I heard Leighton Smith talking about this article on Newstalk ZB this morning so I looked it up and it is worth sharing - especially the top 6!

10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List

For most of the year, it is the duty of the press to scour the known universe looking for ways to ruin your day. The more fear, guilt or angst a news story induces, the better. But with August upon us, perhaps you’re in the mood for a break, so I’ve rounded up a list of 10 things not to worry about on your vacation.

Now, I can’t guarantee you that any of these worries is groundless, because I can’t guarantee you that anything is absolutely safe, including the act of reading a newspaper. With enough money, an enterprising researcher could surely identify a chemical in newsprint or keyboards that is dangerously carcinogenic for any rat that reads a trillion science columns every day.

What I can guarantee is that I wouldn’t spend a nanosecond of my vacation worrying about any of these 10 things. (You can make your own nominations in the TierneyLab blog.)

1. Killer hot dogs.

What is it about frankfurters? There was the nitrite scare. Then the grilling-creates-carcinogens alarm. And then, when those menaces ebbed, the weenie warriors fell back on that old reliable villain: saturatedfat.

But now even saturated fat isn’t looking so bad, thanks to a rigorous experiment in Israel reported this month. The people on a low-carb, unrestricted-calorie diet onsumed more saturated fat than another group forced to cut back on both fat and calories, but those fatophiles lost more weight and ended up with a better cholesterol profile. And this was just the latest in a series of studies contradicting the medical establishment’s predictions about saturated fat.

If you must worry, focus on the carbs in the bun. But when it comes to the fatty frank — or the fatty anything else on vacation — I’d relax.

2. Your car’s planet-destroying air conditioner.

No matter how guilty you feel about your carbon footprint, you don’t have to swelter on the highway to the beach. After doing tests at 65 miles per hour, the mileage experts at edmunds.com report that the aerodynamic drag from opening the windows cancels out any fuel savings from turning off the air-conditioner.

3. Forbidden fruits from afar.

Do you dare to eat a kiwi[fruit]? Sure, because more “food miles” do not equal more greenhouse emissions. Food from other countries is often produced and shipped much more efficiently than domestic food, particularly if the local producers are hauling their wares around in small trucks. One study showed that apples shipped from New Zealand to Britain had a smaller carbon footprint than apples grown and sold in Britain.

4. Carcinogenic cellphones.

Some prominent brain surgeons made news on Larry King’s show this year with their fears of cellphones, thereby establishing once and for all that epidemiology is not brain surgery — it’s more complicated.

As my colleague Tara Parker-Pope has noted, there is no known biological mechanism for the phones’ non-ionizing radiation to cause cancer, and epidemiological studies have failed to find consistent links between cancer
and cellphones.

It’s always possible today’s worried doctors will be vindicated, but I’d bet they’ll be remembered more like the promoters of the old cancer-from-power-lines menace — or like James Thurber’s grandmother, who covered up her wall outlets to stop electricity from leaking.

Driving while talking on a phone is a definite risk, but you’re better off worrying about other cars rather than cancer.

5. Evil plastic bags.

Take it from the Environmental Protection Agency : paper bags are not better for the environment than plastic bags. If anything, the evidence from life-cycle analyses favors plastic bags. They require much less energy — and greenhouse emissions — to manufacture, ship and recycle. They generate less air and water pollution. And they take up much less space in landfills.

6. Toxic plastic bottles.

For years panels of experts repeatedly approved the use of bisphenol-a, or BPA, which is used in polycarbonate bottles and many other plastic products. Yes, it could be harmful if given in huge doses to rodents, but so can the natural chemicals in countless foods we eat every day. Dose makes the poison.

But this year, after a campaign by a few researchers and activists, one federal panel expressed some concern about BPA in baby bottles. Panic ensued. Even though there was zero evidence of harm to humans, Wal-Mart pulled BPA-containing products from its shelves, and politicians began talking about BPA bans. Some experts fear product recalls that could make this the most expensive health scare in history.

Nalgene has already announced that it will take BPA out of its wonderfully sturdy water bottles. Given the publicity, the company probably had no choice. But my old blue-capped Nalgene bottle, the one with BPA that survived glaciers, jungles and deserts, is still sitting right next to me, filled with drinking water. If they ever try recalling it, they’ll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers.

Leighton's favourite was 3. as he "found it cute for obvious reasons." Mine is number 1. the reference to not stressing about eating saturated fat resulting in more weight loss and better cholesterol levels is something I have been saying for years - its the high GI carbs you wanna watch for!

Please post any other enviro myths you have to hand in the comments section.

I am a closet “ego surfari” (to coin one of Maverick Philosopher’s phrases); I enter my name into Google to see where my name comes up and what people are writing about me. It is an old hang up that goes back to my student politics days at the University of Waikato when Matt and I got defamed a lot. If you successfully go after someone for defamation you get the two-fold benefit of protecting your reputation and pocketing some cash – we don’t get defamed that much these days, maybe word has spread.

