Proof and Disproof

It’s amazing how difficult it is to prove that anything is actually true and by converse, it is also difficult to prove that anything is actually not true. It seems that anytime I find good ‘proof’ of something, like the existence of God, there immediately comes in a flood of disproof. Then you respond to the disproof with more proof countering the disproof, and simply more disproof comes in, or the other side simply fails to acknowledge your ‘proof’ as actual evidence. Then there’s always the good old, “I don’t have time to waste proving / disproving something so obviously right / wrong”.

I just watched an interesting video, “Who Was Moses?” that provides lots of evidence for the existence of Hebrews in Egypt and support for the possibility of the ten plagues and the exodus from Egypt. Then, I ended up at THIS forum post with lots of disproof against the documentary, primarily claiming conflicting dates. Interestingly, even the author of this disproof post later admits that it is difficult to properly construct a timeline from the scriptural sources and that there is a wide variation in calculated dates, thus seemingly creating a contradiction in his own disproof, but perhaps that was intentional.

I recommend watching the video, as I found it quite intriguing, but I do warn against believing a single source without additional research on the topic.

Which now, I will return to the original point of this post, which is that it is nearly impossible to try and convince someone else of ANYTHING at all. Doing so doesn’t really rely on your ability to provide evidence, but on your skills of persuasion and manipulation of others. Depending on the other person, doing so can range from unbelievably simple to unbelievably difficult.

Let’s take an extremely simple example. This is the color red:

red

Irrefutable? You would think so, but it’s actually not that hard to provide disproof even for this example. What if you are color-blind? Then that would mean you see this differently than I do. It is no longer the same color for you as it is for me. They are two different colors. Some people cannot distinguish between certain colors. So what does this mean? It means the color red is based entirely on your ability to perceive the color red. Or, let’s go a different way. This isn’t a color at all but a specific wavelength that your eye interprets as a color. That is to say, it’s not really a color at all but a specific wavelength of light that reflects from the page in a way that causes you to perceive the color red. If we change the wavelength, it is no longer red but blue. So once again, it is not the color red. Or in another way, it is one of many variations of red, but perhaps the color I was talking about was a bit more on the green side.

I’ll be honest, I could carry this on for quite some time, but I’ll stop there. What I hopefully have demonstrated, is that in some ways, there really is no such thing for us humans as truth. All their is, is our perception of this thing we call reality. It’s a thing that everyone perceives differently. And just because you are able to convince someone else that the above is the color red, that doesn’t actually mean you’re right. Maybe what we’ve been calling the color red, in all true-ness, is actually the color green, but our eyes invert colors, similarly to how a camera inverts the incoming image. And so, what we see as red is really the inverted color green.

So am I saying that there is no such thing as truth? That you can never determine was is true and what is false? Not at all. What I’m saying is that it’s simply difficult for us, as humans, to discover the truth since everything we know is based on perception. As long as you base truth on perception, truth is subject to interpretation since you will perceive something in a slightly different way than I will. Also, if you have to convince someone that something is true, you haven’t proven truth. You’ve simply persuaded them into believing in YOUR truth rather than their own. Or perhaps you’ve persuaded them to adopt your truth as their own. It will never be their own truth until they look at it subjectively and without bias, which is something that is exceptionally difficult to do.

So how can we discover what is actually something that can be considered truth? Is there a way? There is!

What we discussed previously is truth based on perception and truth based on perception can never be proven true. The reason for this is truth based on perception can become cyclic in nature. Truth based on perception is based on a majority rule. Torah teaches us to base ‘truth’ on three or more witnesses. This is indicative that you can place some trust in the agreement of multiple people in being the truth. However, on many issues, this isn’t actually true. So long as there exists a dissenting opinion, it is possible for the dissenting group to influence the dominant group and systematically cause the dissenting opinion to become the majority option. Then over time, it is possible for this to simply flip-flop back and forth. This is similar to how here in America, we have two primary groups constantly fighting for control over the government, Republicans and Democrats, and the majority opinion of the country changes regularly, causing these two groups to shift between who is in power fairly regularly.

