Philosophy

[Bio freck]

What is the relation between religion and science?

[iNow]

One makes shit up, the other tests its ideas and rejects bad ones.

[Bio freck]

So you think Einstein was wrong...!

[iNow]

You're gonna have to elaborate your point for me a bit.

[Bio freck]

I mean"Science without religion is lame ,religion without science is blind"-Albert Einstein.......You got it.

[iNow]

It appears to me that you might not fully comprehend what that quote means. Here is additional information to help you:

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein%27s_religious_views

 

In a 1930 New York Times article, Einstein distinguished three human impulses which develop religious belief: fear, social morality, and a cosmic religious feeling. A primitive understanding of causality causes fear, and the fearful invent supernatural beings analogous to themselves. The desire for love and support create a social and moral need for a supreme being; both these styles have an anthropomorphic concept of God. The third style, which Einstein deemed most mature, originates in a deep sense of awe and mystery. He said, the individual feels "the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves in nature ... and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole." Einstein saw science as an antagonist of the first two styles of religious belief, but as a partner in the third. He maintained, "even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other" there are "strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies" as aspirations for truth derive from the religious sphere. For Einstein, "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." He continued:

 

a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this superpersonal content ... regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation ... In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be...

 

An understanding of causality was fundamental to Einstein's ethical beliefs. In Einstein's view, "the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science," for religion can always take refuge in areas that science can not yet explain. It was Einstein's belief that in the "struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope" and cultivate the "Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself."

[Bio freck]

That's fine.It would rather be more satisfactory if you would explain some more on cosmic religious feeling.

[immortal]

What is the relation between religion and science?

 

There is no relation between religion and science, both are of different magisteria and both are talking about completely disconnected irrelevant world views, however both of them have the potential to make the other a pejorative.

[iNow]

That's fine.It would rather be more satisfactory if you would explain some more on cosmic religious feeling.

I didn't write those words. Why should I? That said... I suspect he was referring perhaps to the awe and wonder of the universe around us... The sense of magnificence we feel when we experience astronomy and science, etc. I don't know, though. I didn't write those words.

 

 

 

---

 

There is no relation between religion and science, both are of different magisteria and both are talking about completely disconnected irrelevant world views, however both of them have the potential to make the other a pejorative.

Not entirely. Religion VERY often makes claims about things in the material world... It very often discusses how people must act or behave or what they should think and do. That is not a non-overlapping magisteria. It is a fully overlapping magisteria, which tends to render your particular position rather moot.

[immortal]

Not entirely. Religion VERY often makes claims about things in the material world... It very often discusses how people must act or behave or what they should think and do. That is not a non-overlapping magisteria. It is a fully overlapping magisteria, which tends to render your particular position rather moot.

 

What you are describing is fundamentalism or extremism and I do criticize such views but a religion can be followed peacefully by a group of people with out enforcing their beliefs on to others and threaten them to convert. It is left to his or her personal liberty or choice to keep some time for speculative metaphysics and to peacefully follow their set of beliefs with out harming anyone. They can do work, raise kids, perform ones duties, receive pleasure, be socially responsible just as a normal man would live. So true religion is not much of a hindrance to science and not a threat to society.

[Bio freck]

So,See this link cosmos relirionus feeling said by a prophet also the other prophets.Would you think this many people would say wrong?http://www.cosmiccradle.com/big_bang2.html

 

The word relirionus is corrected as religious

[iNow]

What you are describing is fundamentalism or extremism...

No, that is not what I am describing at all. I am attacking the foundation of non-overlapping magisteria. Religions DO make truth claims, there IS overlap.

 

This has zero to do with extremism or fundamentalism, and my comments were wholly unrelated to those subjects.

[immortal]

No, that is not what I am describing at all. I am attacking the foundation of non-overlapping magisteria. Religions DO make truth claims, there IS overlap.

 

 

The proponents of New Atheism are as wrong as the proponents of Intelligent Design movement. Some of the arguments of New Atheists like Daniel Dennet who argues "Why God doesn't speak of mathematics in his scriptures?" or "Why there is not a single word about maths" are silly arguments.

 

The scriptures of Religion don't overlap with the accepted theories of science.

 

As Dawkins says a supernatural world as claimed by religion will be a completely different world and they both do overlap in reality but its inappropriate to falsify religious claims based on the observable world. The methodologies of science and religion don't overlap and its appropriate that both hold on to their respective methods and investigate nature and not attack one another.

 

If science is all about puzzle solving then there is no better problem solver than God for he has created a world to fit both the claims of religion as well as science in harmony with each other.

[iNow]

The proponents of New Atheism are as wrong as the proponents of Intelligent Design movement.

