# Can science disprove God? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 7, 2013, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301 "2013-11-07T03:01:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/21 "2013-11-07T06:42:56Z")
> [@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. You really should read the Bible some time. Especially Genesis and Exodus. Ya think God talking to Abraham and Moses might be counted as sensing God? Anyhow, you don’t try to find God directly, you just look for his scat, as it were. > [@](#): > > 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? Never met a scientist in your life, have you? Scientist are always trying to prove themselves and others wrong. You on the other hand seem to think you know exactly what a deity who has never been even sensed wants. Don’t make a lot of sense, does it? Maybe you look for God the way the guy in Dylan’s “Talkin’ John Birch Society Paranoid Blues” looks for the Commies. Look up my chimney hole Look down deep inside my toilet bowl They got away ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/22 "2013-11-07T07:00:17Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Not even remotely true. No, but the reverse is true: science is a (hypertrophied and particularly successful) branch of philosophy. Anyway, science can’t, and does not attempt to, disprove the existence of God. However, science has thoroughly undermined most of the reasons why people originally did believe in a god or gods. Furthermore, although many scientists are and have been religious, science relies on the methodological assumption that even if there are any gods or other supernatural powers, they do not intervene in (at the very least) that aspect of reality that the scientist is trying to study. if miracles were routinely occurring, science would be impossible. All this has put the burden of proof squarely on the side of the believers (and I see no sign that they can even come close to meeting that burden). ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/23 "2013-11-07T07:13:25Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > 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 is thoroughly dissimilar. What a group of people tell themselves about the existence of God has no bearing at all on the question of God’s actual existence. (Any more than if a group of people get together and tell each other stories about Orcs and Hobbits.) On the other hand, Oxford University does objectively exist, even though it is not the sort of thing you can point at (from within Oxford, anyway). ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/24 "2013-11-07T07:16:33Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > It is thoroughly dissimilar. What a group of people tell themselves about the existence of God has no bearing at all on the question of God’s actual existence. (Any more than if a group of people get together and tell each other stories about Orcs and Hobbits.) On the other hand, Oxford University does objectively exist, even though it is not the sort of thing you can point at (from within Oxford, anyway). Maybe you need to read up on ‘knowledge’ a little more. Start here: > **[Knowledge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge)** > > Knowledge is an awareness of facts, a familiarity with individuals and situations, or a practical skill. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often characterized as true belief that is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification. While there is wide agreement among philosophers that propositional knowledge is a form of true belief, many controversies focus on justification. This includes questions like how to understand justification, whether it is nee... where you will see the bones of the argument I have outlined above. Justification by shared belief is a form of knowledge, just mot of scientific knowledge. At the extremes of philosophy, even the scientific form of knowledge breaks down under analysis. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/25 "2013-11-07T07:47:45Z")
I’m willing to operate on the assumption that the existence of God has been disproved. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/26 "2013-11-07T08:09:22Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’m willing to operate on the assumption that the existence of God has been disproved. Your faith is impressive! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/27 "2013-11-07T08:24:30Z")
That’s nothing. I’m willing to operate on the assumption that sheep are spherical, provided it leads to interesting functional applications or at least a half-decent joke. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/28 "2013-11-07T08:53:12Z")
> [@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. A God that does not interact with anything in any way that can be quantified or measured is, from the point of view of science, nonexistent. I mean, if a physicist proposed the existence of a particle that interacts with nothing, is invisible, unmeasurable and in all ways undetectable and completely without physical effect, we’d be asking “Why did you bother? What made you imagine there was such a thing?” ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/29 "2013-11-07T09:02:31Z")
Science can’t prove or disprove something that is explicitly claimed to be outside the rules of our reality. However, the minute ‘God’ is claimed to interact with our world, that claim becomes testable. For example, if you believe that God answers prayers in a physical way, say by saving people from illness or injury, then we have a claim that can be tested empirically. We could look at rates of cancer remission among communities of faith vs communities that do not believe in praying for health, for instance. There have been a few such studies, and I’ve never seen one that found any significant effect at all. I don’t understand why religious people seem to be so antagonistic to science or feel the need to justify their God through science. The whole point of ‘faith’ is that you are supposed to believe without proof. If science ‘proved’ God, there would be no reason to have faith. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/30 "2013-11-07T09:12:14Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > A God that does not interact with anything in any way that can be quantified or measured is, from the point of view of science, nonexistent. > > I mean, if a physicist proposed the existence of a particle that interacts with nothing, is invisible, unmeasurable and in all ways undetectable and completely without physical effect, we’d be asking “Why did you bother? What made you imagine there was such a thing?” Yes. But, e.g., an ethical proposition does not interact with anything that can be quantified or measured is, from the point of view of science, nonexistent. It’s invisible, unmeasurable and in all ways undetectable and completely without physical effect. Yet it’s not irrational to concern ourselves with ethical propositions, to reflect upon them, to investigate them, to assess them, to accept or reject them. We just don’t employ the techniques of science very much to do this. But that tell us more about the limitations of science that it does about the reality, validity, importance or rationality of ethical propositions. I don’t