Can science disprove the existence of God?

[Milton Platt]

Thief, have you noticed many atheists dont accept the same kind of evidence for the existence of God that can be presented in court to prove guilt or innocence of even a capital crime?

Well, innocent people have been found guilty on many occasions in those courts of law, so one could question if the level of evidence is sufficient, or perhaps not always followed. But that's a whole other thread.

Also, it's apples and oranges. The kinds of things people do to land in criminal court are known to be things that people do. There are current eye witnesses who can be directly questioned and whose backgrounds and motives can be investigated. There is forensic evidence which has been collected and subjected to rigorous scientific examination. There is not much if anything about a god that would be admissible in a court of law. And for good reason. The claims are far more extravagant than claiming one person killed another. We know that happens. The fact that murders occur is indisputable. The question is the culpability of a single person or persons.

What eyewitnesses do you have who saw a god that can be questioned and cross-examined on the stand???
Can you present your god in person in court to account for his actions?

For theists to say in one breath that their god is immaterial and beyond space and time and in another to say that they have evidence for a god that can be examined in a court of law is a stark contradiction. How would you examine a god in court? What verifiable evidence could you present? If a god could be shown to exist with evidence that is incontrovertible, that would be an interesting thing to witness, for sure. But on the other hand, if this could be done it already would have been done.

 

[Milton Platt]

when it comes to God.....there will be no proof

The invisible and the non-existent look a great deal alike.....

 

[outhouse]

you noticed many atheists dont accept the same kind of evidence for the existence of God that can be presented in court to prove guilt or innocence of even a capital crime?

In a court of law I would prove beyond reasonable doubt the abrahamic deities are all man made plagiarized concepts in mythology and ONLY mythology.

So I posit your wrong, and may lack education in what Law and theology actually claims

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

Which gods do you feel are proven to this level of accuracy and do you feel the condemned may be innocent?

Hi Jumi. Well, even though I considered myself a christian I am not a traditional christian. For example the God that I feel has ample evidence for its existence is the creator of a (ours and others if others exist) 'predestined'* deterministic universe and everything in it. It's the creator that wrote physical law of how the materialistic universe was to 'begin', to evolve, and would 'die' if left to its own devices. I believe the universe was created primarily to birth man and to serve as a vessel to house his eternal supernatural God given soul. We are part man part God. In other words God is in spiritual partnership with man.

There is evidence for much of the above, primarily the birth of the universe, etc. The big bang and much of the nuances of such including the factors of a life giving univerese are well known by the theoretical physicists and other scientists of our age. But there is another way to describe the same God mentioned in the first paragraph. To beleive the following his description requires more faith and less evidence. And that God is the God of the Christian/Hebrew bible and its stories of the supernatural and super-normal miracles and events ! The biblical God of Abraham, Daniel, Moses, and Jacob (etc) are rooted in fact. The same goes for Jesus Christ and his extraordinary 30 year ministry that changed the tact of world history. However this God is faith based which has less 'scientific' or other hard evidence to support it. Faith helps supports some of sciences most beloved theories, and vica versea. Science and metaphysics should work together, who knows, maybe something beautiful will be born.

 

[ArtieE]

If we define God as creator of the universe, then yes- a creator God can be disproven by showing the universe was never created- which is exactly what atheists have tried to do for a century, with eternal, static, steady state, big crunch theories etc.

And atheist seismologists have been trying to disprove the existence of Poseidon with all their fancy theories on plate tectonics but they haven't managed to disprove Poseidon yet. That should also be a point in your favor. And atheist meteorologists haven't been able to disprove Thor. In fact, every god atheist scientists haven't been able to disprove is a feather in your cap.

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

In a court of law I would prove beyond reasonable doubt the abrahamic deities are all man made plagiarized concepts in mythology and ONLY mythology.

