Jeffery Jay Lowder on Empirical Evidence

Jeffery Jay Lowder provided a list of empirical proofs. Let’s take a look at what this list consists of: From Secularoutpost, per Jeffery Jay Lowder:

"the following is evidence which favors metaphysical naturalism over theism.

• The existence of a physical universe
• The beginning of the universe with time, as opposed to in time.
• The scale of the universe
• The hostility of the universe to life
• All complex organisms are the more or less gradually modified descendants of a small number of simple unicellular organisms
• The most complex form of known life is human life (as opposed to something much more impressive).
• While the universe is saturated with visual beauty, it is not saturated with auditory, tactile, or other sensory beauty.
• Conscious states in general are dependent on the brain.
• The biological role (and moral randomness) of pain and pleasure
• Our world contains an abundance of tragedy.
• The variety and frequency of conditions that severely limit our freedom.
• The flourishing and languishing of sentient beings
• The self-centeredness and limited altruism of human beings
• Facts about the nature and distribution of religious experiences, such as: (1) many people never have religious experiences and those who do almost always have a prior belief in God or extensive exposure to a theistic religion; (2) the subjects of theistic experiences pursue a variety of radically different religious paths, none of which bears abundantly more moral fruit than all of the others; and (3) victims of tragedy are rarely comforted by theistic experiences.
• Nonculpable nonbelief in God.
• So much of our universe is intelligible without any appeal to supernatural agency"

In order to assess these as empirical arguments which disprove categorically the nonexistence of deity, it is only necessary to ask for the experimental data for each item on the list, and to see if that data proves incorrigibly that a deity cannot exist. One quick way to do that is to take the title of each line item and add this statement to it: “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.

So Let’s do just that.

• The existence of a physical universe “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The beginning of the universe with time, as opposed to in time “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The scale of the universe “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The hostility of the universe to life “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• All complex organisms are the more or less gradually modified descendants of a small number of simple unicellular organisms “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The most complex form of known life is human life (as opposed to something much more impressive) “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• While the universe is saturated with visual beauty, it is not saturated with auditory, tactile, or other sensory beauty “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• Conscious states in general are dependent on the brain. “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The biological role (and moral randomness) of pain and pleasure “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• Our world contains an abundance of tragedy “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The variety and frequency of conditions that severely limit our freedom “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The flourishing and languishing of sentient beings “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The self-centeredness and limited altruism of human beings “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• Facts about the nature and distribution of religious experiences, such as: (1) many people never have religious experiences and those who do almost always have a prior belief in God or extensive exposure to a theistic religion; (2) the subjects of theistic experiences pursue a variety of radically different religious paths, none of which bears abundantly more moral fruit than all of the others; and (3) victims of tragedy are rarely comforted by theistic experiences. “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• Nonculpable nonbelief in God, “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• So much of our universe is intelligible without any appeal to supernatural agency “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.

Since metaphysical naturalism entails atheism, it follows that evidence for metaphysical naturalism is necessarily evidence for atheism.

Now we can more readily see that not a single line item is a defeater for the question being asked, which again is this:

“where is the material, empirical, falsifiable but not falsified, replicable and replicated, open data, peer reviewed undeniable evidence that there cannot exist a deity?” And no matter how the questions are answered, they do not select or differentiate atheism as truth, necessary or even contingent.

It is apparent that the concept of empirical evidence is different for JJ Lowder, in that it seems to refer to personal inferences which are taken from material situations, and even then not all of the claims even refer to actual material “things”. Perhaps this is a consequence of habitual inductive thinking; but the term "empirical" should ring a bell, one would think. Empiricism is the gold standard for material evidence. However, under mataphysical naturalism, who knows what the criteria might be, since they would likely be metaphysical? That renders them nonfalsifiable, empirically, though, and thus they can't actually qualify as knowlege.

The idea that subjective conclusions which are inferred from observations are conclusive, is incorrect.

Here is another comment I made on patheos/Lowder site, trying to get engagement on actual knowledge based input:

Here's the challenge to atheists: Rather than disproving disproof, as your approach has been, the more straightforward simple proof for atheism illuminates the problem for atheism:

When you can prove, conclusively, robustly, and incorrigibly that there positively is no deity in existence, cannot under any circumstance be a deity in existence, and have the material evidence for that, or even a disciplined, grouunded, deductive argument for that, then you have proven your case (atheism), and not until.

Further, when you can prove, conclusively, robustly, and incorrigibly that there positively is no non-material existence outside and beyond the capacity of material detection, and have the material evidence for that, or even a disciplined, grounded, deductive argument for that, then you have proven that case (materialism/physicalism as closed system), but not until.

Failure to provide these straightforward proofs would indicate that atheists and physicalists cannot have actual knowledge which supports their atheism and physicalism. Without that knowledge, atheism and physicalism are no more supported than mere fantasies.

Jeffery Jay Lowder did not respond, although a couple of his readers did, sort of, but not in the sense of providing what was requested.