joedad

No gods...none.

Theism is the argument but atheism is the conclusion until you show me your gods.

joe

Happy Wonderer

This is an interesting question, although it usually devolves into a discussion of some unlikely event and the possible naturalistic explanations for it.

I'm not sure that there is a way that God could make herself known to cause me to belive in her other than by declaring "you believe" and ZAP! I believe.

The problem is that if any of us could time-travel, with a fairly small budget and special-effects crew we could convince almost any pre-industrial civilization that we were Gods. (Consider the Aztecs and Cortez...) The only miracle in the Bible that I think would be difficult to replicate would be the parting of the Red Sea, although with favorable tides or sunken platforms we could do a pretty convincing imitation to a distant observer.

So consider that a being appears in St. Louis and declares itself to be the One True God. For proof, say we suddenly get a new moon. Ohh, Ahh! However, could this simply be an alien race playing with us? We have seen such technological advances (even in our own lifetimes) that it isn't too hard to believe what we think of as a miracle now wouldn't be later.

To say nothing of the fact that there have been, in fact, no dramatic and convincing miracles. Shadows that in the right light could be the Blessed Mother Mary just don't have the Wow! factor to even merit consideration.

(Not to offend anyone, but the miracles reported in the Christian Bible just don't do much for me. A bush that burns and isn't consumed! People HEAR VOICES! Armies win against other armies and get to rape and plunder! BAD THINGS HAPPEN! GOOD THINGS HAPPEN! (usually closely followed by bad things) Drought, Famine, War, and eclipses! Great deeds are prophesied and DON'T HAPPEN! The Chosen People get their butts kicked! SIGN ME UP!)

But further, suppose that we discover that all of our science and genetics are incorrect. We were in fact created! When properly translated, those pesky junk DNA codons in Chromosone 3 really read "(c) Copyright 763,235,893,001 BC MicroGeneSoft Corporation. All rights reserved."

So does that make MicroGeneSoft a monopoly? I mean, does that make them God? As a race, we are not at all far off (in Geological time :-)) from being able to create life forms. Does this make the Science Geeks Gods? ("Yeah, so what that your lab created a new kind of bug thingy. Your football team STILL sucks. Gods? Hmph!")

Suppose we find an entity that is a cause of the creation of the Universe. This entity has the property that it creates the singularity that causes the Big Bang that creates the Universe. (Yeah I hear you guys but play along for a sec. Jeez...) That is the only property of this Entity that we can discern. Is this a God? Is it 'worthy' of worship? Is it even possible to worship? Does the existance of this entity tell us a darn thing about whether it is moral to flip the bird at that idiot who cut us off at the expressway? Whether I should wear a turban, or instead should kill all who do?

Like I say, interesting question. I haven't a clue what she would have to do to make me believe in Her. (Isn't that a title of a song?) Sorry for wasting your time!


-HW

Thor Q. Mada

Tercel,

Science doesnn't prove things, and science contrary to what people think is not based on facts.
Science, and that is the beauty of it, offers only the best possible explanation based on observations or theoretical thinking.
This is time linked, as based on our knowledge at the moment the theory is put forward.
It is also subject to peer review, and you are allowed to put forward another contradicting theory without risking life or limb. Also, not agreeing with a scientific theory is not punishable with eternal damnation.
Religion is a dogma coming from the dark past and has virtually no possibility to change or adapt the theory to present times.
That is why it is doomed.

Cutter

If a person came before me and claimed to be God, I might be willing to believe them if they could:

A) Deposit $500 Billion into my account.

B) Procure for me a collection of classic Ferrari's. (Out of thin air I might add, i.e. POOF! there they are).

C) Could get me copies of every Dr Who episode (including the ones that no longer exist).

D) Could urinate Dom Perignon '54.

E) Could get Alyson Hannigan to give me a hummer.

Even then, how would I know that said person wasn't:

1) Extremely rich and well connected.

2) Good at tricks like Copperfield.

3) Have really weird, ahem, 'plumbing'.

Typhon

First if I may, let me state that I do not believe in any gods, let alone one with a capital "G." By this you likely mean the traditional Judeo-Christian god.

