What would be proof that God exists?

[Gokul43201]

But I can question Science...and it does not work in mysterious ways that are beyond my comprehension.

Nevertheless, I agrre with the sentiment of your observation.

 

[FaverWillets]

But I can question Science...and it does not work in mysterious ways that are beyond my comprehension.

Nevertheless, I agrre with the sentiment of your observation.

The current issue of Scientific American SPECIAL EDITION is devoted entirely to Einstein and the future of physics...

Yes, question science...without questioning science there can be no progress in our understanding of nature or ourselves.

 

[bd1976]

hmm... Perhaps I'm being a bit dense here but am I wrong when I say that you can't base right and wrong on reasoning or on science?

On a lighter note. In respose to

""But I can question Science...and it does not work in mysterious ways that are beyond my comprehension.""

can anyone say quantum physics? :-)

 

[arildno]

Yes, question science...without questioning science there can be no progress in our understanding of nature or ourselves.

Just a caveat here:
"...without SCIENTISTS questioning science IN AN INTELLIGENT MANNER there can be no progress in our understanding of nature or ourselves"
Non-scientists/specialists haven't got the competence to question science in an intelligent manner.

 

[FaverWillets]

Just a caveat here:
"...without SCIENTISTS questioning science IN AN INTELLIGENT MANNER there can be no progress in our understanding of nature or ourselves"
Non-scientists/specialists haven't got the competence to question science in an intelligent manner.

Actually you are right, but mostly in my choice of wording... yes, intelligent people can and do question science, but they usually lack the mathematical base and credentials that the scientific community covets. But there are also 'crackpot' scientists who "prove" things such as evolution wrong, etc... they don't of course, because they don't go about science in an intelligent and responsibile manner. They are religious zealots who have cast science aside due to their twisted sense of beliefs that they have 'discovered' new ways of disproving what they themselves find most uncomforting... anyway... It's like, if only I could disprove Einstein, I'd be world famous, rich and go down in history. Oh heck, the break whistle just blew...I'll start on it after work tonight."

how about this, "...without SCIENTISTS questioning science there cannot be effective debate yeilding any viable progress in our understanding of nature and ourselves."

Carl Sagan made this point in his book, The Demon Haunted World, when he used by way of analogy: [paraphrased] {consider that to even begin to hope to understand science today, a person must be willing to devote years of their lives to the study of mathematics, but it doesn't stop there... he/she must be willing to go through their first 12 years of primary/high school and major in mathematics and the sciences, then major in their undergraduate studies in the sciences and minor in mathematics, then go to graduate school and continue... all tolled they would have to be willing to invest 15 years of their lives minimum in order to have JUST THE MINIMUM baseline of background in order to begin to understand what the scientists are saying and doing... or, they can choose the lesser of these and go to church.}

My point is that only scientists can wage an EFFECTIVE challenge to scientific findings, and only scientists as a group can even know how reported scientific findings were arrived at and then attempt to reproduce the same results in their own laboratories.

So, yes you are right. I am NOT a scientist, and certainly not even willing to attempt to balance my checkbook (which might explain a few things in my household budget "-) and though I can read Scientific American et al, I will never be able to go head to head with scientists in any meaningful way... best I can do is write an article that stirs up the hornet's nest and allow them to duke it out amongst themselves in the ensuing fray.

I do agree with your challenge to how I wrote that, and in and of itself, I couldn't agree with you more. And yes, scientist/specialists do have the advantage of bringing about meaningful debate.

Just remember the boys from Utah...you remember those idiots don't you?...the ones who went public with their world shaking discovery of COLD FUSION... heheheh...funny guys, those Utah wizards... it was scientists worldwide who exposed those frauds. I didn't have the means to test their hypotheses, didn't have the math skills to write out the proofs... but scientists and specialists did.


