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What do you do with missing evidence? Like the global dearth of soft tissue in all fossils?

tas8831

Well-Known Member
Not in this case. ;)

I don't claim to be able to prove that He did....just say that it's OK to SAY that He did if one believes it, AND to learn how the universe works through the scientific method, because learning HOW He did it is the same process as learning how things work if one doesn't believe God exists.

Though you'd have a point if I were attempting to prove that God exists. Very circular. Sorry for the confusion.


"It's just FINE to say 'God did it!"

Because He DID."
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
So in other words, you have about as much valid reason for advancing a "god" as you have for advancing undetectable pixies.



You and your dad are certainly not the first, nore the last, who compartementalize their brain in this manner.

I submit that your reasons for believing your religion, would never suffice for you, would it concern any other subject.
You would be right.

Because the reasons for believing in God are personal and subjective, and those are not good ways to examine the crystaline nature of salt vs. silica
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
"It's just FINE to say 'God did it!"

Because He DID."

Yes, He did.

But there's nothing at all about that which undermines science. Whether God did it or not, we STILL need to go find out how. There will never come a time when saying 'God Did IT' is the answer beyond which no investigation need be made.

Because no matter Who did it, the processes are the same. And we can, and should, examine them and figure them out.
 

tas8831

Well-Known Member
Yes, He did.

But there's nothing at all about that which undermines science. Whether God did it or not, we STILL need to go find out how. There will never come a time when saying 'God Did IT' is the answer beyond which no investigation need be made.

Because no matter Who did it, the processes are the same. And we can, and should, examine them and figure them out.
Ok, whatever.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Yes, He did.

But there's nothing at all about that which undermines science. Whether God did it or not, we STILL need to go find out how. There will never come a time when saying 'God Did IT' is the answer beyond which no investigation need be made.

Is there something science could come up with, that would make you say "hmm, i guess god didn't do it after all..."? And if yes, what?

Just curious.

Because no matter Who did it, the processes are the same.

I submit that they aren't.
I submit that natural processes which just happen because conditions happen to be what they are, are not the same kind of processes that are / need to be set in motion and controlled by a conscious entity.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
Is there something science could come up with, that would make you say "hmm, i guess god didn't do it after all..."? And if yes, what?

Just curious.

Can't think of one, frankly. Could you? Suppose God is simply (this is the deist notion) the Primal Cause, the One that did the first 'kick start,' and Who just let everything happen as it would? How would that be different than your own notion that God is not involved, or needed?

Now me, I honestly don't think that God micromanages things. Seems to me that atheists who think as you do insist that He must, like the kid with the toy train who has to pick up the engine every time it comes to a joint in the track in order to keep it from derailing. Y'all keep moving the goal posts on Him, like that poster who set up the Efficacy of Prayer program, who insisted that God MUST answer some manufactured and typed set of prayers...or He doesn't exist.

Or that He MUST do things that violate every 'natural law' we know about in order to BE God. That has always seemed pretty darned silly to me, like insisting that for God to be God, He has to do everything the hard way.



I submit that they aren't.
I submit that natural processes which just happen because conditions happen to be what they are, are not the same kind of processes that are / need to be set in motion and controlled by a conscious entity.

Would the processes be different? I mean...if we know that water freezes at a certain temperature, and expands when it freezes, and causes the sort of weathering that helps make Bryce Canyon gloriously beautiful, would that process be different if God 'invented' the natural law by which that works? I don't see how it would be different. If everything we look at works according to some natural law...or better yet, if we deduce what those natural laws are by what we see happening, how would things change if we believed that God was responsible for those natural laws?

They are what they are. Figuring out what they are is what science is for.

Figuring out why God would create those natural laws is religion, and science has nothing to do with that, just as religion has nothing to do with figuring out how those laws affect things.

