Do We Really Have To Choose?

[Baydwin]

Hard science, (by that I am excluding the social sciences) has nothing to do with either the super-natural or the supra-natural. If science can explain it, it is of nature.

I agree with this bit, but not the rest. My god is natural, so in theory should be investigable by the scientific method. I just don't know how you could go about creating an experiment though, at least not at our current level of understanding.

 

[Storm]

Hard science, (by that I am excluding the social sciences) has nothing to do with either the super-natural or the supra-natural.

How are you distinguishing "super-" and "supra-?"

If science can explain it, it is of nature.

God is not of nature. By most definitions, god, or gods, are either outside of nature, or above nature. In other words, not bound by the rules that apply to the rest of the universe. Thus the concept of god can only be dealt with in a philosophical or theological manner.

The only thing that hard science has to do with God is explaining the natural means of phenomena that were once thought to be supernatural.

Agreed.

However, I'm not sure you really answered the question. This thread was started to examine whether the conflict "Science vs Religion" is genuine or manufactured.

 

[Storm]

I agree with this bit, but not the rest. My god is natural, so in theory should be investigable by the scientific method. I just don't know how you could go about creating an experiment though, at least not at our current level of understanding.

Right there with ya. However, tumbleweed was careful to say "most."

 

[Smoke]

Yeah, but I don't know anyone who actually believes in the God of the Gaps.

I don't know anybody who would put it that way -- "God of the gaps" is, after all, a deprecatory term -- but there are plenty of people, including some on RF, who hold to the ideas the term deprecates.

However, I'm not sure you really answered the question. This thread was started to examine whether the conflict "Science vs Religion" is genuine or manufactured.

It's quite real. Not all religions have a problem with science, but some do. Some religious beliefs are flatly incompatible with science. You cannot say that Christianity, for instance, or Islam, is necessarily incompatible with science, but you can say that some forms of those religions are incompatible with science. That's why we have people like Kent Hovind and Harun Yahya.

You are right that Catholic teaching on original sin is tightly linked to there being a real Adam and Eve. However, the Church has made no dogmatic definition as to how original sin was transmitted to the rest of humanity only that it was passed on to the rest of humanity. In the past it was certainly assumed, implied, and probably even taught that original sin was passed on because all humans were born of Adam and Eve, but that does not make it dogma. We must reexamine many of our ideas of the past, brought about by ignorance, in light of the new knowledge of science. It would not conflict with Catholic Dogma nor the science of genetics and evolution to say that Adam and Eve were real historical people and that they somehow tainted human nature on a spiritual/metaphysical level through disobedience to God and that this "sin" was transmitted to the rest of humanity, but not passed on by means of physical relation or bloodline.

From Humani Generis:

37. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own. (Cfr. Rom., V, 12-19; Conc. Trid., sess, V, can. 1-4.)
​

And the First Vatican Council (Session 3, Chapter 4) decrees:

8. Furthermore the Church which, together with its apostolic office of teaching, has received the charge of preserving the deposit of faith, has by divine appointment the right and duty of condemning what wrongly passes for knowledge, lest anyone be led astray by philosophy and empty deceit [35].

9. Hence all faithful Christians are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith, particularly if they have been condemned by the Church; and furthermore they are absolutely bound to hold them to be errors which wear the deceptive appearance of truth.
​

That's the point of the thread, that science doesn't tell us anything about God one way or the other.

Hard science, (by that I am excluding the social sciences) has nothing to do with either the super-natural or the supra-natural. If science can explain it, it is of nature.
God is not of nature. By most definitions, god, or gods, are either outside of nature, or above nature. In other words, not bound by the rules that apply to the rest of the universe. Thus the concept of god can only be dealt with in a philosophical or theological manner.

First Vatican Council, Session 3, Canon 2:

1. If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema.​

 

[tumbleweed41]

1. If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema.​

The Catholic Church supports Deism?

 

[tumbleweed41]

How are you distinguishing "super-" and "supra-?"

They can be used interchangeably, but I personally use supranatural as being 'above' or 'outside' of nature and supernatural as the use of the paranormal in an attempt to explain nature.

