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April 15, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
28:16
1040 Proofs for God (audio to a presentation)
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Hi everybody, it's Devan Moliny from Free Domain Radio.
I hope that you're doing very well.
This is a little presentation entitled Proofs of God and Examination, and Free Domain Radio, just in case you don't know, is the number one philosophy show on the internet available at www.freedomainradio.com, where I invite you to drop by and have a look at all of the free resources, the videos, the books, the podcasts, and the articles, and a thriving board and chat community.
And to call in Sundays, 4pm Eastern Standard Time for a roundtable philosophical discussion to help bring you a wiser and happier life.
So, as always is the case in philosophy, we'll start with a definition.
I don't think this one is too surprising or radical when we say that God is an eternal and immaterial consciousness, all-knowing, all-powerful, morally perfect, all the superlatives you can throw in a cannon and fire at the sky.
And if we're going to have a look at proofs of God, we're going to have to ask, what is a proof itself?
Proof is defined as a combination of logical consistency and empirical evidence.
This is the basic scientific method.
Logic is the necessary but not sufficient requirement.
You need to have logic.
Your theories need to be logically consistent, but it doesn't mean just because they're logically consistent they're necessarily true.
In any conflict between human logic and empirical evidence, empirical evidence always wins.
The first requirement is logical consistency, so your theories have to be logical, as mentioned above.
If logical consistency is not present, the theory fails.
You don't need to go any further into empirical testing.
These two criteria are required because theories, logical theories, statements of truth about the objective universe, they describe things which I dreamt of an elephant last night, and there is currently an elephant in my room.
The first is a subjective experience, which is actually not open to proof or disproof at the moment.
The second is an empirical claim of truth, and therefore is subject to the laws of matter and the universe.
So here's an example of a theory that is logically sound but incorrect.
If I have a theory that says objects are going to fall to the Earth at an acceleration of 9 meters per second per second, or for those in the United States, that's 50 parsecs, If my theory is logically inconsistent, okay, like I say, all right, see, objects simultaneously fall to the Earth at an acceleration of 9 meters per second and also at minus 9 meters per second per second, then we have something falling down and falling up at the same time, which is impossible.
We don't need to test it.
It is not an ambiguous theory where we say, well, there's no proof of things falling up or down at the same time, so we have to sit on the fence.
On this one we say, no, sorry, things can't fall down and up at the same time, and therefore your theory fails.
On the other hand, if my theory is logically consistent, if I don't make the aforementioned mistake, then we need to test for evidence.
So, We let things drop in that sort of cannonball and orange Galileo thing from the Leaning Tower of Pizza, and if we find out that the correct number is 9.8 meters per second per second, then we find that, even though my theory is logically consistent, say things are falling down, the number is incorrect.
The empirical test doesn't back it up, and so that doesn't work at all, and that's a theory that has failed.
The theological thesis.
God... That, of course, is the basis of religion.
So, the first question the philosopher will ask is, okay, God exists, but compare it to what?
When we say God exists, you've got to have what's called a null comparison, or a standard against which the statement can be measured.
So, we have to say, well, God exists, and we're going to measure that relative to God not existing.
There have to be those two conditions, otherwise it's a nonsense statement.
It doesn't mean anything. If I say, Then clearly there's no null comparison because the statement is incomprehensible.
What would I compare it to?
Not narc de foobar?
It wouldn't make any sense.
So we have to have a comparator in order to say that something exists.
We have to compare it to non-existence.
So, continuing on with our definitions.
When we talk about existence, we are talking about...
An objective material presence, matter and or energy, or objectively measurable effects of that material presence, such as gravity.
A complete absence of matter and or energy, or any associated effects, is the definition of non-existence.
So when people say God exists, they are making a factual claim about the objective existence of an entity, which must be composed of matter and or energy or their measurable effects.
So let's have a look and see if we can't dig him up.
God and the material.
Now, God must exist in some detectable form for the statement God exists to have some meaning.
Because when people say God exists, they don't mean God exists as an idea within my mind, but rather God exists objectively as an entity outside our minds in reality.
But of course, if God exists outside our mind, and existence is that which is composed of matter, energy, or its effects, God must be detectable in order to qualify as existing in some objective manner.
