God is disproven by science? Really?

[Zwing]

Most important in what sense?

To my mind it is self-protective, preventing the individual from performing certain actions because of superstition which might be endangering and which he otherwise would not. Superstitious and supernatural, “magical” thinking affects our decision making not only within the religious context, but without, as well. Human beings are limited in their ability to compartmentalize.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

To my mind it is self-protective, preventing the individual from performing certain actions because of superstition which might be endangering and which he otherwise would not. Superstitious and supernatural, “magical” thinking affects our decision making not only within the religious context, but without, as well. Human beings are limited in their ability to compartmentalize.

I would argue that the presumption of agency is far more "self-protecting". See, e.g., Scott Atran's In Gods We Trust.

 

[metis]

If you look at evolution and the theory of natural selection, theoretically the concepts of God(s) and religion has had an impact on human selection and therefore on human evolution. For example, after Christianity merged with Rome and as Christianity gradually took over power; Catholic Church, social selection in Europe was defined by Religion. According to the theory of evolution, this selection process and pressure should have been added to the DNA and brain since it lasted 1000 plus years. Religion has impacted billions of people since civilization started; selective religious based pressures.

"Religion" is one of the "five basic institutions" that many of us in anthropology recognize all societies tend to have to a greater of lesser degree, so there seems to be "something" that leads us in this direction, but why it's so commonplace is unknown. Even tens of thousands of years ago we see evidence of religion, so this "something" seemingly must be there in some way.

 

[Audie]

No ambiguity at all in simple English language. Wordy response not meaningful.

I nor the reference cited anything to the contrary. The reference only described what science does not deal with concerning claims of 'Truth/'
I detect a reading comprehension issue that ignored the substance of the reference.

Your detector didn't work very well
when you chose such an ill conceived
article.

Unless it's worse than that and you
find Dembsky to be an authority
to cite on the nature of science.

 

[Zwing]

I would argue that the presumption of agency is far more "self-protecting". See, e.g., Scott Atran's In Gods We Trust.

I strongly disagree, for when one presumes the agency of a god which probably does not exist, one is led to a reliance upon his understanding of that god. It should be easy for all to discern the danger inherent in relying upon a non-existent deity.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I strongly disagree ...

OK

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think saying that a missing species is indistinguishable from extinct is better until and unless that is no longer true (one is discovered, say a coelacanth), in which case we change our position consistent with the new information. We go from being agnostic acoelacanthists to coelocanthists making us correct both before and after such a discovery.

The same method works for missing gods, that is, gods making no discernible impact on reality. They are treated as nonexistent until and unless that changes.

The difference, of course, is that unlike the coelacanth, whose nonexistence was falsifiable and falsified, the god claim is unfalsifiable if one also insists that the god, even if it exists, is not detectible.

But there's a critical difference between a coelacanth and a god: the term "god" implies a certain relationship with humanity. A god is an object of human worship; if nobody worships a thing, it isn't a god.

Add that relational aspect into your analogy and the situation is very different: if we were talking about pet coelacanths, we would have been completely correct to say before 1938 that none existed.

Of course, it's incoherent to claim that one discerns the existence of something like a god or spirit that he also claims is undetectable. He's telling us that his neural apparatus has detected and revealed to him this truth about reality, but that we needn't bother looking because what he has detected is undetectable to others looking for it including scientists also using a human nervous system.

So right off the bat, claiming to know something he claims is not knowable experientially (empirically) is a problem for the believer. He's saying that methodological naturalism can't detect what he does but gives no reason for that - special pleading. The empiricist, who may have had similar spiritual experiences - an unfortunate name, since we should confuse them with sensing spirits - but not understood them to imply the existence of god, concludes that the believer is experiencing the product of his own mind and misunderstanding its significance.

Right. It always sets off red flags for me when someone who claims to know even God's preferences for humanity around sex and food claims that God is unfalsifiable. They can't have it both ways.

 

[shunyadragon]

Your detector didn't work very well
when you chose such an ill conceived
article.

Unless it's worse than that and you
find Dembsky to be an authority
to cite on the nature of science.

I DO NOT consider Dembsky an authority. I am referring to his specific citation which is accurate.

You are play Duck, Bob and Weasel and not addressing the substance of the citation in coherent English.

 

[viole]

I hope that before those who claim that God does not exist, let them define "intelligence" first in the usage of God = Intelligent Creator or Intelligent Designer.

Technically, it is possible to believe in a creator God, but not in intelligent design. So, that looks like a false dichotomy.

For instance, stupid design would be a viable alternative.

ciao

- viole

 

[Zwing]

OK

My friend, are you yawning at me??

