Out of Curiosity, Why Does Science Need to Prove or Disprove The Existence of God?

[Dave]

I partly agree with Harebrain. I don't think that Science and Religion can mix (the scientific principle being based on the need to test a hypothesis, but religion being based upon faith) however there are many scientists who are religious and therefore must obviously disagree with me. And yes, as an example, you can see how fruitless a task it is to use science to try to prove or disprove creationism.

To make this more of an SFFChronicles thread, why don't we ask why science fiction authors need to prove or disprove the existence of god. I think there are way too many 'god is an alien' or 'ancient gods were aliens' or 'Jesus was a spaceman' or 'Jesus was a time traveller' books. It is an over-used trope and a overworked mine.

 

[chrispenycate]

As with the best riddles, the answer is in the question – just out of curiosity. Good scientists have a lot of it, or they wouldn't be what they are, and a hypothesis like 'God exists, is omniscient, omnipotent and loves all his creations' is a sort of challenge. The fact that the existence of a God, of multiple deities of a variety of genders, of a general anthropomorphic creative principal (a universal headmaster) or whichever mechanism you choose to lay down the essential physical laws that allow the development of life and humanity is orthogonal to the study of those laws, and the universe they have brought into being is recognised by almost all, which doesn't prevent a large percentage of those scientists (who are not all good, by any means; I too have met the 'my theory is right and thou shalt not criticise, let alone devise experiments to disprove it' iconodules, science's equivalents to pedants) are theists for a wide range of different religions, seeing no contradiction in this position.

As indeed there is no contradiction. The two sets of knowledge are independent, non-interacting, each irrelevant to the other. And you can burn infidels at the stake for either, so fun is maintained.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Curiosity is only sometimes science.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

however there are many scientists who are religious and therefore must obviously disagree with me.

False conclusion.
People can be religious or have faith or believe in God quite separately to job or career or being a Scientist.
(religious or have faith or believe in God can be three unrelated things: I.e. The devil or Satan if real certainly isn't religious or having Faith, people can have the same sort of Faith in things other than God and religion doesn't require Faith or actually a God).

 

[Parson]

To deal with the original question of this thread. I think that Science doesn't "have" to do anything. It is a method of inquiry which yields repeatable results given the same inputs. It is based on the so far indisputable conclusion that there are no exceptions to the rule that "results will always be the same if the inputs are always the same."

This method of inquiry seems to be inherently at odds with religion which has at its heart that there is truth beyond rational explanation. To hold to that philosophy demands faith in something which has defied any attempt at trial and error provability. Obviously then many scientific researchers hold religious faith to be the haunt of weak minded individuals. Thereby creating the illusion that science, in general, needs to be in conflict with religion, in general.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Scientists, like mathemeticians like to deal in definites; they hate variables, and God is the biggest variable of them all. Personally I don't think that scientists try to prove or disprove God; but they may attempt to explain some previously unexplainable occurrences that have been attributed to God.

And anyway , what would be the point in proving such a thing? Ironically, the more people try to explain that there isn't a God, the stronger, the more determined, the faith of those who believe is. For what is God without faith?

And in my opinion the more wonders, the more impossibilties that science discovers, the more likelihood that there truly is a God.

 

[Ursa major]

They did have prettier Avatars though.

Thread Bear has come round to your point of view.

Well, he agrees that your end is nigh....

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

The existence of god or not will become relevant to those that believe when intelligent life is found on another planet. (hopefully before the end obviously)

For creationists (one's that believe in a maker or some such) they will have three possibilities to consider.

A. They are just wrong.

If this is too unpalatable then there are two possibilities.


B. If the new life form is more advanced: then we were the prototypes (the pigs if you like) and the new top dogs are the ones that really have the maker's favour. And by implication we are at the disposal of the new life form in a similar way a maker might allow his top creation to have rule over a world: say.

C. If the new life form is less advanced: then maybe the maker was so disappointed with us, that he felt bound to try again. In other words they are his new best creations.

So:-

If 'science' is able to find another planet with intelligent life it might not be able to prove or disprove the existence of a creator, but it should raise questions of those that do believe, in whether they can be certain they still enjoy her/his/it's favour.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Intelligent life elsewhere says nothing about God's existance. It may contradict the theology of some groups.

 

[farntfar]

TEIN. I would steer you to the books of C.S.Lewis, known as his Cosmic Trilogy, (namely Out of the silent planet, Perelandra, and That hideous strength), to see one way at least that both higher and lower intelligent extraterrestrials could be built almost seamlessly into the Christian faith system.

 

[paranoid marvin]

The existence of god or not will become relevant to those that believe when intelligent life is found on another planet. (hopefully before the end obviously)

For creationists (one's that believe in a maker or some such) they will have three possibilities to consider.

A. They are just wrong.

If this is too unpalatable then there are two possibilities.


B. If the new life form is more advanced: then we were the prototypes (the pigs if you like) and the new top dogs are the ones that really have the maker's favour. And by implication we are at the disposal of the new life form in a similar way a maker might allow his top creation to have rule over a world: say.

C. If the new life form is less advanced: then maybe the maker was so disappointed with us, that he felt bound to try again. In other words they are his new best creations.

