God Proven to Exist According to Mainstream Physics

[Jamesiv1]

You can't be serious. You're telling me it makes no difference whether God exists? What if this God has rules?

I'm not saying that it makes no difference. What I'm saying is that in my humble opinion, deep faith and confirmed belief is the result of experiencing God, not learning about God. That's been my experience.

On second thought, if someone comes to believe thru the type of stuff in the OP, then who am I to judge? Everyone's path is unique. Pretty arrogant of me to sit here and tell someone that my path is awesome and their path sucks.

"If you spot it, you got it." heh

 

[PaulConventionWV]

"my diplomacy dike groans"

That was interesting, but that bloke (to use the appropriate vernacular) is very confused. "My pointless life is twice as long! Yippeee!"

 

[PaulConventionWV]

I'm not telling you that it makes no difference. What I'm telling you is that in my humble opinion, deep faith and confirmed belief is the result of experiencing God, not learning about God. That's been my experience.

On second thought, if someone comes to believe thru the type of stuff in the OP, then who am I to judge? Everyone's path is unique. Pretty arrogant of me to sit here and tell you that my path is awesome and your path sucks.

"If you spot it, you got it." heh

Fair enough, and I'm glad you made that addendum.

 

[Ronin Truth]

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en...0...1ac.1.34.heirloom-hp..1.2.515.aea8ZexYoPU

I wonder if Higgs should give back God's Particle?


https://www.google.com/search?q=God+Particle&hl=en&gbv=2&oq=&gs_l=

 

[Sonny Tufts]

It presupposes a lot more than that. It also presupposes that our observations are reliable, and that this reality behaves according to orderly predictable patterns.

True enough. But the presupposition of a deity is an unnecessary adjunct to these premises.

Science as we know it only developed once in world history, and that was in Christian Europe, where it developed as an outgrowth of Christian theology.

"As we know it" is a very malleable qualifier. The ancients used observations to predict eclipses, floods, and the apparent movement of the stars. In the field of mathematics (which has been called the Queen of Science), huge advances were made long before Christ. Since scientific knowledge is cumulative, it's unfair to think that the ancients would have had the same scientific sophistication as Newton or Copernicus.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

"As we know it" is a very malleable qualifier. The ancients used observations to predict eclipses, floods, and the apparent movement of the stars. In the field of mathematics (which has been called the Queen of Science), huge advances were made long before Christ. Since scientific knowledge is cumulative, it's unfair to think that the ancients would have had the same scientific sophistication as Newton or Copernicus.

Yup. And classical sciences were all at least partly religious disciplines, AFAIK. The ancient Greeks (including Aristotle), for example, explained that the reason objects tend to fall down and land as close as possible to the ground is that the Earth is the center of the universe (a thought pulled from Greek religion).

 

[Sonny Tufts]

How can you trust your own reasoning or, indeed, your observations if you must rely on your own reasoning to prove that your reasoning, and therefore everything you observe, is valid?

I trust my reasoning and observations because they work. Can I prove I'm not just a brain-in-a-vat? No. But I see no reason to make that assumption.

The folks on this thread who belittle induction are never willing to acknowledge that they behave every second of their existence as if the inferences drawn from experience are accurate. They need to ask themselves why they do so.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

I trust my reasoning and observations because they work. Can I prove I'm not just a brain-in-a-vat? No. But I see no reason to make that assumption.

The folks on this thread who belittle induction are never willing to acknowledge that they behave every second of their existence as if the inferences drawn from experience are accurate. They need to ask themselves why they do so.

On the other hand, how do believers in the Biblical deity

There's nothing wrong with induction per se. The problem for science-worshipers is that it's fallacious by nature (as much if not moreso than any religious reasoning method), despite that they insist on "pure reason" (or some variant of this). I imagine this must cause terrible cognitive dissonance. :/

ETA: Dr John McWhorter, in his lectures on linguistic science, once said "there is a point where every science becomes a religion". He was referring to some linguists' insistence on the existence of a proto-world language despite no evidence of it-but it applies to all sciences, whether scientists want to admit it or not.

 

[jmdrake]

Science as we know it only developed once in world history, and that was in Christian Europe, where it developed as an outgrowth of Christian theology.

So all of the scientific achievements of the ancient Chinese simply don't exist in your worldview? And Archimedes wasn't a scientist?

