Can science disprove the existence of God?

[Jumi]

what is your position, on a holy book being the word of G-d? As an atheist, do you think that this can occur?

Atheists don't believe books to be words of gods, since they don't have belief in any gods existing.

 

[leibowde84]

If at all science should support the existence of G-d.
It is failure of science if it does not support the existence of G-d.
Regards

Why? Apart from God seeming to be necessary to some people, there isn't any empirical evidence that supports the existence of God. Assuming that a designer is necessary and that designer is God is based on speculation, not verifiable evidence.

 

[jonathan180iq]

I never said that the Iliad and the Bible are in the same page. You are putting words in my mouth.

I'm not putting words in your mouth. I'm reiterating the fact that you admit that a known work of Mythology, like the Iliad, does indeed contain bits of factual History, just like the Bible.

I'm then expanding on that thought and asking how you differentiate between admitted works of mythology and the Biblical narrative...

 

[jonathan180iq]

I didn't use these points as arguments for the existence of God (except for the point that mentions Aquinas' work). I was just stating that because of these points, which are undoubtedly true, it is silly to compare God with the Rhinoceros men from Atlantis.

But how so?

I could a make claim, right now, about some moral teachings of the Rhinoceros Men from Atlantis and the arguments defending the supernatural revelation of those claims would be just as legitimate as if they came from any supernatural claim about you supposed god. It doesn't matter if you're referencing the God of Abraham or the gods of the ancient Polynesians... This principle holds true regardless of faith.

That's the whole point.

There is no defense or argument that you can muster for the invisible presence of God that I can't use with equal validity when applied to my (admittedly hypothetical) Rhinoceros Men...
Any additional arguments, like the aforementioned list that you provided to help validate your arguments for god, cannot get past the fact that I can equally defend an openly absurd claim with the same level of substance as one for your favorite deity.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Well, there's one way to know for sure: tell us what this justification is for theism that's both rational and beyond the scope of science?

Tell you?? haha. You have to be enlightened, and that comes from God.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Well, according to Christian literature he had no problem doing it for Joshua, right?


Who is the God of this Aeon? When did this aeon start? How do you know that there is a god at all? And how can you make judgement calls about who he listens to or doesn't listen to?

In an answer to your first question, no. But in a deeper sense, yes.

You can't understand these things unless your are allowed to do so. Delusion will stop you. So your questions are meaningless, sorry. You either accept it or you don't

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Tell you?? haha. You have to be enlightened, and that comes from God.

Tell that to the Buddhists.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Tell you?? haha. You have to be enlightened, and that comes from God.

Sure it does.

What reason would I have to conclude that you're "enlightened"?

 

[Robert.Evans]

Are you telling me that the Bible is rational evidence that God exists, because it is obviously the word of God?

Of course I can accept that. But I need a bit more than your assurance that it is the word of God. Everybody can say that.

Ciao

- viole

That comes from God

 

[Robert.Evans]

Sure it does.

What reason would I have to conclude that you're "enlightened"?

If you are not enlightened, you wouldn't, sorry.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

If you are not enlightened, you wouldn't, sorry.

Convenient.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Convenient.

No, truth. But clearly annoying for a non-believer.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

We Christians have a reasonable faith, not in an unreasonable faith. An unreasonable faith (i.e., a faith that is not based in moral, scientific, historical or logical arguments) is silliness. If unreasonable faith were all you need to believe in something, you would believe not only in Allah, but also in Santa Claus, the Spaghetti Monster, Zeus, Thor, etc.

Reasonable faith, except of course you only understand the reasonable part of that statement, as being forced to the conclusion God exists by some philosophical argument, but you do not understand the faith part of it.

 

[gnostic]

In an answer to your first question, no. But in a deeper sense, yes.

You can't understand these things unless your are allowed to do so. Delusion will stop you. So your questions are meaningless, sorry. You either accept it or you don't

No. Delusions are believing anything and everything, but can't distinguish what is "real" and what is not "real".

You as a "believer" believe in something that you can't see and can't verify, because you have taken on the God-thingy on blind faith. You can't verify that God is "real", which make theists the delusional ones.

 

[Robert.Evans]

No. Delusions are believing anything and everything, but can't distinguish what is "real" and what is not "real".

You as a "believer" believe in something that you can't see and can't verify, because you have taken on the God-thingy on blind faith. You can't verify that God is "real", which make theists the delusional ones.

God is not taken on by "blind faith", that is what the atheist does. They have "blind faith" that they are right with nothing whatsoever to back it up with. You are confusing the evidence that is needed as being something physical....it can be later, but it is not intially.
You must also realise that if intelligence is not involved in creation of everything then it must be luck, which makes atheism bordering on absurd.

 

[leibowde84]

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 I would have been if I had been born in South Africa. LOL.

Showing that God's existence is unlikely is not even close to disproving the existence of God. The OP is extremely misleading.

 

[leibowde84]

God is not taken on by "blind faith", that is what the atheist does. They have "blind faith" that they are right with nothing whatsoever to back it up with. You are confusing the evidence that is needed as being something physical....it can be later, but it is not intially.
You must also realise that if intelligence is not involved in creation of everything then it must be luck, which makes atheism bordering on absurd.

The atheist merely says that there isn't sufficient evidence to believe in deities. Only a lack of verifiable evidence for God's existence is required.

