Can we prove God from the scientific method?

[greylorn]

I have an athiest friend, grew up in a fundamentalist/ calvinist church that said god doesn’t exist because I can’t prove him using the scientific method.

I got to to acknowdged after much work that the catholic church wrote the bible and Jesus existed as a real man

Help please

God has been defined by the Church as a spirit being, and therefore disconnected from the physical universe within which real things can be hypothesized and subsequently verified using scientific methods. Therefore your friend is right.

BTW, that Christ was a “real man” is a religious opinion. The Romans are noted for keeping excellent records. None have been found related to Jesus.

What science can do is to offer the basis for understanding the nature of a Creator who can be responsible for the creation of the universe but might not fulfill the claims of human-invented religions.

BTW, why not use the CAF’s excellent spell checker, by paying attention to words underlined in red and looking up those which you have incorrectly spelled?

 

[jochoa]

I have an athiest friend, grew up in a fundamentalist/ calvinist church that said god doesn’t exist because I can’t prove him using the scientific method.

I got to to acknowdged after much work that the catholic church wrote the bible and Jesus existed as a real man

Help please

Excellent challenge, my friend! Please consider the following proposal:

1. Ask a Question: How does a Creator create an ever-lasting society of a limitless number of true friends, given the Creator gets to participate as a friend, and the Creator initially exists in absolute solitude?
2. Background Research: Research the qualities of true friendships. Research the emotions generated from true friendships. Research the qualities of actions towards one another. Research the means to fulfill the acts towards one another.
3. Hypothesis: If the solution to the question requires claimed “Divinely-Inspired” texts to solve, then God Truly Exists because human knowledge alone will have proven to be incapable of figuring this out.
4. Experimentation: A. Propose a solution. B. Ponder whether or not the solution completely resolves the question. C. If not, return to part A. D. If the solution completely resolves the question, collect the data.
5. Data Collected will be:
   A. The emotions experienced by the friends of the society.
   B. The rules of behavior each friend of the society follows.
   C. The means to enforce the rules.
   D. The actions the Creator must do.
   E. The story of events of what must happen from the beginning of the creation until the means to fulfill the purpose for creation has been completed.
6. Observations:
   A. The emotions experienced by the friends of the society are limitless happiness with unbreakable peace. This is does not necessarily require “Divinely-Inspired” texts.
   B. The rules of behavior each friend of the society follows will be: Always freely being and spreading the means to freely be perfectly patient, kind, and motivated with all the body, spirit (memory of the person), thoughts, and will equally towards others and the self. This necessarily requires Divinely-Inspired texts because it is derived from: “Love is Greatest.” “Love is Patient, is Kind.” “You shall Love the Lord with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. And Love your neighbor as yourself.”
   C. The means to enforce the rules will include, among quite a few others, allowing the Creator to be the Judge, who can search the depths of each persons intentions and dedication to the means to fulfill the goal of the society. The rules will include a “Heavenly” and “earthly” society. The “earthly” society is to allow free-willed creations to freely become one with the rules of the society. This requires Divinely-Inspired texts on several accounts. The means to enforce the rules will also include the method to demonstrate one is willing to do what is necessary to fulfill the means to experience the goal. This method requires Divinely-Inspired texts because the method is the Sacraments of the Catholic Church.
   D. The actions the Creator must do is in perfect alignment with the Nicene Creed. I am personally inclined to state that it is absolutely impossible to figure this out without the use of the Nicene Creed. In the least, just as all the other factors, it was absolutely impossible for me to figure this out without the use of the Nicene Creed and other Catholic texts and practices.
   E. The story of events of what must happen from the beginning of the creation until the means to fulfill the purpose for creation has been completed is the Holy Bible. Therefore, the story of events to resolve this question was written thousands of years ago and is claimed to be Divinely-Inspired.
7. Conclusion: God Exists, so let’s work together to learn to do His Will, so we can begin enjoying Heaven on earth, sooner than later!

Thank you very much for the excellent food for thought! I look forward to further discussion!

