If it’s new and different, it’s god
Why would something new and astonishing and apparently a violation of what we know about nature be evidence of “God” or a god or the supernatural rather than…something new and astonishing and apparently a violation of what we know about nature?
I can easily imagine evidence of something new and astonishing and apparently a violation of what we know about nature. I have a harder time thinking of something that would convince me it was evidence of “God” or a god or the supernatural.
I’m not being stubborn or dogmatic in saying that. I’m saying I just don’t see why something new and the rest of it couldn’t point to A Big Unknown as opposed to the familiar though speculative category “God.”
Maybe a very big very powerful Person? But that could be a part of nature we hadn’t known about before. It could tell us “Hey I’m the one in the Bible” [but in which language?] but that could be what this part of nature does.
Maybe all kinds of spectacular magical events? But that could be astonishing and inexplicable without necessarily being non-natural. It could just mean that we’d never known what we hadn’t known – which is bound to be true anyway.
On the other hand, I can see saying “this is at least evidence of something like what people have been calling ‘God’ all this time.” I can see agreeing that this changes everything I thought I knew, and everything I thought other people knew, too.
But just plain “evidence of God”? Well which one, for a start?
OT Ophelia have your read Ruse’s take on Gibberson & Collins v ‘junior NA’s’ such as Jerry?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-ruse/darwinism-and-the-problem_b_835094.html
I found this odd:
Now of course there are questions about whether God had to create through law, although if He had not done so, it would be a very different world (and not arguably better) than the one we have now.
That seems to me to be an assertion that is on the face of it false. If, God, had just poofed the world into existence with adults and no need for evolution, or tsunamis, then yeah, I’d argue the world would be better. Why is all the destruction and suffering not arguably, or definitively worse, than a world where it wasn’t needed?
But supposing that God did (and had to) create through law, then Richard Dawkins of all people offers a piece of candy to the Christian.
Not the kind of God that most people worship I suspect. A limited one.
I always used to say that I’m open and ready for proof, just give it to me. However, after the last few days of really thinking about it, I agree with you O. I don’t think there is any proof that would convince me. The illogical concept of gods, and their irrational structure aren’t even worth considering… I’m still waiting for evidence, but that’s only because the burden of proof is on the believer. I’m in the PZ camp now.
I think the whole exchange over “evidence of God,” etc., just points up once again the emptiness of the whole concept. How can we cite anything as evidence of X when it’s so damned difficult, if not impossible, to get anyone to provide a clear explanation of what X is supposed to be?
At least the geocentric theory is coherent and has meaning and even had evidence for its case, and therefore can be falsified. But God is a meaningless blob, and meaningless blobs can fit anywhere in the entire spectrum of ignorance, and of course, refuses to ever be subject to any standards of refutation.
If there’s no evidence for God, or the concept is to vague, then we can’t know. If we can’t know, then we’re agnostics?
I dunno…..
“that could be a part of nature we hadn’t known about before”
I’d suggest that you aren’t going to make much progress in this debate if you don’t get clear about what you mean by “nature.” That’s part of the reason I argue for physicalism, not naturalism: we know what it means to say that everything is physical. And I think it’s pretty clear that it’s logically possible (i.e., conceivable) that there could be an extremely powerful, nonphysical being who created the material world, who judges eternal souls after death, and so on. I can also imagine some pretty good evidence for the existence of such a being. Suppose it liked to chat with muse, suppose we got to visit with all those undead souls, and so on. We could quibble about how we should describe this extremely powerful nonphysical being (whether it really counts as “God”), but we can clearly conceive of a situation in which it would be unreasonable to deny its existence and its basic attributes (e.g., extreme power, nonphysicality, vengefulness, etc.).
Count me as one of the people who used to spam ‘show me the evidence.’ Lately though I just can’t see it making much of a difference to me (which makes me feel sort of dishonest for asking denialists what evidence will change their minds) if Jesus actually appeared in front of me and commanded me to spread his gospel. I’d shrug and say ‘i’ll get right on it, Brosef!’
I suppose i’d be willing to call any group with incredible powers gods (even if said power is only relative to us) but worship isn’t going to happen.
I would have no problem accepting evidence of an extremely powerful and previously unknown entity that might fit into the general category of a polytheistic “god” (with human foibles and finite capabilities). But not the modern conception of an all-powerful God. What evidence could ever possibly be sufficient to demonstrate infinite strength?
What evidence could ever possibly be sufficient to demonstrate infinite strength?
Lifting of the infinitely heavy rock, of course.
I would never deny the reality of extraordinary consciousness. I’ve carried it in my pocket. But that makes me less, not more, inclined to supernaturalism.
I’m afraid I just don’t get what possible there evidence there could be that some phenomenon was forever beyond any laws of nature. I’m not even sure it makes sense to have a phenomenon that is not based on some laws. If something’s going to do a bit of magic twice, there have to be laws of magic.
Why are we taking our ball into the theist’s pitch when they won’t tell us the rules? They haven’t even announced the result of their match with Hume yet, and they clearly lost.
Since I’m limited in intelligence and knowledge, maybe if I had the knowledge of the “All”. The all being: physics, mathematics, sciences..etc.
Do we? I used to think so, but when I take a really close look at the way physics operates, with virtual particles, curved space and some very odd quantum mechanical interactions, I have no idea what “physical” means any more.
What could “non-physical” possibly mean then?
“What could “non-physical” possibly mean then?”
It means not describable by the laws of physics. Physics tells us how things work, and we now have in hand the physics that describes everything that we run into in our day-to-day lives. (We’re ignorant of some stuff, like dark matter and quantum gravity, but that’s irrelevant for practically everything we see here on Earth.)
Yes, modern physics is surprising and counter-intuitive. But its content is pretty clear (so long as you’re willing to turn a blind eye to the measurement problem of quantum mechanics).
“Describable by the laws of physics” seems circular to me. The laws of physics are what we discover when we try to describe something. For a phenomenon not to be describable by the laws of physics could indicate one of two things: either we are ignorant of the relevant laws, or it is forever beyond any physical law. But “forever beyond any physical law” is not meaningful. It’s a negative, and so unprovable.
“Physical law” isn’t anything real, it’s only a description of what we have found out so far. A being beyond physical law is only a being that we don’t understand. The attribute “non-physical” not sensible, I believe.
However, if I had to pick any term to describe what my views are, I would have to pick “physicalist”, because it has the right feeling and associations.
