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[...]
Why did everything we need in order to exist come into being? How was all of this possible without some latent outside power to orchestrate the precise dance of elementary particles required for the creation of all the essentials of life? The great British mathematician Roger Penrose has calculated—based on only one of the hundreds of parameters of the physical Universe—that the probability of the emergence of a life-giving cosmos was one divided by 10, raised to the power 10, and again raised to the power of 123. This is a number as close to zero as anyone has ever imagined. (The probability is much, much smaller than that of winning the Mega Millions jackpot for more days than the Universe has been in existence.)

The “Scientific Atheists” have scrambled to explain this troubling mystery by suggesting the existence of a multiverse—an infinite set of universes, each with its own parameters. In some universes, the conditions are wrong for life; however, by the sheer size of this putative multiverse, there must be a universe where everything is right. But if it takes an immense power of nature to create one universe, then how much more powerful would that force have to be in order to create infinitely many universes? So the purely hypothetical multiverse does not solve the problem of God. The incredible fine-tuning of the Universe presents the most powerful argument for the existence of an immanent creative entity we may well call God. Lacking convincing scientific evidence to the contrary, such a power may be necessary to force all the parameters we need for our existence—cosmological, physical, chemical, biological, and cognitive—to be what they are.

http://time.com/77676/why-science-does-not-disprove-god/

I will feel more stupid going to bed after reading that.  Thank you.

They are so stupid... And still trying to prove or disprove something that couldn't  be proved or disproved.  :)

You can't "disprove" existence of Cthulhu or Flying Spagetty Monster through using a scientific approach. Science can't disprove existence of God because this statement does not apply to scientific knowledge. These two areas couldn't be overlapped, any attempt to merge scientific and religious knowledge doesn't make any sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

Science is science, religion is religion. That's the point here.

I expected a little bit more from Time, but then again, their tracks record in the brain department has not been inspiring.

One of the answers is: because god is a construct of a human brain, that is placed in an area, where ignorance begins as a placeholder universal answer for the yet unknown.

On the same topic, I have a favourite quotation whenever someone tries to say that atheism is just another religion:

Yeah, this is just epistemology 101. Science is concerned with theory, and empirical evidence. Faith is concerned with plugging the gaps in human knowledge left by the questions to which we cannot get answers.

Anyone who tries to argue that science disproves the existence of God understands neither science, nor Godness (yes, I might have made that word up).

Of course science doesn't disprove God. But scientists aren't the ones with the burden of proof in the first place.

There is no burden of proof. If there was, it wouldn't be considered "faith" :)

I know there isn't. But if religious people want to meddle into science, they should start working on an effort of backing up their faith with facts, like everyone else that comes forward with theories.

Hell, if science cannot disprove the existence of the dragon in my garage, there's little hope of them disproving an omnipotent deity I can initiate a one-way telepathic conversation with simply by making special hand gestures and invoking magical and mystical words.


See, even the great Carl Sagan utterly FAILED to disprove my garage dragon!

Or something . . .

A tiny correction there: it should have read hypothesises. A theory is a hypothesis that has already been strengthened by multiple empiric experiments. This is one of the reasons why people detached from the scientific process have trouble with, say, the theory of evolution, calling it "just a theory".

Science cannot and will not disprove god totally, but it poked so many holes in the bible. So much that religious beliefs have to change and accommodate for scientific advancements.

Humans are now gods of this universe (until AGIs come on-stream that is :-)

That's preposterous.  He would have to understand "the cosmos" to be able to make such a prediction, and if he/we understood it, this calculation would not have to be made.  The cosmological constants, which he refers to as "parameters", are not random guesses.

We just do not know the basis underneath their numerical values.

The whole discussion if "God" exists or not is so moot and worn out. It's a philosophical farce.

To be able to discuss this subject, you'd first have to define what "God" actually means. That's where 99.9999% of all (internet) discussions fall short in the first place already. If "God" means the bearded man in the sky, then I guess we're all atheists, even the pope. If "God" simply means "all there is", then we might well all be theists.

Ultimately it boils down to the question why "existence" "exists" in the first place.

A better discussion might be what consciousness is. Is consciousness a product of matter, or is matter a product (or projection) of consciousness?

Cogito ergo sum. "I think, therefore I am", Descartes' philosophical proposition would mean consciousness came first, then "matter". And yet most of the western civilizations would translate this as "I am, therefore I think", which is what most people always end up doing on countless treads all over the world.

Science cannot disprove god any more than the flying spahgetting monster.

Science can, and does, disprove that god made the universe.

Bullshit, god is the universe.  The universe always has and always will be.  Existence is eternal.

All you have to do is look within and you will find all the proof you could fathom and more.

You are god.

Here is another term that's very problematic in such discussions: What is the universe? Mostly it refers to our "big bang bubble" we observe. But what if there's a Multiverse? Many scientists in fact do propose that such a concept might exist, although the term makes no sense, as "universe" should already mean "all there is", but apparently doesn't. But anyway, how did that multiverse come into existence then? So the questioning just goes on. And who knows what else might exist "out there". So what the hell do we know.

We know a great deal more than we did before, and we can strive to learn even more. The problem with religions is that they provide prefabricated answers, thus quelling the need to search for knowledge.

I'd like to recommend a very well-written and entertaining series of books by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen: The Science of Discworld

Each books takes a different aspect of what makes us human, using alternating chapters of fantasy and real-world science to illustrate points that the authors try to bring across. These books don't pretend to give all the answers, but they provide a good starting point, springboard, for the enquiring minds, adult and young alike.
http://www.amazon.com/Science-Discworld-Terry-Pratchett-ebook/dp/B00BFTSVSI
http://www.amazon.com/Science-Discworld-II-Globe-ebook/dp/B0052Z0NC8
http://www.amazon.com/Science-Discworld-III-Darwins-Watch-ebook/dp/B00546DOYY
http://www.amazon.com/Science-Discworld-IV-Judgement-Day-ebook/dp/B00BFTSZUC

Science is science and religion is religion, yes. The problem is that the scientific method is often considered (by true scientists as well as the 'parrots' that regurgitate their findings) the *best* method of acquiring knowledge for all subjects.  Accordingly, all other methods of knowledge acquisition are rendered inferior; and, if there's a subject science can't explore, the subject itself is rendered inferior or unworthy of discussion.

This is where scientists become complete idiots.  It is absolutely possible to reason about god or religion or any other subject science can't explore including the study of the very large (I.e. the universe as a whole), the very small (subatomic and quantum levels), extremely rare events (e.g. Alien encounters, UFOs, God manifesting the body of a single individual, etc.).  

Thankfully, we do have disciplines (e.g. Philosophy) that can soundly explore these topics in a reasonable, methodical way.  Science, aside from being a method, is simply one of many theories of knowledge acquisition, and by no means is it the best or most comprehensive in scope for all topics.

In short, science can't explore religion or religious claims because it is entirely ill-equipped to do so.  But, don't be a fool in thinking this makes the topic unworthy of consideration, but instead recognize that science is unworthy of exploring it.

You will have much greater insight into Universe's mathematical design if you can read this:

http://kniganews.org/2014/01/02/orients/
http://kniganews.org/download/

PS: google translate might be of help

You can discuss that for long and will not find a solution.

In my view, there are scientific disciplines that are well-equipped in examining religion. Those are: psychology, biology, neuroscience, anthropology and archaeology.

Oh yes. Ok, thanks.

Source: http://www.neo-philosophy.com/LogicWeek7.html

More: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burden-of-proof.html

No, because if you employ critical thinking and reasoning about the concept of 'God' you swiftly find that the notion falls apart as, in order to maintain the notions required for this topic of conversation, one has to become intellectually dishonest.

What you could say, instead, is, "It is absolutely possible to speculate about God . . ."

Which is just making shit up basically. Anything beyond that falls outside the bounds of intellectual honesty.

Can't explore? I suspect you misunderstand what the scientific method actually is.

Actually it is. You're just making false claims now in order to attempt to rubbish science and the scientific method so your ooky-spooky woo can be painted equally as valid a concept. It is not.

I suggest you learn a bit more about both the scientific method and fallacious argument.

Addressing responses to each quote:

1)  Actually, God is a logical *necessity*, but unless you're actually curious about why this is, I'll spare you a lengthy explanation.  For example, if you can prove absolute truth exists (this is ludicrously easy as any attempt to deny absolute truth only reaffirms its existence), and you set 'absolute truth'='God' or 'x' or 'Allah' or whatever else, then you're no longer speculating -- instead, you are reasoning about something that is demonstrably provable.  If you have any doubts about the existence of absolute truth, I can dispell all of them in a few sentences.

