I am pretty sure that there could be no such discovery, or that it would be very hard to fathom. What does this have to do with anything? It's still true that god of the gaps arguments are fallacious.

first off, you know what I mean be God as far as the creator goes.

But what I am saying is that in the current framework what ever evidence does or will exist will always be claimed to just be a lack of knowledge, even if we are appealing to what we do know.

So give me an example of a scientific discovery that would lead us to believe there must be a supernatural creator.

Ok, if you believe that there could not be such a discovery, then that is fine.

But what is fallacious is saying that in order to believe God exists, you must have scientific evidence, then stating that no such evidence could exist. That is why this is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Now you might say that you do not believe that God and science will ever mix, and that the only way you would believe that God existed was a personal experience. That is fine, and you would not be committing this fallacy. Would you say this is where you fall?

This is not the same - I am not saying that no such evidence could exist, I'm saying that a lack of evidence for some phenomena could never be convincing evidence for God (I admit there may be some situation where this is not the case, but I can't bring anything to mind).

But this is the issue. Everything is claimed to be a lack of evidence. Say we make a discovery that looks like the universe could not have happened by chance but would have to have been designed. This would be evidence based on our knowledge, not lack of knowledge.

But what would happen is many atheists would just claim "nah, we will figure out the true natural reason later", thereby once again dodging having to believe God exists.

So the framework is set up in such a way that there cannot be evidence for God. But then people claim that they don't believe because of lack of evidence. Enter in the self fulfilling prophecy.

Where is Madnak? I need an actual answer here!

This is going to be tough without specifics. You seem to believe that virtually everything is evidence for God, so you could be talking about virtually anything here. If we have real, concrete evidence then the god of the gaps argument is inappropriate. The god of the gaps is appropriate when we cannot explain something (an inability to explain something is not evidence).

"Evidence" for a hypothesis is something that makes that hypothesis more likely relative to other hypotheses. I will assume finite hypotheses for simplicity here, otherwise it gets way too complicated way too fast.

Imagine we have an event - say I find a tree lying in my back yard. Now let's say there are ten possible explanations for this event, and label these at "hypothesis A" through "hypothesis J." Maybe hypothesis A is that a group of pranksters dragged the tree into the yard, hypothesis B is that a plane was flying overhead and a log fell out of its cargo compartment, etc. Let us assume that each hypothesis is equally likely.

Now, because there are only 10 possibilities, and each is equally likely, our sample space is composed of 10 hypotheses each having a probability of .1. That is, each explanation is 10% likely. What would evidence for hypothesis A look like? Well, it would be anything that would increase the "share" of the sample space that hypothesis A has. One example of evidence for hypothesis A would be something that reduces the likelihood of all other rhypotheses by half. So now instead of all hypotheses having a 10% likelihood,

Note that evidence for hypothesis A doesn't necessarily make hypothesis B less likely, it just makes hypothesis A more likely. Something that makes hypothesis A 15% likely and hypothesis B 85% likely (while disproving all other explanations) would be evidence for A, even though it would be even stronger evidence for B. This is important - if you believe in A, and I believe in B, then the evidence described above is evidence for A. But it actually hurts your position relative to my position. In other words, just because it is evidence of God doesn't mean that it refutes atheism. It may provide evidence of God but simultaneously provide even stronger evidence of atheism.

The simplest example of evidence is the refutation of a competing hypothesis. This is why science works in terms of falsification. If we have 10 possible explanations, and I falsify 9 of them, that means the remaining one has a 100% likelihood. Even if we falsify only one of them, the likelihood of hypothesis A goes up (we know this even if we don't know what that likelihood happens to be - if it is not zero, then falsifying any other non-zero hypothesis will work). For example, if we falsify hypothesis J in the original example, and remove its 10% of the sample space, then that 10% will be divided among the 9 remaining hypotheses (giving each an 11.1% likelihood). Note that this kind of evidence for hypothesis A still doesn't change the status of hypothesis A relative to hypothesis B, hypothesis C, etc.

Furthermore, in order for one hypothesis to "take more" of the sample space from another hypothesis, that other hypothesis must lose some of the sample space. Evidence for one hypothesis, then, always reduces the likelihood of at least one other hypothesis.

Okay, from above. We noted earlier that merely falsifying one hypothesis doesn't change the evidence of the other hypotheses relative to each other. I've gone on long enough, so I won't go into detail about how we can get evidence for one thing in particular, but suffice it to say that both predictive evidence and evidence that changes a Bayesian analysis of the hypotheses are possible methods. In general, predictive evidence is most favored by scientists. In other words, strong evidence for a particular idea is when you (on the basis of that idea) predict that something will happen, and then that very thing happens. The value of the prediction depends on how easily it is falsified (the easier it is to falsify, the stronger the prediction is).

So! Evidence for God, in the sense you're discussing, would be you making an easily falsifiable prediction on the basis of God, and having that prediction come true. "Easily falsifiable" here would mean (as a rough subjective estimate) no more than a 1 in a billion chance of being true given any plausible alternative hypothesis is false (this is a level regularly achieved in the hard sciences, and multiple such predictions would be necessary to really call the hypothesis established).

