this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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You’re making large assumptions. There are more religions than you know. The way one practices also may not be familiar to you. You’re demonstrating intolerance through ignorance. Maybe you should be asking questions in this post about religion, or abstain if you’re not interested in understanding it.
Are you familiar with Baruch Spinoza? His take is fascinating. His higher power did not concern itself with the fates of mankind, but is responsible for the lawful harmony of existence. It also does not discount or displace science in any way.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/37996/spinozas-god-einstein-believed-in-it-but-what-was-it
That's basic deism but I would disagree and say it does conflict with science. Science is evidence-based, if you claim something exists you must present evidence to support it. I can't just claim there's a 5-ton diamond in my backyard and say "trust me bro". Nobody would believe me, so why should anyone believe in any god without evidence?
A hypothesis requires no evidence. It’s then tested through repeatable controlled experiments. The events leading to the Big Bang have no evidence. If science can hypothesize, why can’t religion?
Have you read string theory? It’s no different than Spinoza’s god.
Correct
repeatable controlled experiments are only one aspect of evidence gathering to falsify a hypothesis. Here are a few other methods:
By combining these methods we can still falsify a hypothesis, thus allowing "science to happen".
Correct! There is no evidence for what lead to the big bang because we can't gather any data before it started. But we have mountains of evidence that all point to a "big bang" happening - down to a fraction of a second shortly after it started! [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] .
Science is willing to discard ideas that lack evidence or aren't falsifiable. Is religion ready to stop preaching because faith, by definition, is a lack of evidence?
The difference between string theory and Spinoza's god is the falsifiable part. String Theory, being a scientific theory, makes predictions that should be able to be tested through experiments (although testing will likely be a challenge much like Astrophysics and will instead depend on other scientific methods to gather evidence for/against it). Spinoza's God is a philosophical concept and not directly falsifiable through scientific methods. Spinoza's god is the equivalent of me claiming I'm friends with a telepathic unicorn from another dimension, both useless and irrelevant.
[1] Gravitational Waves: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-cosmic-discovery-could-be-closest-weve-come-beginning-time-180950109/
[2] Redshift: https://socratic.org/questions/how-does-a-redshift-give-evidence-to-the-big-bang-theory
[3] Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/cosmic-microwave-background-proves-big-bang/
[4] Abundance of Light Elements: https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_ele.html
[5] Expansion: https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_exp.html](https://www.space.com/52-the-expanding-universe-from-the-big-bang-to-today.html
[6] Olbers' Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27s_paradox
[7] Quasars Existence: https://www.astronomy.com/science/60-years-of-quasars/
[8] WMAP Survey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkinson_Microwave_Anisotropy_Probe](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Wilkinson-Microwave-Anisotropy-Probe
All religion is untested made up nonsense, no exceptions.
If you make it up without evidence, it can be thrown out without evidence. Athiests make no claims, there's nothing to throw out.
The real answer to these questions is "we have no idea", everything else falls under russel's teapot.
Are you this arrogant in condemning everything you don’t understand?
If you truly believe “you have no idea,” then how can you be sure every religion is wrong without understanding them?
I do understand that it is something people made up without any evidence.
I am this arrogant about anything without evidence, if you present evidence, then I have a reason to believe.
Do you not believe in untested hypotheses or theorems? They are also made up without evidence.
The Big Bang itself has evidence, like the rapid expansion of the universe from the universal center in a state of decay toward entropy. According to the laws of physics, the masses that collided could not have spontaneously begun moving towards each other without force. Suggesting they began to move on their own without propulsion is just as made up as a creator pushing them.
I do not, why would I?
nobody asserts that, they assert that we don't know, which is accurate it is religion that asserts it happened through magic
So you don’t believe in any astrophysics? The cosmos is not repeatable phenomena.
Evidence exists for astrophysics
You may not understand science as well as you think you do. There is evidence that supports the theory, but it is untested until it is repeated in a controlled experiment. According to the scientific method, the vast majority of the field of astrophysics remains untested.
i don't assume the vast majority of astrophysics is true
neither do astrophysicists
I didn’t ask that. I asked if you believe in it. That’s all religion is; a belief.
be·lief noun
"his belief in the value of hard work"
\2. trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.
"I've still got belief in myself"
I don't believe in anything without evidence and if I do I seek to correct that
belief without evidence is a failure of the mind
So you don’t believe any of the untested theories of astrophysics?
This chain of comments is so painful to read. What in the world makes you think astrophysicists believe in anything that isn't tested? And why do you think we do?
Astrophysics is based on observation of non-controlled events, coupled with existing understanding of physical laws and mathematics. Since there are very few controlled experiments in astrophysics, most of it is comprised of untested theories supported by the aforementioned evidence.
I’m just pointing out the difference between theory and applied scientific method on repeatable phenomena. I’m doing so to challenge the assertion from Atheists who state that science has proof of said events. They’re not proven, they’re theoretical.
I believe that insisting to others that there’s no god without proof is just as arrogant as insisting there is. Some may believe science governs the laws we see in existence, others may believe it’s god.
Einstein believed in the possibility of a divine creator that did not concern itself with the fate of mankind, but was responsible for the perfection found in the connection of all things, also known as “Spinoza’s god,” after Baruch Spinoza. There is certainly room for science and religion to coexist, and therefore no need for condemnation of either.
You can test the hypotheses of astrophysics, though. I mean, how long have we had telescopes now? And today we have a whole array of other equipment for measuring things in space. If an astrophysicist is claiming a hypothesis to be true without testing it, they've failed science at a fundamental level. Can you give me even one example of this?
