Is String Theory Supernatural?

I already gave you the example that science has shown me that God used an evolutionary process for creation. Science only uses what can be verified through the scientific method. Science might verify some aspects of Christianity but it won't work the other way around. It has many authors but they have a point in writing what they did. The Gospel writers obviously intended to chronicle an account of what happened that they claim to be correct. I agree that it isn't a conclusive argument but it is evidence. They may have gotten it wrong, but maybe they didn't. I'm starting from the position of being a believing Christian, just as you start from the position of being an atheist. Science gives an account of how we have evolved so I understand that God has interacted with the world in such a way as to be a first cause of the evolutionary process. For you it is, presumably, simply the result of a process with a non-intelligent first cause .There is no evidence that God interacts through our hearts and minds. It is belief. I know for example that we have a conscience. Is that God speaking to our hearts and minds? I believe that it is whereas you believe that isn't.I'm just saying that if God is part of a co-existing universe that interlocks in some way with our own that that could be the point of connection between God and our hearts and minds.We are probably miles off topic here by the way.

Not at all. It is a miracle because it only contravenes the natural laws that we experience. When science talks about other dimensions and universes then we have no comprehension of what laws if any might be part of another form of existence.

What science informed you that God used evolutionary processes? I am unaware of any scientific study that has shown a deity being part of evolutionary processes. Why do you immediately assume that some aspects of Christianity are unverifiable? Why immediately assume that the supernatural is unverifiable through scientific means? It has authors making claims of what they did. What scientific studies have shown that God interacted with the world as a first cause for evolutionary processes? It is the result of whatever the evidence indicates. If there is no evidence then "I don't know" is the correct answer for the time being.As I stated before, there were atheists before Darwin, and there were after. Right now we do not know how universes are produced, and there are still atheists. We don't know the specifics of how life started on Earth, or how life could start. There are still atheists. Then why try to continually attach science to these beliefs? And if the world was created by an invisible pink unicorn then ice cream is made of spirits. I can make stuff up, too.

**sigh**I don't think you're getting it.If it contravenes the natural laws that we experience then it is not congruent with science.

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My point is simply that science does not mitigate against Christianity and can be used to inform it.

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Uh, scientifically speaking... when people die they don't come back to life 3 days later.

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That's why it is called a miracle.

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Miracles aren't congruent with science.

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That was my point. It is a miracle for that reason.

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But its one of the main tenets of christianity... That kinda screws up the whole "congruent with science" thing.

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Not at all. It is a miracle because it only contravenes the natural laws that we experience.

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lol wut? You could use that on any crazy thing that you want to believe in. Is Puff the magic dragon real? Well we don't know because science talks about other dimensions. Come on now, GDR. We don't really live in the Matrix. There's a real world out there and science has a pretty good handle on it. The miracles that happened in the Bible are not congruent with science. Otherwise, they wouldn't be miracles.String, and Multiverse, Theory do not give you a wide open hole to pull any old belief out of and call it congruent with science because "there could be anything".The better point with the congruency with science is that you can use science to better understand some aspects of your faith. But there's no good reason to argue that there are not any aspects of your faith that are not congruent with science. Besides, that just turns god's miracles into cheap parlor tricks.

So the same parallel universes that physicists are suggesting are possible explanations for the gravitational effects of dark matter and suchlike you are citing as the supernatural dwelling place of your god.The parallel universes physicists are suggesting as possible explanations for observable phenomena are, according to you, supernatural. So, if we follow the logic of your argument, physicists are in fact putting forward supernatural explanations for observable phenomena. Frankly I think you have seen that headline, gotten very over-excited, and started making all sorts of leaps of logic that are entirely unjustified. I can see how a theist eager to see their beliefs justified might read that headline and think something like I knew it! The unseen and silently interwoven reality I always theistically knew existed is now being confirmed by scientists. But are physicists and you talking about remotely similar things? Here is the fuller quote from your article:

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Scientists are increasingly considering the possibility that dark matter, in particular, is not just a contrivance to account for the motion of visible matter but a hidden side of the universe with a rich inner life. It may consist of a veritable zoo of particles interacting through novel forces of naturean entire universe interwoven silently with our own.

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Does it really sound like physicists are talking about heaven here? Or something that is congruent with Jesus resurrection? Or congruent with the notion that some intelligent being in another universe is silently influencing our hearts and minds in some sort of non-physical fashion? Really? This is pretty hot off the press. First results. Nothing conclusive LinkHow is this different from saying that complex intelligent entities just randomly exist rather than not? I thought one of your key objections to non-theistic origins was randomness.? No?

I didn’t claim that. You used a quote out of context. I assumed my belief that we are a creation of God. I am only saying that science is compatible with my Christian faith and in the case of evolution I have learned about the process that I believe God used to bring about life as we know it. I am not claiming that science gives us any objective position on the existence of a deity. I suppose you may want to argue the point but I do assume that science is not going to provide answers as to why we have a sense of morality. I understand the naturalist philosophical argument but that isn`t science. Sure, I’m fine with that. None OK, but we all have our beliefs, whether we know something objectively or not. As I’ve said before. My posts have assumed that I am correct in my theistic beliefs. Science itself is agnostic as you pointed out. However, if I am correct, then as science would be the study of what God has created and so it seems to me that science will tell us something about the creator.