I see you're a painter who wields a rather broad brush. You can tell all of that simply because a person says they don't find the idea of god particularly compelling and so choose not to accept the concept as valid?

 

 

The scriptures of Religion don't overlap with the accepted theories of science.

They make claims that are not "outside the material realm." Those claims are testable. There is overlap in the magisteria, whether the claims of scripture align with accepted science or not. In fact, the fact that they make these claims and DON'T align with accepted science is part of the reason they are so easy to dismiss as rubbish and fantasy.

 

If science is all about puzzle solving then there is no better problem solver than God...

Can you explain to me how a being that is almost certainly made up and fictional manages to solve puzzles?

Edited March 19, 2012 by iNow

[immortal]

I see you're a painter who wields a rather broad brush. You can tell all of that simply because a person says they don't find the idea of god particularly compelling and so choose not to accept the concept as valid?

 

Intolerance and mocking of peaceful religious beliefs are mere personal opinions, its not science or a scientific fact, if New Atheists think it is then there is no difference between New Atheists and those who argue that Intelligent design is science.

 

They make claims that are not "outside the material realm." Those claims are testable. There is overlap in the magisteria, whether the claims of scripture align with accepted science or not. In fact, the fact that they make these claims and DON'T align with accepted science is part of the reason they are so easy to dismiss as rubbish and fantasy.

 

To test those claims you need to bring back the messengers of God like Moses, Jesus, Muhammad etc or try to become one yourself, if you haven't tried it then you haven't tested those religious claims.

 

Can you explain to me how a being that is almost certainly made up and fictional manages to solve puzzles?

 

That's your presumption, not mine, I can easily presume that every single thought of yours is directed by God and say that he is as real as your self aware thinking.

[imatfaal]

Intolerance and mocking of peaceful religious beliefs are mere personal opinions, its not science or a scientific fact, if New Atheists think it is then there is no difference between New Atheists and those who argue that Intelligent design is science.

Peacefulness has nothing to do with it - the substance of the ideology has no bearing upon the question; the problem is the crossover of an organisation that gives spiritual and moral guidance to one making statements about the datum universe. As soon as a religion/ideology/political party/spiritual body starts making any pronouncements about the material world then I (and many others like me) feel that this opens them to empirical testing; and when the observations do not match the claims then mocking and intolerance ensues. Your parallel between new atheists and the intelligent design crowd could not be further from the truth.

 

To test those claims you need to bring back the messengers of God like Moses, Jesus, Muhammad etc or try to become one yourself, if you haven't tried it then you haven't tested those religious claims.

If you only believe in a subjective reality perhaps - but with any amount of objectivity your statement becomes patently untrue. Galileo observed the moons of Jupiter orbiting their planet and not the earth and was able to cast doubt on the prevailing wisdom that the earth was the centre of everything - this observation is still accessible today (well in fact tonight). Newton wrote about how acceleration was proportional to force and that uniform velocity required no external influence - with a bit of ingenuity we can test this in first school year science. The massive leaps of intellect are Galileo's and Newton's - but the observations are mundane and democratic, anyone can test them. If claims are by their nature subjective in their reality - how are they anything other than a pleasing fiction to the objective observer?

 

That's your presumption, not mine, I can easily presume that every single thought of yours is directed by God and say that he is as real as your self aware thinking.

The presumption "belongs" to the party who has posited the extraordinary item - a supernatural being is by its very nature is out of the ordinary; a scientist, or indeed any rationalist, is entitled to demand proof of an unusual event or exceptional being. Without an acceptance that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence we are left in a situation where even ludicrous postulates must be held as possible true until proven false; this is a logical dead end.

[immortal]

Peacefulness has nothing to do with it - the substance of the ideology has no bearing upon the question; the problem is the crossover of an organisation that gives spiritual and moral guidance to one making statements about the datum universe. As soon as a religion/ideology/political party/spiritual body starts making any pronouncements about the material world then I (and many others like me) feel that this opens them to empirical testing; and when the observations do not match the claims then mocking and intolerance ensues. Your parallel between new atheists and the intelligent design crowd could not be further from the truth.

 

For religion the material world or the world of science is of little value, they are not making claims about the material world and hence subjecting such claims to empirical testing is extremely incorrect and inappropriate and so are the conclusions from such a type of testing.

 

If you only believe in a subjective reality perhaps - but with any amount of objectivity your statement becomes patently untrue. Galileo observed the moons of Jupiter orbiting their planet and not the earth and was able to cast doubt on the prevailing wisdom that the earth was the centre of everything - this observation is still accessible today (well in fact tonight). Newton wrote about how acceleration was proportional to force and that uniform velocity required no external influence - with a bit of ingenuity we can test this in first school year science. The massive leaps of intellect are Galileo's and Newton's - but the observations are mundane and democratic, anyone can test them. If claims are by their nature subjective in their reality - how are they anything other than a pleasing fiction to the objective observer?

