Russell's teapot reveals how ridiculous it is to shift the burden of proof. You can't disprove that there isn't a teapot orbiting Earth, but you don't believe that there is, do you? It's impossible to disprove an omnipresent deity, but why should we believe in it without evidence? When a theist tells us that their deities are real because we can't disprove them, their argument is just as ridiculous as believing in a teapot that orbits the planet just because we can't disprove it.
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My Bible can be trusted:: I read about things that I see today.. But I have never seen a floating teapot.. Have you ?
Proverbs 30:24-28 shows me these things :
24 There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise:
25 The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer;
26 The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks;
27 The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands;
28 The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.
.. Maybe only smart people will notice !!!
Basically it states that if a statement or position cannot be proven false, it must therefore be true. Bertrand Russell pointed out that orthodox (believers) felt it up to nonbelievers to disprove religious doctrines, not for believers to prove the truth in it. Russell hypothesized that if he stated that a china teapot was in orbit outside of Mars, but was too small to detect, it must be there because naysayers couldn't prove otherwise. In relation to God, the lack of proof of his existence doesn't necessarily mean there is some we haven't found, but until proven otherwise, orthodox will insist He exists by default. Hope that helps.
Actually, emotions and morality are shared experiences amongst humans. Therefore, we all agree they exist. However, I have no such trusted evidence of God. Therefore, I have no reason to assume God exists. It's all about evidence. There is a physiological. environmental, and/or evolutionary basis for the fact that emotions and morality exist. I feel emotions and I choose to follow a moral code of conduct, so I have trust that they exist and are real. I do not feel God. Therefore, I do not trust that he exists and is real.
Hopefully someone will come up with a better answer. I don't feel I answered your question all that well.
First, I acknowledge the bias of this article, but it is something I found interesting, as I acknowledge faith goes beyond religion and even dare say it permeates our own sciences. God bless.
http://powertochange.com/discover/life/five-things-science-explain/
http://www.saintsandsceptics.org/12-things-science-cant-explain/
Not to mention it's one long Argument from Ignorance fallacy (you don't have an explanation for this, therefore the answer must be magic/gods).
And what did those links have to do with Russell's Teapot?
That is a good point. Wether or not an assertion is negative or positive it still requires a person's acceptance or rejection of either type. Like the analogy of light or darkness...one is has no distinction without the other.
Russell's Teapot is an analogy for a specific CLAIM of the religious- a fallacy called Shifting the Burden of Proof. Theists often claim that unless atheists can prove no god exists it remains a valid claim. This is fallacious for several reasons, the first of which is that the Burden of Proof rests on the positive claimant, ie the person claiming a god exists. The second reason is what Russell's Teapot addresses- the fact that universal negatives cannot be disproven and that it is ludicrous to claim a person must disprove extraordinary claims.
Carl Sagan had a version of this. He posited that if he were to claim he had an invisible dragon in his garage, one would not expect you to disprove it, but for Sagan to prove it.
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Dragon.htm
You've already received some excellent answers, I'm just saving this page, thanks.
These answers are great, I just want to say I really admire your sincere curiosity and open mind. Many weeks ago I could not have expected you to take this route wrath. It shows intellectual honesty and maturity to investigate the alternate world views. I just wanted to say good job and you should know you are taking courageous steps that many Christians would be frightened to death to even consider.
... Even if you may very well be just trying to formulate a counter argument ;)
I really can't see how it means that nothing can be trusted. The problem with the tea pot analogy isn't the point of "proof" (that part is a valid point), rather it's what logicians generally refer to as a problem of "relevance". In order for an analogy to establish true knowledge one must first demonstrate that the analogy has actual relevance to the thing in question (in this case "God(s)"). The imagined celestial tea pot however doubtable it probably is to all of us is still not God. The actual "relevant" issue is if God is real, not a tea pot floating in space. So the analogy is fine to illustrate a reason why atheists/agnostics don't want to bother with God, but it does nothing to establish the believability nor reality of God (in this way it commits the fallacy of "false analogy" as you suggest). It seems like a handy excuse to ignore the possibility of God....as if God where the same as a tea pot claim, yet it establishes nothing in terms of actual reality of God. Another important distinction is that the celestial tea pot is a strictly empirically perceived thing, while God (of the Bible anyways) is the creator of empirical reality and is therefore of a different or trans-category. This means to doubt the one can't possibly mean the same as doubting the other. What it comes down to is what one knows or doesn't know. The whole "burden of proof" thing is neither hear nor there. Each person has a "burden" to consider and know God or not. The truth that one arrives at has zero to do with a "positive" or "negative" claim (as both are logically inseparable from the other). There are three other points to make, but I'm already kind of rambling (1. The existential significance of the "celestial tea pot" 2. The manor of determining what constitutes as "proof" 3. What is the significance of "imagination").
You wrote, "Another important distinction is that the celestial tea pot is a strictly empirically perceived thing, while God (of the Bible anyways) is the creator of empirical reality and is therefore of a different or trans-category." You jumped ahead and speak of God as if the evidence has already be presented and accepted. God is NOT the creator of anything unless it is first proven that he exists.
