Can science refute the "god hypothesis" beyond all reasonable doubt?

Hi Straggler,Just for starters great topic, almost a breath of freash air...until of course ICANT intoduced his T=O conspiracy theory again, I hope this thread does not fall into that debate all over again.First my position: Atheist/Anti-theist. I would say that it does not. The principles for atheism are inherent in all humans, unfortunatly so is gullibility. Humans by nature are curious; always asking questions, always seeking answers and yet never fully satisfied with the answers. This is the foundation for atheism. However, since we are also gullible, and we are self-centered and ego driven, we tend to answer things way beyond our comprehensional level, hence God began to be a satisfactory answer to the big riddle. It started off very primative but has manifested into a very structured concept that gives the illusion of validity with books, and passages, and prophesies, but todays religions have no more evidence than mythology. I don't know enough about genetics to say that the "God gene" is real, nor do I know if Dawkins is correct with his "memes" theory, but I do know that each generation seems to follow the religious footsteps of their family(with exceptions of course), so religoin at best is a traditional ideology that some take way too fucking serious.So to me, science just does what science does, it explains the natural workings of nature. Of course it does not take a genius to know and understand what certain scientific theories suggest. Evolution seems to go against certain aspects of Christian mythology, Abiogeneis seems to go against all of the Abrahamic mythologies, and science as a whole seems to weed out most of the other native type, or primitive type, mythologies. But this is only by default. It is NOT sciences' goal to disprove gods, but if a particular God has claimed something about nature, that thru the study of nature we find to be incorrect, then that Godly claim is disproven, but it is meaningless to say that it was disproven because the Godly claim never had any evidence to back it up and therefore should have never been accepted as truth. It's almost like say that everyday scientist don't find a unicorn is one more day unicorns are not real. Unicorns a MADE UP, conjured up, an imagined thing created out of the brain of a a creative species. God follows in the same way.I, like you, can understand the need for God. I also can understand the traditional respect people give to their families religions. However, I cannot understand why, in light of scientific evidence, and the shady origins of ALL religions, do people still continue to be fanatical about it, without even a trace of skeptisim. That to me is fucking crazy. Not one ounce of skeptism? Wow, thats just beyond my ability to comprehend.But, back to your OP.I believe atheism is an inherently human trait, period. Science just helps us understand nature. Science is not working towards a better acceptance of atheistic ideologies, we ARE atheist at birth and are indoctrinated into many different types of religions. People should question the validity of their religions for the sole reason that there is a lack of evidence, and nothing can be questioned. In turn people should accept science on the sole bases that it provides evidence for what they claim and no one man's word is ever final in light of new evidence.IMO, the God hypothesis is equal to the Unicorn hypothesis; both have no evidence, and both can be refuted by science. Both however, can also be accepted through faith and ignorance. Yet the funniest thing is though...we are born believing in neither.--OniEdited by onifre, : spellingEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies""I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Hi Abogot, If it's percentage you want then I'd say that theres a 1% chance. And I say 1% percent just to not be absolute about it.But as my post stated, God is an imagined entitiy. It no more is real than unicorns or faries. It is derived from the same creativity that humans use to create so many other far out ideas. We are born knowing none of this, then someone begins the indoctrination process which leads to peoples beliefs. Also, fear is coupled together with guilt, so people won't think for themselves and will just follow blindly never questioning their religions.You said in you post to Logic, 'what if God is not like the Bible', well heres the problem with that. God is part of religions and mythology, and ONLY those avenues have spoken about gods, so all your doing is molding the concept of the gods to fit modern scientific discoveries. Why don't you just use unicorns or faries instead of God? Because you've been programed to believe that a creator has to be a God. These are silly human intuitions that we can't seem to shake out of our culture for one reason or another. Edited by onifre, : No reason given.

