Is there ANY scientific evidence could show there is no God?

[Danmark]

Is there any scientific evidence that, if discovered, would prove to a Christian that the God of the Bible is man made and does not correspond to reality? In other words, is there anything you can imagine that would demonstrate there is no God?

Many Christian apologists appeal to science to support their belief in the Christian God; however, I suggest those apologists do not actually accept any scientific evidence that might suggest this 'God Story' is a hoax. I would like to test this hypothesis by asking if there is anything science could report that would convince believers in the God of the Bible that the Biblical claims about God are false?

[marco]

Thanks Marco. You put me in mind of an old adage about the game of chess.
'Chess is a sea in which a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe’

Chess is one of my obsessions, Danmark; Tarrasch said: "Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy." At the end of a tournament one can be happy with first place, but an error tortures us in sleep. As for elephants, the Russians call the bishop an elephant while the French call it a madman. Maybe this is religiously significant.

This may surprise, but I fervently hope there is a God. I even hope that this God somehow takes note of each of us as individuals and that 'it' is beneficent and cares about us in ways we may never know.

We have similar views. I like to think God smiles at our Abrahamic anecdotes and has a fine sense of humour. Perhaps we should all have our own private God, made to our own specifications; but many have adopted the character portrayed in the OT who one moment conducts the galaxies and black holes with mathematical precision and the next slides down a mountain somewhere in the Middle East, shows his hind quarters and argues with an Arab. O sancta simplicitas!

[marco]

In light of that, I agree that 98% of every word written here is just for funsies. What if this is true? Well then X might be right.

Fun, fun.

If I thought this, Inigo, I would be wasting my time. I am interested in others' perception of our life form and since I regard, as you do, the tales from the OT as irritatingly simplistic and sometimes silly, I find it fascinating that intelligence occasionally makes sense of them. I don't deduce I am wrong; I get to know more about my fellow travellers.

I am even more interested to hear the Muslim side of the religious question. I have conversed with Muslims who were both intelligent and decent people; but sometimes I am horrified at their willingness to accept killing people for sinning sexually, as they see it.

And sometimes, Inigo, I learn a little here. I play chess for fun and to win and there is an element of chess playing here as well, without the financial rewards for being a victor. If there is a God, he may favour forums such as this to impart his few cents worth of wisdom. Yesterday a mountain, today a forum.

[Inigo Montoya]

[Replying to post 62 by marco]

You've a knack for agreeable disagreement, and I hope occasionally you're recognized for it.

Let the record reflect that I, too, would love nothing more than to discover we exist as the result of intention. That sentence, if anyone is interested, has been trimmed and cultured over many years to say what needs said in the fewest words, and with zero religious baggage.

Do I enjoy watching the way people reason? I do, indeed. And in that way, there's oftentimes some measure of enjoyment in debate.

The spirit of the issue I think Dan hits on, though, is that there are fulfilling conversations to be had in this arena when folk approach with a willingness to learn, and the humility to reshape their thinking in light of reason and logic.

But that isn't what we see most times, is it?

I won't bore anyone with a list of things people here pretend to know, while steadfastly refusing to budge in any meaningful way when these things are annihilated in debate. If we're saying the stories about gods are a learning experience in and of themselves, you get no argument here. To spend the energies building a god of preference from them, though.... Well I dislike taking the existence as a given, a mere nuisance of assumption, to get on with decoding the stories that tell us even more about it.

I think we generally agree where it counts, though. And chess, for me, remains ones of those humbling examples that prove we can still be terrible at something we practice really hard at.

[TSGracchus]

Post 60:

The true God, if it exists at all, is beyond the natural and thus beyond mere evidence. This God is beyond our knowing.

That is an unsupported assertion. If God is real, then God is not unnatural. The hyperbolic qualities that the Abrahamic religions assign to their God(s?) may not be attributes of the "true God" at all. Maybe the "true God" is not really omnipotent because he can't make 2 + 2 = 5. Maybe the "true God" is not omniscient and created the universe just to see how it turns out.
Someone once pointed out that "theology" is not the study of God, it is the study of what "theologians" say and write.