2)  Please tell me how science can explore something abstract (hint: it can't).  I also hope you realize that science carries unfalsifiable (at least by its own methods) assumptions, e.g. we live in a Positivistic Universe.  This is particularly interesting because a Positivistic Universe is provably illogical since invoking a Positivistic Universe requires invoking a logical fallacy, namely the assertion that any two relands 'x' and 'y' can actually be absolutely independent of one another; this is wrong.

^^^ Yum, word salad.

Goodness me you are certainly full of yourself. Shame you are so eminently full of something else too.

Firstly, could you explain to me what your point '3' is meant to be a take-down of? It appears to be solely a way for you to brag about how awesome you were as a student. Doesn't really address anything else though, does it?

I think you enter a fallacy region here. By the very same logic I can prove that you, "the joint" is a big green blob using mind tricks to appear in a human form. And it'd be interesting to hear your seasoning about "absolute truth".

Have you read Ludvig Holberg's "Erasmus Montanus" perchance? ;)  :P

You suggested I learn more about the 'scientific method' and 'fallacious argument,' so I'm being equally passive-aggressive.  

If someone says, "There is no absolute truth," they are saying, "It is the absolute truth there is no absolute truth."

If someone says, "There is more than one absolute truth" or "Truth is relative," then they are saying "It is the absolute truth that there is more than one absolute truth" or "It is the absolute truth that truth is relative."

You can't escape it; any attempt to deny absolute truth reaffirms its existence.

Everything is relative to an observer, including this statement.

"It is the absolute truth that everything is relative to an observer, including this statement."

Wow, you *really* do place a great deal of stock in your own 'cleverness', shame really, the scare-quotes around that word are there for a reason.

Your point '3' is utterly trite, it is not a clever retort to my remark that you would be better served learning more about the scientific method, if the reason why I suggest such is because the assertions you are making are clearly indicative of someone failing to account properly for the correct application of it as *the* tool for knowledge acquisition.

Either you don't understand the scientific method properly, meaning my suggestion is pertinent, while your point '3' is simply you fallaciously appealing to your own authority or, and this might equally be true, you do understand the scientific method but choose to dishonestly respond as if otherwise while crowing about how 'clever' all and sundry claim you to be, according to you.

It is the absolute truth for that specific observer that everything is relative to an observer, including this statement.

You see what I am doing? The same trick as "turtles all the way down".

And to repost: Have you read Ludvig Holberg's "Erasmus Montanus", perchance? ;)

Actually it is equally dishonest for anybody to be basing their argument on empty nonsense such as truth', let alone doing an on-the-fly conversion of it to equal 'God'.

You might as well say "Absolutely fluuuum exists" for all the use your argument is. Much in the same way as you are unable to define 'God', you are also unable to define the truth that you are attempting to smoke'n'mirror us with.

But I'm guessing that you're simply from the tired old school of claiming there must be a 'God' because, otherwise, how would you explain the beauty of a flower, or lurve, or morality. You know, subjective-made-up-shit(tm) that sounds all deep and meaningful but is only ever an exercise in intellectual dishonesty.

Ill tell you what -- rebut points #1 and #2 and I'll concede #3.  However, it seems to me that you don't understand the limitations or boundaries of the scientific method, the discipline from which science is derived (philosophy), and how disciplines like mathematics and philosophy can pick up the slack by tackling issues science is ill-equipped to explore.

Point #3 isn't meant to be clever.  I am allowed to have a self-esteem and take pride in my accomplishments, thanks.

No, I know how to avoid a 'Tower of Turtles', thanks.

No, I haven't read that.

I just did.
Good for you. Just don't wheel out your accomplishments and paint them as a retort in future. That is appealing to your own authority, which is fallacious.

It's easy to prove God exists - you just need a good definition.

Let God be "the sum off all that exists" - and lo!, God exists by definition.
But such a definition doesn't tell me what to do - should I sacrifice virgins and only eat tofu?

Religion deosn't care about the definition - it cares about behaviour and conformity.
Belief is an after the fact justification for why we behave in certain ways.

The question science should be asking is 'why have human beings spontaneously and ubiquitously evolved religious forms of behaviour?'

What? Okay, so then now I know to ignore everything you say because, even if true, it's all 'empty nonsense'.

It not an 'on-the-fly' conversion.  I'm not proving God then setting it equal to truth, I'm proving truth and setting it equal to god.  If you don't get this, then you should call all Mexicans dishonest for calling truth 'la verdad'.

Again with the failure to honestly represent the argument.

Ok, let's try it piece-by-piece then.

What is truth?

Seriously!?!

We used made-up-shit(tm) to explain why things were the way they were. Thunder was someone's God kicking off, lightning, equally so.

Understand?

The ONLY way we have established factual knowledge in order to properly represent a correct understanding of our Universe is by way of the scientific method.

Everything else is either straight-up made-up-shit(tm) or deep-and-meaningful-navel-gazing-nonsense, which is just philosophical made-up-shit(tm) by another name.

1) Where?  Please quote your rebuttals to points 1 and 2 respectively.

2) I was appealing to authority because, if you don't concede to the sound reasoning I have provided you with, then you might believe my assertion that I'm knowledgable on the subject by interjecting a fallacy of my own.  How delightful that you recognize it as such as it gives me hope you might actually understand why points 1 and 2 are correct.

Truth is 'that which is' and can be represented abstractly through modeling.

The 'only' way?  Really? 

Please derive the quadratic equation with the scientific method, or any other mathematical or logical proof.

Human (ie one type of animal) behaviour is part of the universe.
If you believe in Darwinism then you have to accept that our behaviour (whatever it is) is only being tested by survival.
If religious behaviour increases the chance of survival then it too will survive - it doesn't matter if it's nonsense. Evolution doesn't test for nonsense.

If you look back and see where I point out how void-of-substance your assertions actually are because you cannot objectively define them beyond tossing a load of word-salad around.

Don't believe me? Try this:Oh I am *so* looking forward to your answer to this question then, are you ready?

What is 'absolute' truth?

(spoiler: we're not done yet matey)

Appeal to your own authority by way of superior argument, not by spouting off about how fucking awesome you are, then.

Firstly, I don't have to 'believe in' Evolution, it is a theory supported by a vast array of observation and testing from multiple independent objective fronts.

Secondly, you state "If religious behaviour increases the chance of survival" then go on to make an assertion based on the hypothesis that something called 'religious behaviour' does, indeed, increase the chance of survival. How about you actually define what 'religious behaviour' equates to and why you think it would have any bearing on the survival rate of our species.

I'd wager that the growing prevalence for education, instead of indoctrination, is going to rightly see religion consigned to the history books.

Maybe so - I hope you are right. (I'm an atheist BTW)
But religious groups provide a social and psychological crutch that many people still need.
Spending 8 hours a day helping some company sell their irrelevant products for no reason is also nonsensical - but that's what most of us do with our lives (even if we are atheists).
Science may provide answers, but it doesn't tell me why I should get up in the morning - in fact it tells me clearly that I am a trivial infinitesimal speck in a meaningless, arbitrary universe.

I did look back and didn't see a solid rebuttal which is why I asked you to quote it/them for me.

'Absolute' truth is 'that which is'.  Were you expecting a different answer?

I think you should read what you quoted so you don't repeat me without realizing it.  I gave you a superior argument grounded in sound reasoning, but you didn't like that.  So, I switched to a tactic you can relate to, I.e. interjecting a logical fallacy.

Is not an argument justifying the continued existence of such. You are merely describing a psychological dependency, not a functional organisation.

"Oh but X did such good works, in the name of their God" - Simply explains that X, if they would not have done 'such good works' without their belief in their 'God', is an asshole who needs the threat of punishment/carrot of heavenly reward, in order to do good deeds. That is not an argument *for* religion.

You are and, until objective data suggests otherwise, it is.

Consensus is meaningless if there is no way to demonstrate whether primitive societies might have faired a whole lot better discovering critical thinking *before* made-up-shit(tm).

BTW, pro-tip, you can't prove anything by general consensus. Just because a bunch of people believe something to be true, it does not in any way, make it true.

The way I interpret dancupid's statement, it's actually rather sensible. There are scientific disciplines that concern themselves with just such questions: psychology and social anthropology are two such examples. For example religious hierarchies that humans construct (polytheism, monotheism) correspond to the predominant social hierarchy of human tribes adopting those religions at the time.

Well, humans like stories. We are rather "pan narrans" than "homo sapience" (as Terry Pratchett so aptly put it).