God and logic. If a self-contradictory statement is proposed, a square circle exists, then material evidence is irrelevant.
And I'm just going to use matter here because I don't want to keep saying matter, energy, and effects.
The laws of logic are derived from the sensual behavior of matter as we perceive through the senses.
Thus, where matter is involved, logic is required.
So when somebody says a square circle exists, we do not need to hunt all over the universe to prove that a square circle does not exist.
It is not an ambiguous statement.
A square circle is a contradiction in terms.
It is something that is itself and something else at the same time, which is like saying a rock is a rock and a seagull simultaneously.
Completely impossible. And so it's an invalid statement.
You don't need to go any further in terms of disproving it.
It's not a we'll agree to disagree thing.
It's just incorrect.
Self-contradiction and proof.
A self-contradictory statement disproves itself.
If I base some 10,000-page mathematical theorem on the assumption that 2 plus 2 equals 5, no one has to go beyond the first page of my proof once that error is detected.
If my first premise is incorrect, everything that follows is incorrect by definition.
So, Logic and the kahuna.
The first thing that we need to do is look at the logic of the proposition.
We don't run to physical evidence or anything like that.
We look at the logic, the internal consistency of the proposition.
If the logic of the proposition is self-contradictory, the proposition falls of its own accord.
If I've come up with some crazy-ass unified field theory that requires that an atom be both a carbon atom and a fish simultaneously, my theory fails, to say the least.
My sanity has failed as well, I think.
So, God and immateriality.
So, God is defined as immaterial, which means no evidence of matter, energy, or its effects.
In other words, an entity which can never, ever, ever, ever be detected in any rational or objective manner whatsoever is claimed to exist.
However, existence is, by definition, the presence of some sort of objectively detectable matter, energy, or effect.
Thus, by defining God as immaterial, the statement God exists is immaterial.
Non-existence exists.
The complete absence of any detectable form of matter, energy, or effect exists, but of course that is the very definition of non-existence.
So here we have a square circle, a completely contradictory statement.
And it fails. God, knowledge, and power.
Here's another example.
God is to find us all-knowing and all-powerful.
So does God know exactly what he or you or I is going to do tomorrow?
If God knows exactly what he is going to do tomorrow, then God is all-knowing.
But then cannot be all-powerful, because he doesn't have the capacity to change what you or he or I are going to do tomorrow.
If God has the capacity to change what he is going to do tomorrow, then he can be all-powerful because he can do anything he wants, include change his behavior tomorrow, but he cannot be all-knowing.
And putting God outside of time does not solve the problem, as we shall see all too soon.
God and consciousness.
God is defined as consciousness without material form.
However, consciousness is empirically an effect of matter, in that no consciousness is ever present without a physical brain.
Ever, ever, ever. In the same way, we can look at gravity as an effect of matter, in that no gravity is ever present in the complete absence of matter.
So, since consciousness is an effect of matter, the mind is an effect of the brain, defining God as consciousness without material form is exactly the same as saying consciousness equals the complete absence of consciousness, which is a complete contradiction and cannot stand.
God and energy.
God is defined as an undetectable form of energy, if we say it's not material.
However, energy is defined as a force or influence that can be detected.
If you can't detect it, there's no energy.
Where no force or influence can be detected, there is a distinct absence of energy.
In the same way where no light can be detected, there is an absence of light, or what is scientifically called the darkness.
Thus if God is defined as an undetectable form of energy, the statement is exactly the same as "the absence of energy equals the presence of energy, which is a contradiction, and cannot, and does not, and will not, and never will, stand." Ah, God and complexity.
God is defined as the most complex life or consciousness in existence.
Ah, but God did not evolve from any simpler forms of life.
God has always been. However, empirically, scientifically, biologically, evolutionarily, complex life can only arise from less complex life through the process of evolution.
Greater complexity is thus always an effect of the competition for scarce resources over time, and can only result from less complexity.
God is defined as the most complex life, but was not subject to a process of evolution over time, but rather began, or always was, complex.
Thus, God equals complexity is a contradiction, because complexity only arises over time through evolution, biologically or in terms of any life form that we've ever known.
