• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

The Great Debate: "Has Science Refuted Religion?"

NeilC said:
Why cannot religions have certainty and knowledge gained divinely? I can easily invent a god and have him tell me things. That is their claim - that he's told them stuff that he thinks humans need to know but not everything about him. In that case why cannot heaven be true and your behaviour on earth affect your afterlife? That is pretty meaningful I'd say and yet not scientifically refutable.

Let's imagine for a minute that a Christian-like god exists and Jesus was his earthly form. He has communicated with some humans but it's nigh on impossible for the human mind to really comprehend him and so they get the general gist but get a lot wrong too, which explains the "confusion" with age of earth and other facts wrong with the Bible. God never meant the bible to be his word verbatim but that's how it's turned out and it works for him OK. He has a plan and human confusion is fully expected and not very important to him right now. There is an afterlife. There is a soul but it and god himself operate on a level of existence way beyond our current knowledge of nature. He can interact with our physics but not in a way that makes any sense to us as yet which allows the odd miracle, heaven, souls and so on. His existence and your behaviour is meanignful - it will affect your afterlife.. What scientific test would you propose to prove that wrong? I cannot design one but maybe you can?
Click to expand...

God created mankind for sport, he likes to toy with us by giving out contradictory instructions. Frustrating our hopes and watching us grieve our loved ones gives him the highest pleasure.

What scientific test would you propose to prove that wrong?
 
tsig said:
God created mankind for sport, he likes to toy with us by giving out contradictory instructions. Frustrating our hopes and watching us grieve our loved ones gives him the highest pleasure.

...
Click to expand...

Oooh I got one...

God is the sum of potential across multiple Universes in the Multiverse. Those Universes in which time runs backwards are exerting pressure on our universe to shape it in such a way as to make their existence actual. If enough agents in this Universe make the right kind of choices the multiverse attains an eventual state which will result in an even bigger bang than the last Big Bang and create even more agents able to shape further Universes...But only if we make the right choices regarding fish and bacon, apparently.

Go on, test that one.
 
NeilC said:
Why cannot religions have certainty and knowledge gained divinely?
Click to expand...

Because there's no way for them to know that knowledge comes from god. Just "feeling it" doesn't tell you anything.

Now, if god laid down multiple lines of evidence that it really was him talking, sure, then those with access to that evidence could "have certainty and knowledge gained divinely", but that's seldom even the claim, let alone the reality.
 
Roboramma said:
Because there's no way for them to know that knowledge comes from god. Just "feeling it" doesn't tell you anything.

Now, if god laid down multiple lines of evidence that it really was him talking, sure, then those with access to that evidence could "have certainty and knowledge gained divinely", but that's seldom even the claim, let alone the reality.
Click to expand...

It's hard to expand on this point as it reaches the crux of the argument, but really NielC what does the argument you laid out have ANY viable confirmation beyond supposition. At what point does it have any validity? I can replace every word "god" and "jesus" beyond "Flying Spaghetti Monster" and "JC and the sunshine gang" but that leads us nowhere in terms of validity. If validity has no value (simply put, if you argue that science cannot argue against religion then what you're REALLY comparing is knowledge versus supposition, and the values of which in my opinion are measured by validity; if you have anything that can take it on please share, because that's what I think the argument boils down to "Whether validity can be found outside of scientific discipline(s)), then "knowing" has no value too. This is why science can refute religion; science has validity. Religion cannot; it can only serve to grey areas when understanding hasn't caught up. Once it does, religion must backtrack (not an absolute, but I have yet to hear a case against it).
 
Last edited:
Lowpro said:
NielC the reason the age of the Earth is thought to be as it is is because some idiot decided to add up all the ages of the people of the Bible, hence 6000 years. That's not a matter of confusion, that's genuine addition; you can't be confused. If anything it SHOULD prove that the story is a lie. To invoke mistakes and magic only makes that position ALL THE MORE untenable a hypothesis. It's not a matter of proving whether it's right or wrong because it has so little value to investigate in the first place. The reason those religions are still around NOW is because people were to ignorant to investigate those claims. However now we actually can. Science can refute religion NOW (Scientology methinks), but it's hard when you've got thousands of years of evidence gone away to do it.

