Look, I don’t believe a God exisits. So in an attempt to prove me wrong, my father wrote the following to me. So could someone think of a good comeback? In this case remember, the mind is not the brain. I thought of that, but I don’t think that would work. I guess you could say the the mind is Intellect that stems from the brain though, therefore a mind does exist. I’m not looking for a fight here, so if you have something offensive to say to me personally, go the the pit.
Anyway:
There is an old story about a college student attending a philosophy class,
where there was a discussion about whether or not God exists, The professor
had the following logic: “Has anyone in this class heard God?” Nobody spoke.
“Has anyone in this class touched God?” Again, nobody spoke. “Has anyone in
this class seen God?” When nobody spoke for the third time, he simply
stated, “Then there is no God.”
The student did not like the sound of this at all, and asked for permission
to speak. The professor granted it, and the student stood up and asked the
following questions of his classmates: “Has anyone in this class heard our
professor’s mind?” Silence.
“Has anyone in this class touched our professor’s mind?” Absolute silence.
“Has anyone in this class seen our professor’s mind?” When nobody in the
class dared to speak, the student concluded, “Then, according to our
professor’s logic, it must be true that our professor has no mind!”
Well the first set of arguments in an insufficient proof that god does not exist. But simply showing this does not prove that god does exist. So all that is shown is that god does/or does not exist.
For if the failure of the argument that god does not exist proved that god exists we could say that by refuting the following …
“Has anyone in this class heard Invisible Pink Unicorns?” Nobody spoke. “Has anyone in this class touched Invisible Pink Unicorns?” Again, nobody spoke. “Has anyone in this class seen Invisible Pink Unicorns?” When nobody spoke for the third time, he simply stated, “Then there is no Invisible Pink Unicorns.”
… is the same as proving the existance of Invisible Pink Unicorns.
Cheers, Keithy (waiting for more experienced minds to come allong soon)
I’ve seen/heard/otherwise experienced the machinations of many minds, e.g. I’m reasonably certain that the professor in your story has a mind since he’s apparently capable of communication (whereas a rock, f’rinstance, is not, so I have no reason to suspect that a rock has a mind). I’ve never seen/heard/otherwise experienced the machinations of God, which is why the jury’s still out on that one in my book.
In other words, the professor’s mind is capable of exerting some tangible influence on the world in the form of the professor’s ability to communicate etc.
The conclusion of this argument follows logically from the premises.
The conclusion of this argument is that God exists.
Therefore, God exists.
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary for man to invent Him.” -Voltaire
Clearly, it is not necessary for man to invent Him.
Therefore, God exists.
It’s fun and easy to make up spurious proofs for anything. Compliment your father on a silly little joke, making sure he understands that it holds less water than Spongebob’s Square Pants.
The student in the story is not trying to proove the existance of God. Rather he is trying to prove to his professor that his logic for not believing in God is wrong.
I’ve seen Santa Claus. Heard him. Touched him. Sat on his lap when I took my kids this year and he even copped a feel.
But I bought and wrapped all those presents for my kids and dragged them under the tree.
For me (and I’m a Deist, not an atheist) God is a lot like Santa Claus. There is obviously something there - even if it is just an idea to make us all feel better. But that something is valuable. Doesn’t mean I’m listening for the reindeer on the roof, though.
Oh geez - where to start? That parable is flawed on so many levels, it’s almost ridiculous to even try to refute it. The main thing is that the professor’s “proof” was insufficient. Observation can be direct or indirect. You don’t have to directly hear, touch, or see a thing to know it exists. So the author of the story is simply inventing a poor strawman argument, and then knocking it down.
But if you really want to mess with your Dad, you could point out that perhaps the “mind” does not exist after all. Tell him to read about split-brain operations, where the two hemispheres of the brain are seperated as a treatment for epilepsy. Such patients have been reported to have the two halves of their brain carry out actions independently of each other, yet the patient retains the illusion that they are of one mind. It may be that we are just highly complex stimulus-response machines.
