Can science prove or disprove the existence of a Spiritual existence? God?

[work in progress]

Our universe is finely tuned to the precision of 10:10:123...that is the number 10 as the base, and the number 120 as the exponent (which are Roger Penrose's equations), and if you wrote the number out, the number would cover half of the universe. If you dont see purpose and meaning in that astronomical number, I can't help you.

Well, first of all, just like the claimed astronomical odds of getting a DNA molecule from simple amino acids, we don't know if the early period of the Universe adjusted or tweaked the dials of those astronomical odds. And what exactly is the universe finely tuned to perform? Physicist Paul Davies points out that it is fine-tuned for the building blocks and environments that life requires. So, would it still be called a finely tuned universe if it was filled with lots of organic molecules, even if they failed to produce more complicated living organisms? Ultimately, all we know is that we are here, so all the fine tuning worked in this universe. There might be an infinite number of failed universes, where no complex life results, but it seems to have worked at least once!

But all this fine tuning highlights another obvious problem for explaining our universe as a purposeful creation: for almost 3 billion years of Earth's history (the only planet we know of where intelligent life exists), there was an abundance of one-celled organisms that failed, or just didn't bother to make the jump to more complex lifeforms. And in less than a half a billion years, this planet will again become inhospitable for complex life and will be an abode of microbes again...if we don't cause that to happen even sooner! And this living planet is likely an extremely rare event in itself; so what was the purpose of creating a universe with billions of galaxies, each having billions of stars with planets? Most of this universe is a void and a waste. Why didn't God just create a simple universe like the one described in the Old Testament? It was all that was needed for a divine creator to make to hold the living creatures he considered most important.

As for the hiddeness of God, well, speak for yourself. There are many believers that have been said that they experience divine revelation from God, but you wouldnt believe any of this based on your presuppositions.

If God was not hidden, there wouldn't be such an odd clustering of religious beliefs and total lack of belief around the world. Why is God more "hidden" in the most prosperous nations in the world with the highest education standards, and less hidden in the poorest, most destitute nations with the highest rates of illiteracy? One conclusion we can gather from this is that God...whichever is the right one...does not reward his worshipers in this world, and seems to have bestowed more blessings on those who either don't believe he exists, or fail to acknowledge his existence!

I pointed out earlier that many common religious beliefs, including the belief in a father or mother-like creator, appear to be stories that build off of our intuitions about how things work -- the rules of cause and effect, essentialism or vitalism (living things having their own unique life forces), and teleological explanations for why things happen. All these presumptions come from basic human intuitions, but that does not mean they lead to the right conclusions about any phenomena, let alone "divine revelations". We can approach the world one of two ways: let our intuitive judgments run wild, and see tornadoes and earthquakes as signs from God; or develop a sense of skepticism drawn from our education and a lifetime of seeing one supernatural claim after another fall apart or just go POOF and vanish...only to be replaced by the claim.

Most people prefer to have a little supernatural in their lives...to believe that something inside them is immortal and that our world has a purpose, and one that has included us for some reason. It doesn't bother me if people want to believe in a creator and a purposeful world, but this belief lacks objective evidence to support it. I have to concede that if I was greatly troubled by the implications of naturalism, I would find it very disturbing. Naturalistic theories of origins do not provide meaning or purpose for us, let alone for the Universe. So, I'm not looking for recruits for naturalistic atheism. It's a standpoint that some of us will take who don't want to be led to unjustified conclusions, and are content to provide meaning in our lives by other means than traditional religious methods.

And, maybe it's a case of those who believe and tell us frequently how their belief is based on faith are going to have to show a little evidence that they actually have real faith, instead of constantly scouring science journals for shards of evidence to prove the existence of God. It always strikes me as a paradox that those who claim faith and do the most disparaging of evolution and science, are the ones looking to science for proof that their God exists.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

You can use each part of hardware and each software program to explain the origins of a computer, however that is irrelevant and a strawman. Science is a process of understanding the universe and the universe is all there is for us to understand.

Notice how that works?

