What "science" disproves higher beings?

Post Reply New Topic

But to say that "God said" a religion first needs to decide whether a holy book is actually the Word of God, or just inspired by God (the last one is more common in mainline Christianity). Eastern Christianity also has images of Jesus btw. I'm not religous myself so I hold no opinion on that, I'm more interested in the history of religions.
Most Christians today also disagree with the Genesis creation story, so they don't take the whole Bible as the literal truth.

Well, I choose to consider it Word of God instead of Biblical inspiration right now. I'm speaking of God, not Jesus. Me too, though I am a Muslim and my responses were of course through an Islamic view when speaking of image of God, though they could be applied to Judeo-Christian belief too. I am speaking of the religion and not its followers, but I can't see how Genesis can be considered for a metaphor, a metaphor for what, exactly? It seems like a pathetic excuse to not admit their bible is wrong and that saying it's a metaphor is a way to keep make it relevant.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zblTCsThDE[/youtube] Shep shep shep your skydaddy does not exist even Stephen Hawking fails to believe in your skydaddy he has dismissed it as well. He is indeed a scientist hence gods disproven.You could challenge Stephen Hawking one of the most intelligent men on the planet but I predict an epic failure of 100% on your part. It was fun and rather entertaining and it all brought me laughs I am now satisfied.

Nice try, but his statements have been largely discredited. Still failing to see any peer-reviewed material here that meets the challenge, but to answer your video and discredit your go-to resource, I'll share a few relevant links consisting purely of material that is peer-reviewed:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1308599/Stephen-Hawking-wrong-You-explain-universe-God.html
The very title of which is this:


http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3141
in which this is quoted:


Also an Archbishop who responded:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1308616/Stephen-Hawking-Archbishop-Canterbury-attacks-claim-God-did-NOT-create-Universe.html


And Professor John Lennox (of Oxford) even wrote an entire book discrediting this one video:
http://books.google.com/books?id=lbBLCMjHFCUC

I don't need to. I have God on my side, and clearly there are accomplished individuals who also agree with this

In turn, this means that the Bible can not be taken as the literal "Word of God", but only as a collection fumbling attempts by a series of humans to explain their existence with allegory, analogy, and metaphor.

So ... who gets to decide which parts of the Bible are literal, and which parts are metaphorical, anyway?

Besides, anyone who tries to explain theology with science (or vice-versa) likely understands very little about either topic.

again, someone who reverses the burden of proof.

science DOESN'T HAVE to prove that "god" (in any shape or form) doesn't exist, since it makes no such claim, but religion (once again, as a whole) claims that one DOES exist, so the burden of proof is on them.

also, science did explain a lot of nature without needing to use a god, and there are non-supernatural explanations for every slightly belevable story in the bible.
true, this does not prove one does not exist, but it means he isn't needed, debunking the 'proof' given by religious fanatics.

OP is using a classic trick by asking for something he knows that science cannot provide, and using the lack of evidence for option "A" to be evidence for option "B", neglecting the rest of the alphabet on options.

To be even more specific, the Hebrew Scriptures where written by late Bronze Age early Iron Age dudes who believed the Earth was flat, that the Sun went around the earth and who did not know that all material stuff is made of atoms.

ruveyn

You've cited Lennox twice there. He's a mathematician, not a physicist. He's also a known apologist

I also am not sure Rowan Williams is in a position to criticise M-theory.

Peter Woit, on the other hand, has exactly the right credentials, and his points are made well. However, I don't believe anything you have posted is peer reviewed. In this instance it doesn't really matter, but you claimed you would only submit peer reviewed content.

Science can't prove a negative. It, however, can prove (and has) that most of what's been traditionally attributed to a higher being can be explained without the use of said higher being.

Seems I have. Didn't even catch that quite honestly.

The book is peer-reviewed, but just to throw in a few more peer-reviewed sources, in MLA format:

Ray, Walter Alan. Is God Unnecessary?: Why Stephen Hawking Is Wrong According to the Laws of Physics. iUniverse, 2012.
McGettigan, Timothy. "Stephen Hawking's God: A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion." The Socjournal (2013).

