The Science of God?

[truedeity]

I know the mods are gonna want to be trigger happy and flame the God keyword. But as a theist I have to say that God should be a fair and debatable topic in the realm of science. Pure science is not bias. Simply make observations, take notes, and be neutral. So when you want to introduce a concept like God, most people want to make assumptions such as God created the universe. For the purpose of this debate lets completely ignore those types of assumptions as to the "Nature of" or the "Essence of" God. Now some might argue that God cant be God if he wasn't responsible for creating the universe. My response to that is not necessarily. Something similar to our concept of God's attributes could have "evolved" somehow, rather than him being responsible for everything, or him Seeding the big bang, or anything that you might expect to hear out of the God of Gaps argument is not what I want to entertain for the purposes of constructive though... Lets just call the unknown possibility of God, G.

 

So right now the most we can derive is:

 

G = ?

 

Just because we cannot derive anything that defines what G is does not mean G is not real. It also doesn't mean G is real. Moving on...

 

So lets suppose that there are attributes that we can agree on that make God, well God. We really have to figure out what some of those attributes might be without making too many assumptions. The goal here is to start with a framework that defines the cores, or the essence that we all can attribute to G. Opposite of what I had said in the opening but my intention is to leave out the 'fluff' brought through religious dogmas, and strictly view this in a scientific way.

 

I'll start with a few properties just to set some grounds:

 

Omniscience

Omnipresent

 

I'm going to leave Omnipotence up for debate because I don't know that it has to be a requirement. I think Omniscience, and Omnipresent are enough to facilitate the most basic definition.

 

If the whole universe we knew was apart of a computer system then that computer system could have all of the properties of God. So lets rule that one out, even though there are some interesting thoughts that arise from that. For more on that train of thought i'll just leave this reference

 

 

I'm gonna sleep and will leave it at that for now, will finish this but leaving with some room for thought. Would like to see what responses might come.

[Phi for All]

Omnipotence has to be off the table, imo. If God created the physical laws of the universe, how can it break them? If it didn't create them, then it must be ruled by them. Omnipotence has always posed a paradox to me.

 

Omnipresence and omniscience would be hard to prove scientifically. How would we know it knew everything and could be everywhere?

 

God would have to be observable in order to be treated scientifically, or leave evidence that can't be attributed to anything else but God. It would need to be testable in a predictable way. This is going to be a major hurdle, one that I don't think you could ever overcome without having God show up and say, "Go ahead, run your tests, ask your questions, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon".

 

I do agree that God doesn't necessarily have to be the creator of everything. Nor does it have to answer our prayers for its benevolence or guide our lives in any way.

 

In the end, I think only a natural being with vastly superior knowledge of the universe and its capabilities could be a god science could recognize. Is it still a god if it just turns out to be a creature that knows a very, very, very great deal more than we do?

[Appolinaria]

in my opinion omnipotent god is everything... the universal balance. sin, logic, emotion... violence, benevolence. every possible outcome, every state, chaos and incarnation. the balance is everything, so its really not observable beyond the fact that it is everything. but i think there are specific energies that influence us to keep the balance. just like there are original elements, rays of color, there are individual forces that can be differentiated, aka subdivisions and different aspects of god.

Edited October 8, 2011 by Appolinaria

[truedeity]

Omnipotence has to be off the table, imo. If God created the physical laws of the universe, how can it break them? If it didn't create them, then it must be ruled by them. Omnipotence has always posed a paradox to me.

 

Omnipresence and omniscience would be hard to prove scientifically. How would we know it knew everything and could be everywhere?

 

God would have to be observable in order to be treated scientifically, or leave evidence that can't be attributed to anything else but God. It would need to be testable in a predictable way. This is going to be a major hurdle, one that I don't think you could ever overcome without having God show up and say, "Go ahead, run your tests, ask your questions, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon".

 

I do agree that God doesn't necessarily have to be the creator of everything. Nor does it have to answer our prayers for its benevolence or guide our lives in any way.

 

In the end, I think only a natural being with vastly superior knowledge of the universe and its capabilities could be a god science could recognize. Is it still a god if it just turns out to be a creature that knows a very, very, very great deal more than we do?

