Is God is the stuff of the universe and organizing forces?

[nutronjon]

What INow said is right nutron.

 

It is NOT un-scientific to hypothesize that something unobservable does not exist, because it is a falsifiable hypothesis.

 

It IS un-scientific to hypothesize that something unobservable DOES exist, because this hypothesis is not falsifiable.

 

It is as simple as that.

 

 

 

Falsifiability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Likewise the statement "God Exists" is not falsifiable even in principle; there is no way to test whether God does or does not exist.

 

 

If God exist or not, and therefore, can or can not be scientifically tested, depends on how we define God. Stoics, and Greeks who thought things were made of atoms, and later Spinoza and others, have said God is the stuff of the universe. A material God, that is a God of substance, can be scientifically tested. Now finding Zeus and his brothers and sisters is a different matter. I don't think we can scientifically prove supernatural beings exist. But we can study nature.

[freeztar]

Reading your recent posts, nutron, I get a better sense of what you are aiming for and you are doing a much better job of articulating yourself. I was beginning to think that you have simply been misunderstood and was trying to understand your ideas from this new perspective, and then you posted this:

A material God, that is a God of substance, can be scientifically tested. Now finding Zeus and his brothers and sisters is a different matter. I don't think we can scientifically prove supernatural beings exist. But we can study nature.

 

At this point, I could re-post the challenges to this such as "How do we scientifically test for god?" or "What is the benefit of labeling nature 'God'?", but you obviously will not/can not answer these questions. It stops becoming a scientific examination of theology when you make claims such as "Finding Zeus...is a different matter" with respect to "a material god, a god of substance".

 

Zeus is a god. By studying Zeus, we can infer something about god nature.

 

I agree with you about morals and becoming a better society, but this insistence on relating *your* concept of god with nature is a big put off for me and most everyone else it seems. :naughty:

 

Why can't we observe nature and learn something of democracy? If you started with that premise, it would be a very popular thread I think.

[C1ay]

So far the "Evidence for God from Science

God And Science.org" site seems to give the best argument for putting science and religion back together again. Now I have a serious problem with this site, because I am not Christian, however, I like the argument about our present problem and a need to correct it.

 

I would perfer a new religion such as Stuart Kauffman recommends of a fully natural God as our chosen symbol for the ceaseless creativity in the natural universe. I am strongly in favor of working on the fully natural God concept because it is the best way to end superstition and in general, poor human judgment, in my opinion, and the only way to put an end to religiously inflamed wars, that I can think of.

 

The only people you will sell this to are Pantheists and Panentheists. All of those which already define their God(s) differently are not going to just up and change their definition of the God(s) they believe in. This would be tantamount to converting them from whatever current belief(s) they hold to pantheism or panentheism. Christians for example are not going to just make a wholesale switch from their belief in the Holy Trinity to one that replaces it with nature. For them nature is nature and God is separate. Their God is one that can take the form of man and walk among us like Jesus and they believe in his second coming. Calling nature God is inconsistent with their belief at its core and simply introduces more friction in the discussion because many will be offended by the suggestion.

 

I think a more honest approach is reached in working on critical thinking and skepticism. People need to learn to question more of what they are told. They need to learn that belief does not mean knowledge. That mysticism and the supernatural are inventions of man to explain things man has no knowledge of by introducing fabricated beliefs that are unfounded in science.

 

For the most part your effort will go nowhere with the adult population either. Most are set in the beliefs that have been handed down to them. You might cause a doubt in their belief but not a wholesale conversion to panentheist belief. It is the children that must be taught to be more skeptical of hand me down beliefs. They also need more lessons in the core humanist beliefs to help set their moral compass. They need to learn that what is important is the search for true knowledge. That belief does not equal knowledge but serves instead as an obstacle to knowledge. In this vein giving nature a new name is silly word play that avoids the search for the truth.

[REASON]

The other statement says that there is zero evidence or reason to accept the existence of said entity, and therefore it can be logically assumed not part of reality until empiricism shows otherwise.

