I have never had a problem with science proclaiming that they have never found any evidence of a higher power. I do have a problem when they implicate that it must not be there because they can’t find it. There is far too much science doesn’t understand to make a statement like that with any credibility.
Science says no such thing. Saying “show it to us so we can study it” is not the same as saying, “if you can’t show it to us, it doesn’t exist”. Science says the first. You are claiming it says the second. You’re wrong.
BTW, you seem to have chosen the wrong user name. Apparently HoneyBadger really does give a shit. At least about this issue. 
Examples?
CMC
I consider myself sort of a vague theist. I believe there’s a god, but that’s about it. I don’t know WHY I believe, or whatever, but it’s just how I feel. (I don’t believe that one can choose to believe in a god. It’s like, if I tried to be an atheist, or believe in a specific religion, it’s just not in me. I just believe what I believe.)
If I’m right, I’m right, if I’m wrong, I’m wrong – no big deal either way. I don’t care what others believe or don’t believe, as long as they’re not dicks about it.
I’m confused. By what mechanism does the lack of knowledge of all the things in the universe prove the assertion of a supernatural deity? Can you explain how this works, and provide a real-world example?
How do you know that we don’t possess 90 percent, or even 95 percent, of all the possible knowledge of the universe? I’m not saying we do, but I’m also not the one asserting a bold, uninformed and, I suspect, unqualified quantification of humanity’s knowledge. No one has called you ignorant…
Listen, Honey. I can call you Honey, can’t I? Good. Listen, Honey, words have meanings, and based upon the very definition of the word, you are religious, deny it as you might, and contrary to the “I’m spiritual, not religious” claptrap being spouted by folks who try to aggrandise themselves by falsely claiming that religiosity is the act of adherence to the primacy of the trappings and tenets of the institution over belief in the deity itself.
Utter malarkey. There was a time in the not too distant past when segments of humanity believed all manner of nonsense supposedly caused by a deity’s displeasure. Humanity didn’t have to learn everything there is to know about everything to dismiss these beliefs; over time, we learned what truly caused the rain and snow to fall, the wind to blow, the seas to rise, the eclipse to, um, eclipse. You mean to tell me that we’re to be held to a different standard for something we not only cannot see or experience in any way, but for this, and only this specific thing? We don’t have to know everything to claim there are no Leprechauns for example, but we have to know absolutely everything in order to claim there are no gods? Why? And who came up with this, you?
Yet, as underdeveloped as your mind is, you are absolutely convinced that a true god, by your definition, exists.
False. You have not developed a concept; you have latched on to a conveniently existing one, and you admitted above that it’s not something you really even comprehend.
What responsibility? And what, pray tell, decisions have been made for us?
*Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. *You certainly have made a number of unverified, and probably unverifiable assertions.
This doesn’t mean what you think it means. [bolding mine]
First of all, not everyone on the SDMB is an atheist, and not all atheists on this board are scientists. There are a number of very smart believers in the supernatural here, FriarTed being one example. Secondly, you have no idea what the people on this board know about spiritual issues. Non adherence is not equivalent to ignorance, and can be quite the contrary. You’re also wrong about religion’s influence on science, both positively and negatively.
Science may disprove the ridiculous, but science itself doesn’t ridicule.
And you are grossly incorrect.
Why do you keep stating things as facts that you can’t even begin to prove?
Anyone can claim anything they want; you’ve done it a number of times in this thread. It’s only theism that is somehow institutionally elevated and set apart from all other manner of crackpottery.
No, we don’t, and neither do you.
I think you are missing that what is happening is that the powers have been found, it just so happens that are better explanations why the observed powers exist, rather than being caused by some specific being that is similar to us.
I’m mostly a Deist or Teapot agnostic nowadays, And one famous deist from the past, Benjamin Franklin, showed that the classic higher power that religions thought until recently that god used to punish humans on earth turned to be a naturally occurring electrical meteorological phenomenon; but it was worse than that, Franklin even showed what to do to protect ourselves from that higher power.
There’s your problem. That thing you encountered that called itself science and claimed it had proved God didn’t exist? It wasn’t really science.
It was probably pseudoscience or militant atheism. They were just abusing science’s good name. Feel free to call them on their bullshit.
Do you believe in any and all things even though no evidence for their existence has been given you…or is your god a special case?
No scientist I know of, even Dawkins, says that science proves that God does not exist. All they say is that there is no good reason to think God exists, and all the claims made by religions about the universe have been pretty much disproved.
There is no mystery about how life forms change to match their environment - they don’t do it in purpose - those with characteristics that match the new environment live, those without go extinct.
Now, if you are saying that you think some God exists who created all and then vanished as far as we can tell, more power to you. No one can disprove that. Except for making you feel good, that universe is indistinguishable from one with no god at all. If you are not worshiping this god at any church, if you are not claiming moral knowledge of what god wants, then you don’t believe anything that any scientist can object to. If you believe in a god with some more characteristics, you owe us a description of what they are and how you know about them.
Quantum gravity? Dark energy? How the genes really control things?
