There’s a difference between holding a position for rational reasons or just because of intuition.
I’ve been an atheist all my life (despite going to catholic school and whatnot), but until my mid-teens it was basically because religion just sounded silly and man-made to me. My atheism now is very different to then.
As for science, good scientific knowledge can be useful, certainly against many Creationist arguments. And even non-Creationists may use arguments like “Once the greatest minds thought the earth was flat, how can you be so sure we understand stellar formation?”, which only requires an appreciation of the scientific method to answer.
I cannot imagine any case where a god is a “necessary explanation” for something in existence…but perhaps there are such scenarios.
Bottom line, though, if science were to “tell us” that NOTHING that exists needs a god as an explanation…what would that actually tell us about whether or not gods exist?
Would it in any way eliminate the possibility of the existence of gods?
Since I am new here, by the way…are there people here arguing that a god is necessary to explain some part of existence?
If by “here” you mean the Straight Dope, rather than this thread, then yes, there are people who argue that God is necessary to explain (all of) existence, in some variant of the Prime Mover fallacy.
No to both, but it can’t tell us that orcs, or leprechauns or invisible, superintelligent badgers don’t exist either. That doesn’t mean we need to give any of them a moment of serious consideration.
If by “here” you mean people on the board, then the answer is yes. It’s a minority view, though. Usually it’s some version of the Cosmological Argument.
No need for you to give them a moment of serious consideration, Diogenes.
And since you are already introducing orcs, leprechauns, and invisible, super intelligent badgers into the discussion…my guess is you don’t. Are Flying Spaghetti monsters and CPA’s working on one of the moons of Saturn in the works?
My original comment holds: What good does it do to have science tell us that a god is not necessary to explain anything?
It leads us away from having to waste time talking about. It also should be reason enough not to have to contend with people wanting to teach religious mythology as a “competing theory” in science classes, but unfortunately, ithasn’t worked out that way.
Well…for someone who doesn’t want to “waste time” talking about it…you seem to be doing quite a bit of talking about it here.
Frankly, I think most religion is a bunch of nonsense…virtually indistinguishable from the kind of fear that prompts most superstition. But it is a subject of immense interest to me…and I discuss it at every opportunity…both with theists and atheists. Very few things I enjoy as much as doing so…and quite honestly, it sounds to me (despite your protestations) that you enjoy it also.
You may be one of those hotheaded atheists who brook no questions about their “beliefs” or “faith.” I’m not sure about that yet. But we’ll see.
I am an agnostic.
I enjoy friendly, intelligent discussions with all types of people. Mostly I enjoy sharing ideas.
I have a BA in Religious Studies. I find religion very interesting indeed, especially the ancient origins of the major religions, and the composition of the Bible.
Atheism isn’t a belief or a faith, but bring it on.
I didn’t mean anything about the existence or non-existence of gods. I meant that atheists attempting to “explain” religion often create just-so stories that have only slightly more basis in fact than the Garden of Eden. FTR, I think science disproves the existence of any sort of supernatural being to the extent that anything can be proven not to exist. I am well aware that religious philosophers and theologians have proposed concepts of God that are not beings in the usual sense and that are not disprovable by science. I don’t think they exist either, though usually in those cases “I don’t think they exist” means something more like, “I don’t think there is a useful and coherent concept being described.”
Diogenes…you quoted me saying: * “Well…for someone who doesn’t want to “waste time” talking about it…you seem to be doing quite a bit of talking about it here.”*…and then wrote:
But I am saying I enjoy doing it…and you are saying it is a waste of time!
I went to a Lutheran College…and although my degree is in economics, I was required also to have co-majors in philosophy, and religion. Only fair to mention, though, since I am an old goat, admittedly it was a long time ago.
Not for everyone, Diogenes…but for some it is. Not quite sure about you yet…but if you are asserting that gods do not exist…or that it is impossible for a god to exist…then I assert you have made it into a “belief” and that you have “faith” in that “belief.”
Since we seem headed on a course of discussion on this topic…I want to be sure you understand that in a context of philosophy or religion, when the word “belief” is used…I simply translate that into a disguise for the word “guess” (generally, into “blind guess”)…and I translate “faith” into "absolute stubbornness in insisting that the guess has to be correct.)
I am an agnostic. I do not know the true nature of the Reality of existence…and I cannot rule anything reasonable in or out.
The notion of gods is not unreasonable to me…so I cannot rule gods in or out…although some of the pathetic gods proposed (like the gods of Greece and Rome and the cartoon god of the Bible) seem almost certainly pure invention…and I am willing to guess that they are nonsense.
The thought that I am GOD…or that the mind I am using presently is GOD in some unfathomable way causes me to consider “agnostic” a better indictor of my disposition in that regard than “atheist.”
I love discussing this issue…and I hope we get the opportunity to engage in such discussion.
Ummm…I do wonder why you suppose science “disproves the existence of any sort of supernatural being.”
I think you misunderstood the context. You had said:
to which I said:
I didn’t mean that it was a waste of time to talk about religion at all. I was only saying that it’s a waste of time to discuss religious/supernatural explanations for scientific problems.
You are correct, Frank. Science does nothing of the sort, since God’s existence is not something that can be scientifically tested. Skeptics who declare that science disproves the existence of a supernatural being are engaging in wishful thinking, pure and simple.
At best, one could argue that science disproves the need for the cosmological and teleological arguments for God’s existence. I think it fails to do either, but even if we grant that claim, it still cannot address the axiological, ontological, or noölogical arguments, much less any historical claims or arguments from personal experience. One could question the validity of those arguments, as many skeptics here would dismissively do, but the point remains that these things fall far beyond the purvey of science, no matter what one may fervently wish.
Actually, God’s existence is not something that science should even waste a nanosecond considering until evidence is brought forth that leads to the possibility of some sort of “god” existing.
Science-evidence is collected, theory is proposed that fits all evidence, theory is tested, if new evidence is collected theory is updated and retested.
Religion-Blind Faith–>??–>Prophet!
I don’t think many educated non-believers claim that science can disprove the existence of supernatural beings – only that it can disprove the necessity for them to explain specific phenomena.