Atheism/Theism & Science..?

This is taken from a PM conversation.

On the topic of bias, no I do not believe any belief is a biased one, just in this particular case bias can not be removed. You and I may be exposed to the same evidence but our reaction to that evidence differs because of the entire collection of our past experiences that will inevitably differ. I'm not calling that bias a bad thing necessarily just as long as you can admit that it is there for you when you say it is there for me, and vice versa. In reality I suspect our beliefs do not actually differ by such a large degree. It is simply that you lean just enough on the side of atheism to adopt that title due to the lack of a better word and I lean just enough to adopt the title of theist for lack of a better word.

I am perfectly fine with you making this conversation public, as long as you do so in its entirety.

As far

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Originally Posted by O'nus
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Originally Posted by Xaqaria
Any decision that doesn't weigh the evidence equally is a result of bias. When in the event that there is equal evidence for both sides of an issue and one still comes to a conclusion, that is a result of bias. This would mean I am biased as well. All I'm saying is that your particular bias does not make you any more equipped to analyze empirical data and arrive at scientifically sound conclusions than mine does.

So, any belief is bias no matter what? Is it possible to hold a system that is free from bias? I speculate that you may also be integrating the "since you cannot disprove it, you cannot know" argument. I won't respond to that unless you are.

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Religious beliefs are not always knee jerk appeals to magic due to a lack of information. Some times they are founded on logical examinations of the evidence. I don't think I'm going to convince you of this, however, so I don't see the point of continuing that particular line of discussion. If you would still like me to try, I will though.
Very true. Like I said, it really depends on how you are defining God.

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We may find that that is indeed the case. One of the reasons why this discussion began, however, was because you have dismissed any and all belief in god as irrational. I have said that I think what you really dislike is the idea of the christian god specifically but since you still seem to assert that you are against any god, it doesn't really matter what my definition is because I am still forced to argue for the very concept of god in any and all of its manifestations.
I am not against any definition of God. Have you been reading what I have been saying..? I said that, depending on how you define God, I may also believe in it (ie. culminating energy mass, etc.). Please do not be apprehensive, I am sincerely interested. It is monotheistic Gods like the Christian one that I have issues with.

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I have seen you claim that Taosaur is in fact an atheist based on his description of god and I will go as far to speak for him and say that is almost definitely not the case and is a perfect example of why I always butt heads so strongly with atheists. It is the refusal to understand how a different conclusion can be drawn from the same underlying evidence and description of our understanding of how things work that turns me into the constant theist's advocate.
You make a good point that I am not sure how to consider. As I have said, I do believe in a certain concept of a "God" but there exists no term for it. I usually refer to myself as a Chaotic Eudaimonic because it is the best thing that describes the view I hold. Atheism immediately implies militant fundamental rebuttal of all Gods when that is certainly not what I hold. I hope that you can see this in me. Otherwise, I have failed to convey my true beliefs or you have failed to read mine.

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I honestly can never tell when you are purposely being insulting or when you are oblivious to it, which is most of the reason why I lump you in with the most offensive atheists on this board; because you tend to lump any and all religious stance into the blind faith category when you discuss these things publicly. There is no allowance in your arguments for a rational and informed belief in a higher power and so one must assume that you believe there is no such thing.
I am far willing to give room for supernatural and higher powers. However, so far, no one has given anything besides simple arguments against my beliefs. No one has taken a stance for intelligent design which is by far one of the most popular and strogest stances for theism. I want you to question why no one has mentioned ID because I find it intriguing that people immediately discriminate me for claiming to be an Atheist and refuse to mention strong Theistic arguments like Creation and ID. Instead, I want you to notice that I am also blatantly attacked for the simple proclamation of my belief.

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Of course I don't deny those things, I am studying for an undergrad degree in physics with the intent of studying quantum mechanics and other branches of theoretical physics in graduate school.

I never once said that an atheist cannot use science. What I said was that atheism is not equal to science or vice versa. There are ill informed and under educated atheists who have only a surface knowledge(at best) of the ideas proposed by modern science and there are people in scientific fields who hold religious beliefs.
Okay. I profoundly agree with you here. I think it would make for a very good thread to show other people because I sincerely agree with you. It is a problem as being an atheist that it is difficult to describe my views without a negative response. I hope you can see that.

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My entire point in the "will atheism save the world" thread was that just because you are an atheist does not mean that science is going to always be on your side, and any well educated theist can use science to illustrate their points just as easily as an atheist can. Unless your stance is a firm, "I don't know" with nothing further, then you are making speculations on this particular topic. Speculation is healthy; it allows us to formulate new hypotheses and design new tests. Once you claim your stance is definitely true, or even more likely without actual evidence then you have failed at using the scientific method.
I really want to make it evident to you that this is sincerely what I hold. I gladly give room for supernatural beings and God. It is when it is used as a manipulative tool (ie. Jesus camps' worship of George Bush because he is a "saviour of the Christian country" etc.) that I absolutely hate. Any further arguments of mine was to try and show how, if you are to be theist, to maintain individual responsibility and not say things like, "I quit smoking because of God". You can obviously still believe in a God and quit smoking because of your own accord.

