Gravity, light and time are all manifestations of God’s love.
The C of E angling for a Templeton Prize. I’m not sure they’re eligible, but maybe they can manage a grant.
The Church of England’s ruling council has passed a motion calling on Church leaders to emphasise the compatibility of belief in both God and science. The motion urges the Church to fight back in what is the latest move in a battle between atheists and believers. The motion at the general synod in London was proposed by Dr Peter Capon. He believes atheists are forcing the public to choose either belief in God or the logic of science in a bid to push religion out of the public sphere.
Let’s see…atheists aren’t forcing anyone to do anything – but of course theists like to accuse us of that, as one of their many less than honest ways of trying to force us to stfu. And our claims that belief in God is not compatible with a scientific understanding is not necessarily part of any bid to push religion out of the public sphere. And in any case, religion doesn’t necessarily belong in the public sphere, depending on how the public sphere is defined. One reason religion doesn’t belong there is this habit of being less than honest about its critics.
A former lecturer in computer science, Dr Capon said atheists were misleading the public when they claimed science and religion are incompatible. He believed that some popular science and nature programmes also repeated this line too easily, ignoring the fact that many scientists hold spiritual beliefs.
Nope nope nope; the usual mistake; we know ‘many scientists hold spiritual beliefs’; that doesn’t make science and ‘spiritual beliefs’ compatible; that’s a separate question.
Another delegate, Philip Brown of Manchester, said: “Science can only explain how something was created; religion can explain why.”
Nope nope nope; another silly bromide; religion can say stuff about ‘why’ but whether the stuff it says is a genuine explanation or not is another matter, and I have yet to see a religious ‘explanation’ that even looks genuine.
Sadly but not surprisingly, the sidebar labeled ‘analysis’ by a ‘religious affairs producer’ is also full of mistakes.
Dr Peter Capon proposed his motion because he wants the Church to make a stand against well-known atheists, such as Prof Richard Dawkins, who say that science has disproved God’s existence, and therefore it doesn’t make sense to believe in both.
It is wearying to repeat it, but well-known atheists and Dawkins don’t say that science has disproved God’s existence. It would be nice if the critics and resenters of atheists could manage to take that in so that we could stop having to repeat it yet again.
But Dr Capon’s motion was never going to be just about whether religion trumps science, or vice versa. Instead, he was making a plea for faith to be allowed to have its own space apart from science, equal but different…[H]e and many other speakers repeated their belief that some aspects of existence couldn’t be explained by the people in lab coats.
But they can’t be explained by religion either, so that point is not relevant. It’s just about the only one they have left, but it’s not relevant. Religion just is not good at explanation. Give it up.
“Another delegate, Philip Brown of Manchester, said: “Science can only explain how something was created; religion can explain why.””
Stupid because ‘how’ and ‘why’ are the same question. How did the ball get to the bottom of the hill? It rolled down under the influence of gravity. Why did the ball get to the bottom of the hill? It… rolled down under the influence of gravity.
The only way you can presume those to be different questions is if you presume that ‘why?’ can only be answered by referring to an intentional intelligent agency – or that such an agency must be part of the cause behind anything happening.
Good point. ‘Why’ implies agency – or in the case of theism, just assumes it.
And further Jason, why is the hill there at all? Water scoured the land out under the influence of gravity (though not for all hills.)
Religion can go where science cannot, breaking all of science’s rules on the way: defying Occam’s Razor by invoking disembodied spirits, unembodied 3-in-1 omnipotent and omniscient being/s etc. It can go anywhere it likes that way.
But there is another angle to this. Science goes hand in hand with scepticism. Permanent scepticism is essential, and a willingness to junk any hyopothesis or theory when it no longer offers the best explanation. The greatest advances in though have been made by the most open minds.
Before it became bureaucratically encrusted with dogmatic thinking, religion itself had flashes of this: as when one notable sage got the brilliant idea that maybe God was not Vengeance, but Love. Turned things around a bit for a short time.
Who was it again? Don’t worry, it will come to me.
The ‘why’ question does crop up naturally in everyday life, so it’s tempting to apply it to the ultimate questions. But of course theists don’t take it far enough; why has their God set up this circus? The answer to that is damning, if you pardon the expression. And then, why does God exist? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a decent response to that one, and I really don’t see why ‘why’ shouldn’t apply to Him too, if they insist on applying it to everything else! They just give it the old ‘He exists necessarily’, or similar cop-out. So one can conclude, OK, nothing to see here…
I think there are two different sort of ‘why.’
There is the causal ‘why’ which as Jason points out is really just the same thing as ‘how.’
There is also the teleoloigcal ‘why’ which explains the purpose of something, and this is the sort of explanation theists think religion can provide.