 

 

One assumption your making is that God has to create the physical laws of the universe. What if the universe becoming into existence has nothing at all to do with God at all?

 

It's a rather profound concept that seems counter intuitive. But I want to leave out all the assumptions that are assumed about the biblical Jehovia.

 

So what i'm inferring is that possibly something like God could have evolved. From my perspective evolution seems to be the only sort of thing that can facilitate such a possible outcome of an eternal consciousness evolving in the universe. There are a lot of conclusions and things that can be drawn out of that, and surely if you think in terms of strict classical physics you will not be able to grasp such a possibility because your understanding or world view is built on a sort of billiard ball universe.

[Realitycheck]

God is essentially a set of laws which conveniently includes your local laws, but is no more provable than love as a metaphysical phenomenon. Seeing how the law upholds righteousness, as well as love, there really shouldn't be much difference, but I believe, that, in reality, it is rather superficial, though one could still hold up this little flag of constant progressive organization in the universe. It really is vastly different than the concept of the omnipotent Almighty.

Edited October 8, 2011 by Realitycheck

[doG]

So lets suppose that there are attributes that we can agree on that make God, well God. We really have to figure out what some of those attributes might be without making too many assumptions. The goal here is to start with a framework that defines the cores, or the essence that we all can attribute to G. Opposite of what I had said in the opening but my intention is to leave out the 'fluff' brought through religious dogmas, and strictly view this in a scientific way.

 

I'll start with a few properties just to set some grounds:

 

Omniscience

Omnipresent

Why are these required? IMO you've gone too far already. Backup and define the term God in some meaningful way that everyone agrees on. Without a concise definition you are simply debating a term with a variable definition. That makes the debate pointless.

[truedeity]

Why are these required? IMO you've gone too far already. Backup and define the term God in some meaningful way that everyone agrees on. Without a concise definition you are simply debating a term with a variable definition. That makes the debate pointless.

 

 

Well there is a very simple reason for including Omniscience, and Omnipresence. I think, mostly because there has to be something that separates 'a God' from a technically advanced civilization. I believe a God that is benevolent and has ultimate love is the only type of God that would be of any interest to anyone. But you know what is love? Scientific termonoligies for love are just chemical interactions in an organism. But if God is not a physical entity like you and me then love has to be more than just chemical interactions inside of an organism. Perhaps there is a scientific explanation that could describe a higher dimension that could make room for, and contain the spirit realm. If we are confined to this dimension we would never be able to get any information from higher dimensions. So if this dimension exists how does spirit exist in this dimension and what is the nature of it? There are many anomalies in quantum physics that describe how particles and smaller objects interact that really point to the fact that maybe something is popping out of this dimension and back into this dimension because nothing logical seems to explain for example how these objects belong to one another. This entanglement idea has some gripping implications that we cant ignore, but we also cant make wild assumptions like it goes into the spirit realm either.

 

Gotta run more later.

[Phi for All]

One assumption your making is that God has to create the physical laws of the universe. What if the universe becoming into existence has nothing at all to do with God at all?

 

It's a rather profound concept that seems counter intuitive.

No. I did not assume that. I stated:

 

If God created the physical laws of the universe, how can it break them? If it didn't create them, then it must be ruled by them.

 

[snip]

 

I do agree that God doesn't necessarily have to be the creator of everything.

 

[snip]

 

In the end, I think only a natural being with vastly superior knowledge of the universe and its capabilities could be a god science could recognize.

If you're going to ask for responses, please read them thoroughly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so we're clear on this thread, in order to stay in Speculations, we're going to need to provide something beyond a framework for discussion. We need to make some testable predictions about these ideas or it's going to get moved to the Religion section.

[truedeity]

No. I did not assume that. I stated:

 

 

If you're going to ask for responses, please read them thoroughly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so we're clear on this thread, in order to stay in Speculations, we're going to need to provide something beyond a framework for discussion. We need to make some testable predictions about these ideas or it's going to get moved to the Religion section.

 

 

Sorry I think I did misread then. I understand what you're saying now. That makes perfect since to me what your asking. So my response to that is simply that it only seems that the definitions of G are violations of natural law. But what I am arguing is that there maybe some some aspect of science which allows for this possibility for G. Which is why i say that G is Omniscient, because G would have to have a vast knowledge of science to exist within the ether.