"Don't go there because a terrible corcodile god will be upset and curse you and all your descendants" appeals much more to our charchteristic trait, imagination, than "don't go there or you'll be eaten by a crocodile".

Religions provide such stories and an easily conveyable form to retell them, thus setting reference points for the society to function in. The probles start to occur, when those reference points become so entrenched and are no longer updated to match the reality, as it happens now with Radical Islam and Orthodox Judaism.

You are both a trivial, infinitesimally small speck and also a necessary, integral component to the state of the Universe as it is now.  This is partially implied by the sameness-in-difference principle which is a law of logic stating that differences can and *must* arise from the mosy fundamental of similarities.

Edit:  By the way, where there is a Universe, meaning is *absolutely necessary*.

It's an evolutionary argument - a belief in fairies may ensure survival better than belief that your sense of self is just a genetically induced survival mechanism.
Time will tell.

:head-desk:

Eesh, you're really gonna make me hold your hand and walk you through it then?

Fine, on we go:
So, you will concede at this point that your use of 'absolute truth', as opposed to simply employing the term 'truth', was superfluous hyperbole and entirely unwarranted, yes?

Now, in terms of your particular raison d'etre, philosophy or, as I prefer to call it, pretentious navel-gazing rhetoric - Let's look at your attempt to employ argument from abstraction, such as math, as equal to that which is observable and measurable via the scientific method.

Using abstract concepts as the basis for believing you are emplying objective reasoning *outside* of the realms by which the scientific method can be employed, namely, the observable, measurable and testable reality that is our Universe, unfortunately misses one rather important fact or, to use your word, truth.

Abstraction is derived from actual, tangible, measurable, observable, things. You know, those things what the scientific method gone done and got all clever on your ass about, to your chagrin.

Abstract concepts, such as math, generally represent things that actually exist or are a stated quantity of undefined 'things' for the purposes of mathematics and, when they do not represent things which actually exist, guess what they are?

That's right, they're arbitrary made-up-shit(tm) from our imagination and entirely devoid of any objective value whatsoever (other than entertainment). They may be pretty, like the flower is pretty but without the physical flower or a representation of such with which we can base the abstract notion of floral 'prettiness' on, you're fucked.

So your philosophical word-salad about 'truth' and 'God' is just as irrelevant as it is intellectual dishonest because, as much as you want your abstraction to stand up on it's own, it doesn't.

Abstraction that is not derived from substance is not reasoning, it is speculating.

All we have is psychological dependency - that's why we do everything we do.

Just out of interest, what do you do? Can you justify it scientifically?
Why are you wearing the clothes you are wearing now? What rational function do they serve? Are you trying to position yourself in the social group - does it fit the current social norms? Are you projecting a social image to fit into the social group you identify with?
Everything we do is religion.

I'll just leave this here, life without the need of life.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25471-spark-of-life-metabolism-appears-in-lab-without-cells.html#.U1_c3FfixHo

I didn't deny that it may have been evolutionary advantageous, I simply pointed out that it could just as easily have been supplanted by critical thinking skills instead. Which leaves it's advantage as being 'in spite of', rather than 'because of'.
Bollocks. Consensus amongst the best researchers in a given field is only valid if the reasoning behind the consensus stands up for itself.

That they all agree is utterly irrelevant. It only matters *why* they all agree.

I like the title of that paragraph: "Happy accident". Couldn't God be the very first happy accident of everything then?

That would have made then the first organism, or life form. Technically the first life form could be called 'god' just as bitcoin has the genesis block. But I'm highly skeptical that the first organism formed became an all knowing, never aging, magician.

if you try to proof a believe than you would turn believing into knowing... in other words you believe when you do not know and you do not believe if you know...

Responding to each group of text in order (Edit: I don't know how to count :( ).

1)  Please recognize that you introduced the passive-aggressive behavior, and I'm happy to return the favor (I'm sure we both are feeling this is okay since we both 'know' the other is incorrect).  I'm a big boy and can cross the street on my own, but I'll come back and get you.  I like holding hands.

2)  I'm not really sure why you took issue with the term 'absolute truth' or how it relates in any way to what I said.  You seem to be introducing your own argument here.  In any case, just because I used 'absolute truth' and 'truth' interchangeably by their respective definitions, it doesn't mean the distinction in name isn't necessary at times.  

If you had asked me what relative truth is, I would have said "that which is."  Both practically and technically, this is correct.  However, depending on the frame of reference (e.g. are you talking as though you are a person?; the Universe as a whole?), the definition of each *could* yield an extended annotation.

If you're talking from the vantage point of a subjective, stratified, information-processor (e.g. a person), you would say that 'relative truth' is "that which is."  However, from the same vantage point, you would say that 'absolute truth' is something to the effect of "that which is for the set of all sets and for all subjective, stratified, information-processors and conditions both simultaneously and independently...etc."

If you're talking from the vantage point of the Universe as a whole, you would say that 'absolute truth' is "that which is."  However, from the same vantage point, you would say that 'relative truth' is something to the effect of "that which is for a subjective, stratified, information-processor."

3)  More passive-aggressiveness when you start speaking bilingually in the same sentence.  I'm sure you're aware that "measurement" requires a "metric" which is a totally abstract construction.  Here's an example:  If we measure space using a metric that cannot be divided infinitesimally, then space is discontinuous; if we measure space using a metric that can be divided infinitesimally, then space is continuous.  Holy shit, Batman!  We just came to two totally different conclusions about a property integral to the very nature of space, and both are equally valid!  Welcome to your own version of the tower of turtles that you fail to realize you employ.  No worries, though -- there is a way to avoid the problem of 'mathematical uncertainty' (i.e. the problem of choosing the best of two-or-more equally-plausible theories).  When you apologize for the passive-aggressiveness, I'll tell you.

The scientific method quite literally depends on abstract principles, and even faith-based assumptions (e.g. there is exactly *zero* evidence that we live in a Positivistic Universe).  Theories that are formulated in science are mathematical constructs, but yet the scientific method *must* remove all mathematical constructs from the content of its own theories.  Thus, it is impossible through science to even formulate a theory about the nature of scientific theories!

Here's a freebie:  If you want to begin to formulate any comprehensive theory about the Universe, you really need to start with a theory of theories.

4)  Let me model this for you:  Philosophy is the most comprehensive discipline (aside from, arguably, language) as it yields the tools inherent in every other discipline.  Philosophy branches into mathematics (abstract) and physics (physical).  Science is a method of knowledge acquisition linking mathematics and physics.

It's interesting to note that science is not a discipline, but rather a method that utilizes both mathematics and physics; mathematics provides abstract metrics which we utilize to measure the physical world.  Mathematics itself is more comprehensive and generalized than the tools the scientist has at his disposal, and he forfeits much of the glory of mathematics (and more generally, language).  A mathematician can do all the work he needs without any tools from the scientist, but the scientist would be stuck without the mathematician.  Science is great for many things including technology development that greatly increases our quality of life, but I suspect it is also a passive-aggressive jerk, like you (I'm sure you also do many great things, and I mean that genuinely), as it never gives the mathematician the credit he deserves (i.e. no theories about math can be formed) even after stealing all his damn tools!

5)  I'd stop you here and tell you to go back to what I said about metrics, but I'm sure you're going to tell me anyway...

6)  ...I was right!  My response is, "Go back to what I said about metrics."  But, it sounds like you don't think it matters that measurement itself is enabled by something silly and nonsensical like an arbitrary "made-up-shit" metric.  Go ahead, try to utilize the scientific method without one.  Tell me how far you get.

7)  It's not irrelevant or intellectually dishonest, and I'm showing you why.

8)  So then WHY do you keep using damn metrics?!?!?!

I'm sure they are finding it rather hard to disprove the unknown so they have to make it all up as they go and ignore anything that discredits their reality.

It's funny to me how many folks misunderstand the notions 'science' and the notion of 'God' (as popularly accepted) in that they don't see that by definition, the two don't really interact.  Science requies observation, measurment, repeatibilty.  God is usually defined as not being directly observable, so that just takes him/her/it out of the picture right there.  If your notion of God *is* measureable, then I think it's a nonstandard sort of God because it's no longer a super-natural notion your talking about.  I don't have any belief in a supernatural beings, but my nonbelief has nothing to do with scientific experiments.  On the other hand, I don't believe that black rats (Rattus rattus) have wings with which to fly, but that nonbelief is based on repeatable observation, so you could say it's grounded in scientific experiment (although in this case the experiment is a little to basic to worry about --- simply look for wings on the nearest rat).

I have to agree with this. Science is not meant to disprove god either, it is meant to delve into a greater understanding nature, the universe and humanity. But in doing so it challenges dogmatic belief religion often relies on.