The problem of course is that assuming a purposeful universe is blatant question begging, and arbitrary guesses are no more likely to hit upon a correct teleological explanation than they are a causal one.
“equal but different”
Different, obviously. But equal? Why the hell?
Maybe a silly question, but in what way to you think science has not disproved god? I would argue precisely that it has. We look at the universe and see that it looks as if it had not been created; we look at humans and see that they have neither been created nor have any special place in this world; we look at neuroscience, brain damage etc., and immaterial souls are right out. The list goes on, but these are just the most important. Left over and undisprovable by science is nothing but Last Thursdayism or a deus odiosus, and if you recognize this as “the christian god has not been disproved” then you are taking Massimo Pigliucci’s semantics-juggling position on the matter, which I remember you arguing against before. So how do I have to understand this?
“Gravity, light and time are all manifestations of God’s love.”
Just as well God exists then, otherwise we’d be floating around in the dark for ever. Much like in heaven in fact (during a power cut).
From the article:
“The motion was passed 241 to two, with two abstentions.”
I’d love to hear the reasoning of the remaining four.
As for the other 241, they should read Sam Harris:
http://www.reasonproject.org/archive/item/the_strange_case_of_francis_collins2/
“This prayer of reconciliation goes by many names and now has many advocates. But it is based on a fallacy. The fact that some scientists do not detect any problem with religious faith merely proves that a juxtaposition of good ideas/methods and bad ones is possible. Is there a conflict between marriage and infidelity? The two regularly coincide. The fact that intellectual honesty can be confined to a ghetto—in a single brain, in an institution, in a culture, etc—does not mean that there isn’t a perfect contradiction between reason and faith, or between the worldview of science taken as a whole and those advanced by the world’s “great,” and greatly discrepant, religions.”
From the article:
“The motion was passed 241 to two, with two abstentions.”
I’d love to hear the reasoning of the remaining four.
As for the other 241, they should read Sam Harris:
http://www.reasonproject.org/archive/item/the_strange_case_of_francis_collins2/
“This prayer of reconciliation goes by many names and now has many advocates. But it is based on a fallacy. The fact that some scientists do not detect any problem with religious faith merely proves that a juxtaposition of good ideas/methods and bad ones is possible. Is there a conflict between marriage and infidelity? The two regularly coincide. The fact that intellectual honesty can be confined to a ghetto—in a single brain, in an institution, in a culture, etc—does not mean that there isn’t a perfect contradiction between reason and faith, or between the worldview of science taken as a whole and those advanced by the world’s “great,” and greatly discrepant, religions.”
It is wearying isn’t it OB, that these people seem selectively illiterate when it comes to atheist responses to their questions: they’ve been answered time and time again but it’s like talking to a brick wall, if you pardon the cliche´.
But this is exactly the sort of thinking that exemplifies the ‘some scientists are spiritual’ ‘argument’: some people who work in a rational, logical, evidence-based profession simultaneously hold beliefs based on contradictory assumptions and modes of thinking; some atheists believe in tarot or astrology; some Christians believe in the power of ouija boards; some religious people manage to compartmentalise enough to literally not hear objections and responses to their questions – the emotional desire (not to ignore tradition, upbringing, culture, peer pressure…) for things to be a certain way is enormously powerful in moulding people’s beliefs, which is why the scientific method is so important. It simply doesn’t care about human wants, and strives to eliminate our annoying subjective view of the world to get to the actual truth of what the universe is about, regardless of how much we might not like that reality. And a lot of religious people really don’t like reality.
Of course, cliché. Getting my html mixed up.
Mintman, disproof is too high a standard, and science doesn’t claim to prove or disprove things. The claim is ‘there is no evidence that God exists’ or ‘there is no good reason to think God exists.’
It’s probably no accident that theists consistently get it wrong, because it’s much harder for them to counter those more limited claims, while it’s easy for them to say ‘You can’t prove God doesn’t exist.’
Excuse me, but I am a scientist, and of course we speak of disproving all the time, and conversely at least of “proven beyond reasonable doubt”. Yes, a philosopher of science will waffle endlessly about our epistemic limits, but do we have to qualify “Nessie does not exist” constantly as “well, we can never really disprove it, but we have looked so long and so often with so many different methods that we can assume a very low likelihood of Nessie existing”? On a purely technical level, the low likelihood is all you will get for cases of disproving the existence of something, but do you know a scientist who will really speak like that? Once it moves below 0.0000000000001% or something even a scientist may be allowed to say “disproved”.
The Nessie situation is exactly the one of the christian god, whether people want to accept that or not. Again, in every other area except religion the blatant absence of evidence that should be there if the religion’s god existed would be considered proof of non-existence. Only with religion do we all have to go hum, ha, well, my science cannot really answer that question definitively, so no reason to worry.