Likewise the statement "God Exists" is not falsifiable even in principle; there is no way to test whether God does or does not exist.

While both of you guys are absolutely correct, her argument to this could be that by equating god with nature, god is therefore obsrervable, testable, and falsifiable in that studying nature is studying god.

If God exist or not, and therefore, can or can not be scientifically tested, depends on how we define God. Stoics, and Greeks who thought things were made of atoms, and later Spinoza and others, have said God is the stuff of the universe. A material God, that is a God of substance, can be scientifically tested. Now finding Zeus and his brothers and sisters is a different matter. I don't think we can scientifically prove supernatural beings exist. But we can study nature.

 

See what I mean?

 

Note that her evidence for why we should define nature as god is that "Stoics, and Greeks who thought things were made of atoms, and later Spinoza and others, have said God is the stuff of the universe."

 

So because they said it, it must be so. They are the authority.

 

So I will reiterate:

What's missing in this situation is a reasonable scientific explanation for why it becomes necessary, beneficial, or in any way logical to assign the label of *god* to what is being observed in nature. It is therefore relegated to a personal opinion. This has been explained in countless ways by numerous people.

.....

 

From the perspective of science, nature is not god, and will continue not to be god no matter how much someone wants it to be recognized by the scientific community as such.

[nutronjon]

I am getting over my mind being shut down, because I was put on the defenisve. You all may never understand how harmful to freedom of speech and freedom of thought you have been, but I hope you do.

 

Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence of "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God". Nature's God is not the same as the man made God, and the problem is not with what I am saying, but your illiteracy. You do not understand what I am saying because you are illiterate in history and you are illiterate in the classics that are the foundation of our republic and democratic way of life.

 

The word ignorance contains the word ignore. It is excusable to not know something, but it is not excusable to ignore information and argue out of ignorance. The information that has been demanded of me, is in the classics and if you like the freedom and liberty that you inherited, I suggest you stop ignoring the classics, because those ignorant of the foundation of democracy and the republic they enjoy, can not defend it. All your high tech military ability, can not defend your liberty and justice.

[C1ay]

You all may never understand how harmful to freedom of speech...

 

There is no "freedom of speech" here. This is a private forum where we make the rules. Start your own forum and make your own rules if you want freedom of speech. You have no "right" to say what you want here. You can participate according to the site's rules or you can move on.

 

Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence of "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God". Nature's God is not the same as the man made God, and the problem is not with what I am saying, but your illiteracy. You do not understand what I am saying because you are illiterate in history and you are illiterate in the classics that are the foundation of our republic and democratic way of life.

 

The word ignorance contains the word ignore. It is excusable to not know something, but it is not excusable to ignore information and argue out of ignorance. The information that has been demanded of me, is in the classics and if you like the freedom and liberty that you inherited, I suggest you stop ignoring the classics, because those ignorant of the foundation of democracy and the republic they enjoy, can not defend it. All your high tech military ability, can not defend your liberty and justice.

 

Jefferson wrote of his "opinion" and his opinion does not make something a fact. He was a deist and just because he had a belief in a creator does not make that a "fact". That anyone does not consider Jefferson's opinion to be evidence that Nature's God exists does not make them illiterate. I am quite well read in Jefferson's works and I occasionally give away copies of Jefferson's Bible to theists in my area to show them that they can believe in the life and morals of Jesus without believing in all of the alleged supernatural miracles claimed of him in the Christian bible.

 

You act like an intelligent person so I am having a real hard time understanding why you cannot tell the difference between your opinions and factual knowledge unless you are being intentionally obtuse. What has been demanded of you is testable, verifiable, predictable evidence according to the methods of science. We have made it perfectly clear in our rules that statements like "I just know that this is the way it is" (especially when religion is being discussed) are considered ignorant and might be deleted. Statement's like "God is the stuff of the universe and organizing forces" are not acceptable just because you claim to know that this is the way it is. We expect you to prove that such a God exists and not by simply redefining a word like nature. If you want to believe in Nature's God, as Jefferson did, then have at it but understand, your belief does not make it true and if you want to claim that it's true, that it's a fact, we will expect you to prove it.

