Tell me why my personal belief is wrong

[Valjean]

Does that mean that the naturalistic methodology in science might change to a naturalistic metaphysic if a consensus could be said to have been reached amongst scientists that science shows that there are no god/s?

How would science demonstrate such a negative claim?

Is it the case that those different philosophies of science would not include a philosophy that said that science is discovering the way God has set things up and has done things? Or would that philosophy be allowed in science?

I don't know about these philosophies, but wouldn't science need to discover a god before studying his actions? A theorem begins with observations.

 

[Brian2]

Brian2 said: You also seem to be an atheist/skeptic who says that it is not real because science has not found it.

It is not about what science has found or what it has not. It is about total absence of evidence for God and soul.

Saying that there is a total absence of evidence for God means that you only accept the type of evidence that science will accept, because there is evidence for God.

 

[Brian2]

Good thing that nobody is making that argument, then.

If you aren't making the argument ""Since we do not know, it is not God" does that mean that you are arguing that you know?
Nobody is making the argument "Since we do not know, it is God".
All I am saying is that if we don't know then you have religious faith about it, just as I have.

 

[Valjean]

That is a guess. There is no known nature of the space time continuum at the Big Bang, if that happened.
Science does not replace the need for God when it finds a physical mechanism for a process. So the advance of science does not mean that God is pushed aside.

So you presuppose a need for God? Why?
Science works with tangible, measurable facts or observations. God is neither, so science ignores Him. It has nothing to work with

You seem to think that science is going to fill gaps that it is not possible for science to fill. Science cannot say there was no creation or that life originally came from dead matter and verify it. It is educated guessing which is based on the presumption that God did not do it.

It does not say God did not do it. It says that, as yet, there's no evidence for an intentional creation or creator.
In re: abiogenesis, doesn't religion make the same claim, but without the evidence science is uncovering?
Both sides believe in abiogenesis, but one investigates how, while the other claims who.

The difference is that Atheists and skeptics want to set up their own Gap theory, the Science of the Gaps, in which natural processes without God are insinuated into all the gaps that science has not filled yet and which God specifically said that He did.

Again, you're presupposing a god; using God as a premise, and even putting words in His mouth. As for gaps, science fills them in as evidence accumulates and is tested. Religion fills them in based on empty claims, claims based on folklore.

As I said, physical mechanisms for how things happen does not take away the need for God. This is more the case with made up physical mechanisms which presume no God.

Again, whence this "need for God?" Please explain.
As for physical mechanisms, why do you say "made up?"

There is the spiritual side of things and I can show it in ways that science does not accept, because science will only consider physical mechanisms.

Please do so -- and defend your claim.

So an atheist and skeptic looks at it and says that all the evidence points to life only being physical in nature and without the need for it to come from pre existing life.
But the atheist and skeptic cannot or don't want to see that the scientific conclusions are based on a presumption and not on evidence.
The atheist and skeptic conclude against the spiritual because of the presumptions of just physical in the science. It's circular reasoning really.

They ignore the spiritual based on lack of evidence, not speculation.
The reasonable approach to a thing is to defer belief till actual evidence for its existence appears. That's why you probably don't believe in pink unicorns or little green men.
As soon as evidence for this spiritual appears, science will jump on it.

 

[Brian2]

It is not.

Due to the fact that things like space, time and gravity exist in the way that they do, the collapse of matter under gravity into a star is inevitable.

Nobody or no thing needs to "put that into motion". It happens automatically due to circumstances.

Or take the physical process of biological evolution. Evolution also is inevitable due to the very properties of life and how reproduction happens. Living things are systems that reproduce with variation in an ever changing environment in which they are in competition with peers over limited resources. Evolution in such a context is once again inevitable.

Nothing or nobody needs to "kick start" these processes. They automatically occur due the very nature of space, time and the forces of nature.

