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Member (Idle past 3860 days) Posts: 390 From: Irvine, CA, United States Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Can science say anything about a Creator God? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 311 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I tend to agree with you that if pressed for clarification, she would say things differently. On the other had, what is Ross to do? Ignore the actual record of what she said? He should not make stuff up.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 311 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
The Big Bang did not convince him to become a Christian. [...] He was finally convinced by the argument of Blaise Pascal in what is now called Pascal's Wager. Try not to forget it.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 311 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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You obviously have very strong feelings on the subject. Heaven forbid that someone with an opinion should disagree with you.
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Taq Member Posts: 10077 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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You obviously have very strong feelings on the subject. Sometimes when people become emotional, they are unable to reason clearly. Will you be able to control those emotions when we begin to discuss the evidence? Why do you feel it necessary to poison the well? Why not just present the evidence? I'm not agitated or emotional about it. I am very matter-of-fact about it. Theists have not presented any compelling evidence that would allow us to include the supernatural in any explanation related to the natural world. None. There is not a single verified supernatural explanation for a natural phenomena. Not one. All of the verified and evidenced explanations we have are natural mechanisms. Every. Single. One. This isn't due to excluding supernatural explanations. This is due to the complete lack of any supernatural mechanisms working in nature.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2725 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, DT.
designtheorist writes: I gave examples of scientists on both sides of the question. i provided the scientific evidence for scientists who changed their minds regarding God because of science. And I picked the side I'm on. Fair enough. But, these were really just superficial summaries, and the reasoning and evidence behind them remain unclear. For example, your anecdotes about Ross and Sandage indicate that their "scientific evidence" for creationism amounts to a faulty use of logic (specifically, affirming the consequent):
Premise: If there is a Creator, there would be a beginning of the universe. Observation: There is a beginning to the universe. Conclusion: Therefore, there is a Creator. I do not accept the initial premise: it has not been demonstrated that a discrete beginning to the universe necessitates a Creator. Therefore, the existence of a discrete beginning to the universe is not evidence for the existence of a Creator. In the absence of evidence, I have to remain silent on whether or not the Big Bang points to a Creator. Most lines of reasoning that attempt to support the existence of the Creator have ended the same way for me. So, based on this history of personal experience, my current opinion is that a Creator can only be concluded from fallacious logic. This makes me highly skeptical toward the idea of a Creator. But, I stop short of believing that science can definitively rule out a supernatural Creator.-Blue Jay, Ph.D.* *Yeah, it's real Darwin loves you.
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designtheorist Member (Idle past 3860 days) Posts: 390 From: Irvine, CA, United States Joined: |
So are we finished with this thread, or when you qualify your statements with "mostly" and "to a large extent" do you have some exceptions in mind, and can you argue for them? By "mostly" and "to a large extent," I mean that most researchers are looking at very specific research interests. If you are studying quasars or the age of the universe, then you are not looking for the supernatural. But if you are looking for the best model related to origins, then it would be a mistake to automatically exclude from consideration evidence that may point to the supernatural. That type of philosophical, a priori, "the supernatural doesn't exist" mindset is not conducive to open and honest scientific enquiry.
That depends what you mean by God. But what I've seen of Dawkins' arguments on the subject leave me unconvinced as to their merit. If you find them convincing, welcome to atheism. I am unconvinced by Dawkins arguments also. But even a stopped watch is right twice a day. I think Dawkins is right that science can say something about the supernatural, I just think he comes to the wrong conclusion.
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designtheorist Member (Idle past 3860 days) Posts: 390 From: Irvine, CA, United States Joined: |
Why do you feel it necessary to poison the well? Why not just present the evidence? I apologize for offending you. It was not my intention. The evidence will be forthcoming in a later debate. Right now we are debating the issue of whether or not it is possible for science to say something about the supernatural or God. Let me ask you this. What is the minimum scientific evidence it would take for you to be convinced God exists? Can you conceive of any such evidence? What would it look like?
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designtheorist Member (Idle past 3860 days) Posts: 390 From: Irvine, CA, United States Joined: |
Fair enough. But, these were really just superficial summaries, and the reasoning and evidence behind them remain unclear. Yes, that's true. But we have not gotten to the evidence yet. That comes later. Many people operate with a type of unexamined premise, that the supernatural is not real and so discount any evidence of it. That's the point of this debate. Is it possible for science to say anything about the supernatural or God?
