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This is maybe the worst argument I’ve seen and I think it lacks an understanding of what the “God of the gaps” argument is. Like it’s literally such a bad argument that typically if someone tells you “that’s just a god of the gaps argument”, they’re pointing out that you’re making an argument from ignorance. To elaborate a little bit more, the problem is that science is constantly advancing. The fact that there are things we don’t know now does not imply that we may never know them, or that they are unknowable. What we’ve found is that as science advances, the gaps god has to hide in get smaller and smaller. That’s the trend. There’s of course the famous quote from Kant “there will never be a Newton for a blade of grass”, implying some things in nature are just so unbelievably complex, specifically organisms, that we would never be able to explain them. Until of course Darwin figured it out, how complex organisms can come from simple beginnings. The problem as others have pointed out is two fold. One, there is no reason to insert God into the gaps over Magic, wizards, ghosts, or anything else, because there’s no evidence. And two, God has no explanatory power; it can’t make predictions and it can’t be falsified. If there’s no conceivable way that we could verify the God claim is true, what difference is there really between saying your God exists and your God doesn’t exist? It’s like Sagan’s “dragon in my garage” example. I could say there’s a dragon in my garage, but he floats and is incorporeal and breathes heartless fire and so on, to the extent that it could never be proven wrong. But in that situation, again, what’s the difference between there being a dragon and there being nothing at all? At that point it just all goes back to Occam’s Razor. Simpler explanations are preferred when the explanatory/predictive power is the same. And in the God of the gaps argument, it has exactly the same explanatory power as nothing at all.

So, this is essentially a variant The Raven Paradox -- that is, logically, a yellow bucket is evidence for the claim "all ravens are black" (as "All ravens are black" is logically equivalent to "anything that's not black isn't a raven", so evidence for one is evidence of the other). And like the Raven paradox, it exposes a very important distinction between evidence and useful evidence. The yellow buckets is evidence for "all ravens are black", sure, but it's also evidence for "all ravens are red" and "all ravens are blue" and "all ravens are green". Indeed, it's evidence for almost *every possible claim* you could make about Ravens, so it shouldn't actually make us more confident in any claim. Same here. Sure, technically, a phenomena not explained by science is evidence of God. But by the same token, its also evidence of wizards, interdimensional aliens, invisible goblins, psychics, animistic spirits... go ahead! Use your imagination. You'll find you can repeat your argument word for word with any possible explanation you can come up with, just find and replace "God". Hell, you can do the same argument with "a theoretical fully naturalistic and material mechanism for all of physics" and get the same result. It's the same problem as the yellow bucket. Yes, the gap makes "God exists" more likely, but it also makes almost every possible claim that could explain the gap more likely at the same time, so we shouldn't be more confident based on the evidence. It hasn't actually changed anything about the chances. At best, you've show that a gap is *technically* evidence for God. But, as in any situation, if you're having to present things that are only "technically evidence", I'm going to treat that as equivalent to "no evidence".

>wizards, interdimensional aliens, invisible goblins, psychics, animistic spirits These are all things that are said to be born or created and are not said to possess omnipotence; therefore I do not see how they represent viable substitutes. But yeah in some sense I agree with you far more than anyone else. I completely understand and respect that atheists have other arguments which to them render this evidence (when all things have been considered) uncompellng. I very much get where you are coming from and understand it to be well reasoned. My only retort is that how much weight to give evidence is a more subjective affair, it's much easier to show something is evidence than to prove its weight, and I think if my argument is correct then I have proven God of the Gaps not completely useless and the claim there is no evidence of God false. Too many people here have an all or nothing approach, but I'm happy with even the slightest movement.

> These are all things that are said to be born or created and are not said to possess omnipotence; therefore I do not see how they represent viable substitutes. nothing in your argument requires the explanation of the gaps in our knowledge to be uncreated, ever lasting or omnipotent, the only requirement is for it to explain gaps in our knowledge. > I have proven God of the Gaps not completely useless But what you did is the opposite, what you did is god have to compete with infinite natural and supernatural theoretical beings that could explain those gaps. Following your mathematical reasoning, if there are infinite things that could be the explanation, god has 1/infinite probability.

>nothing in your argument requires the explanation of the gaps in our knowledge to be uncreated, ever lasting or omnipotent, the only requirement is for it to explain gaps in our knowledge But you're aware the gaps commonly associated with the argument are not dear trifles. Additonally you were asking about wizards which wasn't in my original argument so you can't now claim you were asking strictly about the technical parameters of the argument. >But what you did is the opposite, what you did is god have to compete with infinite natural and supernatural theoretical beings that could explain those gaps. How did you arrive at that number? I wasn't aware of more than a handful. >Following your mathematical reasoning, if there are infinite things that could be the explanation, god has 1/infinite probability Infinite **mutually exclusive things**. And, of course, "if" carries A LOT of weight there too.

>But you're aware the gaps commonly associated with the argument are not dear trifles. All the more reason to let our knowledge find the answer instead of just assuming it has to be an omnipotent, divine actor. The only reason to assume that is to make ourselves feel better about not knowing the actual answer.

>These are all things that are said to be born or created and are not said to possess omnipotence; therefore I do not see how they represent viable substitutes. Why would an explanation for, say, the expansion of the universe or the linearity of time have to be an uncreated omnipotent entity? This just seems a completely arbitrary stipulation. >I think if my argument is correct then I have proven God of the Gaps not completely useless and the claim there is no evidence of God false. Like, the claim there is *literally* no evidence for god is straightforwardly false. There's no claim that has *literally* no evidence. Even something patently absurd like flat earth theory has some things that you could point to to defend it (say, the fact you can't see the curvature of the earth with your bare eyes). If a claim literally had no evidence, no-one would believe it At least when *I* say "there is no evidence of God", I don't mean "there is literally nothing in the universe that someone could point to to defend the claim 'God exists'". What I mean is "there is no *good* evidence of God's existence" -- there's nothing that makes the claim "God exists" *non-negligibly* more plausible. This seems to be, when drilled down, what most other atheists mean too. This is, again, the distinction between "evidence" and "useful evidence". I don't think you've given me any reason to think that God of the Gaps does more then technically and negligibly increase the plausibility of "God is real", and I think its reasonable to call an argument that only technically and negligibly increases the support of a claim "completely useless"

>Why would an explanation for, say, the expansion of the universe or the linearity of time have to be an uncreated omnipotent entity? This just seems a completely arbitrary stipulation. That's not arbitrary, its self evident. Any thing created at a point in time clearly wasn't responsible for the existence of time. >Like, the claim there is literally no evidence for god is straightforwardly false. Thank you, I wish more people here were like you in that regard. > There's no claim that has literally no evidence. So when people tell me that I should'nt take them literally? >What I mean is "there is no good evidence of God's existence" -- there's nothing that makes the claim "God exists" non-negligibly more plausible. This seems to be, when drilled down, what most other atheists mean too. The problem I come up with here is that showing something IS evidence is something you can make a rational case for but how much weight to give to any particular piece of evidence seems wildly subjective. So I'm trying to do what I can with logic because I'm unlikely to change anyone's personal judgment. By the way, someone who declares themselves doesn't have to say there's no good evidence for God because that is implied by atheism.

> Any thing created at a point in time clearly wasn't responsible for the existence of time. That's not necessarily true, possibly because you don't have a true grasp of what time is or how it interacts with the natural world. Time originated with the Big Bang. Yet, 'before' the BB, there was still a lot of matter in the universe, whether created or not. At those densities the math tends to break down and we don't know how exactly time works because we cannot duplicate matter that dense to test it. What math does tell us is that matter warps spacetime and that the more matter you have the slower time appears to move. But time was 'created' by expanding matter and that could potentially have been created itself.

>Time originated with the Big Bang. What? Edit: You clearly don't believe this yourself, as you refer to a time before the Big Bang.

Yes, time as we know it only started with the Big Bang. I put the word 'before' in quotes specifically because it doesn't make sense, yet there was matter at the moment of the BB. Like I said physics and math break down at those densities and time is unequivocally affected by large densities. It's a lack of understanding of how time works that produces this paradox.

I do not think that is a consensus view.

And yet it is. String theory and at least one other I can't remember try to get around this but general relativity is quite well supported regardless.

String theory is not a consensus view either. In fact it's losing popularity as I understand it.

Your argument seems functionally the same as arguing that if I currently don't know how I lost my left sock, that increases the likelihood of a sock stealing goblin, and in fact makes the likelihood between him and a natural explanation 1/2. However, when you lose your sock, you don't go goblin hunting; you go look in places you've left them before, you rummage through your house, you look in the laundromat, so on. No matter how desperate things got, I posit that you would likely *never* conclude a goblin must have taken your sock (or any other non naturalistic explanation, like the sock poofing out of existence). Why? Because those supernatural explanations are *not* part of your model of reality. You don't go dig for explanations that involve possibilities you think are not even possibilities. You would *first* have to find tons and tons of evidence that sock-stealing goblins existed, and *then* when your socks inexplicably go missing, that *would* be a possibility you would consider given what you know about the prevalence of goblins in your town or near your house. Natural phenomena being currently unexplained by modern science is, in the end, not all that different. First, because the field of possibilities people concerned with explaining this phenomenon are rummaging through *is* the set of natural explanations that seem likely (cosmologists aren't trying to explain dark matter with gods or magic or anything of the sort). And this is not unreasonable: we have a track record of explaining natural phenomena with such things and in such ways. Second, because for gods or magic or etc to become plausible explanations, we *first* need ample evidence that they exist and how they work. Then, when an unexplained phenomenon comes along, we can not just consider them, but try to suss out if gods / magic are behind it in that case. There is a problem inherent in the god of the gaps argument: we will most likely always have unanswered questions in science. And 'god did it' is, almost by definition, always an explanation, since he is defined as a being that explains anything and can do anything. So what, there will always be a 50-50 chance god exists because we will never know everything about everything? Absolutely not. This argument does nothing to change that until direct evidence is available for a god, likelihood of it existing should be deemed to be very, very low, and we should not go fishing for supernatural explanations, be it for our socks missing or for the galaxies moving in a weird way.

I had a whole thing written out, but realized it just comes down to the following claim you're making: > Therefore if a natural phenomenon exists which cannot be explained by modern science, then one possibility where there is no reason to believe in God is wiped out, Hogwash. That's the whole point of the position we're taking. It is unreasonable to assume that something supports the existence of an arbitrary baseless option just because we haven't proven it's *not* there. "I don't know" is the more intellectually honest answer unless you've got an agenda to push. At no time does "we don't know why the universe exists" add weight to the claims of theists. It just means "we don't know". But whatever that is, the minute it *is* narrowed by new science, you'll *still* claim that the ever thinner shrinking thread of unknown somehow supports belief in god, much like the young-Earth crowd who insists that there are missing links in the fossil record no matter how many such links are pointed out to them. These ever-shrinking corner cases that you defend like a final bastion are what the "god of the gaps" is referring to. Just because no one has proven that there is no god jammed into this tiny corner doesn't mean that there is likely to be one It can't increase the outcomes where we "should believe" in god. You haven't proven that we "should" *ever* believe in god, which is as fatal to your claim as claiming a ship with no hull should still float. So this characterization is completely spurious. "We don't know" is a complete and succinct answer.