 

Edit...

 

As an example for perspective, lets say there is a alien race that exists in the cosmos, lets call them 'the grays' and they have been around a billion years or so. Their science is further advanced than the humans as equally as humans are advanced to the amoeba. Then G's knowledge of science would be the same comparison as amoeba to humans above 'the grays'.

Edited October 8, 2011 by truedeity

[Realitycheck]

Relativity alone defies the existence of God, unless you're talking about a localized, planetary God. How is he going to hear your prayers 14 billion light years away or whatever and respond in due time? Any answer you give is impossible to prove.

[truedeity]

Relativity alone defies the existence of God, unless you're talking about a localized, planetary God. How is he going to hear your prayers 14 billion light years away or whatever and respond in due time? Any answer you give is impossible to prove.

 

I think your really stuck on the billiard ball universe which by the way is not a theory of everything. So I can say the same thing. Until you have a theory of everything you cant rule out these possibilities for God. Your reply just seems to radiate impatience of obtaining any measurable data. Maybe we just are not thinking consecutively? Btw, Albert Einstein was responsible for relativity and he still believed in God and entanglement as mentioned earlier is observable, measurable and violates relativity.

 

Another thing to note is that your making an assumption that God is listening to prayers. You might be thinking that I'm referring to spinoza's impersonal God. But that's not what i'm trying to get at. I just want to imagine that God exists on a higher dimension, or within every atom, or something along those lines. And whatever facilitates that is simply unknown in scientific terms. So our job is to not rule out that possibility and to come up with a list of favorable arguments that support a definition of God that can be discussed in a scientific realm.

Edited October 9, 2011 by truedeity

[granpa]

titans were very powerful but the greeks we very clear that they were not gods.

 

eventually they were defeated by the gods.

 

so great power alone is not sufficient.

Edited October 9, 2011 by granpa

[Phi for All]

What kind of mechanism could be used for omnipresence or omniscience? The M theory extension of string theory proposes 11 dimensions. Could a dimension higher than the 3rd give a perspective over the first three that could be considered omnipresence?

 

Unfortunately, M theory isn't predictive so you're left with more untestable ideas.

[truedeity]

What kind of mechanism could be used for omnipresence or omniscience? The M theory extension of string theory proposes 11 dimensions. Could a dimension higher than the 3rd give a perspective over the first three that could be considered omnipresence?

 

Unfortunately, M theory isn't predictive so you're left with more untestable ideas.

 

 

Perhaps these ideas only seems untestable? I believe a lot can be accomplished through inference as well. But before I elaborate I want to explain what I mean by "seems untestable". I have to fall back on, as a species we are so far away from a big toe unification theory that we probably don't know what there is available to test with. We don't know what consciousness is yet, we all experience that and that is completely subjective to us. And I don't want to get to much into that because that topic can really be stretched out a lot. And my immediate reference to anything on consciousness will be Stuart Hameroff hands down. Which puts consciousness in the realm of a unified theory, in that part of how this consciousness functions is a based on how dendrites within microtubules are in a superposition. This is exactly what I mean by inference... I believe that this is quite a beautiful explanation to the consciousness problem, in that we can infer a subjective relationship with the ultimate laws that govern reality, and our consciousness. If that is the case then we are definitely missing out on a lot of science.

 

So now we are developing something entirely new, if we are to assume that Hameroff is right about his theory on consciousness. I know this seems like Chopra type stuff to you but it is not necessarily that way. But it does support the basis for this argument, in that you could say that if something is governing our consciousness, then our experience with it is our scientific data. It is still subjective, but we all have experiences with our consciousness. And to try and mechanize that in our billiard ball universe is impossible and absurd to a lot of the feynmanites out there. So how do you get around this sort of scientific box? We have yet to develop any types of technologies that can give us ultimate truths about reality, so to me it is sort of repugnant to say that because we cant test something it means we cant consider it. So I really would like a purist to assimilate this information and give some unboxed perspectives.

Edited October 9, 2011 by truedeity

[Moontanman]

One assumption your making is that God has to create the physical laws of the universe. What if the universe becoming into existence has nothing at all to do with God at all?

