Burden of proofsteemCreated with Sketch.

in #spirituality6 years ago

This article will also address: Occam's razor.

People think that the burden of proof is on you if you claim that God exists.

The topic of the discussion is not to be confused with the legal definition of the Burden of proof. When I decided to write this article, I was not aware of that.

What I am talking about is defined here. I don't know whether this is the best definition. I was aware of the concept before I knew of this site. This particular definition goes:

The burden of proof lies with someone who is making a claim, and is not upon anyone else to disprove. The inability, or disinclination, to disprove a claim does not render that claim valid, nor give it any credence whatsoever.

In my own words: The burden of proof is on whoever is making a positive claim. Negative claims do not need a proof.

The existence of God

I will start with what you already know: You exist and you can experience other people. This is self-evident. Everything that can be derived from it is a given and does not require a proof.

Any claim that something exists that cannot be derived from the above given is a positive claim that requires a proof.

Claim that such things do not exist is a negative claim that does not require a proof.

What we know already is that other people exist within out experience. (We can see them). Statement that they also exist outside of it (when we do not see them, or otherwise do not experience them) is a claim that cannot be derived from the given, and is therefore a positive claim.

God is a collective consciousness, or the consciousness that contains all other beings.

So far we only know that there is at least one consciousness. It is a given. Supposed existence of another consciousness contradicts the existence of God, but it cannot be derived from the given, and therefore it is a positive claim that requires a proof.

Statement contrary to the existence of God is a positive claim that requires a proof. The burden of proof is on people who claim that God does not exist.

Occam's razor

Anything in the Universe can be explained without the assumption that there are at least two independent consciousnesses.

Stars exist as an experience. They are not really interesting, because they are not interactive. Just a curiosity, whether they are large physical objects or projections on the dome above the flat Earth.

Even if the consciousness was only one, they would still be the same.

Other people are just responses to our own actions. Everybody is a reaction to everybody else. Otherwise the Golden Rule would not make sense. What wouldn't you do to other people what you yourself do not like unless you were also receiving a part of it yourself?

(Even though I was trying to go beyond the Golden Rule in this article, or tried to think about something better, the Rule itself still holds true in most cases, and even the claims I made in that article can be still explained within the boundaries of the Golden Rule).

The law of karma is based on the principle that everybody is a reflection of everybody else, and even Sri Kumare's parody Mirror Yoga is just a mixture or law of karma and law of attraction.

There being only one consciousness not only doesn't contradict the observation that we are able to experience other humans, but also law of karma as well as Vikram Ghandi's parody Mirror Yoga can be derived from it.

One consciousness is enough to derive law of karma, which is a fundamental law of the Universe, and tells everything about interactions between people.

To my knowledge there have been no proven claims that there exists more than one consciousness, and since they are positive claims, the burden of proof is on the ones who make them.

According to Occam's razor if you are able to explain everything without making extra assumptions, you do not make extra assumptions.

Claim that there is more than one consciousness not only doesn't explain anything better than it has already been explained, it also rises superfluous questions:

  • How do we know it exists?
  • What is the container that holds both my consciousness and the other consciousness?
  • Does maintaining such contained require energy?
  • How can we experience the existence of such container if it by definition lies outside of our consciousness?

Science

To my knowledge science is still at the stage of not being able to prove that more than one consciousness exists.

Scientists can only measure things using their own consciousness, so they are by definition only measuring things that lie within this consciousness.

Science cannot use experience to measure something that lies outside of experience!

Science is therefore invalid and not relevant at all!

The very reason we have progress, like computers, is because of engineering (improving the experience) as opposed to science (using experience to measure the things that are allegedly outside of experience).