Nintentacle said:
Aielyn said:
I don't believe in any god, yet I also don't believe in no god. I simply operate on the assumption that there is no god for the same reason why I operate on the assumption that gravity won't suddenly invert and send us all hurtling into space, or why I operate on the assumption that there isn't about to be a nuclear holocaust in the next 10 minutes. I don't particularly believe that such a holocaust won't happen, but without any evidence to support the idea that such a holocaust will happen, I'll assume it won't for the sake of being able to live my life.
So, you can only assume God doesn't exist because nothing has convinced you of him, but you can't deny that he does.?
One can prove nonexistence of some things because of logic - for instance, a completely omnipotent god cannot exist, because they would have to be able to create a rock that even they can't destroy (because they can do anything), but then they'd have to be able to destroy it (again, because they can do anything).
God would be able to do this for 2 reasons:
1. Being all powerful, God can change the rock so he can destroy it.
2. God created logic. Therefore, he can do things outside of it. We, as beings created within these laws, cannot comprehend anything outside of it.
evolution is as "proven" as one can get with physical things. Note that there were actually quite a few holes left to fill in Darwin's time... but it's been quite some time since then, and our ability to analyse has improved dramatically - we can now look at DNA code - in Darwin's time, DNA hadn't yet been discovered. And quite a few of the postulates Darwin put forward ended up being inaccurate... we've since corrected them.
What does DNA code prove, exactly (Hope that didn't sound rude, I am just asking you to tell what the DNA proves)?
For you see, science adapts. It evolves, itself. When evidence arises that challenges something that science "believes", it analyses the evidence, it analyses the "belief", and determines whether the "belief" needs tweaking and/or discarding. Of course, the word "belief" in this context is being used only informally - the appropriate term would be "has strong evidence for".
What we call strong evidence is only determined by our understanding, tools, and our (For now, at least) logical assumptions. Accepting this would mean you are saying you are possibly completely wrong. Although that's exactly what Science is, we could be "right" (I.e., the fact that we know certain things make a medicine that kills a certain disease/s), while being way "wrong" (I.e., why it kills the disease) about it.
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I can't deny the existence of god entirely. I also can't deny the existence of the tooth fairy, an invisible pink unicorn in my backyard, or a teapot orbiting the earth. You cannot prove nonexistence, beyond what can be established by logic (such as the complete omnipotence example I gave). What I can do is apply the principles of science to decide that, in the absence of any evidence, I disregard existence as a possibility. I don't reject it, I just disregard it.
Tell me, why don't you believe in Zeus, Apollo, and Athena?
And if god can change the properties of the rock so that it can destroy it, then the rock never had the trait "god cannot destroy this". Therefore, god cannot create a rock that god cannot destroy. By the way, asserting that god can circumvent logic is to say that you think god is a contradictory and inconsistent being... does this not mean that god is imperfect?
Again, avoid the word "prove", because in science, it doesn't make sense (it's good in mathematics, though). What DNA code has done is provided far more evidence, both of the actual process of evolution (by observing genetic code transfer from parent to child, mutation, etc), and of the evolutionary connections between species. It's hard to boil it down to layman terms, but basically, we've been able to observe patterns of DNA in various fossils and in more recent remains that allow us to track genetic material in both space and time.
Science always recognises that it could be wrong. Falsifiability is a key requirement in science - any scientific experiment or hypothesis that is unfalsifiable is considered worthless. But the key is, we have limited knowledge, and that knowledge is always evolving (there's that word again) as we discover more. Sometimes, it results in us discovering that our previous understanding was wrong... and that's good, because it means we now know more than we did before.
When it comes down to it, all "knowledge" is subject to a few basic assumptions. Strictly speaking, you can't even prove that you exist. There is evidence of your existence, but that evidence is based on the assumption that the light that reaches my eyes exists. It's possible that I don't exist - I can't prove to myself that I exist. I don't believe that I exist - I operate on the assumption that I do, because of the classical two types of errors - if I assume I do, and I don't, then no harm is done. If I assume I don't, and I do, then I've done great harm.
Indeed, that same logic has been applied to religion by Pascal (famous scientist, also famous for Pascal's Triangle and the unit of pressure), who invented "Pascal's Wager", which basically says that one should operate on the assumption that god exists, even if you don't really believe, because you'll be rewarded for belief or punished for nonbelief if god exists, but no harm is done if god doesn't exist... the flaw in that reasoning, though, is that it assumes that an existing god rewards following the motions rather than sincere following of your own beliefs.
We call it strong evidence based on our understanding. Any of the three bolded considerations are capable of changing things. Occam's Razor could give a new theory precedence and change our understanding. Extraordinary evidence could come forward that contradicts our understanding. Further collection of data could result in statistical analysis being sufficient to indicate that the evidence was not as strong as we initially thought. But the key to all of this is "evidence", and it takes priority over a priori beliefs in science. This is also why we have different words for different statuses based on evidence. A postulate is something that is proposed as a kind of axiom, an assumption made in developing a model or hypothesis. A hypothesis is an idea that can be tested and either falsified or collect evidence in favour of it. A theory is then a hypothesis that has been extensively tested, and all (or nearly all) evidence collected has been in its favour, and nothing has falsified it.
On the other hand, religion is an inherently subjective thing. Even if you had some being shout from the heavens that they would punish us, and suddenly we started having earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc in huge amounts, it wouldn't really be enough to determine that it was a god - it could simply be a sufficiently-advanced alien wishing to manipulate us. And so, religion is necessarily a domain of belief and faith, whereas science deals with facts and evidence. Atheism of the sort that I ascribe to (scientific atheism - it's not the only kind of atheism) is basically the extension of the scientific attitude into the question of religion... and naturally, without something a lot more solid than a book and a heap of stories, it takes the position that there isn't a god until sufficient evidence is provided to demonstrate otherwise.