There is no science...

[Gman]

That could ever be used to disprove the existence of God.. And that is a FACT folks...

It simply doesn't exist. You could possibly say sometime in future, but as it stands right now there is absolutely NOTHING conclusive. Even your most ardent atheists knows this....

Why gamble with your life on a hunch? There is NO reason whatsoever to reject the God of the Bible. Nothing... Nada..

[wondering]

Hi, I'm not atheist but I can think of scientific achievements that may either prove/disprove God or at least provide compelling evidence in either direction:

1. Time travel to the past, or ability see the past. This is the killer technology that will finally settle the debate by allowing us to examine creation of the universe and the life of Jesus.

2. Travel to parallel universes. This technology does not really disprove God but will remove fine tuning and many other arguments for theism.

3. Creation of human-like, sentient artificial life like C3PO or Commander Data. This technology will provide compelling evidence against the existence of souls.

4. Evolving talking chimps, dogs, dolphins and other animals. Not necessarily proof against theism, but if such a feat can be done it would be a killer proof for Darwinism.

5. Raising humans from the dead. This technology will in effect make religions obsolete.

The fact that all the aforementioned technology exist only in fiction is why I believe God is the best explanation for reality.

[Reactionary]

I just read a sermon from a priest who works as a columnist for a newspaper I'm subscribed to... He wrote about how the very foundations of science are based on the Bible, how the greatest scientists and founders of the scientific method were devout Christians. The reason why Christianity contributed so much to science is that it was the first religion to separate the material and spiritual world (unlike those which spoke about "spirits of rocks"), the first to define absolute laws and God as the lawgiver.

So isn't it ironic that atheist materialists reject God on the basis of "science"? Seriously, how can we talk about "testable explanations and predictions about the world" without the laws given by God? Chemical reactions in the brain can't explain or predict anything. They have to be guided by something. If not, then there's no reason to believe that a chemical reaction in an atheist's brain has more credibility than the one in a Christian's brain. As C.S.Lewis said, "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning."

[Byblos]

Hi, I'm not atheist but I can think of scientific achievements that may either prove/disprove God or at least provide compelling evidence in either direction:

Let's see:

1. Time travel to the past, or ability see the past. This is the killer technology that will finally settle the debate by allowing us to examine creation of the universe and the life of Jesus.

Time travel to the past is impossible for the simple reason that if it were possible we should already have been visited by future travelers. Why hasn't that happened yet definitively? Are future civilizations not interested in visiting us and letting us know that time travel is possible?

2. Travel to parallel universes. This technology does not really disprove God but will remove fine tuning and many other arguments for theism.

No it won't remove the fine tuning argument either. The fine tuning argument works irrespective of the number of universes or the amount of time it took to get to this universe simple because the probabilities for the existence of an anthropic universe remain constant regardless of the number of universes.

3. Creation of human-like, sentient artificial life like C3PO or Commander Data. This technology will provide compelling evidence against the existence of souls.

How so? They are nothing but machines, no matter how complex their algorithms they still need a programmer.

4. Evolving talking chimps, dogs, dolphins and other animals. Not necessarily proof against theism, but if such a feat can be done it would be a killer proof for Darwinism.

And you think proof of darwinism somehow invalidates God? I don't think so.

5. Raising humans from the dead. This technology will in effect make religions obsolete.

Hmmm, if I start seeing people being raised from the dead I'd better be real prepared for the end times .

The fact that all the aforementioned technology exist only in fiction is why I believe God is the best explanation for reality.

And even if they were to materialize so-to-speak, that should serve to strengthen our faith in God for allowing such marvelous technology advancements in our lifetime. Like Gman said, there is nothing that can disprove God for He is.

[rockman0]

I'd just like to say that number 3, artificial life, has already sort of been achieved. Computers aren't completely like humans, but they are able to mock human life. But this would actually further prove the existence of a creator. Because, like Byblos said, they still need a programmer.

[MarcusOfLycia]

On top of that (as a CS guy myself), computers are very poor artificial lifeforms... they are, in essence, just models of the real thing and like all models really fall short and likely always will. Its true that you could simulate particular thing really well, but if you try to simulate the whole system that truly makes intelligence what it is, it ventures into the realm of impossiblity. There's just too much there!

[Reactionary]

Truly artificial life, created from non-life, also hasn't been achieved. All the successful attempts were actually about altering the existing life forms, such as injecting a newly formed DNA into a pre-existing cell, or more recently, using testacle tissue of a mouse to produce sperm. I still think that scientists will never be able to produce life from scratch... I believe it's something that only the supreme Programmer can do.

