Can one disprove Jesus' resurrection?

[tsig]

Doge summary. Much clear, very welcome. Wow.

Many god. Much uncertain. I can't even.
Such rulez! Much complex.

Much vast, so space.
Very God. Such science. Wow, space.

So, smart? Very order. Amaze variety!
Much intelligence. So ordered. Wow, order.

Very meta. So physics. Wow metaphysics:
Science basis. So noted.

Unknown knows. Much evident. Wow evidence.
We can't. Much also. Very cannot.

Vast cognition. Much vast. Wow scale.
Creates all. Much busy. Excite, creator!

Unperish hero. Totes simple. Very Bible. Wow novel.
You speculate. Very say. Much speak. So spectacle.

Small science. Much puny. So garble. Wow, hubris.

~

I agree, I think.

(c'mon pass it will ya)

 

[tsig]

OK so then what did Greater Fool mean when he said the following -






And then to explain that, he followed it up with statements like these (which I also disagreed with) -





What I am saying to The Greater Fool, and to you if you agree with the way he wrote those sentences, is that they are implying, if not in fact directly saying, that there are indeed some things in this universe that are inherently beyond any possible scientific investigation or explanation.

And the point that I am making about statements or beliefs like that, is that they are almost always used by theists (and sometimes by those trying to argue philosophical points), in order to claim that a creator God could indeed exist on the basis that there are "things that are outside the scope of scientific understanding".

What I am saying to The Greater Fool, and to you if you agree with his remark saying "Being a religious claim about a miracle performed by a meddling god, it is outside of science, and the rules of science.", because that remark, which is as I say always used by theists to parachute God into possible existence, is manifestly wrong. The mere "claim" (and Greater Fool presented it saying it was a "claim") is most definitely NOT beyond explanation by science.

And I think it was equally mistaken when in explanation Greater Fool followed up with these remarks -

1. "Modern miracles certainly can and have been examined rationally ..."

2. "Unfortunately, unlike modern 'miracles', we have no way of examining the facts around the event."

3. "If there were all powerful meddling god(s), miracles would be possible."


Statement 1 is certainly wrong, because there are no known "modern miracles" (whatever a "modern" miracle is supposed to be, as distinct from any other claimed "miracle"?) - there are only unsubstantiated untrue claims of people witnessing miracles.

Statement 2 is also wrong, because when it says "we have no way of examining the facts around the event.", then (if by “the event” he means a so-called "miracle") then he is implicitly assuming that there actually was an "event" which could have no possible way of being "examined" ... that's what 2 actually says. So it's assuming that there is indeed an actual event that cannot be examined by science. But that is untrue, isn't it? E.g.; what is this actual event that was or is beyond any possible scientific "examination"??

Statements 3 is again wrong, because it says "miracles would be possible, IF there were all powerful meddling Gods". So what does a statement like that mean by saying "IF" X is true, then X would be true". That is just a mistaken way of trying to say "If miracles exist and cannot be examined by any science, then miracles exist and cannot be examined by science!"

To summarise - all that I am trying to point out to The Greater Fool (and to you if you agree with his statements), is that we should avoid making the sort of statements that theists almost always make when trying to argue that a supernatural creator could exist, by saying "not everything in this universe is explicable by science, some things are inherently beyond the remit of science, and God is one is one of those things, hence God may very well exist and science can have no way disputing or disproving that".

I am just asking that we avoid falling into the trap of appearing to support theist claims of things such as God and his miracles being outside and beyond the scope of any science, because I think that is actually an erroneous semantic way of using language in order to claim that God does exist and that he is automatically beyond any possible scientific investigation or explanation.

How do you prove that something outside of science exits?

 

[BobTheCoward]

How do you prove that something outside of science exits?

Things don't have to be proven to be of importance. I think it can be said faith and belief are outside of science...and that makes them superior.

 

[Donn]

Totally Wow. Such Smart. How Words. Much Nom.

Very so. So! It seemed the most coherent means to précis annnnoid's typical approach.

I agree, I think.
(c'mon pass it will ya)

This dutchy's mine!

 

[Donn]

Things don't have to be proven to be of importance. I think it can be said faith and belief are outside of science...and that makes them superior.

Yes, faith in Fairies and Dark Goblins is superior, to both your faith and science. Furthermore I cannot prove any of that which only concentrates it the more.

 

[tsig]

Things don't have to be proven to be of importance. I think it can be said faith and belief are outside of science...and that makes them superior.

Faith and belief are types of human action and can and have been studied by science.

The objects of faith and belief either manifest themselves in this reality and can be studied or they do not exist.


Do you always give importance to things you cannot see, hear or touch?

If so I have some invisible coins I'd like to sell you.

 

[Donn]

… "miracles would be possible, IF there were all powerful meddling Gods". So what does a statement like that mean by saying "IF" X is true, then X would be true". That is just a mistaken way of trying to say "If miracles exist and cannot be examined by any science, then miracles exist and cannot be examined by science!"

Nicely put.