Anyway, I digress, recently I have been finding people commenting about me in relation to this blog and I find myself being described as a Philsopher, my name being included in a list of New Zealand’s top Christian Philosophers alongside the likes of Dr MA Flannagan and Dr GA Peoples. Whilst this is flattering to be included in this list I have to state for the record that I only hold a few philosophy papers in a minor capacity as part of my almost-complete LLB and whilst I did originally major in jurisprudence type papers towards my LLB and I do still tend to choose to answer those types of questions in exams and assignments where I have a choice and, after all, I did edit both Matt’s Masters and Doctoral theses and most of his academic and all of his published papers (he even footnotes to me and uses some of my writings in his PhD thesis), I cannot in good conscience call myself a Philosopher with a capital P, (a little p perhaps). Far too many people think that because they have done 1 or 2 papers and read a few books on the subject that makes them qualified to be a Philosopher or worse to lecture or write papers and books on Philosophy.

That aside, I do enjoy dabbling in "little p" philosophy and I particularly enjoy philosophical refutations that employ self-reference. Others, usually those whose arguments have been destroyed by their application, write them off as semantic tricks or make false statements that you can use logic to prove anything but I love them, they make me laugh.

Here is a list of my favourites and how they work:

1. There is no such thing as truth.

Example (1.) asserts a truth, so if it is true that there is no such thing as truth then (1.) is false. Conversely, if it is false that there is no such thing as truth then (1.) is false.

The negation of (1.) that there is such thing as truth is not just true but is necessarily true. Example (1.) is self-refuting and its negation is self-verifying.

Conclusion: There is such thing as truth. Anyone who says there is not is wrong.


2. It is wrong to judge.

Example (2.) asserts a judgment; as such, it refers to itself, so if it is true that it is wrong to judge then (2.) is false, the asserter purports to make a correct moral judgement. Conversely, if it is false that it is wrong to judge then (2.) is false.

The negation of (2.) that it is right to judge is not just true but is necessarily true. Example (2.) is self-refuting and its negation is self-verifying.

Conclusion: It is right to judge. Anyone who says it is not is judging you.

Now we have the basics, let’s try something trickier.

3. All religions are true.

Christianity is a religion. If (3.) is true, then Christianity is true. Christianity teaches that it is the only true religion, therefore, all religions except Christianity are false. According to (3.),Christianity is the only true religion.

Turning now to some slightly more useful examples

4. Nothing is true unless science proves it.

Really, including example (4.) itself?

5. Nothing can be known.

Example (5.) itself cannot be known, as such it is not known whether anything is knowable or not.

Whilst in their simple form they may make us laugh (or make us mad) they have their uses. The best Christian Philosopher in the world, Alvin Plantinga, utilises a sophisticated version of a self-refuting argument in his infamous Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism first articulated in Warrant and Proper Function and later in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and in Naturalism Defeated and Naturalism Defeated? and in An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism and most recently in Knowledge of God.

Plantinga uses a self-referential critique to argue that if the combination of Metaphysical Naturalism and evolutionary accounts of the origin of human life are both true then there would be grounds for rejecting the trustworthyness of human cognitive faculties.

Suppose a person upon reading scripture and hearing the scriptures expounded through preaching from the pulpit believes that God has prohibited a certain class of actions. Suppose further that the believer is aware of no conclusive argument either for God’s existence or for the affirmation of the command in question. Nor is he or she aware of any cogent arguments for the reliability of scripture. The believer on discerning that God affirms this in scripture simply takes it at its word and finds himself or herself deeply convinced or persuaded that the action is wrong. Does this person believe in an intellectual acceptable manner?

Many people think the obvious answer is no, here I want to reflect on one particular argument for this negative assesment.

In an lecture expounding Calvin’s view of faith, Greg Dawes has argued that a person who believes in this fashion does act irrationally. A claim he repeats in his text book Philosophy of Religion which was , at least couple of years ago, the proscribed text for Philosophy of Religion at Otago University. ( I should add that Dawes was one of my thesis examiners) Dawes states

One can concede that it would be perfectly reasonable to believe something on
the authority of God, even if one had no other evidence for its truth (what
could be more reasonable than to believe something told me by an omniscient and
morally perfect being). But on the face of it one would still need evidence in
support of one’s belief that (a) that these propositions are revealed by God;
and, (b) that God is a reliable source of knowledge. We’ll see in a moment how
believers have responded to this demand.[1]

Here Dawes claims that although it is true that one is warranted in accepting things on a reliable authority such as God, before one does so one needs evidence that the authority in question is, in fact, reliable, that the testimony is from God and that that God is a reliable testifier.

