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

[Ken-1122]

That's pretty much what I said, so no idea what point you're trying to make. Is it just a way to avoid acknowledging that your equivocation is another complete failure of an argument?

What on earth are you talking about? I was the one who mentioned the dictionary and I was agreeing with you. Are you confusing me with somebody else?

 

[Ken-1122]

Kylie seemed to me to be referring more to "being mistaken" rather than "doing wrong"; however I guess you could have too.

But if not, I wanted to point out what I think is a logically necessary thing about First Cause. If God (First Cause, or he is not God) does something, for example love, he does not do it because it is a good thing to love --no love is what it is because God is love.

It sounds like you are defining love as subject to God's nature; is this correct? Concerning first cause, suppose the first cause/causes are inanimate objects? Does this mean what you worship cannot be God?

 

[Kylie]

I think it is more useful to employ less poetic language to describe the effect. The small change of the flapping of butterfly wings plays its small part in the causing of drastic differences at a later time.

In that we are agreed. A butterfly may flap its wings and set into motion events that will lead to rain instead of sunshine in New York, but a cat in England may roll over and all of a sudden the whole thing turns into a gust of wind that turns someone's umbrella inside out in New Zealand instead.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

What on earth are you talking about? I was the one who mentioned the dictionary and I was agreeing with you. Are you confusing me with somebody else?

You agree that your previous post was irrelevant nonsense? Why did you post it then?

 

[Mark Quayle]

It sounds like you are defining love as subject to God's nature; is this correct? Concerning first cause, suppose the first cause/causes are inanimate objects? Does this mean what you worship cannot be God?

Not exactly, if I understand what you are asking. Not that love is NOT subject to God's nature but that wasn't quite what I was getting at either. Love is defined by God's nature is more like it, but even that isn't what I wish I knew how to say better. Our minds don't handle it well: I could say all love proceeds from God, he being the cause of it --but then from that some would infer that therefore everything called love is pure and good.

What I had hoped to accomplish was to show how our concepts and even definitions concerning virtues, specially as we attempt to apply them to God, fall short. Yet whole theological systems are built around the resulting eisegesis used to develop such things. "It is simply illogical that God could be both omnipotent and omnibenevolent", I hear them saying, for example, when they don't understand either concept, when it is God we are talking about.

Certainly I did mean to imply that our definitions of love don't very well define God. But my reason for saying so is that any virtue, and indeed any attribute of God, all of which God possesses in immeasurable degree, are defined by his being, and not by us. I like to say he "invented" such things as time, logic and even existence, but I say that for the purpose of argument more than to describe how they depend on him for definition.

Logically First Cause cannot be inanimate, because mechanical fact operates under "authority" (if you will) of principles outside itself. As such, mechanical facts is preceded --caused. (Also, by the way, the notion some have of First Cause being self-caused, specifically that it caused itself to be, having therefore somehow sprung from nothing, is also absurd, at least to me. To say that First Cause "has always been" is also something of a bow to time dependent thinking, but it is closer to the point. "Self-existent" is more consistent than "self-caused").

 

[Mark Quayle]

In that we are agreed. A butterfly may flap its wings and set into motion events that will lead to rain instead of sunshine in New York, but a cat in England may roll over and all of a sudden the whole thing turns into a gust of wind that turns someone's umbrella inside out in New Zealand instead.

You still seem to miss my point, that the butterfly is not THE cause, but only one of many. Its causing is not amplified to the point that IT caused a hurricane. It only played an infinitesimally small part in that. You would be hard-pressed to show that the hurricane would not have happened had the butterfly not flapped, not because of the volumes of information that would be necessary to show that, but because the butterfly is after all such a small thing.

 

[SelfSim]

In that we are agreed. A butterfly may flap its wings and set into motion events that will lead to rain instead of sunshine in New York, but a cat in England may roll over and all of a sudden the whole thing turns into a gust of wind that turns someone's umbrella inside out in New Zealand instead.

Those may be chosen as being analogies for describing sensitivity to initial conditions of chaos modelled systems, but the outcomes cannot be demonstrated as mapping to real-life physical systems.

Your usage of: 'butterfly wings, rain, sunshine, cats in England, a gust of wind in New Zealand' is misleading. A butterfly flapping its wings cannot be physically demonstrated as setting in motion events that will lead to rain instead of sunshine in New York, (etc).

The 'butterfly effect' you describe, is an analogous inference drawn from the determinism inherent to math. Such determinism does not necessarily cross the divide between science (atmospheric physics) and math .. and in this case it just doesn't.

 

[Ken-1122]

You agree that your previous post was irrelevant nonsense? Why did you post it then?

What post number are you talking about?

 

[Ken-1122]

Not exactly, if I understand what you are asking. Not that love is NOT subject to God's nature but that wasn't quite what I was getting at either. Love is defined by God's nature is more like it, but even that isn't what I wish I knew how to say better. Our minds don't handle it well: I could say all love proceeds from God, he being the cause of it --but then from that some would infer that therefore everything called love is pure and good.

What I had hoped to accomplish was to show how our concepts and even definitions concerning virtues, specially as we attempt to apply them to God, fall short. Yet whole theological systems are built around the resulting eisegesis used to develop such things. "It is simply illogical that God could be both omnipotent and omnibenevolent", I hear them saying, for example, when they don't understand either concept, when it is God we are talking about.

Certainly I did mean to imply that our definitions of love don't very well define God. But my reason for saying so is that any virtue, and indeed any attribute of God, all of which God possesses in immeasurable degree, are defined by his being, and not by us. I like to say he "invented" such things as time, logic and even existence, but I say that for the purpose of argument more than to describe how they depend on him for definition.

