Taking A Scientific Approach To God.

You know in 1988 or 9 at the U of M/Dearborn Mardigian Library, I found a book that really transformed my view of God. I think by then I was already tending to be agnostic. But the Academic American Encyclopedia said that God can be studied on scientific and philosophical grounds. (I think Deism is a dated historical concept. Though some people to this day still call themselves that.)

"As the symbolic center of Western Christendom down to the Enlightenment, and as the fundamental concept in its understanding of nature, society, and human existence, God was the object of endless philosophical and theological speculation....For these reasons, the concept of God inevitably tends to ward that of the transcendent absolute of much speculative much speculative philosophy: impersonal, unrelated, independent, changeless, eternal..." Academic American Encyclopedia.

So God is studied by religion obviously. Is he still studied by science at all? I know an atheist would be the first to say nothing is certain. And the world isn't flat. And burning witches is always wrong. But is there any point in studying God scientifically. Will we ever know?

Also, I find the following part of that quote interesting: "...impersonal, unrelated, independent, changeless, eternal..." If there is a God, he/she's responsible for all the evil in this world too. So he tend to be amoral. Or at least unconcerned with humans. Not necessarily immoral though (which is something else).

 

All religions claim that their is only one God, so perhaps we just have different earthly names for him (or her).
It is hard to believe that somewhere up in the heavens, their are dozens of Gods, all hurling rocks at each other.

 

A well respected Author and Scientist with many Laurels and the Father of Geostationary Satellite Communications, once wrote;
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The concept of a "God" is deeply rooted in human cultures. At one time there may have been an advanced culture, (Aliens if you want) That visited us and showed off some of their Advanced Technology.
All religions we know of can be compared and found to have similar, if not nearly identical aspects. Rather than thinking there is something metaphysical about it all, I'm thinking it's all just a church created by men who wanted to control their populace.

Was there a person named Jesus Christ? Hmm Probably, or named something close to it. But aside from the biased text of Christianity, he was only ever spoken of as a teacher, nothign more.
He actually wasn't even christian, since Christianity didn't surface until decades after his death. He taught the other Abrahamic religions.

What if ... Any and all religions. As well as All Gods, Goddesses, etc. are simply constructs we use to help us cope. An All-Powerful entity that we can attribute the unexplainable to, as well as blame when things go awry.
"Wow, that was Amazing!" ... "Yeah one of God's many Mysteries."
"Oh why did he have to die so young?" ... "God must have other plans for him."
And so we offhandedly reject the science that could explain any of it, because our tribe says that exploring it is trespassing into God's realm. And so we live in ignorance on many occasions.
I'm not going to announce that there is no God. But what I will do is ask that you consider that our cultures, created A God, or several Gods, or a Pantheon, in an image that they needed at the time to hold that tribe together, and that none are right, nor are they totally wrong.

 

Not all religions are exclusivistic. That seems to be a characteristic of the Abrahamic ones, which admittedly happen to make up over half of the world's population. Hindus and Taoiststend to be accepting of all gods, and Buddhism isn't about gods.

 

It all hinges on what you mean by "science", "God" and "studied". When science is mentioned, I think most of us think of empirical study involving an objective, "rigorous systematic, endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world."
Science - Wikipedia Most importantly, scientific hypotheses must be refutable--i.e., capable of being proven wrong. By most conceptions, God(s) are ineffable, too great or extreme to be fully comprehended by the human mind. God(s), along with ghosties and ghoulies, fall under the category which J.N.W. Watkins calls "haunted universe doctrines". "Confirmable and Influential Metaphysics,"Mind Vol. 67, No. 267 (Jul., 1958), pp. 344-365. Can science study ghosties and ghoulies?? Maybe to a limited extent it can. Anyone who saw the movies Poltergeist or Ghostbusters knows how it goes. The "scientists" of the paranormal come in with their fancy equipment, take readings, and pick up signals of ghostly activity. If they detect anything, they may conclude a ghostly being is present. What if they don't, as is typically the case? Well, the spirits might have decided not to show themselves. Maybe they refuse to jump thru the scientists hoops. Same with God(s). Science can study the human phenomenon of religion and make inferences about God(s). e.g., anthropologist Scott Atran, In Gods We Trust.This is usually done by social scientists who are less likely to produce conclusive results than the natural scientists, who tend not to touch the subject with a ten foot pole. Many natural scientists (Max Planck, Paul Davies, Francis Collins, John Plolkinghorne, John Eccles, etc.) take God seriously, as a result of such findings as "fine tuning" of the universe. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/Victor Stenger, Has Science Found God?These beliefs are not themselves "science", but are mainly personal inferences based on their interpretations of scientific findings.

