Has Science done away with a need for God?

[Alex K]

Richard Dawkins has also stated that one could make the argument that there appears to be design in the universe.  

I vividly recall a talk where Dawkins dissects the asshole who quote-mined him in order to put that in his mouth... Wasn't it Lennox who spread that lie?

[Esquilax]

Honest questions here guys, curious to know your opinions.  

1.  Do you believe that modern science has completely done away with a need for God as an explanation for the universe?  

The problem is that this question is malformed at every conceivable scale. As others have pointed out, there was never any need for god in the first place, as there's never a requirement to have a false answer to a question. Moreover, calling god an "explanation" for anything, let alone a big topic like reality itself, is a complete misnomer, as explanations generally need to, you know, explain a thing. God explains exactly no things: it provides no mechanism, does not expand our knowledge, and merely appeals to a larger mystery in order to explain the first one. When a theist posits god as an answer to a question, we are never told how that works, how it happened, just that it did happen, so there. Our knowledge of the issue we asked about is not enhanced, the thing we asked has not been answered, because the question is "how did the universe come about?" and answering "god created it," is a "what?" answer to a "how?" question. How did god create the universe? The christians are remarkably silent when actually asked to give a verifiable mechanism.

Besides, you can't appeal to a larger, more unknown and unverifiable concept and then call that a viable explanation. I shouldn't have to point that out.

2.  Does one need to choose between God and Science?

No, mostly because god is not actually a cogent option. When one of the proposed options cannot be demonstrated to exist, there is no choice at all.

[Minimalist]

Yes.  Science has put your god on the unemployment line.

Now, do something useful with your life aside from groveling to the non-existent.

[Esquilax]

I always found it fascinating when people bring up Voltaire and how his argument from design would not stand against today's modern scientific achievements but quite often people either forget and completely ignore modern atheists arguing and admitting the argument from design still stands.  Do we forget the most notorious atheist of the 20th century conversion to Deism, Antony Flew when he said:

You are aware that arguments from authority are fallacious, aren't you?

‘almost entirely because of the DNA investigations. What I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements to work together. It’s the enormous complexity of the number of elements and the enormous subtlety of the ways they work together. The meeting of these two parts at the right time by chance is simply minute. It is all a matter of the enormous complexity by which the results were achieved, which looked to me like the work of intelligence’ (p. 75)

...And it all turns out to be an argument from ignorance anyway: "I can't imagine how this could happen without design, therefore design." Oh well.

[Crossless2.0]

I always found it fascinating when people bring up Voltaire and how his argument from design would not stand against today's modern scientific achievements but quite often people either forget and completely ignore modern atheists arguing and admitting the argument from design still stands.  Do we forget the most notorious atheist of the 20th century conversion to Deism, Antony Flew when he said:

You are aware that arguments from authority are fallacious, aren't you?

‘almost entirely because of the DNA investigations. What I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements to work together. It’s the enormous complexity of the number of elements and the enormous subtlety of the ways they work together. The meeting of these two parts at the right time by chance is simply minute. It is all a matter of the enormous complexity by which the results were achieved, which looked to me like the work of intelligence’ (p. 75)

...And it all turns out to be an argument from ignorance anyway: "I can't imagine how this could happen without design, therefore design." Oh well.  

And so it goes . . . same as it ever was.  I don't understand the mentality that finds such arguments persuasive or even remotely satisfying.  I suppose it's an emotional need to have an answer -- any answer -- rather than simply admit ignorance.

[Kingpin]

Yea, great. So you have a designer. Who designed him? Why is it your god? Why is it a god at all? Why does this design look evolved?

You get too far ahead.  I asked the questions because I have seen far too many people saying that if one accepts there is a God then they must reject Science.  I don't find the two to be incompatible.  

People forget there is more than one method of explanation.  Science can give us the mechanics explanation, the "how" if you will, but it cannot answer the why.  Suppose I put it like this:

I present to you the internal combustion engine.  Now I give you two choices, the laws of thermodynamics and Henry Ford.  You need both.  Just because you can can explain how something works does not remove the need for the agent that made it work.  We can explain every single detail of an internal combustion engine, but that does not mean the intelligent mind of Henry Ford did not exist.  As a matter of fact it is because of the sheer complexity of that engine we must assume a mind behind it.    

I find it silly when people state the Laws of Science are explanations for the universe.  Laws do not create anything.  They only describe what normally happens and that what we can observe and test.  As C.S. Lewis put it, We know that 2+2=4 but the laws of arithmetic have never produced a single farthing.

[JesusHChrist]

Antony Flew is a philosopher and not qualified to talk about DNA, genetics or the "need" for a designer.

[Crossless2.0]

You are assuming that the internal combustion engine (or any humanly designed artifact) is relevantly analogous to the universe. You haven't even begun to justify that leap.

[downbeatplumb]

Honest questions here guys, curious to know your opinions.  

1.  Do you believe that modern science has completely done away with a need for God as an explanation for the universe?  

2.  Does one need to choose between God and Science?

There was a time when it was not unreasonable, given the knowledge of the age, to have a belief in god. A time when the supernatural was used to explain everything and attempts to influence the world by supernatural means were taken seriously, by this I mean things such as the tearing out of hearts by Aztec priests or chanting prayers like catholics.
Now however things are studied scientifically and so far nothing has needed a god or indeed any sort of supernatural agency to explain it.
Science has not "done away with need for god" because there was never a need in the first place.

Belief is not something you choose. I cannot choose to believe in god, I just don't and never have.

Oh and science works bitches.

[Brakeman]

Honest questions here guys, curious to know your opinions.  

1.  Do you believe that modern science has completely done away with a need for God as an explanation for the universe?  

2.  Does one need to choose between God and Science?

God is just a buzzword for "WOO WOo  MAGIC!" Take the magic away from god and there is nothing left
Science has shown that rain doesn't come by god opening windows above the firmament. Science has shown that cow's get their markings from DNA and not from stripped poles next to their feeding areas.
Magic doesn't answer any of our inquiring questions, it just stops the inquiry.

One needs to choose between god and reality.