Must God Prove He Exists?

Consult any literary journal. When talking about fictional characters, the writers in these journals will refer to them as if they hypothetically exist: Huck Finn did this, Captain Ahab did that, etc. You assuredly did the same in your own lit classes.

 

Please provide copies of all of the paperwork I might have submitted in my "lit classes" that will substantiate your assertion of what I did in those classes.

 

That isn’t the only definition of the word. The 5th definition on that site covers the one I gave. That is the context talking about here.

”Harry Potter is a wizard” is grammatically equivalent to “God is a murderer”. If you’re unwilling to accept the possibility that the latter is referring to a fictional character (in the opinion of the speaker), how can you not apply the same principle to the former?

The lead character in the series of books and films of the same name. Is saying “Harry Potter is a wizard” automatically asserting the existence of Harry Potter as a real person?

 

If you passed your lit class, you assuredly did the same. This is common in all literary criticism, so much so that it looks completely absurd to write any other way. If you would like to have us believe that you wrote all of your papers along the lines of, "Huck Finn is not a real person but a character books by Mark Twain and Twain described Huck as doing X, Y, Z" instead of "In Twain's Tom Sawyer, Top and Huck Finn fake their deaths," that's absurd. Regardless, even if you did write all of your papers that way and somehow managed to pass your classes, that's not how people generally write about literature. You can consult any literary journal or read any book review, as I've suggested. You may very well be one of a dozen or so people in existence who never writes about fictional characters as if they exist, but it is nevertheless commonplace. It in no way suggests that one believes in the literal existence of these characters.

 

All of these 'after the fact' clarifications of your intended writing are irrelevant to the fact that your original posting was not so clarified and was left to the reader to interpret your original writing as a declaration. Speaking only for myself, I am not a mind-reader and can rely only on what you print and then make my interpretations upon what you have written. Your original writing was a declaration of fact.

 

Yes. So is the statement “God is a murderer” (in the opinion of the speaker). They are grammatically equivalent regardless of interpretation.

You said; “an Atheist should say "God is a murderer" they are indeed admiting the existence of God is whatever adjective they desire to use”

If that is true, why wouldn’t the same be true of the statement “Harry Potter is a wizard”?

 

You are finally catching on... they are the equivalent in usage. You could have said "Harry Potter is a fictional character." and there would have been no further discussion because you would have been stating a fact. BTW: In your quote above, you have actually misquoted what I previously stated. What I actually said was: "If an Atheist should say "God is a murderer" they are indeed admiting the existence of God is whatever adjective they desire to use..." Leaving off the introductory word "if" changes the entire meaning of the comment. If you are going to quote me, quote me correctly.

 

It doesn’t matter whether the statement is factual. God may or may not be a murderer, the meaning and implications of the statement “God is a murderer” are the same.

It still doesn’t automatically assert that God really exists; it could be a reference to a real God or it could be a reference to a fictional God. You can’t legitimately conclude either way on the basis of the statement alone, you’d need to know the context it’s been said in.

 

Gramatically it does assert that God really exists. https://www.google.com/search?clien...0i10i3j0i13j0i13i30j0i22i30j33i10.fGCoL3W05aI "A declarative sentence states a fact. This word can be used to describe any action or speech that makes a statement. "I love the Red Sox!" is a declarative sentence — you're claiming or asserting something. Declarative sentences are the opposite of questions."

 

While someone could be forgiven for making such a mistake, this once again ignores how most of the population talks and writes about fictional characters. Again, consult any book review or a literary journal. This is a common feature of our language.

Captain Ahab died for his hubris.
Iago deceived Othello.
Thanos snapped his fingers.

People say these things all of the time and take for granted that most people are capable of realizing that they are talking about the fictional actions of fictional characters. No one seriously believes that, by making these statements, I'm seriously positing that Ahab, Iago, and Thanos are beings that literally exist in reality.

 

Where is your substantiating proof of assertion regarding the underlined portion above?

 

No, it asserts that God is a murderer. That is the declaration of the statement. It could be refereeing to a literal, fictional or hypothetical God depending on the wider context.

