The Conservative Cave

Interests => The Science Club => Topic started by: FiddlingAnt on June 10, 2014, 04:36:09 PM

Title: Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Post by: FiddlingAnt on June 10, 2014, 04:36:09 PM
Distinguished mathematician pulls the science rug out from under New Atheists.

Professor gives New Atheists a failing grade in science.

Science historian sends New Atheists back to the drawing board.

I can't decide which sentence would make the best lead for this post. I recently finished reading Amir D. Aczel's Why Science Does Not Disprove God. In this 2014 book, Aczel, the math PH.D. and prolific science author, takes on New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Lawrence Krauss to task for misusing science to advance their ¨God is not real¨ message.

Aczel's position is basically, ¨I know science. Science is a friend of mine. You're no scientist.¨ He writes chapters on archaeology, the Big Bang, quantum physics, the pre-Big Bang ¨nothingness,¨ the multiverse, probability, chaos, the anthropic principle (he's not a fan), evolution, consciousness, and infinity. In every case Aczel finds that the New Atheists misunderstand or misapply science to push their anti-God agenda. Aczel's position on God's existence is agnostic. He does not take a position that science proves the absolute reality of God. But following the rules of science he must admit that science does show that there could be a God.

Some of my favorite passages from the book include the following . . .

¨So while it is ignorant and unscientific to fail to recognize that evolution is a powerful principle that often explains what we see in the biological sphere, it is equally unjustified to assume that evolution is a perfect theory that explains everything. A theory that cannot produce excellent predictions of future outcomes and phenomena is not a complete theory.¨

¨Science is dispassionate, rational, a logical search for facts and truths abut nature and the universe around us. It is the pursuit of the laws of nature, with no agendas to push for any philosophy about who created these laws. But the New Atheists, who claim to speak for science, are more like religious evangelists bent on converting us to their narrow point of view that God does not exist.¨

¨This notion of emergence is one that has been addressed in philosophy, but never explained well by science. We don't know how a universe emerged. We don't know how from chaos and fuzziness and unworldly behavior of the quantum, the structured universe of macro objects we see around us came about, with its causality, locality, and definiteness -- none of which are characteristics of the quantum realm. We don't know how self-replicating life emerged from inanimate objects. And we don't know how and why and at exactly what point in evolution human consciousness became a reality. The inexplicability of such emergent phenomena is the reason why we cannot disprove the idea of some creative power behind everything we experience around us -- at least not at our present state of knowledge.¨

¨We think of the universe as governed by strict logical laws, but in fact quantum theory, and ideas in pure mathematics, are not based only on logic. (German genius mathematician Georg) Cantor's work was governed by psychology almost as much as logic. It is here that we see the human mind transcending the rational and the straightforward. Our minds  are based on essentials that go beyond the mechanistic and the evolutionary: they have something extra that allows them to do amazing things that computers, and dogs, and monkeys, cannot. I believe that this mysterious extra element inside our brains -- such as the ability Cantor possessed for dealing with the immense concept of infinity -- is related to the divine.¨

¨We don't fully understand what space is made of, and what the elements of physical space are and how they are stacked together. We don't know the level of infinity of the real line and whether the mathematical line has the properties pf physical space. We don't know how space and time were created. We don't know what time really is. We don't know what caused the Big Bang. And we don't know who or what created God. What we do know is that the universe did not come out of the void all by itself: something preceded the Big Bang, and that ¨something¨ is unreachable to our science and may well remain so forever. We know that by strange and mysterious mechanism all the constants of nature turned out to be exactly as they need to be for life to emerge, and the alternatives to a divine control that effected these incredibly unlikely conditions are no more likely than is the existence of God.¨
Title: Re: Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Post by: freedumb2003b on June 10, 2014, 04:58:11 PM
There is no logical contradiction between the existence of God and science.

I realize some atheists (like damn near all on the Dawkins site and more than a few elsewhere) are virulent anti-theists but the Judeo-Christian God exists outside the Universe anyway. The fact some of these people also try to use science as a club to beat on God (Sometimes I wonder how you can hate something that doesn't exist...) doesn't change the logic.
Title: Re: Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Post by: Big Dog on June 10, 2014, 11:41:24 PM
You know what?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8XqFj_AYBw[/youtube]

Gorilla butt.
Title: Re: Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Post by: DefiantSix on June 10, 2014, 11:57:06 PM
It has been my experience that those who think science disproves the existence of God - and beat that drum most relentlessly - are some of the most myopic among us. They fixate on the marvellous mechanisms of the universe, and forget (or ignore) the "mechanic" that built them, and set them in motion.
Title: Re: Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Post by: JohnnyReb on June 11, 2014, 08:31:19 AM
You know what?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8XqFj_AYBw[/youtube]

Gorilla butt.
My first thought was.....Moochelle trying to arouse Obama.....and second thought was, it ain't gonna work.
Title: Re: Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Post by: FlaGator on June 11, 2014, 10:19:47 AM
Atheism is a religion that worships science in that for atheists science fulfills the role of God
Title: Re: Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Post by: Big Dog on June 11, 2014, 07:57:24 PM
My first thought was.....Moochelle trying to arouse Obama.....and second thought was, it ain't gonna work.

Nope. King Putt doesn't swing that way.
Title: Re: Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Post by: obumazombie on June 12, 2014, 01:13:31 AM
Nope. King Putt doesn't swing that way.

Is that King Putt monkey butt ?
Title: Re: Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Post by: Big Dog on June 13, 2014, 07:56:53 AM
Is that King Putt monkey butt ?

 :lmao:

Hi five!
Title: Re: Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Post by: vesta111 on June 18, 2014, 07:32:52 AM
Mr/Ms Ant

My faith teaches us that God and Science are like the wings of a Dove, remove one and the bird cannot fly.

I find out every day some lost mystery has been solved somewhere on earth.  OR we find new mystery's to confound us and cause us to become disturbed as the new findings will turn our thinking upside down.

We tend to look at the mysterious past through eyes of our understanding. We take the writings or evidence of the past humanity as literal to our day and age.

Example is who were the people before the flood, why are we finding relics of pre flood days that we believe were impossible to have been created in that time? 

Do we take into consideration climate changes as in Egypt the Pyramids show to have been build before the new Egypt ever found them and the climate was tropical.  Could the new people have copied the paintings, clothing and the head binding to emulate what they found and believed were the Gods ?

Religion and faith to explain the unknown are a Humane factor.   All over the world humans seem to have followed the same rites and traditions back thousands of years ago.

The Old Testament is a book of many hints and proves every year with each finding that things did happen as was said and recorded, it is for us to prove the story's are true from the experience of the writer in their time and not try to reconcile it with the thinking of advanced science  5,000 years into the future.

Title: Re: Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Post by: Gina on June 18, 2014, 10:21:29 AM
You know what?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8XqFj_AYBw[/youtube]

Gorilla butt.

 :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: Reminds me of someone
Title: Re: Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Post by: JohnnyReb on June 18, 2014, 11:29:21 AM
:rotf: :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: Reminds me of someone
....and she needs to shave her legs.
Title: Re: Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Post by: BuzzClik on April 03, 2015, 11:28:26 PM
In every case Aczel finds that the New Atheists misunderstand or misapply science to push their anti-God agenda.
Dawkins is an accomplished scientist, so it's difficult to dismiss him as misunderstanding science. However,:

But the New Atheists, who claim to speak for science, are more like religious evangelists bent on converting us to their narrow point of view that God does not exist.
I totally agree. Dawkins and Hitchens are as evangelical as any fire-and-brimstone preacher. They do nothing to advamce their cause other than to rally the existing non-believers.