Serious Problems with Atheism

[Magilla]

Oh, the site is probably blocking you as spam or something. An admin here can probably help you out with that.

Yeah I think they are working on it, hopefully this one will work; Thank you all for replies, Just a thought about what Science is Really about these days;

Professor of Genetics, Richard Lewontin wrote; “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant 

promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It

 is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori 

adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, 

that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”  Billions and Billions of Demons, The New York Review, 9 January, 1997, p. 31.

Is this an objective search for truth?

As others have said . . . the above is just an opinion, and I disagree with Lewontin. If there is a god, and that god has any influence in the world, then that influence can be investigated. The problem is that a god which operates outside of what we might call nature, is working supernaturally, and so it does not follow any necessary laws, rules or procedures etc. As mere humans we cannot set up experiments to determine what is going on, if the results are outside a certain remit, ie. if they do not fit into a set of rules of some sort.

But as I said, if there is a god, and that god has any influence in the world, then that influence can be investigated. So for example, we can investigate the efficacy of prayer, using scientific study. Such studies have been done, and prayer has been found to be unreliable in the promotion of the curing of cancer patients. I believe that prayer may have some positive effects in peoples' lives, but such effects may be entirely placebo. If there really were prayers, answered by some god, using powers outside of nature, then that would be operating outside of any set of rules, laws, etc. which science could uncover and put to paper. But first, we would need to set up an experiment to show that there is some outcome from praying, an outcome which is set in motion by prayer, which could be demonstrated to be other than placebo in its effect, or not just some natural effect which we have not yet understood.

I do not view that as being a failure to search for an objective truth, as far as we are able. Merely inserting a god or some explanation outside of natural or material causes seems much more like a failure to search for truth, but rather an insertion of some unknowable, untestable speculation. Such an insertion does not derive any real knowledge IMHO !

So science does not in fact rule out explanations other than the material, but when put to the test, effects outside of the material have not been detected, nor been necessary. Furthermore, where in the past a god had to be invoked to explain phenomena, science has removed the need for that hypothesis in most cases.