[rosy]

Perhaps in the US the term "the establishment" is not as loaded with meaning as it is in the UK... I wouldn't know.

In the UK describing someone as part of "the establishment" suggests that they are comfortably ensconced in the current regime (probably doing reasonably well out of it financially), and suggests that they will oppose any change simply because they will be inconvenienced by it and not because they have in any way thought about it.

If you talk to a Brit about a particular opinion being "the establishment view" you're implying (and it will be assumed that you are deliberately implying) that it's an opinion which is held because it is the establishment view, without any intelligent thought. Bear in mind that few of us over here believe that we live in a meritocracy (we don't believe the US is a meritocracy either, but that's a different ballgame), who your parents are and where you went to school and university still has a powerful effect on your life chances generally and more particularly on your chance of  becoming part of "the establishment". In fact, this is much less true in science than of almost any field of endeavour (tho' not, of course, entirely untrue).

I think if you wanted to use a term that wasn't going to irritate people, "consensus" view might fit better, or "mainstream" view, depending on which "establishment" (the forum, or "the scientific establishment") you wanted to suggest the views here represented.

It's also probably worth observing that on this website in particular we get a lot of (slightly, or very, obsessive) posters who think they've found some way in which the current scientific model is wrong (typically they believe they've disproved general relativity or thermodynamics, or that they've invented a perpetual motion machine), and when someone points out that their new "theory" is not consistent with experimental results they wail that "the establishment" is out to get them, and that when they are seen to be right, all the people who've said them nay will lose their research grants/jobs/whatever. Of course, that's not how science works, and if someone does show that the whole of the standard model is wrong the scientists currently researching the standard model would jump for joy and then turn right round and work on the new model.

I don't get the feeling you're one of those, you seem to be actually interested in the question you posed and in what other people think about it, rather than using this as a starting point to attempt to pitch your own religious opinions. But maybe that will help explain why you may feel people've been a bit harsh about this.

Not sure this is terribly coherent, but it is at least intended to be helpful.

[namaan (OP)]

I imagine it's not much different here in the US, though I can't speak for the whole country. I was aware that the term can be potentially off-putting in certain contexts, such as the ones you described (obsessive posters, etc.), but assumed I had provided enough context to make clear what I was trying to say (hence why I said "I'm not sure why you find the term "scientific establishment" to be insulting in this case).

I wasn't speaking about consensus views or mainstream views because views don't make decisions, people do. In this case, I found the word establishment to be the most technically correct given unanimous/consensus views held by those who responded to this thread. There's really no need to attach all the other negative baggage though.

And don't worry, everyone's been helpful

[imatfaal]

I couldn't say it any better than Rosy already did. 

From a more personal point of view the implication was that scientists as a group (to avoid the establishment  area) do not take the theory seriously per se - this is incorrect.  many scientists take it so seriously as to spend large amounts of time debating it - but no real scientist can take it seriously as a "scientific theory"

I still think you are trying to be overly proscriptive in saying that "an adherence to the scientific process makes it impossible to approach a theory of God"  You might like to google John Polkinghorn  if you think this is such an impossibility - although I would agree if you were to insert "falsifiable" before the word "theory"

[namaan (OP)]

You keep using the term "theory of god", but no theory is presented.

As per my above response to JP, if I actually had a well defined theory of God, it would be tantamount to me saying I had a well defined theory of everything. I'm not quite that ambitious.

I thought it was clear by all my posts that I was not attempting to discuss a particular theory of God here, but only intended to discuss that if such a theory existed, how could it be discussed/approached in a scientific setting? If you would like a potentially more complete answer to your question, then below is a copy of a part of an earlier post that I didn't get a direct response to.

The point is it seems to me that it should be possible to create a scientific theory/conjecture of God, not that any of you need to be necessarily interested in it. For example, if I'm not mistaken, there's no entity called "evolution" that we can test directly. We create a model that fits the theory, make predictions from the model, and test whether the predictions pan out; that they do quite nicely in the case of evolution of course.

So a common religious position is that the evidence of God is in his exacting design of the universe. So, for example, one might say that a scientific discussion on this might take the form of considering the various forms and occurrences that this design takes throughout the universe. I'm not saying any of you should have some sort of moral responsibility to build such a theory or take part in such discussions, rather I only mean to flesh out for myself and whoever else might be interested in the subject matter the means to approach a theory of God in context to established science.

