Is science incompatible with religion?

[feplus]

I have said repeatedly that science can examine miraculous results. It cannot examine a miraculous cause because that cause would be non-empirical.

If supernatural beings are possible and science has nothing to say about their existence one way or another, because they do not "exist meaningfully" (i.e. empirically), then science and religion are by definition compatible. You have demonstrated my case for me.

[Makaze]

I have said repeatedly that science can examine miraculous results. It cannot examine a miraculous cause because that cause would be non-empirical.

If supernatural beings are possible and science has nothing to say about their existence one way or another, because they do not "exist meaningfully" (i.e. empirically), then science and religion are by definition compatible. You have demonstrated my case for me.

I don't disagree with this post. My problem was your claim that something something could suspend the principles that allow it to exist.

[feplus]

That problem was over a disagreement of definition. When I talk of natural laws being suspended, I am referring to those that govern material existence. You use a broader understanding of nature that encompasses supernatural existence.

It would of course be absurd for a god to violate the principles of his existence, whatever those may or may not be. It would not be absurd for a god to suspend a law governing material reality (eg. conservation of mass) to bring about a miraculous event.

[Makaze]

That problem was over a disagreement of definition. When I talk of natural laws being suspended, I am referring to those that govern material existence. You use a broader understanding of nature that encompasses supernatural existence.

It would of course be absurd for a god to violate the principles of his existence, whatever those may or may not be. It would not be absurd for a god to suspend a law governing material reality (eg. conservation of mass) to bring about a miraculous event.

It is absurd to say because the material law is merely a pattern we have observed and called absolute. We don't know why the pattern exists. For all we know every event is caused by a supernatural force. The only reason to call one miraculous and another natural is rarity. If something happens that breaks the pattern then we conclude our analysis was incomplete because we are mapping principles of what is possible period.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Makaze

[feplus]

We are assuming the physical law is absolute except in miraculous instances. It is a thought experiment. It is designed to test what scientists would discover in the event that a proposed law was true but a god suspended that law. I explained this several times in earlier posts.

Edited November 9, 2015 by feplus

[Makaze]

By the same logic we can propose that there is a physical law stating that energy grows exponentially but that a god is constantly destroying it, resulting in conservation. Despite it being possible, we conclude that it is a natural law because it behaves like one. If a god were to exist it would be indistinguishable from nature.

If the statement "it is not possible for energy to be created or destroyed" or "total energy remains constant" becomes voided by any means, then it simply ceases to be true.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Makaze

[feplus]

I have explained many times that the natural law in question remains true assuming nature is left to its own devices.

A god intervening does not change this fact. It is an "absolute except."

Edited November 9, 2015 by feplus

[Phoenix Wright]

. . .what about those things that do exist, but we humans haven't figured out how to detect/measure?

why does this matter? if something is observable, but humans haven't found a way to reliably detect it (eg, theoretically dark energy, dark matter, gravitons, gravity waves), it doesn't make those concepts supernatural or unscientific. germs were never actually a supernatural thing, for example.

But science does not apply to everything that happens. It deals strictly in empirical content.

You are conflating nature and existence, and then you are assuming all existence is material. That is a bad definition and a specious claim.

science does apply to everything that 'happens.' if something 'happens,' it's observable by definition. can you think of something that 'happens,' but is not observable?

I have said repeatedly that science can examine miraculous results. It cannot examine a miraculous cause because that cause would be non-empirical.

If supernatural beings are possible and science has nothing to say about their existence one way or another, because they do not "exist meaningfully" (i.e. empirically), then science and religion are by definition compatible. You have demonstrated my case for me.

you have said it repeatedly, but you fail to grasp that the reasoning used is circular and incomplete. quite frankly, science isn't interested in "causes," because those are more often than not philosophical (eg, what "caused" the universe to be, what is the "cause" of physical constants that appear in nature, what "causes" the speed of light in a vacuum to be constant, etc.) and likely have answers that are irrelevant to science. a miraculous event is observable, and if we cannot apply physical principles to explain a miraculous event, it means that those physical principles are wrong, and that we would need to start over. we've done that before. that's how science works--it's a self-correcting process.

for the latter point, though they are indeed separate from one another, what makes science and religion incompatible is that science asserts that knowledge is gained through empirical methods. to claim knowledge, and to be certain in that claim, of what is by definition not empirical, is a contradiction.