I think atheists run the risk of coming across as dogmatic and closed-minded if we claim that nothing would ever convince us of the existence of gods. Obviously the tri-omni God is a logical impossibility, but that’s not really what most people mean by the God they worship — they just think of a very very powerful wise hidden entity. And one of those could exist, and there are events that could demonstrate that fact. So, hey, if a super-powerful alien turned up and wanted to be called ‘God’, I would be cool with that.
The real issue is that none of those events have ever actually happened. If they do, I’ll reconsider. Until then there is no reason to think they ever will.
But “forever beyond any physical law” is <i>not</i> meaningful. It’s a negative, and so <i>unprovable</i>.
So are those two words highlighted. If negatives were unprovable, your statement would be meaningless. But I bet you can prove many negatives.
E.g. Prove that there is no even prime number greater than 2 for example.
1. Assume there is an even prime number greater than 2, call it m (reductio ad absurdum)
2. As m is even, it must be a multiple of 2, thus m = 2*k for some k.
3. Therefore m is divisible by two, (k = m / 2 ), but we said m was a prime, so it is only divisible by itself and 1.
We have a contradiction, thus we have proven there are no even prime numbers greater than 2. QED.
We have proven a negative existential statement. Granted it’s not about existence in the spatio-temporal universe, but it’s a negative and it’s proven and meaningful.
Italics fail, the quote would have looked much better thus:
But “forever beyond any physical law” is not meaningful. It’s a negative, and so unprovable.
Brian – “forever beyond physical law” is not a statement of logic, but a statement of what we can determine about reality. Perhaps I should have said that it is beyond demonstration.
That’s OK Steve, it’s one of my pet peeves the unqualified ‘you can’t prove a negative statement’ meme.
“forever beyond physical law” is not a statement of logic, but a statement of what we can determine about reality. Perhaps I should have said that it is beyond demonstration.
Here’s the thing were this smashes bang into conceptual chaos for me. The theist is often quite happy to say God is outside of the spatio-temporal universe. By doing this, they think they’ve hermetically sealed off God to scientific scrutiny. And they have.
If we grant this premise we lose nothing, and the theist loses more. The whole concept of cause is spatio-temporal. Any act of God, including creation must have happened within time. The old refrain there is no north of the north pole applies here; ‘there is no time before time’ and so no cause of time or universe beginning. So we can’t use the concept of cause and have it mean cause without putting God back into space-time and so God is a measurable (theoretically) participant of the universe. This relates to the problem of how the immaterial (non-physical/non spacio-temporal) relates to the material (physical/spacio-temporal).
That probably made no sense.
Steve Zara says, “But “forever beyond any physical law” is not meaningful.”
I think we can give a fair bit of meaning to it (though of course, we always might be wrong).
For one thing, physics is insensitive to complexity, by which I mean that we don’t get new physical laws when things get organized in complex ways. This means that complex processes like life and thought don’t involve any new physics. The processes themselves obey physical laws, and the processes also cannot produce any effects that require new physics to explain them.
(Of course, we can do things like produce very high energies that do take us into the realm of new physics, but here it’s the energy domain that’s relevant, not the complexity.)
So this means that our current understanding of physics rules out beings that are able to levitate objects using nothing but their thoughts. If we had good evidence that someone could levitate at will a massive object near the surface of the Earth (that is, not using any mechanism, and in the absence of any electromagnetic field) then we’d have good evidence for a non-physical process.
That probably made no sense.
It made perfect sense. The problem of causality with a being beyond spacetime is a good one. Although theists do have an annoying way of saying “you are just wrong, it’s supernatural” when constraints like the one you describe are put on god.
“you are just wrong, it’s supernatural”
But causation is natural in the sense that it’s spatio-temporal. And causal explanations for the universe or other theistic notions are normal, boring, natural causation. If they wish to try special pleading, then they are saying that it’s not causation but magic. Which is usually the rabbit hole one ends up in when chasing down miracles. :)
Would we? Surely all we would have is some unknown mechanism? We would research the ability, we would see if it obeyed an inverse-square law, if different materials are easier or harder to levitate.
There is an old science-fiction short story about someone who discovers he can levitate himself (he wakes up on the ceiling). It is a battle for him to get anyone to research the ability. So, in the end, he levitates to the centre of a lecture hall during a lecture and insists that he is NOT levitating – they must be all imagining it. Of course, that finally gets his colleagues doing research, as they don’t want to think they are deluded!
Whatever phenomena we discover we will investigate if we can. That means we are using physical laws to probe it. When do we insist that something is forever beyond physics, and stop?
That means we are using physical laws to probe it. When do we insist that something is forever beyond physics, and stop?
Steve, a while ago I was in the open minded camp. Probably for psychological reasons (it’s nice to view oneself as open minded). But if my thinking is correct then I have to change my mind and agree with you.
Anyway, if it has an effect in space-time it is a cause in space time. If we can experience it, then it’s part of the universe and so cannot be non-physical because then we are saying there is an effect that has a cause that isn’t part of time, which is to say isn’t a cause. A non-cause that causes. From this dodgy analysis of concepts I conclude that we can never experience the non-physical.
I’ll just add that I don’t have anything against uncaused things such as universes and quantum vacuum fluctuations. Just against causes that aren’t causes because they aren’t within time. I’ve probably shot my argument to shreds now. :)
Steve Z.: “When do we insist that something is forever beyond physics, and stop?”
I didn’t say that we wouldn’t/couldn’t/shouldn’t scientifically investigate it, I just said that the process would not be physical given our current understanding of the term ‘physical.’
Of course, any time we find that our descriptions fail, we have to decide whether we want to modify the meaning of the term or keep the meaning and say that it no longer refers to anything. So, for example, we modify the old meaning of the term “mass” to accommodate Einstein’s relativity.
But we don’t modify the term “witches” and say that there are witches — they just turned out to be people suffering from dementia, or people who were in the neighborhood when a child was suffering from ergot poisoning, or what have you. Instead we say that witches don’t exist.
Perhaps we’d call the mental levitation process a result of “new physics,” perhaps we’d say it wasn’t physical. My point is that it would clearly be inconsistent with physics as we currently understand it. And I think this gives us plenty to run with. We now know that everything in the world is physical. A god would have to be non-physical. We could get evidence that some being was non-physical.
I started looking at the “evidence for god/supernatural” problem last year because it seemed to me that debates with believers and theologians were getting nowhere, so I wondered what I could find if I took the position that the supernatural was impossible and see where it led. I had previously tried promoting the not-very-widely known terms igtheism/ignosticism, which were based on the position that god was ill-defined. I found to my surprise that I could make pretty solid arguments against the supernatural being sensible too. One of the arguments I like the most, and the one that I think handles the “open minded” criticism, is that believers have been trying to come up with solid evidence for thousands of years, and yet in the face of centuries of science that should surely have revealed something of their omnipresent deity they still have to resort to statements about God being beyond evidence, or not something that is within the reach of science. We rationalists have been open-minded about God and the supernatural for centuries, and believers have come up with nothing new for centuries. How open minded should we expect to be? Another thousand years?