You don't know how this planet may have ended up had God not been involved in it's creation and evolution.
You don't know that life can even start without God putting life into matter and without God having set up conditions for the atoms and molecules to come together in such a way that life could begin and evolution take place.
You don't know that atoms and molecules would have formed without God creating the universe in a particular way for that possibility.
You don't know if the universe could have come into being without God.

This "need" for a god only exists in the minds of the religious.
There is no such "need" in reality. Or at least, not one that can be shown.

For example, name me ONE natural phenomenon that would actually be better understood if you inject a mysterious, vague, undetectable god into it.

The fact is that you can't explain mysteries by appealing to even bigger mysteries.
When you do that, in reality not only have you NOT answered any open questions... instead, you trigger even MORE questions.

Injecting a god does not raise levels understanding. At all.
Not even by a long shot. If anything, it LOWERS it.

Ignoring the possibility of a God which we see from other evidence (eg a Bible full of fulfilled prophecy) does not mean that you are left with the truth.
There is no point in saying "Give me a few miracles and I can explain it all" It is God that does the miracles imo, those things in Genesis that science has no answers for but atheists are happy to say that nature did it anyway. This makes a science of the gaps straight after saying that humanity's God of the gaps idea did not work. Bizarre.
There is no need to inject a God into physical processes, knowing the processes did not get rid of the need for God, except in the God of the Gaps way where if it was not known the mechanism was said to have been God in some of those physical processes

It is, if that god, as Neil deGrass Tyson once said, is an ever receeding pocket of scientific ignorance.

As in:
theist: "God created the earth!"
science: "err, no... planets form through gravity from accretion disc of the solar formation and blabla...."
theist: "ow but god created the star and the accretion disc!!!!"
science: "err, no... stars form through gravity again when matter collapses under gravity and reach critical mass which makes nuclear fusion set in"
theist: "ow but god created the matter and the gravity!!!!"
.....
And so it goes on and on and on and on.

I don't remember a single instance where after science tackled a problem that was previously attributed to "GOD DUN IT", it turned out that god was the correct explanation.

Instead, every single time, gods were shown to be completely obsolete and as unnecessary as undetectable centaurs.

God (and I can only speak for the true God) said that He created everything, that means made things so that energy and matter exist and can form stars and etc etc etc. Finding a physical mechanism for anything says nothing about God having done it or not. Neil De Grassi Tyson does not know what he is talking about when he says God is pushed aside.

Ow my. That is HILARIOUSLY ironic.... first you try to argue that you aren't engaging in a god of the gaps, only to then..... point out knowledge gaps in science for the purpose of plugging your god into it.

Absolutely hilarious.

Now, please tell us all: how have you determined that it is "impossible" for science to investigate and discover how life could originate?

I'm just plugging God into the things that He said He did and which you want to plug science into,,,,,,,, sciencedidit,,,,,,,,,,, as if God did not make science and as if it is sure that a natural answer is all that is needed,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, the science of the gaps.
Science does not know what life is. All science can investigate is chemistry. Life has to be defined in terms of chemistry. If science one day makes life from chemistry let me know, maybe life is in combinations of chemicals that just need someone clever enough to design it and put it all together the right way.

Hilariously shameless projection.

So when scientific study and investigation occurs into phenomena that aren't understood yet, then that is "science of the gaps"????

That is just.... wow. I don't even know how to respond to such drivel.

Science of the gaps is atheists using science's past successes to say that science will find the answers to these mysteries also so there is no need for a God even here.

Both are physical things. Why wouldn't they be defined in physical ways?
I also fail to see how these are supposedly "atheist and skeptic conclusions".

A theistic scientist will also define such things in physical ways. Clearly there is nothing inherently "atheistic" about that. Or are you of the false opinion that every scientist is an atheist?

Science does not know that life and consciousness are physical in nature. That is a presumption that atheists might make because all science can investigate is the physical evidence.
A theistic scientist might but would not automatically see science doing only physical testing as meaning that life is actually only physical in nature.

Again, this is not an "atheist or skeptic" statement.
It is just a true and valid statement.

