I was responding to this post, but partway through, @
Holder of the Heel
offered a hefty response (curses!).
I don't want to let my post go to waste, though. Since I approach the question in a slightly different way than Holder, I guess the following will be useful as a slightly different take on things.
(NOTE: I accidentally mistook Holder for Claire Diviner, for whatever reason. So if you were tagged for this post, Claire, apologies XD).
In any case:
I'll be honest, I haven't read the entire thread, if that is what you're referring to. If you're convinced that there is no God, I'd like to hear your reasoning.
[collapse=On Belief]
I know this isn't directed at me in particular. Though I figure that, since I'm here, I might as well outline my current state, if only for clerical purposes.
For myself, it's not about being "convinced" that there is "No God". It's more so that God's existence or non-existence is not a matter in which I have much investment.
I've only ever utterly had this experience -- the experience of utterly being Sehnsucht, in a reality that we call "the universe", confined on a "planet" called "Earth". I have no memory of experiences prior to my own "birth", and have no present knowledge on what experiences (if any) await upon or after my "death".
As a result, this reality is the only frame of reference that I have to determine the truth of things.
God is often defined as existing beyond space and time, of being infinite and omniscient and transcendent and imminent, and so forth. All of these things are beyond the limits of my experience. They are either things I can't fully comprehend, or things which I have not, and presently do not, experience. I haven't and don't experience visions or revelations, I don't "see" God revealing Itself in nature, all information and argument pertaining to various religions have not yet been compelling enough to prompt me to adjust my life to take into account a God, and so forth.
As a result of the particulars of my experience, I can make the following inference:
If this is a world where there is a God, then the sun rises and sets, I wake up and go about my day and go to sleep.
If this is a world where there is no God, then the sun rises and sets, I wake up and go about my day and go to sleep.
A world where there is a God, and one where there is not, are indistinguishable within my experience of reality.
Is God there? Is God not there? I have no way to tell as of this moment. And since there's no sense in structuring my life around something that has no noticeable, detectable, tangible impact on my life and experience, then, if only for the purpose of pragmatism, I live my life without considering God as a real thing that I need to take into consideration in daily living.
The specific term for this "pragmatic atheism" is
apatheism (a portmanteau of
apathy and
atheism). Put very crudely, it's a stance of
Don't Know, Don't Care. And until I
do know something substantive about God, then I can't bring myself to care much about the potential existence of such an entity.
[/collapse]
As for proof, well we all understand cause and effect, if you heard a loud noise coming from another room something caused it. Science has compelling evidence that the Universe exploded into existence. The Big Bang. We know that this because the Universe is constantly expanding, and if you reverse that all the way back there in fact was a beginning. If there is a beginning, then there is a beginner. Going back to the noise in the room, if you did in fact hear a noise in the other room and decided to investigate and found your dad in the room and if he told you it was nothing, would that be a satisfying answer? No, you'd look for the cause.
[collapse=On Causes]We know that the universe was
caused. Something
caused the original singularity state to expand and balloon into our present universe. That much can be said without contention.
Yet that is all we can say for sure. What was the cause of this expansion? How did that singularity state come to be in the first place? Was that singularity caused into being? If so, what was
its cause? If something came "before" the singularity state, what was this state of affairs? Or is it the case that the singularity state was "always" there?
The notion that this "original cause" was the result of a conscious agent (e.g. "God") is certainly
one possible hypothesis. But it isn't the
only feasible one. Our universe could be the product of a multiverse; it could be part of an eternally recurring cycle of universes. Perhaps the singularity state is in itself an uncaused, self-sustaining, self-justifying construct. Or perhaps the singularity rooted in some fundamental principle that has those qualities (but is not necessarily a conscious agent; it could be a mathematical or quantum principle, or set of principles, for instance). You also have stuff like branes, strings, and other trippy hypotheses that could account for the present existence of our universe.
You're invoking a form of the Cosmological Argument. Everything that exists has a cause, and if the universe exists, then the universe must have a cause. Yet because there can't be an infinite regression of causes, there must be, if you go back far enough, an original, non-caused cause that simply is, and that supplies the cause of all other things. Those who use this argument in favour of a theistic view will say that this "uncaused cause" is God. The Prime Mover, the Necessary Being, etc.
The issue is that God doesn't necessarily follow from the previous premises. We can agree that the universe has a cause for its inception. We can even agree that there might be a fundamental non-caused cause, which is self-sustaining and self-justifying. But to say that this self-sustaining, self-justifying is, ergo, God, is a bit of a leap. If you want to demonstrate that this Original Cause is synonymous with not only "a" God, but the particular conception of God you hold to, then you'll need to do some extra work to illustrate the connection or correlation between these two concepts (Causes and Gods).
As for science, it's still quite a ways away from being able to really sink its empirical teeth into the question of Universal Origin. There currently exist an array of hypotheses on the matter, but since no conclusive or substantive data has been acquired, none of the hypotheses that presently exist have become more probable than the other (to my knowledge, anyway; if there are particularly strong hypotheses for universal origin that presently exist, I invite anyone to provide a link or source).
