Talk:Scientific evidence for God's existence/Archive1

Scary

God is a very scary symbiotic being looking down upon you from an alternate dimension which consists of thousands of rabbit pipe smoking folk. These folk are also known as angels. The rain is do to these angels having sexual relations with each other and then ejaculation onto the world ^{— Unsigned, by: 75.187.109.57 / talk / contribs}

Damn, you figured it out! Тy^Talk. 23:28, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Reminds me of an acid trip I had once. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 23:57, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

The ultimate proof

http://www.god.gov ^{— Unsigned, by: 190.44.109.192 / talk / contribs (signed by bot)} 04:52, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Delete or move these types of articles

I get that they're true, and parodying Conservapedia, but not everyone will know that, and it kind of makes us look like smug assholes to those who don't. Maybe move them to the fun space or something? F_lint^{talk to me :D} 20:04, 16 November 2011 (UTC)…

I agree. Move 'em to the Fun namespace like we did with the Greatest Aryan Songs page. 99.45.168.61 (talk) 22:30, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Blah blah

The biggest difference between an atheist and a mystic is that a mystic capitalizes the word "Nothing".... Drop this approach and try Buddhism, they don't believe in God, but at least they are following a method inward to truth. Your science is too a religion, however feeble its structure. Arrogance, however, is not an excuse to waste an incarnation. Love not Fear ^{— Unsigned, by: 173.184.123.202 / talk / contribs}

Cool story, bro. ^sshole 12:13, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Why rationalwiki hate science?

Rationalwiki should change it's name to feminazipedia.

It refueses to accept sound arguments for God's existence, perhaps because of an emotional reaction to the idea of a God existing who views certain things as wrong, such as, say, abortion.

There are many genuine scientific proofs of God, some of the best are the fine-tuning argument and the Kalam Cosmological Argument from Cosmology.

These are scientific proofs of a perfect being's existence. They can be backed with evidence which you would have to be illiterate to not have heard of. They are logical and airtight. I think the makers of this wiki are just rebelling against whichever religion they wrre forced to believe as a child, rather than thinking rationally about the concept of God.Lyger (talk) 22:53, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Feminazipedia! Edgy, brah? Osaka Sun (talk) 22:59, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Well he has a point. Clearly God exists because he says so. - GrantC (talk) 23:03, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

He's still more sane than a lot of the other nutbags we get here. He used the talk page, for example. Still crazy, mind you. The Invisible Man^{I spoke to Him} 23:32, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Touché. - GrantC (talk) 23:49, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

No, Grant C, God does not exist because I say so. He exists because the Universe is so perfectly tuned for habitation, in spite of the fact that if 1/86 physical constants had been different, life would not exist. See: http://www.reasons.org/articles/fine-tuning-for-life-in-the-universe.

As someone who is actually a physicist, I can tell you that this argument is full of crap. As pointed out below, what would be more appropriate is to say that life as we know it would not exist. - GrantC (talk) 00:22, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Please guys, try to point out the holes in this argument rather than calling me "crazy". Ad hominem isn't a counter-argument to scientific truth. Lyger (talk) 00:16, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Okay sure, I'll give it a shot. First off, the Kalam Cosmological Argument is not from cosmology (which is a fairly rigorous scientific discipline rooted in physics), but rather from philosophy and theology. Second, it is exactly that: an argument. Notably, you have failed to present any proof as to why that argument is any more valid than any other.

