God and physics.

Great Debates
21

I think I understand. Your original post was to solicit debate from both sides of the issue of “Does God Exist” from an imperical point of view. I think this is an apples vs. oranges debate as the nature of any metaphysical world and any laws that apply differs from the nature of any physical world and the laws that apply. As we are bound to the physical world, all of our observations and measurements that have led to the “Laws of Existance” are restrained to this one, any attempt to theorize a metaphysical system would be totally baseless as there is no way to measure and observe reality in that point of view.

Unfortunately I find this argument flawed. For example, remove God from this quote and insert “Third planet revolving around a sun somewhere outside of the Milky Way”. All of your arguements (no scientific evidence, unobservable, etc…) would apply equally with the exception of the concept of “Supernatural” being non-scientific. Does this mean that such a planet does not exist? No. Does this mean that such a planet does exist? No. I would think this puts itself into one of those Dual-Existance catagories, like spinning quarks and boxed cats.

Historically the answer is not much clearer. A few thousand years ago any thought that the Earth revolves around the Sun were totally baseless and laughable. Now we know otherwise and their positions seem ridiculous. A few hundred years ago most diseases were caused by small mice or dwarves that lived inside of our bodys and disrupted various humors. A few hundred years from now the concept of “Speed of light” may be totally busted due to some form of mathematical understanding. A few thousand years from now, who knows what civilization will think of God, our current concepts could be totally wrong. Or perhaps our current concepts of “Scientific Reality” are totally wrong. I would give the odds at about the same for either ID or Quantum Physics to be laughable at that point (or both, or neither, the odds are the same for all).

You can’t disprove metaphysical theory in the physical realm because it does not exist here and vice-versa. Check out some Kant for the various distinctions.

22

Yes.

Yes.

No. “Unobservable” is perhaps valid, if by “observable” we mean “observable through reproducible experiments that can be precisely described.” Many people have claimed to observe “supernatural” phenomena, but what makes them unscientific is that there’s no recipie, no procedure that anyone can follow, to reproduce these phenomena. This doesn’t imply that the original observers were lying about their experiences. “Unprovable” applies to all scientific knowledge - “proof” can only occur in logic and mathematics, not in any field that involves observation of the physical (or supernatural) world. And what are the “laws of existence”? Who wrote them, and what are the penalties for violating them? Not a scientific concept.

This is a statment of the materialist metaphysical view; a materialist does indeed deny the existence of God on these grounds. However, not all of us are materialists, and materialism can offer no more proof for its “truth” than any other metaphysical position. You may prefer materialism to other philosophies, but that’s all it is - your personal preference.

Unless you do have some proof for materialism other than the bare assertion “It must be true!”?

23

Nothing that we observe will ever condradict the idea of a god.
For one, science can’t explain the idea of ‘forever’ or ‘where did the matter that created the big bang come from?’. It is perfectly logical for ordinary persons to expect a god-like person to be being that started everything.

24

I would not go that farl.

While God would not be bound by the laws of physics, that does not mean that there can be no scientific evidence for such a being. Rather, it means that science alone would not be sufficient to demonstrate God’s existence. In fact, philosopher cite scientific evidence in both the teleological argument for God and the kalam cosmological argument. In both cases, science is used as evidence from which philosophical reasonings proceed. (Again, one might disagree with the particular conclusion that is drawn, but that does not mean that scientific evidence is not involved.)

And second, that’s not what science means. “Unscientific” does not mean “unobservable, unprovable and completely contrary to the laws of existence.” Rather, it simply means that something is not governed by the rules of science.

Consider morality, for example. There is no scientific experiment that would establish that it’s morally reprehensible to torture atheists for fun… and yet I think the vast majority would agree that such an action is morally repugnant. This is not a scientific principle, but that does not make it “contrary to the laws of existence.”

Similarly, what about the statement “There is a rock here”? That statement may be factual and observable, but it’s not scientific. It involves mere observation, and there is no scientific methodology involved… yet the rock exists. Science is not the only path to knowledge.

The fundamental laws of logic exist, yet they cannot be proven by science. In fact, science *assumes * their validity, and thus, science cannot prove them to be correct. As I said, science is not the only path to knowledge.

While we’re on that topic, logical statements can be proven, using the principles of logic… and yet scientific methodologies are not typically employed in such tasks. Science is a wonderful tool, but not all things must be proven using science.

