How to prove that GOD exists from a scientific point of view?

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FrumiousBandersnatch

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So the same applies for 'a vacuum', too.
Yes, the minimum energy state of space is often referred to as the 'vacuum state'.

Of interest here also, is the conspicuous absence of any need to use the even more nebulous term 'physical reality', (which never forms the basis of objective inferences in mainstream, reputable, (formal) scientific discourse).
Yes, but I think it's useful to map colloquial talk of 'physical reality' onto the epistemology that it derives from.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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Indirect clue to a technicality? I guess so, though it would
have taken me a while to put it that way.
0f course it's a meaningless technicality for daily life
purposes.
I'm regretting that I mentioned it.
I found the semantics interesting, so it kept me entertained for a while ;)
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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And permeated fields if you can call it that are not particles but potential particles. So at the very bottom is nothing physical.
The problem here seems to be the idea that not being a particle (i.e. not being matter) means not being physical. This is not the case. 'Physical' encompasses particles, fields, forces - basically anything that has energy; that is, in principle, measurable, observable, i.e. that interacts with other particles, fields, forces.

There are things that are not explicitly physical, such as abstractions - concepts, ideas, etc., but even these exist as physical representations (patterns of ink on a page, patterns of vibrations in air, patterns of activity and connectivity in brains, etc).

Then there's the whole issue of what creates or collapses particles from fields which isn't clear. So certainly the line between what is classed as particle matter and what is not is very blurry.
What isn't clear about it?

Matter, in science, is generally taken to consist of one or more particles - can you explain what you mean by, "what is classed as particle matter and what is not"?

I am speaking as far as what empirical science regards as verifiable. Its done through observation, experimentation. That usually involves direct observation with phenomena. We can make inferences as to what something is but its not until its directly observed and confirmed that its regarded as objective.
Define 'direct observation' - is seeing light reflected from something a 'direct observation'? what about using thermal goggles? what about using other measuring instruments? We can tell that something is blocking the sun's light if it casts a shadow - do we need to 'directly observe' what casts the shadow?

The results of verified empirical observations or measurements are considered objective; inferences made from them are subjective.

But if there is some phenomena that cannot be directly observed then how can it be regarded as verified scientifically. Does that make it irrelevant as far as what reality is. I know that the science method will infer a particular cause (physical/material) as opposed to any other cause. But that only shows that the method is biased towards a particular metaphysical view.
Define 'direct observation'. How do you know some phenomenon has occurred unless you can observe it in some way?

We know the phenomenon of gravity exists because we can observe its influence on the movement of matter and light. Can we 'directly observe' it?
 
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AV1611VET

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Hm. What utility is there in it being consistent with science?
If you want to be "consistent with science", you'll have to be ready to change your mindset after the next discovery.

And remember, Scientific American and Popular Science come out every month with something new.

So you'll have to keep up with the fad.

(Be sure and check those small paragraphs on Page 16 or wherever, in case they print a correction or retraction to something they thought was a new discovery, but found out later it wasn't.)

In addition, if you want to be "consistent with science", you'll have to be on a team of whitecoats who are giving those who sign their checks what they want to hear and see.

Make sure it gets leaked to the press, so they can write it up and blow it all out of proportion for them and make them look better than they are.

In addition, if you want to be "consistent with science", make sure you look the other way if a rigged vote is being taken.

Ya ... and if you want to be a top-notch scientist in today's world, and you weren't called by God to be one, be prepared to play loose with our moral heritage.
 
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Confused-by-christianity

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what should I say to them?
You might need to change your approach and not get into verbals with them.
Sometimes, debate and argumentation propmise more than they deliver. It's supposed to help you get to the truth - but it mostly doesn't (in my experience).

First create a foundation, then build on the foundation.
First show them lots of kindness, then say God is kindness.

My evidence that God exists, resides in my personal religious experience.
You need to give them the experience of God and then say God exists.
Thats the only thing I can think of - create an experience for them. Let all of God's love and goodness flow through you, into them, and when asked, explain that that is God.
As for convincing them that it's God or not...lots of christians believe God gave us freewill, respect it. Some things are not your decision to make. Let them make their own mind up.

Is there any scientific evidence to support GOD?
I wouldn't go down this road.


I don't think GOD can actually be found by science. Science deals strictly with the earthly realm, or with what can be seen visibly, so if one is going to find HIM they have to step outside of this world based upon faith.
If you give the person love and kindness and attribute it (quite rightly) to coming from God, then when the person starts searching for God, they might start going through these loving experiences you've given them, and find God in there.
 
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Halbhh

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So where does that prediction come from then?
So something is not suspected, yet its still a prediction? When last I looked, a prediction isn't too far removed from something suspected(?)

By working out all of the mathematically implied consequences of the entirely new theory -- the full variety of every possible new prediction the theory implies, each of which would have to be tested for, to see whether the theory is correct.

A new physics theory will have not only new propositions (both Special Relativity and General Relativity had new propositions that were novel in their day), but more than just the propositions. The new propositions will imply outcomes, some of which can be entirely new-to-us phenomena we had never seen nor imagined.

The next step is to search for those newly predicted new-to-us phenomena.

Which may or may not exist.

Those new theoretical phenomena might be non-existent: thus not real. If we do a conclusive type of observation on a key aspect of a given prediction of the new theory that is found to not exist -- not be present when it should be according to the theory -- then we learn a decisive thing. If that happens (and is confirmed by careful checking or an independent group also doing the search), then it proves the theory false.

And we throw it in the trash. :)

Or instead, the observations might find the newly predicted new-to-us phenomena does exist, supporting that the theory is at least aligned to something real at least in that part.
If that happens, then more scientists are motivated to do further tests on additional separate aspects of the new theory, to try to find where the new theory might fail, it having passed 1 test.
They want to limit or refute the theory, so that the false parts (if it has false parts) can discovered, and the only correct predictions then taken as good hints for yet newer theories to then test.

The aim is to endlessly refute and destroy theories until only a perfect one is left. We are far from that final point generally in physics.
 
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Halbhh

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Ok so; Einstein's thought experiments (for eg) were conceived by him as a way of convincing others to conceive already known problems in a different way:
But then predicted entirely new stuff that was truly bizarre and never imagined and weird, and even might seem so impossible that some would think the theory false even before trying to observe that prediction.

Black holes is an example. It's fun that actually the first we know to have thought up this wild and at first bizarre to us phenomena was a country parson John Michell: Country Parson Described Black Holes in 1783 | AMNH
Today, black holes no longer seem so very bizarre...it helps no doubt for some people that we now have no merely the suggestive observations that would seem to fit, but something stronger finally, now having in the last few years a direct image

No longer so bizarre
blackhole.png

(it's only bizarre until finally you find out it's real and you get used to it....)
 
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ruthiesea

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If you want to be "consistent with science", you'll have to be ready to change your mindset after the next discovery.

And remember, Scientific American and Popular Science come out every month with something new.

So you'll have to keep up with the fad.
Science changes as new information is found and discoveries are made.

It’s not a fad.

Should we get rid of germ theory and go back to humors?
Should we get rid of devices that are based on science like cars, planes, and the computer you’re using?
 
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Estrid

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Science changes as new information is found and discoveries are made.

It’s not a fad.

Should we get rid of germ theory and go back to humors?
Should we get rid of devices that are based on science like cars, planes, and the computer you’re using?
Sure beats being wrong for hundreds of
years and being afraid to face facts.
 
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AV1611VET

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Should we get rid of germ theory and go back to humors?
Should we get rid of devices that are based on science like cars, planes, and the computer you’re using?
Should we get rid of the Ten Commandments from public places? prayer? the Bible?
 
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AV1611VET

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Sure beats being wrong for hundreds of years and being afraid to face facts.
Speaking of which, one scientist stunted the growth of science for 2000 years.

But people still venerate him.
 
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David's Harp

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Sure beats being wrong for hundreds of
years and being afraid to face facts.
It may be a paradigm that suits certain factions in controlling narratives that bolster the "strong delusion" as referenced in 2 Thessalonians 2.

Science has a proven history of being wrong. God doesn't.
 
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SelfSim

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so, @Halbhh: you have distinguished a (scientific) theoretical prediction from something that is merely suspected .. but you haven't shown how either is independent, in any way, from the human mind which devised them.

Ie: All of: 'something suspected', 'something predicted' (or never predicted), are demonstrably still just two ideas (of different types), distinguished by the dissimilar ways, (or methods), by which you arrived at them.

So what remains is: a (scientifc) theoretical prediction can still be a description, constructed in a way to make sense from something else which we've already made sense of. Ie: this is all evidence of a mind exploring what else it might make sense of, based on what its already made sense of (or: knows objectively exists).