 

[Al_Moritz]

you can make an argument for Intelligent Design with the scientific method

Yes. The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion. Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.

intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php

and if there is an intelligent design there must be an intelligent Creator

False. You cannot make an argument for Intelligent Design with the scientific method. As I pointed out in my previous post, the method of science is methodological naturalism, i.e. the investigation of natural causes for natural effects. If this method were ‘expanded’ to other potential causes, anything would go, and science would break down. The self-restriction of science in its use of methodological naturalism is its strength, and is responsible for its spectacular successes.

This does not automatically mean that natural causes are all that exists. That is a philosophical conclusion, not a scientific one (and apart from that, I don’t subscribe to it). Science cannot prove or disprove it with its very method.

 

[TheAtheist]

uts on that Scientist Cap:

Might as well do something useful with this PhD.

To answer the OP question - No. We can’t disprove him/her/it/them either.

Folks here always like to go into the whole philosophical aspect of things. They’ll critique the hell out of the method. And i’m sure most atheists who troll around the Internet will do the reverse.

I’m an experimentalist by heart however, its comes part and parcel to my job function. So allow me to give you a different perspective.

What do most experimentalist attempt to do? Prove/Disprove what the theoreticians are fighting about.

How the heck would we even begin to do that with the question of God?

Because you and the other Abrahamic faiths posit the existence of a creature that is essentially like no other - how are we even to approach this? To prove or disprove this in a formal manner?

 

[Al_Moritz]

When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed

By the way, “irreducible complexity” is not an argument that holds up to scrutiny:

talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ICsilly.html

 

[Hokomai]

Science is for the physical world. God is spiritual. Science is the wrong tool for the job.

Ask him to prove radio waves exist using a hammer, then declare them to be a myth when he can’t.

I’ll take that challenge. Put the hammer in your microwave. (and turn it on)

 

[oldcatholicguy]

I can understand why you would believe that, but is completely untrue. The method expanded over time with roots in Greek philosophy, Muslim academia, the Enlightenment etc…etc…etc…

I believe he was refering to someone you forgot to mention- Bacon.

Edit- and Grosseteste

 

[Hokomai]

uts on that Scientist Cap:

Might as well do something useful with this PhD.

To answer the OP question - No. We can’t disprove him/her/it/them either.

Folks here always like to go into the whole philosophical aspect of things. They’ll critique the hell out of the method. And i’m sure most atheists who troll around the Internet will do the reverse.

I’m an experimentalist by heart however, its comes part and parcel to my job function. So allow me to give you a different perspective.

What do most experimentalist attempt to do? Prove/Disprove what the theoreticians are fighting about.

How the heck would we even begin to do that with the question of God?

Because you and the other Abrahamic faiths posit the existence of a creature that is essentially like no other - how are we even to approach this? To prove or disprove this in a formal manner?

You are correct in with regard to the idea of a distant god with unknown qualities. But when qualities are attributed to a gods, we can begin to look at proof/disproof. For example, if you posit the existence of an all-loving and all-powerful god, it is logical to assume that innocent creature will not be made to suffer. But animals who have committed no sin do suffer, and did so long before there were humans, and ‘sin’. Therefore, it may be safely said, there is no such god. There may be an all-powerful god, or an all-loving god, but not one that is both. Or, possibly, it is a loving act to unnecessarily allow billions of animals to experience pain, fear and distress. If this is the case, love is something other than what I think it is.

 

[Al_Moritz]

You are correct in with regard to the idea of a distant god with unknown qualities. But when qualities are attributed to a gods, we can begin to look at proof/disproof. For example, if you posit the existence of an all-loving and all-powerful god, it is logical to assume that innocent creature will not be made to suffer. But animals who have committed no sin do suffer, and did so long before there were humans, and ‘sin’. Therefore, it may be safely said, there is no such god. There may be an all-powerful god, or an all-loving god, but not one that is both. Or, possibly, it is a loving act to unnecessarily allow billions of animals to experience pain, fear and distress. If this is the case, love is something other than what I think it is.

These are legitimate objections of course (I do not think your conclusions are correct, but that is a different matter). Yet they do not relate to scientific issues that can be queried with the scientific method, but touch on philosophical questions of meaning.

 

[Hokomai]

These are legitimate objections of course (I do not think your conclusions are correct, but that is a different matter). Yet they do not relate to scientific issues that can be queried with the scientific method, but touch on philosophical questions of meaning.

