Why are some scientists averse to religion?

[Vagabond -SC2-]

ughaibu: Your statement that “.. god doesn’t exist..” is a belief no matter how much you want it to be fact. There is absolutely no way that you can prove it. Science and scientists have put forth theories and ideas over the many, many years that were at one time held to be true only later to be overturned. At one time people refused to believe that DNA was the genetic code, it was just too simple, hell with only 4 residues how could it be the root of life. They thought it had to be proteins. But low and behold it’s DNA not AA.

As for not being able to bring you god, to some if you ask them, they may just bring you a coffee cup, a plant, a pet or anything as proof. That is their belief, is it correct? I don’t know I do not have the ability to prove them wrong.

 

Hypothesis one: god exists. Proof - ???

Hypothesis two: god does not exist. Proof - ???

 

Again, just because one has not observed, seen evidence of, or proved the existence of something does not make it non-existent. The galaxies and supernovas and other planets all existed before people knew what they were. Some elements exist but have only recently been observed, same goes sub-atomic particles. Do strings exist? One theory suggests that they do.

[Erasmus00]

Time exists only in our heads. Outside of us is only Now. And if a scientist says otherwise, well, I think he's being subjective because he cannot experience yesterday or tomorrow directly (so doesn't that make it non-existent?).

 

Except time has definable objective properties. Consider the experimental discovery that time passes faster at the top of a hill then at the bottom. Hence, it cannot simply be something "all in our head."

-Will

[ughaibu]

Vagabond -SC2-: Do you have to believe or prove that there are no elephants in your shirt front, no giraffes on your shoulders and no troglodytes in your sinuses? No, of course you dont, because it is self evident. Yet elephants, giraffes and troglodytes exist in the real world, they can be demonstrated, god can not be demonstrated, there is no evidence to suggest the existence of god, mathematics do not predict the existence of god, there is no reason to conjecture the possibility of the existence of god, the non-existence of god is self evident, it neither needs to be believed nor proved.

Where is the difficulty in understanding this?

[Tormod]

Hypothesis one: god exists. Proof - ???

Hypothesis two: god does not exist. Proof - ???

 

You keep your non-scientific approach. Don't forget that this thread as about why (some) scientists are averse to religion. I think you're making an excellent example of why: it is because religion tends to make (religious) people adamant that their faith is scientific. But their faith is not science!

 

You may claim that the scientific method in itself is biased. But rest assured - it IS! It is extremely biased towards empirical evidence. No matter how much non-evidence you can come up with (or rather, lack of evidence), you will be using *bad* science if you take it as *proof*.

 

So you are missing the point entirely. A hypothesis stating that "God does not exist" cannot be submitted to scientific experiment. It remains firmly in the realm of religion. Simply stating a thesis is not science.

 

Science is about falsifying predictions. If a prediction cannot be falsified after rigorous testing, it is accepted as a workable theory. Under no circumstance does the scientific method allow a theory to become The Ultimate Truth. However, in order for science to progress, it has to build upon other theories. It is a house of cards - find a major flaw in a fundamental theory (like the limited speed of light), and you will topple all of modern physics.

 

Here is what you need to do in order to prove (any) god's existence:

 

1. Present a hypothesis (God exists)

2. Define at least one theory that supports your hypothesis (God created the universe)

3. Your theory must contain at least 1 prediction (X will happen every time we do Y)

4. You must create and conduct a repeatable experiment where you test your prediction

5. After doing the experiment a number of times, you write a paper stating either:

 

a. our results show that the prediction is correct, and this supports our theory. This increases the likelihood that our hypothesis is correct. Rigorous experiments by other teams must be done to confirm your findings.

 

or

 

b. our results has not shown evidence (or no clear evidence) that the prediction is correct. This implies that our theory is wrong, or that the research we have carried out is faulty or incorrect. We need to create a new theory and test that, until we can safely acheive an accurate prediction that supports our hypothesis, or we must accept that we cannot prove our theory. Our hypothesis is therefore not supported.

