Can science disprove the existence of God?

[Demonslayer]

God answers prayers" completely unfalsifiable.

Studies have been done over and over again showing prayers have zero effect on the outcome of events. Also two people can pray for the opposite thing, making it impossible for God to answer both prayers. We can and have studied the efficacy of prayer.

"God caused a global flood" this is falsifiable but there is no reason to take the whole of the Bible 100% literally, as all atheists do. The "earth" mentioned in Genesis may have referred to the territories that were known to the people of Noah's tribe.

Currently 31% of all Americans see the Bible as the word of God to be taken literally. I might add that zero of the 31% are atheists so I'm not sure what you mean by atheists taking the Bible literally. So we have a full 1/3 of all Americans making a claim about God...a claim that is falsifiable and easily proven wrong. http://www.gallup.com/poll/170834/three-four-bible-word-god.aspx

What about God making man exactly the way he is now? That's another claim about 1/3 of all Americans make about God. Also easily falsifiable and disproven.

What about this one....one quarter of all Americans say God tinkers with the outcome of sporting events. Falsifiable and easily disproven.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/...americans-say-god-influences-sporting-events/

 

[Crypto2015]

Circular nonsense. "Moral statements aren't falsifiable because they're not falsifiable."

What I said is not circular at all. I said that only falsifiable statements are meaningful from a scientific point of view. Moral enunciations are not falsifiable and therefore they are unscientific.

 

[picnic]

@Crypto2015, I'm not a scientist, so I'm impressed with both you guys and anybody else who was able to make it so far in such a difficult field. FWIW.

 

[Crypto2015]

That is another good point. What does it mean for something "to be desired"? - "to be desired" for what? There is always an implicit goal and science can help us know how to achieve that goal. That is why science is useful. Science can tell us that certain famous poems help to create a certain state of mind in the listener. Science can tell us that the paintings by certain painters are more likely to cause viewers to pause in wonderment. The domain of science is not so limited as some suggest.

Regardless, we are not asking if God's existence "is to be desired"; we are asking if God exists. If we define what we mean by God, then science can answer the question. Maybe we define God to be a warm fuzzy feeling. Science can say that "yes, warm fuzzy feelings do exist."

I think that most people would agree that God is an omnipotent, omniscient being that exists beyond the confines of time and space. No experiment can prove/disprove the existence of such a being.

 

[Crypto2015]

@Crypto2015, I'm not a scientist, so I'm impressed with both you guys and anybody else who was able to make it so far in such a difficult field. FWIW.

Thanks a lot! However, I wish I had chosen another profession. Science is like professional sports: only a few make it. I didn't make it and now I am struggling to get a normal job. Also, scientists are actually not all that smart. James Watson said:

"One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid."

 

[Crypto2015]

When I was a graduate student, I had more followers and a higher RG score than you do currently. You are barely a post-doc, and you have little or no experience outside of a very limited field.


Not nil. Just basically nil.

True. I'm in the private sector. I'm the person people like you hire when they are out of their depth. That's why a long time ago I was an active member of RG just because I was bored, and even then I gained a following double of that that you follow, my "RG score" (a largely pointless metric) was triple that of your own, and all despite the fact that my profile is long outdated.
But none of this matters. I could be a high-school dropout, and it wouldn't matter. Your experience with chemistry doesn't excuse your claims about scientific methodology and the philosophy of science in face of all evidence to the contrary. Your knowledge of Popperian falsification is that of a reader of popular science and you present nothing to indicate an awareness of actual knowledge of the minimal familiarity with philosophy of science you claim scientists are typically aware of. You can't even accurately present Popper's view (which is THE basis for the falsification perspective).


No, you don't. I'm in the private sector, and my RG profile is woefully outdated and I kept it for a while to answer questions from those like you when I was bored.

I can. I can access all of them. And they tell me that you are the kind of researcher that assists some PI in a study I get paid to advise concerning.

OK. Your penis is larger than mine. Are you happy? Can we discuss the topic now?

 

[Crypto2015]

Studies have been done over and over again showing prayers have zero effect on the outcome of events. Also two people can pray for the opposite thing, making it impossible for God to answer both prayers. We can and have studied the efficacy of prayer.



Currently 31% of all Americans see the Bible as the word of God to be taken literally. I might add that zero of the 31% are atheists so I'm not sure what you mean by atheists taking the Bible literally. So we have a full 1/3 of all Americans making a claim about God...a claim that is falsifiable and easily proven wrong. http://www.gallup.com/poll/170834/three-four-bible-word-god.aspx

What about God making man exactly the way he is now? That's another claim about 1/3 of all Americans make about God. Also easily falsifiable and disproven.

