Does science prove gods existence?

[Peter_Plato]

I ran out of time and haven’t read from #226 onwards but noticed this plea. It would be a new experience to stand on your side, and I’m certainly happy to adjudicate for a small fee.

I knew there was something about you that I liked. :hug3:

 

[Winterwolf00]

Correction: “He strawmans the strawmen.”

Not really no, actually addressing our positions appears too difficult for some people.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You are truly irrational. I have said many times that I am willing to consider actual evidence for the supernatural, and you still keep on spouting this nonsense.

Define “irrational.”

 

[Peter_Plato]

Not really no, actually addressing our positions appears too difficult for some people.

That would be because “our positions” haven’t actually been proposed, explicated or otherwise put forth as a well-articulated point by point arguments, merely assumed to be the ground of rationality, itself.

How clear are you about “our positions” and what those entail? Are you willing to subject those to scrutiny?

Or are your positions “too difficult,” nor merely for SOME people, but for ALL people, including yourselves?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Cue footsteps out of the room.

 

[Winterwolf00]

That would be because “our positions” haven’t actually been proposed, explicated or otherwise put forth as a well-articulated point by point arguments, merely assumed to be the ground of rationality, itself.

How clear are you about “our positions” and what those entail? Are you willing to subject those to scrutiny?

Or are your positions “too difficult,” nor merely for SOME people, but for ALL people, including yourselves?

I said you are strawmanning OUR positions, I said nothing about yours so I’m not really sure how any of what you said is relevant.

Cue footsteps out of the room.

Oh were you leaving?

 

[Peter_Plato]

I said you are strawmanning OUR positions, I said nothing about yours so I’m not really sure how any of what you said is relevant.

The mature response is, "I know you are, but what am I?

The “footsteps” were meant to be figurative. Just because you are hanging around the kitchen doesn’t mean you are doing the dishes, now does it?"

 

[Peter_Plato]

Not really no, actually addressing our positions appears too difficult for some people.

For the sake of expediency and simply because I love a good argument, I am going to help you out here. I will lay down your argument for you, and you can take up the much lighter burden of clarifying the points where I have gone astray so that your “positions” are fully and finally put forth.

Feel free to correct any false depiction on my part.

In the simplest, most direct form the argument for naturalism on this thread has been something like the following:

If supernatural entities exist then we can only know about them from their interactions with the natural world (ascertainable by scientific means.)
We have no scientifically verifiable evidence of supernatural interactions with the physical world.
Therefore, supernatural entities do not exist.

Have I “nailed it” or is that a strawman argument?

I strongly urge - to spare you some embarrassment - that you speak loudly and tell me that I haven’t nailed it and that the above is a poorly formed and ridiculous caricature of your argument, because as it stands it is a fallacious one - affirming the consequent (If A, then B; B, therefore A)

Now, the problem, for you, is to provide the fix. What does the non-straw-lined version look like?

You are on…

 

[Winterwolf00]

For the sake of expediency and simply because I love a good argument, I am going to help you out here. I will lay down your argument for you, and you can take up the much lighter burden of clarifying the points where I have gone astray so that your “positions” are fully and finally put forth.

Feel free to correct any false depiction on my part.

In the simplest, most direct form the argument for naturalism on this thread has been something like the following:

If supernatural entities exist then we can only know about them from their interactions with the natural world (ascertainable by scientific means.)
We have no scientifically verifiable evidence of supernatural interactions with the physical world.
Therefore, supernatural entities do not exist.

Have I “nailed it” or is that a strawman argument?

I strongly urge - to spare you some embarrassment - that you speak loudly and tell me that I haven’t nailed it and that the above is a poorly formed and ridiculous caricature of your argument, because as it stands it is a fallacious one - affirming the consequent (If A, then B; B, therefore A)

Now, the problem, for you, is to provide the fix. What does the non-straw-lined version look like?

You are on…

Congradulations for actually being on topic, I applaud you.

If supernatural entities exist then we can only know about them from their interactions with the natural world (ascertainable by scientific means.)
We have no scientifically verifiable evidence of supernatural interactions with the physical world.
Therefore, supernatural entities do not exist.

It’s not that supernatural entities do not exist because there is no evidence, it’s that the supernatural by definition is outside the natural world, which is what science deals with.

So if anything it’s more that because science can’t really say anything about something outside the natural world, it becomes irrelevant in regards to the scientific method and is simply dismissed.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Congradulations for actually being on topic, I applaud you.

It’s not that supernatural entities do not exist because there is no evidence, it’s that the supernatural by definition is outside the natural world, which is what science deals with.