There is no evidence there for the idea that what a prediction articulates, exists independently from the very mind which conceived it and then described it, in the form of a prediction. All of which is not consistent with your 'findings' of:
Halbhh said:
Instead, to my delight and wonder, I've found out we are gradually discovering pieces of the real genuine external reality (!) -- the real physics, the actual and real structure of Nature -- the absolute thing that has a definite final form, and so we have some pieces of the actual structural design we now have pinned down, pieces that won't be modified, being perfect (!), but instead can only be incorporated into the more full picture, if we manage to find more of that real picture -- we are finding the real thing out there, slowly, in pieces, often with only partial bits that are incomplete.
Which is therefore justifiably, still, merely your belief which demonstrably, has no bearing whatsoever on what the scientific method produces.
 
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Mountainmike

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Philosophy is terrif for endless argument about nothing.
That may not be practical? :D
Not so.
The questions strike at the heart of what we can know.
Take the existence and or location of single electrons/photons in the classic two slit experiments prior to detection.
And what happens if you try to observe them?
That is an experiment about something, that proves the “ somethings“ in the model defy explanation in an existential sense.

So is a field a physical thing in empty space as @FrumiousBandersnatch contendS?

Science must confine to what it can test. Since in that case the only test that can be performed is to introduce mass into the space ( which like the field is only a concept ) , the only logical answer can be is that a field is a hypothetical entity conditional only on mass entering the space, therefore the field is not physical in empty space without the matter that realises it.

The conformance of the Model with observation is blurring the fact it is only a model, not the underlying reality. The modelwill be superseded in time.
 
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SelfSim

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Take the existence and or location of single electrons/photons in the classic two slit experiments prior to detection.
And what happens if you try to observe them?
That is an experiment about something, that proves the “ somethings“ in the model defy explanation in an existential sense.
More like there's an inadequacy in the models of electrons/protons .. (one well worthy of further investigation).
Mountainmike said:
Science must confine to what it can test.
Don't you just mean science must confine what it can confine?
Mountainmike said:
Since in that case the only test that can be performed is to introduce mass into the space
One can test the notion's predictions in theory, where the theory has already been tested extensively, and then draw conclusions about the predictions using that theory as it basis.
Mountainmike said:
the only test that can be performed is to introduce mass into the space .. (which like the field is only a concept ),
.. as is your introduced 'mass'. (Ie: mass is also a concept).
Mountainmike said:
the only logical answer can be is that a field is a hypothetical entity conditional only on mass entering the space, therefore the field is not physical in empty space without the matter that realises it.
You're trying to use logic and the scientific method to conclude a justifiable meaning (within the scientific context) for whatever your preconceived meaning of 'physical' is there. (Truthseeking .. yet again).
Yet when science uses its approach using already well tested concepts, you deny that logic based method?
Mountainmike said:
The conformance of the Model with reality is blurring the fact it is only a model, not the underlying reality. The modelwill be superseded in time.
Your 'underlying reality' there, has since been long exposed by science as being a belief, as there is no objective evidence that the 'actual thing' ever gets tested 'directly' .. (ie: all of science's models are already operationally defined .. not believed-in).

Both 'the map' and 'the territory' are models of different types. One is say, a pictorially idealised model, (the map), and the other is a perceptually experienced model (the territory).
 
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Estrid

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It may be a paradigm that suits certain factions in controlling narratives that bolster the "strong delusion" as referenced in 2 Thessalonians 2.

Science has a proven history of being wrong. God doesn't.

That's a little too cute.
If there is God, it may or may not
have been wrong. At a minimum, all but one of them does not exist.
Apparently you have a book about one of them.
People wrote the book, some saying, it is said, that they were inspired by a god.

People are super good at that kind of
story. Thousands and thousands of different gods.
As for the one you choose, the book about him contains numerous inaccuracies, and
stories of things that did not happen.
Then too everybody who reads that book
has it saying something different.

It would be terrific to find a god who always
told it straight and simple, and was always right.

I said wrong for hundreds of years. I was being generous.
The flood story is way old, and unless you
figure its all like some metaphor, well, I will say it's wrong, has been for a real long time.
 
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Estrid

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Science changes as new information is found and discoveries are made.

It’s not a fad.

Should we get rid of germ theory and go back to humors?
Should we get rid of devices that are based on science like cars, planes, and the computer you’re using?
Keep them.

Just deny them to the deniers.

Letum.find out how Darwin's principle works
 
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