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Osmosis

Do we got any real Christains here?

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Don't atheists try to twist that point in their favor as well? I've heard plenty of times, "Well, since God can't be proven, he doesn't exist."

 

I'm sure some do, but that doesn't make it a valid argument either, and that's not the point I'm making. Atheism, like any label, suffers from the problem of people promoting bad ideas while self-applying the term. Just as one person's actions and beliefs in the name of Christianity do not necessarily reflect your own, the same can be applied here. I've always taken a position of disbelief in any gods rather than a positive claim of knowledge that no gods exist. You can call that agnosticism if you wish, but I think that's an unnecessary distinction since someone who believes in God can't possibly know for sure either.

 

The point of what I was saying is that there is nothing to justify a supernatural explanation for otherwise unexplained phenomena. Admitting ignorance is always better than inserting something for which there is absolutely no justification.

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Don't atheists try to twist that point in their favor as well? I've heard plenty of times, "Well, since God can't be proven, he doesn't exist."

 

 

I think the more accurate depiction of what's being argued there is "God can't be proven, so there is no reason to believe he exists". Absence of proof isn't proof of absence, but absence of proof is a valid justification for a lack of believe or action based on belief.

 

Similarly, I can't prove that dragons don't exist, but I've seen no evidence that dragons exist, so I don't see much reason to believe that they do exist.

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I think the more accurate depiction of what's being argued there is "God can't be proven, so there is no reason to believe he exists". Absence of proof isn't proof of absence, but absence of proof is a valid justification for a lack of believe or action based on belief.

 

Similarly, I can't prove that dragons don't exist, but I've seen no evidence that dragons exist, so I don't see much reason to believe that they do exist.

 

Right. With unprovable but unlikely scenarios, scientists take a stance of "the probability for X occurring is infinitesimally small but >0"

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I appreciate the information on quatnum physics. As I said, most of my understanding came from conversations with my high school physics teacher ten years ago, and what little time I have been able to devote to researching it out of simple curiosity. When I said unprovable, I simply meant that since "Theoretical physics in general has outpaced our technology's ability to provide us with ways to test a lot of this stuff", many of the theorhetical mathematical constructs in quantum physics are in that tangible sense unproveable. I did not mean to call their validity wholely into question, but rather I meant to illustrate that we must use our own reasoning to understand our universe, where tangible proof would be more benificial. Reasoning is good. It gave us Newtonian physics, then relitivity. And as God (if you accept his existence, that is) must be a rational being, it should stand to reason that science coincide with His nature.

 

I do wish to reiterate that I did not mean at all that the "God in the gaps" way of reasoning is sound. I have never understood the notion myself. Nor have I understood the realm of thinking that denies God because He cannot (as far as I can tell) be proven to exist. My using of C.S. Lewis' quote, in which he was not specifically referencing quantum physics, for when he said this it was but a twinkle in the scientific eye, was simply an illustration that the questions that things such as quantum physics arouse open doorways through which faith may enter/ or not. As I said, the existence of God is, and likely will always be, a matter of faith. The more questions arise, the more we can attribute to either God or the future. Unanswered questions still abound in physics and in phylosophy, and the answers to those questions will likely never refudiate God, nor confirm Him.

 

As to the argument of an omniscient God being unable to create everything as well as free will, I don't see much in your posts to support that. While they are exeptionally well thought out, I think they lack the understanding that Lewis demonstrated in my first post. That to create free will, He had to create everything else for that free will to be valid. He gave us a world in which we could interact, and without that common world we could not do so, and without interaction between beings, those beings would have no sense of self, leaving them without life.

 

I understand where you are coming from, I do. It is a tricky question. The only way for it to make sense is for God to be outside of our concept of time, so that to God all times are now. This also doesn't seem to contradict science, as time seems to be relative. And if God is outside of time, then his omniscience is absolute for any specific space of time. He did not know yesterday what we would do today, He knows today what we do; and He will know tomorrow as well. With these concepts of yesterday today and tomorrow, He has limited His omniscience; or better, "redifined it" (though only from our relative frame of reference). His knowledge of what 'is' does not supersede our ability to change 'what will be', as His knowledge of 'what will be' seemingly would. It is still a slippery thought to me to dissasociate foreknowledge with creation of free will, but the logic is reasonable enough not to try to get around it, especially since it is not intrinsically necessary.

