Coito ergo sum wrote:Seth wrote:
Hypothesis: Hypothesis: GOD caused the Big Bang to occur.
Exactly.
Hypothesis -- check.
Any evidence for that hypothesis being true? - No.
Not yet you mean.
Reason to believe the hypothesis is true? None.
There's no less, and probably more reason to believe this universe was created by the inhabitants of some other universe than there is to believe that the Big Bang "just happened."
Ought one believe things about which there is no reason to believe? No.
Tell it to the theoretical cosmologists who came up with the membrane universe notion.
Ergo, ought one believe in this "GOD" thingy of which you speak? It necessarily follows that "no" is the answer to that question.
It's as sensible as believing that there are membrane universes or that the Big Bang "just happened."
Might the hypothesis still be "true" despite there being no reason to believe in it? Yes. Just like any other statement, that much can be said. I can posit a hypothesis that this universe is the sixth attempt of a monster to create a cosmic plaything. Using the same thought process you use, Seth, we must keep an open mind for that and "look for evidence" of the monster in all experiments. However, using simple logic, we find that while the monster hypothesis is a hypothesis, there is no evidence for it - therefore there is no reason to believe the hypothesis is true, and we ought not, as a result, believe in the monster because we ought not believe in things about which there is no reason to believe.
Again, tell it to the theoretical cosmologists who don't think it's all that silly to believe in membrane or bubble universes, even though there is absolutely no evidence of their existence.
Might there be a monster, anyway? Sure, but we still have no reason to believe it, and it is UNreasonable to believe in such things - by definition - axiomatically. If there is no reason to believe in X, then belief in X is unreasonable, gods and monsters included.
So, it was unreasonable to believe in muons and quarks eh? I see.
Science has a long history of speculation and theorizing about things unknown. Hypothesizing and speculating about the nature of things is the first step in the scientific process of finding ways to test those hypotheses.
Whether or not there is evidence satisfactory to you about the existence of God, there are a good many people who claim to have had personal experiences with God, or a heareafter (like those who have had near-death experiences and have reported interesting and unexplained phenomena associated with the experience). You would discount their experiences because you cannot yourself experience what they did, or replicate it in a lab. But that's the nature of interactions with another sentient creature capable of making conscious choices to act or not act. It may choose to act and give evidence to one person and not act and deny evidence to another person. Therefore, such experiences are not amenable to scientific falsification because they are one-off voluntary events not physical properties of the universe.
You cannot prove scientifically that I told my girlfriend that I love her before she just went to the store, but it happened nonetheless. You cannot prove that God, or something like god, meddled with evolution of life on earth to guide it down specific pathways, but then again you cannot prove God did not do so. But that does not mean that it did not, or could not have happened. It's a conceit of science to assume that we are, and have always ever been the only sentient entities in this or any other universe capable of meddling with DNA, and that therefore it is not possible for such meddling to have happened in the past. As I've explained many times the most parsimonious answer to a question, particularly one of evolution, is not necessarily the only answer as to how creatures came to be.
It is no less true that the physics of the universe may be susceptible to manipulation by an intelligence greater than our own, and just because you cannot find evidence of such activity does not mean it did not happen. Therefore it remains a perfectly valid hypothesis, just as valid as any "naturalistic" explanation of how things came to be as they are. That you don't find it plausible or satisfactory is utterly irrelevant. Logic alone tells us that where intelligence exists, as here in this universe, other intelligence can exist in other places and other universes to a greater or lesser degree of our own. Our intelligence proves beyond any doubt that intelligence is a physical property of this universe, and therefore ours is likely NOT the only intelligence that exists or has ever existed.
Contemplating an intelligence much more complex and greater than our own with capabilities that we cannot yet understand or replicate is anything but pointless or irrational, it's entirely rational and logical to posit that such an advanced entity can or does exist, and it's equally logical and rational to conclude that if such an intelligence exists somewhere, it might choose to do what we have done by way of manipulating DNA or orbital parameters of asteroids, which we know how to do but have not yet done, in order to achieve some purpose of intelligent design.
That we puny humans cannot find the trademark of such an intelligent designer coded into our DNA means one of three things: that no such tradmark was coded in; that we cannot yet decode an existing trademark; or there is no designer. But in assessing the last option against the first two (design versus natural evolution) we must acknowledge BT corn and other intelligently created organisms that we humans have created and reweigh the naturalistic theory in light of the fact that not-so-very-sophisticated science is capable of intelligently designing living organisms in ways that would be undetectable to a later investigator of that DNA.
This does not itself lend credence or provide evidence of an intelligent designer of life on earth, but it does erode the notion that naturalistic evolution is the full and final answer to how creatures came to be as they are. Before mankind figured out how to manipulate DNA to create new organisms outside the natural forces of evolution, it was plausible to say that the most parsimonious answer was naturalistic evolution. But that changed on the day that man first created a new DNA-based organism in the lab. From that moment forward the question will forever remain valid and in competition whether or not some other intelligence chose to design life on earth to one extent or another. Proof that it is possible to artificially "evolve" organisms inevitably leads to that necessary hypothesis.
All that remains is to find evidence of such an intelligence or manipulation. This may be difficult, or even impossible for us at this stage in our own evolution, but that in no way means it's impossible or an invalid theory of how life on earth began or proceeded. It just means it's not satisfactory to scientists and pundits suffering from a poverty of imagination. But satisfying skeptical scientists is not the purpose of science, seeking and discovering the truth is.
So, it's not nearly as irrational or unreasonable to believe in an intelligent designer or a god as you would like us to believe it is, because the fact remains that a god may exist, or something we might reasonably refer to as a god due to its vast and advanced intelligence and capabilities, exists, or has existed, and has chosen to intervene here on earth for reasons unknown to us...and has chosen for likewise ineffable reasons to communicate only with some people...and not you.
You're being left out of the club doesn't mean that God does not exist or that God does not interact with other people. It just means you're not privy to what they know.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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