With regards to the fine tuning argument, that's just wrong. To put it simply, very unlikely things happen quite often. Just because there's only a small allowable variation in the parameters that caused life to spring up on this planet, that doesn't mean any cause can be inferred. There are billions upon billions of star systems out there which could support life, so it's entirely unsurprising that at least one happened to support life. If you want to drag the argument further by pointing out the required "fine tuning" of the fine structure constant, I would point out that if the fine structure constant were different, the universe would look very different, but there is again no guarantee that said universe wouldn't be able to support life. We wouldn't exist, but perhaps some other entities would. - GrantC (talk) 00:21, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Allow me to explain to you why the fine tuning argument (along with every other philosophical argument for the existence of God) fails in my opinion. Imagine yourself watching TV one lazy afternoon, when suddenly there's a knock at the door. You answer, and find a very distinguished gentleman standing on your doorstep. After a brief introduction, he explains that he's a billionaire with a peculiar love for giraffes, and the people who own them. He tells you he'll give you a million dollars, on the spot, if you can prove to him you own a pet giraffe. What do you do? If you actually own a pet giraffe, the answer is simple. You invite him in, take him to the backyard, and show him your pet giraffe. But what if you don't own a pet giraffe, but would still like to collect the money? You could always fake it. You tell the gentlemen you are busy at the moment, and request that he come by the following day. Then you put in one of the hardest night's work of your life. You steal a giraffe from the local zoo, spread giraffe toys around the yard, buy a couple sacks of Purina Giraffe Chow, and finally bribe the neighbors to corroborate your story. The problem is, even though you now have a very real giraffe, your story would not withstand any sort of rigorous scrutiny.

So what do you do? You don't own a giraffe. You can't reasonably fake owning a giraffe. Yet, you still want your visitor to think you own a giraffe. You're only left with one option... you launch into a philosophical argument. --Inquisitor (talk) 00:53, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether you meant it, but you touched on something quite interesting in that first sentence. Specifically, the fine tuning argument as used by creationists is indeed a philosophical argument, and not a scientific one. That's an important distinction that many creationists like to obfuscate, I think. - GrantC (talk) 00:57, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Here's the problem, and I mentioned this in my edit summary. There is no coherent definition for divine intervention in the universe. We haven't seen anything in the universe that we can't feel safe in saying we won't explain someday. Without that, there is no Theory of God. EVDebs (talk) 01:01, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Not All Things May be Proven Through Science

There are many things that cannot be proven by scientific methods but that people are rational to accept. One example is science itself, which is permeated by hidden assumptions which are made to ensure that theories work.

This page's joke falls flat for that very reason, and shows a certain scientific illiteracy which I would not expect from "rational"wiki.Lyger (talk) 03:47, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

DRINK! --_transResident Transformers fan^form! 03:55, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

: Ah, that link would be valid if I'd made up what I just said, but I have not made up the notion that much cannot be proven using science alone.

Maths, logic, metaphysical statements, aesthetics, morality, these cannot be proven by science. I guess Autofire shouldn't believe in these things, then.Lyger (talk) 04:09, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Sure, but the natural world and how it works can indeed be proven by science. What's your point? - GrantC (talk) 06:19, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what "proven by science" means anyway. Science doesn't actually " prove" things, it's more about obtaining evidence and improving its theories.--Weirdstuff (talk) 07:47, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Of course. I'm not using the word "proof" rigorously here, but rather pointing out that the closest one can come to "proof" in the natural world without relying on faith is through science. - GrantC (talk) 07:50, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't criticizing you, I was having a go at the section heading. In fact the page being criticized by Lyger is very well named as it highlights the lack of evidence, rather than lack of proof. Presumably for the reasons I have stated. It also shows that if anyone doesn't understand what science is about it's the poster who created the section heading.--Weirdstuff (talk) 09:08, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Ah, righto. My apologies for the misunderstanding. That teaches me to try to form coherent sentences so early in the morning! - GrantC (talk) 13:24, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Are you guys on drugs? Of course Science proves things. The Scientific Method works by finding proofs for hypotheses in experiments.

What I'm saying is that multiple things may not be proved in such a fashion, such as the idea that the speed of light is constant, which is the cornerstone of special relativity. By you guy's logic, noone should think the Special Theory of Relativity is true. After all, there is no scientific evidence of one of it's suppoting premises.Lyger (talk) 16:29, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

"Are you guys on drugs? Of course Science proves things. The Scientific Method works by finding proofs for hypotheses in experiments."

