If Science Revealed God

Creationism, Evolution, and other science issues

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Purple Knight
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If Science Revealed God

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Post by Purple Knight »

Question for Debate: If science actually proved God, would you change the way you lived your life?

And if so, why? Also, what would it be based upon? If it just so happens that the person in front of the computer posting as Purple Knight created the universe, do I gain any special moral credibility from that action? The way I see it, no, I don't. If I created the universe, so what? Your parents created you, and if they're bad people who want you to do bad things, you can still (and should, to my mind) say no.

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Re: If Science Revealed God

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Post by benchwarmer »

Grunt0311 wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 9:03 pm I know the drill any and all evidence presented will be ignored and explained away by what you think you know, which obviously you don’t know.
It would help if you actually tried. At this point it seems you have none, thus we can simply dismiss your claims as easily as you made them.

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Re: If Science Revealed God

Post #32

Post by brunumb »

Grunt0311 wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 9:03 pm I know the drill any and all evidence presented will be ignored and explained away by what you think you know, which obviously you don’t know.
You have summed up Christian apologetics perfectly. :ok:
George Orwell:: “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”
Voltaire: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
Gender ideology is anti-science, anti truth.

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Re: If Science Revealed God

Post #33

Post by Grunt0311 »

Lol, really ! What I wrote described you perfectly.

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Re: If Science Revealed God

Post #34

Post by otseng »

Grunt0311 wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 3:37 pm Since there are no credible findings of any species in transition it should be obvious that evolution is a sick hoax accepted by those who deny their creator.
Grunt0311 wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 9:54 pm Lol, really ! What I wrote described you perfectly.
Grunt0311 wrote: Fri Nov 26, 2021 9:03 pm I know the drill any and all evidence presented will be ignored and explained away by what you think you know, which obviously you don’t know.
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Re: If Science Revealed God

Post #35

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #1]
And if so, why? Also, what would it be based upon? If it just so happens that the person in front of the computer posting as Purple Knight created the universe, do I gain any special moral credibility from that action? The way I see it, no, I don't. If I created the universe, so what? Your parents created you, and if they're bad people who want you to do bad things, you can still (and should, to my mind) say no.
You are correct. Belief in God has very little to do with whether someone can actually physically see God or prove there is a God. You are also correct in citing that morality is the reason why people do not want to believe that there is a God in heaven.

The problem is morality falls outside of science also.

According to Sean Carroll, an atheist, morality falls outside of science for three reasons.

1. There's no single definition of well-being.
2. It's not self-evident that maximizing well-being, however, defined, is the proper goal of morality.
3. There's no simple way to aggregate well-being over different individuals.

https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2010/ ... ht-from-is

According to your logic if morality falls outside of the realm of Science how can you say that there is such thing as morality?

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Re: If Science Revealed God

Post #36

Post by Purple Knight »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue Dec 14, 2021 2:34 pmThe problem is morality falls outside of science also.
I don't think it has to, but currently this is absolutely right: There is no rationally-derived theory of morality. In fact, most morality is irrational or even anti-rational. In other words, it's possible for the moral choice to cause no good to anyone, or even cause massive harm... it's still moral. And if you link up morality with what causes good rather than harm you make morality so nebulous as to be useless because we can't predict the future.

But as problematic as morality is, science requires morality in order to proceed. You can't have people who just want the answers they want and you can't have people who are willing to corrupt their data to get them. You can't have peer review dominated by a single ideology, even if it's the correct one - you must have people motivated to attack and poke holes in whatever theories are proposed... so you must tolerate people who have the wrong ideas, no matter how offensive they are. (Unless the idea is that you don't need to tolerate other ideas, in which case it can't be tolerated.)

These are moral principles. They're not based on what causes harm or good; they simply are. If you had one Nazi, and as long as he tolerated other ideas, him being there would help science proceed, since nobody else would be motivated to attack a theory that, for example, proved diversity is better, and he would be so motivated. The greater good is to kick him out. He causes harm. But abiding by the principles science needs means don't kick him out for his ideology.

Since science requires moral principles in order to proceed, but can't prove these moral principles, in a way science is leeching - relying on something it, at best, does nothing to preserve, and at worst, works to destroy.

When you're leeching, things work great for a while, until you don't have that thing you were relying on anymore. It doesn't prove I'm right, but the replicability crisis is certainly symptomatic of leeching.

There's a greater question here: Do we even need truth if we have morality?

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Re: If Science Revealed God

Post #37

Post by willhoff »

I think that if science revealed that God is real, many people would start changing for the better. From my perspective, I wouldn't change. I grew up believing and loving God.

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Re: If Science Revealed God

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Post by benchwarmer »

willhoff wrote: Sun Mar 27, 2022 7:48 am I think that if science revealed that God is real, many people would start changing for the better. From my perspective, I wouldn't change. I grew up believing and loving God.
You are assuming that the god science revealed would be the exact one you currently believe exists. There are thousands of proposed options, so the odds are not in your favor.

I think if science ever revealed a god, everyone's lives would be changed in some way even if were only indirectly. Much like other scientific progress often changes some aspect of our lives.

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Re: If Science Revealed God

Post #39

Post by The Barbarian »

Obviously, an omnipotent God could easily let us know of His existence. One possible reason He would not, is because our freedom matters to Him. If you knew God existed, you would not in any meaningful way, be free to accept Him or reject Him.

Another possible reason would be found in Stanislav Lem's Non Servium From his A Perfect Vacuum; Perfect Reviews of Nonexistant Books.

If you were doing an experiment on artificial intelligence, and had a computer capable of perfectly simulating intelligent beings in a simulated world of their own, would you let them know you existed and were the creator of their world?

"Dr. Ian Combey once, in a private conversation, told me that I could, after all, assure the society of personoids of my existence. Now this i certainly will not do. It has all the appearance of me soliciting a sequel; a reaction on their part. But what could they do or say to me that I would not not feel profound embarrassment, the painful sting of my position as their unfortunate Creator?"

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Re: If Science Revealed God

Post #40

Post by benchwarmer »

The Barbarian wrote: Sun Mar 27, 2022 10:45 am Obviously, an omnipotent God could easily let us know of His existence. One possible reason He would not, is because our freedom matters to Him. If you knew God existed, you would not in any meaningful way, be free to accept Him or reject Him.
It may be a possible reason, but I don't buy it. Unless of course you mean something different by "accept" and "reject". If I knew of a god's existence, then of course I would accept the fact that it exists. That does not mean I defacto accept its views or rules. For example, if the god of the Bible existed exactly as described in the Bible (every word taken at face value, no tap dancing apologetics), I would certainly reject at least some of this gods views. I do not condone slavery (owning another human) in any form. I also do not condone committing genocide on people who happen to be living in "the promised land". In fact, I would not condone much of what is in the OT. It seems to set up a system where fallible humans are given rules whereby some of them end with torturing other humans to death (stoning).

I would be more inclined to 'accept' a god that does it's own dirty business and makes itself absolutely, crystal clear. This would mean not hiding.

I realize this is the science subforum, but the god of the Bible certainly does not use the reason given. The biblical god has made itself known to entities that apparently had no issue 'rejecting' it. i.e. Satan. Unless an argument can be made that Satan does accept God? Perhaps a question for TD&D or C&A

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