Again, it amazes me that it's the atheists who insist that God be so stupid as to do everything the hard way...by breaking the very natural laws He is supposed to have created in the first place.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
And you think they are wrong (or you'ld be scientologist/hindu), but they don't. They think they are correct. Just like you think you are correct. They think you're wrong though.


I think you're all wrong.

That was my point. They believe they are correct. I believe that they are wrong and I am correct. You think we are all a pillow case short of a sheet set. (shrug)

Doesn't matter in terms of science, though, does it?

We could all be wrong...or more importantly, I could be right, and science, and scientific research, would be the same, as would the discoveries made using science.

Here's the thing; science will NEVER be able to prove that there is no God. (shrug) So why bother dealing with the problem through science? it doesn't really matter whether the Big Bang 'just happened,' or it had a bit of a kick start. Everything works the same either way.

Or...it doesn't matter whether the astronomer next to you believes that God started things, or that the stars just happened to find themselves where they are; you are both looking at the same stars, dealing with the same processes that put them where they are. Your theist colleague isn't going to do anything different, publish anything different, SEE anything different. If he (or she) privately sees the wonder of God's creation and glories in it, well,
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Can't think of one, frankly. Could you?

Nope. The difference is that for me, such a is a good reason to not accept those claims as true.
Because if there is nothing that can show it false, there's also nothing that could support it. That in turn means there is no valid reason to believe it, because why would you believe unsupportable claims?


Suppose God is simply (this is the deist notion) the Primal Cause, the One that did the first 'kick start,' and Who just let everything happen as it would? How would that be different than your own notion that God is not involved, or needed?

Not different at all, so why would anyone even suggest, or believe in, such a god in the first place?
It's as useless as it is meaningless.

Now me, I honestly don't think that God micromanages things.

This seems to imply that you believe that God does macro manage things. Care to elaborate?


Seems to me that atheists who think as you do insist that He must

No, not exactly.

Instead, I'm just questioning why anyone would suggest, or believe in, an entity that has no detectable manifestation, can not even be supported by evidence, can not be falsified, has no detectable role in reality whatsoever,... in short: is completely indistinguishable from entities that don't exist.

Y'all keep moving the goal posts on Him, like that poster who set up the Efficacy of Prayer program, who insisted that God MUST answer some manufactured and typed set of prayers...or He doesn't exist.

I don't think the people doing that study did it with the mindset of "... or he doesn't exist", nore did they conclude that when they could show statistically that prayer doesn't work.

The study just shows that praying accomplishes nothing. That's it.
That praying for your loved one to get better, will not make that loved one better.

Or that He MUST do things that violate every 'natural law' we know about in order to BE God

Again, no.
The violation of natural law thingy, is about supposed "supernatural miracles". Things like turning water into wine, walking on water, making the blind see with but a handwave, making the sun "stand still" in the sky for a couple of days, etc.

That has always seemed pretty darned silly to me, like insisting that for God to be God, He has to do everything the hard way.

Well, to be fair, nothing would be "hard" for an omnipotent god.


In any case, you are seriously conflating all kinds of things. At present, as far as I am concerned anyway, we are just discussing a sort of generic god that does or does not communicate with people "telepathically" or whatever and how one can know if this "communication" is actually real and from this god, or if it concerns just hallucination, delusion or honest mistakes.

I asked several times now HOW you can know this, but you kinda dodged it every time. The closest you came is something like "i know because I know", by calling it "unmistakable" that this communication comes from the god you happen to believe in.


Would the processes be different? I mean...if we know that water freezes at a certain temperature, and expands when it freezes, and causes the sort of weathering that helps make Bryce Canyon gloriously beautiful, would that process be different if God 'invented' the natural law by which that works?


Consider the difference between ice at the north pole and ice in a freezer.
Which is natural, and which was "done" by a conscious entity?

Consider plastic.
Suppose Curiosity tomorrow finds plastic on Mars. What do you think would the reaction be and why?

I don't see how it would be different. If everything we look at works according to some natural law...or better yet, if we deduce what those natural laws are by what we see happening, how would things change if we believed that God was responsible for those natural laws?