No, it works by looking for evidence.--Weirdstuff (talk) 16:52, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

No, science doesn't "prove" things. Scientific theories are developed to attempt to explain natural phenomena, and then said theories are continually tested by new evidence as knowledge expands. In fact, the constancy of the speed of life is a proposition of special relativity, not a "proof". - GrantC (talk) 16:33, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

To further expand on this, it is possible for the evidence supporting a theory to be overwhelming. In such a case, there's a high probability that the theory is correct (look at electromagnetic theory as an example). However, the possibility always exists for new information to show up that throws the old theory on its head. Keep in mind that Newtonian gravity was considered to be the correct and most plausible theory up until relativity was postulated. We know now that the evidence strongly suggests that Newtonian gravity is a special case of general relativity, but that was new information at the time. - GrantC (talk) 16:36, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, all of science is conditional and open to review all the time. One of the big differences between science and religion is that one can develop and incorporate new information (in general) the other can't. Nobody is going to rewrite the Bible. (Well, nobody who's going to be taken seriously anyway. :-))--Weirdstuff (talk) 16:51, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Sir Karl Popper's foundational work, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, makes it clear that science cannot prove anything. In this book, he argues that science should follow a methodology based on falsification. He shows quite clearly that while science cannot prove anything, it can falsify ideas that are currently thought to be true. He therefore argues that the test of any real scientific theory is whether or not it can be falsified. 82.2.75.224 (talk) 17:15, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Math and logic are essentially part of science; in fact, they're at the base of it. Metaphysical statements refer, by their nature, to things that cannot be observed and therefore cannot be meaningfully discussed; if they could be, they wouldn't be meta. Aesthetics, I would submit, are something that simply haven't been studied properly, and may involve an issue of computational complexity on a par with chaos theory. (However, a tritone drone chord annoys nearly everyone, so that's one aspect to look at.) As for morality, it seems to me that it's one of the more important issues of psychology and anthropology, and ultimately is within the realm of that which can be scientifically proven; we just don't have the tools or data yet to do so. (Since morality is also governed by what are essentially political policy goals, aesthetics also plays into it somewhere.) Any questions? EVDebs (talk) 16:33, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Article locked?

You guys must be scared of all the evidence against your naturalist world-view, lol.

Can you guys provide any scientific evidence for atheism being correct, btw?Lyger (talk) 11:29, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Nice Straw man, buddy! And coupled with some JAQing off? You should be proud of yourself. Looking at the history, it's not that we're scared of "all the evidence against [our] naturalist world-view." It's that we're tired of you (yes, YOU) wandalizing this article. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 11:36, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Also see PRATT. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 11:43, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

This talk page would be for debating the issue. If you've got something we'd be really happy to see it. Put it up and defend it. This talk page is not locked as you can see. Give it your best shot. (But please make sure that you understand what science and evidence are first.) --Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 13:22, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I'll respond to the scientific evidence for atheism being correct bit.

Can we supply any scientific evidence for the absence of Santa Claus, or God, or Zeus? Well, it's not necessary, because science goes with the null hypothesis. It assumes that Santa Claus does not exist until such time as evidence that he does exist is presented. So the burden of proof remains with those would like to believe in Santa.

(In fact, certain descriptions of some God(s) contain logical contradictions by which they can be falsified, but such arguments are not really necessary if no evidence in favour of the existences of these hypothetical Gods has been presented.)--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 14:31, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, first of all, trying to prove god's existence shows "lack of faith". You see the problem here? Belief can rely on many things, among which the scientific method is but one. Nullahnung (talk) 19:43, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

The user has been blocked, so trying to engage them is a bit pointless at the moment. Unless someone is willing to unblock them.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:50, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

In the word of the blocking admin, Lyger has "earned" their block. At first I went "what is he thinking, blocking that one so soon?" but after some looking around and some thought I was like, "no kidding, Sherlock! They have been earning it all along." Bet the issue will still be around in a month when they can write anywhere beyond their user talk page. Will that be soon enough? Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 20:02, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Also, keep in mind, that before ZooGuard deleted it, Lyger's user page was a link to a malware site that multiple sources (Google, Norton, and ESET from my end) have both rated as dangerous for infecting computer with malware as recently as Nov. 16th, the last time it was tested, and up to 120 days beforehand. Anyways, that's just a little more information about our article troll. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 01:44, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

This Page is Irrational

How can you expect an infinite being like God to express himself in the finite effects that scientists look at? It is impossible. Maybe you guys should name yourselves irrationalwiki instead.MrE (talk) 21:37, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

If god is undetectable then he is also irrelevant. (And Drink!)--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 22:14, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

