Any Atheist here in DW?

[MooGeek]

Before anything else, I would like to remind everybody that I am not here for a debate. The mere purpose of this is for me to know different beliefs of people around the globe. Specially for people from IT community.

So my question is, If you're an Atheist, would you believe in what science define as God?

PS: The God I am talking about is a God who's God of spinoza, Just a Creator. or the point of singularity, where all the things we know came from. It does not care, does not love, can just be a "Thing".

[GrimJack]

I am an athiest (this should come as no surprise to anyone who has been here for awhile). As far as I can tell, Spinoza's god was nature; that god can't be something outside of nature. Attributing anything that we recognize is just anthropomorphism; Spinoza dismisses the world view of the 'standard' Judeo-Christian as mere prejudice and superstition.

So what is it you want to talk about.

[Ancient Dragon]

I'm Christian, but I don't believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. Instead I believe that the Bible was written in terms that the people at the time of its writing could understand and their understanding of the world around them. Since they had no knowledge of the Americas the great flood of Noah's time was probably localized to his area of the world. To my knowledge (which is very limited) there is no evidence of such a great flood on this continent.

[MooGeek]

@GrimJack So do you believe in God of Spinoza? What I'm pointing here is do you believe that all of these came from something regardless of what kind. As for all the mathematical equations points out that you cannot conclude an equation if all the values are null or has no value at all. That is the point of singularity.

@Ancient Dragon I am also a Christian. But just like you I don't believe in the literal interpretation of the bible. What I believe is Science and Religion are different but collaborate with one another(like Yin and Yang). And I also believe that Science alone can prove the existence of a God. Religion tells us what kind of God is that.

[mike_2000_17]

I'm an atheist, and have always been. My mother was born a catholic but was pushed away from it due to the horrible and discusting actions of the catholic church in the 50s, 60s and 70s, and once she left and stop being reinforced in the belief in God, the belief just disappears. My father was born into a very religious lutheran family, but he went on to study philosophy / sociology / psychology at the university level and soon realized that secular morality, ethics and humanism completely dwarf any moral "teachings" of the bible or any other ancient dogma, and once "religion as a source of morality" was clearly refuted (making God pretty much useless in human affairs) there was no point for him to stay in any such sectarian organisation. Personally, I've got the whole package: agnostic, atheist, and anti-theist.

Spinoza's God is not a literal one in any meaningful sense. In his philosophy of ethics, he used this term to appeal to a transcendental magnificence of the Universe. So, I guess that "believing in Spinoza's God" is really a question of whether one believes the universe to be transcendentally magnificent. From a philosophical stand-point it might be a comforting thought, but I don't see much purpose for this, even if it were true (no afterlife, no answering of prayers, no destiny for individuals (just for the cosmos), etc., it's not because there is somekind of order or plan to the universe that you are necessarily an important or meaningful part of it). From a realistic stand-point, there is no evidence that the universe has any purpose or transcendental meaning, it is unlikely that there will ever be any such proof (that's why it's called "transcendental", as in, not part of observable reality). For me to even consider believing in such a thing, the claim has to be falsifiable somehow, in this case it is not; you could not say "if the universe has some transcendental purpose, then we should expect to see X, and if we observe NOT X, then it means the claim is false". The main activity in science is to come up with such falsifiability tests for a theory and then get busy experimenting to see if the theory stands up to all this testing (e.g. general relativity predicts that light will be bent around large bodies, so we should expect to see a lensing effect around large cosmic bodies, and now we have observed thousands of examples of that, each time failing to disprove the theory of general relativity). The main activity of religion is to blur the edges of reality by constantly dodging falsifiability in every claim (e.g. "God works in mysterious ways" meaning that any evidence that seem to disprove God or to show no observable effect of "His presence", that is just God doing something mysterious that we cannot detect or understand, again, just dodging falsifiability).