If you perceive good and virtue as attributes of God, doesn't that make it subjective rather than objective?

Logically First Cause cannot be inanimate, because mechanical fact operates under "authority" (if you will) of principles outside itself. As such, mechanical facts is preceded --caused.

I wasn’t referring to mechanics, I was thinking more along the lines of perhaps material, and energy always existing.

 

[Mark Quayle]

If you perceive good and virtue as attributes of God, doesn't that make it subjective rather than objective?

I wasn’t referring to mechanics, I was thinking more along the lines of perhaps material, and energy always existing.

Subjective to whom, and in what way? Subjective to us, and therefore only as we conceive of them? And why should that be subjective --is God a subjective concept too? Likewise, my perception of good and virtue are irrelevant to the facts, in the end of considerations. This all proceeds from God. He is not subject to my concepts.

If you perceive good and virtue as attributes of God, doesn't that make it subjective rather than objective?

I wasn’t referring to mechanics, I was thinking more along the lines of perhaps material, and energy always existing.

Yes, nevertheless, inanimate translates necessarily to mechanical fact. You may think I mean by Mechanical Fact mere intricacy of structure and/or cause-and-effect, necessarily built by something else, but no, I mean anything that is not animate. Material and energy, as science deals with them, anyway, are inanimate mechanical fact.

 

[Ken-1122]

Subjective to whom, and in what way? Subjective to us, and therefore only as we conceive of them?

Subjective to God and therefore not objective.

Yes, nevertheless, inanimate translates necessarily to mechanical fact. You may think I mean by Mechanical Fact mere intricacy of structure and/or cause-and-effect, necessarily built by something else, but no, I mean anything that is not animate. Material and energy, as science deals with them, anyway, are inanimate mechanical fact.

Okay; so you define "mechanical fact" as anything that is inanimate; got it. So how do you know something that is as you call "mechanical fact" can't have an eternal existence?

 

[Lazarus Long]

-is God a subjective concept too?

Most certainly, your god and every other god is the creation of primitive humans. It's time to deal with reality and abandon fearful superstition.

 

[Kylie]

You still seem to miss my point, that the butterfly is not THE cause, but only one of many. Its causing is not amplified to the point that IT caused a hurricane. It only played an infinitesimally small part in that. You would be hard-pressed to show that the hurricane would not have happened had the butterfly not flapped, not because of the volumes of information that would be necessary to show that, but because the butterfly is after all such a small thing.

You seem to be missing my point that the butterfly wing flaps are just an example of the kind of small change that can later result in drastic change.

Now, can we actually start discussions about how even the slightest change caused by me seeing the future can drastically change that future so it happens very differently to the future I saw? Or would you prefer to continue quibbling over minutiae?

 

[SelfSim]

You seem to be missing my point that the butterfly wing flaps are just an example of the kind of small change that can later result in drastic change.

.. and its a terrible example because this never happens in the real world.

Now, can we actually start discussions about how even the slightest change caused by me seeing the future can drastically change that future so it happens very differently to the future I saw? Or would you prefer to continue quibbling over minutiae?

To have two specific time streams of events, which could be compared, over the same time period, is pure science fiction and relies on a particular guess about a form of time travel that is probably impossible.

Again, in the real world, we never actually compare events like that, all we can ever do is look at statistical tendencies .. where butterflies have no impact on the weather.

Whilst the notion of this ‘First Cause’ can be shown as being logically fallacious, (which I agree you have successfully demonstrated), there’s no reason doing so, requires throwing science completely under the bus, especially in a thread about ‘a scientific point of view’!

 

[Ophiolite]

.. and its a terrible example because this never happens in the real world.

You reject the principles of chaos theory. Interesting. What is your scientific reasoning for this rejection. (Not your implausible rhetoric, please.)

 

[Kylie]

To have two specific time streams of events, which could be compared, over the same time period, is pure science fiction and relies on a particular guess about a form of time travel that is probably impossible.

Again, in the real world, we never actually compare events like that, all we can ever do is look at statistical tendencies .. where butterflies have no impact on the weather.

Whilst the notion of this ‘First Cause’ can be shown as being logically fallacious, (which I agree you have successfully demonstrated), there’s no reason doing so, requires throwing science completely under the bus, especially in a thread about ‘a scientific point of view’!

of course, this would mean that the key part of the hypothetical - that I see a vision of the future - could never have happened.

 

[SelfSim]

You reject the principles of chaos theory. Interesting. What is your scientific reasoning for this rejection.

The point is, the lesson of the butterfly effect in real-world applications (involving, for example, butterflies) is a breakdown in the usefulness of the mathematical concept of determinism when applied in physics, or biology, or ecology, or any other real-world application where 'determinism' takes on its real-world importance.

 

[SelfSim]

of course, this would mean that the key part of the hypothetical - that I see a vision of the future - could never have happened.

Depends very much on the context you envisage for that future. The context of the interpretation we were discussing - for the butterfly effect, was the weather. Now we are talking about science fictional time travel.

 

[Ophiolite]

The point is, the lesson of the butterfly effect in real-world applications (involving, for example, butterflies) is a breakdown in the usefulness of the mathematical concept of determinism when applied in physics, or biology, or ecology, or any other real-world application where 'determinism' takes on its real-world importance.

That's not a scientific justification, it's a concatenation of terms so presented as to suggest semantic content, when none is actually present. Or, perhaps more accurately, it is an Argument from Incredulity. I keep hoping you will surprise me, but you always disappoint.

 

[SelfSim]

That's not a scientific justification, ..

I never said it was ..