 

Revelations of certain theologians casts doubt on scientific realism and therefore what empiricism says may not be ultimately or absolutely true. The next massive leap of intellect would be that empiricism is purely subjective and the world of God is the objective world.

 

In Guardian someone asked "If what we call reality is only a state of mind then what is mind?"

 

No one was able to answer his question because an observation of your mind is not accessible to everyone, it can only be accessed by those who have faith in God, theologians can't do too much about that, they didn't created this world, God created it, theologians are rather more happy to make that observation accessible to everyone but unfortunately God has set up this world in that way, don't blame the theologians for being intellectually dishonest.

 

The presumption "belongs" to the party who has posited the extraordinary item - a supernatural being is by its very nature is out of the ordinary; a scientist, or indeed any rationalist, is entitled to demand proof of an unusual event or exceptional being. Without an acceptance that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence we are left in a situation where even ludicrous postulates must be held as possible true until proven false; this is a logical dead end.

 

Science works by "evidence first and then belief" where as theology works by "Faith first and then evidence". Therefore its inevitable for theologians that they should accept the existence of a supernatural being to bring any evidence of that being in the first place.This is the reason theologians rely on the word of God so that they won't waste their time in unicorns or in flying spaghetti monster which might not bear any fruit.

[Keenidiot]

So,See this link cosmos relirionus feeling said by a prophet also the other prophets.Would you think this many people would say wrong?http://www.cosmiccradle.com/big_bang2.html

 

The word relirionus is corrected as religious

 

 

No offense, I love reading you guys go at it, but I think we're skewing away from the OP here.

 

 

Yes, I think many people can be wrong. There was a time when everyone believed the sun went 'round the earth. It was the height of an enlightened education to believe so, and it was wrong. The Earth continued revolving around the sun, and while we still believed ours was the only galaxy the other galaxies continued their existence impartial to our understandings.

[imatfaal]

For religion the material world or the world of science is of little value, they are not making claims about the material world and hence subjecting such claims to empirical testing is extremely incorrect and inappropriate and so are the conclusions from such a type of testing.

perhaps religion in some ideal state - but it is very difficult to find a practising religion which does not make claims about the real world. when these contentions are put forth they can be tested. If something can be empirically tested then the conclusions are entirely appropriate. you made the claim that "Intolerance and mocking of peaceful religious beliefs are mere personal opinions, its not science or a scientific fact" this is incorrect - whilst some comments may be a mere personal opinion, to make a universal criticism is patently absurd. most world religions have a creation myth that deals with the material world - and some proponents will adhere to the letter of that myth; this brings them into the realm of empirical science. to say that all statements are just an opinion denigrates honest argument.

 

Revelations of certain theologians casts doubt on scientific realism and therefore what empiricism says may not be ultimately or absolutely true. The next massive leap of intellect would be that empiricism is purely subjective and the world of God is the objective world.

This is a logical deadend and an oxymoron; purely subjective empiricism smells of black and tastes of prose. if it is purely subjective it is not empiricism. your line of thought rapidly lapses into solipsism.

 

In Guardian someone asked "If what we call reality is only a state of mind then what is mind?"

No one was able to answer his question because an observation of your mind is not accessible to everyone, it can only be accessed by those who have faith in God, theologians can't do too much about that, they didn't created this world, God created it, theologians are rather more happy to make that observation accessible to everyone but unfortunately God has set up this world in that way, don't blame the theologians for being intellectually dishonest.

Easily answered - in fact, interrupted; reality isn't only a state of mind.

 

Science works by "evidence first and then belief" where as theology works by "Faith first and then evidence". Therefore its inevitable for theologians that they should accept the existence of a supernatural being to bring any evidence of that being in the first place.This is the reason theologians rely on the word of God so that they won't waste their time in unicorns or in flying spaghetti monster which might not bear any fruit.

Science doesn't work on faith nor belief - excepting the amount of trust in fellow scientists and the method. Theology does not work on evidence - unless you are positing a new and interesting definition of evidence. If the acceptance of physical evidence requires pre-acceptance of a supernatural entity or force, then the evidence loses all credibility other than that of faith. "Bear ... fruit"? Where, when, who ... or is this the sort of fruit that also requires a pre-acceptance of an alternate and supernatural force or entity before the fruit can be experienced.

