Can the existence of God be proved through scientific inquiry?

by caliber 44 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  caliber

  eric356 ...I find your claim above to be very insulting ... I have been here over three years and have over 2300 posts yet have never been accused

  of "trolling". Do you think everyone who posts a topic should not have any preconceived idea's at all ? The fact that I posted my topic says

  I am open for discussion. You are judging my intent without ever knowing me(<50 ). Which of the yellow highlighted words is applicable to me ?

  In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory,extraneous, or off-topic messages in an on line community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response [1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion
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  wobble

  You ain't no Troll Caliber,

  We know that.

  And thanks for posting the subject, it has prompted the excellent responses above,thanks to all who have contributed thus far, responses which will be so useful to me in reasoning with my wife, who though having long left the JW rubbish behind, cannot understand my position, and that of other rational people, that God does not exist.
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  BurnTheShips

  God - The Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger shows that Science does disprove God and hence the the alternative is that Science could prove God. He follows a number of lines of reasoning to make the point. Stenger shows that maths, quantum physics etc shows no need for God and no external influences can be accounted for. He also discusses theology, philosophy and how these too show God is unlikely.

  The book shows that BTS's comment is not accurate, as science measures what is measurable, not just what is natural. For instance, if God is doing miracles, then these affect nature and so are measurable. If God made the sun stand still, that would have an affect that various of the sciences could observe.

  JWFacts, saying "there is book such and such that shows that I am not accurate" is hardly persuasive. I could say "there is a book such and such that disproves your book such and such" and we'd have a grand time of it.

  BTS
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  bohm

  A couple of things.

  First off, this seem to be where the main argument is:

  Can the existence of God be proved through scientific inquiry? Can playing the board game Monopoly prove whether Charles Darrow or Lizzie Magie invented the game? Can assembling a puzzle of the Mona Lisa prove the existence of Leonardo da Vinci? Can following a map of the Guggenheim museum prove that Frank Lloyd Wright was the architect? No. The inventor of Monopoly, the painter of the Mona Lisa, and the architect of the Guggenheim museum are outside the scope of proof of the respective game, puzzle, and map. In like manner God is outside the scope of proof, or disproof, of scientific inquiry.

  Notice the style of argument: 1) Ask hard question. 2) provide an illustration. 3) Conclude on the illustration. 4) pretend the question is now answered.

  This is clearly a person who is more used to talking who is writing the article, and i can just observe that i have seen that type of argument used over and over again in the WTS.

  LETS just try to take the author on his word, and lets assume that it is really true that "..God is outside ... scientific inquiry".

  This would mean two things: That God has no explanatory power, and that God has no utillity in terms of forming testable predictions.

  In other words, we suddenly have a God who have never created life by a miracle, who did not cause the flood of noah, who did not make any significant prophecies and who will never interveen with the world in any clear way.

  Im not sure that is what the author want to say, but that is the logical conclusion, since if God really did any of the preceeding things, he WOULD suddenly become INSIDE the scope of scientific inquiry. The author, in effect, turn God into another flying spaghetti monster, a magic sandwhich or a pink unicorn.

  That the author talk about faith does not really change this. The faith, however it interact with the world, must allways look indestinguishable from a purely natural process, and must never leave the person who experience it with anything that cannot be explained just as easily from science, otherwise it would suddenly make God subject to scientific inquiry.

  The author is either turning God into essentially nothing, or he does not really know what science is all about. Personally I think its the later, since i cannot see why any believer would want to go down the first route. Later in the article he does also seem to argue that some properties of God can be revealed by looking at nature - if this does not involve science, one does wonder what the author really mean.

  Finally, the old "proof/disproof" in the context of science is ofcourse a strawman (is the author even aware of this?). Here is a simple way to answer the question:

  • If God exist, he CAN cause himself to be known by everyone all over the world tomorrow in a testable way, for example by turning the moon into cheese, or causing a second flood (say its not so).
  • If God does not exist, we can say with absolute certainty he will NOT cause himself to be known tomorrow.

  Now there is a testable prediction, and it does indeed give EVIDENCE against God.
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  BurnTheShips

  This would mean two things: That God has no explanatory power, and that God has no utillity in terms of forming testable predictions.

