EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FALLACY

 

The next common argument you might hear an atheist give for why God doesn’t exist is the “no evidence” argument. When asked, they’d simply tell you that there is no clear evidence that anything like a “God” is real. What they’re really meaning to say by this is that there is no objective empirical evidence that can be provided to prove God’s existence. And to a degree, this is technically true. There’s nothing I can think of to submit to this atheist that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that God is real. However, the problem with this argument is that there is also nothing that the atheist can submit to me to prove beyond reasonable doubt that God isn’t real. Now you might be thinking of the classical counter argument to this statement which refers to the fact that you can’t prove a negative statement. This is called the burden of proof fallacy. For example, I cannot prove to you that fire breathing space dragons don’t exist. I can only tell you that I have never seen any evidence of such creatures. Similarly an atheist would tell you that it is impossible for them to prove that God isn’t real. However, since I, as a believer, am asserting that God exists, then the burden of proof is on me to provide evidence of this. I must present evidence that affirms the positive statement that God exists. It is here that the atheist would usually kick back and relax, waiting for me to present some superficial evidence to them that they can easily find reason to refute and claim does not objectively prove God’s existence.

          However, I’ve come to perceive these statements in a slightly different context. The reason that the atheist’s inability to prove that God doesn’t exist is a problem isn’t just because you can’t prove a negative statement. It’s actually because of another fallacy that is inherent in the statement that “there is no reasonable evidence to suggest that God exists”. Complex question fallacy is a logical fallacy where you ask a question that presupposes some belief as true when that has not yet been established to be the case. For example if I were to ask if you’re paying back the money you owe me this week or next week, then I’m presuming that you’ve accepted the fact that you owe me money – which hasn’t yet been established as a true statement. When an atheist asks you to provide empirical evidence for God’s existence, he is actually presupposing that you both define God in a fairly similar manner and that you both agree on what empirical evidence of God would look like should it exist – which may not necessarily be the case. But here’s the thing that makes this fallacy even worse, the atheists themselves likely have not even defined God in a meaningful enough way to ever make it clear what kind of “evidence” proves God’s existence. That’s why I say that the atheist can’t provide evidence for God’s existence either, not just because you can’t prove a negative but also because the atheist likely hasn’t defined God in a way that makes this possible.

          When atheists say that there is no objective empirical evidence of God, they’re often not challenged to make it clear what that evidence would be because they immediately take refuge in the burden of proof fallacy, which forces the believer to make their case as to why God exists. But if the atheist has never clearly defined God or what proof might look like, then he can endlessly say that anything you show him does not sufficiently prove God’s existence. For example let’s say that I tell you that there is no such thing as a “huba huba”. You then decide to present a whole bunch of random things to me and ask me if they prove the existence of a huba huba. Well I can just keep saying no endlessly because it was never clearly established exactly what a huba huba is and what proof of its existence would look like. Now in debates on the existence of God, the definition of God is usually assumed implicitly. However, the moment you ask for objective empirical evidence, you can no longer rely on this loose implicit assumption. You must be very clear on what a “God” is and what this magical evidence such that, when seen, would prove God’s existence. It is right here that the atheist’s argument of no empirical evidence usually breaks down because he is now forced to clearly define what he means by the term “God” and has to ensure that both parties are on the same page.

          Now the atheist will usually define God in the context of religion. For example God is the being that is referred to as Jehovah in the bible or Brahman in Hinduism. From here the atheists can clearly establish what evidence of such a being would look like. But the problem with this approach is what I mentioned earlier, God doesn’t necessarily need to be any one of the beings described in holy texts in order to exists. It is possible that none of the religions on the planet have it right and yet God still exists. So, once again, the problem here is that if you’re going to ask me to prove to you that God exists, then we must very clearly establish what a “God” is and what evidence of such a being would look like. Perhaps the atheists would simply ask the believer how he defines God since he is the one asserting that God exists and then appeal to that definition if it’s reasonable – although that wouldn't really be necessary in this case since our atheist friend has asserted that God doesn’t exist as positive statement. However, still, let’s play along and say that the atheist is appealing to the definition of the believer. Well there are of course many different religious definitions concerning who and what God is and I’d still say it wouldn't be quite clear on what evidence of God, based on many of these definitions, would look like. However, for the moment let’s go with my definition. Now I have a much more personal definition of who God is and what he is like based on my own spiritual beliefs. But for the sake of argument, I like to use the most simplistic bare bones definition of God which incorporates a characteristic that I believe is most universally attributed to him.

