(May 15, 2023 at 1:50 pm)Kingpin Wrote:(May 15, 2023 at 11:08 am)Angrboda Wrote: I find that when most people suggest that science supports the existence of God, a prime mover, etc, it's because they don't know what they're talking about, often from having been misled by theologists like William Lane Craig who is well-known for serially misrepresenting both science and mathematics. When you listen to motivated reasoners like Craig, you get what you deserve, which is a worldview that rests on bullshit and misinformation.
I'm not a big fan of Craig personally as I find his arguments to be a bit convoluted. I find no qualms between being a scientist and a theist. Some very well respected scientists are believers and a great deal of the founders of modern science (Newton, Kepler, Capernicus, Maxwell etc) were as well, but of course the argument there was how little they knew compared to what we know today (which I don't personally agree with). Newton's Principia Mathematica was written "in hopes that one may believe". Take Peter Higgs of Scotland and William Phillips of USA. Both won the Nobel prize for Physics, one an atheist, the other a theist. Their science doesn't separate them, but their worldview does.
The percentage of scientists that believe in a god has continually decreased over time.
As far as Newton, Kepler, Capernicus, Maxwell go, it's not just a matter of increased knowledge over time. It is also the culture they grew up in. In the 16th century, even publicly questioning Christianity, might have got one executed. We all know what happened to Galileo.
Also, I am not sure how much you really want to rely on Newton for credibility on the god question. He believed in Alchemy (in fact, he wrote much more on alchemy than math and science), and some other occult beliefs.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
