A seemingly rather picante atheist has asked theists to Prove “god”.
I am afraid that my first reaction is that the challenge in question should not have been worded Prove “god” but “Prove” god as for all of his demanding he does not define what he would consider proof.
This is his challenge:
I saw this on another forum and figured it was too good to pass up, so I took it and tweaked it a bit. Here’s the jist: I want you to PROVE; without a shadow of a doubt, that there is a “god”
However, there are a few ground rules.1. Can not use the bible for proof, it’s been changed around so much that it’s moot as evidence.2. “Miracles” do not count as evidence, as random anomalies in the natural world happen. Plus we’re trying to keep things factual, not using fantasy-world magic. This includes “visions,” near-death experiences, supposed afterlife-visits, or supposed visits by “angels”.
3. Can not use personal opinion as that’d be too biased. Only hard, actual facts are usable.4. Try to have evidence for all the points you make. I.e post URLs to sites or quotes that prove your point.So, have at it then. PROVE that “god” exists, without delving into all the fantasy-crap
In a response, I succinctly alerted him to On the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Invisible Pink Unicorns, et al. so that he could have his non-Bible, non-miracle cake and eat it too.
Here I wanted to consider his challenge point by point: He does not merely ask for evidence or even just proof but to “PROVE; without a shadow of a doubt.” Well, this is quite a tall order and you can certainly imagine that no matter what you come up with, he could always simply retort that it still leaves the shadow of a doubt.
Being a skeptic, I could even argue against a global appearance of God by claiming that aliens or the Illuminati were attempting to manipulate us via holograms or some such thing.
In fact, the criterion of the challenge means that the challenge is simply unanswerable as there is nothing that we can “PROVE; without a shadow of a doubt”: not God, not subatomic particles, not that you are not merely a brain in a vat being manipulated to believe that matter is solid, not that ______________ (fill in the blank). We do not believe in that which we believe due to having things proved “without a shadow of a doubt.”
Also, whose doubt; mine or his?
1. Can not use the bible for proof, it’s been changed around so much that it’s moot as evidence.
This is a common misconception and one that I will refute via this succinct essay: The Book of Eli – the movie and the Bible and anything that will end up in my Bart Ehrman archive.
2. “Miracles” do not count as evidence, as random anomalies in the natural world happen. Plus we’re trying to keep things factual, not using fantasy-world magic. This includes “visions,” near-death experiences, supposed afterlife-visits, or supposed visits by “angels”.
This is fascinating as he admits that “miracles” do indeed occur but that they are random natural anomalies. I have long argued that I did not see how atheist could deny what is referred to as miraculous events for this very reason. For example, why deny that Jesus resurrected? He could have had a genetic mutation or experienced a rare combination of natural laws that could have brought about His resurrection.
The problems with this view are, at least, twofold: 1) he is paining with a broom and making it so that supernatural miracles would be simply impossible, by definition; he defines them out of existence—they are generically discounted as mere “random natural anomalies” without having been determined to be such and 2) he is not providing any evidence that a claimed miracle was actually random natural anomaly; this is merely a “faith” based materialistic presupposition.
Note that he is asking for proof of a fantasy-world magic God without allowing fantasy-world magic evidence such as verifiable, if there be such things, “‘visions,’ near-death experiences, supposed afterlife-visits, or supposed visits by ‘angels.’” You see, he is asking for proof without providing proof that proof is required. The challenge is also tantamount to asking for wet proof of a dry object? Do we seek physical proof of a non-physical being? In this regard, the essay On the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Invisible Pink Unicorns, et al. may be useful.
3. Can not use personal opinion as that’d be too biased. Only hard, actual facts are usable.
Again, the challenge is premised upon his “personal opinion” that proof “without a shadow of a doubt” is required. Moreover, the fact that he does not define what it means to offer such proof means that he is virtually forcing one into expressing nothing but personal opinion. He needs to define proof that would count as not leaving “a shadow of a doubt” and also define “hard, actual facts.”
I took care of # 4 in my essay cited above. As to his last statement challenging us to “PROVE that “god” exists, without delving into all the fantasy-crap” he is: 1) Excluding certain sorts of evidence, as in his 1, 2 and 3.
2) And, he is delving into “fantasy-crap” even whilst condemning and not allowing “fantasy-crap.”
To elucidate these: 1) Obvious and elucidate above. 2) Any and every, all worldviews, philosophies, theologies, concepts or even the hardest of hard sciences ultimately come down to being based upon certain axioms which are assumed, intuited and thus, not evidenced, not proven nor provable. These are properly basic beliefs which no worldviews, philosophies, theologies, concepts or even the hardest of hard sciences proves. For example, nature cannot account for nature, we cannot reason to reason via reason. Since at the bottom of whatever view he holds rests upon a foundation which is held by “faith,” is un-evidenced, unproved, assumed, intuited, accepted as fact, his worldview is also rooted in metaphysics and is thus “fantasy-crap.” For an elucidation of this last point see the parsed essay:
Atheism and Science – Is There a Relation?, part 1
Overall, the challenge is answerable but the answer will surely not be accepted as “PROVE” is undefined and the proof has to rise to the level of not leaving “a shadow of a doubt.” This is tantamount to asking someone to “PROVE; without a shadow of a doubt” that yellow tastes like 264.
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