Interesting

[fpb]

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=17267
Considering the ability of science to change its basic paradigms very radically, we should not put more than so much trust on the current dominant theories. However, it is amusing that while aggressive and ignorant atheists are busy spreading their religion - especially in this country - in the name of science, real science is not giving them any good arguments.

Comments

[fishlivejournal.livejournal.com]

It would be surprising if science did. Science works on the assumption that the universe works on the same basic rules, anywhere in time or space; something that makes perfect sense to a monotheist (but is counterintuitive for a pantheist, which may be why science didn't really take off before monotheism waxed strong). The current quest for a grand unifying theory presumes this, but really, if the universe began by chance, why would this be the case? Different aspects of the universe could operate in wildly varying ways, begun by different chaotic effects. If science ever did 'disprove the existence of God' science as a concept would not survive the event; the disporve would prove science false.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I cannot see the flaw in that, but it seems to me a bit facile, somehow. It has something of the "heads I win, tails you lose" kind of logic.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

That only makes sense if you equate "God" with "a consistent model of the universe."

What do you mean by "different aspects of the universe could operate in wildly varying ways"? Like, in another time and place, gravity might be red and the speed of light might be a duck? If that proved to be the case, yes, indeed, anything we understand as "science" would be disproven, but it would say nothing about the existence or nonexistence of God.

The notion that science is out to "disprove" God is a peculiar bugaboo some people have. Everyone (even atheistic scientists) knows that it's neither possible, nor the purpose of science, to disprove God*. It's only possible to disprove specific phenomena or models of the universe. How much room that leaves in your particular understanding of the universe for the existence of God is, obviously, a matter of faith.

(* Yes, you can find atheistic scientists who say otherwise, usually because they're being belligerent and trying to take the piss out of religious folks. If you push them on the exact terminology they're using and the specific claims they are making, they'll admit that it's fundamental to science that non-falsifiable claims ipso facto cannot be disproven.)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That only makes sense if you equate "God" with "a consistent model of the universe."
Ah, but Christians and Jews all do. (So do Zoroastrians, but that is mostly of merely historical relevance.) In fact, in Hebrew the word "truth" has the same root as "firmness, unshakeability", so that God being the God of Truth also means that He is the God of everything that lasts, that is unshaken, that is undeniable. That was what the Pope criticized in Muslim thought in his famous Regensburg speech, namely the belief that God is not bound by logic. We believe He is, or rather, we believe that His being is one with logic.

The notion that science is out to "disprove" God is a peculiar bugaboo some people have.
Like Richard Dawkins.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

So do Muslims -- I think you could generalize that to "All monotheists do."

(For a certain value of "all" -- there are odd/ill-informed believers among all sects who certainly do not believe in a "consistent model of the universe.")

However, my point was that the claim that God proves a consistent universe because without God there can be no consistent universe is circular reasoning. It's not a proof; it's just a restatement of an a priori belief.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

So do Muslims
People who know more about Islam than I do disagree with you.

I agree that to make the order of the universe dependent upon the existence of God is indefensible reasoning. It also disagrees with my view of Christian doctrine and experience. I think, however, that my friend was actually trying to use shorthand to say that science depends on certain philosophical assumptions which pre-exist it and which can be found in Christianity. That is, he was arguing from the opposite end to the one you seized.