 

It's a rather profound concept that seems counter intuitive. But I want to leave out all the assumptions that are assumed about the biblical Jehovia.

 

So what i'm inferring is that possibly something like God could have evolved. From my perspective evolution seems to be the only sort of thing that can facilitate such a possible outcome of an eternal consciousness evolving in the universe. There are a lot of conclusions and things that can be drawn out of that, and surely if you think in terms of strict classical physics you will not be able to grasp such a possibility because your understanding or world view is built on a sort of billiard ball universe.

 

 

So who's definition of god are we using here or is it more of a idealized concept? Seriously, a great many "gods" do not have either of your proposed abilities....

[granpa]

the gods are said to be 'all knowing'.

 

Now, I would 'THINK' that it is going to rain tomorrow when I could 'KNOW' that it might rain tomorrow

 

because it takes less mental energy for me to think than it does to know.

 

 

 

Maybe an Elohim or a 'son of Elohim' is simply a being that has limitless mental energy and is therefore always knowing.

Edited October 11, 2011 by granpa

[truedeity]

I'm a little tipsy from the bottle of chardonnay I just finished but I want to address grandpa and moontanman. Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post entitled "The Science Of God" under speculations. Not that that is out of the way I will start with moon.

 

Moon-

 

I think everyones concept of God will differ but I want to extrapolate a commonality between the popular type of God that you might find in the Koran or the KJB. I don't want to include too much of the God that most people choose to believe in, such as how loving and benevolent God might be. I just want to classify God in terms of his abilities or properties. So I think if you consider the KJB or the other highly respected religions that refer to God in the context of a Non-Elohim (only one) God. In other words all of the omni- definitions/attributes would be inclusive except for maybe omnipotent (meaning all powerful) which 'I personally believe' is not a requirement for God to exist. I don't think that God necessarily has to 'interact' with the physical aspect of nature in order for God to exist. I also don't think that 'God' has to have been responsible for all the suffering, etc.. that might be accountable for a God that is omnipotent or a God that may have created the universe. So I would rather infer that maybe there could be a God that is 'evolving' and if that evolving definition of God includes omnipresence then it would not matter when that God existed he would be outside of the realm of time. So the question is, is there anything in science that accounts for being unobstructed by time? I think the answer to that is yes, especially if that something exist in higher dimensions of reality. The other omni is omniscient because if that something operates on higher dimensions it must have a knowledge of everything in lower dimensions or reality. So the question might be can higher dimensions of reality facilitate this possibility? But that is the ultimate paradox because no matter what we cannot have a concept of a higher dimension. So we really have to understand the full nature of the finest levels of reality to recognize even a fraction of what it can facilitate. So my approaching God is my same approach to science. God is "what is the science of science?" i'm not sure if you follow that but, that is my answer.

 

The above also contains the answer for grandpa, omniscient might be a requirement of omnipresence.

[StringJunky]

 

The above also contains the answer for grandpa, omniscient might be a requirement of omnipresence.

 

I think you have it the wrong way round...omnipresence is a requirement of omniscience...you cannot know everything without being everywhere.

Edited October 12, 2011 by StringJunky

[truedeity]

I think you have it the wrong way round...omnipresence is a requirement of omniscience...you cannot know everything without being everywhere.

 

 

either or?

[Moontanman]

God would appear to be quite variable depending on how big a bite of horse feathers you can swallow, I see no reason to assume anything about god or even his or her existence. One religion which i will not mention the name of mormons seems to think God was once a mortal just like us and he became a god then made his own planet for his many children (it would seem he has lots of wives and sex) and if you believe in him and follow his teaching you get your own planet and wives (lots of sex I assume) to have lots of children to populate that planet so you can mess them up in the head like all of us are now... I bet I'd be excommunicated or something equally painful or difficult to spell if i said that sounded like evolution but maybe we will one day evolve into god and go back in time and rescue everyone from their sinful ways or something like that but my point is that god can be what ever you want as long as you don't require any evidence of his existence, debating his abilities is a bit like debating why purple unicorn farts smell like strawberries.....

 

either or?

