An Argument With an Internet Atheist

• John Vandivier

http://deadstate.org/christian-pastor-offers-atheists-100000-to-prove-god-doesnt-exist-atheist-proves-pastor-is-dumb/

That pastor guy seems maybe a little weird, but the article is even more garbage, and I don't think he owes anyone any money.

One absolutely can prove a negative. I can prove "no purple-skinned US Senators currently exist." This is a common atheist internet fallacy.

I'll take deadstate's money right now because there is significant evidence that the Hindu god Ganesha doesn’t exist. For one, the Bible says there is one God and that God is Yahweh. Yes, I just cited the Bible as evidence. I can do that because the Bible is valid.

I could also use a myriad of other arguments. For example, Ganesha can't be Aquinas' first mover or first cause, because according to the Hindu religion Ganesha is a created being, created by Parvati.

It also makes no sense to me how an atheist can sit there and say "Of course we can't disprove God! LOL!" And moreover, "Of course there is no proof or evidence for atheism! LOL!" And not realize how absolutely retarded they sound for advocating atheism.

Lastly, the idea that "you don’t start with anything and everything that cannot be disproven" is poorly worded, misleading, and wrong.

Any belief is justified in the absence of an epistemological defeater.

The Christian belief in God is grounded in the Bible. It doesn't "start with" the idea of God. It progresses in the form, "If the Bible is true then God exists, the Bible is true, therefore God exists."

The Bible can be demonstrated as valid or invalid. It's not assumed that it is valid. It is demonstrated. The Bible is the most valid document in history from the viewpoint of textual analysis. It's also valid by historical analysis, logical analysis and more. J Warner Wallace, a Cold Case detective, applied modern Criminal Justice technique in an investigation of the validity of the Bible and proved it as valid as ever.

The idea that "the burden of proof is never on the skeptic" is completely false. I wouldn't argue that this holds prima facie, but the state of the Christian-atheist debate is far from prima facie any longer. It is not as though Christians and atheists are going back and forth saying, "You first, no you first!" Christians have already gone first. They have proven Christianity. Now the burden of proof is on the skeptic.

There is such a thing as unjustified skepticism. When the Bible is proven so many ways, the skeptic has no justification for his continued, irrational, skepticism.

The idea that "you can't prove God exists" is also false. Hundreds of proofs exist from Kalam through Aquinas, to modern scholars such as J Warner Wallace and William Lane Craig. Ontological, epistemological, Cosmological, Moral, and more. 3 hrs · Like · 1 Thomas Shaw And as we've had this discussion before, we have different ideas of proof.

You state that The Bible is factual and correct, and this is simply not the case. There are things in it that are simply not true, implying that is is not 100% accurate. If the one thing you base your claims on has any incorrect information, all information from it is to be doubted. 3 hrs · Like Charles Mutina When, in some cases, information is taken from other, older sources and put into your book with a spin on the original story, it's not 100% accurate either. Story of Noah is older than the bible. It's been proven that it came from Babylonian times. 3 hrs · Like Charles Mutina Every culture has a flood story. Even the native American Indians have one and they never had any exposure to the Old Testament. 3 hrs · Like Thomas Shaw But, I'll bite again, suppose you're correct. Everything in The Bible that can be proven, has been proven.

As you said: " The Bible is the most valid document in history from the viewpoint of textual analysis. It's also valid by historical analysis, logical analysis and more."

Ok, so from a historical perspective, it's 100%(it isn't, but ok) From a logical analysis, it's 100%(I'm not entirely sure what this means, but again, ok) From a textual analysis(again, not sure that that entails) it is 100% correct.

So what? You know what you failed to say, that it is 100% correct from a supernatural perspective.

I could write a book right now chocked full of facts and data points that are 100% correct and verifiable. Now, at the very last sentence, I could say that there is a purple senator. My book then becomes wrong in the only way that matters in this context, just as The Bible fails this challenge.

I don't prove my purple senator exists. I simply state it, along with some other things that actually can be proven.

Or, suppose I, Tommy Shaw, just says 100 things that are correct. Mt. Everests height, the number of stars in the solar system. Things that can be checked and verified. All 100 items are correct.

Now, I then say that there is a purple senator. This is obviously false. My other statements hold up, but this one does not. My false statement(or a statement that couldn't empirically be proved) does not get a pass because I've got a good track record. 3 hrs · Edited · Like Charles Mutina I want to know how the statement in the bible have been proven valid. Jonah was eaten by a fish and survived (without oxygen covered in stomach digestive juices) for 3 days and emerged alive. This was proven valid? Moses spoke to a burning bush? How wa...See More 3 hrs · Like John Vandivier Charles:

If every culture has a flood story, doesn't that give it credibility that the flood actually occurred?

If the story of Noah is true, then who cares if it was added to the Bible from some other previous book? If I write an economics textbook and I take some of Mankiw's work, would that invalidate my book? No, it would make it all the more accurate!

Be careful that "The Bible came from other religions" thing. It's another atheist internet inaccuracy.

