Yes or no, and why.

DIRECT QUESTION:

Do you subscribe to the belief that the existence of a supernatural being (which a God could only be) IS A SCIENTIFIC HYPOTHESIS LIKE ANY OTHER?

Bolded, capitalized, and underlined!!! As if others were the ones dodging questions...


There are many definitions of god that I believe should be treated as a scientific hypothesis. I don't buy your assumption that it is required to be only supernatural.

The supernatural part would be outside of direct study, since it is magic by definition and not constrained by anything but your imagination.

any part of this supernatural god which interacts with nature on the other hand, any part that directly or indirectly effects our reality... including dreams and visions of spiritually connected holy men, are in principle available for scientific study.

So what does that mean?

If there is a lightning bolt in the sky, there is a reason for it. There are always a string of dominoes leading to any event and a supernatural cause would leave a direct signature in that the domino chain ends conclusively without a prior cause rooted in the known laws of reality.

An impossible event that COULD NOT have been caused by what we know actually does happen in our universe. The fact of it's impossibility is the evidence of it being supernatural.

Of course before we declare any event supernatural, the natural possibilities would need to be exhaustively investigated because there is always the possibility of a natural cause which we just do not understand.

But visions of holy men also fall under this investigative umbrella. If their visions can be explained by anything other than a magical entity from fairy land, then that other thing (or one of a variety of possible things) is definitely what happened.

So a supernatural god which stays in it's supernatural territory and never interacts, nor is claimed to interact with the natural world is forever safe from scientific direct inquiry. But the moment one of these imaginary gods dabbles it's toes in the natural world it will leave an effect. That is what interacting with our world IS. So if it interacts, it will leave an effect which will fall under the umbrella of testable science.

This is a bit like being an intelligent fish in the sea. They would have no way of knowing i live here in the center of a continent. But if i go over there and disrupt the water, even if i pull my hand back out again, the effects of my interference are there. There is a natural domino chain that falls as a result of the un-natural interference that started it. This is the evidence we would study.

So any time a claim is made about a god, like they are responsible for curing someone's illness, or that you can move mountains by faith, or that prayer is effective, that claim is testable. Because it makes a statement about reality. Does that statement agree with what we can actually demonstrate does happen?

No?

Then THAT particular version of god has been proven false. If you say god will do THIS, and that doesn't happen... Then the god you described is not real.

Saying "there is a god" is not a testable hypothesis.

Saying "There is a god, and he is responsible for my cancer recovery" is a testable statement.
And if you had treatment at a hospitol... the chances are not looking good for that statement.

The more vague and wishy washy you make your diety, the more likely it is to survive scrutiny because you can always move the goal posts. But make a direct statement about what it will do, and you've got yourself in a bind.

But what justification could anyone have for believing in a completely supernatural god that never leaves it's supernatural realm? How could any statement be made about such a genie when it has been said at the outset that it is unknowable?

If there is some realm that is other-natural, and not detectable in any way and does not influence in any way the natural universe, then it cannot be tested. I don't know of any definitions of god that are proposed in this way. They are at least detectable, and at least have some influence. Which means that if they are supernatural, it is only in part. Any influence in a natural way means there is overlap, and that means it is testable.

I'm willing to defend the idea against someone besides ant. DWill or Robert perhaps? I think it's useful to explore this idea.

Massimo Pigliucci wrote: there is no coherent or sensible way in which the idea of god can possibly
be considered a “hypothesis” in any sense remotely resembling the scientific sense
of the term. The problem is that the supernatural, by its own (human) nature, is
simply too swishy to be pinpointed precisely enough.

Although I agree with him, I think I'll play devil's advocate. A hypothesis isn't something swishy. It requires precise definitions and precise wording. What I think this means is that there may be thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of independent hypotheses(not yet scientific), all with varying definitions. Perhaps there are millions of possible definitions, or even billions. It soon becomes senseless to discuss, which is Massimo's point.

