I have a friend that does not believe in God because science she says proves there is not. But the funny thing is that she believes that there is life after death. What are some ways to bring up things to bring her back around to Christianity?
Well, first of all, right there in this OP is an example of a non-materialist atheist for those folks who insist that all atheists are materialists. Told ya so.
Physical Sciences cannot “measure” God, because their methods of measuring do not allow this to be measured.
You might want to point out that Science cannot prove; [list of stuff]
Right. Because science (what’s with the upper case S?) can only demonstrate things within its scope: the world that exists outside of our heads.
Plenty of things exist that lie outside the scope of science. For example, my own subjective experience. Science is utterly powerless to prove the nice emotions I feel on a sunny day, but it’s irrelevant because that is outside the realm of science.
Furthermore, plenty of things that exist outside of my head – and that are well within the domain of science – don’t
need to be demonstrated to most people on a day-to-day basis when they are common enough. I don’t have to do experiments to prove that my car will start when I turn the key. The evidence I’ve gathered over my lifetime, plus a little inductive reasoning, is all I need for the purposes of my daily life, where practicality is of utmost importance.
But grand claims about the world that exists outside of our heads – like, for example, a supernatural intelligence exists without a body and created everything and intervenes in human affairs – are the kinds of claims that, if true, we would expect to see some kind of confirmation of in the world that exists outside of our heads.
If someone claims that a being exists that affects the world, then the effects that the being has on the world should be detectable in some way.
If someone claims that a being exists and does not affect the world, then the being is indistinguishable from something that does not exist and we can ignore it.
Either way, god claims almost always fall squarely into the domain of science, and should be subjected to skeptical inquiry. The observation that no good evidence of the existence of any god has ever been discovered is a relevant and important one.
Certainly, evidence
not drawn from the world outside of people’s heads – personal mystical experiences, accounts of magic from ancient texts, tales of the supernatural with no corroborating evidence, etc. – can be readily found, just as these sorts of these can be found for other magical, fictitious creatures.
Beings that are real affect the world in detectable ways. Until and unless such beings are detected, you can’t criticize someone for not believing in them.
