Maybe we CAN disprove God...

[EGarrett]

You replied while I was still editing.

I realized that we're still in the same boat with both arguments, so I replaced my second paragraph with this...

Anyway, it seems that you're assigning God the property of someone who lives in another multiverse and created only our own universe. If it is believed that our laws of logic and thermodynamics and everything else don't apply to that universe, then it's still at core an argument that literally validates any possible statement at the same time as God.

 

[EGarrett]

under such constructs impossible may become meaningless, but because something can not be disproven does not mean it can not exist.

Bit of a problem there. You're not establishing that God is undisprovable, you're trying to establish that the idea of disproof is invalid.

To say that "God can be disproven" still works within the framework of everything that we understand to be disproof. The utterance, given the meanings of the terms, is still a valid statement.

 

[BillyJoe]

Piggy has not debunked anyone so far. He claims that thiests are not aligned with science yet there are thousands of scientists who will state that they believe in some creator but that creator can not be observed within the universe.

But their belief in god usually has nothing to do with their work in science.

Why is that a hard concept for piggy? Has he ever seen dark matter? What about a black hole? Yet we detect those things using mathmatical equations, and most of the time the equations need to be re-done over and over.

Are you arguing for or against piggy's "anchored concepts"?

His claim that mathmatics can disprove god is no better than the pope saying that the bible can prove god.

Must have missed that. Where did he say that?

Unless he comes up with some logical way to disprove him, that does not involve rehtoric and one liners that are not backed by the scientific community, then he is in the same boat as all thiests.

It seems to me he was using logic (not mathematics).
Why do you say he has not?

The argument that god MUST be observed within the FRAMEWORK of our universe is not a valid argument. That is the exact claim that put gallilao in prison for not following the FRAMEWORK of the catholic church version of the universe.

The meaning of "FRAMEWORK" in your first mention of that word in your above quote is not the same as the meaning of that word in your second mention of that word.

If we are able to predict things like multiple universes, atoms, black holes, dark matter.....all of which can not be observed in this universe....then why is it so scientifically impossible to predict some creator OUTSIDE of the universe that can never be observed.

Multiple universes cannot be observed within our universe because they are, by definition, outside our universe. It is simply an attempt to explain the problem posed by the universal constants. Atoms can be "observed" in our universe. As can subatomic particles. The properties of atoms and subatomic particles are so well known that the results of experiments involving them can be accurately predicted.
Also, both black holes and dark matter have pretty well been proven to exist.
But nothing about the creater outside the universe.

Has anyone seen an atom? Can it be observed visually? Yet there are detections of atoms and predictions. Same with god, detections and prediction in specific people, some who are not even religious have claimed to felt god or some outside force.

It cannot be seen with the naked eye, but it can be observed. The elucidation of the structure of the atom provided an underpining for the whole of chemistry. And the outcome of experiments based on our understanding of the struture of subatomic particles are the most accurate ever obtained by science.
How does our understanding of god lead to any predictions?

...there is no way to prove or disprove god, just like there was not way for the ancient egyptians to measure the size of the universe. You have to go with what we know so far, but you can not allow that to be the ultimate answer as we have found out over generations that perfect answers are not always so perfect

You could be right. But I still haven't found the trick in piggys disproof of god.

 

[tsg]

Here's my take:

Unless "god" is defined, the statement "You can't disprove god" is insignificant and meaningless. Without a definition of "god", the statement reduces to "you can't disprove that which I will not claim." It's a logical impossibility. Which is fine. Except that, in discussions of god's supposed omnipotence, the argument "god can't make a rock so big he can't lift it" is met with accusations of building a strawman. "That's not what we mean by omnipotence," they say. "'All powerful' means he can do anything that is not logically impossible." Which is also fine.

Except that now they are claiming that a mere mortal's inability to perform a logical impossibility is significant and meaningful when they don't even expect their god to be able to do it.

Without defining god, "you can't disprove god" has no more significance to the possibility of god's existence than "god can't make a circle with corners" has to god's nonexistence.

Define "god", then we'll decide whether or not it can be disproven.

 

[andyandy]

Bit of a problem there. You're not establishing that God is undisprovable, you're trying to establish that the idea of disproof is invalid.

not that disproof is invalid, but just that one must be careful about what one claims to have proved.

 

[EGarrett]

not that disproof is invalid, but just that one must be careful about what one claims to have proved.