Perhaps we’d call the mental levitation process a result of “new physics,” perhaps we’d say it wasn’t physical. My point is that it would clearly be inconsistent with physics as we currently understand it. And I think this gives us plenty to run with. We now know that everything in the world is physical. A god would have to be non-physical. We could get evidence that some being was non-physical.
I’m afraid I can’t agree. As you say, something might be inconsistent with physics as we currently understand it, but that is only a limitation of our understanding.
Much of what we know about the world today would certainly be considered non-physical by previous generations. The curving of space. Magnetic fields. Quantum wavefunction collapse (or not, depending you your view). One of my favourites is the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
I think there is a sense in which “physical” means just what phenomena we have grown used to.
is that believers have been trying to come up with solid evidence for thousands of years, and yet in the face of centuries of science that should surely have revealed something of their omnipresent deity they still have to resort to statements about God being beyond evidence, or not something that is within the reach of science.
This, erm, incompatibility (sh! don’t mention the war!) between science and religion is generally ‘solved’ in one of two ways: deny science, or deny that God is empirically observable, or both. Wait, that’s 3 ways….
Anyhow, it boils down to magic I reckon. Poof, universe! Poof, talking snake! Poof, resurrection! Poof, scapegoat can take moral responsibility for others actions!
Steve Z. “I think there is a sense in which “physical” means just what phenomena we have grown used to.”
I agree, but this sense is useless for questions of ontology, epistemology, and theology.
If we instead use the word to refer to currently well-understood physics — in the domain that it is understood to hold — then we have a well-defined notion that allows us to talk about what we have evidence for, and what we could have evidence for but don’t.
We have good evidence that all thought, consciousness, and volition is physical. We could have evidence for non-physical agents with non-physical powers, but we don’t
I have been thinking about this question and come to a conclusion…if a god wanted to convince everyone (and I do mean everyone!) that it exists and even had a particular form or required a particular form of worship, she would just have to change our.minds. No evidence would be required. Presto-chango we’re now all good little X-ists. Now we all believe!
Of course that’s one of the main arguments against god, isn’t it? That he could but doesn’t.
Ophelia,
have you read Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, or perhaps ever played D&D? If so, consider just for a moment living in one of the fantasy worlds described by one of these. Would you really, if faced with a situation like that, withdraw to the position that healing spells granted to clerics, gods regularly incinerating atheists with thunderbolts and granting knowledge through divinity spells, zombies lurching around, magical swords speaking to you, the entire world having a structure that is not conductive to any imaginable gradual, unguided process of formation is “just something new and astonishing” waiting for a non-divine explanation that will surely come up any minute now? Would you not perhaps entertain the idea of accepting the existence of the gods as tentatively as you accept, say, the existence of some country that you have not personally visited so far, or of quarks?
This is not saying that I consider it even remotely possible that any evidence will still come up in our real world, though.
@jonjermey
I thought you were going down the path towards Arthur C. Clark’s “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” but instead you ended up at Kent Brockman’s “I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.” Are you suggesting you’d be one to put up their hand to help the giant ants round the rest of us up to toil in their underground sugar caves? (Attempted Humor Reference No. 1 – Simpsons)
Back to the topic of the post, there would still be atheists/agnostics who challenged a “being” with such advanced technology who had titled themselves “God”, thus there would still not be proof that there is in fact a “God of the Universe”. That is, until he blasted them to smithereens with his Duck Dodgers disintegrating pistol. Brother, when that disintegrates….. (Attempted Humor Reference No.2 – Looney Tunes).
Alex SL:
The problem with the Discworld universe is that we would have a history there of seeing the world work that way. In the world we do live in, we have a long history of an understandable world that operates according to ‘laws’, and a track record of new, un-understood phenomena meshing into that picture once they’ve been understood ‘enough’. If I grew up in Discworld, and that’s how it’d always been, then yeah. But I live here, and if things suddenly became Discworld-like, I think I would conclude that I was dreaming, or some other illusion was occurring. Any ‘evidence for god’ is going to be interpreted in that context, a universe with a track record of being understandable.
Brian @#20:
Like you, I’m more than happy for the religious to go down the ineffable path. You want a God that is beyond the universe, unknowable, and subtle beyond human reasoning? Fine, that does let you off a lot of philosophical hooks. The problem is that most of the religious arguments about the ineffability of God are not presented honestly. The religious apologist who tells you that God is beyond human knowledge in one breath (for example to “explain” the physical truth of transubstantiation), will say in the next breath that God created universal purpose, or that adultery is a mortal sin, or that women should not be allowed in a synagogue while menstruating. In other words, God is ineffable only when logical contradictions are pointed out. When it comes to moral beliefs, God is not only very effable indeed, God’s word is suddenly transformed into a complete and unmistakable 100% guarantee of the righteousness of their personal values.
Anyone who believes God is ineffable but insists on imposing God’s will upon others can eff off.
The only reason the Discworld universe seems plausible is because we see small carefully-selected slices of it. If you actually had to live there you would soon discover that it just doesn’t work. In the Rincewind books alone, for instance, the Discworld has come close to annihilation half-a-dozen times in twenty years. Under those conditions there is no way it would ever have lasted long enough to develop a civilisation, cities and a culture. I admire Pratchett enormously, particularly his attempt to show technological progress and its effects, but I am sure he would agree that the whole creation would be utterly unsustainable as a real entity.
The same is true of Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter books. It doesn’t take much research or thought to find contradictions and obvious plot holes. That’s fine for entertainment. But possible-worlds claims about magic and supernatural beings can’t be taken seriously, because they have to leave out all the engineering bits that would be necessary to make it (really) work.
God is not only very effable indeed
Is God a hot 20 something female human stunner with an atheletic body, blonde or brunnette, or curvy body with great personality? Because otherwise I can’t see how God is effable at all.
(pardon that poor joke!)
On a more serious note, Chris, you’re spot on. God is not effable when God is examined, but God is a stifling bastard who dictates hard and fast rules when in temple/church/mosque/etc
The idea that something is supernatural and also exists is self-contradictory.
What evidence would it take to satisfy me that what is by definition false is in fact true?
All one can say is that any answer other than “evidence can’t do that” reveals susceptibility to delusion.