 

So in a sense, you are correct (or at least as far as I can make sense of God/omniscience/creation) Omniscience seemingly must be tempered to allow the coexistence of creation and free will. Since to this tempered-omniscient God all times are now, the tempering does not effect His nature, because in reference to Himself He is still all-knowing at all times of all times. It is only in reference to us that his omniscience must be tempered.

 

I appreciate the conversation, truly. I find it hard to find people who are capable and willing to have a decent debate on anything other than the reletive merits of sports or politics (much less do so with civility). Finding people who can understand even the basics of quantum theories and reletivity is a rare thing, especially as someone not associated with academia. So thank you for your posts.

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It's important to understand what is meant by calling a theory unproveable though. One of the basic criteria which must be met by any scientific theory is that it makes testable predictions. It must be falsifiable. Without that, you don't have a scientific theory. It's just a hypothesis.

 

So when we talk about scientific theories such as relativity or quantum mechanics, labeling them unprovable in any sense is inaccurate. Technical limitations may prevent them from being experimentally verified today, but the methods that would be used to verify them must be laid out within the theory itself. A lot of what prevents progress today is lacking ways to produce sufficient quantities of energy needed to carry out such experiments. That's why the limitation is entirely technical, not theoretical, which would pose a much larger problem and would prevent any such ideas from even making it to the level of being called theories. I know we're getting caught up in terminology here, but this is a subtle distinction that needs to be well understood, and it's a common misconception about the nature of scientific theories.

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Out of all the religions there is in existence the question I ask everyone.

 

If a God does exist are you worshiping the right one? Guess we all find out when we die...

 

Honestly almost all of the monotheistic religions worship the same God, some just use different names. They start to differ when discussing who is the Messiah, or has he come yet, and who's a prophet and who's not.

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It's important to understand what is meant by calling a theory unproveable though. One of the basic criteria which must be met by any scientific theory is that it makes testable predictions. It must be falsifiable. Without that, you don't have a scientific theory. It's just a hypothesis.

 

So when we talk about scientific theories such as relativity or quantum mechanics, labeling them unprovable in any sense is inaccurate. Technical limitations may prevent them from being experimentally verified today, but the methods that would be used to verify them must be laid out within the theory itself. A lot of what prevents progress today is lacking ways to produce sufficient quantities of energy needed to carry out such experiments. That's why the limitation is entirely technical, not theoretical, which would pose a much larger problem and would prevent any such ideas from even making it to the level of being called theories. I know we're getting caught up in terminology here, but this is a subtle distinction that needs to be well understood, and it's a common misconception about the nature of scientific theories.

 

Great point. This is why Darwin's Theory of Evolution is inappropriately called a theory. It is completely untestable and non-falsifiable, and not due to lack of technology. It's a hypothesis. Which is why many intelligent design advocates condemn its teaching in grade school to children. Not because they are religious fanatics.

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Great point. This is why Darwin's Theory of Evolution is inappropriately called a theory. It is completely untestable and non-falsifiable, and not due to lack of technology. It's a hypothesis. Which is why many intelligent design advocates condemn its teaching in grade school to children. Not because they are religious fanatics.

 

Untestable in the sense that we can't replicate the appropriate conditions in a lab and observe all this stuff directly, but that doesn't make it unfalsifiable. If we were to find something in the fossil record which contradicts what evolutionary theory tells us we should expect to find, that would throw a wrench into the works, as it were. Direct observation of a new species created by supernatural means would also do it.

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Great point. This is why Darwin's Theory of Evolution is inappropriately called a theory. It is completely untestable and non-falsifiable, and not due to lack of technology. It's a hypothesis. Which is why many intelligent design advocates condemn its teaching in grade school to children. Not because they are religious fanatics.

 

:svgsad:

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Wow, surprised this thread stayed alive for so long.

 

Hey, REALBrooks, sorry for never getting back to you on anything. It's been a crazy two months. I've gone from having no schedule or responsibilities, staying with my parents in FL to 20+ hour work weeks with 12 credits of grad classes, living in PA.

 

I hope you understand.

 

Anyways, since the season is still on hold, I probably won't be around much. I just randomly remembered the boards and thought I'd pop in to see what's been going on. Glad the discussion continued after I left.

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