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It's fine for science to say, this is how we think it worked without God. But science cannot disprove God.

by jscheel 12y ago

thaumasiotes 12y ago
You completely missed what I said. Your original wording was that science couldn't exclude god. Science excludes god by its very nature; the basis of science is the assumption that god is not responsible for anything at all. It makes no more sense to talk about science disproving god than to talk about geometry disproving the postulate of Euclid that states "all right angles are congruent to each other". If you allow for the possibility of a god, you're not doing science.
- DanBC 12y ago
  > If you allow for the possibility of a god, you're not doing science. No, that's nonsense. It is perfectly possible to do rigorous science but to believe in a God. There is nothing in science that rules out a god. Sadly the vocal majority of people who believe in a god also believe weird stupid obviously wrong things about science. I'm not talking about those people.
  - thaumasiotes 12y ago
    Science proceeds on the assumption that effects can be replicated. Its stated goal is to discover the principles that govern any phenomenon. If principles govern a phenomenon, god can't. The only god allowed by science is a god with no power to affect anything in the world, or at least no more power to affect the world than a human or any other mundane creature has. The question then is why you want to apply the word "god" to that entity. http://www.cectic.com/051/ http://www.cectic.com/051/
    - PPLwynSPFJ5p 12y ago
      Macroevolution cannot be replicated, nor can Big Bang, so we seem to have a problem with 'science' here, according to your own definition given in para 1. The Person who initially created the principles that subsequently govern phenomena is the same Person most of us call God. Principles have never been observed to create themselves out of nothing. From where, then, did the numerous principles governing observable phenomena first arise, and how? All roads seem to bring us back to God, no matter how much some people seem to dislike the idea.
  - thaumasiotes 12y ago
    I think it's worth repeating a point from earlier. Yes, there are many people doing science and avowing belief in a god. However, none of them are involving any god in the science that they do. Their gods are tightly restricted to areas of the universe that they don't practice in. This isn't a coincidence -- as I said in the quote you object to, allowing the possibility of a god means you're not doing science. But there are lots of scientists (really, this is the group of all scientists) who don't practice in every area at once.
    - PPLwynSPFJ5p 12y ago
      I don't think Newton thought of it that way.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

It's fine for science to say, this is how we think it worked without God. But science cannot disprove God.

by jscheel 12y ago

It's fine for science to say, this is how we think it worked without God. But science cannot disprove God.

You completely missed what I said. Your original wording was that science couldn't exclude god. Science excludes god by its very nature; the basis of science is the assumption that god is not responsible for anything at all. It makes no more sense to talk about science disproving god than to talk about geometry disproving the postulate of Euclid that states "all right angles are congruent to each other". If you allow for the possibility of a god, you're not doing science.

DanBC 12y ago
> If you allow for the possibility of a god, you're not doing science. No, that's nonsense. It is perfectly possible to do rigorous science but to believe in a God. There is nothing in science that rules out a god. Sadly the vocal majority of people who believe in a god also believe weird stupid obviously wrong things about science. I'm not talking about those people.
- thaumasiotes 12y ago
  Science proceeds on the assumption that effects can be replicated. Its stated goal is to discover the principles that govern any phenomenon. If principles govern a phenomenon, god can't. The only god allowed by science is a god with no power to affect anything in the world, or at least no more power to affect the world than a human or any other mundane creature has. The question then is why you want to apply the word "god" to that entity. http://www.cectic.com/051/ http://www.cectic.com/051/
  - PPLwynSPFJ5p 12y ago
    Macroevolution cannot be replicated, nor can Big Bang, so we seem to have a problem with 'science' here, according to your own definition given in para 1. The Person who initially created the principles that subsequently govern phenomena is the same Person most of us call God. Principles have never been observed to create themselves out of nothing. From where, then, did the numerous principles governing observable phenomena first arise, and how? All roads seem to bring us back to God, no matter how much some people seem to dislike the idea.
- thaumasiotes 12y ago
  I think it's worth repeating a point from earlier. Yes, there are many people doing science and avowing belief in a god. However, none of them are involving any god in the science that they do. Their gods are tightly restricted to areas of the universe that they don't practice in. This isn't a coincidence -- as I said in the quote you object to, allowing the possibility of a god means you're not doing science. But there are lots of scientists (really, this is the group of all scientists) who don't practice in every area at once.
  - PPLwynSPFJ5p 12y ago
    I don't think Newton thought of it that way.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]