Can Science explain everything in the universe without a God?

[DrP]

 

 

This is the problem most scientists have with religion. I don't care about your testimony, give me facts, hard testable data that can be corroborated and duplicated. God is actually a totally separate question from religion though. One most people don't know how to separate.

 

This is exactly the point - religion is based on testimony not facts. I am sorry, though, I have come into the conversation late and do not know what facts you are looking for. I'll share 2 facts. It is a fact that the laryngeal nerve takes the same route between it's two points in all animals. So what? It means that in a giraffe it has to go all the way down it's neck and back up again. This is a fact (to the best of my knowledge). It is also a fact that when I first learn't this I thought 'you know what, this is ridiculous', and I dropped all of the other very tenuous arguments I ever held against evolution and more importantly the ones I held for intelligent design. You can't come to a decision about something like that based on one piece of information though... it was one fact in a sea of many that lead to my current belief.

[TheGeckomancer]

 

This is exactly the point - religion is based on testimony not facts. I am sorry, though, I have come into the conversation late and do not know what facts you are looking for. I'll share 2 facts. It is a fact that the laryngeal nerve takes the same route between it's two points in all animals. So what? It means that in a giraffe it has to go all the way down it's neck and back up again. This is a fact (to the best of my knowledge). It is also a fact that when I first learn't this I thought 'you know what, this is ridiculous', and I dropped all of the other very tenuous arguments I ever held against evolution and more importantly the ones I held for intelligent design. You can't come to a decision about something like that based on one piece of information though... it was one fact in a sea of many that lead to my current belief.

 

 

I wasn't disagreeing with you. I am simply saying there is nothing to tie in between saying "Is god needed to explain the universe? and "Is religion true?" they are totally different questions. I was trying to make that point earlier by saying even if we scientifically proved god's existence tomorrow nothing in my life would change.

[DrP]

 

 

I wasn't disagreeing with you. I am simply saying there is nothing to tie in between saying "Is god needed to explain the universe? and "Is religion true?" they are totally different questions. I was trying to make that point earlier by saying even if we scientifically proved god's existence tomorrow nothing in my life would change.

 

Sorry, I see that now. Would I change my life god revealed himself? Depends on how it was revealed and what it was asking of me I suppose.

[TJ McCaustland]

Thanks, you seem to have put forward a bunch of things that I can, in fact, visualise.

Did you think you had a point there somehow?

In all actuality you can visualize anything, but the probability of such visualization in given circumstances is the point in and of itself.

It's not really a matter of if science can explain a universe without God. We may answer every question science can answer and be left with some only God can answer. Most real scientists don't actually rule this out.

 

The problem is with ASSUMING that this is the case. See this is why people like Richard Dawkins call it the God of the Gaps. Because God for most people throughout history is what we don't know. What causes lightning? God? What makes rain? God? See the problem? These questions have real answers. Throwing God in there place seriously inhibits our knowledge and the rate at which we build knowledge. Most real scientists will not have the audacity to tell you there is or is not a god. They haven't done double blind studies or had anyone triple check there work for goodness' sake!

 

But even amongst the ones who do not know, many will still claim atheist. Because for a scientist the healthier stance is to assume all questions can be answered and move out from there. I myself am what I call an effective atheist. If we could somehow create a test that would scientifically prove god. And it came back positive. My life would not change 1 tiny bit. The proof of god does not prove anything else.

 

But honestly, if I were a professional respected scientist I would just say atheist without any disclaimers. Why? Because we really need to get away from using religion as a model for how the universe works, or really... Anything people should do in society..... I would feel I am setting a bad example by being honest as weird as that seems.

Ahem...... How then would you explain higher dimensions when you can't even COMPREHEND a four dimensional object let alone a tenth. You wouldn't just say God, you would say "Um well crap..... how the hell did this happen?" even if you were say a tenth dimensional being, you still couldn't understand 11th dimensional matter, the proof of an outside force is the presence of force, I.E. you take out God from the equation and you can't even prove that 2+2=4 because then theoretically 4 nor 2 exists.

[John Cuthber]

In all actuality you can visualize anything, but the probability of such visualization in given circumstances is the point in and of itself.

I'm appealing on behalf of that point under article 5 of the UN declaration of human rights

"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

 

The actual point is that you said I couldn't (strictly, you said I couldn't conceptualise it but you haven't evinced that either.) and now you are trying to pretend that you didn't.

Well, I have news for you; we can read.

Edited November 30, 2015 by John Cuthber

[TJ McCaustland]

I'm appealing on behalf of that point under article 5 of the UN declaration of human rights

"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

 

The actual point is that you said I couldn't (strictly, you said I couldn't conceptualise it but you haven't evinced that either.) and now you are trying to pretend that you didn't.