Dawes goes on however to argue that in the case of faith in scriptural testimony, no non-circular evidence is forthcoming. In questioning what makes believers think God speaks authoritatively through Scripture he states,

The more common response ... is to ‘bootstrap’ the believer’s sense of
certainty: to base the certainty of his belief on the very revelation in which
he believes. ... Religious faith believes certain propositions on the authority
of God on the authority of God. (This is not a typographical error.) The
authority of God is simultaneously that which (id quod) and that by virtue of
which (id quo) one believes.

The circularity in this position might seem to be the Achilles’ heel, not just of the Protestant system, as David Friedrich Strauss suggested, but of this traditional, ‘bootstrapping’ view of faith in whatever form it is expressed.[2]

Dawes’s argument rests on two assumptions. Firstly, that the believer has no non-circular reasons for thinking that the scripture is a medium of divine discourse. Secondly, that the believer must have such reasons if he or she is to be warranted in accepting anything on these grounds. I think both assumptions are false.

1. Does the Believer Need Reasons for Thinking his Source Reliable?
I suspect Dawes conflates two separate questions in the second of his assumptions; whether a given ground is, in fact, reliable and whether one has grounds or reasons for thinking it is reliable. These are not the same question. It is possible for a ground to be reliable without knowing or having any reason for thinking it is. Likewise, the fact that a person has no reason for thinking something is reliable does not entail that it is not reliable.

In defending Calvin’s view of faith Alvin Plantinga and those who follow a similar tack such as William Alston and Nicholas Wolterstorff utilise a highly-influential theory of knowledge known as Reliabilism. Reliabilism holds that a belief is warranted if, and only if, the source, grounds or mechanism that produces the belief, or that it is based on, is reliable, i.e. likely to produce true beliefs on the topic in question. Robert Nozick, Alvin Goldman, John Armstrong, Alvin Plantinga and William Alston have advanced versions of this theory.

The exact version of Reliabilism does not matter too much but for clarity I will use Alston’s version. Alston suggests that a belief is warranted if it is based on a reliable ground or grounds.[3] A person’s belief is warranted if the grounds on which the belief is held are reliable grounds for holding a belief of that sort. He also adds that the person who holds the belief must not have a reason for thinking that the belief is false nor a reason for thinking that the belief is not reliable.

On a reliabilist account, it is the former and not the latter condition that must be met for a belief to be warranted. Alston’s Reliabilism entails that a belief is warranted if it is based on a reliable ground; it does not hold that it must be based on what one has reason for thinking is a reliable ground. The same can be said for most Externalism and Reliabilism theories in general. Noting that a person has no reason for thinking that something is reliable does not show that this condition is not met and hence, does not show that the belief in question lacks warrant.

An obvious response to this line of argument would be to claim that there is some kind of epistemological principle or requirement to avoid believing something based on a given ground or source until one has reasons for thinking that such sources are reliable and that the believer violates this requirement. However, this position has at least two problems.

Firstly, it leads to absurd conclusions. If I cannot believe any thing on a given ground until I have good reasons for thinking the ground reliable, then I cannot believe anything because I remember it happening. To do so I would need good reasons for thinking my memory is reliable. Clearly, such reasons are not forthcoming as any argument I use to try to demonstrate my memory would be circular. I could attempt to show that most of the times I used my memory in the past it was correct but then I would need to remember how I had used my memory in the past and remember whether or not it was accurate. However, I am not permitted to utilise memory in this way until I have reason for trusting it and hence, any such argument could not get off the ground. Similarly, I would be unable to rationally rely on the deliverance of reason. After all, how can I show that a reason is reliable? This can only be done by offering reasons.

The problems do not stop here because memory is essential to any given line of reasoning one engages in. Reasoning is a temporal process; one begins with the first premise and follows an inference through to a conclusion. One does not hold every step of an argument in one’s mind at the same time. Rather one relies on one’s memory to remember the first steps while the second is assessed and then remembers this step while the third is examined and so on. Hence, without memory one cannot reason at all. This creates an unsolvable sceptical situation. One cannot trust memory if one does not have a reason for thinking it is reliable but one cannot get any such reason unless one trusts one’s own memory. Moreover, one cannot engage in reasoning at all if one does not trust it. This position leads to the destruction of all reason.

The second problem created by this kind of stance is that it leads to an infinite regression. To show that the source were reliable, I would have to appeal to certain premises that are based on some other source but then I would have to show that this source was reliable and so on. The claim that one needs reasons for thinking a ground is reliable before one can be warranted in believing anything on the basis of that ground appears problematic.