In the absence of evidence, I have to remain silent on whether or not the Big Bang points to a Creator. Most lines of reasoning that attempt to support the existence of the Creator have ended the same way for me. So, based on this history of personal experience, my current opinion is that a Creator can only be concluded from fallacious logic. This makes me highly skeptical toward the idea of a Creator. But, I stop short of believing that science can definitively rule out a supernatural Creator. Fair enough. Human knowledge is finite and will always remain so. I agree that it is impossible for science to rule out a supernatural Creator. The interesting issue is that for some participants in this debate, it is possible for science to rule out a Creator but not possible for science to find evidence the Creator exists. I think this is exactly backwards. Let me ask you. What is the minimum amount of scientific evidence on the supernatural that would cause you to begin a spiritual journey like the one Allan Sandage and Hugh Ross began?
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Taq Member Posts: 10077 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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Let me ask you this. What is the minimum scientific evidence it would take for you to be convinced God exists? Can you conceive of any such evidence? What would it look like? In the biological realm, a creator God would be best evidenced by the appearance of modern animals in the Cambrian and a lack of a nested hierarchy. If a thousand foot deity came down from the clouds and threw lightning at my feet I am sure I would also be quite convinced.
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Taq Member Posts: 10077 Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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Many people operate with a type of unexamined premise, that the supernatural is not real and so discount any evidence of it. False. We think that the supernatural is not real because there is no evidence for it. Believers have had thousands of years to present that evidence, and none has been brought forth.
I agree that it is impossible for science to rule out a supernatural Creator. Why? Why is the supernatural automatically unfalsifiable? Just look at all of the natural explanations we now accept as true that were once explained by the supernatural. Hasn't the supernatural been falsified in those instances?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 311 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
But if you are looking for the best model related to origins, then it would be a mistake to automatically exclude from consideration evidence that may point to the supernatural. That type of philosophical, a priori, "the supernatural doesn't exist" mindset is not conducive to open and honest scientific enquiry. There seems to be a shortage of such evidence.
I am unconvinced by Dawkins arguments also. But even a stopped watch is right twice a day. I think Dawkins is right that science can say something about the supernatural ... But he says so for a very specific reason, namely that he thinks science rules out the supernatural. If he's wrong, he's wrong.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 93 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
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dt writes: Is it possible for science to say anything about the supernatural or God? Science investigates that which can be detected. Science is a method for investigation. If supernatural entities can be detected then we can apply the methods of science to investigate them. If such entities cannot be detected then, whether they actually exist or not, any claims to have expererienced such entities tell us more about the internal workings of the claimants mind than they do any aspect of reality external to that mind.
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designtheorist Member (Idle past 3860 days) Posts: 390 From: Irvine, CA, United States Joined: |
False. We think that the supernatural is not real because there is no evidence for it. Believers have had thousands of years to present that evidence, and none has been brought forth. You say there is no evidence and yet there are 2.2 billion Christians on the planet. Is it possible that there is evidence and you have not been convinced by it? We have not yet begun to examine the evidence put forward in the RTB Creation Model. If you were to sit on a jury, the instructions from the judge would be to put aside any preconceptions, wait until all the evidence is in and then weigh all the evidence both for and against. I would ask the same of you now.
Why? Why is the supernatural automatically unfalsifiable? Disproving the existence of something that is immaterial and all-powerful is not impossible, but it is impossible by scientific means. Science deals with inductive evidence. It is not possible to ever get enough inductive evidence to disprove God. You would have to have infinite knowledge and humans will never have that. It could be that a God, for his own reasons (possibly to cause people to rely on faith), would never allow absolute proof about his existence to be found. It is possible to disprove a God from deductive logic. That is, if the God in question could be shown to have attributes that are mutually exclusive, then that God could be shown to be logically impossible. That approach to disprove the God of the Bible has been attempted and failed.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: So Ross was the sort of atheist who is all too willing to jump to the conclusion that there is a God. And we know that his "fair" evaluation of holy books was nothing of the sort. Ross has to interpret the Bible based on the assumption of inerrancy to come to his views and overlooks serious problems such as the ages attributed to the pre-Flood generations.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9510 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8
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designtheorist writes: You say there is no evidence and yet there are 2.2 billion Christians on the planet. There are also millions of others believing in different gods, millions unsure and millions believing in none. This is evidence of nothing other than people seem to believe in different things and are confused. Even if 100% of everyone on the planet believed in exactly the same God, it is not evidence of the existence of God. If 100% of white, English children under the age of 10 believed in Father Christmas - which is highly probable - he still wouldn't exist.
Is it possible that there is evidence and you have not been convinced by it? In most cases, it's rather the reverse. Atheists, like everyone else, are usually born into families that believe in something or other, so they do too. They only later discover that it's all a nonsense. Then, of course, we've looked everywhere for evidence and never, ever found any at all - just a bunch of superstitions and outright lies.
We have not yet begun to examine the evidence put forward in the RTB Creation Model. So it's time to shit or get off the pot, as my granddad used to say. Given the amount of verbal contortion presented so far, I have little hope of any evidence based revellation. But give it your best shot.Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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