The God Delusion: A Logical Fallacy?

I haven't read the book either, but the question doesn't make sense to me either.

Let's say I write a computer program. How can the characters in my computer program go about determining whether I exist? They are only "intelligent" in the way that I program them to be, which could be completely different that the way I am intelligent in my own universe. Indeed, if I wanted to make them incapable of knowing about me at all, I could easily program them that way. Their universe might not work in any way similar to mine- it could have different numbers of dimensions, time, space, all physical laws could work completely differently. On the other hand, maybe I am a super smart person and the computer program is a nearly exact sim of our universe, right down to the part where some dude writes a book claiming that there is no Creator. He, of course, is wrong, because I exist. Or, at least I think I do.

 

Here's the thing: you're imagining your own category error by postulating at the start a distinction between the natural and supernatural. That distinction, to my eye, comes out of the 19th and 20th centuries. There was not necessarily seen to be any opposition between these things before then. Science could, in fact, quite easily be seen as a means of knowing God (a not uncommon thought during the Enlightenment). That sense of science as another approach to theology has certainly faded away in recent years to the point where they're seen as antithetical. But that's a historical distinction, not a necessary one (as you portray it). From what I gleam, it sounds like Dawkins is reverting and radicalizing that old idea of science as a means to know God: i.e. Science not merely as a means to know God, but science as a means to know God and through that knowledge to verify God's existence. That's a fair approach, but to understand it you have to get past the modern view that science and theology are necessarily opposed to one another.

 

I haven't read the book either, but having seen Dawkins before, I think this is what he means:

We're talking about the origin of our universe. Whatever has caused that Universe must have left some sort of fingerprint, which in return can be tested.

Of course, if you're a deist, then as long as we cannot explain the Big Bang, there's no way of proving or disproving your god. But like the explanation for lightning and thunder, this might also one day be no mystery anymore. Given that pretty much every natural phenomenon was once attributed to a god, it is reasonable to believe that the Big Bang is no exception.

If you're a theist however, then you believe that your god actively interferes with our reality. In this case, there are points in space and time where the supernatural overlaps with the natural and these instances can be examined using science. So far, every such phenomenon that has been put to scrutiny had a completely natural explanation. So again, it's reasonable to believe that in fact all those supposedly supernatural occurrences are not supernatural at all.

______________________________________________

Ok, so much for that. Now let me say something about the Universe coming from nothing.
That's pretty much an oversimplification.

First of all, you can create Energy out of nothing, because of the energy-time uncertainty principle, if only for a very short period of time. Particles pop in and out of existence all the time.

Ok, now we also know that the sum of all energy in the Universe is zero (and remember, mass=energy). So if you add up everything that exists, you end up with nothing. Our existence is merely due to an imbalance of energy.

Now, we don't know how that that imbalance was caused just yet, but science is on its way to find out. But given that we can see (and explain) these imbalances on a tiny scale all the time (see here for example), it definitely seems as if no higher power is needed for that.

So to get back to the beginning, it's not that something came out of nothing, but there's still basically nothing, only rearranged. If you look at it that way, existence itself is merely a fluctuation of nothing.

 

Dang nihilists!

 

At one point, Haley's Comet was unexplainable by science. Was it supernatural? Lightning? The lunar cycle?

 

You seem to think that if science cannot explain something then it must be supernatural, but as a lot of us have learned, that is a relative concept. Today's science is well short of truly explaining the singularity, but then again, science was well short of truly explaining lightning less than 1000 years ago. It is quite likely (though not certain) that science will eventually be able to explain something as complex as the singularity (naked or otherwise), but to attribute the unknown to a god just because we don't understand it? I thought people would have grown out of that by now.

Logic? Is it logical for me to follow horse tracks on a dirt road and then when they disappear to say "Pegasus!?" Not hardly.

 

wrong word

unexplained. right word.

 

The matter in our universe didn't need to be created - it could simply be a consequence of a rapidly expanding universe. We already know that matter (in the form of a particle and its anti-particle) can appear spontaneously from the vacuum of space without cause and then annihilate each other. If space is moving apart fast enough, and you have lots of such particles spread apart far enough so they don't annihilate each other, and you have matter with no net energy required. One of the things scientists are still working on is why the universe seems to be 10-1 in favor of matter now when it was more 50-50 matter-antimatter back when the universe was new (the so-called "symmetry" problem). It's one of the main reasons why they have built the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

 

Seems to me what you just did with the Foosinho's examples, Dawkin's did with God.

No?

 

No - right word. At one point in time, we did not have the technology (aka, applied science) necessary to look inside of a cell. Ergo, we were unable to explain, for example, genetics. We didn't have the science necessary. What science is capable of providing explanations for changes as the cumulative knowledge of humanity grows.

"Unexplainable" is a limitation of humanity. Provided you have advanced enough science, everything can be explained. If you can't, you just don't have the science yet.

Or, put another way, an advanced enough technology is indistinguishable from magic. But that doesn't mean it's magic.

 

Well, if someone insists on using the word "unexplainable", I'll restate my argument within their framework, like I did here.

I like to say that everything can be explained by science; we just don't have all the science yet.

 

Why would the study of lightning be able to prove or disprove the existence of a god? If the god is all powerful, the god can intervene in the natural world in whatever form or process the god wants.

If I am god and I control everything, I by definition can control all of your thoughts if I want. I can control all your memories. I can bend reality itself to my whim.

 

And at that point, god becomes unimportant if it does exist.

 

Are we important?

 

Both this thread and Dawkins' book are ultimately pointless, because anyone who's being honest about religion has to admit that its requires belief and the suspension of logical reasoning. So complaining that an argument that claims religion has no scientific proof is pointless - religion by definition has no proof. It requires belief, and you either have it, or you don't.

 

I agree, which is why I think Dawkin's rejection of that premise to be both scientifically flawed and fundamentally dangerous. Science should not be transformed into a pseudo-religion that competes against all other religions. In my mind, the development of the scientific process and scientific knowledge has been one of the most important breakthroughs in human history and central to both prosperity and peace in the world. The corruption of it would bring about bad things.

 

To whom?

 

In whatever sense you want. You introduced the term "important", so you have the prerogative to define it in whatever sense you intend it to mean. What does it mean to be important?

 

In the sense that god would be all thought controlling and powerful to the extent that reality and so forth would be altered at a whim, there really isn't any point in believing (nor is there any way to verify belief).

Inasmuch as we are important, I generally consider myself a humanist, but that doesn't seem particularly related.

 

The thing is, we know how lightnings work...and pretty much everything else. These things follow the laws of nature. Reliably and predictably, always and without exception.

If you say that this is god, then you're essentially equating god with natural laws. Then your god is undistinguishable from nothing.

 

Dawkins has always rejected this premise and supports the idea that everything can be proved or disproved using science. I think that is the aggressive nature of his stance, and while I don't totally disagree, you're right that either you believe or you don't, and for the most part those who believe will not have their minds changed using logic because their beliefs aren't logical to begin with.

Dawkins doesn't see science as a pseudo religion, not in the sense that the term would suggest. He does, however, see science competing with religion - something that a lot of people disagree with.