Indeed, all evidence points to such.
If you have independently verifiable evidence available which points to something else, please share it and I'll be happy to accept it. But you don't have such evidence, do you?

So how is it false to say that all the evidence points to those things being physical?

If you accept only empirical evidence then you ignore a lot of evidence.
Life comes from other life only as far as we know.
Even if chemical structures are in place, life can't be restored to something that is dead.
Fulfilled prophecies in the Bible show that a God has visited earth and that this God says that He gave life.

First life factually, and by necessity, comes from non-life. This is true for atheists as well as theists.
At one point there was no life and then there was.

By necessity, that means that first life did not come from pre-existing life.
The actual question is "how did that occur?".

The difference between you and scientists, is that scientists don't presume to have the answers before actually asking and investigating the question. You however, do.

Neither of you know the answer.
The difference is that scientists then roll up there sleaves and go to work to find the answer.
You on the other hand, just point to your ancient religion and baselessly claim "my god dun it" - as if that answers anything at all.

I'll put my eggs in the basket that engages in the intellectually honest exercise of finding the answer, rather then just assert it religiously without evidence.

In the meantime, until rational and demonstrable answers are actually found, the only correct answer is "we don't know".

YOU here are the one with the a priori beliefs about how life originated. Not me.
YOU are the one with invested interest in holding on to this a prior belief. Not me.
YOU are the one with the emotional attachment to an a priori belief. Not me.

Me.... I'm fine going where the evidence leads. And if the evidence would lead to a god, I'ld happily accept that. But it doesn't. And because it doesn't, it doesn't even register as a plausibility. God's are as relevant to the question as undetectable cookie monsters are. The evidence also doesn't lead to undetectable cookie monsters.

The evidence so far, is leading to plain old (bio)chemistry.
So that's the direction scientists who study this subject are looking.
If the evidence would lead elsewhere, they'ld be looking elsewhere.

The evidence leads in the only direction that science can study so science looks there.
It is true that I have an a priori answer but I would say that you have an apriori answer also of only nature and that is because you ignore anything that science cannot study as if it does not exist or is not good enough for you and your high standards, so you say my standards are low.
You are right that the only correct answer is that "we don't know" but that does not stop faith from leaping into the unknown and either saying God or only nature.

Says the guy with the a priori belief of how life originated.
I have to ask again: what conclusion?
Where have I ever stated that the origins of life are solved?

YOU are the one who is pretending to have the answer. Not me. Not science.

It is good if that is really true but ignoring the other evidence that is not scientific does suggest that you only want one answer.

Yeah. Just like I have to call my house a brick box because I am not able to find and analyse the undetectable extra-dimensional goblins that bricks are actually really made off.

Do you know what else we are unable to find and analyse? Things that don't exist.

I have detected God in the pages of the Bible and then skeptics come along and want to deny that by trying to destroy the truth of the Bible because of their skepticism.

False.

I don't conclude "against" things that are unfalsifiable. That is a waste of energy.
Instead, I conclude FOR things that are in evidence.
And I conclude against things that are in contradiction with the evidence.



Here's a question: if it is impossible to "find and analyse spirit" - then how have you concluded that it is there?

If science can only study the physical then that is a good reason that the physical is the only evidence and the only possible answer.
How does life being spiritual in nature contradict the evidence?
How does God being the creator contradict the evidence?
Spirit is there because the Bible is correct (fulfilled prophecy) and so the God of the Bible is real.
Nevertheless I see evidence of spirit in the reports of OBEs in NDEs.
I also see evidence of spirit in consciousness looking at the thoughts going through the mind.
I see evidence of spirit in ghost stories and other stories of spirits that people experience.
And no doubt there are other things that point me to that conclusion but I can't think of them at the moment.

 

[Valjean]

I believe I can help with that. God spoke things into existence. Magic is something different and the way a scientist views things he doesn't understand,

What evidence do you have for this? There are a thousand different religious stories of creation. What makes your claim more reliable than any other? If there were evidence for a mechanism, wouldn't there be general agreement?

