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&...15.aea8ZexYoPU

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


https://www.google.com/search?q=God+...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_N...eligious_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-Sc...dp/1596981555/
http://www.amazon.com/Beginnings-Wes.../dp/0226482057
http://www.amazon.com/Revolutionizin...dp/0691142068/
http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Reason...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.

[Sonny Tufts]

If you can't trust your senses by evaluating them with your senses, then what do you trust?

Who says I can't trust my senses? I have all the trust in the world that if I drop an object it will fall to the ground instead of flying upwards. This isn't to say that my sensations are always 100% accurate; sometimes they're not what they seem, which is how magicians make a living.

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.

How do you have absolute knowledge of the existence of a deity? You don't. You simply assume (have faith) that it exists.

If you are an atheist, you are stuck in the awkward position of explaining how you can know anything when you deny absolute truth.

I don't deny absolute truth for the simple reason that such a claim is self-contradictory.

[Sonny Tufts]

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.

The fact that we agree that 2 + 2 =4 could be explained by the fact that our brains have the same 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.

In the philosophy of mathematics this is called Platonism, because it's similar to Plato's Theory of Forms. Under this view, the Pythagorean Theorem (for example) would be true even if there were no humans around to contemplate it. On the other hand, there are those who say that mathematics is a human invention that is simply an abstraction from our experience caused by our brain activity. If nobody were around to observe two objects being combined with two other objects, the concepts of "2", "+", "=", and "4" wouldn't exist because it takes a human brain to form a concept.

I personally prefer the Platonic view, but I can appreciate the other. But I question the necessity to endow such logical and mathematical truths with a divine nature.

[Ronin Truth]

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." -- Albert Einstein

"God created the integers, all the rest is the work of man." -- Leopold Kronecker

"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan! The proper study of mankind is Man."

[PaulConventionWV]

The fact that we agree that 2 + 2 =4 could be explained by the fact that our brains have the same chemical reactions.

Why would our brains have the same chemical reactions if they're the result of chance? It doesn't make sense.

In the philosophy of mathematics this is called Platonism, because it's similar to Plato's Theory of Forms. Under this view, the Pythagorean Theorem (for example) would be true even if there were no humans around to contemplate it. On the other hand, there are those who say that mathematics is a human invention that is simply an abstraction from our experience caused by our brain activity. If nobody were around to observe two objects being combined with two other objects, the concepts of "2", "+", "=", and "4" wouldn't exist because it takes a human brain to form a concept.

We didn't invent the concept, though. we just discovered it. The fact that it is true for everyone means it is not dependent on nature. The law of non-contradiction, for instance, states that something cannot simultaneously be something and not that thing at the same time and in the same sense. The only reason we know this to be true is because it is true regardless of whether we believe it to be true.

I personally prefer the Platonic view, but I can appreciate the other. But I question the necessity to endow such logical and mathematical truths with a divine nature.

You prefer the view that says the Pythagorean Theorem would be true even if there were no humans around to contemplate it? That means you believe in things that exist outside of the natural realm. In other words, there is an innate standard that exists apart from STEM (space, time, energy, and matter), which in turn suggests that not everything is the result of natural processes but rather that there is innate intelligence in the universe that guides the laws that we observe resulting in the natural processes that are supposed to have "made" us despite the fact that the processes themselves are evidence of innate intelligence. That's how we know we can make sense of the universe, because it is based on innate intelligence (things that are true with or without the natural universe).

[PaulConventionWV]

Who says I can't trust my senses? I have all the trust in the world that if I drop an object it will fall to the ground instead of flying upwards. This isn't to say that my sensations are always 100% accurate; sometimes they're not what they seem, which is how magicians make a living.

I believe you CAN trust your senses and that this is the result of the innate logical sense that dictates how the natural world operates. However, if you believe that your senses are the result of completely natural processes, then you would have no reason to trust your senses because you would have to rely on their validity in order to validate them, which is viciously circular.

How do you have absolute knowledge of the existence of a deity? You don't. You simply assume (have faith) that it exists.

Ah, but you, too, have faith. If you dismiss the idea of a deity, then it's like telling me that you don't believe I have a nickel in my pocket. Why would you assume such a thing? Why would you require evidence of the nickel when either possibility could be true? You would have to require equal evidence for the non-existence of the nickel as you do for the existence of the nickel.

The difference is that my faith makes sense based on what we know about the creation. If you believe the entire universe is the result of natural causes, I would say that requires an awful lot of faith. You may disagree, but it doesn't change the fact that you are equally uncertain about both possibilities for the origin of the universe.