[CeT-To]

Hi, I'm not atheist but I can think of scientific achievements that may either prove/disprove God or at least provide compelling evidence in either direction:

Let's see:

1. Time travel to the past, or ability see the past. This is the killer technology that will finally settle the debate by allowing us to examine creation of the universe and the life of Jesus.

Time travel to the past is impossible for the simple reason that if it were possible we should already have been visited by future travelers. Why hasn't that happened yet definitively? Are future civilizations not interested in visiting us and letting us know that time travel is possible?

Excellent response Byblos!!! Let me further add that it depends on what theory of time one takes. A theory of time claims that the future does not exist and is purely potential of things to be and that the past does not exist anymore, while the B theory of time claims that for egyptians 4000 years ago they still exist at that time and at 2050 i exist as an old man ... its not potentiality but rather you could say I exist at all times inbetween my birth & death. There a many problems with time travel, another one i herd is that to time travel you would have to move slower than zero...which is impossible.

[wondering]

Time travel to the past is impossible for the simple reason that if it were possible we should already have been visited by future travelers. Why hasn't that happened yet definitively? Are future civilizations not interested in visiting us and letting us know that time travel is possible?

What about a "view only" type of time travel that lets you see past events without interaction? You could then observe events from the Bible without the time travel paradoxes. Personally I think any form of time travel is impossible, but physicists won't stop creating pet theories of time travel.

No it won't remove the fine tuning argument either. The fine tuning argument works irrespective of the number of universes or the amount of time it took to get to this universe simple because the probabilities for the existence of an anthropic universe remain constant regardless of the number of universes.

If infinite multiverse exists surely the skeptics will use "multiverse-of-the-gaps" to explain away fine tuning and improbabilities of evolution. It is true that probability of universe like ours forming by chance is practically zero (probability = 1 / very large number) regardless of number of universes. But with infinite multiverse skeptics will claim that probability is now = (very large number * (1 / very large number)) = 1. A new set of apologetics is required to counter this sort of argument.

And you think proof of darwinism somehow invalidates God? I don't think so.

What I meant to say by mentioning sentient robots and talking animals is that the doctrine of humans as special creation from God will be challenged. Humans alone possess consciousness that is lacking in other organisms and computers. What will materialists say if humans create a computer having self-awareness, morality, aesthetics, desires, imagination and other traits of human consciousness? Materialists will surely use the sentient computer as evidence against mind/body dualism and existence of souls.

Hmmm, if I start seeing people being raised from the dead I'd better be real prepared for the end times .

I thought about this some more and I now believe "scientific resurrection" could be a killer proof for God. If such technology exists skeptics wanting absolute proof can experience death, experience the afterlife for some time, and then brought back to earthly life.

Personally I believe all the speculative technology I mentioned are impassable to humans. If humanity was meant to have this much power then they would have had access to the tree of life. Of course, secular scientists don't believe this and spend their entire lives trying to seriously attain them.

[neo-x]

There is no science...
by Gman » Tue Mar 29, 2011 8:31 am

That could ever be used to disprove the existence of God.. And that is a FACT folks...

It simply doesn't exist. You could possibly say sometime in future, but as it stands right now there is absolutely NOTHING conclusive. Even your most ardent atheists knows this....

Why gamble with your life on a hunch? There is NO reason whatsoever to reject the God of the Bible. Nothing... Nada..

I agree 100%...as a matter of fact I think that proving and disapproving God with science to me sounds ridiculous. no offense to anyone. and here is the pitfall that most take pro-science people fall in. you can only use science to validate your observation. most people look for scientific facts to establish their belief. which in fact is the wrong approach as science still isn't sure about its own theories. creation and time being the main factors. and science has its limits. Heisenberg uncertainty principle clearly states that even in quantum mechanics one can only see to a certain point in the atomic world, only to a certain degree and yet cannot be precise about it.

and bcuz of atheists that go all yada yada when you throw these kind of scientific statements, to them I would say about God, "ABSENCE OF PROOF IS NOT PROOF OF ABSENCE". ( And I'm sure there is a lot of proof all around us, only if they care to think of it )

[joejmz]

Hi, I'm not atheist but I can think of scientific achievements that may either prove/disprove God or at least provide compelling evidence in either direction:

Some of these may not be as compelling as they may appear at first.