As for the bible and most other religions, if you were never told repeatedly as a child that these things were true (e.g. Noah's flood), then I can tell you by experience that when you read them, you find them no more believable or better than other similar tales, legends and myths of the past like the Arabian nights or Homer's Odyssey. In fact, they are so similar from a literary stand-point that the bible or quran can only be put in the same category of myths of antiquity by any objective reader (and most serious scholars do so). And historically, of course, except for a few factual historical references here and there in the bible, very little of it is believable as literal events, and to not recognize that they are allegorical tales is to miss the point of the stories! Just as ridiculous as trying to prove that carpets can fly as if that was the most important truth to get out of the tales of the 1001 nights. All evidence points to the fact that most religious texts are no more than either fictional work or wild extrapolations of true events that marked a generation of people some time in the past (e.g. Noah's flood as a local event, parted Red sea as just an unusually low tide, the 10 plagues as a sudden ecological chain reaction (and similar occurrences have occurred in the past), etc.), to think that there is any truth to the supernatural or miraculous claims is ludacrous, at least, in this day and age.

So do you believe in God of Spinoza? What I'm pointing here is do you believe that all of these came from something regardless of what kind.

As I already pointed out, the God of Spinoza is not a "prime mover" or "first cause" God like you seem to imply. God of Spinoza is "pantheistic", meaning something like "the entire universe is God", it's no more than a philosophical equivication of "nature" and "God", in fact Spinoza uses those terms interchangeably. What you are describing is the prime mover, which is the "deistic" argument. A deist argues that there is a God that ignited the initial spark that created the universe (figuratively, of course) and after that, He sits back and watches completely passively without ever intervening in the natural world again, and not really being able to do so. Again, the problem with this is falsifiability, not to mention that it argues from ignorance. We don't know (and currently have no means to observe) what happened before the last scattering surface after the Big Bang, and modern deists argue that because we don't know then it must be God, and because we cannot know (at least, not yet) we cannot disprove their claim, how convenient, isn't it? The truth is, that claim is meaningless, whether there has to be prime mover or not, what difference does it make if there is nothing more you can claim about that "God". Last thing, don't serve me those first cause arguments or Kalam cosmological arguments, these arguments are just insulting to the human intellect.

As for all the mathematical equations points out that you cannot conclude an equation if all the values are null or has no value at all. That is the point of singularity.

Being well versed in mathematics, I can tell you that singularities are extremely common and they are usually the result of using the wrong method, making the wrong assumptions or using an incomplete model. They are not some big scary thing that might indicate that there must be something exceptional happening that would explain such a singular-looking event. On the contrary, singularities are commonly encountered and they are an indication that something is missing from our model (a refinement of some kind). The fact that there is a singularity in the models when applied to the center of a black hole or the state of the universe at the Big Bang doesn't have any theological significance at all, it just means we still have a few things to learn about that environment. It drives many scientists to want to discover that missing piece. Ironically, it also drives many deists to say, "let's look no further we've found God". This is an obscene perversion of science.

What I believe is Science and Religion are different but collaborate with one another(like Yin and Yang).

I believe that Science and Religion are completely opposed to each other. They can, at times, coexist peacefully. When religion was strong, science was extremely limited, limited to the few activities that didn't threaten the beliefs (like developing weapons to kill people, religious organizations always seem to be in favor of that). When science was strong, religion was weak (e.g. ancient Greece, Islam's golden age, the Enlightenment, etc.). The ultimate mission of science is to discover all things about the natural world, allowing us to live in a predictable environment that we can modify to improve our quality of life. Science deals in knowledge and a constant increase of it. Religion deals in mystery, mysticism, the transcendant, spirits, etc., which are all completely contrary and adverse to knowledge. As long as both don't make claims about the same subjects, they can co-exist (within an individual or within a society). But anytime that they have mutually exclusive claims, science trumps religion every time, because science provides evidence and predictive power (together, they are called "knowledge"), while religious claims always present themselves holding an empty sack.

And I also believe that Science alone can prove the existence of a God. Religion tells us what kind of God is that.

From my perspective, science must allow the possibility of a God existing (however small), but science cannot give any proof / disproof for unfalsifiable claims and believers in God have yet to produce even a single falsifiability test. Religion dreams up a God into existence and asks you to dedicate your life to that imaginary fantasy.

That was my point of view on that subject! I don't want to start a big argument either, but you asked for my point of view, and I gave it, in the most respectable manner I could.