What about this one....one quarter of all Americans say God tinkers with the outcome of sporting events. Falsifiable and easily disproven.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/...americans-say-god-influences-sporting-events/

Regarding the effect of prayer, I found this article:

"Religious traditions across the world display beliefs in healing through prayer. The healing powers of prayer have been examined in triple-blind, randomized controlled trials. We illustrate randomized controlled trials on prayer and healing, with one study in each of different categories of outcome. We provide a critical analysis of the scientific and philosophical dimensions of such research. Prayer has been reported to improve outcomes in human as well as nonhuman species, to have no effect on outcomes, to worsen outcomes and to have retrospective healing effects. For a multitude of reasons, research on the healing effects of prayer is riddled with assumptions, challenges and contradictions that make the subject a scientific and religious minefield. We believe that the research has led nowhere, and that future research, if any, will forever be constrained by the scientific limitations that we outline."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/

Regarding people who take everything in the Bible literally, they are simply ignorant. The Bible contains countless metaphors and any serious reader of the Bible knows this.

 

[viole]

Regarding the effect of prayer, I found this article:

"Religious traditions across the world display beliefs in healing through prayer. The healing powers of prayer have been examined in triple-blind, randomized controlled trials. We illustrate randomized controlled trials on prayer and healing, with one study in each of different categories of outcome. We provide a critical analysis of the scientific and philosophical dimensions of such research. Prayer has been reported to improve outcomes in human as well as nonhuman species, to have no effect on outcomes, to worsen outcomes and to have retrospective healing effects. For a multitude of reasons, research on the healing effects of prayer is riddled with assumptions, challenges and contradictions that make the subject a scientific and religious minefield. We believe that the research has led nowhere, and that future research, if any, will forever be constrained by the scientific limitations that we outline."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/

Regarding people who take everything in the Bible literally, they are simply ignorant. The Bible contains countless metaphors and any serious reader of the Bible knows this.

Does the resurrection of Jesus count as a metaphor? If not, how are we supposed to know which is a metaphor and which is not?

I have the impression that something is marked as metaphor according to the following procedure:

1) if something has been obviously falsified by current knowledge (Adam and Eve, global floods...), then it is a metaphor
2) if something has not been falsified by current knowledge, then it is not a mataphor. But might become one in the future.

Ciao

- viole

 

[jonathan180iq]

Is it possible to disprove something that doesn't exist?

The closest you'll ever come to disproving the Rhinoceros Men from Atlantis is building an argument based on the biological improbability of Rhinoceros men, and amassing tons and tons of archeological and geological data which does NOT contain evidence for Atlantis... But you can never actually disprove the Rhinoceros Men from Atlantis, can you?

The same is true of any God.

 

[Crypto2015]

Does the resurrection of Jesus count as a metaphor? If not, how are we supposed to know which is a metaphor and which is not?

I have the impression that something is marked as metaphor according to the following procedure:

1) if something has been obviously falsified by current knowledge (Adam and Eve, global floods...), then it is a metaphor
2) if something has not been falsified by current knowledge, then it is not a mataphor. But might become one in the future.

Ciao

- viole

No, the resurrection is not a metaphor. This is a metaphor: "He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart." (Psalms 91:4). God doesn't have neither wings nor feathers. His faithfulness does not become an actual shield.

Nothing in the Bible has been falsified by current knowledge because to falsify something of what is written in the Bible you must first demonstrate that what you are trying to falsify is a scientific statement and not a metaphor. Otherwise, we would also have falsified Homer's Illiad. Buy the way, now we know for certain that what Homer wrote in the Illiad did actually happen.

 

[Demonslayer]

Is it possible to disprove something that doesn't exist?

The closest you'll ever come to disproving the Rhinoceros Men from Atlantis is building an argument based on the biological improbability of Rhinoceros men, and amassing tons and tons of archeological and geological data which does NOT contain evidence for Atlantis... But you can never actually disprove the Rhinoceros Men from Atlantis, can you?

The same is true of any God.

True, but if I claim the Rhinoceros Men from Atlantis are going to wash my car overnight, and I open my garage tomorrow and the car is not washed, I can disprove my claim about what the Rhinoceros Men will do.

You can't disprove God but you can disprove a large number of claims that are made about God's actions and behaviors.

 

[s13ep]

Some sciences can disprove God, Allah, and other entities, especially Cubic Science. Academic science is currently 1-orientated; maxing out the one quart of your brain that they teach you to use, at 1.9r, as if they were trying to commit to a malicious ritual; this means that they can't disprove God because they can't think above it, this is why there'll always be a two-sided debate with one-temporary-victor!

 

[viole]

No, the resurrection is not a metaphor. This is a metaphor: "He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart." (Psalms 91:4). God doesn't have neither wings nor feathers. His faithfulness does not become an actual shield.

Nothing in the Bible has been falsified by current knowledge because to falsify something of what is written in the Bible you must first demonstrate that what you are trying to falsify is a scientific statement and not a metaphor. Otherwise, we would also have falsified Homer's Illiad. Buy the way, now we know for certain that what Homer wrote in the Illiad did actually happen.