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies""I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

This is true. I will agree that non-theistic people are more inclined to be pro-science, and the link between the two I would say comes from the same line of thinking that drives people to be satisfied with God...people want answers.We non-theist see no problem with natural explanations, those who have a prior belief in God often cannot believe natural process occur without guildance, both use the same mental tools to access and determine...God however, is not evidence based and requires faith, that is the leap non-theist cannot make without proof for the God in quesition. I can see this supporting your position, but would you still be an atheist if science didn't know as much about nature yet? Say 4000 years ago? I think I would still be an atheist, for the simple reason that God requires MORE answers than the original questions about nature. Science to me just helps my position, but it did not determine my position. I was an atheist at about the age of 10 or 11. At that age all I knew was that dinosaurs lived on this planet long ago and stars were very far away. But, the idea of a God that was omni-present seemed ridiculous to me, without knowing much more from a scientific PoV. So science helps me, but it was not the determining factor. Religion, and God are far fetched concepts that merit no value for their claims about the natural world. I would agree with this, but of course what else is there other than the truth about nature? We are keen to science because science is the truth. Those who are not keen to science are stupid and ignorant, period. It's like not being keen to math, who would value such a persons opinion if they flat out reject factual evidence? Everyone should be keen to science, theist or atheist alike. Like I stated, everyone wants answers. Science satisfies athesits questions. If there were some other form of study that better explained nature then we'd all follow that. We want the truth. We do not accept any religions claims, science is the truth, thus we are satisfied. Those who are theistic AND agree with science juggle their common sense with their spiritual beliefs, to me this seems impossible, perhaps those who do this can explain their PoV better for us?

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies""I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

It would still be a natural process, leaving out the enormously complex intelligent diety that would require a bigger explanation that the original question.Faith in natural process is normal because we know natural processes occur. Faith in a complex intelligent entity lacks any evidence and as such requires a HUGE leap.

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies""I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Probably not. But, I fail to see the reason to believe in something that is a man made concept, especially a man made concept that requires me to put faith in men and their stories, IMO. The idea of God comes from religious texts(for the most part, at least the Abrahamics, and Eastern philosophies), can we agree? Religious texts are written by men. Some where along that line someone forgot to verify if the original premise, "God exists", was valid to begin with, or was it just a conjured up answer to questions about nature? One of my favorite Hick's bits...that and "Alot of Catholics wear crosses, If Jesus comes back, do you think he's gonna want to see another fucking cross"...I agree, and do see the need for such spiritual(losely worded), quests, for the human out-of-body experience, DMT is amazing for this. But I don't think these experiences should be confused with what is claimed by the organized religions. How do you know it was Jesus though? If I can ask... Yes it does and perhaps I worded it wrong. Religion to me is what broguht the God concept to the table. They, religions in their scriptures, claim some very far fetched concepts about the natural world and also requires one to believe, through faith, that the laws of physics a broken from time to time. This I believe is far fetched. Now, that it is of value to people, of course. But, so is Tarot Card readings. People value lots of things that are far fetched. My apologies if it came off like that. Shit I love Buddist! I meant those who reject science. I was talking mostly to those here on EvC, since Stragglers OP was directed to them, who reject science for creationist science. No I do not feel that someone who has not been taught science is stupid, I do believe they are uniformed about the world around them but no, not stupid. My point was to be taken as a whole. I wrote, I was just refering to those, and again mostly those on this site, who reject factual evidence. The key point was the rejection of factual evidence. I see that you understood me but, I wanted to rephrase it anyways as to not be taken out of context, I felt I should have worded that statement better as well. I agree that science has more subjectivety, but lets be honest here, those who reject scientific facts seem to do it because of their religious beleifs. And I also agree that the subjective is always easier to accept than the objective, but that should not be the point. Facts are facts. Evolution for example IS fact. Those who reject it, like say AOKid, what would you call them? Ignorant perhaps?*AOKid, if you're reading this I didn't mean to signal you out, you're just the first name that popped up...maybe cause you're not funny. Let me see if I can put it better for you specifically. You had a spiritual experience, right? And you attribute it to Jesus specifically. Lets say you have this same experience but you are not you, you live in India. Who do you feel you would have attributed that experience to? Common sense, IMO, and on this specific situation would be to say "Ok I had this experience, what the fuck was it?" Not just to attribute it to the God of the land. Not to say that you didn't do this, perhaps you did and were fully confirmed, but I have not seen fit to attribute such things to specific religious idols. Thus my curiousity on how one does that.Theres no doubt about it. Humans have a very complex neurological system that acts in very unique ways, and interprets experiences in very unique ways also. Common sense to me would be to try and determine the true force, or reason behind the experience, and not just attribute it to the specific God, or religion, or belief that either you were raised around, or is common in your community. Also, if religion is responsible for bringing God to the table,(still debatable of course), then relgions need to be questioned because of their scriptures, and what those scriptures claim about the power of said creator. Some folks, like you I'll assume, do not believe there was a talking snake in Genesis. They're quite ok with just looking past that bit of information, or perhaps they say it's a metaphoric story and should not be taken literally. Ok. I can see that being cool...but you had to juggle there with that story, right? You had to weight the evidnce and YOU had to decide for yourself whats bullshit, and whats not. Thats common sense, right? So why not translate that common sense to other areas of the religion itself, like say to the concept that God actually exists. Because at some point people of faith need to re-write these Biblical texts to start to make sense in light of scientific discoveries. Basically the Old Testament either has to be reject completely, or taken as metaphoric, and the stories about all the wars just to be complete bullshit. I don't know, but there seems to be alot of juggling involved. At that point you'd be left with the New Testament., and the history of the origin of that particular book is very shady. Can you really trust those who put the NT together? I just can't seem to be able to do that. My personal common sense will not allow me.Edited by onifre, : clarify openning statement

