The Impact of Science on the Concept of God

[BoulderHead]

Originally posted by wuliheron
Your definition of Divinity is incorrect. A divinity in the broader sense of worldwide religions is a non-anthroporphic vision of God. It need not have any resemblance to a human being and can be the universe itself.

Well, there was more of course (dictionary.com was the source). I dispute the 'correctness' of any definition of god. What I would not dispute is that what is considered god to some is simply not god to me.

 

[wuliheron]

Just about every dictionary has its limitations and, of course, many of these are ethnocentric.

Certainly people have different ideas about what is and isn't God or Divine, but like anything else in the "real" world these can be measured, catagorized, labeled, researched, observed, etc. and a meaningful semantics developed around the concept like any other. Exactly how meaningful is another question altogether and, of course, the subject of this thread.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by wuliheron
Just about every dictionary has its limitations and, of course, many of these are ethnocentric.

Certainly people have different ideas about what is and isn't God or Divine, but like anything else in the "real" world these can be measured, catagorized, labeled, researched, observed, etc. and a meaningful semantics developed around the concept like any other. Exactly how meaningful is another question altogether and, of course, the subject of this thread.

The meaning of such a thread is to explore how people actually define God. If there is actually a conversation in which claims are made wether or not the existence of God can or can not be proven, the first thing to do is to actually find a consistent and not self-contradictionary definition of such an entity.

What we find here is that there actually are more entities, labelled under the same category as God, but with totally different content and meaning, in a way that do not make up for a well defined entity.
Each individual entity may be well defined, and we could in theory then be able to state something meaningfull of the existence of the entity, but not to the category of entities in total, labelled God.

It might come out that each and every entity, when explored thoroughly, have no existence of themselves (in the material sense), yet they are concepts and at least the concept has existence, and they belong to a category of entities, labeled God.
There is no doubt that the category of entities labeled God itself is an existing entity, beloning to the category of existence of the mind.

 

[wuliheron]

Originally posted by heusdens
The meaning of such a thread is to explore how people actually define God. If there is actually a conversation in which claims are made wether or not the existence of God can or can not be proven, the first thing to do is to actually find a consistent and not self-contradictionary definition of such an entity.

God is an inherently paradoxical concept. What is needed for such paradoxical concepts as God or Infinity is not a definition which doesn't contradict itself, but a useful definition. To insist God or infinity require less than vague definitions is just asking for trouble.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by wuliheron
God is an inherently paradoxical concept. What is needed for such paradoxical concepts as God or Infinity is not a definition which doesn't contradict itself, but a useful definition. To insist God or infinity require less than vague definitions is just asking for trouble.

You are right about the fact that we can not comprehend reality without contradiction.

 

[BoulderHead]

Originally posted by wuliheron
God is an inherently paradoxical concept. What is needed for such paradoxical concepts as God or Infinity is not a definition which doesn't contradict itself, but a useful definition. To insist God or infinity require less than vague definitions is just asking for trouble.

Did you mean 'something more than vague definitions'?
If we have come to a point where only vague definitions will work, then I think this now begins to tie back into the topic of: God...to define is to destroy?

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by BoulderHead
Did you mean 'something more than vague definitions'?
If we have come to a point where only vague definitions will work, then I think this now begins to tie back into the topic of: God...to define is to destroy?

Yes, and what about it? Throughout human history we have come up with many more concepts, which later proofed wrong, and were replaced with better concepts. If the conclusion is that we have to abandon any notion of God, then what about it?

 

[BoulderHead]

Originally posted by heusdens
Yes, and what about it? Throughout human history we have come up with many more concepts, which later proofed wrong, and were replaced with better concepts. If the conclusion is that we have to abandon any notion of God, then what about it?

Well, a lot of 'better' concepts don't seem much different to me than rehashed versions of the 'old stuff'. I meant more that God must remain vague because to say, for example, that God is a rock, or god is a bearded man sitting back in golden rocking chair, isn't going to carry much weight. At least, not to me.
My conclusion is not, as you thought, that we might have to abandon any notion of God, but rather that we must always keep a vague sort of mysterious God, and I think this may remain so despite scientific discoveries that lay in the future.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by BoulderHead
Well, a lot of 'better' concepts don't seem much different to me than rehashed versions of the 'old stuff'. I meant more that God must remain vague because to say, for example, that God is a rock, or god is a bearded man sitting back in golden rocking chair, isn't going to carry much weight. At least, not to me.
My conclusion is not, as you thought, that we might have to abandon any notion of God, but rather that we must always keep a vague sort of mysterious God, and I think this may remain so despite scientific discoveries that lay in the future.