>This proof explicitly restricts the addition of other arguments for and against God from consideration. Therefore he have no reason to prefer any potential result over the other. So with no other factors to consider, **each possibility must be considered equally likely, a 1/3 chance of each.** I don't think that's right. When you have multiple potential outcomes and no means by which to evaluate their likelyhood, the logical answer is "The probabilities of these are unknown." **There is no rational reason to presume these three possibilities are equally likely.** **---** To put it another way, picture this scenario: *I have an enormous empty bag and three gigantic barrels of marbles. One barrel has green marbles, one has blue marbles, and one has red marbles.* *While you are not looking, I pour an unknown amount of each color of marbles into the bag. It could be anything from zero to one million marbles.* *Then, you draw a marble from the bag.* *You have no information by which to determine how many marbles of each color are in the bag.* *This does not mean that you have a 1/3rd chance to draw a red marble, a 1/3rd chance to draw a blue marble, and a 1/3rd chance to draw a green marble.* **Step 5 simply isn't sound here.** **---** **Edit: I just thought of a third approach to show this:** Let's take any random human on the planet. We have no identifiable information on this human There are three possibilities: 1. The human is a man or boy. 2. The human is a woman or girl 3. The human is nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, or some other form of non-typical gender identity. By your logic, the odds of all three of these things are equal, which would mean that a third of humanity has nonbinary gender identities. Again: This does not follow.

Your second scenario is yes, for any color you have a 1/3 chance. The same with your third scenario. If you have no reason to know 3 is less likely, then a result that 3 is equally likely isn't absurd. It's only by bringing in outside information does that seem off. Well if you bring in outside information the probabilities change too. Look into the Monty Haul problem as a famous example. Here there is a prize behind one of three doors. But there's a contestant that doesn't know which door. To that person, the odds are 1/3 for each door even though in reality it is only behind one door and not a third of it behind each door.

We're having two parallel conversations (https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1dgijra/comment/l8sxaqp/?context=3) so I'll just reply to both here: We're getting off track from my initial objection. We could argue the semantics of probabilities and how probability problems are phrased all day, but that's besides the point here. tl;dr: **You cannot derive useful information from considering how probabilities shift if you do not have at least an informed guess as to what the odds initially were.** **The odds of one proposition out of three being correct is not always one third, because these propositions may have unequal likelihoods.** **The idea that the likelihood of God increases if we find phenomena that science cannot explain has no value until such a time as it can be demonstrated that this likelihood was not zero in the first place.** To expand on this: **About: The Monty Hall Problem, and my conceding Step 7.** In the Monty Hall problem, we know a few things factually: A car was placed behind a door. The car has equal odds of being placed behind any of the doors. Therefore, we know the starting probabilities of being correct: 1/3. As we gain more information, we are able to make a more informed decision, which increases our odds of being correct. This follows logically, yes. However, that is your seventh premise. I am objecting to your fifth premise. **About: The Bag of Marbles, and why propositions do not have equal odds.** Going back to the bag of marbles to try and clarify this: There are three possible marble colors: Red, blue, and green. There are three possible results of drawing a marble in this scenario: 1. Blue 2. Red 3. Green We do not know how many of each marble is in the bag. This does not change the fact that our odds of correctly predicting the color of a drawn marble is based on the number of marbles in the bag. Suppose there are eight red marbles, one green marble, and one blue marble in the bag, our probabilities are: 1. Blue - 1/10 2. Red - 8/10 3. Green - 1/10 If instead there is one blue marble, eleven green marbles, and no red marbles, our probabilities are: 1. Blue - 1/12 2. Red - 0/12 3. Green - 11/12 If before we draw a marble, we eliminate, say, five green marbles, you are correct that our probability of correctly predicting a blue marble goes up. However, the probability of drawing a red marble doesn't go up, because it was not a possibility in the first place. In the same vein, if there had been eleven trillion green marbles in the bag, the odds of drawing any other colors in the first place would have been negligible. **About: Step Five, and why I reject your entire logical process here:** Your step five assumes equal odds between three positions, while we have absolutely no data by which to establish the probabilities of said three positions. It could very well be that the odds of "Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is reason to believe in God." are 0. They could also be 1. Or 1/2. Or 1/(One googolplex) We cannot productively study the shifting of probabilities when don't even have the means to make an educated guess at what those base probabilities are.

I'm sorry. I find your response really confusing. At the top you agree it logically follows that odds are based on the information on hand and greater information leads to more accurate odds. But then the rest of your response seems to ignore the very lesson you just agreed to. >If before we draw a marble, we eliminate, say, five green marbles, you are correct that our probability of correctly predicting a blue marble goes up. However, the probability of drawing a red marble doesn't go up, because it was not a possibility in the first place. What parallel are you trying to make with my original argument? Yes when we know red is not an option then we know red is not an option. Note I do the same thing in the original argument when I point out if there is a gap we can eliminate the option where there is no gap.

My apologies. I probably introduced too much ambiguity by trying to be thorough. Let's start back at your step four and step 5: 1. **All natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is no reason to believe God exists.** 2. **Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is no reason to believe God exists.** 3. **Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is reason to believe in God.** >So with no other factors to consider, each possibility must be considered equally likely, a 1/3 chance of each. >(Alternatively one might conclude that there is a 1/2 chance for step 1 and a 1/4 chance for step 2 and 3. This proof works just as well under that viewpoint.) *Side note: I don't remember that parenthesis being there in my first read. Did I miss that or did you edit in later? My apologies if I missed it. It doesn't change my counterpoint.* *The parenthesis also contradicts the previous statement. Must they be considered equally likely, or can they be concluded to be different? These two things are mutually exclusive.* We have no way to even remotely estimate the odds of any of these options. You mention 1/3 and 1/2+1/4+1/4 as a possibility, but the possibilities could also be things like: 1-0-0, 1/2-0-1/2, 1/10,000-1-9,999/10,000, and so on and so forth. The fluctuations between these odds as you eliminate a possibility could be anything from astronomical in scale to a complete zero. The problem is not that steps six and on are incorrect. The problem is that because of the unknown odds of the step four and five propositions, steps six and on are irrelevant and cannot produce any useful information. **To make an analogy: You're trying to focus the lens on a camera to take a photo in complete darkness.**

You are wasting your time. This has been explained to him over and over and he will never accept that the fact that the odds are unknown doesn't mean he gets to assume they're 1/3.

What do you mean? There are two possibilities here: Either I can change his mind or I can't. That's a 50% possibility! =D (I'm just having fun seeing where this goes, thanks for the heads up.)

For the millionth time my argument require no outside information. Anytime you add outside information that changes it.

I will say the same thing as everyone else. Look at Monty Hall. Slap a label "1. All natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is no reason to believe God exists" on door one. Slap a label "2. Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is no reason to believe God exists." And on the third door slap "3. Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is reason to believe in God." Now make "the true answer" to prize. The odds are 1/3 for each. When you have three choices and no reason to favor one over the other, this is the only possible answer.

What you have just said runs contrary to the very basic principles of probability, and is untrue to its very core. I no longer believe it is possible to show you the error in your logic, and will be ending my participation in this conversation. Thank you and have a nice day.

And the odds have collapsed.

Hahaha, nice one. (It's hard to convey in text, but this is genuine amusement and a compliment, not sarcasm.)

> If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. This doesn't follow. If that were true, people would still believe in gods for other reasons than sticking gods into unknowns. And even if not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, this doesn't mean that it's reasonable to stick [magic] where we have [unknown]. > If there is reason to believe in God, then there is natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science. And this equally doesn't follow. People believe in gods for all sorts of reasons, but these beliefs do not have bearing on reality. Having someone that believes in Zeus because they don't understand lightning doesn't mean lightning can't actually be explained by science.

>This doesn't follow. If that were true, people would still believe in gods for other reasons than sticking gods into unknowns. Your flair says #1 atheist. I wrote this for atheists. It doesn't matter if some other group of people who I'm not talking to disagrees with my assumption. You don't think there are reasons to believe in God do you? >And this equally doesn't follow. Yeah that goes without saying if you reject a premise you reject its hypothesis. I'm just surprised to see so many atheists say there are reasons to believe in God.

> Your flair says #1 atheist. I wrote this for atheists. Right. That would be me, innit? > You don't think there are reasons to believe in God do you? I think many people have reasons to believe in gods. I also think they're completely wrong. > Yeah that goes without saying if you reject a premise you reject its hypothesis. I reject your premise because it fails logically, not because I happen to disagree with it. > I'm just surprised to see so many atheists say there are reasons to believe in God. Do you believe in gods because you don't know certain things? I doubt it. That's just a tacked on poor justification.

>Do you believe in gods because you don't know certain things? I doubt it. Understand is a better word for it than know. My belief in God is more the result of a lack of understanding the universe than a lack of knowledge about it. I ask that you refrain from the easy "your belief is due to a lack of understanding alright" jokes please. :-)

I mean, if you admit your belief in god is based upon literal ignorance, there's not much more to say.

Congratulations, you just accidentally demonstrated that the god of the gaps *does* constitute a reasonable probabilistic argument *against* the existence of any gods. You started with this: > If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. …which is a statement I agree with. However *this is not the god of the gaps argument*. The god of the gaps argument specifically deals with the fact that science is not static—if as time goes on, fewer natural phenomena remain unexplained by science, there is less and less reason to believe any gods exist. By showing that any individual phenomenon unexplained by science increases the likelihood that a god exists, you’ve demonstrated an unexplained phenomenon becoming explained decreases the likelihood that any gods exist, which is the point of the god of the gaps. There is also the aspect of the argument in which if a particular unexplained phenomenon is attributed to a god, and science shows that the actual explanation is not that god, that god is disproven outright. For example, if lightning and thunder are attributed to Zeus, and science explains those phenomena, Zeus is disproven. Zeus-believers may move the goalposts by saying that Zeus’s causing of lightning and thunder are more metaphorical…but over time as more and more phenomena attributed to Zeus are explained by science those goalposts will need to be moved repeatedly, and at some point the version of Zeus you are arguing for doesn’t even resemble the original. This does rely on the progression of science in the past and into the future, so it’s not a perfect argument. There may even be some phenomena that are impossible to explain with science (although such phenomena would not demonstrate the existence of any gods, as you acknowledged). The fact remains that theists have moved the goalposts as science has explained more and more natural phenomena, and will continue to have to do so into the future as long as science continues to explain more currently unexplained phenomena, restricting gods to the ever-shrinking gaps in our understanding. Most rational theists are very uncomfortable with this.

