Taking a second look at untestable gods.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Agreed. Which is why if there is a god there is very good reason to think that it bears little to no relation to anything a current religion follows, or what any theist currently espouse.

This says nothing about the existence of such an entity, however.....[snip].

Think about the arguments from Creationists. What do they have in common with the discussion here?

They try to use debunking of evolution theory as evidence for Creation. And they use the false pretense that because we can't "prove" a theory we should speak of evolution theory as tentative.

I am not arguing one cannot describe a Deist untestable/not falsifiable god. I am arguing against treating the conclusions we draw about the evidence against everything magical and supernatural except certain gods with a double standard. I have made this argument before.

In adding to my case here, I am pointing out that the standard in science is to follow the evidence.
The standard in science is the evidence supports a theory, it doesn't have to prove the theory.
The standard in science is not to create special categories of evidence. (That is a politically based choice which I am not belittling the importance of.)
There is no scientific evidence supporting magical supernatural beings.
There is evidence supporting humans making up myths about magical supernatural beings.

The evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory, ALL god beliefs are of imaginary beings.

Other than the claim one cannot PROVE this theory, which is true for just about every scientific theory, there is no evidence supporting the alternative theory, some god beliefs are the result of actual human encounters with real gods.


It is on political grounds, not scientific grounds, that some in the scientific community avoid acknowledging that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory, ALL god beliefs are of imaginary beings.

Political grounds may indeed be important here. I'll even go so far and say they are important.

But the theory, 'all god beliefs are beliefs of imaginary beings', unjustifiably remains the one evidence supported theory that must not be named. The scientific justification for ignoring the evidence is not there. Simply because one can describe an untestable god, is not scientific justification for ignoring the evidence that people imagine gods while there is no evidence people have really encountered gods.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
Exactly, which is why a story being fiction cannot be used to test for the veracity of any element of the story.

Except Linda and I are looking at a particular quality of the elements found in the myth, not the specific element of the myth. I can understand why you see the god part of the myth as an element. It is. But it is the magical supernatural quality of the god that is not found in common between the real world and the myth. That is what I am saying there is no evidence of.

 

[Piscivore]

Is the dichotomy false because there is a third option?

Yes.

I'll take this as a, "no", to the question I just asked. The choices are two, imaginary gods or real gods.

That's not the original dichotomy you presented. I think from talking with you about this that you think that it is, but it is not. "Originated with myth" and "Imaginary gods" are not the same thing because some things that may appear to "originate" with myth might not actually, simply because the origins of lots of myths are not known. Our theories and conjectures that they do are not evidence that they are. The evidence that you keep citing is only evidence of change in myth, not evidence that it is made up wholesale. Look at Troy, again. It was once thought to be myth, now we don't think it is.

I know you're going to say next that "but Troy was there all along", sure- but before we found it, we didn't know that. That may be the position we are in now with gods. No science or evidence rules that out, as yet. It is very very unlively, but not certain by a long shot- especially since we do not have the first clue what "god" might be- just a lot of opinion- yours included- is based on what we know is flawed information.

Moving on to your second objection. If you think you have some convincing evidence that real gods contributed to any god myths, present it.

Every single culture in the world, ever, has had a myth about some kind of god belief. Why?

There is another more logical way to look at your analogy. The myth in your example originated from observations of the natural world, as do many myths according to what the evidence shows.

Do we have evidence myths contain bits of truth? Yes. The bits of truth, however, turn out not to be the fantastic magical parts of the myths, the bits of truth turn out consistently to be natural real things.

Yeah, if you'll read, I specifically said that any "god" entity would have to not be "magical".

Over and over again you assume that "god" = "supernatural". That's not necessarily so.

I understand your argument, but it fails to support the claim any of the true bits in myths are the magical fantastic bits. The pattern is consistent, not that everything in a myth is false. I have not drawn that conclusion. The pattern is that everything in the myth which is true, is also not supernatural. That is the conclusion I have drawn. Any evidence you have which contradicts that conclusion is invited.

I stipulated that. Why are you assuming "god" = "supernatural"?

 

[Piscivore]

I'm certain there is no evidence that any of the magical parts of myths are real. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

What myth can you cite in which the real bits were the supernatural magical bits?