[almostbob]

I din't have a magic invisible friend who lives in the sky and grants wishes.
I cannot conceive of a possible reality where a magic invisible friend lives in the sky and grants wishes
I cannot convieive a reality where multiple magic invisible friends live in the sky grant wishes, and tell their corporeal friends to kill each other.
Religion, cult, insanity, are synonymic

I'm an atheist and like the statement, 'If God doesn't exist then man would need to invent him' (paraphrased). I think that many/most humans need that crutch. The belief in a supreme entity is difficult for me to judge as I was brought up in the Welsh Independent Chapel. It was part of the culture - everybody attended a chapel or church (my piddling little village has 6 chapels - 4 Independent, 1 Methodist, 1 Baptist and a Church in Wales [Anglican] and a Roman Catholic Church). Just because you attended a place of worship didn't make you a believer. I think that's been true for a long time, just that very few have had the courage to say so. I have a hankering after the old chapels, but I'm also pleased that they're dying out. Confused? No = no God for me, but the benefits of small time religion to the masses has been considerable.

[Ancient Dragon]

Just because you attended a place of worship didn't make you a believer

Not far from where I live, out in the countryside, next to a church is a tavern (pub). I always thought that was amusing, go to the pub on Saturday night to get drunk then go to church the next morning.

Where do you see that science and religion, at least Christianity, can not always peacefully co-exist? There are only two things in the Bible that I think science has not and can not prove or disprove: (1) the existance of God, and (2) that God created the universe. The Bible just simply states that He created the universe, it says nothing about how He did it. Science has been trying to determine that for the last 2,000 or so years and has yet to figure it all out. I don't believe any more than anyone else that God played magician and said "Abracadabr", snapped his fingures, and poof! the universe was created. On the otherhand, according to astrologers in tv documdentaries I've seen the universe was created by the Big Bang theory and very very quickly. It went from something smaller than a molicule to an entire universe with a very short period of time.

Not far from where I live, out in the countryside, next to a church is a tavern (pub). I always thought that was amusing, go to the pub on Saturday night to get drunk then go to church the next morning.

Spot on. It used to be rugby in the afternoon (Sat), followed by a belly-full of beer, followed by a whole day of remorse on Sunday - chapel being where you did your pennance. After the 400th hymn, you felt a lot better. Fit enough to go to the rugby club for a 'livener' before Sunday lunch with the family. :)

I used to be a Dawkins nut. Thinking that every adult believer was some flavour of feeble-minded sheep. Now I don't know. Science can't prove or disprove the existence of (a) God. Why should it try? Science vs. Religion seems to be a non-starter for me these days. I just don't see why they have to be mutually exclusive. I'm a science teacher and a few of my colleagues are deeply religious (physics dept). You wonder, how can you reconcile Creation with the Big Bang and Evolution? One said that all putative explanations, scientific or religious, for our existence and surroundings are incomplete or poorly understood, and may always be so.

Then one said, 'you can have your own opinions, but not your own facts'. Her opinion was that God brought the Universe and thereby all living things into being, but the meachnanism by which these occurred were not known to her and may well be concordant with present scientific findings. Convenient? Maybe, but who are we atheists to disparage a religion? Unless certain movements wish to propagate bad science (e.g. Intelligent Design), or stifle the human rights of specific minorities in society (e.g. gay community) perhaps we should allow them their beliefs?

[mike_2000_17]

Science can't prove or disprove the existence of (a) God. Why should it try?

It doesn't, never has, the starting point for scientific inquery is an observable phenomenon, if there is ever an observable phenomenon that would seriously indicate the presence of a God, scientists would investigate it, so far they never had to, for obvious reasons. Science has never said much about the existence of God except repeatingly telling those who claim his existence: "Sorry, I don't believe you, come back when you have evidence for your claims.". To me, science is a filtering method to get to the truth (in whatever realm, from physics to sociology) making sure that claims have reliable evidence to justify them before they are accepted. Organized religions have historically hated science because (1) religions know that their claims can't pass that filter and never will (because the nature of their claims prohibits or avoids falsifiability), and because (2) science keeps exposing them for the fraud that they are. But don't get me wrong, people are totally free to be part of or adopt whatever non-sense fraudulent organisation or belief system they want, that's none of my business, but I can surely try to convince them otherwise.

Unless certain movements wish to propagate bad science (e.g. Intelligent Design), or stifle the human rights of specific minorities in society (e.g. gay community) perhaps we should allow them their beliefs?

