What does science think will disprove God?And what do Christians think will prove God?

[MikeF]

Good!
The same with knowledge. If you strip away the requirement of observability as the only one and look closer at observability is it about objective. If you then look at the different versions of objective the most general one is this one - "expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations."
How? All perception or experience as in this one - "involving or deriving from sense perception or experience with actual objects, conditions, or phenomena" - doesn't mean observation as in science. That is these 2 to a varying degree - "of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind."

So let me give you an example of something which is not knowledge in science, but it is knowledge in the soft end of social science as connected to psychology and human science.
How you do act, when as a professional in human general caretaking deal with another human, depends on how you deal with the private, the personal and the professional. But you can't observe this as per natural science. You can only to do it if you learn to be objective in the other variants, because it is not science as it is not of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind.
It is knowledge in the mind about how different mindset works.
And as a professional in this line of work you have to be a human, personal, but you can't be private, and you have to hold that the other person might not be objective, but you have to.
There is more, but generally the joke is that you can be objective about the subjective in a limited sense, if you learn that.

I would consider both definitions of 'objective' as being applicable to scientific inquiry. The first definition applies to the investigator who strives to be objective in gathering, analyzing, and drawing conclusions about data. The second definition is a property of things themselves, that they exist independently of thought, which science is also concerned with.

You seem to make a distinction between what you call science, and what you call soft, social, or human science. For me, they are all part of the same science and must adhere to the same principles and standards.

 

[ppp]

That's the Bayesian approach to withholding belief.

No, it's not. You literally have no way to calculate probability. That's not "baysian" That is just standard statitistics..

 

[MikeF]

The only way for Christians to prove God exists is via philosophical arguments. They can use science as a part of their deduction.

Have any Christians proved the existence of 'God' via philosophical arguments? Why is this the only way? How do you justify this statement?

 

[firedragon]

Yep, here you go:

Intercessory prayer for the alleviation of ill health - PubMed

You can shift the goalposts and claim that this doesn't prove anything, but any honest and objective reader will agree that this meta-study has provided compelling evidence that prayer doesn't do anything.

You can try an insult in every post as much as you want if it satisfies you, but its no argument.

The so called survey is a no go. 7 billion people in the world. This is worse than the worst induction you have provided. In order to eliminate something like this, you have to reach very very far in doing the research. And your own so called great 'study' says "although some of the results of individual studies suggest a positive effect of intercessory prayer". In your study, even if one human being in the entire world has a positive effect due to prayer, your entire thesis fails because your claim was you or your "we" group have proven it does not work.

Very poor.

 

[firedragon]

Have any Christians proved the existence of 'God' via philosophical arguments? Why is this the only way? How do you justify this statement?

Strawman. I never said Christians have proven God exists.

 

[MikeF]

Strawman. I never said Christians have proven God exists.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Fine, you do not wish to defend your statement.

 

[QuestioningMind]

That’s interesting, when did “we” find God does not answer prayers? Because millions of people around the world would assure you that He does and has.

For my own part, I changed from a hopeless drunk obsessed with alcohol, to a person who hardly ever thinks about a drink. I take no personal credit for this miraculous turnaround in my life; all the credit goes to a God of my understanding.

Prayer has been tested under laboratory conditions. Sick people who had hundreds of people praying for them showed no greater signs of recovery than sick people who had no one praying for them. In fact they found that when a sick person was aware that hundred of people were praying for them thy often did worse. Researchers contribute it to some kind of a performance anxiety.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Fine, you do not wish to defend your statement.

Quite a few people see the terms slung around but do not understand them. The two that I see abused the most are "appeal to authority" and "ad hominem". There are times that appeals to authority are correct, there are also times that they are not. And people think that any time that a person is described negatively it is an "ad hominem". For example if one said that Trump should not be trust because he is a known liar, that is not an ad hominem fallacy. His lies are well documented and that does affect the ability one has to rely on what he says.

 

[firedragon]

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

What you think does not really matter but what it means in logic is what matters.

Fine, you do not wish to defend your statement.

I will defend what I said, but not what you created.

 

[rational experiences]

As a human knowing one word first meant one description. I would ask a thinker what type of God are you theming?

If you said eternal God it's imposed about self only as the human. Reasoned history only about a human as the human only.

As God in creation history was taught as O Satan angel mass sealed as God. In space story.

Why volcanoes released gods Satan angel into cloud form. Gods.

We know we aren't Satan's history a clouds form. Reason...as it disappears...logic.

So any manifestation is only a manifestation as is a cloud form.

I saw an instant imaged recorded eternal being as a human only memory by my mother's terms. I'm a woman.

Father once was an eternal being first.
Mother was an eternal being first.

Eternal being that communicated them away out of its own body owned a slight recorded memory of its self.

Humans know we are first natural innate aware before any theism.

Say the eternal memory exists we know it's real and true.

So humans tell me as a new life spirit is real. I think about it only because my brother who I adored as a little sister had died.

I demanded it proven....a man's voice said live a humans spiritual life and it will be proven.