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies""I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

But this is just a current limitation in our knowledge. Solar eclipses were also unexplainable, and now they are fully understood. Just think about the amount of knowledge that needed to be gained just to figure out what an eclipse was. From early homo-sapiens only, till about 600 years ago(rough estimate), we knew nothing about how or why it occured. Did the answer end up being some Godly purpose, or something quite simple to understand and with NO purpose at all?QM is freaking you out. Imagine being a primitive homo-sapien witnessing the Sun going through an eclipse! Thats something you can actually witness happening before your eye's. What the fuck would you do? I'd freak out just like you are about QM, but would my freak out by warrented in hindsight? No. These are just our times solar eclipses.If you need to figure these out before you become atheist then you won't be atheist anytime soon...these may take a while. Edited by onifre, : No reason given.

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies""I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Yeah I think we got the premise, but what say you of the lack of evidence to support your ideology? I think thats what the OP wants to find out.Are you not satified with 'I don't know'? I mean think for a second what science is saying 'I don't know' to. It's not 'where do babies come from?', or 'why do we get diseases', it's saying 'I don't know', to how the universe came to exist! Don't you think that question is a bit complicated as of yet, you know, since we just got to the moon only a few decades ago and all? Unknown as in factual unknowns, not faith based knowns. Of course we understand that you believe the hype, but if factual evidence is required for the origin of the universe, and a complete mathematical theory is also required, then currently it's an unknown by those standards. Again we understand the subjective interpretation placed on scriptures by it's devout followers but, if verifiable evidence and observational models and mathematics are required to understand the nature of the origins of the universe, (and it is require if it's going to befacted based theory), then YOUR subjective interpretation of scriptures does us, the none believers, no good. Yet whether you believe in God or not, you can perfectly understand the current model of the universe using general relativity. All current models agree with the observational evidence, and the mathematics is in agreement also. These are the standards of knowing how it came to be that should be of value to the general public, and not one mans interpretation of scriptures.

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies""I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

I think you missed my point. Current cosmological models (aka factual evidence) limits us to the moments after the BB. The factual unknown is what occured before that. You apply a faith based known which is your belief that God created the universe, BB, expantion etc, etc. I did not say that science had the answers,(yet), specifically I said that those are the factual unknowns, you however, said that it is a known to you, but it is faith based so it's not a factual known. Sure, but the quote you choose says nothing along those lines. Scriptures, im presuming, is what you hold as evidence correct? I simply stated that we understand the subjective interpretation that religious followers, (all religious followers), place on thier scriptures, but it is objectively verified evidence that becomes factual, not the subjective interpretations alone.Also, it is a personal subjective interpretation because as Catholic Sci said, his understanding of science does not in anyway interfere with his religious beliefs, yours does, yet you both read from the same book, how does that happen? Subjective interpretations of the literature perhaps? Fully understood. I agree that it is faith based, I've never disputed that. But so is tarot card reading, or John Edwards talking to the dead, and that type of faith is fine if thats what satisfies you personally, but if it is to be taken as fact it needs to be objectively verified. Agreed.--OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies""I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Hi Catholic Sci,I'll respond to the rest of your post a bit later but, That was Lenny Bruces' joke...now you can see who Hick's was influenced by.