A further rejoinder suggests that it is in general true that I do not need to have reasons for thinking a ground reliable before I am warranted in accepting a given proposition on this ground. However, I do need such reasons if the ground of my belief is testimony, that is, the say-so of some other person. Dawes suggests something like this in his paper.[4] He distinguishes beliefs based on testimony from basic beliefs. He states that basic beliefs are such that one is warranted in believing them independently of any argument for them, whereas beliefs based on authority are warranted by “indirect evidence”. By indirect evidence, he means evidence that the testimony in question is reliable. A person who believes something based on testimony will, if they are rational, have “reasons to believe the trustworthiness of the source” from which he or she “gained the information”.[5]

However, this view of testimony is mistaken. Coady summarises the problem. If one is going to have grounds for the reliability of a given authority or testimony then these grounds will be either some other testimony or authority, in which case there is a problem of circularity, or it will be based upon sources apart from testimony. [6] The problem with this second horn of the dilemma is that if we exclude what we know by way of testimony we will have so little to go on that such grounds will be almost impossible to come by.

To demonstrate this, consider an example Dawes himself provides, the belief that E=MC2. Dawes writes,

Very many of our beliefs are held on the basis of testimony. (In this context I shall sometimes refer to these as beliefs held on the basis of authority.) Does e=mc2 represent the rate at which matter can be transformed into energy? I believe so, although I would not have the faintest idea how to demonstrate its truth I have it on good authority that it is true...Of course, there is a sense in which I do believe this on the basis of evidence. I have reasons to believe in the trustworthiness of the sources from which I gained the information.[7]

Dawes suggests that a non-physicist can rationally believe e=mc2 because he or she has reasons to believe that his or her sources are trustworthy. I believe this last comment is incorrect. Consider, for example, what reasons he could offer for believing that the source of his information was reliable. Presumably, it would be because the author of the book in which he read it or the person who told him it was a physicist. Nevertheless, how does he know this? He could have read the person’s qualifications off a faculty list, off the dust-jacket of the book or been told them by the person himself but in each case he is relying on testimony and so, in the absence of further reasons he cannot believe these sources. Suppose, however, Dawes was to investigate thoroughly and locate the address of the university where the degree in physics was awarded in order to check its original records. Yet again, he will be relying on testimony in the form of an address list and records. He would also have to have trusted the testimony of maps and road signs in getting to the university in question.

Consider then what Dawes would have left to go on if he did not use testimony. He could not rely on any information which he himself did not observe first-hand. This would exclude any information about events prior to his own lifetime, any events in his own lifetime that he did not remember witnessing first hand and any event that happened in a place other than where he was at the time. Nothing read in journals, books, heard in lectures, taught to him by his parents or teachers could be used. Nothing heard on the news, read on the computer, told over the phone or reported on would be included. Almost everything he had learnt through his entire education would be excluded because nearly all of it is based on testimony. It seems, then, that if Dawes were really to comply with the epistemic standards he laid down, he could not rationally believe in e=mc2. It appears he is mistaken in thinking that one needs to have reasons for thinking a given authority is reliable to be warranted in believing in testimony.

I think this example shows that this is not isolated. What we know by way of being told by others accounts for a huge and pervasive amount of what we believe. Everything I know about other places, other times, everything learnt at school, university, from parents, friends, books, newspapers, television, etc. is based on testimony. If I were to try to verify any of these beliefs without first relying on some other piece of testimony, I would be unable to.

2. Does the Believer have Non-Circular Reasons for Believing in Scripture
These observations also give us grounds for calling into question the first contention Dawes makes in his criticism of believing in scriptural testimony. Dawes assumes that the believer has no non-circular grounds for thinking that scripture is a medium of divine discourse.[8]

Here his argument appears to be as follows. Dawes grants that if scripture is a medium of divine discourse then one is warranted in accepting theological beliefs on scriptural testimony. He then notes that the only way one could get to the conclusion that such beliefs are warranted is by affirming the antecedent of this conditional and affirming that scripture is in fact a medium of divine discourse.

However, he goes on to argue that this latter belief is typically believed based on scriptural testimony and hence the argument is circular.

What is mistaken here is Dawes’s assumption that this practice involves some form of argument in which the proposition that scripture is a medium of divine discourse serves as a premise. On the above model a person believes propositions affirmed in scripture not by inferring them via argument but by simply taking scripture’s word for it. Consequently, these propositions are not based on any argument at all and cannot be based upon a circular argument as Dawes suggests.


Here his argument appears to be as follows. First he conceeds that if scripture is a medium of divine discourse then one is warranted in accepting theological beliefs on the basis that scripture affirms them. He then suggests that this entails that one can believe on the basis of scripture only if one has good reasons for thinking scripture is the word of God. However, he goes on to argue that this latter belief is typically believed based on scriptural testimony and hence the argument is circular.

What is mistaken here is Dawes’s assumption that this practice involves some form of argument in which the proposition that scripture is a medium of divine discourse serves as a premise. On the above model a person believes propositions affirmed in scripture not by inferring them via argument but by simply taking scripture’s word for it and hence believes such propositions as basic. Consequently, these propositions are not based on any argument at all and cannot be based upon a circular argument as Dawes suggests.

