GOD: The Failed Hypothesis

[kbordson 8]

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>Is that cat alive or dead?

Which cat?

Schrodinger's


Or were you implying that there is NO cat.

[chasteh 0]

I suppose that is up to you, unless the label implies in any way that they are all false- this is important especially when you cannot know they are true or false.

>I'm nearly certain

Sorry man, certainty doesn't come in degrees. "Nearly certain" is like saying "sort of exact" or "probably perfect."

>I can discount most religious creation "stories" as myth since just about all of them can, in fact, be easily disproved.

But not all, hence, "myth" isn't applicable.

[chasteh 0]

>Simply postulating that it is the faith of believers that creates their deity and makes it real for themselves gets around all of those objections.

Ok. But even withing scifi novels there are still propositions that are inconsistent with other scifi propositions from other writings. Because they co-exist doesn't mean that they can all be true at the same time.

[chasteh 0]

Ok. Those are horrible examples of mutual exclusivity. Lets try a better one:

1) Jesus is the only son of God.

2) Muhammed is the only son of God.

3) There is only one God, and that God-unit has only one son-unit.

All three premises cannot be true at the same time. That should illustrate what Quade should have/would have/could have said-but he used the word "Science" and not "Logic" which is what he meant to say is what excludes all the religions from being compatible at once.

edited to put "mutual exclusivity" above, to sound smarter

edit:

Mutual exclusivity is often confused with a simple disjunction, "Either...or..."

Mutual exclusivity, however, says something like:

"Either...or... and NOT BOTH."

[billvon 2,991]

>1) Jesus is the only son of God.
>2) Muhammed is the only son of God.
>3) There is only one God, and that God-unit has only one son-unit.

>All three premises cannot be true at the same time.

You are applying scientific analysis to religion. That's about as valid as saying "Boyle's Law just doesn't FEEL right to me; it doesn't help me live my life. Therefore, it cannot be useful."

[rehmwa 2]

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ya know Tom, they call it scince FICTION for a reason.

It's pronounce SKINTCH - and, strangely enough, it stand for a metric simultaneously describing the location and velocity of Douglas Adams while he is eating lunch on any given Tuesday.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[chasteh 0]

>You are applying scientific analysis to religion.
How so? I have said nothing involving the scientific method, its data, or the information that is entailed by it.

My post is an example of logical inconsistency. I said nothing of the sort about feelings at all.

You have confused my statement of logic with a religious one, Bill. Quack.

[JackC 0]

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>Neither, it's a quantum particle

Uh oh! "Since only one can be true, all the others are logically false."

Eh?

For all practial purposes, god is indistinguishable from it's own non-existence. So from a pragmatic point of view, all religions are equally useless.

[FreeflyChile 0]

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>Neither, it's a quantum particle

Uh oh! "Since only one can be true, all the others are logically false."

Eh?

For all practial purposes, god is indistinguishable from it's own non-existence. So from a pragmatic point of view, all religions are equally useless.

Useless? I don't know it seems religions are not useless...

From a hopeful point of view, religion might be the crutch an individual needs to persevere during an otherwise hopeless time.

From a cynical point of view - religion one hell of a way to fund-raise.

[JackC 0]

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Useless? I don't know it seems religions are not useless...

From a hopeful point of view, religion might be the crutch an individual needs to persevere during an otherwise hopeless time.

From a cynical point of view - religion one hell of a way to fund-raise.

From a hopeful point of view, the lottery has infinitely better odds.

From a cynical point of view, religion is one hell of a good motivator for a nice, long, bloody war.

[billvon 2,991]

>For all practial purposes, god is indistinguishable from it's own
>non-existence. So from a pragmatic point of view, all religions are equally
>useless.

So is love, friendship and loyalty. All unmeasurable; all just describing human feelings. But often useful.

[georgerussia 0]

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How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist.
Just picked the book up on sale at B&N for $5.98. Anybody read it?

There is no need to show that God does not exist until someone shows it does.

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[frequentfaller 0]

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1) Jesus is the only son of God.

2) Muhammed is the only son of God.

3) There is only one God, and that God-unit has only one son-unit.

christians believe jesus was son of god. muslims don't believe in any son of god. they believe both jesus and muhammed were prophets.

not that it matters they're both full of shit. just tryin to be a pain in the arse.

Born ok 1st time.

[JackC 0]

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>For all practial purposes, god is indistinguishable from it's own
>non-existence. So from a pragmatic point of view, all religions are equally
>useless.

So is love, friendship and loyalty. All unmeasurable; all just describing human feelings. But often useful.

You can't distinguish love, friendship and loyalty from their own non-existence?

[billvon 2,991]

>You can't distinguish love, friendship and loyalty from their own
>non-existence?

Nope. You can't weigh love. You can't perform a double blind test on people to see if they have twice the friendship of someone else.

However, you CAN measure the causes/effects of the emotion described as "love" and quantify it that way. (Same thing you can do for religion BTW.)