We are assuming the physical law is absolute except in miraculous instances. It is a thought experiment. It is designed to test what scientists would discover in the event that a proposed law was true but a god suspended that law. I explained this several times in earlier posts.

it's a faulty thought experiment because it disregards scientific principles but goes on to ask how science would deal with some situation with regards to those principles. there is no other way to say this, if physical principles cannot explain some miraculous happening, then those physical principles are wrong.

as a concrete example, we can all agree that f=ma. if some mass, 1kg, was moving with an acc. of 1m/s^2, then its force is given as 1 newton. if, in the same example, the measured force was actually 5 newtons, then it would be concluded that f=ma is an incorrect formulation/description of force. something would be missing. science would work to change it so that it's correct.

try not to get frustrated at someone else when the ignorance is on your end.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Phoenix Wright

[feplus]

I guess I will continue this conversation since Phoenix has jumped in.

1. Here is an example. If a god existed and created a universe that appeared eternal, that act of creation would not be observable. It still happened.

2. Science does not do epistemology. Science assumes empirical observation can produce knowledge. Any further claim falls under the purview of philosophy.

3. I would direct you to the link I provided earlier on thought experiments. The one I have offered assumes a physical law holds true absolutely if nature is left to its own devices, but a god intervenes and suspends this law. In that case, scientists can investigate the effects but not the cause (and causes are of course of interest to scientists).

Because the cause is by definition unknowable to science, a miraculous explanation is compatible with science.

What would it mean for this law to be "wrong"? It has always been true in the past. It will always be true in the future. One moment, a moment of divine intervention, is the sole point of exception. The initial law would be the closest thing to "right" without invoking the divine, something science cannot do.

I believe you are falling into the same trap most science enthusiasts make, which is to equate science with scientism. I would prefer you not accuse those you disagree with of ignorance.

Edited November 9, 2015 by feplus

[Makaze]

I guess I will continue this conversation since Phoenix has jumped in.

1. Here is an example. If a god existed and created a universe that appeared eternal, that act of creation would not be observable. It still happened.

2. Science does not do epistemology. Science assumes empirical observation can produce knowledge. Any further claim falls under the purview of philosophy.

3. I would direct you to the link I provided earlier on thought experiments. The one I have offered assumes a physical law holds true absolutely if nature is left to its own devices, but a god intervenes and suspends this law. In that case, scientists can investigate the effects but not the cause (and causes are of course of interest to scientists).

Because the cause is by definition unknowable to science, a miraculous explanation is compatible with science.

What would it mean for this law to be "wrong"? It has always been true in the past. It will always be true in the future. One moment, a moment of divine intervention, is the sole point of exception. The initial law would be the closest thing to "right" without invoking the divine, something science cannot do.

I believe you are falling into the same trap most science enthusiasts make, which is to equate science with scientism. I would prefer you not accuse those you disagree with of ignorance.

Suppose you are correct and the formula stays true before and after the event. The scientific approach to that question would change the formula to something like f=ma+g where g is some modifier applied by god. In practically all instances, g = 0. This new formula applies to both the miraculous force and every other event. Because this formula accounts for all of the data instead of most of it, it is more accurate than the previous formula even though g = 0 in all but one case. The actual integration would be more complex than that, but I think you get the point.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Makaze

[Phoenix Wright]

I guess I will continue this conversation since Phoenix has jumped in.

1. Here is an example. If a god existed and created a universe that appeared eternal, that act of creation would not be observable. It still happened.

it would be observable. our universe's creation is observable--it is only because of other things (too complicated to get into here) that we cannot peer back to the moment time was created. theoretically, it's completely observable. the moment time exists is a "happening." anything that occurs before time exists isn't observable.

