PZ Watch 02.19.09

Over at PZ’s place, after reading an article by Roger Ebert on evolution, the temptation to materialize a deity overcomes PZ, and he tries valiantly to disprove the premise that “science has no opinion on religion”. Now PZ is a philosophical materialist through and through, and he demands material evidence for pretty much everything (except evolution, which he accepts as the probabilistic necessity of inferences). So of course demanding material evidence for a deity seems natural, so to speak.

But what PZ actually does is to invert the logic to say that no material evidence amounts to proof of non-existence.

Of course he always starts with an attack on the bible, which he says is either true, literally, or is useless, totally. That is the reductionist approach which is necessary for Atheist rejection of what might be truth in metaphorical form. And to PZ all religions and their adherents are worthy only of ridicule for their credulity in the non-material.

PZ:

“Wow, O Lord, please do vaporize a city with a column of holy fire before my eyes — I can observe that, I can measure that, I can even do experiments with the rubble. I will be really impressed.

Oh, but wait: it can only be an unobservable, undetectable exercise in mass destruction? And he's not doing that sort of thing anymore? How about pulling a rabbit out of this hat? No, sorry, all done. God can't do anything anymore where people might actually notice, or worse, record the act and figure out how the tricks are done. This is awfully convenient.

This is where the "Science has no opinion on religion" argument leads us: to an atheist's world, where there are no activities by a god that matter, where at best people can claim that their god is aloof and unknowable, admitting in their own premises that they have no knowledge at all of him.

I can accept that, as long as these people are aware of the import of what they are actually saying.” [emphasis added]

So the proof of non-existence is the inability of PZ to comprehend or experience for himself that which is described by the many who have had such experiences. He infers that his own paucity of experience translates to a similar paucity in all other humans, which they are either self-deceived into ignoring, or too ignorant of materialism to understand the philosophical impossibility of their experience.

Plus, the inability to make material sense of the benefits derived from such experiences also serves to prove their non-existence. So the case is two-fold: a) I don't experience this, so neither do you; b) What you say you get from the experience, I don't understand, so it didn't happen and it had no value.

But both of these are inferential conclusions, not based on empirical experimentation but on rationalized opinion. PZ cannot prove, empirically, that which he claims. So his claims are faith based, or at least based based on the perceived personal superiority of his own personal discernment - which is working in an experimental vacuum, without material data.

As a logician or a philosopher would have to admit, one cannot prove the non-existence of anything. One might infer such, but inferences are beliefs, personal and non-empirical. No amount of experimentation or investigation can provide empirical proof of a non-existence.

Since the belief in evolution is purely inference based, using probabilistic inference as FACT to support a personal agenda of philosophical materialism and Atheism, it is not surprising that Atheists would accept their own inferences while condemning those of others. This is an indicator of the logical non-coherence of philosophical materialism and Atheism; and that is why they are false.

But the additional demand for a deity to show himself or be denied, as in smack-down a city for me so I will have enough data to believe, is absurd on its face. If we assume there were a deity powerful enough to create the universe, to exist in dimensions unknown to us, and to permeate and influence us, why would that deity be expected to respond to irrational demands by one of us? The very idea is ludicrous, because in every case of unexplained but undeniable phenomena, the denial of any possibility of non-material cause always dominates the inferred conclusion concerning the event, regardless of the inability to provide material proof.

For example, if a column of fire destroyed a city right in front of a philosophical materialist, there is no doubt that he would deny metaphysical involvement, and would insist upon a material cause, no matter how unable to provide material proof of the material cause he remains. Even if he demanded that the deity strike someone dead, and lightning immediately did so, the philosophical materialist would undoubtably attribute it to probabilistic coincidence. There is precisely nothing that can interfere with a tightly held, predisposed conclusion. The philosophical materialistic conclusion is that material phenomena always have material causes. It is an article of dogma.

So PZ’s demand for such proof is disingenuous to say the least. There is nothing within PZ’s material frame of reference that can prove the non-existence of that which he claims doesn’t exist. His claim is not valid, it is rationalized. It is, in fact, an “Affirming the Consequent Fallacy”. And it is also an "Arguing from Personal Ignorance Fallacy".

It also fails the Venn logic statements as follows:
There exist two mutually exclusive spaces: (M) and (!M). We have analyzed (M) completely and have found no sign or proof of (!M). Therefore (!M) does not exist.

This is a false analysis, resulting in a false conclusion.