It’s not 50/50
Another point. To resume with page 51 (which is where we stopped yesterday) – farther down Dawkins points out that
it is a common error, which we shall meet again, to leap from the premise that the question of God’s existence is in principle unanswerable to the conclusion that [its] existence and [its] non-existence are equiprobable.
This is obvious, he goes on, with more unfamiliar and absurd assertions whose non-existence also can’t be proved, such as Russell’s orbiting teapot or the FSM; Russell’s teapot ‘stands for an infinite number of things whose existence is conceivable and cannot be disproved.’ The fact that we can’t disprove them does not mean that the matter is 50/50.
The point of all these way-out examples is that they are undisprovable; yet nobody thinks the hypothesis of their existence is on an even footing with the hypothesis of their non-existence.
And it’s the same with the God hypothesis.
That’s probably one reason so many people are claiming so crossly and repetitively that Dawkins is dogmatic. But that’s not dogmatic. Given the knowledge we have and the evidence we have, there are myriad reasons to think God doesn’t exist and few reasons to think it does. It could be that God does exist and has been carefully hiding the evidence all this time – but we remain exactly where we were: there is no good reason to think so. It’s not dogmatic to think that or to say it; it’s just using the faculties we have. What else are we supposed to do – use faculties we don’t have?
Prove that we don’t have those faculties!
GT: …'”[G]od” may exist, but it is less than (say) 10^(-23)% likely.’
I take it, then, that you’d put yourself a little closer to a 7 than a 6.
I know for a fact that there isn’t just one, but billions of orbiting teapots in the universe. I have several in my own house right here. They just do the prosaic thing of orbiting Sol while taking a ride on Earth.
Russel’s teapot has a very specific orbit. Earthly teapots are no more proof of the existence of Russel’s teapot than statues of Aphrodite are proof of her existence.
I will gladly help any organization that wishes to get funding together to actually send a teapot on a rocket into the correct orbit. Because it would be funny.
Everybody knows that Russell’s ‘teapot’ is actually a cafetiere and anyone who says otherwise is a splitter.
Rockingham — You gave me the best laugh I’ve had in a while on this site. What makes it extra funny for me is that nowadays, in the age of the microwave, I no longer use teapots. I use cafetieres (we call them French presses on the west side of the pond). I take out the coffee-pressing stuff and use the rest as carafes for containing tea. I said I have several teapots, but actually I have only one, and three cafetieres.
“Earthly teapots are no more proof of the existence of Russel’s teapot than statues of Aphrodite are proof of her existence.”
In fact earthly teapots are to Russell’s teapots as statues of Aprodite are to Aphrodite – they are, in short, statues of the real thing.
Which real thing is that then? ;-)
The same [kind of] real thing as Aphrodite, of course.
It’s not unlike the ‘picture of Jesus’ hanging in Slidell County courthouse. What’s a picture of Jesus? There’s no such thing as a picture of Jesus; nobody has the faintest idea what he looked like.
Why are ateapotheists so hostile toward tea pots? I am agnoteapotist myself!
So is that a category error, or even a category bait and switch?
‘No such thing as a picture of Jesus’ correctly assumes that there are no ‘representations taken from life or from memory’ of his looks. It implicitly categorises OUT all representations intended to represent his person; but they are still pictures ‘of’ him in a valid sense.
Perhaps they are better ones, informed by his acts and words and their effects and the understanding of the artist rather than whether he had particular physical features. Of course we don’t see many jewish-looking Jesus pics, do we… but thats local to how the representer understood him.
How about Adam on the Sistine Chapel – are you going to say there are no pictures of Adam who never existed, or accet the art work representing the idea of Man and his beginning?
Or not. Did you hear the one about Jesus saying ‘Whoever among you is without sin, let him cast the first stone!’. An old woman tentatively came forward, pick up a rock and flung it, and everyone started throwing too.
Jesus looked upon the woman, and he spake unto her, saying “Sometimes you totally sh1t me , Mum!”
“are you going to say there are no pictures of Adam who never existed”
Interesting question. I’m not going to, but then we don’t encounter naively straightforward references to pictures of Adam as we do of Jesus, as if they were the same kind of thing as pictures of Jefferson or Darwin or Byron.
Funny that this problem doesn’t seem to come up with pictures of God. I guess the idea is that because Jesus was human, pictures make sense.
But only conformist pictures. People were furious at Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s picture of Jesus at age 14 – because it was much too human and particular. Go figure.
Here’s my favorite pic of Jesus. It has a warm glow which conveys a certain ineffable sense of relief.
http://www.uniurb.it/Filosofia/bibliografie/Bataille_GiuliaFrattini/images/Serrano%20Andres,%20Piss%20Christ%201987.jpg
Or:
http://tinyurl.com/pmqsg
Rofl. Well, at least a cynical snort.
Courageous, transgressive too huh? Did he do ‘pig muslim’ and bury a Koran in something vile for an exhibition?
I guess you haven’t heard about his brilliantly transgressive “Menses Mohammad.” I believe that was exhibited at MOPMA (Museum of Post-Modern Art).
Consider this example: You are a juror in a trial in which a man robbed a bank and shot several guards–a crime for which he may be executed in the state he is being tried. You have security tapes of him committing the act, fingerprints, DNA, eyewitnesses, the gun he used, the clothes he wore, and the bag the money was in–and the gun, clothing, and bag were found in his home. His car was also the getaway car.
But on the stand, the man claims that a double from another dimension stepped into our world, knocked him out, stole his clothing and his car, and having committed the act, left the clothing and the bag in this world before taking off back to his own world with the cash. His wife backs this story.
Is this story strong enough to raise a reasonable doubt concerning his guilt? It cannot be disproven, after all, and there are two people who will swear to it. Is it even worthy of consideration?
It isn’t, and we are so certain of this that we would send a man to his death. The myth of God is no more likely than the bank robber’s tale, though like the bank robber’s tale, it cannot be disproven, and has multiple witnesses who will swear to it. I think that puts belief in the existence of God into perspective.