          For this definition, we will say that God is any being that has created this universe. If you created this universe, then you’re God. If your friend created this universe, then he is God. If you both created this universe at the same time, then you’re both God. Once again, any being for which it can truthfully be said has created this universe, is God. It’s really that simple. Now if the atheist agrees to this definition, perhaps he can now tell us what evidence of this God would look like. For example what is this thing such that, when presented to him, will show beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a being who created the universe? Perhaps it would be omnipotency. If a being was powerful enough to create the universe, then he could prove his existence by doing something so powerful, only he would be capable of doing so. Maybe he could destroy the solar system and then put it back to together again. This would be a powerful act but then how to do we know that this might not just be the result of some sophisticated technology from some advanced race or civilization. It could also be the case that, if the atheist saw this, that someone is just causing them to hallucinate it in some way and that it didn’t really happen. Furthermore a being who created the universe could also just choose not to perform such a circus act for us, thus leaving us back where we started. Perhaps the atheists could simply take a different approach and ask the believer what evidence he sees that has proven to him that God exists. Let’s say that the believer uses the intelligent design argument and states that the organization of the universe proves God’s existence.

          The atheists could then say no it doesn’t, it’s possible that the universe was created – or always existed – in an organized state but without a God like being necessarily causing it too. And this would partially be true but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the organized nature of the universe still isn’t empirical evidence for the existence of the God. This is called the fallacy fallacy, which is the error of assuming a statement false just because it was asserted on the basis of a false premise. For example if I say that I can eat 12 donuts in a row because I’m Homer Simpson, it isn’t necessarily false that I can’t eat 12 donuts in a row just because the premise that I’m Homer Simpson is false. By the same token, just because the universe could have possibly organized itself without a God, from the perspective of our limited knowledge, that doesn’t necessarily mean that an organized universe is not evidence of God. It is perfectly possible that, if we were to gain divine knowledge and know everything that can be known about the universe, we’d see that it is actually impossible to have an organized universe without God and therefore an organized universe is evidence of God. The atheist made the mistake of assuming that because we – humans – can’t currently discern whether or not an organized universe is evidence of God, then that necessarily means that it is not evidence of God – which is false.

          The main problem here is that we simply don’t know enough about creating universes – like we did with me, Homer Simpson and donuts – to know what empirical evidence involved in creating one would or wouldn’t look like. When people see matter, they’re actually seeing empirical evidence of atoms but might not realize that until they understand more about the nature of matter. It is not the case that matter is not evidence of atoms just because we’re unable to discern if it is or not. Similarly, until we understand more about what’s involved creating a universe, we can’t really say one way or the other that there’s no empirical evidence of God creating ours. Sure some people might be convinced by nature’s seemingly sophisticated organization and some people are not. But you simply can’t assert that there is no empirical evidence for God’s existence without making it clear what that evidence would look like, which I assert no atheist can successfully do. But then this fallacy creates a huge problem for us because it technically means that no objective empirical evidence can really even be submitted as evidence for or against the existence of God, at least not until we know more about creating universes to judge its veracity. But then is there really any meaningful way to really prove God’s existence without using objective evidence? Are we forced to rely on philosophical reasoning alone? Well no, technically there is another means of knowing God at our disposal but we’ll go over this approach later on in this chapter. First I’d like to discuss another fallacious argument that is commonly used against the existence of God having to do with metaphysics.

