F Rosa Rubicondior

Monday 21 June 2010

The Fallacy of God's Inerrant Omniscience


As an atheist, of course, I don't believe in any gods so what I'm discussing here is the god of the Bible, whom Christians, Jews and Muslims all believe to exist and who is at the centre of their belief system.

This god is generally assumed by all believers to be inerrantly omniscient, i.e. it knows all things, including, in absolutely inerrant detail the entire future of the Universe and everything in it - every celestial body, every living thing, every atom and every particle. This god could, if it was so inclined, tell you with absolute accuracy, the position of any given electron at any point in time, past or future.

Saturday 12 June 2010

The Agnostic Hypothesis

The Agnostic view of gods is that, while there may be no evidence for them, this does not prove their non-existence; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You cannot prove a negative therefore you cannot prove non-existence.

Taking this to its logical conclusion, the same case can be made for any possible notional idea. The universe of all possible 'truths' is bounded only by the limitations of human imagination. For example, you may imagine your loft to be full of scientifically undetectable hippos.

The Agnostic purist would argue that the hypothesis that this proposition is not true cannot be proven and so we must allow for the possibility that your loft is indeed full of invisible, weightless, odourless hippopotami. Indeed, it would be dishonest, even bigoted, to argue that the idea is nonsense; that there are absolutely no undetectable hippos, in your loft.

Despite the absurdity of the conclusions to which this this argument can lead, it seems, on the face of it, a logical, irrefutable and intellectually honest position to adopt. Certainly you can't prove a negative, so is the Agnostic right to believe that there may indeed be lofts full of undetectable hippos, and there may be gods, even the Abrahamic god of the Jews, Moslems and Christians, and their various offspring sects? Is it right to take the view that those who DO believe those things MAY be right and that their beliefs can't be challenged with science?

But hold on a minute; are we really seeking here to do the impossible and prove a negative? Isn't there an assumption underlying the Agnostic argument that any notional idea MAY have a physical reality? Aren't Agnostics assuming something positive which they must prove, and which IS falsifiable in a scientific manner?

Are they not assuming that there is some mechanism by which anything which can be imagined by the human brain can leave that virtual world of human imagination and gain physical reality?

If so, their claim becomes a positive, testable hypothesis which can be falsified by science.

If not, then what exactly is the basis of the assumption that any proposition which can be dreamt up MAY have a physical reality, the possibility of which should be acknowledged?

So, a challenge for Agnostics: establish by science that this transfer mechanism exists and the human mind can create physical reality by thought alone, and you have proven the underlying assumption behind agnosticism. The test will require you to demonstrate repeatable instances of a physical reality brought into existence by thought alone, which did not pre-exist your imagining it.

I await the result with interest.

Thursday 6 May 2010

UKIP Crash

The former leader of the United Kingdom Intolerance Party (UKIP) was slightly hurt by his party’s devastating crash on 6th May.

Nigel Farage (13) said, “One minute we were flying high in the polls, then the next we were nose-diving towards the ground. I’m not sure exactly what happened but it was almost certainly caused by those foreigners from Europe directed by the faceless Brussels Bureaucrats who run Britain from Strasburg. I blame the Poles, coming over here doing our plumbing. Look, my father and millions like him died in the trenches in 1945 fighting the Poles and Belgians to prevent just this sort of thing. I used to run a bank, you know, so I know about this stuff...” (Continued for another 45 minutes). Nigel Farage (12) suffered minor head injuries.

UKIP Chairman, Lord Pearson (87), said, “You can’t expect me to discuss our policies when I haven’t read them. I want to concentrate on the broader issues like the recent shortage of cheap plumbers and whose head should be on the Euro. The crash? Oh! Was there a vote of some sort? I don’t normally bother with those. Farage? Is he one of ours? You sure? Sounds like a Belgian to me.”

Nigel Farage's condition is reported as unchanged. A spokesman said, "He'll never be any better but he's as well as can be expected. Nothing to do with the crash, he's just made that way".

Tuesday 4 May 2010

British Humanist Association - Countering Creationism

Countering Creationism British Humanist Association report

Attempts to have creationism and ‘intelligent design’ taught in science lessons have been made in some state-funded British schools, in particular academies run by the Emmanuel/Vardy foundation. The creationist organisation ‘Truth in Science’ launched a new website encouraging teachers to incorporate ‘Intelligent Design’ into their science teaching and mailed free resources to all Secondary Heads of Science. Other creationist organisations are increasingly operating in the UK, attempting to subvert science education in state schools (Read more...)

Monday 3 May 2010

Welcome

A regular commentary on religion and politics from the point of view of a centre-left atheist humanist.
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