worship Him
⦁ God would send a person to hell for being a free-thinker demanding evidence for God's existence before "believing" in Him

Atheists contend that those things are incongruities, not arguments from incredulity.

Basically, those things are in the category of 2+2=5, which is to say, definitively false. An argument from incredulity would be more along the lines of, "How can e^(i·π)+1=0 possibly be true?!"

packermann · Feb 13, 2020

Yttrium said:
This one I have a problem with, if we're talking about eternal suffering. It's not a matter of incredulity, it's simply a logical contradiction. If Hell is temporary or not a place of eternal suffering, then no problem.

I appreciate your responses.

I can understand how Hell could be a problem. Although I am Catholic now, I went to a conservative Protestant seminary. In a philosophy class, we dealt with the the problem of Hell. Most of it was based on the writings from C.S. Lewis.

Lewis wrote that God is the great gentleman. He does not force Himself on anyone. If someone does not want God that He will give him kind of eternity he wants. But what we want is not necessarily not what we need to be happy. Since God is infinite Source of all Love and Joy, a person would live for all eternity with ultimate love and eternity.

I would add that the Bible says that there are different levels of Hell. So the upper level of Hell may not be much different than what is on earth now. But the more a person has chosen evil rather than good, the lower levels of Hell that person would be. It is in the lower levels that there could be more positive pain, maybe even a lake of fire.

C.S. Lewis pointed out that although the inhabitants in Hell do not like it there, they would be more miserable in Heaven. So the only alternatives for them is annihilation or eternity in hell. I can see how annihilation would be more humane. But I can see those in the upper levels of hell would still prefer to exist in less-than-paradise existence than to stop existing. Those who really chose evil, who would be in the lower levels of Hell, may prefer to just stop existing, but they are getting what they deserved.

packermann · Feb 13, 2020

Nihilist Virus said:
Statements made by atheists that are to them incredulous/difficult to imagine/increditable/absurd and so must be false:

⦁ An all-loving and all-power God allowing suffering
⦁ An all-loving sending anyone to hell
⦁ God "needing" us to worship Him
⦁ God would send a person to hell for being a free-thinker demanding evidence for God's existence before "believing" in Him

Atheists contend that those things are incongruities, not arguments from incredulity.

Basically, those things are in the category of 2+2=5, which is to say, definitively false. An argument from incredulity would be more along the lines of, "How can e^(i·π)+1=0 possibly be true?!"

Incongruity vs incredulity is just semantics.

2 + 2 = 5 is objectively false. Most Christians and at least two skeptics on this thread do not have a problem with the arguments cited. So obviously 2 + 2 = 5 is not the same as an all-loving and all-powerful God allowing suffering. The first is something that is factually false. The second is a matter of subjective opinion.

Yttrium · Feb 13, 2020

packermann said:
I would add that the Bible says that there are different levels of Hell. So the upper level of Hell may not be much different than what is on earth now. But the more a person has chosen evil rather than good, the lower levels of Hell that person would be. It is in the lower levels that there could be more positive pain, maybe even a lake of fire.

That's fine, as long as the lower levels aren't permanent. If the offenders move to a more lenient level once they've learned their lesson, then there's no eternal suffering, and no problem.

HARK! · Feb 13, 2020

Ophiolite said:
Now, that said, I wouldn't find it difficult to sign the same declaration that @HARK! thinks does such damage to the case for evolution.

What are you talking about? If you're going to be so cavalier as to purport that you know what I think; then I'll insist that you quote me verbatim.

Nihilist Virus · Feb 13, 2020

packermann said:
Incongruity vs incredulity is just semantics.

How so? "I don't understand how that can be true" is absolutely different from "I do understand this and it is false."

You can counter-argue that atheists are wrong, and that there is no contradiction. But they are not using an argument from incredulity.

2 + 2 = 5 is objectively false.

Yes, exactly the point. Atheists - or at some of them - contend that God's existence is objectively false given his mutually contradictory properties and/or actions.

Most Christians and at least two skeptics on this thread do not have a problem with the arguments cited.

Good for them. So truth is just whatever we decide then? Or is there an objective reality?

So obviously 2 + 2 = 5 is not the same as an all-loving and all-powerful God allowing suffering. The first is something that is factually false. The second is a matter of subjective opinion.