Well, I think in the long run, this might just be the case.
At least there would cease to be a role for institutional religion as such.

 

[wuliheron]

Originally posted by BoulderHead
Did you mean 'something more than vague definitions'?
If we have come to a point where only vague definitions will work, then I think this now begins to tie back into the topic of: God...to define is to destroy?

Non-vague definitions of words are the exception, not the rule in natural language. Still, words are incredibly useful and the definitions of some become narrower while others become vaguer.

Traditionally, creating narrower definitions of God and the supernatural in general has been accomplished by science and technology as much as anything. Few today believe lightning bolts are thrown by Zeus or are supernatural. However, this is not to say that creating a non-vague definition of a God is impossible or would destroy the concept.

Spinoza's Pantheism, for example, is a predominantly non-vague formal western philosophical definition of God. He worshiped the universe itself as God and believed his emotional life was an expression of this relationship. With the modern discovery of the brain being hardwired for religious experience, his idea seems to have gained a bit of support. If, as Pantheists often assert, our entire intellectual life originates with our emotional life (which the evidence to date does support) it will further corroborate the validity of such a viewpoint.

 

[pelastration]

The question "God ... to define is to destroy" has two "human" aspects: a social impact (if we can give a final definition or image or formula of God ... will it destroy religious institutions - like churches, sekts, ..), and the personal impact (how will individuals react on that"knowledge").

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by pelastration
The question "God ... to define is to destroy" has two "human" aspects: a social impact (if we can give a final definition or image or formula of God ... will it destroy religious institutions - like churches, sekts, ..), and the personal impact (how will individuals react on that"knowledge").

From our very existing and proceedings and developments, we HAVE to conclude that no abstract definition of anything (including God) will last forever. Our insights are constantly changing.
This means for any 'God' to survive in a changing world, the definition or concept of 'God' has to change accordingly, or else it will be put in the garbage can of history.

 

[devil5_advocate]

Originally posted by heusdens
I don't know what God could be or not could be.

We observe space as having 3 spatial dimensions and one time dimension. This is already a 4 dimensional spacetime manifold.
General relativity has linked the time dimension closer together to the 3 spatial dimensions.

My assertion about God existing outside time and space, would mean that God has no spatial and timely mode of existence at all, and is therefore unchanging. In material terms this would simply mean: inexistent, cause all forms of matter are undergoing change, motion and transformations and exist in space and time.

You go from a different path, and assume the existence of a %-th space dimension, that could fit the existence of God, and which is not observable by us.

I think some development in physics go about this direction, in the form of the M theory, which is a superior layer to string theories. M theory takes place in an 11 dimensional space (1 time, 10 spatial), where the 7 extra sptial dimensions are "compactified". String theory takes place in 10 dimensions (1 time, 9 spatial), with 6 spatial dimensions "compactified". There are 5 string theories, which in a sense are all aspects of one 'mother' theory, which is called M theory.

This is of course not a research in "finding God", but a research in finding the fundamental properties of all matter. So far, this reserach has some merits, but the exploration in this field has yet to bridge the gap between the mathematical theory, and the world of physical observations. The gap is still quite large.

For instance the major 'player' in string theory, the fundamental quanta of energy/matter on which all properties of the material world rest, the 'strings', are not detectable by ordinary particle accelerators, cause the length of these 'string' and the needed energies for their exploration, are several sizes too high for the equipment we have today. We would need particles accelerators the size of the solar system to be able to detect matter at such length scales.

M theory has also an associated cosmological theory, called 'brane cosmology'. Strings can be attached to a brane of dimensionality p, called p-branes. Collisions between branes are candidate events that could have caused a big bang to occur.

I can only schematically explain string theory, for a better understanding of this theory, I would recommend reading a string theory primer available on the net.

