Originally posted by Robtard
Glad someone got the reference 🙂
Indeed.
awecreep
Originally posted by bluewaterrider
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[b]What Science Can't Prove (continued)... So don't be cowed or bullied by any comments that science has proven there is no God. Science can't do that because it uses the inductive method, not the deductive method. When you hear someone make that claim, don't contradict them. Simply ask this question: "How can science prove that someone like God doesn't exist? Explain to me how science can do that. Spell it out."
Some take the position that if science doesn't give us reason to believe in something, then no good reason exists. That's simply the false assumption of scientism.
You can even choose something you have no good reason to believe actually does exist--unicorns, or leprechauns, for that matter. Make that person show you, in principle, how science is capable of proving that any particular thing does not exist. He won't be able to. All he'll be able to show you is that science has proven certain things do exist, not that they don't exist. There's a difference.
Some take the position that if science doesn't give us reason to believe in something, then no good reason exists. That's simply the false assumption scientism. Don't ever concede the idea that science is the only method available to learn things about the world.
Remember the line in the movie Contact? Ellie Arroway claimed she loved her father, but she couldn't prove it scientifically. Does that mean she didn't really love him? No scientific test known to man could ever prove such a thing. Ellie knew her own love for her father directly and immediately. She didn't have to learn it from some scientific test.
There are things we know to be true that we don't know through empirical testing--the five senses-- but we do know through other ways. Science seems to give us true, or approximately true, information about the world, and it uses a technique that seems to be reliable, by and large. (Even this, though, is debated among philosophers of science.) However, science is not the only means of giving us true information about the world; its methodology limits it significantly.
One thing science cannot do, even in principle, is disprove the existence of anything. So when people try to use science to disprove the existence of God, they're using science illegitimately. They're misusing it, and this just makes science look bad.
The way many try to show God doesn't exist is simply by asserting it, but that's not proof. It isn't even evidence. Scientists sometimes get away with this by requiring that scientific law--natural law--must explain everything. If it can't explain a supernatural act or a supernatural Being then neither can exist. This is cheating, though.
Scientists haven't proven God doesn't exist; they've merely assumed it in many cases. They've foisted this truism on the public, and then operated from that point of view. They act as if they've really said something profound, when all they've done is given you an unjustified opinion.
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http://www.str.org/articles/what-science-can-t-prove#.U1cZM1eqTyt [/B]
Burden of proof. Or Russell's teapot. Take your pick.
Also a strawman; no one in science claims that science proves God's nonexistence, nor do they claim that we'd need to do so in order to make atheism a viable philosophy. This quip takes aim at "people" using science to disprove God, without citing, well, anyone in particular. Maybe a misguided teenage blogger falls victim to this. None with any legitimacy would, though. And besides being an empirical impossibility to prove such a negative, proving nonexistence isn't the requisite level for a lack of belief in God's existence, just as it isn't with the unicorns the author cites.
Anyway, science isn't the only way to learn things about the world. Just the best way, because we can confirm it, repeat it, challenge it, adjust it, and it provides predictive power.