2. Science does not do epistemology. Science assumes empirical observation can produce knowledge. Any further claim falls under the purview of philosophy.

this is a misunderstanding of the scientific method. it's simply unscientific to have certainty on a position that is inherently unobservable because science cannot study the problem.

3. I would direct you to the link I provided earlier on thought experiments. The one I have offered assumes a physical law holds true absolutely if nature is left to its own devices, but a god intervenes and suspends this law. In that case, scientists can investigate the effects but not the cause (and causes are of course of interest to scientists).

that's an incorrect assumption to make.

and of course natural causes are important. what causes the flow of electrons in electricity is observable, etc. etc. what i meant above was that science isn't interested in unobservable causes. actually, science is uninterested in unobservables.

Because the cause is by definition unknowable to science, a miraculous explanation is compatible with science.

what?

What would it mean for this law to be "wrong"? It has always been true in the past. It will always be true in the future. One moment, a moment of divine intervention, is the sole point of exception. The initial law would be the closest thing to "right" without invoking the divine, something science cannot do.

what? this is a gross misinterpretation of scientific principles. science would not claim this, and does not.

an exception to an absolute rule changes the rule. if a packet of photons were to move (measurably) faster than their speed limit in a given medium despite all other factors, the rules describing photons is incorrect and would be fixed in a way similar to what was outlined by makaze.

I believe you are falling into the same trap most science enthusiasts make, which is to equate science with scientism. I would prefer you not accuse those you disagree with of ignorance.

i'm not a science enthusiast, science is my practice.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Phoenix Wright

[feplus]

1. You misunderstood my example. A god creates the universe to look like it was eternal. Big bang cosmology would not exist in such a universe.

2. Again, science does not do epistemology. It assumes a particular epistemology, the scientific method. Non-scientific claims are by definition unscientific, but this does not suggest anything about the truth of those claims.

3. It does not matter that a thought experiment assumption is incorrect or debatable. The function of a thought experiment is to assume premises and explore conclusions.

4. Actual miracles are compatible with science because science has nothing to say about miraculous causes one way or the other.

5a. I did not say science claimed that bolded section. I claimed it. It is an assumed premise in the thought experiment.

5b. If that law is "wrong," please tell me what reformulation of that law would be "right."

6. I said "science enthusiast" because it is a broader term. The conflation of science and scientism is not unique to practicing scientists.

[Phoenix Wright]

1. that assumption is deceptive in its simplicity. if there existed a static, immutable universe, many things would be far different. for starters, it'd be infinitely bright. nothing would be observable in such a universe.

2. i'm not saying it assesses truth, i'm saying it's a contradiction to claim truth for something that cannot be proved or disproved. one cannot adhere to scientific principles and unscientific principles simultaneously without contradiction. as the discussion was had earlier in the topic, science rejects faith. this is true by definition.

3. the idea of a thought experiment is to be valid. if an assumption is incorrect, the conclusion of a thought experiment based on that assumption is invalid.

4. ok, so what. i've already explained science doesn't care about philosophical causes

5a. (invalid) thought experiment.

5b. you want me to provide for you a derivation of a new physical law based on observations that have not happened supposing only on the theory that it may? the fact that you requested this of me proves that whatever i'm saying isn't being comprehended.

a good starting point is c_g = c +/- g, where g is the "god constant," and applies only when it needs to.

[feplus]

1. If you dislike that example, here is another: occasionalism.

You might be familiar with this concept already since many prominent intellectuals, including DeGrasse Tyson, have publicly railed against it. It is possible that material beings cannot act as efficient causes despite appearances suggesting otherwise. So when a billiard ball strikes another and causes it to move, it is not responsible for this motion; instead, God intervenes and moves the second billiard ball in a predictable way.

Let us assume occasionalism is true. This would not change our understanding of how objects interact and the cause would not be detectable by science, but divine intervention still "happens."

2. One can adhere to scientific and unscientific principles without contradiction, so long as the adhered-to principles are appropriate for the subject matter. Almost everyone does this. "The world exists independent of individual perception" is not a scientific claim yet almost everyone believes it. Why? Because it is a metaphysical claim, and metaphysics involves different sorts of justification and reasoning for a separate domain of knowledge. The same is true of religious claims.

