The God Hypothesis according to New Scientist

[MrJonno]

Saying we don't know may be a rational position but saying I don't care is the only honest position I can hold these days. Whether God exists or not - what of it? It changes nothing in my life. Absolutely nothing. So why believe it or even give the question the time of day?

I think that is probably the most common position by people in the Western world (outside the US). Its not that Western Europe is filled with rampant militant atheists is that most of us tend to concentrate on this world which definitely exists not a potential next one. This sort of humanism actually grew out of more liberal forms of christianity

[Seth]

I'd like to point out, plenty of evidence (though not scientific evidence) in the form of personal testimony by individuals who claim personal experience with X.

I could also point out, from many witnesses, the startling and amazing personal relationship those witnesses have with assorted drugs.

However, Seth, I understand your arguments. I see a problem with the fact that, when you say 'God', or 'X', you are talking of a very ill defined and ambiguous character. A scientific approach can disprove a very specific definition of deity. But it cannot disprove something as vague and ill defined as 'God', because in not knowing the characteristics of this 'God', there is nothing to attempt to falsify.

As long as you continue to talk of deity in such ambiguous terms, you will remain correct, that such a vague being cannot be falsified. As soon as you nail down the defining characteristics, tests can be run to prove or disprove such existence.

Precisely correct. And that is why Dawkins says that the existence or non-existence of God is absolutely a valid scientific question. The problem is, of course, that defining what is meant by "god" in such a way as to make it possible to scientifically search for such an entity, requires at least a neutral and scientific approach to the question to begin with. What "science" (mostly non-scientist skeptics and Atheists) does, however is engage the Atheist's fallacy in order to evade that difficult first step.

More alarmingly, those few accredited scientists who have proposed in some way to do so or even try to broach the subject routinely have their careers destroyed by the orthodox Atheist "scientific" elite who are nothing more or less than the Atheist version of the Inquisition, and are intent on using the Atheist's fallacy as the basis for making the grim determination that any scientific attempt to define, detect, quantify or explain God constitutes "scientific" heresy and that such heretics must be put to the Question or destroyed as apostates towards the orthodoxy of the religion of Science.

God may be completely "natural" and not "supernatural" and may simply be beyond our present scientific understanding of the universe(s), but so long as the Inquisitors of Science remain in power and the True Believers of Atheism clamor at the gates with pitchforks and torches whenever an honest inquiry...or even discussion of the subject occurs, we will never know the truth because the orthodoxy of the religion of Science, with the able help of the agitators of the religion of Atheism will suppress any attempt to discover this knowledge.

In my view, such intolerance, bigotry and religious zealotry on the part of Atheists does not speak well of them and does not serve humanity in any positive way.

[Seth]

What utter irrational crap. What you're saying is that before neutrons were discovered, it was rational to believe they didn't exist. And before telescopes were invented it was rational to believe that the lights in the sky were angels.

Quite rational actually, its also rational to think superstrings or the Higg's boson don't exist either. Doesn't mean its bad science to postulate and try to look for evidence of them through but anyone who says either currently exist is a shit scientist.

God and other woo was a reasonable rational postulation to explain reality based on little information, now we have a lot more information and evidence making it plain moronic

Actually, the problem is that you have exactly zero information or evidence either for or against the existence of God, which makes your beliefs a matter of moronic religious faith.

[MrJonno]

Actually, the problem is that you have exactly zero information or evidence either for or against the existence of God, which makes your beliefs a matter of moronic religious faith

No such thing as evidence against the existance of anything and nor is it required or useful

[Pappa]

I'd like to point out, plenty of evidence (though not scientific evidence) in the form of personal testimony by individuals who claim personal experience with X.

I could also point out, from many witnesses, the startling and amazing personal relationship those witnesses have with assorted drugs.