The question is how did the parts that make the computer assemble itself in a way to form a computer. The wiring has to be just right, the parts have to be configured in a certain way to make it function the way that it does. You cant explain this by just pointing to various parts of the computer, you have to explain how all of this originated without an external source. The question is ORIGINS, not what happens after things originated, but how things originated in the first place. In order to explain how your computer ORIGINATED, you need an external source. The origin of the computer cannot be explained within the computer, and neither can the universe.

But, it does equal a box of pizza no matter how many people you don't share it, in fact, you don't have to share it with an infinite amount of people.

I wasn't the one that said dividing by 0 will give you infinity.

Your arguments are fallacies combined with confusion and everyone here is trying to help you sort out your confused fallacies.

So if my arguments are fallacious, then what is the name of the fallacy that I committed??

It would be ridiculous for anyone who was utterly ignorant of facts and was filled with superstitious nonsense.

Ignorant of what facts??

You have made it blatanly honest you have no understanding of that which you find ridiculous and would much rather not think about it and pretend an invisible sky daddy waved his magic hand.

10:10:123...deal with that number

Yes, I know. And, you will continue to fill your posts with exactly those kind of superstitious beliefs and remain completely ignorant to facts and evidence.

More rhetoric?

 

[A Troubled Man]

The question is how did the parts that make the computer assemble itself in a way to form a computer.

That wasn't the question you asked. Perhaps another computer assembled the computer.

The wiring has to be just right, the parts have to be configured in a certain way to make it function the way that it does. You cant explain this by just pointing to various parts of the computer, you have to explain how all of this originated without an external source.

It can be explained without just pointing to various parts. What do you mean by external source?

The question is ORIGINS, not what happens after things originated, but how things originated in the first place. In order to explain how your computer ORIGINATED, you need an external source.

So, now you're back to origins? Dude, you're jumping around all over the place and are not making any sense.

The origin of the computer cannot be explained within the computer, and neither can the universe.

The universe is explained with science. This is a very, very ,very simple concept to understand. I really have no idea what you're talking about. Your example with computers is entirely an irrelevant strawman fallacy and your explanations are appeal to belief fallacies, begging the question fallacies, false premise... the list goes on and on.

 

[lunakilo]

Ignorant of what facts??

Basic math for example.

10:10:123...deal with that number

How is that an answer to the post you 'answered'?

Are you under the impression that if you just write enough posts, claim to be right and people get tired of trying to get through to yo, you somehow WIN the argument?

 

[lunakilo]

The question is ORIGINS, not what happens after things originated, but how things originated in the first place. In order to explain how your computer ORIGINATED, you need an external source. The origin of the computer cannot be explained within the computer, and neither can the universe.

This (that the origin of something connot be explained by the thing itself) goes for everything EXCEPT your God I suppose...

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Not all mythological stories of origins btw, but regardless, it does not mean the beginning of our universe was created by some godlike force...that somehow existed forever...regardless, as mentioned before, physicists today -- working from two different hypothetical frameworks, find that there would be a multitude of universes pre-existing ours, and not one, lone universe created by a godlike force after he got bored from spending an eternity wondering what to do to amuse himself.

I don't understand why you people think that the Multiverse theory is going to solve the problem. People think that by multiplying the possibilities that this is suppose to help the cause. All this does is push the question of origins back one step further. And once again, there cannot be an infinite number of universes, so there cannot be an infinite amount of cause and effect relations going back to an infinite past. Second, the BVG theorem applies to these multiverses because all inflationary models have an average Hubbel expansion greater than 0, and that is the only requirement that needs to be met.

Mythologies don't begin with evidence. They start from stories based on our intuitive assumptions about the world, and if some mythologies used our presumptions of cause and effect to make up a story where the whole world was caused, call it a lucky break -- not science catching up with religion!

