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We know Zeus doesn't exist because Zeus is supposed to sit on Mount Olympus and he isn't there.

pm90 4y ago
Maybe he made himself invisible to modern humans, or camped off to another planet (an idea covered in the obscure but lovely book series, Everworld.
vlovich123 4y ago
How do you know that the universe wasn’t created 1 picosecond ago spontaneously in its exact form so that you’re having the same thoughts? How do you even know that anyone else exists and this is all not a figment of your imagination? From the perspective of the philosophy of science, it’s 100% impossible to disprove non-falsifiable statements. So scientifically speaking OP is 100% correct. Science has no opinion on Zeus. All it says is “here’s an alternate theory that only depends on falsifiable statements and the body of evidence has failed to falsify it”. Science can only ever say “here’s something we can disprove and we have tried really hard and failed”. Whether that lines up with how the universe works is an open question. Epistemologically it’s seemed a far better knowledge model for humanity to rely on in terms of progress in bending the natural world to our whims and desires. So if you’re testing the statement “Zues was a historical being that physically exists on the same physical plane as us on Mt Olympus” then sure. That’s a pretty falsifiable statement. If the statement is “Does Zeus, a mythical god that can choose how he appears to humans if they can even see him and can travel between planes of existence, exist and live on Mt Olympus” is not something falsifiable because a god like that by definition could blind you to their existence. Heck, how do you even know that the top of Mt Olympus is empty and Zeus not that he just goes ahead and wipes the memory of anyone he lets return alive? Heck, what if he does exist but the only reason it was Olympus at the time because that’s what made sense to human brains encountering him in Greece. What if he actually exists in the core of the Sun?
- freemint 4y ago
  If any of those things were true, it wouldn't be Zeus. Many of your concerns apply to an all mighty god but Zeus was not almighty. I'd just kinda wished people would stop projecting arguments meant to address the christian god to gods from other cultures.
  - vlovich123 4y ago
    A) the stories around Zeus have not stayed constant over the century. No religion has. B) Valhalla was a dimension he travelled to regularly to celebrate the finest warriors in the after life. Why do we think his Olympian throne was on the same dimensional plane as us? C) Why would we trust a human recording from so long ago to actually capture the happenings of celestial beings? D) Ragnorak ended with massive floods. How do we know that didn’t erase all evidence on Mt Olympus? Geological records certainly support evidence for massive flooding explaining the reason it shows up repeatedly across religious texts. Like seriously? You’re seriously arguing that this particular god’s historical existence is falsifiable? What’s next? The tooth fairy is falsifiable because all known instances are parent’s hiding money under your pillow?
    - fancifalmanima 4y ago
      You're confusing two different pantheons from two different parts of Europe. Zeus != Odin
      - dcow 4y ago
        I believe they did this on purpose as a rhetorical device.
    - freemint 4y ago
      Is anything super natural is non falsifiable? Let's say we have a particular haunted house and the ghost moves 3 hand sized objects in the house around at 03:00 on his death day. This should be falsifiable. Mythological beings have a degree of specificity and some degree of power. The more specific and the less capable a mythological being is of erasing those specificities the easier it is to falsify.

pm90 4y ago

Maybe he made himself invisible to modern humans, or camped off to another planet (an idea covered in the obscure but lovely book series, Everworld.

vlovich123 4y ago

How do you know that the universe wasn’t created 1 picosecond ago spontaneously in its exact form so that you’re having the same thoughts? How do you even know that anyone else exists and this is all not a figment of your imagination? From the perspective of the philosophy of science, it’s 100% impossible to disprove non-falsifiable statements. So scientifically speaking OP is 100% correct. Science has no opinion on Zeus. All it says is “here’s an alternate theory that only depends on falsifiable statements and the body of evidence has failed to falsify it”. Science can only ever say “here’s something we can disprove and we have tried really hard and failed”. Whether that lines up with how the universe works is an open question. Epistemologically it’s seemed a far better knowledge model for humanity to rely on in terms of progress in bending the natural world to our whims and desires. So if you’re testing the statement “Zues was a historical being that physically exists on the same physical plane as us on Mt Olympus” then sure. That’s a pretty falsifiable statement. If the statement is “Does Zeus, a mythical god that can choose how he appears to humans if they can even see him and can travel between planes of existence, exist and live on Mt Olympus” is not something falsifiable because a god like that by definition could blind you to their existence. Heck, how do you even know that the top of Mt Olympus is empty and Zeus not that he just goes ahead and wipes the memory of anyone he lets return alive? Heck, what if he does exist but the only reason it was Olympus at the time because that’s what made sense to human brains encountering him in Greece. What if he actually exists in the core of the Sun?

freemint 4y ago
If any of those things were true, it wouldn't be Zeus. Many of your concerns apply to an all mighty god but Zeus was not almighty. I'd just kinda wished people would stop projecting arguments meant to address the christian god to gods from other cultures.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  A) the stories around Zeus have not stayed constant over the century. No religion has. B) Valhalla was a dimension he travelled to regularly to celebrate the finest warriors in the after life. Why do we think his Olympian throne was on the same dimensional plane as us? C) Why would we trust a human recording from so long ago to actually capture the happenings of celestial beings? D) Ragnorak ended with massive floods. How do we know that didn’t erase all evidence on Mt Olympus? Geological records certainly support evidence for massive flooding explaining the reason it shows up repeatedly across religious texts. Like seriously? You’re seriously arguing that this particular god’s historical existence is falsifiable? What’s next? The tooth fairy is falsifiable because all known instances are parent’s hiding money under your pillow?
  - fancifalmanima 4y ago
    You're confusing two different pantheons from two different parts of Europe. Zeus != Odin
    - dcow 4y ago
      I believe they did this on purpose as a rhetorical device.
  - freemint 4y ago
    Is anything super natural is non falsifiable? Let's say we have a particular haunted house and the ghost moves 3 hand sized objects in the house around at 03:00 on his death day. This should be falsifiable. Mythological beings have a degree of specificity and some degree of power. The more specific and the less capable a mythological being is of erasing those specificities the easier it is to falsify.