 

 

SUPERNATURAL FALLACY

 

The next argument an atheist might give for saying that God doesn’t exist is a bit similar to requiring evidence of omnipotency but is also still a bit different from it. For this case, we’re going to look at the relatively common belief among atheists that there is no evidence of anything “supernatural” in nature, let alone a supernatural being who created the universe. This belief is generally attributed to a materialistic view of reality. The main idea here is that all of nature pretty much consists only of the physical and that there is nothing that exists outside of physical phenomena. These kind of atheists generally believe that our awareness completely ceases after our death and that no piece of it remains. Thus the main point of contention against an all powerful God here isn’t necessarily that the atheist hasn’t seen a demonstration of his power so much as it is the seemingly necessary requirement that he have a supernatural nature to him. This class of atheist might be more willing to accept a supernatural being if there was some kind of evidence of the supernatural in the world that we can observe but to this date, orthodox science has never quite proven that any purely supernatural phenomenon exists. The atheist likely assumes that this is due to the fact that reality is purely materialistic in nature. This is as opposed to a dualistic view where reality is thought to consist of both the physical and metaphysical.

          For me personally, I see many inherent problems in this argument that I’d like to now address. First, the problem here is the exact same as it was before. In asking for evidence of the supernatural, the atheists is using complex question fallacy and is inadvertently protecting his position under the guise that he can’t prove the negative statement “no supernatural phenomenon exists”, which therefore requires the believer to present some supernatural phenomenon that science can verify in order to dispute. For example if the atheists were to say show me evidence that something supernatural exists, then he is assuming that both you and him share the same definition of what it means for something to be supernatural in nature. And without clearly defining his standard for what it means to be supernatural, then he can easily deny any evidence presented to him without ever having to really be challenged. So for this argument, let’s first try to be clear about what it means to be supernatural. Perhaps the atheists might cheekily say that if you can move a large object at a distance, using just your mind, then they’d be willing to accept that as proof of a supernatural phenomenon. Of course the problem with this statement is that it still doesn’t clearly define what a supernatural phenomenon is. For example if a person can’t use telekinesis on a car, does this necessarily mean that it logically follows that no supernatural phenomenon can possibly exist in nature? Just because that one form of supernaturalism can’t be displayed?

          Of course not, it is perfectly possible that supernatural phenomena can manifest in some of the ways that we might classify as supernatural and not in others, so it is relatively meaningless to focus on any one particular manifestation of it. I only need to show you one example of a supernatural phenomenon to demonstrate that supernatural phenomena exists. But to do this, I need a very clear and concise definition of what a “supernatural phenomenon” is. Simply giving me an example of a supernatural phenomenon such as telekinesis isn’t going to help because I still don’t know what the rule that makes telekinesis a supernatural phenomenon is. Now at this point, the atheists may get more serious and say that a supernatural phenomenon is any phenomenon that can’t be explained in terms of physical laws. Telekinesis for example, were it to occur, couldn’t be explained in terms of physics as there are no laws in it that should allow for such an event to be possible. Of course the problem with this definition is that it relies on how knowledgeable a person is at the time the phenomenon occurred. Lightning for example was considered to be a supernatural phenomenon at one point in human history, but then changed to be considered a physical phenomenon once more information was gained about nature. To compensate for this possibility a bit, let’s simply say that any supernatural phenomenon is one that occurs, at least in part, through metaphysical means. This means that some aspect of the supernatural phenomenon is occurring through the mechanics of another metaphysical reality, presumed to exist, and not just the physical reality.

          So in order to prove the atheists claim that there is no supernatural phenomenon false, it is reasonable to start by presenting to him a phenomenon that can’t be fully explained in terms of current physical laws – even though this alone may not necessarily be a supernatural phenomenon as was defined. But then what phenomenon could be presented to satisfy such a condition considering how much we now know about physics? Well that’s the thing, there are actually many phenomena that would seem to occur in our everyday experiences that can’t fully be explained in terms of physical laws. The most obvious ones would be awareness and emotion. For example, how would the atheist explain our ability to be self-aware and to feel things in terms of the laws of physics? Until this day science has not fully been able to do so. This question and ones like it are generally referred to by the umbrella term “the hard problem with consciousness”. Of course the most common explanation, and pretty much the only one, for these phenomena in terms of physics is the so called “emergence” phenomenon. This is basically a phenomenon in which a group of things are only able to demonstrate a particular characteristic or property when they combine in a certain way but aren’t able to clearly demonstrate that property when by themselves. Ants for example are somewhat stupid on their own but are able to demonstrate extraordinary levels of intelligence in groups. Similarly the atheist, as well as orthodox scientist, will generally suggest that self-awareness and emotion are actually emergent characteristics that arise from the complex interactions of neurons in the brain. They’re not actually supernatural phenomena even though they might sometimes appear to be.