 

Are you seriously disagreeing with those statements? Which do you believe are incorrect -- are you really arguing that most people aren't capable of understanding basic literary discussion? Maybe you are right, but that hasn't been my experience, and the fact that this is book and film reviews are consistently written, without huge swaths of the public swarming in the streets in a panic because they thought that a film review about the Avengers meant that Thanos is real, is a pretty good indication.

 

Until such time as you provide substantiating proof, YES! I am not arguing,,, just demanding that you provide substantiating proof of assertion. Another indication of attempts to undermine the credibility of someone else is the fact of posting unsubstantiating assertions and then questioning the credibility of someone who challenges the assertion.

 

Because "murder" is an act that occurs in the physical world, it would require that God be in the physical world in order for the assertion to be true. There is no wider context with the bare statement "God is a murderer". Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda, are irrelevant.

 

As far as proof goes, I've suggested multiple times you consult any book review or literary journal. Here are some examples.

"Ahab manipulates his crew into squandering both his investors’ funds and their own lives to satisfy his immoral agenda — piloting his ship toward a doomed conflict with a murderous, uncontrollable, unstoppable monster variously interpreted as nature, God, fate and, on a level particular to the history of the United States, slavery."

"Winston is a lower member of the party and works in the Ministry of Truth. He changes historical information to portray the government and Big Brother (the head leader) in a better light. Winston worries about the state, and he keeps a secret diary of his anti-government thoughts."

"When the half-breed has murdered the young doctor, Tom and his friend, Huckleberry Finn, are really in their boyish terror and superstition, going to let the poor old town-drunkard be hanged for the crime, till the terror of that becomes unendurable."

Would you like more? You can't claim to have a problem with "unsubstantiated assertions" while asserting that these authors were trying to assert that Ahab, Winston, Tom, and Huck are real people. At that point you wouldn't even be debating anymore, just trolling.

 

And I have repeatedly told you in the past that Proof = "evidence or argument that compels the mind to accept an assertion as true or real". Seemingly you are now admitting that you cannot provide such Proof that will accomplish that definitively desired objective.

 

I provided examples in my last post, all of which you ignored. If you are dead-set on believing that these authors honestly believe in the literal existence of Ahab, Winston, Huck, and Tom, then this isn't about evidence; this is about believing whatever is necessary for your position and ignoring all actual evidence.

All you need to do is try reading a book review or a literary journal some time. I linked to a few for you and I can link to more if you'd like to start relying on evidence.

 

if God appeared before me, I'd accept his existence.

instead all we have is 3,000 year old silly writings, with no documents backing them up.

 

says who?

the same folks who claim Jesus was a God.

if soo many people saw Jesus and his miracles, how come only 4 people wrote about them?

 

No! You are the one who mentioned Ahab, Winston, Huck, and Tom . Those were your examples of a proof and they do not fulfill the required elements of being either 'evidence or argument that compels the mind to accept an assertion as true or real.' What evidence? All you have provided is words that someone else wrote.... the equivalent of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul... Get the picture?

 

My argument was that this is a normal way that people write about fictional characters. I provided examples. My claim was about what other people write, so yes, the examples are from what other people have written. Where am I losing you?

 

That is akin to saying that all we have are the writings of various scientists saying that muons do exist. Have you ever seen a muon, or held one in your hand?

 

tens of thousands of people wrote about or photographed 9-11.

there photos, videos, and stories are all over the internet

thousands of people see Jesus walk on water and do other miracles, and yet there is only ONE document that discusses these supposed events???

call me skeptical.

 

The internationally accepted value of the proton's charge radius is based on a suitable average of results from older measurements of effects caused by the nonzero size of the proton on scattering of electrons by nuclei and the light spectrum (photon energies) from excited atomic hydrogen. The official value updated in 2014 is 0.8751±0.0061 fm (see orders of magnitude for comparison to other sizes).[17] The expected precision of this result is inferior to that from muonic hydrogen by about a factor of fifteen, yet they disagree by about 5.6 times the nominal uncertainty in the difference (a discrepancy called 5.6σ in scientific notation). A conference of the world experts on this topic led to the decision to exclude the muon result from influencing the official 2014 value, in order to avoid hiding the mysterious discrepancy.[18] This "proton radius puzzle" remained unresolved as of late 2015, and has attracted much attention, in part because of the possibility that both measurements are valid, which would imply the influence of some "new physics"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon#Use_in_measurement_of_the_proton_charge_radius