Well, I have news for you; we can read.

I may have said that, but you cannot disprove the modified point now can you?

[John Cuthber]

I may have said that, but you cannot disprove the modified point now can you?

If you modified it to say that unicorns have no gall bladders I couldn't disprove that either.

But it wouldn't stop you being flat out wrong about what you actually said , would it?

 

Why not just accept that you said something that was offensive and nonsense?

Every time you try to pretend you didn't, this thread gets raised again and a new bunch of people get to see you behaving like a two-year-old with a face covered in chocolate telling his mommy that he didn't eat the chocolate cake.

Edited November 30, 2015 by John Cuthber

[TheGeckomancer]

In all actuality you can visualize anything, but the probability of such visualization in given circumstances is the point in and of itself.

Ahem...... How then would you explain higher dimensions when you can't even COMPREHEND a four dimensional object let alone a tenth. You wouldn't just say God, you would say "Um well crap..... how the hell did this happen?" even if you were say a tenth dimensional being, you still couldn't understand 11th dimensional matter, the proof of an outside force is the presence of force, I.E. you take out God from the equation and you can't even prove that 2+2=4 because then theoretically 4 nor 2 exists.

 

 

Actually I have a pretty good grasp of 4 dimensional objects and even some kind of a grasp on 4 dimensional physics. There are papers on it. I know less about 5 dimensions and so forth moving up. But of course thats the case. You BUILD on knowledge, you don't start off knowing everything. You are using irreducible complexity arguments mixed with God of the Gaps. The lack of knowledge today says NOTHING about what you will know tomorrow. Unless you stop looking for answers and just assume it's god.

 

And not at all for your math example. Thats YOUR WORLD crumbling without god. Math is objective, and powerful. And we can argue all day about the existence and even effectiveness of god. But math is completely inviolable in that regard (surpassing god) because we have CONTINUOUS reaffirmed proof of it's near perfect functionality. You can claim thats god if you want but you make the claim without any proof.

Edited November 30, 2015 by TheGeckomancer

[TJ McCaustland]

 

 

Actually I have a pretty good grasp of 4 dimensional objects and even some kind of a grasp on 4 dimensional physics. There are papers on it. I know less about 5 dimensions and so forth moving up. But of course thats the case. You BUILD on knowledge, you don't start off knowing everything. You are using irreducible complexity arguments mixed with God of the Gaps. The lack of knowledge today says NOTHING about what you will know tomorrow. Unless you stop looking for answers and just assume it's god.

 

And not at all for your math example. Thats YOUR WORLD crumbling without god. Math is objective, and powerful. And we can argue all day about the existence and even effectiveness of god. But math is completely inviolable in that regard (surpassing god) because we have CONTINUOUS reaffirmed proof of it's near perfect functionality. You can claim thats god if you want but you make the claim without any proof.

 

Then disprove this statement if you are all powerful and wise my friend. The universe technically shouldn't even exist because where exactly could the 10 dimensions we call home and all the matter and energy come from? Can't really use the big bang theory, because that relies on one facet of the existence of a) higher dimensions, or b) the preexistence of matter. Nor can you apply any other theory of yours because if all those theories do truly rely on the laws of physics, or the laws of quantum mechanics, then they would follow the basic principle that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, only transmuted and changed.

If you modified it to say that unicorns have no gall bladders I couldn't disprove that either.

But it wouldn't stop you being flat out wrong about what you actually said , would it?

 

Why not just accept that you said something that was offensive and nonsense?

Every time you try to pretend you didn't, this thread gets raised again and a new bunch of people get to see you behaving like a two-year-old with a face covered in chocolate telling his mommy that he didn't eat the chocolate cake.

So you're looking for an apology. You could have said so a LONG time ago. I apologize, you may indeed be able to visualize anything even though what you visualize is different from what others visualize based upon the same stimuli. I was wrong in that facet of my speech, but I am not wrong in saying you see things differently than another, though you are still able to see anything you can indeed envision.

Edited December 1, 2015 by TJ McCaustland

[TheGeckomancer]

Thats a misunderstanding of a law a of thermodynamics. ENERGY can neither be created or destroyed. Matter is created and destroyed all the time in the hearts of stars and here on earth.

[John Cuthber]

 

So you're looking for an apology. You could have said so a LONG time ago. I apologize, you may indeed be able to visualize anything even though what you visualize is different from what others visualize based upon the same stimuli. I was wrong in that facet of my speech, but I am not wrong in saying you see things differently than another, though you are still able to see anything you can indeed envision.

No.

If I was after an apology, I'd have asked for one.