All scientific questions though must begin with a question based on skepticism, not an assumption based on belief, if you want to prove god exists, you cannot assume it does from a scientific basis. The point being no one has methodically proved god exists through scientific methodologies. Nor is science all that concerned about that question, it is however concerned with explaining natural phenomenon. I think this is where science and religion butt heads, where one says god and relies on dogmatic belief for explaining nature, the other put's forth rational explanations of the way things work through experimentation, analysis, replication, and the scrutiny of peer review.  

When it gets down to it, some people have a difficult time handling what science reveals, as they are more dogmatic in their psychology.

Actually, science can make a definitive statement about God precisely because it is not measurable, "Plausible, but incapable being explored [through science]."

The question is, is this ignorance wilful?


You are employing the term 'absolute truth' disingenuously if you cannot clearly define a difference between it and plain vanilla 'truth'. So, as you've already agreed, the word 'truth' is only ever describing 'that which is'. Care to explain the purpose of renaming 'that which is' to 'God', or 'x', or 'Allah'?

If 'that which is' can be established by way of abstraction derived from the literal (the observable, measurable, testable) then the scientific method is applicable to the literal, in order for the abstraction to qualify as a component of a 'reasoning' process.

Otherwise, in cases where the abstraction is not derived from the literal but is, instead, solely figurative a notion, such as 'God', 'Allah' or, for that matter, 'Invisible Pink Unicorns', then one is back to the school of making-shit-up(tm) which, while entertaining and occasionally useful a part of human imagination, is utterly devoid of reasoning as it is solely speculative and wildly speculative at that.

So, with regards to this assertion, I remind my learned friend that, for abstract concepts to form part of a reasoning process, they must be derived from the literal, not solely the figurative and, therefore, that which is derived from the observable, measurable and testable, is well within the domain of the scientific method.

Which leads me to dismiss everything else you're trying to claim for your argument about the, supposed, validity of the abstraction in reasoning and critical thinking because, as highlighted, abstraction from the figurative is speculation, not reasoning.

As for your comment that the 'God' concept can be asserted as, "Plausible, but incapable of being explore [through science]", how's my 'Invisible Pink Unicorn' doing then on the plausibility-o-meter? Or quantum elephant wings? Or . . .or . . .

So we're back to making-shit-up(tm) and claiming that it is equally as valid a hypothesis on the basis that, hey, it's 'plausible'?

How much energy should our species expend in the study of everything that is plausible by way of figurative abstraction?

Your hypothesis being based on what, exactly? That our species has a history whereby religion plays a large part in how we imagined our reality, therefore, religion was necessary? You're still speculating about something you are assuming to be true without actually testing whether it is true.

It makes more sense to assume that there are far healthier alternatives that our species might have enjoyed instead, compared to religion, as useful psychological stepping-stones towards developing critical thinking skills. Which leaves your argument about religion being a necessity, incorrect.

Where did I say that scientific general consensus had no function? I didn't. I simply pointed out that you can't prove anything by way of general consensus and the appeal-to-authority is often conflated with general consensus and presented as being some kind of proof of validity, namely, X number of people believe Y to be true and, because a proportion of X also happen to be highly-qualified researchers on the subject of Y, there must be some validity to the notion of Y being true.

Theists frequently cite senior academic theologians by way of appeal-to-authority and consensus, without acknowledging that the consensus is based on made-up-shit^TM - See, I even did the 'sup' code for you, how can you possibly claim I am being confrontational when, in fact, I am being derisive.  :D

You have some of the most selective reading skills I've ever seen.  You conveniently ignore every knock-down argument.  This is obvious because everything you just said, I refuted.

Please rebut my arguments point by point.  Here's what you missed:

- You are asking if I am willfully ignorant of an argument that you interjected against a strawman -- so yes, because it's not relevant to what I said.

- I then clarified the distinction in detail, but your response indicates you didn't read why distinctions between certain kinds of truths are necessary at times; it depends on the vantage point you take in the argument.  Then you outright lie by saying that I 'agree' there is no distinction even when I addressed the issue over several paragraphs.

- You are flat out wrong that a metric is derived from the literal because a metric is required to define the literal!  To even be capable of observing a given conditional state requires invoking a metric first which fundamentally allows you to identify the condition as separate from all others.

- This fact (I.e. that introducing an abstract metric precedes the identification/measurement of a conditional event) renders virtually all of your other arguments invalid.

When I get home from work and have access to a computer, I will rebut your claims point by point, something that you are avoiding to do due to your selective reading.

There's definitely a lot of emotional language in here.  But I just want to point out a couple of things:
  * 'abstraction', the term, as used in math and philosophy is concretely defined (see the lambda calculus for a very generalized defnition).  in a sense abstraction is exactly what science does: it boils observables down to explantory (yet directly unobservable) principles.  For example: you drop an apple from a given height (this implies you come to agreement about what you mean by 'apple', 'height', 'drop', etc).  You do this repeatedly.  You record the time it takes for the apple to the the surface below it (this assumes you come to agrement about what you mean by 'time' (hint: counting the oscillations of a cesium atom may help)).  You find that the value you come up with for this example is repeatably equal. Then, here's where the abstraction comes in: you define the abstraction of 'gravity', you posit that this explains observable phenomena related to the acceleration of the fruit in your experiments.  You feel especially satisifed when your result generalizes to all objects (not just fruit!).  Thus, gravity is an abstraction, and very much a scientific notion.

Okay maybe i'll leave off there.  It seemed like these discussants weren't taking into account the fact that abstractions are relevant to scientific systems---especially where abstractions provide generalizations over directly observable phenonmena.  This is the crucial part, the grounding out in observables.  If you don't meet that criterion, you're in the realm of metaphysics and supernatural---by definition outside of science.

Can "Zero" exist in the universe by itself? I know I have zero cookies left because of how the state was, just before the last cookie was gone. But can you trap absolute "nothingness" in a box without being defined by the stuff it is not anymore? I am guessing "zero" is the thing the expansion of the universe hasn't touch yet. I can't really imagine what "not yet" is. If the universe is a bubble, then "zero" would be the infinitely small state between the "skin" of that bubble, and the state that hasn't been defined yet.

A need for a universe to expand infinitely cannot be explained. A need for a consciousness to expand infinitely makes as much sense. And yet here we are.

Actually if you are referring to the God described in the Bible his existence has be disproven many times. I find it funny how easy is to call someone a lunatic now if he says he is talking to a cat, burning thingy hears voices.... but person who did that few K years ago is a god....

Only thing that can ever disprove God is individual empirical integrity.

The idea that we have to even argue this religion versus science thing is why America is slipping in world power.  If you pit your religion against science you won't survive.  It's like arguing owning a car invalidates owning a house.  One has nothing to do with the other.  I personally believe that science exists because we are supposed to learn more and understand more.  Evolution, chemistry, and physics are all to me can only validate my beliefs. 

I'm not sure I buy into the multiverse theory either as I tend to believe all the real estate is here and now. However, the superposition of all the possibilities are multiplicit all-be-it a massless virtual universes. What could have been and what might be for as far as the third eye can see.   

What was the scientific methodology to disprove it "many times"?

I'm no scientist, but I'll disprove god with one picture that I made.
God is all knowing, he knows the future, the past, everything that will happen. He gave the words to write the bible, correctly how everything will work out with the future.

Explain this image.


http://i60.tinypic.com/2aenvbt.png

Hmm.. So the mule is the proof of the non existence of God. Interesting................. Hmmm....

How about a liger instead of a mule?

https://i.imgur.com/PlR9RzC.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/b99vKZL.jpg

I don't get what point you're trying to point with that Mule? Evolution? I don't think science or evolution necesarily disprove god, but I don't see why the idea of god is needed to prove or explain things anymore.

This is my point about abstraction derived from the literal is a basis for reasoning, while abstraction derived solely from the figurative is not.

You cannot measure the temperature of the number 2, nor can you measure it's width, height or pretty much anything else about the number two, because it is an abstraction meant to represent *something*.

What does it represent? It represents a quantity of 'thing'. In that 1 represents a 'thing', 2 represents that 'thing' and another 'thing' and so on. We don't need to define that 'thing' unless we are actually using numbers for the simplistic task of establishing a quantity of [insert things here]. But, and this is the difference between abstraction related to math and that related to 'God', while numbers can be employed entirely without need to reference any particular 'thing', their root basis is as the abstract  representation of something literal.

Zero, is a representation of the absence of 'thing'.

'Thing' is literal without needing to be defined, therefore its use for mathematical abstraction purposes is objective and reasonable.