          The only problem with this suggestion though is that it isn’t actually proof and it isn’t even science. All of physics, in my opinion, simply boils down to the study of motion – even when talking about the bending of spacetime and formation of subatomic particles. There’s no clear reason atheists can give for why things that move should suddenly give rise to awareness and emotion at some point. It’s actually a faith based argument that is no different than the faith based premise used to suggest that these phenomena are supernatural. And this actually represents the problem that I often have with a lot of atheistic assertions about the supernatural. Whenever you hear that there is no proof of anything supernatural occurring in nature, that actually isn’t true. If we recognize that any supernatural phenomenon would have the property that it can’t be explained in terms of physical laws, then there are actually many everyday phenomena that satisfy this condition, particularly when it involves sentient living things. However, again this property alone doesn’t necessarily imply metaphysicality. Thus whenever we are presented with a supernatural phenomenon there are, as far as I can tell, only two possible ways to classify it. You can either say that it is occurring, at least, in part by metaphysical laws that extend beyond the physical or you can say that it is occurring entirely through physical laws, some of which we’ve not yet discovered. Either way you’ve got to make a faith based choice and believers in God usually recognize that this is what they’re doing and acknowledge it. Atheists on the other hand will also make a faith based choice, rooted in their belief in materialism, by asserting that these phenomena are not supernatural. They will then pretend to imply that their choice was based on science and objectivity and will try to put the onus on the believer to come up with another example of the supernatural since they’ve already claimed the original one presented by the believer to be purely physical in nature.

          This is completely wrong though. When the atheist classifies unexplainable phenomenon as physically natural, they are making this choice as a result of their own personal faith and religious beliefs as much as the believer in God is. They just don’t like to call it that because terms like “faith” and “religious belief” are very dirty words to them that suggests a lack of logic and objectivity. However, that is the ultimate motivating factor behind their beliefs and, quite honestly, I just wish that atheists would admit that is what they are doing. And this secular type of religious belief isn’t just a factor when it comes to debates about God either. Modern orthodox science effectively functions like a faith in many ways and tends insert its religious belief into science in a manner that is, in some ways, similar to the Christian church during medieval times. I say this because there are actually many phenomena that could be considered supernatural but are generally dismissed by orthodox science as purely physical phenomenon in an attempt to cling to the veracity of their secular faith. Near death experiences for example should, by any definition, be considered a supernatural phenomenon. On top of their being many consistencies to near death experiences that have been reported for hundreds of years and there being no realistic way for this large a number of being to some how orchestrate such an elaborate deception, there are also cases of people healing miraculously from some injury even after they were considered to be dead or close to it. By all means these circumstances cannot be explained in terms of the natural laws of physics but orthodox science will still attempt to do so by saying that these phenomena actually represent hallucinations from the brain and miraculous healing just represents a misdiagnosis from the doctor.

          Once again these are faith based assertions that are made from someone who follows a secular religion. In fact, such assertions would actually seems to violate scientific laws already accepted and established. For example it would seem to violate the law entropy to suggest that when person’s brain becomes so damaged the person is either dead or nearly dead, it can suddenly organize your experience to a such a degree that it is causing you to sense reality in a crystal clear way that goes beyond the normal sensitivity of your 5 senses and then starts giving you a life review and causes you to experience all kinds of emotions as well. By any scientific standard, this would be absurd. It would be like saying that if you hit a computer with a bat, it will suddenly malfunction by opening up a notepad and typing out a play from Shakespeare word for word. If near death experiences were truly purely physical phenomena, then you should start sensing random incoherent things when near death, just as a computer will do random incoherent things when it malfunctions. The suggestion that near death experiences are purely physical doesn’t make sense even by scientific standards. I argue that you can’t make it without appealing to a secular faith.