3. An argument is valid if its conclusion follows necessarily from its premises. An argument is sound if it is valid and all premises are true. The purpose of a thought experiment is to produce valid arguments, not sound ones.

4. The "so what" is that earlier in this thread I was challenged about the compatibility of miracle and science. I am arguing in favor of their compatibility. We agree that science is not interested in non-empirical causes. It has nothing to say about them.

5. I am not asking you this. The thought experiment describes a physical law that holds true in all cases except one. If all observations fit before this miraculous event and all observations fit after this event, in what way could the formulation of the law be improved?

You've provided the sort of answer I was looking for so I don't agree there's been any incomprehension.

The "god constant" equation is a good attempt I think. The problem is that it is an unscientific explanation coated in scientific language. It asserts that c varies by an unknown amount at unknown times. There are no future miraculous events so there are no additional data points.

In other words, the initial postulation of the natural law is true except for the sole instance it wasn't. It is an "absolute except."

Edited November 9, 2015 by feplus

[Makaze]

5. I am not asking you this. The thought experiment describes a physical law that holds true in all cases except one. If all observations fit before this miraculous event and all observations fit after this event, in what way could the formulation of the law be improved?

You've provided the sort of answer I was looking for so I don't agree there's been any incomprehension.

The "god constant" equation is a good attempt I think. The problem is that it is an unscientific explanation coated in scientific language. It asserts that c varies by an unknown amount at unknown times.

In other words, the initial postulation of the natural law is true except when it isn't. It is an "absolute except."

A meaningless distinction. All exceptions work this way.

If you don't believe me, remember my proposal from earlier. Suppose it is a "natural law" that energy grows infinitely, but a god is constantly destroying it. Now imagine that he chooses not to destroy it, just once, and only once, and it appears that energy is created. We could rewrite the law of conservation as "energy grows infinitely, except when it doesn't." Do you object?

If so, on what grounds?

The grounds that energy remains constant more often than the alternative? In that case, the only reason to call the rarer instance the miracle is its rarity. How rare does an occurrence have to be to be considered miraculous? [Arbitration]

If not, then any philosophical claim can be considered equally valid leading to infinite contradiction and uselessness. [indecision]

[feplus]

I am curious how science would stumble upon a natural law that involves divine intervention (a god's continual limitation of energy growth).

[Phoenix Wright]

1. that's not an example that's worth looking into. for all intents and purposes of observation, there's not a even a sufficient difference between god did it vs. nature did it. at every point in some divine intervention, or, at every happening in the universe being a "miracle," we'd be able to study what happens.

also, a new -ism for a different universe is not an example of something "happening" in our universe and being unobservable. please stick to the original topic.

2. no, they can't. there's cognitive dissonance for a person who is certain in the existence of unicorns despite there not being proof for or against them. where does the certainty come from? one cannot be certain of what's actually unknowable and adhere to basic scientific principles at the same time. scientific principles would suggest that in order to have certainty in anything, the problem needs to be at least observable in the first place.

3. maybe when working with syllogisms, but at this point you're just splitting hairs anyway. the thought experiment is flawed from the start, thus any conclusions based off of wrong premises will be faulty. i can just as easily devise a thought experiment where i assume cats are immortal, but is the conclusion that cats will outlive the universe useful or thought-provoking?

4. it's got something to say. read like the first 3 pages of this topic for an exhaustive discussion about it. it's been covered ad nauseam.

5. remember when it was said that science is about prediction? allowing for miracle events destroys predictive power. the new law would cover future possibilities of miracles and would attempt to predict the circumstances for which they might happen.

[Makaze]

I am curious how science would stumble upon a natural law that involves divine intervention (a god's continual limitation of energy growth).

It couldn't. That's the point. It's an unfalsifiable claim. The bigger point is that their equivalent value makes such unfalsifiable claims meaningless.