A "real god" is a being with magical, supernatural abilities like all the other magical beings with supernatural abilities we have yet to find evidence supporting the existence of.

Think about the arguments from Creationists. What do they have in common with the discussion here?

They try to use debunking of evolution theory as evidence for Creation. And they use the false pretense that because we can't "prove" a theory we should speak of evolution theory as tentative.

That's a fallacy, yes. That's not what I'm doing. I'm calling into question your assumption "god" = "supernatural".

I am not arguing one cannot describe a Deist untestable/not falsifiable god. I am arguing against treating the conclusions we draw about the evidence against everything magical and supernatural except certain gods with a double standard. I have made this argument before.

You still have yet to do anything but assert this alleged "double standard".

Treating different concepts differently is not a "double standard. A deist god that is not alleged to be "supernatural" in any way is not getting "special treatment". Treating gods that are not claimed to be "supernatural" with the same yardstick as those that are is "special treatment"- it's called a fallacy of association.

There is no scientific evidence supporting magical supernatural beings.
There is evidence supporting humans making up myths about magical supernatural beings.

Agreed. Why do you assume "god" = "magical supernatural being"?

The evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory, ALL god beliefs are of imaginary beings.

What other evidence do you have other than that most gods you know about have myths woven around them?

Other than the claim one cannot PROVE this theory, which is true for just about every scientific theory, there is no evidence supporting the alternative theory, some god beliefs are the result of actual human encounters with real gods.

Every single culture in the world, ever, has had a myth about some kind of god belief. Why? Why did none of them (that I know of) start with a purely naturalisitc, scientific explanation first?

It is on political grounds, not scientific grounds, that some in the scientific community avoid acknowledging that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory, ALL god beliefs are of imaginary beings.

Do you have evidence of this political influence? Could it just be that the scientific community recognises your hypothesis as logically flawed, like I and several other here do?

Political grounds may indeed be important here. I'll even go so far and say they are important.

But the theory, 'all god beliefs are beliefs of imaginary beings', unjustifiably remains the one evidence supported theory that must not be named.

Yeah, who sounds like a creationist now. Should we "teach the controversy", since the scientific community is so cowed?

The scientific justification for ignoring the evidence is not there.

There doesn't need to be- simple logic shows that it is fallacy-ridden and wrong.

Simply because one can describe an untestable god, is not scientific justification for ignoring the evidence that people imagine gods while there is no evidence people have really encountered gods.

Maybe not, but it is logical justification to say that because people imagine some gods, or some characteristic of gods, they did so for all of them.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Good grief, Pisci, if we ain't talking supernatural here, then what on Earth are you talking about? I'm not arguing there wasn't a Jesus (though I think The God Who Wasn't There" makes a good case for it.).

You've lost me. What is your issue? That real people inspired god myths? D'uh! That's the point.

I'll look more carefully at what you've written after you clear this up and when this maddening database error thing quits. Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhh!!!!!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

If someone you trust calls and tells you your house is on fire, do you wait for them to bring you a smoldering chunk of wood you can test in the lab before you believe them? As others have told you, you're just not going to get that kind of evidence investigating theism. It's in a whole nother realm. That doesn't mean it's not true. (I think the whole notion of "scientific evidence" breaks down when examined closely, but that's for a radicical skeptic's thread).

I agree. I'm glad to see you backing away from your claim that ...

The conclusions that other people come to are irrelevant.

I'm not sure what claim you think I am backing away from but since I've not backed away from any of my claims here I assume it was something you misunderstood.

As for the evidence you are trying to present as scientific evidence, I'm sorry, Malerin but I am only the messenger here about what is and is not scientific evidence. And personal gut feelings, spiritual experiences and the like are not scientific evidence of gods.

I am talking about people within the scientific community addressing (or not) scientific evidence.

...Is a one-time message that SETI picks up reproducible? Would it still confirm the hypothesis "aliens exist"?

If the source were confirmed and the message unmistakable, yes, otherwise no. If god showed up and it was clearly not a trick, you'd have your evidence.

You brought up "other people" into this. Regardless, you may not think anecdotal accounts are scientific evidence, yet certain areas of science depend on anecdotal accounts and subjective experience.