Woah, i leave the thread for one day, come back the same time another night and it jumps from a single page to 4 pages full...nice work guys. Well yeah, I'm actually borrowing the concept from the string theory, which i recently read about. So what if god is really such a being? Won't that be interesting ?

 

[devil5_advocate]

Originally posted by heusdens
This is a bit coloured... Someway you seem to think that the existence of God is inevitable, and that the category of existence of God is even that of a kind that is open to objective proof (scientific proof).

Whatever science may and may not find, it is ultimately to the individual to 'see' it as objective evidence for the existence of God.

Suppose for instance we come about a proven theory on what caused the Big Bang to occur. Some people would claim then, that we had proven God's existence. While others just claim, that we did not find anything more but material causes for the Big Bang to happen, which fits exactly into the vision of materialism (matter exists eternal).

Talking about the Big Bang what is the latest news? Did the chicken lay the egg or did the egg hatch the chicken? In another words, how did the universe start before the Big Bang or more accurately, how did the Big Bang come about? Was it inevitable that clumps of gas would heat up and compress to a point where it would explode inot the universe, forming space dust and so on and so forth? This brings me to another part of the question. If the Big Bang just occurred like that what, or should I say who, caused it? God? Or was it just pure science of the matter...

 

[devil5_advocate]

Originally posted by Fliption
Well I really didn't mean that quantum physics implies anything specific about god. I was implying that 100 years ago no one would have ever guessed that the sub-atomic world operated that way. Quantum physics has completely re-written our understanding of how reality "really" works. The classical explanations are no longer the most accurate. Likewise, what other advances in knowledge might be obtained years from now? I'm not talking about science learning additional facts to add to our lists of knowledge. I'm talking about learning things that "change" the way we view and obtain knowledge. More of a foundation change. Much like quantum physics has done.

quote:
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So, to define god may be to destroy him. If god is material then god is a clever arrangement of matter and little more. If god is something else, then likewise there are problems…

While I think this may be true, it seems very similar to the probelms that we run into everytime we have discussions on whether existence is infinite or finite etc etc. There is a problem with every theory. This just gets us back into all those paradox threads. So Boulder, it seems you are suggesting that Wuli should start a thread called "The Paradox Of God" to add to his collection of things that exhibit this feature you are referring to.

under the part of defining god maybe to destroy him: IMO, if science can supplement the religon, or in this case, god, then there should be no problem. But to a certain extent i want to agree with you Fliption. Science's duty is to make clear the unknown, shedding light on the little mystics and mysteries in life that we take for granted, like say in Newton's time gravity. However, taking away that bit of mystic and magic as to why we are all walking on the ground and not floating and flying around would to a certain extent take away power from a god that some people believe in who is ressponsible for causing gravity. Its like, oh! so its the Earth's mass at the core pulling us down and not some great god of ours. Darn! Well in some cases like that science does 'destroy' a little of God. That was all, of course, in my opinion. Feel free to disagree.

 

[devil5_advocate]

Originally posted by BoulderHead
Well, a lot of 'better' concepts don't seem much different to me than rehashed versions of the 'old stuff'. I meant more that God must remain vague because to say, for example, that God is a rock, or god is a bearded man sitting back in golden rocking chair, isn't going to carry much weight. At least, not to me.
My conclusion is not, as you thought, that we might have to abandon any notion of God, but rather that we must always keep a vague sort of mysterious God, and I think this may remain so despite scientific discoveries that lay in the future.

So you say that to define god is to destroy? That having a vague god is the best kind of god? Beg your pardon but isn't that like putting one's faith into a vague belief? How so will that help you when you are in trouble, psychologically and emotionally and spiritually?

 

[devil5_advocate]

Originally posted by heusdens
From our very existing and proceedings and developments, we HAVE to conclude that no abstract definition of anything (including God) will last forever. Our insights are constantly changing.
This means for any 'God' to survive in a changing world, the definition or concept of 'God' has to change accordingly, or else it will be put in the garbage can of history.

Heusdens, i find what you've said to be particularly true. Just as surely as civillisations rise and fall, so will their concepts and thoughts go with them, leaving behind only records of what they believed in. Though this will help historians no doubt I don't think that they would have gained any converts of faith because they recorded they worshipped the Sun god.. would they? God will change with the times, or else the civillisation would probably have ceased to exist.