 

(This is an extremely simplified example of application of the scientific method).

 

Do strings exist? One theory suggests that they do.

 

Case in point. Other theories suggest that strings do not exist. String theory struggles because there are no predictions yet. As such it is not even recognized as a worthy study by many people. It is however possible to use the scientific method to look for evidence of strings. Due to the lack of falsifiable predictions, some scientists have turned to quantum loop gravity, an alternate explanation which has some merit.

[Vagabond -SC2-]

So you are missing the point entirely. A hypothesis stating that "God does not exist" cannot be submitted to scientific experiment. It remains firmly in the realm of religion. Simply stating a thesis is not science.

 

Have to go to a meeting but will read more later but I did not miss the point. That was my point.....

 

and BTW I do not consider myself religious at all, you are making a huge assumption....

[Tormod]

Have to go to a meeting but will read more later but I did not miss the point. That was my point.....

 

and BTW I do not consider myself religious at all, you are making a huge assumption....

 

I don't recall having claimed that you are religious. :)

[Pyrotex]

...Are you an atheist, non-theist or an agnostic? You have precluded yourself from being a theist, so you must match one of them. Given that you reject the concept of god, I would not classify you as an atheist, as I have said atheist accept the concept, but not the existence of god (affirm in the negative).... I am merely pointing out that if you answer the question then you have quite clearly got some concept, either of your own or of others of a god or gods....Atheism buys into the concept of god, implicitly. Nontheism rejects the very concept of god, explicitly.....

KAC, you are beating a dead horse.

You can beat it with a tire iron,

you can beat it with logic,

you can beat it with a St. Louis Slugger baseball bat,

you can beat it with an unabridged dictionary,

you can beat it with the butt end of a 12-guage shotgun,

you can beat it with reams of circular reasoning...

but it is still a DEAD HORSE.

 

I'm still an atheist, and your logimagical perambulations cannot and will never pin anything on those of us who are, neither implicitly, explicitly or metaplicitly. I do not need anyone with their own homegrown thesaurus trying to tell me what I think.

 

And that dead horse is not going to get any prettier, any better, or any more plausible by you beating it into perfectly logical hamburger patties.

 

"It's dead, Jim!" :)

[Buffy]

I believe in Santa. Unlike God, he's real: I see him at the Mall every December.

 

What does that make me?

 

I'm a doctor, not a theologian,

Buffy

[Pyrotex]

"When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?'"

- Quentin Crisp

 

A wonderful synopsis of atheism from the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy! I mean, if you can't trust them, who can you trust?????

[Tormod]

I mean, if you can't trust them, who can you trust?????

 

Bah...mice from the fifth dimension, of course... :)

[Tormod]

Bah...mice from the fifth dimension, of course... :)

 

That should have read "pan-dimensional beings", of course. :)

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Except time has definable objective properties. Consider the experimental discovery that time passes faster at the top of a hill then at the bottom. Hence, it cannot simply be something "all in our head."

-Will

Okay, I'll bite. measured by what?

And what are the properties of time? How big is time? What color is it? How heavy is it? Where is it? Especially, where is it? Everywhere? Ah, so it's a universal property of existence everywhere? Hmmmm. But that would mean that the same thing is happening here as is happening in the furthest reaches of the universe. I wonder what that would be?

I am of the opinion that we do not have an instrument that measures time. We measure change, but that's not the same thing. This is an old discussion Will.

I say, 'the ravages of expansion'. You say, 'the ravages of time'. At best, only one of us refers to something that exists in this universe. The cause of the rate of expansion would be outside of this universe and if time does exists it would be there. It would be the cause of all causes. And we don't have anything that can measure it.

So, that would also mean that at least one of us is religious because one of us believes in something that doesn't exist, that has never been measured and can never be measured.

[arkain101]

Oh Bullucks! I posted this in the wrong thread... try again.

 

To this and all definitions of religion.

 

What is anything without action?

 

I agree it is true; religion has a system of beliefs and an ajenda to align actions with those beliefs.