Once again, it depends on what we mean by "god". The Abrahamic God is usually conceived of as omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent, leading to endless debates over theodicy (how is this possible?). Adherents to "process theology", like Protestant theologian Charles Hartshorne, solve the problem by denying God's omnipotence and omniscience. (Hartshorne, Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes.) Pagan gods of antiquity didn't have omniscience and omnipotence as necessary characteristics.

 

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I agree in part and dissent in part. I agree there are characteristics religions share in common, but disagree that religion was invented by "men who wanted to control their populace." That may have been part of it, but there are probably other factors, as well, that you allude to: e.g., constructs we use to help us cope. Religion is a multi-functional phenomenon, serving different needs for different categories of actors. For individuals, it serves important functions of cognitive mapping, relief from existential anxieties, and learned learned responses to life. "Supernatural agency is is an evolutionary by-product trip wired by prey detection schema." Atran, In Gods We Trust ,p. 78. Cognitively, it is rooted in our ability to detect patterns (patternicity) and agency (agenticity) in our environment. Both are essential to survival, although they can be overdone, leading folks to see patterns that don't exist (apophenia) Apophenia: What It Is and More and agency where there is none (HADD, or Hyperactive Agency Detection Disorder). Hyperactive Agency Detection - NeuroLogica Blog It is also a response to emotional needs: coping and the human quest for meaning. And of course it involves lots of learned ideas and behavior passed down from elders and other trusted information sources. For societies, it is an important social bonding mechanism. For shamans and priests, it is a vocation, requiring skills in manipulating symbols. And for rulers, it's a source of legitimation.

I tend to agree that Yeshua ha-Notsri probably existed. It is the consensus view among historians and New Testament scholars, although there is a fringe of deniers who are active on the internet. Atheist Bart Ehrman does a good job of summarizing the evidence (Did Jesus Exist?), but to me the clincher is that it would be extraordinary for his followers to make up a crucified Messiah, since that was contrary of prevailing notions about what a Messiah was supposed to do.

Of course he wasn't "Christian". His earliest followers were Jews, and the first Christian sects in Palestine didn't regard him as divine. That notion grew with the gospel writers, especially the Fourth Gospel by John.

New Testament scholars debate whether He was primarily a teacher (Jesus Seminar), an appocalypic messianic claimant.(Schweitzer; Ehrman), or the Son of God (N.T. Wright) It's possible He was all or a couple of the above.

They are "functional"!

 

Just now noticing my Freudian slip, I wasn't thinking it was a "church" I was thinking it was a "Crutch."
Still, a coping mechanism, is still crutch no matter how you pat it and bake it an mark it with a "B." and just as an actual crutch can become a detriment, so can religion. The more you use a crutch, the quicker the affected limb that isn't be used will atrophy and become necrotic.

There was an interesting account I read, concerning an Abbot by the name of Sauniere, who was exiled by the church to a small abbey for being too unconventional. The abbey, Rennes-le-Château, was in need of major renovations. Stories (mostly unconfirmed) say that, during the renovations, he came across a bunch of ancient Visigoth gold and other items, including a scroll. After reading it, he took the scroll to Rome and showed it to his superiors who told him to forget he'd ever seen it, and sent him back to the Abbey. The story goes that after that he began acting strangely, decorating the Abbey with erotic and demonic images and sculptures, and even had a dalliance with a female parishioner. Some have claimed that what he found was a letter from Ponitus Pilate, said to be a letter of introduction, that told the receiver feed and house the bearer. A popular tale for a while is that this was proof that Pilate knew Christ lived after the crucifixion, helped him heal and gave him gold and provisions to make a journey to France. All other aspects aside, other than being carried by someone, how do ancient Visigoth Gold pieces come to be buried under an alter at an abbey in the south of France?

I've never found anything to suggest to me that he was anything more than a teacher. Possibly analogous to the Tenured Professor who, against Board of Governors warnings, throws out the approved curriculum and teaches his own narratives. But if he ever walked around wearing a sandwich board reading "THE END IS NIGH!" I've never found any reference to his mental instability or tendencies toward Apocalyptic preaching. Is he the son of God? For that one I will fall back on a tired idiom, Aren't we all children of God? If you believe in that Divine entity, and the claims made about him/her/it/they/them, then you must agree that We are all Sons and Daughters of God.

Or, to quote a fictional prophet, The Man from Mars, Valentine Michael Smith, “Thou art god, I am god. All that groks is god.” (Stranger in a Strange Land, bye Robert Anson Heinlein)

 

Crutches are necessary and useful tools for the lame. Yes, coping mechanisms, misperceptions , and believing what the elders teach us can be detriments leading to distortions. Like most of life, tradeoffs are involved.