Open-mindedness is only appropriate in terms of knowledge gained rationally. Being open-minded about irrational knowledge is silly, and any such knowledge can be dismissed without fear of losing your open-minded status. I don’t particularly care if I’m accused of being closed-minded about God or fairies, because I am about such things.
Science tries to understand everything it encounters and it does not exclude phenomena considered supernatural by non-scientists (or even scientists, come to that – frozen triple waterfalls, anyone?). The argument about what evidence would convince an atheist scientist that god existed is not worth having. The reason is that the situation we have is not one in which certain evidence has been brought for god that believers claim science can’t incorporate into a naturalistic worldview, let alone conceded to be so by science. Rather, believers believe in something that makes them claim that if there were evidence for it, science would have to admit did not belong to its area of study. And then the non-believers are supposed to say what such evidence might be, if it existed, which it doesn’t? It’s just plain silly.
The problem with the PZ camp is that the PZ camp categorically denies it accept any proof. Not only could there never be proof because there is(are) no ultra-powerful lords-in-the-sky known as God(s).
That’s exactly how denialists of all stripes act. They refuse to believe anything, regardless of the physical evidence incorporated in the proof, automatically rejecting it. That makes PZ the intellectual (for this purpose) equivalent of Ken Ham — that is, a close-minded fundamentalist. And, frankly, over the years I’ve come to that conclusion.
And not from his stance on atheism. But from his rigid stances on other things; things where he is, in fact, wrong.
Now, I’m more along the lines of Jerry Coyne. I’m one of those of us that say we’d be open to proof, still set a high bar. And I don’t mean, by proof, another stupid ‘ergo Jesus’ argument. Words and arguments from heresay and fallacies, and without physical evidence, cannot bear enough weight to meet the burden of proof. And I reject them out of hand once I recognize which for-crap argument you’re making…
So, yes, I could imagine there could be some type of proof. In my case, you’d need some type of miracle that violated the laws of physics. Something that could not happen, but for some divine being changing the nature of reality in a localized phenomenon.
Now, of course, I am convinced that this will never, ever, until the end of the universe happen. But it’s because I understand that every God concept on this planet is a primitive, ever-changing concept that boils down to ‘third-rate fairy tale.’
But that’s different. I’m not saying I won’t accept proof. I’m saying you’re never going to find it because it doesn’t exist. However, if this credible proof it hit me on the nose like rolled-up newspaper, I would accept the proof. Because, unlike PZ, I’m not closed minded to the concept, or idea if you will, that there could be proof.
As long as you keep a scientific attitude, there is no possible way to accept any evidence for miracles. Richard Lewontin has been widely cited by creationists since he said that science has an a priori commitment to materialism. But the thing is that he is completely right. Modern science certainly has that commitment. If you accept one miracle, why not others? How could you tell what’s a miracle and what’s just something natural that we haven’t discovered yet? You can’t. If true miracles can happen, then science is not a valid method to know about the world.
Jason A.,But what I wrote is how I understand people like Jerry Coyne to argue. I would be very surprised indeed to learn that he is considering it still remotely likely that a god could exist in <i>this</i> specific universe we inhabit, after all he has written. The issue is whether there could be any evidence that would convince us to provisionally accept the existence of gods, or whether all possible gods can simply be defined or argued away without actually looking at the universe.jonjermey,Well, this is just shorthand or examples for how a world with undeniable gods could look like. Somebody living in such a hypothetical world, where some gods manage it and take care that it continues to exist, could also well argue that ours here is pretty unrealistic and unstable, considering how easily all life could be wiped out through a meteorite, gamma ray explosion of a nearby star or other cosmic catastrophies. In fact, that terrible feeling of not having sky daddy watch over you is one of the things many theists could not stand about trying atheism.
MosesZD,
That happened a century ago. It has been called “the ultraviolet catastrophe”. Something in direct contradiction with the laws of physics was discovered. People with your attitude would have said that it was a miracle and left it at that. People with a scientific attitude actually looked into it and developed quantum physics.
Science advances by looking into things that violate what we currently know about the world. Declaring “it is a violation of what we currently know about science, therefore it is a miracle and God exists” is only the correct answer if you want for science to come to a halt.
What happened to my line breaks?
Jose,
I have serious trouble understanding that. If gods existed, why would we miraculously stop trying to understand them or the universe? Au contraire, in that case theology would actually be a science, and would have something to work on! The real problem, here, in all actuality, is that precisely because they don’t exist, theists move goalposts and define them to be as specific as fog.
Alex, miracles are supernatural by definition because they require divine intervention. If you accept that miracles are possible, how could you tell whether something has happened by unknown natural causes or because God wanted it to happen?
By saying that theology would be a science, you are making the supernatural natural. You are moving goalposts this time.
That’s surely a good indication that there is something wrong with the term “physical” then.
This is probably a bad comparison, but it brings to mind the classification of certain animals as “birds”. It seemed a reasonable way to classify these animals: they had the same sort of bones, they were feathered, and most of them flew. But if we started with the knowledge we have now we would not have a group of animals called “birds”. They would be a subset of Therapod dinosaur. Birds are now classified as within the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs did not go extinct, they are doing fine.
Would we invent physicalism if we had never used the term historically? I think not.
Unfortunately for logic, rationality, physics and reality, the doG of the theists is all-powerful. This means it is capable of creating a universe, such as the one we believe we inhabit, and being outside it and within it at the same time (or non-time if outside). Because this is a proposition not founded in logic, rationality, physics and reality it cannot be defeated by rational, logical argument.
Each person’s enlightenment is unique and it comes only to a theist when s/he realizes that beliefs in deities are irrational and unfounded. We’re going to have to wait a long time, I think.
Where I depart from the Coynian perspective on this is right where he’d accept “it’s supernatural!” as an explanation in the first place. Write “X” as the solution to a mathematical equation, and I for one would fail your ass.
It’s interesting to watch where these discussions go, even when I find them to be pointless ;-)
For instance, the process of even defining what a “god” would be, or “supernatural,” is pretty much besides the point. Supernatural only exists because god wasn’t being found in the natural world, and all of those things that were initially credited to it, like floods and volcanoes and lightning and earthquakes, were found to have natural and predictable (to some extent, anyway) causes. When the reasons to even resort to a god vanished, those that wanted to retain such simply found other ways of defining it. Such a god is better defined as the desire for, or reliance on, personal interest and guidance in someone’s insignificant life. Which is exactly why the alternate question, “What would it take to make you not believe?” never gets an answer.