Right on. That's exactly what I meant by "As long as both don't make claims about the same subjects, they can co-exist (within an individual or within a society). But anytime that they have mutually exclusive claims, science trumps religion every time.". That includes, of course, claims affecting human rights issues and morality (humanities are fields of science! .. for those who tend to forget that). That's basically the definition of securalism, private beliefs and worship within communities is totally fine, but as far as laws, policies and educational contents are concerned, religious arguments do not have their place. For the same reason that the famous "God told me to kill my family" defense can't hold up in court, or why churches are require to have lightning rods on their steeples, because everyone knows that hundreds of people praying with a preast is no protection against lightning, and that it is infinitely more likely that someone is either crazy, delusional or just lying than he's actually holding a conversation with God. What baffles me is how so many people can agree with those last two points without realizing that it completely negates their religious beliefs in so many ways.

Now, just a few nerdy science facts to correct, AD:

On the otherhand, according to astrologers in tv documdentaries I've seen the universe was created by the Big Bang theory and very very quickly. It went from something smaller than a molicule to an entire universe with a very short period of time.

ASTRONOMERS! Please make an effort not to mistakenly say astrologers when you mean astronomers, astrologers are a fraud, big time. Astronomers are serious scientists (of the oldest kind, too!), so it's almost defamatory to call them astrologers. The "Big Bang theory" is a TV show (and a pretty good one too), not a scientific theory. The theory of general relativity (the same that makes the GPS system work and the nuclear power plants work) combined with all the astronomical observations of the past several decades indicate that our universe has expanded out of a single point about 13.8 billion years ago, that event is called the Big Bang, it isn't a theory, it's an observed fact (if you accept general relativity, which is pretty much in your face every day, so it would be hard to deny it). As for the "smaller than a molecule" and "a very short period of time", well the former is speculative imagery for the amazement of children nothing more, and the latter is very relative given that "time" in any traditional sense doesn't really make sense at that scale (if time-space is relative to the propagation of light, what do these things mean where light can't exist?).

[Ancient Dragon]

ASTRONOMERS!

Yes, that's what I meant :)

, that event is called the Big Bang, it isn't a theory,

Ok, your the scientist -- prove it. Has anyone been able to see it with their own eyes? Its as much a "theory" as Creationism. I'm not saying Big Bang will never be proven, but it hasn't yet.

Up until recently I would have argued the case of science vs religion at every opportunity - as I said a Dawkins nut. However misguided and foolish I believe certain beliefs to be; turning science into a belief system is just as foolhardy. As a former scientist I was able to research and conduct experimwnts in my specialist field. Now I no longer have that luxury - I have to "believe" what other scientists claim - and there's plenty of bad science and poorly understood and incomplete science out there. Some place their "faith" in science and will defend certain thwories to the death. They have missed the point of science. I agree with AD that the Big Bang is a theory albeit with a lot of evidence to support it. There are many facets that are poorly understood, such as the expansion phase and the origin of gravitation. Higgs has not been discovered and dark energy and matter may be a convenient fudge as is Einstein's constant - or are they? Simply, we don't know. So for me the Big Bang remains a theory.

[mike_2000_17]

Has anyone been able to see it with their own eyes?

Well, through telescopes, yes! The observations of red-shifts in the light coming from cosmic bodies all around our own is a direct observation of an expanding universe. In some sense, we are, right now, in the middle of this enormous and accelerating expansion, and that's the Big Bang, nothing more. So, if you are referring to if we have observed the very "start" of the Big Bang, then the answer is no. But we can observe the state of the universe at various points in time, long long ago, all the way to the last scattering surface (first time light could propagate) which is also called the microwave cosmic background radiation. Imagine this, we have a kilo of C4 that we film at high-speed while it is ignited, but then we realize that the first few frames are missing (camera malfunction or something), but you can still clearly see the initial shock-wave, the thermal expansion, the idiobatic expansion, and the subsequent subsonic flows of hot air (usually, carrying debris). Could you honestly say that the video footage doesn't "prove" that there was an explosion? Of course, nobody can tell from the video what the source of the explosion was (Was it C4 or TNT? Or magic fairies?), but an explosion occurred, no doubt, and you can even use the video to calculate the amount of energy released by the explosion. The Big Bang is very similar in the sense that all that we are missing are observations of the earliest stage of the expansion, but the event itself is observable throughout its phases and is ongoing today. But, like with the explosion, if we want to make sense of what happened and is still happening, we need scientific theories to do so, in the case of the Big Bang these theories are (for the moment) general relativity and quantum physics, which are well-established and a plentora of things you use everyday wouldn't work if they weren't true, but, these theories break down at some point if you try to extrapolate the Big Bang event too far back in time. This indicates that there is something lacking in our explanation of the universe, and most physicists in the world spend their time working on that problem or missing piece. But the Big Bang is an observable and ongoing event, regardless of whether our current explanations of it very origin is incomplete, it still is an observable and ongoing event.

