(July 28, 2015 at 8:03 am)RobbyPants Wrote:(July 27, 2015 at 11:29 am)lkingpinl Wrote: 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?
I wouldn't think about it in terms of "need". I think a better way to phrase that is "science explains more about how the universe works and is better for making predictions about it than God is".
...
I don't think you have that quite right. It is not just that "science explains more about how the universe works and is better for making predictions about it than God is," it is that science actually provides some explanations and predictions, whereas God explains nothing.
Saying "God did it" is not an explanation; it is a pseudo explanation, a fake explanation, because it explains nothing at all. It is merely pretending to have an explanation. Take the rainbow, for example. Saying "God did it" does not explain it at all. One does not know anything more about a rainbow after hearing that than one knew before hearing it. Saying it is caused by the reflection and refraction of light on water droplets is giving an explanation for a rainbow. (For those wanting more details of that explanation, start here.)
This, by the way, is one of the ways that religion impedes knowledge, as it gives people a feeling of having an explanation when they don't have one, and if you already have an explanation, you don't need to look for an explanation.
We find this presently in the question of the origins of the universe (if it has an origin). People pretend that saying "God did it" gives an explanation, when it is no explanation at all.
So the theists who say that God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe are wrong. Not because it isn't "best," but because it explains nothing whatsoever. Just like the rainbow.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.