 

[Audie]

Technically, it is possible to believe in a creator God, but not in intelligent design. So, that looks like a false dichotomy.

For instance, stupid design would be a viable alternative.

ciao

- viole

There's lots of makeshift design

 

[Zwing]

For instance, stupid design would be a viable alternative.

Haha, even though I continually think “how stupid people are”, “stupid” seems an adjective not applicable to this universe of ours.

 

[Audie]

Haha, even though I continually think “how stupid people are”, “stupid” seems an adjective not applicable to this universe of ours.

And nobody but you even thought of it.

In the event, "stupid" is no more applicable
say, hunan body design, than " intelligent" is.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I think that many anti-theists who have a scientific background without a corresponding philosophical (ontological and logical) understanding, such as Richard Dawkins and Steven Gould, seem to suppose (I don’t want to put words into anyone’s mouth) that science, indeed, disproves the existence of deity. Surprisingly, Dennett appears to as well, which is incomprehensible to me, though I might misunderstand his position. You are right in asserting that it does not…can not.

You indeed misunderstand their position.

Dawkins, for example, explicitly rated himself a "9" on a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is "there definitely is a god" and 10 being "there definitely is no god".
What guys like Dawkins do say though, is that various aspects of scientific knowledge definitely disprove rather specific versions of gods.

For example, evolution definitely disproves a version of god that created all species as-is just a few thousand years ago.
Geology definitely disproves a version of god that flooded the entire world, killing 99.99% of all living things, just a few thousand years ago.

So specific gods most definitely can be, and are, disproven by plenty of things we know for a fact.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Oh, yes…of course. Yet, the concept of deity in general is not refuted scientifically, or by any other means. The most one can say, as do I, is that “I have no evidence for deity”.

Which is all that is required to dismiss the claim.

Even if NO version of gods could be refuted... the very fact that gods are untestable, unfalsifiable and have no verifiable evidence in support of them whatsoever, is more then enough to rationally dismiss said god claims.

 

[ratiocinator]

I think that many anti-theists who have a scientific background without a corresponding philosophical (ontological and logical) understanding, such as Richard Dawkins and Steven Gould, seem to suppose (I don’t want to put words into anyone’s mouth) that science, indeed, disproves the existence of deity. Surprisingly, Dennett appears to as well, which is incomprehensible to me, though I might misunderstand his position. You are right in asserting that it does not…can not.

Well, I've read quite a lot of Dawkins and Dennett (including The God Delusion and Breaking the Spell, the latter being far superior IMO) but I've never seen either even hint that they think science disproves a deity in general (as has been pointed out, there are specific god-claims, that can be falsified). I mean, they may have said something about how science can now explain certain things that were previously thought to require a God, but not that a deity (in general) was in anyway disproved by science. That would be a silly and totally dimwitted suggestion, and, as such, would have jumped out of the page at me.

Perhaps you can reference something by either that you've based this on?

 

[Audie]

Haha, even though I continually think “how stupid people are”, “stupid” seems an adjective not applicable to this universe of ours.

Some aspects of anatomy are
clearly makeshift and poor design.

 

[Zwing]

For example, evolution definitely disproves a version of god that created all species as-is just a few thousand years ago.

The fact of evolution disproves only the bolder text, but not the rest, for an “Omni-“ god might create the mechanics prerequisite for evolution to occur, foreseeing yourself as an eventual result. Catch my drift? In fact the attachment of the notion of “Omni-“ to God provides the theist with a handy “override clause” for rational argumentation.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Oh, yes…of course. Yet, the concept of deity in general is not refuted scientifically, or by any other means. The most one can say, as do I, is that “I have no evidence for deity”.

... which still gets us to Laplace's position on God ("I had no need for that hypothesis").

It also gets you to refuting most religions, since "there is no evidence for deity" implies "every religious claim that, if true, would serve as evidence for deity has not been demonstrated."

And like I touched on earlier, the hair-splitting difference between "God does not exist" and "God is so irrelevant to our lives that we find no reason to conclude that he exists even if we can't rule out the possibility that he might" doesn't get us anywhere that any theist I've ever met would find satisfying.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

The fact of evolution disproves only the bolder text, but not the rest, for an “Omni-“ god might create the mechanics prerequisite for evolution to occur, foreseeing yourself as an eventual result. Catch my drift? In fact the attachment of the notion of “Omni-“ to God provides the theist with a handy “override clause” for rational argumentation.

I disagree, because it's not at all needed.

It's like saying that photosyntesis doesn't exclude undetectable microscopic fairies extracting the energy of photons on a molecular level.
Yeah, technically it's true, but it's just pointless and meaningless.