Perhaps what Dawes is driving at is not that this claim that scripture mediates divine discourse is based on a circular argument but rather, it is circular in some other fashion. The distinction between logical and epistemic circularity is helpful here. Logical circularity occurs when a person affirms in the premise of the argument what he or she is attempting to establish in the conclusion. Such circularity can then only apply to arguments and not to basic beliefs. However, William Alston has pointed out that there is also such a thing as epistemic circularity. This occurs when one in practice relies upon a particular source or type of ground in order to establish the reliability of the type of ground in question. A person who relied on perceptual judgements to argue for the reliability of sense perception would be an example. This approach is not logically circular; the person need not argue from premises affirming the reliability of perception. However, it is circular nevertheless.[9]

It is clear, I think, that the model is epistemically circular. The real question is whether there is anything wrong with such circularity. This is borne out by another point Alston stresses, that every, major, doxastic practice, even ones that are paradigmatically rational, are epistemically circular. [10] I noted this with memory above; one can only establish that memory is reliable by relying on the deliverance of memory as premises in a deductive argument. Similarly, with beliefs based upon a sound, deductive argument. Such arguments can be shown to be reliable only with other arguments and so on. Even an omniscient being could not demonstrate that his cognitive faculties are reliable without appealing to those faculties. Hence, if the practice of believing in divine commands because they are affirmed in scripture is problematic because one cannot believe the reliability of scripture without engaging in epistemic circularity, then various paradigms of rational belief are also problematic. In fact, rationality is impossible. This is, of course, absurd.


[1] Greg Dawes, “Faith and Reason”, a paper presented to the University of Otago Theology and Religious Studies Faculty. This is contained in Dawes, Philosophy of Religion, (so far unpublished) 46.
[2] Ibid.
[3] William Alston, “The Concept of Epistemic Justification,” in Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge, ed. William Alston (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), 77.
[4] Ibid., 38.
[5] Ibid.
[6] C.A.J. Coady, Testimony: A Philosophical Study (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
[7] Dawes, “Faith and Reason,” 34.
[8] Ibid., 9.
[9] William Alston, “Epistemic Circularity,” in Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge, ed. William Alston (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), 319-349.
[10] By doxastic practice, I refer to the practice of forming beliefs in response to certain grounds, whether the ground is argument, some form of experience or the assertion of some authority.

I find it really frustrating when I encounter someone who throws the “you think you’re right” accusation at me and assumes that this obviously makes me arrogant and that I should therefore back down and run away ashamed.

I am sick of it and I want to scream in a Destiny/Jim Peron-esque manner, "enough is enough!" I will not be made to feel guilty for thinking my opinion is right, or worse, for what that entails, that I think opinions in conflict with my own are wrong.

Further, I will not engage in the ridiculous practice of beginning every sentence with “it’s just my opinion, but…” (as if that somehow makes what follows the “but” any less of an assertion that I think my position is correct).

The expectation that I should not believe that I am right and everyone else is wrong, that I should not express and argue that my belief is the correct one in the context of a discussion is a ridiculous standard that even those who trot it out do not hold themselves to. You see, everyone thinks that they are right and that all other conflicting beliefs are wrong. E v e r y o n e.

The statement, “you think you are right” is always asserted by someone who themselves thinks they are right in asserting that I think I am right. If their objection is cogent, then I should reject their objection, but, if it is not cogent then I should reject it anyway.

The person who objects that I think I am right is suggesting that I adopt an irrational stance, that I should believe something that I think is incorrect; but if I think it is incorrect then I am not going to believe it.

(If I lost you just then, perhaps you had to reread the preceding once or twice, then perhaps that should tell you something about the logic behind the assertion you should not think you are right)

People like to pretend they don’t think they are right and dress up their “arrogance” by starting sentences with “in my humble opinion,” but like the emperor's new clothes it’s a crock; it's all smoke and mirrors, because no sane person holds to a belief they think is wrong or inferior to other viewpoints. I mean why would you? You would hardly rank the differing views and then decide to hold the second or third most plausible view? You’d hold the view you thought most plausible and by doing that you tacitly reject the other views.

So why not just admit this? Why do we play these games? Why do we buy into the theory that there is something wrong with thinking we are right? Admitting we think we are right does not mean that we have to paint ourselves into a corner, refuse to be open to other’s counter arguments or to refuse to consider new facts. It’s simply an admission that we hold a position. Is there really something wrong with not sitting on the fence? (Which in and of itself is to take a position to not hold a position but lets not go there.)

In my last post I took a swipe at certain popular dismissals of theism on the grounds that “God’s existence can’t be proved.” Mark V offered a measured and thoughtful response in the comments section. We enjoy feedback from our readers and I have always enjoyed his, particularly those on the Euthyphro dilemma and I think Mark raises some interesting points in his latest response. So, in order to advance these issues a bit further I will use this post to respond to Mark V. I do so, in part, because I think the issues he raises reflect broader views of God and religion in our culture.

Mark writes:

My position is not that I deny God exists, but that I am not convinced by the arguments that he does exist.