Its as much a "theory" as Creationism.

If you look at the American Heritage definition of theory you will see 6 different definitions. The first 3 correspond to the use of the word in the scientific community, and in most contexts, I mean the first definition: "A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena." (the last part is espectially important in engineering!). When you call Creationism a theory, it is clear that you are using one of the last three definitions of a theory, which correspond to laymen usage of the word, that is: "Abstract reasoning; speculation", "A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment", or "An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture". Creationism definitely qualifies as that latter set of definitions. While the Big Bang cannot qualify to either sets of definitions, because, as I said, it is an observation (of course, it might not yet be a totally and definitively correct observation, but nothing is entirely definitive, but the Big Bang ranks pretty darn high on the confidence scale, if you can't trust a mountain of evidence, you can't trust anything). If you want a scientific theory that makes sense of all the observable stages of the Big Bang, then those theories are called the "theory of general relativily" and "quantum theory". The former makes your GPS work and has been thoroughly tested in many other ways. The latter makes your computer, phone, screen, tv, etc., all work (semi-conductor physics). So, these theories do fit very well in the definition of a scientific theory, i.e., they have been thoroughly tested or are supported by a mountain of evidence and they provide reliable predictions of natural phenomenon.

I'm not saying Big Bang will never be proven, but it hasn't yet.

Mathematicians do proofs. The big bang will never be proven for sure, because there is no such thing as a provable observation. You can verify an observation, meaning that you go and check again (repeat the experiment, or re-examine the evidence), plus, there are means to ensure that verifications are objective ("blind experiments" where the experimentor doesn't even know what he's looking for, or not knowing the conclusions of the previous examiner in order not to influence your own conclusions, etc.). The only thing that scientists can do is to experiment, measure, check and check again, and then get a bunch of other people to verify the same experiment / observation on their own, and then repeat that process for as long as it takes for the evidence to be so massive that it rules out even the slightest chance that all these experiments or observations were wrong or corrupt (which does happen, but it also gets detected this way). Personally, what I've seen of the evidence of the Big Bang event is more than enough for me to call it "demonstrably true" or "evidentially true" (which are the scientific expressions that are equivalent to the laymen term of being "proven", when talking about anything that isn't a mathematical theorem of some kind). If you don't find the evidence compelling enough, then you don't have to accept that the Big Bang is happening, and the scientific community works like that some require more evidence before being convince some require less, and so, you get a slow transition from disbelief to belief (or not, if the evidence never comes abundantly enough).

As an engineer, I don't really deal with the Big Bang or any kind of fundamental physics theories like general relativity or quantum physics. I'm just using plain old Newtonian mechanics (and some other things, of course). And I really don't care whether the Big Bang is true or not (nor does it have any implications about the existence of God), but I do care immensely about the scientific method. So why do I care about pointing out the details and subtleties of the scientific method (e.g. the paragraph above)? Because this rigor is required EVERYDAY in engineering work. In engineering, we just have a different word for this method, we call it "qualification", where tests are repeatedly done to demonstrate the reliability or performance of a given design or component or piece of software. And very often, the slope is slippery because most things engineers do are things that they want to see working, so it is very tempting to just make a few tests that were successful and then pull out the champagne, and you sometimes see that (sometimes with disastrous consequences). So, it is really important to have a clear idea of what it means to demonstrate something with supporting evidence and what it takes to get there, because it saves lives. Things like superstition, wishful thinking, preconceived ideas, assumed conclusions, etc., which you often find when people evaluate religious claims, can be lethal, and I mean so very literally.

Things like superstition, wishful thinking, preconceived ideas, assumed conclusions, etc., which you often find when people evaluate religious claims, can be lethal, and I mean so very literally.

