Sure. But it is not like we are or could be indifferent to ideas either.
Disproving a Personal God with Science
- Thread starter spidergoat
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Sure. But it is not like we are or could be indifferent to ideas either.
Science has practical limitations, when it comes to certain forms of data, especially data of the human mind.
As the example of a limited state of the art , if someone had a dream there is no way to prove the details of the dream. We have all had dreams, with some we can remember in great detail. We all know this does happen and therefore data is being generated. But you can not use any tools of science to prove the details of what we all agree is a widescale data output. This means this does not exist in a scientific way if you wish to use strict scientific philosophy.
Any experience of God would have to somehow filter through the human mind to become conscious. This would be true whether it was all in the imagination or an external sensory event, or an induction effect. Being God, the neural reaction/output would be more complex than the details of a typical dream (because it is less common data).
Science can't do the easy stuff with dreams, yet they still claim to be an expert on the more difficults stuff. Political science is the basis for atheism, since politics can spin and lie the lack of hard data so it can pretend what it says has proof, even when the tools are too primitive.
If we could invent a mind scan that can tune into data generation in detail we would at least be in the position to make a better claim, without having to rely on political science to manipulate.
As the example of a limited state of the art , if someone had a dream there is no way to prove the details of the dream. We have all had dreams, with some we can remember in great detail. We all know this does happen and therefore data is being generated. But you can not use any tools of science to prove the details of what we all agree is a widescale data output. This means this does not exist in a scientific way if you wish to use strict scientific philosophy.
Any experience of God would have to somehow filter through the human mind to become conscious. This would be true whether it was all in the imagination or an external sensory event, or an induction effect. Being God, the neural reaction/output would be more complex than the details of a typical dream (because it is less common data).
Science can't do the easy stuff with dreams, yet they still claim to be an expert on the more difficults stuff. Political science is the basis for atheism, since politics can spin and lie the lack of hard data so it can pretend what it says has proof, even when the tools are too primitive.
If we could invent a mind scan that can tune into data generation in detail we would at least be in the position to make a better claim, without having to rely on political science to manipulate.
Really? Why so?
So what?
How is a dream "data"?
Speculation.
How are dreams "easy stuff"?
Balls.
Specious crap.
So, only a God that acts through brains is possible? What about Noah's Flood? Why pray for changes to a situation that may having nothing to do with someone's brain?
Oh, and by the way:
Scientists Use Computer to 'Read' Human Thoughts
Oh, and by the way:
Scientists Use Computer to 'Read' Human Thoughts
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
The philosophy of mind is very much a work-in-progress. And until we have a satisfactory philosophy of mind, we are probably going to continue to experience epistemological problems generated by those difficulties.
I personally expect that cognitive science and neuroscience will eventually get a handle on explaining subjective experience. But right now that's just my expectation, kind of an article of faith. I don't think that we have a strong enough grip on it at the present time to justify its deployment in any convincing "scientific" argument against the veridicity of religious experience.
That's an interesting argument.
I think that science does accept that the phenomenon of dreaming does objectively exist, but the actual content of our dreams is so subjective that it's hard for science to get any grip on it.
Right. The same thing is true of our human consciousness of physical objects like the tables and chairs. So arguments that religious experience is associated with particular brain states doesn't necessarily imply that religious experience can't have an existent external object. Our experience of the physical world is associated with brain states too.
That's another interesting idea. There does seem to be some rhetorical simularity between these atheist/theist religious battles and political arguments. There's a simular kind of closed-minded true-believer intransigence in many cases.
Science just kind of gets swept up in all of that. Atheists treat science as if it's their side's heavy-caliber anti-religious ammo, the devastating source of their own claims to ultimate authority.
But in real life, science doesn't really "disprove" the exisence of "God". Since God is supposed to be a transcendent being, I don't think that it's possible for science to do that. Hypothetical beings like God would seem to lie outside science's naturalistic scope.
If science is an opponent of religious tradition at all, that's because science simply ignores religion and because science has been so very successful at providing well-justified and pragmatically-useful alternative naturalistic accounts for the sorts of phenomena that once received religious interpretations.
It isn't that religion is being disproved exactly... it's just becoming more and more irrelevant in much of our daily lives.
The philosophy of mind and subjective experience have kind of become the last redoubt of the super-naturalists, their bastion. That's one reason why the philosophy of mind is so hotly contested these days, I guess.
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"But in real life, science doesn't really "disprove" the exisence of "God"."
