God and the Theory of Everything

[_harmony]

So you think God doesn't know physics? And didn't use physics to create the world and the universe(s)? You think only men (in the global sense) know physics?

Harmony,

Hate to break it to you, but there is absolutely no evidence that Elohim is any more real than Zeus or Thor or any of the hundreds of other major an minor Gods that went before him and will come after him.

People with unfounded beliefs in imaginary Gods have done a lot of damage in the world wholly, or on significant part, because of such belief.

The more we learn about the way the universe works, the clearer it becomes that evidence for God is absent. As Stak pointed out on another thread, sometimes absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It would be hard to find a better example of this principle than the issue of God, and especially the Mormon God.

It is disturbing is that religious organizations such as the LDS Church apparently find nothing wrong with institutional lying in an attempt to persuade members to continue to believe its completely discredited foundational truth claims.

I find it particularly disturbing when religionists (and especially Mormons) dismiss evidence counter to their unfounded beliefs because they don't understand it or are afraid to think too hard about it. They claim instead, and in spite of evidence to the contrary, that God somehow uses natural laws to accomplish his work, when in fact they have only the dimmest understanding of what the natural laws at issue. Although true believers and apologists will deny it, any God who has characteristics ascribed to him according to Mormon belief would actually be violating natural laws on a continual basis.

I would be happy to provide examples.

You're so busy getting all up in the night, you didn't answer my questions, DrW. Let me rephrase: do you think any God, capable of creating the universe, wouldn't know physics? That man, his creation, is the only being to know physics?

[_subgenius]

...

You are not in a position to say, "ugh."

sure i am.
the fact still remains that the TOE can not demonstrate its own consistency and therefore is not "complete".
the fact also remains that the TOE is apples to God's oranges.

[_subgenius]

...
In other words, according to the math...

enuff said...move on to something with substance like dividing by zero and the square root of -1.

[_DrW]

If only religion would, or even could, embrace science. Religion continues to hold its unfounded beliefs and superstition above reason, logic and evidence based knowledge. Religion only tries to rationalize or incorporate that knowledge when it becomes painfully obvious that the relevant religious beliefs are just plain wrong (and sometimes dangerously wrong.)

Still waiting for some reason to think this is true. But, it seems the only thing you plan on doing is to repeat the same mantra ad nauseum. When you do actually attempt to engage religion, the only religion you actually do engage is Mormonism, specifically of the LDS Church variety as below:

Or, as do the leaders of the LDS Church, you simply say that the right answer does not matter because it is not important to one's salvation. (This is really an intelligent approach to determining truth, would you not agree?)

So, a helpful hint if I may. Either engage religion in general, or stop referring to religion and take aim at the LDS church.

Good suggestion. What if we focused on the so-called Abrahamic religions, and specifically the more fundamentalist of these including Mormonism, Islam, and the Right Wing Evangelical crowd?

The Catholic Church certainly stands as a prime example of the damage unfounded belief can do in the world (think of the sexual abuse of children by priests, policies and pronouncements related to condom use and AIDS that have only recently been tempered a bit, etc.). Richard Dawkins, and the late Christopher Hitchins have underscored these problems with the Catholic Church quite effectively over the last few years in public debates. The Catholic Church has responded with a public relations campaign citing their contributions to the community in terms of schools, hospitals and charities.

Right now in contemporary America, however, it is Mormonism (Romney, Huntsman and Prop 8), Islam (America's contemporary bogeyman) and the Evangelicals (Perry, Bachmann and Santorum) that have taken center stage in the public consciousness in terms of religion and how it relates to science, culture in general, and politics in particular.

So maybe we could start there.

[_Aristotle Smith]

The Catholic Church certainly stands as a prime example of the damage unfounded belief can do in the world (think of the sexual abuse of children by priests, policies and pronouncements related to condom use and AIDS that have only recently been tempered a bit, etc.). Richard Dawkins, and the late Christopher Hitchins have underscored these problems with the Catholic Church quite effectively over the last few years in public debates. The Catholic Church has responded with a public relations campaign citing their contributions to the community in terms of schools, hospitals and charities.

OK, I think this was your attempt at substance. The other paragraphs in your last post were simply naming of groups you don't happen to like.

I have repeatedly asked why science and religion are incompatible. Yet you chose to tell me about "damage unfounded belief can do in the world." This is not answering the question I have asked, though I guess in your mind you have, so let's analyze why religion is so bad according to DrW:

1) Religious people sometimes do nasty things (such as Catholic priests abusing children).
2) You don't like the some of the social policies of the Catholic Church (some vague notion about condoms and AIDS).

That's it? First off, let me point out that neither of these points remotely touches on science. Science cannot generate values, therefore any (rightful) objection you make to child abuse is part of ethics and morality, not science. And, science cannot tell you which social policy is correct. Any objection you make to a social policy which emphasizes abstinence and monogamy over condom distribution has zero to do with science and everything to do with your personal policy preferences.

I condemn child abuse because it is wrong and the Catholic church had bad policies for dealing with the issue which resulted in far too much suffering. But bad policies do not undermine the truth claims of the organization as a whole. It's also obvious that a small number of people acting badly do not undermine a belief system. Otherwise, since there are atheist child abusers, your belief system also suffers the same problem.

In summary: you haven't provided any reason for me to think that science and religion are incompatible. And, the argument you chose to make is full of shoddy reasoning. Finally, you incorrectly summarized the state of the LHC vis-a-vis Higgs Boson detection, incorrectly explained string theory (I'm still willing to give you a pass on that one because your sentence structure was shoddy), and you still don't seem to get why I mentioned the 10^500 number of string theories. For a hint see here. Quick summary: because of the vast number of possible string theories, we don't have theory of everything, we have a theory of anything.