[immortal]

perhaps religion in some ideal state - but it is very difficult to find a practising religion which does not make claims about the real world. when these contentions are put forth they can be tested. If something can be empirically tested then the conclusions are entirely appropriate. you made the claim that "Intolerance and mocking of peaceful religious beliefs are mere personal opinions, its not science or a scientific fact" this is incorrect - whilst some comments may be a mere personal opinion, to make a universal criticism is patently absurd. most world religions have a creation myth that deals with the material world - and some proponents will adhere to the letter of that myth; this brings them into the realm of empirical science. to say that all statements are just an opinion denigrates honest argument.

 

This is again a serious misunderstanding evidence for Big Bang is not evidence against the validity of creation as described in the scriptures by God, God says the world was made up of just five elements i.e Fire, earth, water, air and space and that is a literal explanation, for religion Big Bang didn't happened in the external physical world, it doesn't say that Big Bang didn't happened but it didn't happened in the external physical world it appears to have happened only when we perceive this world through a particular state of mind. There is nothing in science which contradicts religion because both religion and science are of different magisteria and both science and creation as described in the scriptures stands on its own. Religious claims have little do with empirical science and its incorrect to falsify a creation myth based on evidence from empirical sciences and I strongly criticize the attempts of New Atheists to falsify such religious claims through empirical sciences and they lack the wisdom of God. Its better for New Atheists to stick to their scientific method rather than criticizing religion, making silly arguments and interfering themselves into a different magisteria, its quite easy to disprove religion develop an objective account of reality and come up with a working model of consciousness only then they have the authority to criticize religion not before that.

 

This is a logical deadend and an oxymoron; purely subjective empiricism smells of black and tastes of prose. if it is purely subjective it is not empiricism. your line of thought rapidly lapses into solipsism.

 

No, subjective idealism or solipsism is the view that only mind exists but for religion an objective world do exist independent of mind which is made up of five elements, so yes if religion is right then it means a part of solipsism is right but it doesn't fully accept the view of solipsism in toto. Religion is the world of noumenon and it alone exists in the external physical world.

 

Easily answered - in fact, interrupted; reality isn't only a state of mind.

 

For religion only mind, God and the five basic elements exist in the external physical world and the world of science or empiricism is brought into reality by the mind and the sense organs in the external physical world(these are completely different sense organs and it has nothing to do with sense organs of brain that we normally see in reality) and the cosmos, the elements in the periodic table don't exist in the external physical world.

 

Science doesn't work on faith nor belief - excepting the amount of trust in fellow scientists and the method. Theology does not work on evidence - unless you are positing a new and interesting definition of evidence. If the acceptance of physical evidence requires pre-acceptance of a supernatural entity or force, then the evidence loses all credibility other than that of faith. "Bear ... fruit"? Where, when, who ... or is this the sort of fruit that also requires a pre-acceptance of an alternate and supernatural force or entity before the fruit can be experienced.

 

I never said science works on faith, a good scientist had to test his hypothesis without any bias.

 

The violation of Bell's inequality clearly casts doubt on scientific realism and if science doesn't work on faith as you insist then it should allow for alternate roads to reality and to new ways of thinking about the nature so that we have enough evidence to assert that the assumption of scientific realism is false which is very highly likely that it is and religion is one of the new ways of thinking about the nature of the cosmos. This is the reason I strongly criticize New Atheists they enforce on us that we should only make scientific speculation and not make metaphysical speculations like God.

 

I said that's the way theology works and theologians must accept the existence of God to bring any evidence for God, I didn't said that everyone should accept the existence of God without questioning his existence or without evidence of him, it doesn't have to be blind faith.

 

The fruit should pay off for his belief in God and theologians should be able to demonstrate phenomena which proves the existence of God otherwise the whole idea of religion is rubbish and unreal but its also incorrect to conclude things without investigating about him first and empirical science is not the appropriate way to investigate God, you need to step up to the new paradigm or allow others to do it and not make wrong conclusions about it before hand.

[iNow]

Speaking of magisteria and overlap...

 

 

www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/the-god-hypothesis_b_1355321.html

 

The gods worshipped by billions either exist or they do not. And those gods, if they exist, must have observable consequences. Thus, the question of their existence is a legitimate scientific issue that has profound import to humanity.

 

We can consider the existence of god to be a scientific hypothesis and look for the empirical evidence that would follow. Many of the attributes associated with the Judaic-Christian-Islamic God have specific consequences that can be tested empirically. Such a God is supposed to play a central role in the operation of the universe and the lives of humans. As a result, evidence for him should be readily detectable by scientific means.

 

If a properly controlled experiment were to come up with an observation that cannot be explained by natural means, then science would have to take seriously the possibility of a world beyond matter.