          I would even go so far as to say that moving your body is a supernatural phenomenon. Once again the atheist would say that’s not true, the brain – which is physical – is responsible for moving the body. But that actually only represents part of our understanding behind the phenomenon of moving one’s body. For example we know that the neurochemical signal to move your limb does start in your brain but what we still don’t know is the precise process by which a signal is able to originate or change. When you decided to move and a nerve signal fires off in your brain, what causes the first neurons to fire, the first proteins within in the neuron, the first atoms within those proteins or other organic compounds and so on? That is actually a question that science still hasn’t figured out yet. By any reasonable metric, the ability to move is a supernatural phenomenon and actually appears to be a first cause phenomenon similar to the creation of the universe. The only question is whether or not to take the faith based position that assumes it’s supernatural or you take the faith based position that assumes it's purely physical but, either way, you can only classify it by taking a leap of faith. All too often both atheist and scientific orthodoxy will attempt to claim these supernatural phenomena as secular events without proper justification for doing so and will then suggest that the objective “scientific” position is the secular faith based position when it isn’t.

          In fact in many of these cases I would even go so far as to say that the secular faith based position is actually the slightly less scientific position. The reason is because science is about objectivity and giving your best effort not to let personal bias, faith or religious belief interfere with your logic as far as the causality you observe in some experiment by using scientific method. But I argue that the suggestion that self-awareness, emotion, near death experiences and moving your body are probably not metaphysical phenomena actually does require some bias. In other words it’s the less objective position. The reason is because, in the modern world, we already know so much about the nature of reality that it’s very unlikely that there’s still this whole world of information that has somehow managed to hide from us all of this time. And if we finally discover this world of information, well then we can fully explain the above phenomena that I claim, also from faith, are supernatural. Sure there was a time when lightning, disease, fire and the sunrise were considered to be supernatural phenomenon.

          However, as man learned more and more science, these phenomena all changed in classification to physically natural events because we could explain them through physical laws. However, in spite of all of that learning over the centuries, there were still phenomena that remained unexplainable in terms of physical laws and had never graduated to physically explainable phenomena. The more logically objective explanation for this is that these phenomena probably aren’t completely physical which why we haven’t ever been able to explain them in terms of physical laws. This is especially considering that there is no conceivable way that such phenomena can arise from the automated motion of matter – regardless of what combination that matter combines and moves in. The assumption that these phenomena are still most likely purely physical and that there’s still this whole world of information that’s hiding inside of physical matter that we’re just missing for some reason is the more illogical and less objective position and is only one you’d probably take on as a result of following a secular faith based religion.

          As an analogy, imagine if there was a small two family house with only 7 rooms in the whole house. You were then told there was an adult elephant inside the house and then went inside the home to check. You look through every room in the house for this elephant. You find that you have checked them all from top to bottom and still have not found the elephant. You can either assume that the assumption that an elephant was in the house was false or you can make a leap of faith and assume that the elephant must still be hiding somewhere in the house, you just haven’t found them yet. Of course it shouldn’t really be possible for such a large animal to be hidden from you in any way in such a small house. But you can always believe, through faith, that the elephant truly is hiding somewhere in that house and that you will in fact find them someday. This is essentially the faith that I believe is required of atheists when it comes to classifying seemingly supernatural phenomena as most likely being purely physical in nature. This more religious like ideology, that masquerades as science, is often referred to by the somewhat derisive term “scientism”. From some cases I’ve seen, people who follow this faith tend to get incredibly upset and very offended when you suggest that they’re following a religion rather than science. It’s the opposite of when you insult a religious person’s holy figures. Atheist will usually think that they’re better than religious folk and find it absolutely insulting to compare their beliefs to a “faith” even though, as I said, asserting that many of the above phenomena are likely not supernatural actually requires more than faith than not in my opinion.

