My apologies, i assumed you were a believer of one faith or another. You know. On account that you’re all over this post defending it.
While you are correct to say that in a formal argument, there is no more (or less,) evidence for either position, we are in a not-formal setting.
Further it’s is entirely reasonable to say that the absolute lack of tangible evidence that such a being exists- despite billions of people looking for such a being today, suggests such a being does not exist.
That is, it is reasonable to say that the lack of evidence is, itself, evidence that a thing does not exist. It is not absolute proof- the universe doesn’t work that away- but it is evidence of non-existence.
In all fairness, my initial comment was that there’s room for both god and science, but rejecting scientific evidence in favor of god was willful ignorance. A commenter challenged my “room for god” point, so we had a debate.
As someone who is very scientific in my understanding of the world around me, I take offense to people leveraging science against the intangible. Can I use a logic proof to defeat the claim that god is both all powerful and all good? Absofuckinlutely, but logic isn’t science. Logic is used to create a hypothesis, and then we repeatedly test said hypothesis under controlled conditions.
Science has not provided sufficient explanation or evidence supporting a creation without interference. I will defend the scientific room for a creator, regardless of my personal opinion, until we have a better understanding of creation. Who knows what we’ll learn from the JWST in the next decade. It’s already reshaped so many theories.
Stephen Hawkings had an interesting perspective regarding the creation of our universe. When people ponder our universe’s creation, they ask questions like “what caused the big bang?” or “what caused the universe to exist?”. Hawkings would have responded with the sentiment that these kind of questions were pointless. When one asks such a question regarding cause/effect, this presupposes the existence of a timeline. Cause and effect explanations have no merit without time; therefore to ask what caused the creation of the universe is silly, because time did not exist which means the notion of cause/effect would not have existed either.
Nevertheless, I think a lot of the folks commenting here have a problematic understanding of science, which is resulting in them agreeing with the toxic meme. Science and Religion don’t compete because they are fundamentally different in the way they approach understanding the universe. Religions relies on “truths” whereas science relies on “models”. There are no scientific facts or truths, there are only models that can accurately predict things we observe.
For example, the atomic model (atoms, +ions, - ions) can accurately predict a lot of different phenomena in our universe (electrical phenomena, chemical reactions, thermal phenomena, etc). Nevertheless, no good scientist should confidently tell you that atoms actually exist in reality. The atom is a model that functions well in explaining our universe, but that doesn’t mean it is “The Correct Model”.
Well said. Also, science is best used addressing repeatable phenomena. Determining the mechanics of a singular event is very challenging, even with observations. Science can not be used in speculation. What they’re using is logic, which is inherently flawed and the reason we use the scientific method.
lack of evidence is, itself, evidence that a thing does not exist.
That’s not correct. However if we continually fail to find any evidence for its existence or any way it interacts or effects our reality, we can safely act as though it does not exist since it won’t change things at all. There could be a divine being out there, but until we have evidence that it interacts with our reality in some way, we can put it aside and go on with our lives.
It does not change the truth of whether it actually exists somewhere or not.
Lets use a different example. Clinical drug trials.
By your logic, we can never know if drugs are in fact safe, because we can’t prove they’ll never have ill effects. Can’t prove a negative, after all. Which is logically incorrect. We can prove their safe by running clinical drug trials in controlled settings. You know how all that goes. You give rats or whatever drugs and see if they die. if they don’t you see if they tolerate it well. when they do, you give it to humans, eventually, and see if they die, and if they tolerate it well.
You do this enough and you can say the drug is in fact safe. The absence of evidence that the drugs are harmful, is evidence that they are not harmful.
This is true because, presumably, it’s extremely well and extensively studied. Rational people will look at the studies and agree: the drugs are reasonably safe to use under those guidelines.
the existence of god has been studied extensively. It follows then, the lack of tangible evidence is itself evidence of absence.
Not a theist, so I’m not defending the potential existence of “my god”.
Lack of evidence, however, doesn’t always mean something doesn’t exist or hasn’t happened. If John killed Jake and destroyed or hid the evidence, and based on that wasn’t found guilty, that doesn’t mean that he didn’t do it. It simply means no substantial evidence has been found to prove it (yet).
If you want to take your example further, it’s quite possible to find out years or decades later that drug is in fact harmful, it just took time for the side-effects to show, or rather we simply didn’t have the right technology to come to that conclusion earlier. (Though far less likely for this scenario to happen with modern science.)
Also, the existence of science or established set of natural laws, and absence of supernatural does not rule out existence of an uninvolved or uncaring creator.
By your logic, we can never know if drugs are in fact safe, because we can’t prove they’ll never have ill effects. Can’t prove a negative, after all.
Yes, that’s exactly right. You can not prove that a drug is completely safe under all conditions because it’s impossible to test it under all conditions.
You do this enough and you can say the drug is in fact safe
“Safe” in this case does not mean a guarantee. You can say that the drug is safe enough for use. You can’t guarantee 100% safety, but you can say that the benefits greatly outweigh the risks. Vaccines are safe because the good they do overwhelms the dangers. However it dies not guarantee no side effects.