Phil

 

[dekoi]

Design Argument
-everything in the world is suited to the function if performs; everything shows evidence of having been designed
-a watch was made by a Watchmaker, an eye was made by the Divine Watchmaker
-other things are even more ingeniously constructed than just a watch, further showing the extreme power of the Creator

Criticisms: Weakness of Analogy
-although there is some similarity between a watch an eye, it is only a vague similarity, and a conclusion based from this argument of analogy will therefore correspondingly be vague or unclear

Criticisms: Evolution
-Charles Darwin (1809-1882) demonstrated that by a process of the survival of the fittest, animals and plants which best suited their environment lives on and passed these traits to their offspring
-Darwin’s theory does not disapprove God’s existence, but it weakens it because it creates an argument without ever mentioning the existence of the Divine Watchmaker

Criticism: Conclusive
1.) -the Design Argument, in no way, proves the existence of one God
-why couldn’t the universe be created by a group of gods?
-a watch might be made by a group of Watchmakers, then from the argument of analogy, couldn’t the universe also be made by a group of Divine Watchmakers?
2.) –the Design Argument doesn’t prove God is all-powerful; the universe has several design flaws (human eye tends to have short-sightedness due to old age)
-perhaps these flaws are due to a group of weak gods, or one weaker God, or maybe a young god experimenting and making a mistake
3.) –Problem of Evil


The Anthropic Principle
-the chance of human survival during human evolution was so small, that it can conclude that the world is the work of a divine architect; God must have created the perfect conditions for this kind of complex life to evolve

Criticism: Lottery Objection
-if you win a lottery in which millions of people competed, you agree that it was nothing more than a random selection; you would disagree with the notion that somehow, your ticket was “chosen” by a higher power


First Cause Argument
-arguments based on direct observation of the world are empirical arguments; arguments based only on the existence of the universe are Cosmological Arguments
-this argument states that everything has been caused by something prior to it

Criticism: Self-Contradictory

Criticism: Not a Proof
-if it is possible to have an infinite series, why then shouldn’t the effects and causes extend backwards into the past to infinity?


The Ontological Argument
-a perfect being would not be perfect if it did not exist; thus, because a definition of God exists, God could therefore be said to exist as well;
-therefore, this argument is based on the notion that for there to be a “being”, it must also exist




I included both arguments and counterarguments, so you can understand my conluding point. Personally, i feel that humanity and life is a search for a higher goodness, a higher 'power' if you will. I have recognized that all of humanity has a desire or hunger for the trancendentals (good, truth, beauty, justice, unity). However, i think the magnitude of the idea of a higher power (God or gods) is much beyond our current thinking level, and thus, we can not solve the mistery of God in simple, materialistic words. I think, like Tolstoy, that the only argument for the existence of God is our search for initially belief, and in the end, faith. When we recognize what we are believing in and how we will go about it, and when we truly understand our belief, God (gods) will grant us faith. And when one is granted with faith, they will no longer worry about the burdens of society and life, as they will be in salvation.

 

[bd1976]

hmmm...

I don't believe (yet) that there's a God, but I don't go about killing people. I do NOT anchor my moral values on some religious scripture. I anchor them upon my reasoning independent of any religious teaching.

My argument is really this. There is no scientific reason not to go around killing people and yet we all (at least I hope we all!) would agree that this is wrong. Yet right and wrong, are things that only have meaning if there is a higher purpose to life. So therefore the fact that we all believe in these things does point to the existence of God.

Now you could say that a belief in morality is a gift of genetic's giving humans an advantage by encouraging the formation of societies. But I don't think that most people accept this. Most people believe that there really is such a thing as right and wrong. So doesn't this point to a subconscious belief in the divine?

 

[dekoi]

i should say, i agree with you regarding that fact; you may have a morality without believing in religion. Because humanity tends to be directed toward some sort of truth, some sort of faith. Thus, while we search for this "goal" or human purpose --which is btw filled with the goodness, truth, beauty, and unity -- we tend to develope this morality.

Therefore, although we are following these aspects of goodness, we do so without mentioning any theological belief. Religion just allows us to have a clearer path toward the truth.

 

[bd1976]

whooooo there!

I'm not trying to get the thread shut down I'm trying to explain what I meant clearly. So that someone else can tell me where I have gone wrong in my thinking. I sometimes find that when you get wrapped up in an argument you can't think of a counter argument yourself!

 

[dekoi]

bd1976: i am trying to understand your question. are you looking for the source of moral judgment? of your conscience? my previously long thread explains the question/statement in the thread name, i figured that is what you needed as well?

 

[bd1976]

Well you sort of agreed with me. I am looking for someone to disagree with me. If you ask someone about this they will often say that there is no need for god. Human reasoning can provide a better morality. However I submit that morality is something that only has meaning in the context of a higher purpose in life? But I'm sure I must be wrong otherwise almost everyone would believe in god since almost everyone believes in right and wrong?