And it gets even worse when you consider the immaterial soul question. We KNOW that character traits and memories can be changed and wiped out, respectively, with physical trauma or chemical treatments. This does not leave room for a soul that codes anything that would be useful for post-mortem judgements or eternal life. Body dead means memory gone and character traits gone. What use is an eternal soul that is not *you* anymore? How can a soul be judged that does not carry the nice or bad character of the person it represents? How could that be reconciled with Christianity? Only by moving into ad-hoc territory (god will find a way), but scientifically, it is disproved, discussion over.
By the way, Stenger would be a well-known atheist scientist who takes exactly my position, even calling one of his books after it.
Mintman, take it easy, I’m not trying to fight with you, I was just answering your question.
I’ve seen PZ say that the first thing he teaches his students is that science doesn’t prove anything. Even if the word is used casually all the time…when there is a dispute (for instance) surely the point is conceded? No you probably don’t have to qualify claims about Nessie all the time, but then how often do you make claims about Nessie?
I’m not saying ‘we can’t prove it therefore god is likely’ – to put it mildly! I’m saying atheist-haters misrepresent what we do say. If I’m wrong and they represent what you say accurately, I apologize. Nevertheless I never do say ‘science has disproved God’s existence’ – not least because it sounds stupid to me. I don’t think I know any other atheists who say that, either.
I entirely agree with you about the soul – I think people say things about it that are utterly meaningless. But you make that point by deconstructing it, not by disproving it, and that’s what I do too. So I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing with…
Well, no, Stenger’s book is called God: the Failed Hypothesis. That’s different. A failed hypothesis does not equal a proof that not.
Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to
examine the laws of heat.
— Christopher Morley
I am not trying to fight either, sorry if I sounded a bit hostile. I do see science as definitely disproving certain things, nevertheless (as opposed to proving, which can only ever be proved beyond reasonable doubt), and was wondering how you can sound so accomodationist all of a sudden.
Granted: It is technically impossible to disprove the existence of something if it can be postulated to hide anywhere – the good old “hypothesis: there are no black swans in the universe” example. But “hypothesis: there is a black swan in front of Buckingham Palace” can be disproved. Now in parallel, I would argue that a Last Thursdayist god cannot be disproved, but the Christian god already is disproved plenty, because it falls into the category of the second swan above.
BTW, subtitle: “How Science shows that God does not exist”. I’d say Stenger very much considers the Christian god as scientifically disproved, judging from what he actually wrote in that book.
Nooooooo, what I’m saying has nothing to do with accommodationism! It has more to do with not giving hostages to fortune – if you talk about proof you get entangled in fruitless arguments about something you don’t need in the first place.
I am in no sense an accommodationist because I think science and religion are fundamentally incompatible in ways that matter very much indeed. I’m not trying to make peace or hold hands over the gravy – I’m saying that accommodationists and others get what atheists say wrong, and in a strategic way.
Quite so about the black swan. Why get into it by using a word that says more than one needs? I don’t see the point.
I quite enjoyed this one:
[The Bishop of Southwark] spoke of the scientific theory of dark matter, which he said involved “a lot of dark matter which we can’t even see, being propelled by forces we don’t understand”.
He added: “And they say that religion is all about faith.”
Er, but there is evidence for dark matter, isn’t there? There is nothing like a religionist’s solid misunderstanding of science to make my day. My own problem with god isn’t that I don’t understand it, it’s that I don’t see the evidence for it.
Oh, and I hadn’t even noticed the sidebar: making a plea for faith to be allowed to have its own space apart from science, equal but different.
Uh, apart from the “equal” part (I’ll grant him the “different”) faith already has its space apart from science, no? Apart from science. Apart. Dr. Capon, your wish is granted, sort of.
I did point out the sidebar! Good old Beeb: not one but two sources of crap on one story.
Let me clarify a bit – here’s why the point about proof has nothing to do with accommodationism.
What theists use ‘You can’t disprove’ God for, and what they think follows from it, is ‘therefore there’s no reason not to believe God exists.’ They’re dead wrong about that. There are all kinds of things that no one can disprove; there’s an infinity of such things; Russell’s teapot is one; the fact that no one can disprove X is not a reason to believe X, or even the absence of a reason not to believe X. There is a lot of evidence that makes a god of the usual kind massively unlikely; there are many good reasons to think god doesn’t exist and none (yes none) to think that god does exist.
No accommodationism there.
Mintman:
“I do see science as definitely disproving certain things, nevertheless (as opposed to proving, which can only ever be proved beyond reasonable doubt)”
What’s the difference? If you think of a 0.00000001% chance as being ‘definitively disproven’, then why ins’t a 99.99999999% chance ‘definitively proven’?