 

With that considered, a religion in basic truth and reality can not be or become without actions perfomed in alignment with the design.

 

The definition(s) of religion is useful, but is nothing for, what is knowledge if not put to use?

 

So I conclude no one is religious to the extent they can embody all action. A person of religion is by no means acting religious design at all times. There is moments they are unconcious, acting only with a force on their bedspread, and a consumption of air. There is moments they eject feces and human waiste while considering what time they might like to have dinner or sex this evening.

 

A mind can not be dominated by one thought, for there is a limited capacity a mind can contain, not to mention it would severly handicap ones intelligence to contain such an idealism of religion belifes in their concsious mind at all times.

 

Therefore, I think that no one is religious unless they are performing actions that they KNOW are in alignment or in agreement with the design of the system of beliefs that direct the religion.

 

Thus, I think scientists, or let us say, a person who can act, that are not in favour of religion are so because of the actions that transpire out of its design of belief system.

 

Which reminds me of a quote:

 

When you pray, move your feet.

 

Respectively; Beliefs can be your routine of steps, not only the platform of which to stand on.

[arkain101]

I wanted to respond to the area of the discussion that was covering the aspect of god in connection with religion.

 

This quote by ughaibu creates a great starting point.

 

Ughaibu: This point has been explained, as there is no god, no specific concept of god is required, and god can not be brought into existence simply by redefining existing things as god. There is no difference between a non-existent cat and a non-existent mouse, neither is any form of thing and neither has any attributes.

 

To begin; this is somewhat the beauty of it. That is, non-existent.

 

Let's use your example of a non-existent cat. Take an existent cat. It exists because we can see it, measure it, weight it, and by all means consider it a realistic, tangible and material thing. Completely agreeing with science that it is.

 

However, where is the cat? The actuall imagery of a cat. We know that the cat is made of cells, molecules, atoms, and quantum quanta (universal basics). We know the cat is made of several frames, nearly countless infact considering all the atomic material. So the cat is many things at many scales in respect to the choice you want to observe it. But the totality of it is yes, a walking 4 legged creature with mass and energy.

 

The answer to the question of where the cat is; I will say is, the cat you observe is infact in your brain.

 

So where is the cat in your brain. You explain to me you see it and describe it as black with yellow eyes etc. So I begin to find the cat in your head. I begin to realise by the dimensions you explained to me it is to large to fit in your head to begin with. If I began to do brain surgery on you I still would not find the actual cat, nor would I find anything besdies more brain material and universe parts.

 

So the very imagery that you claim exists before you is a cat, and that that idea is in your head, and we agree we can not find it there.

 

If we can not measure, weigh, or see the cat, that you describe by looking for it in your body than we can agree the cat with its colors, and how it appears does not exist. However what does exist is a pile of energy and mass that infact can scratch the heck out of you if it decides to do so.

 

So there is a part of you that you swear by all your might that exists, but we can not find it. So we have to claim that you contain a dimension of something in your body that is not directly detectable by any means of scientific method

 

I choose the definition of dimension for reason of describing something of quantity (in respect to all that you claim), but a dimension that is not detectable by scientific methods. (I can detect electricity, and all the aspects of the universe, but I can't seem to find a darn cat).

 

This dimension I am going to call information. It is non-existent in all respect to science, for the universe is its medium, but the information is carried within / on (or what have you) the medium.

 

So the cat in the universe, also infact contains a non-existent cat of information. The cat itself is driven by the same dimension of information, and behaves in acordance to it.

 

We can take this to the extremes to say the universe has no attributes what so ever without the dimension of information. Consider the universe the same thing as you being unconscious. The same moment it started, can be the same moment it ended (the same time you got knocked out can appear to be the same time you woke up).

 

Consider that everything you see and experience does not exist in the universe. It is information in your head we can not find.