As you said, the stories were mostly unconfirmed, so maybe they didn't.

How hard have you looked? Might try Albert Schweitzer 's classic The Quest of the Historical Jesus; Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist; Reza Aslan, Zealot. Your image of Jesus as faculty lounge figure is more in keeping with the thinking of the Jesus Seminar.

Yes, the term can and has been used generically. "Sons of God" and "children of God" have been used for Israel as a people (Exodus. 4:. 22 and Hos. xi. 1) and to all humans. We can flatter ourselves with that title, but it was also used in Jesus' time to refer to something less generic: humans who have a special relationship with God. Wisdom ii. 13, 16, 18; v. 5. Solomon was called "Son of God", as were angels. And in some passages in the Apocrypha, the title is given to the Messiah: Enoch, cv. 2; IV Esdras vii. 28-29; xiii. 32, 37, 52; xiv. 9). At least some of the earliest Christians seem to have been adoptionists, thinking Jesus was God's adopted Son at His baptism or resurrection.
Wikiwand - Adoptionism
Ehrman, Bart (2014), How Jesus Became God, p. 125.
Bart Ehrman (1993). The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture , p. 71
https://ehrmanblog.org/other-christians-who-said-christ-was-not-fully-god/
The Development of Adoptionist Christology in Earliest Christianity
But by the end of the first century they were thinking of Him as divinely begotten from the start.

 

THey are most definitely useful. Until they aren't. If the Crutch becomes your reason for being, then you've seriously misinterpreted the instructions.

Yes, but still an interesting tale. Priest on the outs with the church, finds what in that day could be considered proof that Christ lived and fled to france to hide among the ordinary people. That might drive any devout clergyman to doubt his own faith.

Admittedly, not very hard at all. However, which would you consider more appealing? A Jesus in a houndstooth jacket sitting in a wingback chair smoking a meerschaum pipe, or a Jesus, wandering the streets, bedraggled in torn clothes with a cardboard plaque across his back and chest, telling you that you'll be dead soon?

BUt, really, if those publications give any hint that he may have actually been a madman, or at least mentally unstable, i'd be interested. Primarily, because a mental illness would (in our current society) be reasonable doubt to his claims to divinity.

The Human body is indisputably, a marvelous biological machine. We can track every detail of form and function (even if we don't understand the mechanics) from conception to termination.
But, we have no idea what causes the initial spark that provides the catalyst to begin the whole process. Is that a Divine intervention? I am sure the general consensus is, Yes.
I however have never witnessed the Divine. Again there are probably a lot who will "Claim" to have witnessed something Divine, yet most, if not all, have not.

I think the best line I ever heard regarding proving the divine came from, of all places, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing."
But I can't totally agree with that. I happen to be of the opinion that Proof of Divinity would strengthen faith. It is then inevitable that over time, the continuing lack of proof will undoubtedly cause people to lose faith in greater numbers of longer periods.
So, even if you don't consider that people were forced to a certain belief or religion, (I still think at least Rome and those conquered by Rome wee forced to change religion as the Emperors changed). Religion was used mainly as a pacifier. When Hale falls instead of rain, when Volcanoes erupt, when there is an unseasonable drought, it can all be explained as being the will of God, and no one need look for any other cause.

I will acknowledge and give credence to "The Divine" when it presents itself to me.

 

Oh, the houndstooth jacket. But it's not a question of appeal. Which is more likely? They had no universities in Palestine back then, but itinerant apocalyptic preachers were a dime a dozen. From all reports, Jesus got himself nailed up. Why? He ran afoul of the religious authorities (Sadducees) by challenging their legitimacy and violating basic tenets of the purity rules that were considered fundamental to Judaism. And to the Romans, who ultimately crucified Him, reports that he claimed to be a king would be the clincher, especially after he made his grand entrance to Jerusalem in the volatile climate of Passover..

In the cultural context of early first century Judaism, I don't think it would be a sign of mental illness for a person and/or his followers to believe he was the Messiah. Unrest over foreign rule, Greek cultural values and corruption of the Temple priesthood had been building for over a century, apocalyptic literature such as the Book of Daniel foretold the coming of a Son of Man to set it right (Wasn't that what Jesus and/or His followers called Him?), and several messianic claimants starting with Judas of Galilee in 6 C.E. took action against the Romans. To secular skeptics, this might seem crazy, but in first century Palestine it made sense.

Actually, not so much. Romans let people keep their own religions, so long as they added worship of the genius of the emperor to their devotions. This was mainly a problem for Jews and Christians. Pagans had no problem with it. Gibbon explained that for the ordinary people of Rome, all religions were equally true; for the philosophers, all were equally false; and for the politicians, all were equally useful.