I was hoping you would catch on to this but I'll have to come out and say it. In a scenario where the common occurrence is a result of a philosophical cause, the philosophical cause and nature are literally the same thing. Calling something an "absolute except" doesn't make it less natural than the rest of the data. There is no reason to call the tendency of energy to grow "natural" and god's destroying it "supernatural" because neither philosophy, nor science, nor anything can determine relative value between them. There is no meaningful distinction between "it happened because that's just how things work" and "it happened because god did it". If god is a part of the rules that bind existence then god and nature are the same thing. If science can explain nature, then science can explain god. If science can't explain god, then science can't explain nature. There is no purely rational reason to differentiate them.

You need to come to terms with the terms you're using.

[feplus]

1. You did not ask for "sufficient difference." You argued that if something happens, "it is observable by definition." Occasionalism demonstrates this is untrue.

2a. You did not address the metaphysical issue I raised. Is this question scientific? If so, how would science address it?

2b. Science does not produce certainty as induction is fundamentally uncertain.

3. The difference between validity and soundness is not splitting hairs. Cats being immortal is a fine thought experiment but does not produce useful conclusions; a miracle occurring is a fine thought experiment and does produce useful conclusions, eg. that science would have nothing to say about miraculous causes.

4. Science cannot speak to the non-empirical because it deals strictly with the empirical. I suspect what you mean to argue is that materialist philosophies have things to say about the supernatural, which is true.

5. I do not understand this point. If the possibility of miracles "destroys predictive power," how could laws predict the circumstances of future miracles?

@Makaze

By "philosophic cause" you are referring to a supernatural cause. You are claiming that a supernatural cause and nature "are literally the same thing." I have already pointed out that by "nature" you really mean existence generally, and that holds true here.

Science does not deal with existence generally. It deals with empirical existence specifically. Science can indeed explain nature (an empirical domain) without explaining the divine (a non-empirical domain).

Edited November 9, 2015 by feplus

[Makaze]

3. The difference between validity and soundness is not splitting hairs. Cats being immortal is a fine thought experiment but does not produce useful conclusions; a miracle occurring is a fine thought experiment and does produce useful conclusions, eg. that science would have nothing to say about miraculous causes.

A corollary of my above post is that if science can say something about a natural cause, it can say something about a supernatural cause. If it cannot say something about a supernatural cause, it cannot say something about a natural cause. In either case your thought experiment adds nothing we did not already know.

@Makaze

By "philosophic cause" you are referring to a supernatural cause. You are claiming that a supernatural cause and nature "are literally the same thing." I have already pointed out that by "nature" you really mean existence generally, and that holds true here.

Science does not deal with existence generally. It deals with empirical existence specifically. Science can indeed explain nature (an empirical domain) without explaining the divine (a non-empirical domain).

No, I'm not referring to a supernatural cause. The use of supernatural implies there can be a meaningful distinction between them. A philosophical cause is the best way to put it because it covers everything.

Any existence that cannot be observed is meaningless. I've been over this. Let's express it in mathematical terms. Let e be existence, !e be non-existence, m be manifest, and !m be not manifest.

If

e = !m

and

!e = !m

then

e = !e

Alternately, if

e = m

and

e = !m

then

m = !m

By deduction, manifestation and existence are identical and science does apply to existence generally because something that only exists hypothetically does not exist at all -- it's a misuse of the term.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Makaze

[feplus]

By "nature" you mean existence generally. By "philosophical cause" you mean a general cause (unspecified, could be natural or supernatural).

There is of course a distinction to be made between the natural and supernatural. One is material and one is non-material. You assume otherwise and this is why your equations don't work. Observe how silly this reasoning sounds in a different context:

Let s be shapes and t be two-dimensional.

s = t
and
s = !t
then
t = !t

Therefore all shapes are two-dimensional. It is circular reasoning.

Edited November 9, 2015 by feplus

[Makaze]

By "nature" you mean existence generally. By "philosophical cause" you mean a general cause (unspecified, could be natural or supernatural).

