Quote from: the joint on December 10, 2014, 11:13:47 PM

Quote from: BADecker on December 10, 2014, 10:48:41 PM

Quote from: the joint on December 10, 2014, 09:09:30 PM

Quote from: BADecker on December 10, 2014, 05:20:11 PM

Quote from: the joint on December 10, 2014, 02:00:32 PM

Quote from: BADecker on December 10, 2014, 08:00:54 AM

Quote from: the joint on December 09, 2014, 11:06:00 PM

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If you can't conclude that

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God can never be revealed in His entirety by the scientific method,

then you can't conclude that

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He can be revealed in part by that method.

In other words, if you can't understand God in His entirety, then it's impossible to conclude that any "part" of God you might be witnessing is actually God.

Consequently, there is no amount of empirical evidence that can lead to a conclusion that God exists.

Why? (Of course, we are speaking of God, which makes things different than any example.) A crude example might be a car. We see the car, yet we see it only from one side at a time. A mechanic may know every last thing there is to know about an engine and transmission - even the metallurgy - yet he may know little or nothing about the fabrics that make up the upholstery, or the glass that makes up the windows.

Because it's a limitation of inductive reasoning.

Your car analogy doesn't work. The reason the car analogy doesn't work is because a car can fit within the entirety of our scope of observation, whereas a monotheistic god cannot.

We know what a car is. A car is a product of human invention and imagination, and so we know what the definition of a car is. Accordingly, any time we actually see a car (i.e. we observed/evidenced it), then we can relate that observation back to the definition of a car. Because the observation matches our known definition of what a car is, we can conclude that we are observing a car.

This doesn't work with God. If God exists, he cannot be the product of human invention and imagination. Accordingly, unlike the car, we are unable to start with any presumptions about what God may be. So, it doesn't matter what evidence you find because you'll never be able to relate your observations back to a known definition of God so as to be able to conclude that the evidence is actually a part of God.

Edit: Do you realize that, in using your car analogy, you were attempting to use a method of inductive reasoning similar to what's practiced via the scientific method? Science forms hypotheses (i.e presumptions) which are then tested by evidence. If the evidence supports the presumption, then the hypothesis holds. For example, evidence is held against the hypothesis/theory of evolution to test whether the available evidence supports it. You are trying to do the same thing by making a God "hypothesis", so-to-speak, and then holding up evidence against that hypothesis to see if your hypothesis holds. However, in the same way that evidence cannot lead to a conclusion that evolution is correct at a 100% level of confidence, evidence cannot lead to a conclusion that God exists at a 100% level of confidence.

Edit 2: I think it's imperative you understand this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

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The problem of induction is the philosophical question of whether inductive reasoning leads to knowledge understood in the classic philosophical sense,[1] since it focuses on the lack of justification for either:

Generalizing about the properties of a class of objects based on some number of observations of particular instances of that class (for example, the inference that "all swans we have seen are white, and therefore all swans are white," before the discovery of black swans) or
Presupposing that a sequence of events in the future will occur as it always has in the past (for example, that the laws of physics will hold as they have always been observed to hold). Hume called this the principle of uniformity of nature.[2]
The problem calls into question all empirical claims made in everyday life or through the scientific method and for that reason the philosopher C. D. Broad said that "induction is the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy." Although the problem arguably dates back to the Pyrrhonism of ancient philosophy, as well as the Carvaka school of Indian philosophy, David Hume introduced it in the mid-18th century, with the most notable response provided by Karl Popper two centuries later.

I totally am NOT against science or scientists. What I am against is scientists using some scientific evidence or proof to extrapolate all kinds of things that can easily be extrapolated in multitudes of ways and directions using the same or other scientific evidence or proof. And what gets me is when they try to tell us that they have found the whole thing when they have merely extrapolated in a single direction of many. (Sorry if I didn't say that very well. Please try to get the idea of what I am talking about, anyway.)

It seems evident that we exist, even though we don't really have enough scientific evidence or proof - by a long shot - to make a determination that we do. Same with God, especially that the evidence that we do have, would have been planted here by Him if He DOES exists. We have nothing that I have seen, in ideas or philosophy or science (could easily have missed it, however) that suggests where we and the universe might have come from, that has nearly the strength of the God idea.

Stand everything that all of us have talked about in this thread side by side, and see which of them makes the most sense. To me, it is the God idea. And I am not talking Christianity here. I am simply talking God in one of the more vague dictionary definitions of the word.

I would agree with you that I, too, dislike when scientists or anyone else assert a conclusion with absolute certainty based upon empirical data. Although, I think it's important to make a distinction between contexts in which the word 'prove' is acceptable in science vs. contexts in which it is not acceptable. For example, while it is not acceptable to say that a scientific conclusion is proven beyond all doubt, it is acceptable to say that it is proven based upon the data that's available, and within a certain level of confidence (e.g. "The data supports the hypothesis, p < .05," indicating a 95% confidence level). P < .05 is probably the most common standard used, although you'll see some studies which test hypotheses at other confidence levels (e.g p < .01, or a 99% confidence level). The scientific method does not permit conclusions at a 100% confidence level.

Yes, it is self-evident that we exist, and you are correct that there is no conclusive, empirical evidence to support this. Fortunately, we don't need any. I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is the "same with God," as I wouldn't say that God is self-evident. However, I would say that basically all of the ideas necessary to form a conclusion that God exists stem from that which is self-evident.

I would also agree that God seems the logical conclusion.

As a whole, this last post of yours seems much more reasonable than previous ones.

Thank you. I have deduced, if from nothing other than your adherence to the strict ideals regarding scientific investigation, and from the fact that you use two spaces between your sentences, that you are very experienced - from an old school.

You are probably correct in virtually all your debates with folks in here. It's just that we seem right sometimes, because we don't have your experience.