Is the existence of God a scientific claim?

[Mike Cl]

This question has been looming in my mind for at least a couple of years.  It is indeed an astonishing phenomenon.  It appears that the society of mankind can be separated into two categories; Those with the curiosity to investigate using science and logic, and those who still reason as stone age cavemen.  I've asked myself why does stone age thinking and all of it's imaginary spinning of wheels still exist in the 21st Century, and I think it's because it is simply the state of the art in mankind's evolutionary progress.  6000 years isn't enough time to expect anything but minute changes in man's mental development.  Perhaps cognitive ability isn't even necessary as a survival tool.

We look around and see remarkable progress in mankind's achievement, but we owe that to a relatively small group of highly intelligent and industrious thinkers.  The rest of society might be wearing designer jeans, but they do so only because of the small group.  It's easy to forget these are primitive people with the same genetic make up that existed 10,000 years ago.

Not to say these hangers on don't have the capacity to reason.  They do, but thinking is not our default state and it counter intuitive enough to be ignored.  Thinking is probably not even the default state of the leadership, but they took the time to consider the merits of organized thought and then acted accordingly.  They have broken free of the default state.  I do not include politicians in the group of leaders.  They are just part of the drone class.

It's also quite common during bloody revolutions of our more recent past that the brightest are near the top of the list to be selected for execution.  I suppose some of their genetic material gets past along, but even if their genes do get passed on, each of their subsequent generations needs to relearn the art of organized thinking on their own, and most won't bother to learn how it's done.

I've been thinking about this subject for quite some time.  It is highly frustrating for me.  I do like what you have to say about it, especially the angle that I had not thought about yet--that we have not, as a group, evolved long enough yet.  That makes sense.  I had tended to see the wishful thinking of religion as an easy out for the hard questions surrounding the  'why'  are we here, or the grand purpose of it all.  It is simply easier to not dwell on that question for any length of time and just accept the easiness of religion's answers.  But I think you are right, that thinking is not our species default position and it may be harder than I think it is. And that would explain our anti-intellectual stance in this country as well. 

[sasuke]

The existence of a thinking being who created the universe and exists in some extra dimension(s) (immaterial?!?!) is not a scientific claim because--as was pointed out multiple times on these boards--you can't differentiate between god and Q from the Q continuum.  In other words, the claim isn't falsifiable, and until Q (or god) shows up and starts doing stuff, the claim is useless because it has no predictive powers.  But science vs religion is still valid because religious claims aren't all about the existence of god.  They make claims about the age of the earth for example.

Furthermore, they make claims about the afterlife and whether or not it's ok for you to eat shrimp and/or have butt sex with other people.  Even if the claims aren't scientific, we should still point and laugh whenever applicable.  Obviously, if you live in a country where apostasy is a death sentence, or if religion gives comfort to some terminally ill or very old relative of yours, then pointing and laughing aren't applicable or desired.

[the_antithesis]

... because such a being likely transcends the physical world.

What the hell does that mean?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What the hell does that mean?

It means "I refuse to make a scientific argument. Mostly because I can't, but at least partially because I know what the result would be and I'm not emotionally ready to admit that my religion is holding me back from reality."

Pretty much verbatim.

[GSOgymrat]

Recently I've been thinking about the whole science vs religion argument and pondered if an omnipotent and omniscient being can even be subjected to scientific tests and proven or disproven using the scientifc method. I'll expand on my question:

Is the existence of God a scientific claim?

A. If so, how can science be used to prove or disprove the existence of God?
B. If not, what other method can be used to prove or disprove the existence of God?

Or perhaps, it's impossible for us to prove or disprove the existence of God because such a being likely transcends the physical world.

I can't imagine there being any evidence for a God unless that god actually provides us with evidence, thus making the whole science vs religion debate pointless. I mean, it's not like we can just observe space looking for heaven with a telescope.

If supernatural qualities are a requirement for being God then science can't prove or disprove the existence of God. If supernatural qualities are not a requirement,  such as defining God as that which created man and all life on Earth, then I think the Sun could qualify as God.