As I said previously:The challenge that remains for string theorists is to come up with some predictions that are experimentally verifiable.But to just say "strings are too small to detect" is to completely miss the point of how most conclusions in science are actually drawn. The logical consequences (aka predictions) of string theory being correct could manifest at all sorts of size levels from the cosmological to the Planck.

Thank you. That is what I have been trying to say and obviously not doing much of a job of it.

Why bring science into it at all? Why not just say, "These are my beliefs, and I have no evidence for them." I just don't see how unevidenced beliefs are compatible with science. I agree. I, as an atheist, have beliefs. For example, I believe that helping out my fellow human beings is a worthy cause and worth my time. I believe that Delta Blues is far better than Chicago Blues. I believe that desert landscapes are extremely beautiful. However, at no time do I feel the need to say that my beliefs are compatible with science. That's the part that I don't get. Why bring science into it at all? It starts with unevidenced beliefs, does not touch anything that can be considered evidence, and then ends on unevidenced beliefs. It reads to me like an attempt to add legitimacy to your beliefs where none exists.

I don’t intend to go that far. The point is that Christianity has had the position that God is ever-present and interacts with this world. Science is now talking about the existence of other universes, that we are unable to perceive directly, and that influence our existence. I realize that what scientists are looking at is by no means theistic nor even close to what I’m suggesting. However, as a Christian it gives me a concept of heaven that frankly one isn’t likely to get from reading the Bible. Certainly this view is dependent on my pre-existing beliefs, but we all have those. In the article they have a part headed by IN BRIEF which is a synopsis of the article. It says this:

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Scientists have two independent reasons for thinking that the cosmos is filled with some unknown form of matter, dark matter. Not only do stars, galaxies and gas clouds move as if they are being tugged by the gravity of hidden material, but processes such as radioactivity present puzzles that can be solved by the existence of hitherto unknown particles. Dark matter is usually assumed to consist of WIMP’s, a kind of particle that scarcely interacts with the visible world. Boringness is its sine qua non.

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Or at least that is the usual assumption. Might dark matter in fact have a rich inner life? Particle physicists striving to understand what makes up dark matter think it could interact through a full range of forces, including a form of light to which our eyes are totally blind.

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Now I realize that when it talks about a deep inner life it is talking about particle life. (Mind you our bodies are nothing but particles.) But when it talks about a form of light which are unable to perceive then it goes to show that there is a lot that we don’t know about it.Here is another wild speculation that will again lead me wide open to attack and ridicule. (Fortunately I have broad shoulders, unfortunately I’m only speaking figuratively.) Here is a wiki article on The Hard Problem of Consciousness It seems to me that it is conceivable that it is our consciousness which is the point at which we interlock with some part of the 95.5% of the universe that we don’t perceive. I’m not sure how you draw that from what I said. There is certainly a great deal of randomness in our existence. I made the choice about who I was going to mate with. There certainly appears to be considerable randomness in evolution yet we have wound up with an existence that despite all the apparent obstacles continues to flourish.I also think that we can look at randomness even in terms of the evolution of our morality. That Robert Wright book, The Evolution of God that we both appreciated was instrumental in forming my thinking of how God interacts with us. The title in one way says it all. Our morality, which as a Christian I see as the working of God in our hearts, is an evolutionary process itself and it is essentially random. If we are born of moral parents then we are more likely to become moral people ourselves and so on through the generations. Also as moral people interact with less moral people they can influence them and of course the opposite is true as well. However if I am right about God then, we should suspect that in spite of all that randomness in the process, mankind should slowly and irregularly grow to be more moral. Certainly there are huge inconsistencies but I contend that it is a more moral world now than it was 2000 years ago.That was a long way of saying that I don’t really have a problem with randomness.

Well I don’t agree that my beliefs are unevidenced. We exist which is evidence of something. There are claims made by the writers of the Bible as well as other books about our origins. Those books are evidence and we come to our own beliefs of what to believe about the various claims.Science is one way of helping us form those beliefs. If I understand the Bible as a science text dictated by God then I will have a very different take on our origins than I will if I accept the scientific account. Science, history and philosophy have very much helped from my beliefs.Do you believe that your atheism is compatible with science? If you say yes I wouldn’t disagree. Presumably as you learn more your views change and one of the things that we can learn more about is science. I am quite prepared to have science changed my views. I, like everyone else am just trying to sort out truth, or as close as I can get to it.

This constant vassilation between evidence for God and God can never be evidenced is a bit much. They are evidence that people can write down stories. That is not what we are talking about. I am unaware of a scientific account by which God has dictated anything. Again, you are trying to cozy your beliefs up next to science in the hopes that the legitimacy of science will rub off onto your beliefs. Doesn't work that way. My atheism has nothing to do with science. Atheism is a lack of belief in gods. That's it. Science has to do with a methodical process of determining how the the universe works. Two different things. There were atheists before modern science existed, before we understood the things we now understand.

As I have said before I am assuming that my theistic beliefs are accurate. I am not using science to legitimize my beliefs, I am using science to help form them. Sure. I get that. However you don't find anything in science that causes you to disbelieve your atheism. I don't find anything in science that causes me to disbelieve my theism.

So what scientific studies have demonstrated that God dictated what is found in the Bible? Nor do I find anything in a Mary Kay brochure that makes me doubt my atheism, but I don't go around saying that my atheism is compatible with Mary Kay products.So why science? Why do you feel the need to compare your beliefs to science?

None. For that matter I don't believe God dictated the Bible. Good grief, I have had enough arguments with Faith and others on that point. Because I believe that science can tell us a great deal about the world.