However, Seth, I understand your arguments. I see a problem with the fact that, when you say 'God', or 'X', you are talking of a very ill defined and ambiguous character. A scientific approach can disprove a very specific definition of deity. But it cannot disprove something as vague and ill defined as 'God', because in not knowing the characteristics of this 'God', there is nothing to attempt to falsify.

As long as you continue to talk of deity in such ambiguous terms, you will remain correct, that such a vague being cannot be falsified. As soon as you nail down the defining characteristics, tests can be run to prove or disprove such existence.

Precisely correct. And that is why Dawkins says that the existence or non-existence of God is absolutely a valid scientific question. The problem is, of course, that defining what is meant by "god" in such a way as to make it possible to scientifically search for such an entity, requires at least a neutral and scientific approach to the question to begin with. What "science" (mostly non-scientist skeptics and Atheists) does, however is engage the Atheist's fallacy in order to evade that difficult first step.

More alarmingly, those few accredited scientists who have proposed in some way to do so or even try to broach the subject routinely have their careers destroyed by the orthodox Atheist "scientific" elite who are nothing more or less than the Atheist version of the Inquisition, and are intent on using the Atheist's fallacy as the basis for making the grim determination that any scientific attempt to define, detect, quantify or explain God constitutes "scientific" heresy and that such heretics must be put to the Question or destroyed as apostates towards the orthodoxy of the religion of Science.

God may be completely "natural" and not "supernatural" and may simply be beyond our present scientific understanding of the universe(s), but so long as the Inquisitors of Science remain in power and the True Believers of Atheism clamor at the gates with pitchforks and torches whenever an honest inquiry...or even discussion of the subject occurs, we will never know the truth because the orthodoxy of the religion of Science, with the able help of the agitators of the religion of Atheism will suppress any attempt to discover this knowledge.

In my view, such intolerance, bigotry and religious zealotry on the part of Atheists does not speak well of them and does not serve humanity in any positive way.

In my (limited) experience, those scientist that broach the subject do so in a completely retarded and laughable way. If you can give me some examples that aren't retarded I'd be genuinely interested in reading them.

[Seth]

Asserting that disbelief in the existence of X constitutes an act of faith does not make it so. To reiterate - faith is the belief in something absent evidence not the disbelief in something absent evidence. This is a clear distinction that you should be capable of grasping.

Faith = belief in the existence of x without evidence for x
Faith != disbelief in the existence x without evidence for x

Wrong. Faith is defined as "belief not based in proof" and belief is defined as "confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof." (Source: Dictionary.com)

In having the belief that God does not exist (disbelief) you are expressing confidence in the truth of "something," in this case the proposition that God does not exist, which is not immediately susceptible to rigorous proofs. Because this belief cannot be proven, rigorously or otherwise, you are expressing faith in the proposition that God does not exist. When you put this belief and faith into practice as a "matter of ethics or conscience" and you do so "devotedly," you are engaged in the practice of religion.

You'll notice I used the term 'nonbelief' and the phrase 'withhold belief' rather than disbelief. This is not because I think to disbelieve in something is an act of faith. That is to say to often nitpicking twats interpret 'disbelief' as being synonymous with 'denial' then go on to make a red herring balloon argument about how denial on the grounds of lack of evidence is faith.

Disbelief is synonymous with denial. It's an active decision to deny the claims made by theists because they do not present what you consider to be credible evidence of their claims. You have examined their claims and actively rejected them and actively rejected the claim that God exists. This is not "nonbelief" because nonbelief is the absence of ANY belief about X, positive or negative, and that can only occur in complete ignorance of X.

Your attempts at sophistry are noted.

Your attempts at pettifoggery, obfuscation and denial are noted.

Now you've compounded two issues - what it means to disbelieve and what constitutes evidence. However, disbelief is defined as the inability or refusal to believe or to accept something as true not the denial of that something.