1. Time travel to the past, or ability see the past. This is the killer technology that will finally settle the debate by allowing us to examine creation of the universe and the life of Jesus.

I see you've already addressed the "we would have already been visited" argument by positing an "observe only" process. But I think another valid argument is the one regularly presented in science fiction: theorizing that any change made to the past will cause changes to their own "Present" time travelers adhere to a strict Star Trek-like Prime Directive and so will not announce their presence to those in their "Past."

However, I don't think even seeing Jesus heal blind and lame people or even seeing the moment of his resurrection will convince some atheists. I think some would even find ways to explain it away if they could see God terraforming our planet from the chaotic world it was.

2. Travel to parallel universes. This technology does not really disprove God but will remove fine tuning and many other arguments for theism.

If it doesn't disprove God, then it does not remove the fine-tuning argument either. A creator would fine tune all of the universes he created to insure they worked exactly for his purpose.

3. Creation of human-like, sentient artificial life like C3PO or Commander Data. This technology will provide compelling evidence against the existence of souls.

All this would show is that man is able to mimic God's work to an incredible point, but I don't really see how it provides compelling evidence against souls. Can you maybe go into further detail on this one?

4. Evolving talking chimps, dogs, dolphins and other animals. Not necessarily proof against theism, but if such a feat can be done it would be a killer proof for Darwinism.

Are you talking about these animals achieving speech on their own, with no human assistance? If you're talking about humans modifying existing life forms so that their offspring will be capable of speech, then you are actually supporting the argument of the need for an intelligent designer.

5. Raising humans from the dead. This technology will in effect make religions obsolete.

Are we talking about bringing back someone who has been dead for several days without being hooked up to any equipment that is keeping the blood flowing and the body respirating? Are we talking about bringing back even people who were cremated or eaten by several animals and insects?

[EddieG]

1. Even if we achieve time travel (and it's debatable whether the science truly allows such things --- even relativity only allows from what i know (though i'm not entirely knowledgeable on this topic anyway) time travel into the future... and even so, we still need empirical proof that Einstein was right about time travel, for now, from what i understand, it's still in the theoretical category only), and see whether or not Jesus was divine or not, it would simply mean the Bible is wrong. It doesn't mean there's no God, just not the one of the Bible.
2. Perhaps. Or perhaps God purposefully designed different universes with different features. It's still a tough sell to me that a universe can become so complex by itself.
3. It could be a philosophical zombie. Beings that act like they're conscious, but that's only an illusion. It's just due to their programming. One interesting and futuristic claim by Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil (here we go! transhumanism! lol) is that if we design artificial neurons with the same functions as a regular neuron (each individual neuron, that is --- good luck with this, you'd need molecular nanotech probably), and replace a neuron with its artificial equivalent (by scanning the original in detail and making the artificial copy those characteristics), and you don't feel a loss in consciousness, then it is proof of the fact that AI can feel. This would entail a form of functionalism (i.e., whatever physical system there is, as long as it has the same causal organization, it will be conscious) along with property dualism (it is clear then that consciousness is not limited to one physical form, for it can be digitized and transferred to another substrate, therefore, the mind is made up of two properties, physical, the hardware, and non-physical, the software, information). However, I believe that there exists a possible world (maybe not ours) where the exact behavior of a soul could be made in such a way as to, so to speak, "adopt" the artificial as its natural brain just so long as it is the brain that dominates, and not the artificial, and you'd feel normal. What I mean by this is, as long as it's "a brain with artificial parts" as opposed to "a computer with pieces of meat", you know? It's possible. The soul is ellusive and we don't understand it. Then, once you reach the point where the brain is but a mere piece of meat, you can say the soul just suddenly "disappears", so to speak, but the remaining artificial intelligence will continue to act as it is programmed. It's close to impossible to 100% prove that an artificial system truly is conscious.
4. I guess this would be proof of evolution. Though if humans enhance animals (in sci-fi, it's called a bio-uplift), it's just proof of design. Theistic evolution is still an option though, even if not man-made.
5. If you mean cryonics, it's debatable. Some consider it to be no different than today's resusciations, though on a longer scale (http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?op ... &Itemid=69). Still, what comes back could be the biological equivalent of a philosophical zombie if the soul leaves (the neural patterns are still maintained, so it would act as you), however, it would act deterministically without free will i PERSONALLY would assume, i take the non-physical soul to probably be the best answer to free will (the driver of the car --- without the soul, the philosophical zombie will act like it's on autopilot... we might not even notice a difference). This is dependent upon dualism, though. Substance dualism specifically i think. If you mean bring someone back hours later without some sort of artificial system keeping blood flowing, etc., like they did in Star Trek when they put in nanobots in a dead person's body to restart it, that's probably an even lesser of a deal than long-term cryonics. If you mean totally rebuild someone after they were eaten alive, all their body parts, by say, lions or whatever, then it would be an interesting feat, but still can't disprove God. I'm not even sure this would be a major threat to the Bible. I haven't read anywhere where it says that humans can't specifically bring people back to life IN THIS WORLD, but still as a mortal (not as Jesus' resurrection of the dead in Revelation, where I assume we'll be special or something, or we just get immortality from the Tree of Life). But this isn't true immortality. You still need to store the person's information patterns (assuming physicalism) if you wish to bring them back to life (see Mind Uploading on wikipedia for more information on how something like this could work). I am not saying all of these things are possible. But this post did go off into far out predictions so might as well bring up proposed technologies. ALSO, even if you come back to life and DON'T remember anything from the afterlife, we have several options. Could be that the soul's memories are outside of the physical world. Look at amnesia. I'm sure the soul still has its own memories, they just can't manifest in this world. Similarly, God could just know that we are doing these things, and as a way of maintaining some secrecy, He removes the memories the soul has of the afterlife when it returns to the body.