 

[robert68]

Isaac Newton - Religious views:

Although born into an Anglican family, by his thirties Newton held a Christian faith that, had it been made public, would not have been considered orthodox by mainstream Christianity;[113] in recent times he has been described as a heretic.[6]

By 1672 he had started to record his theological researches in notebooks which he showed to no one and which have only recently been examined. They demonstrate an extensive knowledge of early church writings and show that in the conflict between Athanasius and Arius which defined the Creed, he took the side of Arius, the loser, who rejected the conventional view of the Trinity. Newton "recognized Christ as a divine mediator between God and man, who was subordinate to the Father who created him."[114] He was especially interested in prophecy, but for him, "the great apostasy was trinitarianism."[115]
...
In Newton's eyes, worshipping Christ as God was idolatry, to him the fundamental sin.[117] Historian Stephen D. Snobelen says of Newton, "Isaac Newton was a heretic. But ... he never made a public declaration of his private faith—which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Religious_views

 

[otherone]

I don't think I've ever said anything about the fallacy of induction. That's more of a bug in SF's bonnet, and I think I have a more optimistic view of science than he does. But I wouldn't be able to justify this optimism if it weren't for my theism.

mea culpa.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

I trust my reasoning and observations because they work. Can I prove I'm not just a brain-in-a-vat? No. But I see no reason to make that assumption.

The folks on this thread who belittle induction are never willing to acknowledge that they behave every second of their existence as if the inferences drawn from experience are accurate. They need to ask themselves why they do so.

How do you know they work?

Deists have a perfectly good reason for believing their reasoning is valid. If you can't trust your senses by evaluating them with your senses, then what do you trust? Deists rely on a creator that is outside of the material universe and not beholden to it who created the laws of logic and nature for a specific purpose. That way, things make sense and we can have absolute knowledge. You, on the other hand, must rely on your own senses to validate your senses, so if we are to accept that, then we can't know anything for certain. That's how science and knowledge in general presupposes God. If you are an atheist, you are stuck in the awkward position of explaining how you can know anything when you deny absolute truth. Atheism doesn't make sense if we are to accept that our reasoning actually works. Deism doesn't have that problem.

 

[Ender]

So all of the scientific achievements of the ancient Chinese simply don't exist in your worldview? And Archimedes wasn't a scientist?

Many early scientific achievements also came from the ME.

 

[HVACTech]

How do you know they work?

Deists have a perfectly good reason for believing their reasoning is valid. If you can't trust your senses by evaluating them with your senses, then what do you trust? Deists rely on a creator that is outside of the material universe and not beholden to it who created the laws of logic and nature for a specific purpose. That way, things make sense and we can have absolute knowledge. You, on the other hand, must rely on your own senses to validate your senses, so if we are to accept that, then we can't know anything for certain. That's how science and knowledge in general presupposes God. If you are an atheist, you are stuck in the awkward position of explaining how you can know anything when you deny absolute truth. Atheism doesn't make sense if we are to accept that our reasoning actually works. Deism doesn't have that problem.

that is actually very well said. I especially liked this part..

That's how science and knowledge in general presupposes God.

yes, I see it as a framework for understanding god, it is a ladder that we are to climb.
Life is about Life, or resistance to Entropy. I do not see this view as being in disharmony with "Christianity" in any way.
I was a Christian for most of my life. and I would tell you that I still am... except however, that I can find no harmony over the meaning of this word.
in my view, Jesus spoke as a teacher. and I listened, understood my job and set about trying to do it.

I find "doing my job" to avoid punishment or to seek reward. as demeaning to the whole process.
I will admit that if you ask me if I think I am right, I will answer yes.
but I do not know or insist that, that is true.
peace.

 

[HVACTech]

this is for the OP.

I have a real frickin "problem" with this whole E=MC squared thingy.

the person who wrote this, also wrote the "laws" that govern it.
if "mass" cannot be defined, (via the special law of relativity circa 1915)
and if the speed of light is absolute. ( I won't bore you with where that came from)

then how does the formula make sense?



does this mean Maxwell Planck is spinning in his grave?

 

[Ronin Truth]

So all of the scientific achievements of the ancient Chinese simply don't exist in your worldview? And Archimedes wasn't a scientist?

And don'tcha dare contradict Aristotle. But everything else is fair game (so long as you get Rome's approval first). Oh yeah, and none of that pagan, heathen, heretic and Semite stuff either.