[marco]

If we're saying the stories about gods are a learning experience in and of themselves, you get no argument here. To spend the energies building a god of preference from them, though.... Well I dislike taking the existence as a given, a mere nuisance of assumption, to get on with decoding the stories that tell us even more about it.

We are enriched by our mythologies and Noah is as mythological as Deucalion. It is pleasant to read Ovid's lovely tales, knowing they are beautifully composed fictions. The problem here is that biblical tales are still in the transformation stage of passing
into myth and many are protective of them, even thinking they are true. Of course, until Yahweh and Allah join Zeus and Thor, we are affected by their influence, as we see today when we board a plane.

I think we generally agree where it counts, though. And chess, for me, remains ones of those humbling examples that prove we can still be terrible at something we practice really hard at.

I am not in disagreement with what you say. Would it not be interesting to speak to those who sacrificed to the Sun or thought Diana capable of turning a huntsman into a stag? We have the opportunity to converse with people who think, today, some old nomad almost reached his 1000th birthday and a giant blew the red Sea obligingly aside, a man walked into a house where there was a corpse and by talking to it brought it back to life; the same gentleman later levitating and disappearing in a sky that knew no aeroplanes. As a boy I firmly believed that I swallowed Jesus and was careful not to bite him. Isn't man a wonderful chess piece? Incidentally I wouldn't play chess if I had no expectation of winning: masochism has never appeaaled to me.
Go well - and tread carefully on the dreams of others.

[Danmark]

Post 60:

The true God, if it exists at all, is beyond the natural and thus beyond mere evidence. This God is beyond our knowing.

That is an unsupported assertion. If God is real, then God is not unnatural.

That is the point. God is not real. If there is a God, 'it' is beyond mere reality as we know it. This is mere opinion of course, but I am thinking of a God along the lines that Paul Tillich suggests; a god that is beyond being, a God that is "the very ground of being." This would be the antithesis of a man-god or a god that takes the form of man no matter how mystically a Jesuit wants to frame it.

[shnarkle]

Is there any scientific evidence that, if discovered, would prove to a Christian that the God of the Bible is man made and does not correspond to reality? In other words, is there anything you can imagine that would demonstrate there is no God?

Many Christian apologists appeal to science to support their belief in the Christian God; however, I suggest those apologists do not actually accept any scientific evidence that might suggest this 'God Story' is a hoax. I would like to test this hypothesis by asking if there is anything science could report that would convince believers in the God of the Bible that the Biblical claims about God are false?

Nope. There can't be evidence for transcendence, and the God of the bible is synonymous with transcendence. The biblical texts clearly point out that there can be no evidence for God so if anyone provided evidence for God, anyone who believes in the bible would necessarily know it to be a fraud. Only those who believe in science would be succesptible to this type of fraud. Of course, that's not really even science a science isn't about belief, but what is observable, and God's kingdom isn't observable. At least that's what the texts indicate.

[shnarkle]

[Replying to post 65 by marco]

The problem here is that biblical tales are still in the transformation stage of passing into myth

I disagree. They began as myth, and at some point people began to look at them as historical fact. That's the problem. Mythologies have incredible explanatory power, yet when they are reduced to some historical account, that all goes out the window. It turns into old irrelevant news; what we would now call "fake news".

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 65 by marco]

The problem here is that biblical tales are still in the transformation stage of passing into myth

I disagree. They began as myth, and at some point people began to look at them as historical fact. That's the problem. Mythologies have incredible explanatory power, yet when they are reduced to some historical account, that all goes out the window. It turns into old irrelevant news; what we would now call "fake news".

I agree. They not only started as myths, they continue as myths. Myths may or may not adopt actual events. But whatever the actual history, myths' explanatory power has less to do with reality than with providing a plausible (tho' possibly anti-factual) explanation that fits with a populist view.

[Danmark]

The biblical texts clearly point out that there can be no evidence for God....

This is simply counter factual. 'Paul' says exactly the opposite.
"Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."
And from Psalm 1:
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.