As an atheist, I lack any belief in gods, and in my case, in the supernatural. The reasons for this are manifold and more or less, as follows:

#5. A study of human history quickly reveals to the intelligent, unbiased observer, that ALL religion is a product of clear and obvious human invention. The world's catalog of faiths and their associated gods and/or systems of supernatural reality are the pure creation of man, to the one. While such belief systems say much about the people, the society, even the geography and time-period they were invented in, they say nothing about the real, underlying nature of the universe and/or of man and his place in it. Human beings are remarkable in they often are able to see this about the faith of their neighbors and/or ancestors, while at the same time, blind to the identical nature of the system they in turn follow, in their own societies and/or present.

#4. Few if any gods and/or faiths exist which are either logical, reasonable, or not self-contradictory. Their flawed nature and limited scope, reflect strongly their origins as human created and driven fictions, rather than the illuminated, so-called "perfect" truths concerning the universe as claimed by their followers.

#3. The psychology of humans is such, and now as well it would appear, the biology, that religion and faith in gods is not the product of some exterior force, but yet another natural expression of human traits.

#2. Observation of the universe, however imperfect, reveals again and again, a world that at least appears, to be purely the origin and depend on, naturalistic causes. Observation of the universe, never reveals a world that is the reverse, i.e. one driven by either supernatural forces and/or remote intelligent design.

#1. From the observed, naturalistic world, there arises no need whatsoever, of a god, gods, first cause, or intelligent designer. As there is neither need, nor evidence, it is entirely spurious to insert one in simply out of our need and/or misplaced desire.

The universe is no less magical, wondrous, vast, complex, and worthy of praise, simply because of its purposelessness and lack of supernatural character. As all religions are clearly the product of human artifice, as all gods in existence, as defined by their various followers, are imperfect, illogical, or impossible, as all evidence points towards an understandable, rational, observable, naturalistic universe, and finally, as there is no need for a god or gods outside our own highly suspect desires for one, there is in the end, no reasonable way to persist in the outdated belief in the supernatural EXCEPT for a blind ignorance of the facts and a stubborn persistence in biased and/or poor thinking.

I rank the lack of need (#1), as being an even more important element than the lack of evidence (#2), as evidence could be conceivably provided in a way that could cause many to falsely think they had been exposed to the supernatural (or aliens or telepathic powers or etc.) This is often seen, but never able to stand up to critical debunking, in our own history, but as the writer Arthur C. Clarke once remarked

A sufficiently high level of technology is indistinguishable from magic.

could, provided technology was far enough advanced, and the recipient unable to access that same level of technology to understand the process.

.T.

[ May 08, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

Thor Q. Mada

Typhon,

This was good.

Howay the Toon

2 things.

Firstly it is of course Karl Popper you are talking about unless there is a major philosopher named John Popper I haven't heard of.

Secondly Popper was adamant that his falsifiability criterion was not a theory of "meaning" but a demarcation which defined what could be regarded as scientific knowledge. He certainly did not regard anything outside that demarcation as "meaningless". That is where he fundamentally diverged from the Logical Positivists.

Having said that, I entirely agree that the idea of falsifiability as a criterion for knowledge to be an excellent and useful one.

Ron Singh

Karl Popper also concluded how theories must:

Show a universally consitant answer.
Should predict an previously unknown fact.

Ender

What are your thoughts on Popper's students, specifically that of Paul Feyerabend and Phillip Kitcher? ANd their thoughts on falsifiability?

~WiGGiN~

HRG

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tercel:
It's sound...? Are you serious?
It's self-defeating!
<strong>The claim itself is unfalsifiable and therefore meaningless according to itself.</strong>
The very statement of the claim is illogical: eqivalent to stating "this sentence is false".
[quote]

Not at all. The falsifiability criterion belongs to metalanguage (it is not applies to the real world, but to statements, theories etc. about the real world. It is therefore syntactically invalid to apply it to itself.

Regards,
HRG.

P.S. I have a certain sympathy for the rest of your post, although I would not join your stance in full.