Hyland, Terry. "The science delusion: freeing the spirit of enquiry." Journal of Vocational Education & Training 66.1 (2014): 107-111.

Gentry, Robert. "Creator God Rules The Universe Because Hawking Built The Big Bang On A Foundation Of Quicksand." Bulletin of the American Physical Society 59 (2014).

Science does not take a stance that anything is proven. Even when something is beyond all reasonable doubt, science will still call it "the theory of..." So to make science a criteria of proof in the original question is anathema to how science works. Ya just canna make it work, Captain.

OK, I'm not sure you know quite what "peer-reviewed" usually means in the context you are using it. Generally, the work is submitted to a series of experts before publication. They suggest changes and the work is not published until they are happy. It is rare that this will happen with whole books - getting a series of experts to each review a chapter is more common. Neither of the books you cite thank reviewers, which is standard - otherwise how would anyone know that they were peer reviewed?

The sociology blog post you cite is riddled with errors - it spells "Mlodinow" wrong, for example, and also waffles on about discredited Freudian ideas. It's not peer reviewed - indeed, the journal has stopped being peer reviewed altogether since 2010.

Hyland is a book review, not peer reviewed primary literature. The book being reviewed is discredited (Rupert Sheldrake's The Science Delusion).

So that leaves Gentry. Again, that's not a paper, as far as I can tell. At first, I thought it was probably a letter, but no, it's a summary of a presentation. http://absimage.aps.org/image/APR14/MWS ... 000100.pdf
Of course, I did not see the presentation, but the abstract is not promising - lots of grandstanding, little of worth. The only substantial thing is the claim to have discredited redshift, but without any evidence that's useless. Again, this is not peer reviewed.

It's generally considered academic malpractice to cite something you haven't actually consumed. You certainly haven't consumed Hyland. I would be surprised if you saw the Gentry presentation, but if you did, then perhaps you can shred some light (pun not intended) on the flaws in redshift that Gentry points out.

No offense intended, but there is something ironic in a scientist, and particularly an Aspie, citing peer pressure as a source of moral authority.

The materialists complain about flying spaghetti monsters, yet cannot reproduce any of their most pivotal claims -- even by intelligent intervention.

In that everything in the observable world is prone toward disorder over time, it might be inferred that all order comes from a higher order, and the natural order comes from a supernatural order.

There is no scientific evidence indicating that God exists. We all know that. For example:

God has never left any physical evidence of his existence on earth.
None of Jesus' "miracles" left any physical evidence either.
God has never spoken to modern man, for example by taking over all the television stations and broadcasting a rational message to everyone.
The resurrected Jesus has never appeared to anyone.
The Bible we have is provably incorrect and is obviously the work of primitive men rather than God.
When we analyze prayer with statistics, we find no evidence that God is "answering prayers."
Huge, amazing atrocities like the Holocaust and AIDS occur without any response from God.
And so on…

More info from http://godisimaginary.com/i14.htm

This is a simplistic argument which has been debunked many times. Simple but effective examples of order from disorder in nature are: plants growing from seeds and multiplying their complexity, snow flakes, stalactites, fluted sand-beds in flowing water, lightning. Wherever energy flows, you will often find it propagating order. The sun beats down on the earth, producing complex orderly weather patterns.

Pardon me, but I don't believe anyone has done so.

It was the OP (evidently not a scientist) who brought up peer review and claimed to have peer reviewed literature supporting him. AspieOtaku is the only person disagreeing with him on his central claim, and hasn't attempted to cite peer reviewed literature or anything.

Peer review is distinct from peer pressure, but it's not actually a very good system. Post-publication review seems stronger. It was Shep who raised peer review, I simply pointed out that he was wrong, I am not actually arguing with his central claim that empiricism cannot actively disprove supernatural phenomena that have no effect upon the real world.

I also don't think anyone mentioned "moral authority" before you.


Toss a coin a thousand times and by chance you'll get five heads in a row.

There are also laws of physics other than entropy which can fight against entropy somewhat. Life is basically an exercise in fighting entropy.