I think the point Ophelia is trying to make, that I agree with, is that the 0.000000001% is the same level of certainty, no matter which side of the equal sign it’s on.
It’s not accomodationist. I would tell a theist that I cannot disprove the existence of their god, but just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s likely. I can’t disprove their god in the same way I can’t disprove the tooth fairy, and I consider those two hypothesis to be on similar ground.
Mostly I don’t even have that discussion unless they bring it up, because I just avoid using the word ‘prove’ and instead say ‘There’s no good reason to think your god exists. Can you give me one?’
Don’t you just wish they’d be a bit more apophatic?
Yes, isn’t the point that science does disprove any number of things, but what it cannot disprove is something that doesn’t exist.
Isn’t there a syllogism in there to confirm God’s non-existence? Only things that don’t exist cannot be disproved, God cannot be disproved, therefore God doesn’t exist? Perhaps that’s valid but not sound? I’ve never been good on the logic!
Richard Dawkins, as reported in NZ on Friday:
Dawkins is best known for his book, The God Delusion, which makes the case that God almost certainly doesn’t exist.
Almost certainly, Dawkins says, because “you can’t actually disprove anything”.
“There’s no way to disprove lots and lots of things, but there has to be some positive reason to believe something in order to take it seriously.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/3326343/Richard-Dawkins-brings-evolution-debate-to-NZ
Again, I think that there are things that you cannot disprove, such as a god that has created the universe to look as uncreated and hides from us ever since. But then there are things that you can disprove by any reasonable meaning of the word, such as a god that has given us an immortal, immaterial soul, left a signature of creation in the universe and intervenes when prayed to. All these claims about that deity can be tested, in fact have been tested and found lacking, thus the deity with these characteristics can be considered disproved by any reasonable meaning of that word as we would use it in all other areas of science.
This is Massimo Pigliucci’s discussion all over again. Because he conflates the Last Thursdayism god with the Abrahamic god actually worshiped in the world, he can pretend that the latter cannot be rejected by science and/or that atheists claim to disprove the former. But these are not the same god models!
The word “proof” is so slippery. You need to stipulate a standard of proof. So it’s not a word I tend to use in debates about such issues.
Still, if pushed to it I reckon you can prove the non-existence of the orthodox Christian God. Not “prove” as in “prove to a standard of mathematical certainty”, but definitely “prove on the balance of probabilities” and I’d suggest even “prove beyond reasonable doubt”. By the ordinary secular standards used in law court, not some impossible metaphysical standard, you can do the job, though many people will remain unpersuaded even if they have to move to radical epistemological positions as a last resort.
And it’s not like a black swan. God is supposed to be omnipotent, omnipresent, the creator, and so on. He’s not the sort of thing that we simply haven’t found yet because he’s hiding in a place we haven’t yet explored.
If we were talking about little-g gods – like very powerful aliens that use some kind of force that we haven’t yet detected, or something of the kind – yeah, sure. Maybe there are some of those somewhere in another galaxy or whatever. I entirely reserve judgment on it.
Agreed that various god concepts can be disproved in any reasonable sense, such as the orthodox Christian God; the point about not being able to disprove something that doesn’t exist is that the proponents of the god concept are free to vary its attributes, because they aren’t constrained by *its actually existing*.
And we can see apologists doing that all the time (“that’s not my God”), with perhaps the apophatics the last stage before they finally say: OK, yeah, it’s nonsense, sorry for wasting your time.
Yes but the ordinary secular standards used in law court simply leave theists wiggle room to use the boring old canard again, so why give them the opportunity? Why not just avoid the damn word and then point out that we haven’t used it when they say we have?
It’s a word that’s wide open to misunderstanding and misuse so why mess with it?
I think we’re in agreement, Ophelia. You can disprove the existence of a particular god to a standard such as beyond reasonable doubt. But use of the word “proof” causes confusion, so avoid it.
Still, when our opponents use the word, it may sometimes be useful to say that we can’t prove the non-existence of God to a standard of mathematical certainty, granted; but we can be as sure of it, on the evidence, as of most other things that we’re sure of.
Statement: “You can’t disprove God.”
Answer: “Yes, just like you can’t disprove the unicorn standing next to you right now. What, don’t you see it?”
Russell, yup, and I do say that, and things like it – and notice it doesn’t contain the word ‘proof’!
The papers that go with the motion have the odd good chuckle line, but this one brought me up short – “Why would we want to understand the universe if it ultimately has no relationship to human beings?”. Can he really mean this? What does he really mean? I’m gobsmacked.
Amusingly the “suggested further reading” is Polkinghorne and Beale, which gives some idea of the quality of thought here.
I have read some Polkinghorne and Beale, I’m not about to read any more of it!