Wrong. The "refusal to believe or accept something as true" (a component of the definition you provided) implies an active examination of the substance of the claim and an assignment of truth value to the claim and a conscious decision to deny that the proposition is true and is instead false. That is an active determination made after consideration of the substance of the claim, not a passive lack of knowledge of the subject of the claim upon which a claim of "nonbelief" can be based. An active determination of the falsity of a claim made sans immediate rigorous proofs of the falsity of that claim is the expression of a belief in the falsity of the claim, and because the counter claim that is implicit in that determination (that X does not exist) is not based in proof, it's an expression of faith.

A claims that X exists and provides evidence G as proof.
B examines evidence G and assigns it a truth-value based on his present knowledge and understandings of the world and universe(s).
B rejects the evidence as insufficient to prove that the claim of A is true, and thereby forms a belief about A's claim that consists of an active denial of the truth of the claim.
But because B has no immediate rigorous proofs of his own in support of his belief about A's claim, he is expressing faith in his belief that X does not exist every bit as much as A is expressing faith in his belief in X.

The inability or refusal to accept something as true absent evidence is clearly not denial. It's simply evidence based thinking - what scientists and rational minded people do. I disbelief in faeries in the same way that I disbelieve in God (RD dealt with this fairly well in his book 'TGD' - the practical agnostic etc.). You're attempting to introduce a red herring in the form of 'disbelief is itself a belief'.

Except that you have no "evidence," so it cannot be "evidence-based thinking." Evidence based thinking is "I had a personal experience in which God revealed himself to me, therefore I believe that God exists," not "I have no evidence that you did not have a personal experience with God, therefore I believe that God does not exist."

What you're expressing is the antithesis of "evidence based thinking" because, as Atheists so often and so utterly amusingly insist, there is no evidence that meets their standards for the existence of God.

You are fallaciously insisting that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

As to what constitutes evidence, some people believe that visions - or what may more properly be called hallucinations - are evidence of God.

You only call them hallucinations because you have religious faith in the belief that God does not, and indeed cannot exist, so there must be some other explanation of the personal experience of the individual making the claim. That's not "evidence based thinking," that's religious prejudice.

Naturally if we start with a hypothesis and apply alleged facts we will inevitably distort or select facts to fit the hypothesis rather than the hypothesis to fit the facts. This is Bayesianism at work. In this, I once again applaud your sophisticated sophistry, you've compound two issues once again: Evidence vs. Proof. Proof is binary - it is either true or false. There is no proof outside of mathematics and logic and we are not discussing proof, rather you are but I am not. Here, once again, you've attempted to conflate two or more types of evidence. Scientific evidence (this the sort we are talking about. The sort required to support the God hypothesis) is obtained through objective tests and experimentation. It is not the sort obtained through personal experience or subjective tests of faith.

And you have absolutely no scientific evidence that God does not exist. Moreover, you have absolutely no scientific evidence that the experiences of individuals you call "hallucinations" are in fact false. You have zero objective tests or experiments upon which to draw a rational conclusion or form a rational belief that God does not exist. You haven't even attempted to perform any tests or experiments to test your hypothesis that God does not exist, or even that God does exist. You simply assign the concept of God to the supernatural realm, call any empirical experiential evidence provided by those who claim to have experienced a phenomenon they attribute to God "hallucinations" and then, with great religious zeal and devotion, wrap the whole God-question up in your skepticism and irrationally conclude that God does not exist because YOU have not been personally made privy to the evidence others have been made privy to.

That makes any claims you might make about God nothing more than a matter of Atheistic religious faith.

You cannot honestly claim to have "nonbelief" or the absence of belief about X because you have obviously examined the evidence provided by the claimants and have rejected that evidence as insufficient to satisfy your personal metric for truth. In other words, you have formed a belief. But you formed that belief, which is an active disbelief in X, based only on the claims made by others and in the absence of any investigation to the standard that you set for the proponents of X of your own as to the truth of YOUR belief that X does not exist.

Nonsense built on your foundation of sophistry. If you wish to say I believe in anything, you may honestly say that given two hypotheses I believe in the one which the weight of evidence supports.