But that's exactly what that argument seeks to do. Your position is to argue that there are multiverses where all laws of logic, thermodynamics etc. can be violated, thus X might be true there and you cannot say it is disproven.

You can plug anything into X and claim that it cannot be said that it is disproven. The argument does not establish that "God" specifically is undisprovable, it establishes that nothing can be disproven.

If the only way to establish that a thing cannot be disproven is to try and establish that nothing can be disproven, then that thing is equal to nothing. It is equally as valid as 1 + 1 = 3...thus it just as disproved and illogical as 1 + 1 = 3.

Thus, it is fair to say that God can be disproved to the full extent that we can disprove anything.

 

[andyandy]

But that's exactly what that argument seeks to do. Your position is to argue that there are multiverses where all laws of logic, thermodynamics etc. can be violated, thus X might be true there and you cannot say it is disproven.

You can plug anything into X and claim that it cannot be said that it is disproven. The argument does not establish that "God" specifically is undisprovable, it establishes that nothing can be disproven.

If the only way to establish that a thing cannot be disproven is to try and establish that nothing can be disproven, then that thing is equal to nothing. It is equally as valid as 1 + 1 = 3...thus it just as disproved and illogical as 1 + 1 = 3.

Thus, it is fair to say that God can be disproved to the full extent that we can disprove anything.

proof can still be valid - one simply has to specify the conditions for it to hold. A condition may be "within our spacetime frame" - and a proof or disproof could follow as a result.

 

[EGarrett]

proof can still be valid - one simply has to specify the conditions for it to hold. A condition may be "within our spacetime frame" - and a proof or disproof could follow as a result.

We don't have to specify "within the realm of all logic and reason" when we set-out to disprove something, because the conditions for disproof are assumed to be within the boundaries of logic and reason. If not, then nothing can be disproven and there's no point to the concept.

To say that God can be disproven is still a valid statement, to the full meaning of the word.

 

[Vintij]

Yes that is a valid statement, but it is not a valid theory. What can you test to prove that god does not exist?

Likewise, what can thiests test to prove that he does, other than statments made by followers who have no visual evidence.

My argument is that science can not disprove god anymore than religion and prove god, at least not without hard evidence.

There are thousands of documented reports of UFO's on camera, yet they are still believed to be fictional. That is because skeptics have not seen them up close and personal. Which is a valid argument, but how can a skeptic disprove god in a similar way when no rational person has ever seen god and will never see god up close unless he dies or is in a coma.

You cant just observe god visually and live to document it. That would put the word "god" into a definition of something that can be seen, touched, perhaps even destroyed. Something that lies within this universe.

As long as there are thousands of years of scriptures that document the belief in the afterlife or in God. Then no skeptic will ever disprove a belief that goes that far back, even further than science.

My point is, even if a skeptic or scientist has hard evidence that god does not exists.....it wont matter because that wont convince millions of people around the world to throw away thousands of years of worship and scriptures and live a god free life. It just wont happen because a relationship with god is a one on one relationship with whoever the believer is, it is not something that can be tested, taken away, or even forced away. At least not by any amount of human evidence or human power, because to these believers, a scientist is a man, a man is a geological blink of an eye. Compare that to god, someone they believe has the power to end all thier suffering.

 

[tsg]

Yes that is a valid statement, but it is not a valid theory. What can you test to prove that god does not exist?

That depends. What is god?

 

[andyandy]

To say that God can be disprove is still a valid statement, to the full meaning of the word.

It's only a valid statement if one accepts that;

1) it is meaningless to talk of god in generic terms

2) individual interpretations of god which can not be disproved are ignored.


For all the sophistry, there has been absolutely no disproof offered of the postulated creator god given earlier - and as such the above statement is nothing more than an unsubstantiated premise.

 

[EGarrett]

It's only a valid statement if one accepts that;

1) it is meaningless to talk of god in generic terms

We can't speak of God in generic terms, and I didn't mean to come off that way. We're only talking about God given an attribute that can be shown to be impossible through our observations of the laws of nature.

To speak of God generically is definitely nonsense, because there is no common meaning to the term.

2) individual interpretations of god which can not be disproved are ignored.

For all the sophistry, there has been absolutely no disproof offered of the postulated creator god given earlier - and as such the above statement is nothing more than an unsubstantiated premise.

The disproof is the first law of thermodynamics. Matter cannot be created. This makes God (given that attribute) impossible (which we seem to have agreed fits the definition of impossible), and thus (as we also seem to have agreed) disproven.

