Topic: Scientific proof that God exists? - page 354. (Read 845571 times)

How interesting!

Normally, the idea of Adam and Eve is called religion. The fact that science is finding proof for Adam and Eve, starts to draw them into reality, out of religion.

Then someone comes along and says, "i dont believe in this," thereby showing that he/she is acting in religion. How does this show religion? Believing has to do with faith. Virtually all religions are based on faith.

which one of this is false? i dont believe in this...

Great post.  

Responding sequentially:

1)  Okay, thank you for specifically highlighting the problem.

2)  I agree, and I acknowledge that "reality of the mind is not the same for everyone."  I'm actually a mental health professional and I've worked with hundreds of people who have varied histories of psychosis.

The data on psychosis is inconclusive to the extent that it is unknown whether "internal stimuli" such as hallucinations have a real component.  In Western cultures, the overwhelming opinion is that it is hallucinations are purely a fabrication; many Eastern and tribal cultures believe there is some concrete basis.  A theoretical explanation for this alternative conclusion is that the sense of a psychotic individual may be "tuned differently," so-to-speak, such that they are able to perceive what others cannot, kind of like tuning a radio dial.  What's particularly interesting is there does seem to be evidence of this. For example, Stanford anthropologist Jeremy Narby discusses the depth and accuracy of botanical knowledge of various tribal cultures who claim that their knowledge was obtained through direct communication of "spirits" dwelling in some other realm which (they also claim) is only perceivable to tribal shamans or those who partake in the ritualistic consumption of hallucinogenic substances (e.g. ayahuasca, tobacco, etc.).  Specifically, Narby notes that, as a result of the vast number of possible combinations and permutations of Amazonian plant species, the assumption that these cultures obtained such botanical knowledge through chance combinations is untenable.  Personally, I am undecided on the issue.

With regards to the Geiger Counter, I would say it is irrelevant as both the Geiger counter and the data it collects are both perceived via the mind.  To this end, technology is an extension of mind, and accordingly technology can act as 2nd-order means of perception (by invoking a technological -- but still abstract -- metric by which to measure real phenomena).  These findings align with findings of the famous Double Slit Experiment which indicate that the wave-function collapses in both the presence of a human observer, and in the presence of a technological observer even when no human observer is present.

3)   You bring up several issues in your last paragraph here, so I feel compelled to deconstruct it a bit:


You're asserting several components, here: 1) Reality/Universe has a true nature of function, 2) Our "imagined reality" containing flawed perceptions and interpretations thereof, and 3) "correct" perceptions and interpretations thereof (and you're asking where #3 is).

Would it be fair to assume from these statements that you are a Positivist, and that accordingly the scientific method is the ideal in knowledge acquisition?  Please correct me if I am wrong in that assumption.  If my assumption is true, first you need to reconcile the concept of a Positivistic Universe with the sameness-in-difference principle of logic stating that any two relational entities 'x' and 'y' must reduce to a common medium, specifically because this fundamental principle a priori disproves the assumption of a Positivistic Universe.

But maybe you don't assume logical principles must necessarily extend to reality.   If that's the case, then instead you must reconcile that belief with the stability of our perception of reality which self-apparently indicates a logical relationship between the perceiver and the perceived.  If you make the assumption that the truth is there is a Positivistic reality, then you must concede that reality is inherently logical (because logic is a predicate for truth).  Because logic refers to the rules of valid cognition, you must then explain how reality is inherently logical in the absence of a mind/intelligent designer.  If, on the other hand, you make the assumption that there is no such thing as a Positivistic reality at the highest level of truth, then you would be conceding the argument to me.