Agreed.

However, I'm not sure you really answered the question. This thread was started to examine whether the conflict "Science vs Religion" is genuine or manufactured.

Can anyone think of a single scientific theory that excludes God?

If you can, please explain why you think it does.

I was just pointing out that Science has nothing to do with proving or disproving the concept of God, other than explaining that which was once thought to be explained by God.

 

[MysticPhD]

The schism is real . . . and the culprits are the religious tyrants who forced science to create "Nature" instead of God as the focus of their efforts through persecution. The worst offender is the RCC . . . whose continuing antipathy is revealed in this excerpt from Smoke's post:

Hence all faithful Christians are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith, particularly if they have been condemned by the Church; and furthermore they are absolutely bound to hold them to be errors which wear the deceptive appearance of truth.

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

Can anyone think of a single scientific theory that excludes God?

If you can, please explain why you think it does.

Thats a strange question.
Any scientific theory excludes God.
Actually any scienctific theory excludes anything that it doesn't need.

 

[Storm]

They can be used interchangeably, but I personally use supranatural as being 'above' or 'outside' of nature and supernatural as the use of the paranormal in an attempt to explain nature.

I was just pointing out that Science has nothing to do with proving or disproving the concept of God, other than explaining that which was once thought to be explained by God.

OK, I agree.

The schism is real . . . and the culprits are the religious tyrants who forced science to create "Nature" instead of God as the focus of their efforts through persecution. The worst offender is the RCC . . . whose continuing antipathy is revealed in this excerpt from Smoke's post:

Hence all faithful Christians are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith, particularly if they have been condemned by the Church; and furthermore they are absolutely bound to hold them to be errors which wear the deceptive appearance of truth.

Please take your hysteria elsewhere.

Thats a strange question.
Any scientific theory excludes God.
Actually any scienctific theory excludes anything that it doesn't need.

No, they don't. Lack of inclusion is not equivalent to exclusion. Basically, I'm asking if you can think of a single theory that implies there is no God.

 

[MSizer]

Can anyone think of a single scientific theory that excludes God?

If you can, please explain why you think it does.

I can't think of a single scientific theory that includes god. Where is god in plate tectonics? Where is god in disease transmission? Where is god in molecular theory? I can't think of a single theory that includes god. Even the ID "theory" which in fact doesn't qualify as a theory, is addmitted by it's own proponents to not necessarily include god.

 

[Storm]

I can't think of a single scientific theory that includes god. Where is god in plate tectonics? Where is god in disease transmission? Where is god in molecular theory? I can't think of a single theory that includes god. Even the ID "theory" which in fact doesn't qualify as a theory, is addmitted by it's own proponents to not necessarily include god.

Irrelevant. Please answer the question.

 

[Mr Cheese]

Can anyone think of a single scientific theory that excludes God?

If you can, please explain why you think it does.

Gravity....

I don't see God mentioned in the theory that enables an explanation for why things "fall"

 

[Storm]

*sighs* As I said:

No, they don't. Lack of inclusion is not equivalent to exclusion. Basically, I'm asking if you can think of a single theory that implies there is no God.

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

No, they don't. Lack of inclusion is not equivalent to exclusion.

I understand your point and i agree to your second sentence but i disagree with your first one. God by definition is not something empirically verifiable. He is by definition excluced because he never could be included by his own nature. Remember: science is about natural laws only.

Basically, I'm asking if you can think of a single theory that implies there is no God.

Depends on the God you want to talk about.
If for example you take a literal biblical god then surely i would say that any modern theory on the origin of life, as well as any theory concerning the universe contradicts such a god (and thus would imply what you said).

If you take a god that has several "features" and "attributes" as presented by bible, quran and other scriptures then logic alone is already sufficient.

If you speak abot a god who gives you an afterlife in a different dimension, then modern science about brains and thinking would imply such a gods nonexistence by contradicting such notions as the afterlife as presented by many religions.

If you think (your title suggests so) that God simply is all that exists then by mere definition no scientific theory could ever imply Gods nonexistence. Actually you would have by definition declared his existence

 

[Storm]

I understand your point and i agree to your second sentence but i disagree with your first one.