Btw, if what I said about establishment sounds inherently personal, please just ignore it. I only meant it in a non-personal, technically manner. And I'm aware that there are scientists that take God seriously, but to me the gap between an interesting read on science/religion to an actual full-fledged theory on God seemed large enough to make that statement. I basically started the discussion from the logical endpoint of the assumption that such a God does exist; the endpoint being where an actual rigorous theory of everything has to be formulated to describe God and all of reality. It is at this point that it seems that the scientific process would be unable to encompass such a theory. Or I could just be wrong.

[JP]

We don't know if its possible to come up with a scientific theory of everything.  We've been trying for thousands of years and haven't done it yet.  Some people think we can, while others think the scientific method is inherently limited to creating good models, but not describing underlying causes. 

Assuming we do come up with a theory, why are you so insistent that we use the word "god" to describe it?

[graham.d]

Although discussions such as this are interesting, they seldom achieve much because the fundamental philosophical positions of the correspondents are not defined. Science works by postulating reasons for why things behave as they do. If the reasoning is logically sound, and the premises on which the conjecture is based do not conflict with observations, then it can be said to be a valid theory. Should some conflict arise then the theory is, at best, approximate or, at worst, completely wrong. Good theories enable predictions to be made on how something will behave before it is tried, and hopefully, verified.

Now how does God fit in with this? Basically, He doesn't. There is no relation between this and any belief in God. It is possible that God has set up the universe with patterns for us to discover or it is possible that these patterns have occurred by the nature of the universe itself. It could be argued, in this latter case, that God created the nature of the universe in such a way, rather than creating the universe itself. But how does reaching such a conclusion make any difference to us? In these cases, of a God who creates something then does nothing else, it makes no difference to us whatsoever.

I think we should look at the reasons why people have religious beliefs and see whether having such beliefs are, in themselves, rational. People throughout the ages, and in different parts of the world, have come to differing conclusions regarding their beliefs. These beliefs may have arisen so as to try to form an understanding of a world that was beyond their comprehension (as it still is). This gives comfort to people as it seems in the nature of humans to want to feel there maybe some meaning to their existence. In many cases these beliefs become a religion that may be manipulated by some to obtain power, wealth, status or some other advantages. It is in the nature of a religion that it is believed without the need for rigorous testing of its predictions. What is certain is that religions differ, creation myths differ and the number of supernatural beings change (as do their respective traits and/or powers). Do we conclude that one of these is somehow privileged and "correct" and the others are wrong? And this one just happens to be related to the one we were brought up to believe, or do we conclude that they are all probably creations of man?

It seems to me that any theory of God get nowhere because any time that an observation looks to hard to reconcile, it is easy to say that is just how God has made it so. You can try to look for scientific consistancy or you can stop there and just believe that is the way it is. I think those scientists who believe in God still keep looking, though I am not so sure such a belief is encouraging, especially from religious establishments. It was positively discouraging at times in the past.

Generally speaking I see no reason or advantage to a theory of God, and can see a lot of negatives associated with the whole concept.

[Geezer]

Tangentially, I saw a car with a bumper-sticker the other day that read;
 
"Dog is my co-pilot."

[namaan (OP)]

Tangentially, I saw a car with a bumper-sticker the other day that read;
 
"Dog is my co-pilot."

Classy Geezer, classy. The age of enlightenment is truly upon us.

[David Cooper]

I thought this thread must have been deleted as there was nothing in the original subforum saying it had been moved - I only found it here because I looked in on the off chance that it had been mentioned, but here it is.

I think Namaan is actually trying to do something worthwhile, though it's doomed to failure. If you read the Qur'aan (Koran), you'll soon see that it attempts to argue its case in scientific and logical ways, and that could lead followers of Islam to think that science and religion could be compatible and that God could be accounted for by science.

The problem comes, however, as soon as you try to define what God is. Let's start with a definition from Gordian Knot:-

First though, one question Why is it that the whole concept of God is a fundamentally irrational idea?

Definition of God.
A conscious awareness that chose to set in motion the creation of everything we call reality.

That runs straight into a problem: the conscious awareness would have to have created itself if it is to be a member of the set of things called "everything we call reality). If it isn't in that set, it isn't real.

Let me go through some of the fundamentals:-

Imagine a primary realm of existence in which an intelligence resides, or a primary realm of existence which is that intelligence. He/it happens to exist and has no purpose in existing - the only things which can ever have purpose are things that are made (or done) to carry out some end which has been calculated in advance by an intelligence. For God to have a purpose, he would have to have been created for that purpose by another intelligence, in which case we've started with the wrong candidate - we must transfer our interest to his creator, and when we find the top creator we have inevitably reached one who has no purpose.