 

[dekoi]

No, even if you are correct, not everyone would believe in God. Human civilization is so clouded that people have begun to replace materialistic happiness for metaphysical bliss. Everyone believes they are happy, while only being fooled by their own enclosed mind.

 

[bd1976]

... Blimey!

 

[Tigron-X]

Well you sort of agreed with me. I am looking for someone to disagree with me. If you ask someone about this they will often say that there is no need for god. Human reasoning can provide a better morality. However I submit that morality is something that only has meaning in the context of a higher purpose in life? But I'm sure I must be wrong otherwise almost everyone would believe in god since almost everyone believes in right and wrong?

I don't really believe in seeing the world as right & wrong; good & evil; or yin & yang. I understand the use of them and the principal notion such words apply, and how such thoughts can help our judgment, but I'd rather see such things as good or better. See, I believe we live in a world of constant growing perfection. For example if you assigned our current era the value of 7, then tomrrow's era would become an 8... and so on. It helps me look at things differently. It's basically a value judgment.

My problem with right & wrong; or good & evil is if God is said to be everything than that would make God good & evil. That doesn't make sense. Or you can even say God created evil since God is the Creator. Well, that negates the righteousness of God, so that doesn't make sense either. There is only a choice one can have that leads to a higher form of perfection which overtime can change the world around us. This process is also seen as evolution. Some choices we have; some choices we don't have, and it all depends on our understanding of Life and its Perfection. Morality comes from understanding and/or gaining knowledge "of Life"/"on Life", however you want to look at it. Any intelligent person can have morality, but why limit your choices as "right or wrong" or "good or evil" when Life lives in many ways?

 

[Gokul43201]

Design Argument

...
The Anthropic Principle

...
First Cause Argument


...
The Ontological Argument

...

Nice summary, dekoi !

 

[Gokul43201]

On a lighter note. In respose to

""But I can question Science...and it does not work in mysterious ways that are beyond my comprehension.""

can anyone say quantum physics? :-)

I'm not sure exactly how light your "lighter note" is intended to be, but our understanding of Quantum Mechanics is as strong as our understanding of Classical Mechanics (at least the areas of QM that are completely developed). The only difference is that QM is not intuitive, because it deals with a scale that we can not relate to through naked observation, for the most part. And fewer people understand it, because it relies on a lot of mathematics.

Also, I should add that a theory under development (that is attempting to explain things that are only partially/not at all understood) is not fair game for rebuke. It's called research, and it's the trailblazer that cuts into the unknown.

 

[Gokul43201]

My argument is really this. There is no scientific reason not to go around killing people and yet we all (at least I hope we all!) would agree that this is wrong. Yet right and wrong, are things that only have meaning if there is a higher purpose to life. So therefore the fact that we all believe in these things does point to the existence of God.

Now you could say that a belief in morality is a gift of genetic's giving humans an advantage by encouraging the formation of societies. But I don't think that most people accept this. Most people believe that there really is such a thing as right and wrong. So doesn't this point to a subconscious belief in the divine?

Are you saying that :

1. Our (at least) subconscious belief in a higher power is the source of our moral values , OR

2. The higher power establishes these sets of morals in us, and hence we have them

?

And when you say "higher purpose to life", what is the role of the word 'higher' ?

 

[arildno]

Faverwillets:
I still would like to hold that even scientists must question science IN AN INTELLIGENT MANNER.
There have been lots of scientists that fail to uphold that standard; and in my view, "idiots with scientific credentials" are far more dangerous than uninformed idiots.

 

[FaverWillets]

Faverwillets:
I still would like to hold that even scientists must question science IN AN INTELLIGENT MANNER.
There have been lots of scientists that fail to uphold that standard; and in my view, "idiots with scientific credentials" are far more dangerous than uninformed idiots.

Looks like we're on the same page.

Returning to the orginal question that is the title of this thread, I guess that a "god" could only prove itself to us by first appearing and remaining in our physical presence and then by openly and repeatedly demonstrating its powers to violate the known laws of physics... and we would need to have the best magician illusionists on Earth on the committee alongside the scientists to "validate" the demonstrations.

 

[FaverWillets]

Faverwillets:
I still would like to hold that even scientists must question science IN AN INTELLIGENT MANNER.
There have been lots of scientists that fail to uphold that standard; and in my view, "idiots with scientific credentials" are far more dangerous than uninformed idiots.

