The Impossibility of Evidence.

What evidence would it take for an atheist to believe in a god? This question comes up often enough to be worth a lengthy response, and, in short, my reply is that such evidence is impossible. I claim that any event that should ever occur to be observed by man that could suggest the existence of a deity will always, in every case, and indefinitely never amount to sufficient evidence for such an existence through no obstinance or arrogance of the atheist, but through mere logic and reason. My argument is as follows.  

First, I'd like to draw attention, yet again, to the heroic (arguable) David Hume. Concerning miracles, Hume stipulated that in order for a miracle to be accepted as having occurred, the falsehood of the testimony would have to be more miraculous than the miracle itself. After all, the lesser 'miracle' would be more likely to have occurred, just as it is more likely that I am typing this text rather than it just appearing without any direct or indirect user input. To quote Hume:

"When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion."

This fairly accurate worded phrasing puts the nail in the coffin concerning that which would be required for a testimony of a miracle to be accepted as factual. We then have to ask ourselves how such a falsehood of testimony could ever be more miraculous than the miracle itself.  

*On a quick side note, I can foresee the argument that my terminology only suggests that I will accept the more probable event, and that while winning the lotto is less likely than not winning the lotto, both are possible outcomes, and thus I erroneously equivocate the less likely (or improbable) with impossible. However, before you can suggest something to be possible it has to have been given evidence to support the claim. Miracles have yet to be shown possible and thus I do not run into the obstacle just described. Winning the lottery is indeed possible and has been proven so. Moreover, the analogy is a descriptor of what happened before the lottery numbers were picked, not after. After the lottery numbers are known, it's either impossible that I've won if I haven't, or impossible that I haven't won if I did. One merely needs to look at the numbers and submit it to the lottery board to find out. The claimed miracles in question have already occurred and their validity of being called a miracle is in question, not the perception that it has occurred.*  

When David Copperfield, the magician, made the statue of liberty disappear, no reasonable person thought that he actually made the statue disappear. To the viewer, however, the statue did indeed disappear. Similarly, we've probably all seen women cut in half with a saw and rabbits being pulled out of hats by many self-proclaimed magicians. While we do enjoy these illusions greatly, very few, if any, people actually think that the event was anything more than an illusion. Ask yourself why you don't believe the magician actually suspended the laws of nature; why you believe it's a trick of mirrors or the likes; why the idea that what you just witnessed was a miracle does not enter your stockpile of possible explanations. You'd probably answer because we know that people can be deceived. We've seen these tricks before, and some guy wearing a mask explained how a lot of them were done on FOX. But magicians aren't the only people or objects which are capable of deceiving.  

Lyre birds are capable of mimicking the most unusual sounds, including the sound of a chainsaw cutting through a trunk of a tree. We constantly deceive children into thinking there's a Santa Claus. Mirages occur to people travelling through a desert. Derren Brown can use his powers of deception to convert an entire room to believe there might be a deity, or to convince people that a losing race ticket is a winning one. Hallucinations will form to those who are mentally ill or extremely physically sick. People actually believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist, and the Saddam Hussein actually had WMD's. Hell, you've probably even thought that it was your left hand that was shaving your beard, looking in the mirror.  

Pick up any psychology book and you're bound to find numerous instances defining some sort of mental disorder which creates illusions. Are aliens really infiltrating our minds? Is the government wire-tapping my phone line? Am I the next Messiah? Why do the pink elephants steal my pillow at night? When will Nessy wakeup? Who is Bigfoot? We are in constant reminder of the ability of people to be deceived, and yet we never give them any credit to their illusions/delusions. On all levels, and in every corner of the globe, people are deceived, have been deceived, and will continue to be deceived. But what we have never witnessed anywhere near as much is the laws of nature to be suspended. Even if the miracles claimed by the various religions were indeed to have occurred, they are far outweighed by the instances of deception that is continually being put to use for bad and good intentions, and sometimes unintentionally. Thus it is always vastly more probable should you witness or be told by a witness of a miracle to occur that you and/or said person was deceived, and your first inclinations should be as such.  

But let us assume, for the moment, that by some 'miracle' the likelihood of deception was actually outweighed by the miracle itself. That what we saw really did happen and what happened went against the grain or was unknown of our current knowledge of the natural laws of the universe. Do we really attribute it to miraculous circumstances? When scientists discovered that light bent around a planet, did we think it was a miracle that it went against Newton's law of gravity? When the animist of old witnessed lightning, something they certainly didn't understand the physics of, did it command miracle status? Is birth still considered a miracle after biologists have dissected the process of specie fertilization; that of sperm and egg, meiosis, and mitosis? No.  

In any instance in history where there has been a verifiable observed seeming suspension of natural laws, it is not the event that is deemed miraculous; it is our ignorance of the natural laws. Never do we (or ought we) assume that which we don't understand a miracle. Especially since the introduction of quantum mechanics, even some of the most improbable and counter-intuitive events could conceivably occur by no suspension of what is natural. It will always be more likely that we will yet discover what happened by the natural order of the universe than for such an event to actually have ignored the true natural order.  