What I'm still waiting for is for you accept that what you said was simply not true.

Not weasel words.

Not pretending that you said something else.

 

Just an acceptance that when you said "Religion is what allows us to conceptualize things far beyond our current understanding, " you were talking nonsense, because it plainly doesn't.

Unless of course, you can show that it's actually true.

[TJ McCaustland]

"Religion is what allows us to conceptualize things far beyond our current understanding, " It is 99.999% nonsense and 0.001% tidbit of truth, it makes you think differently as I stated earlier, but it DOES NOT In any way allow you to visualize a 10 dimensional object for example as it seems I was stating, I am indeed wrong in that fact.

[John Cuthber]

"Religion is what allows us to conceptualize things far beyond our current understanding, " ...

Like what. for example?

[Phi for All]

Like what. for example?

 

The more I think about this, the more I realize it could be correct. If "understanding" is defined as "knowledge with comprehension" , then our "current understanding" represents mainstream science and our best explanations. Religion often rejects those in favor of wild guesses based on nothing tangible or credible, creating things like omnipotent sky fairies who lovingly smite the imperfect things they perfectly created. That's far beyond what mainstream science would think appropriate for conceptualization.

 

It's just that TJ thinks those "things" are good, and I think they're bad.

[TheGeckomancer]

Tjmccaustlin I have a couple questions for you. first, could god create a logically consistent universe that doesn't require his intervention to run? I think you will answer yes. Second question, if God can do this, did he? Third question, if yes then doesn't that invalidate the requirement for God for things to function? Fourth, If God chose to create a universe that requires his intervention doesn't that undermine the need for faith?

[TJ McCaustland]

Like what. for example?

99.999% nonsense=helps you visualize nothing beyond your understanding 0.001% truth=changes your perspective of view so that things effect you mentally in a different way.

Tjmccaustlin I have a couple questions for you. first, could god create a logically consistent universe that doesn't require his intervention to run? I think you will answer yes. Second question, if God can do this, did he? Third question, if yes then doesn't that invalidate the requirement for God for things to function? Fourth, If God chose to create a universe that requires his intervention doesn't that undermine the need for faith?

He could, but your problem with that lies in your own question, we need God for things to exist. To support this I'll define existence, "The state of being", Now how and where could all this matter and energy come from? Do you know just how unlikely existence itself is, its like 10^{-99999999999999999}% for existence. Also explain the creation of the universe and give me an EXACT model of how EVERYTHING came to be, how you developed consciousness, and how you proposed that question in the first place. The answer to that is you can't, which although it seems like a "The God of Gaps" Scenario because the universe is infinite potential with finite mass, how can you create infinity without infinity? You can't create infinity without infinity at all which points to an infinite influence.

Edited December 3, 2015 by TJ McCaustland

[MigL]

"Religion is what allows SOME PEOPLE to ASSIGN CAUSE TO things far beyond our current understanding"

I.E. fill in the gaps.

 

All of TJ MC's talk about higher dimensions and infinities are claptrap.

[John Cuthber]

99.999% nonsense=helps you visualize nothing beyond your understanding 0.001% truth=changes your perspective of view so that things effect you mentally in a different way.

He could, but your problem with that lies in your own question, we need God for things to exist. To support this I'll define existence, ...

You keep saying that it lets you conceptualise stuff that's otherwise not accessible.

But every time I ask for an example you just repeat the claim.

Do you realise how dumb that makes you look?

 

And re the second part- it makes no sense at all.

It's just writing stuff down and pretending that your belief is actually proof.

Do you realise how dumb that makes you look?

[TheGeckomancer]

99.999% nonsense=helps you visualize nothing beyond your understanding 0.001% truth=changes your perspective of view so that things effect you mentally in a different way.

He could, but your problem with that lies in your own question, we need God for things to exist. To support this I'll define existence, "The state of being", Now how and where could all this matter and energy come from? Do you know just how unlikely existence itself is, its like 10^{-99999999999999999}% for existence. Also explain the creation of the universe and give me an EXACT model of how EVERYTHING came to be, how you developed consciousness, and how you proposed that question in the first place. The answer to that is you can't, which although it seems like a "The God of Gaps" Scenario because the universe is infinite potential with finite mass, how can you create infinity without infinity? You can't create infinity without infinity at all which points to an infinite influence.