[trdsf]

This question has been looming in my mind for at least a couple of years.  It is indeed an astonishing phenomenon.  It appears that the society of mankind can be separated into two categories; Those with the curiosity to investigate using science and logic, and those who still reason as stone age cavemen.  I've asked myself why does stone age thinking and all of it's imaginary spinning of wheels still exist in the 21st Century, and I think it's because it is simply the state of the art in mankind's evolutionary progress.  6000 years isn't enough time to expect anything but minute changes in man's mental development.  Perhaps cognitive ability isn't even necessary as a survival tool.

Ironically, we may have reached a point where cognitive ability is a detriment to our survival -- it certainly was during the peak of the Cold War.  We have reached a level of intelligence where it is possible that we can engineer our own total destruction as a species, either through direct action (total nuclear exchange), failure to deal with the consequences of our technology (global climate change), or failure to deal with natural existential threats (there's still no contingency plan for dealing with an asteroid on an impact trajectory).

The last two, I think, are the fault of religion in some small regard, specifically in the idea that there's another world after this one.

First you have the small extremist percent who actually believe the end of the world is a good thing.  They're noisy, but safe to ignore so long as no one adhering to that view ascends to power in a nuclear state... which possibility I really wish I could rule out, but I can't.  Related to this is the group that don't worry about such things because their god won't let anything bad happen to the planet -- I have genuinely talked to people who believed NASA should be shut down because "god won't let an asteroid hit us".  When I pointed out that didn't seem to help Chelyabinsk, the answers I got were along the lines of "they weren't sufficiently god-fearing" and "but it didn't hit us" (i.e., anywhere in the US).  Sometimes all you can do is roll your eyes and walk away.

Second, there's the idea that if anything happens to this world, we get to continue on in another one.  This is really the most dangerous, because it lets people think that we have a fallback if we really screw this planet up.

And the simple fact is, this planet is not disposable.  We can't pack up and move to Mars or Venus, not without hundreds (probably thousands) of years of terraforming.  In an emergency (and assuming some years lead time, like a large asteroid on a collision course detected well in advance), we could send a microscopic percentage of the Earth's population to hastily-constructed bases on the Moon and Mars, probably too small a sample to ensure the survival of the species long-term... never mind the epic problem of how to decide who goes.

Even if we were spacefaring, the odds of finding another planet that's already hospitable to our form of life are miniscule, and I expect that the odds of finding another planet that's already hospitable to our form of life and not already host to life (intelligent or otherwise) are zero.

And the very idea of an afterlife allows people to think "Oh well, if anything happens here, we have somewhere else to go."

And.  We.  Don't.  The raw, painful fact that they don't care to admit, that they need their belief for, is that the universe doesn't give half a fuck about us.  We're not the point of the universe, we're just a product of it.  Personally, I find that fact sufficiently awe inspiring, but some people can't enjoy a garden without imagining it has fairies in it too.  If we were wiped out tomorrow, all that will be left of us are a few unimaginably small and slow-moving specks of technology heading in no particular direction and will probably never be found by anyone, and a thin bubble of electromagnetic radiation that will attenuate into undetectability.  No one is going to save us, no one is going to protect us, and we don't have anywhere else to be, and we can only blame our own stupidity, our own indifference, and/or a statistically unlikely but not impossible event.

Huh.  That wandered a bit from the comment I wanted to make.  Anyway, yes, you're right, biological evolution is incapable of keeping up with technological advance once technology gets started -- does anyone know if evolution is an essentially linear process, that changes accumulate in a linear rather than exponential manner? -- and we aren't biophysically or biochemically that much different from our prehistoric ancestors.

I can really do no better here than to link to Fredric Brown's great short story, The Weapon.

[GSOgymrat]

And the very idea of an afterlife allows people to think "Oh well, if anything happens here, we have somewhere else to go."

The very idea there is not an afterlife means I don't have to care.

Why should I concern myself with global climate change or the fate of mankind if, from my perspective, everything ends forever when I die? I have no offspring to provide for, no genetic legacy, so isn't the most reasonable course of action to make sure I live as well as I can for as long as I can? There is no God to judge me and from my perspective the party ends when I leave. Why should I inconvenience myself for the sake of a future I'm not a part of?

[Mike Cl]

The very idea there is not an afterlife means I don't have to care.