 

 

OBJECTIVE FALLACY

 

The last fallacy I’d like to focus on has to do with the nature of objectivity. Before turning to our atheist friend and another argument he might provide for why God doesn’t exist, I’d like to take a moment to focus on the importance of objectivity from a more scientific perspective. In science we learn just how important it is to try to gain knowledge about the world around us in as objective a way as possible. As mentioned in the previous section, a great deal of value is placed on information that can be demonstrated in a way that is completely devoid of personal opinion or subjective inclinations. When we talk about proof or evidence that supports some scientific theory, we’re usually referring to something that can be directly experienced by others in a controlled manner. For example if I were to say that Big Foot exists because I used to hang with him all the time, then this would not necessarily be considered proof of his existence because these supposed hang outs cannot be directly experienced by others. If there were instead video footage or DNA evidence of this, then that might be more acceptable. On other the hand, others being able to verify my claims by hanging out with Big Foot themselves would be better. Thus the more objective some evidence in science is, the higher the quality of the proof in a sense. In fact the main cornerstone of any scientific theory is that its conclusions be perfectly replicable in the form of an experiment regardless of who is running the experiment.

          The more difficult it is to replicate some experiment by following some particular theory, then the less strong that theory is considered to be. I’d like to say that I mostly agree with the position of modern science that objectivity is king when it comes to proof or supporting evidence of some particular theory. However, where I disagree with modern science is that this is necessarily always the case. On the contrary, there are actually times when subjective proof is far more important and far more valuable than objective proof. In fact during these times it is often the case that subjective proof is the only kind of proof available to you. For example if I were to ask you what you dreamed about last night and then asked you to prove it to me, could you realistically do this? Is there really any possible way for you to objectively prove to me what you dreamed? Probably not. But then does that mean that you didn’t really have a dream? Of course not. You did but unfortunately there’s just no practical way for you to objectively prove this to me or anyone else. This puts us in quite a pickle as far as scientific theory goes because we prefer to rely purely on objective evidence as it relates to proving a theory a correct. This would seem to be an impossible standard to achieve for any theory that purports to explain how dreams work. But then does that mean that there is no objective rule by which all dreams operate? Probably not, although we can’t really say just yet that this is the case. However, if there is some objective rule for which all dreams have to obey – ignoring rules about the physical state of the body for moment –  then there’s probably no way to prove it objectively.

          This example shows us that there are clearly certain kinds of knowledge that one can obtain about reality which can’t actually be demonstrated objectively but only subjectively. For example there is technically no objective evidence that people experience emotions. In other words, you can’t actually prove to me or anyone else that you experience emotion using completely objective means. Sure you can make all kinds of measurements about the state of the body as it relates to nerve signals, hormones and brain activity and you might even find some consistencies that are enough to indicate that something like an emotion probably exists. However, it is still the case that you could never truly demonstrate the experiential aspect of an emotion in any objective way. The only real reason we know that emotions truly do exist is because we have verified their existence through our own personal experience. But if we were to try to stubbornly stick to our standard of objective proof being king, then we’d probably be forced to say that there is no such thing as emotions, dreaming or self-awareness. This of course would be an absurd statement, but it is only absurd by virtue of personal experience. If you’ve never truly experienced an emotion, then for all you know I and everyone else could be lying to you about their existence.

          But then why is any of this important when it comes to arguments about God? Well because I argue that knowledge of God actually falls into the subjective category of knowledge rather than the objective one. Earlier I mentioned that, until we know more about the nature of creating a universe, any kind of objective empirical evidence for God’s existence is technically null and void. We then asked how we can know of God’s existence if we’re unable to use any kind of empirical evidence. Well the answer is in subjectivity. In other words, you can obtain evidence of God through your own personal experience. Now you might immediately be thinking that this approach to knowledge can easily lead to error as an individual’s own personal beliefs and biases will simply cloud their judgment and cause them to see evidence where there isn’t any. However, there are three problems that I see with this line of thinking. The first is that it doesn’t acknowledge that, even for the category of knowledge where information can only be verified subjectively, there is still some objectivity. By this I mean that just because you can only know certain things about reality subjectively, this doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no objective element to that knowledge. If I get a paper cut for example, then I will feel pain as a result. Although I can’t objectively prove to you that I’m in pain, I can verify the objective truth that I am in pain for myself. Furthermore just because I’m the only one who can verify this truth, it doesn’t mean that I can simply make myself stop feeling pain at will or that it responds to my own personal beliefs and biases.