I don't deny absolute truth for the simple reason that such a claim is self-contradictory.

That is the entire point! It is obvious that we really do know things, and the fact that we know things presupposes a logical order for the universe which in turn presupposes innate logic that is independent of the material world. If you are an atheist, then you are forced into the awkward situation of explaining how you know things when you must rely on your sense to validate your senses so that you can know things. Otherwise, you are forced to admit don't really know anything, which doesn't make sense.

[Sonny Tufts]

You prefer the view that says the Pythagorean Theorem would be true even if there were no humans around to contemplate it? That means you believe in things that exist outside of the natural realm. In other words, there is an innate standard that exists apart from STEM (space, time, energy, and matter), which in turn suggests that not everything is the result of natural processes but rather that there is innate intelligence in the universe that guides the laws that we observe resulting in the natural processes that are supposed to have "made" us despite the fact that the processes themselves are evidence of innate intelligence. That's how we know we can make sense of the universe, because it is based on innate intelligence (things that are true with or without the natural universe).

It doesn't follow from the existence of mathematical and logical truths that thay are "intelligent" in the sense of having consciousness or purposefulness. Deists wish to require that these truths have their origin in a Creator to whom they ascribe certain human characteristics, but I don't see that this requirement necessarily follows. And don't ask where these things came from, or I'll ask where the Creator came from. Maybe they're just features of reality that are as eternal as the deity whose existence you wish to assume.

While I find a certain psychological comfort in the Platonic existence of these truths, I could be wrong, and it could very well be the case that unless there were a human brain to conceptualize them, they wouldn't exist.

Why would our brains have the same chemical reactions if they're the result of chance? It doesn't make sense.

Why do you think they're the result of chance?

[Crashland]

Again, why is admitting that you don't know things with 100% certainty a bad thing? I do admit that, and theists should too. The claim that our senses are all illusions is unfalsifiable, and there is no observable evidence for it. So actually, the reason I reject that proposition is the same reason I reject the claim that there is a God...

[HVACTech]

"our senses" are really pretty lousy. the reason that we spin generators at 60 Hertz or 120 cycles per second is so that you cannot see the lights flicker.
while the human mind is a really wonderful computer..
it is severely limited by it's inputs.

[Sonny Tufts]

Ah, but you, too, have faith.

I do in the sense that I assume the validity of my sense experience. As I said before, I can't prove I'm not a brain in a vat somewhere.

If you dismiss the idea of a deity, then it's like telling me that you don't believe I have a nickel in my pocket. Why would you assume such a thing? Why would you require evidence of the nickel when either possibility could be true? You would have to require equal evidence for the non-existence of the nickel as you do for the existence of the nickel.

If you were to ask me if I believed you had a nickel in your pocket, I'd say no. If you then asked if I believed you didn't have a nickel in your pocket I'd say no. Both answers are consistent, because I have absolutely no basis to believe one way or the other.

I don't rule out the existence of a deity, unless it's one whose definition contains a contradiction (e.g., a loving God who causes evil or a perfect being who is insecure or sadistic enough to punish those who don't believe in him). But I'm unconvinced that the assumption of the existence of a deity is logically necessary.

[PaulConventionWV]

It doesn't follow from the existence of mathematical and logical truths that thay are "intelligent" in the sense of having consciousness or purposefulness. Deists wish to require that these truths have their origin in a Creator to whom they ascribe certain human characteristics, but I don't see that this requirement necessarily follows. And don't ask where these things came from, or I'll ask where the Creator came from. Maybe they're just features of reality that are as eternal as the deity whose existence you wish to assume.

I will ask you where those things came from, and you're free to ask me where the Creator came from. My answer is that they are one and the same. They are eternal and independent of the natural universe. The universe is finite, so it relies on the existence of infinite truths. These truths don't "have" intelligence. They ARE intelligence. Knowing things is intelligence, and since knowing things relies on innate truths, it follows that these innate truths are intelligence. You are willing to go that far, but then you stop short of saying that this intelligence is the result of an intelligent being. Why is that?

While I find a certain psychological comfort in the Platonic existence of these truths, I could be wrong, and it could very well be the case that unless there were a human brain to conceptualize them, they wouldn't exist.

So you're saying nothing is certain...?

Are you aware of what you're saying right now? You're telling me that you believe absolute truth to exist, but you "could be wrong" while simultaneously admitting that this is a self-contradictory position.

Why do you think they're the result of chance?

I don't believe they are. You do.