There is of course a distinction to be made between the natural and supernatural. One is material and one is non-material. You assume otherwise and this is why your equations don't work. Observe how silly this reasoning sounds in a different context:

Let s be shapes and t be two-dimensional.

s = t

and

s = !t

then

t = !t

Therefore all shapes are two-dimensional. It is circular reasoning.

Actually that proof states that not all two dimensional things are two dimensional. I had a feeling I was doing something silly though I couldn't put my finger on it. Probably the difference between -> and ==.

What is the observable difference between the non-material and the non-existent?

You've said that there are natural causes and supernatural causes. In what way is a "natural cause" like conservation of energy material?

Edited November 9, 2015 by Makaze

[feplus]

Depends on what is meant by "observable." If we mean the five physical senses, there is no observable difference between the non-material and nonexistent. The non-material would however fit under a broader definition of "observable" (reason, intuition, revelation).

Natural laws do not cause things, rather they are general descriptions of observed connections. They are natural laws because they describe the natural world specifically.

[Lord Raven]

1. You did not ask for "sufficient difference." You argued that if something happens, "it is observable by definition." Occasionalism demonstrates this is untrue.

To be honest I don't see how occasionalism is really even relevant to this conversation. If the laws we formulate are perfectly consistent with god's choices as to what should happen, then there is effectively no difference between this particular definition of god and nature.

2a. You did not address the metaphysical issue I raised. Is this question scientific? If so, how would science address it?

No.

2b. Science does not produce certainty as induction is fundamentally uncertain.

I don't know what you're trying to say here so I'll ask you to clarify before I respond.

3. The difference between validity and soundness is not splitting hairs. Cats being immortal is a fine thought experiment but does not produce useful conclusions; a miracle occurring is a fine thought experiment and does produce useful conclusions, eg. that science would have nothing to say about miraculous causes.

When have you ever heard of a miracle occurring?

There was a Simpsons episode that parodied this, if you wanna read more about it. Basically Bart performed a couple of miracles, like when Homer glued a bucket onto his head, and he managed to get it off by praying to God and screaming "Hallelujah!" and taking it off. In reality, the sun's heat caused thermal expansion in the bucket and melted the glue a bit allowing Bart to take it off more easily.

Point here is you keep talking on and on about miracles and them being an inherently unscientific thing but you haven't actually talked about miracles themselves.

I mean how often do miracles occur? Because if they happen often enough and their results are random we can't model them at all. If they don't happen often but provide random results then we can just make an assumption and either throw out a data point or keep taking more data points hoping that the one "miracle point" gets lost into a sea of statistics. All you've really done is made an experimentalist's life more annoying.

Your entire thing on miracles altering science depends on the details of the miracle itself. What physical meaning are you attaching to the miracle? Just a truck randomly goes off course instead of going straight into someone despite no net force being applied to it? A ball is dropped and is randomly accelerated for a few seconds for no real reason? Those aren't predictable and depending on frequency and consistency they will mess up every single model significantly. Science loses all predictive power and we're basically left with life as if we're playing Fire Emblem (with truly random numbers instead of an RNG).

Probably the other thing is that we'd just assume a miracle doesn't occur. I mean half of our models and problems we make a ton of assumptions that are valid and give us very good results with relatively small systematic errors resulting from making assumptions. If we make invalid assumptions then we get bad results, and that's just bad science.

Science itself runs under the assumption that we can predict things, and if miracles are inherently unpredictable then we don't live in a world that's science friendly. There is no science then. There's no way to systematically study the structure of the world because of inherent random miracle stuff unless it happens so little that it can be neglected.

I mean, if you honestly believe miracles exist, more power to you. I don't believe they exist, and while the Simpsons episode is obviously a cartoon the point they made* was that any supposed miracles are labeled miracles out of desperation and there are always going to be physical forces at play which cause miracles to happen, and not things like god directly making things happen like you seem to be positing.

* and honestly it wasn't meant to be an argument so much as an illustration of where I stand on this.

The other points I felt like either tied into the third point or was stuff from too far back that I don't have the time to read.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Lord Raven

[Shaman]

Science is incompatible with me.

Edited November 9, 2015 by Shaman