 

[andyandy]

The disproof is the first law of thermodynamics. Matter cannot be created. This makes God (given that attribute) impossible (which we seem to have agreed fits the definition of impossible), and thus (as we also seem to have agreed) disproven.

are we not now going round in circles? Multiverse explanations of cosmic origin are not bounded by the 1st law of thermodynamics.

 

[EGarrett]

are we not now going round in circles? Multiverse explanations of cosmic origin are not bounded by the 1st law of thermodynamics.

To use those explanations to justify God is to remove logic and reason, and thus do not challenge the statement that God can be disproved.

Perhaps we are going around in circles.

 

[andyandy]

Perhaps we are going around in circles.

yes perhaps we are

 

[EGarrett]

Yes that is a valid statement, but it is not a valid theory. What can you test to prove that god does not exist?

Anything and everything. All our laws, all our logic, all our observations. But you see, you have to assign an attribute to God to be tested. You can't just change definitions willy-nilly. That's the thing.

Likewise, what can thiests test to prove that he does, other than statments made by followers who have no visual evidence.

Well, you'd have to start by assigning an attribute to God, then seeing if it can exist. If you don't do that you're talking nonsense.

My argument is that science can not disprove god anymore than religion and prove god, at least not without hard evidence.

There are thousands of documented reports of UFO's on camera, yet they are still believed to be fictional. That is because skeptics have not seen them up close and personal. Which is a valid argument, but how can a skeptic disprove god in a similar way when no rational person has ever seen god and will never see god up close unless he dies or is in a coma.

The situation with UFO's is not the same as the situation with "God." As Piggy might say, UFO's are an anchored concept that have properties that are in line with logic (flying ships). God is pretty much a nonsense concept, which normally has properties which are impossible or self-refuting.

You cant just observe god visually and live to document it. That would put the word "god" into a definition of something that can be seen, touched, perhaps even destroyed. Something that lies within this universe.

As long as there are thousands of years of scriptures that document the belief in the afterlife or in God. Then no skeptic will ever disprove a belief that goes that far back, even further than science.

Firstly, being old does not make something undisprovable. People thought the earth was flat for a very long time.

Secondly, belief in God does not go back farther than science. Science is nothing but an extension of using our senses to understand the world. In order to make-up God, you must first have some curiosity that God satisfies. Curiosity, (observations and hypotheses) are key aspects of science.

"God," for the most part, is nothing more than a failed hypotheses.

My point is, even if a skeptic or scientist has hard evidence that god does not exists.....it wont matter because that wont convince millions of people around the world to throw away thousands of years of worship and scriptures and live a god free life. It just wont happen because a relationship with god is a one on one relationship with whoever the believer is, it is not something that can be tested, taken away, or even forced away. At least not by any amount of human evidence or human power, because to these believers, a scientist is a man, a man is a geological blink of an eye. Compare that to god, someone they believe has the power to end all thier suffering.

I'm seeking only to see if there is a new way to respond to a common and hackneyed believer argument. That is the issue here.

 

[Vintij]

Well I agree with you, something old does not make it undisprovable. But I did not say that, what I was saying is that generations of humans are not going to be disproved by scientific study that does NOT go as far back as the belief of god. Science did not come before god, because even before people knew what was around them, they knew or at least believed that something created them.....or allowed them to live and breath. That is why the ancient egyptians focused on the afterlife, rather than scientific discoverys'.

Dont get me wrong, I give science alot more weight than any religion, because it is often documented proof, plus I am not religious. But I also have a personal feeling inside that believes we are not the only intellectual beings in the universe and that we are thinkers simply because we are suppose to use our potential to discover and try to survive in the universe as long as possible. I also believe that we are nothing special considering how many red dwarf stars there are in the universe, able to theoretically sustain life. So what that means to me is, the only reason we are here, is to expand....along with the universe......perhaps forever.....perhaps not. But I do know that we are a very very young species and some day we will evolve and migrate to different planets perhaps even different galaxies and so on. And the only way that is possible is through science and tenacity. Which means that science will get us to where we want to go.....The belief in God will give us a reason to go there and survive, because perhaps life is not as significant in terms of science, but it is everything when it comes to belief. And that gives people the need to sustain there own life and other life forms around them.

My belief is that science and God can co-exist. Science and organized religions are the ones at war here, and oraganized religion needs to be checked because it can be very powerful and very stupid, as we see every day in islam and catholic/christian religions.

