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Contradictory arguments
Ufcarazy - What Contradictions?
You are using the common tactic of forcing someone to disprove a negative. There is no "if-then" argument required for something which has absolutely no evidence. According to your reasoning I am justified in inventing anything that pops into my head and it is incumbent upon you to disprove it. This is not science.
P.S. - Characterizing atheists as "passionate" is like calling a rationalist "emotional".
- Rearden
February 7, 2009 12:21AM
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Response
There is nothing wrong with asking someone to disprove a negative, that is, with asking someone to provide evidence contrary to a claim. You call it a tactic, I call it reason.
I agree that "if-then" arguments against God are not required. Nevertheless, many atheists develop them with great enthusiasm. If you have a problem with them doing this, then please take up your complaint with them.
You are justified for inventing ideas. This is what philosophy is all about. We use our imaginations to try to figure stuff out, and we invent explanations or concepts to help us deal with problems. If the invented idea sounds reasonable to some, but not me, then if I want to persuade people to abandon that idea I will have to use my imagination to invent an idea that conflicts with and/or is better than the idea they have adopted.
Here are the two contradictory statements:
1) "The supernatural cannot be tested."
2) "If the Judeo-Christian God exists, then there should be no gratuitous evil. If God is perfect, then the world should be perfect. If God exists, then no one should be a disbeliever because God would make his existence obvious to everyone, etc, etc. Therefore, the God hypothesis is false or probably false."
p.s. Atheists are human beings, and as such are passionate about some things. I don't know why you think they are not emotionally attached to anything. Perhaps it is because you have never debated with them?
- ufcarazy
February 7, 2009 5:32PM
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Disprove a negative
"There is nothing wrong with asking someone to disprove a negative, that is, with asking someone to provide evidence contrary to a claim. You call it a tactic, I call it reason."
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It depends on the negative you ae trying to disprove. For example, I could pretty easily disprove the theory that there is not a stone inside a small box simply by looking inside the box and seeing a stone there. But now expand that to be a stone that does not interact with any of the known forces and is therefore not detectable in any way. It now would be pretty much impossible to disprove that stone does not exist. The same could be said for an invisible man reading over my shoulder. The same could be said for a God which is postulated to have magical and mystical powers that we do not understand.
- Bud
December 8, 2009 4:06PM
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