 

 

I think omnipresence and omniscience would require omnipotence.... and all of the three require abilities that are self contradictory...

Edited October 12, 2011 by Moontanman

[granpa]

my point was that maybe God isnt 'all knowing' but rather just 'always knowing'.

[truedeity]

God would appear to be quite variable depending on how big a bite of horse feathers you can swallow, I see no reason to assume anything about god or even his or her existence. One religion which i will not mention the name of mormons seems to think God was once a mortal just like us and he became a god then made his own planet for his many children (it would seem he has lots of wives and sex) and if you believe in him and follow his teaching you get your own planet and wives (lots of sex I assume) to have lots of children to populate that planet so you can mess them up in the head like all of us are now... I bet I'd be excommunicated or something equally painful or difficult to spell if i said that sounded like evolution but maybe we will one day evolve into god and go back in time and rescue everyone from their sinful ways or something like that but my point is that god can be what ever you want as long as you don't require any evidence of his existence, debating his abilities is a bit like debating why purple unicorn farts smell like strawberries.....

 

 

I don't want to pick on any religion, and to me its not about debating the responsibility of God, or understanding the moral complications that come with believing in a God. To me it is about can a God be defined within this system we call reality. I think that is a possibility because we don't know that much about the system itself. We had about 100 good years of science so far, and only about 20 of those years had any technology noteworthy of understanding the system. If you refer back to the original post there is a reference, and that guy talks about the possibility of reality maybe being a computer system. In those terms you could say that the computer system is God. You don't have to agree with that, but it does raise some interesting thoughts to consider in relation to metaphysics and the natural world.

[Moontanman]

I don't want to pick on any religion, and to me its not about debating the responsibility of God, or understanding the moral complications that come with believing in a God. To me it is about can a God be defined within this system we call reality. I think that is a possibility because we don't know that much about the system itself. We had about 100 good years of science so far, and only about 20 of those years had any technology noteworthy of understanding the system. If you refer back to the original post there is a reference, and that guy talks about the possibility of reality maybe being a computer system. In those terms you could say that the computer system is God. You don't have to agree with that, but it does raise some interesting thoughts to consider in relation to metaphysics and the natural world.

 

 

Wouldn't the programmer be god in that system? Or would it be the creator of the programmer? To me any attempt at seriously discussing god is turtles all the way down.... Also a good article in Discovery Magazine, in a nut shell, if any forces exist other than the ones we know about they have little or no effect on the world or we would have detected them by now... same for god..... if there was one we would be able to see the effect of this being in some way as it effected the natural world.. or it's effect is negligible...

 

BTW I wasn't trying to pick on mormons, I was just trying to show that the concept of god, even the Abrahamic god doesn't necessarily imply either of those three big words....

 

One more thing, you did say something about the evolution of god, or that god could be brought about by evolution, I think we are at least potentially quite capable of one day being able to make our own planets through technology, could god come about the same way, do we need god so bad we would create him or become him?

Edited October 12, 2011 by Moontanman

[truedeity]

Wouldn't the programmer be god in that system? Or would it be the creator of the programmer? To me any attempt at seriously discussing god is turtles all the way down.... Also a good article in Discovery Magazine, in a nut shell, if any forces exist other than the ones we know about they have little or no effect on the world or we would have detected them by now... same for god..... if there was one we would be able to see the effect of this being in some way as it effected the natural world.. or it's effect is negligible...

 

 

Is the definition of God something that is at the top of the chain of creation? Sure you can add that to the arguable list of attributes for God but I personally don't know that it has to be a requirement. As for discovery mag. sure i'm not trying to add new forces to the universe. But i'm not describing God as a force of any kind. And just because discovery mag. says something doesn't mean we should be arrogant enough to close our minds to new discoveries in science. We still cant explain entanglement and a lot of aspects of science which is what i am referring to... Which sort of goes into the God of Gaps argument, but is quite a bit different in that i'm not proposing that God has to be the creator of anything, or seed the big bang, or anything like that at all. It is the Gaps of science that can facilitate something like a God such as higher dimensions, etc... Personally, I view the universe and I detect an intelligence within the system which is why I am a theist. But that is all subjective to me and is how I personally feel about the system in which I exist.