First off, it is not a myth to say that the universe began to exist or that the universe is finely tuned for human life to astronomical precision. I simply draw supernatural conclusions when I logically conclude that the origin of natural can only be external, and anything outside natural reality is supernatural. That is the first reason. The second reason is, when calculating the odds of human life being permissible, and the odds of human life forming from nonliving material by a blind and unguided process lets me further know that there was a mind/purpose behind all of this. Before there was any scientific evidence that the universe began to exist, theists have always maintained this to be the case. So science is catching up with religion

And it should be noted, since you are presenting this from the JudeoChristian perspective, that Hebrew cosmology did not foreshadow the Universe as we know it to exist today. The Torah and the Talmudic presentation was a circular, flat Earth that was the center of God's creation. The flat Earth held subterranean waters and hot lava underneath. The 'sky' was a vaulted ceiling - translated as the Firmament in English, and had star-lights suspended from this metal ceiling, and the Sun, Moon and planets circled the Earth....and God and the angels lived in heavenly realms above the firmament. The ancient Hebrews had no conception of the scale of the real universe...let alone that our tiny planet was not the center of the Universe. Even a few centuries ago, when astronomers like Tycho Brahe were beginning to learn how to use parallax to determine the distances of the nearby stars, they were disturbed and troubled by the scale of the Universe. If they knew the Universe was billions of light years in diameter, and was expanding at an ever-accelerating rate of speed so that it will eventually completely disintegrate -- what would they have thought about the purposefulness of Creation?

All we have to do is go no further than Genesis 1:1, where it states "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"....if heaven and the earth were created, then obviously there was a time where neither existed. Fast forward to the the 1900's, we find out that the universe in fact had a beginning...in 1929, space within the universe was observed to be expanding....our universe is getting larger and larger....but 3,000 years ago, Isiah 51:13 said "that you forget the LORD your Maker, who stretches out the heavens and who lays the foundations of

1. the earth, that you live in constant terror every day because of the wrath of the oppressor"

Jeremiah 10:12 also said "But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding"

References to the heavens stretching before the first observation evidence was even thought about being seen. It has taken science thousands of years to catch up with what Christianity already knew.

An endless, pointless argument about numbers, and that's how you claim to be irrefutable!

So endless and pointless that you cant offer a refutation.

But you claimed that there can't be an infinite amount of numbers, not marbles.
And it is just another useless ontological argument. What does it mean to call God (something you make up in your mind) "infinite in quality? Who makes such a determination...besides the worshiper?

Dude, are you serious??? We can perceive the concept of an infinite amount of marbles just like we can numbers, all we have to do is apply a natural number to every marble. Was this suppose to be a refutation?? And by God being infinite, that only means that he is the ultimate source of goodness, holiness, power, glory. It is not to be used in a quantity sense.

Another proof that ******** baffles brains! In case you weren't aware of it, William Lane Craig's main field of expertise is in debate and rhetoric -- this is what he spent most of his active teaching career in

Debate and rhetoric?? This is crazy. He has a Ph.d In philosophy, and a undergraduate in physics. His work has been published in popular and scholarly journals and peer reviews and he is the leading figure in todays Christian apologetics and has debated some of the greatest minds in the world today. He doesn't teach debate or rhetoric so I dont know where you got that from.

...I'm not sure exactly what he does now, but great debaters are not necessarily the most knowledgeable on the subject discussed. And this would be obvious if you're going to tell me that someone like WLC, who is only on the periphery of physics, is more knowledgeable than an actual research physicist who spent over 30 years developing an understanding of the properties of many sub-atomic particles.

Dude, he is more than a great debater. He is QUALIFIED to speak on such issues, and does quite well. Watch this [youtube]AIeJdbtYkyA[/youtube]
Beyond The Big Bang: William Lane Craig Templeton Foundation Lecture Q&A (HQ) 1/4 - YouTube

in which WLC stands there and takes questions from physicists and answers every question knowledgeably, as if he is a physicists himself.

I don't waste much time watching debates, but this reminds me of Daniel Dennet mostly losing a philosophy debate with a loud mouth dimbulb like Dinesh D'Souza! Since Lawrence Krauss has written a book specifically dealing with the issue of what the term "nothing" means to a physicist in his recent book - A Universe From Nothing, WLC can tell us why we need to insert God to make it happen.

