From: sdr57@cas.org ()
Subject: Re: Mandatory negatives (was Re: Agnostics and Athiests)
Organization: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 14:21:41 GMT

In article <1992Jul31.001200.5775@pbhya.PacBell.COM> whheydt@PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt) writes:
>
>Is the atheist permitted to note that, given the absence of evidence
>*for* the existience of the supernatural, that a tentative hypothesis
>of non-existence seems to be in order?  Since, after pointing this out
>to the believers in *existence*, no overlooked evidence turns up, and
>continued obersvation does not bring forth an new eveidnce, the
>conclusion from the hypothesis becomes stronger.  By now--that
>conclusion should be pretty strong.  Not *proof* of course, but right
>up there with gravity and evolution.  At what level of confidence you
>place the likelihood that a released pencil will fall?  At what
>likelihood that a demonstration of the existence of god will occur
>tomorrow?  Do such conclusions (to vary degrees of surity) constitute
>"belief"?
>
Gravity is detectable empirically and directly - the pencil falls when
I release it. Further, the *observed* behavior of pencils - and all
other objects - fits the hypothesis of a gravity which obeys inverse
square laws. Repeatability of experiments is possible.

Evolution is a somewhat touchier area - no one argues that evolutionary
processes do not occur *now* (creationists prefer to refer to these
prcoesses as "adaptive" because of the anti-theistic implications
the word "evolution" has aquired, but they acknowledge that these
processes occur). Where the arguments arise here are in the area of
first causes - and when you get down to it, this is just as much a
matter of faith on both sides as the atheist-theist argument, at least
until a time machine is invented, since we cannot directly observe the
first cause and since what we can observe directly is equally consistent
with a long evolutionary process or a direct creation of a DNA-based
life form by a deity. (Incidentally, I am not interested in discussing
the relative merits of creation vs. evolution - the point here is that
evolution is not a disproof of the *existence* of a deity, since
intervention by a deity can not be ruled out simply because evolution
(or adaptation) is going on now - there is no reason why a deity
should not set things up so that they can run without constant attention).
The experiment is *not* repeatable, since repeating it would require
a lifeless universe - if we have one, we obviously aren't there to
observe the experiment, and if we don't observe it, we still don't *know*
anything about first cause.

Finally, I would point out again that the *absence* of conclusive evidence
for a deity may be taken (if one believes that the deity wishes the choice
to worship or not to worship to be made freely) as evidence of the
existence of the deity. Remember that if God gave us unequivocal proof
of His/Her existence, many people would worship from fear of consequences,
making the choice no longer a free one. The long and the short of it is
that believing -or not- in a deity is a matter of personal faith. You
can be a theist or an atheist based on your interpretation of what you
see. But there is not any way of demonstrating the existence or nonexistence
of a deity in empirical terms - when you argue for either theism or
athism you are arguing for an interpretation of the facts, not the facts
themselves. This is what makes these arguments so very frustrating, and,
in the end, also somewhat pointless, at least until a point of asymmetry
can be established that would make a deity-created universe different from
a randomly produced universe in a why which would be repeatedly and
empirically detectable.
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