Simply someone claims that God exists; I look about me and cannot see this God so I ask the person to prove this God exists. My response would be the same if the person claimed to believe in ghosts or telepathy.

I will take Mark’s position here as agnosticism, the position that neither affirms nor denies the existence of God. Strictly speaking Mark does not say this, he claims merely that he, “is not convinced by the arguments that God does exist,” however, I assume he means to affirm more than this. After all, there are many theists who find the arguments for God’s existence unconvincing. Some theist’s influenced by Pascal or William James, for example, believe that there are no arguments either for or against theism but nevertheless hold that practical considerations mean one should accept God’s existence. Some, such as Plantinga in God and Other Minds, hold that while the arguments for and against God’s existence both fail, belief in God is justifiably believed in the absence of evidence as a properly basic belief. In contrast to these positions I think Mark V is intending to adopt a position incompatible with theism.

Assuming this, if I read Mark correctly, his comments in this citation presuppose a certain method which goes something like this:

[1] If something cannot be detected by the five senses then it needs to be proven to be true.
[2] If something cannot be proven to be true then we should not deny its existence but we should not believe it exists either i.e. adopt some form of agnosticism towards the object.

He applies this method to God and concluding that God’s existence can’t be proved, embraces agnosticism.

I think this objection to theism is problematic; [1] and [2] appear to me to have at least two problems (a) they entail skepticism about rational beliefs; and, (b) [1] is self-contradictory.

Turning to the first of these points, (a), consider the belief that the universe has existed for more than six seconds or the belief that minds other than mine exist. One cannot “see” with the five senses that these claims are true. What we can see is limited to the present and while we can see physical beings engaging in certain behavior, we cannot feel or detect their thoughts or feelings. Hence by [1] the existence of these objects would need to be proven. However, I think it’s pretty evident from the history of philosophical discussion on these matters that one cannot prove these things to be true.

Everything we see is in fact logically compatible with the claim that the entire universe (including all traces of age) popped into existence six seconds ago or that other people merely behave in certain ways and have no thoughts or feelings at all. Similar things can be said about the existence of physical objects. We assume that certain objects such as trees, logs, rocks, etc exist independently of whether we are looking at them or not. We cannot test that they are there when we go inside or turn our backs as by hypothesis we can only see them when we are looking at them. Their existence would need to be proven and proven from premises that do not assume that there exists anything independent of our senses from the outset. However, given that these things can’t be proven in this manner acceptance of [2] means we should be agnostic about the existence of trees, logs, rocks and any physical object, other people, the existence of a world that is more than six seconds old, etc.

Turning now to (b), that [1] is self refuting, take the claim explicitly articulated in [1] that if something cannot be detected by the five senses then it needs to be proven to be true. Now the truth of this claim itself cannot be detected by sight, hearing, touch, etc. So, if [1] is true, Mark needs to prove that [1] is true using the method he proscribed. He has not done so. Moreover if [2] is true, the failure of Mark to provide such a proof would mean that neither he nor I nor you should believe [1], but rather be agnostic towards it.

Note also that any proof Mark attempts to offer can only appeal to premises which can be ascertained by the five senses. If they do not, we will be required to disbelieve the premises and hence the proof.

This, then, is what I think is the problem with this kind of critical rejection of theism. The skeptic rejects God’s existence out of allegiance to certain assumptions about what constitutes a rational belief. The problem is that these assumptions are in the same boat as theism is alleged to be; a person who rejects theism because he believes these assumptions is acting inconsistently. Moreover, if these assumptions were consistently applied, almost all knowledge would be destroyed.

Similar things can be said about Mark’s other argument, which I take to be an expression of a very similar line of thought.

People belive in the existence of many things e.g. ghosts UFOs telepathy. To prove these phenomena exist various experiments are conducted using a range of instruments. If these experiments do not detect the phenomena the conclusion is that the phenomena do not exist.

The exception is God. God cannot be detected by our senses or by any instrument. God's existence can only be established by the use of logical arguments. But then almost anything can be proven or disproven by carefully wording a logical argument.

No one outside the individual believeing in God can conduct a test to confirm that the God the individual believes exists in fact does exist. The existence of God is personal to each individual believing in God.

Here I think Mark’s reasoning is similar to what I criticised above. If I understand him correctly he reasons something like as follows,

[1] Existence claims can only be known by experiments “conducted using a range of instruments” or by logical arguments.
[2] God cannot be detected by experiments conducted using a range of instruments” as “No one outside the individual believing in God can conduct a test to confirm that the God the individual believes exists in fact does exist.”

[1] and [2] entail:

[3] God can only be determined by logical arguments.

However, Mark also contends:

[4] “[A]lmost anything can be proven or disproven by carefully wording a logical argument.”

These premises jointly entail that God’s existence cannot be known. If one accepts [1] and [2], it follows that, “God's existence can only be established by the use of logical arguments,” but then [4], prima facie rules out the idea that anything can be known by logical argument.