Looks like we're on the same page.

 

[olde drunk]

i can see no reason that science and a belief in a higher power can not exist within anyone. i believe that science is simply another tool for understanding the universe. i also believe in our intuitive awareness of a broader reality.

as a layman, i understand the general concept of QT and it begins to show us that there is more than just this physical dimension. this doesn't prove a god, but it advances all the old mystic ideas that we exist on more than one level.

the dispute between religion and science is fought by extremists of both camps. if the universe is the source, or higher power, it includes science. ergo science can not be a tool of the devil. if science shows more demensions, it begins to confirm our faith in a broader reality.

both disciplines have a place in our world as long as we don't go overboard with either. it is funny, tho, as our great scientific minds get further into their ideas, they seem to become more spiritual (not religious). do they have an inner feeling - awareness that their contribution is giving them, personally, a better grip or insight into the spiritual that is beyond pure science?


love&peace,
olde drunk

 

[FaverWillets]

"i can see no reason that science and a belief in a higher power can not exist within anyone. i believe that science is simply another tool for understanding the universe. i also believe in our intuitive awareness of a broader reality."

That is the rub. What one believes is not science...science is founded on a solid method of testing and observation. Belief is founded on ... belief, without benefit of the scientific method. That is THE key definition of science...it is a method of inquiry that is standardized worldwide. What one scientist observes, tests and reports here another can observe, test and confirm anywhere else. Belief has no rules, no guidelines...it is devoid of the scientific method in its entirety. Belief is conscious choice that is based in emotion. Science is conscious inquiry based in methods that are supported by mathematics...the one true universal language.

Whenever science/scientists make this unfortunate turn toward a compelling belief, others expose it by simply attempting to repeat the original's experiments. When the results are continually different, or non existent the "belief" of the original scientist is invalidated. Unfortunately, we do not find this in religion/spirituality... we can't, by definition.

 

[bd1976]

hmmm...

I'm not sure exactly how light your "lighter note" is intended to be, but our understanding of Quantum Mechanics is as strong as our understanding of Classical Mechanics (at least the areas of QM that are completely developed). The only difference is that QM is not intuitive, because it deals with a scale that we can not relate to through naked observation, for the most part. And fewer people understand it, because it relies on a lot of mathematics.

Erm.. No. Quantum mechanics unlike Classical Mechanics is based on a complex Entity "the wavefunction" this is just one of the conceptual difficulties with the theory. Yes as a piece of mathematics its perfectally well defined but that isn't good nough dfor a physical theory. A physical theory also has to explain the relationship between the mathematics and reality. In that respect qm is a mess.

Are you saying that :

1. Our (at least) subconscious belief in a higher power is the source of our moral values , OR

2. The higher power establishes these sets of morals in us, and hence we have them

?

And when you say "higher purpose to life", what is the role of the word 'higher' ?

I am saying that, without a god or, if you like, a higher purpose in life, right and wrong, good and evil do not exist as concepts. If the only difference between a man and an Ape is a bit more complexity In the frontal lobes -courtesy of evolution then there is no justification for a belief in the concept of good and evil.

Consider: Most people believe that murder is evil. (not just undesirable for society but actually evil). However if an ape murders another ape is it evil -> of course not! I'm saying this almost universal belief in good and evil points to an unconscious belief in god!

(*bow's*) bd

 

[Gokul43201]

Erm.. No. Quantum mechanics unlike Classical Mechanics is based on a complex Entity "the wavefunction" this is just one of the conceptual difficulties with the theory.

When you say complex, do you mean that it uses complex numbers ?

A complex number is just an ordered pair of real numbers with some interesting properties. There is nothing unreal about them. Hundreds of years ago, when the concept of a negative number was new, the common man shrugged it off as unreal.

If this is not what you mean by "complex entity", then I'd have to say that the wavefunction is no more complex than charge or mass.

Yes as a piece of mathematics its perfectally well defined but that isn't good nough dfor a physical theory. A physical theory also has to explain the relationship between the mathematics and reality. In that respect qm is a mess.

bd

Quantum Mechanics is far more accurate at describing reality than any Classical Theory. The correspondence principle makes QM no worse than Classical Mechanics. Please show me exactly where QM is a mess.

 

[bd1976]

go here dude! https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=43096

 

[Kerrie]

sorry guys, i think this thread has gone on long enough.