There are tons - none of which provide any evidence for any gods, of course.
What T word? Sorry, Ishmael had to work. Ishmael works nights.
I believe God is real because I believe there is a higher form of love than we understand. Forgiveness is real and when you’re truly walking in forgiveness everything around you changes. You can see the effect it has on people. You can see how your patience changes them. You can see the gears turning in their heads as they struggle with their conscience.
I believe in God because information is encoded in our DNA and information always comes from an intelligent source.
I believe in God because I don’t like pride and pride is the huge communication barrier. When you accept that you have been made from something greater than you it kind of takes the work out of trying to be human. It makes it easier and more enjoyable for me. It gives me peace. I love the idea of an afterlife. I want to go where the people who think like me go. I want to go where the people who believe in something greater than themselves go.
I believe in God because our world is so corrupt. The sinful nature is real. It’s inside all of us just like the Bible says. I believe in God because it seems to me that if there is an afterlife it would take something as drastic as Jesus coming and dying for us to forgive us of our sins. We definitely do sin and sin sure doesn’t help us. It makes our lives worse. And the very fact that we do struggle with sin proves that we need help from somewhere and that sin isn’t natural. Everybody has different sins.
I believe in God because of how much my life has changed for the better through praying hard about things that I want to understand. I don’t believe it’s just maturity. I believe it’s specific things that I have asked for that have specifically been given to me. I believe it because people who worship science and reason are often very mean and spiteful and condescending, but a true Christian living in forgiveness has the ability to pray for them and try to make their lives better in spite of the fact that the reason worshipers are extremely bad to them. The door is always open from a Christian to a non, but doesn’t seem to be when it’s the other way around most of the time.
I believe in God because there has to be an ultimate judge who decides if we are true in our lives or not. I sure wouldn’t want to leave that to any other human would you?
I believe in God because of science. Everything works together so perfectly it makes no sense to me how everything could have just happened by accident. Physics, biology, reproduction, the gene pool. It’s amazing.
I believe in God because fascination even exists in the first place. It proves to me that we were never told everything right from the start. We have had to learn something that was in place before we had thought and a chance to learn.
I believe in God because I want to and because it helps me.
I’m too lazy to break those down, but if you are trying to make a logical argument, you should be aware that each of those is a logical fallacy. I’ll let someone else explain which particular fallacy is associates with each argument.
And that’s the beginning and the end of your entire argument right there. I don’t mean to be snarky here, but… If it helps you, then knock yourself out! Just be aware that you haven’t proven anything other than the act of believing in some entity gives you psychological comfort.
You equate forgiveness with God when it’s really just a human trait, and don’t want to give human’s credit for when they do good, and seem more than ready to blame them for when they do bad. Einstein said if there were an omnipotent God, “then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?”
Who created the corruption? Since you’re using the Bible as a guide, it says God created evil (Isaiah 45:7). It’s a poor excuse for a good example of what a God should be like. Thomas Paine thought Fiend better fit the description. The Bible gives us many examples of punishment, but it doesn’t specifically define sin. A fairly good portion of it seems to have to do with being involved in our sex lives. You say Jesus came here to save us and died for our sins. Did you ever consider if we used Jesus as a role model and tried to emulate him by being celibate, humans would have died out a long time ago?
I can see these distinctions sounds very meaningful to you - ‘keep science out of social issues,’ ‘keep science out of religion’ - but the problem is that on closer analysis they don’t mean much of anything. Science expands our understanding of the world and that understanding can and should affect the way we look at social issues and also at religion. I think the scientific research has contributed to the decrease in prejudice against black people and gays, for instance. How often have you heard anti-gay religious folk say homosexuality is “unnatural,” and for people to come right back with the fact that homosexual interactions or partnerships have been observed throughout the animal kingdom? How often have you heard bigots talk about people “choosing” to be gay and heard the response (backed by science as well as common sense) that this is obviously bullshit? And while I recognize the fact that racists have always tried to seize on science to provide a solid basis for their prejudices, I think a balanced of science suggests that we’re all pretty much the same and that the idea of classifying people into distinct races is nonsense.
As other posters pointed out, a lot of early scientists were religious figures, and while you often hear people cry “Keep science out of religion!” you don’t often hear people ordering religious figures to stay away from science. Why is that? Is it because everyone knows they won’t listen? Is it because religious views don’t affect science anyway? Is it just oversensitivity of the “don’t ruin a story I like” variety?
Who or what, specifically, are you talking about?
“Not viable” is not the same as harmful or not allowed. You need to make up your mind here, I think. If the religious views of scientists don’t matter, you can safely disregard them as one person’s opinion (and we are all entitled to our opinions). If you think this is actually dangerous in some way, you need to explain how.
First of all I have the greatest respect for science. As science makes new discoveries it is up to religion to make the needed adjustments. Kind of like that old drag net show. “Just the facts please”. I feel sometimes that science is enjoying a ride of popularity at the moment and some are using this popularity to influence areas outside of science, not just religion. I am in fiull agreement that as science makes clear certain facts religions will loose credibility if they fail to make the adjustments. People will see this.