What events? I've never heard of astrophysics making theistic claims. OR making claims that haven't been tested.
If they're not proven then they're hypothetical. By definition theories are well tested, and they're still not claimed to be true with absolute certainty.
We're not saying there is no god. We're saying we're not convinced there is a god.
The event that I initially commented on way higher in this post was on the topic of creation. The Big Bang is widely accepted as the beginning of the universe. We have strong evidence of expansion from the universal center toward proposed systemic entropy.
There are currently only theories as to how the Big Bang began without violating the laws of physics, some involving non-existence of time. Other than speculation, we have no explanation as to where the masses came from or what set them in motion. Since there is no evidence, there is no reason why religion can’t hypothesize the same as science. Interference-based creation is just as possible as string theory.
You may not be saying that god doesn’t exist, but the thread you called “painful to read” is a debate with a commenter who is stating exactly that. https://lemmy.world/comment/10760354
I was simply standing up for the scientific support of agnosticism against a gnostic atheist who was repeatedly critical of those believing in god, on a post asking religious people why they’re religious. As a scientific person, I felt he was representing science poorly.
The big bang isn't creation ex nihilo, and it's not a theistic claim. But more importantly, nobody with any scientific credibility claims we know the theory is true with absolute certainty. They don't even claim it adequately explains 100% of the universe as we observe it. A lot of laymen probably think the big bang is creation ex nihilo and use it to explain the "something from nothing" issue, but that's not what the theory says.
Hypotheses. Which nobody "believes" in like theists do with God.
You're right. They can hypothesize all they want. But they don't present their claims as hypotheses, they present them as the truth. Scientists don't claim their hypotheses are the truth, and they especially don't believe it to be true before doing any testing.
The link you gave me doesn't show him claiming God doesn't exist, and neither are any of the comments before it.
I’m not claiming that the Big Bang is theistic. I’m stating that there is no explanation for the creation or momentum of the two masses that collided, and proposing that it could have been accomplished by a divine creator just the same as ten-dimensional physicists believe that time was non-existent. If you don’t think scientists hold beliefs, you haven’t read enough about string theory. Religion is a belief, not a fact. Some may believe more whole-heartedly than others, but that doesn’t change the fundament.
Again, this was a post asking religious people why they are religious. There was no solicitation of god to atheists, yet many atheists took up arms to discredit the religious using the “burden of proof” argument. That argument only applies if someone is trying to convince another of an idea. A belief, by definition, is holding an idea without proof.
I absolutely respect rebuttals if they try to convince you of god’s existence. If not, it’s absolutely arrogant to tell them they’re wrong to believe in the existence of something that science is also only hypothesizing.
You must live in a very different society than those in Europe or America if your experience with theists has just been "people hypothesizing." You also must not have read the Bible, Torah, or Quran. Their "beliefs" are presented as facts in all three of those religions, both by their holy texts and their people, and I don't know of any religion that doesn't also do that.
And again, nobody is saying they're wrong. We're saying they don't have good reason to believe what they believe. Just look at the link you sent earlier.
And if an atheist genuinely believes their own untested hypothesis about what happened before the big bang is true, whether they're a scientist or a layman, the same criticisms apply to them, too.
Then we are in agreement that string theory is simply a belief until any evidence has been found. That doesn’t stop them from writing books, holding lectures, and convincing others to participate in the field. I don’t go around telling ten-dimensional physicists to stop believing in, and speculating about, a theoretical field that’s devoid of evidence. I’d consider that pretty arrogant. Just because there’s no evidence, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Sound familiar?
Again, regardless of how strongly someone believes in religion, it’s still a belief, just like string theory. Why are the atheists in this thread qualified to tell them they are wrong to hold it?
You keep circumventing the main point that I’m making. The religious commenting here were not telling others to believe. Most were not even citing dogma, only how faith affects them positively. Atheists were imposing their own beliefs on the religious through unsolicited critical condemnation.
How can you not see the arrogance in that?
It doesn't sound familiar because nobody here is saying God is impossible. We're saying they don't have good reason for believing he exists.
You wouldn't have to tell them to stop "believing" in string theory because none of them do. The math happens to work out so a lot of them are interested, but none of them "believe" in it because it hasn't been tested.
We're not saying they're wrong. We're saying their reasons for believing aren't good reasons. And in a thread about why people believe, criticism is not only warranted, but expected.
Can you point me to even one atheist here making a gnostic claim? The link you already gave is just Communist saying you don't have evidence, and it seems like you're translating every other instance of that to "GOD ISN'T REAL".
You’re going in circles now. I linked a conversation where Communist explicitly stated people are wrong to believe in god without proof. It’s one of many on this post.
I’m not taking another lap with you.
Good luck always being right.
Take care.
Ah, so I was right
No neither do astrophysicists, they think it might be true with healthy skepticism
or they have proven it true with observation, neither of which applies to religion
are you confident you're not the arrogant one?
I’m making no claims of the unknown, other than defending the possibility of something that cannot be proven or disproven to exist. You’re openly discrediting the beliefs of others through your own understanding. What sounds more arrogant to you?
I never denied the possibility, I denied we should believe in those things
it sounds incredibly arrogant to me to assume you know something without evidence
Arrogance comes into play when one person asserts their beliefs over another’s.
They weren’t stating that you should believe in god.
You were stating that they shouldn’t.
Yes, they shouldn't because they have no evidence and are therefore arrogantly asserting something they have no reason to believe
You see someone holding a belief you don’t agree with as arrogant, but not your unwanted criticism of it? Forget arrogance. You may be a narcissist.
Yes, belief without evidence is peak narcissism in my eyes
it is the definition of delusion