So I posit your wrong, and may lack education in what Law and theology actually claims

Your response is typical, and that is not a compliment, neither is it an insult, but it is an accurate observation. Eh? Anyway, what I meant was the usual suspects ie malicious atheists/nonbelievers only accept the types of evidence that support their claims. They fear a level and equal playing field. Instead, as your reply shows they often seek to employ insult and innuendos hoping to derail or otherwise sabotage the conversation. Good faith productive debate seems to be a foreign concept to them.

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

Really? It looks to me more like the gaps for God are progressively shrinking.

Would you care to expand? I see the most highly advanced scientific research and theory producing far less results than expected to observations that seem to violate basic immutable scientific laws. On the other hand QFT is describing a new reality where time does not exist, but where dark matter and dark energy does exist, where gaps are a nonexistent vector that like the God is dead claim has never been a truthful statement. Reality, at least physical materialism is a misnomer for truth ~ because the only reality is God, atemporal and immutable.

Ok yes I am sleepy, talking in my REM construct, so I am leaving now....for a very important date ~

*wink*

 

[outhouse]

They fear a level and equal playing field.

It is not often I get theist that have the same education level, and I'm friends with every last one who does. And they as theist and atheist alike recognize there is no fear about the typical theist ever presenting a good case for existence.

How can it be a level playing field when all you have is faith, and I have a mountain of evidence for 100% plagiarized mythology.

as your reply shows they often seek to employ insult and innuendos hoping to derail or otherwise sabotage the conversation.

Who is insulting?

MOST theist and atheist are under educated on these topics. And thus, none of them get to debate this with any credibility at all.

Good faith productive debate

There is no such thing in academia as a faith based debate being productive. Faith is not knowledge.

Faith is belief in the light of not having evidence.

Typically most theist refuse academia and education because knowledge is perceived as attacking faith. Reality is knowledge can give greater value to the text.

 

[ArtieE]

On the other hand QFT is describing a new reality where time does not exist, but where dark matter and dark energy does exist, where gaps are a nonexistent vector that like the God is dead claim has never been a truthful statement. Reality, at least physical materialism is a misnomer for truth ~ because the only reality is God, atemporal and immutable.

Exodus.

"33:21 And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
33:22 And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:
33:23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen."

The god who once showed Moses his back parts has now got something to do with Quantum Field Theory. Sure.

 

[Milton Platt]

Your response is typical, and that is not a compliment, neither is it an insult, but it is an accurate observation. Eh? Anyway, what I meant was the usual suspects ie malicious atheists/nonbelievers only accept the types of evidence that support their claims. They fear a level and equal playing field. Instead, as your reply shows they often seek to employ insult and innuendos hoping to derail or otherwise sabotage the conversation. Good faith productive debate seems to be a foreign concept to them.

 

[Milton Platt]

Your response is typical, and that is not a compliment, neither is it an insult, but it is an accurate observation. Eh? Anyway, what I meant was the usual suspects ie malicious atheists/nonbelievers only accept the types of evidence that support their claims. They fear a level and equal playing field. Instead, as your reply shows they often seek to employ insult and innuendos hoping to derail or otherwise sabotage the conversation. Good faith productive debate seems to be a foreign concept to them.

Leaving aside the generalization about the general education level of theists, tell me what is unequal about a playing field when people ask you to support your assertions with the same level of academic work required of those who developed the theory of evolution and other theories in science? There is nothing preventing any religious organization from, say, formulating a theory of creation that takes into account the whole of the knowledge we have concerning life. And yet there is no such theory. It is not valid to simply attack the idea of evolution. If evolution and the big bang were proved entirely false tomorrow, it would not be in any way evidence for a god.
We would just be back to "I don't know".

 

[1AOA1]

I am amazed at how many high-calibre scientists are out to demonstrate that science disproves the existence of God.

Can a materialistic lifestyle disprove the existence of the theistic life? The former already disproves the existence of the latter within its own actions.

For example, the statement “all cats are black” can easily be disproven by finding a cat that is not black.

Something shown to be valid in one sphere of definitions is not necessarily so in another sphere.