Um... the second was clarification of the first. How can you disagree with one and not the other.

God by definition is not something empirically verifiable.

As you yourself point out, that depends on which God your talking about. As I should have clarified from the beginning, I was going with generic theism.

He is by definition excluced because he never could be included by his own nature. Remember: science is about natural laws only.

I disagree with this. If we accept the specific meaning of "exclusion" I'm using (which you did), God can never be excluded, for the same reasons you give. We have no way of knowing if it was serendipity or the physical manifestation of supernatural agency.

The rest is rather off-topic. I'm going to respond anyway, but request that if you want to discuss them further, you start new threads. Cool?

Depends on the God you want to talk about.
If for example you take a literal biblical god then surely i would say that any modern theory on the origin of life, as well as any theory concerning the universe contradicts such a god (and thus would imply what you said).

Ehhhh.... I don't know. As Conrad Hyers puts it, "The biblical understanding of creation is not being pitted against evolutionary theories, as is supposed; rather, evolutionary theories are being juxtaposed with literalist theories of biblical interpretation. Doing this is not even like comparing oranges and apples; it is more like trying to compare oranges and orangutans." [source]

But you probably don't want to get me started on Literalism.

If you take a god that has several "features" and "attributes" as presented by bible, quran and other scriptures then logic alone is already sufficient.

I have yet to encounter such an argument that wasn't easily destroyed. This is not boasting, it says far more about the quality of the arguments than my own capacity for logic.

If you speak abot a god who gives you an afterlife in a different dimension, then modern science about brains and thinking would imply such a gods nonexistence by contradicting such notions as the afterlife as presented by many religions.

Assuming the afterlife is supernatural, how in the world do you think it acheives that?

If you think (your title suggests so) that God simply is all that exists then by mere definition no scientific theory could ever imply Gods nonexistence. Actually you would have by definition declared his existence

It's a little more complicated than that.
1) I believe God is finite, bound by the cosmos, and there's something else beyond those borders. Therefore, God is not "everything."
2) I believe the cosmos is a sapient organism, with three primal elements: matter, consciousness, and life force.
The latter point, while beyond the capacity of CURRENT science, is quite falsifiable.

 

[Magic Man]

No, they don't. Lack of inclusion is not equivalent to exclusion. Basically, I'm asking if you can think of a single theory that implies there is no God.

That depends on your definition of God, love. There are plenty of scientific theories that exclude certain god concepts. Excluding all god concepts is impossible, though, since there are as many different god concepts as there are people.

 

[Storm]

That depends on your definition of God, love. There are plenty of scientific theories that exclude certain god concepts. Excluding all god concepts is impossible, though, since there are as many different god concepts as there are people.

For purposes of this thread, generic theism.

 

[Magic Man]

For purposes of this thread, generic theism.

Which means what exactly? Are we talking creationist or non-creationist (as in intelligent design)? Are we talking about a god who interferes daily or not?

 

[Storm]

Which means what exactly? Are we talking creationist or non-creationist (as in intelligent design)? Are we talking about a god who interferes daily or not?

A supernatural Creator. ID is Chrsitianity (though other Abrahamics have jumped on the bandwagon), whether they admit it or not, so no. Interventionist.... hadn't considered that. To say no would make it specifically deistic though, so I suppose we should go with yes.

 

[Magic Man]

A supernatural Creator. ID is Chrsitianity (though other Abrahamics have jumped on the bandwagon), whether they admit it or not, so no. Interventionist.... hadn't considered that. To say no would make it specifically deistic though, so I suppose we should go with yes.

Why is ID specifically Christianity or Abrahamic?

The main thing is that some scientific theories exclude certain god concepts. When evidence for such things comes out those concepts change to fit the new knowledge. It's like "I believe in this god". Then, years later, science finds something that excludes that god, and so the god takes a different form. In that way, it's impossible for scientific theories to exclude any but the most literalistic, fundamentalist gods.

As for intervention, there's probably no scientific theory, but there have been studies done that show prayer doesn't work.