Could I be convinced of, for instance, a powerful intelligence that had the ability to create out of seemingly nothing? Sure. Fix my eyes and knees and give me the ability to fly, stop a major disaster right smack in the middle, wipe out all the idiots wielding religion as justification for their petty bigotry… I could be convinced.
But, the question that the religious are really asking when they pose the “evidence” inquiries is, “Would you worship and venerate?” And my answer is, “No.” Just like anything else in this world, I’m curious as to how it all works, and there’s a damn long list of things (what the hell, let’s just say “all of it”) that is far too crappy in nature to be designed by intelligence. I’d be very curious to know just what kind of mental state this being had, and might be damn scared of what it might do next. There’s no way I’d be overjoyed to see it appear without a whole lot of explanations (“Sorry, all, I got busy with another universe that simply took all my time. Some need only six days, some need a few billion years – you know how it goes…”)
And my definition of good would still revolve around what works best for the greatest number of people, regardless of what such a being might want or demand. I’d be more than happy to tell someone they were right about the god thing, but they’re still a bigoted asshole ;-)
I think PZ (& Co)’s problem with the question is that the definition for “God” is so poorly defined. In that there are almost no coherent definitions that aren’t already ruled out by logic or physics (omnipotence and omniscience, respectively). If I were presented a coherent definition of “god” and shown evidence, I might be convinced to accept its existence as fact.
I still wouldn’t worship it, though. Worship is creepy.
Since God/god/gods has/have never been defined in a testable way, we cannot test the null hypothesis “There is no god.” Appealing to new information about nature as a demonstration of God’s existence is therefore either naive or disingenuous. You have to specify what disproves the null hypothesis beforehand, not slap together a definition of god to accord with new observations. And of curse you have to replicate the findings.
Hamilton @ #8 –
Indeed. I don’t see how there could be such a thing as evidence (evidence for us) that “God” was omni-anything, because how the hell would we know? We’re not omni-anything, so we can’t possibly check for omni-properties.
Steve Z.:
The term “physics” is a perfectly good term that encompasses Newton’s theory, Einstein’s theory, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and other related theoretical descriptions. If we wanted a very general characterization, we could offer one in terms of Langrangian mechanics, or even more generally in terms of a theory based on a least-action principle.
The mere fact that people often have a more vague notion in mind does nothing to impugn the utility of the more precise understanding of physics and of physicalism.
And yes, I think would would still invent physicalism if it had not been used historically. Indeed the term itself is rather recent (from the 20th century); earlier conceptions used the term “materialism.” Materialism is indeed an outdated and useless notion (is the magnetic field “material”?), but physicalism is a useful, and accurate, account of the ontology of our world.
“Natural” and “supernatural” I consider to be ill-defined semantic distinctions, so I ignore them. What I’m left with is a “walk like a duck” scenario — show me evidence of an entity that exhibits full and uncontrovertable godlike powers, who demands that we act in certain ways, and who uses those godlike powers to enfore those actions on a universe-wide scale in a manner which allows no exceptions and no appeal — at that point, I don’t care if it’s a supernatural deva or a natural super-alien; in either case, provisionally, it more or less has to be treated as a god.
Thus far I’ve seen no evidence for any such entity — god, alien, or fairy.
(cc: WEIT)
How about preventing an earthquake, for a start?
For me, sufficient evidence would come only if there are reasonable answers to rational questions (ie excluding responses along the lines of “it’s beyond humans to understand”, or “who are you to question the decisions of the almighty”). If all the “why”s and “how”s can be answered, and the answers contain evidence that points to a god as the “who/what”, then accepting the existence of that entity is the rational response.
Physicalist –
Thank you for the conversation. I have found it useful. I think I have think further about how I’m using the term “physical”. I still believe I’m right, for now, about non-physicalism but you have provided an interesting challenge.
Preventing an earthquake wouldn’t be good as evidence that humans can detect. Maybe stopping a volcanic eruption a couple of seconds after it starts would be better. Save Naples; good one.
My head hurts!
I really wish we could all leave the word “supernatural” completely out of the discussion, it just confuses things. Assuming all there is is nature, assuming that if gods existed they would simply be nature, just like we are – what would you conclude if you found yourself in a world where sickness could be cured by visibly casting out the demon responsible? Where spirits of the dead could be summoned to give reliable, testable information? Where every blasphemer gets incinerated by a lightning bold directly after committing their transgression? A world that is flat and does not have any detectable history before 6000 years ago? Look for the trick? And what if you have looked for 2000 years and still have not found it? Seems like “lalalala I can`t hear you” to me.
Oh no, not this again.
Everybody seriously needs to read Richard Carrier and Pascal Boyer on what it means for something to be “supernatural.”
It doesn’t mean “not natural,” in the broad sense of “natural” that means part of the real world, or law-governed. In that broad sense, if the supernatural existed it would be part of the natural, but a special “super” part, and the other less special part of the natural (in the broad sense) would be called “natural” in a different, narrower sense, basically meaning “not supernatural.”
That’s not meaningless, not a contradiction in terms, and isn’t stupid, in itself.
It’s like the distinction between “natural” and “artifical,” which is a useful one if you don’t stumble on the ambiguity. Of course everything artificial is also “natural” in a very broad sense—we’re part of nature, and so are the things we create, so our artificial things are natural. But of course they’re not natural in the narrower sense that’s usually obviously what people mean: they are artifacts, not things that came about without our intervention.
The supernatural isn’t lawless or necessarily unpredictable or unfalsifiable. It’s lawful—if it wasn’t, people couldn’t recognize (fictional) supernatural entities as supernatural, and they generally can.
Too many people have accepted theological and apologetic distinctions between what’s “natural” and “supernatural” (including the NCSE) which do not fit with the way people normally use the word “supernatural” when they use it in earnest—to talk about ghosts and witchcraft and certain kinds of ESP and so on.
When believers talk about the supernatural and God, they do mean something fairly specific by those terms, but it is NOT what they say when forced to consciously think about it and verbalize it.
If you fall into the trap of taking their naive attempts at “definitions” seriously, you’re arguing about the wrong things.
When thinking about the supernatural, nobody thinks it’s utterly lawless or unpredictable or not part of “nature” in the broad sense of “reality.” They think it’s quite lawful and predictable in certain very important ways, but the laws are somewhat different than for plain old “natural” things in the narrow sense.
If you don’t get that, you’re going to go around in circles arguing about theological constructs that just aren’t what real believers really care about. You’re being derailed, and if you “prove” things based on those mis-definitions, most real believers will assume you made a mistake somewhere, even if they don’t realize they made the mistake by giving you the wrong definitions. They’ll rightly think you don’t get it, in away that they can’t articulate.