What evidence are you referring to? You have no evidence supporting the hypothesis that God does not exist. Theists, on the other hand, have a large body of evidence supporting the hypothesis that God does exist. That you disbelieve and reject their evidence speaks more to your own Atheistic prejudices and religious zealotry than it does against the claims of theists.

You may also say I follow standards of evidence and the scientific method in such matters as the claimed existence of something, whatever it may be.

Except that you don't. The hypothesis that God exists is exactly as "scientific" as the hypothesis that there are multiple membrane universes out there. But you reject the God hypothesis without consideration, much less scientific investigation while (I suspect) you accept the membrane universe hypothesis as a valid subject for scientific speculation and study. That's religious Atheistic bigotry at work, not the scientific method.

This may qualify as 'belief' in these standards and methods. However, encapsulated in what I just wrote, is the preclusion of your claim that I begin with the hypothesis that X does not exist.

Wrong. You reject, a priori, the existence of God because you have failed to examine the evidence supporting that hypothesis in a scientific manner. You reject as "hallucinations" the personal experiences with God that individuals claim without the least bit of scientific rigor or method. Perhaps this is because there is presently no way for science to examine such experiences, but it's more likely that it's because the orthodoxy of Science, the religion, denies the existence of God and the evidence supporting God's existence as a matter of religious faith and refuses to examine the subject objectively, using the scientific method.

As I stated earlier, hypotheses are altered to fit evidence not evidence to fit hypotheses. I apply a uniform standard of evidence, I do not alter it or make special allowances or alterations to fit the subject, in such cases. You've made yet another false assertion: I deny the existence of X, therefore I deny any evidence for the existence of X. There is no special standard set for the 'proponents of X'. This is a flimsy assertion on your part.

But you do deny the existence of X, and you do deny the existence of any evidence of the existence of X. You have classified one category and body of evidence of X as "hallucination" without a shred of scientific evidence that the experiences are false. Your denial of the existence of X is based in zero scientific evidence of the non-existence of X. It's based in the a priori assumption that, absent rigorous scientific evidence that meets some standard you set as adequate, X does not exist. This is fallacy and is not rigorous logical thinking on your part. At best all you can say about the hypothesis that X exists is "I don't know whether or not X exists." That is an honest, logical and scientific conclusion, and is the ONLY conclusion that can presently be drawn about the existence of God.

Try to pettifog and obfuscate your way out of the truth all you like, but you and I both know that your claim of "withholding belief" is just so much evasive bilge. You firmly and with conviction believe that God does not exist and you are devoted in that belief and you practice it as a matter of both faith and as a matter of conscience and ethics, so you are practicing religion every bit as much as the theists are, in spite of your denials.

Which is fine, because there's nothing wrong with holding beliefs, having faith or practicing religion. It's not like you're fucking little children or anything.

A bland attempt to evoke an emotional response rather than a rational one and an attempt lacking any substance whatsoever to respond to other than its tenor. Do try harder in the future will you?

You accused me of sophistry, so I returned the favor by accusing you of pettifoggery and obfuscation and jibing you with a little humor. You can dish it out, but you can't take it. Seems the clay is creeping up towards your knees.

But don't try to mount your high horse and think you're morally, ethically or intellectually superior to any other religious believer, because you're not. You have no more evidence to support your proposition than they have to support theirs, and in fact you have rather a lot less. They claim personal experience, you claim nothing at all but skepticism. In the evidence competition, they win and you lose.

Indeed? I challenge you to provide this body of evidence so we may examine it and be enlightened. I'll be waiting. (It may help to do some independent research on what actually constitutes evidence in an investigation such as this one).

It's not my job to do your homework. The evidence may be found in many places, including, I believe, the Vatican library, among others. You're the one who is asserting that the vast body of claims of personal experience with God consists of "hallucinations," so it's your job to do the research and provide the requisite evidence that supports your hypothesis.

But, you can start with the "Miracle of Fatima" if you like. That's my favorite challenge to "scientists" who think they know more than they actually do.