But do you really want to get into this with your Dad? I can guarantee that you will get absolutely nowhere. You will not be able to convince him of anything, and will probably only succeed in making him redouble his efforts to try to convert you. My advice is to just ignore it.
Meta point: Constructing a feeble strawman and then demolishing it is not a very convincing argument for the existence of God. Your father is going to have to do better than that.
To the story at hand: Yes, both “mind” and “God” are not directly observable entities. Neither can be touched or seen or heard. But science regularly deals with lots of things that can’t be observed directly – you can’t see an electron but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. The existence of entities and processes that can’t be directly observed can be inferred from looking at their effects on the world around us.
The observational evidence for the existence of the professor’s mind is very strong. He is moving his body in a coordinated fashion and speaking coherent sentences. Denying that he has a mind means that you need to provide some alternate explanation for this observable behaviour – he’s a fantastically realistic remote-controlled robot, for example.
The observational evidence for the existence of God is very weak. There is no experimental evidence for His existence, and in fact science has shown that many aspects of nature that were once thought to be the result of God’s actions have purely physical explanations. The only evidence for the existence of God is personal anecdote – not a very sound basis for determining what’s real and what’s fantasy.
May I add that just as it wasn’t up to the students to prove that there was no immaterial unicorn in the room, it is up to your dad to prove the existence of god. He’s making the specific, positive claim that (presumably) the god of the bible exists. The default answer is “I don’t know”. He’s changing the default answer, it’s his responsibility to prove god through logic & evidence. If his god is no more provable than an immaterial unicorn, then what good is such a god anyway?
Obviously, the anecdote is bunk, since the same argument applies to magnetism. You don’t see magnetism, you see a compass point north. Magnetism is inferred from the facts, just like a person’s mind, or lack thereof. Unfortunately, there are no facts from which to infer god. The bible doesn’t count, because they’re second hand stories. Miracles don’t count because they are of second hand stories or of dubious origin. Besides, just about every supernatural explanation for the world has its miracles.** Heck, Tibetan Buddists have miracles left and right when it comes time to find a reincarnated lama. Not to mention that a “miracle” may just be a natural fact we don’t understand yet. Creation of the universe doesn’t count, since positing a god merely adds an extra layer that needs explanation, i.e. where does god come from? Creation of life doesn’t count, since science has come up with some pretty good theories explaining that. He may claim that he knows god–so what? Some people know that O.J. didn’t do it. Etc.
Please visit the Internet Infidels. They have many articles in their library sections.
While the overall point of the story is a strawman, I suggest that the story itself presents a fair analogy. That is, the student’s analysis of the professor’s logic is correct, and accurately points out the flaw therein.
Of course, the professor’s argument is not an accurate reflection of the proof or disproof for God. So the story does nothing in that regard.
Here is my 2c on this. The student said that no one had seen,heard or touched the proffesors mind. I bet if I kracked open the profs. head I would be able to do all 3, see,touch,and hear his mind. That leaves the question of what do I have to krack open to make God appear??
People might bring up the atom argument, that you cant see them or touch them. Well actualy you can. All electricity is, is the movement of electrons through a conductor. Pull a plug out of a wall socket and that blue flash is electrons in motion. What plug do you pull to make God show up??
Untill I get a little tangible proof God is right up there with the easter bunny,Santa claus, and the tooth fairy. After all how can I take the idea of the christian god seriously when there is proof that other gods were worshiped long before the old testament was cooked up. The Aztecs,Egyptians and Greeks all come to mind.
There is no good argument, because there was no point made, only a clever story about a student not being very christian. The student certainly isn’t behaving in line with the teachings of christ.
give your dad props for having a clever story and applaud his faith, it’s an asset; but if he’s anything like my dad, you’re not going to win a debate about anything with him, let alone convince him that there’s no heaven for him to go to when he dies.
rebuttle: “good one dad.”
or if you really want to fight with him: " so then dad, anytime someone doesn’t believe god exists, then I should insult them?"
and the “mind” really is a construct created before we understood that it’s all just interactions between neurons and chemicals and such. It only exists as an easy way of describing the physiology.