Similarly, if you worry about whether God is literally omnipotent, you’re just missing the point of God, and arguing about things nobody really cares about, when push comes to shove. Nobody cares if God can’t build a rock so heavy he can’t lift it, if he’s pretty big, pretty powerful, and supernatural in a sense they can recognize but can’t articulate, and worthy of worship in a way they also can’t articulate.
If you don’t get that, you don’t know what you’re talking about, and really should go read Carrier and Boyer.
Paul W.,
well put!
(Terminological quibble.)
I prefer (following Bunge) to use “material” (which, in Bunge’s ontology is that which is changable, or IOW posesses energy). Why? Because “physical” suggests an metaphysical leveling – a denial of emergent properties (properties that systems have their components do not).
Oh, yes, and as for the proof question – I’m pretty much with PZ. If you can change my mind at the fundamental level of one might call meta-metaphysics and epistemology, sure, maybe you can convince me on the god thing as being subject to evidence. But until then …
I disagree. The modern construct of God both in terms of what is taught in churches and mosques and what a vast number of believers believe really is a matter of omnipotence and supernaturalism. God as super-alien doesn’t just not come close, it’s not even on the map.
Both theologically and psychological God has to be the ultimate. There has to be no more powerful being, and he has to be in charge of everything. Just take a look at Catholic doctrine, for example.
God has to be the source of goodness, not just good but the source. He has to be able to forgive sins. Not just sympathise with us, but wipe the metaphysical slate clean.
God has to be magic. There are rules in the supernatural, but they are behind-the-scenes rules, rules with allow beings to pull the strings of Nature to make it dance they way they want. Those rules come from God, he isn’t constrained by them.
Anyone who describes the supernatural as just mental phenomena again is missing the point of what emotional purpose the supernatural serves. It’s supposed to give us access to comforting magic. It makes us more than just material, and so ultimately vulnerable to what happens to our material.
The supernatural also gives us support for our feelings, it gives them authority. Morality becomes absolute, and it’s absolute nature is in supernature.
If we are permitted by the truth of the impossibility of evidence (and I believe we are), we have to demolish even pragmatic support for theism and the supernatural because those are invalid psychological props for morality. Supernaturalism doesn’t cause homophobia, misogyny, condemnation of contraception and abortion, dislike of evolution, but it is a powerful tool for supporting such views, because it can support any view you can think of.
Rejecting the possibility of evidence for the supernatural is not just a healthy philosophical position (I think), but it’s an important moral and political strategy as well.
I have read Carrier and Boyle (though I’m not sure I’ve read Carrier on the supernatural), but like Steve I don’t think god’s omnipotence is beside the point, any more than I think its gender is beside the point.
On Discworld and to some extent in D&D, the gods seem to be as dependent on the ‘rules’ of the magical universe as everything else. Why shouldn’t we consider gods part of nature in those worlds?
“Birds” is still a perfectly good monophyletic group, even if it is a subset of another perfectly good group (with common descent, that’s unavoidable). The problem was that there was a category, “reptiles”, that was considered to be distinct from “birds”, but dinosaurs looked like they belonged in reptiles, so things got weird. In your analogy physicalism would perhaps be more like “reptiles” – it’s what people had “grown used to” thinking of as reptiles.
(I’d like to throw in the trivia bit here that in at least some recent D&D settings the nightmare space alien eldritch fish are older than the gods.)
We are all talking past each other.
windy,
yes of course we would consider gods part of nature. And then what? The question, if I have not completely misunderstood it, was “evidence for god”. I do not see how supernatural even enters into the discussion except as a means to increase the confusion.
Steve Zara,
If the discussion is from the onset limited to a god that is impossible, or if you do not consider any being that is possible to be a real god, then yes, it is impossible. Who would have thought. But as I wrote elsewhere, tell that to all animists, polytheists, deists etc. What gives you the right of telling them that their god is not a god? (For pantheists, I would agree, that is just playing word games.)
Alex SL,
Tell that to people who believe in God. That’s the discussion worth having: Religion, religious people and whether science can evaluate what they actually believe. Not those rationalizations, excuses and other kinds of handwavings both sophisticated theologians and others have been coming up with.
Which is exactly what religious people do not believe, and what religion is not…
I’d conclude that science is not a valid way to know about that world.
Again: science can’t deal with miracles. If miracles can happen, science does not work. If you live in a world with miracles, you should seek knowledge somewhere else, like theology, not in science.
jose,
I do not understand how your first paragraph relates to any of my arguments. I am essentially saying that I believe that there is no useful way of defining supernatural, but that there may be useful ways of defining god. So when somebody says, “god is a name for the creative intelligence that has designed the universe”, we could look for evidence that the universe is, indeed, designed, and then conclude that this god under that definition probably exists. But when somebody says, “god is supernatural”, I do not even know what that is supposed to mean. If it exists, it is part of nature; if it is not part of nature, then it does not exist. If it follows certain deducible rules, it is natural; if it doesn’t, there is no way of ever understanding and describing it (and one would have to wonder how anything could actually exist that does not have any regularity whatsoever – intuitively, I would suspect that that is not possible).
> I’d conclude that science is not a valid way to know about that world. [etc.]
Why??? If we lived in such a world, we would simply have scientists studying magical spells, the nature of the gods and exorcism. In such a world, theology would be a science as opposed to the fairy-tales-for-grownups it is in our world.
Again: science can’t deal with miracles. If miracles can happen, science does not work. If you live in a world with miracles, you should seek knowledge somewhere else, like theology, not in science.
Science deals with miracles perfectly well. Science is about performing tests against objective reality to see if an idea about reality might be true. How does that not apply to miracles?
Of course science does a good job of rejecting miracles most of the time. That is because science has criteria for filtering out reports of phenomena that are worth ignoring. That includes reports that can’t be backed up by solid evidence, or that are one-off events. That is not a failing of science, it is science doing what it should do. It’s not science being incapable of dealing with miracles, it’s science saying that miracles almost always fall well below the standard expected for reports of things that are real. Miracles that can be examined by science and which turn out to be real stop being miracles and start being facts.
It’s not just one’s definition of god that comes into play here; it’s one’s definition of science. If you tell science certain things it would investigate are off-limits, well, Galileo’s problem wasn’t that he didn’t think he could look into certain questions. No, he was told he couldn’t.
Divine intervention cannot be tested.
