Can science disprove God?

[cornopean]

I’ve been thinking about this. All three major religions teach that God is not something that can be sensed (i.e. not empirical). This being the case, then there is no way science can either prove or disprove God. right? It doesn’t matter how powerful your telescope or microscope, you aren’t going to find God.

So it appears to me that the existence or non-existence of God is something that can only be defended on philosophical or religious grounds. and there are a whole lot of scientists out there who arrogantly think they know everything. But unless all of life is reducible to empirical stuff, they are out to lunch. no?

[chrisk]

Generally, they can’t disprove God.

On the other hand, in most of science, the burden of proof is on the side that says ‘this is so, this is something that exists.’ And science has developed alternate explanations for things that, before the development of science, were put forward as justifications for “This is why there has to be a God” that weren’t strictly philosophical or religious.

[the_diego]

@cornopean

I’ve been thinking about this. All three major religions teach that God is not something that can be sensed (i.e. not empirical). This being the case, then there is no way science can either prove or disprove God. right? It doesn’t matter how powerful your telescope or microscope, you aren’t going to find God.

So it appears to me that the existence or non-existence of God is something that can only be defended on philosophical or religious grounds. and there are a whole lot of scientists out there who arrogantly think they know everything. But unless all of life is reducible to empirical stuff, they are out to lunch. no?

Science can be both empirical and stochastic. Philosophy IS science (at least for the most part.) And much of religion is scientific really. Ever wondered why the bible considers snakes and other reptiles as evil creatures? One word: salmonella.

[Telemark]

@cornopean

and there are a whole lot of scientists out there who arrogantly think they know everything.

No there aren’t. Prove me wrong.

[Der_Trihs]

Science and reason have disproved the various common conceptions of gods as much as they can disprove anything. Which is why believers have been forced to retreat to immaterial, invisible, undetectably subtle gods tailored to hide from the scrutiny of science, instead of the versions that actually show up and act openly.

And as said, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim, not on the skeptic. If I started claiming that I was a god, I expect people would demand more proof than my bare assertion of divinity; but I have exactly as much evidence for such a claim as any believer does for his or her god. Come to think of it, in fact I have more evidence; I can actually show up.

@cornopean

and there are a whole lot of scientists out there who arrogantly think they know everything.

Not really, no. And as far as arrogance goes it’s harder to imagine anything more arrogant than being religious; how is a believer claiming that they just know all these things without evidence and demanding that they be taken seriously not arrogant?

[John_Mace]

@cornopean

ISo it appears to me that the existence or non-existence of God is something that can only be defended on philosophical or religious grounds. and there are a whole lot of scientists out there who arrogantly think they know everything.

Name one, and prove it.

[Trinopus]

@the_diego

Science can be both empirical and stochastic. Philosophy IS science (at least for the most part.) And much of religion is scientific really. Ever wondered why the bible considers snakes and other reptiles as evil creatures? One word: salmonella.

No. This is retrofitted reasoning. Salmonella wasn’t known in Biblical times. Food cleanliness was only barely known. Pigs weren’t unclean because of trichinosis, either: this is an urban legend.

Snakes were unclean because many of them were venomous. (Still are.) They are also “icky” to a great many people, slithery and nasty, and forced to crawl in the dirt.

[Wesley_Clark]

I guess if we humans could have a reasonably good idea about ‘the mind of god’ and we conducted an experiment that would normally cause god to interfere in human activity based on our understanding of the wants and dislikes of god, and god didn’t intervene or respond we could interpret that as evidence that we either don’t understand the mind of god or that god has no interactions with our dimension.

None of this would disprove god as an extra-dimensional being though.

[Claverhouse]

No; you just have to have faith in God’s non-existence.

[Der_Trihs]

@John_Mace

So it appears to me that the existence or non-existence of God is something that can only be defended on philosophical or religious grounds. and there are a whole lot of scientists out there who arrogantly think they know everything.

Name one, and prove it.

Doctor Doom?

[Blake]

@the_diego

Philosophy IS science (at least for the most part.)

Not even remotely true.

And much of religion is scientific really.

Absolute nonsense.

Ever wondered why the bible considers snakes and other reptiles as evil creatures?

No, I haven’t wondered that because the bible doesn’t consider other reptiles as evil creatures. If you can show me a single verse from the bible that even suggests that lizards or tortoises are evil, I’ll buy you a beer.

At no point does the Bible even say that snakes are evil. It does say that they lost their legs due to being cursed by God, in exactly the same way and at exactly the same time that humans lost their immortality due to being cursed by God. So if snakes are “evil” then humans must be even more evil.

One word: salmonella.

One word: nonsense.

First off, as noted above reptiles other than snakes are not considered evil or cursed, and they are more prone to carry salmonella than snakes.

Secondly, birds are not only considered non-evil, they are specifically listed as being kosher (with a few exceptions). Doves are even acceptable sacrifices for the Holiest of Holies. And of course birds carry salmonella to the same degree as reptiles. So how do you reconcile this.

Thirdly, while reptiles are considered non-kosher they are not unusual. Only a handful of land animals are kosher, all of them either birds, ungulates or grasshoppers. So if the reason why geckos are considered unclean is because of salmonella, then why are are termites or donkeys considered unclean? Do they carry salmonella?

Sorry Old Chap, but religious ain’t science and the Bible ain’t scientifically accurate. You can try to twist the verses as much as you like, but there is no scientific legitimacy to Jewish dietary laws.

[Czarcasm]

@cornopean

I’ve been thinking about this. All three major religions teach that God is not something that can be sensed (i.e. not empirical). This being the case, then there is no way science can either prove or disprove God. right? It doesn’t matter how powerful your telescope or microscope, you aren’t going to find God.