Now, this supreme intelligence and primary being (who is in that position by chance - it's not of his own doing) decides to make things (as he might as well do something with his time and powers to pass the time). He makes a universe (or maybe many of them) and populates tiny parts of it with life. There are now more intelligences in existence, but he regards himself as superior to them. Is he justified in that opinion? What does superior mean? (It has more than one meaning, but we can ignore the one that simply means it has more of something, such as more strength or more material). Is a stone superior to a rock? No: not unless a purpose is involved. If you need something heavy to weigh something down, a rock may be superior to a stone. If you need something that you're capable of throwing, a stone may be superior to a rock.  Superiority (of the kind we're interested in) is completely tied up in purpose and otherwise has no role. If God made us for some reason, whether that be to pass the time or to have someone to talk to, we would have a purpose for him, but nothing he does can ever give him a purpose for himself because he wasn't created for a purpose. Superiority cannot have any role to play in a comparison between him and us. Of course, in a world where many people also believe in royalty, they have a false idea about superiority sitting in their heads which backs up their ideas about God being inherently superior too, even though both these ideas (royalty and God) are completely baseless.

So where is this going? Well, there is nothing about God that can make him qualify as anything more exciting than an alien being which happens to have existed first and which happens to have access to all the levers of power (and to have made sure that we cannot access them). "God" needs more than that to qualify as God, because all we have to go on otherwise is that he's the big chief alien, and that is insufficent to justify his claim to be God. Taking on the name "God" doesn't do it either - I could call myself God, but no one would take that as evidence for me being God.

So, what we need is some kind of definition of God which sets out something about him which would actually qualify him as God. Being here before someone else isn't good enough - our parents are not more divine than us through existing before us, and we are not more divine than our children either. Having access to more power doesn't make anyone more divine than anyone else either: mass-murdering dictators are very powerful as people go, but they are certainly not more divine. Morality might be seen as a factor, but people are riddled with faults which aren't of their own doing - they have no free will and are simply driven by their desires and the attempts of their intellect to make them do the best thing at all times. If they had been made perfectly (like an artificial intelligence system which uses a correct morality formula to govern its behaviour) they would express perfect moral behaviour at all times, but that would not make them more divine.

I'll leave it to you to come up with suggestions as to how "God" might try to qualify as more than just a natural alien being, but I can tell you for free that there is nothing that can succeed. If he tries to qualify using magic, he will have to understand how that magic works in order to qualify as God, and by understanding it he destorys it's magical nature. If he tries to qualify by being supernatural, he has to make an arbitrary divide of nature into supernature and nature, and then the leaky barrier between the two will burst and reunite them - if things can interact, they must be part of the same system or they would have no mechanisms to allow them to interact, and that system in which all interacting things reside is by definition nature. God has to be part of nature, and that automatically opens him up to scientific study - even if we can't access him to study him, he can study himself and become a scientist. If he understands how he works, he will inevitably be forced to describe himself as a natural being, but if he can't, he fails to qualify as God due to a lack of essential knowledge.

God is logically impossible, as I said before. All he can ever be is a powerful alien being which happened to exist first, and that isn't something you should base a religion on.

[JP]

I thought this thread must have been deleted as there was nothing in the original subforum saying it had been moved - I only found it here because I looked in on the off chance that it had been mentioned, but here it is.

Odd.  The redirection post was there when I moved this thread... more weirdness due to the forum upgrade and downtime, I suspect...

[namaan (OP)]

Assuming we do come up with a theory, why are you so insistent that we use the word "god" to describe it?

I suppose the short answer to that is that if such a theory is developed, then it will require a being like God to exist to fully explain reality. So why not call it a theory of God?

But I'm not insisting anything in particular, and it doesn't really matter what you call the theory. If an infinite designer, creator God is real and exists, then whatever path scientific progression takes, it must, if correct, approach an understanding that God is real and exists. This must be the case because it is reasonable to imagine that a design created to infinite capacity would likely leave its trace in the creation. This trace takes on in things like exacting universal constants, etc.

[JP]

If there is an ultimate theory of everything that can be approached scientifically, then there is going to be only one theory that gets approached.  I agree with you there.  But we really have no idea if science can even get to such a theory.  Assuming it's so without evidence is already pushing the bounds of good science.

Even if we assume for the sake of argument that we can get to a scientific theory of everything, there is scientific justification that it's a "god," i.e. a being as we understand it. 