In those cases, science uses Occam’s razor: this unexplained event must have been something natural that we don’t understand yet. But if that event is a true miracle, science can’t investigate it and come to the conclusion that it is in fact a miracle, regardless of how much evidence, data and whatever else scientists were given.
Miracles that turn out to be explained by science were never miracles in the first place, by the very definition of miracle, which implies divine intervention. They were just strange events.
That assumption you made is the same “a priori commitment to materialism” Lewontin was talking about. Science assumes that if it exists, it is part of nature. Now you’re being scientific. This means you can’t possibly get evidence for something outside nature, because your assumption implies that something ouside nature doesn’t exists (for nature is all that exists). Most people can imagine places outside nature though. Heaven and Hell, for example. They talk about “realms of existence”, “spheres”, etcetera.
Science considers everything to be natural, deducible or not. Something that doesn’t follow any rules is natural, too. For example, art is natural even though the evolution of painting can’t be explained in terms of natural laws (it can be explained by historians, not scientists). If you live in a world dominated by a local deity, you can gain knowledge by praying and listening to the answer. Sacrificing a goat to gain her favor. Ever played “Black & White”? It’s a video game in which you are the god of a tribe. In that game it doesn’t rain because clouds are formed by blahblahblah. It rains because of you. So in that world, climatology doesn’t work. If you want to know about the climate, you must ask God. In that world, science doesn’t work. Religion does.
That’s just playing with names and words. Theology can’t be science because its principles are different. Religion seeks knowledge by asking questions to God (and makes up answers when God doesn’t show up). Science does it by looking at nature.
So how does that differ from Ophelia’s very big powerful natural Person, or a super-powerful alien? Several people have already agreed there could be evidence for those things, but since we don’t even have a proper definition for god, some people are understandably reluctant to call them gods and some people think it doesn’t matter much.
Jose,
that is not at all what Occam’s razor is about, it merely says that you should use the simplest explanation.
Then you try to define miracles out of existence. Fine, god does not do miracles then. So it just does a series of “strange events”. So if you know for >1000 years now that lost limbs are regrown and cancer healed whenever but only if a fully ordained catholic priest asks for this boon in Latin, and in all those years nobody has ever been able to find the trick no matter how hard they tried, what do you conclude? What is, tentatively of course, the simplest explanation? You can pull a Pigliucci and say that you still cannot scientifically conclude the frikkin’ obvious, but that is just playing silly buggers.
> That assumption you made is the same “a priori commitment to materialism” Lewontin was talking about. […]
Sorry, but now I really don’t understand what you are talking about. The entire discussion is about whether there is any evidence that would convince any of us to tentatively conclude that some god exists. Is there any way in which such evidence could not be part of nature, even you find some bizarre way of convincing yourself that a god meddling with part of nature isn’t?
And what does art have to do with anything? Quite apart from the fact that science can explain it plenty, at least not less than a historian – neurobiology, sociology, anthropology, ethnology, various branches of material physics and optics, etc. I am also unconvinced that historians are all non-scientists. Sure, there are some who just read a few books and then write another one, but there are also many who deal with archeology, dating of objects and suchlike, and there is lots of hypothesis testing going on in those areas.
> If you live in a world dominated by a local deity, you can gain knowledge by praying and listening to the answer. Sacrificing a goat to gain her favor. … So in that world, climatology doesn’t work. If you want to know about the climate, you must ask God. In that world, science doesn’t work. Religion does. That’s just playing with names and words. Theology can’t be science because its principles are different. Religion seeks knowledge by asking questions to God (and makes up answers when God doesn’t show up). Science does it by looking at nature.
Please read very carefully through all that again. Notice something? You wrote it yourself, kind of. Religion makes things up; thus it would not work even in a world containing gods. Science generates knowledge by looking at the world; if it found itself in a world containing gods, those beings would just be another issue to examine. One way of examining would be to ask them questions, e.g. in prayer. And please don’t say that it could not because they behave too capriciously or something. Humans do that too, but still there is a lot of science dealing with humans, their bodies, their creations and their societies, in some cases directly asking them questions, e.g. in surveys. Certainly it would be a bit silly for a researcher living in a world where Thor fights the ice giants to look at the battle and go: “I have to look the other way, this is beyond the scope of science. I will just look at this flower here instead and hope I don’t drown in that giant’s blood when he dies.”
windy,
> some people are understandably reluctant to call them gods
So we just go to a polytheist or animist and tell them that their gods aren’t gods, because, well, um, we are reluctant to accept that definition?
>and some people think it doesn’t matter much
Well, if it does not matter so much, why are some people (especially over at WEIT) so obsessed with restricting the term “god” to a definition that, out of all beliefs in the world, fits only a fraction of the Abrahamic religions? (Remember, even OT god is clearly neither omnipotent nor omniscient, and a deist god would not do anything whatsoever except causing the big bang.)
Alex SL #33
If I found myself in a fantasy world like that I would either assume I had gone crazy or would be too crazy to realize I had gone crazy. Insanity is a much simpler explanation than magic.
Part of the problem with people attempting to define “supernatural” is that they cannot even handle the definitions of what we use every day.
Science is a methodical process of learning; occasionally, the word is used to describe what we’ve learned through that method. That’s all. It does not refer to a specific discipline of materialism, it only refers to knowledge gained by both observation and testing hypotheses.
It can handle inferences very well – quantum mechanics deals with virtually nothing demonstrable and absolutely nothing visible. Psychology does not require knowing how neurons work or sampling electrochemical reactions. We have plenty of knowledge that does not resort to materialism.
But, in order for us to come to any reasonable conclusion, we have to have something to work with. That means some kind of evidence, which means whatever definition of supernatural you want to use has to impinge on the real world, the one we work with every day, the one that is often referred to as the “natural” one. Otherwise, like some extra-dimensional proposition or even a work of fiction, it means absolutely nothing in terms of useful information.
Therein lies the issue. If anyone wants to say that we do not have this evidence, this impinging, because something exists totally outside our known dimensions or whatever, then there is nothing to talk about – it is indistinguishable from fiction or fantasy. Once you imply or denote an effect, even on consciousness, you now have something testable. Evidence.
How do you propose to tell them apart?
You’re arguing, as you say a priori, that divine intervention can exist. That’s circular – we’re discussing what divine intervention would actually be. You can’t logically refer to its definition to support its definition.
But if that event is a true miracle, science can’t investigate it and come to the conclusion that it is in fact a miracle, regardless of how much evidence, data and whatever else scientists were given.
Just asserting that science can’t investigate it doesn’t seem to be an argument to me. Why can’t science investigate a miracle? If prayer worked and there was a miraculous response, that could be investigated by science.