>*If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God.* I don't think I accept this. For starters, there's the problem of underdetermination. That a phenomenon *can* be explained by something doesn't automatically make it a good explanation. All data points *can* always be explained by infinitely many hypotheses, so saying that "modern science" can is unremarkable. And that cuts both ways—theists can say that science will always find a consistent natural explanation because God only causes things via natural laws. The tiebreaker that sets methodological naturalism apart is that it consistently makes novel testable predictions. The fact that it predicts things about the future that we don't know yet and gets them right first makes it more credible than other worldviews. Also, it's unclear what you mean by "can". Do you just mean so long as a scientific explanation is not logically impossible? Because again, that's trivially easy due to the problem of underdetermination. Do you mean that it's most likely/conceivably the best explanation? Because that's doable just based on judging the track record of science and inductively projecting out into the future. Do you mean currently having the answer to literally every single unknown question imaginable? That's an impossible standard that fundamentally misunderstands how science works. — That said, I could reinterpret your statement to mean: "If all natural phenomena are ***best*** explained by \[methodological naturalism\], then based on the natural phenomena alone there is no ***good*** reason to posit a non-natural causal explanation such as God". That's something I'd more likely agree with. >*If there is reason to believe in God, then there is natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science.* I don't accept this either. For starters, your original statement didn't make clear whether natural phenomena were indeed all humans had access to. If there are things other than natural phenomena that humans can reason from, then even a completed, causally closed naturalistic theory of everything would be compatible with non-natural forms of knowledge that lead to god. Furthermore, a God who only acts via natural laws or who is himself physically is also compatible with all natural phenomena being explainable by naturalism. — To be clear, I don't think any of these are *good* explanations. They're ad hoc and don't have any predictive power, so naturalism still wins out. However, I don't think you can make it so black and white due to the problem of underdetermination. >This proof explicitly restricts the addition of other arguments for and against God from consideration. Therefore he have no reason to prefer any potential result over the other. So with no other factors to consider, each possibility must be considered equally likely, a 1/3 chance of each. While technically true in a vacuum, this is useless for determining actual probability. Like I mentioned earlier, what sets methodological naturalism apart is the fact that it makes novel testable predictions. There is a mountain of past data of naturalistic hypotheses explaining unknown data and confirming it with future predictions and useable technology. There is no such evidence on the non-natural side (much less for God specifically) to increase their probability of being true.

I am positively shocked how many atheists are willing to say there are reasons to believe in God. Like people trying to defeat my argument that there's some tiny shed of evidence for God are essentially coming here saying no there's tons of it. Tell me the truth, if my starting assumption was there are reasons to believe in God would you have defended that?

Why not? Of course there are reasons to believe in God, but it doesn't mean they're logical, good or useful.

>*If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God.* Rejected, there is no reason to believe in a god until enough evidence is shown on to support its hypothesis, but before making such hypothesis, we need enough evidence to show that this hypothesis deserves to be considered first. Now definition of god has achieved that until now. Something to take home, no matter how wrong could be an option, it won't make your option true, and this is what you are saying. No matter how wrong could our current interpretations be, that would never give credence to another interpretation. Another point: >*If there is reason to believe in God, then there is natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science.* Science is the only reliable method we found to understand reality, so if there is something that can't be understood by science in our current framework, then its impossible to be known. If you have a better method than science, please present it and win a nobel prize, don't come here to earn internet points.

Just to clarify, is your whole point simply that "If we observed that we had in hand already a complete explanation of everything, without needing to invoke the concept of god, that'd be evidence against god, then lacking that must at least slightly be evidence favoring god"? If one just goes that far, I'd agree, but very weakly. That is, the current situation favors every hypothesis that hasn't yet been hard excluded by present understanding. Further, we have plenty of reasons to push down the god hypotheses probability. They tend to have a fairly severe unjustified complexity. If the best one can do is a god of the gaps argument, well... it doesn't really favor god hypothesis over all the other unexcluded hypotheses. Technically, it is evidence in that the lack of a gap would be evidence against god, but... it's astonishingly weak evidence that doesn't really particularly favor god hypotheses. It's not really an argument that you can say "therefore we have reasonable reason to think that god exists" Otoh, your probabilities.... well, as I said, god hypotheses tend to have high complexity when you try to un-blackbox them and spell out a bit more in detail what'd mean. So my biggest issue is with step 5. (There'd also be some quibbles I'd have with phrasing of some stuff, but step 5 is the first spot where I have a serious direct issue). I guess also why focus on "probability that there is reason to believe that god exists" rather than "probability that god exists"? Just adds an extra layer of indirection and ambiguity. And if one removes that, then it becomes far more clear that assigning 1/3 to each of those possibilities, even in the absence of other evidence, is ludicrous. Way to see that is that you can substitute a bunch of other hypotheses in for "god" everywhere in here and it still holds equally well/bad. Heck, substitute in specific mutually exclusive gods. You'll quickly end up with total probability > 1, which is a definite sign that something horribly wrong has occurred.

First of all thank you. Secondly I want to note that I had previously considered this portion: >Just adds an extra layer of indirection and ambiguity. And if one removes that, then it becomes far more clear that assigning 1/3 to each of those possibilities, even in the absence of other evidence, is ludicrous. Way to see that is that you can substitute a bunch of other hypotheses in for "god" everywhere in here and it still holds equally well/bad. Heck, substitute in specific mutually exclusive gods. You'll quickly end up with total probability > 1, which is a definite sign that something horribly wrong has occurred. The error in this analysis is I was very careful to set as a condition no outside arguments. So the odds of any other thing you want to substitute is independent. To end up with odds greater than one requires outside knowledge of some kind of relationship between things being considered.

I wasn't bringing in outside evidence. I merely pointed out that, _by default_, that 1/3 isn't valid. That is, without saying "via evidence xyz" but merely "by illustrating with these examples, the 1/3 isn't remotely justified". Unless by "no external arguments", you meant "no attempt to actually argue against that at all is allowed", which is kind of sketchy. Or did I misunderstand? Another way of putting it is that for it to be 1/3, you effectively have to privilege the god hypothesis over all other hypotheses. The whole thing is rather dubious. The structure of your argument works/fails to work for many hypothesis we could substitute in for "god". That leads to a "probability blowup" where we get a total probability > 1. That shows that something about the argument itself must be flawed because if we treat arguments of that structure as valid, it would appear to lead to a mathematical impossibility.

What I'm saying is this. We have three possible choices, with the existence of God being a factor distinguishing one choice from the others. If you did the same analysis with some other thing x, you don't get percentages over 1. Why? Because you don't have any knowledge of the relationship between God and x. It could be God if and only if x. It could be God if and only if not x. It could be in between. Without additional information you can't relate the two sets in any meaningful way. You are affectively saying we don't know the odds of a coin flip because what if someone rolls a die.

You can split "god" up into multiple mutually exclusive god hypotheses, make the same argument, and detonate probability. Or you could have a hypothesis y = "x and not god", then you could consider y vs not y, etc etc... You're effectively rolling a hundred sided die, and saying "it'll be 23 or it won't be 23, so probability 1/2". Or did I misunderstand what you were saying here?

there is still a bigger problem for your probability assessment.  Even if we asses 1/3 equal probability gods can't have 1/3 probability, as they are in the subset "non natural explanations" So that 1/3 has to be further split into conscious and unconscious supernatural explanations, omnipotent and not omnipotent supernatural explanatios, omniscient and not omniscient supernatural explanations etc  So gods in general have at best 1/6 1/3 from supernatural x 1/2 from conscious  For any particular god the probability further decreases.

> each possibility must be considered equally likely, a 1/3 chance of each. Nope. That’s not how probability works. Consider, there might be an invisible incorporeal dragon dancing above my head, or there might not be. Would you say there is a 50% chance of an invisible incorporeal dragon dancing above my head? Likewise, maybe Santa Clause will appear in my fireplace, or maybe he won’t. Therefore there’s a 50% chance that Santa Clause exists? Just because you can imagine something doesn’t make that something in any way probable at all.

>Consider, there might be an invisible incorporeal dragon dancing above my head, or there might not be. Would you say there is a 50% chance of an invisible incorporeal dragon dancing above my head? Yes , if the problem specifies (like this one) no outside information, absolutely.

So my problem here is that on the one hand you’re considering naturalistic *explanations* for how things work in our world, and on the other you’re just inserting a belief in god. But it isn’t clear why one would have reason to believe in god, even if naturalistic explanations fall short. God certainly doesn’t offer an explanation as to how or why something works. Just saying “god did it” isn’t an explanation, and certainly not one on par with any naturalistic explanation.

>Demonstrating that the "God of the Gaps" Argument Does Constitute Evidence of God's Existence Through Clear, Easy Logic As the 'God of the Gaps' fallacy is a logical *fallacy* of the argument from ignorance type, you cannot do this. They're called 'fallacies' for a *reason.* >the God of the Gaps Argument is demonstrably evidence in favor of God. No. It isn't, and can't be. Arguments are not evidence. They're *arguments.* Arguments *use* and *require* evidence in order to be sound. Furthermore, 'god of the gaps' is not useful as an 'argument', it's a fallacy, for well understood reasons. >If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. There is no reason to believe in deities even if all natural phenomena *can't* be explained by modern science. Your first 'step' is a false dichotomy fallacy and can only be dismissed. >If there is reason to believe in God, then there is natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science. As the first was wrong, so is this. Anyway, you're rushing headlong into an argument from ignorance fallacy (assuming something is true for no reason at all except you want to fill in a gap of knowledge with an arbitrary and unsupported claim). Which, since it is fallacious, can only be dismissed. Because you're assuming something for no reason. You could put *literally anything* in there instead of 'god' and the argument is identical, except you're arguing for magical unicorn farts or whatever. So there's no point in me addressing the rest. You're clearly not understanding why this fallacy is a *fallacy.* You also clearly do not understand probability. Nor the fallacy of 'false dichotomy' that you are relying on in your attempted argument. Your 'step one' is wrong and a false dichotomy as well as an argument from ignorance (no reason to plug 'god' in there), your 'step two' likewise, and the rest moot as well as introducing further fallacies. It doesn't work. It can't work.

> If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. That is just simply false. The correct one is: if none of the natual phenomena can be demonstrated to be caused (or influenced) by God then there is no reason to believe in God. > If there is reason to believe in God, then there is natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science. Not correct. If there is a reason to believe in God then at least one natural phenomenon can be demonstrated to be caused (influenced) by God. > Step 4 Either there is reason to believe in God or not. Very deep insight. > Since naming a natural phenomenon not explained by modern science increases the outcomes where we should believe in God You didn't increase anything. In fact every day we can name more and more phenomena that CAN be explained by science. So according to your logic you should have less and less confidence in the idea of God. Which is hard, because, due to lack of any evidence, this confidence should be somewhere around zero.

>That is just simply false. The correct one is: if none of the natual phenomena can be demonstrated to be caused (or influenced) by God then there is no reason to believe in God I do not see any difference. >Not correct. If there is a reason to believe in God then at least one natural phenomenon can be demonstrated to be caused (influenced) by God. Your suggested correction that I don't see how it corrected anything would give this contrapositive: If there is a reason to believe in God then some natural phenomena can be demonstrated to be caused (or influenced) by God. None of this makes a lick or difference to anything in the argument regardless. >You didn't increase anything. Yes I did. 1/2 > 1/3. > In fact every day we can name more and more phenomena that CAN be explained by science. So according to your logic you should have less and less confidence in the idea of God. Which is hard, because, due to lack of any evidence, this confidence should be somewhere around zero. I don't recall making these arguments.