Thomas:

You're right, we have discussed different definitions of proof. I still don't agree on the 100% proof idea. How is that standard acceptable? How can you be 100% certain you are not a brain in a vat undergoing a massive hallucination?

The logical standard of proof is that X is more likely to be true than it is to be not true.

I never said "the Bible is 100% (insert quality here)."

Neither textual nor historical analysis, much less any other field of science, requires something to be "100%" for it to be considered important, significant, valid, or otherwise useful.

Textual analysis means that when we say "The Bible" we can be confident we are talking about the document as written. For example, if two independent copies from different places and times appear very similar, then that is probably because they are accurate reflections of the original. See the following:

http://visualunit.files.wordpress.com/.../nt_reliability1...

Historical validity means that the document can be treated as an accurate record of history. For example, the Book of Mormon teaches that Native Americans are descended from Israelis. This, however, is not historically valid, ie, it didn't actually happen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetics_and_the_Book_of_Mormon

Please note that this is an example of proving a negative. We can "prove" that Native Americans didn't descend from Israelis. Maybe not by the absurd 100% standard, but by the standards of rational thinkers.

Also, I would love to see some of these biblical "errors." I hope we aren't going to talk about the slight, insignificant differences between each Gospel story, as these only serve to strengthen the credibility of the main story of the Gospel, as J Warner Wallace would point out in comparing these to the testimony of witnesses in a trial.

I also hope you aren't going to refer to ridiculous items including the fact that the Bible calls a bat a bird, which is a mere difference in language, or says that pi is 3, which is a matter of rounding.

If these are the best criticisms you have, and they are for many internet atheists, then you in fact have all the more reason to believe the main and important parts of the Bible, such as the fact that Jesus was a real person, never sinned, died on a cross, rose from the dead, and in doing so built a bridge between God and man.

I don't really like the terms supernatural. I think God is natural.

You said, "My false statement(or a statement that couldn't empirically be proved) does not get a pass because I've got a good track record."

This is the important part. In fact, this is exactly how historical analysis of the Bible works. We verify your 100 statements, or those of the Bible. In fact, let's let one of the statements be false. If you make 99 true statements and one false one, the expected probability of truth of your, or the Bible's, next statement is 99% chance true, 1% chance false.

You, or the Bible, do gain credibility for your "good track record!" This is exactly how historical analysis works. It doesn't "100% prove" what you say is true, but it lends credibility. If I didn't know better, and it were at least logically possible, I would probably end up believing you that there was a purple senator, and rationally so.

Ceteris paribus, it does prove in a sense, because it is more likely true than false, but proof need not be the standard anyway. If it's a rational choice, that's justifiable enough.

Enter Pascal's Wager, but I'll leave it there. The important difference is that in your example, we foreknew that no purple senators exist. In real life, we don't know that what Jesus and/or the Bible says is false. In fact, we have all the reason in the world to believe it.

 

 

After seeing this dog I think the argument for God is pretty much obvious right?

"As for as competing hypotheses, I would say there are two. God exists, or God does not exist..."

Great point. I'll accept the burden of proof, but once I prove God does exist then the statement God exists becomes the null, not a competing hypothesis. It's only competing until one side has been demonstrated. Not "100%" demonstrated, as nothing is in science or anywhere else, but sufficiently demonstrated.

Here is an introduction to just a few of the tens if not hundreds of deductive arguments for God. I would encourage you to check the links I will provide bc while I know the arguments, I'm hardly an authority on them:

Cosmological:

  1. Everything which begins to exist has a cause.
  2. The universe began to exist. Therefore, 3) The universe has a cause.
  3. The cause of the universe exists outside of space and time.
  4. There are only two sets of objects which exist outside of space and time: abstract objects and God.
  5. Abstract objects cannot stand in causal relation. Therefore, 7) The cause of the universe is God.

Fine-Tuning (AKA Teleological, or Anthropic):

  1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either chance, design, or necessity. (See examples of the fine-tuned physical properties here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fine-tuned_Universe&oldid=624519459)
  2. It is not due to chance or necessity. Therefore, 3) It is due to design.
  3. The designer is God. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqANWuXQ3Z0

From Reason:

  1. Knowledge, truth, and universal, immaterial, unchanging logic exist.
  2. God is necessary for those things in #1. Therefore, 3) God exists. http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/

Moral:

  1. If God does not exist then objective moral values do not exist.
  2. Objective moral values to exist. Therefore, 3) God exists.

Ontological:

  1. God is the best imaginable being.
  2. One characteristic of the best imaginable being is that it would actually exist, rather than merely exist in the mind. Therefore, 3) God actually exists.

Rational Choice (AKA Pascal's Wager):

  1. If God exists and we act as though God exists we gain an infinite reward.
  2. If God doesn't exist and we act as though God exists, we gain little to no reward.
  3. If God does or doesn't exist and we act as though he doesn't exist, we gain little to no reward.
  4. The above 4 are the only possible options.
  5. We should maximize our own reward. Therefore, 6) We should act as though God exists. http://jthmishmash.com/2013/04/06/guest-blog-an-odd-argument-for-belief-in-god-the-vandivierian-wager/