My apologies, i assumed you were a believer of one faith or another. You know. On account that you’re all over this post defending it.
While you are correct to say that in a formal argument, there is no more (or less,) evidence for either position, we are in a not-formal setting.
Further it’s is entirely reasonable to say that the absolute lack of tangible evidence that such a being exists- despite billions of people looking for such a being today, suggests such a being does not exist.
That is, it is reasonable to say that the lack of evidence is, itself, evidence that a thing does not exist. It is not absolute proof- the universe doesn’t work that away- but it is evidence of non-existence.
100% disagree.
In all fairness, my initial comment was that there’s room for both god and science, but rejecting scientific evidence in favor of god was willful ignorance. A commenter challenged my “room for god” point, so we had a debate.
As someone who is very scientific in my understanding of the world around me, I take offense to people leveraging science against the intangible. Can I use a logic proof to defeat the claim that god is both all powerful and all good? Absofuckinlutely, but logic isn’t science. Logic is used to create a hypothesis, and then we repeatedly test said hypothesis under controlled conditions.
Science has not provided sufficient explanation or evidence supporting a creation without interference. I will defend the scientific room for a creator, regardless of my personal opinion, until we have a better understanding of creation. Who knows what we’ll learn from the JWST in the next decade. It’s already reshaped so many theories.
Stephen Hawkings had an interesting perspective regarding the creation of our universe. When people ponder our universe’s creation, they ask questions like “what caused the big bang?” or “what caused the universe to exist?”. Hawkings would have responded with the sentiment that these kind of questions were pointless. When one asks such a question regarding cause/effect, this presupposes the existence of a timeline. Cause and effect explanations have no merit without time; therefore to ask what caused the creation of the universe is silly, because time did not exist which means the notion of cause/effect would not have existed either.
Nevertheless, I think a lot of the folks commenting here have a problematic understanding of science, which is resulting in them agreeing with the toxic meme. Science and Religion don’t compete because they are fundamentally different in the way they approach understanding the universe. Religions relies on “truths” whereas science relies on “models”. There are no scientific facts or truths, there are only models that can accurately predict things we observe.
For example, the atomic model (atoms, +ions, - ions) can accurately predict a lot of different phenomena in our universe (electrical phenomena, chemical reactions, thermal phenomena, etc). Nevertheless, no good scientist should confidently tell you that atoms actually exist in reality. The atom is a model that functions well in explaining our universe, but that doesn’t mean it is “The Correct Model”.
Well said. Also, science is best used addressing repeatable phenomena. Determining the mechanics of a singular event is very challenging, even with observations. Science can not be used in speculation. What they’re using is logic, which is inherently flawed and the reason we use the scientific method.
That’s not correct. However if we continually fail to find any evidence for its existence or any way it interacts or effects our reality, we can safely act as though it does not exist since it won’t change things at all. There could be a divine being out there, but until we have evidence that it interacts with our reality in some way, we can put it aside and go on with our lives.
It does not change the truth of whether it actually exists somewhere or not.
This is amusing.
Lets use a different example. Clinical drug trials.
By your logic, we can never know if drugs are in fact safe, because we can’t prove they’ll never have ill effects. Can’t prove a negative, after all. Which is logically incorrect. We can prove their safe by running clinical drug trials in controlled settings. You know how all that goes. You give rats or whatever drugs and see if they die. if they don’t you see if they tolerate it well. when they do, you give it to humans, eventually, and see if they die, and if they tolerate it well.
You do this enough and you can say the drug is in fact safe. The absence of evidence that the drugs are harmful, is evidence that they are not harmful.
This is true because, presumably, it’s extremely well and extensively studied. Rational people will look at the studies and agree: the drugs are reasonably safe to use under those guidelines.
the existence of god has been studied extensively. It follows then, the lack of tangible evidence is itself evidence of absence.
Not a theist, so I’m not defending the potential existence of “my god”.
Lack of evidence, however, doesn’t always mean something doesn’t exist or hasn’t happened. If John killed Jake and destroyed or hid the evidence, and based on that wasn’t found guilty, that doesn’t mean that he didn’t do it. It simply means no substantial evidence has been found to prove it (yet).
If you want to take your example further, it’s quite possible to find out years or decades later that drug is in fact harmful, it just took time for the side-effects to show, or rather we simply didn’t have the right technology to come to that conclusion earlier. (Though far less likely for this scenario to happen with modern science.)
Also, the existence of science or established set of natural laws, and absence of supernatural does not rule out existence of an uninvolved or uncaring creator.
And isn’t that exactly what I’m saying about god’s existence?
That it isn’t definite or absolute proof, but it is evidence?
Yes, that’s exactly right. You can not prove that a drug is completely safe under all conditions because it’s impossible to test it under all conditions.
“Safe” in this case does not mean a guarantee. You can say that the drug is safe enough for use. You can’t guarantee 100% safety, but you can say that the benefits greatly outweigh the risks. Vaccines are safe because the good they do overwhelms the dangers. However it dies not guarantee no side effects.