Again, if you're going to reduce this God's role to something that is utterly useless and meaningless, then sure it won't make a difference.

But realise that at that point, it's akin to saying that undetectable pink graviton pixies are responsible for gravity. No, it won't change anything about our understanding of mass, gravitational forces, relativity or our calculations to see at what speed a certain hammer will hit the ground when dropped from height X in a vacuum.

Because meaningless and useless unfalsifiable things, don't have any effect on anything at all. Or otherwise said: they have the same effect on reality as non-existant things.

Figuring out why God would create those natural laws is religion, and science has nothing to do with that, just as religion has nothing to do with figuring out how those laws affect things.

So what is the religious methodology used to "figure out" that god did anything at all and why?

Again, it amazes me that it's the atheists who insist that God be so stupid as to do everything the hard way...by breaking the very natural laws He is supposed to have created in the first place.

So, you're a christian, right?

What's your stance on the supposed "miracles" in the bible attributed to the various characters therein?
If you believe some of these events happened, was god actually required for any of them? If yes, why?
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
That was my point. They believe they are correct. I believe that they are wrong and I am correct.

Indeed, and to circle back to my initial question that started all this and which you still haven't given a straightforward answer to...................

Clearly you agree that people can believe to have received "divine communication" and be wrong about that.
How do you know that you aren't one of them?

You seem pretty sure that you aren't one of them. How do you know this?

Here's the thing; science will NEVER be able to prove that there is no God

Nore does it need to, for several reasons...
1. the burden of proof is never on non-existance... you can only show that a thing exists, not that it doesn't exist (except when the entire concept is not internally consistent, like a "married bachelor")

2. it's impossible to falsify unfalsifiable claims

Science will also never be able to prove that there is no undetactable 7-headed dragon following me around everywhere, for the exact same reasons.

So what this is, is nothing but a blatant shift of the burden of proof.


[qutoe]So why bother dealing with the problem through science?[/quote]

I'm not actually. I'm really just interested in know why you believe what you believe and why you think you are correct about your beliefs.

Or...it doesn't matter whether the astronomer next to you believes that God started things, or that the stars just happened to find themselves where they are; you are both looking at the same stars, dealing with the same processes that put them where they are. Your theist colleague isn't going to do anything different, publish anything different, SEE anything different. If he (or she) privately sees the wonder of God's creation and glories in it, well,

So why would that theist astronomer believe in this god, if it makes no difference?

Undetectable 7-headed dragons also make no difference.
Would you say it's rational to believe in undetectable 7-headed dragons?
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
................how one can know if this "communication" is actually real and from this god, or if it concerns just hallucination, delusion or honest mistakes.

I asked several times now HOW you can know this, but you kinda dodged it every time. The closest you came is something like "i know because I know", by calling it "unmistakable" that this communication comes from the god you happen to believe in.

Actually, I have never said anything even remotely like "I know because I know,' and I certainly don't remember using the word 'unmistakable."

For one thing, nobody is more careful with the word 'know' than I am. I KNOW very little. For instance, while I may KNOW that the sun was shining about eight minutes ago, because, well, I can see the light of it out my window, I do not KNOW that it is shining right now. The odds are very, very good that it is, but there will come a time when some critter will look out and see the sunshine...not aware that the sun exploded four minutes previously.

I BELIEVE very strongly that God is, and what's more, I believe that what I think about Him is, for the most part, accurate. I believe this because I have personally read scriptures (from many different cultures, not just my own), studied, thought...and prayed. I believe that I have received answers to my prayers. My beliefs; very subjective. Very personal. I can't prove it to you, and I see no need to try. If you want to find out, then you need to do your own looking, reading, studying and praying. It's not science and was never meant to be so.