Why should I concern myself with global climate change or the fate of mankind if, from my perspective, everything ends forever when I die? I have no offspring to provide for, no genetic legacy, so isn't the most reasonable course of action to make sure I live as well as I can for as long as I can? There is no God to judge me and from my perspective the party ends when I leave. Why should I inconvenience myself for the sake of a future I'm not a part of?

Hey, you can believe anything you want to.  But your mean-spirited question, your confession that your evil is only contained by a fictitious god, that you lack self control without some outside fear acting upon you, that you can't be fully human without the fear of a boggy man getting you if you act badly, makes me slightly sick and pretty much afraid of you.

I want to leave the world a better place than the one I entered.  Why?  Why not?????  I guess because when it all gets boiled down, I like people.  I like this planet.  And I love my family and hope they prosper like hell after I'm gone and forgotten.   And I hope you and yours prospers to?  Why not????  There is enough to go around, so why not share.  I really do become puzzled by the attitude of the religious when they ask questions like that.  I hope you do get cured from your insanity some day.

[GSOgymrat]

Hey, you can believe anything you want to.  But your mean-spirited question, your confession that your evil is only contained by a fictitious god, that you lack self control without some outside fear acting upon you, that you can't be fully human without the fear of a boggy man getting you if you act badly, makes me slightly sick and pretty much afraid of you.

I want to leave the world a better place than the one I entered.  Why?  Why not?????  I guess because when it all gets boiled down, I like people.  I like this planet.  And I love my family and hope they prosper like hell after I'm gone and forgotten.   And I hope you and yours prospers to?  Why not????  There is enough to go around, so why not share.  I really do become puzzled by the attitude of the religious when they ask questions like that.  I hope you do get cured from your insanity some day.

Exactly.

My point is that one can't just assume that because someone believes in an afterlife that they care less for this life, just as not believing in an afterlife doesn't necessarily mean you don't care about anything that comes later.

[Mike Cl]

GSO--I really did not pay attention to who posted what I ranted about .  Sorry.  Easter was a day full of family--mostly catholic, and I spent the day holding my mouth clamped shut. :))  I guess I just had my chained pulled a little too quickly.  You and I agree on almost all points.  So, that rant would not have happened if I had only payed a little more attention. Anyway, the content of that rant stands--that attitude really does puzzle me.  Always has.

[GSOgymrat]

I'm glad for your response. When I posted I kinda feared someone would reply "Oh, I agree completely."

[Mike Cl]

Yeah, it's kind of like when childless couples tell me they are not voting the schools any money because they are not going to benefit from that money.  ????? 

[GSOgymrat]

Yeah, it's kind of like when childless couples tell me they are not voting the schools any money because they are not going to benefit from that money.  ????? 

As someone who is childless, I actually wouldn't mind if I was paying more for schools than people who have children. I believe education is vital and I also feel that parents need all the help they can get. Raising children is really expensive and, frankly, parents are fulfilling a social necessity that I don't want to do.

[trdsf]

Exactly.

My point is that one can't just assume that because someone believes in an afterlife that they care less for this life, just as not believing in an afterlife doesn't necessarily mean you don't care about anything that comes later.

All I said was that I think it's a contributing factor.  It's not a conscious one; I doubt anyone actually mentally walks through telling themselves that they don't have to care for this life because they have another one coming.

And I really do think we'd do a better job of taking care of this world if more people understood that this is the only one we get.

[Unbeliever]

Recently I've been thinking about the whole science vs religion argument and pondered if an omnipotent and omniscient being can even be subjected to scientific tests and proven or disproven using the scientifc method. I'll expand on my question:

Is the existence of God a scientific claim?

A. If so, how can science be used to prove or disprove the existence of God?
B. If not, what other method can be used to prove or disprove the existence of God?

Or perhaps, it's impossible for us to prove or disprove the existence of God because such a being likely transcends the physical world.

I can't imagine there being any evidence for a God unless that god actually provides us with evidence, thus making the whole science vs religion debate pointless. I mean, it's not like we can just observe space looking for heaven with a telescope.

Since you capitalized the word "God" I'll assume you're refering to the theistic, omnimax God of the People of the Book: Yahweh, Jehovah, or Allah, whatever.

This God cannot exist, due to the many contradictory attributes it is believed to possess. If it cannot exist, then it does not exist. This should not be too difficult to understand. Proving a negative is easy if the thing for which proof is being sought can't logically exist.