With your permission, I would really like to make this conversation public becaues I am embarrased that people get the impression that I am a hateful Atheist or something...




What do you think...?

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I'm not sure if all this will be clear without the context of the previous messages and without being more specifically broken up. Maybe it is though, its hard to tell since I know the rest of the conversation. If you think its necessary I'm perfectly willing to gather the rest of it and organize it all for one big post.

edit; on second thought, it might also just be way too much for anyone to want to read it. Maybe it is better just as the conclusion to the whole.

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Originally Posted by Xaqaria

I'm not sure if all this will be clear without the context of the previous messages and without being more specifically broken up. Maybe it is though, its hard to tell since I know the rest of the conversation. If you think its necessary I'm perfectly willing to gather the rest of it and organize it all for one big post.

edit; on second thought, it might also just be way too much for anyone to want to read it. Maybe it is better just as the conclusion to the whole.

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The original idea was to discuss how atheism is not synonymous to science. It may entirely rely on science, however, so do aspects of theism. So, while atheism may more significantly rely on science, theism also does in some respect. Thus, atheism cannot entirely be called "science" because it also has the bias of "there is likely no God" as compared to "there is no God".

Of course, there is room for those that hold "there is absolutely no way that there is a God" however, this is not my position which I think many people seem to think is.

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Originally Posted by O'nus

The original idea was to discuss how atheism is not synonymous to science. It may entirely rely on science, however, so do aspects of theism. So, while atheism may more significantly rely on science, theism also does in some respect. Thus, atheism cannot entirely be called "science" because it also has the bias of "there is likely no God" as compared to "there is no God".

Of course, there is room for those that hold "there is absolutely no way that there is a God" however, this is not my position which I think many people seem to think is.

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Yes I read it (your threads are worth it, massive as they are) but you really need some kind of intro explaining the topic. It just wasn't clear. If there was an intro it would be a lot better.

Oh, and I agree - athieism is a system of belief, but I should point out one main difference - theism is based on faith and atheism is based on a form of denial.

The simple answer is that some things lie outside the realm of science, but it does not make them any less important.

For example, questions such as 'why did the universe begin?', 'was there a specific purpose to it?', and 'was the cause of it a conscious being?', are all completely valid questions within the realm of philosophy, however they will probably never have any empirical evidence, and so the issues lie outside of the subject of science, by definition. All that science tries to do is observe our universe, and try to provide models for it, and to some extent explain it.

It does depend on how you define the concept of God though, and hence the concept of atheism; for some definitions science is incompatible, for others it is compatible.

Science is not compatible for a view of God in which God was said to have done real, objective things, for which there is much empirical evidence that such things were false. For example, the Christian God was said to have created the Garden of Eden and humans on the sixth day of creation. However science tells us through archaeological records that this is not true; there is no garden of Eden, and Earth was created a long time before humans appeared. Therefore the literal Christian God is not compatible with science, nor are the other classical Gods who supposedly did things which are not true. In that sense theism is not compatible with science.

However for some other ideas of God, such as a conscious creator of our universe (conscious perhaps being only a rough human definition of the true nature of that creator), there is certainally no empirical evidence suggesting that this is not true. Most people I think would agree that there is more to the whole of existence than just this universe, from the Big Bang onwards. That leaves fundamental questions unadressed, namely 'why?'; 'why not nothing?'.

In fact I would say that there is evidence for the existence of a cause that had an intent to create consciousness. There has been much criticism from rational people of the intelligent design argument, mainly because the logic takes the absurd leap from 'there is a God' to 'therefore there was the garden of Eden and Moses and Jesus etc. etc. because it says so in this book'.

However, I find it hard to believe at the current time that all of the cosmological constants and such were simply coincedences. Taking consciousness to be a result of the activity of neurons, just consider all of the separate elements which are vital for such a system to arise. You need a reality with matter. This matter must have extremely specific behaviours, which are the results of the sizes and shapes of electron orbitals, on the biological scale, in order to create the conditions in which organic molecules form spontaneously, and have the right materials, such as water and phospholipids for example, at hand. You need a universe with a huge number of habitat ranges (meaning planets with various temperatures and elements etcetera), by which I mean planets, for any hope that the whole system of evoultion will even start. And that's not even touching on the various constants which hang in an incredibly delicate balance such as the proportions between the different forces for there to be any useful matter to start off with. And all these probabilities cumulate to give what seems to be a miniscule probability that the consciousness could have arisen by coincedence.

All that remains is to ask yourself the question, 'why all this instead of nothing', and the idea that there is some purpose to the universe, namely conscious experience, kind of falls out freely. Purpose implies intent, and intent implies consciousness itself. So, for this definition of God (and I think there are probably others), theism is compatible with science.

Would you agree?

yeah it's not like you can take out a ruler and measure God or take out a scale and weigh God.

Edit: sorry had to leave abruptly

Xei has some good points.

Personally i think cause and effect has alot to do with the universe. Causality or causation is some what unclear in certain laws but still hold concrete through most. The universe had to have had a cause, wheather or not you want to call that cause God is up to you.