Systematically collected anecdotal accounts, especially with controls are definitely scientific evidence. We use such data often in medical research. One additional requirement, however, is you have to demonstrate how the evidence supports the conclusion.

So for example, I cannot conduct a survey where the questions are biased and then claim the result supports my biased conclusion. One needs to validate one's methodology in scientific research. One doesn't just say, I surveyed 20 people and 18 believed in God therefore that is evidence God exists. I would need to demonstrate that the evidence supported the conclusion. You cannot use the conclusion in this case as evidence. You would need more than that.

But the question is of the generic form "Does God exist?" We can posit 100 different aliens, consider them all ridiculous and still not have made a dent in the hypothesis "Does alien life exist?".

There's more than one way to test what you are asking here in your example. It is the alternative I am talking about testing.

Evidence shows god myths are common. Zeus, Ra, Pele, Thor...... and so on.
Evidence is lacking real gods exist. Prayers aren't really answered, for example. The Bible contains only the knowledge one would expect to see in the time and place the texts were written. It doesn't get the germ theory right, for example. If a real god inspired the Bible, knowledge of the germ theory thousands of years before the microscope was invented would be hard to explain. But that knowledge is not in the Bible. Fear of lepers and a ban on pork don't cut it. Leprosy is really not very contagious and you could just cook the pork.

And it can be. Millions and millions of people have reported the same experience. Do you think I'm the only person in the world who's ever claimed to have a spiritual experience? Now, if you want to confirm the reported spiritual account is an actual spiritual account, that's a lot more metaphysical.

Nor did I claim there was "scientific evidence". I claimed there was evidence God exists.

Yes, you did but this thread and what I'm talking about is scientific evidence.

I am presenting the evidence. NDE's and cross-cultural subjective spiritual accounts are a real phenemenon. "God exists" explains why this phenemena exists.

If you really had the scientific evidence you would be applying for the MDC.

Defining God to be untestable does not mean there is no God.

And it is not a reason to ignore the evidence people develop god myths.

If you're unsure whether that organism exists or not, yes, you would need a caveat.

But there is no evidence organisms that did not evolve exist on Earth, only evidence organisms that evolved do, so no caveat. No evidence gods exist, only evidence god myths are common, so no caveat.

What do you think science should say then?

The evidence supports the conclusion people invent god beliefs. There is no evidence supporting the conclusion real gods exist. Period, the end, no caveat about untestable gods is justified on scientific grounds. It is understood theories which best explain the evidence don't require proof.

 

[Hokulele]

Every single culture in the world, ever, has had a myth about some kind of god belief. Why?

I strongly disagree with this line of reasoning. Although almost every culture has some form of god concept (IIRC, there is an Amazonian tribe which has no god concepts whatsoever, but I am too lazy to track down a hard reference at the moment), they aren't all the same god concept. There is a big difference between the workings of ancestor worship, animism, and Abrahamic monotheism.

I believe this is a relic of shoehorning anything religious/supernatural into the English word "god". It is similar to the problem you would find trying to claim a Chinese long is the same creature as a French wyvern just because we can refer to all of them as dragons. (Campbell did interesting work, but his cramming everything into one archetypical suitcase was asinine.)

Saying that all cultures are pointing towards the same god concept is a gross oversimplification.

 

[Piscivore]

I strongly disagree with this line of reasoning. Although almost every culture has some form of god concept (IIRC, there is an Amazonian tribe which has no god concepts whatsoever, but I am too lazy to track down a hard reference at the moment), they aren't all the same god concept. There is a big difference between the workings of ancestor worship, animism, and Abrahamic monotheism.

I'd love to see that reference. And yes, there is a big difference. That's years of cultural evolution at work. A game of "telephone" across the millenia.

I believe this is a relic of shoehorning anything religious/supernatural into the English word "god". It is similar to the problem you would find trying to claim a Chinese long is the same creature as a French wyvern just because we can refer to all of them as dragons. (Campbell did interesting work, but his cramming everything into one archetypical suitcase was asinine.)

I agree with that as well. That's not what I am saying.

Saying that all cultures are pointing towards the same god concept is a gross oversimplification.

