Do you believe in God?

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That is my point... I am just pointing out that it is a fallacy, which shouldn't enter into either side's case. As I say, anyone positing a form of the God of the gaps argument from either side misunderstands the nature of explanation in science. Also, they are likely to have the misperception of an opposition/contradiction between science and religion-- reason and faith.

Faith and reason are exactly opposite. Faith is absolute unwavering belief in things in the absence of evidence, or even in light of contrary evidence. Reason is the use of evidence to draw tentative conclusions.

Our definitions do not align... again...

Science doesn't have to explain away God, theists have yet to show that it's anything more than an idea. While the technology that comes directly from science enables you to communicate your theology around the world. Ironic, huh?

Hebrews 11:1: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

Does that sound compatible with science at all?

You have faith in the multiverse.

I have no faith in a multiverse.

I'm ignorant in many things. The only mention of Multi Universe is through reading comics.

"We are all ignorant, just in different areas. " A Lincoln as interpreted by me in this universe.
"If we can't laugh at ourselves, others will beat us to it."

You have faith (confidence/trust) in the power/capacity of the theory of the multiverse to provide an alternative explanation for our existence. You use your reason and evidence based in your experience (perception) to justify your "faith" in the theory. Also, because you admit to being an atheist and anti-theist, and even go so far as to say you do not want their to be a God, you kind of give away your motivations.

Quantum mechanics reduces to classical mechanics in a certain limit, as all modern physics should. The idea for the multiverse hypothesis comes from the string theory landscape:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory_landscape

It's used as an attempt to explain why the universe has the physical laws it does. By saying that an infinite number of universes exist, we can therefore argue that among those infinite universes, we evolved in a universe that we're capable of existing in, just like we evolved on a planet that has the conditions for life to evolve on, despite there being numerous planets out there.

I frankly haven't thought about the multiverse very much until this thread. I don't accept that there is one, although it's compatible with science. I don't accept that it's necessary to defeat the fine tuning argument, which I think is critically flawed (the odds that I would come about out of all the possibilities of life forms and DNA are also astronomical, and yet I'm here). Although it would seem I have a bias, theoretically I would accept that God exists if there were some evidence for it, because that's how science works. And finally, faith is not just confidence or trust. This amounts to an equivocation fallacy, in which an alternative meaning of a word is used to support a position for which it was never intended to apply. The common usage of the word faith is not the religious usage.

When I said we live in a multiverse, I was using Occam's Razor to select from among the two choices given, to illustrate that any even slightly plausible naturalistic explanation is superior to a supernatural one, because nothing supernatural has yet been shown to exist.

This is my main point as well.

And the fact that an all loving omnipotent god would allow such suffering to happen to innocent children. When we think about how awful it feels for any of us to see our own children suffer - even a little - and how we work to make sure they don't, or to relieve it if they are hurting - how could a real god watch as his children suffer on and on and on and do nothing?

Another thing that makes no sense is if you ask this god for forgiveness, you get it. I've always said that means I can do anything at all just so long as I get a few seconds before death to ask for forgiveness. Bingo - all done - all forgiven and on my way to heaven.....

Noah, AspE is correct to some degree. The multiverse is a scientific hypothesis, that has some support from physicists.

Now when some physicists, such as Max Tegmark and Sean Carrol attempt to change the definition of the scientific method in order to accommodate their theories and hypothesis (in this case, the muliverse) THAT is when I have a problem.

Honestly, the idea that Occam's razor favors a far less probable hypothesis is when I feel it is being used under an ill motivation.

There are many well known modern physicists, for instance, who happen to be Christian. For instance, George Ellis, J. Richard Gott III, John Barrow, Frank Tipler, Gerald Cleaver are just a very few examples. Would you consider these men to be irrational?

A Catholic Priest hypothesized the Big Bang theory, and even Roger Penrose is suspected be a theist in the closet by many physicists.

Last edited by Deltaville on 11 Mar 2016, 6:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

If one is attempting to garner scientific lore in order to disprove a hypothesis, even when more plausible explanations exist, then you are simply trying to propose nothing more than a solution in search of a problem.

Do you mean to imply that because there is some "evidence" for the multiverse hypothesis....so that to "believe" in its descriptive/explanatory scope/power is not an act of faith? Because I wholly reject his accusation of equivocation (I am accusing him of using a word incorrectly, and his response is to accuse me of equivocating ( shows that our definitions do not line up...) so he is only "correct" in the "system of knowledge" that opposes faith and reason.



Also... a bit about Occams Razor... "do not multiply hypotheses beyond necessity"...

That definitely fits the theory of the multiverse... God the necessary being and the prime mover of contingent things.... no way... far too complicated... we need to hypothesis an infinity of randomly ordered universes (generated by the clashing of two higher "branes" in thee 15th dimension.... universes.... some of which will just happen to have special features that will look like ours.... but most are doomed to be "selected out" in the "evolution of universes" (sarcasm)