It is unfortunate that so many people use much looser standards than this in so many cases, but I don't have space here to go into why looser standards than this represent statistical errors. I will say to remember a particular con game and what it means in terms of evidence:

A con artist calls up 1000 people and tells half that Team A will win a sports game, while telling the other half that Team B will win. Regardless of which team wins, he is right in 500 cases. He then tells 250 of those 500 that Team X will win the second game, and he tells 250 that Team Y will win. Of course, 250 now think he got two in a row. Using a similar procedure he gets 3 in a row for 125 people, then 4 in a row for 60 people, then 5 in a row for 30 people. Those 30 people are now convinced that he is an expert at predicting sports games, and he is able to get plenty of money from them. Moreover, 15 of the 30 will even see him get 6 in a row! A few of them will even make great initial dividends and may be willing to be regular customers paying a premium for his tips and ignoring his later mistakes (as they have already been convinced that he's good, they are often hard to convince that he's a sham even if they start losing money).

(Now imagine that 1,000 religious believers each make 1,000 different predictions, and each one is a 1 in 500 dog. We still expect to see 2 valid predictions, and yet we will never hear about the 998 failed predictions. This is why a 1 in 500 dog is not good enough to be valid evidence.)

It is only if these gaps would not exist in any other explanation that they are evidence in support of God. With evidence, you need to talk about which hypotheses are falsified, not which hypotheses could be true.

Couldn't wait two more minutes, huh?

lol, no. I am a salesman, very impatient.

That is not a lack of evidence. If there was some kind of concrete evidence that the universe was designed, that's not "God of the gaps" (though taking the implication beyond "there was a designer of some sort" would still be fallacious).

This is not the framework. There could be evidence for God, it just can't be a lack of evidence for some alternative explanation.

But what would constitute actual evidence versus lack of evidence for some alternative explanation?

My claim is that in the naturalist framework no such "actual evidence" could exist as it could always be claimed to just be a lack of evidence for something else.

I actually don't. I do have some idea of what you mean, just nothing precise. Regardless, I don't think that's relevant to this thread anyways. I'm just saying if we're going to search for God, we're better off having the most precise definition of him possible. It will make our job easier to look for him.


I don't think this is necessarily true.

I can't do it without injecting a miracle, but just because my feeble mind can't come up with an example doesn't mean one or many examples don't exist. I am open to the idea of there being strong evidence for the existence of God, and us possibly finding it.

Only up to a point. The most obvious way to step out of this framework would be if a natural law was clearly broken, or some strikingly obvious miracle occurred.

You are kind of comparing apples and oranges here. If what you believe to be a miracle occurs, saying so is not a "god of the gaps" argument even though someone could reasonably say "there could easily be an alternative explanation for this."

Well, again, a constellation that clearly (clearly) spells out "Hello people of Earth, this is God staring right back atcha." There are many worlds I can imagine in which the existence of God would seem likely to me. This world isn't one of them, however. It is hard to take what we know about this world and add something onto it that admits the existence of a benevolent God, because what I see in this world (and universe) seem so contrary to that proposition. The idea of a single thing that would prove any proposition is unusual, we need multiple independent pieces of evidence. But a single thing that would prove something that seems so implausible as a benevolent God?

Now, if you're just talking about evidence, something that increases the perceived likelihood of a benevolent God, there's plenty that would do that. But getting the existence of a benevolent God to be a huge favorite over all other possible explanations isn't something likely to happen based on a single observation.

As stated in the OP, I am not really speaking about these sort of things in this thread.

We can even just talk about a creator God, and not the God revealed in the bible. And I understand what you are saying about needing multiple pieces of evidence. But I am not really asking for you to answer what specific piece of evidence, more so what sort of evidence that if found could not be considered to be "a lack in knowledge".

I understand. But you talk about plenty of evidence that would increase the perceived likelihood of God's existence, I don't see how this evidence could ever exist under the current framework. All evidence that points towards a creator God would be considered a lack of knowledge and chalked up to "god of the gaps"

So how is my assessment incorrect?

I don't really get it - you're eliminating from the discussion all non-god of the gaps arguments and then saying that every argument can be reduced to a god of the gaps argument? Well, sure...

I think you are just repeating yourself over and over, so obviously communication is not really happening here.

Evidence in the form of "Science cannot explain _____, therefore/because God did it," will typically be labeled as merely a plea for the existence of a god of the gaps.

I don't know what would constitute evidence of god(s). Madnak offered an example, but you dismissed it (the stars spelling out a message). I can invent other childish fantasies, but I'm afraid you aren't looking for those, either (i.e. a bunch of guys appear in the sky, claim to be gods, and everyone in the world sees them and understands them, and although every detection method we are aware of seems to find that they are corporeal and hovering in the sky right in front of us, and although they appear to be made of flesh and blood like us, swords will not cut them, bullets will not penetrate them, and nuclear bomb blasts do not seem to disturb them).