The only way to formulate a hypothesis is to analyze those areas of influence in the natural world. Any god worth defining will interact with the natural world, so any god worth defining is partially able to be examined. What this means is that given enough time, we can rule out various hypotheses on how god interacts with the natural realm. Over time, by examining supposed "acts of god", we whittle away at where his influence is supposed to be.

Supposing we examine all possible influences, and they turn out to fit within a naturalist worldview, then we would be left with definitions of god that do not influence the natural realm in any ways. From this point forward, it's a philosophical issue, and any remaining definitions of god become useless to us.

Yeah,

The problem is pinning down a definite prediction that goes with the god.

Like "anyone with faith so much as a mustard seed can move mountains". (paraphrase)

This seems to imply that you need only a small amount of faith for god to work wonders for you, but any way you phrase it there is weasel room to move the goal posts.

And though this phrase comes from the christian bible, there are people who will say it's a metaphor and others who will dismiss it entirely, so in any sense this phrase cannot be tested to rule out the god of all christianity... but it does rule out A god if you assign any kind of concrete values to those words.

"faith so much as a mustard seed" = prayer every night
"can move mountains" = become rich = >one million dollars (put in any hurdle you want here)

The test: Do people who pray every night, the ones who want enough money to take care of their families, become prosperous? This can be annalyzed.

substitute becoming rich with any problem you want, including literally moving mountains, and test it.

If they were successful, was it the prayer, or did they also work extremely hard to do it? Check the control group who achieved the same thing but didn't pray. Did they do the same kind of hard work that the praying people did? Then it wasn't the prayer which accomplished the goal.

Are there any who accomplished the goal without any hard work, or others doing work on their behalf which can be attributed to only a providincial windfall? How often does that occur? What was the source of said windfall?

This seems to imply that you need only a small amount of faith for god to work wonders for you, but any way you phrase it there is weasel room to move the goal posts.

The only weasel here is you, Johnson.

The conversation is very direct and clear in my thread; it's about whether or not the scientific method can be applied to a god hypothesis.

Dawkins evidently has some definition of god in mind, otherwise he would not be claiming a hypothesis can be developed.
His gross error is to claim that a SCIENTIFIC HYPOTHESIS can be applied.
That's dumb reasoning. If you can't see it, you're in his camp.


In regards to faith, you have zero business even uttering the word because you have a simple and naive understanding of the concept of faith and how such a concept has been grappled with philosophically and theologically for thousands of years.
I seriously doubt you are an authority in that area of knowledge.

If you reject the aforementioned schools of thought then based on your incessant posts praising science, you are definitely in the camp of scientism. And that camp and its obsession with circular reasoning and rejection of philosophical critique is what Massimo has called "anti intellectual"
Utterly bankrupt.

Ant.

Do you believe that Odin, the supernatural entity, exists?

I know you are trying to duck this question and all, because you've painted yourself into a corner with that statement.

Want to know how to get out of it, Ant? It's really simple.

Change your mind. Admit when you are wrong.
Consider the thing you have said... and revise your position.

But you won't do that. Instead you are going to run laps around this forum to escape what dribbled onto the screen from your keyboard. I'm pretty sure this is the problem people have with you around here, Ant.

You can fix it.

His gross error is to claim that a SCIENTIFIC HYPOTHESIS can be applied.
That's dumb reasoning. If you can't see it, you're in his camp.

I can’t see it, and I understand this means I’m dumb like Johnson. Why am I dumb to believe a scientific hypothesis can be applied?

From what I see, a scientific hypothesis can be applied to the most minute of phenomena. If there is a phenomena that is caused by god, then it should be able to be analyzed by science. I know this is different from a hypothesis regarding god as a whole.

In the same way that a web of belief can be achieved by multiple hypotheses, a picture of whether or not god exists can be achieved by multiple hypotheses regarding his supposed influence.

How is that dumb?

You've accused me of a shallow understanding of things in the past, Ant.

As i recall, that didn't turn out to be the case.

Again, as i invited you the first time you claimed i have a shallow understanding of faith, please enlighten me on this much more nuanced, deeper view of faith that you are all about.

I am prepared to be dazzled.