I understand what you are saying about philosophy, but there are scientific elements to the claims made about God by Catholics. For example, Catholics pray for intervention in the physical world by God. They believe he is capable of hearing prayers. They believe he can and has intervened (through miracles) and does so regularly. If there is a being able to intervene in the world, and it is claimed that such interventions are observable, then science comes into play. Intervention, or non-intervention by this being can lead to the development of hypothesis and theories about the being, and observations which may be treated as fact. In this case I am observing facts, about animal suffering, observing non-intervention by any being in this, and excluding the need to study further the idea that there exists an all-powerful and all-loving being who intervenes in the world capable of study by science.

 

[TheAtheist]

But when qualities are attributed to a gods, we can begin to look at proof/disproof.

Eh - that assumes the qualities ascribed are correct to begin with.

The issue at hand is that those of religious faith gave their God agency. They are describing less a “godhead” but a, i suppose a being with a personality type/behavioral pattern.

Does the being in question always have to follow the same behavioral pattern? Especially an all-powerful being so polluted with possibility?

Or - they are incorrect about either the nature (all-loving) or stature (all-powerful) of the being they worship.

But again, this falls into the realm of philosophical discourse about the nature of a being I and my colleagues (religious or otherwise) cannot pin down/interview/etc.

Intervention, or non-intervention by this being can lead to the development of hypothesis and theories about the being, and observations which may be treated as fact.

This part I can agree with - although it runs into the problem of how to define intervention. Also a massive problem regarding the nature of causation.

ex. What’s a miracle? Is it a suspension of the laws of nature (definitely something observable, testable)? Or is it the being in question utilizing a herefore unknown law of nature (which fits the Aristotlean model of Final Causation).

If its the former case, detection is easy. If its the later, Detection is Impossible.

Meh… again… philosophical questions, not quite what i do in the lab.

But if anyone here really thinks they have the Experiment that can Demonstrate For/Against existence of said being by all means

—> www.nature.com/nature/authors/submissions

Submit to the journal Nature.

And that ends my little foray into the Philosophy board, enjoy your debating!

 

[ManRay]

I believe he was refering to someone you forgot to mention- Bacon.

Edit- and Grosseteste

That still isn’t correct. Its best to say that’s it’s always been with us. A quick run through the annals of academia will lead you down all sorts of paths. Many consider Abū ibn al-Haytham the father of modern scientific method although you could argue that he left out some steps - Just as you could argue that Bacon left out steps, or Newton, or go back to the Greeks. I Wiki’d (not the most concrete source - but decent) Bacon for shins and giggles, and it doesn’t even mention the method. If you look up the father of scientific method you will get Newton, Galileo, al-Haytham, Bacon, Socrates etc…etc…showing that an opinion is a sad thing.

 

[greylorn]

Science is for the physical world. God is spiritual. Science is the wrong tool for the job.

Ask him to prove radio waves exist using a hammer, then declare them to be a myth when he can’t.

A hammer can be wired up as a makeshift radio antenna, It won’t work great, but it will collect some incoming radiation.

 

[greylorn]

uts on that Scientist Cap:

Might as well do something useful with this PhD.

To answer the OP question - No. We can’t disprove him/her/it/them either. …

What do most experimentalist attempt to do? Prove/Disprove what the theoreticians are fighting about.

How the heck would we even begin to do that with the question of God?

Because you and the other Abrahamic faiths posit the existence of a creature that is essentially like no other - how are we even to approach this? To prove or disprove this in a formal manner?

You are right that the current God concept cannot be verified. After all, it was defined to be unverifiable.

Yet there is considerable evidence that the components of the universe available for up-front investigation (cells and critters) were engineered. Michael Behe has done an excellent job making this case at the microbiological level. Others have made the same case from different science perspectives. I’ve made it by calculating the probability for the random assembly of a single small (900 base-pair) human gene, 1.4 x 10[sup]-542[/sup].

Nonetheless, a “rubber bible” full of proofs for existence of a creator does not define the properties of that creator as those which are currently attributed to God.

However, it is a simple matter to devise a creator-concept which is physically related to the universe and can at least be inferentially verified.