Yes it is. I didn't say that. I said that there could be some idea or entity that caused similar ideas to germinate. It could be as simple a thing as "we don't really die", or "there's something bigger than us", or even "there's something in the bushes watching me". That there is danger in the bushes is real, even if the creature the poor little slob is imagining isn't.

 

[Piscivore]

I'll look more carefully at what you've written after you clear this up and when this maddening database error thing quits. Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhh!!!!!

I'm with you there.

 

[Hokulele]

I'd love to see that reference. And yes, there is a big difference.

Bastard. It will have to wait a bit as I am on the road this week, and I am not sure if it is Googlable.

That's years of cultural evolution at work. A game of "telephone" across the millenia.

Or, they are completely different concepts that emerged separately, for completely different reasons, and cultural anthropologists choose to emphasize their similarities rather than their differences.

I agree with that as well. That's not what I am saying.

OK, I apologize. It did seem like it was what you were saying, especially as there seems to be some confusion between god-belief, religion, and the supernatural in this thread.

Yes it is. I didn't say that. I said that there could be some idea or entity that caused similar ideas to germinate. It could be as simple a thing as "we don't really die", or "there's something bigger than us", or even "there's something in the bushes watching me". That there is danger in the bushes is real, even if the creature the poor little slob is imagining isn't.

Well, if it comes down to that, I would say that the commonality between all religions, god-based or not, is, "Life is unfair. What can I do about it or who can I blame?" The god bit comes in due to the fact that humanity generally prefers to be able to blame someone, even if that someone ends up really being themselves (see Catholicism for a lovely example).

Cats, on the other hand, generally blame everything on the dog.

 

[BillyJoe]

Linda

What has always been of more interest to me is how one knows that you have exhausted all natural explanations?

If, at some time in the far distant future, science can explain everything except "how something came from nothing", if there is finally a Theory Of Everything except "how something came from nothing" and therefore no more clues as to how to answer that final question, then I would say that no further progress would be possible for a natural explanation of that final question, leaving only a supernatural explanation.

 

[BillyJoe]

That sound again

There are a couple of problems with that scenario. One, you're assuming the conclusion, we know everything except that one thing because it cannot be known. Thus, the scenario only works if indeed the explanation cannot be known - which is what we're debating.

If we have a Theory Of Everything except "how something arose from nothing", how do we approach that final question when everything else has been neatly tied up and explained. It would be like having a jig-saw picture puzzle with one bit remaining but nowhere to place it because the picture puzzle is complete.

Two, there's no way to know for certain that you know everything.

Not everything but everything except "how something came from nothing". And we would know this because there is nothing left in need of an explanation.

I'd further argue that even knowing everything is impossible from within this universe, because your knowledge of the universe would have to be as large as the universe itself. And that's just for the current state, no history included.

You are arguing that it is impossible to know everything from within the universe (just as it is impossible to represent the universe on a computer). Interesting point. In other words, you are arguing that my hypothetical scenario is impossible. Maybe I can accept that.

That last is a rather interesting problem. See Jorge Luis Borges' "On Rigor in Science", or Umberto Eco's "On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1".

I think I get the picture.

 

[BillyJoe]

Skeptigirl

Which goes back to my answer, adding a "God did it" layer only begs the same question, where did this god come from. In other words, "god did it", answers nothing. It merely gives a false impression it answers the question. I commented in the future this would be obvious even to a fool, but subsequently apologized to all the people today who currently think "god did it" actually answers something.

I agree. I just thought it would be a geat result for deists if science ever
got to the stage of having a theory of everything except for "how something came from nothing". They could argue that, all natural explanations having been exhausted, the explanation for "how something came from nothing" must be supernatural.

"God did it" is one of the biggest nonsensical answers theists give.

Yeah but the deists have The Ultimate Gap: A god who does nothing except start the whole shebang by creating something out of nothing.

"God made the Universe."
"Who made God?"
[fill in any answer dodge here you want]

Maybe supernatural entities require supernatural explanations and perhaps supernatural explanations are beyond the capabilities of mere mortals.

 

[BillyJoe]

Piscavore

I'm calling into question your assumption "god" = "supernatural".

I get it...

The deist god is a natural being.
When man knows everything, he will be god. And, like the deist god before him, he will create other universes containing people who will think a supernatural deist god created their universe, until they too know everything and become natural gods who create further universes...

