Alternate title: “The Problem With Supernatural Explanations”

People often tell me “science can’t prove that God does not exist, because you can’t prove a negative”. How often?

Ok, it’s really not that often.

It’s said that you can’t prove a negative because you can’t exhaustively examine and eliminate every place in the universe, so you can’t be 100% certain that something does not exist. Interestingly enough, however, the claim that “you can’t prove a negative” is itself an unrestricted negative. It effectively says “there are no proofs of unrestricted negatives”. If so, then no one can prove that no one can prove an unrestricted negative. And if no one can prove that no one can prove an unrestricted negative, then it must be logically possible to prove an unrestricted negative. The claim is self-refuting.

It should not only be possible to prove a negative, but I intend to show that a number of them have already been proven.

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I was wandering around the blog administration backend, and I noticed that several new contributor accounts have been created (thanks Nick). We have guest bloggers!

None of you have posted yet.

Well, get cracking. Readers, expect to see some posts from Jacob, Erik, Neal, and Mike in the hopefully near future.

The more work is done on the subject, the more plausible abiogenesis becomes.

For the first time, scientists have synthesized RNA enzymes – ribonucleic acid enzymes also known as ribozymes – that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components.

What’s more, these simple nucleic acids can act as catalysts and continue the process indefinitely.

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To keep the rest of our threads cleanly on-topic, this thread will be used for a discussion of atheism and morality. An Überthread.

Kleiner–I’m going to leave your existing comments in place on their current threads, but any future comments that topically belong here will be moved here, along with their responses.

Polish Catholics attended the 22nd Exorcists’ Congress (hehe) in Niepokalanow, near Warsaw. Poland has more than 100 professional exorcists.

When asked by journalists, the exorcists admitted that possession by the devil may look just like it is portrayed in scary movies. But the rites that the exorcists use to expel evil spirits are much less spectacular.

“Our role is mainly to say prayers and psalms,” Father Andrzej Grefkowicz told the press conference. Another priest, Aleksander Posacki, said that too many myths surround exorcisms, which in fact are based on fundamental church rules.

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So-called alternative medicine hasn’t gotten much talk around here, so I thought I’d change that. Let’s talk about homeopathy.

Homeopathy was first proposed in 1796 by German physician Samuel Hahnemann. His idea was to treat patients with diluted solutions of chemicals thought to cause effects similar to the symptoms–for example, a substance thought to cause rashes would be diluted in order to treat hives. “Like with like” is the term homeopathic practitioners use. (See also Sympathetic Magic)

A typical homeopathic treatment is called “30C”. This means that whatever substance has been chosen for the treatment is diluted one drop in 100, 30 times. On the Society of Homeopaths site, in their “What is homeopathy?” section, they say that “30C contains less than 1 part per million of the original substance.” This is a giant understatement. In more precise terms, the ratio is 1 part “stuff” to 100^30 parts water, or 1^60. This is a 1 followed by 60 zeros, so the dilution is 1 part in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

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This sums up my thoughts perfectly.

I’m actually really glad for the fact that — around here at least — the community as a whole largely ignores us atheists. In my experience, random strangers tend to react with mostly disappointment or apathy when they discover that I am not religious. As someone who was never even truly a member of any organized church, I haven’t even had to deal with familial issues upon leaving Religion X, which I understand happens nearly 100% of the time. It’s hard enough to make yourself known as an atheist given the threat of losing the respect of friends and family, or even being disowned entirely. I can’t imagine having to cope with threats of violence and death as well.

Husibi, who has an unlisted telephone number, said he received about 30 calls Saturday from people who were cursing him, calling him a traitor and threatening him. Most were foreign-born, Tulsa-area Muslims whom he knows, he said. He also received angry calls from friends and relatives in Syria.

One caller, whom Husibi would not identify, said that if he spoke at the meeting and said anything against Shariah (Islamic law), he would be killed. Another caller offered Husibi’s young Muslim wife $10,000 to leave him and return to her native Syria, he said.

“Someone from Tulsa called my 76-year-old mother in Syria and said, ‘You’re not going to see your son anymore,’ ” he said.

Sabri Husibi was studying to be an imam in Damascus, but learning more about the Quran did not strengthen his faith. Instead, as often happens, he found many glaring problems with his religious text.

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