I think TGF is going for logical purity, while being open about their non-belief position. Your point does make a dent in that purity, however.

Is there ever a sound logical position to take on postulates who's only evidence is the yearning they be real?

I'm leaning towards no.

 

[tsig]

Very so. So! It seemed the most coherent means to précis annnnoid's typical approach.


This dutchy's mine!

"Science doesn't know everything so I win the argument"

It's thin sauce when you factor out the insults and misdirection.

 

[IanS]

Sadly, I anticipated something like this reply, when I wrote the RED part of my post quoted above.

Basically, you're saying we can't examine the question "Is there a god?" because by entertaining the question, we open the possibility that god(s) might exist. However, we can entertain the equally masturbatory sub-question "Can god(s) exist?" because, somehow, this question doesn't also open the possibility of god(s) existence.
I've effectively said the above three times now. Following my own advice (drat!), I'll leave the final words to you.

Thank you for the discussion.

Re, the highlight ; No, that is not what I said, and it's not what I am saying to you.

What you actually wrote was this (and this a quote from your post) -

God(s), et al, exist, or they don't, and it is a scientific question:

*IF* god(s) exist, their power is beyond all natural processes (science). God(s) can make or break any law on whim. There are no natural laws on the function of such a being. Claims of miracles flowing from god(s), by definition, are outside science;.

When you write “IF god(s) exist ....”, you are assuming for the sake of argument that the god does in fact exist. That’s what that particular sentence construction means, and it’s what the words actually say.

When in reply I said to you that the first question should actually be “Could such a God actually exist. And if anyone says Yes it could exist, then we should ask them to explain how that existence is in fact possible”. That is a very different question i.e. asking “could he exist?”, than starting off as you did by assuming he does exist by saying “IF the god does exist ...”....

.... If you start as you did by saying “IF god(s) exist, then you are (to repeat) actually acknowledging as your starting point that they could actually exist, ; ie. by the word “IF”, you are accepting, at least for the sake of argument, that the god does or could actually exist ....and what I am saying to you is that that is a mistake, unless of course you can explain (as I pointed out) how it is possible for a supernatural god to exist! ...

... if you cannot explain (if theists for example cannot first explain) “How” it is possible for the supernatural to actually exist, then there can be no question of asking “IF the god exists, then ...”. Because you do not even get to the point of proposing that the god might exist by saying “well, IF it exists...” ... instead you must first show how it is possible for any such supernatural event to happen, and only after that does it become credible to assume that possible existence is actually true by asking “IF the god does exists, then ....”.

IOW, I am making an appeal to you to avoid being inadvertently drawn down a slippery theistic slope of mistaken semantics, by writing (and apparently thinking) as if it’s OK for you/anyone to assume that such supernatural events might actually be true before showing how that could ever be possible.

And in particular to avoid saying that the god might be true on the basis that supernatural claims are somehow beyond the remit of science.

 

[Donn]

"Science doesn't know everything so I win the argument"

It's thin sauce when you factor out the insults and misdirection.

The true form is:
I know nothing, ergo I'm right.

 

[Toontown]

How do you prove that something outside of science exits?

You don't. You try to trick others into thinking they have to prove it doesn't exist.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Isn't this poisoning the well?

No. Preemptively reminding believers that they are not allowed to invoke magic is not poisoning the well.

 

[IanS]

How do you prove that something outside of science exits?

Well, I think what we have now learnt from current science (i.e. from the fundamental nature of QM), is that it's not possible to "prove" anything as a matter of literal certainty. So in that sense, it will never be a literal 100% "proof".

But I think your question is actually echoing the point that I am trying to make here, or partly at least. I.e., that as far as we can tell, there really cannot be any actual events ("actual" as opposed to mere imagined suggestions or claims), that are inherently beyond the capacity of being investigated and explained by what we call "science".

As I said above, I would go further on that point and take a bit of a "punt", i.e. just a suggestion for the sake of making a specific claim that could be debated (where I don’t know if this is actually correct or not) to say that - if an event occurs within this universe, then no matter how supernatural it might at first seem, then it could not in fact actually be supernatural, because the only way any such event could occur and be detectable in any way at all, is if it interacts with the fabric of the universe around us, i.e. it must interact with particles and fields that comprise what we call our universe ... and the only way it can do that, is if it's interaction is a "natural" one, because it's interacting with a natural system .... e.g. if the event appears as light, then it can only do that by particle interactions which produce photons.

So even if at first sight the event appeared to be supernatural, and not immediately explained by known theories of particle-field interactions, the suspicion would have to be that we just need a more complete description of all the relevant particle interactions ... otherwise you could have no such interaction displaying the "supernatural" event in the first place.

But as I say, that is something I had not thought of until I wrote one of the above replies to Greater Fool, so I might be quite wrong in suggesting that (but on the face of it, that seems logical to me ... it seems scientifically correct afaik).