 

[BoulderHead]

Originally posted by devil5_advocate
So you say that to define god is to destroy?

No, I am asking a question here, not proclaiming it to be true.

That having a vague god is the best kind of god?

No, not the best kind, but perhaps the only kind that can survive close scrutiny. I meant it more in line with your response to Fliption concerning gravity/mass/god. If science dissects it gravity gets related to mass, not god.

Beg your pardon but isn't that like putting one's faith into a vague belief?

I would consider this beside the point. What one wishes to believe is their own business of course. But since you mentioned it I’d say that God seems pretty vague to me, how about you?

How so will that help you when you are in trouble, psychologically and emotionally and spiritually?

Again, I consider this beside the point. No comment.

 

[BoulderHead]

Originally posted by wuliheron;
Traditionally, creating narrower definitions of God and the supernatural in general has been accomplished by science and technology as much as anything. Few today believe lightning bolts are thrown by Zeus or are supernatural. However, this is not to say that creating a non-vague definition of a God is impossible or would destroy the concept.

Yes, I think I can see what you’re getting at here and I can see how it tends to refute the argument that vagueness is necessary in light of scientific advancements. I will think more on this point, Wu Li, and see what comes to my mind.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by pelastration
The question "God ... to define is to destroy" has two "human" aspects: a social impact (if we can give a final definition or image or formula of God ... will it destroy religious institutions - like churches, sekts, ..), and the personal impact (how will individuals react on that"knowledge").

Actually the latter one, to replace the religious beliefs in deities, the only attempt made succesfull, is to have people scientifically educated.

To overcome all forms of superstition, religion, ignorance and stubbornness, we must therefore provide well founded scientific education for the masses.

And we better take care here, that the science education budgets are increasing to fulfill that goal, instead of decreasing (as they have in many industrial nations; for instance the science/education budget in the Netherlands between 1980 and 2002 were alsmost cut in half!)

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by heusdens
To overcome all forms of superstition, religion, ignorance and stubbornness, we must therefore provide well founded scientific education for the masses.

Nothing more than deterministic brainwashing ... You see isn't this what freedom of religion is all about, to allow us to make up our own minds?

 

[BoulderHead]

It reminded me very much of Alexander.
Isn't just about everything brainwashing anyway?

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by BoulderHead
It reminded me very much of Alexander.
Isn't just about everything brainwashing anyway?

If so, then how can you tell? Whereas coming from a Communist country, I can see that he has a point.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by Iacchus32
Nothing more than deterministic brainwashing ... You see isn't this what freedom of religion is all about, to allow us to make up our own minds?

No, it is what freedom on a human scale is about. To set forth one's own future, and free oneself of any narrowmindedness. Freedom is the knowledge about necessity.

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by heusdens
No, it is what freedom on a human scale is about. To set forth one's own future, and free oneself of any narrowmindedness. Freedom is the knowledge about necessity.

What about the freedom to learn from one's mistakes? If we put too many restrictions on what freedom is supposed to entail, if nothing more than to root out any possible "narrow mindedness," then how much freedom does that leave us? And, by the time I start hearing "my way or the highway," then I realize that maybe people don't deserve their freedom, although it does indeed exist.

I'm sorry, you can't have freedom without the freedom of religion.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by Iacchus32
What about the freedom to learn from one's mistakes? If we put too many restrictions on what freedom is supposed to entail, if nothing more than to root out any possible "narrow mindedness," then how much freedom does that leave us? And, by the time I start hearing "my way or the highway," then I realize that maybe people don't deserve their freedom, although it does indeed exist.

I'm sorry, you can't have freedom without the freedom of religion.

Would it imply mankind would no longer be free as religion goes extinct? I don't think so.

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by heusdens
Would it imply mankind would no longer be free as religion goes extinct? I don't think so.

Before we can answer this we need to establish whether there was anything substantial to religion in the first place, otherwise, it's not abouts to die.

Besides that, if you take away our right to our beliefs, then you take away our freedom. This is the one fundamental idea (I believe) which made the United States so prosperous.