And so forth, and so on. I would respectfully (but strongly!) disagree with the assertion that whatever’s unscientific is also “unobservable, unprovable and completely contrary to the laws of existence.” That’s not what science is.

25

My gigantic God who is unable to observe the universe because of the latency of the speed of light is meant to show how the physical universe works under completely different rules than what is posited by religion, therefore religion cannot use those physical universal rules to try to justify their faith.

26

And exactly what are these rules that are posited by “religion”? There are, after all, a great many religious worldviews out there.

Again, I strongly disagree. If a particular religion makes a physically verifiable claim – such as predicting a miracle, for example – then that would be evidence for that particular faith.

It is true that the spiritual realm would not be bound by physical rules. However, this does not, by any stretch of logic, imply that a religion can never use physical evidence to support its claims.

27

BTW, I think you have yet to explain the following:

[ul]
[li]Why the Creator of the universe must be “gigantic.” As pointed out earlier, human beings regularly build things that are larger than themselves.[/li][li]Why this Creator must have physical dimensions at all. If the Creator is non-physical, then why should this person be described in terms of size?[/li][li]Why the speed of light would render the universe invisible to such a Creator.[/li][/ul]

28

Claiming any observable event as a “miracle” has no basis in Science.

My argument is based on the idea that a Creator is thought to be Gigantic. However, as you point out, He could be anything, smaller than an atom, larger than the universe, made entirely of chewing gum…doesnt really matter. For the sake of argument, I am positing that IF the Creator is in fact larger than the Universe and CAN be measured with some kind of massive measuring device…

Assuming the Creator can be measured in physical size, and He/She/It is bigger than the universe, as we know AND that we assume that “visible” implies that light is involved in the direct “observance” of said universe, even a relatively short distance (to God anyway) from the universe, say, sitting on a giant workbench, would be so distant from the creators giant eyeball (or whatever He/She/It uses to visualize things) that in the time it would take for the light to travel from the workbench to the creators eyeball would something in the order of trillions of years…thus by the time He could actually receive the light into His vast visual cortex (again or whatever he processes such information with), the universe would have aged that much, IE trillions of years.

29

That’s a more reasonable argument - thanks. However, there are two immediate replies that I can think of:

  1. The fact that the universe appears (and I emphasise appears) to follow “physical universal rules” can be used as part of various teleological arguments for God’s existence. The universe could have been entirely chaotic and random (Genesis 1:2); our observation that it isn’t can be explained by the idea that God created the rules necessary for our ordered universe to develop.

  2. Those religious arguments that depend on miracles assume a “natural law” that miracles defy. Something can’t be miraculous unless it’s a violation of natural law, which requires natural law to exist in the first place.

30

Simple answer. This Creator of yours exists at all points in time and space and so is immediately aware of everything, all the time.

There you go. God as embedded firmware.

31

What exactly were the ‘laws of existance’ again?

Even Immanuel Kant had a hard time with this particular topic…

32

Not really. It’s unscientific to invoke miracles to explain phenomena that can be explained naturally, true. Science, however, is only concerned with reproducible phenomena. If I (or Dr Frankenstein) were to say “I can raise people from the dead”, and was able to demonstrate it, then that would be a legitimate subject of scientific research, the (natural) mechanism by which it was done could be discovered, some aspects of biological science would be updated, and it wouldn’t be described as a miracle. If, however, I say “Jesus rose from the dead”, all science can say is “If that happened, it would be a violation of (our current understanding of) natural law, and therefore it would be miraculous”. Now, some scientists (and non-scientists) go further than this, and say “As miracles can’t happen, Jesus did not rise from the dead” - this, however, is (again) a metaphysical position, not a scientific one.

Science can say “Miracles can’t be used as an explanation for natural phenomena.” Science can say “Miracles can’t be studied by science”. Science, as opposed to (metaphysical) naturalism, can’t say “Miracles are impossible”.

Yes, but nobody believes this. It’s something of a straw man argument, as you present it.

33

existing immaterially. You could posit that anything exists immaterially, like a giant cheeseball that coexists with the milkyway in the same space, time, and volume of space. I do not believe this kind of argument has any basis in science.
Reading the telelogical arguments…the odds are quite facinating, particularly the point that if Gravity’s constant were off by less than 1 in 10 to the 60th power, the entire Universe would have collapsed back in on itself or expanded too quickly for stars to develop. This and other “Razors Edge” levels of accuracy describing at all scales the complexity of our current existence is by far the most compelling argument for some kind of intelligent design…only for intelligent design to occur, the designer has to have come into existence somehow. Ahh the old chicken and egg.