They can indeed. But as a species we have yet to embrace the scientific method as a basis for living and directing our lives. Would I wish to see that? On a certain level maybe, but I quite like the chaos that is our global community, despite all the horrors and injustices. Sure there are crackpots out there, dangerous ones too, but I've a feeling many of these guys would be psychopaths no matter what. Anyway, half the comedy in the world would dry up if it weren't for religion. And I like a good laugh. :)

[jkon]

As humankind we will embrace the scientific method but I believe that we are neonate as a species and what we call science these days may vary a lot of what science mean some years from now. The scientific method can never replace beliefs, the decision of what way will we fallow as humanity may rely in facts but will always be the result of our choices on what world we want, there isn’t only one road towards the future. I am an atheist but I could never say that it is science vs religion , the priest I am talking some times with is a modern follower of Albertus Magnus , and he don’t bother explaining even why the possible existence of aliens don’t oppose Christianity… Besides those efforts I believe that what we now have as religion is just a stage and will change (as changed before) , but will not fade suddenly (it is the fear of death after all). I would never mock people that are religious, or start a debate, as I seen till now almost everyone has its own personal theology.

[MooGeek]

@Everyone: Yes Science and Religion can co-exist! Let me demonstrate:

First, let us assume these variables:

God exist;
God = The developer of this website;
Daniweb = Universe;

If God really exist, then just imagine that the developer of this website(God) telling us how he created this website. How he programmed and how he designed this website.

Now imagine we are living inside this website. IF the developer just left and took a break, and we started to discover this website and no one found the developer, are we going to doubt the existence of a God just because he left? Can we really assume that if we can't find it, does that mean we can prove that God never exist?

Now for the record, I know you guys will not assume that this website just poof out of nowhere. As we browse and interact with it, we all know that someone created this website.

I have seen bugs and exploits on this website, but I have never seen one in real life. This universe, is too perfect to assume that no one designed it, it just came out of nowhere. Are you telling me that this website is more complex than the universe? I reckon that our technology and knowledge is still primitive(Based on Kardashev scale) and yet we conclude that there is no God.

Science had never ever proved that God never existed. Until now, it just tells us how God created everything(Assuming there's a God).

I am not disapproving in everyone's comment. It just that I can't accept the fact that all of these came out of nowhere, and we are all just an accident (probability). Even if Christianity or any other religion fails, Even if Jesus Christ is just a hoax, I will still believe in a God.

"You may have your own opinions, but not your own facts"

I realise 'facts' is a dodgy term in science, so let's call it 'evidence' for now. As many of us have stated, science cannot and should not, in my opinion, set out, passively or actively, to prove/disprove the existence of a God. Science deals with evidence, whereas faith does not. The fact that you cannot imagine a universe not created by a Supreme Being, does not in itself prove anything. It may be that you have a limited imagination (no offence). It is the nature of man to look for solutions to problems. A simple solution to many problems or conundrums would be to assign them to the workings of a Divine Being. Then build up some rules around those ideas. Hey presto you have a religion. Now all you have to do is convince some of your mates that you're right.

Sorry getting carried away (Life of Brian mode).

If you wish to believe in a Creator, fine. But what does that mean? Will you be looking for evidence? Do you know the right questions to ask, even if you do wish to investigate?

The belief in a creator though, as you point out, is different from being an adherent of a particular cult or religion. Believe it if you want, why not? Just don't try to muddy science with it.

[MooGeek]

I agree. We cannot assume for something that has not even proven yet. And that is the main reason why I cannot debate the existence of God.

A simple solution to many problems or conundrums would be to assign them to the workings of a Divine Being. Then build up some rules around those ideas. Hey presto you have a religion. Now all you have to do is convince some of your mates that you're right.

I've also taken this point. Though people that are in dept with religion also mess up science and may sometimes slow it's progress.

I am sorry for what I have stated. I hope you can forgive me. You guys have proven me that you guys are smart people, and I came to the right place to ask this. Thank you for entertaining me and answering my questions. I am nothing compared to your level of knowledge and still you humbly answered my questions. Thank you!

Ardav: What the... You're a MODERATOR now?? NOICEE!! Congratulations mate! Drinks on you!

Ardav: What the... You're a MODERATOR now?? NOICEE!! Congratulations mate! Drinks on you!

Thanks MooGeek. I feel quite honoured, but it's not all glamour. Well, no glamour at all actually. Mostly mopping up after everybody else's mess. Don't get me started on code tags! Have a virtual spirit (Divine or otherwise!) on me :)

[mike_2000_17]

If God really exist, then just imagine that the developer of this website(God) telling us how he created this website. How he programmed and how he designed this website.

