Evidence of God

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Not really. Perhaps not in an absolute sense, but science proceeds a least on the basis that, say, potassium is real but phlogiston is not.
 
In epistemic terms yes.

Depends what you mean by “do”. Science defines, describes and explains phenomena – it isn’t the phenomena themselves though.
 
Nope. Gravity being naturalistic is a more parsimonious explanation – ie, it requires fewer assumptions - than pixies holding stuff down with very thin stings  so we can reasonably call the former “true” albeit with no reference to absolute positions.

But there would be for a god showing up in person, or at least to the satisfaction of the Bible’s authors there would be.

Or any other test either. That’s the problem for people who would claim the divine and want the claim to be taken seriously.

Except there’s a test for good football playing that could be used instead. Your problem is closer to complaining that someone wants to apply the saxophone grade 8 exam to claims of Scotch mist knitting. Fine. Which test would you propose they use instead?

Science has a better description of how things are than the old phlogiston theory. And arrived at it through scientific means. Any extension of this beyond the scientific is scientism and empiricism neither of which can be established by science. You make an irrelevant statement.

Gravity or pixies? What the fuck is that all about. Like incarnating Leprechauns, Pixies holding the cosmos together is another of your confections. Another straw man which no one but you or someone with a more creative imagination than you has thought of.

Parsimony is not about whacky vs sensible, or supernatural versus natural it’s about simplicity of solution but more importantly necessary entities.

Another grand misunderstanding that religion rules out naturalistic explanations  or always prefers supernatural ones instead. That is not the case except for fundamentalism perhaps.

In fact, believing that is an article of faith for fundey New atheists.

[jeremyp]

First of all science doesn't make any judgment on what exists

Yes it does. Science judges that the planet Neptune exists despite the fact that we can't see it in the night sky.

Secondly science doesn't do a lot of things

We are not talking about a lot of things, we are talking specifically about whether God exists. Science does do existence.

There is no empirical  test for Divinity.

Agreed. However,  earlier you said there could be a test for divinity.

That isn't what is being claimed by Christianity. Any empirical measurement of Jesus would not have yielded any scientific data concerning his divinity.

Another question for you to evade. If there can never be a test for divinity, how can we ever be sure that Jesus was/is divine?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yes it does. Science judges that the planet Neptune exists despite the fact that we can't see it in the night sky.

And we know that Uranus exists because you seem to be talking through it...Only joking. That one planet exists but the planet Vulcan, originately thought to be the first planet from the sun doesn't. We know that scientifically because there is no measurable planet and science seeks the measureable and the material. But it does not do ontology. It is totally focussed on the physical and makes no comment one way or the other as to other ontologies.

Another question for you to evade. If there can never be a test for divinity, how can we ever be sure that Jesus was/is divine?

That certainty or surety is only mediated by science is scientism, physicalism, naturalism, materialism and empiricism.

As I said, you and I are the instruments of detecting the divine.

I think it is interesting that when I gave the original scenario at the start of this thread some seemed to plump for that evidence only indicating Aliens.

To identify as God  therefore it seems he has chosen a different route from scientific knowledge to knowledge of the divine maybe to avoid confusion with aliens perhaps.

[jeremyp]

[science] is totally focussed on the physical and makes no comment one way or the other as to other ontologies.

What other ontologies? Can you name another ontology that can be shown to have any grounding in reality?

As I said, you and I are the instruments of the divine.

That assumes the divine exists, but you have no way of showing that the divine exists.

You seem to be inventing a ton of gobbledygook around science, but it is really very simple at its core. Science is just testing your ideas (whatever they are) against reality. If you can't test God with science, you cn never be sure that he exists. So we might as well assume he doesn't.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What other ontologies? Can you name another ontology that can be shown to have any grounding in reality?
That assumes the divine exists, but you have no way of showing that the divine exists.

You seem to be inventing a ton of gobbledygook around science, but it is really very simple at its core. Science is just testing your ideas (whatever they are) against reality. If you can't test God with science, you cn never be sure that he exists. So we might as well assume he doesn't.

No gobbledy gook. Just plain facts about what science is or isn't capable of. Anything beyond that and we are into isms which are not capable of being established scientifically. As for reality, There are other realities or aspects of reality, maths and history, morality for example.

Carrying on without God because he doesn't appear in the anals of science without investigating avenues already taken is scientism which as I've pointed out to you already isn't established by science.

[Stranger]

As I said, you and I are the instruments of detecting the divine.

They're a bit shit at it then - otherwise there wouldn't be endless different religions, sects, cults, and denominations, not to mention that they all look exactly like other human superstitions.

Carrying on without God because he doesn't appear in the anals of science without investigating avenues already taken is scientism which as I've pointed out to you already isn't established by science.

