Taking a second look at untestable gods.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I just don't see a single itty bitty reason whatsoever to throw "magic did it" into the mix. The evidence would be what it would be. Why invent answers that are not in evidence?

 

[BillyJoe]

Oh, come on now...

...not even in this very very special hypothetical scenario that someone here assures me cannot never ever happen?



BJ

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...not even in this very very special hypothetical scenario that someone here assures me cannot never ever happen?



BJ

Nope, not even your special case.

Think about it. You are saying we have figured out everything except one last thing. So you give up and say, voila, god did it.

Did some god decide to make itself known and provide any reason we should invoke the 'god did it' reason?

Long before this 'knowledge' happened I looked closely at the god myths and determined they were as lacking in evidence as all the other woo discussed on JREF. I see no more reason to say, god did it, than to say, the Easter Bunny did it.

 

[BillyJoe]

I'm saying that one last thing cannot be figured out.

Everything fits together like a jig-saw puzzle. Except the remaining piece. It does not fit in the puzzle because the puzzle is complete. Maybe that piece, lying outside the puzzle, explains why the puzzle is there.

BJ

 

[Beth]

A hologram doesn't point toward a designer. Nor does being "fine tuned"

Okay. We'll just have to disagree on this point. While I wouldn't consider it conclusive as there are other possible explanations, I would consider it evidence that points toward a designer. Thanks for answering my question.

 

[Egg]

If the evidence supports I have the magical power to levitate then that's what the evidence supports. It becomes part of the natural world because the evidence makes it natural.

I can see how the evidence could support your ability to levitate, but how could it support that the power was "magical"?

I just don't see a single itty bitty reason whatsoever to throw "magic did it" into the mix. The evidence would be what it would be. Why invent answers that are not in evidence?

It strikes me that you're the one throwing "magic did it" into the mix. I don't think anyone else in the thread has used the word in describing gods. How are you defining "magic"?

 

[Egg]

3) The hypothesis, god beliefs are invented, was directly observed with the Cargo Cults.

I would say that one of the key observations about Cargo Cults is that they were based on encountering significantly superior technology and not just on imagination.

You suggest we have "overwhelming evidence" that earlier god beliefs were based on imagination. What sort of evidence are you talking about here? Do we have any kind of concrete evidence to tell us what led to such beliefs?

 

[Malerin]

Those odds are meaningless speculation the consensus view in cosmology.

Over the course of several threads, I've quoted probably a dozen physicists in support of my claim. To date, only one opposing expert has been cited. I'll see your Victor Stenger and raise you a Stephen Hawking and Andrei Linde

 

[Ryan O'Dine]

...snip...
I think that without some sort of 'fabulous' nature, whatever it is that you are talking about would not be a god. And that science is amenable to addressing whether or not something is 'fabulous' in nature.

Linda

I suppose we're getting to the heart of the matter. Being supernatural is a traditional property of God, but is it necessary?

Perhaps I'm venturing onto thin ice, but the case can be made for a materialistic Deist God as we've described. Intelligence isn't supernatural, nor is a really, really big intelligence. As the A.I. folks will tell you, it's possible that intelligence need not be confined to a neuron-filled brain. You see where I'm going.

And actually, I'm a little rusty on my philosophers, but I believe both Spinoza and the Transcendentalists also formulated non-supernatural, materialistic gods.

So if you can live with the above, perhaps you'll agree – the “God” concept simply has too wide a latitude for science to rule it out.

 

[Ryan O'Dine]

Can you identify the specific scientific argument for why we must disprove gods, while with everything else we use the standard of, the evidence supports?

If 90% of the worlds population believes something adamantly, and science decides to treat it with more weight than is demanded by the objective evidence alone, what exactly is the harm?

 

[BillyJoe]

While I wouldn't consider it conclusive as there are other possible explanations, I would consider it evidence that points toward a designer.

The "other possible explanations" are natural explanations.
But "a designer" is a supernatural explanation.
We should always prefer natural to supernatural explanations for the simple reason that a supernatural explanation entails positing the existence of an entity who poses a greater mystery than the thing we are trying to explain.

BJ

 

[BillyJoe]

...the case can be made for a materialistic Deist God as we've described. Intelligence isn't supernatural, nor is a really, really big intelligence. As the A.I. folks will tell you, it's possible that intelligence need not be confined to a neuron-filled brain. You see where I'm going.

Yes, I've been there.
But it doesn't seem to work. Here's why:

Instead of god, the universe could have been created by a superior alien being from another universe. Is that god? If so, what about the superior alien who created that alien's universe? And it's turtles all the way up. And what about us? Could a human evolve sufficiently and/or accumulate sufficient knowledge to be able to create other universes in which he is regarded as being a god?

This thread is about whether science has anything to say about god. Obviously, science would have something to say about materialist gods like the ones described above.