 

In fact scientists have empirically tested the efficacy of intercessory prayer -- prayers said on behalf of others. These studies, in principle, could have shown scientifically that some god exists. Had they found conclusively, in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial, that intercessory prayers heal the sick, it would have been difficult to find a natural explanation. They did not.

 

Similar tests have been done on near-death experiences (NDEs). Some people having an NDE during surgery have reported floating above the operating table and watching everything going on below. Whether this is a real experience or a hallucination can be tested easily by placing a secret message on a high shelf out of sight of the patient and the hospital staff. This has been tried, and no one reporting an NDE has yet to read the message.

 

Just as science can design experiments to test the existence of God, it can also seek evidence against a god's existence in the world around us. Here we must be clear that we are not talking about evidence against any and all conceivable gods. For example, a deist god that creates the universe and then just leaves it alone would be very hard to falsify. But no one worships a god who does nothing.

 

If God is the intelligent designer of life on Earth, then we should find evidence for intelligence in observations of the structure of life. We do not. The Intelligent Design movement failed in its effort to prove that the complexity found in some biological systems is irreducible and cannot be explained within Darwinian evolution. Life on Earth looks just as it should look if it arose by natural selection.

 

Most religions claim that humans possess immaterial souls that control much of our mental processing. If that were true, we should be able to observe mentally induced phenomena that are independent of brain chemistry. We do not.

 

If God is the source of morality, then we should find evidence for a supernatural origin in human behavior. We do not. People of faith behave on average no better, and in some cases behave worse, than people of no faith. History shows that the moral and ethical guides that most of us live by did not originate with the monotheistic religions, as proponents of those religions would have us believe. Instead, moral behavior appears to have evolved socially.

 

Again, if God answers prayers, we should see miraculous effects of prayer. With millions of prayers having been said every day for thousands of years, we would expect some to have been answered by now in a verifiable way. They have not.

 

If God has revealed truths to humanity, then these truths should be testable. Over the millennia many people have reported religious or mystical experiences in which they have communicated with one god or another. By now, we should have seen some confirming evidence for this, such as a verifiable fact that could not have been in the person's head unless it was revealed to them. We have not.

 

If God is the creator of the universe, then we should find evidence for that in astronomy and physics. We do not. The origin of our universe required no miracles. Furthermore, modern cosmology suggests an eternal "multiverse" in which many other universes come and go.

 

If humans are a special creation of God, then the universe should be congenial to human life. It is not. Theists claim that the parameters of the universe are fine-tuned for human life. They are not. The universe is not fine-tuned for us. We are fine-tuned to the universe.

 

After evaluating all the evidence, we can conclude that the universe and life look exactly as they would be expected to look if there were no God.

 

Finally, I would like to comment on the folly of faith. When faith rules over facts, magical thinking becomes deeply ingrained and warps all areas of life. It produces a frame of mind in which concepts are formulated with deep passion but without the slightest attention paid to the evidence. Nowhere is this more evident than in the US today, where Christians who seek to convert the nation into a theocracy dominate the Republican party. Blind faith is no way to run a world.

[immortal]

The gods worshipped by billions either exist or they do not. And those gods, if they exist, must have observable consequences. Thus, the question of their existence is a legitimate scientific issue that has profound import to humanity.

 

We can consider the existence of god to be a scientific hypothesis and look for the empirical evidence that would follow. Many of the attributes associated with the Judaic-Christian-Islamic God have specific consequences that can be tested empirically. Such a God is supposed to play a central role in the operation of the universe and the lives of humans. As a result, evidence for him should be readily detectable by scientific means.

 

If a properly controlled experiment were to come up with an observation that cannot be explained by natural means, then science would have to take seriously the possibility of a world beyond matter.

 

Scientists should leave such experiments to theologians, its not their magisteria, its the job of theologians to do experiments and bring evidence for God. I basically say this because as long as your confined to that particular state of mind, the world appears to follow the rules of science and the scientific models and therefore to create cracks in reality theologians need to transcend and then they need to manipulate the external physical world so that objective observers can observe such unusual phenomena. Scientists are not suited for this becuase they are objective observers and an experiment performed by a group of objective observers won't going to notice any unusual phenomena because they haven't stepped up to the new realm of God. This is the reason I said that you need to bring back the messengers of God or scientists should try to be one themselves but its inappropriate for scientists to test their hypothesis on faith and hence this is the job of theologians and hence its better for them not to interfere into their magisteria.

 

In fact scientists have empirically tested the efficacy of intercessory prayer -- prayers said on behalf of others. These studies, in principle, could have shown scientifically that some god exists. Had they found conclusively, in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial, that intercessory prayers heal the sick, it would have been difficult to find a natural explanation. They did not.