God and time. So theologians, or religious people, will often attempt to rescue the thesis of God by saying that God is outside of time, time, time, time.
However, the concept of material existence always requires time.
Imagine if I say that a new bag exists, but it ceases to exist before it comes into existence.
That's exactly the same as saying it never existed before.
If I say something ceases to exist before it comes into existence, then it's exactly the same as saying it never existed at all.
If I say that it simultaneously both comes into existence and ceases to exist, that is exactly the same as saying it never existed at all.
Thus, existence is synonymous with measurable within time.
It has to show up somewhere within the continuum in order to exist.
Thus, to say that God exists outside of time Is to say that existence equals non-existence once more.
Rank contradiction cannot stand, falls of its own accord.
God and the universe.
Perhaps, as some say, God exists outside the universe.
Well, if an entity is believed to exist outside the universe, then either that entity has some effect within the universe, and thus is subject to empirical examination, or it doesn't.
If it doesn't, if it never reaches with its divine fingers into the universe, then there's no conceivable way to detect the existence of this deity in any way, shape, or form whatsoever.
If the existence of something can never be established and can never show up in this universe in any way whatsoever, that is exactly the same as non-existence.
Thus, the statement that God exists outside the universe is an equivalent to the statement existence equals non-existence, which is a formative rank contradiction, and it cannot stand.
God and the possibility of existence...
Perhaps we cannot rule out the existence of God simply because we cannot detect it, just as we could not detect x-rays in the 15th century.
I'm afraid God cannot hide here either.
A 15th century physicist would be entirely incorrect in saying x-rays exist, or could exist, because he'd have no idea what x-rays were.
He might as well say flibbers exist.
It was a meaningless statement.
Placing God in the category of future potential existence is meaningless.
Future potential existence, we can say nothing about anything.
We can say God, we can say flippers, we can say the upside-down, inside-out, phantasmagorical cake for all we want.
We can say absolutely nothing about things that we have no evidence of whatsoever that could be detectable in the future.
We can't say they're conscious, we should worship them, that they came back from the dead, that they can walk on water, that they're wise, that they're powerful, or anything like that.
And quantum physics does not save God.
Quantum physics is actually about extraordinarily precise measurements rather than a fuzzy-wuzzy kind of who-knows.
People take the metaphor of Schrodinger's cat and the improbability principles and extrapolate them to an uncertainty principle that is not valid at all.
The uncertainty is only in the measurement, not in the reality.
And even if we grant all of that, self-contradictory entities can never exist.
So a 15th century physicist who says an atom can be both a carbon atom and a fish at the same time would be incorrect from here until the end of time because self-contradictory statements cannot exist.
If I say one day there will be a square circle...
I am completely and always and will be incorrect.
So the problem is not that we can't detect God, but maybe we can in the future.
The problem is that the very definition of God, as we've seen in the previous slides, is completely self-contradictory and therefore will never come into existence, cannot come into existence.
Ah, but people say, well, God must exist or something must exist because so many people believe in God.
Well... This of course ignores the fact that most children are indoctrinated to believe in a divinity of some sort.
It's like saying with regards to Stalin in the 1950s under the slavery of communism, saying, well, Stalin must be a good man because so many children believe that he is.
Well... They're just taught.
They're just indoctrinated in the Red Guards and put into their thought camps and they're just taught over and over and over again to believe that this thing exists and threatened with enormous punishment if they don't.
So of course they're going to say that Stalin's a good man and of course people, children are going to say God exists and they're going to grow up with that because they've been taught to and they've been punished if they don't.
So ignoring the effects of propaganda is itself a form of propaganda and highly ignoble.
And, of course, we have public schools that grapple hold of the children for a good almost decade and a half, and they can't teach any of these relatively simple arguments for fear of offending religious or agnostic parents.
And this is like saying in the 15th century, well, the world must be flat because everyone believes that it is.
Well, that has nothing to do with anything.
Ah, faith and existence.
Faith is a misunderstood term, of course, and purposefully so.
Faith is the belief in reality.
Faith is the belief in the existence of a deity in direct opposition to reason and evidence.