And, I would say the "provable mental construct of the actual Reality of the Universe" is the construct which is self-evident at all times to any perceiver.  My personal belief is that reality is a theory of itself, and so through continual perceptual and interpretive refinement, reality continually refines itself towards self-actualization.  I basically think reality is trying to know itself.  Consider, again, the self-evident process in which reality confirms itself.  Specifically, some parts of reality (e.g. us) perceive and acknowledge the existence of other parts of reality (e.g. anything not us).  I would go so far as to make a $1 million dollar bet for someone to provide a real-time example of the confirmation of any real phenomena in the total absence of any mind or perceiver (human or otherwise), and I will would give him the rest of his natural born life to do so.  Sure, I'd never win the $1 million under those terms, but I'm confident I wouldn't lose it, either.  In exactly 100% of all cases in which reality is confirmed to exist, mind is present.  There has never been a case where the existence of reality has been confirmed in the absence of mind.  You invoke an unnecessary assumption and thereby violate Occam's razor when you suggest that reality continues to exist in the absence of mind.  It's simply better to conclude that there is no applicable statement that can be made to reality in the absence of mind as it still accounts for all data but wields exactly zero assumptions.


Here, I beg to differ.  I find Christopher Langan's CTMU theory found at www.ctmu.org to be infallible (so far).  I'm well aware of the critiques his theory has received, most notably that he uses "naive set theory" as opposed to formal set theory (a critique that is reconciled in his theory).

You don't need to know all of reality (especially because the only reality which is relevant to you is that which you are perceiving right now).  But, you do need to know all of logic's limitations and boundaries.  Again, logic is a predicate for truth, and so by understanding the boundaries of logic and relating those boundaries back to real phenomena, what we are actually doing is creating a sound framework for modeling reality in terms of mind.  If you believe your mind is real, then this is critically important because any comprehensive theory of reality needs to explain all real phenomena, including your mind.

Understanding this framework is more important than understanding any real phenomena simply because any and all real phenomena can be included within the framework.  Thus, the framework serves as a fundamental, general model of how reality is continually refined and defined.

Stemming from this last point, there has been a gradual shift in the scientific community away from testable hypotheses towards model development.  The reasoning is pretty simple.  Aside from the strong case of philosophers who note that scientific falsification is imperfect, a model only needs to meet several definite criteria:  It needs to comprehensively explain all that it models, must be internally consistent, and must be externally reliable.  Any model that meets these criteria is a sound model.

A model of reality in terms of mind does just that.  It explains all real phenomena including mind, their interplay and relationships, and even itself (by modeling the process by which the model itself is constructed).  Furthermore, any attempt to deny the model actually reinforces the model, specifically because your denial of the model was created by the exact process described in the model.


On the contrary, our perception, interpretation, and subsequent definition of reality is self-evidently intelligent designed, and it's similar to the process of intelligent design in the sense of the theistic God, but at an infinitely smaller scale.  I believed I've described my reasoning for this belief several times elsewhere on this forum, so I'd rather not repeat myself unless you specifically request that I do.

What I will briefly say, however, is that I again would suggest looking at that which is self-evident.  When you perceive something, you invoke a fundamental metric which catalyzes the process of defining reality.  When you perceive real phenomena, you must make a decision -- does it exist or does it not?  If you can't choose either option, then you don't know whether it's there or not, or what it might be if it is.  Think of it this way: through perception, you process and render otherwise unintelligible information intelligible.  If information is unintelligible, there's simply nothing relevant to say about it whatsoever.  If I hand you a CD and ask you to define its informational content, you wouldn't know where to begin unless you first stuck it in a CD player and hit play.  The CD player renders the information into definable sounds...music.  There would be absolutely no possible or logical way to assert the existence of that music prior to its rendering and subsequent definition.  

Finally, I am frustrated (not at you, just in general) that I must again repeat that at no point do I begin with any presumption that God exists, nor do I ascribe any arbitrary characteristics or assumptions about what God may be prior to concluding that an intelligent designer exists.  The process *must* begin by proving that a logical limit(s) of theorization exists and what that limit(s) might be.  It *must* begin this way because logic is axiomatically a predicate for truth.

It's this I have a problem with mostly, the 'reality is a mental construct . . . therefore Intelligent Design'.

Reality of the mind is not the same for everyone. Ask somebody suffering from mental illness about their reality, or the demon-haunted world of the theist for that matter, reality exists outside of our minds and provably so by way of technology which can describe reality in an entirely unbiased and functionally objective way. A Geiger counter measures something our minds cannot detect, so where is mental construct for the existence of things which can only be proven as existing when we develop and employ tools which have capabilities we do not possess?