[Seth]

Actually, the problem is that you have exactly zero information or evidence either for or against the existence of God, which makes your beliefs a matter of moronic religious faith

No such thing as evidence against the existance of anything and nor is it required or useful

And that's precisely why Atheist claims that God does not exist are fallacious, irrational and illogical.

Thank you for putting it so succinctly.

[Seth]

I'd like to point out, plenty of evidence (though not scientific evidence) in the form of personal testimony by individuals who claim personal experience with X.

I could also point out, from many witnesses, the startling and amazing personal relationship those witnesses have with assorted drugs.

However, Seth, I understand your arguments. I see a problem with the fact that, when you say 'God', or 'X', you are talking of a very ill defined and ambiguous character. A scientific approach can disprove a very specific definition of deity. But it cannot disprove something as vague and ill defined as 'God', because in not knowing the characteristics of this 'God', there is nothing to attempt to falsify.

As long as you continue to talk of deity in such ambiguous terms, you will remain correct, that such a vague being cannot be falsified. As soon as you nail down the defining characteristics, tests can be run to prove or disprove such existence.

Precisely correct. And that is why Dawkins says that the existence or non-existence of God is absolutely a valid scientific question. The problem is, of course, that defining what is meant by "god" in such a way as to make it possible to scientifically search for such an entity, requires at least a neutral and scientific approach to the question to begin with. What "science" (mostly non-scientist skeptics and Atheists) does, however is engage the Atheist's fallacy in order to evade that difficult first step.

More alarmingly, those few accredited scientists who have proposed in some way to do so or even try to broach the subject routinely have their careers destroyed by the orthodox Atheist "scientific" elite who are nothing more or less than the Atheist version of the Inquisition, and are intent on using the Atheist's fallacy as the basis for making the grim determination that any scientific attempt to define, detect, quantify or explain God constitutes "scientific" heresy and that such heretics must be put to the Question or destroyed as apostates towards the orthodoxy of the religion of Science.

God may be completely "natural" and not "supernatural" and may simply be beyond our present scientific understanding of the universe(s), but so long as the Inquisitors of Science remain in power and the True Believers of Atheism clamor at the gates with pitchforks and torches whenever an honest inquiry...or even discussion of the subject occurs, we will never know the truth because the orthodoxy of the religion of Science, with the able help of the agitators of the religion of Atheism will suppress any attempt to discover this knowledge.

In my view, such intolerance, bigotry and religious zealotry on the part of Atheists does not speak well of them and does not serve humanity in any positive way.

In my (limited) experience, those scientist that broach the subject do so in a completely retarded and laughable way. If you can give me some examples that aren't retarded I'd be genuinely interested in reading them.

I suspect you consider their methodology "completely retarded and laughable" only because they mention God to begin with and not because their methods are observably unscientific. This points towards a prejudice on your part, not necessarily any failure of scientific rigor on their part. Who have you had "experience" with and in what way have they "broached the subject?"

[MrJonno]

And that's precisely why Atheist claims that God does not exist are fallacious, irrational and illogical.

I don't believe god that is vaguely defined in the bible exists as there is no evidence but to say something that something that no one is even prepared to give a decent defintion to definitely doesnt exist would be logically silly and not something any great thinker does.

The logical position in the existance of anything is to assume it does not until proven otherwise

[Svartalf]

Yes, God could be a complete and utter barbaric and sadistic shit, but if so, all the more reason not to chance her wrath.

Have you ever heard of the Smorgaloid? It's an all-powerful god that demands you receive anal sex 50 times a day, flagellate yourself 100 times a day, eat at least one piece of dog shit before noon, inject your testicles with saline every morning before breakfast and drink vomit on Sunday. If you don't do all of these things, the Smorgaloid will send you to Fooogon, where unspeakably disgusting and painful things will be done to you for all eternity.