[Galapagos]

You do not understand what I am saying because you are illiterate in history and you are illiterate in the classics that are the foundation of our republic and democratic way of life.

The word ignorance contains the word ignore. It is excusable to not know something, but it is not excusable to ignore information and argue out of ignorance. The information that has been demanded of me, is in the classics and if you like the freedom and liberty that you inherited, I suggest you stop ignoring the classics, because those ignorant of the foundation of democracy and the republic they enjoy, can not defend it. All your high tech military ability, can not defend your liberty and justice.

 

I find a very sound basis for freedom and liberty in the reasoned works of John Stuart Mill. At no point did he succumb to the tempting cop-out that is conceding responsibility of justification to an absent or invisible arbiter, which makes his claims to freedom particularly valuable in my opinion:

• “The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right...The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns him, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”
   
  
• "If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind."
   
  
• "Silencing the expression of an opinion is ... robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. "
   
  
• " We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still."
   
  
• " The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be booted out; not any particular manifestation of that principle. "
   
  
• "On religion in particular, the time appears to me to have come, when it is a duty of all who, being qualified in point of knowledge, have, on mature consideration, satisfied themselves that the current opinions are not only false, but hurtful, to make their dissent known."
  

[Overdog]

I am getting over my mind being shut....

 

:)

[InfiniteNow]

God = The thing that made the things for which there is no known maker.

 

 

 

YouTube - The thing that made the things for which there is no known maker. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVbnciQYMiM

[paigetheoracle]

The way the Gnostics viewed it, everything we see isn't God because God is potential, not actual. By this I mean God is the lava not the volcanic cone - energy, not matter, future, not past. All that we see is material (created) and therefore cannot be God as he/she/it is ineffable, unknown, without limits (eternal/ infinite) and therefore cannot be defined or captured.

 

The world runs on corruption. What do I mean by that? It's about gangsterism and getting your cut as long as you keep your mouth shut. It's about protecting the old order, rather than letting in the light of the new (creativity). Think of how whistle blowers are despised by their colleagues and why, and the way traitors are disposed of politically. The future has no materialism, no set beliefs - hence those that follow 'the way' are bound by poverty and humility as it is abandoning all that you have as Jesus explained. Look at the opposition new ideas have and the way old ideas are defended.

 

Think about those people whose work was denigrated when they were alive and who died in poverty, only to have those same ideas lauded well after their deaths (and I'm on about scientists and inventors, not just thinkers like Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Christ). This is not an attack upon the way things are but just an acknowledgement of the fact as in 'High Plains Drifter', the film by Clint Eastwood (Cowards* want to stay where they are, maintaining the life they have as conformists, where heroes want more from the world and for the world, sacrificing present contentment for future hope and this is the basis of all religion, whatever name it goes by and whether somebody's spirituality is recognized for that or not (Van Gogh as creator for instance and the scientists or inventors mentioned earlier - crusaders and campaigners for 'change' in the world). A leap of faith stops us stagnating in certainty, and pride coming before our fall ("Remember thou art mortal" Laurel crown holder on chariot of Roman General, during his Triumph through Rome).

 

This is not about disputing the facts but their interpretation. I also think it's about seeing the world through the eyes of a child, not a jaded adult. So Santa Claus doesn't exist, so what - does the concept 'inspire' you, that is the question here? If science 'inspires' you - that is your God. If the Bible inspires you - ditto. It is the feeling generated and the hope of better things (change) that keeps you going, despite all the obstacles life throws at you. This is the world of emotion and energy, which religion calls spirit and soul. You can demonstrate emotion exists and see the effects of energy because these fall under the banner of psychology and physics but beliefs don't have to be reasonable or demonstrable and that is why arguments exist.

 

(* I mean coward technically - that is the act of avoiding or running away and not as an emotional term used to try to manipulate people (politics or religion - positive terms to get people on your side or negative ones to get rid of opponents i.e. deniers of the faith "If you can't beat them, join them and if you can't join them, get back to beating them - only with a bigger stick").