 

[lordcow]

Not exactly, there's a slight alteration there between what you're saying and what I replied to. The original statement was "if god created the universe, he is not part of the universe and hence not bound by its rules." It wasn't a statement about a lack of reasons to believe.

it's late and i've lost what you're claiming amongst the many replies. (this place needs to nest quotes on reply ..).

The problem is that he created a universe that gives no indication at all of its creation being possible. The nature of the creation frames out the notion of it being created.

i don't see how you can say this, or how it would be relevant. i'd think it more pertinent if you could point out a fallacy in my analogy.

I definitely understand what you're saying though. We're disagreeing over whether we can make the leap outside of reason and rationality.

i don't see how i was trying to make such a leap nor would i knowingly attempt to. could you spell this out more clearly?

We can only go by everything we've observed. And we've observed several ways that things can be alive and conscious, but none of those are remotely present in the overall universe as we've seen it.

i can't put this any clearer than in my quote you are replying to, so i'll rephrase: you do not know that consciousness is the exclusive domain of an organic brain comprised of neurons. (besides we don't even know how consciousness arises). i guess this is akin to saying we experience life on our planet (in the sense of reproducing/replicating organisms), and so life (reproducing organisms) out 'there' has to be carbon and DNA based. both are logical fallacies.

The response is "perhaps God is a different kind of consciousness that has no structure", which wouldn't be consciousness that we understand, brings us into changing the definition of God for convenience.

nope, the definition that matters here is that of consciousness, which hasn't changed.

I suppose the word is "willed" or "consciously controlled." But it's hard to define those outside of saying that they do things that are not random and not a predictable, unintelligent pattern.

the natural world is either deterministic or random or both. i'll agree that willed is a good description for nondeterministic and nonrandom, but now you've gone supernatural which i don't think you wanted to.

but back to the point, how do you ascertain whether an action is willed as opposed to determined or random, as you claim to be able to do in your test.

Dogs certainly can't speak English, but we can't create a computer program that can convincingly simulate a dog either. Nonetheless, I know what you're saying, and we have to take every aspect of information into account. The Turing Test is one of the measures we can use, and all of the measures together indicate that there is no consciousness in the universe.

the turing test is the only measure you've given me though, and it doesn't work on dogs, who are as conscious as you are, at least from my perspective.

you don't know how consciousness arises, you can't give a reliable test for it, and so you can't claim that such an such arbitrary object is not conscious.

All our observations of consciousness indicate that it does have physical aspects (brain activity etc.)

true, but until we have a complete theory of consciousness we don't have any grounds to claim consciousness needs certain physical aspects.

besides this, consciousness may arise from physical aspects we don't familiarly identify with consciousness, eg. neural networks or the greater interactions of the universe, you just don't know yet. (i see the polaristutoring chap is joining in so let me say i'm not advocating a conscious universe, which's quite silly without evidence, just that it's not possible to purely logically disprove the idea).

Well, that brings us back to the point that the structure of the universe has no possible method of consciousness, given everything we've observed about it and consciousness.

or rather, we haven't observed, which in this case is the same as haven't been looking, for methods of consciousness in the greater universe that we are familiar with.

If I take the form of "we don't know how it can happen, therefore it can't," then I am arguing from ignorance and I concede that point. If at some point I do slip up and say that, then I also apologize in advance. But saying "it is impossible, given the laws of nature that we've observed," is different, and I believe it is a valid form of disproof.

ok fair enough, they're a different form of argument. but you don't have the laws of consciousness, so you can't use the second form.

That only works if we've observed that matter was created at the point of the Big Bang.

it doesn't matter what we've observed. my point was god creating the universe or a cosmologist creating a simulation are consistent scenarios, unless you can show otherwise.

That would violate thermodynamics and open the door to such a thing.

it wouldn't violate thermodynamics if god created matter and the law at the same time, or even the law after matter (he's god after all).

like i say, the cosmologist scenario is perfectly consistent, as it happens all the time in real life. he creates a world that is governed by thermodynamics, and yet he brought the matter in the simulation into 'being' from nothing at the start of the run.

But to our knowledge, the matter that "exploded" at that point was already present, just in an infinitely small space, and the creation of it remains impossible according to everything we've observed.

i agree that as far as we know that matter was already there, but we're straying from the point. if god created the world, he had the power to do so at whatever stage he felt like - he could've done it last thursday as the saying goes, not impossible, he's god, its supernatural not natural. the big bang is just a more natural stage to assign creation for those who want to, even if there is no good reason to suppose it was a supernatural event. the point is it, or last thursday, could have been a supernatural event.

