Contrary to what Joanna asserts, one can sometimes prove a negative. Mathematicians frequently make use of proof by contradiction in which shows that something cannot possibly exist because that would lead to contradictions with other assertions that we accept as being true. In philosophy, in regards to God, this would mean demonstrating that certain conceptions of God are incoherent because they are internally inconsistent. For example, I would maintain that the widely accepted notion of God as being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, is incoherent in face of the existence of evil in the world that was putatively created by God. This argument, however, would not necessarily be applicable to those conceptions which posit God as a finite being (either in terms of knowledge and or power). That sort of God cannot IMO be disproven, although I think good grounds can be given that the probability of such a being existing is quite small. We should also take note of the fact that most of the classical arguments for the existence of God were demolished long ago by David Hume and Immanuel Kant. People, from time to time, still come up with new versions of the old arguments, and other people then come up with demolitions of these newer versions, but little has substantively changed IMO from the days of Hume and Kant.
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant http://www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math
---------- Original Message ---------- From: "JOANNA A." <123hop at comcast.net> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Tim Wise loses it Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2013 02:29:57 +0000 (UTC)
Thanks for the context Shane. But I still think he had a point.
And I am, in general, irritated with atheists.
They don't seem to realize that a) you can't prove a negative b) being an atheist doesn't automatically make you smart. There is just this smarmy thing they've got going about how anybody who isn't an atheist is either stupid or brainwashed.
Joanna
----- Original Message -----
On Jul 7, 2013, at 9:01 PM, JOANNA A. wrote:
> Love the Robespierre quote. Let me translate it for those who don't
> speak French.
>
> Atheism is immoral and aristocratic: the idea of a supreme being and
> of the immortality of the soul is a continual call for justice: it
> is therefore "social and republican" (not sure how to translate
> this, Michael?)
It is important to note that this was the critical moment in Robespierre's counterrevolutionary turn against the "dechristianizers", the most advanced forces of the revolution. It was his preparation for the execution of both Hébèrt and Danton and their respective followers as well as such Enlightenment paragons as Lavoisier, Condorcet, and Olympe de Gouges (see Daniel Guérin, "Bourgeois et Bras Nus, La Lutte de Classes Sous la Première République).
Shane Mage "Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64
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