Lightning, medicine, gravity, stars, chemistry, etc were all once thought miraculous or magical and since then there has been substantial proof that deeming such things as miraculous is to admit our ignorance of natural laws, not of such events being actually miraculous. And since all of our current knowledge of the universe has been preceded by our ignorance of it, it will always undeniably be far, far more likely that we as of yet do not understand how such an event has occurred than for such an event to be truly miraculous.  

That is why no evidence will ever suffice for the proof that miracles happen. That is why the falsehood of the testimony and our ignorance of the natural world will always be far less miraculous than the miracle itself, and thus not command our belief. And that is why I, as a rational human being, will always be an atheist.

The Theists Dance - or Pigeon-Logic

Some years ago, a researcher named B.F. Skinner set-up an experiment where Pigeon’s were kept in a cage and fed at random intervals of time by an automatic pellet dispenser.  The pigeons were observed for any odd behaviour associated with the feeding.  What the results were was that the pigeons developed a sort of dance that seems to have evolved from movements by the pigeon when a pellet was dropped from the dispenser.  The idea behind this is that the food would come and the pigeon would try to copy its previous movements at the time of the pellet dropped before in order to get another pellet to eat.  If the movement seemed to work again in the future, that movement would be incorporated in the repertoire.  If the movement seemed to fail to get a pellet, the pigeon would revise or remove said movement.  On top of that, movements were combined in the idea that some combination of movements would and wouldn’t get a pellet.  After a while, the pigeons in their cages began performing elaborate dances including twirls, head bobs, and footloose all based on previous trial runs. 

Now the thing to remember as the dance evolved was that the dance really didn’t have any effect on getting the pellet.  The pellet dispenser was set to dispense pellets using a random number generator from a computer.  In fact, one not even need to know that the computer existed to know that the dance didn’t have any effect.  One could simply observe the statistical data and show no correlation between the dance and the pellet drop, and I doubt the pigeon itself thought of creating a controlled experiment to test its dance. 

For me, and probably for many others, this behaviour pattern is reminiscent of the irrational cause and effects that theists claim to exist that are due to the deities they respectively believe in.  It’s probably more readily observed by the more primitive indigenous people who perform rain dances and blood sacrifices for a good harvest, but it can also be seen in the more ‘major’ religions which historically have had many of the same superstitious rituals as the rain dances and blood sacrifices. 

Prayer is used by theists to achieve something they desire.  When it ‘works’ they think their god caused it and believe similar prayers will work again.  When prayer doesn’t work, they think they’re not worthy of the answer.  So they either conform the prayer to ones that have worked or try a new one.  As an example, when people pray for a loved one to be cured of cancer they probably go through a series of slightly different prayers until one works, or rather this has already been done and priests will claim to have the developed prayer already necessary to have the desired outcome.  If it doesn’t work, oh well, someone must have been doing something wrong or god doesn’t think it should work this time.  If it does work, the people will think their prayers work, even though all research into the effects of prayer have shown no effect other than a few cases of placebo (sometimes having the opposite desired effect). 

We can also see this behaviour in theists reasoning.  They’ll argue a point but then be shown that their point doesn’t work.  So they revise their point (by changing the words or the meaning of the words) or try a new one.  They’ll repeat this process and even sometimes come back to their previous points that they have been shown to be invalid in hopes that some combination of unreasonable points will make a difference or more simply for the single reason that the theist and/or his/her arguer has forgotten why the point doesn’t work.  Then all it takes is one or two arguers against the theist to fail to recognize a counterpoint (or give-up on the theist being able to reason) and the theist will claim triumph, even though subsequent arguers will show them wrong.  But it worked in the past for the theist, and by their logic (or pigeon-logic) there must be something right about their argument.  We can observe this readily in this group as we see the same people bring up the same arguments and get refuted over and over… and over.  And many times they’ll distance themselves from the original point only to come back to it again in hopes that such distancing removed any counterarguments.  This group is a testament to the claim. 

The basic surmise is that theists generally use this sort of weaseling, wriggling, and twisting of arguments or actions to justify their claims, even though any person could readily test their hypothesis and show it to have no correlation between the action and the outcome.  But showing the theist this isn’t enough because they will always claim there was something wrong with the experiment, not their claim.  Or if they admit something wrong with their claim, they’ll just argue that their claim was mostly right, but it just needed a little adjustment even though they and many others have undoubtedly gone in circles with their adjustments.  I suggest (as many others before me have) that pretty much all of theists supernatural claims (including witch trials, football team wins, lucky charms, etc.) are a result of this sort of ‘dance’ that theists do in order to make one falsely believe in correlation when there is none.  This is pigeon-logic. 