 

This is based on the assumption that God is merciful and benevolent and all loving, yes he is merciful and benevolent. In fact good faithful people go through most of the troubles in life for example Jacob's trouble times and such things are inevitable. The people who do prayers are the one's who expect that the world should always exist in a peaceful state all the time but that's the not how the will of God is, the world should change and old things have to disappear and new things must evolve, these are the people who like to taste sugar but don't like to taste bitter but God didn't ordained nature in that way.

 

Similar tests have been done on near-death experiences (NDEs). Some people having an NDE during surgery have reported floating above the operating table and watching everything going on below. Whether this is a real experience or a hallucination can be tested easily by placing a secret message on a high shelf out of sight of the patient and the hospital staff. This has been tried, and no one reporting an NDE has yet to read the message.

 

There are partial near-death experiences which can be caused due to high dosage of drugs given by doctors to sensitive patients in rare cases. Once I underwent a complex fiscal seizure while I was subjected to high dosage of Deriphyllin since I was a asthma patient, these can be explained by shutting down of the brain where patients perceive or process things in a confused way, a complete near death experience would be that a person is completely dead for 15 to 20 minutes and then comes back to life again, that requires explanation. However his personal experiences will be subjective and there is no way of testing whether he really went to hell or did he went through a tunnel.

 

Just as science can design experiments to test the existence of God, it can also seek evidence against a god's existence in the world around us. Here we must be clear that we are not talking about evidence against any and all conceivable gods. For example, a deist god that creates the universe and then just leaves it alone would be very hard to falsify. But no one worships a god who does nothing.

 

If God is the intelligent designer of life on Earth, then we should find evidence for intelligence in observations of the structure of life. We do not. The Intelligent Design movement failed in its effort to prove that the complexity found in some biological systems is irreducible and cannot be explained within Darwinian evolution. Life on Earth looks just as it should look if it arose by natural selection.

 

Again Intelligent Design movement was a movement by a few creation scientists, God never claimed that he created life using DNA, it was not a movement by God, I think both creation scientists as well as New Atheists should stop putting words into God's mouth, poor God!!. For God DNA, periodic elements, elementary particles don't exist in his world, he lives in a different realm with his own stuff and obviously life should look fine with natural selection when the world is viewed through the sense organs. I don't deny evolution by Natural selection.

 

Most religions claim that humans possess immaterial souls that control much of our mental processing. If that were true, we should be able to observe mentally induced phenomena that are independent of brain chemistry. We do not.

 

That would require the knowledge of the soul in order to create cracks in reality and I don't find it compelling to conclude that God doesn't exist by such observations since such knowledge is hard to come by and requires more investigation and practical knowledge which might have been lost over the years.

 

If God is the source of morality, then we should find evidence for a supernatural origin in human behavior. We do not. People of faith behave on average no better, and in some cases behave worse, than people of no faith. History shows that the moral and ethical guides that most of us live by did not originate with the monotheistic religions, as proponents of those religions would have us believe. Instead, moral behavior appears to have evolved socially.

 

This is again a lack of wisdom of God, your personal God is none other than your ego and he is the sole creator of this world and he has control over all your thoughts and actions and hence its silly to think that all good things are done by God and all bad things are done by the Devil. According to religion we don't have free will, all we have control is over our attitudes like pride, selfishness, envy etc and bad attitudes like pride apparently corrupts one's personal God (or personal ego) and hence his actions too appear corrupted. Therefore good and evil exists with in us and personal God exists in Lucifer too its just he had pride and didn't abide in the truth and it was God who separated light from darkness. Therefore just because some are theists it doesn't mean they have to be morally perfect, one can be morally perfect by controlling one's attitudes, this was the whole idea of stoics and how Marcus Aurelius lived a simple life even being in a palace. There were people who have took the path of righteousness and were evaded from sinning.

 

 

If God is the creator of the universe, then we should find evidence for that in astronomy and physics. We do not. The origin of our universe required no miracles. Furthermore, modern cosmology suggests an eternal "multiverse" in which many other universes come and go.

 

No one will find evidence of God in astronomy or physics because the world of God or religion is the world of noumenon and the world of science is the world of phenomena so how can we find evidence of God in the phenomena of things.

 

After evaluating all the evidence, we can conclude that the universe and life look exactly as they would be expected to look if there were no God.

 

Some of the premises where misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the word of God and so is the conclusions from such arguments. Empirical sciences cannot falsify a metaphysical concept like God.