You cannot measure the temperature of 'God', nor can you measure it's width, height or pretty much anything else about the notion of 'God', because it is an abstraction meant to represent *something*.

What does it represent? It represents a figurative abstraction. It has no objectively definable qualities.

Its use in hypothesis renders such tainted and arbitrary. Its use in argument voids claims towards the process being one of reasoning.

If numbers are just abstraction then how is it they have properties i.e. association, cumulation and distribution? Seems to me numbers themselves can be classified as a 'thing' i.e. quite literally some'thing' with properties.

The concept of an absence of any'thing' is the abstraction IMO.

I said that numbers were an abstraction rooted in the literal in that they ultimately represent a tangible thing, even though they can still be used without needing to define 'thing'.

So, while the mathematician can run through no end of number-based processes that aren't simplistic counts of a quantity, the fact that the numbers themselves are defined as having a tangible meaning, denotes their abstraction as being from the literal. This is why math makes the most sense as being the language of the Universe because any sound or image can be used as the label that describes 'thing', 'thing and another thing', 'thing and another thing and another thing', otherwise known as 1,2,3.

My argument is that numbers have an existence that supersedes the tangible.

Numbers don't change over time nor do they take up any space. Representing tangible 'things' that take up space and change over time as a prerequisite for their existence seems unnecessary.

So reality is deigned by human perception - if we can form a gestalt then that's the truth.
Failure to form a gestalt is the test for reality?
Reality is a function of human perception?

It seems your vision of reality is human centric (because you happen to have been born human).

Most animals can't count to 3.  For them, numbers do not exist.

I suspect as humans we are blind to much of reality like most animals are oblivious to things that seem obvious to us.

What if reality is beyond our human minds simply because we are just not clever enough?

Would a being 10 times as intelligent as you have a different and more advanced perception of reality?

Do you think the human brain is the pinnacle of intelligence? That at some point in our evolution we passed a point of 'all knowing possibility'?

The truth is, we're just apes grunting at each other.

Some animals can count beyond the number 3, and yet their reality is incompatible with ours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzPiTwDE0bE

Thank you for my feeling more stupid myself before going to bed after reading that

How can you disprove something with facts that is not based on fact but faith. There is 0 evidence of any god.

There's also zero evidence for a Positivistic Universe, but scientists don't seem to mind.

Science is not religion all experimental science is falsifiable, being wrong is a good thing. Unlike Religion where it must be correct and is in fact wrong about almost everything.

The point is that science carries assumptions that it cannot falsify via its own methods.

My favorite unfalsifiable scientific assumption is that light has 0 rest mass. Making this assumption allows scientists to go hog wild in fairy tail land.

You get up in the morning, you point your browser at bitcoinwisdom to your horror to find that over night the bitcoin god became less happy. You then spend your day thinking about how the world needs to change its behaviors in order to make the god happier, and you conspire and plot with others to make this happen. Your only solution, the give more of your hard earned dollars to the beast.

Some of you are mono-coinistic, others spread their faith across many gods of both the SHA-256 and SCRYPT religions. Prophets rise out of the sea to either spread the bitcoin gospel, or prophesy its doom, and you bow daily before the multi-headed beast in your basement that is your mining rig.

Amyn.

Bitcoin is a digital payment protocol secured with encryption and computing power. Bitcoin is the worlds #1 most powerful computing network and it looks like the god of Bitcoins has many followers.

http://www.commonplaces.com/sites/commonplaces.com/files/multi-headed%20beast%202.jpg

I think that sana8410 believes that the internet is only available in "America".  :)

So we have the intelligence to create technologies that are capable of measuring the reality that is far beyond our biological limitations, but you are proposing what, exactly? That because there are aspects of the Universe that are yet to be fully understood . . .therefore God?

Or what? Therefore . . .something you want to arbitrarily claim is possible based solely on your imagination? Not exactly reasonable, is it?

Doesn't define the additional knowledge and sensory capabilities this 'being' might have, so the question is worthless. As it currently stands, everybody has a different perception of reality, namely, theirs.

Hell, no. Evolution now, in our case, is going to happen not from genetic mutation as erroneous gene replication, because we are pretty much all over that medically but, rather, from intellectually-driven advances in technology that will supplant the limitations of our wetware. The question is whether we, as sentient beings, will be able to survive the the process.

Stephen Hawking only recently addressed the inherent dangers of the coming 'AI' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/stephen-hawking-transcendence-looks-at-the-implications-of-artificial-intelligence--but-are-we-taking-ai-seriously-enough-9313474.html

Personally, I struggle to see how we will. When AI can advance exponentially and near-instantaneously, without limitation, the 'artificial' aspect becomes irrelevant and a self-aware AI would likely reason that our limited capabilities make us irrelevant to it. But, on the positive side, dysfunctional systems are doomed to failure, therefore a balanced and functional AI super-being would probably be a lot more consistent and reasonable than we could ever hope to be.

Resistance actually is futile.

I, for one, welcome our new AI overlord! - Note the singular?

I believe that we're surrounded by invisible unicorns at all times. You can't disprove their existence.Hey, don't try to tell me I'm wrong, I'm just trying to understand the Universe.This is the argument made in the above article.

Even if science currently carries assumptions that it can not at this time falsify due to our experimental limitations this does not mean that they are not falsifiable and could be tested in the future. Everything we know literally is science, god is ignorance ..everything we do not know or understand is contributed to god.

1)  First bolded reference should read, "...it can not at *any* time falsify..."  You cannot falsify the assumption of a Positivist Universe while using methods that already assume the existence of a Positivistic Universe.  Shortly put, if at any time someone finds a way to falsify a Positivistic Universe (hint: people have), then it's not via the scientific method (e.g. logic).

2)  What about feelings, e.g. warmth?  We know that something is warm if we feel it, but science cannot make any claims about warmth, only degrees of temperature.

3)  Stating "God is ignorance" is a nonsensical statement.  I think you meant something more along the lines of, "Any attempt at gaining knowledge outside the scientific method can only lead to ignorance."  This wouldn't be a nonsensical statement, but just a dumb one since even you, right now at this very second, are using other means to acquire knowledge.

I'd also like to point out that, if what you are saying is true, then nobody knew anything at all prior to the development of the scientific method.

You keep on spouting about Positivistic Universe being the be all and end all of science, as if there is agreement on it, there is not. It is an ongoing discussion, which currently seems to have equal argument for both Positivism and Realism.

Yeah, but you know what? Hypothesising and reasoning, challenging existing understanding, are all welcome in the scientific method. As he said, it's ok to be wrong, in fact being demonstrably wrong actually adds to the knowledge of science.

Warmth is subjective because the instrument we use to measure it, us, is fecking unreliable and inconsistent. Temperature in degrees can be established objectively by way of removing our crappy subjective selves from the equation and developing a multitude of technologies to accurately establish the facts of temperature.

Correct. Nobody *knew* anything, They posited, they suspected, they 'believed' but they did not *know* until that knowledge could be removed from the subjective individual and observed, measured, tested and, importantly, replicated, by the objective process known as scientific methodology.

"Zero" again. My favorite number.

Does that mean everything we believe now to be the truth can be disproved tomorrow (using scientific methodologies) as we live in a constant state of flux, a superposition of approximations and/or lies?

Warmth? What?....Anyway science simply put is knowledge..the word science comes from the Latin word for knowledge. The idea of God is faith and based in faith. As soon as Science can explain that which is attributed in ignorance to god it leaves the realm of god (ignorance) and becomes knowledge aka science. Faith is not knowledge.

The quote:

"Our ignorance is God; what we know is science."
- Robert Ingersoll.

Is what I was referencing, this is quite true. There is nothing "nonsensical" about it. All the blessing of the modern world are thanks to science. I can acquire "information" here but not necessarily knowledge two people can talk all day and learn nothing worthwhile.

"Any attempt at gaining knowledge outside the scientific method can only lead to ignorance." this can explain religion quite well.

The only lies are found in religion. Bible = book of lies. YES everything can be proven false otherwise it would not be science. Only religion claim everything to be absolute truth even though so much of it can be already proven false. Science is falsifiable....if it were not then it would be another religion.

Remember Science changes based on facts, evidence and experimentation. Religion on the other hand just stays wrong.

So everything science says is true, until proven not to be one day...

1)  It doesn't matter to science whether the debate about a Positovistic Universe is ongoing; it must be assumed to be true to utilize it.  It's really not any different than assuming God to be true in the sense that neither God nor a Positivistic Universe is falsifiable via the scientific method.