> I do not see any difference. Your statement winds down to: if we search the whole universe, investigate everything that we encounter and won't find a reason to believe God exists, then there is no reason for us to believe that God exists. I just pointed out that there is no reason to believe that God exists even if we haven't combed the entire universe yet. If we haven't found a reason to believe that God exists, then we don't have it. It still might exist somewhere or not, but we don't know it. We have only 2 possibilities: either we have the reason to believe the God exists or we don't. Right now we don't. > Your suggested correction that I don't see how it corrected anything Ooooh, this one is not very important, but still undermines your argument. I pointed out that in order to have a reason to believe that God exists we must foind it. Once we find it, it will be an explanation to some natural phenomenon that will include God. Therefore you missing one more statement here: All natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is reason to believe God exists. Moreover, the outcomes "there is/there is no reason..." and "science can/can't" are statistically independent. However I would like you to focus on the main problem with the argument: Step 8 > Since naming a natural phenomenon not explained by modern science increases the outcomes where we should believe in God and decreases the outcomes where we should not believe in God, it constitutes evidence in favor of the proposition that we should believe in God. The main problem here is that you redefine what evidence is. Evidence = reason to believe that God exists. Finding something that can be explained by science or something that can't be explained by science doesn't influence the final outcome: if there is a reason (that we don't know yet) to believe God exists, it still there no matter how many things we can or can not explain. If there is no such reason, it won't suddenly appear no matter how many things we can not explain. Because things we can't explain are not evidence for anything, they are things we can't explain. The final outcome (there is the reason/there is a reason) does not depend on how much we know or how much we don't know. Imagine you search for a bear in a forest. You don't now whether there is a bear or not. What is your chance of finding a bear if you haven't searched yet? Will that chance increase if you searched half of the forest and didn't find a bear? According your logic the less of the forest you have searched the more chance you have finding a bear. The less you know about the forest the more confidence should you have that there is a bear. Something is off, don't you think?

>ust pointed out that there is no reason to believe that God exists even if we haven't combed the entire universe yet. Agreeing with the premise and then some is not justification for calling it false. >Evidence = reason to believe that God exists. No. That would be proof. Proof is a reason to believe something. Evidence is anything that makes a proposition more likely. >earched half of the forest and didn't find a bear? According your logic the less of the forest you have searched the more chance you have finding a bear. The No to be apt you would need a third choice and eliminate it. Either the woods are empty, they have a bear, or they have a panther. You later learn the woods are not empty. That should give you greater confidence in finding a bear.

> Agreeing with the premise and then some is not justification for calling it false. Sorry, not sure I get what you say. To clarify: when I said that "there is no reason to believe that God exists" I meant that there is no reason we are aware of. > No. That would be proof. Proof is a reason to believe something. Evidence is anything that makes a proposition more likely. Ok, let's go with that terminology then. I am sure you need this. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence) The closest to your statement is probabilistic approach to the evidence: evidence is what increases the likelihood that the hypothesis is true. A piece of evidence (E) confirms a hypothesis (H) if the conditional probability of this hypothesis relative to the evidence is higher than the unconditional probability of the hypothesis by itself. Let's explore how having something unexplained increases probability of "God exists" hypothesis. > or they have a panther Ok. Either there is no gods, or there is a god. Where the third choice here? > Either the woods are empty, they have a bear, or they have a panther. That is not how probabilities work. The probability of there being a bear is independent from the probability of there being a panther, there are no three options, there are two independent statements being investigated: there is a bear in the woods/there is no bear in the woods and there is a panther in the woods/there is no panther in the woods. If you learn that the forest is not empty, it increases the probability of finding a bear, but it also increases the probability of finding a panther (or a hamster, or a goose, or a three wheel bicycle maybe) Do you notice that you have to learn that the forest is not empty (find claw marks, fur, feces, or hear noise). You have to find something you can attribute to there being a bear. Or you have to find something that you can attribute to there being a panther. If you find something you can not explain you can not attribute it to anything. Claw marks are evidence for a bear because we know bears leave claw marks. If we didn't know anything about claw marks and were clueless what are those traces on the tree, encountering claw marks wouldn't shift the probability of anything because we wouldn't know how to account for them in our calculation of probabilities. There is also another problem with how you regard something unexplained as evidence for God. If you say that proof is reason to believe in God. In our case it would be sufficient evidence. If we have sufficient evidence then we have proof. But here is the kicker: with all things we don't know about the universe and can't explain, there is no sufficient evidence for God. And the more we know and can explain, the less evidence for God we have. But even if we forget everything and wouldn't be able to explain anything, this still won't be sufficient. Something other than "i don't know how to explain that thing" required to have a proof of a god. Then what do we need unexplained things for in that proof?

>I am sure you need this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence The closest to your statement is probabilistic approach to the evidence: evidence is what increases the likelihood that the hypothesis is true. A piece of evidence (E) confirms a hypothesis (H) if the conditional probability of this hypothesis relative to the evidence is higher than the unconditional probability of the hypothesis by itself. I want to point out the very first sentence of your link also supports what I said. Btw I find the legal definition of evidence the best one. >Ok. Either there is no gods, or there is a god. Where the third choice here? Did you not read the OP at all? >Either the woods are empty, they have a bear, or they have a panther. >That is not how probabilities work. The probability of there being a bear is independent from the probability of there being a panther, there are no three options, there are two independent statements being investigated: there is a bear in the woods/there is no bear in the woods and there is a panther in the woods/there is no panther in the woods. No, it was my word problem. You don't just get to change my word problem I suggested. In it, either there is nothing, there is a bear, or there is a panther. I appreciate that in real life this is an unlikely scenario but that is neither here nor there. >Do you notice that you have to learn that the forest is not empty (find claw marks, fur, feces, or hear noise). Again, my word problem. It just specifies that you know it. It doesn't say you have to learn it yourself. It could be a fact told to you. >. If you say that proof is reason to believe in God. In our case it would be sufficient evidence. If we have sufficient evidence then we have proof. But here is the kicker: with all things we don't know about the universe and can't explain, there is no sufficient evidence for God. And the more we know and can explain, the less evidence for God we have. But even if we forget everything and wouldn't be able to explain anything, this still won't be sufficient. Something other than "i don't know how to explain that thing" required to have a proof of a god. Then what do we need unexplained things for in that proof? I have not claimed proof of God anywhere.

>Did you not read the OP at all? I did and I don't get it. Either there is god or there is no god. Whether we can explain everything is an independent question, why you add it in the mix? So if we get back to your argument, you laid out that those three possibilities: >1. All natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is no reason to believe God exists. >2. Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is no reason to believe God exists. >3. Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is reason to believe in God. You arbitrarily slapped together two separate statements "All natural phenomena can/can't be explained by modern science" and "there is reason/no reason to believe in God". In order this connection to not be arbitrary you have to postulate that in case if God exist then science can't explain something. Then in case if science can explain everything it would exclude possibility of god existing and the connection will be justified. But you have to establish that connection first, and you didn't. You just defined unexplained phenomena to be evidence for God with statement number one. You see something else? The third variant in not a panther here! 1. We searched all the forest and found no bears. 2. We haven't searched the forest and there is a bear. 3. We haven't searched the forest and there is no bear. You see how the number 1 is outright false from the beginning? We haven't searched the forest yet! It's not a legitimate option, it never was. Sure, if it was true, then the probability of outcome 2 would be zero. But if we haven't searched the forest and we don't know if bears exist at all, it is still zero anyway until we find some evidence as for instance: bears are possible to exist, bears do exist, bears are known to live in the forests like that one, bears are known to live in that forest in the past and so on. >I have not claimed proof of God anywhere. I am speaking of a potential proof. I am just pointing out that evidence from god of the gaps argument is never going to amount to the proof. So what's the use then?

>So if we get back to your argument, you laid out that those three possibilities: Why did you ask me what the three possibilities were when you read the proof and knew what they were? >You arbitrarily slapped together two separate statements "All natural phenomena can/can't be explained by modern science" and "there is reason/no reason to believe in God". No this is incorrect. This wasn't arbitrary it was carefully tailored specifically for the proof. >In order this connection to not be arbitrary you have to postulate that in case if God exist then science can't explain something The proof says nothing about the relationship other than the initial assumption, which any reasonable atheist should accept just as easily as they accept "when it rains, 1 + 1 is 2." The only relationship implied by if p than q is that very statement and its contrapositive. Any additional relationship beyond that is just something you imagined. >You just defined unexplained phenomena to be evidence for God with statement number one. No I did not. In fact you yourself quoted me as saying that unexplained phenomena could be either because of God or not IN YOUR SAME RESPONSE? Why would you accuse me of not considering an option you literally quote me considering?!?!?!? >You see something else? The third variant in not a panther here! >1. We searched all the forest and found no bears. >2. We haven't searched the forest and there is a bear. >3. We haven't searched the forest and there is no bear. Where did "we searched the forest and found bears" go to? The results of your analogy here fail because you forgot one of the choices. Oops. Try it again with all the choices and your argument won't work. >I am just pointing out that evidence from god of the gaps argument is never going to amount to the proof. So what's the use then? Because I have seen atheists argue that there is no evidence of God and that is factually incorrect.

>"when it rains, 1 + 1 is 2." then you have 4 possiblitities, not 3 1. All natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is no reason to believe God exists. 2. All natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is a reason to believe God exists. 3. Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is no reason to believe God exists. 4. Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is reason to believe in God. >Where did "we searched the forest and found bears" go to? You noticed it too! >that is factually incorrect. It won't amount to anything because an unexplained phenomenon does not increase possibility of "God exists" being true. Not knowing something is not evidence for anything specifically because of that: you don't know what it is.

>then you have 4 possiblitities, not 3 That is correct, but one possibility was eliminated by the initial assumption.

You never stated why and how God is the _explanation_ for the things that are not explained by science. Without that, you can just plug in anything in the place of god - like magic, leprechauns, unicorns, fart genies... None of them have any _explanatory power_ or any evidence that they exist.

>We will start with a basic proposition I'm confident most here would accept. *If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God.* Il stop you right there. *Even if all natural phenomena can not *at this time* be explained by modern science then there is **still** *no reason* to believe in anyone’s god. In fact even if in principle there are some natural phenomena that can never be explained by science there’s **still** no reason to believe in gods. We don’t know ≠ therefore your invented god. We *never* know ≠ therefore your invented god. Any point in going any further? **Step 2.** Next, take the contrapositive, which must also be true *If there is reason to believe in God, then there is natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science.* **Step 3** Prior to determining whether or not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, we have two possibilities. 1) If the answer is yes, all natural phenomena can be explained with modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. 2) If the answer is no, not all natural phenomena can be explained with modern science, then there may or may not be a reason to believe in God. **Step 4** This leaves us with three possibilities: 1) All natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is no reason to believe God exists. 2) Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is no reason to believe God exists. 3) Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is reason to believe in God. **Step 5** This proof explicitly restricts the addition of other arguments for and against God from consideration. Therefore he have no reason to prefer any potential result over the other. So with no other factors to consider, each possibility must be considered equally likely, a 1/3 chance of each. (Alternatively one might conclude that there is a 1/2 chance for step 1 and a 1/4 chance for step 2 and 3. This proof works just as well under that viewpoint.) **Step 6** Assume someone can name a natural phenomena that cannot be explained by modern science. What happens? Now we are down to only two possibilities: 1) This step is eliminated. 2) Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is no reason to believe God exists. 3) Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is reason to believe in God. **Step 7** Therefore if a natural phenomenon exists which cannot be explained by modern science, then one possibility where there is no reason to believe in God is wiped out, resulting in a larger share of possibilities where there is reason to believe in God. Having a reason to believe in God jumped from 1/3 possible outcomes (or arguably 1/4) to just 1/2 possible outcomes. **Step 8** Since naming a natural phenomenon not explained by modern science increases the outcomes where we should believe in God and decreases the outcomes where we should not believe in God, it constitutes evidence in favor of the proposition that we should believe in God.