[_Gadianton]

My own take on the interaction between science and religion is that science expands the boundaries of religion. By embracing science religion can still seek to answer the Why of the Universe.

Hi Moksha,

Does religion necessarily answer "Why" questions that science either cannot answer or does a poor job answering?

I believe the answer is no. Can you provide an example of a "why" question that you believe religion answers or tries to answer, that is outside of the domain of science?

I will offer a candidate.

"Religion explains why we are here in the sense, for what purpose did a higher intelligence create us."

If we are here for a purpose, science is not forbidden to answer. For instance, suppose an alien race wished to spread life throughout the universe and hurled asteroids packed with life from their home star billions of years ago. It is possible for science to discover the remnants of the asteroid(s) and one day uncover the mystery.

Objections:

This is not an ultimate "why" answer, it is not spiritually satisfying, and if there is a God, it won't help us.

But religious answers of the kind, "we are here because God needed to test us," "we were created to glorify God," or "we are here to escape Karma" are also intermediate "why" answers that raise further questions. Religion does not offer ultimate "why" answers. Attempts like, God has a father, who has a father, and turtles all the way down from here, run into foundational philosophical problems such as, in this case, infinite regress. And if foundational "why" questions are solved by mental constructions like a prime mover, then we can thank Aristotle and man's reason for it. It might not be a scientific find, but equally, no religion necessary.

Religious answers are, also, not generally spiritually satisfying. Are you satisfied, Moksha, by Calvinist explanations for man's purpose? Fulfillment is found at the sect or even the sub-sect level. In short, there is nothing more reprehensible than atheism for a truly religious man, save the religion practiced by his next-door neighbor.

But what if there is a God, he has a purpose for us, and he covers his tracks such that only by following his stipulations we can find out the purpose, science won't help! True. But suppose a race of aliens created asteroids...religion won't help. Suppose there is no purpose or God does not interact with us, religion will not be able to correctly answer "why" in these cases.

As you nicely put it, science expands the boundaries of religion. But the converse has never been true. Knowing this, where is your best bet to get the "why" if there is a "why"?

[_Aristotle Smith]

If we are here for a purpose, science is not forbidden to answer.

Actually, it is. One of the keys to the success of empirical science has been the ruling out of final causes as explanations in scientific theory. In evolutionary biology the line can blur, but I think the consensus among evolutionary biologists is that even if they say something that appears teleological, they mean that as a shorthand way of saying something that is not teleological.

It's also part of the modern pact of living in a pluralistic society. If you are going to fund something for consumption in public schools, it can't make teleological commitments. Once you start making claims for final causes or purposes, you have blurred the line between science and religion to the point that there is no longer a meaningful way to decide which to keep in the classroom and which to keep out.

[_Gadianton]

Hi AS,

Did you read my whole post? I did not claim science gives us "final cause" answers. In fact, I specifically said that it didn't. I also specifically said that religion does not give us final cause answers either, aside from the work already done by philosophers, if we agree philosophy does have right answers to these questions (which I probably don't believe).

I did say science can in fact answer questions about our "purpose" (providing such answers exist) -- intermediate answers (not final answers, I believe I wrote clearly on this point) -- of the kind religions often give.

Of course, believers often mistake their intermediate answers to purpose as final.

[_Aristotle Smith]

Hi AS,

Did you read my whole post?

Yes.

I did not claim science gives us "final cause" answers.

I'm aware of that, but this is irrelevent. You also said: "If we are here for a purpose, science is not forbidden to answer." The statements are mutually exclusive, hence I critiqued one and not the other. However, a simple explanation for why science does not give answers with final cause/teleological components is that science is science because it does not venture into the territory of final causes.

I also specifically said that religion does not give us final cause answers either,

Yes it does. You may not like them, but religion generally is in the business of giving answers in terms of final causes/teleology.

I did say science can in fact answer questions about our "purpose" (providing such answers exist) -- intermediate answers (not final answers, I believe I wrote clearly on this point) -- of the kind religions often give.

I believe you are equivocating here. Final cause has nothing to do with being the last or authoritative answer (though religion does usually claim that as well). Thus I don't know why you are comparing final causes with intermediate answers. One can give a final cause which is also an intermediate answer. Or one can give a material or efficient cause that one claims is the final answer. Indeed to hear many atheists one suspects they think that the material and efficient causes on offer in science are the final answer to religion (i.e. they debunk them with 100% certainty).

Of course, believers often mistake their intermediate answers to purpose as final.

Final in what sense? If by final cause, then there is no connection between being an intermediate answer and a final cause. If by final you mean authoritative and not subject to change, then yes, believers ought to modulate some of their truth claims because they are not omniscient.

[_Gadianton]

sure i am.
the fact still remains that the TOE can not demonstrate its own consistency and therefore is not "complete".
the fact also remains that the TOE is apples to God's oranges.

Your unattributed lifting of the wiki material on TOE rebuts this charge. The mathematics of TOE may, very likely, be complete.

If TOE isn't complete, from the fact that statements such as "this statement has no proof" might be constructed, it wouldn't follow that such statements involve descriptions of actual physical things. Beyond clear examples from mathematical logic, are there any suggested limitations of importance to the wide-open realm of mathematics? Are there problems in math so difficult, that any mathematician has ever said, "looks like our knowledge stops here, this doosey just can't be derived, thanks a lot, Godel!"

The important names in physics that have advanced the Godel argument are noted, but we also note their suggestions come outside of any peer-reviewed literature and way, way outside their fields of specialty.