I find the argument fascinating because it is a good expression both of contemporary exaltation of science as sole paradigm of knowledge, seen in Mark’s claims about experiments “conducted using a range of instruments” and his concerns that God cannot be subjected to scientific testing, alongside a kind of relativistic dismissal of all non-scientific sources of knowledge, seen in Mark’s claim that “almost anything can be proven or disproven by carefully wording a logical argument.” I also, predictably, think this mindset is mistaken.

Turning first to [1], I think Mark’s first premises again leads to skepticism on a wide scale. Take my previous examples of belief in other people or the existence of physical objects that continue to exist when people do not perceive them or the belief in the past. None of these things can be determined by the type of empirical testing Mark refers to, they can only be determined by logical arguments. However, given [4], no such arguments are ever conclusive as almost anything can be proved or disproved by them. So presumably we should not believe in other people, the past or enduring physical objects.

In addition, in this context one could reflect on what these assumptions do to moral knowledge. Take the claim ‘rape is wrong.’ This suggests that there exists some kind of binding prescription ‘do not rape’ that we are required to follow, presumably one that holds even if I or my society or my peers think rape is a good idea. However, such a prescription cannot be detected by experiments “conducted using a range of instruments,” hence, we need logical arguments.

I happen to think, however, that the claim ‘rape is wrong’ is not self-evident and something that cannot be proved by argument and does not need to be. However, if it can be proved by argument then Mark’s advancement of [4] suggests that it probably can be disproven by argument and hence we have no real rational grounds for believing that rape is wrong. Surely this is absurd. We do know rape is wrong independent of scientific experiments and independently of logical arguments.

I think Mark’s premise [4] is self refuting. Mark is offering an argument for his position. But if [4] is true and almost anything can be proved or disproved by logical argument, it would seem everyone, including Mark, has good reasons for not trusting conclusions based on argument, therefore we should reject his argument.

As a final comment I would like to broaden my comments a bit. I noted above that Mark’s comments appear to reflect an epistemological paradigm which exalts science as the sole method of knowledge and dismisses what science cannot accommodate as a kind of private personal preference. Many Christian thinkers have responded to this charge by trying to show this paradigm can accommodate God. They offer scientific type arguments for God’s existence by appealing to things like the big bang, the fine-tuning of the universe, laws of nature, etc as evidence for God’s existence. While I have some sympathy for this response I am inclined to think that in one sense these arguments are irrelevant as the more important point is to note the paradigm itself is mistaken. In Mark’s case applying the paradigm consistently would rule out not just God but all kinds of knowledge which even an ardent atheist would hold as rationally held. Moreover, the paradigm appears to invalidate itself. Hence, even if it is the case that such methods cannot establish the existence of God the problem lies with the methods and not with theism.

Matt

On Tuesday despite being able to connect, we discovered we could not download or send email and we could not access the web at all. After doing battle with the automated ISP Help Desk computer that claims to understand english and in fact frequently does not, we heard a recorded message that they were experiencing a high volume of calls and the expected wait time was 60 minutes - argh!

I attempted to get to the bottom of the problem myself wondering if one of the more technologically challenged members of the household had messed with the settings but got nowhere so I braved out the 60 minute wait to the helpdesk.

I barely managed to get out "since Tuesday night I can connect but I can't..." and the technician impatiently cut me off with "do you use ZoneAlarm?"

The technician explained that on Tuesday an auto update was issued that meant ZoneAlarm's firewall was so extremely effective one was not able to send or receive email or access the net at all. The solution was to simply disable ZoneAlarm and keep an eye on their website for a patch or a remedy. He concluded by telling me that their helpdesk had gone nuts as heaps of people use ZoneAlarm and were all hit by the same problem (one wondered why, given the pervasiveness of the problem and the simplicity of the solution, I and everyone else affected, had had to endure the 60+ minute wait of hold music and looped recorded messages about the wait time, surely a "try disabling ZoneAlarm" or similar, put alongside the wait time message would have eased their stress and mine - but what would I know, I am not a technichian).

Anyway, problem solved. We have been happily emailing and surfing again but I write this post because of the email I just received a few minutes ago from ZoneAlarm:

ALERT: IMPORTANT NOTICE TO ZONEALARM CUSTOMERS

Dear Customer,

Installation of Microsoft Update KB951748 may result in loss of Internet connectivity. Click here for more information on how to resolve this issue. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Thank you,

ZoneAlarm

Hang on a minute, anyone in need of information on how to resolve this issue would need to:

1. Be able to receive the email containing the above message; and,
2. Be able to actually access the web in order for the "click here" instruction to be of any use (the page will not display error message is hardly helpful).