If you are looking for a "realistic" testable claim that would tend to support the existence of god(s), keep looking! I don't know of one. You may view that as circular, but in my view it is a good reason to be skeptical about claims that god(s) exist.

There are plenty of oppositions to the claims presented for God. "God of the gaps" is just one of them. It's only relevant in terms of arguments that can be expressed as "we don't know how x happened, therefore it was God."

There must be some reason for attributing the event to God in order for it to be valid. That we don't know how it works doesn't prevent it from being evidence for God. The "God of the gaps" fallacy is claiming that our lack of knowledge represents evidence for God.

So if those who prayed to God consistently healed faster than those who did not, it would represent "evidence for God." Of course, it would also represent evidence for a psychological effect.

If an independent group praying to a specific God resulted in faster healing for the (unknowing) patients being prayed for, while prayers made by the same people to other gods did not have the same effect, that would be much stronger evidence both for God and for that specific version of God. The fact that we don't know how the effect happened doesn't invalidate that evidence (though of course due to the possibility of a scam the evidence would need to be independently verified and the study repeated).

Agreed, and the more rigid your definition of God, the further you move from that which you are trying to define. However this: "or his effects" might give us an avenue of approach. There are a lot of things that go along with theism, probably the most common and the most subject to scientific inquiry is the existence of individual human consciousness outside of, or not dependent on, a physical body. Mr. Sklansky is correct in his assertion that this is what we should all be concerned with.

I think the biggest problem with any attempt at inquiry is that no unprejudiced agent is present to observe. There have been such agents, but evidences of "miraculous" healings (attributable at this time only to persons, aka consciousnesses, outside of the physical realm as we know it using processes impossible by our governing laws of physics) are simply rejected. Except by the original witnesses.

IOW, if you are an atheist, and there is a case presented unexplainable by medical science and impossible by the Laws of Physics, instead trying to figure out how that worked, admitting the possibility of help from non-physical beings and developing hypotheses about how they can affect such a result, the actual fact of the incident is simply denied.

The problem is this unsupportable belief that individuals can somehow cease to exist, not the lack of belief in an impossible to define god. The other impediment to open inquiry as far as I can see, is the idea that things must be impossible to explain - that is - that "supernatural" by definition means impossible or not natural.

What do you mean by this? Can you give examples of other things which have this quality?

It seems like you see the whole world as a place where you can just make up whatever you want it is just as true as what other people say or believe.

This is evident to anyone who has read your articles about playing razz, which are all fraught with fundamental errors and reflect your lack of understanding, and it is obvious to the majority of your friends in the stud forum -- who by and large simply ignore you, after having long ago realized that you believe things about poker and razz with an almost religious perspective, that it can be "true for you" because it is "true in your reality" even when you are saying things that are demonstrably false.

Coming back to the message at hand, in what way it is an "unsupportable belief that individuals can somehow cease to exist?" What do you mean by that phrase? Are you implying that dead people still exist? If so, it is very important that we understand exactly what you mean, or else we are not going to be communicating with each other at all. (If, for example, you meant that they still have an active brain, and a pumping heart, and their eyes still see, and their body perspires, etc., then that would have direct consequences that we could test and potentially falsify. PLEASE NOTE, you don't have to explain in detail that you don't believe this particular thing; I'm not claiming you do. I'm just trying to illustrate why we need to know what you are talking about in more detail, not trying to put words into your mouth, if we are to understand you).

I know, you don't have to do what I tell you, you don't have to explain yourself just because I've asked. And I know, you aren't here to convince anyone of anything, and what you are saying is just your opinion. Take that all as granted. This is me saying, if you would like to be involved in more discussion in the matter I have highlighted, perhaps you'd like to consider what I've said. But you don't have to respond with a point by point memorandum explaining why you are not going to explain your views in more detail (even though you are well within your rights to do so, if you please).

Have I covered all the bases? I don't want to seem like I'm trying to tell you what you must or must not do, or what the purpose of this forum is, etc., in any way other than as someone who wants to have a conversation, and is looking for ways to make that happen.

Grunch. If you really want an answer to your OP, consider doing this:

Make an argument for why "Invisible Pink Unicorn of the Gaps" is fallacious while "God of the Gaps" isn't.

So you think that it is absurd to believe that universe did not just create itself?

Hey look, you are the one that is trying to sell this god concept to me why should I be required to do all the work for you? Einstein did it for photons at a time when nobody believed in them, so it is possible provided the thing actually exists in some sense.

Historically, of course, people thought that the existence of god was really easy to show, go to Olympus ask for a guy named Zeus, or pray for miracles and watch them happen ect. It is only because all of these have been directly falsified that you now have a very curious incarnation of god which actually affects nothing in the physical universe. If you used the same logic for god that you do for other things you pretty much have to believe in everything that can be imagined. Magical fairies could be responsible for inflation because you don't know what actually caused it and on and on.

Have you not been paying attention around here? We think it's absurd to believe in anything at that point whether it be God, string theory, turtles, etc.

How about "I do not have a good understanding of how the universe was created since a seemingly necessary but from my perspective no means sufficient requirement is a theory of quantum gravity which I do not have."