The categorization of these arguments is your subjective opinion. They think they're making an argument from contradiction.

InterestedAtheist · Feb 13, 2020

packermann said:
What is it with Steves?

Oh, haven't you heard the joke?
A while ago the Disco 'Tute came up with its famous list of scientists critical of evolution. They did it in a typically mendacious manner, making a statement asking scientists if they felt it was right to be critical about evolution, and to explore any possibilities, which many responsible scientists might feel, through intellectual honesty, they agreed with - and which the Institute could then wave around and say, "Look, see, scientists do agree that evolution doesn't make sense!"

The NCSE (National Centre for Science Education) could, of course, have just asked scientists to sign up to their own list saying the truth - that evolution is the bedrock of modern biology, and as solidly established as any part of science can be. But while they would, of course, have many more scientists willing to sign up to it, many people wouldn't really appreciate the numbers. They'd just say "Well, Intelligent Design has one list of scientists, evolutionists have another; both sides have people who agree with them.

So the NCSE did something much cleverer. They made their own list, saying that evolution is solid science and that they did not appreciate religiously motivated frauds trying to sow doubt about it. And then they invited all scientists named Steve to sign on to it. Just Steve (or Steven, Stephen, Stephanie).

So now, when the creationists say "We have a list of over a thousand scientists who agree with us," it's much more effective to be able to answer: "And how many Steves do you have on that list? We have over a thousand scientists who agree that evolution is an unshakeable part of science, and they're all called Steve!"

(If you have any more questions, here's the Project Steve FAQ: Project Steve Frequently Asked Questions | National Center for Science Education )

muichimotsu · Feb 13, 2020

Yttrium said:
This is why I don't call myself "agnostic" any more. People get hung up on the semantics of it and "atheist". I prefer listing my faith as "N/A", but that wasn't an option on this site.

I miss when we could change it at will, but I can see how that potentially became easily abused by users

muichimotsu · Feb 13, 2020

packermann said:
But this is the problem you are having. You have a limited imagination. You see a God with no wants. He is not a God of love at all. He is a God of apathy. And if He is a God with no wants, then He is a God who does not care if we suffer. He would not want us to spend eternity with Him. No wonder you reject this God! I would, too!

Not sure how you get to claim you have any knowledge about this deity rather than things you believe to be qualities it possesses, but cannot justify or verify in any way beyond your circular reference to a book you find authoritative.

The ability to imagine something is in no way an indication that it must exist, that's the ontological argument for God's existence as a necessary and/or perfect being in a nutshell and it's a terrible one I think most theists have rightfully abandoned

muichimotsu · Feb 13, 2020

packermann said:
There was a time that the majority of scientists did not believe evolution. Now the majority do. Probably the majority will in the future. But maybe not. I have seen too many cases that scientists admitted later to be wrong.

Science is not absolutist in nature, you're mischaracterizing the whole institution as if it changing means it's unreliable in the claims it makes based on studying the evidence we acquire, but that's wholly incorrect. The changes are based on an understanding that we should strive for precision in our knowledge about the world through scientific methods

Ophiolite · Feb 14, 2020

Silmarien said:
Are you being entirely consistent here? About an hour after making this post, you stated here that you did not accept that the Christian God was plausible.

Are you using a different definition of "plausible"? I don't see how you can get from "no meaningful evidence" all the way to "not plausible," since the latter statement seems to imply that there is some stronger reason to reject a possibility, above and beyond the problem of evidence. (For example, I would say that the existence of multi-cellular extraterrestrial life somewhere is quite plausible, even without meaningful evidence.)

Perhaps I am using a different definition of plausible, as I do not find any inconsistency between these posts. Without consulting a dictionary I would say plausible means being likely to be true, or to exist; having sound reasons to expect it to be true. You seem to be equating it with possible and its negation as impossible.

Can you explain why you find my usage contradictory please.

Ophiolite · Feb 14, 2020

packermann said:
Although I have no problem with evolution, rightly understood, there are a an increasing number of scientists who as questioning it. So the same thing could be said about evolution.