 

My own personal opinion is that all religious concepts are based off this fact that very few come to realise is occuring. The fact of creation of information, an entire world of color, senses, emotion, shape, patterns, is occuring in a place we can not define or prove that exists. And by all means we think the universe is out there and everything we see is out there, the beauty of the imagery of it, simply does not exist, its in you, you are it.

 

All the religions and all the concept of god or of something devine that have ever existed by all people, I have come to find is the outward expression of that thing they just can't put there finger on to find. I find it is that non existent phenomina occuring within all of us, a creation of a world that exists nowhere but of that of which your existence is defined by. for lack of a better description.

 

I am not saying all religion is wrong, I am meerly saying the mystery has been tricking us so long that we keep on thinking our zero dimensional illusion (the world in our mind) is out there. And what makes it happen is out there. But it isnt anywhere is it? its information, and we see it occur as electric currents and all sorts of other functions.

 

What is god, where is god? I can only say that definition is for the phenomina of the existence of the world of information. This world/dimension/non-existent place is all that you are.

 

And that religion has long sought to put there finger on it, but it has not place to be touched, and I think that is why religion has so long evolved and occured. We have long scrapped at the surface of something we so long though was out there, but by all that I am, know that it is technically no where, which is why as the saying goes "god does not exist".

 

I dare to say that this concept when you truly understand it will be the final evolution of religion, and the very collapse of it. For all you have to concieve is how you are at one with what you are (You can call it god) but to elaborate, your experience when you experience is always creating, but its not neccessaraly in you, as much as I would say it is you.

[ughaibu]

Arkain101: Here's a short article that might interest you: scientific realism

[IDMclean]

To both Pyrotex and Ughaibu

 

I am not trying to pin anything on you people. i am not asserting religiosity or anything of the such. I am merely pointing out an observation that arises from inductive reasoning of the conventional atheism argument that "there is no god".

 

Furthermore, I distiguish between the two types of "atheism". Separated out into two different concepts and words because their approaches are so different. Nontheism, and Atheism. There is a major, and non-trivial difference between these two doctrines.

 

Atheism, as I understand it from material read and discussed, is the stance that "god does not, in fact, exist." (affirmitive in the negative. In reference to "Does god exist").

 

Nontheism, as I understand it from material read and discussed, is the stance that the question of "Does god exist?" is wrong. In my own parlance, my contention is the definition of god. I must know simply, "Who is this god, anyway?" or more fundamentally, "what is god?", "What are gods?".

 

I can not, and will not affirm the question in the positive or negative, until I know exactly what it is that I am answering.

 

For both of you, I don't think you necessarily see, or want to see this. From what I can tell, you have your doctrine pinned firmly in your minds and will not consider alternatives. Which is common knowledge, at best. Not scientific knowledge. The reason is your doctrines are not, by identity, scientific. Nor can they claim to be, they can not be falsified.

 

For Ughaibu:

I ignore your other points because we can not discuss them until the points that I have brought to contention are resolved. The reasoning for this is simple. We have different Ontologies and Glossaries, so though we speak english, we obvious are not speaking the same dialects.

 

You assert that god does not in fact exist. To which my reply is simple. What is god? I can not evaluate or falsify your statement, unless I know what this word god represents.

 

To me the question of "Does x exist?" where god = x. Obviously from this, god is undefined, within the scope of this argument. Now when I presented one of my own arguments in which god becomes a feasible concept, that can be empericially falsified, I did so to illustrate the circumstances under which I can answer the question. That is when x (god) is defined.

 

This is and has been my main two points of contention through out this, and has likewise severed to show why those of scientific mind tend towards adversity to the concepts of god and religion. By convention, and identity; these concepts are undefinable, and therefore inheriently non-falsifable. By inheritence these concepts under these specific, traditional/conventional axioms can not be considered scientific.

 

Change the underlying axioms and the whole thing can and does change.

 

Scientific method is built to say nothing about that which it can say nothing about.

[ughaibu]

Whether or not god exists isn't particular important for this discussion, it is the self evident nature of god's non-existence that is important. There is no reason to even think about any god in the real world.