And after all that you STILL invoke magic. I can refute that without science; I can do it with just plain old sophistry. Your scenario is ridiculous. There is no afterlife other than when you die your soul gets stuck on the roof regardless of the actions you take in this life. It's just the way of things, because I can make @#(! up just as easily as you can and just as easily as any bronze age moron could.

Your scenario has no VALUE to determine whether it's correct or not, and that's the problem.

It's the main problem with religion. When someone like Hutchinson or Dinesh says they have the correct religion, or that in SOME WAY their argument wins any points, that's a lie. When you say you KNOW something like this, with magic or just plain old "in my gut it's right" thinking you give the game away. Of course Science can refute religion, because religion has NOTHING. Science at least gives something, even if it's an "I don't know" because at least THAT is valid. When you say "I know" using anything from religion you are wrong.
Click to expand...

You're still arguing with my like I'm religious. I'm not arguing the case for religion. I'm arguing that it all cannot be refuted by the scientific method and most that is because of the evasive way it is defined. Yes you can refute it without science and you kind of are. But that's not what we're arguing. I'm asking if you can refute it USING science.

It's NeilC not NielC by the way!
 
Last edited:
tsig said:
God created mankind for sport, he likes to toy with us by giving out contradictory instructions. Frustrating our hopes and watching us grieve our loved ones gives him the highest pleasure.

What scientific test would you propose to prove that wrong?
Click to expand...

Exactly. There is no such test. Therefore that scenario cannot be scientifically refuted. Just because something cannot be refuted scientifically does not make it true. I don't think religion or god needs to be refuted scientifically to be ruled out as irrelevant or using other methods.
 
Last edited:
Roboramma said:
Because there's no way for them to know that knowledge comes from god. Just "feeling it" doesn't tell you anything.

Now, if god laid down multiple lines of evidence that it really was him talking, sure, then those with access to that evidence could "have certainty and knowledge gained divinely", but that's seldom even the claim, let alone the reality.
Click to expand...

Who said it was just feeling? The claim is usually that god spoke to some people back in the day. That could be true (if a god existed) and no be testable scientifically.
 
Brainache said:
Oooh I got one...

God is the sum of potential across multiple Universes in the Multiverse. Those Universes in which time runs backwards are exerting pressure on our universe to shape it in such a way as to make their existence actual. If enough agents in this Universe make the right kind of choices the multiverse attains an eventual state which will result in an even bigger bang than the last Big Bang and create even more agents able to shape further Universes...But only if we make the right choices regarding fish and bacon, apparently.

Go on, test that one.
Click to expand...

Indeed. You cannot scientifically test it and so it cannot be refuted scientifically.
 
NeilC said:
Who said it was just feeling? The claim is usually that god spoke to some people back in the day. That could be true (if a god existed) and no be testable scientifically.
Click to expand...

So there's even less to go on than a feeling. How did those people back in the day know that it was god talking to them? And why should we believe them?

Science offers valid explanations for everything that religion used to be necessary to explain. So, what's left? In looking at the world and wondering what it's really like, why should I (or anyone) choose the view that god spoke to Muhammad rather than the view that an invisible talking ostrich did so?

The religious view can't offer reason to choose the former over the latter. On the other hand science explains what we know of the world in a way that is both falsifiable and makes testable predictions. Yes, there are likely some things that we consider true that will turn out to be false and other things that we haven't even thought of that will turn out to be true. It has never happened before, though, that religions stumbled upon one of those latter such "revelations" before science figured it out. Why should we expect that to be the case now?
 
Lowpro said:
It's hard to expand on this point as it reaches the crux of the argument, but really NielC what does the argument you laid out have ANY viable confirmation beyond supposition. At what point does it have any validity? I can replace every word "god" and "jesus" beyond "Flying Spaghetti Monster" and "JC and the sunshine gang" but that leads us nowhere in terms of validity. If validity has no value (simply put, if you argue that science cannot argue against religion then what you're REALLY comparing is knowledge versus supposition, and the values of which in my opinion are measured by validity; if you have anything that can take it on please share, because that's what I think the argument boils down to "Whether validity can be found outside of scientific discipline(s)), then "knowing" has no value too. This is why science can refute religion; science has validity. Religion cannot; it can only serve to grey areas when understanding hasn't caught up. Once it does, religion must backtrack (not an absolute, but I have yet to hear a case against it).
Click to expand...