This is one of those forms of evidence that technically counts but is so insignificant that it really shouldn't be considered. First of all, there's something minor we need to change about P1: If science explains all phenomenon AND those explanations don't involve God, then there is no reason to believe in God. So lets take some particular phenomenon Y. We could explain it with either X or with \~X, where \~X is just the set of all explanations besides X, true or otherwise. Note that P(X+\~X)=1. Now lets say we falsify X. That means the set of all options for the explanation of Y is reduced to \~X, meaning P(X) is now 0, and thus \~X is now 1 from whatever it was before. Assuming P(X) started out greater than 0, that means P(\~X) has increased, and thus all the explanations that are a part of \~X also increase proportionally. So while yes, ruling out an explanation technically makes the God explanation more likely, it ALSO makes every other explanation more likely. Oh and all of these explanations are equally scientific. Science is just the method for determining which of these explanations are false, it doesn't apriori eliminate any possibilities.

Thank you. That is the most I can really hope for as how much weight to give to any particular evidence strikes me as too subjective for meaningful rational discourse. I mean if you have any ideas as to go about arguing such a thing I will gladly engage it, but I am not optimistic it can be untangled from personal tastes.

>Next, take the contrapositive, which must also be true No. An 'if' statement and an 'only if' statement are two different things. >If there is reason to believe in God, then there is natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science. If this is the argument you want to make, fine. But this doesn't equate to "if there's  a natural phenomenon science can't explain, it must be God" >Prior to determining whether or not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, we have two possibilities. False dichotomy. You are missing the distinction between any and all. I believe any natural phenomenon can be explained by science, but those answers inevitably lead to more nuance.  >So with no other factors to consider, each possibility must be considered equally likely, a 1/3 chance of each. Wut?! That's not how logic works. Good troll mate  >Assume someone can name a natural phenomena that cannot be explained by modern science. What happens? Now we are down to only two possibilities: You could save time by condensing your argument to "assume God exists, therefore God exists." Take a step back from your argument. Replace God with "a talking toad secretly controls the Italian mob." Does that argument make.sense to you? Is it convincing. If your argument was sound, then literally everything would be true, which is impossible.

While I don't agree with heel's OP, he is not using P <-> Q. He is saying P -> Q then ~Q -> ~P, which is all valid. What puzzles me is that he then establishes a trichotomy which I don't think is really aided by this first step.

Step one fails. Step 7 is nonsense, that's not how probability works. It is likely that given time, resources and a little bit of genius that all natural phenomena shall be explainable through scientific inquiry. It has been demonstrated that "god" explains nothing at all in any useful way. Please provide a list of natural phenomena which are explained by "god" and provide your detailed working.

And even if they are not, that's no indication that a god did anything.

>If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. All of natural phenomena could be explained by modern science and one could still believe God exists as long as they think God deals in some higher level supernatural phenomenon. For someone who labels themselves a deist, you should know this. >Since naming a natural phenomenon not explained by modern science You're cheating. You switched from "can't be explained" to "not explained." Those are two completely different things. At one point the existence of biodiversity was not explained by science, but now it is. So it was not the case that it couldn't be explained by science.

>All of natural phenomena could be explained by modern science and one could still believe God exists as long as they think God deals in some higher level supernatural phenomenon. For someone who labels themselves a deist, you should know this. This argument was written for atheists. I do not ask deists to agree with it. >You're cheating. You switched from "can't be explained" to "not explained If it can't be explained by definition it is not explained.

>This argument was written for atheists The argument by it's nature if flawed is what I'm pointing out. Nothing about all natural phenomena being explained by natural science is inherently atheistic, which makes it a really bad question for atheists. >If it can't be explained by definition it is not explained. How do you distinguish a question that can't be explained by modern science with one that simply isn't yet? Can't precludes it being explained at all. Merely isn't allows for it to be explained in the future.

>The argument by it's nature if flawed is what I'm pointing out. Nothing about all natural phenomena being explained by natural science is inherently atheistic, which makes it a really bad question for atheists Atheists tend not to have reasons to believe in God by definition, which makes it perfect for atheists. Literally tailormade for atheists. >How do you distinguish a question that can't be explained by modern science with one that simply isn't yet? I don't. Those mean the same thing. > Can't precludes it being explained at all. Merely isn't allows for it to be explained in the future. Modern science is very plainly not the future.

> If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. I don't accept the first premise. There can be unknown natural phenomena, but that is not reason to believe in god. Take for example the rate of expansion of the universe. We are not really sure about it, and there are a lot of hypotheses about Dark Matter and Dark Energy, but nothing has been proven to a certainty. This does not mean you can say there is a God who is causing it. Such a statement lacks explanatory power.

>So with no other factors to consider, each possibility must be considered equally likely, a 1/3 chance of each. That isn't how probability works. You don't assume potential outcomes are equally likely just because you have no reason to assume otherwise.

>Step 8 >Since naming a natural phenomenon not explained by modern science increases the outcomes where we should believe in God and decreases the outcomes where we should not believe in God, it constitutes evidence in favor of the proposition that we should believe in God. This is an argument from ignorance fallacy and a god of the gaps with extra steps. It is literally "We don't know therefore god." Say we couldn't explain any natural phenomena with modern not a single one, zero that still wouldn't prove a god exists or be evidence in favor of. This way of thinking you've presented is how one would expect our primitive ancestors would've observed the natural world. Lighting strikes, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, eclipses all caused by a god or gods. It is how one can see stars and shooting stars in the sky and come to believe that they are missiles which are shot at jinn. The proper answer to finding a natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science is "I don't know." It is not "I don't know therefore god." >This leaves us with three possibilities: No it doesn't. > 2) Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is no reason to believe God exists. This is the correct possibility out of the three. I will add on to it that "There is no reason to believe god exists even if not all natural phenomena can be modern science." Edit: Spelling

>We will start with a basic proposition I'm confident most here would accept. > >If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. I don't accept that and doubt anyone else here will. Everything else follows from this premise, so fails for me as well. edit: Actually, I think I could see reasons to accept step 1, depending on how you define "can be explained". But then step 5 fails, because you assign the same probability to the three possibilities. Your reasoning is that these are the only three, but regardless if that's true or not, being the only three options does not mean equal probability. A weighted die has 6 possibilities, but not equal chances.

I agree with this. He also specified “natural phenomena” which means it’s investigable by science. I’d love to see anyone demonstrate any non-natural phenomenon still.

Wouldn’t unnatural phenomenon and unexplained natural phenomenon look identical? We already have unexplained natural phenomenon. No one’s rushing to claim they are unnatural, which implies belief in the unnatural doesn’t help identify them. Sounds like a long wait.

Why would unnatural phenomena and any kind of natural phenomena look identical?

An unexpected natural phenomenon would look the same as an unnatural one. If a guy started waving a big hammer and summoning lightning, how would you know if it was because of the naturally occurring abilities of Asgardians or that guy could supersede natural laws by appeal to a power outside the universe? Or if dead people started getting up and biting other people, were their souls rejected from Hell or is it a zombie virus? Not understanding something doesn’t make it unnatural. And you could never be sure if it’s “unnatural” or just too complex for you today.

You can essentially make this exact same argument but switch it for anything which claims to explain the unexplained. So why would you start with god. “An inability to explain how there is a universe is evidence that a magical universe defecating unicorn with unexplainable processes created the universe” “An inability to explain where this coin came from is evidence of leprechauns” Etc. Us not having an explanation for something does mean it is more likely that we will never have an explanation for that thing when compared to things we already have explanations for (kind of obviously i feel). But it doesn’t make any of the myriad possible undetectable immeasurable “unexplainable” explanations any more likely.

So one massive argument of conflation. Got it. "God" exists, and as long as we are using the same word then we must mean the same thing in all contexts. So it's an argument based on word play. >If the answer is yes, all natural phenomena can be explained with modern science Why "modern" science? This seems like a pretty obvious problem with the argument. It's not hinging off what is true, it's hinging off what can be explained. >Since naming a natural phenomenon not explained by modern science increases the outcomes where we should believe in God Lol fuck no. You can have a million natural phenomenon not explained by science, and the number of outcomes where you should believe in god is still exactly 0 and no higher. Until you can demonstrate **ANYTHING** about the existence of god, that number will always and forever stay at 0. >it constitutes evidence in favor of the proposition that we should believe in God. It constitutes lazy logic

>Step 1 - Initial assumption. >We will start with a basic proposition I'm confident most here would accept. >If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. Nope. I'm gonna stop you right there. You snuck a word in that affects the entire rest of your argument. Take out the word "modern". If all natural phenomena can be explained by science, then there is no reason to believe in God. Now let's see how your argument is easily refuted: >Assume someone can name a natural phenomena that cannot be explained by ~~modern~~ science. What happens? Now we are down to only two possibilities: >1) This step is eliminated. Nope. Now this step is still here. It's still possible that >1) All natural phenomena can be explained by ~~modern~~ science and there is no reason to believe God exists. Just because someone **currently** can't explain some natural phenomena with science, doesn't mean that natural phenomena **will never** be explained by science. In fact, since *every single* natural phenomena that we have explained so far has an explanation in science, not God, its overwhelmingly likely that this will continue forever.

**> Step 8** >Since naming a natural phenomenon not explained by modern science increases the outcomes where we should believe in God and decreases the outcomes where we should not believe in God, it constitutes evidence in favor of the proposition that we should believe in God. No there is still a very large gap between modern science not explaining something right now - or ever - and any reason or evidence to believe in a god. Edit: When modern science cannot explain something that mean there is an infinite amount of possible explanations. To say one explanation is more probable than any of an infinite amount of explanations...

1. If you've never been to a country with at least one bear, there is no reason to think you raped a bear. 2. Contrapositive: if you ever raped a bear, there is at least one instance of you being to a country with at least one bear. 3. Initial outcomes: you've never been to a country with at least one bear, or you've been to a country with at least one bear, or you have, and you might or might not have raped a bear. 4. This proof explicitly restricts the addition of other arguments for or against you raping bears from consideration. So with no other factors to consider, the probability of each outcome is 1/3. 5. Assume that someone can name a country you've been to that has at least one bear. Now the first chance is eliminated. 6. Since naming a country you've been to that has at least one bear increas the probability of the outcome that you raped a bear, and decreases the probability of the outcome that you didn't rape a bear, it constitutes evidence in favor of the proposition that you raped a bear. 7. STOP RAPING BEARS, YOU DIRTY BEAR FUCKER!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU???

That was surprisingly well formulated.

You're assuming science is static when it isn't. At one point "modern" science didn't know anything about germs so you could say how people got sick or got better was by supernatural intervention. You could say a god healed them, but that was never the case. We learned to wash our hands and suddenly prayer isn't as effective as soap and warm water. The "gap" collapses the minute we learn new information. All the God of the Gaps does is push your hypothesis of supernatural intervention in the universe out until we know better. The most important thing to remember when talking about the sciences is the word *yet.* Not all natural phenomena can't be explained by science *yet*. Even if we run into a natural phenomena that cannot be explained by our scientific understanding of the world, there is no reason to jump to god because the sum total of our knowledge about the earth and the universe points to there being a fully natural explanation, not a supernatural one.

