Gooch's dad

How could that hypothesis possibly be falsified in any way? If it can't, then it is meaningless as a scientific statement.

911

How about it is not meant to be a scientific statement - does its being not a scientific statement automatically makes it pointless and or useless?

and or; we have not yet been able to falsify it?

Astreja

Can I prove that my cat and I are not indeed the same being? I have purely anecdotal evidence to go on. I don't particularly like catmint, I don't sit on the neighbour's car and chase birds, and I type with greater accuracy.

The same argument could easily be extended to "Okay, now prove that *MY* brain, right here and right now, does not currently contain the magical collection of atoms that comprise The Will of God." That, IMHO, is an extraordinarily dangerous situation in the making.

911

I ask in the spirit of if we do not ask; we will never know; we are afterall: the www in http://www.xxx.xxx and only in recent history did www come into being.

if www does not know well it is very sad isn't it; since www is still new I have not dispaired as yet.

I do not accept that any idea can be: "an extraordinarily dangerous situation in the making."

As for "The Will Of God" are you jumping the gun a little?

Gooch's dad

Your OP was comparing a scientific statement (about the Big Bang) to your ideas about God. So yes, it does matter whether your conjectures qualify as scientific statements--and so far, they don't.

Regarding the falsification--you appear to misunderstand what I meant. I didn't ask if it IS false, but whether it could possibly be shown to be false, even hypothetically. If it cannot, it is equivalent to Last Thursdayism, which is the idea that aliens created the entire universe last Thursday, and all your memories of previous events were created at the same time. It's non-falsifiable, and therefore scientifically irrelevant.

911

and I say I did not mean that you say it is false.

just that we have not been able to show that it is false - YET

I know what you want to say - so show me that it is possible to show it to be false first!!!!

We are the www; give www a chance to show that it can be falsified or not;

Astreja

Can we go outside the universe? I don't think so.

Is there any physical evidence that gods exist? Haven't seen any peer-reviewed data lately.

Can you examine an atom to determine if it is (or is not) part of this thing you call 'God'? Unlikely. Even if we successfully identify the 'God' aspect of an atom, how do we determine that it's a universal phenomenon and not a localized one?

Based on the above, the statement "Every atom in the universe is a part of God" is a statement of faith rather than a scientific hypothesis that can be tested.

Then please, please be careful out there, 911. Anyone... You, me, the folks next door... can make an outrageous, untestable and unfalsifiable statement. And, if they have a modicum of people skills and some clever rhetoric, they can easily raise an army of well-meaning but fatally gullible followers.

It has happened before. It's happening right this minute. And it will keep on happening until we value reason over blind faith.

<divine booming voice>Well, *I* don't think so...</divine booming voice>

K

911:

That's exactly his point. It doesn't appear that it is possible to show it to be false. And if there is no way to show it to be false, then it is of no real value.

For instance, I could say that I believe the moon is made of magical green cheese. This green cheese looks and behaves exactly like dust and rock when examined. In fact, there is no way to tell it apart from dust and rock. However, despite all that, it really is green cheese - magical green cheese.

There is no way to prove that is false. It can't be done. However, treating the moon as being made up of dust and rock makes sense since, even if it is made of green cheese, that cheese is indistinguishable from dust and rock.

Now let's look at "Every atom in the universe is a part of God."

It certainly doesn't look like that can be proven false. Even if every atom in the universe is a part of God, each atom in the universe behaves as if it isn't a part of God. Therefore, unless you have some kind of different operations of these atoms as a result of being part of God, it makes sense just to treat them as atoms. Just like it makes sense to treat the moon as being made of dust and rock instead of magical green cheese.

911

This certainly is tragic to me, personally.

I understand you completely and I understand the believers completely.

To ask them to not believe in God is almost like to ask them to not believe in themselves and surrender fully to "science."

It is like telling lovers; according to science and logic their love is ridiculous - yet billions fall in love.

It is like telling artists; according to science and logic their their work is meaningless;yet billions love their work

It is like telling gamblers; stop gambling, the house always wins... yet you will never stop people going to the casinos.

Red Expendable

Chime in here for a second.

Didn't you use this same faulty reasoning in another thread titled "God is God" - re: 911 and London bombings will continue?

First of all, let's make this very clear: If someone chooses to BELIEVE this b.s about god and then chooses to believe that god wants such and such person to kill and bomb in his/her/it's name, then that has NOTHING to do with ANOTHER person's lack of belief, and I might add it has nothing to do with the fact that there are some people will go on believing despite any evidence to the contrary.

If a non-believer can't convince a believer that his or her beliefs are irrational, it's not opening any "floodgates" as you say, and thereby causing 911's and London bombing type events to continue, which is exactly what you are implying.

If someone REFUSES to understand, or CHOOSES to remain in a state of ignorance and then launches his/her offenses, physical or mental at people who don't agree with them, that's their own doing.

Might I add that there are plenty of people that have committed worse atrocities than 9/11, etc. without religion and god on the brain. So even if the god concept did disappear, I would be willing to bet my left AND right nut, that 911's and London bombings and WORSE will STILL happen.

RedEx