So if anything it’s more that because science can’t really say anything about something outside the natural world, it becomes irrelevant in regards to the scientific method and is simply dismissed.

Ah, but there’s the rub. When you say “simply dismissed,” surely you mean only by scientists applying the scientific method, not as a general requirement for anyone seeking what is true, what exists, what can be conceived, what is possible, what is likely, what is rational, etc., but merely in determining what is consistently true about physical reality and that is as far as it goes, no?

 

[PRmerger]

Nope. There is no requirement to respond to all the posts, and I pick and choose which ones I reply to.

True, dat.

But there is a requirement, as far as basic good behavior goes, that you do not criticize another poster for doing exactly what you are doing.

It’s not good form to reserve for yourself what you object to in others.

Just sayin’…

 

[dominejesu]

In the movie “God is not Dead” good argument and moving testimony by an atheist
professor and a Christian student. In it, he couldn’t prove that science could not disapprove
the existence of God. Get yourself a copy at Walmart and watch it. It really is very good.

 

[PRmerger]

Sorry PR, but at the risk of losing the zero credibility I already don’t have, I beg to differ.

This depends upon whether A Theory or B Theory of time - or various possible permutations of them - holds. The universe could exist eternally in the sense that a book - complete with a beginning and an end - may exist eternally and still be eternally “written” by an eternal author to contain a beginning and an end within.

The time signature inside the book or universe does not apply “outside” of it. God’s act of creation of the universe does not depend upon the “time constraints” contained within the universe. As eternal Creator, his act of “creating” the universe could not have been accomplished at some “past” time since God does not exist in time. The creative act itself would be eternal - not in or constrained by time.

From an eternal perspective, there was not “a time” at which God created the universe, although it would be entirely consistent to say, merely, that God eternally “creates” the universe. From our time constrained reality, the universe has a beginning - akin to the first word in the first chapter of the time scheme within the book - and an ending - the last word in the last chapter. However, our view of time inside the universe need not and does not apply to God as Creator. He is not constrained by nor does he abide in “time.”

Ergo, as a creative act, the universe, could be “eternal” even though it has a beginning, duration and ending contained within the dimensional enclosure of its essential nature. We cannot suppose the universe as an entirety necessarily exists “in time” merely because time exists as a dimension within the universe. Time cannot be “forced” upon whatever reality exists extra-universally, so to speak, merely because it is a constraint within the universe.

Fair enough.

However, if an eternal universe exists, we could never traverse the present. For an infinite past can never bring us to a present moment in time. Why? Because it is infinitely eternal, in the past.

 

[Winterwolf00]

Ah, but there’s the rub. When you say “simply dismissed,” surely you mean only by scientists applying the scientific method, not as a general requirement for anyone seeking what is true, what exists, what can be conceived, what is possible, what is likely, what is rational, etc., but merely in determining what is consistently true about physical reality and that is as far as it goes, no?

Certainly yes about scientists, but as for the rest I’d say what other tried and true method of discovering truth is there?

 

[adawgj]

In the movie “God is not Dead” good argument and moving testimony by an atheist
professor and a Christian student. In it, he couldn’t prove that science could not disapprove
the existence of God. Get yourself a copy at Walmart and watch it. It really is very good.

Saw it, wasn’t that great. Atheists are nothing like the way the professor was in the movie.
The acting was semi-good with a couple of small name actors, but the screenwriting could have been better. The arguments were nothing great on both sides. There were too many subplots with too many stereotypes (Muslim father, Oriental father). Definitely not a Catholic movie. The movie really just wanted to show Phil Robertson and The Newsboyz the whole time.

I got my copy at Target, thank you very much.

 

[PRmerger]

Certainly yes about scientists, but as for the rest I’d say what other tried and true method of discovering truth is there?

Philosophy, faith, experience, Revelation.

 

[inocente]

Demons are not known or detected unless they choose to make themselves known or allow themselves to be detected - that is on their dime not by scientific or purely physical determinations; this implies scientific investigations are worthless BECAUSE demons do not act in the regular and repeatable manner required by scientific investigation.

The same argument is used for ghosts - they also disappear in the presence of a camera.

So demons and ghosts are a thing of the past now that we all carry cellphones.

If one ever does bother you, use this incantation: “Go from here o demon, or I shall record you in glorious HD and upload you unto the YouTube and ye shalt be viral in seconds. If ye prefer, I canst stream you live into a chat room forthwith.”

And < poof > you’re safe.

(demons like faux olde english, and for complicated reasons, pirate).