Well, that makes God a "she", not a "he". We all have prior knowledge of the process of creating, hosting and maintaining a website, we know it's a man-made thing, and thus we know there must be one or more people behind the creation of such a website. We also have access to the world outside that website, can look at its source code, can talk to its author(s), can read about its history, etc... A lot of these things are critical in being able to figure out that someone created this website and to have means to determine who. Even without all the outside and prior knowledge (assume you were completely unaware of a world outside Daniweb), you can still PM or see posts from the creator "cscgal", and you could even test her divine powers (as admin), and that could be enough to convince you that she is a goddess on this website and that she probably created it. The analogy with the natural world is so far off. Everything you need to draw any of the conclusions (act of creation, existence and identity of God) is not available in the real world (no outside knowledge, no prior knowledge of any mechanism that would allow a God-like figure to create a universe, no definitive and reliable record of history, no complete knowledge of the inner-workings of the universe, no means by which to reliably contact "God", no means to test his divine powers, no way to detect his presence whatsoever, etc.). On the other hand, after investigating the natural world we came to a number of theories and some fairly reasonable hypotheses which end up explaining a lot about how our world came to be, and in the words of Laplace about the need for a God as part of the explanation of the universe, he said: "I had no need for that hypotheses.".

I've also taken this point

As ardav pointed out, and as I partially did in my earlier posts, even if you think you are justified in believing that there is a God that sparked in universe into existence, it still is very problematic by itself. You now have to explain how God can exist (Who created the universe in which He lives? How can He have all this power?), either you say God doesn't need a creator, He just is (then why can't the universe just be), or you say that we'll never know (then why can't we say that we'll never know what created the universe, if anything). Another problem is that a creator God, is just that, nothing more. You might presume that the first 10^-37 seconds of the universe's existence was the work of this creator, you still got 13.8 billion years of explaining to do (a period of which the scientific theories explain to a large extent without God, i.e. not needing that hypothesis to make things work). Finally, you still have the problem of demonstrating any usefulness to this creator. The truth is, assigning the creation of the universe to an Almighty Being might be a nice thought or even comforting, but it really doesn't get you anywhere unless you go a step further into the wilder claims of religions (miracles, doctrines, stories from scripture, prayers, rituals, etc.), and then, you'll get into a world of trouble with skeptics like myself, because most of these claims are just outlandish.

You guys have proven me that you guys are smart people, and I came to the right place to ask this.

I sincerely believe it has nothing to do with being "smart people". To me, everyone has the capacity for critical thinking and evaluation of evidence, but everyone also has the capacity to turn them off. It's OK to turn it off a lot of the time and just trust what others tell you, especially if it's mundane. But everyone can be skeptical when it calls for it, some people make outlandish claims that most people can very easily evaluate skeptically, like "Elvis isn't dead", "aliens have visited our planet", "there's a monster in the Lockness", "these magic crystals will cure your cancer", "the alignments of the planets have something to say about what will happen to you today", etc.. If you just come to realize what you do when you evaluate these claims, what standard you ask them to meet in order to get accepted as one of your beliefs (or at least, considered plausible), and then, if you apply the exact same standard (no more, no less) to religious claims, then I believe it won't be long before you're an atheist too, atheism just means that, for you, religious claims (and God's existence claims) don't pass this skeptical evaluation just like the other extraordinary claims I just mentioned.

I am nothing compared to your level of knowledge and still you humbly answered my questions.

I don't know much either, and I'm glad you can admit that too. The main feud I have is with those who say they know everything (or at least, a lot more than I do) because they read a two thousand year old compilation of scribbles from semi-literate, bronze-age peasants and that they have a personal relationship with some invisible ghost that never lies. Either they are gullible beyond measure, or just incredible arrogant, either way, my blood boils. Believe what you wish, but I recommend that you don't claim knowledge of something you can't back-up with evidence, don't make important decisions in your life based on unjustified beliefs, and don't believe things because others tell you it is so or because you know a lot of people with the same beliefs, take the risk of thinking for yourself, you won't regret it.

[GrimJack]

EEK! My old avatar mysteriously reappeared - cool, I guess.

Anyway, isaac asimov (mosel tov) offerred the best idea for god proving his/her existence - put a message in PI somewhere around the 4 billionth place. By the time we get to it, we will be ready for it. This is not to say that I believe it will happen but if god has/had a sense of humor, that is the place to hide it.