WLC already debated Krauss. Krauss was nothing special. One thing naturalist like to do is change the meaning of words. The evidence for a finite universe has become so overwhelming that guys like Krauss make attempts to change the meaning of the word "nothing". WLC has already responded to this nonsense on his podcasts.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

This (that the origin of something connot be explained by the thing itself) goes for everything EXCEPT your God I suppose...

Luna, the First Cause cannot itself be caused, because we would then resort back to infinite regress and there cannot be an infinite amount of regressions going back to an infinite past. The necessary attributes needed to be a cause of all physical reality has to transcend physical reality. It is necessary. God is the only being that man can define that can have the characteristics necessary within his very being to create all natural reality. This is not special pleading, because there are no other options other than the supernatural hypothesis and any attempts to provide natural explanations will run in to the problem of infinity or it will run in to the BGV theorem that proves a finite universe. There is no escape.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Basic math for example.

Example please

How is that an answer to the post you 'answered'?

Just a short response to rhetoric.

Are you under the impression that if you just write enough posts, claim to be right and people get tired of trying to get through to yo, you somehow WIN the argument?

Get through to me?? No one has provided an adequate answer for the infinity problem, nor has anyone provided an answer as to how can something that was created have an internal cause instead of an external one. I think the problem is you guys thought that I am the average Christian that isn't knowledgeable in Christian apologetics, and that you can run certain things on me. No. I don't think that atheism/naturalism is a logical position and the arguments on its behalf all fail at the hands of modern cosmology, mathematics, and philosophy.

 

[PolyHedral]

...there cannot be an infinite amount of regressions going back to an infinite past.

Why not?

 

[EnochSDP]

No it certainly does not give way to one.

The universe doesn't support a singular creator because nothing in the universe, from one end to the other, occurs singularly. Everything occurs in multiples. If the universe were a creation of some intent then it would naturally exhibit some characteristics of its creators. The universe's own nature declares that the creators were legion.

Besides, your God even gets the order wrong. He's justy boasting, and was really the outcast who sat alone while the smart kids got to building

Lets just go on and let your thinking in the wind
You know not one i-oata of the Biblical God so your opinion on the matter is not close to facts.

 

[EnochSDP]

How do you come to this conclusion?

SIMPLE MATH.1.1+1=2.2+1=3.3+1=4.AND SO ON AND SO ON.
EVERYTHING ORIGINATES BACK TO 1.
Even numbers do to.
All even numbers result back to odd.and all odds result back to 1.
One can add up to any number but not all numbers can add split back to one!But breaking down individually results to 1.
1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=and so on and so on makes all numbers!
Therefore 1 was the beginning!

 

[McBell]

SIMPLE MATH.1.1+1=2.2+1=3.3+1=4.AND SO ON AND SO ON.
EVERYTHING ORIGINATES BACK TO 1.
Even numbers do to.
All even numbers result back to odd.and all odds result back to 1.
One can add up to any number but not all numbers can add split back to one!But breaking down individually results to 1.
1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=and so on and so on makes all numbers!
Therefore 1 was the beginning!

you seem to have forgotten the slew of numbers that come BEFORE the number 1.

 

[McBell]

Lets just go on and let your thinking in the wind
You know not one i-oata of the Biblical God so your opinion on the matter is not close to facts.

Sad really.

I was hoping that your argument would have lasted longer before you reduced to ad hominem

 

[EnochSDP]

Sad really.

I was hoping that your argument would have lasted longer before you reduced to ad hominem

That was the truth!
a negatives do not make positives.And what a trivial statement.

 

[McBell]

That was the truth!
a negatives do not make positives.And what a trivial statement.

you keep using the word "truth", but your usage indicates that you do not know what the word means.

 

[EnochSDP]

you keep using the word "truth", but your usage indicates that you do not know what the word means.