 

Finally, I would like to comment on the folly of faith. When faith rules over facts, magical thinking becomes deeply ingrained and warps all areas of life. It produces a frame of mind in which concepts are formulated with deep passion but without the slightest attention paid to the evidence. Nowhere is this more evident than in the US today, where Christians who seek to convert the nation into a theocracy dominate the Republican party. Blind faith is no way to run a world.

 

God and religion are beyond politics but its unfortunate that politicians use such sensitive concepts to generate vote banks and to win elections rather than learning the wisdom of God.

[questionposter]

Science does work on faith a little bit, in this way

 

http://www.sciencefo...ou-proof-proof/

 

You have to assume that what your seeing is actually what your seeing, and that the initial things for which you base all understanding off of are true. It's still a logical process though, because if the things that we observed where in fact what we observed, then the truths based off of those observations are also true.

Edited March 22, 2012 by questionposter

[imatfaal]

This is again a serious misunderstanding evidence for Big Bang is not evidence against the validity of creation as described in the scriptures by God, God says the world was made up of just five elements i.e Fire, earth, water, air and space and that is a literal explanation, for religion Big Bang didn't happened in the external physical world, it doesn't say that Big Bang didn't happened but it didn't happened in the external physical world it appears to have happened only when we perceive this world through a particular state of mind.

bit of a straw man as I never mentioned big bang. The "literal explanation" that the world is made of five element is patently incorrect; if you had described this as a metaphor, or an article of faith then perhaps it could ride - but the word literal is clearly incorrect.

 

There is nothing in science which contradicts religion because both religion and science are of different magisteria and both science and creation as described in the scriptures stands on its own. Religious claims have little do with empirical science and its incorrect to falsify a creation myth based on evidence from empirical sciences and I strongly criticize the attempts of New Atheists to falsify such religious claims through empirical sciences and they lack the wisdom of God. Its better for New Atheists to stick to their scientific method rather than criticizing religion, making silly arguments and interfering themselves into a different magisteria, its quite easy to disprove religion develop an objective account of reality and come up with a working model of consciousness only then they have the authority to criticize religion not before that.

 

Open your eyes - religions claim huge amounts about the real material world - they contradict empirical science on a regular basis. Please stop this nonsense that some breed of Atheist are disrupting the harmony of previously non-interacting and distinct magesteria. No rationalist would seek to falsify religious claims - they seek to falsify (and regularly do) claims of religions; there is a huge difference between these two phrases. The claims of a religion can be anything - for instance " the world was made up of just five elements i.e Fire, earth, water, air and space and that is a literal explanation" if it were a literal explanation I would not be able to split water into two gases with a little bit of energy and some electrodes. A religious claim could be God's love is infinite - this is also a claim of a religion. It is thus easily shown that some claims of religion are amenable to testing and that religious claims can be made that are quite untestable.

 

No, subjective idealism or solipsism is the view that only mind exists but for religion an objective world do exist independent of mind which is made up of five elements, so yes if religion is right then it means a part of solipsism is right but it doesn't fully accept the view of solipsism in toto. Religion is the world of noumenon and it alone exists in the external physical world.

The equation of the non-phenomenal world with the external physical world is bizarre and self contradictory. This is (religious) solipsism of the highest order - all the physical sensory world is only mediated to the self via non-sensory means!!

 

 

For religion only mind, God and the five basic elements exist in the external physical world and the world of science or empiricism is brought into reality by the mind and the sense organs in the external physical world(these are completely different sense organs and it has nothing to do with sense organs of brain that we normally see in reality) and the cosmos, the elements in the periodic table don't exist in the external physical world.

OK - I see your argument more clearly (and that explains the splitting of water problem I raised before reading this paragraph). In fact I disagree with your usage of external, physical, and world. I especially disagree with your use of term religion - it is quite wrong to not specify what religion you are referring to, as your extreme noumenal Kantian take on religion is not universal at all

 

 

I never said science works on faith, a good scientist had to test his hypothesis without any bias.

The violation of Bell's inequality clearly casts doubt on scientific realism and if science doesn't work on faith as you insist then it should allow for alternate roads to reality and to new ways of thinking about the nature so that we have enough evidence to assert that the assumption of scientific realism is false which is very highly likely that it is and religion is one of the new ways of thinking about the nature of the cosmos. This is the reason I strongly criticize New Atheists they enforce on us that we should only make scientific speculation and not make metaphysical speculations like God.

Show me instances of a New Atheist enforcing anything!! This is propagandist claptrap.

 

I said that's the way theology works and theologians must accept the existence of God to bring any evidence for God, I didn't said that everyone should accept the existence of God without questioning his existence or without evidence of him, it doesn't have to be blind faith.