2)  You mistakenly quoted someone else's comments as my own.  I didn't say anything about light's mass.  However, this makes me think you're not reading anything I'm saying since you aren't even aware of who is saying what

3)  There's absolutely nothing fallacious about my experience of warmth if I feel it -- it's directly known.  Direct experience of phenomena is an infallible means of acquiring knowledge, I.e. it is better than science.  I know infinitely more about warmth by having experienced it than can be learned about warmth through the scientific method.  And, by the way, you do realize objective in science is still rooted in relativism, right?  For example, the kelvin temperature is set on a ratio scale where the anchor point of 0 degrees is a theoretical limit that can never be falsified (since falsifying it would require continuing observation in a 'dead' Universe)?

In short, science uses an isolated piece(s) of reality to describe other isolated piece(s) of reality without taking into account the system in which they both inhabit.

4)  To suggest nobody knew anything prior to the development of the scientific method is one of dumbest statements I've ever heard.  It's literally retarded and/or insane.  I mean, come on...you don't actually believe this do you?

You're right to divide between potentially falsifiable (but currently impossible due to limitations of technology, et cetera) and things which are in principle falsifiable (no technology will help).  However, you're gone a bit overboard when you say that "everythign we know literally is science".  That really depends on a concrete definition of "know", which will get you into metaphysics, and you'll be as vague as the god-talkers next thing you know.

It's important, I think, to recognize the limitations of observation as well as the philosophical connundrum of conciousness and knowledge.  If you are true skeptic, you will not find any proof of your own existence---such proof doesn't exists.  The best you can do is sollipsistic arguments from heuristic but without first principles you have no basis for your heuristics.  You might accept the cartesian proof of your own existance, but that doesn't extend to your senses, your knowledge, etc.  Don't get me wrong, I'm essentially a skeptic, I'm just trying to talk about strict skepticism.

If you think you know what it means to "know" or to "exists" then I think you're a bit ahead of me.  Anyway, I find the claim that all knowledge is science to be ludicrous, and to be clear, I'm a godless atheist scientist.

"You might accept the Cartesian proof of your own existence"

Can you point me to what it is?

Science has its own inertia; when will all the evidence be evaluated in an honest manner?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=590503.msg6555910#msg6555910

Skeptics use a double standard to reject parapsychological research.

Since there is no objective scientific way to identify an extraordinary claim,
To say that parapsychology makes "extraordinary claims" is based on personal belief rather than scientific facts.

Ultimately, it is hypocritical for a skeptic who claims to require scientific evidence before accepting a belief to use this double standard to reject parapsychological research in order to maintain his belief that ESP does not exist.

The top 20 spirit-contact cases and the top 20 reincarnation cases.
http://www.aeces.info/Top40/top40-main.shtml

In _Meditations on First Philosophy_ de Carte considers what he knows about himself, whether he can trust his own senses, etc.  He decides that although he cannot trust his own senses (he cannot know that his senses aren't subject to the trickery of an evil but more powerful being), he annot trust his thoughts (likewise, someone may be fooling him or playing with his thoughts) he *can* know that he exists because even if everything he thinks is wrong or foolish, he is still thinking, and that entails his existence.  Thus his famous line *cogito ergo sum* or "I think therefore I am".  Later he starts trying to rebuild his trust in his various senses but for me, the argumentation becomes weaker after that.

So for a Cartesian mind his consciousness "I think" is proof he exists; it would also mean that "I think" is born before the concept of "I am". The "stuff " needs to be created first, then the consciousness is created for "it " to be aware of its own existence.

Can this be true for a crab or a worm?

Blasphemy!!!


is that a self-aware crab or worm?

No everything is falsifiable.

I said science = knowledge. Science is both a body of knowledge and a process/method.

Just because there is no way to identify if something is out there does not mean it is there. If we reverse this logic then we can say that anything is truth. A prophet claims: "A pink dinosaur in a blackhole is god. I need no proof because I can't be proven wrong..you can't reject my claim because you can not test it scientifically"...that is madness. Where did you get this knowledge then? ..the problem with all man made gods is that they have an earthly doctrine which can be proven false. Omnipotent and omniscient as gods are supposed to be, If the doctrine can be proven false then obviously the deity of the doctrine is more than likely false as well.

Life does not need to be self aware to exist, according to science. So crabs and worms are using pure instinct to reproduce and to fight for food or to avoid being eaten by other non self aware creatures. Life does not need a purpose to be if I understand it, while I am myself defined by a Cartesian mind and have a purpose to define others and their purpose... I think.

What is your purpose? Not a self labeled purpose but what is the purpose of your existence?

Are you a goldfish? You said "nobody *knew* anything" prior to the scientific method.  That's stupid.  It doesn't matter if science can refer to either a method or a body of knowledge.  The point is that science is not the only (or even the best, in many cases) means to knowledge acquisition.

Science can't even falsify some of its own assumptions, though these assumptions may be (and are) falsifiable through other means (e.g. Logic falsifies the assumption of a Positivistic Universe because the assumption requires invoking at least one logical fallacy, I.e. the sameness-in-difference principle that states any two relands 'x' and 'y' must occupy a common medium).

Seems you've answered your question here, this is the socratic process at work :)

i am not a scientist myself, but i would agree with the point that life does not need to be self aware in order to exist.
Various life forms reproduce themselves in an "instictive" way, but i believe that this is not to be confused with
the human ability of philosophical and scientific exploration.

I mean, we do have a mind that allows us to think about our actions and their implications for a second,
but a crab can only resort to instinct as you put it and the rest of the factors that take place in the evolutionary process.

    

Please quote where I said "nobody knew anything prior to the scientific method"

Please tell me what can religion prove that is true?..The topic of this thread is that "Science does not disprove god" which is vague. We are getting way off here..My original point was and still is that religion is not based on facts and therefore can not be proven false by facts. It is totally based on faith. Which has 0 credibility. I'm not sure where you're trying to carry this but any attempt to discredit science because of a "Positivistic Universe" really serves no purpose other that to create a circular argument.

There are ways to test the survival hypothesis, and they are discussed extensively in the relevant journals (such as Journal of Scientific Exploration).

If you have disproven the survival hypothesis, please link me to the paper where you make such claim.

Science has its own inertia; when will all the evidence be evaluated in an honest manner?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=590503.msg6555910#msg6555910

Scientific evidence for one of the central concepts in spirituality and this board is silent.

To react to the existence and awareness of others who do the same with me. 

Okay...

I'm not talking about religion, I'm talking about science as a means of knowledge acquisition, and tangentially talking how it compares with other means of knowledge acquisition.  I'm trying to bring some clarity to the proponents of science (I'm one of them, but I'm also aware of its limitations and how other proponents of science like to ignore these limitations).

And I must remind you again that science has its own "faith-based assumptions" which, aside from being unfalsifiable via its own methods, have been proven wrong from a logical standpoint (in fact, proven wrong thousands of years ago by ancient Greek philosophers, and likely others before them, long before the scientific method was ever developed).

If you believe that faith-based assumptions have zero credibility, then you *must* acknowledge that many of science's assumptions also have zero credibility.  If you don't have a problem with this, then you shouldn't have a problem with religious faith-based claims as you share something in common with those who make them.  This isn't about my take on religion; it's about yours, and I'm showing you where you are inconsistent in your arguments.

So science is telling me the branch I am sitting on now gave me the tools for the creation of a mind through Evolution. Yet the same process did not work for 99.9% of anything alive on this planet and collapsed into something called "instinct". So my purpose is to be aware I am an exception as the natural state of Evolution for everything is based on something else.

So Instinct is a succession of reactions to past traumas and failures, arming the next generations to be better suited, while not being self aware, for a better adaptation of a never ending changing environment, environment only humans can perceived and analyzed to be as such.

Remember Science changes based on facts, evidence and experimentation.

Religion on the other hand just stays wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUpHrILke_Q&list=PL5E1C6F0C32270E31


You are sure that evolution brought about your ability to communicate? That is an interesting claim which is hotly disputed!

...I never said that...if you look back you can see.

"many of science's assumptions also have zero credibility."  I want to be concise here...Please list for me in straight forward terms.. what in science is based on faith. 1.2.3 and What in science has 0 credibility...

There is imagined phenomenon that can't yet be tested but is allowed for in various theories such as multiverse. Just as Mathematical theory was able to predict black holes. There is at least something behind it other than pure imagination.

I am not part of this discussion, but I will answer these questions.  :)
It cannot be true that "science=knowledge". Knowledge invariably involves a knower.

You must study and understand phenomenology as a prelude to such inquiry; also, the concept of materialism is a faith-based bastardization of science.