However, if the above is not already straying into more than enough unknown territory (unknown to me, at least), then if the above is correct, I suppose we might also conclude that there could actually have once been a creator God that no longer has any interaction with the fabric of our universe. E.g. the god uses some unknown power to start the universe in progress (the initial impetus for the Big Bang), but then has no further connection to what emerges as something we call our universe. Though in that case, I don’t know how one could ever determine any such origin of the universe, and as always pointed out - it would not explain how any such god came to exist in the first place (nor where he was supposed to be “hiding” if he no longer has any interaction with the universe??).

Anyway “too much already” lol. And the above is all just meant as a bit of light-hearted spontaneous caution-to-the-wind speculation.

 

[annnnoid]

How do you prove that something outside of science exits?

With blinding ease…

Where does science come from? Or are you actually going to insist that science exists a priori?

It invariably seems to escape your attention…that nobody…not a single individual… has ever come within light years of explaining how and why science works. Run from it all you want.... it has been a fact as long as science has been practiced, it is a fact today, and it will be a fact for a very very very long time to come (barring a miracle).

So ...when it comes to everything about science...it all come down to...

...faith.

…or are you going to insist…”but science IS reality.”

I am confident that the resident skeptic congregation has the intelligence to understand how far beyond illiterate such a proclamation currently is?

 

[Porpoise of Life]

Are you suggesting that science works on the Wile E. Coyote principle? We're currently walking off a cliff and as soon as we look down, science will cease to function?

 

[annnnoid]

I don't agree with the premise that order implies intelligence,

…but I’m not simply referring to ‘order’. The ‘order’ is manifest through the apparent fact that the entire universe subscribes to an all-but incomprehensibly complex range of metaphysical realities that we refer to as science. I seriously doubt that anyone here is going to dispute this conclusion…but it is just as certain that nobody here as the faintest idea how and why this is the case.

but if we can agree that things appear to function with order, that would eliminate any god that performs miracles like miraculously rising from the dead.

…only if you assume
A) we currently have a comprehensive understanding of the ‘order’ in question (we quite unconditionally do not) and that a miracle (whatever that is) indisputably contradicts everything that is possible
B) that whatever-a-god-is cannot change the ‘order’ to suit It’s intentions.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Ah yes the old "Science can't prove itself, therefore we need mystical Woo woo" argument. Good to see it again.

 

[tsig]

With blinding ease…

Where does science come from? Or are you actually going to insist that science exists a priori?

It invariably seems to escape your attention…that nobody…not a single individual… has ever come within light years of explaining how and why science works. Run from it all you want.... it has been a fact as long as science has been practiced, it is a fact today, and it will be a fact for a very very very long time to come (barring a miracle).

So ...when it comes to everything about science...it all come down to...

...faith.

…or are you going to insist…”but science IS reality.”

I am confident that the resident skeptic congregation has the intelligence to understand how far beyond illiterate such a proclamation currently is?

Science comes from humans efforts to understand the world around them.

That is confusing the tool with the medium.

Continually proclaiming your ignorance does not enhance your credibility nor does your snide asides.

 

[IanS]

With blinding ease…

Where does science come from? Or are you actually going to insist that science exists a priori?

It invariably seems to escape your attention…that nobody…not a single individual… has ever come within light years of explaining how and why science works. Run from it all you want.... it has been a fact as long as science has been practiced, it is a fact today, and it will be a fact for a very very very long time to come (barring a miracle).

So ...when it comes to everything about science...it all come down to...

...faith.

…or are you going to insist…”but science IS reality.”

I am confident that the resident skeptic congregation has the intelligence to understand how far beyond illiterate such a proclamation currently is?

When you say science is just actually based upon "faith", do you just mean that as scientists we do what all humans do and form opinions about what we think is likely to be correct?

If you just mean that scientists are forced to believe certain things on the basis of whatever is produced as the "evidence", then yes, as I said before - what we learnt from Quantum Theory (amongst many other things learnt from QM), was/is that we appear to live in a probabilistic universe rather than a deterministic one ("deterministic" in the sense of particle properties being precisely defined at any specific space-time).

But of course in science we try to make objective tests for whatever appears to be the explanation of things. And to cut that story short - the outcome of many billions of such tests and mathematical "proofs", is that we can show how and why almost everything in the universe behaves in the way which we detect and describe.

If you doubt that science is actually correct in what it's theories say, then the only way to really challenge that is by showing through published research why the theories are wrong and why the observations are not actually as they appear to be ... to show why planes do NOT fly in the air, why people are not healed in hospitals, why you do not actually have a computer, and why Jesus could actually have returned to life after being truly dead and buried in the ground for three days.

But so far, after about 200 years of published peer reviewed research science journals containing hundreds of thousands of new papers every year, nobody on the planet has been able to show why fundamental science is wrong or why it is only a matter of anyone's subjective opinion and not a matter of actual "fact" (as much as we can ever determine actual "fact").

 

[tsig]

You don't. You try to trick others into thinking they have to prove it doesn't exist.

It takes religion to confuse a person to the point that they think you have to prove that the dead stay dead.