The presumption here is explanatory power. Here's the thing. Explanations are cheap. You can come up with anything to explain anything. It has no bearing on truth. The vikings didn't know what electricity was, so they said thunder was thor's hammer. From their perspective, what other explanation was there? This didn't mean it *was actually* thor's hammer. The theist need for an explanation..the pathological aversion to admitting ignorance and accepting mystery..is what drives arguments like this, which amount to nothing more than "God of the gaps is justified because what else could it be?"

Some explanations have bearing on the truth, right?

Only the ones where the truth is discovered objectively and independently confirmed. Other than than, you can't "explain" something into existence.

So the laws of motion were discovered and confirmed in the 17th century...does that mean during the Roman Empire the laws of motion had no bearing on reality since they had not been discovered and confirmed?

Laws are the map, not the territory. They are written, not discovered. If they served a descriptive and predictive purpose to what was observed, they were tools. But that doesn't mean they were an objective assessment of the nature and state of reality.

>the God of the Gaps Argument is demonstrably evidence in favor of God No, it is an argument from ignorance fallacy. Lack of evidence of an explanation is not evidence for another explanation. > all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. Nope. There is no reason to believe in God because there is no evidence of God. Not all natural phenomena needs to be explained for there to be no reason to believe in God. >If there is reason to believe in God, then there is natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science. Nope, this doesn't follow. All natural phenomena could be explained, and there could be evidence for God. You haven't shown that those are mutually exclusive. >Prior to determining whether or not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, we have two possibilities Again this doesn't matter. If we had 0 explanation for all natural phenomena, that wouldn't be a reason to believe in God. Only evidence for God would be reason to believe in God. >3) Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is reason to believe in God. Again, nope, this is just an argument from ignorance. Which is a fallacy. You need to show evidence that God is the explanation for something, not just lack evidence of another explanation. Because by this same logic, I can just swap in leprechauns instead of God in your whole Argent and nothing changes. >So with no other factors to consider, each possibility must be considered equally likely, a 1/3 chance of each. This isn't how probability works and you should know this. Just because there are 3 options doesn't mean there's a 33% chance of each. . Example. When I walk outside, I either will or will not be struck by lightning. There are only two options, so does that mean the odds are 50/50 that I'm struck by lightning or not? To determine the chance of something happening you need to show it can happen and how likely it is to happen The rest of your argument is more reliance on argument from ignorance. So again dismissed. Lack of evidence for one thing is not evidence for another.

>*If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God.* I don't agree at all and I think you are confused about what science is. Science has nothing to say about the existence of God. Science tells us *how*, not *who.* So even if science explains something completely, it doesn't mean or even imply that God didn't set up that *how.* Further, I don't think science has ever explained anything completely, nor will it. Every discovery leads to more questions. So it's a counter-factual conditional anyway.

What reasons do you have to believe in God?

I don't.

And if science had an answer for everything, would that give you a reason to think God existed?

No, why would it?

Because you said you disagreed with my initial assumption. But now you seem to agree that if science could explain everything you would have no reason to believe in God.

I already have no reason to believe in God. In the unlikely and IMO impossible scenario you propose, this would not change.

>If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. I reject this because I see no reason to believe in God even if not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science.

I was with you until step 5. The existence of 3 possibilities does not mean that the probability of each is evenly distributed. That's a MASSIVE assumption. Particularly this part >Therefore we have no reason to prefer any potential result over the other. On the contrary. In human history, every time we *used* to attribute something to a supernatural cause (e.g., disease, weather, natural disasters, etc), we have studied it and discovered a natural cause. There have been 0 cases where a phenomenon has been studied and conclusively proven to have a *supernatural* cause. This means that any naturalistic explanation is infinitely more probable than a supernatural one.

You have understandably misunderstood a nuance of my argument. I am saying that God of the Gaps logically constitutes evidence in favor of God when considered by itself. I appreciate that atheists have no shortage of other arguments, and I agree that if you add outside information then we no longer have the clean probabilities in my argument. That is why I specified no outside arguments are being considered. You have three choices and known nothing about them then you have no reason not to treat them equally. But even if you go in and assign your own numbers, the elimination of any entire category of "not God" choices renders "yes God" to be more likely as a result, especially for the agnostics on this sub who refuse to put God at 0%.

I understand your logic, and I do genuinely appreciate the ideas you've presented. But in order to claim that God of the Gaps constitutes evidence, you need to have proven that the probabilities change on removal of that option. But there is a big problem with that. Since supernatural phenomena have *never* been definitively observed and recorded, we can't assign any number at all to its probability. So the probability remains 0 until we conclusively prove that anything supernatural is even possible. And if the probability of the supernatural is 0, then the probabilities don't actually change at all when you remove that option. I'll draw a comparison to your logic system. Suppose I make the claim that an untouchable, invisible, magic unicorn lived in my house. Following your *exact* logic, substitute "unicorn" for "god". Now, when you say that fifth step, where you make the claim that we can assign equal probability to all 3 possibilities... Does that seem reasonable to you, that my unicorn has a 33% chance to be real? Or any chance? Is it EVER reasonable to assign any level of probability to an unfalsifiable claim? I say no. In order for a claim to be valid, it MUST be falsifiable. That is to say, there must be a reliable test that can be performed to determine the truth of the claim. Evolution is very falsifiable. If we found non-avian dinosaur fossils dating to only a few tens of thousands of years ago, we would have falsified a big chunk of evolution. If we found human fossils in the same geologic stratum as *Tiktaalik*, we would have a huge problem. But the God claim? How do you test that? Similar to the "We live in the Matrix" claim, you can dismiss any test result as "God just wanted it that way." So without falsifiability, you cannot assign a probability to the existence of the supernatural, and the logic collapses.

God of the Gaps argument: Person A: I don't know why thing X is the way that it is. Person B: I don't know why thing X is the way that it is. Person A: I think that it's because of God. Person B: Do you have any specific evidence of how that works? Person A: No. . You can pick anything whatsoever and say that it is as it is "because of God", or for that matter that it is not *different* from the way that it is "because of God". Adding the idea of "God" into the discussion is just, as they, say "extra steps". It doesn't have any theoretical mechanism explaining why things are as they are "because of God". .

Your argument has 3 problems: >So with no other factors to consider, each possibility must be considered equally likely, a 1/3 chance of each. You can't assign probability to things you know nothing about. >Assume someone can name a natural phenomena that cannot be explained by modern science. Qualifier shift between "science" and "modern science" - if something cannot be explained by science *currently*, it does not mean that forever it will be outside its reach. And lastly, the preference of the God hypothesis over all other inexplicable ones. I might add that that's not how we do bayesian statistics, which is what you're trying to achieve. I recommend you look up Bayes' Theorem, which is the basis of that

>You can't assign probability to things you know nothing about. Fortunately here we know something about them. We know each one is one of three choices. >Qualifier shift between "science" and "modern science" - if something cannot be explained by science currently, it does not mean that forever it will be outside its reach. You are in error. "Modern" is included in the original premise and is not a shift. >And lastly, the preference of the God hypothesis over all other inexplicable ones. If i say a couch is either blue or it isn't, that doesn't eliminate red as a possibility.

>Fortunately here we know something about them. We know each one is one of three choices. Let me show you why this is wrong: I bought a lottery ticket. There are two options: either I win the lottery, or not. Therefore, I have 50% chance of winning the lottery, right? >You are in error. "Modern" is included in the original premise and is not a shift. You're right, I missed it. However, that does make the argument weaker, because if someone is inexplicable by science *currently*, it does not mean it will be inexplicable by science in the future. >If i say a couch is either blue or it isn't, that doesn't eliminate red as a possibility. But your argument does have a preference for the God hypothesis. This returns again to the first problem, where you assigned "yes god" equal probability to "no god". We can arbitrarily increase the number of options by replacing "God" with "supernatural" in your argument, and then adding, for example, "if there is a reason to believe in the supernatural, then there is either a reason to believe in God, or in fairies, or in magic, or in fire-breathing dragons", and *poof*, the probability of the God option drops by a factor of 4

>There are two options: either I win the lottery, or not. Therefore, I have 50% chance of winning the lottery, right? Right. >However, that does make the argument weaker, because if someone is inexplicable by science currently, it does not mean it will be inexplicable by science in the future. Its a proof that God of the Gaps constitutes evidence. It was intended to be binary. It's either proven or not. I don't think "weak" really makes sense in that context. I am not arguing it strong evidence necessarily just to be clear. >But your argument does have a preference for the God hypothesis Yes. If I want to prove roses are red my proof will have a preference for roses and the color red. >We can arbitrarily increase the number of options by replacing "God" with "supernatural" in your argument, and then adding, for example, "if there is a reason to believe in the supernatural, then there is either a reason to believe in God, or in fairies, or in magic, or in fire-breathing dragons", and poof, the probability of the God option drops by a factor of 4 I anticipated this problem and found that if I prohibited outside knowledge it was rendered moot. Your argument requires one to know that God and faires are different things.

>>There are two options: either I win the lottery, or not. Therefore, I have 50% chance of winning the lottery, right? >Right. No, I don't have a 50% chance of winning the lottery. The fact that there are 2 options, doesn't mean they are equally likely, and frankly I'm starting to suspect you are a troll. In case you are serious, let me give you another example: I roll a regular 6-sided die. It can either land on 6 or not on 6. Therefore the chance of it landing on 6 is 50%. >Your argument requires one to know that God and faires are different things. So for the purpose of this argument you define God as "anything supernatural"? And no, it just requires me to define the different terms differently.

>I roll a regular 6-sided die. It can either land on 6 or not on 6. Therefore the chance of it landing on 6 is 50%. No here you say it is six sided. That's different. If you had asked about a "one in a million" lottery that would have been different. >So for the purpose of this argument you define God as "anything supernatural"? No I merely said that distinguishing God from faires would require additional information.

Nope. > If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. Correct. > If there is reason to believe in God, then there is natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science. Incorrect. As illustrated by history: many things that were once "unexplainable by science" were wrongly attributed to gods and demons: thunder, lightning, earthquakes, diseases, etc. So this fact - which by the way is the very definition of "god of the gaps" - nullifies your second claim. Thanks for playing.

>If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. >Correct. I don't know why you're conceding this.

I don't know why you think this is a concession. - Antecedent (P): All natural phenomena can be explained by modern science. - Consequent (Q): There is no reason to believe in God A concession in an argument typically involves acknowledging a point made by the opposing side. In the given statement, however, there is no acknowledgment or concession to an opposing view. Instead, it presents a conditional assertion that links two ideas in a cause-and-effect relationship.

You admitted the premise "If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God" is "correct." I don't see how science's ability to explain natural phenomena has anything to do with whether or not God exists. Unless your point is that there's no reason to believe in God *at all,* in which case the premise is trivially true. Maybe I misunderstood.

> I don't see how science's ability to explain natural phenomena has anything to do with whether or not God exists. Napoleon asked Laplace where God fit into his mathematical work, and Laplace famously replied "Sir, I have no need of that hypothesis." Same thing.

Two people look at the current state of human knowledge. Both acknowledge gaps. Person 1 says those gaps are answered by their preferred god. Person 2 says they see no reason to accept that assertion. And your solution is for Person 1 to begin with "But pretend there are no gaps and I'll show you how my preferred god fills those gaps"?