Yes you can use the FSM instead. And that is why we use the FSM to ridicule religions -because it cannot be scientifically refuted. It is a way of saying "sure I cannot scientifically refute your hypothesis but there is no reason to believe it is true, look I can come up with a parallel that is plainly stupid but still not refutable". I've never argued anything different.

I agree with everything you've said and that is why science is a better explanation of the world than is religion.
 
Roboramma said:
Because there's no way for them to know that knowledge comes from god. Just "feeling it" doesn't tell you anything.

Now, if god laid down multiple lines of evidence that it really was him talking, sure, then those with access to that evidence could "have certainty and knowledge gained divinely", but that's seldom even the claim, let alone the reality.
Click to expand...


Dude, you have NO IDEA what a mystic is and how the Divine is able to convince a mystic that he or she is genuinely in touch with the Absolute. All you are doing is guessing, and to a mystic like me the myopic guesswork of an intellectual is laughable.
 
Last edited:
Limbo said:
Dude, you have NO IDEA what a mystic is and how the Divine is able to convince a mystic that he or she is genuinely in touch with the Absolute. All you are doing is guessing, and to a mystic like me the myopic guesswork of an intellectual is laughable.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, rather than getting upset, you could simply try to explain "how the Divine is able to convince a mystic that he or she is genuinely in touch with the Absolute".
 
NeilC said:
Yes you can use the FSM instead. And that is why we use the FSM to ridicule religions -because it cannot be scientifically refuted. It is a way of saying "sure I cannot scientifically refute your hypothesis but there is no reason to believe it is true, look I can come up with a parallel that is plainly stupid but still not refutable". I've never argued anything different.

I agree with everything you've said and that is why science is a better explanation of the world than is religion.
Click to expand...

So where does this notion that there is no reason to believe absurd unfalsifiable ideas come from?

Is it a scientific idea?
 
NeilC said:
Why cannot religions have certainty and knowledge gained divinely? I can easily invent a god and have him tell me things. That is their claim - that he's told them stuff that he thinks humans need to know but not everything about him. In that case why cannot heaven be true and your behaviour on earth affect your afterlife? That is pretty meaningful I'd say and yet not scientifically refutable.

Let's imagine for a minute that a Christian-like god exists and Jesus was his earthly form. He has communicated with some humans but it's nigh on impossible for the human mind to really comprehend him and so they get the general gist but get a lot wrong too, which explains the "confusion" with age of earth and other facts wrong with the Bible. God never meant the bible to be his word verbatim but that's how it's turned out and it works for him OK. He has a plan and human confusion is fully expected and not very important to him right now. There is an afterlife. There is a soul but it and god himself operate on a level of existence way beyond our current knowledge of nature. He can interact with our physics but not in a way that makes any sense to us as yet which allows the odd miracle, heaven, souls and so on. His existence and your behaviour is meanignful - it will affect your afterlife.. What scientific test would you propose to prove that wrong? I cannot design one but maybe you can?
Click to expand...

Yes, you can invent such Gods. You can hypothesise Gods that might work for your arguement.

These aren't the Gods that religions teach though. They don't teach a Christian-like God that might or might not exist, to be honest we don't really know, but hey just think about it for a laugh. They teach an actual Christian God. As described in the Bible. As fact. I'm pretty happy to say science has refuted that God.

Now you can argue it hasn't really refuted every possible definition of a God or resolved every possible 'aha but' if you like. Then we are simply in the realms of science not being able to prove anything to a 100% philosophical certainty.

If you accept that science hasn't disproved God then you must also accept that science has disproved that this God is what makes things fall to the ground or cures diseases or allows planes to fly or makes grass grow.

Once you accept magical explanations then you are basically saying you don't accept science. And if you don't accept science then of course it hasn't refuted anything.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom