Does Science Argue for or against God?

Eric Metaxas makes a case for:

"Why are we here? Literally. The latest science says we shouldn’t be. It says that the chance life exists at all is less than zero. So, is science the greatest threat to the idea of Intelligent Design or is science its greatest advocate? Best-selling author and lecturer, Eric Metaxas, poses this intriguing question and comes up with a very unexpected and challenging answer."

What do you think?
 
Eric Metaxas makes a case for:

"Why are we here? Literally. The latest science says we shouldn’t be. It says that the chance life exists at all is less than zero. So, is science the greatest threat to the idea of Intelligent Design or is science its greatest advocate? Best-selling author and lecturer, Eric Metaxas, poses this intriguing question and comes up with a very unexpected and challenging answer."

What do you think?
Does he really say, the chance is less than zero? That does not bode well for the quality of his understanding...

Linda
 
The fine tuning of the universe is a very compelling argument, but I hardly think it will "convert" anyone ... if we're talking about atheists.
They'd rather take the most ludicrous, unrealistic hypotheses (MWI, "A universe from nothing") than conceding that some sort of fundamental intelligence is at work...

The only intelligence that atheists can allow in their metaphysics must be caused by purely undirected, blind processes, and of course... it can't be fundamental.
 
It depends on how you define God ... and how you define science.

For:

Many scientists believed the evidence that the universe was designed. These scientists include Nobel prize winners such as Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Guglielmo Marconi, Brian Josephson, William Phillips, Richard Smalley, Arno Penzias, Charles Townes Arthur Compton, Antony Hewish, Christian Anfinsen, Walter Kohn, Arthur Schawlow, and other scientists, Charles Darwin, Sir Fred Hoyle, John von Neumann, Wernher von Braun, and Louis Pasteur.
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers

The beginning of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe to support life, and the failure of multiverse theories to explain this, demonstrates the existence of a transcendent designer and creator of the universe.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-...-afterlife.html#articles_by_subject_cosmology

Primer: Summary of Problems with Biological and Chemical Evolution
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1510
More on Intelligent Design:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-contents-evidence-for-afterlife.html#articles_by_subject_id

Evidence That God Exists: People Who Have Near Death Experiences Meet God.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2012/09/evidence-that-god-exists-people-who.html

Against:
Science, by definition, does not consider supernatural explanations.
 
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The fine tuning of the universe is a very compelling argument, but I hardly think it will "convert" anyone ... if we're talking about atheists.
They'd rather take the most ludicrous, unrealistic hypotheses (MWI, "A universe from nothing") than conceding that some sort of fundamental intelligence is at work...

The only intelligence that atheists can allow in their metaphysics must be caused by purely undirected, blind processes, and of course... it can't be fundamental.

https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/skeptical_fallacies#skeptical_fallacies_materialism_rational
Under the multiverse theory, it is more likely that the vast age and size of our universe is an illusion and our universe is really 6000 years old and consists only of our solar system than it is a vast 14 billion year old universe that has the fine tuning, age and size that it seems to have. I don't agree with young earth creationist who believe the earth is only 6000 years old as it would be if the Bible was literally true. However that view is more rational than materialism.
 
Astronauts Say UFOs are Real
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/04/astronauts-say-ufos-are-real.html

High Ranking Government and Military Officials Say UFOs are Extraterrestrial Craft Visiting the Earth
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/09/high-ranking-government-and-military.html

Unidentified Flying Objects Briefing Document The Best Available Evidence by Don Berliner with Marie Galbraith Antonio Huneeus, Presented by CUFONS, FUFOR, MUFON December 1995
http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/Rockefeller-Briefing-Document.pdf

UFOs and Defense: What Should We Prepare For? The COMETA report produced by the Institute of Advanced Studies for National Defense in France. Part III concludes: "A single hypothesis sufficiently takes into account the facts and, for the most part, only calls for present-day science. It is the hypothesis of extraterrestrial visitors."
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_cometareport01.htm

Video: "Debunking the UFO Debunkers" in which Stanton Friedman explains why you cannot trust the "skeptics".

UFO Witness Testimony
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/02/ufo-witness-testimony-from-csetiweb.html

UFO Experiencers Speak
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/03/video-highlights-of-ufo-experiencers.html

Exopolitics Lectures from the 2010 X-Conference
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/03/exopolitics-lectures-from-2010-x.html
 
I don't think the uniqueness of the earth argues in favor of design. If the universe was designed to support life, one would expect there to be a lot of life in it. But..

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/04/naturalism-is-extraordinary-claim.html
(Links to supporting material are in the original.)
The laws of nature seem to be relatively simple mathematical relationships. There are only four fundamental forces known by science. How is it that just by chance simple natural laws and a big bang would include or produce all the factors necessary for the universe to support life: 20 or 30 cosmological fine tuning parameters, at least 15 factors needed to produce habitable planets, at least 20 chemical factors needed for complex life? How is it possible that simple undesigned natural laws working alone could produce the complex machinery of cells and the information needed for simple life and macroevolution? How could such finely-tuned complexity arise at every scale from the atomic to the cosmic from simple undesigned unguided natural laws controlling chance interactions within the universe?
...
The point here is not that the earth or the biological life on it is unique, there might be many planets in the universe like earth. The point is how lucky it is that all these factors needed for life, according to naturalism, arise from undesigned unguided natural laws. Given the complexity of the factors needed to support life and the improbability of life originating and evolving naturally, the more life we find in the universe the stronger the argument for design is. And there is plenty of evidence for life elsewhere in the universe. (Some skeptics may ask, if the universe was designed for life, why doesn't life form spontaneously? Consider a computer, a computer is designed but programs don't arise spontaneously, they have to be designed. Similarly, in a universe designed for life, life also has to be designed.)
 
What do you think?

I think science is basically atheistic - atheistic in the sense that it is not allowed to invoke God or something supernatural to account for some observed phenomenon.

I also think that probability arguments for God's existence are misguided. God is, by definition, a necessary being. Therefore, for the believer, it should be impossible that God does not exist.
 
Eric Metaxas makes a case for:

"Why are we here? Literally. The latest science says we shouldn’t be. It says that the chance life exists at all is less than zero. So, is science the greatest threat to the idea of Intelligent Design or is science its greatest advocate? Best-selling author and lecturer, Eric Metaxas, poses this intriguing question and comes up with a very unexpected and challenging answer."

What do you think?

Well, hes saying that the chances for all that being random are really, really low - yet it happened. Couldnt it just be that we hit that really, really low possibility? Otherwise we wouldnt be discussing those things right now, huh? And well, if things were designed by a entity like god, why didnt it create a environment that was more comfortable for life? Also why didnt the creator just erase asteriods in general from our plane of existence? There would not have been any need for other planets catching them for us. Why make it so difficult? If we apply humanly logic to get to a point where god is coming more possible again we can do the same to those conditions of life that this entity imposed on us. They are rather illogical and unneccesary.
 
Well, hes saying that the chances for all that being random are really, really low - yet it happened. Couldnt it just be that we hit that really, really low possibility? Otherwise we wouldnt be discussing those things right now, huh? And well, if things were designed by a entity like god, why didnt it create a environment that was more comfortable for life? Also why didnt the creator just erase asteriods in general from our plane of existence? There would not have been any need for other planets catching them for us. Why make it so difficult? If we apply humanly logic to get to a point where god is coming more possible again we can do the same to those conditions of life that this entity imposed on us. They are rather illogical and unneccesary.

The scientific evidence for the fine tuning of the universe to support life is best explained by the hypothesis that the universe was designed, but it does not tell us anything about the designer's motives or logic. When you make arguments about what you think the creator is like or what the creator would do, you are not making a scientific argument, you are making a theological argument.


http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/04/video-guillermo-gonzalez-on-fine-tuning.html


There are about 10^13 cells in the human body.

The number of seconds in the entire history of the universe = 10^17

Number of subatomic particles in the known universe = 10^80


Having a precision of one part in 10^30 is like firing a bullet and hitting an amoeba at the edge of the observable universe.

Some examples of fine-tuning require greater precision than this!
...

Fine-tuning analogy

Radio dial stretched across the universe

WKLF ("K-Life"): You better tune your dial to the first Angstrom if you want to tune gravity for life!
...

What is the Anthropic Principle?

The Anthropic Principle is the recognition that our very existence constrains the properties of the universe we observe to be those that allow our existence. We can only observe a habitable universe!

It is merely a reminder that we have to take into account observer self-selection bias in interpreting our observations. Our sample of universes is necessarily biased.

The Anthropic Principle does not explain why there exists a universe fine-tuned for life in the first place.

Why can't the Anthropic Principle explain us?

Illustration:

Quasars were discovered to be very distant in 1963 from their large redshifts.

Why are they so luminous?

Wong answer: because if they weren't, we wouldn't be able to see them. If we see an object in the distant universe, then it must be very luminous.


Right answer: Quasars are powered by the gravitational energy released by matter falling into a supermassive black hole.
The anthropic principle is stating a necessary condition to make the observation. It is not explaining the cause of the observed phenomenon.

If you think it is reasonable that the fine tuning is just lucky, then you should consider that there are vastly more probable universes that look just like ours:

https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/skeptical_fallacies#skeptical_fallacies_materialism_rational
Under the multiverse theory, it is more likely that the vast age and size of our universe is an illusion and our universe is really 6000 years old and consists only of our solar system than it is a vast 14 billion year old universe that has the fine tuning, age and size that it seems to have. I don't agree with young earth creationist who believe the earth is only 6000 years old as it would be if the Bible was literally true. However that view is more rational than materialism.

If you are going to rely on "luck" to explain the universe, then you can explain anything that way and there is no point in doing science because anything can be explained by luck.
 
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The scientific evidence for the fine tuning of the universe to support life is best explained by the hypothesis that the universe was designed, but it does not tell us anything about the designer's motives or logic. When you make arguments about what you think the creator is like or what the creator would do, you are not making a scientific argument, you are making a theological argument.

Maybe i do. Same goes for Metaxas in the op video though. I dont really see how this is any better than that what i did in my post. The chances are low for the event being random/whatever, therefore the creator must exist. Thats not exactly scientific either. Therefore my response is valid in my opinion.
Im all for considering the design-theory, its a interesting one, but its not that easy.
 
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Maybe i do. Same goes for Metaxas in the op video though. I dont really see how this is any better than that what i did in my post. The chances are low for the event being random/whatever, therefore the creator must exist. Thats not exactly scientific either. Therefore my response is valid in my opinion.
Im all for considering the design-theory, its a interesting one, but its not that easy.

It is scientific.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/04/video-guillermo-gonzalez-on-fine-tuning.html
Reconstructing historical events

The universe is an artifact. How do you reconstruct a historical event?

Not all science is laboratory based. Some science is historical. Geology, archeology, cosmology, astronomy are all historical sciences. There is a type of reasoning that is appropriate to historical sciences called abductive reasoning or inference to the best explanation. It's the way causal explanations are reached in the historical sciences. Abductive reasoning infers unseen causes in the past from facts in the present. If you discover an artifact or a pattern, and you want to determine a causal explanation for it, you apply the principle of uniformitarianism: apply the same kinds of causal explanations we use in everyday life to infer the best explanation for past unobserved events. If an artifact or pattern could be the result of several causes, you set up competing hypotheses based on mutually exhaustive possible explanations and choose the best one. The list of mutually exhaustive possible explanations is: necessity, chance, or design.

If you can rule out chance and necessity you can conclude the cause is design.
A meaningful pattern is improbable and rules out chance.

If you can infer a purpose it gives stronger evidence of design.

59:55 Chance
The conditions that allow for a life-permitting universe are highly improbable.

1:00:24 Necessity
The properties of the universe we observe are not logically necessary. They could have been otherwise.

M-theory explains how you could have other universes with different properties.

(There is a distinction between physical necessity and logical necessity.)

1:01:28
A meaningful pattern
The correlation of the conditions that allow for life and the fine-tuned parameter values of the universe we observe forms a meaningful pattern.

1:01:50
Summary of design argument
We can make a design argument:

  1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to logical necessity, chance or design.
  2. It is not due to logical necessity or chance.
  3. Therefore, it is due to design.
 
This thread is about a video that makes an argument for God from quantum mechanics:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threa...sciousness-and-the-death-of-materialism.2444/


http://dailygrail.com/features/michio-kaku-impossible-science
Michio Kaku
...
Another way, pioneered by Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner, is to assume that consiousness is the key factor. Only conscious observers can make observations, and hence consciousness causes the wave function to collapse. But how do we know that we are alive and not dead? Hence, we need a third person to observe us to collapse our wave function. But then we need a fourth person to observe the third person and collapse his wave function. Eventually, we need an infinite chain of observers, each watching the other. Wigner implied that this chain was a cosmic consciousness or even God.​
 
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Well, hes saying that the chances for all that being random are really, really low - yet it happened. Couldnt it just be that we hit that really, really low possibility? Otherwise we wouldnt be discussing those things right now, huh? And well, if things were designed by a entity like god, why didnt it create a environment that was more comfortable for life? Also why didnt the creator just erase asteriods in general from our plane of existence? There would not have been any need for other planets catching them for us. Why make it so difficult?
You seem to be presupposing that the Creator has total control over each and every detail of its plan... empirical evidence, science, and mysticism suggest that reality could be an evolving lab for exploration and evolution, without a pre-planned script.

The idea might be to set the the game in motion and experience its unfolding from an infinite number of points of view, for (maybe) an infinite amount of time...
 
If the God in question is the strawman God that is a bearded man up in heaven listening to our prayers and sending people to heaven and hell, then I think science has a right to say that this God does not exist.

If the question is more like the concept of a transcendental absolute existence liked the Hindu Brahman, then science cannot say one way or another because it is a metaphysical question.

However, scientists are notorious for not understanding the limits of science and the difference between science and metaphysics.
 
Every rational system when it becomes self-reflexive is destroyed. Science is the process of rationalizing and de-mystifying the world but when rationalism is applied to rationalism you encounter the Abyss... or as some people call it... God... or solipsism... or the Void... And brooding over the formless surface of the void, you have the Logos, the Word, the structure of reason... and when it becomes self-reflexive, when the Light says to the darkness "let there be light" you have a simultaneous destruction and recreation as binary oppositions of mental boundaries and spaces are scattered flitting across the infinite void in an endless display of reflections between symbol and meaning. Awareness brings you into the middle of all of this. The acquisition of language puts you perpetually on the boundary between mystery and reason.

So to answer your question, Science argues for the sane half of God: the Logos... but God is not merely ultimate logic, God must also be ultimate mystery, and science - being logical - cannot approach It/Him/Her.
 
Every rational system when it becomes self-reflexive is destroyed. Science is the process of rationalizing and de-mystifying the world but when rationalism is applied to rationalism you encounter the Abyss... or as some people call it... God... or solipsism... or the Void... And brooding over the formless surface of the void, you have the Logos, the Word, the structure of reason... and when it becomes self-reflexive, when the Light says to the darkness "let there be light" you have a simultaneous destruction and recreation as binary oppositions of mental boundaries and spaces are scattered flitting across the infinite void in an endless display of reflections between symbol and meaning. Awareness brings you into the middle of all of this. The acquisition of language puts you perpetually on the boundary between mystery and reason.

So to answer your question, Science argues for the sane half of God: the Logos... but God is not merely ultimate logic, God must also be ultimate mystery, and science - being logical - cannot approach It/Him/Her.
I don't know about this aggrandisement of mystery, seems to be a cop-out, however being humble and in awe at how much is unknowable that makes sense to me. But the idea we'll can't grasp the nature of God via our current means of coming to know things, might be just another assumption to mask feelings of incapacity.
 
If the God in question is the strawman God that is a bearded man up in heaven listening to our prayers and sending people to heaven and hell, then I think science has a right to say that this God does not exist.

If the question is more like the concept of a transcendental absolute existence liked the Hindu Brahman, then science cannot say one way or another because it is a metaphysical question.

However, scientists are notorious for not understanding the limits of science and the difference between science and metaphysics.

You've probably heard this..

 
I don't know about this aggrandisement of mystery, seems to be a cop-out, however being humble and in awe at how much is unknowable that makes sense to me. But the idea we'll can't grasp the nature of God via our current means of coming to know things, might be just another assumption to mask feelings of incapacity.

How do you feel about the phrase: "God is truth"?
 
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