You wrote, "The whole 'burden of proof' thing is neither hear nor there." That is true if one is choosing to believe for ones self. No physical proof is needed in that case. But anyone arguing the existence of any entity which is undetectable by physical means and expects a non-believer to accept that reality, has the burden of proof.
I agree that both can be seen as "possibilities", but not as equally significant. Also, I'm not sure how the God I seek is "theoretical". How can God be theoretical when "He" is absolute and irreducible in essence? This is of a category of utter "inextricable source" where as the tea pot is dependent on "source". Anything theoretical must be empirically deduced (at least from the common assumption of what is meant by "evidence") in order to consider it's "thereness" (a mode of reality). I can't see how God can be theorized for this very reason. Either God Is or isn't. It is perhaps indecipherable from the question "is reality truly known?" I do not have "evidence" that what I believe reality to be is in fact true, yet I have no problem believing it just the same. I presuppose that it is true to the extent that I am conscious of it. There is no real difference (both logically or intuitively) between knowing God vs Reality. This of course opens up all the questions of "personality" and "will" but this would surely explode this Ask format! Lol
Yes, I agree that if I "expect" u to believe in God as being real then I have "burden" to convince u, just not all the burden. Anyone dismissing God because they have no empirical evidence can't logically be relieved of any burden, especially since such a God would be the source of the human empirical capacity and this expecting that kind of evidence is irrelevant to the reality of God. Lack of evidence that I here atheists referring to logically does not demand the conclusion: no God. Lack of evidence cant equal evidence in the negative, Therefore the "search" remains. In this way one can be seeking God without a degree of knowing. That's ok since it doesn't hinge on the nature of our human knowledge (after all what else do we have?). Likewise, as refered to earlier I can't demonstrate that my knowledge of Reality is true, yet I accept it with confidence as I imagine u do as well.
It is from the personal decision point that i'm meaning, since that is where the "rubber meats the road" in my view, not if "I" can "make you" believe. Intellectual disbelief isn't a "deal breaker" necessarily in itself. If God is real, then He knows more of ourselves then we do at any given point.
Thanks, and you deserve a star for reading my super long answer! Lol
Very interesting. Well that seems to come down to one assumption vs another, not that mine is necessary false simply because u state it as "might or may not". Something can't both be real and unreal at the same time and more specifically in the case of God, God can't stop being real if He "ever was"....otherwise we aren't talking about God then. The idea of "might" seems to clearly point to the probability of a thing, but God-Reality-Absololute (whatever linguistic symbol we wish to ascribe) can't logically be a matter of probability because probability requires a reference point to make a "likelihood" rationally decipherable. The Absolute God is by definition what all probable things (relative things) occur from. As far as absolutes being a problem due to a single variation making them null and void I would certainly agree. All that really means is that whatever was supposed to be absolute ended up not being so. This in no way negates the reality of absolute.
Well it's like I don't really take time to condense what's in my head when I'm on Ask....just too busy with other priorities. So what happens are long wordy comments. Plus it's partly my analytical personality.
There is a "blunder of category" (false analogy) however to compare creatively imagined and empirically deduced things with Absolute God. Everything we can creatively consider (celestial tea pot, unicorn, etc.) all are fashioned "from" things we know by our senses. Where as God cannot (only by metaphor or symbol such as "Father" or "Lord"). It truly begs the question for me as to how we can conceive of an Absolute source and being: God, without such a conception coming from something that is in fact real. Why would just that One conception be based upon nothing, where as ALL other imagined things have a root in something perceived (I.e. Unicorn: conceived from a horse and a horn). There is nothing that I know of in ourselves that can produce such a conception. I mean if we simply live and then die (as in that's it. Consciousness "dies", no "after life") then surely there is nothing within such a reality and experience that can be a source for a mere imagination of God. I don't claim this is "proof", but simply a partial thought process that allows belief in this conception as real in a reasonable way.
Yes, mam! Oh, wait I don't have a boss....well the my clients and family are my "boss". He he he
Unicorns (we covered), pink (a Priori known visual experience), invisible?, well that may be empirically deduced such as "air", hydrogen gas, etc. This can be related to God, but only by analogy ( just like when some believers compare the wind to God). God is not invisible in a total existential sense, only empirically invisible. So, if it's the former "invisible" u mean, then that unicorn would still be born of what would be created by God (not to mention it wouldn't actually be pink, except in one's memory of what pink looks like - still an empirically deduced knowledge! Lol). If you mean the latter "invisible"(as in transcendent) then you are merely describing a key "feature" of God and creatively appending it to the conglomerate myth (pink-unicorn).
Well basically, an invisible and simultaneously pink thing is an absurdity since color requires empirical sense perception to be a color. This analogy shows maybe a superficial reason for u to reject believing in God, but it is still a false analogy because not only is it a logical absurdity (the color/invisible part), but God is not a "thing" that is directly empirically perceived. The use of "invisible" does not have the same meaning. To clarify a bit more is also say that "visibility" is irrelevant as far as God is concerned...only relevant to the unicorn. Any creative example we can conceive of will invariably make the same mistake. There can be no parallel to the Absolute-God-Reality, otherwise it's wouldn't be God we are talking about. ;)