All we need now is a theory of circular time to get rid of that nasty unexplainable first deist god and we're....

...all packaged up neat and tidy.

 

[fls]

Piscivore has done some of my responding for me. I'll just add that whereas specific God stories can be analyzed as you suggest, one cannot necessarily generalize from them to the overarching God Theory. Part of the reason -- and one of the ways we know the God theory is not a proper scientific theory -- is that the minimum requirements are lacking: there's no well-defined set of terms.

I disagree. God doesn't exist separately from the collection of entities variously subsumed under that heading. One simply addresses the sources of the ideas of each of those entities or one addresses group characteristics in order to draw conclusions about the group.

In other words, we have no agreed upon definition of God, of his attributes, of his testable qualities. Specific God myths are often sufficiently defined to dismiss. Not so the vague, generic Deist God skeptigirl wishes to drop into the Atlantic with concrete shoes.

The Deist God seems well-defined to me - well enough to be recognizable as redundant.

I didn't mean to suggest that science ever does or should give up on a question. My point was that there are times and questions where the best it can do is to say, “this is not presently amenable to scientific inquiry.” Which I believe is the case with the theory of God.

But when has science ever said that something is not amenable to scientific inquiry? And why would anyone say that about this 'theory of God' when clearly it has been and is amenable to scientific inquiry?

Linda

 

[fls]

This says nothing about the existence of such an entity, however.

Agreed. Which is why the variable, clearly accretionary, and obviously mythical properties and identities assigned to specific gods are less interesting to me than the fact that every single culture of which I am aware has had a god concept of some kind.

Once this layer of mythologization is stripped away, we seem to have much more corroborating literary reference for this mysterious entity at the core of these stories than we do Achilles, yeah?

Of course. And that's why we have proven the existence of this entity (technically, entities) many times over.

That says that the mythologised, accretionary qualities are false, and any entity that must have these qualities does not exist- but it does not rule out the possibility that there is an entity to whom these qualities are mistakenly assigned due to the mythologising process we know exists.

Exactly. And we already know these entities exist and the assignment of magical properties was a mistake.

I'm not talking about your argument or the scholars', I'm talking about the one in the OP which I've heard proffered many times already. If there is something more subtle than "god stories are myths => gods are myths" is meant it is not coming across to me.

Oh. It comes across to me as something more like "the god-like properties of mythical entities are not independently confirmed".

Linda

 

[fls]

What is a "real god"?

A capricious creative or controlling force.

How are you certain that no "real thing" we do not know about or recognise yet isn't behind the god myths just as much as Troy or a C-47?

We already know that real things are behind the god myths, so it is reasonable to think that we will discover yet another real thing is behind the residual god myths of 'Fine-Tuner' or 'Before the Big Bang'. And that realization (as far as I can tell), is the whole point of this thread. We have good reason, based on past performance, to be fairly certain that additional real things are available for discovery, just like Gravity and Electromagnetism and Solar Flares we discovered to be the real things behind prior god myths. Why would we assume otherwise?

Linda

 

[fls]

If, at some time in the far distant future, science can explain everything except "how something came from nothing", if there is finally a Theory Of Everything except "how something came from nothing" and therefore no more clues as to how to answer that final question, then I would say that no further progress would be possible for a natural explanation of that final question, leaving only a supernatural explanation.

That's the part I don't understand. How does ignorance allow one to make a statement of knowledge. If you don't know anything about a something, how can you say what the characteristics of that something must be (i.e. 'supernatural' vs. 'natural')?

Linda

 

[Ryan O'Dine]

You are repeating the thing I am arguing against as if that changes anything. It doesn't.

I like to think that by restating an issue, it gives both parties an opportunity to elaborate. Sometimes that brings the parties closer, sometimes it just annoys them.

All the evidence, lots and lots of it, supports the conclusion people make up god myths.
No scientific evidence supports the conclusion that any gods are the source of any god myths.

Yes. But can you go from there to saying that science therefore disproves the existence of God? Isn't that what you're doing?

How many god myths does it take to recognize a pattern? How many trees do you need to see to recognize a new tree is a tree when you see one? How many alien abductions do you need to investigate to recognize the next alien abduction fits the same pattern?

I wonder if that question is really relevant to your arguments.