Magic is effect without mechanism. "Speaking something into existence" sounds pretty much like magic to me.

Perhaps but a person who wishes to have the truth must test the theories.

Which is exactly what we're saying; it's exactly what science does.

 

[Valjean]

Saying that there is a total absence of evidence for God means that you only accept the type of evidence that science will accept, because there is evidence for God.

What other kind of evidence are you proposing? Is it observable/detectable? measurable? reproducible? predictive? testable/falsifiable?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

What other kind of evidence are you proposing? Is it observable/detectable? measurable? reproducible? predictive? testable/falsifiable?

It is a fact that people can believe in God. How can that then be wrong of how the world works? That is all the evidence I need.

Whether that is wrong or not is not about evidence, that is morality and there evidence doesn't work.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You're preaching to the choir here, but the explanation is either factual or false. Theories/explanations are generally spoken of as facts, even in science.
eg: Evolution as fact and theory - Wikipedia

Here're the first sentences of that article:

Many scientists and philosophers of science have described evolution as fact and theory, a phrase which was used as the title of an article by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould in 1981. He describes fact in science as meaning data, not known with absolute certainty but "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent".[1] A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of such facts.


The article confirms what I said. Facts (data) and theory (explanation of that data) are not the same things.

Yes, there are the facts of evolution (things change, species share ancestors). Just like there is the fact of gravity (things with mass attract one another, the pull of which is proportional to the mass)

Neither are explanations of the how. Of the mechanisms that produce these facts.

The theories are those explanations.

The theories explain the facts.
The facts support the theories.

Really good theories aren't facts, nor do they become facts.
Facts are not theories and were never theories.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

If you aren't making the argument ""Since we do not know, it is not God" does that mean that you are arguing that you know?

No. Instead, god doesn't even come up as it is a non-issue.
God isn't even mentioned for the same reason that undetectable unicorns aren't mentioned.

God is only relevant to you because of your a priori belief in it.
To me, gods are as irrelevant as undetectable unicorns.

Your a priori belief makes you think, it seems, that one would require an explicit reason to NOT include gods in an explanation. But in reality this is not so. It never is.

Instead, one requires reason to include something.
If you want your god(s) to be part of any particular explanation, then you are going to have to provide valid reasons for it and demonstrate the role this god or these gods play in whatever phenomenon you are talking about.

If you can't do that, why would I give it a second of thought?

Do you feel like you need explicit reason to exclude undetectable pink graviton fairies from explanations concerning how gravity works?

I'm guessing your answer is "no". Ask yourself WHY you don't need any reasons to exclude such.
The answer to that question is the same as why I don't need any reasons to exclude gods.

If you want me to include them: show how and why they should be included. Until then, meh.

All I am saying is that if we don't know then you have religious faith about it, just as I have.

Do you have, or need, "religious faith" when you exclude undetectable graviton fairies from gravity theory?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You don't know how this planet may have ended up had God not been involved in it's creation and evolution.
You don't know that life can even start without God putting life into matter and without God having set up conditions for the atoms and molecules to come together in such a way that life could begin and evolution take place.
You don't know that atoms and molecules would have formed without God creating the universe in a particular way for that possibility.
You don't know if the universe could have come into being without God.

Replace god with "undetectable extra dimensional unicorns" and consider that all those statements have no change in merit at all.


I think the irony here is through the roof.

You constantly accuse me of going into it with unjustified presuppositions (while that isn't even true) yet here you are, with the monstrous presupposition that your god of choice had a hand in everything.

So deeply entrenched in that thinking that you even feel like science should have to explicitly disprove your god of choice (eventhough that is impossible since it's unfalsifiable) as if "god did it" is the default position or at least a very likely possibility.

It's just bizar. The projection is amazing.

No, your god isn't likely "by default".
Your god isn't plausible "by default", or just by virtue of you believing it to be so.

