Why It's So Hard for Scientists to Believe in God | Francis Collins

[Russell_SA]

If you define something that has the power to do everything and be undetectable in its involvement and the ability to choose not to be consistent, that is exactly the same thing as being ignorant of a natural explanation. How do you demonstrate the difference?

 

[IWantGod]

If you define something that has the power to do everything and be undetectable in its involvement and the ability to choose not to be consistent, that is exactly the same thing as being ignorant of a natural explanation. How do you demonstrate the difference?

Proving God, is besides the point.

The fact remains that you can know something is true if you can prove that it is logically necessary to the act of reality itself. If you can show that something is logically necessary, you don’t need science to justify it.

In other-words science is not the only method for knowing reality. Thus if you can prove that God is logically necessary to the act of reality, then you don’t need science to justify that claim.

 

[Russell_SA]

You can be any belief and still do science, just like you can do algebra and be any belief. Just you can not do algebra by applying your superstitions to the application of algebra or your superstitions to the explanation in science because it is exactly indistinguishable from saying it’s natural plus magic. Demonstrate that magic or superstition or supernatural are part of reality at all first other than just an assertion.

 

[Russell_SA]

Okay, here is some logically consistent alternative medicine for your illness or here is a vaccine we can demonstrate to actually work. Which one are you going to use to base your understanding of reality on? All your logic can do is tell you where to go look for something, but until you can demonstrate that it is actually there, it’s just an idea about reality of where we need to explore more. It’s not intellectually honest to live your life as if that area of logic actually is part of reality yet if you can not falsify your claim through a demonstration.

 

[IWantGod]

I have know interest in proving anything to you. It’s enough for me to refute your claim that science is the only method of knowing something.

True i cannot use non-scientific beliefs in science. We all know this. Thus neither can metaphysical naturalism be mixed with science either, and neither can science be used to justify metaphysical naturalism as a belief… So whats new?

 

[IWantGod]

Okay, here is some logically consistent alternative medicine…

If you can prove something to be logically necessary then there is no argument. It’s irrelevant what people choose to believe after that point.

 

[Russell_SA]

Stopping at logic is not the end of justified belief, its the beginning. Once we get a consensus from our peers and colleagues that our logical model seems correct, then you have to go test it to see if reality matches your logical model. Sorry but that is just how you demonstrate your claim to be actually part of reality. If you want to leave the idea of a deity as just an idea, fine. But you have to be honest and teach that. Not that it actually does exists but that you are worshiping the idea of a deity, not an actual deity in reality. I think that’s an honest conclusion of this conversation or do you see that as off the mark?

You seem to imply that we have no track record of our logic being wrong about reality. Where the tests indicated that our logic was wrong when we ran the experiment. Results of the test let us know if our logic is correct or not that logic is making reality.

 

[IWantGod]

Stopping at logic is not the end of justified belief,

It really is. If a square is essentially not a triangle, it really doesn’t matter who disagrees. All that is required is the rules were followed correctly.

 

[IWantGod]

You seem to imply that we have no track record of our logic being wrong about reality. Where the tests indicated that our logic was wrong when we ran the experiment. Results of the test let us know if our logic is correct or not that logic is making reality.

If a metaphysical argument is wrong, that is only possible if the underlying principles of that method has not been properly followed. The same is true of science. To say that scientists get it wrong sometimes is not a legitimate reason to reject the method. The same is true with metaphysics.

 

[Russell_SA]

Logic first started from observing reality for how it operates. Because it is mathematics, which is the best logical model about our reality, models our experience about reality by creating repeatable predictions. Such as adding 2 apples to 2 pears means we have 4 fruit. You seem to be reaching too far by assuming that the logic of our reality works in a reality that we can not demonstrate is there at all. Also, reality has demonstrated that it works outside of our logic. Such as the summation of 1+2+3+…adds up to -1/12 apparently. Subatomic partials can exist in two places at once. From this track record, this is the fundamental difference between the religious and the application of science. For justified belief about reality through the philosophy of science, people wait till they can demonstrate their logical claims before presenting the model of reality as justified belief while the religious are fine with just the mathematical equation as justified belief about reality. I’m fine withholding judgement until reality demonstrates these claims. If that’s a problem with a deity, then it needs to get over itself.

 

[Russell_SA]

So you can not demonstrate a metaphysical argument to be wrong or right. So why should I believe the results to be actually part of reality? I can demonstrate the logic of 1+1=2 for example. Can you demonstrate the logic of the metaphysical claim of a deity is any different than the concept of magic or any other cultural label we use as a place holder for unknown observations of reality?

 

[IWantGod]

Logic first started from observing reality for how it operates. Because it is mathematics, which is the best logical model about our reality, models our experience about reality by creating repeatable predictions. Such as adding 2 apples to 2 pears means we have 4 fruit. You seem to be reaching too far by assuming that the logic of our reality works in a reality that we can not demonstrate is there at all. Also, reality has demonstrated that it works outside of our logic.