Reality, The Universe and how it actually functions, versus our imagined reality full of erroneous and flawed perceptions. Where is the provable mental construct of the actual reality of The Universe? There isn't one because we have yet to develop the vast depth of knowledge required to know all of reality in order to accurately paint it as a mental construct. Instead we imagine our own personal realities, and that's not Intelligent Design in the sense of the theistic 'God', that's simply the sentient intelligence of our functioning brain, purely subjective psychology/neurology and, what's more, not at all the topic of conversation for this thread which is related to the discussion of the 'reality' which is The Universe. Well, that and the arbitrarily assigned characteristics of a monotheistic God able to exist outside our Universe by way of anything we care to imagine, frankly.

Responding sequentially:

1)  Ah, I see what happened.  Yes, your three dots are fine, however you removed the single quotes I inserted, leaving me to think that you were entirely leaving out the fact that I equated 'reality as a mental construct' with 'intelligent design.'  At this point, I would refer you to the word "practically."  There is no flaw in my thinking here.  If, reality is mental construct (and it provably is; i.e. made from/by mind), then reality is intelligently designed (axiomatic) and therefore we can practically call it God.  However, if you want me to leave the word "God" out of that, I have no problem with that.  I'm perfectly happy just calling reality intelligently designed.

So, I concede the quote you extracted from my post isn't as bad as I initially thought, it is your useless attack of it that I have issue with, and I'm guessing that you're taking issue with it specifically because it seems you thought everything else encapsulated by your use of an ellipsis is meaningless or worthless of consideration.  It's not, because it contains every bit of justification needed to offset your rebuttal to it.

2)  It's not, "...therefore God."   Instead it's, "intelligent design...therefore (practically) God."

3)  Read #1 and #2

4)  If an FSM chooses to take a form other than an FSM, it is no longer an FSM.  The defining criteria that constitute the FSM are that it flies, is made of spaghetti, and is a monster.  If a monotheistic god were to assume the form of an FSM, then we have theoretical means by which to empirically verify the FSM, but not a monotheistic God.  And if an FSM is just an FSM and not a monotheistic God, we still retain the theoretical means by which to empirically verify the FSM, but not a monotheistic God.

Therefore, the defining characteristic that distinguishes a monotheistic god from the FSM is a lack of constraint. Because a lack of constraint is the defining characteristic, and because physical constraint is required for empirical observation, we conclude a monotheistic god is beyond the scope of empiricism.  The FSM, however, is not.  A monotheistic god that turns into an FSM is both a monotheistic God and an FSM.  An FSM that turns form into something else (like a Crawling Potato Monster, the CPM) is no longer an FSM.

If you are considering the FSM to be a monotheistic God in a specific form, then you undermine the entire purpose of the FSM rebuttal to begin with.  The only reason the FSM exists as a rebuttal to the existence of God is because it attempts (but fails) to make a case for the idea that it is absurd to believe in something due a total absence of empirical evidence.

The instant that you try to reconcile the FSM analogy by calling it a monotheistic God in disguise, the analogy retains its validity at the expense of losing its ability to serve as a counterargument to the existence of God.

The problem is you clearly *don't* understand the FSM argument and its implications, and neither does anyone else who believes it is valid, and the fact that you try to justify it by essentially calling the FSM a monotheistic god illustrates this point .  Again, you can huff and puff all you want.   There's no room for interpretation.   An FSM is defined in terms of contraint while monotheistic gods are defined in terms of a total absence of constraint.  It's black-and-white.

Let's see, you are pissed at me because I quoted you perfectly accurately up to the oft-used three dots to then insert my brief summation of what your point actually attempted to claim by way of a beginning assumptions which ended with "I can practically conclude God exists"?

Which part of that conclusion *wasn't* 'therefore God'? You propose one thing and use it to conclude God exists, yet you are pissed at me for saying that was what you were asserting?