I know what it means.
Science,agnostics,athiest,and various of sects do not know what truth means.You use workd like facts and true then use words like theories,projections,belief like the the same thing.They are totally different.
Facts are truth.and facts come from truth.
Theories are not fact.
Projections and estimates are not truth or fact.
Basically you believe that evolution or big bang happened and thats a correct statement and understandable.
But they are not known facts but some believe they are true without having the nessasary evidence to make the claima fact and therefore true.
I call God and the Bible true and contains facts because it does and continues tther than bad english and roman interpretations (that still contain Gods word btw)continues interpret errors.This is because of our understanding and acients understnading.Also the meaning a Gentile has to Hebrew language.Ill still stand behind my KJV Bible

 

[McBell]

I know what it means.
Science,agnostics,athiest,and various of sects do not know what truth means.You use workd like facts and true then use words like theories,projections,belief like the the same thing.They are totally different.
Facts are truth.and facts come from truth.
Theories are not fact.
Projections and estimates are not truth or fact.
Basically you believe that evolution or big bang happened and thats a correct statement and understandable.
But they are not known facts but some believe they are true without having the nessasary evidence to make the claima fact and therefore true.
I call God and the Bible true and contains facts because it does and continues tther than bad english and roman interpretations (that still contain Gods word btw)continues interpret errors.This is because of our understanding and acients understnading.Also the meaning a Gentile has to Hebrew language.Ill still stand behind my KJV Bible

wow.
you reveal your ignorance rather arrogantly

 

[PolyHedral]

SIMPLE MATH.1.1+1=2.2+1=3.3+1=4.AND SO ON AND SO ON.
EVERYTHING ORIGINATES BACK TO 1.
Even numbers do to.
All even numbers result back to odd.and all odds result back to 1.
One can add up to any number but not all numbers can add split back to one!But breaking down individually results to 1.
1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=and so on and so on makes all numbers!
Therefore 1 was the beginning!

Go learn some actual math. The empty set is the beginning, not 1.

 

[lunakilo]

Luna, the First Cause cannot itself be caused, because we would then resort back to infinite regress and there cannot be an infinite amount of regressions going back to an infinite past. The necessary attributes needed to be a cause of all physical reality has to transcend physical reality. It is necessary. God is the only being that man can define that can have the characteristics necessary within his very being to create all natural reality. This is not special pleading, because there are no other options other than the supernatural hypothesis and any attempts to provide natural explanations will run in to the problem of infinity or it will run in to the BGV theorem that proves a finite universe. There is no escape.

We do run into the BGV theorem a lot when dealing with you. And no matter how many people who tell you that the BGV theorem that does NOT prove a finite universe, you always come back claiming that it does. There is indeed no escape :sad:

About the first part of your post. that:

the First Cause cannot itself be caused, because we would then resort back to infinite regress and there cannot be an infinite amount of regressions going back to an infinite past.

Well I guess you are correct that if it is the first there cannot be anything before it.

But I think you are letting your dislike for infinity cloud your judgement.
You don't like infinity so you want there to be a first cause that takes care of the trouble of infinite regression.
You call this first cause God.

The trouble is that all you do is wrap the infinite regress in fancy paper and call it something else.

I disagree with:

The necessary attributes needed to be a cause of all physical reality has to transcend physical reality. It is necessary. God is the only being that man can define that can have the characteristics necessary within his very being to create all natural reality.

Depending on what you mean by "physical reality" and "transcend physical reality" you could maybe make a sensible argument for the first line, but that this thing which 'transcends physical reality' has to be a being is not a given.
I know you see design in the universe and therefore see the need for a designer, but that is YOUR INTERPRETATION of what you see, and not proof that a designer is needed.
I don't see design, so I don't see the need for a designer, and thus no thinking being at the beginning of it all.

 

[lunakilo]

Example please

Those real numbers you seem to think are not real. That is basic math.

Just a short response to rhetoric.

And how is that an answer...

Get through to me?? No one has provided an adequate answer for the infinity problem, nor has anyone provided an answer as to how can something that was created have an internal cause instead of an external one. I think the problem is you guys thought that I am the average Christian that isn't knowledgeable in Christian apologetics, and that you can run certain things on me. No. I don't think that atheism/naturalism is a logical position and the arguments on its behalf all fail at the hands of modern cosmology, mathematics, and philosophy.

People have provided you with plenty of answers.
You may not find them adequate, but you have made no attempt to understand the answers by asking questions about things you don't understand or disagree with. You just say say "doesn't make sense" and move on.