My own personal beliefs, not shared by many theists or even by many Christians (though it is shared by a whole bunch of Latter-day saints) is that we are, quite literally, the children of God. We are SUPPOSED to go find out stuff using the scientific method, or through science, however you want to put it. It's one of the reasons we are here. Nothing we can discover will prove that He is, OR prove that He isn't; that's not the point.

I'm not a theist because I believe that science proves His existence. It can't. That's not what science is for, and those who think that they can find scientific evidence of God are really missing the point.

Science is only one way of looking at the world. It's the best way to identify physical processes, but it doesn't even address spiritual, subjective, experiences. That's fine.

The problem only lies when people insist that if science doesn't address it, it cannot exist. The folks who insist that all things can be explained through subjective spiritual experiences are equally mistaken. They are two very different things, very different avenues of exploration, and the most important thing to remember is this:

One does not invalidate, or contradict, the other. If they seem to..THEN there is a problem, and the problem is that someone is trying to use one thing inappropriately, like the guy who wants to measure the depth of a lake with a teaspoon. Use the right tools for the right purpose.


Consider the difference between ice at the north pole and ice in a freezer.
Which is natural, and which was "done" by a conscious entity?

Does it matter? The composition of the ice is the same, either way. It formed the same way: water + cold = ice.

My grandfather used to go to Bear Lake (not Great Bear Lake, Bear Lake, which is much larger and deeper, just so you know) in the winter to harvest blocks of ice. He'd haul them back to his ice house and store it in sawdust. That ice would last through the end of August, most years. In fact, he kept doing that even after the town started providing frozen locker services for the hunters.

I never could tell the difference between the ice cream made with ice from his ice house and the ice from the freezer. Do you think you could have?

It's all ice.

Consider plastic.
Suppose Curiosity tomorrow finds plastic on Mars. What do you think would the reaction be and why?

Trust me on this one: the atheists would be all excited about extra terrestrials and nobody would be thinking God Did it. The Green Peace folks would be shouting about how SEE???? the MARTIANS KILLED THEIR PLANET WITH PLASTIC!!!



Again, if you're going to reduce this God's role to something that is utterly useless and meaningless, then sure it won't make a difference.

I didn't say it didn't make a difference, or that His role is useless and meaningless. Far from it. I believe that there is more to being us than the physical world around us, is all.

But realise that at that point, it's akin to saying that undetectable pink graviton pixies are responsible for gravity. No, it won't change anything about our understanding of mass, gravitational forces, relativity or our calculations to see at what speed a certain hammer will hit the ground when dropped from height X in a vacuum.

Because meaningless and useless unfalsifiable things, don't have any effect on anything at all. Or otherwise said: they have the same effect on reality as non-existant things.

Might make a difference to our moral and ethical codes, the way we treat each other, and what we believe about whether there is a reason for our being here.



So what is the religious methodology used to "figure out" that god did anything at all and why?

There isn't one. That's what science is for...except for the 'why' part. Science doesn't even attempt to address the 'why.'





So, you're a christian, right?

I think so...though plenty of other Christians disagree with me on that. ;)

What's your stance on the supposed "miracles" in the bible attributed to the various characters therein?
If you believe some of these events happened, was god actually required for any of them? If yes, why?

Well, yes...I believe in most of 'em. I think that some of 'em are reported a bit, er, skewed, but ???

As for whether God was 'required,' If He was responsible for them, then He was responsible for them. I wasn't REQUIRED to breastfeed my children, but I am the one who did it.

I don't know if ONLY God could have, say, been responsible for the virgin birth of Jesus--after all, WE can do it ourselves. Quick outpatient procedure. There's even a stupid TV show about how it could happen now. The point is, I believe it happened and He's the One responsible.

I don't see the need to debunk all the miracles in the bible, quite frankly. Most of 'em are reported by people who didn't know what they were looking at, and don't make a difference to the point of their retelling, and given that finding out that one of 'em was actually possible is generally used by atheists who crow 'see? if WE could do it, that means God did NOT do it, and therefore, no God."