No, I do not note the extraordinary difference. Please, genuinely, please explain how that assertion appears, according to you, to be saying something other than what it appears to be saying to me, which is essentially, "I assert this to be true and, with this being true, I can then conclude the existence of God".


You have already since covered much of this point, but I'd just like to mention that you appear to intentionally be ignoring the fact that there is a big difference between flying teapots and a monotheistic God choosing to take the form of a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Your whole complaint about us dumb atheists who invoke the FSM, centers entirely on you insisting that we are dumb to do so because, well, it's a fucking monster made of spaghetti, therefore you can't test for whether it is God, only that it is a monster made of spaghetti. It's a placeholder meme for an imagined omnipotent omniscient monotheistic deity and you know it, but you prefer to complain about the fact that some parts of this fictional character represent measurable things, therefore 'not god'.

It's like you're smart enough to know damn well what the FSM is about but you want to crap all over everyone else who is also smart enough to know what the FSM is about, purely to elevate yourself by way of sneering derision over your insistence that it is a failed comparative concept.

Likewise It's refreshing to debate with someone who remains focused on the ideas presented by both sides.

Just thought I'd cut this comment chain down a bit.
Even though just calling it 'God' (instead of FSM) might help you to understand that It is indeed a monotheistic god, we refrain from calling the FSM, 'God', because it is such a generic term these days and It just prefers to be called the FSM. (ei. Similarly, Yahweh, is described as "the man in the sky", but is still considered to be a monotheistic god.) The only other thing that I can think of at the moment that I could add further would be that the FSM is in fact invisible and can pass through matter. Any observable or empirical evidence you may find is completely at the discretion of the FSM, as It has also been known to alter scientific evidence which makes it impossible for us to know ANYTHING for certain, thereby also making It beyond the scope of empiricism.

Regardless of whether or not you choose to relinquish your position, I'm fairly satisfied that you understand mine now, well enough that I no longer feel it necessary to pursue the matter any further. Thank you for your time and consideration, and an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable conversation.

It is all based on how much evidence it takes to convince you.

1. The machine-like quality of the universe suggests that the universe must have been made.
2. Entropy suggests that something is necessary to cause new universe "entities" to come into existence.
3. Cause and effect suggest that the thinking of man was programmed into the universe along with everything else.
4. The fact that people require a "God" in their lives - as shown by the many religions out there - suggests that God exists.

These evidences for God are very strong. Why? Because we can't postulate anything other than God that fits everything at the same time.

We may not want to call whatever exists behind these evidences "God," but the only way we can do it is to remove the word "God" from our dictionaries. We still won't be able to remove the #4 evidences from our hearts. We might be able to cover Him up in our hearts, but we can't remove Him and remain humanly alive.

That is all well and good if.... God exists? If he doesn't ?

Continuing from my previous post, maybe this other approach will help to clarify my point further:  

Let's assume that both an FSM and a monotheistic god taking the form of an FSM exist.  Since both the monotheistic god and the FSM assume the form of an FSM, there is no way to distinguish between the two based solely upon the knowledge that both fly, are made of speghetti, and are monsters.  The defining characteristic that separates the monotheistic god from the FSM so as to be distinguishable from it is its lack of constraint (and physical constraint is required for empirical observation), whereas the traits "flying," "spaghetti," and "monster" define the FSM.

Yes, and I completely understand where you're coming from, but if that's the case, then it simply shouldn't be called an FSM, and so I do not agree with your previous point that the FSM is merely described -- but not defined -- as such.  Accordingly, I maintain that a FSM that is able to alter its constraints to become a CPM results in two notable conclusions: 1) It is omnipotent, and, more importantly, 2) it is no longer an FSM.  An FSM can only be an FSM if it is a flying monster made of spaghetti.

What you're describing is a monotheistic god who places constraints upon himself which allows for any number of possible descriptions based upon the constraints.

