If "scientists" ever found evidence for the existence of God or anything spiritual, do you think they would be allowed to say so?

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JohnC_1571 said:
If you’re a Buddhist, why exactly are you here? You must be finding yourself becoming attached to argumentation and the attempts to disprove others?
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This strikes me as a little unfriendly. Do you ask the same of all non Catholics? Should Buddhists eschew discussion and debate ?
 
Rau said:
This strikes me as a little unfriendly. Do you ask the same of all non Catholics? Should Buddhists eschew discussion and debate ?
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If you’ll look up, (s)he stated that there (s)he had problems with Abrahamic religions. My question was simply that if (s)he is Buddhist, then this reflects a level of involvement and critique of other beliefs which doesn’t seem typical of Buddhist practice. Nowhere did I say “Get out of here” or “You’re not welcome.” It’s a simple question, and for you to criticize it in such a manner reflects a personal bias that is causing you to read far too much into it.
 
Me too.
I have gone on sites of other religions, to learn.
Definitely not to argue.
Where things are unclear one need only ask for clarification.
When discussing the Divine, where the question of religious affiliation has come up, the response is usually “cool”.
It is atypical of my contact with Buddhists as well.
But, we all have our own personality quirks.
 
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Welcome buddhists!

Back to our subject…

Most scientists look for evidence to support the ideas they already have. As most scientists are atheists, if they were somehow to discover the existence of God, they would probably not believe their own results and start a new experiment.

Apart from that, we live in a capitalist society. The companies that rule our western world would not like to give us evidence of the existence of a God who tells us to collect our treasures in heaven. Useless products and money are the Gods of our society and the government would like to keep it h tast way.
 
JohnC_1571 said:
If you’ll look up, (s)he stated that there (s)he had problems with Abrahamic religions. My question was simply that if (s)he is Buddhist, then this reflects a level of involvement and critique of other beliefs which doesn’t seem typical of Buddhist practice. Nowhere did I say “Get out of here” or “You’re not welcome.” It’s a simple question, and for you to criticize it in such a manner reflects a personal bias that is causing you to read far too much into it.
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I’m pleased you welcome Rossum’s participation on the site.

What bias are you concerned has afflicted me?
 
The beauty of science is that results are supposed to be repeatable by anyone following the same steps. So most likely the scientist would try again.

If scientific evidence was found for anything more specific than a vague god force I suspect there’d be a great reluctance to share. Anything proving something more specific would likely disapprove other religions and/or sects.
 
Aren’t you a scientist? Robert sock
 
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HerCrazierHalf said:
The beauty of science is that results are supposed to be repeatable by anyone following the same steps. So most likely the scientist would try again.
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Correct. It was the unrepeatibility of the cold fusion experiment which had a big part in killing that particular idea, despite how nice it would be to have cold fusion. Reality trumped hope in that case.
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HerCrazierHalf:
If scientific evidence was found for anything more specific than a vague god force I suspect there’d be a great reluctance to share. Anything proving something more specific would likely disapprove other religions and/or sects.
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There is a lot of scientific research on the effects of meditation, Google Scholar gives me 433,000 hits. While vaguely ‘spiritual’ that has very little to do directly with God, or gods.

rossum
 
Robert_Sock said:
What irks me as a psychologist is the spiritual forms of therapy for mental illnesses are not recognized as valid in the field of psychology! For example, certain therapist have found some spiritual concepts, such as Saint John of the Crosses The Dark Night, a necessary consideration in distinguishing depression from a spiritual phenomenon. Moreover, spiritual treatments like contemplation and centering pray have been found to be very beneficial in the treatment of mental disorders by certain therapists, yet mainstream psychology refuse to recognize their utility!
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I think that the vast majority of experienced psychotherapists recognize the value of spirituality in mental health. If a patient finds strength in prayer a good therapist would utilize that strength where appropriate, i.e. the therapist might reframe prayer as a way for the patient to find what they need to overcome the problem. Just a therapist saying that many patients have found prayer to be helpful can go a long way. Since many people believe they have been helped by prayer even an atheist would not be dishonest in making such a statement.

The problem with treating a patient strictly with a spiritual form of therapy arises when the therapy fails and the patient losses faith in both religion and the therapist.
 
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Ok, can you provide a quick summary of their evidence for the existence of spiritual beings, sounds interesting.
 
BlackFriar said:
Ok, can you provide a quick summary of their evidence for the existence of spiritual beings, sounds interesting.
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Francis Collins is Protestant. His evidence of spiritual beings is in the Bible. Ken Miller is Catholic. His evidence of spiritual beings is also in the Bible.

If either found scientific evidence of, say, devils, then I am sure they would publish it.

rossum
 
That doesnt really sound like science to me but sociology of reigious belief.
Simply stating that other people a long time ago wrote that they “experienced” God is likely not what most scientists would call science.
 
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It’s never really discussed in academia and relatively few psychotherapists would promote it but they probably would not object to a patient doing it on their own. While there are a few psychotherapists who work it into their therapy, it’s simply not an endorsed method of treatment in the field of clinical psychology.
 
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