can you make a scientific case for god?

Only God knows!

 

I started that way because it was my opinion at the time.

Going back and re-reading your post and my own post I do have to agree with you more, however what you seem to suggest now is that a religious mindset is anithetical to a scientific one. Is Francis Collins less of a scientist because of Christian faith?

I think the problem with a lot of people is that they often think 1) people who are religious are unscientific and are all fundamentalists and 2) all scientists are atheists . However the religious mind and scientific mind I think try to explain two totally different things, or at least should try and explain different things. Anything "in this world, can usually be explained scientifically. Religion on the other hand should try to explain things such as why are we here, why do we suffer, what happens to us after we die, etc. Science cannot touch these subjects because they are out of the realm of testable science. So instead of two parrallel mindsets that never intersect because they require two different ideas about the world, i think that religion and science aren't even in the same catergory in what they main questions they have to answer. It is when we have too much interference between the two that problems start to occur (meaning "On Pandas and People as well as Dawkins' shotty biblical scholarship).

I like what Francis Collins has to say about God in science: "...I do believe in God's creative power in having brought it all into being in the first place, I find that studying the natural world is an opportunity to observe the majesty, the elegance, the intricacy of God's creation". he also says that The question of god is either true or false, but that by calling it a scientific question implies that scientific tools can provide an answer, and god is outside the natural world that science is bound to. (Taken from Time Magazine [Cdn Edition] Nov 13, 2006)

 

god is certainly not outside the natural world , and there's plenty of this world that professional science does not have the patient desire to observe . like all life - god is in wild motion .

the study of wild god is for wild science . it's the still , small voice that whispers the findings and likewise , wild scientists are only intimately respected .

 

Dear UKr-Cdn,

I love this line : "Anything "in this world, can usually be explained scientifically" Yes it can be which would explain why the majority (Not all, which would be improbable in any case) of scientists are actually Atheists.

 

No scientific person would ever outright dismiss the possibility of a god. However, certain ideas of God can be disproven, or at least counter-evidenced significantly more strongly than they can be evidenced.

I think you'd struggle to find a scientist who didn't believe that there are "degrees of proof". The pro-religious logic tends to try and exploit the fact that nothing is absolutely certain, while ignoring the little footnote that points out that some things are less uncertain than others.

So what if I can't prove that Jesus' miracles didn't happen? I can show that they haven't been recreatable, and that by all known physical laws they won't be.

Some people will scoff then and say "ah, but science doesn't know everything", but who cares? People like that will always be able to dismiss overwhelming evidence supporting one theory, while fully accepting a tiny sliver of evidence that might support their own. There is no point in making a scientific argument to someone who won't even entertain the basic framework by which science operates. If one believes that the scientific method is inappropriate to investigate religion, to the point where one will shrug off any conclusion made, one shouldn't ask it the question in the first place.

 

it'll be easier for science to study god when the professor has a life-span of 300 years . god is not evident in one's every moment ; such is our god in motion . man needs extended real-time observation time of god-as-nature events . you might at best only see 5 of them in 80 years . the more the better . jesus was very keen on this 'eternal life' thing - in practical other words - it means love and live a really long time , beloved professor .

 

We can predict and study comets that come by our planet hundreds of years apart. Science isn't limited by the lifetime of individuals if one makes notes, publishes, etc.

 

But is that the correct idea for objectivity in science? I believe like Param that there exists utlimate obectiivity for at some lifetime if it not so in science?

 

Sorry, I don't understand, how is objectivity compromised by someone reading a book?

I'll be honest, I don't really get what you're trying to say in the second part due to the wacky grammar.

 

http://tvshack.net/documentaries/BBC_Horizon___Story_of_God_/


^ This is a documentary that probably was made for this trend.
For Christian it will be the proof they are looking for, for an atheist just another very interesting laugh from the close minded freaks of religion.

 

well , yes , we are making these notes here and now , and they are of an unpredictable god .

 

I'm sorry, I just think you're clutching at straws. You're defining God around the arguments against Him, thereby rendering your beliefs about His existence unfalsifiable. That's incredibly bad scientific practice. If a theory is designed so that it could never be demonstrated to be false or true, it is a belief, and science doesn't need to have anything to do with it. If you need a name for the unknowable, fine, call it god, but don't expect anyone to feel stupid for not going along with it.

 

science has everything to do about nature and existence . to begin a study first one needs an observable experience of god effecting an intelligent , natural force .

then such an event must happen again
and nearly identically to the first .

a few assumptions are ok when beginning scientific study . 1. god may be assumed to be an intelligent and natural force in both its cause and effect . 2. you must have a reason to assume you are not hallucinating . when you do - good enough . 3. you may contextually assume the second event is a kindness of god toward science .

 

Well it's tricky. We have a very specific expectation of what God should be like - as you say, intelligent, natural. Suppose we encounter something Godlike that isn't as intelligent as we would like? Do we dismiss it? Relabel it?

I just think the search is pointless. We don't know what we're looking for and we do know that we don't know. We know that definitions of god have changed throughout history, that many distinct definitions exist within one period and contradict each other.

The result is that, even if we found something that was indisputably the creator of our universe, we'd have no way of knowing. People could still carry on believing that God was unknowable and thus whatever they wanted It to be.

 

all good ways of knowing are progressive . love is one . the more you love , the more you can know .

don't lovers make science good ?
and every little detail of life precious