I understand. But I don't think I'm using "impossible" in an invalid form. I think I'm using it exactly the way it's always used. Doesn't "impossible" mean "it cannot happen within the context of everything we know about reality?"

For a quick example, if we say that it is impossible for 1 + 1 to equal 3, we're saying that 1 + 1 can't equal 3 given everything we know about the universe.

the fact that '1+1= 2' is not something we observe in the universe, it stems from a logical construct and definitions in our minds. using possible and impossible to describe this is actually misleading as a mathematical constant is invariant, but yes since it is a mental thing we have decreed we are within our rights to say 1+1 definitely does not equal 3. (hopefully the mathematical create vs discover debate doesn't detract from this).

back to the use of impossible - it is a word that requires absolute logical surety. if we are using it in a logical debate and not in a colloquial conversation where rigour slips we need to be aware of that.

a thousand years ago someone may have claimed "it is impossible for humans to fly". the fact that i see us flying today means i can say he was wrong, whereas i wouldn't be able to say the same if he had used 'highly unlikely'.

 

[lordcow]

EGARRET... you're definitely on to something here ...But here we see Lordcow playing the - Get out of jail card - viz...god is not bound by the rules...

This is a complete and utter nonsense-ical fallacy, in that if god (IT) is not bound by any rules, then by definition that would make IT exist in a state of total CHAOS!

AND further...if (no) BECAUSE god has to be bound by rules (even if IT made them up) then ipso-facto (don't know what that means but I like it!)...then...IT is not the all powerful, megalomaniac we take IT for.

So it's your choice...faithers...either god is bound by rules (even IT's own) or else IT exists in a CHAIOTIC meta-place....

I hope this helps kill god....

Griff....sending a shock to the (solar) system.

i said the rules of the universe, not any rules at all.

 

[EGarrett]

Well I agree with you, something old does not make it undisprovable. But I did not say that, what I was saying is that generations of humans are not going to be disproved by scientific study that does NOT go as far back as the belief of god. Science did not come before god, because even before people knew what was around them, they knew or at least believed that something created them.....or allowed them to live and breath. That is why the ancient egyptians focused on the afterlife, rather than scientific discoverys'.

I don't mean to offend you, but what you're saying is not very clear and it's somewhat difficult to make sense of it and reply to you.

You say that generations of humans "are not going to be disproved?" Humans are an actual thing...no one's talking about disproving humans. Do you mean "they're not going to be convinced by a scientific study that does not go as far back as belief in God?" I'm sorry, but I'm not sure how your logic works. Why would something being new stop it from convincing people? The theory of evolution convinced a WHOLE lot of people and it wasn't nearly as old as "God made man."

Dont get me wrong, I give science alot more weight than any religion, because it is often documented proof, plus I am not religious. But I also have a personal feeling inside that believes we are not the only intellectual beings in the universe and that we are thinkers simply because we are suppose to use our potential to discover and try to survive in the universe as long as possible.

I understand, but I used to have a personal feeling inside that a ghost was hiding in my closet and would attack me at night if it wasn't closed. That didn't make it true. It just meant that sometimes our personal feelings mislead us, and we have to use rationality, observations and so on to doublecheck them. And when those things disagree with our personal feelings, history has shown that it's rationality and observation and such that are right, and our personal feelings that are wrong.

I also believe that we are nothing special considering how many red dwarf stars there are in the universe, able to theoretically sustain life. So what that means to me is, the only reason we are here, is to expand....along with the universe......perhaps forever.....perhaps not. But I do know that we are a very very young species and some day we will evolve and migrate to different planets perhaps even different galaxies and so on. And the only way that is possible is through science and tenacity. Which means that science will get us to where we want to go.....The belief in God will give us a reason to go there and survive, because perhaps life is not as significant in terms of science, but it is everything when it comes to belief. And that gives people the need to sustain there own life and other life forms around them.

You don't need belief in God to have a reason to live. You have joy, companionship, and a desire to allow others to experience the same.

My belief is that science and God can co-exist.

If by co-existence, you mean that God is like a roommate that takes whatever space science has left open at the moment, then moves into more and more confined area as science stretches out over time. I believe that eventually God as a whole will largely disappear from the popular conscious, because it will be wholly unnecessary.