Does current science prove the existence of god?

When you’re right, you’re right. I wondered why Google wasn’t turning up a good summary page.

(I did know the correct term, once upon a time. Honestly.)

How do you know that God isn’t a member of an advanced race; from another universe, perhaps ?

There’s these wild ideas floating about the field of theoretical physics postulating sufficiently advanced races could create false vacua, manipulate them in such a way as to determine the physical constantants they will give rise to, and then simply allow them to evolve much like our own universe did. Perhaps they could even allow info. to tunnel into these baby universes from the parent universe so as to escape heat death, for instance, or at least procreate into a vacuum that would give rise to intelligent beings, and hence achieve a kind of immortality.

Whether or not this is a load of hooey I don’t know or really care anymore.

What matters, I suppose, is this concept of a powerful creator that, whilst vast in its abilities, is still fully constrained by the laws of its sector, and can only endow others with laws according to its own limitations. It is not omnipotent, only mighty. I think omnipotence may be a concept so profound or absurd as to fall into the catagory of supernatural. The alien breeder of universes is not like God, then, if God is understood to be a supernatural Being.

I don’t, but I see no evidence that He is, so I’m comfortable concluding that to the best of my knowledge He doesn’t exist at all. You are, too, if I’m not mistaken.

Oh, definitely. I was speaking theoretically.

I think that, if we were able to prove that some god-like being exists, it would cause more problems than it would solve. Every religious group out there would have the last of their doubts removed, and every last one of the little zealots would believe theat it was their god that had been proven to exist. If you think violence in the name of religion is bad now

Studies on the power of prayer have been inconclusive to date, so I don’t think God really interacts with us. As for the existence of God, I don’t really know if there is any way to test that. If God doesn’t interact with us (and the prayer studies show he doesn’t) then I don’t really know how we could test for God’s existence.

The book referenced in the OP is Lee Strobel’s THE CASE FOR A CREATOR, which is a rehashing of the Anthropic Principle & the Design arguments. Definitely not proof, but I still believe deserving of greater consideration than many here would grant.

Alas, many pastors know little about science, philosophy, or reasoned debate. A lot of pastor jobs require organizational/management/leadership skills and social/relational/helping people skills and intellectual/knowledge/scholarship expertise, and it’s hard to find people who excel at all three.

I’m not sure it even matters, since even if science could prove God’s existence, you’re still a long way from all the characteristics and attributes and things that Christianity, or many another religion, teaches about God.

Mind giving your rebuttal to the arguments against these that have been given both here and in many other threads? While you’re at it, do you see these arguments supporting the case for the god you believe in, or some god in general?

Who created them, then? :slight_smile:

David Copperfield is God?
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/entertainment/story.asp?j=184794088&p=y84794794

Does Mr. Copperfield lack a brain, or is he on some level at least aware of the can of worms he’s opening with that nonsense?

BLASPHEMER!!!

Here’s the wiki entry for Case for a Creator. It appears to consist of a bunch of interviews with ID proponents and Discovery Institute stooges. According to the wiki article, Strobel only interviews ID supporters (most of whom are uncredentialed in any relevant scientific field) and does not talk to anyone who is not a creationist. This is typical of Strobel. I have not read this particualr book but I have read some of his other “Case for…” books and his MO is always the same. He interviews “experts” who consist only of evangelical Christians. He seeks no rebuttals. He never interviews anyone who will not support what he already believes. He extropolates fallacious conclusions from contrived “evidence” (e.g. extropolating a specifically Christian God from the anthropic principle).

Strobel is one of the worst popular apologists your ever going to find (it’s a tight race with Josh McDowell). Despite his pretext of Journalistic inquiry, he’s really just a proselytizing blow hard preaching to the choir.

The answer to the OP is if science had proven the existence of God, you would have heard about it already. It wouldn’t be something you would have to find out about from persusing the Christian section of Barnes & Noble.

Seems like they’re still looking though.

At the end of the book, does God disappear in a poof of logic?

Well, if they have god-level technology, they have time travel; perhaps they travelled back in time and created themselves. :smiley:

Rather than poorly put together pseudo-scientific rants such as “the case for god”, I would recommend Just Six Numbers.

I’ll go you one better by quoting Strobel’s “expert” in The Case For Faith. Strobel presents a point of view he got from a rabbi; the “expert”, who is Christian, responds as follows:

“Kreeft raised an eyebrow. ‘For a rabbi, that’s hard to understand, because the distinctively Jewish notion of God is the opposite of that,’ he said.”

That’s the first chapter. Second chapter, Strobel talks to another expert; also a Christian, and also weighing in on Judaism. See, it’s one thing to doubt the other miracles that Jesus performed, but coming back from the dead was a different kind of miracle: one it’d be harder to convince his Jewish disciples that he’d performed, and so one which by definition has extra evidence backing it. Because, well, “Jewish beliefs precluded anyone’s rising from the dead before the general resurrection at the end of the world,” and so the fact that they were swayed “despite their predisposition to the contrary” is especially cool.

So what did I learn from the second chapter? That neither Strobel nor his “expert” read the Old Testament, what with that being one of Elisha’s signature miracles and all – which is Strobel’s usual level of competence, like Dio said. But the first chapter? Chronicling that a Jew and a Christian say different things about what the Jews believe, and that he listens to the Christian over the Jew? That’s something special. That’s downright helpful. That’s a frickin’ disclaimer.