  For something to be testable, it must be repeatable, right?

  A single experiment must be duplicable by others to be valid.

  That assumes that God can be subjected to experimentation like we would a lab mouse.

  Under a given set of circumstances, a given set of inputs would cause a given, repeatable set of outputs.

  Of course, from my perspective, God is not a lab mouse that can be tested in this way.

  In this case, it may well be that we are at the relative level of mice, and not at the level of experimenters.

  Now there is a testable prediction, and it does indeed give EVIDENCE against God.

  How is it testable? You say "can", not "will."

  BTS
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  bohm

  BTS: Okay, suppose that the moon turned into green cheese tomorrow and the 10 commandments was written over.

  Clearly this would be extremely strong scientific evidence that there was something larger in the universe than us, that it knew a lot about human culture, that it had a special interest in the 10 commandments and a sence of humor. There would be many ways to interpret such a thing, but i would interpret it as an act of God and become a believer.

  Can we agree that this would be scientific evidence for the existence of God?

  Clearly the formation of the earth, or its evolutionary history, and a great number of things cannot be repeated, but they are still subject to scientific inquiry, and our theories (while false in the detail) still carry enormeous explanatory and predictive power.

  Comparing us to a mouse and God to us seem irrelevant since a mouse properly has to limited sence of itself and the world to ever be able to think "this thing exist". Lets leave the illustrations behind :-).

  As for the last part, clearly its testable, we can just wait for tomorrow and look at the moon.
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  designs

  If you play Black Sabbath backwards you can see god................Cheech and Chong
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  BurnTheShips

  Can we agree that this would be scientific evidence for the existence of God?

  So long as a plausible naturalistic explanation could be put forward, no, it would not. I could easily think of some initial explanations that would not require God. So could you, if you tried.

  It might be evidence for you, but not for others.

  The existence of complex life was for a long time a "green cheese moon" moment.

  With Darwin, a plausible naturalistic explanation put an end to it.

  A theory does not even need to be "true", it only has to "work" (not that I am saying that evolution is false).

  Clearly the formation of the earth, or its evolutionary history, and a great number of things cannot be repeated, but they are still subject to scientific inquiry, and our theories (while false in the detail) still carry enormeous explanatory and predictive power.

  While we cannot duplicate the formation of the earth, or its evolutionary history, our theories are testable in the small scale. With regards to planetary formation, we observe the process when we turn our telescopes out to the stars. With respect to evolution, we have demonstrated the process in the laboratory, and by observation of the process in living things.

  BTS
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  bohm

  BTS: I realy dont want us to get bogged down in something irrelevant, so i want to clarify some things.

  First off, I would critisize the author for bundling all "Gods" into just "God". The discussion allways have to be specific since, well, "God" can mean a lof of things to a lot of different people. I am continuing that error in my post and we should properly narrow down the meaning of "God" abit to have a meaningfull discussion.

  Secondly, regarding this example:

  Finally, the old "proof/disproof" in the context of science is ofcourse a strawman (is the author even aware of this?). Here is a simple way to answer the question:

  • If God exist, he CAN cause himself to be known by everyone all over the world tomorrow in a testable way, for example by turning the moon into cheese, or causing a second flood (say its not so).
  • If God does not exist, we can say with absolute certainty he will NOT cause himself to be known tomorrow.

  Now there is a testable prediction, and it does indeed give EVIDENCE against God.

  To clarify, what i mean is the following:

  Hypothesis A predict that X will happend allmost surely, but also allow for Y as a remote possibility.
  Hypothesis B say that ONLY X will happend.

  Now we observe "Tomorrow" that X did indeed happend.

  This increase our confidence that hypothesis B over hypothesis A, however weekly.

  It is a valid critisism that not all religions predict that God will ever reveal himself (option Y- for example the "God" of Einstein), but like i said, i am not the person who bundle all Gods together as one.
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  BurnTheShips

  OK. I see what you are getting at. Yes, you do need to make certain assumptions about "God" and also, I might add, about how it would reveal itself.

  Regardless, even a "green cheese moon" could be explained with a naturalistic argument. Although you would claim it as sufficient proof of God, others would not.

  BTS