So I studied meditation and healing and herbal mineral methods and conscious behaviours.

And it was proven. I saw that memory by being as loving and caring as I could personally be.

It was proven. Only my choice can prove it. The human only.

So a scientist knows the earth is his Satan products as he owns no God earth intention as seals. He burns melts converts all earth God products. As a human scientist.

So he only owns Satan by science of God terms.

He conjured spirit manifestation not human but as he's bodily a human consciously a human images manifested against him were human like.

As he designed design by human being a man.

So a scientist Mr I own everything learns he's not got God in science when earth changes and he gets attacked personally.

Why Rome said in Roman documents as scientists they were hypocrites. As they weren't using God products in god earth human sciences themselves. They were satanisms Alchemy only.

So my experience says no man is God.

The eternal spirit history about humans is real.

And science never owned an eternal being as either a human or a God being as a human.

As one self is only owner of one a the human or a human.

Water was created as a mass hence you can't thesis singularity as a water termed history.

And without oxygenated water you can't even think hence you don't know what you falsify claim you knew. Without extra use of oxygen yourselves.

As coercion is a part of human conscious terms and scientists use coercion. Already the hypocrites taught human subject.

No man is God was said by a human hypocrite the scientist.

 

[74x12]

What does science think will disprove God?And what do Christians think will prove God?Just curious.

I don't think anyone will prove God or then it would be too easy. God doesn't want it to be easy.

Science doesn't think for itself. It's just a method. I don't think that the world will ever find God in an indisputable way. Any time anyone ever did find God; then of course satan would come to argue against it. And he works that way through people; so of course there will never be a definitive argument for or against God. It will always be disputed one way or the other until the very end. And people will continue to believe whatever they want to believe on the subject. By the time of the end; people will finally be faced with indisputable truth but they will still reject it because that's how spiritually blind they will be at that point in time.

 

[RestlessSoul]

What?

As far as we know, the statistical probability of our universe forming the way it has is 100%. We don't know that it's even possible that the universe could have formed any differently.

You do understand that the odds against you winning the lottery remain astronomical, even if you win it, right?

The anthropic principle notwithstanding, it has been calculated that any deviation from the precise value of critical density which enabled galaxies to be formed, must have been less than 1 in 10 to the power of 15*

That’s just one set of variables requiring such a level of “fine tuning” to facilitate our existence. The precise energy level of atomic nuclei in stars, which enabled carbon atoms to form from the fusion of helium and beryllium nuclei, is another. There are several of these cosmic coincidences.

So yes, we have won the lottery, but the probability of our ever having done so remains so tiny as to be practically zero. Given that it’s a principle of contemporary physics that we live in a probabilistic universe, defying those odds begins to look very much like a miracle.

*John Gribbin, In Search of the Multiverse

 

[Subduction Zone]

You do understand that the odds against you winning the lottery remain astronomical, even if you win it, right?

The anthropic principle notwithstanding, it has been calculated that any deviation from the precise value of critical density which enabled galaxies to be formed, must have been less than 1 in 10 to the power of 15*

That’s just one set of variables requiring such a level of “fine tuning” to facilitate our existence. The precise energy level of atomic nuclei in stars, which enabled carbon atoms to form from the fusion of helium and beryllium nuclei, is another. There are several of these cosmic coincidences.

So yes, we have won the lottery, but the probability of our ever having done so remains so tiny as to be practically zero. Given that it’s a principle of contemporary physics that we live in a probabilistic universe, defying those odds begins to look very much like a miracle.

*John Gribbin, In Search of the Multiverse

I think that you misunderstood the response. We do not know if those values can vary. We know what they are for our universe and how it would change things drastically if they were changed. That does not mean that they could change. If they are variable the odds of our universe forming as it did is very very small. If they can't change the odd were one.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Yes, of course. The human brain has evolved to have language, and by naming things deals constantly and automatically with categories of real things and also with generalizations, abstractions, ideals, imaginary entities and scenarios and so on.
Yes, but perhaps the more complete view comes from the question, "What is truth?".

And the physical sciences and I both think that truth is a quality of statements, and that a statement is true to the extent that it corresponds with / accurately reflects objective reality, the world external to the self.
I find that trying to validate reality (nature, the world external to the self) by other methods is prone to yield meaningless results in those terms.

Of course, since we've never found a human culture on earth that doesn't have supernatural beliefs, we can have the strong suspicion that they serve a useful social function, such as being part of tribal identity along with language, culture, stories and beliefs, and thus reinforcing cooperation, a trait very valuable to survival; and also in explaining the otherwise unexplainable like existence, luck, the sun and sky, weather, the seasons, fertility and famine, and also the usual observances of coming of age, pairing, breeding and death.

At the same time, the diversity of those supernatural beliefs indicates that they're a human product, since if they were observing a "real" supernatural world, they'd all be giving the same description of the beings they see there.