          In other words there are certain truths about reality that are still objective but can only be known subjectively – the subjective objective. My own subconscious for example can behave in a subjective way that is based on my intention but there are still objective aspects to its behavior that don’t respond to my intention and cannot be changed even if I wanted them to. Furthermore I cannot objectively prove to you that my subconscious really works in the way that I’ve been claiming it does throughout book I and II nor can I ever really know for sure that yours works in this way too – although that is of course the assumption that I am making. Only you can truly verify the mechanics of your subconscious that I’ve been suggesting to you. Thus the objective truths about subconscious energy can only known and verified through subjective means. By that same line of thinking, I argue that knowledge of God falls into this subjective category of knowledge and that there are objective elements to the subjective experience of this knowledge that cannot be controlled even if you’d like it to be. And like the subconscious, I believe that certain actions – to be discussed in the next chapter – will allow you to reach out to God and, in turn, will enable him to reveal himself to you so that you’re able to know him. From there you can judge for yourself, just as you do for emotions and the way your subconscious mind works, whether or not there is an objective nature to these experiences.

          The second problem with the presumption that subjective knowledge will always be clouded by bias is that it can, ironically, lead one to a more bias approach to knowledge that is clouded by bias and for which does not constitute science or scientific method. The main goal in science to understand how nature works and why it does what it does. To achieve this goal, we must remember to accept nature as it actually is and not how we want it to be. For example we cannot assume something to be untrue just because it doesn’t make all that much sense to us. We especially needed to remind ourselves of this fact when it came to quantum mechanics and special and general relativity. Well I argue that we must remember to take this same approach when it comes to God as well. Although it would be nice if God allowed us to study his nature and know him in a more empirically objective fashion, we can’t necessarily force him to do so nor can we presume that he must necessarily be non-existent if he chooses not to allow this. If one were to argue that God, for whatever reason, chooses to only allow us to know him through the subjective category of knowledge, then I can’t simply say no I don’t like that, it is inconvenient for my learning and therefore it must not be true. That would be me taking reality as I want it to be and not how it actually is. This is the mistake I believe atheist often make. If one proposes such a claim, then it is actually incumbent upon the atheist to investigate this claim for themselves since such knowledge can only be verified subjectively. To presume that God must necessarily be non-existent if he can only be known subjectively, as opposed to objectively, is objective fallacy.

          The last problem with the argument above, which actually piggybacks off the second problem, is that it tries to force nature to allow itself to be studied in a way that is easy to distinguish from personal bias and belief. While this bar is relatively easy to reach with purely objective phenomena, it’s nearly impossible for subjective phenomena. For example there really is no way to truly study the nature of emotions in a completely objective way. Even as you’re attempting to verify the mechanics of your subconscious, as explained in this book, you will still have to contend with the way your own personal biases might obscure the objective nature of how your subconscious mind operates. In fact this problem is what made studying the subconscious such a long and arduous process for me. It took years for me to realize that transcendental states were always temporary, that there was a such thing as negative and positive memory and that there was such a thing as a state of full attention.

          Naturally the only way I can enter a state of full attention while charging some emotion is by not having any part of my attention devoted to studying the subconscious. These rules all took a very long time for me to recognize because I can’t study my subconscious in an objective way. It’s always responding to my attention and intention thereby making it hard to separate the part of its behavior that is innate from the part of its behavior that is the result of what I am choosing to think in the moment. This problem with subjective inclinations obscuring the objective part of nature, that can only be known through subjective means, is simply a fact of life that can never be avoided in my opinion. While you don’t run into this too much with knowledge that falls into the objective category of reality, you’re always going to have to contend with it when dealing with knowledge that falls into the subjective category of reality. By the same token though, the downside to objective empirical knowledge is that it is practically useless for knowledge that can only be subjectively known, even though it does have the advantage of being easily separable from bias. This dichotomy between the two kinds of knowledge and the way personal beliefs and bias affects them is something we must simply accept as being the way reality works. And, once again, to try to always force nature to reveal itself in a way that is far removed from personal bias just because it makes you more comfortable is to commit objective fallacy.

