by caliber 44 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
In like manner Santa Claus, Unicorns and Superman are outside the scope of proof, or disproof, of scientific inquiry
Thanks very much ... I think this actually proves the point ! ..... the area of belief
When you get into the area of spiritual things or qualities(love, joy etc )
what is there for science to measure ?
Judging from the number of Apologist books that come in to the bookstore where I work, Christian believers are obsessed to the point of paranoia about Evolution, Atheism, Gnosticism, bible criticism.
Faith just isn't good enough. Thick books belaboring purile arguments with Ad Hoc responses proliferate.
Lee Strobel and Josh McDowell have turned these fears into a cottage industry.
Bart Ehrman has lit a fire and the fireman are running around in circles trying to stamp them out.
Faith is the only fallback for belief in God and plenary inspiration the only argument for bible infallibility.
Faith is the only fallback for belief in God..... Agreed...... faith is everything to appreciate God's existence
there is no other true measure
God - The Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger shows that Science does disprove God and hence the the alternative is that Science could prove God. He follows a number of lines of reasoning to make the point. Stenger shows that maths, quantum physics etc shows no need for God and no external influences can be accounted for. He also discusses theology, philosophy and how these too show God is unlikely.
The book shows that BTS's comment is not accurate, as science measures what is measurable, not just what is natural. For instance, if God is doing miracles, then these affect nature and so are measurable. If God made the sun stand still, that would have an affect that various of the sciences could observe.
the problem is the examples given were actually produced by the person attributed to them, whereas gods work is based purely on hearsay.
Would the verses below be part of this hearsay ??
19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the sky displays his handiwork.
19:2 Day after day it speaks out;
night after night it reveals his greatness.
19:3 There is no actual speech or word,
nor is its voice literally heard.
19:4 Yet its voice echoes throughout the earth;
its words carry to the distant horizon.
In the sky he has pitched a tent for the sun
The only real tangible proof of the existence of god is in are own inherent human ignorance.
Would the verses below be part of this hearsay ??
Actually, yes.
I am interested in how those who put full faith in the scientific method would answer.
This is dangerously close to (if not actual) trolling. Copy-pasting things things you didn't write from some random website and claiming you are "interested" in how others will respond is almost always preaching, not genuine curiosity or an opening for honest discussion. It's even worse when the things pasted contain obvious strawmen and sloppy definitions.
To clarify:
People don't have "faith" in the scientific method. Scientists utilize evidence-based methods because they work. We can measure and mathematically model the natural world, and the results are useful and coherent. Induction cannot (or at least hasn't) been logically "proved", but we are justified in using it because it works. However, this it not the same as "faith" which it believing something without evidence. If you think faith means "believing something because their is past evidence for it", you are using a bad definition. We already have a word for that, induction. If "faith" means everything from something that has no evidence to something that has lots of evidence, the word is meaningless.
Additionally, you can't "prove" something with science. Science provides evidence. Evidence is considered when formulating a theory, which can make predictions and explains facts about nature. Proof only comes in math and logic. These start out with axioms, and a proof is basically a big chain of "A=B" statements that eventually link the axioms to some conclusion. Science can't do this, but it does provide evidence that probabilistically links current knowledge with new knowledge. It is also open to new evidence and observation.
In like manner God is outside the scope of proof, or disproof, of scientific inquiry.
This is true, for the reason BTS provided.
The existence of God cannot be proved or disproved in this fashion because the universe does not sustain the existence of God; rather, God sustains the existence of the universe.
Wrong. (Besides the misuse of "proof.") What does this even mean? How does the author know this? Does he realize that this is a total non-sequitur, with no logical link between "science cannot access knowledge about (a supernatural) God" and "thus God sustains the universe."
Science can only be used to address the naturalistic claims of religious believers. If you claim that the world is 6000 years old, I can say that you're wrong because science disagrees with that claim. If you say that God supernaturally created the world to look 14 billion years old, while it's *really* only 6000, science can't say anything about that. I will criticize you because your philosophical approach to knowledge is ridiculous, because this idea undermines all possible human knowledge, and is totally ad hoc. But your statement is not a scientific claim, it's a supernatural religious claim.
However, this also means that you cannot use science to "reveal God's glory" or whatever. This is a two-edged epistemological sword. The methods of inference that you are using to determine the attributes, attitudes, or desires of God totally fail because they are being applied to a supernatural subject. How do you know that God has motivations that work in any way that you know? How can you make the analogy between human ideas and the ideas of a supernatural being? No analogy can be made. David Hume explained this hundreds of years ago. Go read the "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion."
Good job burning that strawman. No one said that God doesn't exist because science can't discover things about the supernatural. The rest of the above sentence is barely readable and also makes a logical error stating that because a method has no canonical formulation it must not be valid. That is false.So to say the scientific method finds there is no God , therefore God can't exist .... would seem to be cast in doubt if
the system of measurement is misapplied plus the tool or measurement itself cannot to totally agreed upon.
However, there is not a single agreed upon set of steps in the scientific method
You paste this as if we should find it surprising. Anyone who has actually worked in a lab and done research knows that science is not some "insert tab A into slot B" procedure that grinds out facts. Science is messy, difficult, and involves many false starts. However, it is possible to find some general commonalities among the various methods of scientific inquiry and distill them a scientific method. "The Scientific Method" is a philosophical concept, and thus is argued about by philosophers of science. This does not mean that science doesn't work or that the method of building rational models that explain observable phenomena is suspect.
With the above stated, a God that doesn't have any measurable effect on natural world is impotent and there is no reason to think about It.
jwfacts - I've read Vic Stenger's book, and he is both right and wrong. If a believer is claiming that there is natural, scientific evidence for God, then science can address this claim. However, if a believer makes a claim involving supernatural causation, then science can't say anything. This is not because science is lacking, but because supernatural explanations are so vague and terrible. They are so slippery and useless that science has nothing to really "grab onto". However, it can be said that science can work just fine without God, making Him superfluous even if He does exist.
I see two choices for two things... natural & super natural..... must I be forced to chose only one ???
You're not, but you've failed to advance any coherent, rational method of knowing anything about the supernatural. What is the supernatural? How does it behave? How do you know? Can you verify this information to someone else?
When you get into the area of spiritual things or qualities(love, joy etc )
what is there for science to measure ?
Since when are these things "spiritual"? What does that even mean? Last I checked, only beings with functioning brains have emotions or desires. These sorts of things a justing starting to reveal themselves by way of fMRI scans and other methods of determining neural activity.
..... Agreed...... faith is everything to appreciate God's existence
there is no other true measure
I'm pretty sure this sentence is meaningless. Congratulations on being really good at believing things.
Terry - You're absolutely right about apologists. No one who has a good reason for something says "you need faith to understand."
