(June 23, 2015 at 9:28 am)Drich Wrote: Why can't 'science' be the how God does what He does, rather than the so called 'proof' their is no God?Science simply is a way to try to understand how things work. Science does not prove or disprove god at any point, because that is not its aim. If scientific research into a particular phenomena were to turn up god as the answer, then that is the answer. They may continue to research that phenomena because that's how we further our knowledge and understanding. But there is no reason that science could not show god as the answer to any particular question. The fact that it has not done so (in spite of so many scientists being believers throughout the centuries) is very telling in itself, but it is not a failing of science. Nor is it due to science trying to disprove god.
Drich Wrote:So if this is the case why would God create a universe that He has to move or circumvent the natural laws inorder to make something happen.That seems like a question for a theist to contemplate, not a scientist. Once we place god outside of the natural world, any attributes can be assigned to him. He can be outside of space and time. He can be powerful enough to create a massive and expansive universe and write its laws while not being subject to them. He can violate those laws at will with only the specific consequences he desires. And if we are stumped by what seems to be an illogical conclusion, we simply admit that his ways are a mystery to us.
What can we do with such a being? There literally are no rules that we can apply to it, so that we can determine that it should do one thing or another, or that anything we discover is or isn't proof of his existence. Science can only continue to learn about the things we can actually study. And if god never shows up during that journey, we must reach a conclusion. Some of us decide that it means he isn't there. Some of us decide that he's there, but can't be seen via conventional means because of what I described in the previous paragraph. Which of those seems more reasonable?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