Faith isn't belief in the absence of reason and evidence.
Faith is belief in the direct opposition to reason and evidence.
So, if we grant that, if we say, okay, yeah, okay, we'll believe things exist that, according to reason and evidence, simply cannot ever exist.
Then everything that is impossible becomes believable and should be believed in.
You can't just say, well, we'll use science and reason and evidence for this, but then over here in the superstitious realm of God, we're going to rely on faith.
If that which is impossible should be believed in, Tertullian's crude, I believe because it is impossible, then everything that is impossible must be believed in.
Must be. Humanity has recorded an approximation of 10,000 or more gods.
This is what is so funny to an atheist, that a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or a Hindu or any of these sorts of people will be horrified and shocked at the fact that we disbelieve in one god.
When they disbelieve in 9,999 gods, we just, as Richard Dawkins says, we go one god further.
I mean, we look at your deity the way you look at Zeus or Thor or any of these sorts of gods, Loki, Set.
It's just a nonsense story, and it's highly destructive, of course.
So, if you're going to say that which is impossible should be believed in, then you are bound by that belief to believe in all 10,000 or more gods at the same time.
You must believe that the world is both flat and round.
You must believe that the earth goes around the sun and that the sun goes around the earth.
You must believe that all gods exist and yet do not exist at the same time.
You must believe that the Pope is a leprechaun, that George Bush is piloted by an extraterrestrial, that Iraq is an elf in your armpit, that words have the exact opposite meanings than you think, that Satan lives in your jam jar, that you are a fern, that Lord of the Rings was a documentary, that you are already dead.
Every single impossible belief in the world you must hold, and then maybe you'll get to save God, but only at the cost of your own sanity and any kind of intellectual credibility, of course.
So here we get to the core of the issue, which is that removing criteria for proof does not establish proof.
It rather establishes the exact opposite.
This is where rational people and superstitious people really get lost.
So, we say, well, God can't be both all-powerful and all-owing.
Well, he's outside of time.
Well, God can't do this. Well, he's outside the universe.
Well, God can't do this. Well, it's...
It doesn't prove the existence. It doesn't even render it uncertain.
It doesn't put it into a null zone.
It doesn't put it into fog land.
It doesn't put it into, well, everyone has their own path.
I'll believe what I believe. You believe what you believe.
We can agree to disagree. It doesn't do any of that.
And here's a little example.
So let's say that this cute and cuddly curly dragon, I come to you and say, this guy exists in the real world.
Exists objectively. You and I mind.
It's not a picture on your screen.
It's not a memory in your mind.
It exists in a real world like a cow.
And you say, dude, that's really cool.
Let me take a look. And I say, oh no.
Sorry. Can't see him.
It's an invisible dragon.
And you say, oh.
Okay. Well, take me to the cage.
And even if I can't see him, I'll be able to hear him breathing or rustling around.
No, no, no. Sorry.
You can't hear the dragon either.
It is completely invisible and completely silent.
And you say, oh.
Okay, well, it must have some sort of smell, breath, farts, whatever.
I'm going to go and smell this dragon that I can't see or hear.
I say, no, no. The dragon emits no odors whatsoever.
They say, oh, I can't see, can't hear, can't smell.
Oh, of course, I'll go and touch the dragon.
And you're like, no, no, no, no. You can't touch the dragon either.
Okay? Can I taste a dragon steak?
No, no. The dragon cannot be tasted in any way whatsoever either.
And you're like, wow, okay, so this dragon exists.
But I can't use any of my senses to detect it.
Okay, well, I mean, I've heard of infrared x-rays or whatever.
I'll just take a spectrograph or whatever and I'll point it and I'll see the heat or whatever coming off the dragon.
No, no, you say.
The dragon, you see, is completely indetectable by any form of scientific instrumentation at all.
You say, okay, well...
Let me, is it born?
Are there any eggshells? Are there any evidence?
It's like, no, no, the dragon, you see, it is a living creature, but it was never born.
Okay, does it die?
Can we see the impression of the ground where it fell?
Can we see a body? No.
Okay, it must have come around at some point through evolution.
So, did it evolve?
No, no, it didn't evolve either.
It's like, okay, are there any fossils?