 

[inocente]

google.com/search?q=synopsis+of+fides+et+ratio&oq=synopsis+of+fides+et+ratio&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57.7949j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8

Thanks, I had a look at the summary on academia.edu and JPII seems to be making the same point as me, although no doubt a lot more eloquent, that faith is essential: “On the other hand, faith supports reason in the following: (a) Human reason is inherently weak and inclined to error. Deprived of revelation, reason can go off track and miss its destination. (b) Faith proposes truths that might never have been discovered by unaided reason.”

Not the words of Jesus.

#irony

Maybe you got that from me saying it’s by Guru Nanak.

#braincell

 

[inocente]

The problem IS precisely that most of us don’t “know” Christ in any obvious way, at all. So apologetics and evangelization are exactly the means by which to “arrange a meeting.” The difficulty is that coming to “know” someone, anyone, requires a sustained willingness and trust to get to really know them, as them, rather than as the superficial impressions we have ABOUT them.

I have never met your mother, so in order to “meet” her, prior to getting to know her, I must be convinced that a number of things are true about her in order to get me to the initial “meeting place,” so to speak. I have to be brought face to face with her by those “facts” about her - where she exists, what she is like, that she is worth meeting, etc., etc. those are all assumed by you “knowing” her, they are not assumed by those who don’t. Obviously, there are many people in the world who stand in the same relationship to Christ as I do regarding your mother. The question is arranging the meeting and how that is to be done.

Someone hesitant about meeting a blind date will require a great deal of “proving” to convince them that getting to know that person is “worth it” for them. Whatever means possible may be necessary and since man is a supposedly “rational” animal, reason would seem to be a legitimate means.

No leap of faith for you then. No sirree, leaping is prohibited at all times. Health and safety.

You say the “problem IS precisely that most of us don’t “know” Christ in any obvious way, at all.”.

That’s sad, and you’ll not fix it with proofs. 99.999999% of all Christians met Christ without any proof. Quite a few never even learned to read, let alone do symbolic logic.

Ask yourself why the Kingdom belongs to little children. Non-verbal reasoning, unpolluted by a need for the cerebral. Einstein, Picasso, childlike.

Stand in front of The Starry Night in MoMA. You’ve seen it on loads of chocolate boxes. But for real there’s something the reproductions don’t capture. Is it the brushstrokes, the shadows, the pigments? And suddenly, as his gift to you, Van Gogh downloads his entire soul, and none of the books you ever read about art mean diddly-squat any more.

You can’t be born again without first dying to yourself. Leap of faith. Mountains will move.

*The moment I let go of it was the moment / I got more than I could handle.
The moment I jumped off of it / Was the moment I touched down

• youtube.com/watch?v=i-jSWME37As*

(PR - also #notbyjesus )

 

[inocente]

Yo? My credo: God is Creator. God made everything. That means that God created the universe.

That’s pretty much basic theology. (As a side note: DD who is in 6th grade in Catholic school is still on this lesson in her lamest of lame religion book: “God made you! God made the world!” No wonder modern Catholics’ knowledge of the faith is so abysmal. sigh!)

If God made the universe, it cannot be eternal. That’s basic logic.

Just to be clear: you are saying that you don’t know for sure if God made the universe? Is that a correct assessment.

If God is eternal and God never changes then yon universe is created but eternal. That’s basic logic. I think our intuition is not a good guide to the nature of time.

Googled that book, doesn’t seem to be much of a seller as I only got links to a song by Beyoncé.

The beauty of Aquinas is not that he proved or disproved anything, but rather that he gave proofs laid out in such a complete and orderly manner that if the the premises hold one can be certain that the conclusions also do. Perhaps some of the premises have been disputed and some found to be untenable or unlikely, but we do know what would necessarily follow if those premises were true.

You sound a bit religious here, like you have Tom’s pic on your bedroom wall.

You have a rather common misconception about what “proofs” do, as clear from your “no one knows for sure” comment. Logical “proofs” depend on the certainty of the premises - the conclusions necessarily follow from those premises as long as the terms are not ambiguous and the logical form of the argument is valid. The question always is, “How certain are we that the premises are true?”

No, my conception is that “proofs” can be used to “prove” anything and everything, and different philosophers do just that. So the value of philosophy is in reviewing the reasoning used. It’s the journey not the destination.

But when philosophers make a posteriori claims, to quote Monsignor Lemaître again, “Philosophy and theology, when kept in isolation from scientific thought, either change into an outdated self-enclosed system, or become a dangerous ideology.”