[chasteh 0]

That is fine. I only need the statements to illustrate mutual exclusivity, not that one is actually true and the other false. Do you need more examples of statements among religions that are both stated by the religions themselves and mutually exclusive, or do you yourself think t here are enough of those examples?

[chasteh 0]

>There is no need to show that God does not exist until someone shows it does.

Unless someone just assumes it does and then becomes responsible for 2000 years of war, crusades, and disagreement. Then we need to show it.

[JackC 0]

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Nope. You can't weigh love. You can't perform a double blind test on people to see if they have twice the friendship of someone else.

Actually, I think you probably could test to see how friendly people are. I'm fairly sure things like the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator is an attempt to do something very much like that.

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However, you CAN measure the causes/effects of the emotion described as "love" and quantify it that way. (Same thing you can do for religion BTW.)

And I can't weigh gravity but I can detect its effect on other objects. Ergo gravity is indistinguishable from it's own non-existence. Or gravity is an emotion. I think you could go either way with an analogy as loose (and useless) as this one.

[quade 4]

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>There is no need to show that God does not exist until someone shows it does.

Unless someone just assumes it does and then becomes responsible for 2000 years of war, crusades, and disagreement. Then we need to show it.

I think you'll find there to be considerably more than just 2000 years of war over religion.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[billvon 2,991]

>Actually, I think you probably could test to see how friendly people are.

And you could test to see how faithful, moral etc a religious person is. In both cases you'd be measuring effects instead of the actual quantity itself.

[quade 4]

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I'm fairly sure things like the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator is an attempt to do something very much like that.

Myers-Briggs is approximately as accurate as a tarot card reading.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[JackC 0]

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And you could test to see how faithful, moral etc a religious person is. In both cases you'd be measuring effects instead of the actual quantity itself.

So what's your point? That religosity/spirituality is an emotion? I'd go along with that and still say religion is of no benefit to modern society whatsoever.

[Bolas 5]

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These things you can figure out for yourself.

The last thing any religious organization wants or needs is for its followers to think for themselves...

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[billvon 2,991]

>That religosity/spirituality is an emotion?

No, but rather that it is manifested through how it works in people, not by how much God weighs or how many amps one of his lightning bolts produces.

[Ion01 2]

The amazing thing is that this is all so simple yet people often overlook (or avoid) the obvious.

"To say intelligent causes are empirically detectable is to say there exist well-defined methods that, on the basis of observational features of the world, are capable of reliably distinguishing intelligent causes from undirected natural causes. Many special sciences have already developed such methods for drawing this distinction-notably forensic science, cryptography, archeology, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (as in the movie Contact).... Whenever these methods detect intelligent causation, the underlying entity they uncover is information. Intelligent Design properly formulated is a theory of information. Within such a theory, information becomes a reliable indicator of intelligent causation as well as a proper object for scientific investigation. Intelligent Design thereby becomes a theory for detecting and measuring information, explaining its origin, and tracing its flow. Intelligent Design is therefore not the study of intelligent causes per se, but of informational pathways induced by intelligent causes."

I use the same methods as an forensic science, cryptography, archeology, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence does to believe in a creator. I have found the simplest question that works in all areas - Can natural forces create what I have found? If I have found a piece of fire hardened clay with a carving in it I can easily concluded that it was created; Same with a painting in a cave; Same with an electric motor, which many hold as one of the biggest signs of our scientifically advanced society. When we look in some cells we find an electric motor called a flagella. Why can we not conclude that it was created? Are you familiar with irreducible complexity by Meyer? Here is his site to help http://www.discovery.org/a/3408
Also, as stated in the quote, information is also a key. If we received a series of radio wave pulses from outer space which could be interpreted into a single sentence such as “We are here” everyone would conclude that aliens sent the message, and rightfully so. We now know of something called DNA which contains so much information that it results in beings, such as us, which are more complex that anything we have every created or even imagined. Just as an archeologist would do, we conclude from such evidence that we were created. This is sound science.

On the other hand evolution requires that you not only ignore such evidence but that you simply have faith (a greater faith than I could ever have) that one day we will find a way to explain how DNA and the Flagella Motor can come about. Yes there are a lot of theories. Do they have a good foundation in observation and experimentation? I can theorize that invisible knomes do my work while I am at home. I may even give all kinds of “evidence” such as the simple fact that when I leave work and set the alarm there is no one left at work and when I get there the next day my spread sheet is on my pc and is done. I, of course, have over look many details in the formulation of my theory such as my computer is connected to a network and can be accessed by other employees who have the same job as I do. Anyways, I think you see my point. People can develop all kinds of ideas but unless they are based in the real world in which we live and takes all evidence into consideration they are nothing more than ideas.

www.designinference.com/
William Dembski has a Ph.D. in philosophy (Univerity of Illinois at Chicago), a Ph.D. in mathematics (University of Chicago), and a masters of divinity from Princeton. A mathematician and a philosopher, he is associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor University and a senior fellow at Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Dr. Dembski previously taught at Northwestern University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Dallas as well as having done post doctoral work at MIT, the University of Chicago, and Princeton.


http://www.icr.org/article/773/