Just as the absence of disproof does not constitute proof, the absence of proof does not constitute disproof.

I have no idea if God exists or not. I don't honestly care. But the fact we have no proven miracles before us is a poor argument for it's non-existence.

Jon

It is not possible to absolutely prove that there are no gods.

It IS possible to test some of the claims of their followers.

For example,if they say "Jesus brings you peace". Simply compare the mental health records of Christians with non-Christians. In theory if the claim is true no Christian should be on anti anxiety medication. Maybe there will be some cross contamination with some claiming to be Christians who aren't but with a large sample size a decent statistical correlation could be made.

Many claims of religion can be tested in similar manner.

This does not prove the religion to be "true" but it would be a foundation for further research.

CC

But this is where you depart from reason. And again, I don't really care, except that you are selling reason and logic down the river, and then claiming to hold them dear. You aimlessly blunder from a position of demanding proof for everything you believe into one of demanding lower standards of proof for things you agree with, and then straight back again. Science is not a boloney detector and a Carl Sagan soundbite is not an argument.

Anyone who is persuaded to change their religious opinion on the basis of any of your arguments is not gaining from opening up their mind to reason. They would have to be an easily defrauded moron not to realise that their original opinion is worth at least as much as yours.

Not arsed about proving he doesn't exist, I just want to know whether I can use a light switch on Sundays.

Yes it is. And I'm talking about applying the same standards of proof to both, not lowering it for religion which is what you do.



Only if it is a sterile, non-partisan belief in the concept of some wishy washy undefined creator. As soon as they ally that belief to an organised religion that states things about the real world without the need for proof, you can start to weigh up the facts and say things like "on the balance of probabilities, you're probably wrong". This is especially important when say you want to teach kids that evolution is "only" a theory and it is "equally" valid to say that Earth is X years old depending on your religious book... no it is not equally valid, and it is not equally rational.

Some would go further and say that proving a miracle is fundamentally unsound even if proof is furnished.

Take for instance the experiment that was done a awhile ago to try and prove or disprove the medical efficacy of prayer. In that experiment lots of christians were given the names of people in hospital to pray for. It was a double-blind test with a control group etc. And they came to the conclusion that prayer was not effective. Now of course that was easy for christians to dismiss because an omnipotent god cannot be hoodwinked by a double-blind study, he kind of knows who is in what group.

But suppose the evidence had gone the other way and shown prayer to be slightly efficacious. What scientist worthy of the name would accept that as evidence for anything religious? None - including the christian ones. The test would have to be retried any number of ways before it was deemed significant, and the underlying cause would be a matter of debate, but the search would always be for a scientific not a religious explanation of the phenomenon. God would not be an acceptable answer to a scientific question.

For more see David Hume on the subject http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Miracles

"that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue." - Bram Stoker

(faith)

Incorrect. You are talking about using the same method of inquiry for both, which is absurd because it applies usefully to one and is worthless for the other.
Your scientific opinions are based on observable facts demonstrable through experiment. Your religious opinion is based on nothing like that quality of evidence, a fact which you seem to consider so scandalous that you will bitterly reproach others for it, but are too misguided to see in yourself. You betray science by trying to use it for such unworthy ends.


We don't need your overextended brand of belligerent atheism for this venture though. I have taken pains to point out at length that religion does not answer scientific questions, and you keep ignoring me when I point out that the Pope already agrees with this. So your sense of moral superiority is as unfounded as its logical equivalent.

As far as I can see, none of the religious believers on this forum hold a single view that supersedes the right of science to answer the questions of which it is capable. And here you are admitting that this makes their views just as valid and rational as yours. And yet you have been arguing all along that they are clearly wrong and that Rusty is a victim of a cult. Time to make your mind up.

Are you trying to use up every entry in your Big Book of Irrelevant Atheist quotes before you open your stocking on christmas to receive the next edition?

Actually, I think you're being too cynical. A good scientist accepts the results of a well designed experiment. If not as an absolute proof, at least as evidence that further examination is necessary. The scientific method would require the experiment to be repeated (but not with the same groups of people, obviously) and for the results to match up. If that were to be the case, only a bad scientist would continue to argue against it. The good ones would then go on to devise new experiments to try to discern the process by which it worked.

The same rigour has been applied to the now famous 'faster than light' experiment in Italy. The scientists involved checked their results and examined their experiment for errors and when they didn't find any they didn't say 'This cannot possibly be true!' they said 'this is what we have found, it doesn't tally with what we thought was true, can anyone explain this?'
To a physicist, the idea that the speed of light is not an absolute is just as striking and challenging as the idea of the existence of God. The constant value of c is one of the core principles of much of the physics was know today and, more so, we have physical objects based around science derived assuming it to be the case. The greatest living theoretical physicist in the UK has always said his interest in physics is mostly driven by 'a desire to know the face of God'. A good scientist doesn't believe in God in the same way a theologian does but he is open to the possibility of God's existence.

Jon

This is the Problem of Induction writ large.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction
Inductive reasoning is that which allows us to say that we have observed X number of occurrences of something, and that in every case we observe Y. Therefore X leads to Y. So we can examine some claims of religion and these will show to be false (preparing hecatombs to Neptune the Earth Shaker does not prevent earthquakes). But the problems are too numerous to manage. You can't prove even that no earthquake was ever prevented by a hecatomb, you can't test every claim of every religion, and some claims cannot be tested at all. Most of what you can dispute is peripheral to the religion, and probably works just as well in allegorical form as it did when presented as an empirical claim.

And ultimately, none of your scientist friends will take you seriously if you try to create a branch of science to study religion, because they know it to be an improper avenue of research, with all results being just a matter of interpretation.

I enjoy reading them, don't you?

Granted. But I feel that no matter where the CERN research goes, I don't think anybody would accept "God thought neutrinos should go quicker" as an answer. And I don't think that God answering prayers would be any different, the search would be for an underlying mechanism, but mysterious act of God would surely not be on the menu unless some amazing new experiment went way beyond what those guys were doing. Any ultimately accepted mechanism would be one that could work with or without God.

All in your head Shockwaffle. You are the one with the inconsistent line. You say that religious teachings can be challenged, but not so much that you lose this argument! Presumably you agree that science can prove that the universe was not created in 7 days?

So which is it, is it right to say we've proved Genesis wrong? Or should we treat Creationism as equally valid as evolution?



My religious opinion? What about my Loch Ness opinion? And my Fern Gully opinion? What about my fairy opinion? Unicorn opinion? etc etc. Are they based on the same quality of evidence? I don't believe in them, I believe anyone who does believe in the to be wrong.

What about when they can't find the Loch Ness monster?

Absence of proof is not proof of absence!

Hang on, no wait a minute, you said there was a monster in the loch, THERE ISN'T ONE, you're wrong. You're wrong 100%

However an omnipotent, creator-monster in the loch? Invisible, undetectable, everywhere.

Oh well then, perfectly sensible opinion. As equally valid as saying there's no Loch Ness Monster. Even though all you've done is tweak the definition using words.


I don't need your overwrought thought patterns to judge the practical merit of things either.

O/T the whole neutrino experiment thing is totally awesome and either way will be a gripping read once it's discovered what is wrong.

Has there been any news since the initial revelation? I haven't been following the news in that area.