Atheists: What would be evidence of God’s existence?

[mikkel_the_dane]

Every scientific question, has a scientific answer. Science cannot answer metaphysical questions. Nor can it answer questions relating to that which posseses no measurable parameters. Like supernatural controlling entities. What is the mass of say the Islamic God? How do I test for the presence or absence of Allah's mass? For example.

What are the everyday limits to scientific questions, if any? If there are limits, what relevance does that have for being a human?

 

[Azrael Antilla]

So you are not a product of nature and nurture and thus also culture? Okay.

I could be raised by amphibious hydrogen breathing aliens from a distant galaxy. I'd still follow an identical scientific method to human scientists.

 

[Azrael Antilla]

What are the everyday limits to scientific questions, if any? If there are limits, what relevance does that have for being a human?

The only limits are experimental and observational uncertainties. Being Human is a subjective opinion. I am sure. Science is extremely relevant to almost every aspect of human civilization.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm not sure I understand the question, my post was an observation on the claims being made about the method, I wasn't writing a scientific paper. EDIT to be clear i am not a scientists and have no scientific qualifications, I was merely offering a response to the idea that science being unable to examine the supernatural does not to me indicate a limitation of or flaw in the scientific method. Since the supernatural may simply not exist, and science cannot examine what does not exist. Though I don't claim it does not exists obviously, but I certainly don't believe anything supernatural exists, unless someone can demsonrate some objective evidence for it?



Sorry but again I'm not sure I follow, there are obviously many things we have yet to understand, so I'm not sure why we would speculate on how effective any method might be on those things. However the results and successes of the method demonstrate unequivocally is by far and away the best method we have for understanding reality.



Well I'd have though that was for others to say? i mean I try always to strive to be objective, but if I am offering just an opinion then I usually say so. Did you think anything I said was merely subjective? if you did I will certainly examine it and try to give a candid response.

Okay, I will be honest.
It is a variation of the Is-Ought problem.
It goes like this:
To the best of our objective ability there are no objective evidence for gods! How ought we go about with those who believe in gods?

The problem seems to be after over 2000+ years of trying to answer the question, that there is no objective methodology including science and no objective answer to such questions. They are all beliefs or opinions.
It goes back to this old one:
"Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not."

I use it as a claim of limited subjectivity and thus it connects to this:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The only limits are experimental and observational uncertainties. Being Human is a subjective opinion. I am sure. Science is extremely relevant to almost every aspect of human civilization.

So I will use my human opinion, where science doesn't work.

 

[Azrael Antilla]

So I will use my human opinion, where science doesn't work.

The fact it (scientific method) doesn't 'work' suggests to me that the question itself is problematic. Maybe it's the wrong sort of question. That arises from subjective experience and faulty premises.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The fact it (scientific method) doesn't 'work' suggests to me that the question itself is problematic. Maybe it's the wrong sort of question. That arises from subjective experience and faulty premises.

So you disagree with this site written by scientists:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12

Further it is a fact, that I can be subjective and use faulty premises, thus it is part of how the world works.

 

[Azrael Antilla]

The fact it (scientific method) doesn't 'work' suggests to me that the question itself is problematic. Maybe it's the wrong sort of question. That arises from subjective experience and faulty premises.

For me, if a question cannot be answered with scientific theory. Then any answer will be opinion. Opinion is low quality data.

 

[Azrael Antilla]

So you disagree with this site written by scientists:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12

Further it is a fact, that I can be subjective and use faulty premises, thus it is part of how the world works.

I seldom click on links. If there is anything mentioned on the site that contradicts my postings. I'd be very happy to clarify or post rebuttal or concede. All is learning. Especially via error, the greatest teacher.

 

[Azrael Antilla]

Further it is a fact, that I can be subjective and use faulty premises, thus it is part of how the world works.

Unfortunately. Yes.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I seldom click on links. If there is anything mentioned on the site that contradicts my postings. I'd be very happy to clarify or post rebuttal or concede. All is learning. Especially via error, the greatest teacher.

Okay. Let us concentrate on morality and I will use a standard example about the limit of observation.
Imagine you had all the scientific measurement equipment you wanted and you were observing yourself this:
One human causes another human to die by say the usage of a knife.
State the measurement or observation as to whether it is wrong or right in a moral sense?

If you deny morality, then how do you explain that some humans act differently in regards to reaction to other human behavior than you?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Unfortunately. Yes.