Originally yes, it was men who came up with gods. Men wrote the religious texts, long ago, and currently God is found in these texts. Thats what I meant by comes from. If we didn't have these concepts of God, and you had your spiritual experience, then it would just be an experience. Perhaps supernatural, but how does that experience give validity to the Gods of the scriptures?I can accept that people have spiritual experiences, even supernatural experiences, but to say that because one has these experiences now the concepts of Gods put forth by the different religons is plausable seems like a culturally influenced opinion. No es imposible de entender, si? And your acceptance as well. You make a good point though. But by what measure then do we consider something factual, or is the whole idea of facts just a human concept? It's still a subjective interpretation of the experience. Subjective experiences cannot be verified so to you there is more to the universe than the natural, subjectively, but objectively there is only the natural. Realizing that the supernatural indeed exist? Or interpreting the experience to be supernatural and have faith that it exists?It seems to me that once one attributes the experiences to fit religous concepts then one is just being lead by cultural influences. Im not arguing that you didn't have a spiritual experience, I too have had them, but why Christianity, why Jesus, or Allah (I know you didn't specifically do this but many do)...why not just the experiences and accept it as such?You however, seem to be describing a Buddist type of enlightenment, thats a pretty cool experience. What else is there to see? Sure you can experience many things, and subjectively interpret them any which way you see fit, but outside of your personal subjective interpretation the experience doesn't amount to empirical evidence. It is true to you, but not true by objective standards. Tu chez

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies""I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

You do understand that the LHC reproduces the exact same conditions, right?However, this is off topic. It is off topic, but I'd love to discuss it in another thread. However, I have read all of the previous threads on this subject and can tell you, from my limited understanding of physics,(im no cavediver or son goku), that you are very far from understanding what is being explained. Any further attempt to explain it to you seems hopeless, but if you'd like to start a thread I'll be there. Ok. Last attempt. Factual evidence IS required, currently there is NONE for the origin of the universe. It is currently a factual unknown. You said "unknown to who?" Which I agree with you that YOU have your faith based belief of how the universe came to be, God. I got that. But thats not factual, thats faith based. We clear? Science does not need to be taken on faith because science does not claim anything as fact that does not have objective evidence to support it. If you are not familiar with the evidence, or have a layman understanding that you feel is good enough to interprete evidence that is far beyond your level of comprehension, then you are not going to agree with certain things, but that does not make those things any less valid to those who do understand it.
This does not require faith, it requires proper study, its all objective evidence that science claims as fact so if anyone is not satisfied feel free to disprove it. Can we do this to your Bible? Agreed. And how does that translate to the person being right? If we are examining the evidence, what evidence would you provide other than 'Have faith that these scriptures are right"?The OP is clear, how do we know that the God Hypothesis is even a valid hypothesis?If it can only be taken on faith, then how is that even a hypothesis? Because you were able to postulate it? Then we go back to the 'Unicorn Hypothesis' being just as valid of a hypothesis than God.

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies""I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Yeah if we were all on shrooms.

As an atheist I can accept spiritual experiences. I can accept the fact that humans can subjectively experience things that question the very nature of reality, these type of experiences do not interfere with an atheistic belief.However, I am an (a)theist, which is to say atheistic towards theological concepts of gods and godesses. I disbelieve in all the gods and godesses from Zues to Allah. Do not confuse atheism. It is just the rejection of the gods depicted in scriptures and/or mythological texts. As time goes on, and more and more folks take to the belief that Catholic Sci has adopted (science/spiritual) , then atheism will get harder and harder to define. If at some point a unanimous decision is made by all of society that God is simply the fundamental forces of the universe, then there will probably be no more atheists. At least I would not be one because God will no longer be the God of the scriptures but a more naturalistic God, one that can be empirically defined, IMO.

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies""I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Mushrooms, not LSD...keep it natural.

It's synthetic though, not fresh off a turd as God intended.