Where's the objective methodology we can use to test, which, if any gods exist? And yet again, the word "God" by itself, without further definition, is totally meaningless.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

They're a bit shit at it then - otherwise there wouldn't be endless different religions, sects, cults, and denominations, not to mention that they all look exactly like other human superstitions.

Not sure.

 I think we can imply the divine even and perhaps especially where it is being dodged.

[Stranger]

I think we can imply the divine even and perhaps especially where it is being dodged.

Laughable. Nobody can dodge meaningless waffle, and "the divine" is just as meaningless as "God". Unless you can come up with a definition and an objective methodology, even if some god(s) exists, we simply can't know.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Pidge,

Science has a better description of how things are than the old phlogiston theory.

And indeed better than any claim of fact with no means of investigation and testing.

And arrived at it through scientific means.

Science employs “scientific means”? Er, yes.

Any extension of this beyond the scientific…

No-one is doing that.

..is scientism…

Depends what “extension” you had in mind, but unless it’s the claim that all phenomena are necessarily amenable to the scientific method then no it isn’t.

…and empiricism…

Science is necessarily empiricist.

…neither of which can be established by science.

Scientism isn’t a claim anyone I know of makes, and of course empiricism is validated by science. That’s why we have aeroplanes and medicines.

You make an irrelevant statement.

Wrong again.

Gravity or pixies? What the fuck is that all about. Like incarnating Leprechauns, Pixies holding the cosmos together is another of your confections. Another straw man which no one but you or someone with a more creative imagination than you has thought of.

Ah of course – there’s me forgetting that you have no concept of the analogy. Sorry, my bad.

I was merely trying to explain to you parsimony in terms I thought you’d be able to grasp. Clearly the effort failed.

Parsimony is not about whacky vs sensible, or supernatural versus natural it’s about simplicity of solution but more importantly necessary entities.

Actually it’s about which proposition requires the fewest assumptions, but as ever you’ve missed the point about that. 

Another grand misunderstanding that religion rules out naturalistic explanations  or always prefers supernatural ones instead. That is not the case except for fundamentalism perhaps.

Nope, no idea what you’ve even trying to say here and nor does it relate to anything I said. It’s simple enough though: either the religion to which you happen to subscribe thinks some phenomena to be “supernatural” or it doesn’t. And if it does, by that term you mean either the definition “outside the scope of science to explain” or the definition “outside the laws of nature”. For some reason you’re refusing to tell us which version you opt for though, so what you actually think about that is anyone’s guess.         

In fact, believing that is an article of faith for fundey New atheists.

I suppose it would be if anyone did (and if there was actually such a thing as a “fundey New Atheist” (sic)) but as that’s just another of your straw men and your invented bogey man respectively we can safely ignore it.

So anyway, as despite your coyness on the matter as you seem to believe in a god outwith the laws of nature able to flit in and out of material form at the drop of a hat, do you have any good reason at all to deny me the same claim for my belief “leprechauns”? 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Laughable. Nobody can dodge meaningless waffle, and "the divine" is just as meaningless as "God". Unless you can come up with a definition and an objective methodology, even if some god(s) exists, we simply can't know.

I don't see what is meaningless about a cause for nature that is external to nature rather than nature causing itself.

In terms of methodological materialism I'm afraid it gives no justification of your arguments  so why it has been inveigled into those arguments is certainly a mystery to me.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I don't see what is meaningless about a cause for nature that is external to nature rather than nature causing itself.

How about the problem it gives you of finding a cause for that cause?

In terms of methodological materialism I'm afraid it gives no justification of your arguments  so why it has been inveigled into those arguments is certainly a mystery to me.

A mistake you've made countless times despite being corrected on it just as many times. What then would be the point of correcting you on it again?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Pidge,

And indeed better than any claim of fact with no means of investigation and testing.

Science employs “scientific means”? Er, yes.

No-one is doing that.

Depends what “extension” you had in mind, but unless it’s the claim that all phenomena are necessarily amenable to the scientific method then no it isn’t.

Science is necessarily empiricist.

Scientism isn’t a claim anyone I know of makes, and of course empiricism is validated by science. That’s why we have aeroplanes and medicines.

Wrong again.

Ah of course – there’s me forgetting that you have no concept of the analogy. Sorry, my bad.

I was merely trying to explain to you parsimony in terms I thought you’d be able to grasp. Clearly the effort failed.

Actually it’s about which proposition requires the fewest assumptions, but as ever you’ve missed the point about that. 

Nope, no idea what you’ve even trying to say here and nor does it relate to anything I said. It’s simple enough though: either the religion to which you happen to subscribe thinks some phenomena to be “supernatural” or it doesn’t. And if it does, by that term you mean either the definition “outside the scope of science to explain” or the definition “outside the laws of nature”. For some reason you’re refusing to tell us which version you opt for though, so what you actually think about that is anyone’s guess.         