In short, there is absolutely nothing that can disprove God 100%. Nothing that can probably prove it 100% either, though i'd lean more on proof that disproof, but that's just me.

-Eddie G.

[neo-x]

Hey Eddie, welcome to the forum. Just to add something to what you said

Even if we achieve time travel (and it's debatable whether the science truly allows such things --- even relativity only allows from what i know (though i'm not entirely knowledgeable on this topic anyway) time travel into the future... and even so, we still need empirical proof that Einstein was right about time travel, for now, from what i understand, it's still in the theoretical category only), and see whether or not Jesus was divine or not, it would simply mean the Bible is wrong. It doesn't mean there's no God, just not the one of the Bible.

To travel to the past or future requires travelling more than the speed of light since that is the only way one can travel back in time because on a universal scale light is what defines how far or past an event really occurred. The largest particle accelerators on Earth can only come 99.99 percent of the speed of light, not greater, no matter how much power it is fed. And the reason is - light theory defines and is tested that the greater an object accelerates close to the speed of light the more power is required to push it forward. Because the current fuel need to accelerate the object to its current speed may be able to maintain it but will not be enough for it once it reached a higher speed and thus will not sustain it. And so as the object reaches higher and higher speeds the power it needs to maintain its increasing speed also becomes more and more and it doesn't add up, it exponentially multiplies. This becomes a barrier because by definition any kind of fuel is not permanent, it will use up, burn into energy and even if it is to be recharhebale it would have to recharge faster than the speed of light.

Second is hypothetical but can have logical results. first if time travel is possible (implying that somewhere in the future man does have the engineering power to travel faster than light) then if, from the future one travels back in time to lets say the present day then by implication the history of today will change with respect to the future from where the person started. And once it is changed the future will change as well. Also if someone came from the future to today than it will recorded history and so in the future this would mean - unless his history already shows that he traveled back in time, he cannot travel back in time. In simple words you can not travel back in time unless your history shows that you already traveled back in the past. It is an endless loop cycle

Third is, if there is time travel in the future (even in distant future), why haven't we witnessed someone coming back in time to us.

2. Perhaps. Or perhaps God purposefully designed different universes with different features. It's still a tough sell to me that a universe can become so complex by itself.

Agreed that such a universe cannot kick start without someone to guide it. And by the way parallel universes also are theoretical and would require travelling faster than the speed of light. since that is the only way one can travel fast enough to go before big bang or super nova explosion happened (meaning our universe spawned), it would be the only way to escape the gravity of our universe's pull and then enter the boundary of another, wherever that boundary may exist.

[EddieG]

Thanks for the reply Neo.

Just one thing, when I mentioned that thing about the replacement of biological neurons with artificial neurons and still feeling the same, I meant GRADUALLY replace ALL your neurons with artificial ones. Obviously the loss of a single neuron out of 100 billion won't be the end of the world.

-Eddie

[1over137]

As C.S.Lewis said, "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning."

I cannot agree with C.S.Lewis. Why could not we find out that universe has no meaning?