That unfortunately is not science as far as I can tell. Please provide evidence!

 

[Nakosis]

Do theists ever consider how silly it is to quote their bible to atheists? Would quoting Harry Potter to you make you contemplate the possibility that wizards are real?

It's their "truth". I'd imagine they are under the impression that whatever the truth is, it is the same truth for everyone.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It's their "truth". I'd imagine they are under the impression that whatever the truth is, it is the same truth for everyone.

Just as some people believe that all of the world is in the end purely physical in a reductive sense.

 

[Nakosis]

Just as some people believe that all of the world is in the end purely physical in a reductive sense.

So, you agree.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So, you agree.

Yes.

 

[Azrael Antilla]

Okay. Let us concentrate on morality and I will use a standard example about the limit of observation.
Imagine you had all the scientific measurement equipment you wanted and you were observing yourself this:
One human causes another human to die by say the usage of a knife.
State the measurement or observation as to whether it is wrong or right in a moral sense?

If you deny morality, then how do you explain that some humans act differently in regards to reaction to other human behavior than you?

Right and wrong are abstract subjective concepts derived from biological evolutionary processes that affect all advanced social species. Taboos, social contracts, codified law etc, all devices manifested to regulate an increasingly complex social order. In my view, right = Things I approve of and wrong = Things I don't approve of. Humans and other social life forms have instinctual genetically influenced self regulatory systems that evolved along with the necessities of maintaining a social order, to further reproductive success. This manifests as empathy and conscience. Some individuals lack all capacity for those psychological properties, they are defined as psychopaths. They simply lack the required neural connectivity that is physically oberved via MRI scanning technology. They represent a small deviation in the human population.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Right and wrong are abstract subjective concepts derived from biological evolutionary processes that effect all advanced social species. Taboos, social contracts, codified law etc, all devices manifested to regulate an increasingly complex social order. In my view, right = Things I approve of and wrong = Things I don't approve of. Humans and other social life forms have instinctual genetically influenced self regulatory systems that evolved along with the necessities of maintaining a social order, to further reproductive success. This manifests as empathy and conscience. Some individuals lack all capacity for those psychological properties, they are defined as psychopaths. They simply lack the required neural connectivity that is physically oberved via MRI scanning technology. They represent a small deviation in the human population.

Too simple.
You haven't accounted for in and out groups. Or how we grow up in given culture and how that works.
In short you go from individual to the species. Social order doesn't happen at the level of all humans.

 

[Trailblazer]

This is incorrect. Scientific knowledge in this preaching is as important as religious teachings and the two must be in harmony.
You are now resorting to apologetics but they do not match the stated theology of the religion. They are ad-hoc apologetics. The fact remains that he is supposed to produce new science through his revelations. The book on how to know a prophet is actually a messenger of God we reviewed in an older thread stated this as well.

So his science was from God. But he was wrong often. So he was just a man claiming to be speaking for a God, it's obvious in the long winded flowery writings, but this confirms it.

No, Abdu'l-Baha never claimed to be a Messenger of God who spoke for God. That is why he was sometimes wrong. His science was not from God since he never received a revelation from God.

As I said before, Abdu'l-Baha took it upon himself to expound on scientific subjects, he was not given authority by Baha'u'llah to speak on them.

It is not the stated theology of the religion that Abdu'l-Baha or Baha'u'llah were supposed to produce new science through revelations Abdu'l-Baha did not even get a revelation form God, only Baha'u'llah got a Revelation from God.

A revelation from God

Science and religion are considered to be like two wings of the bird and both are necessary for humanity to progress, but science is under a different purview than religion.

 

[Azrael Antilla]

Too simple.
You haven't accounted for in and out groups. Or how we grow up in given culture and how that works.
In short you go from individual to the species. Social order doesn't happen at the level of all humans.

Every human, apart from ascetics and hermits and the like. Is part of a web of overlapping social orders, from the family level to the city sphere, the national and supranational, in the case of EU citizens. Interaction is regulated by codes of conduct, social expectations and norms as well as more formally by codified law the product of legislation by democratic mandate etc. I am saying morality and ethics, are products of these socioeconomic and political necessities, to regulate the social order. Be it a small tribe of hunter gatherers in remote Brazilian rainforest or Galactic federations numbering thousands of systems, composed of several dozen highly advanced different alien species.