I don't care. I don't believe in God because of science, and I don't use science to debunk God. The two areas of study are completely different.
 
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night912

Well-Known Member
That would be true IF one was looking for evidence to prove that God did it. If one is aware that whether God 'did it' or not, the processes and the 'laws of nature' would be the same, it's not.



Wrong analogy.

Believing that god exists, and that He 'did it,' doesn't MATTER to how the universe came to be, in terms of 'forensics,' as you put it in your story. They would be the same. Whether God began the whole thing or not, or interferes in any way or not, the 'laws' would be the same as far as WE are concerned. We would not,, COULD not, find any anomalies or weirdnesses...how could we? If God is responsible, then all the laws of nature would conform to what He did, seamlessly. If He is not, there would be no difference in what we could see; belief in deity is very much apart from science.

Confusing and conflating them is a mistake for both sides.

And YOU are the one conflating them. I'm not.

It's easy to point out things about others but not about oneself especially when it hasn't conflict with their own beliefs yet.

With your examples of the claims about atheist scientists, you've proven that I was right in regards to my point. By thinking that it's wrong for atheists scientists to believe that god doesn't exist before having scientific results, you've shown that it's also wrong to believe that god created the universe. You just couldn't see that because it conflicts with your own beliefs.

That's why it's rational to go with the conclusion that the evidence leads to and not lead the evidence to the conclusion that you believe in. So why not don't believe that god created the universe until there's evidence to support it. And like I said earlier, this line of thinking isn't just for science. You had some personal experiences that you didn't know what it was and/or explained it, so you attributed it to god. There are many factors that come into play when it comes to personal experience.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
It's easy to point out things about others but not about oneself especially when it hasn't conflict with their own beliefs yet.

With your examples of the claims about atheist scientists, you've proven that I was right in regards to my point. By thinking that it's wrong for atheists scientists to believe that god doesn't exist before having scientific results, you've shown that it's also wrong to believe that god created the universe. You just couldn't see that because it conflicts with your own beliefs.

Stop right there. You are misrepresenting what I'm trying to say here. I did NOT say that it is wrong for atheists to believe that god doesn't exist before having scientific results.

What I"m saying here is that is wrong for atheists to insist that THEISTS believe that God does not exist before having scientific results.

It is not the theist scientist who is bringing his religious beliefs in here...it's the atheists.

It doesn't MATTER whether God exists, to the field of science. The scientist who believes He does, and the one who thinks He doesn't will have the same results, if they use the same methods, scientific methods.

The only thing I have noticed is that atheists who are that dismissive of any hint that there might be a god will shy very far away from any result that even HINTS that deity might be involved; Fred Hoyle and the Big Bang is one very obvious example, poor man.

After all, the 'Big Bang' does not prove that God exists or that God caused it, whatever anybody might believe about it. But Hoyle was so afraid that it might be pointed to as proof, he simply could not accept it, no matter what evidence was discovered about it.
 

night912

Well-Known Member
Stop right there. You are misrepresenting what I'm trying to say here. I did NOT say that it is wrong for atheists to believe that god doesn't exist before having scientific results.

What I"m saying here is that is wrong for atheists to insist that THEISTS believe that God does not exist before having scientific results.

It is not the theist scientist who is bringing his religious beliefs in here...it's the atheists.

It doesn't MATTER whether God exists, to the field of science. The scientist who believes He does, and the one who thinks He doesn't will have the same results, if they use the same methods, scientific methods.

The only thing I have noticed is that atheists who are that dismissive of any hint that there might be a god will shy very far away from any result that even HINTS that deity might be involved; Fred Hoyle and the Big Bang is one very obvious example, poor man.

After all, the 'Big Bang' does not prove that God exists or that God caused it, whatever anybody might believe about it. But Hoyle was so afraid that it might be pointed to as proof, he simply could not accept it, no matter what evidence was discovered about it.

You contradicted yourself in the same post here. In bold.
 
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