So:-

If 'science' is able to find another planet with intelligent life it might not be able to prove or disprove the existence of a creator, but it should raise questions of those that do believe, in whether they can be certain they still enjoy her/his/it's favour.

Easy to explain away. If they have a God then that strengthens belief. If they haven't heard of God , then it was meant to be us as his messengers. How advanced they are is irrelevant. Whatever the situation, a strong case can (and will) be made both for and against the existence of an all-powerful being.

 

[Gramm838]

Someone needs to disprove it, so that we can get rid of most of the stupidity in the world (and the cause of most wars as well)

 

[paranoid marvin]

People have been killing each other long before religion came along. Just because it is used as a reason for going to war doesn't necessarily mean that is the cause.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

It's hardly the main reason, for most religions. A Religion isn't the same thing as God.

 

[HareBrain]

Someone needs to disprove it, so that we can get rid of most of the stupidity in the world (and the cause of most wars as well)

I think you'll find religious people don't hold a monopoly on being ill-informed and belligerent.

Also, please restrict posts to something within half a mile of the topic.

 

[BAYLOR]

Intelligent life elsewhere says nothing about God's existance. It may contradict the theology of some groups.

The fact that life exists and we exist, there has to be more to it then mere chance and coincidence.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I happen to think it's likely that many thousands, perhaps 5,000 to 15,000 stars in our own Galaxy have planets with life. But without some science & technology we don't yet have, we can't know. Unlike the question of God, it may be question we can answer some day.
I've avoided saying what I think about the existence or not of God, because I think my own belief or lack of belief and the whole issue of God is irrelevant to science.

I hope someday we discover that something like a Jump Drive, Stargate and/or an 'Ansible' is possible and we can examine more closely the question of life elsewhere. To me, looking at characteristics of Stars, "Goldilocks zones", evolution and more orthodox and logically framed Theologies it seems likely that life must also be elsewhere if Evolution is purely blind chance, or there is a Cosmic Watchmaker or a Personal God. It would seem extraordinary anthropocentrically egotistical (or whatever the word is) for the Atheist or Believer to insist Earth has the only life in our Galaxy, or the Universe, or even to insist we are the only sentient life.

If you are an Atheist you have to believe that life here is mere chance (claiming it blew in from space via a comet or aliens doesn't solve it ultimately being chance for an Atheist). If you have faith in a Creator God, then even if every aspect of the theories of evolution are true, you can't believe it's chance. Life elsewhere only reinforces BOTH viewpoints, because of course a Creator God can create life anywhere and the size of space could be a quarantine to stop mutual interference. The Atheist will say, "well of course evolution produces life wherever the conditions are right."
Science and Observation can't aid the Atheist or Believer. Many Believers believe in fact God deliberately ensures existence can't be proven or disproven scientifically. Serious Philosophers that are Atheists would agree that God can't be scientifically proven to be imaginary or real. In the purest sense. Yes you can pick out various beliefs and theologies of actual religions and ridicule them as illogical nonsense. But that doesn't dispose of God. Sometimes too the 'logic' might not be scientific either but assuming that something is impossible because you can't understand it or repeat an experiment.

P.S. I don't think this section is suitable to discuss actual Beliefs (or not) in God. Perhaps Private messages or email. People can get irrational about Religion, Faith, God, Theology, Rationalism and Atheism on a forum thread!

 

[BAYLOR]

If we exist here on Earth, then it's a reasonable guess that there is life elsewhere. If they could find life on Mars or under the frozen surface of Europa, that that would prove it.

Mars for example had an active planetary core warmer climate, liquid water, a thicker atmosphere about 3 billion years ago. It's possible that those condition may have exited long enough for some kind of microbial life to have developed.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I'd not hold my breath for life elsewhere in our solar system. But there must be maybe 100,000+ suitable planets in other systems just in our own Galaxy. Now that we can spot ever smaller planets and even atmospheres on other stars the estimates for vaguely Earth like planets (iron core, rocky crust, water) in a suitable zone with a suitable star keep going up.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Ray:

P.S. I don't think this section is suitable to discuss actual Beliefs (or not) in God. Perhaps Private messages or email. People can get irrational about Religion, Faith, God, Theology, Rationalism and Atheism on a forum thread!

Which is why Brian used to shut these types of discussion down.

However, we can ask ourselves certain questions and see how that relates to our personal situation.

Since this started with the scientific proof of the none existence. (Oddly, IMO the scientific proof of the existence has more hazards of the type you suggest)

IF, IF, IF, it could be proven that god did not exist where would that put an individual.

For the believers - disbelief.

For the none believers - no change.

I think everyone owes it to themselves to address the possibility that their belief is absolutely flawed to it's core.

That black is white and that 1 + 1 rarely makes 2.

If at the end of the exercise, you are prepared for the dichotomy it reveals - happy days.

Strangely though, I could argue that the belief in the existence (even the belief of others in proximity to none believers) is the thin veneer that holds society together. Without that large percentage of people that believe in something 'else', I fancy we wouldn't have to wait long for an end.

If you like, they act as the buffer against raw savage nature that is the human being.