What ever i seem to be doing is irrelevant. If you can show that God is logically necessary to the act of reality, then science is not required. On the other-hand If we want to say that God moves atoms around and puts them in various places, then science is required and you are justified in saying that there is no evidence of Immaterial causes.

The best you can say is that you don’t think an immaterial cause can be logically demonstrated. Otherwise you are overreaching the power of science.

 

[IWantGod]

So you can not demonstrate a metaphysical argument to be wrong or right.

You can demonstrate a metaphysical argument to be wrong by exposing an error in the argument. For example you can show an argument to be logically consistent in form but tautological as it applies to reality. But this of course would require somebody to be proficient in metaphysics.

 

[Russell_SA]

It really is. If a square is essentially not a triangle, it really doesn’t matter who disagrees. All that is required is the rules were followed correctly.

But the example you used for logic was something we can demonstrate to be part of reality:
“It really is. If a square is essentially not a triangle, it really doesn’t matter who disagrees. All that is required is the rules were followed correctly.”
We can demonstrate this example in reality. We can run that experiment. Can you give a different example using an example of the supernatural that we can test the results of in reality?. You seem to reach to far by suggesting that because logic works for triangles, it can work for defining a deity into existence since we are able to define a triangle into existence. That’s a problem for me.

 

[Russell_SA]

Isn’t this the process for inventing all the super heroes of comics? Where they have to tell a back story that seems logically correct for someone to have super powers. So are we justified in believing that spider man exists because it is logically consistent?

 

[IWantGod]

It doesn’t matter if a triangle can be tested in reality. We know a triangle is not a square by definition because of the principle of non-contradiction, not because we have tested it scientifically. ,just like we know nothing is not something. And we can go further and say something cannot come out of absolutely nothing with out a cause, because we know that absolutely nothing has no reality in it. Thus i am justified in that conviction and i do not need science to clarify for me. The principle of non-contradiction dictates that it must be true.

 

[Russell_SA]

Can you explain how you know that the universe came from absolutely nothing? All we seem to be able to detect is what we can detect now about the after affects of the big bang. We have no idea how universes are created so any absolute claim like that seems unjustified. How can you know what absolute nothing can do since we have not ever examined absolute nothing? To create a logical process of how something works, what it can and can not do, you have to investigate it first correct? Otherwise we might be logically correct to say fire does not melt steel if all we are able to experience about fire is that it burns wood. Or is there something wrong with that presentation?

We invented the idea of a triangle, so we get to define it as having three sides instead of four sides. Reality invented “absolute nothing” so it has to tell us what is logically correct to say what absolute nothing can or can not do as I understand it.

I think that’s the problem there. You seem to be using metaphysics for ideas invented by people, so of course the logic is consistent since we have defined the terms of the ideas. However, when you bring that into describing reality, it has to be reality that tells us what is logically correct to define what it can and can not do since it is reality that is defining the terms.

 

[IWantGod]

Can you explain how you know that the universe came from absolutely nothing?

I never said that it did or didn’t.

 

[Russell_SA]

And we can go further and say something cannot come out of absolutely nothing with out a cause, because we know that absolutely nothing has no reality in it.

I took that from this point,
“And we can go further and say something cannot come out of absolutely nothing with out a cause, because we know that absolutely nothing has no reality in it.”
Could you clarify this point to the topic then?

 

[niceatheist]

Russell_SA:

The reason as I see it as to why scientists find it hard to use the supernatural as an explanation is that there is no evidence at all for the supernatural in our reality to reference. We have not model or tool to determine if event A had supernatural involvement or not. Since that is currently the case, supernatural involvement at this point is indistinguishable from not being involved at all. So we are not justified in using it as an explanation for anything at all. To qualify the supernatural as a reason, the following must be established first:

The scientific method is used to measure physical reality. Of course it cannot measure the immeasurable. You give a good reason for why concepts like God are not accepted in science, but you haven’t given a good reason why a scientist does not believe in God. Methodological naturalism is not suppose to determine our metaphysical beliefs as that would be circular. If you are treating science as the only epistemological standard for knowing anything, then you are no longer doing science but rather you are espousing a philosophical belief. It’s called scientism.

Probably because, for many scientists, “does not know” is preferable to “I have this entity that can’t properly be demonstrated.”

That’s the crucial problem. if you’re approaching even an insoluble problem from a scientific perspective, the answer is, and will always remain “unknown”. That properly is agnosticism.

I certainly don’t want to pit science against other epistemological systems, but the history of alternative systems isn’t filled that many success stories.

I can’t speak for scientists, but for myself, it’s not “scientism”, it’s simply accepting in the absence of an answer, one may very well have to say “I don’t have an answer”, and live with it. Reality doesn’t owe humanity any explanations. If we find them, then great, but maybe the origins of the universe represent something that no test can be formulated for.