Corona688

Don't you see? god **IS** the convenient conclusion. You can use him to explain anything you want with no thought at all! Granted, you can't predict anything, but nobody cares about actual results, right?

Science can't explain everything yet, therefore god exists.Huh? This looks random, therefore god did it. god is random? That's your assumption, not mine. Science needs time and effort to work. god thinking requires neither and is therefore more convenient; but useless in making actual predictions about reality. Bollocks. We know more about the phenomenon than we ever learned through god-think. We can't explain the whole thing yet. So what? We prefer NOT to work backwards... we get the data on what's going on, then make theories to try and predict what will happen. Why should we postulate what there's no evidence for? There is no such implicit assumption. Science merely involves making theories that fit reality and attempt to predict it. Then why are you wasting your time? Ahh, so you admit that 'goddidit' is a concealed 'I don't know'! Halleluiah. I'm certain people will hold you to this every time you try and pull this crud again.

And no, it's not more ridiculous. It's just saying that 'my indescribable omnipotent unpredictable uncaused deity caused x' is more ridiculous than 'nothing caused x'.

yguy

I know that's what you think.

Yet?? ROFL!!

You just got through saying there will always be something science doesn't know, for crying out loud.

No, He just doesn't necessarily act the way you expect Him to.

It's not an assumption, but an inference drawn logically from your assertion that science has eliminated the possibility of God's influence in lightning. If you know God isn't doing it, it follows that you know what is.

That may not be a bad thing, to the extent that God influences "natural" events in unpredictable ways. If indeed earthquakes are totally unpredictable, for instance, efforts to predict them through empirical means are largely wasted.

Excuse me. I said the phenomenon was not well understood. You agreed.

If you can't explain the whole thing, you can't rule out God, that's what.

I haven't suggested postulating anything.

Yes, there is.

Because words may trigger realizations. If not in you, maybe in someone reading this.

By all means, let them. I don't believe I've ever asserted positively that God is behind random motion; what I've said is that it is more reasonable to believe He is behind it than to believe that nothing is.

Kimpatsu

Science has the potential to explain all phenomena, from abiogenesis to the ultimate fate of the universe. Whether humankind will achieve this before shuffling off this mortal coil is another, separate, issue.
And how should we expect her to act? With some honesty? Decency? Compassion? Justice? Are these qualities too much to ask of an omnipotent deity?
And we do know what causes lightening: a massive buildup of static electricity, with the positive charge at the top and the negative charge at the bottom, due to the friction of water droplets in the cloud. Ultimately, the charge has to go somewhere, so it flows to earth (the ground), causing the pretty light show that used to be attributed to Zeus hurling thunderbolts, and Hephaestus beating his anvil (which sounds painful. )
No god there, then.
Early warning detection and prediction systems for earthquakes are getting better all the time. Claiming god can influence earthquakes is pointless, unless you can offer evidence for the statement.
Unexplained does not mean unexplainable. You can't rule out a six-foot invisible rabbit as the cause, either. It is telling, however, that there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of god after 15 billion years. You'd think that she'd show us a sign, rather than leave us guessing.
You've postulated the existence of god.
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Rubbish, for two reasons.
1. If random motion indeed has a cause, why need it be god? It could be predicated on how I picked my nose this morning. You'll have to offer a more convincing argument than that if you want to be taken seriously.
2. Why should randomness have a cause? What caused god?

echidna

Who said that nothing is behind random motion ?

That is simply where the current boundary of science rests today. It used to be believed that celestial objects were the gods themselves, until modern astronomy and cosmology was born. It used to be believed that the moods of gods created our ever-changing weather patterns, until modern meteorology was born.

You can believe that it’s God if you like, but the precedents above would indicate that it’s pretty thin ice. And if God does indeed intervene meaningfully in this world, then it leaves you with the burden of explaining why then he would allow (or even cause ?) the Holocaust, the ethnic cleansing of Rwanda, the Cambodian Genocide, the slow death brought about by degenerative diseases, the 40,000 deaths from the 1883 Krakatoa eruption and countless cases of paedophilia by members of the Catholic clergy.

Abacus

Wrong. A question about the motion of particles IS a question about their physics. The wave function of quantum mechanics is what describes the probabilistic motion of particles.

So you say.

Hawkingfan

I've noticed lately that you've posted this statement in various forms all through the Science and Skepticism forum. Why the obsession? Where do you get the idea that "the only other explanation yet offered is that nothing is the cause of such motion"? That is nonsense. That is such an elementary concept it's in just about every reliable physics book. The motion of electrons is caused by the electromagnetic attraction bewteen its negative charge and the positive charge of protons in the nucleus and makes the electron orbit it. It is also discharging virtual massless particles of spin 1 that make the electron recoil and it is also absorbing those particles from other electrons. Are you suggesting there is a predictable pattern from where, when, how, and why the particle is emitting from the electron? Its emissions, and therefore motion, is indeed random.
I don't see any difference in arguing for god being behind particle motion than arguing for god being behind every breath I take as if he had invisible, undetectable hands contracting my lungs like bellows. Science does not have to disprove such silly assertions. Those assertions have to be proved first. We are down to the burden of proof argument.

yguy

Several people on this board.

Strawmen.

All the precedents indicate is that some religionists have made idiots of themselves.

I've dealt with such questions on the EoG forum - to no one's satisfaction, of course.

yguy

I didn't ask for a DESCRIPTION of their random motion, I asked WHY they behave randomly.

Kimpatsu

Quantum uncertainty.
No room for god there, either.

Marduk

“I didn't ask for a DESCRIPTION of their random motion, I asked WHY they behave randomly”

The most ancient definition of God, he brings order out of chaos.