 

The fruit should pay off for his belief in God and theologians should be able to demonstrate phenomena which proves the existence of God otherwise the whole idea of religion is rubbish and unreal but its also incorrect to conclude things without investigating about him first and empirical science is not the appropriate way to investigate God, you need to step up to the new paradigm or allow others to do it and not make wrong conclusions about it before hand.

"to demonstrate phenomena" aye, there's the rub. You cannot demonstrate phenomena - you can only demonstrate a phenomenon which when viewed through a particular mindset causes that certain phenomenon to correspond with the interior unknown noumenon and your consciousness understands as confirmation. As the central stage of this process is unknowable - how can you claim any true or false valuation for it other than revelation?

[immortal]

bit of a straw man as I never mentioned big bang. The "literal explanation" that the world is made of five element is patently incorrect; if you had described this as a metaphor, or an article of faith then perhaps it could ride - but the word literal is clearly incorrect.

 

If one has to test the God hypothesis then that is the literal explanation and hence it is a problem for theologians not scientists. If scientists need to falsify the God hypothesis they can do it with in their own magisteria by developing a model of everything rather than interfering with the magisteria of theologians.

 

Open your eyes - religions claim huge amounts about the real material world - they contradict empirical science on a regular basis. Please stop this nonsense that some breed of Atheist are disrupting the harmony of previously non-interacting and distinct magesteria. No rationalist would seek to falsify religious claims - they seek to falsify (and regularly do) claims of religions; there is a huge difference between these two phrases. The claims of a religion can be anything - for instance " the world was made up of just five elements i.e Fire, earth, water, air and space and that is a literal explanation" if it were a literal explanation I would not be able to split water into two gases with a little bit of energy and some electrodes. A religious claim could be God's love is infinite - this is also a claim of a religion. It is thus easily shown that some claims of religion are amenable to testing and that religious claims can be made that are quite untestable.

 

This is not nonsense, it was Stephen Jay Gould who established the Non-overlapping magisteria and New Atheists have openly attacked and criticized the views of NOMA which I basically think is inappropriate and incorrect and an apparent lack of understanding how God works his works.

 

New Atheism

 

Non-overlapping magisteria

 

 

The equation of the non-phenomenal world with the external physical world is bizarre and self contradictory. This is (religious) solipsism of the highest order - all the physical sensory world is only mediated to the self via non-sensory means!!

 

I hope you do realize that this is not solipsism, according to solipsism only your mind exists and both the external world as well as other people's minds do not exist but that is not the view of theistic religions, there is an external world which exists independent of the mind and revelations gives us methods to observe your own mind and in this way this gives a commitment to the belief that what we are observing is the noumenon of the world i.e the things in themselves.

 

Its not solipsism, subjective idealism, naturalism, absolute idealism and objective idealism. It is the idea of a personal God and his hypothesis.

 

OK - I see your argument more clearly (and that explains the splitting of water problem I raised before reading this paragraph). In fact I disagree with your usage of external, physical, and world. I especially disagree with your use of term religion - it is quite wrong to not specify what religion you are referring to, as your extreme noumenal Kantian take on religion is not universal at all

 

I think we need to redefine some of the terms.

 

Radical scientific realism - The view that physical or material objects don't exist in the external world and it is only a state of mind. This is the phenomenal world.

 

Noumenal world - The world of God, the actual physical world as it IS, the five elements, himself and the mind, made up of his own stuff.

 

This take on religion is universal and all theistic religions proclaim and teach the same thing. The Sufi, Zen, Kabbalahists, Gnostics, Aryans and any authentic religion which believes in a personal God all speak of the same thing and describe God with the same attributes that, he is immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent, eternal etc. except for atheistic religions like Buddhism who don't speak of the existence of the noumenal world of God.

 

 

Show me instances of a New Atheist enforcing anything!! This is propagandist claptrap.

 

As long as they realize that those are their personal opinions then that's fine and they need to know that their conclusions are not compelling enough to reject the God hypothesis and such a hypothesis is very much alive. Some atheists do plan to have atheistic temples.

 

"to demonstrate phenomena" aye, there's the rub. You cannot demonstrate phenomena - you can only demonstrate a phenomenon which when viewed through a particular mindset causes that certain phenomenon to correspond with the interior unknown noumenon and your consciousness understands as confirmation. As the central stage of this process is unknowable - how can you claim any true or false valuation for it other than revelation?

 

The noumenon is not unknowable, it can be known through revelations and such a useful practical knowledge should help the theologians to demonstrate new phenomena proving the God hypothesis otherwise religion as a whole is rubbish and unreal and it does work on evidence, its not entirely based on blind faith.