There are infinitesimal things in the Universe which God can control. Good evidence for this is the Cambrian Epxlosion and Baryon asymmetry.MrE (talk) 23:21, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, can you explain to me why having a baryon asymmetry proves the existence of God? There are competing scientific theories for why this could be the case. Just because none have been conclusively proven yet does not mean one is not correct. Consider that if the electroweak force could violate CP symmetry, then there would be nothing surprising about such an imbalance. We already know that there exist particles (kaons) that violate CP symmetry, so this isn't really so out there. That, of course, is one of many theories currently under consideration. - GrantC (talk) 23:49, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I want to hear how the "Cambrian Epxlosion" proves God. My Bible says God made everything at the start (chickens, sheep, cud chewing bunnies and such) so why no precambrian bunnies ? Hamster (talk) 03:07, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

God: "Aww shit, I forgot a few species. Might as well just drop them in there!" - GrantC (talk) 03:44, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Which God are we talking about here?

"The" Christian God (as if Christians really agree on what their God is like)? An interventionist God? A supreme being that can create universes and supposedly created ours? I'll grant that you're probably exclusively talking about conceptions of "God" where God is a person, so we can leave out philosophical notions of a non-sentient God where God is equated with the universe, being itself, the laws of logic etc.

Actually, what I'm wondering is whether this article is suggesting the non-existence of a (or several) hypothetical class(es) of beings, or only suggesting that, regardless of whether such beings may exist, there's no evidence indicating that any such individual being has interacted with or caused our universe (or the part of it we've been able to observe so far, at least). Because, while I can agree with the latter, I find the former problematic. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 08:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The key word is scientific evidence of a higher being. A higher power that is unobservable and undetectable and does not ever directly interact with our universe is, as far as science is concerned, an untestable hypothesis. In that light, it is not a scientific concern, but a matter of belief and faith. Science observes the latter condition (the total lack of evidence of divine intervention on natural processes in the universe) and decides that the former is a question it does not have any use for. Ochotona princeps^{not a pokémon} 08:28, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I get what you're saying, but isn't this article's use of the word "existence" kind of misleading then, though? It (the opening sentence in particular) seems to imply that science can make relevant claims about the existence of deities in general. Wouldn't "Scientific evidence for divine interference" be a more accurate title? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 09:32, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, look at it this way: Since science supposedly cannot make any claims about the existence of a deity, except that it is unable to find evidence of such a thing, the next logical conclusion of that would be that science does not in fact have any evidence for such a thing in store (since it was never able to compile any). Therefore this whole article is a bit redundant, but meant to be funny I guess. Nullahnung (talk) 11:23, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The "First define your God" question is a bit of an issue. I could define "God" in such a way that it exists. For example I have a paper stapler on my desk. If I define God" as my stapler then - hey presto - God exists. I can do the same trick defining "God" as "love" or "the universe" or whatever. However, for the purposes of this article I think that we are talking about an interventionist God who is in some way acts upon the world in a detectable manner.--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 13:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I always figure when I see "God-with-a-caqpital-G" that we're talking about a historically-specific concept that fits in somewhere with what Bob describes at the end of his post above, and more specifically the Abrahamic concept thereof. anything else is "deity," "a god/gods-with-a-lower-case-g," or something else. You can say "God is love," because that's one of the things He is supposed to be, but if you're saying that as a way to exclude a bunch of other stuff, you're not really talking about "God" in a way that has any meaning. TeenageWasteland (talk) 13:34, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Listen up arseholes

I am fed up with you atheists.

You are inconsistent. You hold

1) the consistency of nature 2) everything is naturalistic and changing

You can't believe both! Only a necessary prime mover cannot change!

The ontological value of science rests on God!--82.19.19.125 (talk) 08:00, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Some things are consistent. The speed of light in a vacuum unaffected by a gravitational field is - as far as we know - unchanging.

Everything is naturalistic as far as we know, as supernatural forces do not seem to be demonstrable or repeatable under controlled conditions.

Many things are constantly changing. For example biological organisms are constantly being changed by various evolutionary drivers.

I don't see any inconsistency. Perhaps you could elaborate.--Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 09:35, 22 January 2017 (UTC)