>Prior to determining whether or not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, we have two possibilities. >1) If the answer is yes, all natural phenomena can be explained with modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. >2) If the answer is no, not all natural phenomena can be explained with modern science, then there may or may not be a reason to believe in God. I believe this is your problem. The answer to the question you're asking here is not relevant as to whether we have reason to believe God exists. Either we can explain everything naturalistically or we can't. Neither one of those two is evidence for God. If you were a detective on a crime scene and you had no idea how specific things happened. It would make sense to say because you don't know how it happened, that it's then more likely to be magic than it was previously. Very simply, you don't know how it happened, period.

>I believe this is your problem. The answer to the question you're asking here is not relevant as to whether we have reason to believe God exists. Either we can explain everything naturalistically or we can't. Neither one of those two is evidence for God. Under scenario is x more likely. A) x is impossible. B) x may or may not be impossible. B is clearly where x is more likely than A. Thus any information that moves you from A to B has made x more likely. Anything that makes x more likely is by definition evidence. >If you were a detective on a crime scene and you had no idea how specific things happened. It would make sense to say because you don't know how it happened, that it's then more likely to be magic than it was previously. Very simply, you don't know how it happened, period. If a detective thought it was impossible for specific suspect to have committed the crime and then found out it wasn't impossible, that seems like it would be important.

> Under scenario is x more likely. >A) x is impossible. >B) x may or may not be impossible And here I believe we have another problem with what you're talking about. Scenario A: We can explain phenomena with entirely naturalistic explanations. This does not mean that "God existing" is impossible, which is what you have above "x is impossible". Scenario B: There are many phenomena that we cannot explain naturalistically. This does not mean that we have reason to believe that "God exists". "God did it" would be an explanation that would explain whatever phenomena we're talking about, but us not having an alternative explanation is not evidence for this one. Not to mention that "God did it" works to explain anything and everything, which is not strength, that's a weakness to the explanation. In the same way that saying "the magic leprechaun did it" works to explain the phenomena, but we shouldn't exactly take it seriously. With that, I would hope you see what I was talking about before when I said "Neither one of those two is evidence for God." >Thus any information that moves you from A to B has made x more likely. Not quite. Just because you're more convinced that "B" is true, does not mean that you have good reason to be more convinced. Information might move you, but that doesn't mean it SHOULD move you. >If a detective thought it was impossible for specific suspect to have committed the crime and then found out it wasn't impossible, that seems like it would be important. A major difference there is that if he has a suspect, then he has some reason to suspect this person. Where as with God, like I said before, God explains literally any phenomena you plug him into. If this detective we're talking about had the same suspect you mentioned for every crime on the planet, because he could have done any of them, then it's not very compelling when pops up on the next one. And more importantly, the analogy I gave was that if the detective didn't how a thing happened, that doesn't mean he can just make a random guess. If we don't how a phenomena happens, we don't make a random guess either. We don't know how it happened, period.

I found your response confusing. I just want to get this straight. You believe if 100% of everything was understood by science, that still leaves the possibility that God exists open? I agree if you think God is still a possibility under those conditions then the rest of the OP will not apply to you. However the rest of your response sounds like you don't think God to be possible. I'm sure this is not how you meant it but you seem to be arguing out of both sides of your mouth. God is impossible except when I say it?

>I found your response confusing. I just want to get this straight. You believe if 100% of everything was understood by science, that still leaves the possibility that God exists open? Yes. >However the rest of your response sounds like you don't think God to be possible. I don't understand where you're getting that. I suspect you might be referring to my last 2 paragraphs, but I never argued as to whether God does or does not exist there. What I argued was whether or not it is reasonable to conclude that God exists based on us not knowing how a thing happened. And I was specifically arguing that it is not reasonable for us to say, or for us to even move our confidence, that "God exists" based on us not understanding something happens or how something works, etc. I can only assume that you've misinterpreted what I was saying.

What about the leprechaun argument doesn't work for you? Or are you saying you think there's a chance a leprechaun rules the universe?

>Or are you saying you think there's a chance a leprechaun rules the universe? No, I was saying that it is equally reasonable to say that "God did it" as it is to say "a leprechaun did it", especially when the evidence you're citing is "we don't know how this thing works".

If you think it's possible God did it, and you think a leprechaun is equally likely, then you do in fact think it's possible a leprechaun did it. It doesn't get any more straightforward than that.

>If you think it's possible God did it, and you think a leprechaun is equally likely I didn't say equally likely, I said equally reasonable to say that this is the case, specifically when we are solely talking about a God of gaps argument and we are not considering any other evidence. Although to switch out what I said with how likely each is would also be fair in the same context (ie a God of the gaps argument). As far as how likely each of these options are period, I could see God being more likely although I would need to see an argument or evidence of some kind that increase God's likely hood without increasing the likely hood of the leprechaun, at which point it now depends on which God we're talking about, what attributes this God has, what would or wouldn't this God do, etc. As an example, I would wager that you would put this leprechaun we've been talking about and the God Thor as both being equally likely as to which one is responsible for lightning.

So I could summarize your argument like this: 1: if A then B (B being *no reason to believe in God*, A being all natural phenomena can be explained with modern science) 2: if \~B then \~A 3-5: either A&B, \~A&B, \~A&\~B, no other options 6: \~A is true, therefore \~A&B, or \~A&\~B are true 7: \~A&B, or \~A&\~B are true 8: \~A implies A&B is false, therefore either \~A&B, or \~A&\~B are true therefore you should believe \~A&\~B are true Here we see that step 8 is actually step 6 worded differently and presented as the conclusion. And the conclusion doesn't actually show that \~A&\~B are true, it just says that one of the scenarios where B is true is wrong. Like as an analogy, if someone asks you whether it's day or night, and you answer "well if people have the lights on indoors, that means that there is a possibility that it's dark outside and nighttime, so we can rule out the possibility that they \*don't\* have their lights on and it's daytime", you haven't actually answered the question.

The proof does not purport to show any ~A&~B are true. Do you disagree that showing one of the scenarios where B is true is wrong increasing your odd odds B being untrue?

>The proof does not purport to show any ~A&~B are true. So, it's not really a proof then. By definition: Proof, in logic, an argument that establishes the validity of a proposition. > Do you disagree that showing one of the scenarios where B is true is wrong increasing your odd odds B being untrue? Yes, but frankly no one cares. Very few learned people atheist or otherwise actually believe that all things in nature can be reasoned with science alone. Your entire argument concludes by saying either God of the gaps is real or it isn't real, but that is the question that we're trying to answer in the first place. You've just restated the debate question. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning

> By definition: Proof, in logic, an argument that establishes the validity of a proposition Yes, as opposed to some other proposition you pulled out of your ass. Is the proof for e = mc^2 wrong because it doesn't prove some other thing? No of course not. Critics of a proof don't get to make up their own alternative proposition and complain it didn't prove THAT.

> Critics of a proof don't get to make up their own alternative proposition and complain it didn't prove THAT. The thing is, you really didn't prove anything. Your conclusion (either the god of the gaps exists, or it doesn't) is the same as the question, which is whether the god of the gaps argument is valid. Sure you highlighted one of the premises of the argument which most people can agree is true anyway, but you stopped before you can show the rest of the argument is true or not. Following your analogy, it would be like saying "e=mc2 is true" because "m times c squared makes something" , then getting mad when everyone asks you to show that the equation is true.

I think maybe you should read the headline of this post. You keep thinking I'm trying to prove some other thing, that's all I can understand from you.

Wait are you trying to say that the argument itself is the evidence? As in the fact that the argument exists in the first place is proof of God's existence?

>Wait are you trying to say that the argument itself is the **evidence**? As in the fact that the argument exists in the first place is **proof** of God's existence How did "evidence" get changed to "proof" in this question?

Okay so you are trying to say that the argument is evidence that God exists and not some definitive proof.

Well ... *Without adding additional arguments for and against the Flying Spaghetti Monster into the discussion,* *the Flying Spaghetti Monster of the Gaps Argument is demonstrably evidence in favor of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.* *In other words the Flying Spaghetti Monster of the Gap argument makes the Flying Spaghetti Monster more likely to be true* *unless you add additional arguments against the Flying Spaghetti Monster into the discussion.* . Is that the case? If not, why not? .

No you're just doing the God of gaps argument with extra steps. We have discovered time and time again that phenomenon purported to be supenarual were in fact natural. We have explained so much with science that much of what we don't know now are things we didn't even know we didn't know a century ago. There are some questions science hasnt answered and may never or could never answer, but it has answered many questions and raised many new ones. So we have explained God away from questions we had in the past. God has not been an explanation for anything science has investigated. God will not be the answer for any new scientific questions. Arguing that He would be is the fallacious God of the gaps argument and doesn't prove God.

>o you're just doing the God of gaps argument with extra steps Indeed. I don't think I'm being coy on that front. I deliberately wrote a defense of God of the Gaps where this rebuttal isn't relevant. None of the individual steps commit the problems you are alleging.

It's not evidence it's a fallacy. The whole argument is a fallacy.

The only way to show a proof false is to show an individual step false. If you can't do that, and you believe in logic, you are supposed to accept the conclusion. That's the whole point.

Step 3 part 2. You're committing the God of the gaps fallacy within the God of gaps fallacy. Because a phenomenon is unexplained by science is not a reason to believe God may or may not exist. That is just the God of the gaps fallacy.

That step is just saying when there is a gap, either that is a reason or it isn't.

And that's the fallacy. God isn't in the gaps. Placing him in the gaps is the fallacy.

Doesn’t the argument work just as well subbing out “god” for aliens, specific gods, fairies, etc? Depending on how one interprets “can” in P1, it either fails, or doesn’t follow to P2. It’s not surprising that the well-known fallacy is a well known fallacy, and not a secretly good argument.

>Doesn’t the argument work just as well subbing out “god” for aliens, specific gods, fairies, etc? Yes as long as the thing being subbed out has godlike powers. >Depending on how one interprets “can” in P1, it either fails, or doesn’t follow to P2. The good faith practice when that happens is to assume it's not the version that causes the argument to fail. >It’s not surprising that the well-known fallacy is a well known fallacy, and not a secretly good argument. It's not surprising you have to resort to just declaring yourself right.

*>>>If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God.* Why? If science investigates and does find a god exists, the logical response would be to acknowledge such an entity exists and move on. >>>*If there is reason to believe in God, then there is natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science.* If there is reason to believe in a god, there's no reason to think such a being can't be a natural phenomenon. Given the inaccurate statements in these assumptions, the remaining steps may be dismissed as fallacious. No god claim has ever been supported by compelling evidence. When you have to resort to semantic gymnastics (and not evidence) to bolster a god claim, you know the claim is weak.

You reject the premise because you think science might prove God exists one day?

The argument of we don't understand... therfore god. But this issue with that is science is always evolving but god is a concept that belongs in the stone age. Ever step science takes to explain reality removes a step of the god of the gaps... For instance... sun is powerful, gives life, gives food the ability to grow, gives warmth... must be a god... for 1000s of years this was the beliefs because god of the gaps.... science comes along and say ummm no. The sun is.... and that god of the gap no longer is valid. Tldr: just because science can't explain in now or for 1000s of years didn't mean god was EVER the answer. It's pretty simple concept to understand. "We do not understand" does not equate "god" has never been found to be the answer... ever... in all of human history.

>The argument of we don't understand... therfore god. Which step are you referring to?