Those of us with the fortitude to withstand 60+ minutes of hold music and recorded messages and who subsequently managed to actually receive the above email discover that when you click on the link provided in the email you get a page with the following information, note the bolded bits, (my emphasis):

Severity: High

Workaround to Sudden Loss of Internet Access Problem

Date Published : 8 July 2008

Date Last Revised : 9 July 2008

Overview : Microsoft Update KB951748 is known to cause loss of internet access for ZoneAlarm users on Windows XP/2000. Windows Vista users are not affected.

Impact : Sudden loss of internet access

Platforms Affected : ZoneAlarm Free, ZoneAlarm Pro, ZoneAlarm AntiVirus, ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware, and ZoneAlarm Security Suite

Recommended Actions

- Download and install the latest versions which solve the loss of internet access problem here (English only): [Series of download URLs]

- or follow the directions below.
Option 1: [Series of directions to alter internet settings]
Option 2: [Series of directions to uninstall the update]

So, the email and webpage were aimed at customers who faced the problem that they could not receive email and could not access the internet. They were to receive an email, navigate to a webpage and then either download and install something or follow or a set of instructions...

In other words, if you receive the email and can access the help page there is a good chance you don't need either.

Note to ZoneAlarm: read Immanual Kant or Richard Hare.

Prescriptive language such as instructions, commands, imperitives, etc. to be rationally followed need to be able to be willed universally i.e. a person must be able to will the thing without contradicting themselves. Sending somebody an instruction to fix the problem of not being able to have access to instructions to fix the problem is not rational, is arguably self-referentially incoherent and worse of all, is just not very helpful.

Madeleine

One common reason I hear for atheism is the claim that there is no proof that God exists. Several questions can be asked about this objection. What exactly does the objector mean by proof? If all things need to be proved to be sensibly believed then what is the proof that all things require proof? Further, what is the proof for the claim that there is no proof? Finally, if some things can be believed without proof, why is God in the “must be proved” category?

There is however another question. If the absence of proof for a thesis provides rational grounds for claiming the thesis is false then wouldn’t absence of proof for atheism provide grounds for claiming that atheism is false? The person who is an atheist on the basis of this objection seems, on the face of it, to work with a double standard here. He claims that theism requires proof and that the absence of such proof requires us to reject theism as false. However, he thinks that atheism can be believed in the absence of proof for it.

What is the basis for this distinction on the atheist's part? To avoid this prima facie inconsistency the atheist needs to provide some reason why theism requires proof but atheism does not. In the absence of any good reason his position seems simply arbitrary.

This brings me to the issue I want to address. One common reason, one I often hear expounded is that theism asserts a positive claim, it affirms the existence of something. Atheism, however, makes a negative claim, it denies the existence of something. According to the line of argument I want to address negative statements cannot by their nature be proven. The objector argues that it is impossible to prove a universal negative; however, positive claims can be proven. Hence, for this reason, positive claims need to be proved and negative ones do not. We can assume the denial of somethings existence in the absence of proof but we cannot affirm the existence of something without proof.

I have heard this claim repeated in cyber space over and over. I think it’s a very bad argument for three reasons.

First, the claim that “you cannot prove a negative” is false. Here are some examples of negatives which can be proved:

a) there is no 1,000,000 mile high pile of African elephants in New Zealand
b) there are no promiscuous virgins
c) there are no married bachelors
d) there is no planet between earth and the mars
e) there is no such thing as a square triangle

One can prove a negative statement in several ways. One can show that an existential statement would, if true, entail a contradiction or metaphysical absurdity or the denial of things which we know are the case.

Second, if one claims that positive existential statements always need to be proved, one is lead into a fairly radical skepticism about everything. Take the claim that there exists a physical world independent of my senses. Or that other people (with thoughts and feelings) exist. Or that there exists a world that is more than six seconds old. There are well known problems with being able to prove these things and yet each one is a positive existential statement. On the view sketched above we are committed to denying these things exist.

In fact I think a little reflection shows that it would, on the assumption that positive existential always need to be proved, be almost impossible to prove everything. If I prove the existence of something I do so by appealing to other premises which assert facts. But facts are things that exist in the world. Consequently, I would need to prove these facts exist before I can appeal to them but I can't prove these facst unless I appeal to them as proof.

It follows that if I cannot prove anything, and one should deny the existence of whatever cannot be proven, then the only option is to deny the existence of everything.

Let me turn to my third reason for thinking this line of argument is flawed. Suppose one grants [a] that it is impossible to prove negatives; and also that for this reason, [b] one should deny a positive existential statement unless proof is provided. Both [a] and [b] create problems for an atheist. Consider the following claim, there exist some material objects that were not created by God. This claim is a positive existential statement. Hence, until the atheist can provide proof that it is true, until he can prove that some material objects were not created by God, he must deny that such objects exist. However to deny this statement is to affirm that every material object was created by God and hence that God exists.

In conclusion, the claim that theists bear the burden of proof because they are making a positive claim and that the denial of positive claims is the default position until proven is a problematic claim.

Matt