If you do assume there is a scientific theory of everything and that that scientific theory of everything is god, then you've left the path of science so far behind that what you're postulating can't really be considered scientific anymore.  If you find scientific proof of this, it would be another story, but at the current point in time, you're way beyond what can be scientifically claimed.

Indirect evidence like finely tuned constants isn't any help in this regard, since there are other reasons they could exist that way (see the anthropic principle).  Plus, observing something then later on coming up with a theory to match it isn't particularly good science: good science involves coming up with theories that make new predictions and then testing those theories.

[Geezer]

Tangentially, I saw a car with a bumper-sticker the other day that read;
 
"Dog is my co-pilot."

Classy Geezer, classy. The age of enlightenment is truly upon us.

We always aim to please  []
 
(Our pastor thought it was hilarious!)

[namaan (OP)]

Although discussions such as this are interesting, they seldom achieve much...

I agree wholeheartedly, with the caveat that the specific discussion that is unlikely to achieve much is the same one I've been trying to avoid. It might be hard to believe, but atheists and agnostics don't have a monopoly on finding religious debates to be largely a waste of time. It is one of those phenomena where everyone who enters the intellectual pool does so with their views finalized before hand. At that point, all that's left to be found is an excess of ego, suppositions, and time.

Having said that, I find the other discussion (on a scientific approach to a theory of God) to be both important and, crucially, wholly distinct from the first.

So I assume you'll understand if I don't respond to much of the rest of your post that really is mostly dealing with the first discussion. I've heard all these arguments, and frankly speaking, I wouldn't entertain them even if this were a religious forum. We humans are endlessly versatile in rationalizing and re-rationalizing our beliefs when faced with facts and information that stands contrary to our attitudes. So even if either of us thought that they had come up with some masterful bit of logic and reasoning that they supposed would be capable of completely routing the basis of the other's argument, if it stood fundamentally in contrary to the others' basic attitudes about the argument, it will have no capacity to convince or impress. I'm no expert, but I should know at least that much with my psych studies.

Which brings me to a misunderstanding some still seem to be having about this discussion. An existential argument is not a good or relevant response to the question at hand. What's being discussed is assuming an existential argument of God to the affirmative, how can this idea be brought into science? Well, I already gathered a tentative answer to this of course: science as it is currently conceived as per the scientific process, can't encompass a theory of God (or as you would rather like to say [I assume], it makes an idea of God impossible). I will look forward to any argument that specifically addresses this.

[CliffordK]

Have you watched the Zeitgeist Film?...  Well, at least the first one, it now appears as if they've made four.  But, at least the first one discusses religion.

Anyway, the film points out that Christianity has borrowed many concepts from other religions, perhaps to appease the locals.

Is it any surprise that Jesus's birthday is a couple of days after the Winter Solstice, and around the New Year?
Easter and Jesus's rebirth is aligned with the Spring Equinox.

While dates vary, some people put the Age of Pisces as beginning at 0AD, and the birth of Christ.  Coincidence?

So, what happens with the end of the Age of Pisces, and begging of the Age of Aquarius?  Which nobody seems to agree on its beginning either, but it is often set at about 2000 AD.

Anyway, if you wish to apply science to God...  Perhaps one should just use the scientific method to analyze the way religion itself works.  What each religion takes from other religions.  The basic meaning of their symbolism.

[Geezer]

It might be hard to believe, but atheists and agnostics don't have a monopoly on finding religious debates to be largely a waste of time. It is one of those phenomena where everyone who enters the intellectual pool does so with their views finalized before hand.

I'm sorry, but I believe that is complete nonsense.

Scientists are those who, by definition, seek knowledge. If they have preconceived ideas, they are really crummy scientists. Knowledge is not that which someone else dictated.

Is the Universe mysterious? Yes.

Was it created by a god, several gods, an infinite number of gods, a gigantic mangleworzel, or an infinite number of gigantic mangleworzels, or something else? I do not know, and I'm sure any scientist, regardless of your categorization, will jump right on it just as soon as somebody coughs up an experiment that they can test.

Those humans who seek to define god hope to set themselves apart from the rest of humanity.

[imatfaal]

../
Was it created by a god, several gods, an infinite number of gods, a gigantic mangleworzel, or an infinite number of gigantic mangleworzels, or something else? I do not know, and I'm sure any scientist, regardless of your categorization, will jump right on it just as soon as somebody coughs up an experiment that they can test.

.../

There is only one Mangelworzel! An infinity ?  Blasphemy!  Fetch the comfy chair Cardinal Fang!

