I feel like often people ask me “Oh yea? Name some examples.” and the burden is on me to prove something by providing representative examples. But often it’s so overwhelming how many examples there are for something that I feel obligated then to either list everything, or try extra hard to find good examples, and even then I feel like I could be misrepresenting the case by not providing enough examples. Basically I feel like I would have to give many, many examples, or none at all, otherwise anything in the middle could be non-representative of the true trend.
Ironically, now you will want me to give examples of situations that I’m talking about. But for this I will provide 2 examples and rest on good faith that you will believe me (given the context of this post) that this happens much more often than I care to provide examples for.
So one example is when you are attempting to prove to someone that a certain thing is scientifically proven or is agreed upon as scientific consensus. You can look to the generally agreed hierarchy of evidence and provide what it considers to be high-quality evidence, such as meta analyses and systematic reviews, but even then there can be disagreement between specific reports, and there can be outliers that disagree with the overall most common trends or findings. So the only way to really prove something is to provide many, many different instances of scientific evidence to the point where the other person would be unable to find the same level or amount of evidence to the contrary by virtue of the fact that it doesn’t exist to the same overwhelming degree, essentially proving the scientific fact. But again, this takes either an enormous amount of high quality evidence from various different sources, or nothing at all and simply an assertion that something is in fact scientifically proven or agreed upon as scientific consensus, because anything else in the middle could misrepresent the case and make it seem less substantiated than it actually is. It’s either “all or nothing”.
And now I’ll provide a specific anecdote about someone who argued that there are no decent stories with a female main protagonist. I am so sure and believe it to be so obvious that there is an extensive history of great female main protagonists and female-driven stories, in all forms of storytelling, that I found this an overwhelming task to attempt to prove when the person asked for specific examples. How can I make the case of the wealth of good stories with female main characters without providing an exhaustive (or highly numerous) list? Even if I pick a few great examples, the person can always make the objection that “Those are an exception, and they don’t represent the overall trend.” and I risk misrepresenting that trend if the examples chosen aren’t the best ones available, too. How can you possibly prove something like that without a very long and well-thought out and extensively researched list? Again, it seems like it’s either attempt such a daunting task, or don’t engage with the request for examples at all and just assert the claim that there are many examples, without specifying any to avoid the risk of taking on the burden of proving it and possibly misrepresenting the trend.
I hope this made any sense at all.
I was making sure so we’re on the same page. Let’s compare the Bible and the Qur’an, shall we?
The Bible: A compilation of poetry, stories, eyewitness accounts, songs, wisdom, letters and fulfilled prophecies written across several thousand years.
The Qur’an: A single book authored by an Arab warlord claiming to be receiving direct revelation from god, after being visited by an angel. Also claims that the Bible is a previous revelation sent, and this is the addition of it (Qur’an 5:47). Contradicts the entire message of the Bible which says that even if an angel appears in contradiction of it, they are cursed (Galatians 1:8)
They aren’t comparable.
You call their magic book bad, I call your magic book bad. I want proof. Not extended strawmanning. You asked what I need. I said proof. You are unable to provide proof past “my magic book says so”.
I’m not unable to provide proof. It depends what you’re specifically looking proof of and your standard of proof. For Jesus all we could possibly have for Him is historical records. But I know you’ll dismiss them as “not being proof”. What proof do you want?
I want proof that god exists. I stated this multiple time. Not “a cult leader in Judea called Jesus was executed”.
How could an infinite concept like the Mandelbrot set exist in a finite universe?
Simple, it doesn’t exist. Again, I ask you for proof. I’ll not be talking to you if you keep changing the subject. You wanted to know what would convince people, I gave you exactly what you asked for, and now you are moving goalposts. If you can’t provide concrete solid proof that god exists, of miracles, etc, then what are we even talking about here - you are asking people for faith and nothing more. Which is exactly what the topic of the conversation is - you can’t convince people with bullshit. You don’t have anything to back up your claims.
It’s not that I’m moving the goalposts, atheists moved the goalposts to impossibility. If the universe is finite and there’s nothing infinite beyond, infinite concepts cannot exist. Neither can objective morality. It’s like looking at a cake and asking for evidence that somebody baked it.
Ah yes, objective morality and the ‘maker argument’ which can be summed up to “if I go out in the woods, step on shit, look around, no animals that I can see, god must have shat himself”. That’s the thing - you can’t prove god exists. You filled in the gap with a mythology and think it’s the only explanation for life to exist. So you cannot bring proof. So you cannot convince an atheist that god exists because you yourself don’t even know that.
So basically your method is “Disregard all evidence of God as being something else”. Seems rational.
But how are mirrors real if your eyes don’t exist?
See. I can post nonsense too