 

[Crypto2015]

To quote myself:
Of course, the one thing that scientists all over the place acknowledge is that they don't promote certain theories out of any anti-religious bias...wait:
"To the hard-line physicist, the multiverse may not be entirely respectable, but it is at least preferable to invoking a Creator. Indeed anthropically inclined physicists like Susskind and Weinberg are attracted to the multiverse precisely because it seems to dispense with God as the explanation of cosmic design"

Ok, so maybe there's a bit of bias, but at least scientists have testable, empirically based theories and would never believe in something just because it "feels" right or for any other religious-like reasons...

"Despite the growing popularity of the multiverse proposal, it must be admitted that many physicists remain deeply uncomfortable with it. The reason is clear: the idea is highly speculative and, from both a cosmological and a particle physics perspective, the reality of a multiverse is currently untestable...For these reasons, some physicists do not regard these ideas as coming under the purvey of science at all. Since our confidence in them is based on faith and aesthetic considerations (for example mathematical beauty) rather than experimental data, they regard them as having more in common with religion than science."

(both quotes are taken from Carr's introductory paper in the volume:
Carr, B. (Ed.). (2007). Universe or multiverse?. Cambridge University Press.)

Or an alternative quote of mine from the same volume (based as it is upon the same conferences)

"Despite the growing popularity of the multiverse proposal, it must be admitted that many physicists remain deeply uncomfortable with it. The reason is clear: the idea is highly speculative and, from both a cosmological and a particle physics perspective, the reality of a multiverse is currently untestable. Indeed, it may always remain so...
For these reasons, some physicists do not regard these ideas as coming under the purvey of science at all. Since our confidence in them is based on faith and aesthetic considerations (for example mathematical beauty) rather than experimental data, they regard them as having more in common with religion than science." (emphasis added)
from the editor's introductory paper to the peer-reviewed volume Universe or Multiverse? (Cambridge University Press; 2007).


Other than that this was basically the nexus for the scientific endeavor and fundamental to the philosophy of science. Kant, Hume, Einstein, Galileo, Newton, Sartre, Nietzsche, Bohr, Kronecker, Euler, Aristotle, and on and on. Humans are not naturally inclined to engage in the reasoning and methods that allowed for the emergence of the sciences. See e.g.,
Cromer, A. (1993). Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science. Oxford University Press.
Duchesne, R. (2011). The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (Studies in Critical Social Sciences Vol. 28). Brill.
Gaukroger, S. (2006). The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1210-1685: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1210-1685. Oxford University Press.
Harrison, P. (2007). The fall of man and the foundations of science. Cambridge University Press.
Henry, J. (2002). The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science (2nd Ed.) (Studies in European History). Palgrave.
Huff, T. E. (2003). The rise of early modern science: Islam, China and the West. Cambridge University Press.
Oliver, S. (2006). Philosophy, God and motion. Routledge.

...and on, and on, and on...



Not Plato. Not Aristotle. Not Kant. Not Hume. Not Sartre. Not Wittgenstein. Not Nietzsche. Not Descartes. Not Newton. Not Leibniz. Not Duhem. Not Aquinas. Not Galileo. Not...well, basically any of the "most brilliant philosophers", as even Popper backed off from this view.

All of the quotes that you posted actually strengthen my point: the existence of God is outside the province of science. George Ellis, a renowned physicist with a philosophical background, said: "Third, there's the belief that with enough time and thought, a model of the universe will be completed, the famed Theory of Everything. Such a belief crashes when you realize that "everything" includes subjective experience, love, God, the soul, the purpose of existence, meaning, and the behavior of consciousness--none of these things, grappled with by philosophy for centuries, can be understood through physics."

 

[Crypto2015]

Are you telling me that the Bible is rational evidence that God exists, because it is obviously the word of God?

Of course I can accept that. But I need a bit more than your assurance that it is the word of God. Everybody can say that.

Ciao

- viole

There are many reasons to believe that the Bible is the word of God. There are logical, historical, and moral reasons.

 

[Crypto2015]

Can you make an example of any of those arguments that justify the rationality of your faith?

Ciao

- viole

A morality-based reason is that without God, there are no moral absolutes. However, we know that there are moral absolutes: some things are absolutely wrong and we know it. Therefore, God must necessarily exist. This doesn't prove God's existence, but it makes faith much more reasonable than disbelieve. A historical reason is the ton of evidence supporting Jesus' resurrection, as well as the fact that the prophecies contained in the Jewish scriptures closely match the events and teachings of Jesus. Another reason is the fact that the book of Daniel predicts the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple with great accuracy. Another reason is that God coming to the Earth to pay for our sins is the most moving story ever and gives meaning and purpose to our lives. Again, this last reason does not prove that God exists, but it makes believing in Him much more reasonable than not believing in him, since in a universe without God, life has no purpose and no meaning. In addition, the fact that the universe cannot be infinite (because infinity is just a concept and has no real existence) tells us that the universe must have had a beginning. Since nothing comes out of nothing, the cause that originated the universe must be outside of the universe (i.e., outside of time and space). For such an atemporal cause to have caused a temporal consequence (the universe), the cause must be personal (i.e., a being) because impersonal atemporal causes can only originate atemporal consequences. There are many other reasons that either prove the existence of God or make believing in God much more reasonable than not believing in God.