So what? That doesn't mean science has nothing to say about religious claims. There are an infinite number of premises that cannot be disproved, many of them totally absurd (Russel's Teapot).
So what? That doesn't mean science has nothing to say about religious claims. There are an infinite number of premises that cannot be disproved, many of them totally absurd (Russel's Teapot).
I'm still keen to see what science has to say about that quote from the book of St. John.
I mean, not what someone's opinion of it is (the assumption many have made about it being metaphorical, because . . . well, just because), but what science can tell us about God being light.
Conversely, what can it tell us about God not being light, but rather some kind of delusion, perhaps, or a misconception. Or perhaps that science is deluded, it can't tell us the answer, or there is no answer that can be empirically tested.
It seems to me that it's a simple enough kind of question: is it true or false, and how do we decide? What kind of instruments would be needed?
I mean, not what someone's opinion of it is (the assumption many have made about it being metaphorical, because . . . well, just because), but what science can tell us about God being light.
Conversely, what can it tell us about God not being light, but rather some kind of delusion, perhaps, or a misconception. Or perhaps that science is deluded, it can't tell us the answer, or there is no answer that can be empirically tested.
It seems to me that it's a simple enough kind of question: is it true or false, and how do we decide? What kind of instruments would be needed?
Science can determine that light exists. Science cannot determine God exists. So until you can show that God exists, we cannot evaluate the question of God being light.
An interesting perspective about religion is to trace the major religions to their historical source and then forward in time to see who much influence they had over many centuries.
Today we can elect a president and we can get bored in a few years. So the question becomes how did these religious leaders and their doctrines strike a chord that lasted for sometimes thousands of years.
In modern times in the west, religion is not about force but choice. There are also many social forces that will try to undermine. Yet the almost instinctive drift is still there. Name other choices that naturally linger for centuries. I like to assume certain messages touched deeper in the psyche.
Today we can elect a president and we can get bored in a few years. So the question becomes how did these religious leaders and their doctrines strike a chord that lasted for sometimes thousands of years.
In modern times in the west, religion is not about force but choice. There are also many social forces that will try to undermine. Yet the almost instinctive drift is still there. Name other choices that naturally linger for centuries. I like to assume certain messages touched deeper in the psyche.
I have a good answer to that, which is that religions act like genes (memes). They evolve in a culture, and only those aspects that resonate with that culture and human nature survive and reproduce. Historically, most of society has been uneducated and illiterate, so religious culture persisted for a long time.
Can science determine that someone is seeing light?spidergoat said:
If you get your peripheral vision tested by an optometrist, they move a light source around and ask you to report when you can see it. But can science "look" at someone's brain and determine if they can see the same source at the periphery of their vision?
In which case, the OP is postulating an impossibility, isn't it? There is no disproving a personal God after all, at least NOT with science.
Can you at least admit the whole exercise is based on some kind of misconception, or is there more to this than logic?
If god is light, its hardly a personal god
I don't know, maybe.
But a personal God should leave evidence. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence if evidence should exist but doesn't.
What kind of evidence? Is it like the evidence an optometrist gets from someone having their eyesight tested?spidergoat said:
If the evidence is personal, where does that leave scientific enquiry? If some people report an experience they claim is "God", what kind of evidence should be left, and where is it?
If god is light which is not like sunlight, or any kind of external light (made, as we know, of photons), but another kind of light--"internal" light seen with the mind's eye, in dreams--how is that not personal?lightgigantic said:
If you have a dream, and "God" is in the dream, isn't that a personal experience?
A personal god should, for instance, answer prayers. So there would be a measurable prayer effect.
A reported experience isn't reliable evidence in science, it has to be confirmed independently.
A reported experience isn't reliable evidence in science, it has to be confirmed independently.
Suppose someone prays that they see more of this internal light, and that they have more dreams with God in them.spidergoat said:
Suppose their prayers are answered.
BTW, a reported experience is reliable enough for an optometrist to write a prescription. If optometry is a science, there we go then.
Doctors often have to trust what their patients tell them. I could tell my doctor false symptoms and get an incorrect treatment.
Suppose you could only pray for divine intervention that is emotional or thinking-related. This would be non-testable. There are also valid naturalistic explanations for mind-states.
Suppose you could only pray for divine intervention that is emotional or thinking-related. This would be non-testable. There are also valid naturalistic explanations for mind-states.
you assume god is like a gum ball machine