Quote:
|
Well isn't that just convenient. I have to say, Mike, your god is nothing if not cleverly designed. It requires no cause, it can transcend the laws it supposed created, it can't be verified with observable evidence. Remarkable.
|
Would it not be a bit incongruous for God to be constrained by the laws he created, be they known physical laws or spacetime itself? Divinity is synonymous with transcendence. You've offered no rebuttal to this concept, only attempted to divert the discussion with sarcasm and positivist rhetoric.
The reasoning I have been using is a form of
indirect logic, which is used in science all the time. Let me ask you this: are dinosaurs extinct? Yes? How do you know? In order for a scientist to prove that dinosaurs are extinct, he would have to find every species of animal on the planet and prove that it is not a dinosaur. This could never be accomplished because the planet is too big and there are too many animals. So how does a scientist come to the conclusion that dinosaurs are extinct? Through indirect logic. They reason that since nobody has seen any dinosaurs walking around, it's logical to infer that they must be extinct.
The same concept is inherent in divinity and creation. Scientists don't know how the universe came into existence or how self-replicating RNA appeared on the earth billions of years ago. Indeed, many explanations for such ideas have actively contradicted established physical laws (
1,
2,
3). To take it a step further, the very nature of our universe suggests that these questions cannot be answered through naturalistic observations (how could we observe that which is outside of our existential bubble?). Due to the limitations science has in providing naturalistic explanations, we can logically infer that something transcendent of natural law is a catalyst for these events.
An atheistic view of science relies on the "naturalistic axiom". It is the
assumption that all things can be explained through natural causes. It doesn't render God's existence impossible, only unnecessary. Science can't infer a divine consciousness even when it can be logically inferred, simply because to do so would contradict this assumption. The concept of a divine consciousness, or God – unlike the naturalistic axiom upon which you are basing the whole of your reasoning – is not an assumption. Rather, it is a concept that is logically inferred as we reach limitations and contradictions within the boundaries of naturalistic science.
If you're looking for "God" to be some sort of quantifiably testable scientific hypothesis, you're going to be left wanting. The question is whether that's the limit of our understanding – whether reason is a tool that can function congruently with other means of understanding ourselves and our world, or whether our capacity for understanding is reducible to the empirical. Judging by your frequently cavalier and sarcastic tone, that's a question you don't seem interested in exploring.