On the other hand, the concept of a deist god is of a being who is nothing (non-material) and who created something from nothing. The purpose of this thread is to ask if science has anything to say about such a being.

(It seems we already agree that science has something to say about the interventionist theistc god)

BJ

 

[Beth]

The "other possible explanations" are natural explanations.
But "a designer" is a supernatural explanation.
We should always prefer natural to supernatural explanations for the simple reason that a supernatural explanation entails positing the existence of an entity who poses a greater mystery than the thing we are trying to explain.

BJ

Yes, well, when the other possible explanations are things like additional universes, and "we don't know, but it's possible there is some constraint on those values that we'll figure out at some point in the future", I don't find the designer explanation to be much more of a stretch. I agree that all are possible explanations. The "We don't know but maybe we'll find out in the future" is my personal favorite, but I don't find either of the other two hard to fathom either.

 

[Ryan O'Dine]

As I walk further onto the thin ice...

Yes, I've been there.
But it doesn't seem to work. Here's why:

Instead of god, the universe could have been created by a superior alien being from another universe. Is that god? If so, what about the superior alien who created that alien's universe? And it's turtles all the way...um...up. And what about us? Could a human evolve sufficiently and/or accumulate sufficient knowledge to be able to create other universes in which he is regarded as being a god?

This thread is about whether science has anything to say about god. Obviously, science would have something to say about materialist gods like the ones described above.

On the other hand, the concept of a deist god is of a being who is nothing (non-material) and who created something from nothing. The purpose of this thread is to ask if science has anything to say about such a being.

(Because it seems we already agree that science has something to say about the interventionist theistc god)

BJ

I'm actually wondering if we can move away from the religious gods and give the philosophical gods a little breathing room.

In that spirit, imagine the universe as a computer. It starts from completely natural causes, the conditions at the Big Bang giving it its initial conditions, the laws of physics its algorithms. Now imagine this computer naturally becomes self-aware. Could you not call that self-aware entity a god?

Perhaps its intelligence is so great that we ourselves aren't developed enough to communicate with it, though it's theoretically possible to do so (see Carl Sagan's novel Contact if you want the sci fi version).

Can I not call that a non-religious, materialistic, acceptably defined god? If not, why not?

(I admit there's no reason to believe in such a god, but it would give science a reason to keep its hat in the ring, so to speak.)

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm saying that one last thing cannot be figured out.

Everything fits together like a jig-saw puzzle. Except the remaining piece. It does not fit in the puzzle because the puzzle is complete. Maybe that piece, lying outside the puzzle, explains why the puzzle is there.

BJ

It isn't that I don't get what you said, BJ. I'm saying that without any rational reason, I'd just opt to leave the last unknown unknown rather than faking an answer.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Okay. We'll just have to disagree on this point. While I wouldn't consider it conclusive as there are other possible explanations, I would consider it evidence that points toward a designer. Thanks for answering my question.

But you are saying extremely complex and rare implies design and I am asking you to justify that implication. Lots of very rare complex things exist that were not designed.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

If 90% of the worlds population believes something adamantly, and science decides to treat it with more weight than is demanded by the objective evidence alone, what exactly is the harm?

That is not a scientific argument.

I concede there is a political argument here. My complaint is with claiming that political argument can be made on scientific grounds. The scientific argument is full of holes.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I can see how the evidence could support your ability to levitate, but how could it support that the power was "magical"?

That's the point, once the evidence supports it, it is 'natural'. Thus the idea science does not look for supernatural explanations is misinterpreted to mean certain explanations are ruled out. What is ruled out are baseless explanations.

It strikes me that you're the one throwing "magic did it" into the mix. I don't think anyone else in the thread has used the word in describing gods. How are you defining "magic"?

God did it by magic. Whether you call it magic or say god did it is the same thing.

Either you can explain how something occurred based on the evidence, you cannot explain it, or you say it happened by magic. Who performs the magic doesn't matter.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I would say that one of the key observations about Cargo Cults is that they were based on encountering significantly superior technology and not just on imagination.

You suggest we have "overwhelming evidence" that earlier god beliefs were based on imagination. What sort of evidence are you talking about here? Do we have any kind of concrete evidence to tell us what led to such beliefs?

Or you could more justifiably say the Cargo cults were based on encountering a natural phenomena that was not understood.

Again, if people want to present an evidence based case supporting god beliefs originating from real encounters with real gods, by all means, write that paper. I welcome it. The complaint I make here is using the fact one can describe an untestable god to then claim science has nothing to say about the likelihood gods exist.

It is my hypothesis your case would be extremely weak, while the evidence supporting god beliefs as myths would be very strong. The end result is still that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion gods are myths. I don't need to prove my conclusion. I wouldn't need to prove the conclusion people imagined fairies and leprechauns, why would I need to prove gods fall in the same category?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

....And it's turtles all the way up.

BJ

Oh that's great. I love that metaphor.