Atheists are de facto Materialists. Materialism is a necessary consequence of denying the supernatural. As Materialists they tend to revere empiricism as a source of truth. And they are convicted of their own possession of the singular truth of the universe, that there is no first cause.
Since Atheists have possession of the truth, they should not be adverse to sharing it here with us. The truth of course would be in the form of material, empirical experimental data, replicated by separate disinterested scientific teams, unfalsified, peer reviewed and published in a major scientific journal. These are criteria frequently cited by Atheists, and should be agreeable to them.
Here is a partial list items requiring empirical proof (See Rules below):
1. Prove there is no God.
2. Prove Materialism is true.
3. Prove Monism is true.
4. Prove abiogenesis actually happened.
5. Prove macroevolution actually happened.
6. Prove Parsimony is a Law of Nature.
7. Prove Universal Uniformitarianism exists in all cases.
8. Prove wisdom does not exist.
9. Prove humans are perfectible.
10.Prove universal happiness is a moral imperative.
11.Prove information is identical to the media scaffold upon which it resides.
12.Prove the Multiverse exists.
Rules:
1. Only empirical experimental data, replicated by separate disinterested scientific teams, unfalsified yet falsifiable, peer reviewed and published in a major scientific journal.
2. No generalities or philosophical meanderings will be accepted; only empirical (material) experimental proofs are allowed.
3. Truth by majority vote is not accepted; Truth by deferring to authority is not accepted.
Note: If you can prove #4 (abiogenesis), there is $1,000,000.00 waiting for you here.
2 comments:
Another great post, Stan.
I guess that atheists will accuss you of asking them to "prove a negative" (regarding the points 1 and 8), or will appeal to the "agnostic way out" to redefine their position. These are typical dialectical responses that many of them use to avoid provide evidence for their positive and negative (in a logical-propositional sense) beliefs.
By the way, as any logic textbook teaches, it's logically possible to prove negative propositions, as explained by this philosopher:
http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articles/proveanegative.html
(By the way, that philosopher is atheist too... but a knowledgable one regarding basic notions of logic)
Regarding the point 2, they can't do it, because all their arguments tend to beg the question when arguing for materialism. An example of this is the reply of atheist Keith Augustine to Chris Carter's excellent article on consciousness and the brain. Read the debate here:
http://www.parapsychologyandtheskeptics.com/reprints.htm
About point 4 (on abiogenesis), I think Antony Flew recently addressed the question when he said: "I believe that the origin of life and reproduction simply cannot be explained from a biological standpoint despite numerous efforts to do so. With every passing year, the more that was discovered about the richness and inherent intelligence of life, the less it seemed likely that a chemical soup could magically generate the genetic code. The difference between life and non-life, it became apparent to me, was ontological and not chemical. The best confirmation of this radical gulf is Richard Dawkins' comical effort to argue in The God Delusion that the origin of life can be attributed to a "lucky chance." If that's the best argument you have, then the game is over. No, I did not hear a Voice. It was the evidence itself that led me to this conclusion"
http://www.tothesource.org/10_30_2007/10_30_2007.htm
The atheist claims contained in Point 6 and point 12 seems to be self-defetating to atheists, because the application of the law of parsimony seems to be incompatible (as a prima facie heuristic rule) with the non-proven multiverse hypothesis (that gratuitously invoke multiplies and non-explanatory entities). So, if they prove point 6 (and it can't be done), it could be used against the claim asked for proof in point 12.
I suppose your challenge won't be taken by atheists... they'll always try to evade the burden of proof for their materialist/atheist assertions.
zetetic_chick,
Thanks for your observations... and no, there are no takers here so far. However, I posted the same thing over at atheismisdead and got a couple of responses, none of which came close.
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