Steve, it’s quantum prayer. The results change if you try to measure them…
Or in other words, what I said before. Define “god” any blessed way you want but desist from defining “science” as something that has nothing to say about something just because you may consider that something “holy.”
Again: divine intervention can’t be tested. Science will always portrait a miraculous response as an unexplained rare event that hopefully will be explained in the future through further research. If you get your answers by asking God (praying), you’re no longer doing science, you’re doing religion. If prayers worked, science would be abandoned as useless, because the answers would be in God, not in nature.
Just Al, “How do you propose to tell them apart?”
Science can’t. It can’t see true miracles. If they actually existed, I’d suggest abandoning science in favor of religion. However, until today and for millenia, religion has been a massive failure. It has provided absolutely nothing in terms of knowledge. So I’m pretty confident that religion has failed as a way to seek knowledge, and that miracles don’t happen, so science has green light to do its thing safely.
Again: divine intervention can’t be tested. Science will always portrait a miraculous response as an unexplained rare event that hopefully will be explained in the future through further research.
That’s not what science is doing. It’s insisting that the response is too rare or too indirectly reported to be taken seriously.
If you get your answers by asking God (praying), you’re no longer doing science, you’re doing religion. If prayers worked, science would be abandoned as useless, because the answers would be in God, not in nature.
Science is about testing what is real. If you try praying and you get a result, how is that not doing science? If prayer did work, there would be an immediate rush to set up studies to see the effect of different regimes of prayer. Perhaps praying could be a new energy source (if enough people pray for a turbine to spin).
Science is about finding out. Why do you think people would want to stop finding things out if prayer seemed to have an effect?
Alex,
From the perspective of science, the only possible conclusion is that it remains unexplained and further research is needed. You are using a type of argument creationists are very fond of: the inference of design: This looks designed, therefore it is designed. In your case, it goes “This looks like god is curing people, ergo god is curing people”.
God did it is not the simplest explanation, it’s the laziest explanation. A currently unknown explanation that doesn’t involve God would be simpler, because it would require one less factor (God).
Fine. I didn’t know Pigliucci says that. I agree with him. Saying “god did it” stops inquiry. It prevents scientists from looking into the problem and urges them to pray in order for God to enlighten them, that is, to embrace religion. Again, science advances by refusing to say “god did it” and continue looking at nature, no matter how strange events are. I mentioned the ultraviolet catastrophe earlier as an example of a blatant violation of the laws of physics (the ones they knew about at the time). They could have said god did it. It would have been much easier. Instead, they made mind-blowing discoveries.
Religion makes things up when god doesn’t show up. If god does show up, you jsut ask him for knowledge so if he does show up, religion does work. You should quote me without cutting my sentences in half. That way, my comments might be more understandable.
You are equating God and Superman. Again, you are making the supernatural natural. You are moving goalposts this time.
No, religion makes things up anyway. Even in a world with God, there is no possibility of knowing that there is a God, so even in that situation religion is making things up – what it says can’t be based on evidence.
Steve Zara, the source of our disagreement is what we think science is.
Science is about testing what is real.
I think science is a method. You think science is results. I think that if you pray, you’re not doing science, regardless of whether it works or not. You think that if it works, then it’s science.
I don’t share your idea of science, but if I did, I would agree with you about this evidence for God thing.
I think science is a belief. It’s a belief that we can’t know for sure what is real just by our thoughts and feelings, and so we need to test external reality.
Steve Zara, and that science includes every test that offers results, including prayers (in case prayers offered results.) I think prayers belong in theology. You think that if prayers worked, prayers would be valid scientific tools like experiments or statistics. I think that if prayers worked, theology would be valid and science invalid. It all boils down to what science is: a method with a delimited set of means or whatever works.
Under your idea of science, you make perfect sense.
Hmmm “whatever works” doesn’t sound too friendly. I assure you I didn’t mean to mock or ridicule your point. It’s just that I can’t think of a more proper expression in English. ^.^U
I’m happy with “whatever works”!
jose,
I see, you are really playing silly buggers:
> You are using a type of argument creationists are very fond of: the inference of design: This looks designed, therefore it is designed. In your case, it goes “This looks like god is curing people, ergo god is curing people”.
Now please explain how this is qualitatively different from “evolution looks like it is undirected, ergo evolution is undirected.” I recently had a philosopher (guess which one) tell me that scientifically, we cannot conclude the undirectedness, i.e. the absence of the intelligent designer. But we cannot have it both ways, can we? And…
> God did it is not the simplest explanation, it’s the laziest explanation. A currently unknown explanation that doesn’t involve God would be simpler, because it would require one less factor (God).
…please also explain why a currently unknown explanation that does not involve a primeval RNA world as a hypothesized precursor to DNA-based life would not be simpler than one that does. After all, it requires one less factor (RNA-based life). In fact, it would perhaps be possible to vastly reduce the number of hypothesized particles if all we cared for was a minimum of “factors” instead of the best model. You see, the point of Occam/parsimony is not to throw away things that would make sense to accept given the current data, but to select, all else being equal, among several valid explanations the simplest one.
> Saying “god did it” stops inquiry.
No, it doesn’t. Never has. Here is proof: the whole history of humanity.
> Religion makes things up when god doesn’t show up. If god does show up, you jsut ask him for knowledge so if he does show up, religion does work.
If it works, it turns into science.
> You are equating God and Superman. Again, you are making the supernatural natural. You are moving goalposts this time.
No, I just do not think that there is a coherent definition of the word “supernatural”. If a god can be shown to exist, it would be because it is part of nature. If it cannot be shown to exist, then we can assume it does not exist – but not because we have simply defined it out of existence, as some here are trying, but because of lack of evidence.
Steve Zara,
I find it extremely weird that we seem to agree completely on the scope and definition of science but disagree on whether there could theoretically have been evidence for the existence of gods…
Weird can make for not boring. It’s good when things are like this.
I must say that this conversation has proven itself highly ingrossing. I rarely follow this many comments as my time online is limited nowadays.
There are many points I wish I had time to comment on…but I will have to be content with this one:
As to the point concerning prayer and whether examinations of it its effectiveness could be scientific, I agree with Steve Zara. There actually have been studies dealing with intercessory prayer (most notably the study involving cardiac bypass patients – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16569567)
Clearly, the studies performed involving investigations into the effects of intecessory prayer were scientific. How can it be asserted that:
So, if scientists pray or record data while others pray in an attempt to determine the efficacy of prayer, they aren’t “doing science”? I’m afraid I can’t agree with such a notion.