congress

Now, back to Torah, the truth that we are talking about though isn’t a truth based on perception, but a truth based on an action or an event. Now, actions or events can be proven true or not true! Let’s say I decided right now to eat an apple. This is an event that actually happened. It doesn’t matter if you perceived it or not, it is truth to say that I ate an apple. All you can say, is that you choose to not believe that I ate an apple, but the fact remains, I ate an apple. It is truth. If I have two witnesses see me eat the apple, we can believe with some decree of certainty that it is in fact the truth. I ate an apple. It is truth. Now you might try to argue that this is the same as perception since perception is involved with my two witnesses. Perhaps I’m a magician.

apple

Guess what, it doesn’t matter. I really did eat the apple. Perception here isn’t important. We have a real event that occurred and perception simply supports the event, it isn’t required to make it true. Now all we can say is if something is true or if it is a lie and that is something different. That means that one of the individuals involved has knowledge that I didn’t eat an apple, but lied and said that I did. The truth still exists, but it is always possible to hide the truth. But the truth is a concrete thing now that it is based on an event. “I ate an apple” is a provable statement. You can gather doctors and scientists and watch me eat an apple. You can record what happens. You can verify that it is an apple. You can verify that I ate it using various methods. And then everyone involved has the option to lie and say that I did not eat an apple, but now everyone has to agree to lie about it. But I still at the apple. It is truth.

So, back to our original quandary, can you ever prove anything at all? Yes you can, provided the thing that you are trying to prove is based on an event. You can say truthfully whether or not an event actually occurred. Truth based on events can possibly be used to help provide for support of truth not based on events. Surely such truth exists. Is there a God is a simple truth to want to know. But truth of God is a perceptive truth. I believe that there is a God based on the evidence provided by the world around me through both scientific and non-scientific means. Someone else chooses not to believe that God is truth based on their perception of the world through both scientific and non-scientific means. Do not be deluded that scientists base everything on scientific motives. This is simply not true, and we can argue that in another thread if anyone cares enough to.

Now, how could we possibly prove that God exists? Well, let’s start with math. If you can prove that our universe has a finite amount of energy, and somehow tie in that God must be a being of energy, then you can probably conclude that at a minimum, we need to rethink our definition of God because our current definition is that God is infinite. So how can we possibly have an infinite God in a finite universe? This has yet to be proven as last I heard, the university is ever expanding, which to me is strange, mystifying, and baffling all at the same time. I’ve done some research on the topic, but will not profess to be an expert. Yet. See Big Bang vs Steady State for more information on your own!

energy

So, you astute reader you, have noticed that I started off with proving God exists, but then switched to a disproof instead. I do not believe that proving our universe consists of infinite energy proves that God exists (the converse of the previous paragraph), but it supports the possibility of an infinite God as described in Torah. Where do we go from there? We go to events. The most important book we have, Torah, tells us that God interacted with the world at some point. It was an event. It happened or it did not happen. God interacted with Moses or he didn’t. God caused the ten plagues or he didn’t. It is truth, or it is not. These events occurred long ago, so how can we know? It would seem we have to rely on archaeology, historical documents, and modern science if you want your proof. So once again, you should not fear science and discovery, you should applaud it as it only bring us closer to the truth that we already know.

I will warn you of the unfortunately likelihood though, which is that most truth will not come as the majority group of scientists is more interested in disproving God than proving. Therefore they only pursue theories that discredit the concept of God. These scientists are not interested in discovering the truth, they are interested in finding any kind of support, no matter how strong or weak, for their own perspective of the truth. Not that actual truth. This is why we need to support science and discovery. We need scientists with the opposite goal. To prove through scientific discovery that God does in fact exists. This is vital for the future of religion, otherwise we will over time likely continue to lose more and more to the scientific community who is not interested in finding truth, but is obsessed with boosting their own egos at God’s expense. They fail to realize that their discoveries are simply based on observations of the world that God has created. They believe that because they can explain something, that it no longer falls within God’s realm, and this is simply not true. If I create a process and release it upon the world, and you discover this process, that does not mean I do not exist. It simply means you have discovered the process that I created. And no, I am not talking about the theory of evolution, that is a different conversation.

hannibal

So at long last, where we end up is the proof for God, as far as I am concerned, revolves solely around Moses, and the Exodus from Egypt. It was an event that either occurred or did not occur. For now, let us simply leave it as saying, is it possible for the events of the exodus to have occurred  Could it have happened? Not did it happen, but is it within the realm of possibility? My answer to this is yes. Your answer may be no. And that is why we will always disagree.