What W. L. Craig illustrates is absolutely on point, to some extent. In that we can see there are no Muslims in the US Senate. Or that there are no Tyrannosaurus Rex still alive on Earth.
But to go a little further and a little deeper, we are talking about the existence or non-existence of God, right? And "God" is a bit trickier than Muslims in the Senate or dinosaurs on Earth.
For one, God is universal, not just limited to a planet or a Senate, much easier things to take census on. Also, last I checked, the claim is that God is invisible, intangible, and omnipotent. So that means can't be seen, weighed, counted, or otherwise measured. Not by any human, scientific, or other means.
If we could elaborate a little bit on the T. Rex situation and instead of saying "on Earth", we were to say "in the universe". Now all of a sudden, the claim that there are no T. Rex anywhere in the entire universe becomes impossible to verify. Maybe there's some other planets in other galaxies, where they evolved, and yadayahdah.
This is the same kind of issue you run into with God. Point out that God hasn't appeared, can't be seen, weighed, measured, etc, and you will be met with "well, that's not proof of non-existence". It's not the same thing as rolling down to the Senate and asking "Will all the Muslims please raise their hand?"
To take that a little further, what if there ARE Muslims in the Senate? But they are SECRET Muslims because they know they wouldn't be elected if they were openly Muslim? So here we go again, turns out you can't actually prove there are no Muslims in the Senate if you play the "what if" game.
I'm not saying you can't prove a negative, obviously you can with other examples. I'm just illustrating that it doesn't take too much imagination or a little tweaking here and there to make something completely impossible to verify. And a magical omnipotent invisible being you would think would do something concrete every once in a while, but we've got no evidence so far. So any logical person would chalk it up and say "God, if you're here, would you please raise your hand? Oh, and make it a VISIBLE hand, please?" and say ok well no evidence of God, guess that was just something people made up to explain existence kind of like they did with Zoastra/Zeus/Hades/Jupiter/Allah/Wantantanka/etc/etc humans have been making up religions and deities and creation myths ever since they have been in existence, why should this be any different?
This is why people can't prove God exists. You can't prove the existence of something that doesn't exist.
Negatives are disproved all the time in a court of law. It's called an "Alibi".
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Makes sense what he saying. I think God can be proved though. I come from the belief that God is energy. We are made in Gods image. God is omnipresent. Everywhere and in everything there is energy. All a human is, is a mass of energy. Kirlian photography proves that. We know that the universe is orderly and we know it has taken but our most capable men to figure out but a few universal laws. That means there is intelligence in the way things are. Science will continue to prove God. All the Bible is, is a book of science. First was the word and the word was God. The idea of the world and God are the same. Energy becomes what it thinks about. It thinks of a form and it takes that form. How can God forgive you if you don't forgive your neighbor. If you're in a negative vibration, meaning you gave the unadulterated energy that flows to and through you a frequency or rate of vibration that we call negative; then how can you expect this energy/frequency to not be negative if you don't forgive whatever is pissing you off. The main thing the Bible is trying to tell people is Newtons 3rd law and that you are the father. You are energy. It is only you. It is written in a style that confuses people though. Perhaps the problem also is that we think the Laws are only physical. There is plenty of proof in the promises but I don't expect normal people to really believe that. You have to see it yourself to believe it. People are obsessed with trying to prove Gods existence or disprove it. You should be obsessed trying to prove or disprove the promises listed in the Bible. We can make the conclusion God is immoral anyway. It's only known goal is fuller expression and expansion. Sorry I didn't really answer your question. I just think the topic of whether God exist or not is a 2nd class topic. We can always come up with more (but what ifs) and all it is, is a waste of time; and that isn't even why it is a 2nd class topic. I suppose idleness is the issue. Religion too.
William Lame Craig does a good job of attacking the specific wording the guy used. One can prove certain negatives for which sufficient information is available in order to falsify them. But that isn't what the questioner meant.
One cannot disprove a negative with no reliable frame of reference for its existence or non existence. For example: god. You can't disprove something claimed to be undetectable in our reality due to it being separated from it.
Since it cannot be tested, it may not be ruled in. There is no frame of reference. There is no reason to believe a fantasy is true. Don't forget, the strength of a scientific theory is in its falsifiability. Einsteins theory of general relativity can be proven wrong if the results of experiments contradict it. Evolution can be disproven if experiments contradicted it etc, etc. The fact these scientific theories have run the gauntlet of scrutiny and cleared every hurdle, is a testament to their veracity.
I found it quite bemusing that Craig tries to defend himself here by stating deductive reasoning can advance knowledge. That is true, but only if the conclusions can be tested. What is even more ironic, is that I know he is talking about the Kalam cosmological argument, which does not have logically sound premises, is a blatant non sequitur, mental projection and a causal reduction fallacy when used to reach the conclusion Craig wants.
Even more uproarious, is that he mentioned self contradiction. A creator of existence God, is exactly that.
There are closed minds and open minds.
Close minds feel if they can't see it or touch it, it doesn't exist.
Open minds are the ones that have made the impossible possible.
If the open minds listened to the closed minds we would not have the technological advancements we have today
Every great invention by open minds had close minded people saying that's impossible, or you sound crazy, and it can't be done, because their minds cannot comprehend possibilities outside the range of their own sight.
Same goes for the existence of god, or other life in the universe. If it exists the open minds will find it
To put it more succinctly : there is no such thing as an atheist. At most you can be a theist, agnostic or either one living in denial.
Atheists tend to be deniers, and have no legitimate position. Sort of like a burglar cannot ever be a legitimate occupation. No matter how much money they make. Sure they may launder and hide their proceeds of crime. But at their core, even they cannot deny it's their own beliefs, denial or ignorance that is central to their creed.
Hence why you'll always find the atheist of the family being the blacksheep of the family/clan.
we can't prove their are no T rex on earth... what if one is in a government lab and you can't see it?
the speaker is not saying you can prove a negative. that is a very dangerous idea and is how you get stuff like the salem witch trials "prove you aren't a witch or we kill you"
we also saw this thinking in the last 4 years with trump with the left saying "well he COULD be a russian agent we just can't find proof"
no, your speaker is saying it doesn't matter for the purpose of the god debate
Because the people who like to throw the line about are too intellectually stunted to actually think it through.
Of course you can prove a negative.
The moment you define something by specific parameters you can start proving its existence by empirically assessing those parameters.
As an atheist, I feel ashamed for "agnostic" atheists.
I think they are dumber than theists who are convinced there is god.
I absolutely love this question can I get your take on it this is very interesting to me
A thousand years ago it was a fact the earth was flat.
Until it was proved otherwise.
There is no proof life exists elsewhere in the universe. Does that make it a fact?
Same applies to God.
Unknown facts do not prove something isn't real/true/or a fact.
There are certain negatives that you can't prove. You can't prove that I don't have a gremlin. You can't prove that dragons don't exist. You can't prove that aliens don't exist.
Lack of proof that something is true is not proof that it is false.
They think it's something inexplicable because they just finished it in their own head. it's like that in everything.
Because there is no evidence to prove it
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