Hello again David910.
There is a lot in your response, so I'm going to take it bit-by-bit.
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Originally Posted by David910
I disagree with your premise here.
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The premise is not really mine...I am merely reviewing the rules of the scientific method.
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Yes, if proven true, they would prove Santa exists, but if proven not true, would prove Santa doesn't exist. What about that do you not understand?
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Are you
sure that you want to make this assertion? Let's repeat your statement, changing the name "Santa" to "god":
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Yes, if proven true, they would prove GOD exists, but if proven not true, would prove GOD doesn't exist. What about that do you not understand?
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I have never seen god, never received any tangible gifts from him, never seen a home that he built for himself with his own two hands. Does this prove that god does not exist? If lack of physical evidence constitutes
proof that someone or something does not exist, then what evidence will you present that
proves god? Because according to the argument you made above, a lack of evidence
proves non-existence.
Take your example below regarding lions. If no one had ever seen a lion, would it prove that lions don't exist? Of course it wouldn't...as you pointed out. Lions would indeed still exist, even if we had no proof of them. So you see, lacking evidence does not
prove non-existence...not for lions, not for god, and not for Santa Clause. But without any
evidence of lions, I could not expect the scientific community to accept them. They would reject the affirmative (lions exist) and accept the null hypothesis (lions do not exist) until new evidence came to light. Take a step back and you will see that your Santa argument is no different, I promise. It is no different not because you are somehow
wrong, but because you approached the Santa issue
in the correct scientific fashion.
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I think we are speaking too scientific here. Who says that this "scientific method" that you love has to be the end-all-be-all of exploring the world around us? That seems to be quite the narrow view of thinking.
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You've got me on one point - I
do love the scientific method. It gives as an opportunity to investigate matters in an organized, verifiable way. We owe an awful lot to discoveries made using the scientific method.
The scientific method is not the end-all-be-all, but it
is what the atheists on this board expect one to use if you want to make claims about our shared reality. Remember that this discussion began when you set forth your spiritual beliefs and several of them asked for "proof." When they say "proof," they mean verifiable scientific evidence.
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If I want to try to prove that Santa doesn't exist, why can't I?
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Because it is intellectually dishonest to state that you have "proven" something's non-existence by the absence of evidence. Santa Clause, lions and god are
not the same thing, but we have to use the same rules for assessing every case or we aren't doing ourselves any justice.
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Science, as has been proved many times, is not the end-be-all of authority. Science still says that Bigfoot and Spirits don't exist, some still claiming evolution is not real.
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True, because science is not a set of answers. It is a framework for investigation and a model of reality based on those investigations. Conclusions drawn are wrong more often than people might think, but because of the rigorous framework, errors are often corrected. By the time something makes it to a high-school or even undergrad textbook it has generally been tested, revised, tested again and confirmed many, many, many times over. That is why evolution
does appear in scientific textbooks, but bigfoot
does not. Anecdotal evidence is insufficient. Many people have claimed to see angels, ghosts and bigfoot. Many have also claimed to see the Loch Ness monster, chupacabra, the yeti, aliens of various shapes and dispositions...the list goes on and on.
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Because, Hyker, if God exists, it really doesn't matter if there is proof or not, when we die, we will find out for ourselves. No proof doesn't need to mean not real.
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That is precisely my point - that the absence of evidence does not prove non-existence. But it
does effect how others will respond to our claims.
Just as it is with Santa Clause, a lack of evidence does mean that we have no reason
to believe apart from our personal faith, which is subjective. Therefore if you put that aside and function only in the objective, as many atheists/rationalists do, then there is absolutely no objective reason to believe, which is (I think) the point that most of the atheist/rationalists on this board tend to do. If you make a claim about god/spirituality/the supernatural, they are expecting objective proof. Otherwise they will reject your affirmative statement and accept the null hypothesis of non-existence. They have no more evidence than you or I...they simply refuse to believe anything without it, and that is their choice.
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If we hadn't discovered lions yet, does it mean they don't exist? At the end of the day, no matter what science says, there is no known answer to whether God exists or not, and trying to prove one way or another is a futile attempt. That is why there is such thing as belief.
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I agree. But when you make claims about your
beliefs, don't be surprised when atheist/rationalists ask for evidence, and don't demand evidence of others, which is how this entire discussion began.
I feel it's been a good discussion, and I have tried my hardest to avoid making it a "win or lose" argument, because that does nothing but impead honest communication. Notwithstanding, in the famous words of the fictional charecter Forrest Gump: "that's all I've got to say about that."
Thanks again.
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