I don’t see scientists so much as the villain as I do some individuals that seem to be riding the wave of popularity. I believe that religions for the most part will sort out the inconsistencies and interpet them however they choose. I can’t really put my finger on it but I have this feeling of a mob mentality bullying a seeminly vulnerabe group. Ye,religions have done the same thing and I believe they need to stay out of science.
My personnal belief is that the 21st century will be the century of neuro sciences. We will attain a much higher understanding of human behavior based on our neuro chemistry. Religion or spirituality plays a roll in our neurological health I believe. Some may find this same stimulation elseware, which is fine.
What does this even mean, and why does it matter? Science isn’t “enjoying a ride of popularity.” Skepticism of religion - informed in part by science - has become more popular and more accepted.
That’s been happening for centuries.
The scientist mob is bullying religion? That’s just perverse. Show me one place where scientists put nonbelievers to death.
Well, it seems like I was asked a lot of questions about proving what I believe in which I can’t. Sorry I don’t have all the answers for you. I just woke up a little bit ago, then got on my Facebook page to make a few posts and a few replies to some things people had posted. It was a nice way to start the day. Now I’m having a cup of coffee and thinking about how to pull of a few ideas I have for what I am developing as Guerrilla Art. It’s a lot of fun and brings me quite a bit of joy and I think it might be helping some people.
Ok, now I get what the “T” word was. Troll, right? I can assure you I am not trolling anyone. I don’t know anyone on here and how would I have possibly known what your beliefs are before I asked this question? I asked a question and and stated my belief once, twice, and now for the third and final time. I won’t be back to debate this with ya’ll. Because I certainly don’t have all the answers. I never went to college, so the extent of my education is high school. Sorry Christians if I have done us a disfavor by not being able to prove God exists. 
Just winking at the Christians. Not trying to piss you all off. I promise.
I chose the thread for Great Debates because it has been one of the greatest debates of all time. In hindsight, I realize that I chose the wrong thread. It should have been under a thread for What’s Your Opinion, or something like that because I truly didn’t want to start up a huge argument. I just wanted to see what other people thought and then post a link of this to my Facebook page so if anyone has unanswered questions maybe they can be answered by other humans as well.
Lets’ see someone made a remark that forgiveness is a human trait. Yes, I agree with you. In the Bible it says that God made us in His image. God is love and ultimate forgiveness therefore he gave us that ability. No where that I’m aware of does it say that animals were made in His image. Again, just stating what I believe. Not trying to debate. I should have chosen a different thread. Will you forgive me for my mistake in choosing the wrong thread? If there is an administrator out there who can move this to the proper thread in order to correct my mistake, I would appreciate it.
I do feel like HoneyBadgerDC has made a lot of excellent points that I agree with. I feel that if I continue my education it will just serve to deepen my belief in God. I feel that the advances of Science in the future will bring about new revelations about God. So hopefully then we’ll all have the answers we need. At least that’s something I think we can all agree on right? (rhetorical)
I will probably be going to college here soon. I’m 32 and all of a sudden something has woken up inside me and I feel like I must. I want to be educated. I want all the education out there. So wish me well on that please. However you see fit. It’s your choice.
Oh, and that brings me to my final thought. Something I believe in. Someone said something about all the steps in your life being pre-ordained or something. Well, it’s very clear that the Bible talks about that as well as us having freewill and being able to make our own choices. To me that sounds exactly like a loving parent. A good parent sets boundaries, guides their children along the right path, and allows them to make choices on their own so that they can experience their own fulfillment and joy out of life. That to me sounds like a mix of Calvinism and Arminiasm. Seems like both are essential for love. If God is love and we’re made in His image, then to me that all makes perfect sense.
So, thank you for stating your beliefs. If you are interested in continuing this thread, please do so on your own. It’s totally up to you. I’m completely satisfied with it except for the choice of the thread that I made, but I can’t take back the past. I can only seek forgiveness for it. And I have. I hope you all find your joy and I wish you all the very best. Ish out. 
The accusation wasn’t appropriate; we don’t allow posters to accuse each other of trolling in Great Debates. Locrian, don’t do that again. Anyway even if Ishmael Jankem had not posted again, the first post in this thread doesn’t come anywhere close to trolling.
If you’d done that the thread would have just been moved here.
God is product, packaged and sold by conniving religions to gullible believers.
Of course there’s no gods. Those who argue there must be a god because we don’t know stuff is obviously falling victim to the argument from ignorance fallacy, as has been previously stated.
But on a related topic, we know where the concept of gods come from. We know that societies come up with ideas about gods and/or ancestor spirits, and we can safely say that many if not most are incompatible, and hence many or most must be purely made up by humans and do not exist.
I would say that the knowledge that humans make up gods is strong evidence that no gods exist. Not proof of course, but I think it’s pretty strong evidence. It’s certainly stronger than “I don’t know how something came about so that means a god must exist to have done it.”.