But if theists are so similar in behaviour to pigeons, doesn’t it beg the question of whether or not we should treat theists any differently than we do pigeons?  Should we feed them a bunch of uncooked rice? More importantly, shouldn't we not let them perch on higher ground so they can shit on the rest of humanity?

The Stone is a Paradox?

For those who are unfamiliar with the Stone paradox, it is basically this: Can an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that said being cannot lift it? 

It's essentially an argument against omnipotence being tenable since the question posed seems to give a contradictory response either way you answer the question.  If an omnipotent being can create a stone so heavy that said being cannot lift it, then said being is not omnipotent.  If an omnipotent being cannot create a stone so heavy, then said being is not omnipotent.  Thus we have the paradox.  There are other arguments against omnipotence, but I want to focus on this one. 

Introductions aside, there is something I felt wasn't quite right with the argument… not that feelings really have any say about it.  My question concerning the paradox is whether the question posed is a valid question, i.e. is it loaded or the likes?  So I tried to think of an appropriate analogy.  Since omnipotence deals with the infinite, I decided upon using the set of rational numbers (here forward known as Q). 

Here's the analogous question I pose: Can the set Q contain a rational number so large that said number cannot exist in Q? 

Any mathematics degree holders will tell you the answer is no and prove it so.  Would we then assume that the set Q doesn't really have the quality we assume, or alternatively would we assume that such a hypothetical number does not exist and therefore the answer is no by a vacuous argument?  Now, I admit there are some fundamental differences in the analogy given.  But let's use the ideas that might have been triggered by my analogy to try to understand the Stone paradox a little better. 

The Stone paradox starts out with the assumption that an omnipotent being (here forward referred to as OB) exists.  We can then consider that all things within the power of OB could do, namely everything – hence the transliteration 'all-powerful'.  However, there is one constraint that we would put on such power.  That is that an OB is restricted to logic.  What I mean by this is that OB cannot do that which is logically impossible, such as an OB cannot create a square circle (or squircle).  A square circle has no meaning and is logically absurd.  What is a square circle anyways? 

Now, within the set of things that an OB could do is certainly create a stone of some finite weight, and should certainly be able to lift that stone.  Just as certainly a rational number exists in the set Q. No matter how big a stone could be created, it will always have a finite weight* and so an OB should always be able to lift it by the simple principle that whatever finite weight (or force) that the stone has, we can assign a force to OB greater than the weight by a factor of, oh, say 10 (arbitrary number greater than one) which is well within the limits of infinity and would then automatically be sufficient to lift the stone.  You can continue to increase the stone's weight ad infinitum and you could still conceive a greater force than the weight of the stone.  So if the question were to be "Can an omnipotent being create a stone of any weight and then lift it?", we would have to answer yes. 

Return, then, to the original question: Can an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that said being cannot lift it?  What is it we're really asking here?  Are we asking about the stone or are we asking about whether an OB could lift it?  Certainly the stone is mildly arbitrary and as we already saw an OB can create a stone of any weight and then lift it.  We then seem to be asking whether an OB can do something such that the OB cannot do something.  Is that a valid question or not vacuous?  I don't think so, and I'll do my best to explain. 

No matter what size stone an OB can create, it will always have a finite weight*, as discussed, and so the OB will always be able to lift it.  So we ask to create a bigger stone, and a bigger one, and so forth till we get to a stone that the OB cannot lift.  But this is absurd.  As discussed, the OB can always have more force than a conceived stone's weight just as no matter how big a number you can think of, there's at least one bigger (actually there's an infinite number bigger).  So it's no longer a limitation of the OB's power, but a limitation of the weight of a stone.  No such stone could exist such that it would have more weight than what we could conceive a force having, just as no such rational number can exist that it is so large that it exists outside Q.  So by a vacuous argument, since no such stone could exist, the question is logically invalid because it requires a stone to have an 'infinite' weight– what we posed was necessary to not be the case when we consider an OB's power to have the restriction of logic. 

But perhaps there's something else that an OB can do so that the OB cannot do something.  We could ask: "Can an OB create a number so large that the OB cannot count in numerical order to it given as much time as needed?"  But again, such a number would have to be finite, and so the real question would again be "Can an OB do something such that an OB cannot do something?"  But doesn't this seem to be a loaded question?  You're both assuming that the OB is both all-powerful and not all-powerful, so of course you're going to get a contradiction.  It'd be similar in asking how nothing can have the property that it has no properties – it's a kind of word game.  What I pose is this: In the set of things an OB can do, there is nothing that would automatically lead to an OB not being able to do something else.  Perhaps I'm wrong, and I'd like to see an example of something that would make this truly a paradox. 

*A stone with an infinite weight has no meaning.  Infinite is not a number and so cannot  be assigned to a measurement for anything except perhaps abstractions, which even then tends to be non applicable as a measurement especially when you consider that there are 'different sizes' of infinity.