(January 4, 2013 at 11:00 am)Mister Agenda Wrote:(January 3, 2013 at 5:32 pm)Mark 13:13 Wrote: Well I got lost in your words if I read them wrong then sry but so I can be clear before I answer are you saying that GOD can only exist if he can be defined properly ? or if scientific theory accepts him ? what exactly are you saying.
Fair enough. I am saying you're not saying anything when you say a God that hasn't been defined, exists. You could be using such a loose definition that I would agree that what you've defined, exists, even though I might think it's meaningless to call it God, like 'whatever started the universe, even if it was a quantum fluctuation'.
A hypothesis (God exists) can only be part of a theory if there's a way it could be disproven. Most versions of God are unfalsifiable by definition (like he transcends the universe and doesn't want to be detected anyway, and you can't detect an omnipotent being who doesn't want to be detected).
What I am saying is that a God who can't be falsified cannot be a part of a scientific theory, even if it exists. It's like putting 'and then a miracle happens' in the middle of an equation. It doesn't mean you've got a sound equation, it means you don't understand how to get from the first part of the equation to the last part. The equation isn't solved until you can replace 'and then a miracle happened' with math.
Now a God with a definition that CAN be falsified can be proposed as a scientific explanation, for instance 'Thor is responsible for all electrical activity and won't permit electrical activity where his name is blasphemed'. Now you've got an experiment that can be performed. Of course, a faithful Thorist will throw out the testable part when it turns out electricity works just fine no matter how much you blaspheme Thor; but at least it was a testable hypothesis, and if it turned out you can disrupt electrical activity by blaspheming Thor, but not Zeus or Yahweh, the Thor hypothesis might become a part of a scientific theory.
You are correct and this is the great stumbling block when science meets religion. The definition of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God is in essense that GOD is Trancendant and by very nature indefinable which is why despite the obvious and understandable frustration of those who want to use science theory to apply to GOD it can just be applied to His creations and any miracles that can be attributed to him or any event or person where God reveals something of Himself through, and of course a miracle is only defined a miracle if a natural cause cannot be found, and again I understand the frustration of those who think disproving a claimed miracle will work to change Theists when the Theist responds well so what it obviously wasn't a miracle then.
Of course there are plenty of people who could live out their lives with the working knowledge that the Answer to Life,The Universe and Everything is 42. Others that the answer is to be found in the Cosmos and yet others that there is something beyond the Cosmos. Who can say that those that settle for 42 and get on with it are wrong to do so.