The first step of science is a philosophical one. Science makes an assumption and the assumption first provides an answer to this question:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_the_criterion

Science is responsible for a lot of suffering, a concept which carries more weight than credibility
Skeptics are quite poor in exploring the scientific truth of alternative claims; granted, the cases are often compelling so a skeptic is warned well ahead of time! Oftentimes, researchers are confident skeptics... before truly investigating the matter.

But there is ALSO real phenomena which CAN be tested but is not allowed in any 'scientific' theory because it offends sentiment about the mind-brain problem.
The difference between a scientist and a parapsychology researcher is that the latter typically understands phenomenology.

Lmao.  Wow.  My bad on that one.  I need to eat my words about the goldfish jab.  Ironically, I also made a post to someone else on page 6 of this thread accusing them of incorrectly referencing me!

:)

Isn't Evolution science fact? Isn't dietetic science fact? (http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303678404579533760760481486?mod=trending_now_1)

I'm sorry to bring the conversation back to this; I know cryptodevil had sorted of answered this before but then led this one slide...


Surely you must be joking? You must have heard of illusions by now, or "brain failures" if you will (optical illusions being the most popular, but by no means unique). Your feeling of warmth isn't "directly known", whatever you think that means; it's interpreted by your brain, as well as everything else you feel, and as such is subject to errors. 

I would rather doubt it until it is proven beyond a doubt!

To strengthen your doubt, I suggest you should once more review the unique problems posed by language:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUpHrILke_Q&list=PL5E1C6F0C32270E31

the design of the human being is the ultimate proof of existence of soemthing intellectual.

can chaos theory bring order?

Appeal from ignorance fallacy.

Just because you cannot wrap your head around the numbers involved in regards to time and causal chains, does not justify the ' . . .therefore God'.

I dare you to try and float that stinking turd of a non-argument about junkyards, tornadoes and jumbo jets. I double dare you.

Evolution is erroneous replication in incremental steps. It is not "one day there was no eyeball then *poof* working eyeball!!!!1!111"

When the chemicals that are formed after water hits hot rocks get together the proto-cells they form function as neurons.

The guy who discovered this got to meet with the pope.

We aren't talking about formal sciences here, but natural sciences; as such, the theory of evolution is as "proven" as one of these can be: you can make observations, predictions and repeat experiments with predictable results. But that isn't to say it won't undergo changes as new knowledge is acquired.

Out of curiosity, do you also refuse to take medicine when you're sick? Because chemistry is also a natural science...  :P

As for the movie you link, their main (but by no means only) fallacy is "god of the gaps". Here's a quote from Wikipedia for it:


As you can see, even theologians don't rely on it.

I don't understand why people never apply this same logic to god. According to the bible god made us in his image. It is only logical therefore to assume that god also needs a designer, because by definition he is infinitely more complex and intelligent than us.

Here, let me clarify something for you:

Scientific theory
A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method, and repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation.


The 'Theory of Evolution' is not, "Hey, I have a theory about . . .", in the way that the fungelicals like to pretend it is in order to crowbar their 'Intelligent Design' Creationism 2.0 wildly speculative and arbitrary notion as being deserving of equal consideration.

A scientific theory describes an accepted fact whilst still always being open to correction in future were there to be new data that supplanted the old. Evolution is something that has been demonstrably accepted across a wide swathe of scientific fields by way of multitudes of repeated observations and experiments.

Whatever the power that created the Universe was, it's not the same as the person made up in the bible. And it's all probably beyond human comprehension.

I think a good question to ask is wether or not you think god would be an atheist... or agnostic... or maybe he's also a believer? lol

I'd rather you clarify this doubt-inducing video since it seems not all the evidence is being evaluated honestly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUpHrILke_Q&list=PL5E1C6F0C32270E31

I am responding to you with an "accepted fact" about language. Hopefully this has shown why there is reason to doubt.  ;)

I disagree. Human evolution does not appear to be compatible with macro-evolutionary theory, as discerned from multiple of lines of inquiry and mentioned in the video.

Furthermore, I don't think god of the gaps applies to the broader argument that I am making about the survival hypothesis. Of course, you can call that argument a god of the gaps fallacy, but then you are just putting the label "unknown" onto one of the central concepts in spirituality and I perceive that as a cop-out.

Are skeptical theories open to disproof?

A theory with sufficient supporting evidence can supply a disproof. A theory that's good enough is the truth standing now, but subject to change, as you mentioned.


And I should mention here, not only the evidence in favor of the transmission theory of mind, but also the vast evidence for the survival hypothesis as well.

Such theories are subject to disproof only if skeptical or alternative theories have better evidence or better explanations, but this is NOT evident in the parapsychology literature.

Repeated observations and repeatable experiments haven't convinced skeptics. Statements by Nobel prize winning scientists who were convinced by evidence hasn't convinced skeptics. When pushed to the limit, the skeptic always has recourse to the last bastions of skepticism: accusations of fraud, incompetence, and self-delusion.

Turing and other eminent researchers (https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers)

So given all of this it is not hard to imagine that there is evidence, viable hypotheses, and even entire theories that are being ignored in biosciences as well, scientists are discussing the issues but the discussion must grow. As I recall, some of the latest evidence casts doubt upon the macroevolutionary paradigm (I have read a great review but have unfortunately lost the source).

No, I'm not joking.  But, I'm trying to make a subtle distinction I'm not sure you're picking up on.

I'm talking about the difference between the direct experience of an event vs. subsequent abstraction of that event which may include thinking about the event or attempting to explain it.  

A "brain failure" or an attempt to explain an illusion may render the person experiencing the failure and/or illusion incapable of explaining the event, but there is nothing fallacious about direct experiences because these experiences preclude abstraction and therefore explanation.  There is nowhere to find fallacy in the total absence of explanation, and yet the experience itself is very real in a truer sense than what can be communicated through abstraction.

Another way to conceptualize this is to think of abstraction or explanation as requiring a separation between the explainer (subject) and what is being explained (object); this is why the root word of 'rationale' is 'ratio' as explanations are really explanatory *relationships*.  In contrast, direct experience of an event requires the unification of subject and object; you'll notice that if you experience warmth there is no distinct separation between you and the warmth itself, and it's interesting to note how this is even reflected in the language we use (e.g. "I'm warm").  Scientifically, this claim "I'm warm" would be dismissed without at least some other reference point for comparision (i.e. Warm compared to what?); this other reference point catalyzes a 'ratio' which enables us to 'rationalize' about it.  But, the person experiencing the warmth doesn't need some other reference point to understand or know what he is experiencing.

Why is there a need for mutations, for generations after generations from a cloud of pure energy from the bigbang? Is Evolution, and ultimately consciousness, the result of gravity?

What do you mean by need? I think essentially everything is the result of gravity. Without it what would could exist?

Why is the stuff on the periodic table need to create more complex structures to ultimately create consciousness? Why not simply be what they are forever? Is gravity the answer from a genesis of pure energy, even before the concept of pure chaos?

Goodness me, the level of misunderstanding and outright misrepresentation being shown here is staggering.
'Spiritualists', first stop assuming that such a thing as a 'spirit' exists and then seeking to cherry-pick information to support your assumption.

We are a brain that functions as a filter, otherwise the sheer amount of data our senses receive would absolutely render us incapable of functioning. Our sense of 'self' is that filter. All information we currently have about the brain suggest this to be so.

'Intelligent Design' Creationists, no, no you may not keep pointing us in the direction of shonky science 'proof' that, likewise, serves to misrepresent data in order to work backwards to your intended aim of claiming your assertion as anything more than utterly baseless wild speculation.

What is it about theism that encourages so much dishonesty?

@Joint - Warmth, you've been told already is not definable outside of subjective personal sensory perspective. Otherwise it is simply a 'temperature' objectively measurable by technologies we create to do so.

The 'feeling' you get at one level of 'warmth' is not going to be the same 'feeling' I get, or someone else gets. Our brain, our body, creates sensory feedback from reactions from the radiation of heat across nerves which fire information to the brain and gets translated into 'warmth' as a rapid way for us to interpret the level of heat in order to what? Yes, in order to ensure we react to it quick enough not to get burnt! It allows us to respond without actually having to spend time thinking about it.

Without nerve signalling to the brain, in cases where there is numbness, people find themselves only knowing they are burning their skin when they smell it cooking.

@Wilikon - E=MC² In a nutshell, matter is energy slowed down. Matter and energy interact with different types of matter and energy to create, guess what, different matter and energy types!

The survival hypothesis has something to say about one's sense of self, and it is a viable hypothesis, backed by many strong cases.

All information we currently have about the personality suggests its survival after death.

http://www.aeces.info/Top40/top40-main.shtml


It is dishonest to discuss the self without evaluating the evidence for survival.