So it appears to me that the existence or non-existence of God is something that can only be defended on philosophical or religious grounds. and there are a whole lot of scientists out there who arrogantly think they know everything. But unless all of life is reducible to empirical stuff, they are out to lunch. no?

Describe as accurately as possible the god you would wish science to disprove, please.

[simster]

@Claverhouse

No; you just have to have faith in God’s non-existence.

absolute bull - we just dealt with this in a different thread -

faith is believing ‘in’ something without evidence.

having no belief in something is not ‘faith’ in any sense of the word.

[Czarcasm]

@Claverhouse

No; you just have to have faith in God’s non-existence.

Thus destroying any meaning the word might have previously had. :rolleyes: Just this once can we skip the hoary “gotcha!” games and use words the way they are meant to be used? There is no need for faith to disbelieve that which is not there-it only takes a logical mind and the willingness to grow up.

[Locrian]

No. And science can’t disprove the flying teapot, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster either.

Came pretty damn close with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy though!

[Der_Trihs]

@Locrian

No. And science can’t disprove the flying teapot, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster either.

Actually, since teapots and spaghetti are both known to exist the flying teapot and the Flying Spaghetti Monster are both more plausible than a god since gods are not known to exist. Or even to be possible.

Oh; and I’d like to point out that the question in the OP not only presumes that gods may exist, but that the divinity in question is some variation on the Abrahamic god; thus the singular, capital “G” God. As opposed to a whole pantheon or race of gods.

[Strinka]

@cornopean

God is not something that can be sensed (i.e. not empirical).

If that’s the case, how did believers ever find out about God?

And the idea that religion is completely non-disprovable is a recent one that was developed in response to the success of science and its failure to find evidence for God. In any other circumstance, God is supposed to be easily observable through miracles, answered prayers and direct revelation.

[Little_Nemo]

@cornopean

I’ve been thinking about this. All three major religions teach that God is not something that can be sensed (i.e. not empirical). This being the case, then there is no way science can either prove or disprove God. right? It doesn’t matter how powerful your telescope or microscope, you aren’t going to find God.

So it appears to me that the existence or non-existence of God is something that can only be defended on philosophical or religious grounds. and there are a whole lot of scientists out there who arrogantly think they know everything. But unless all of life is reducible to empirical stuff, they are out to lunch. no?

So your argument is basically that scientists know all the stuff that can be known and religious people know all the stuff that can’t be known.

[Pjen]

The argument is one of Philosophy, epistemology- what can be ‘known’ and how? Of course like all discourse it depends on what the basic words mean- what does it mean to ‘know’ something.

All sentient beings by definitions have beliefs and belief systems. You cannot contradict the possession of beliefs- they are there because they are there, not for any other reason. They are an element of being sentient.

Knowledge is a different matter and is defined differently by different groups!

To ‘know’ something is to have a belief that is justified by some external support other than being a mere fleeting sensation in the brain of a sentient being. It is a social construct- agreed by the group of people sharing that method of validation of knowledge.

If a group of people come together and share their beliefs in a Theistic God, claiming direct internal experiences of interaction with that God, then within that system, ‘God’ exists. This is not disimmilar to Gilbert Ryles argument about the existence of Oxford University (which has many colleges, an administration structure, lecturers, professors, students and bulldogs) but has no campus- nothing that can be pointed to and said about ‘Here is the University’. It includes much of the city of Oxford and many of the lands in South East Britain (it being siad that one could walk from Oxford to Cambridge on University land!) It is convenient to admit that such an inchoate structure is in fact one object- a University. Everyone (well almost everyone) goes along with this.

The Scientific Method has a different approach to ‘Knowledge’, insisting that to be Knowledge, it must be testable, Falsifiable and agreed by a sufficient group of skilled scientists to be Knowledge.

The difference is that mere agreement is not necessary, that there must be some foundation in the world around us.

Science has advanced by gradually stripping away beliefs that were seen as true and unknowable (causation by gods, elves and others, the Aether, Phlogiston, Life spirits, human souls, free will, and so on) by explanations not dependent of belief supported only by agreement.

Because Science (and the Technology following it) has been the one system that has created the modern world, it is now seen as the default for both Epistemology (what we know) and Ontology (what there is.)

God ‘exists’ and is ‘known’ in a different manner to the existence and knowledge provided by Science.

Science is quite happy for the existence of God to be investigated by the scientific method and proved to exist, but this has never been practically achieved, and many philosophers would insist that the program to prove the existence of God misunderstands the concepts involved.

[Kobal2]

Science notoriously has no need for that hypothesis.

[QUOTE=Strinka]
And the idea that religion is completely non-disprovable is a recent one that was developed in response to the success of science and its failure to find evidence for God. In any other circumstance, God is supposed to be easily observable through miracles, answered prayers and direct revelation.
[/QUOTE]

Not to mention, God didn’t use to be so coy.
Back in the day he didn’t send anonymous tornadoes or global warming to smite teh ghey, as Evangelist preachers seem inordinately fond of asserting : he’d send down an angel of death, flaming sword and all, to rain fire, brimstone and pillars of fucking salt (seriously, why salt ? That one always puzzled me. So bizarrely specific).

And you’d think angel sightings would be pretty hard to miss : the Seraphim are described in the Bible as having 3 sets of wings, two of which they used only to hide themselves, for otherwise their magnificence would make your head asplode, quite literally. Cherubim have four faces. Ophanim are wheels of fire with a hundred eyes. They’re all pretty hard to mistake for Sasquatch, is my point.