No, there are no fossils.
Okay, does it exist within time?
No, it doesn't exist within time.
It's like, well, does it exist within this universe at all?
No, it exists in an alternate universe.
And you get the general idea of where this is going.
And what happens is, this is a kind of weird chess game played by religious people and atheists, where religious people say something exists and then keep stripping away criteria for the proof of the existence of something, and they think that they've stalemated a rational person.
Not true at all.
Because if you strip away all possible measures for the existence of something...
And this is not a neutral thing.
This is not a neutral thing.
If I say there's a truck and you can't touch it, you can't taste it, there's no way to record it, then I'm saying the truck exists and yet it fulfills all the criteria of non-existence.
In other words, complete indetectability in any way whatsoever.
That is the definition of non-existence.
So if I say this truck which can't be perceived in any way or this curly dragon or a god or anything like that, if I say these things exist and then they fulfill all the criteria of non-existence, there is no stalemate.
There is no doubt. There is no stalemate.
mate, there is no gray area.
This thing doesn't exist.
God exists.
It's not proven.
The phrase, the statement, God exists.
Now then, what comes, people come by saying, well, yes, but you can't prove that God doesn't exist, and so on.
It's considered not proven, right?
And then it's like, okay, well, I can't prove that God exists, but you can't prove that God doesn't exist, so it's a stalemate, blah, blah, blah.
It's not the case. It's not the case.
It's not true at all. Not true at all.
First of all, the burden of proof lies on the person who's making the positive claim.
If I say I've proven a unified field theory that ties all aspects of physics together, if I don't produce any proof, it's not a null proposition.
It's just unproven.
It's not valid. So, if you're going to say that God exists, then you have to make the case.
You have to make the case.
The atheist doesn't actually have to lift a finger to disprove the case.
You have to make the case. And if you fail to make the case, then it's not valid.
Removing criteria for proof does not result in a stalemate.
If I say 2 plus 2 is 5, and someone says, well, that is logically incorrect, and steps me through it, saying, well, math rules don't apply, man, does not make me right.
Try that with your math teacher.
Come up with some incorrect answer to a mathematical problem, and then when the teacher gives you a 0 or marks you down, say, oh, no, you can't mark that down, man, because math rules don't apply to my stuff, man.
But it's math, right?
And what is being proposed here in the statement, God exists, is something that...
Exists. But even if all of that were fulfilled, God exists is a self-contradictory statement, and it's a false statement, so not only does the burden of proof lie with the person who says that God exists, but if God exists turns out to be a self-contradictory statement, as we've seen before, it's automatically invalidated.
God and faith.
God exists. The statement God exists thus equates to existence equals non-existence.
Consciousness equals the absence of consciousness or non-consciousness.
Outside of time is exactly the same as inside of time.
Outside the universe is exactly the same as inside the universe.
Complexity equals the opposite of complexity.
Faith? Really?
Can I go with faith on this?
Faith is the belief that truth equals falsehood.
Faith is not, ooh, feel as if there's hope or an acronym.
Faith is the belief that truth equals falsehood, that you can believe whatever you want despite reason and evidence.
Faith is a synonym for error, just as God is a synonym for that which does not exist.
And we've got to get rid of it.
it's just poison.
Well, thank you.
For more on the philosophy of personal and political liberty, please visit freedomainradio.com where you can get free podcasts, books, articles, and videos in a thriving online community of thousands of people taking on the challenge of pursuing philosophical freedom and happiness in their own lives.
We even have, or I've even written a book called Universally Preferable Behavior, a rational proof of secular ethics, so that you can't hide behind the problem of, well, If there's no God, there's no good.
I would say that quite the opposite is true.
Only with philosophy can the good life be achieved, can happiness and security and love and intimacy be achieved.
As always, do not waste your precious, precious life on superstition.
Obedience to God is actually just subjugation to crazy people.
Don't waste your life running off the lemming cliff of religion.
Think for yourself.
Reason scientifically, philosophically.
That will bring you joy. That will bring you depth.
That will bring you harmony.
That will bring you happiness.
And that surely has got to be the primary goal of life.
Thank you so much for watching, as always.
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