Re: The ontological argument


"Wayne Throop" <throopw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1145923932@xxxxxxxxxxxx
::: It can be proved that seatbelts save lives.

:: Really? But if you can't prove a negative, how can you prove it
:: wasn't some other factor that saved the lives?

: "Mike Schilling" <mscottschilling@xxxxxxxxxxx>
: I've never understood "You can't prove a negative".
: What, if anything, does it mean?

Actually, I'm with you on that. But "prove there's no god" is sort of
an example of "proving an negative"; you're being asked to show that
something doesn't exist anywhere, as opposed to finding something that
exists and pointing to it.

Proving a non-existence is clearer, though I think it's a special case of
"prove something is impossible", in this case the existence of something.


So. What struck me is, "seatbelts save lives" can be recast as
"nothing other than seatbelts is required to explain this observed
differential survival",

Hume pointed out that we can never observe causation, just constant
correlation. In that sense, it's true that you can't prove that seatbelts
save lives. You can point to the fact that the related correlation has been
observed every time the experiment has been performed. That will have to
do.

just as "there is no god" can be recast as
"nothing other than natural events is required to explain what we
observe".

"Natural" is slippery, of course. Whence came nature? If you want to
dispute the existence of the constantly meddling, decides football games on
the basis of who prays harder God that seems to be popular these days, you
may get somewhere with demonstarations that big fast atheists beat small,
slow belivers nine times out of ten. But if you want to discuss a more
spiritual, distant, and unknowable God, I don't think that helps.


.

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