The Paranoid Principle

After I finished writing the first proof, I kind of hit a road block and felt a moment of panic.  After all, at the beginning of the paper, I promised that I would find a way to not only demonstrate that no proof for the non existence of God exists, but also that no proof would ever exist for His existence.

And, while I did the first part, I didn't know how to do the second.

I knew that such a proof existed.  I never doubted it for a second.  It just seemed so obvious to me, almost like a gimme.  But, now that I had committed myself to the gunfight and was walking the eighth step of the ten paces away from my opponent, I realized that I didn't know how to shoot.

Finally, I seized on a principle that I had gathered from reading science fiction.  The more ridiculous and far out the example, the better it can sometimes illustrate the point that needs to be gotten across.  A situation that is incorrect at the extremes of reason will show where the same situation falters within the bounds.

To demonstrate that no proof for God exists, therefore, was much more subtle then the Proof of the Mischievous God, and relied on a chain of unlikely events.  It was based on the idea that one doesn't require an all powerful being to deceive us.  That is, a lesser being may be able to get the job done.  Human beings can be very gullible sometimes, after all.  I called this proof . . .

The Paranoid Principle

1. Let us suppose that God does not exist.
2. Let us further suppose that there exist more advanced civilizations than ours that wish to deceive us, for whatever reason, into believing that our proofs for God's existence are correct.
3. As these civilizations are not God, they are not all knowledgeable or all powerful.
4. Since the civilizations are not all knowledgeable or all powerful, the possibility exists for us to find a way to disprove the false proof which the advance civilization could not anticipate or prevent.
5. It is possible, however, that a more advanced civilization could then offer us another proof in which the disproof of the previous proof doe not apply.
6. To this proof it will be possible to apply 3, and to this it is possible to apply 4, ad infinitum.
7. We could never be certain that we are not being deceived into believing our proofs until we ourselves become all powerful and all knowledgeable, at which point the question becomes academic.

The reason why I called this the paranoid proof is that it pre supposes that everyone in the universe is against us.  The mere fact that this pre supposition is ludicrous does not rule it out as being a possibility.

At the end of the paper, I concluded that, in using these two proofs, it is possible to disprove virtually any other proof in the known or unknown universe, and that the mere possibility of a mischievous God necessitates it.  I then said that, as these proofs will never get us anywhere in the practical living of our lives, it would probably be best to ignore them and get on with the business of living it.