 

[Milton Platt]

I am amazed at how many high-calibre scientists are out to demonstrate that science disproves the existence of God. This amazes me because in general all science students learn at least a little bit of philosophy of science. One of the most basic principles in philosophy of science is that of falsifiability. A statement is falsifiable if there is an observation (either experimental or logical) that can demonstrate that the statement is false. For example, the statement “all cats are black” can easily be disproven by finding a cat that is not black. Similarly, the statement “parallel straight lines meet at some point” is false by definition. However, statements such as “this cat ought to be black” are unfalsifiable because it is impossible to demonstrate what something ought to be. Another example of an unfalsifiable statement is “if I had been born in Nigeria, I would be two meters tall”. These statements are unscientific because they are unfalsifiable. Science cannot tell us anything about them. It can neither prove them nor disprove them. However, an unfalsifiable statement may be true. For example, “mothers ought to love their children” is unfalsifiable and unscientific, but may be true nonetheless. The existence of God is unfalsifiable. Therefore, science cannot tell us anything about it. Claiming that this is not so is demonstrating a profound ignorance of what science is and is not. Please share your thoughts on the matter.

What we accept as true is on a sliding scale. We cannot provide 100% certainty on anything. What level and/or kinds of evidence would a theist posing this question require? When is there enough evidence? Does he then have an equivalent (at least) level of evidence that demonstrates his god does exist? If not, then why would he require evidence for non existence?

Besides, absence of evidence can indeed be evidence of absence. If you got a cancer screening and it showed no cancer was present, would you want the doctor to put you on chemo anyway?

I am puzzled by your statement about many scientists trying to disprove god. I know of no particular experimentation done or hypotheses presented as a matter of some ongoing or completed research project. I assume you are merely alluding to public statements by people like Krauss or Dawkins? Generally they are actually just defending science against religious dogma. They are saying that much of what religions espouse does not match reality. But I am sure if you ask you will find that they lack a belief in gods.

 

[Thief]

Thief, have you noticed many atheists dont accept the same kind of evidence for the existence of God that can be presented in court to prove guilt or innocence of even a capital crime?

or any other form of evidence....including good reasoning....
and reasoning is all you CAN do about God

 

[outhouse]

or any other form of evidence....including good reasoning....

With good reason, we ONLY see a man made creation redefined constantly to mirror the cultural changes of the people redefining the concept.

All evidence points squarely to plagiarized mythology.

Its a debate between lack of reason and faith alone, verses a mountain of evidence not in question, showing only mans hands involved in the creation of definitions of the deity concepts.

and reasoning is all you CAN do about God

That would be fine if some theist actually did such

Many factually do not.

 

[paarsurrey]

Can science disprove the existence of God?

Post #1992 is relevant here also.
Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of G-d. It is beyond it.
Regards

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Can science disprove the existence of God?

Post #1992 is relevant here also.
Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of G-d. It is beyond it.
Regards

In general, no. Science cannot disprove the existence of God. But in my opinion this has less to do with the limits of science and more to do with the extremely broad concept of God. There's no reason to assume that, if a God existed, science categorically wouldn't be able to demonstrate their existence; but even if that were true, we can't assume our inability to do so categorically eliminates the possibility of their existence. God, as a concept, can always slip into the gaps in our knowledge, and even if no gaps existed a God can still exist that is entirely exempt from our ability to understand or comprehend them by any means, scientific or otherwise.

 

[outhouse]

Can science disprove the existence of God?

Science does not have to prove something that does not exist, because it does not exist.


It does not disprove imagination and fiction either

 

[ArtieE]

Can science disprove the existence of God?

Post #1992 is relevant here also.
Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of G-d. It is beyond it.
Regards

See my post number 449. Science would have no problem proving the existence of a god who goes around showing his back parts to people. Just tell him to do the same to some scientists.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

The invisible and the non-existent look a great deal alike.....

Hmmm.....according to contemporary human science, the physical universe detectable is only 2.5% of the whole...so there's 97.5% invisible but not considered non-existent right there... Perhaps atheists don't do science?

You may also want to look into vision and see how much the human eye detects as a percentage of the whole EM spectrum?