Richard Dawkins: Why There Almost Certainly Is No God

I have never read Dawkins. His bottom line is one I can support, in this instance, however, although I prefer to drop the "almost" from his statement.

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To state unequivocally that there is no God, one would need to be omniscient.

Are you?

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Gee, I must be. Razz

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EB, you don't even know how many hairs are on your back. Rolling Eyes

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Real life, you don't know that there are hairs on my back. Smile

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edgarblythe wrote:

Real life, you don't know that there are hairs on my back.

There are.

So , what's my hometown?

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If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you. Very careless of you to forget.

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real life wrote:

[. . .] Modern science flourished, was actually established by many who believed in a supernatural God who had created the world.

Why is it not simply enough to say:

Quote:
It is the job of the scientist to investigate any natural object or event that can be observed to attempt to determine it's cause, etc.

Some things may not have a natural cause and may be therefore beyond the bounds of science to discover and analyze.

This would be far preferable to assuming the unprovable, namely: that ALL things MUST have a natural cause.

Does this mean that some things should be 'off limits' , that science should not even attempt to study or analyze?

Of course not.

Many things that were , say 500 years ago, considered to be beyond study have been successfully determined to have natural cause and observable properties.

But to assume that ALL things and events will ALWAYS have a natural cause is simply an assumption. An unproven and unprovable one.

Unprovable (and hence unfalsifiable) assumptions are not good science, are they?

[I am probably not qualified to represent the scientific community, however. . .]

I don't think science does reject the possibility of supernatural causes, but it makes no sense to consider a supernatural cause over a natural explanation.

Also, if something were determined to have a supernatural cause, that would not be an indication of "magic", but would only mean that the cause is beyond human perception. It still would be reasonable to assume a deterministic process, and so it would remain subject to indirect observation and analysis. 2 Cents

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real life wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:
real life wrote:
True science would not begin with a presupposition that everything has a natural cause.

True science does start with the assumption that everything has a natural cause.

real life wrote:
Why would it?

Because without it, magic would be used to explain everything, and the process of scientific inquiry would come to a halt.

Nonsense.

Modern science flourished, was actually established by many who believed in a supernatural God who had created the world.

There's a difference between allowing for the possibility of the supernatural (things outside of science), and using those possibilities in a scientific methodology.

People who believe in the supernatural can still do good science, they simply cannot use any supernatural explanation in any scientific theory. That is all that is meant when we say that science is based on naturalism.

Just because science must proceed from an assumption of naturalism, does not mean that science can deduce that naturalism is an absolute fact. Science can not, does not, and will never, disprove the supernatural. It simply doesn't work that way.

But by the same token, supernatural explanations can never be part of science.

real life wrote:

But to assume that ALL things and events will ALWAYS have a natural cause is simply an assumption. An unproven and unprovable one.

Unprovable (and hence unfalsifiable) assumptions are not good science, are they?

The assumption of naturalism is a philosophical position, not a scientific one. We already know it's an assumption. You're trying equate naturalism and science. They are not the same thing. One is a philosophy, the other is a methodology based on the philosophy.

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rl

Quote:

Modern science flourished, was actually established by many who believed in a supernatural God who had created the world.

Notice how your language is quite a dodge in that you say the early scientists believed in a God. However,They didnt do any research(that survives) into the nature and origins of the world. If they did, Im not aware of any.

Quote:

But to assume that ALL things and events will ALWAYS have a natural cause is simply an assumption. An unproven and unprovable one.

Unprovable (and hence unfalsifiable) assumptions are not good science, are they?

The falsifiablity would depend upon determining that a "supernatural" cause could cause these same events,and so far there have been none find. Falsifiablity is setting up the proposition that "could" show the assumptive mechanism is not the case.
The underlying laws of the sciences are those that are quite falsifiable and hence are "real". Just because Creationism has nowhere to begin is not sciences problem.
The ID ers and Creationists have twisted the concept of falsifiability like a pretzel and by doing so , have announced that the laws governing naturally induced processes are similarly unfalsifiable when they know that theyre just wordplaying.

The IDErs themselves have given science a huge boost in evolutionary development, with the concept of irreducible complexity and "sudden appearance.

BTW--I think that it was me who was razzing you about the innate "falsifiability" in Dr baileys venture into transplantation of babboons and people. Nice to see you try to turn it around .

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The ultimate ego trip has got to be the notion that "God" takes personal interest in an infinitesimal speck in this grand universe, to the extent he/she/it sacrifices a portion of itself by way of tortured, murdered flesh, so that a human may save his/her soul. Ego to expect that a god would think to bestow a soul in an animal that evolved the same way all the rest of the animals did. (The soul entered at what juncture of evolution?) Sigh . . .

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Edgar

edgarblythe wrote:

The ultimate ego trip has got to be the notion that "God" takes personal interest in an infinitesimal speck in this grand universe, to the extent he/she/it sacrifices a portion of itself by way of tortured, murdered flesh, so that a human may save his/her soul. Ego to expect that a god would think to bestow a soul in an animal that evolved the same way all the rest of the animals did. (The soul entered at what juncture of evolution?) Sigh . . .

Edgar, I know you can't help yourself, but I really wish you would stop asking your dumb questions.

BBB Razz

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That's the best dumb question I've seen in a long time!

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Re: Edgar

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

edgarblythe wrote:
The ultimate ego trip has got to be the notion that "God" takes personal interest in an infinitesimal speck in this grand universe, to the extent he/she/it sacrifices a portion of itself by way of tortured, murdered flesh, so that a human may save his/her soul. Ego to expect that a god would think to bestow a soul in an animal that evolved the same way all the rest of the animals did. (The soul entered at what juncture of evolution?) Sigh . . .

Edgar, I know you can't help yourself, but I really wish you would stop asking your dumb questions.

BBB

There are no dumb questions; only dumb answers. Very Happy

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edgarblythe wrote:

The ultimate ego trip has got to be the notion that "God" takes personal interest in an infinitesimal speck in this grand universe, to the extent he/she/it sacrifices a portion of itself by way of tortured, murdered flesh, so that a human may save his/her soul. Ego to expect that a god would think to bestow a soul in an animal that evolved the same way all the rest of the animals did. (The soul entered at what juncture of evolution?) Sigh . . .

At what juncture in evolution did consciousness begin?

How is it that, suddenly , organisms became 'self aware' by sheer accident?

Please.

You haven't even come close to pushing this off. You've simply dug a hole for your own argument.

Throw some flowers on it and push the dirt back in.

Your argument is stone cold gone.

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...and the beat goes on...

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Not this one, my friend.

Stick a fork in him. He's done.

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I believe we discussed the evolution of consciousness above. A prevalent view is that "self-awareness" is a function of "human language".
From a top-down point of view the "self" is a social phenomenon where the linguistic "actor" becomes an internalized "me". Even reductionists (bottom-up advocates) like Dennett recognize language as a prequisite for "consciousness" (in his case perhaps as the social program to be downloaded into the evolutionary hard wiring).

For "believers" this should imply that a concept of separate of "selves" and "gods" is a derivative optional subroutine of consciousness, but their blinkered focus on some of the functional products of consciousness/ language ("the word" etc) preclude an analysis of the structure of consciousness. Believers are like motorists born into a what they think is a "God given" traffic system. They therefore fail to question the functions of the traffic or the nature of the regulations which govern it.

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Real Life pronounces me the loser in the argument. That guarantees I am on the right track.

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http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=85435&start=80

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Richard Dawkins: Why There Almost Certainly Is No God

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