 

[Crashland]

How do you know they work?

Deists have a perfectly good reason for believing their reasoning is valid. If you can't trust your senses by evaluating them with your senses, then what do you trust? Deists rely on a creator that is outside of the material universe and not beholden to it who created the laws of logic and nature for a specific purpose. That way, things make sense and we can have absolute knowledge. You, on the other hand, must rely on your own senses to validate your senses, so if we are to accept that, then we can't know anything for certain. That's how science and knowledge in general presupposes God. If you are an atheist, you are stuck in the awkward position of explaining how you can know anything when you deny absolute truth. Atheism doesn't make sense if we are to accept that our reasoning actually works. Deism doesn't have that problem.

Why is it such a problem if we don't know things for certain? There is no way for me to know if I am living in the Matrix. All we can do is attempt to make sense out of what we do perceive. If my perceptions or if reason itself is unreliable, well there's nothing I can do about that. But in my experience, it appears that we function well when we apply our concepts of reason and logic, and we don't function well when we don't. Unless that changes, I don't have a problem operating as if reason is reliable even if there is no way to know that with a hundred percent certainty.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

Why is it such a problem if we don't know things for certain? There is no way for me to know if I am living in the Matrix. All we can do is attempt to make sense out of what we do perceive. If my perceptions or if reason itself is unreliable, well there's nothing I can do about that. But in my experience, it appears that we function well when we apply our concepts of reason and logic, and we don't function well when we don't. Unless that changes, I don't have a problem operating as if reason is reliable even if there is no way to know that with a hundred percent certainty.

Because the world shouldn't make sense if you can't know anything for certain. The fact that we have concrete laws of logic and nature that seem to be separate from the material world would suggest that the material world is not all there is. Deism makes sense of the world by acknowledging that there must have been a source of knowledge that makes everything make sense.

Let's say you know 1% of everything (being generous). Is it possible that there is something out there in the 99% that would contradict everything you think you know about that 1%? If that's true, then you really don't know anything, do you? Atheists usually try to get around this by saying it is "very unlikely" that something could contradict what they know, but how could you even know the likelihood if you don't even know how much you know? The fact that things make sense is a testament to the logical and orderly nature of the universe. It defies reason to say that this was brought about by chance and that nothing really makes sense.

Of course you don't have a problem behaving as if your reasoning were reliable, but by doing so, you have to assume that there is an absolute truth out there that is independent of the material world and that the laws of logic are not just chemical reactions in our brains. If they were, then it would be stupid to even argue anything because we don't even know that logic is the same for me as it is for you. I, however, acknowledge the fact that things make sense and that there is an absolute truth out there that is not a result of random chemical reactions.

There is a standard of logic and rationality out there that is true whether or not we think it is true. We all agree that 2+2=4 because we all accept that the truth of that is not affected by our individual thinking processes or by the natural world. It is innate and beyond the realm of natural existence.

 

[erowe1]

"As we know it" is a very malleable qualifier.

But it's an important qualifier. For all the true things you point out about ancient mathematics and astronomy, those same ancients did not follow any variations of what we today call the scientific method of making hypotheses and testing predictions based on them via experiment so as to falsify or refine them.

When Aristotle said that heavier things fall faster than light things, he was just as capable of testing that as anyone centuries later would be. But such a method was not part of his philosophy. And it wouldn't be part of anyone's until Christian theologians would devise it.

 

[erowe1]

So all of the scientific achievements of the ancient Chinese simply don't exist in your worldview? And Archimedes wasn't a scientist?

See my explanation right above this. The qualifier, "as we know it," was intentional and important.

It's not just in my view. It's something that historians of science have talked about.

See, for example, the following books:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Genesis-Science-Scientific-Revolution/dp/1596981555/
http://www.amazon.com/Beginnings-Western-Science-Philosophical-Institutional/dp/0226482057
http://www.amazon.com/Revolutionizing-Sciences-Knowledge-Ambitions-1500-1700/dp/0691142068/
http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Reason-Christianity-Freedom-Capitalism-ebook/dp/B000SEV7OQ/

The scientific revolution of the end of the Middle Ages wasn't a rediscovery of lost wisdom, or simply the West's version of what had already happened elsewhere. It was something new under the Sun, and the outgrowth of ideas of Christian theologians who had begun pointing the way forward over the centuries leading up to that.