I suppose it would be if anyone did (and if there was actually such a thing as a “fundey New Atheist” (sic)) but as that’s just another of your straw men and your invented bogey man respectively we can safely ignore it.

So anyway, as despite your coyness on the matter as you seem to believe in a god outwith the laws of nature able to flit in and out of material form at the drop of a hat, do you have any good reason at all to deny me the same claim for my belief “leprechauns”?

Joseph
The schtick from your bundle of schticks, that religion prefers a supernatural explanation for each event over a scientific explanation where there can be one has been exposed for the gargantuan tosh it is. NOMA and all that.

[Stranger]

I don't see what is meaningless about a cause for nature that is external to nature rather than nature causing itself.

That's just meaningless waffle too. We simply don't know why nature exists and if we did, why would we label it as "God" or "the divine" or even "unnatural" or "supernatural"?

In terms of methodological materialism I'm afraid it gives no justification of your arguments  so why it has been inveigled into those arguments is certainly a mystery to me.

I didn't say anything about methodological materialism, I said you needed a definition and some sort of objective methodology to investigate it with.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Pidge,

Joseph
The schtick from your bundle of schticks, that religion prefers a supernatural explanation for each event over a scientific explanation where there can be one has been exposed for the gargantuan tosh it is. NOMA and all that.

Straw man noted. I don't suppose you have any actual arguments in response to what I actually said though do you?

Something?

Anything?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

How about the problem it gives you of finding a cause for that cause?

''Who created that creator?'' is not an atheist question. It also doesn't negate a creator for the universe.
Argument from contingency gives an elegant stop to infinite regression which cannot actually produce anything anywhere. (The infinitely owed £5 scenario and all that)

Infinite universe or  Ad nihilistic existence are both supernatural (see the Oxford dictonary vis beyond the ambit of science)

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Pidge,

Straw man noted. I don't suppose you have any actual arguments in response to what I actually said though do you?

Something?

Anything?

You have rather inferred that the religious prefer explanatory pixies for the effect of gravity rather than Gravity and yes, even if that is analogy it is analogy for the religious preferring supernatural explanations to the scientific explanations.

Shit analogy, straw man, a turdpolish and projection of blame all in one morning.....not bad Hillside, not bad at all.

 

[Stranger]

''Who created that creator?'' is not an atheist question. It also doesn't negate a creator for the universe.

It does show that it doesn't actually answer the question of why stuff exists.

Argument from contingency gives an elegant stop to infinite regression which cannot actually produce anything anywhere.

Still waiting for you to post this argument. And BTW, if you can argue that something is a logically necessary, wouldn't that make it contingent on logic?

Infinite universe or  Ad nihilistic existence are both supernatural (see the Oxford dictonary vis beyond the ambit of science)

Still drivel.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It does show that it doesn't actually answer the question of why stuff exists.

Still waiting for you to post this argument. And BTW, if you can argue that something is a logically necessary, wouldn't that make it contingent on logic?

Still drivel.

What do you mean by stuff.
It answers the accusation of God being a meaningless thing. Which can only be true if the idea of creation of anything was meaningless we know too that creation by intelligence is not a meaningless thing either.

In terms of making God contingent. Seeing that infinite regress cannot apparently produce anything, a Necessary creator would have to be. We cannot say with any confidence that THAT GOD is not the God of the answer to why there is something rather than nothing, who is being experienced and worshipped or sought.

[Stranger]

What do you mean by stuff.

Everything.

It answers the accusation of God being a meaningless thing.

You can define "God" as an intelligent creator of the universe (presumably singular) but that still leaves us with endless different god-ideas that contradict each other.

Seeing that infinite regress cannot apparently produce anything...

So you keep asserting. I see no logical contradiction in an infinite past.

...a Necessary creator would have to be.

Why would whatever is necessary, if anything is, be an intelligent creator? And you didn't address the point, if you use logic to argue that something is necessary, then you're making it contingent on logic, so it would be logic itself that would be necessary.

We cannot say with any confidence that THAT GOD...

Nothing you've said has given any sound reason to think that any god actually exists.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Everything.

You can define "God" as an intelligent creator of the universe (presumably singular) but that still leaves us with endless different god-ideas that contradict each other.

But that would have no bearing on God as creator which would be the  commonly agreed meaning. Any other differences would not be relevant in that respect

So you keep asserting. I see no logical contradiction in an infinite past.

Except it doesn't answer the question of why/how there is something rather than nothing. There could be an infinite past but devoid of anything since Infinite regressions do not seem to produce anything in themselves( The infinitely owed £5 scenario).

Why would whatever is necessary, if anything is, be an intelligent creator?

Having no external influence itself is the only creative force so the creation or decision or choice to create or not to create must come from within the necessary entity. Since there is no scope for accident or chance or randomness it must have it's own reasons. Non intelligent things are not known to harbour there own reasons

And you didn't address the point, if you use logic to argue that something is necessary, then you're making it contingent on logic, so it would be logic itself that would be necessary.

