yguy

Well exCUUUUUUUUSE ME. I consider an unexplained phenomenon as prima facie evidence that something is causing it. Science has only gotten as far as it has with that as an operating principle. Why all of a sudden decide to throw it away at this point on the investigative trail?

Marduk

For the sake of argument, does finding out ‘how’ God does something, mean there is no God?
Even something as simple as lightning, or as complex as evolution?

echidna

Yguy, you would seem to be worshipping a God of Gaps. We don’t understand the cause of a phenomenon, therefore Goddidit ?

It’s a possibility I suppose, but given the historical precedents which have so often shown religious edicts to be scientifically false, it’s somewhat of a shaky position.

Kimpatsu

This is typical wooly thinking of the theist kind. If you're going to play this game, then you have to ask, what caused god?

echidna

I've often heard liberal theists express the view that science is either to tell us what God is not, or to tell us how God made the world. I can usually accept these views.

Corona688

Hardee har har. I fail to see how my valid question qualifies as 'poisoning the well'. If/when science finds a mechanism behind QM, where will your god reside then? Oh, definitely. But see, you used the term 'mechanism' and not 'god'. god isn't needed to explain lightning, nor should god be invoked when gaps in the existing theory are found, lest this 'god of the gaps' be squeezed further into the background with every new discovery. You invoke the supernatural to explain natural phenomena. When you attempt to use this nonexistent concept to explain reality, yes, it is VERY relevant. If you cannot define god, then there is no point trying to use him to explain anything, because, by definition, you'd have no idea what the hell you're talking about. At most you'd be saying 'I don't know', which is what 'goddidit' answers generally translate to.

Abacus

But the quantum theory already does a very good job of describing the physics of particles. Now tell me, where is the God-factor in Schroedinger's equation?

yguy

It's not valid because it lumps me in with people who use God to justify jumping to convenient conclusions which support their dogma. I'm aware you likely think that's what I'm doing, but I'm not.

According to you, "there will always be something we don't know." Is it the goal of science to be Zeno's arrow never hitting its target? And yet, can you not see that that's where it's headed? How much dissecting of the atom is really productive? What are quarks made of? And what are the building blocks of quarks made of? What makes anyone think there is some ultimate particle that everything is made of?

And if certain phenomena are apparently chaotic at the quantum level, what reason is there to believe that at some level below that they won't appear even more so? So I guess my answer to your question is that at some point things will become so obviously immune to esoteric rationalizations that God will be the only thing left. The thing empiricists most fear will come upon them.

Then scientists shouldn't have any problem explaining it - but they do, as you just admitted.

But we're not talking about gaps here, we're talking about the lack of a foundation.

The implicit assumption is that God's influence is absent from natural phenomena, and there isn't a shred of evidence to support that.

No, it only means the reality of God's existence cannot be conveyed in words.

And just why is "I don't know what caused phenomenon X" more ridiculous than "Nothing caused phenomenon X"?

yguy

As dodgers of questions go, you are less than adroit. The question was about random motion of particles, not their physics in general.

The God factor in any useful equation is the fact that it makes sense at all.

Kimpatsu

How can something that doesn't exist be useful?