 

[Adamski]

“If a dog is fed and in a safe place it is happy and seeks no more, a man who’s needs are all exceeded ten times over still seeks more”

Fulton sheen

Is this proof of a soul??

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I have an athiest friend, grew up in a fundamentalist/ calvinist church that said god doesn’t exist because I can’t prove him using the scientific method.

I got to to acknowdged after much work that the catholic church wrote the bible and Jesus existed as a real man

I’d take an issue with the wording of his statement before. As far as I know “proof” isn’t part of the domain of science. Science does produce theories/models of explanation though. Also as far as I know the null hypothesis for what he wants tested isn’t that no god(s) exist, but that it is unknown whether any god(s) exists.

 

[JDaniel]

God has been defined by the Church as a spirit being, and therefore disconnected from the physical universe within which real things can be hypothesized and subsequently verified using scientific methods. Therefore your friend is right.

Greylorn:

This is incorrect and will undoubtedly lead to large errors, as many of us have no doubt already seen. God is defined by the Church as “Being as Being,” as opposed to “being as sensible.” As defined by the Church, God possesses no properties as a sensible being might. There is no having-ness in God. Instead He is those ideas that we misinterpret to be properties possessed by Him. As a former Catholic, you should know this.

BTW, that Christ was a “real man” is a religious opinion. The Romans are noted for keeping excellent records. None have been found related to Jesus.

I don’t know what you’ve been reading, but even Wikipedia disagrees with you:
“Virtually all modern scholars of the New Testament and Christian origins agree that Jesus existed, and see the theories of his non-existence as effectively refuted.” - Wikipedia

What science can do is to offer the basis for understanding the nature of a Creator who can be responsible for the creation of the universe but might not fulfill the claims of human-invented religions.

Don’t you mean, “Christ invented?” I know your rationale that the Bible was simply written by men, but, you run into a real problem with that when you take into consideration the Dead Sea Scrolls and scripts such as the Joshua script (which, word for word, verifies Joshua, written into the Bible hundreds of years after Christ) found among the Scrolls that were dated approximately 100 years before Christ. This is a cognitive dissonance you not going to resolve by merely walking away from it.

God bless,
jd

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I don’t know what you’ve been reading, but even Wikipedia disagrees with you:

That’s okay, we can change Wikipedia later on

 

[JDaniel]

That’s okay, we can change Wikipedia later on

TS:

And, we can change it back, and while we’re at it, include lots of proof. What the Catholic Church believes is not what CINO’s believe. Believe me.

God bless,
jd

 

[grannymh]

Adam:

You must determine what your friend believes the scientific method to be. Most people have no earthly idea.

May I offer a more precise definition for induction so that we can discuss the fullness of the two scientific methods?

Induction itself is the inference or action of analyzing the presented evidence. The inference starts with a research paper’s sections known as materials and methods. Experimentation is what happens to materials and methods. The results of the experimentation becomes evidence. Thus, the induction method of analyzing the presented evidence leads to the conclusion. The crucial question is – does the presented evidence warrant the conclusion.

The materials in a research paper do not necessarily have to be physical items. Materials can be data gathered by various means. Methods can include computer programming or mathematical formulas. The conclusion is still based on the induction method which draws from the presented particulars. The induction method deals directly from whatever is presented in a particular research paper. Again, the crucial question is – do the particulars warrant the conclusion.

Normally, the deduction method starts with general truths. There can be real “causes.” This method uses the form – if A and B are true then C can be true. In a real sense, C becomes new knowledge.

I did not look at all Google links. This link on the difference between inductive and deductive was reasonable.
nakedscience.org/mrg/Deductive%20and%20Inductive%20Reasoning.htm

My ulterior motive for looking at both inductive and deductive reasoning is to nail down the fact that in real life, both are considered scientific methods. The link above uses deductive geometry as an example. It also uses the example of inductive geometry. The link points out that the “if-then-but-therefore” deductive reasoning is how scientists can test alternate hypotheses. Making deductions is a valuable tool in natural science.

In Post 18, the Aquinas syllogism is valid scientific deduction because both #1 and #2 are true. Therefore, in post 18, St. Thomas is on target with a scientific method.