 

 

You avoided my questions and sort of answered the first one. It seems your view is incompatible with the faith based god how do you reconcile that? Also, did you ever stop and think that we are in a computer simulation? Our universe obeys all the rules, is in fact indistinguishable from a simulation. Are we God's computer program or an alien's? Seems like a very ungodly thing to do, omnipotent entity and just runs us on a computer instead of making the real thing. We could just be a reality TV show. Or a TINY TINY TINY part in a much bigger calculation. Beyond that, some mathematicians have started working on an interesting theory of nothing. It explains that the universe still is nothing, all matter and energy is illusory. Since I just woke up and I don't think you'd care about the article anyway, I am going to give you my super dumbed down interpretation. Do you know about vacuum energy? Nature abhors a vacuum, in the emptiness of space particles come into existence all the time. They ALWAYS come into existence as a pair of particles that annihilate each other, unless their paths don't intercept, in which case they continue existing. Now this WOULD violate the law of thermodynamics I mentioned earlier in this discussion, but the TOTAL energy in the universe is still unchanged, since you basically have a unit of positive energy and unit of negative energy that cancel each other out. It's kind of like an algebra problem, you can add or subtract whatever you want so long as you do it evenly from both sides and don't change the total. Basically it's possible our entire universe is just a really complex and elegant arrangement of nothing. What then, what if there simply is no matter or energy and this is just a bizarre state of nothingness?

 

You keep saying religion helps you, but I think it seriously limits your vision. Like I said before, most real scientists do not rule out the existence of god, but you rule out the lack of existence of god. Who is purposefully blinding themselves?

Edited December 3, 2015 by TheGeckomancer

[Strange]

99.999% nonsense=helps you visualize nothing beyond your understanding

 

Actually, it just helps you visualise nonsense.

 

we need God for things to exist.

 

No we don't.

 

Do you know just how unlikely existence itself is, its like 10^{-99999999999999999}% for existence.

 

Please show your working.

 

I would say the probability of existence is 1; because it exists.

 

Also explain the creation of the universe and give me an EXACT model of how EVERYTHING came to be, how you developed consciousness, and how you proposed that question in the first place. The answer to that is you can't, which although it seems like a "The God of Gaps" Scenario

 

It seems like a variation of the idiotic "if we don't know everything then we don't know anything" argument.

 

You can't create infinity without infinity at all which points to an infinite influence.

 

Wibble.

[DevilSolution]

Humans cant comprehend beyond logic, to argue otherwise would illogical.

 

And because we cant comprehend what isnt in some form or another logic, were constrained to the boundaries of it.

 

And as such we sit here, using our logic to make people feel stupid, because they cant comprehend a basic fallacy.

 

Well, thats up to you guys, if people want to believe that something exists beyond the realms of comprehension, then why shouldnt they?

 

Because you cant? You dont know if there exists something beyond the realms of human comprehension. Infact you will specifically not know, because you wont entertain such notions, if i had to hedge my bets on where matter and energy come from then i'd like to think theres a possibility that something created it, and not just for humans but for all creatures. Unfortunately im not a betting man so i'll just stick with being pedantic.

 

Everyone knows religion was a tool for control, used for evil and of "no scientific use", but parables were written so humans dont make the same stupid mistakes we always have, they have meaning if you wish to look.

 

asalamu alaykum

[Strange]

Humans cant comprehend beyond logic, to argue otherwise would illogical.

 

Humans understand poetry, music and art which are beyond logic.

 

Everyone knows religion was a tool for control, used for evil and of "no scientific use"

 

No they don't. (And no it isn't.)

[DevilSolution]

 

Humans understand poetry, music and art which are beyond logic.

 

 

No they don't. (And no it isn't.)

 

You'd argue with a robot, i'll make you one.

 

Humanitarian studies are not exclusive of logic, they are subjective aspects of your reality, which eventually boils down to philosophy which is founded in logic. What's not logical about poetry? How do humans evolve language? its logical progression.

 

(beyond your logic perhaps, but i can perfectly well express my appreciation of the arts, they are abstract forms of expression in which humans endeavour to conceive an image of the human condition, whats illogical about that? Or do you mean you cant explain or express how or why something makes you feel?)

 

No who don't what? (and why wont they when?)

Edited December 4, 2015 by DevilSolution

[MigL]

Oh come on guys, cut him some slack...

Up until last year we didn't know what gave the property of mass to leptons, and so we called it the 'God Particle'.

Now we know ( reasonably ) and we call it the Higgs mechanism.

Is that the example you were looking for John ?

( said with tongue firmly in cheek )

[Strange]

Oh come on guys, cut him some slack...

Up until last year we didn't know what gave the property of mass to leptons, and so we called it the 'God Particle'.

Now we know ( reasonably ) and we call it the Higgs mechanism.

 

Actually, it has been known (reasonably) to be the Higgs mechanism for over 50 years. It was direct detection of the Higgs boson which took a long time. (And the only reason it was called the God particle was for marketing reasons.)