 

[BoulderHead]

I don't advocate force. I want freedom from force, actually. There need not be any force used against people to make them surrender religious beliefs. That would only drive it underground where it might become even more powerful.

They know that we represent reason and science, and, however confident they may be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not ncessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated so far as I am aware, the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor but they have few followers now."
Arthur C. Clarke

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by BoulderHead
I don't advocate force. I want freedom from force, actually. There need not be any force used against people to make them surrender religious beliefs. That would under drive it underground where it might become even more powerful.

They know that we represent reason and science, and, however confident they may be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not ncessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated so far as I am aware, the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor but they have few followers now."
Arthur C. Clarke

If you lay something to rest, you better be sure to give it a proper burial, otherwise it will come back to haunt you.

 

[BoulderHead]

Originally posted by Iacchus32
If you lay something to rest, you better be sure to give it a proper burial, otherwise it will come back to haunt you.

But on the other hand if it simply dies and rots away, why bother with a funeral?

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by BoulderHead
But on the other hand if it simply dies and rots away, why bother with a funeral?

It's like I said ... Before we can answer this we need to establish whether there was anything substantial to religion in the first place, otherwise, it's not abouts to die.

 

[BoulderHead]

Ok, let me try to get back to my topic;
I think there is a relationship in this topic to science being involved so intentionally with the material world that If a religion proclaims a ‘cow’ to be sacred, for example, that science will not agree and explain a cow as a biological creature. If a rock is proclaimed to be ‘holy’ then science will say the rock is just so much mineral matter. If God is proclaimed to be fire, earth, wind, etc, then science will explain this away too. In short, if you are able to define god as something we are able to test and experiment on then after testing and experimentation it may/will never be ruled as god, just some element of the natural world or force of nature (and note that whether god might actually be any of those things is a tad beside the point here). So, barring absolute knowledge god can never be ruled out of the picture with 100% certainty. But, with each stone unturned by science as we go along, god will never be hiding under it.
On a more personal level, if you tell me that God exists I might say; “yes, you might be right”. But, if you define your god to be living inside the heart of a palm tree I would tell you “I doubt it”. By saying that god is everything you present an un-testable and I think ‘vague’ concept of god that one may choose to believe or not. If god ‘hides’ in the mysterious, the unexplained, the un-testable, ‘he’ has a better chance of being believed in.

[edit]
I don't how to put this in a way that I'm certain Wu Li will accept, but I'd like to think I'm trying to.

 

[devil5_advocate]

I don't how to put this in a way that I'm certain Wu Li will accept, but I'd like to think I'm trying to.

Haha, one always hopes...that is man's last right when all's said and done.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by Iacchus32
Before we can answer this we need to establish whether there was anything substantial to religion in the first place, otherwise, it's not abouts to die.

The substantiability of religion is inherently there on the basis of the limited and relative knowledge we have had and always will have, although our knowledge is ever growing and improving.

Besides that, if you take away our right to our beliefs, then you take away our freedom. This is the one fundamental idea (I believe) which made the United States so prosperous.

Eh. You mean an idea that made so many other countries to suffer?

You have to separate freedom from religion.
There is no implication that people would have less freedom when they are free of religious beliefs or superstition.

If that is not the case, then please proof that to me.

In the end we have to deal with only human freedom. Any human freedom stops where it limits some other humans freedom. So freedom is an inherently inter-human relation, it must be based on how all humans relate to each other. And one of the ways humans relate to each other, is through the economy.

And we still have to consider that the way the current economy in fact works, makes in some places of the world people terrible rich, and somehwere else, makes people terribly poor.

Which then can be stated as that some of the economic mechanisms, that exist, are harmfull for human freedom. Which urges us to rethink how the economy works, and that an economy that painfully hurts the freedom of a large amount of the population, while on the other side, providing excess of goods for a minority, can not be a good concept of how the economy should work, provided the fact that economic relations and activities, serve the purpose of setting humans free, provide for their real needs, and so on.

This could in fact mean, that - in order to liberate a majority of people that suffer under these conditions - we need to limit the (economic) freedom of a minority, that profit from these existing relations. All goaled towards providing an equal amount of freedom to all human beings.

Which is a human goal, and what is freedom all about.