Does that include the intervention of the gods (e.g. Zeus) in the narrative of the Illiad?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Laika]

Just listen to any of the videos in which Krauss or Dawkins are interviewed. These high-calibre scientists claim that science can prove that God's existence is unlikely. The idea of falsifiability has not been shown to be inadequate by anyone. Some have criticized it, but no one has proven it wrong or inadequate. Regarding the statements that I have presented as unfalsifiable, you cannot demonstrate they are true or that they are false. You may prove that your cat is yellow, but you cannot prove that your cat ought to have been yellow. You cannot prove or disprove any claim about how tall I would have been if I had been born in Nigeria. Come on, man, are you even serious? Tell me how tall would I have been if I had been born in South Africa. LOL.

Scientific theories are almost never "falsified" but are superceeded by better theories which are proven to demonstrate greater explanatory power. Newtonian Mechanics was not falsified, nor was it falsifaible. It was superceeded by Einstein's general theory of relatvity with the idea of space-time and that the sun's gravity distorts the fabric of space time, thererby explaining the irregulaty of Mecury's orbit in the Newtionan model of planetary motion.

Karl Popper's insistence that a hypothesis must be falsifiable led to the conclusion that scientific knowledge is characterised by a decrease in our ignroance, rather than the increase in our knowledge. The idea of Falsifiability as a solution to the demarcation problem between Science and Pseudo-Science was part of a much larger work to defend the "Open Society" from the threat of theories of history such as Marxism, which posed a direct challange to free will and individual liberty. it does not have much effect on the scientific method but was a politically 'useful' argument in the Cold War.

The question as to whether science can disprove the existence of god or not, therefore depends on the definition of Science.

 

[Jumi]

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

I haven't seen that to be honest.

This amazes me because in general all science students learn at least a little bit of philosophy of science.

My experience is that most do not and like most good things, it's mostly the responsibility of the students themselves if they want to learn philosophy or history of their field or get a wider understanding.

Please share your thoughts on the matter.

I believe science can't disprove any god that isn't claimed to be active in our universe. For example gods that are claimed to have created static lifeforms and skipped the evolutionary process would have a problem with science.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What I said is not circular at all.

Sure it wasn't.

I said that only falsifiable statements are meaningful from a scientific point of view. Moral enunciations are not falsifiable and therefore they are unscientific.

Setting aside the fact that they often are falsifiable, why would God be the sort of thing that can be rationally accepted despite being falsifiable, i.e. aesthetic preferences and subjective judgements? Is the existence of God the sort of thing that can be "true for you" while being false for me?

 

[Demonslayer]

I believe science can't disprove any god that isn't claimed to be active in our universe. For example gods that are claimed to have created static lifeforms and skipped the evolutionary process would have a problem with science.

This. You can't disprove a God about which no claims have been made. But the supposedly active Gods of the holy book have had plenty of claims made about them, most of which we can easily disprove.

Let's take the claims made about Jesus. Jesus was supposed to have 1) risen from the dead after three days 2) healed leprosy with his fingertips, 3) walked across the surface of water, 4) pointed at a fig tree and made it die. We can easily test to see if human beings can do these things and show that they cannot.

Now someone is going to say "but Jesus was half God!" This is no longer an issue of proof, it's an issue of having proof and ignoring it. It would be like saying "science has proven snakes cannot talk" and then saying "but the snake in the Bible was half demon, so it could talk!" We can ignore anything proven by suggesting some alternate, unfalsifiable cause.

If we accept this reasoning then we might as well stop trying to learn anything, because our entire existence could all just be a dream. Why bother studying cancer and trying to find a cure? Cancer might not even be real. Maybe we're all just sitting in goo-vats like the first Matrix movie and there is no planet Earth at all, we're just having this reality beamed into our heads.

So we can prove humans can't rise from the dead, walk across the surface of the water, kill trees or heal lepers with a touch of their finger. Saying "yeah but God can do anything" doesn't remove the proof, it simply ignores it.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I was told at some point in the past that God is in the poop. From that moment forth, I have gone about my life proclaiming this to others. To any who object, I demand that they prove that God is not in the poop, when all I really want is for them to agree with me.

 

[Demonslayer]

I was told at some point in the past that God is in the poop

We can't prove God is not in the poop. Perhaps he is.

 

[Ouroboros]

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

Anyone you think of in particular? I think I know which ones you're thinking of, but I don't consider them to be high-calibre scientists. Most high-calibre scientists aren't talking much in media. The ones who do science, do science. Those who don't, just talk about doing it. The more they talk, the less they do.

The existence of God is unfalsifiable.

I agree. And my science teachers all did too.

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.

I agree. The only thing I disagree on is that these media hungry scientists should be considered "high-calibre". They're only high-calibre in the sense of shooting of their mouths a lot in media, but they're hardly Nobel prize winners.