[Dani]

<off topic>Huh? I didn't change anything with avatars????</off topic>

[MooGeek]

@Mike Thanks! I surely forgot to special mention you. You sure did put time and effort replying to this thread. Thank you! I appreciate it!

I pretty much agree with Mike, although I wouldn't have phrased it quite as forcefully. My worry is that a belief in God will someday be superceded with a blind faith in science. Many wish to be told what is and what isn't. There may be many reasons for this. My understanding of the physical world is science-based in the main, but I am coming to realise that I understand very little of the complexity involved with physical theories and hypotheses on the cusp of becoming theories. I have almost resigned myself to accept 'blindly' the explanations of top scientists, but it doesn't sit well with me. I do not have the intellectual capacity to accept or dismiss ideas surrounding the nature of the universe, so I choose my cult, 'string theory', but I may move to the chapel of ''Braneworld" if that particular minister says something I like. Reading 'New Scientist' has shown me how fickle scientists can be - but there again, that's how it MUST be. Conflicting evidence may mean that you have to change the model. Different indeed from the static, written in stone 'belief' of the religious. Will science be too alien for those who like their certainties? And let's face it, certainties are comforting.

[GrimJack]

off-topic, I didn't do anything with my avatar either but here is my original 'Grim' GrimJack smiling(?) out. Also, I can't figure out how to reply-to -- guess I had better read the new instructions.

[Agilemind]

So my question is, If you're an Atheist, would you believe in what science define as God?

PS: The God I am talking about is a God who's God of spinoza, Just a Creator. or the point of singularity, where all the things we know came from. It does not care, does not love, can just be a "Thing".

I'm an atheist, raised by two scientist parents. I'm open to a god like that of Spinoza (what I grasped from reading a couple of paragraphs from Wikipedia). However, I would not believe in its existence unless there was actual evidence supporting it and some sort of model of what it is (although I doubt I would call it "God"). I would also point out that such a God wouldn't be a "Creator" since creator/creation implies agency/consciousness (and thus complexity). I also would not worship it nor base my every-day life decisions on it. I generally consider it disingenuous to call such matters "God" since it is not the typical meaning of the word.

[Agilemind]

Science had never ever proved that God never existed.

It is exceedingly difficult to convincingly demonstrate that something does not exist (consider how long we have tried and failed to find the Higgs boson but cannot confidently say they do not exist). However, a fundamental assumption we use is that the simplest solution is most likely right. Take a silly example: Can we prove there aren't any pink robot elephants on the dark side of the moon? no, we can't, there is actually very little evidence even to say that there aren't since we can't seen the darkside of the moon very well (no sun light). But I doubt many people would say they believe in the lunar-pink-robot-elephants because it is simpler (and thus more likely) to think there are not.

[Agilemind]

As to science vs religion, I think science is starting to get to the point where the conflict will be back with a vengence. Mostly this is because of neuroscience/psychology, if science can figure out where consciousness comes from and how it works (still decades away but no longer unforseeable), together with the growing evidence of the evolutionary origin of morality there will be little left for religion (at least from my irreligious view of religion). We are even moving toward a scientific explanation of religion/religiousity.

It is unfortuneate but inevitable that most people cannot follow/evaluate scientific evidence themselves (even scientists from different fields have huge difficulty following work outside their expertise). I don't know what the solution to this is....

PS I just had the amusing thought that it is probably religions' inability to move beyond the "creation of the universe" and "evolution" fights that they have not noticed this new threat heading for their flank.

[Reverend Jim]

Atheist (kinda makes my name ironic).

The trouble with "hiding" a message in the digits of PI is that because PI is non-repeating, eventually some random string of digits will appear to make sense. Sort of like the infinite monkeys proposition.

Over the centuries science has repeatedly replaced mysticism and superstition with rational explanations. Not once in that time has religion ever replaced a scientific explanation with a better, supernatural one.

[jwenting]

I do not believe in the existence of G/god(s), but neither do I believe in their non-existence.
And as my (I know stricter than used by some) definition of an atheist is "a person who holds a religious belief in the non-existence of God" I am not an atheist.

Any God wanting my allegiance will have to come up with more proof of his/her existence than "it says in this book that I exist and am the only one, which book was written by me so it must be true as it says so" (which is pretty much the only thing any religion has).
Of course any God that actually exists would not need me to believe in his/her existence, it'd be fact and there's no reason to believe in facts (that's the very definition of a fact, something that is whether we believe in it or not).