34

For reasons already pointed out, that simply isn’t true.

And who exactly thinks such a thing? Nobody that I know. Moreover, that’s not what you said earlier. In the OP, you specifically said, “So, if God created the universe, one can only assume He (or She or whatever) is much larger than that which He created.” (Emphasis added)

Which no reasonable theist assumes to be true.

35

mrrealtime, I think you are struggling with perspective. You envision the universe from your point of view in which the universe seems too enormous to even comprehend.
The Creator may have a collection of universes and to him our universe is merely a bubble on one of his doorknobs.

36

Or existing in a state we do not yet understand… there is plenty of ‘empty’ space for things to exist in (and in fact we keep finding things there)

Our limited understanding on any topic does not relgate that topic the arena of impossibility

Currently there is no direct scientific evidence for a supreme being… but in the 17th century there was no direct scientific evidence for atoms, either… we have since found some…

Don’t confuse not knowing with unknowable… nor current knowledge with correct knowledge… it bites us in the bum everytime

37

No struggle here…if the Creator has doorknobs, one can assume he has doors, hands and some need to open and close them. What I am merely pointing out is that the scale for such a thought experiment easily bypasses the capabilities of light in terms of speed, so while he may have those doorknobs, he probably cant see them in the way you and I can see ours (using light) because it would take too long for the light to get from the doorknob to his eyes…

The absence of information is not proof for either. We didnt see a lot of things in the 17th century. We also didnt see giant puffball antimatter mushrooms growing on massive rock candies at the center of planet Donut. You cannot prove or disprove the existence of planet Donut, because it has never been observed.

I am not saying that everything that is not known is unknowable, but you know, in spite of all that currently IS observable, theres probably a lot more that isnt, including made up stuff that doesnt actually exist. However, I guarantee the combined assets of all the Churches and other religious organizations (our temples to the unknown…the unprovable) currently vastly exceed what we have devoted to the further study of the “knowable” and the “observable”. Who knows what we will discover? I’ll tell you one thing, we never would have found the atom if we had done nothing but pray to God.

38

The speed of light and subsequant latency is not a constant in and of itself, it is simply a measurable constant relative to the observer under the conditions of observation. If the physical [sic] nature of God is massive and the conditions of observation (e.g. the whole of creation at once) are equally massive it would make sense that the speed of light as a measurable constant would be proportional and thus not in violation of any physical laws. A lot of toy cars travel in excess of 300 mph relative to their scale but much slower relative to their real life counterparts.

For religion to use physical universal rules to justify their faith violates the nature of faith itself. Once the unprovable is proved there is no need for faith and thus no need for a religion to organize said faith. The paradox here is that if the nature of God relies on faith, any proof to His existance removes the faith that His existance relies on in the first place. Personally I think it’s vanity that gives us cause to believe that we are capable of understanding the nature of things outside of our scope of reality, but a humanistic pride causes us to try anyway.

39

mrrealtime, you’re assuming that a “being god” would be bounded by the physical laws of the universe (speed of light, gravity, etc). If a “being god” existed, I’m assuming it would resemble Q from Star Trek the Next Generation. Q is not bounded by physical laws and has the capability to change them.

40

So are you saying that the speed of light is relative to the size/position of the observer?

For us here on earth, it would take 1/300millionth of a second to see something meter away, but if Gods giant “eye” is, say, one universe width away from the universe sitting on his workbench, if it took 1/300millionth of a second for the light to travel from the bench to his eye, like it is for us, the light would have to be travelling at 737936976861240000000000000 meters per second give or take, instead of 300,000,000 meters per second (approx.) or 2459789922870800000 times what the relative speed of light is for us…also assuming the universe is only 78 billion light years across. But at these numbers it becomes pretty academic. One wonders, if light is travelling at 2459789922870800000 its current speed, is it still considered light? Is it still visible?

That is fine for you to make that assumption. I am assuming for the sake of this discussion that the “being God” is not everywhere at once, rather occupies his own specific space. I believe you cannot disprove my assumption any more than I can disprove yours.