I don't think so....I may be making my argument from logic but a necessary entity is not conjured by clever argument but must exist on its own.

[Outrider]

Except it doesn't answer the question of why/how there is something rather than nothing.

It doesn't need to answer that question, as the precept makes the question moot - there was never 'nothing' for 'something' to emerge from, there was never a time when there was nothing for there to be an option for something, there is only an eternal something.

There could be an infinite past but devoid of anything since Infinite regressions do not seem to produce anything in themselves( The infinitely owed £5 scenario).

Infinite regression doesn't need to produce anything, the thing is already there - that's what makes it infinite.  If there were a time it weren't there in order to need to create something, it wouldn't be infinite.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It doesn't need to answer that question, as the precept makes the question moot - there was never 'nothing' for 'something' to emerge from, there was never a time when there was nothing for there to be an option for something, there is only an eternal something.

And how is that not the necessary entity or radically different from God?

[Stranger]

But that would have no bearing on God as creator which would be the  commonly agreed meaning. Any other differences would not be relevant in that respect

Which doesn't help with either the fact that you have not made a coherent case for such a being nor with the fact that the various god-ideas contradict each other.

Except it doesn't answer the question of why/how there is something rather than nothing.

Neither does an intelligent creator.

There could be an infinite past but devoid of anything since Infinite regressions do not seem to produce anything in themselves( The infinitely owed £5 scenario).

You still haven't pointed out any contradiction and, as I said before, time is part of the universe, as far as our best theory is concerned, so whether the past is finite or infinite doesn't change the fact that the whole manifold is not embedded in time at all.

Having no external influence itself is the only creative force so the creation or decision or choice to create or not to create must come from within the necessary entity. Since there is no scope for accident or chance or randomness it must have it's own reasons. Non intelligent things are not known to harbour there own reasons

This is just nonsensical. A mind that thinks and makes choices requires time, for a start. Also, part of your previous attempts at defining necessity was that it couldn't have been different. As soon as it has a choice, it could have been different.

I don't think so....I may be making my argument from logic but a necessary entity is not conjured by clever argument but must exist on its own.

I wasn't talking about the specific argument. If something is logically necessary (which it would have to be if you could make a logical argument for it - not that you have, of course) then it depends on logic for its existence. If logic was different, then it wouldn't exist, so it would be contingent on logic, and it's logic itself that would be necessary.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Pidge,

''Who created that creator?'' is not an atheist question.

No-one said it was. Rather it merely says that, if you want to posit a creator god then you give yourself exactly the same problem about that god as the problem you thought there was with a naturalistic model of the universe: where did “god” come from? 

It also doesn't negate a creator for the universe.

That’s stupid. What it actually does is to tell you that shifting a problem you thought insurmountable about the universe to something else doesn’t make the problem go away.

Argument from contingency gives an elegant stop to infinite regression which cannot actually produce anything anywhere. (The infinitely owed £5 scenario and all that)

“It’s magic innit” is not an “elegant” anything – it’s just evasiveness.

Infinite universe or  Ad nihilistic existence are both supernatural (see the Oxford dictonary vis beyond the ambit of science)

Currently or in principle? You’re going to have to get off the fence once day about which version you’re attempting. Was thunder for example once “supernatural” according to the version of the term you’re trying here?
 

You have rather inferred that the religious prefer explanatory pixies for the effect of gravity rather than Gravity…

Stop lying. What I actually explained to you was the principle of parsimony – ie, that answers requiring fewer assumptions are to be preferred over those requiring more assumptions, and used the scientific theory of gravity vs the pixie version to illustrate the point. As you seem unable to grasp the nature of analogy though, the effort was wasted on you.

… and yes, even if that is analogy it is analogy for the religious preferring supernatural explanations to the scientific explanations.

Er, isn’t “God” supposed to be “supernatural” (the “outside the laws of nature” version of the term) according to most religious people?   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Pidge,

No-one said it was. Rather it merely says that, if you want to posit a creator god then you give yourself exactly the same problem about that god as the problem you thought there was with a naturalistic model of the universe: where did “god” come from? 

Joseph

 Well the question can certainly be asked. How does that help naturalism since the natural seems to be contingent? Whereas something Non Contingent seems the most logical position to embrace.

Admission that one does not and probably cannot detect the necessary event, condition or entity has given way to the temptation to say things like ''the universe just is'', or there is no necessary entity, event or condition (explaining away) and one is left with appeal to infinite regresses which it can be argued are unproductive.

There has been compromise. I have said that I am willing, if it is found, to be shown the necessary aspect, event, moment etc in/of the universe and I think many atheists are happy to have an eternal necessary so long as it isn't God.