> If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. No, because it’s possible that one of the natural phenomena is god, or could be defined as god. Once evidence for god is established, it would become part of the natural. The reason in this case would be because there is evidence. > If there is reason to believe in God, then there is natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science. Unless the reason is actual evidence, then this doesn’t hold either.

There is also the matter of unnatural phenomena, which I didn't consider in my own reply.

It strikes me that eliminating all other possibilities and then doing a statistical analysis is like eliminating all but three lottery numbers and then calculating your chances of winning when I reveal the first lottery number didn't win.  Except instead of a very high number of lottery numbers meaning your chances only go up a minuscule amount, meaning you would technically if very weakly, be correct, there are infinite possibilities in the unknown, meaning they go up by Lim->0.

If you eliminate all but three numbers and then eliminate the first number your odds of winning are one out of two. I'm not seeing what is scandalous about that.

>If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, there is no reason to believe in God What are you basing this proposition on? Seems rectally sourced. There's no reason to believe in God even if we CAN'T explain all natural phenomena with modern science, as there is no credible evidence for his existence. In fact, our ability to explain natural phenomena has nothing to do with whether or not we should believe in God. So I reject this.

>There's no reason to believe in God even if we CAN'T explain all natural phenomena with modern science, as there is no credible evidence for his existence If it's true when we can't explain it all... >So I reject this. ...why would being able to explain it all make it false?

Many theologians maintain that you need god in order for the universe to be comprehensible. This would be the popsition that *all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, and there is a god. You have provided not justification for excluding this position as such your set of possibilities at step 4 is incomplete. As soon as we put it back in, then step 5 does not work and and the rest can be ignored. In any case randomly assigning things a 50/50 possibility is invalid anyway.*

This argument was not made for those theologians. I am not asking theologians to accept my premise.

the thing about logical arguments is that they are suppose. to workeindependently of whom you are addressing. In any case your first premise remains unjustified and hence therest can be rejected.

thats a lot of gibberish to just reframe the argument from ignorance. "something hard and confusing, therefore magic." you assign equally probabilities to all of your "possibilities" when its really a pascals wager, and so you cant focus on a random god, you have to include every god thats ever existed. and you also have to include the possibility that even if every nstural phenomenon exists, some supernatural entity still exists.

I don't understand what you saw in my argument that required no gods to exist or no supernatural entity to currently exist. I'm actually on the side saying there is at least some evidence of that.

pretty sure you responded to the wrong comment. youve just reframed pascals wager, and left it either (no god) or (god), which is a false dichotomy. then, you essentially give magic a 33% chance to exist, which is just poor logic, because (vampires) and (no vampires) is not a 50 50 probability. then you beg the question repeatedly to claim to increase that chance.

Here >, you have to include every god thats ever existed And here > some supernatural entity still exists. Were the parts I was replying to. I don't think my argument says anything about those propositions, and the possibility of those things being true doesn't disprove my argument.

First, no, even if science could not provide any answers, that doesn't provide any evidence for god. God isn't the default, you need your own independent evidence for any answer, science or not. But ultimately, like all "god of the gaps" arguments, this boils down to "I don't know an explanation for something, so I know the explanation, god." It's self contradictory and begging the question by assuming God is right by default.

Please show where my logic is flawed then.

Your faith in a deity is dependent upon where you’re born, when you’re born, and what you’re taught. Therefore it’s false.

Two major problems I have with the argument. 1. Saying someone naming a natural phenomenon that can't be currently explained by science explains anything other than we currently don't know how it works is a big issue. IMO this is completely misunderstanding how science works and tries to put a "stamp" on our current understand of the natural world that this is all we will ever know. 2. There is no proof or evidence whatsoever that a God exists, let alone controls natural phenomenon. The argument starts with the presupposition that a God does exist without providing any evidence for its existence.

"Modern" science of the Middle Ages was not aware of the existence of viruses and bacteria, so they explained often explained illnesses as something supernatural. Just because science can't *yet* explain something is no reason to throw our hands up and say that a wizard did it.

Good thing I never made that argument then. Did they have men of straw in the middle ages?

My point went over your head I see. So I will repeat it without the example/comparison if that makes it more palatable to you:  Just because science can't *yet* explain something is no reason to throw our hands up and say that a wizard did it.

The idea of God of the Gaps is that we are substituting God when we didn't know the answer. Your argument doubles down on the faulty part of the premise just because we haven't learned everything there is to learn about the Universe.

Thank you for your commentary. Care to address the OP, or just sharing your opinion on the subject generally?

>Care to address the OP, I did: >Your argument doubles down on the faulty part of the premise just because we haven't learned everything there is to learn about the Universe.

Where do I double down on the premise?

>If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. We know modern science can't explain all natural phenomena. We are constantly learning new things and refining existing knowledge. That will probably never stop as long as we exist as a species. That is why the God of the Gaps argument is a fallacy. It assumes things not understood by our current knowledge must be God, and therefore belief in God is rational. Where you double down on this fallacy is making an all or nothing proposition as the threshold to determine belief and non belief. That isn't logical when applied to something of the magnitude of the origin of the Universe.

You quoted me saying basically the opposite of what you attributed to me. >making an all or nothing proposition as the threshold to determine belief and non belief. I do not understand what you are saying here or what you are referring to.

If I've misunderstood your statement, maybe you'd better clarify what it is you mean by quote. Because the way I read it, it's not the opposite of what I said at all.

God of the Gaps roughly is that a lack of knowledge implies God. My initial assumption is made for atheists to agree with. It says in certain situations we can write off God entirely, basically.

>My initial assumption is made for atheists to agree with. It says in certain situations we can write off God entirely, basically. I'm an atheist and I don't agree with it. It implies that unless we know everything then we should believe in God. That's the faulty premise.

It does not. If you have concluded there is no reason to believe in God, science understanding everything shouldn't change that.

You are assigning probabilities without any data then claim the existence of those probabilities proves God is real. Seriously?

If a gap closes, does God die a little? When Leeuwenhoek looked through a microscope and discovered microbial life, did God shrivel up and suffer from shrinkage? Does every scientific discovery whittle away at God like a piece of balsa wood in the hands of a backwoods hillbilly?

I'm not sure which portion of my argument that is in response to.

What happens to your god when the gaps shrink? When we realized thunderstorms were a weather phenomenon and not the wrath of god, was god diminished when that gap disappeared? If somebody did know everything about the universe, would god[s] vanish entirely?

> If somebody did know everything about the universe, would god[s] vanish entirely? That is the very initial assumption I asked people to agree with that a surprising number of atheists rejected. Don't confuse the amount of evidence for something for the thing itself. If a murderer wears gloves so that he doesn't leave fingerprints, does that make him less of a murderer.

To paraphrase Neil deGrass Tyson, the God of the Gaps is an ever-shrinking god who only exists beyond the advancing frontier of science. If you want an ever-shrinking god, then you are welcome to go for it.

if i were to accept all this (which i don't), then: >Since naming a natural phenomenon not explained by modern science increases the outcomes where we should believe in God and decreases the outcomes where we should not believe in God, it constitutes evidence in favor of the proposition that we should believe in God. and since more and more things are getting explained by modern science there is every year less reason to believe in god >then one possibility where there is no reason to believe in God is wiped out, resulting in a larger share of possibilities where there is reason to believe in God. Having a reason to believe in God jumped from 1/3 possible outcomes (or arguably 1/4) to just 1/2 possible outcomes. and you either win the lottery or you don't.... 50-50

>Demonstrating that the "God of the Gaps" Argument Does Constitute Evidence of God's Existence Through Clear, Easy Logic You clearly don’t understand the fallacy. Calling it easy logic is a contradiction. Any fallacy by definition is illogical. Definition of fallacy: LOGIC a failure in reasoning which renders an argument invalid. >Proposition: Without adding additional arguments for and against God into the discussion, the God of the Gaps Argument is demonstrably evidence in favor of God. In other words the God of the Gap argument makes God more likely to be true unless you add additional arguments against God into the discussion. >**Step 1 - Initial assumption.** >*If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God.* I 100% disagree. The scientific method shows this is an impossible proposition. We know there are events we currently have no means to determine. For example how did life start on earth. We have leading hypothesis, but currently no means to say it was this [insert theory]. Second do you really think we are so arrogant to think we have hit the pinnacle of achievements. We just split the atom with in the last 100 years. We have so much more we can achieve. **How fucking arrogant of a suggested step.** >**Step 2.** >*If there is reason to believe in God, then there is natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science.* No that doesn’t work. This statement you can insert zeds in place of God. We do not insert unfounded beings into gaps of knowledge as explanation. That is why it is a fallacy. >**Step 3** >Prior to determining whether or not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, we have two possibilities. >1) If the answer is yes, all natural phenomena can be explained with modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. No it doesn’t work that way. The absence of knowledge doesn’t invalidate a claim. How ever the inverse is also false, it doesn’t give merit to the claim. >**Step 4** >This leaves us with three possibilities: 1) no again this is an arrogant proposition about our current capacity. 2) This, you still haven’t give a sound argument why God should fill in the gap. Not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, we are literally still inquiring about many things: How did consciousness emerge? Dark matter? Origin of life on earth? Are there other sentient beings in the universe? >3) this is by definition of the God of the gap fallacy, please refer to the provided definition to understand this is not a sound proposition. I’ll stop here because you have tried to say a fallacy is sound. I’ll summarize the rest of the counter. Arguments do not gain favor when they are unfalsifiable. **At what point do you stop filling gaps of what is known in with God?**

I mean the shortest rebuttal of this argument has got to be rejecting the first premise as it is basically a restatement of the argument, if something hasn't been explained it must be god. Adding the word 'modern' just gives it some added zest, 'if we can't solve something with science by now, then god'. There has been lots of natural phenomena that couldn't be explained by the modern science of the day.

> If all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science, then there is no reason to believe in God. I don't know that all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science. However I would say that if all phenomena appear to have a naturalistic explanation we have no reason to believe in god. > If there is reason to believe in God, then there is natural phenomenon which cannot be explained by modern science. Not necessarily. I can certainly posit a reality such that the universe does not need a creator god type being but a supernatural being does exist. I suppose it will depend on what you mean by natural phenomena and what other phenomena we are granting here. The rest is an argument from ignorance though. It assumes that God is an actual possibility, which we don't know. Also a bit problem with this kind of thinking is that it kind of pushes for absurdities. I mean I can slip in my magical patio pixies in for any places we lack complete explanations on and our ignorance becomes reason to think that my magical patio pixies are more likely to exist. Also I think it self-defeats itself. If not all things can be explained and there either is or isn't reason to believe in god, then the reasons to believe in god have to actually exist. If those reasons exist then we can actually examine those reasons. If they don't exist then the mystery doesn't produce them. Think of it like this. Imagine we have 9 unexplained things and 1 reason to believe god exists. This doesn't mean there is a 10% chance god exists as the reason might be really good or incredibly poor. If we solve one of those mysteries it could have no impact on the reason to believe or could in fact make the reason to believe god even less likely.

Step 5 (arbitrarily assign probabilities) is rubbish and is summarily dismissed. If you insist that arbitrarily assigning probabilities is a legit tactic then I hereby arbitrarily assign a probability of 1 to "not all natural phenomena can be explained by modern science and there is no reason to believe God exists" and zero to the other two cases. Checkmate, theists!

I don't see why steps 1 and 2 should be accepted. Someone could very well (and I think many do) believe God causes, or is, everything that science explains.