Science will include those things for which there is evidence.
It will ignore those things for which there isn't.

End of story.

 

[Brian2]

How would science demonstrate such a negative claim?

I don't know. Stranger things have happened. I have heard a famous atheist apologist claim that science has shown there is no God and I hear that implication from atheists all the time on this forum and from various atheist apologists.

I don't know about these philosophies, but wouldn't science need to discover a god before studying his actions? A theorem begins with observations.

True, and the evidence God has left us does not seem to be empirical so science cannot claim to have discovered a God even though millions of people claim that they have.

 

[Brian2]

So you presuppose a need for God? Why?
Science works with tangible, measurable facts or observations. God is neither, so science ignores Him. It has nothing to work with

I have faith that there is a God and believe God was needed.
I know science has nothing to work with. Why does this lack of physical evidence for a spiritual God show to atheists that God does not exist? Because they refuse to accept the other evidence for God.

It does not say God did not do it. It says that, as yet, there's no evidence for an intentional creation or creator.
In re: abiogenesis, doesn't religion make the same claim, but without the evidence science is uncovering?
Both sides believe in abiogenesis, but one investigates how, while the other claims who.

I have nothing against science doing what it needs to do with the physical evidence. Science does speak of life however as having physical nature instead of just speaking about how bodies etc might have evolved from chemistry. It is probably overstepping the mark to do that. It is defining life from the get go. What life is, is not known, what bodies are is known, chemicals, and that is what science is actually looking at.

Again, you're presupposing a god; using God as a premise, and even putting words in His mouth. As for gaps, science fills them in as evidence accumulates and is tested. Religion fills them in based on empty claims, claims based on folklore.

I don't care if science says that it knows physical mechanisms. If that is proven great. It is atheists however that wants to say it is all natural and place science in the answer when it is not proven. That is the science of the gaps and is no different to what I do when I says that God did it. It is a religious type faith for many even if when it is pointed out they quickly say, "We really don't know" It is true, we don't know, but I have my beliefs (God) and they have theirs (material universe) and those 2 answers are religious beliefs.
And no the Bible is not just folklore imo. I know that skeptics have got into the study of it and trashed it's historicity but to believe them requires religious faith also as they do not prove anything except what they first presume, that the spiritual parts are not true, and that makes it circular reasoning.
It's a good thing that archaeology keeps digging up new stuff which debunks their claims at least for those with some faith in the truth of the Bible to begin with.

Again, whence this "need for God?" Please explain.
As for physical mechanisms, why do you say "made up?"

Some things are made up in science, such as how a spider might have evolved to learn how to spin a web, and many more. It is not real science however. It might or might not be true.

Please do so -- and defend your claim.

They ignore the spiritual based on lack of evidence, not speculation.
The reasonable approach to a thing is to defer belief till actual evidence for its existence appears. That's why you probably don't believe in pink unicorns or little green men.
As soon as evidence for this spiritual appears, science will jump on it.

It's tiring to repeat myself and people cannot see what I am saying.

 

[Brian2]

What other kind of evidence are you proposing? Is it observable/detectable? measurable? reproducible? predictive? testable/falsifiable?

Really you don't know evidences for God and the truth of the Bible?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I have faith that there is a God and believe God was needed.
I know science has nothing to work with. Why does this lack of physical evidence for a spiritual God show to atheists that God does not exist? Because they refuse to accept the other evidence for God.
...

There are strong and weak atheists and that is not even all variants of atheists.

 

[Brian2]

Replace god with "undetectable extra dimensional unicorns" and consider that all those statements have no change in merit at all.

You wanted to say that you know it all and I pointed out that you do not know it all.

I think the irony here is through the roof.

You constantly accuse me of going into it with unjustified presuppositions (while that isn't even true) yet here you are, with the monstrous presupposition that your god of choice had a hand in everything.

All I am saying is that you have religious faith as much as I do. We don't know, we have faith in what we believe. I don't mind admitting it but you wanted to say you know.

