Yeah, you posted that at the same time I was writing so I hadn't seen it. His basic argument boils down to practicality, which is fine for the real world and everyday life--yes, we use induction all the time otherwise we'd never get anything done. But unlike the overwhelming lack of evidence of unicorns in the fossil record, which makes it reasonable to infer there were none even if we can't prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, people can't agree on whether there is evidence (or what the evidence specifically is) that God exists. Like Bruce said,

You can't infer in either direction at all, which makes it different from anything else you might discuss that has at least some evidence to go off of.

My point has been, in discussion, logic, induction, the idea that you can't prove a negative is wrong. Simply not true. To use this in a discussion of anything is not a good argument.

I agree, I can't prove to you the existence/nonexistence of God. I wouldn't try to.

I will point out when I see a logical fallacy in your argument either way.
I expect the same in return.

I've enjoyed the discussion today, I'm off to bed. Night all.

You're confusing logical proof with empirical analysis.

You can construct logical proofs both for and against the existence of God all day long.

Collecting evidence for the existence of deity is problematic at best.

From the link; Seems there is a whole lot of smart guys, that heartily disagree with your smart guy.
After reading that link, I, like Clod, agree that the inductive argument is a practical tool, day to day. I'm no smarter than a drill sergeant, but I don't buy his reasoning that a negative can be proven. :tinfoil:

I'm not confusing anything. I know what a logical proof is. I know what empirical analysis is. The statement "you can't prove a negative", is simply not a true statement. Of course inductive reasoning is useful, we all use it everyday. To use the statement "you can't prove a negative" in place of the use of inductive logic is really not working for me.

To be more specific then, you can not have empirical evidence for a quantitative value less than zero. There can only be zero, a lack, or not zero, a value greater than zero.

Proof of a negative proposition requires the following:

1) the proposition must exist within a bracketed system, and

2) I must be capable of investigating the system to the extent required by the proposition.

I can prove the statement "There are no unicorns in this room" because it meets the requirements. I've given a limit to the system (this room) and I am capable of investigating all of the physical space large enough to accommodate a unicorn.

The statement "There are no unicorns on earth" is less provable, even though the system is still bracketed. I cannot reasonably investigate the system with sufficient scope to prove the point.

Abstract (mathematical or logical) negative propositions are the easiest to prove, since the systems they use are by definition both bounded and fully investigable (great word, right?) without the need for empirical data.

The statement "There is no god" fails to be provable on both counts. First, the system is no longer bracketed, it is infinite. Second, we lack the ability to investigate the system to the extent required by the proposition. Imagine a deistic, watchmaker kind of god, who has no present activity in the universe. That kind of being would be impossible for us to investigate, observe, gather any sort of empirical evidence about, but it would still make our proposition false.

In the argument by Hales, he assumes these two conditions for a negative statement without ever stating them, shows a few proofs for negative statements that meet the conditions for provability, and then does some rhetorical slight of hand to switch to an argument from "inference" to cover the rest of his bases.

Hales is a radical relativist, so his definition of "true" is probably different than the one you're using. In some of his other articles, he argues that the word "true" isn't grounded in the idea of "real", it's only grounded in what he calls a "belief-acquiring method". For him, there is no reason for preferring one belief-acquiring method over another, and therefore there is no basis for preferring one person's use of "true" over another.

What is deeply ironic is that Hales is also an apostle of Dawkins, and has written very biting commentary about the "evils" (not sure what a relativist can possibly mean by that word, but oh well) of religion. So, in spite of his lofty talk of relativism, he himself is unable to live up to it's claims.

smoothmoniker has hit the nail on the head. On the other hand, in a practical sense everyone accepts negatives as being proven at some point. I suspect very few of us are sitting on the fence about the existence of magic unicorns; they don't exist. There is just always the ever-present caveat that if you can prove magic unicorns do exist then we will chance our minds. Have we the ability to examine the entire solar system for unicorns? No, but we are still comfortable saying there are none.

But Magic Unicorns can only be seen when they want to. ;)

What most people fail to realize is that science IS a religion, as are things like math. They are a set of beliefs which only possess the illusion of being real because that is what society accepts. There is nothing concrete in science, everything is built on faith, just like religion.

Phage, that's very true.

Our normal mode of function in the world is to follow a trajectory of evidence until it crosses a reasonable threshold of rational support, and then to act as if it is true. When contradicting data emerges, we modify our trajectory and our conclusions. In either case, we act as if the conclusion is true even though we haven't reached the level of mathematical certainty.

I would argue that the best definition of "faith" isn't much different. It is following a trajectory of evidence until it crosses a threshold of rational support, at which point we act upon it as if it were true, in the absence of contradicting evidence. When contradicting evidence emerges, then we are obligated to reexamine the original conclusion.

Faith is not "believe something is true, even when all evidence points against it." Faith is believing something is true, because the chain of evidence follows a trajectory that can be reasonably extended to conclude that the thing is true, even when the chain of evidence isn't complete.

... and so say we all. Thus spoke Zarathustra. Amen.

Horshit.

If you choose to "believe" that numbers have no meaning, and that physics is just an "aquired belief" that has no correspondence to reality, then your rocket to the moon is going to fly up your own ass instead.

re: "science is based on faith"

Funny how your cellphone magically allows you to converse over vast distances, the life-saving medicine that didn't exist 10 years ago cures a formerly deadly disease in your son or daughter or father or mother, and the processors in your vehicles computerized brake system prevent you from plunging off an overpass to your certain doom.

But, of course, the scientists who invented these things were probably "flying by the seat of their pants" right? I mean, after all, there's nothing concrete in science, just a bunch of hooey that the eggheads have us bamboozled into believing. The reason your satellite TV, self-cleaning oven, and ultrasonic toothbrush work is just dumb luck.

In fact, the only way that messages are being transmitted on this website is because invisible Jesus is zooming around re-typing everything on each of our computers.

I disagree.

Faith is Necessarily belief in something in the face of no evidence.

Doesn't the Bible define faith as belief despite a total lack of evidence?

This new "rational faith" is so watered down it renders the conversation meaningless.