So basically, the Cosmological Argument is insufficient to "prove" the existence of a God, because:
A) It fails to clearly show how the existence, or necessity, of universal origin, MUST therefore imply the existence of a conscious agent who was the cause of this universal origin;
B) There are various, non-God hypotheses as to universal origin, so God is not the only possible explanation. And in the context of science, you need data and evidence to determine which hypothesis is more likely. Which is why, in science, God doesn't tend to be a favoured explanation -- since, so far, no empirical evidence has been found pointing to the existence of such an entity.
If you want to use the cosmological argument (i.e. Prime Move, Uncaused Cause, Necessary Being), then you'd need to work on A) and B).
[/collapse]
The Universe is also finely tuned to support life on Earth, from an astral level down to a molecular level. Science tells us that there are over 50 details in the universe that makes life on earth possible. In order for everything to be fine tuned, we need a Fine Tuner. Logically speaking of course.
[collapse=On Fine-Tuning]A Fine-Tuner is not necessary to account for our present situation on Earth. Fine-Tuning is a top-down approach, but there is also the bottom-up approach.
Which is to say, that the universe is such that it has those 50 or so "fine constants". These norms, rules, and variables are such that a world such as Earth is possible. That Earth did in fact come to be, therefore, is not a surprise. And in the past few years, they've been finding and detecting copious amounts of exoplanets in the cosmos which may be Earth-like (or serve as Super-Earths). Planets who have conditions similar to Earth's is similarly not a surprise, if the variables of the universe allow for these kinds of planets to exist.
As for Life on Earth, we're adapted to living on this planet, evidently. But that's the result of evolution via natural selection -- only those organisms who are suited for surviving in their environment will survive in the long-term. Those who happen to have traits that allow them to live longer will have a greater chance of living long enough to reproduce and pass on their genes to the next generation. Those whose traits make them less likely to survive in their environment, long enough to reproduce, will reproduce less frequently, so their genes won't spread as fast. This latter population, therefore, will be phased out of the global population over the generations, while the group with the more adaptive genes will become more dominant.
That's how natural selection works. It's not that The Earth was
made for us to live; it's that
we've become made for life on The Earth. Top-Down Vs Bottom-Up.
To put it differently, if A) we're the product of evolution via natural selection, and B) we currently exist, then it follows that C) our ancestors survived because they happen to have traits suited to their environment.
All of this is to say that Fine-Tuning is not necessary to explain why Earth happens to be perfect for human life (or any life that exists on Earth). Earth has Conditions X, and only organisms who have Traits Y can possibly survive under Conditions X. If our evolutionary predecessors were unable to satisfy these criteria, then they would not have survived to the present day, and so none of us would be here.
On an alien world with Conditions Z, and where only organisms who have Traits W could possibly survive, will it really be any surprise that if life emerges on that world, that the organisms that dwell there exhibit Traits W?
The process of evolution in biology is an observed, confirmed fact, and the Theory of Evolution is the most comprehensive body of knowledge that accounts for how and why evolution works (e.g. via the mechanism of natural selection).
You could perhaps propose that a Fine-Tuner tuned the universe such that the process of evolution is possible, and that it would eventually yield a species such as humans. But a world where evolution was the result of Fine-Tuning, and a world were evolution is a result of physical laws and variables interacting, are indistinguishable.
Science knows that evolution is there, but it hasn't yet determined the presence or influence or any Fine-Tuner. Which is why the Fine-Tuning argument doesn't hold well from a strictly scientific viewpoint (since it follows the available evidence above all else). And philosophically, it's a matter of pragmatism; you don't need to posit the existence or more things (e.g. Fine-Tuners) when existing explanations can account for a given phenomenon (e.g. evolution, the conditions of Earth, etc. etc.).
The universe was not made for us. We molded ourselves to fit into the universe. And if the universe was indeed made, that becomes a different question, and so we must begin the work of demonstrating that the universe was made, and by what or whom.
[/collapse]
So there you go. I have the habit of writing long posts, but I did try to be comprehensive, so it's all good.
EDIT:
Theists have no scientific evidence that God exists, atheists have no scientific evidence that He doesn't exist. /thread
If God, by definition or nature, cannot be detected, observed, measured, or whatever else, using scientific, empirical means, then naturally, science will never be able to elucidate the question.
Though I would say that, from a pragmatic standpoint, if science can account for our reality and the phenomena therein, without needing to invoke a supernatural agent, then there's no need to
suppose such an agent exists (and if it
does exists, whether we Humans of Earth
should care that it exists).
Much in the same way that you don't need to suppose gravity is the result of attraction between objects with mass AND the result of non-observable pixies who push and pull against objects. If the former explanation (mass attraction) fully accounts for, or explains, the phenomenon, you don't need to invoke the latter explanation (non-observable pixies) to account for the phenomenon.
I would also say that there exist philosophical or logical arguments that support or refute the existence of God. If God is defined to be consistent with the rules of logic, then if God is shown to not be logically consistent, the idea of God existing would be invalidated -- at least, for the particular definition of God that is presented in the argument.
All of this to say that in the absence of clear proof, we can only deal in probabilities and likelihood. All we can do, at least for now, is attempt to determine not which scenario
is true, but which scenario is
more likely to be true.
And also, by saying neither side could ever possibly be shown to be right or wrong, you stifle the chance for productive and enlightening discourse and discussion, which would be gravely unfortunate for everyone.
Articablack
_Keno_
Neanderthal
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