Rath said:
It is nothing at all like looking at the universe and saying 'God did it, because its orderly' which does not have any actual measurement or explanation behind it. I really really am confused. |
The law of gravity is not physical. I will try to explain it better without repeating myself. As science is structured, it makes observations of the physical world, and these observations then allow someone to infer some law that explains these observations. When someone says they observe the law of gravity, they do not mean they physically see the the law of gravity. They mean they see the effects of the law of gravity. Another way to describe it is by talking about numbers. Numbers exist as concepts. I cannot point under a chair and say, "there is the number 2". I can draw a number 2, but drawing something does not mean it exists. As you alluded to, the law of gravity is an equation, and equations are composed of numbers and mathematical symbols, both of which lack physical existence. In the way I say numbers lack physical existence, I would also say equations, and hence the law of gravity lacks physical existence.
If you notice, I am talking about the law of gravity and not the force of gravity. My point in my original post was that the law of gravity and scientific laws, in general, have no physical existence. They are just means of explaining the physical world. They are not actually in the physical world. This holds true for all concepts, and I was referring to the law of gravity when I said "gravity as a concept". Just think of things like justice, kindness, hatred. We can think of examples of these words, but we would not say justice physically exists somewhere.
When I said that orderliness and rationality can be quantifed, I was referring to the teleological fine-tuning argument. The main point is that there are quantifiable values and constants that had to be within a narrowly defined set of parameters at the beginning of the universe in order for a habitable universe to develop. When I say values, I mean things like the ratio of electrons to protons, the gravitational constant, and the strength of strong and weak nuclear forces. All these can be measured and quantified. There are a number of videos on youtube with people explaining it better than me. I recommend William Lane Craig if you are interested.
Its a little long-winded, but I hope that helps. Just as a note, I am not denying gravity or taking shots at science. I was just showing that there are quite a few things that we would say existed while they do not have any true physical existence.