I regularly read research articles on evolution. I do not see the "increasing number of questioning scientists", not in the sense of scientists suggesting evolution is false. What I see, as befits science and scientists, is an ongoing questioning of current understanding of the details. If you have contradictory evidence please provide it.

packermann said:
Also, this is begging the question, another fallacious argument. You are assuming that there is no substantive argument. You assume that atheism is true in order to say that is no evidence for Christianity, something which I am sure that more Christians on this forum would disagree

Please. That verges on being offensive. You are making assertions about my views and how I arrived at them without having any means of knowing this. Let's lay down some facts:
1. I did not state there was no evidence for the teachings of Christianity. I stated there was no meaningful evidence. (Or perhaps I said substantive.)
2. I did not arrive at that conclusion on the basis that I assumed atheism was true. That would be a fatuous, illogical argument that could only realistically be produced by a dolt. I am reasonably sure I am not a dolt.
3. I was raised as a Christian. As I devoted more time to the study of Scripture and involvement in the Christian community my doubts as to the source of its teachings increased.
4. Eventually, I concluded that the lack of meaningful evidence coupled with the reliance upon faith to sustain belief made the whole concept of the Christian God implausible.

Ophiolite · Feb 14, 2020

HARK! said:
What are you talking about? If you're going to be so cavalier as to purport that you know what I think; then I'll insist that you quote me verbatim.

My apologies. I confused a post by packerman as being made by yourself. Some of the views expressed in this thread by each of you are similar and this may have encouraged the confusion.

However, that is not an excuse and I should have exercised considerably more care in quoting your name. I take such errors seriously and would be quite willing to open a specific thread in which to offer a formal apology, if you wish.

Silmarien · Feb 14, 2020

Ophiolite said:
Perhaps I am using a different definition of plausible, as I do not find any inconsistency between these posts. Without consulting a dictionary I would say plausible means being likely to be true, or to exist; having sound reasons to expect it to be true. You seem to be equating it with possible and its negation as impossible.

Can you explain why you find my usage contradictory please.

Sure, though I'm not equating "plausible" with "possible."

Let's look at two different ideas, neither of which is directly supported by evidence:

1) There is complex extraterrestrial life somewhere in the universe.

2) Our politicians are lizard people from Mars.

Both of these statements are technically possible, but only the first one is plausible. At present, we have no evidence for either statement, so if we are going to explain why one is plausible but the other is not, we need to say more than simply that there is no meaningful evidence that our politicians are lizard people.

If you are putting the Christian God in the first category, then there's no problem (except that your definition of plausible is a bit misleading). If you're putting it in the second category, then you are making a stronger claim than you've admitted to.

HARK! · Feb 14, 2020

Ophiolite said:
My apologies. I confused a post by packerman as being made by yourself. Some of the views expressed in this thread by each of you are similar and this may have encouraged the confusion.

However, that is not an excuse and I should have exercised considerably more care in quoting your name. I take such errors seriously and would be quite willing to open a specific thread in which to offer a formal apology, if you wish.

I accept your apology. There's no need to start a thread on the subject. We all make mistakes. Honorable people admit to them.

Shalom

Ophiolite · Feb 14, 2020

Silmarien said:
Sure, though I'm not equating "plausible" with "possible."

Let's look at two different ideas, neither of which is directly supported by evidence:

1) There is complex extraterrestrial life somewhere in the universe.

2) Our politicians are lizard people from Mars.

Both of these statements are technically possible, but only the first one is plausible. At present, we have no evidence for either statement, so if we are going to explain why one is plausible but the other is not, we need to say more than simply that there is no meaningful evidence that our politicians are lizard people.

If you are putting the Christian God in the first category, then there's no problem (except that your definition of plausible is a bit misleading). If you're putting it in the second category, then you are making a stronger claim than you've admitted to.

I disagree with the statement I have emboldened.

1. We have evidence for extraterrestrial life as a consequence of observations of planets in "goldilocks zones", existence of complex life on this planet, reasonable extrapolation of the laws of chemistry, etc.

2. We have evidence that contradicts the possibility our politicians are Martian lizards.

Until that point is resolved between us we cannot proceed to the next step.

Ophiolite · Feb 14, 2020

HARK! said:
I accept your apology. There's no need to start a thread on the subject. We all make mistakes. Honorable people admit to them.

Shalom

Thank you. I appreciate your understanding.

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