So deeply entrenched in that thinking that you even feel like science should have to explicitly disprove your god of choice (eventhough that is impossible since it's unfalsifiable) as if "god did it" is the default position or at least a very likely possibility.

Science is not the problem really even if it's language is not helpful. (for example it might speak about life being such and such but all it can study is bodies and chemistry and not what life is) But what I am talking about is atheist inability or refusal to see that science cannot study a spirit God and so science cannot show there is no God. You make noises as if that is what you think also but it comes out as something like "all the evidence is of the physical therefore it proves that it is all physical and God is not needed"

It's just bizar. The projection is amazing.

No, your god isn't likely "by default".
Your god isn't plausible "by default", or just by virtue of you believing it to be so.

Science will include those things for which there is evidence.
It will ignore those things for which there isn't.

End of story.

Yes that is what I am trying to say, science has it's parameters and cannot include evidence for God which is not empirical and that does not mean that there is no evidence and does not mean that everything that science finds through looking at the physical evidence and presuming no God involvement, is the be all and end all of what is. If you think that is the case, that only science can tell us stuff then that is religious faith.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...
Science is not the problem really even if it's language is not helpful. (for example it might speak about life being such and such but all it can study is bodies and chemistry and not what life is) But what I am talking about is atheist inability or refusal to see that science cannot study a spirit God and so science cannot show there is no God. You make noises as if that is what you think also but it comes out as something like "all the evidence is of the physical therefore it proves that it is all physical and God is not needed"
...

Well, yes. But what is needed has an element of individuality. You need your God and I accept that. Do you accept that I don't need your God and that I do it differently for what I need?

 

[Brian2]

No. Instead, god doesn't even come up as it is a non-issue.
God isn't even mentioned for the same reason that undetectable unicorns aren't mentioned.

God is only relevant to you because of your a priori belief in it.
To me, gods are as irrelevant as undetectable unicorns.

Your a priori belief makes you think, it seems, that one would require an explicit reason to NOT include gods in an explanation. But in reality this is not so. It never is.

Instead, one requires reason to include something.
If you want your god(s) to be part of any particular explanation, then you are going to have to provide valid reasons for it and demonstrate the role this god or these gods play in whatever phenomenon you are talking about.

If you can't do that, why would I give it a second of thought?

Do you feel like you need explicit reason to exclude undetectable pink graviton fairies from explanations concerning how gravity works?

I'm guessing your answer is "no". Ask yourself WHY you don't need any reasons to exclude such.
The answer to that question is the same as why I don't need any reasons to exclude gods.

If you want me to include them: show how and why they should be included. Until then, meh.

Science should not have to include God but it is religious faith to then say that God does not exist.
Tell me you can see that, surely you can see that science cannot say yay or nay to God and that atheist should not say yay or nay to God because science cannot detect God,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, unless they don't mind having religious faith like that.

Do you have, or need, "religious faith" when you exclude undetectable graviton fairies from gravity theory?

If there is no way to detect graviton fairies then religious faith is not needed to exclude them.
Religious faith is needed if I then say that graviton fairies do not exist.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Science should not have to include God but it is religious faith to then say that God does not exist.
Tell me you can see that, surely you can see that science cannot say yay or nay to God and that atheist should not say yay or nay to God because science cannot detect God,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, unless they don't mind having religious faith like that.



If there is no way to detect graviton fairies then religious faith is not needed to exclude them.
Religious faith is needed if I then say that graviton fairies do not exist.

To be honest about my fellow atheists. We can't always agree on this:
Science has limits: A few things that science does not do - Understanding Science

In short. There is no positive evidence for gods using science, but they in effect add: Therefore it is wrong to believe in God.
The problem is that "it is wrong to believe in God" is not science or even rational in the end.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Saying that there is a total absence of evidence for God means that you only accept the type of evidence that science will accept, because there is evidence for God.

None that I have come across.