 

 

THE CASE FOR GOD

 

There are many more arguments for the existence of God, however, I wanted to focus on the fallacy based arguments above because I think that they’re able to primarily address just about any argument that an atheist can give for why God doesn’t exist. For example if he argues that there’s too much suffering and imperfection in the world for God to exist, then he is not acknowledging the possibility that God is simply an evil deity who needlessly allows us to suffer. If the atheist argues that there is no empirical evidence for God’s existence, then he must first establish why the world around us is not empirical evidence and then give us an idea of what would constitute empirical evidence. Furthermore he must reasonably do this based on the definition that God is any being who created the universe and do so without running into a fallacious proposition. This last part of course would require him to have sufficient information about the creation of universes to avoid fallacy. If he argues that the supernatural doesn’t exist, then he must demonstrate how many seemingly supernatural phenomena are actually purely physical and do without appealing to faith. Otherwise he must admit that he is making such an assumption on faith and does not have reasonable proof of such a claim. And lastly, if he argues that these arguments leave no room to know who God is, then we can tell him that this isn’t true. We’re claiming that God seems to be willing to allow you to know him through subjective means as opposed to objective means. If he is contending that God cannot be known in this manner, then he must explain why. It almost sounds like he’s trying to force reality to be the way he wants it to be rather than how it is.

          I believe this last argument is actually the most powerful because it actually provides an avenue for which we can know God directly. Most arguments for the existence of God are based purely on reasoning and therefore can only ever go so far as being considered “proof” of God. I believe the only way to ever really have proof of God is by experiencing him directly. Normally this would be considered an impossible standard to reach and thus we’re usually left having to contend with trying to get as far as we can purely through reasoning alone. However, I would argue that this all changes the moment you actually understand how the subconscious works. Subconscious energy seems to respond to our intention in a very unique and objective way that would seem to strongly indicate that God is a real being and not one that we’re simply making up in our mind. Furthermore we can confirm the nature of these responses through the experiences, sometimes clearly supernatural, that we have following the manipulation of the subconscious that in a way that allows us to know God. This is the overall “case for God” that I wanted to make in this chapter. I argue that if you follow the techniques and instructions for controlling your subconscious in a specific way, which I will provide in the next chapter, then you can have experiences that will verify to you that God is real. And if you follow these instructions and don’t have any kind of profound experiences afterwards, then by all means assume that God is not real since that is what your experience told you.

          Again I’m of the mind that only one’s own experience can truly be trusted. I would prefer you not simply take my or anyone else’s word for it regarding the nature of God. For our atheist friend to continue to deny God’s existence, he too must follow these instructions and determine for himself if any kind of profound experiences occur that cannot be explained in terms of his secular beliefs. Normally the atheist only need find some kind of error in the reasoning a believer uses to propose God’s existence. However, since I am providing an actual technique that is based on the objective nature of your subconscious mind, that approach can no longer be used to deny God’s existence without fallacy. The atheist must necessarily take the more scientific approach and go through the work of performing the actual experiment which my so called theory purports to predict the outcome of. Thus the onus is now on the atheist to actually attempt to open their heart and mind to God, follow the instructions and then see what happens. I believe that anyone who does this as I instruct will come to know God through personal experience. But again if nothing seems to happen, then you’re free to assert that there is no God and can once again do so without fallacy. But, per these instructions and arguments, the atheist or non-believer can no longer avoid such fallacy without giving him that chance first.

 

Footnotes

 

1. In fact I don’t really believe you can know God through rationalism or empiricism. I believe the only real way to know God is through personal experience which is actually in line with the philosophy of American Transcendentalism. This philosophy suggests that knowledge, especially divine knowledge, can only be gained through intuition which is a different mode of gaining knowledge than through reasoning and empirical evidence.

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