Neither your smorgaloid not the jewish deity deserve my worship... if I need deities, I'll trust in Odin, and the Dagda, and the Spirits of my Ancestors to protect me from their foolish wrath.

[Svartalf]

In response to Seth, I'm not sure why I should bother looking for Gods. Godless orgies are like tax free liquor; everything I want with less red tape.

and deprive me of the pleasure of toasting Venus and her of moaning "Oh God" as I'm bringing her to climax? man, that's sad.

[Svartalf]

trdsf

Based on current knowledge, there is nothing metaphysical.
However, in the spirit of open mindedness, I accept the possibility. Just assign a guess that its probability is less than one in a billion.

That's one thing I didn't like with RD's dismissal of agnosticism. Sure, by the current state of knowledge, and quite possibly as per the state of any knowledge we can ever get.
But while, in the absence of evidence, it is okay to treat the supranatural/otherreality variable as a null factor in the equations of our lives and the way this universe works, it's still excessive to deny its existence or possibility, just because it has no bearing on our universe (except in the superstitions of the hoi polloi and the unpleasantness of a bunch of loonies)

[Svartalf]

'I have no need of that hypothesis"

I don't need the Myth of the Cavern either.

[Animavore]

Saying we don't know may be a rational position but saying I don't care is the only honest position I can hold these days. Whether God exists or not - what of it? It changes nothing in my life. Absolutely nothing. So why believe it or even give the question the time of day?

I think that is probably the most common position by people in the Western world (outside the US). Its not that Western Europe is filled with rampant militant atheists is that most of us tend to concentrate on this world which definitely exists not a potential next one. This sort of humanism actually grew out of more liberal forms of christianity

Oh yeah. The form of Christianity that doesn't honestly believe it's own bollox. Will even laugh at it with you. Belief in belief I think it's called. It's the most common position in Ireland. Almost no capital-T True Catholics left.

Thank fuck.

[Pappa]

I suspect you consider their methodology "completely retarded and laughable" only because they mention God to begin with and not because their methods are observably unscientific. This points towards a prejudice on your part, not necessarily any failure of scientific rigor on their part. Who have you had "experience" with and in what way have they "broached the subject?"

I've read some of Freeman Dyson's opinions on religion. There's a lot that he says that makes a lot of sense, although he seems to see religion as a positive thing because of the way it can improve behaviour in some people. In particular, I can't fault the reasoning here:

Dyson disagrees with the famous remark by his fellow physicist Steven Weinberg that "With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion."

Weinberg's statement is true as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth. To make it the whole truth, we must add an additional clause: "And for bad people to do good things—that [also] takes religion." The main point of Christianity is that it is a religion for sinners. Jesus made that very clear. When the Pharisees asked his disciples, "Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?" he said, "I come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance." Only a small fraction of sinners repent and do good things but only a small fraction of good people are led by their religion to do bad things.

That quote makes me think immediately of the time Dawkins interviewed Ted Haggard. Ted said he would rape and murder if god wasn't watching.... and his behaviour suggests he was telling the truth.

Where I think he's wrong is in statements like this:

Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect. Trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute. The media exaggerate their numbers and importance. The media rarely mention the fact that the great majority of religious people belong to moderate denominations that treat science with respect, or the fact that the great majority of scientists treat religion with respect so long as religion does not claim jurisdiction over scientific questions.

In fact I think he's created a strawman argument. The existence or not of a deity is a scientific question, and science has a validity to claim universal jurisdiction where religion doesn't. The only questions science can't answer are ones we don't have enough data to test.... so the question only remains unanswerable while there is a dearth of data.

But as I said above, I think Freeman Dyson is approaching the idea of religion from a different perspective to where most atheists would approach it. He sees the social and personal value of the belief system, regardless of whether the deity exists.

The only other religious scientist I can think of off-hand that I've read about is someone who's name completely escapes me. He's a well known physicist who wrote some utter bollocks about how physics proves god or some such shit. Ring any bells with anyone?