With Due Respect: I don't need to prove my disbelief!

The metal Magnesium burning

I don't have to prove a negative statement!
Many of my atheist friends make the following claim--

1) To claim there is a God is a positive statement.

2) The default position is to claim there is nothing or no relation.

3) Hence due to insufficient proof (or convincing statements) there is a God, it is reasonable to claim there is no God.

And this reasoning has some similarities to the scientific method. Scientists who propose a hypothesis of a realtionship between Factors A and B, must first maintain the null (or default) hypothesis that there is no relation between A and B, and seek to prove the relationship (i.e. to show their null hypothesis wrong).

And this resonable, but I challenge is the  line of logic on two fronts.

I) There is insufficent proof of God
There has been many philosopherical attempts to prove the existance of God. They include the Kalam cosmological argument, St. Anselm's ontological argument and the teleological argument. However, I am not a philosopher, so I cannot expound these argument enough to do this justice.

Nevertheless, I want to focus on the life, death and reserrecution of Jesus Christ, the ultimate claim for God.

As pastor Timothy Keller (2008) said,
“In the Christian view, the ultimate evidence for the existence of God is Jesus Christ."

 I invite everyone and anyone to examine the existance of Jesus carefully. Here was someone who claimed He was God. Either He is and then everything about Him matters, or he isn't and nothing about him matters. There is no middle ground to wait upon.

II) You cannot prove a negative
Another line of logic atheist rely on is that they do not have to prove a negative, or a negative position is unproveable.

But of course we have to prove a negative claim-- imagine the government claims you owe them $100,000 in overdue taxes. You have to prove a negative-- the fact that you don't owe them money.

Even in science, we have to explain and provide evidence on why our null hypothesis makes more sense than the assertion of a relationship.

Furthermore, if one is to assert that disbelief is an unproveable position that does not require proof, then why believe in something with no evidence? After all, if atheists demand evidence, then it is a contradiction not to provide any for their view.

Conclusion
To disbelief in something is to provide a positive statement on a negative claim. In other words, even that claim needs to evidence.

References
 Keller, T.J. (2008). The Reason for God.


For further

Alternative culture: The City Harvest Case

St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, July 2011

Recently, five members of the City Harvest Church (including the pastor) were arrested. City Harvest Church is one of the biggest churches in Singapore.

Now, if you came to this site for a legal analysis on what happened-- you will not find it in this blog. If you came over here for a theological discussion and expect me to criticise the theology of City Harvest Church, you will not find it here either. Personally, I have never heard any sermon from City Harvest, so I do not want to write about something I know nothing about.

Nevertheless, some of my friends have approached me to blog about the incident, and I shall obliged them. This my stand, short and simple. I will pray for them.

My temptation
I must confess that I am tempted to cut City Harvest  from the community of Christians, by making sweeping statements like the following:

"It's not my church!"

"They weren't really Christians in the first place!"

But the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthains 12:26:
If one part [of the church] suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

So as a Christian, I must not take joy or self-righteousness from the trials that City Harvest is going through now.

God of justice
Often we Christians just portray God as slow to anger, and abounding in love (Jonah 4:1-2). However, we often forget that God is just.

In his struggles, King David wrote in the Psalms 11:7:
For the Lord is righteous,
    he loves justice;
    the upright will see his face.


As Christians, we should be concerned with social justice (helping the needy and the poor) and legal justice (doing things according to the laws of the state).

Conclusion
So my prayer is this-- if the involved parties are guilty, let them be charged. If they are innocent, let them be free. Above all, God's will be done. That's all I'm willing to blog about the matter.