I'm sure explaining natural happenings was an important part of it, as it still is today.

Don't hold your breath!

 

The one thing that I know that is true about Jesus during his life on earth. He never once said 'Thank you.'

Some may argue that this is because he didn't speak English.

 

His name was Jesus, so obviously he said, "Gracias!"

 

LMAO!


Or possibly salamat (Filipino)

 

It all depends on what we mean by "God" and "science". I doubt that the American Academic Encyclopedia was given to us from Mount Sinai, so what it tells us about God can be taken with a grain of salt. I don't think there's anything inevitable about prevailing concepts of God as "the transcendental absolute": impersonal, unrelated, independent, changeless, eternal. Those speculative philosophers (and theologians), in my opinion, got carried away and painted themselves, if not God, into a corner.

The idea that God is omni-this, omni-that leads to the paradoxes of theosophy: how could an omnipotent, omniscient, omni-benevolent deity allow disasters and atrocities inflicting pain and suffering on innoncents? Pagan gods were supposed to have superhuman powers, but they weren't omnipotent. Even traditional Christian theologians recognized that there are some limits on God's omnipotence. God's very nature sets limits on His ability to make a rock He can't lift or do other things which are contrary to His nature. And they seem to agree that by giving "free will" to humans, God can set limits on His own power. Catholic priest and paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin was willing to go farther and say that God similarly grants freedom to nature, as well. Theologian Diogenes Allen argues that when the Bible says God is almighty, more powerful than anything else in the universe, that isn't the same as saying He's omnipotent, capable of doing anything or everyting. More radically, process theology denies that God is neither omnipotent, nor omnisicient, nor unchanging. Charles Hartshorne, Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes. "Process theology is the philosophical and theological position that God is changing, as is the universe. Therefore, our knowledge of God must be progressing as we learn more about him and it can never rest in any absolutes, which is why process theologians deny the absolutes of God’s immutability and truth." What is process theology?

Can God be studied scientifically? If "science" means testing empirically grounded refutable hypotheses by rigorous methods , the answer is "not unless God co-operates". Those ridiculous experiments on the efficacy of intercessory prayer, which have led to such mixed results, seem to regard God as a trained circus animal responsive to the scientists commands--not most people's ideas of what god is like. God by most accounts is ineffable: too great or extreme to be grasped by mortal minds. The idea of God is the prototypical "haunted universe doctrine" (J.W. N. Watkins, "Confirmable and Influential Metaphysics", https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251532 People may see ghosts and hear them rattling their chains, but when the scientists show up the spirits may become indignant and stay quiet. A less demanding definition of science is an orderly, systematic study (as in "library science"), scientific study of God might be possible. That's why theology used to be called "the Queen of Sciences". By the same token, if God is defined, as some modern theologians do, as a Higher Power, the Supreme or Ultimate Reality, "the Ground of Being, or Ultimate Meaning (Tillich), etc. I guess It could be studied in an orderly, if not experimental, way. And even if God is defined in a more traditional way as the Dude in the Sky or "a spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshiped for doing so" (S)he can be the subject of science-based arguments:
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a... book by Paul C.W. Davies
3 Science-Related Arguments for God’s Existence
Can God Be Proved Mathematically? | Scientific American
Can scientific methods prove the existence of God?
Can physics prove if God exists?
Can Science Prove The Existence Of God?
Can Science Prove the Existence of God? (Published 2003)
Can scientific methods prove the existence of God?
The ’Evidence for Belief’: An Interview with Francis Collins
10 Scientific Proofs for the Existence of God

Science-related arguments can support a rational conclusion that God exists.
1. the Big Bang and the origin of the cosmos. Big Bang: Is there room for God?
2. the fine tuning and integrated complexity of the universe. What is the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God? | GotQuestions.org
3. the ability of mathematics to describe the physical universe. https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf
4. information in our DNA. Why the Information in Our DNA Points to the Existence of God | Cold Case Christianity
5. quantum physics. How Quantum Physics Proves God’s Existence
None of this is really "proof" capable of convincing skeptics. But it is "substantial evidence": enough to convince a reasonable person, even though other reasonable persons aren't convinced.4 CFR § 28.61 - Burden and degree of proof.
6. consciousness. Does Human Consciousness Prove that God Exists?
7. life. The Origin of Life

None of this is "proof", in the sense of being likely to convince all reasonable persons. But it is substantial evidence : enough to convince a reasonable person, even though other reasonable persons are not convinced. 4 CFR § 28.61 - Burden and degree of proof.