It might be hard to believe, but atheists and agnostics don't have a monopoly on finding religious debates to be largely a waste of time. It is one of those phenomena where everyone who enters the intellectual pool does so with their views finalized before hand.

  This is seriously insulting Namaan - so is everyone who has contributed to this thread is so blinkered and set in their ways to be unable to change their views?  Geezer is completely correct (did I just type that?) but any scientist who enters an arena with completely preconceived and immovable ideas should hand in their notice and see if there is work at the nearest council office.   We might set a very high threshold for changing our minds on certain questions (I will need more than a group of Swiss and Italians who cant use a stopwatch to dismiss SR for example) - but if one's mind is truly closed to change then one is nothing more than a bigot and has no claim to rationalism or science

[Don_1]

It might be hard to believe, but atheists and agnostics don't have a monopoly on finding religious debates to be largely a waste of time. It is one of those phenomena where everyone who enters the intellectual pool does so with their views finalized before hand.

Unlike the Catholic Church, who maintained an open mind when Copernicus, and later Galileo, suggested that the Earth was not the centre of the universe, not threatening excommunication and imprisonment for those who dared to question the Bible. ?

Unlike the Catholic Church who did not deny the existence of sadists and paedophiles among some nuns and priests.   

Unlike the Puritans who did not burn 'witches'.

If ever there were closed minds, the church has to be the biggest offender.

[namaan (OP)]

Please stop blowing up misunderstandings out of all proportion. A stroll around religious discussions at TNS finds witting intentional, witting underhanded, and quite often unwitting underhanded insults to intelligence that generally paint those who ascribe to a religion as delusional believers in a non-existent entity that is such nonsense as to deserve regular mocking, all nonchalantly of course. I find no problem in ignoring all these insults only because I find it worth a meaningful discussion. Granted, some of the cynicism in my posts is probably a response to these insults.

So if you can't read past to the last paragraph, then I have nothing else to say except the following. I have friends who are atheist or of other religions, and if ever a religious discussion comes up, then speaking in a personal capacity, I find it to be a terrible waste of time for the reasons mentioned. And while you might have a point that scientists are ideally supposed to be these ever-skeptical beings, reality is wanting. This ideal ever-skeptical being of yours doesn't exist since we are only humans. And humans don't remain ever-inquisitive children till old age.

Given these natural limitations, I'm sure as scientists you all try to the best of your humanly capacity to consider every idea in its own right, but there never-the-less remains several problems for me with discussing religion:

1) It frankly isn't relevant to the question as I've already pointed out a few times.
2) I've never come across an existential argument on God that I've found to be very well thought out or convincing. You are free to think that this is due to my inability to reason at your level, or that I'm just in a state of denial.
3) In my experience, existential arguments take a lot of time to make, much less time to break down, and achieve relatively little. Being in business, I'm unable to ignore the investment vs. tradeoff issue with this.

So no, I don't think that "everyone who has contributed to this thread is so blinkered and set in their ways to be unable to change their views" - you're just putting words in my mouth. I started this thread with very specific intentions. We have the rest of the internet to discuss the existential argument, though you're unlikely to find me there (unless I were to dig up my older posts).

[graham.d]

Namaan, coming into the discussion rather late I misunderstood the point of the thread (I think). I think it is unusual, though not impossible, for a non-believer to apply scientific principles to developing a theory of God. Most people in science have an idea and then try to see whether this idea fits all the known facts and is self consistant. Being human, the effort needed to undertake such a task requires, and reinforces, some degree in belief that the idea is correct. Nonetheless, some scientific approach could be developed to look at concepts from a hypothetical position. Is this what you are expecting?

From my perspective it hard to know where to start. What God are we trying to scientifically justify? Is it a particular one or rather the more general concept of the universe being in the control of an intelligence? I think specific God-qualities, as defined by most religions, fall down when subjected to any scientific study. At least, it seems to me that for most religions, many things that were previously held to be indisputably true have been proved wrong, although a large number of people still believe in the old ideas whilst some are happy to modify their view to fit in with modern interpretations. I would point out the ideas of natural selection versus the idea that God created the world in 6 days a few thousand years ago as one example. I think a staring point would be to pick an example of the features that the God, that we are trying to have the theory about, possesses.

I suspect that the abstract God we will end up defining will be so "hands-off" that it would make no material difference whether he exists or not. Such a God may be indiscernable from the natural universe itself.

So the question is what God are we trying to work with?