Darwin believed that natural laws were designed by an intelligence.... just like von Braun. You won't have any luck knocking down ALL of these eminent intellectuals:

https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers#researchers_turing

 ;)

I've never heard of Darwin saying such a thing. He seemed to consider himself an agnostic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Charles_Darwin

*cough* Bollocks! *cough*

Dude, quoting flowery prose from people who live by way of magical thinking does not a reasonable assertion make.


*sigh* No he didn't, not really, and, even if he did, as you lot LOVE to claim, so feckin' what? 'Origin of Species' is based on reason and critical thinking, 'it must be designed by an intelligence', is the same wildly speculative crap that falls wayyyy outside of the reasoning process.

Here's a tip you really need to understand, ALL of your pro-woo Creationist 'science' is garbage, designed to satisfy what YOU are looking for so you can agree with it and assume it safely answers all the questions satisfactorily.

Learn about fallacious argument, your lots' 'research' data is full of it. Oh, and lies, it's full of lies too.

Besides, I already pulled apart 'appeal to authority' fallacy much earlier in this thread.

Objective scientific research doesn't need to spin its information to suit a predetermined wish about how reality might work. It just deals in the cold soul-less facts of the Universe.

I think therefore I am= Consciousness. Is Consciousness Energy? Does Consciousness have a mass?

Therefore E=MC²=Conciousness. Could that be correct?

I am still waiting on you to honestly address the evidence that I presented in support of my claim:
http://www.aeces.info/Top40/top40-main.shtml

1)  
Cryptodevil, first stop assuming that such a thing as a Positivistic Universe exists and then continuously avoiding the fact that this assumption was proven wrong thousands of years ago and is easy to falsify as it invokes a logical fallacy.

2)  See #1 as this has drastic implications for your considerations of what "subjective personal sensory perspective" is (it's what you and everyone else uses while observing evidence in scientific exploration), and perhaps more importantly what it is not.  If you think there's some insurmountable chasm separating subjectivity and objectivity, you're again invoking a logical fallacy.  Just because the warmth I feel isn't the same feeling you might get doesn't mean it's not knowledge.  Things aren't always this or that; sometimes they're this and that.

There is no God - we're just a type of animal - we're nothing special.
We can't understand everything becasue we are not able to.

Dogs can't understand everything - why not? Why are we so special?
I'm cleverer than a dog - what if there is something cleverer than me? - 1 million times cleverer.
You must see that it is relative to biological intelligence?

You accept at least Darwin - we're just a species of ape?

I'm proposing that the human mind is limited and we are biologically incapable of understanding most of everything - it doesn't matter how hard we try - we are not clever enough.
It is completely reasonable to suggest this - since we are just one type of tailless monkey. (cf Darwin - aka Science)

  
  not gravity, it is such a weak force
Electricity, instead.
the sun an anode, the deep void the ground
plasma is everywhere, they say, making up 99.999% of all there is
and it conducts electricity
you blink an eye, electric current at the synapses, through the nerves, the eye is refreshed, life goes on

even as you are electric, the universe is electric

  I am that I am.  i am he, so are you.

  energy cannot be created, or destroyed.
      = death is an illusion

valentine michael smith (R.A.H. Stranger in a Strange Land) said it best:

  "Thou art God"

So Life creates the hardware and the software, based on a total lack of purpose for it to do so, using pure chaos and luck as its engine. So then Consciousness is a byproduct of pure chaos, the only byproduct that we can use to give a meaning to everything?

How quaint that according to you, we understand that we are animals and that there is no God, but cannot understand "most of everything".  ???

The top 40 cases in support of the survival hypothesis can lead to an understanding of mind; one based on evidence:
http://www.aeces.info/Top40/top40-main.shtml

You have to be REALLY CLEVER to come up with a parsimonious explanation that does not entail survival.

And it's really not that complicated; rebirth is one of the central concepts in spirituality. Even Darwin recognized it:

"As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities"

Couldn't Evolution be a a... hmm..  Super Weak Force?
We understand the mechanism and the purpose of an eye. What I do not understand is why the waste of so much energy to create one to evolve through billions of generations, imperceptible only after a certain time? The eye is an interface for your consciousness. One of many. Even mute deaf blind people from birth, if no other birth defect, will have a conscience, will eventually learn how to communicate, even have a social life. But why go through so much when the genesis state of pure energy would have been the most peaceful and eternal one?

A force is "pushing" basic things to evolve. I was wondering if it could be gravity... Thus gravity is the core of consciousness creation. If that is the case then consciousness should have a mass one can measure.

Doesn't matter - I'm an ape too - 'grunt'.
Feel free to grunt back.
Maybe you'll attract  a mate through online grunting and pass on your genes.

What is this?
I had thought that intellectuals like yourself were supposed to honestly address the evidence in any debate.  ???

The top 40 cases in support of the survival hypothesis, when taken as a whole, do not leave much room for other hypotheses, whether skeptical or alternative:
http://www.aeces.info/Top40/top40-main.shtml

Since you are admittedly incapable of understanding most everything, I will definitely take your advice at face value.

The idea that it's impossible to know everything (or even anything) absolutely is, in my opinion, a very dangerous idea -- one that leads down a slippery slope to the inevitable conclusion, "If you state you can't know anything absolutely, then I might as well ignore everything you have said, are saying, and ever will say."

I used to adhere to this perspective, until I realized its flaw -- inasmuch as logic is a closed system that can be fully and comprehensively explored by us, and given that any valid explanation of anything requires an adherence to logical principles, we can, in fact, know something as absolutely as logic can possibly allow us to.  To this extent, it is absolutely possible to formulate comprehensive, complete, logical arguments about the Universe, about God, etc.  It was after realizing this years ago that I actually realized it is not only possible, but practically worthwhile to explore the idea of God because sound conclusions about God can be formulated (e.g. God exists by logical necessity) which has vast implications upon the practical ways that we live our lives.  It is, however, NOT a sound conclusion to state that the lack of empirical evidence of God makes the concept unworthy of exploration.

By the way, for all those who liken talking about God to talking about space teapots and unicorns, they are *not* analogous by definition (e.g. teapots and unicorns even as concepts are conditional events; monotheistic gods are not).  Find a better argument than one that invokes the use of fallacy.

The very fact people here can compare themselves to apes if proof they are not.


Motivation is the driving force that causes the flux from desire to will in life. For example, hunger is a motivation that elicits a desire to eat.

Motivation has been shown to have roots in physiological, behavioral, cognitive, and social areas. Motivation may be rooted in a basic impulse to optimize well-being, minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure. It can also originate from specific physical needs such as eating, sleeping or resting, and sex.

Motivation is an inner drive to behave or act in a certain manner. These inner conditions such as wishes, desires and goals, activate to move in a particular direction in behavior.


Is to state "I have no purpose in life" a lie?

Just stemming from this last idea...

I had spent some time trying to answer the "What is the purpose of life?" question, and I came up with the following:

Premise 1: The purpose of a purpose is to be purposeful according to whatever constitutes a purpose.
Premise 2: The purpose of life is to be purposeful according to whatever constitutes life.
Premise 3: Living constitutes life.
Therefore: The purpose of life is to live.

You guys are dropping some weird sophistry in this thread.  Those three premises and conclusion seem to me to be as vacuous and dereft of explication as any other tautology you might come up with.

Yep, I'll agree this one doesn't have so much outright practical value outside of a subtle suggestion to just relax once in a while :)

Edit:  Then again, if people agree upon a sound answer then it might save some people a lot of time.

I am not really asking what the purpose of Life is (even if this is exactly what I do) but more like trying to understand what is that momentum for the "process" to start and keep reproducing, and adapting, and evolving. My instinct (for a lack of better word) tells me there must be a type of fundamental force that pushes the first domino, and that force is infinitely weaker than any other forces. Yet without it a conclusion to the revelation to a Consciousness is impossible. The ultimate super weak force, the fundamental force that lead to Consciousness.

It is funny because we are all trying to understand if God can or can't be defined by an equation, using a tool we all use, which all of us need to understand each other. And yet we can't define what that tool is.

Now I have found the reason that I appreciated that post. :) It is because I appreciate subtlety and am open to suggestion. Cool!    :D

Oh!
Just thinking about this concept triggered a reminder of something quite similar which I read, it is on the topic of Cosmology... Let me know if this is what you are getting at?

Deep. I guess that would sound like something I am trying to understand. All my thought process here was inspired by all the posting right here. I feel like if you think long enough you end up to the same questions, etc. so I always assume everything I say can be googled and found :)