suggest that God is necessarily analogous to an ethical proposition; my point is just that there is a class of propositions whose truth cannot be investigated by science, but that may nevertheless be important and meaningful. Hence showing that God cannot be investigated by science does not necessarily refute or marginalise the propositions of theism. What you say here, I cautiously suggest, implicitly _does_ proceed on the assumption that God is analagous to an unobservable particle - or, at least, that an unobservable particle is a better analogy for God than an ethical proposition is. This isn’t radically different from arguments that proceed upon the implict notion that God is analagous to an invisible pink unicorn, a flying spaghetti monster or an interplanetary teapot. All those arguments fail to persuade, I think, because you don’t have to examine theistic notions very closely before you realise that the the unstated assumption is, in fact, not a very sound one. The God postulated by mainstream theist traditions in the western world is not really analagous to a particle, a unicorn, an agglomeration of pasta or a teapot. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/31 "2013-11-07T10:20:47Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’m willing to operate on the assumption that the existence of God has been disproved. The scientific method cannot disprove the existence of God. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/32 "2013-11-07T10:28:36Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > The scientific method cannot disprove the existence of God. It can and has, as much as it can disprove anything. That’s why the believers have created a version of their god tailored to be as untouchable by science as possible, for use in discussions like this one. They’ve been forced to retreat again and again in their claims about their god until it has shrunk into something that is indistinguishable from nothing. Few people IMHO actually believe in the totally undetectable, totally non-interventionist god that gets used in arguments like this; it’s a tactical god that exists to defend against the criticism of science. And when the discussion is over and the skeptics are elsewhere, people go back to the god(s) who answers prayers and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/33 "2013-11-07T10:46:04Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > No. And science can’t disprove the flying teapot, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster either. 😉 Nor can science disprove the existence of a deity that holds views exactly opposite to those **Pjen** , \*\*cornopean \*\*- heck for that matter every religious person out there - believe their god/s hold. The answer to \*\*Pjen’s \*\*headline question is “no”, but this is relevant in no way whatsoever to anything other than empty musing. The OP and thousands like it are pointless and utterly sterile wankery. Science can’t disprove an infinite number of unfalsifiable, entirely contradictory propositions. So in the absence of positive evidence as to which propositions are actually true, there is no basis for assuming anything about those propositions for which there is not, to an equal extent, a basis for assuming the contrary. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/34 "2013-11-07T10:47:26Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I mean, if a physicist proposed the existence of a particle that interacts with nothing, is invisible, unmeasurable and in all ways undetectable and completely without physical effect, we’d be asking “Why did you bother? What made you imagine there was such a thing?” Religion manages to be a lot more illogical than that. Religion is the equivalent of inventing hundred of different particles and finding no evidence that any of these particles actually exist - and then arbitrarily concluding that one of the particles exists and all of the other ones do not. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/35 "2013-11-07T11:19:46Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > The scientific method cannot disprove the existence of God. Which god? What are the specific characteristics of the god that you claim science cannot disprove? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/36 "2013-11-07T11:26:21Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > it’s a tactical god I believe that would be the God-Emperor (sorry, EMPRAH!) of Mankind 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/37 "2013-11-07T11:29:44Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > I believe that would be the God-Emperor (sorry, EMPRAH!) of Mankind 😛 😃 ---
**Author:** ![JLRogers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce73a5/32.png) [@JLRogers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JLRogers)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/38 "2013-11-07T11:32:44Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’m willing to operate on the assumption that the existence of God has been disproved. You put too much thought into it. I operate as if the existence of god is a meaningless question for people who like philosophical dead ends to debate and am much happier for it. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/39 "2013-11-07T11:35:08Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Yes. But, e.g., an ethical proposition does not interact with anything that can be quantified or measured is, from the point of view of science, nonexistent. It’s invisible, unmeasurable and in all ways undetectable and completely without physical effect. > > Yet it’s not irrational to concern ourselves with ethical propositions, to reflect upon them, to investigate them, to assess them, to accept or reject them. We just don’t employ the techniques of science very much to do this. But that tell us more about the limitations of science that it does about the reality, validity, importance or rationality of ethical propositions. That’s because ethics is entirely _made up_. It’s an invented concept - we might achieve some kind of consensus on the things we thus make up (in the same way that Star Wars fans may reach consensus on what is and is not consistent with that fictional universe) - but it’s still _made up_ - even if it has utility. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/40 "2013-11-07T11:39:20Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > What you say here, I cautiously suggest, implicitly _does_ proceed on the assumption that God is analagous to an unobservable particle - or, at least, that an unobservable particle is a better analogy for God than an ethical proposition is. > > This isn’t radically different from arguments that proceed upon the implict notion that God is analagous to an invisible pink unicorn, a flying spaghetti monster or an interplanetary teapot. All those arguments fail to persuade, I think, because you don’t have to examine theistic notions very closely before you realise that the the unstated assumption is, in fact, not a very sound one. The God postulated by mainstream theist traditions in the western world is not really analagous to a particle, a unicorn, an agglomeration of pasta or a teapot. Don’t blame me. The post I was responding to set up precisely that equivalence. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301.md?page=3)