Again, I get where you're coming from, but the problem is that the FSM and similar arguments like the Space Teapot orbiting Venus are used specifically by atheists to demonstrate a specific point, which is that it is absurd to believe in something just because we can imagine it to exist.  For example, we can imagine that a teapot is orbiting Venus and therefore we would have a way to verify its existence through empirical observation.  Just because we can imagine that the space teapot exists doesn't mean that we should spend billions or trillions of dollars on telescopes and otherwise to try to find it.  What we can't do is imagine something with a total lack of constraint and, therefore, definition.

So, atheists are left with two options. Either they can take a position like you have done, claiming that an omnipotent god could take the form of the FSM or a teapot, and therefore the analogy maintains its validity, but it loses its ability to serve as a counterargument to a monotheistic god because it would remove all theoretical possibility of empirical falsification.  You could have full access to all data that ever has, is, and will be available, and you still wouldn't be able to distinguish between the FSM and a monotheistic god.  The other choice is to maintain that it is a counterargument to a monotheistic god, but relinquish its validity.

Imagine it this way:  If a flying monster made of spaghetti came into your room, you would be able to verify that the FSM exists, regardless of whether the FSM is just an FSM, or if it's a monotheistic god stratifying itself into an FSM.  But if a monotheistic god took the form of an FSM and came into your room, you would still be able to verify the existence of the FSM, but you would not be able to verify the existence of a monotheistic god.

In summation, it seems as though you assume a more tenable position than other atheists because you understand how the omnipotence paradox is self-resolving.  But unfortunately, the rest of your cohort does not make this distinction, and the FSM or space teapot or any other similar argument is invoked with the specific intent of showing that it is silly to believe in something for which there is no empirical evidence of any kind.  But monotheistic gods by definition are beyond the scope of empiricism.  That's why the FSM ultimately fails as a proper analogy.

God could choose to take the form of a CPM instead of an FSM if that is what God truly wished, after all It did create the universe and all, but God chose the form of an FSM because It deemed that form to be simply divine.

That's why it has the size it does, so it can interpret itself.

Maybe rephrasing will emphasize my point a bit:

If a monotheistic god is defined in terms of a lack of constraint, then it could omnipotently turn into an FSM and still be a monotheistic god.

If an FSM is defined in terms of constraint as I'm suggesting, then if the FSM turned into a Crawling Potato Monster (the CPM...duh!) it would no longer be an FSM (because a CPM does not fly and is not made of spaghetti).

lol, ya, I really like that photo too. 

I think the subtle, yet incorrect, presumption you keep making here, is when you insist the FSM is *defined* according to its constraints, whereby it is merely *described* by them, and not actually defined by them. Truly, it is defined as being monotheistic, put most simply, by the fact that it alone created the entire universe as well as heaven and hell.

Like I said in an earlier post, even the (supposedly) monotheistic christian god is described as taking the form of a burning bush, yet it isn't defined as being such. (*I say 'supposedly', because it is a trinity made up of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thereby making it more of a polytheistic god, than a monotheistic one.)

Lol, the photo is great.

As for the rest of it, I disagree. The reason is that the the FSM, unlike a monotheistic god, is defined specifically according to its constraints.  Monotheistic gods are not defined according to constraint, but rather in terms of a lack thereof, and as you point out they would have the ability to omnipotently reconcile a paradoxical state (e.g. if the monotheistic god imposed constraints upon itself to take the form of the FSM).  However, because the FSM is defined specifically in terms of constraints, the analogy falls apart because it is thus theoretically possible, even if not practically so,  to imagine a way to falsify the existence of the FSM via empiricism.  The same does not hold true for a monotheistic god.  

It's a subtle, but significant, difference.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster, being an omniscient and omnipotent being, has chosen to take the form we currently know. This does not in any way equate to it not remaining omnipresent, at the same time. An omnipotent being can easily reconcile this seemingly paradoxical state, regardless of whether or not you choose to accept it. The Easter Bunny, on the other hand, is not even a polytheistic god, but simply a rabbit that shits eggs in springtime.

No, it's not.  The Easter Bunny is essentially equivalent to the Flying Spaghetti Monster as an analogy, and is therefore invalid with respect to this topic.  It would, however, be valid with respect to a debate about the existence of polytheistic gods (just not monotheistic ones).