Have to disagree with that last paragraph. Varieties of religious experience wherever they occur in the world, will always be refracted through the prism of culture, values, language, pre-existing belief, prejudices, etc., so it’s unrealistic to expect all descriptions to cohere. There remains, I contend, a rich vein of commonality buried beneath the cultural ephemerata of diverse religious beliefs and practice.*

This principle does not apply only to the understanding of spiritual experience; in The Quantum Astrologers Handbook, physicist and writer Michael Brooks, after attending a conference in Vienna devoted to pooling understanding of the wave function in QM, tells of a group of physicists witnessing an experiment; they all agreed on what they had seen, but none could agree on what had just happened.

* see William James - Varieties of Religious Experience

 

[RestlessSoul]

I think that you misunderstood the response. We do not know if those values can vary. We know what they are for our universe and how it would change things drastically if they were changed. That does not mean that they could change. If they are variable the odds of our universe forming as it did is very very small. If they can't change the odd were one.

Granted. That’s the anthropic principle, effectively; the reason that we observe a universe capable of supporting intelligent life, is because that is precisely the nature of the universe required in order for us to be here observing it. Somewhat circuitous, no?

Whilst I can see the logic (at a stretch) I am not impressed by this apparent tautology. And nor, as I understand it, are a good many astronomers; one of the reasons various multiverse models are deemed credible, is because introducing infinite possibilities in this manner alters the probability of our existence, from negligible to inevitable.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Prayer has been tested under laboratory conditions. Sick people who had hundreds of people praying for them showed no greater signs of recovery than sick people who had no one praying for them. In fact they found that when a sick person was aware that hundred of people were praying for them thy often did worse. Researchers contribute it to some kind of a performance anxiety.

No doubt something of this sort has been attempted. But unless you provide a link to the specific study you are referring to, how are we meant to assess it’s validity?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Granted. That’s the anthropic principle, effectively; the reason that we observe a universe capable of supporting intelligent life, is because that is precisely the nature of the universe required in order for us to be here observing it. Somewhat circuitous, no?

Whilst I can see the logic (at a stretch) I am not impressed by this apparent tautology. And nor, as I understand it, are a good many astronomers; one of the reasons various multiverse models are deemed credible, is because introducing infinite possibilities in this manner alters the probability of our existence, from negligible to inevitable.

No, the anthropic principle is a bit different. It holds even if those constants could vary.

I am not stating that those results do not vary. I am simply saying that we really have no way of knowing if they can or can't yet. There were similar values in the past that were shown to be fixed once we understood more physics. At this point you are trying to prove something using a "Gee Whiz!" argument for values that we can't be sure of.

 

[RestlessSoul]

No, the anthropic principle is a bit different. It holds even if those constants could vary.

I am not stating that those results do not vary. I am simply saying that we really have no way of knowing if they can or can't yet. There were similar values in the past that were shown to be fixed once we understood more physics. At this point you are trying to prove something using a "Gee Whiz!" argument for values that we can't be sure of.

Well maybe, but until those several variables are shown to be fixed, what is sometimes referred to as the Cosmological Coincidence Problem remains an intriguing conundrum, one that evidences the assertion that we are, at the very least, "currently living in a very special period of cosmic history."

Aspects of the cosmological "coincidence problem"

I can't assert that this is proof we live in an orchestrated universe, nor that there must be agency to the orchestration if we do. I'm not qualified to argue for divine purpose, from a cosmological perspective; the argument is there to be made, however. Probably needs work.

Cosmological arguments for the existence of God

 

[blü 2]

Have to disagree with that last paragraph. Varieties of religious experience wherever they occur in the world, will always be refracted through the prism of culture, values, language, pre-existing belief, prejudices, etc., so it’s unrealistic to expect all descriptions to cohere.

But isn't that the point? That their asserted supernatural perceptions are in each case cultural artifacts, because gods are something humans tend to do? How can Shintoism, which held the emperor to be divine as well as human, and still holds that your ancestors, and miscellaneous ghosts of other humans, are around you all the time, be seen as having any particular supernatural perceptions in common with the Abrahamics? With Hindu beliefs? And so on and so on. Why doesn't Christianity hold with reincarnation as the recycling of souls on earth, or search for Nirvana? I don't see how the founders or expounders of these religions could be looking at the same landscape, let alone seeing the same entities in it, or perceiving their functions.

I don't think the things in common that James attributes to religions are of the same kind as I'm talking about (which are number, nature, form, function, demands of particular gods, and their purported usual environment). I also think his views make more sense to dualists (in the Cartesian sense) than they do to me.

(I should perhaps make it clear that outside of RF, where I enjoy the debate boards, I'm happy for people to believe as pleases them as long as they treat their fellow humans with decency, respect and inclusion.)

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

One comes to God through prayer and meditation, generally. Or rather, when we practice these disciplines selflessly, in the right spirit, God comes to us.

Though in truth, we are never far away from the sunlight of the spirit. The problem is the ego - it’s generally that which eclipses the light.

You are dancing all around the issue I brought up.

I can only repeat my question: what is the actual difference between the non-existent and the non-detectable?