Questions about God and Science

[Cyberman]

I'd like to ask a question. Not challenge, but question.

Scientists believe in all manner of entities that cannot be directly perceived: protons, electrons, quarks, bosons, black holes, nuclear forces, etc. They believe in these things because they help them understand natural phenomenon which they do perceive. Correct?

But God isn't one of those things that scientists can believe in because... why?

Is it that God doesn't help them understand anything that they're perceiving? What are the respective intellectual advantages and disadvantages of believing in things like protons versus believing in god, or gods or intelligent design or a universal intelligence or something like that?

I've tried to find good essays on this on the internet, but I've been unsuccessful. If someone can point me to good references that clearly answer these questions, that would also be helpful.

Thank you.

I can definitely see the source of your confusion, if such it is and not merely a straw grasped to enable a preaching opportunity (but you wouldn't do that, would you?)

The problem is one of mismatched definitions. You are conflating the interpretations of both the noun "belief" and the verb "to believe", plus conjugations thereof. When a believer in mysticism speaks of their belief, they invariably mean faith without evidence; indeed, the less evidence the better, since that only strengthens faith. However, a less specialised usage of the term "belief" is a general acknowledgement and awareness of some aspect of the world, be it that gravity causes objects to fall to the ground or that the world rotates about an axis such that the Sun appears to rise and set every day. These things may be invisible to the eye but they are not undetectable in the way that gods and related mystical concepts are by definition.

So in application to your examples, you are correct that we cannot "see" protons, electrons, quarks, bosons, black holes or nuclear forces with our eyes. However, these things can be and are detected on a daily basis by those working in such fields. For instance: we know there is a super-massive black hole at the centre of our Galaxy (and this is so far from being unique in the Universe as to be diametrically opposed). We cannot see Sagittariuis A* (pronounced A-Star), as it's known, but that does not mean that scientists have to believe in its existence to make their theories work. Sag A*'s gravity affects objects in its neighbourhood:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-BM5_JyTeYrel=0

(Reference here). That such observations are necessarily indirect by their very nature is immaterial, and a far cry indeed from the claim that scientists just believe in these things because they have to otherwise the science stops working.

Now all you have to do is demonstrate the same level of observational evidence for a god, indirect or otherwise. In other words, show that a god has any effect at all on the Universe, however slight. And just to forestall a common creationist card from being played, it's no use appealing to the god-thing's ability to exist apart from the Universe, or to be of the Universe rather than in it. That boat has already sailed and been torpedoed... there were no survivors.

[Material added with edit.]