Consider the archaea. Before certain techniques of genetic analysis were developed, when science saw a single celled prokaryote, it was a bacteria. There was no evidence for a different kind of prokayote, certainly no need to propose one, and no predictions of groundbreaking new techniques. The wrong conclusion at that stage would have been, “we have seen and classified millions of bacteria, there's no honking big gap in our grasp of microbe classification; therefore science has determined there can be no other kind of prokaryote.” The right conclusion: “At this time, we know of only one kind of prokaryote.”

Please note: I'm only addressing here the question of “how many makes a conclusive pattern?”.

Claiming we don't have the tools to recognize the pattern of god myths is not a scientifically sound statement.

Emphatically not my claim. Recognizing a pattern of god myths is one thing. Discounting the possibility of God based on that particular pattern may or may not be scientifically appropriate.

What theory? "Gods exist" is a conclusion. A theory is an overall framework explaining evidence. "Gods exist" is not evidence.

The evidence we have is 'god beliefs'. If you take the hypothesis, real gods explain god beliefs, it fails because there is no supporting evidence. You can take the usual cop out and say you couldn't think of any way to test that hypothesis because it is possible to define an untestable god.

But if you take the hypothesis, human imagination explains god beliefs, now you actually find supporting evidence for that hypothesis.

So here are some in the scientific community saying we can't test the god hypothesis. But that ignores the fact we have a viable hypothesis with supporting evidence that does answer the god question. The evidence supports the conclusion that "god beliefs" originate from imagination. Period, the end. No unexplained evidence is left over to require further hypotheses or theories.

You tell me, what evidence is left that needs explaining?

Pondering the possibility that something could have existed before the Big Bang is reasonable based on the fact everything else we see in the Universe appears to have had something before its beginning.

It is not reasonable on scientific grounds to ponder the existence of anything a person could possibly imagine. Thus on what basis does one ponder the possibility actual flying spaghetti monsters, invisible pink unicorns or invisible garage dragons exist? There is none.

The fact lots of people believe in gods has been explained by following the evidence which supports the conclusion those gods are myths. There is no reasonable scientific grounds to ponder the existence of real gods except as human fantasies like FSMs, IPUs and IGDs.

Remember, I am not arguing there are no political issues here regarding god beliefs. I am arguing the scientific case for claiming science doesn't go there is full of holes.
-

I agree with almost all of what you say. I disagree only with the conclusion. Often science can extrapolate from specific cases to the general. My belief is that that just isn't possible here.

You say “There is no reasonable scientific grounds to ponder the existence of real gods except as human fantasies like FSMs, IPUs and IGDs.” Absolutely. But having no scientific grounds to ponder something is not the same as science concluding that that something doesn't exist. In fact, if science has no grounds to ponder something, it has no grounds to reach a conclusion about that something.

Let me emphasize that my issue with your arguments is less about the existence of God, and more about the conditions science needs to come to a conclusion in any given case. I hope that's clear.

 

[Ryan O'Dine]

I disagree. God doesn't exist separately from the collection of entities variously subsumed under that heading. One simply addresses the sources of the ideas of each of those entities or one addresses group characteristics in order to draw conclusions about the group.

I think the problem here is that there are definitions of God that are not mythical in nature, and the Deist God is one of them. You can do what both you and skeptigirl propose about the mythologies. But a God defined as, say, “an overarching universal intelligence” lies outside the “Mythological Gods” group. Conclusions about the latter may or may not hold for the former.

The Deist God seems well-defined to me - well enough to be recognizable as redundant.

Not trying to be snarky, but could you define the deist God so I know what you mean?

But when has science ever said that something is not amenable to scientific inquiry?

Not amenable at this time. That last is all-important, and history -- as I'm sure you're aware -- is jam-packed with examples. Darwin had no clue how characteristics were passed on, and no way of finding out – it was decades and many technical advancements before the discovery of genetics was possible. A thermal theory of the sun was not possible before relativity and spectrometry. And so on.

We can only test things when we have the tools to test for them.

And why would anyone say that about this 'theory of God' when clearly it has been and is amenable to scientific inquiry?

Linda

You can test God mythologies. My contention is that that is not the same as testing for God. (As I said, there are non-mythological notions of God.)