(July 9, 2017 at 1:17 pm)Astonished Wrote:(July 9, 2017 at 12:45 pm)mordant Wrote: That which cannot be verified cannot be usefully discussed as it hasn't exited the realm of hearsay and speculation. It's not irrelevant, as it might be worth pursuing further study of to gain more facts, but in the meantime, it's not actionable, either. For example, we don't know what dark matter is or even if it exists for sure. It's a hypothesis at this point, we have some evidence pointing to it, some against. It's not irrelevant, in fact it's a subject of keen interest, but we are reduced to speculation (educated or otherwise) until we know more.
Dark matter is an example where you at least have a falsifiable, scientifically valid hypothesis to work with and test. Invisible beings and realms / the spiritual / the supernatural are all unfalsifiable concepts that no one can make credible knowledge claims for or against. They are just asserted without evidence, and so are dismissible without evidence.
I should have clarified, that primarily applies to those things which people define as specifically being 'forever' outside the reach of science. You know, the pathetic dodge to ensure that science can never disprove god even if a means to do so someday presents itself, depending on definitions. Gotta love religious wordplay, so their tap-dance becomes a sing-along too.
I do not think it's any sort of dodge, much less a pathetic one, to say that unfalsifiable propositions like invisible beings and realms can never by falsified or proven. For that to happen would not depend on new scientific methods, it would depend on restating the hypothesis in a scientifically valid / falsifiable manner. If god for example cannot be detected because he's outside of nature, then no being or device in the whole universe can in any way "see" a thing that's not in that universe. By definition. The definition is what's lacking, not the methodology.
This gets into the whole problem that "the supernatural" is a useless concept. Gods and heaven and hell and spirits and the like are just asserted without evidence, which is bad enough ... but then the evidence is made permanently unobtainable by placing it outside the universe / existence itself. Since the universe, by definition, is "everything that exists" this is a logically fallacious concept anyway.
You say science might "prove god" "depending on definitions". My definition for god is an all powerful intentional agent that is responsible for the creation and maintenance of existence, but which is not detectable by any of our senses or instrumentation. This definition covers most god concepts, except that deists might say god no longer maintains existence; that and other god-concepts are non-interventionist at least in the present. The absent watchmaker. Since absent, indifferent and non-existent gods are for all practical purposes the same thing to a potential believer, I leave those aside and stick to the more typical / common definition for a deity. My definition leaves open the question of HOW interventionist the deity is; most people think the deity cares about us and makes claims / demands on us, and rewards / punishes us, but I don't see those as inherent to the concept.
If one defines a deity as just an extremely powerful intentional agent, sufficiently more powerful than a human to seem "god-like", I don't think that counts. A highly technologically advanced alien could "seem god-like"; that wouldn't be a god per my definition. Similarly a god that is detectable or measurable by some natural faculty, sense or instrument, would not qualify. That, too, would just be a very powerful being, different from us only in degree.
A common gambit of more new-age / mystical types of believers is to redefine existing and adequately defined and commonly understood terms such as "universe", "existence", "reality", "all that is", "life", "nature" etc. as divine and call that god and declare it proven. "Here's the universe, therefore, god". But these are just semantic games. Just because something is vast, impressive, unspeakably ancient, or super-pervasive and encompassing, does not make it to be an intentional agent that created and sustains existence, much less that makes claims / demands on us or sets rules for us, or cares about our sex life or what we eat for breakfast. It's also generally advanced via various composition fallacies (an example of faulty reasoning being that the universe contains beings who ARE conscious, therefore it HAS consciousness).
