Victor Stenger; Showing God Does Not Exist

[edhopper]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/showing-god-does-not-exis_b_3757729.html

"My own view of religion is that faith is the primary problem, but that religion is the institution in society which primarily upholds the dogma of faith as being a worthwhile and/or necessary mind set. What are your thoughts on the relation of faith and religion itself?

Yes, religion is based on faith and that's why it is not worthwhile despite the false comfort it provides to people who want to live forever. The social life and other amenities such as music, art, and even ritual rites of passage found in churches can all be provided outside a supernatural context. In Scandinavia, where hardly anyone goes to church on Sunday anymore, they still get married and buried in church.

Faith is foolish because it leads people to irrational decisions that pose great dangers to the survival of humanity, such as opposing birth control and thinking that global warming is no problem because God would never let it harm us."

[trotsky]

1. Stenger is absolutely correct with that last sentence of your excerpt.

If we allow religious faith to have equal footing with reason and evidence, we make our problems worse and thwart attempts to fix them.

[longship]

2. I really like Stenger.

I have three of his books, including God, the Failed Hypothesis. He is a fairly good writer and I pretty much agree with his positions on religion.

R&K

[cbayer]

3. I think love is also based on faith.

As well as trust, respect and a whole slew of other things we experience as humans.

Even science can be based on faith. We generally have faith that a good scientist has followed the rules, not fudged the data, done everything s/he can to reduce the variables. But, as we know, our faith is sometimes misplaced.

Loving and being loved is totally worthwhile for me, though others can't tolerate the need for faith it requires and avoid it as much as possible. I'l take the false comfort in that case.

While Dr. Stenger's thoughts on this are interesting, he has proven nothing, imo

[edhopper]

5. Faith that someone has the same feelings

as you do is very different than faith in an unprovable, non-evidenced being.

And science is not based on the faith in scientist, without reproducible results claims are not accepted, and certainly not on faith.

Please stop confusing the uses of words like faith and belief.
Saying "I have faith in the democratic process" or "I believe in the need for financal reform" is totally different than "I believe in Jesus as my Lord and Savior".

[cbayer]

6. Why should it be any different.

Faith is faith.

Religious people have their own evidence, even if they can't prove anything. I think most religious people aren't at all interested in proving anything, anyway.

I'm not confusing anything. I think faith can be a powerful force, both in religious and non-religious ways.

While some place a tag on it that says it's bad, I don't agree.

And why would someone want to take something away from someone that brings them joy, solace, hope or comfort? If that thing is faith, so be it.

[trotsky]

8. Faith is faith??

Then why are there multiple definitions given for it in the dictionary?

Some honesty in this discussion would go a long way, cbayer. The word "faith" does indeed have multiple meanings and equivocating as you are doing is dishonest and disrespectful.

[trotsky]

7. Love, trust, and respect are treated the way religious faith SHOULD be, but isn't.

We recognize that those first three things are wholly dependent on the person experiencing them. My love for my children, while certainly real to me, exists nowhere but within my mind. The respect you have for an individual in your life again has meaning only inside your mind.

If we could religious faith and beliefs the same way, we could solve the problem Stenger so accurately points out. But instead we treat them specially, with some people insisting they be given equal footing with scientific evidence and reason.

[Lordquinton]

9. Faith, Love, and Trust are different things

Love is often used as a tool to prove faith, but it's a bogus claim: You cannot prove you love someone, therefore God. We can prove love chemically, and it is often not what it is claimed to be (different stages, infatuation, etc.)

Trust is something you build, one might say in a scientific manner of testing and making sure that you can trust someone, to "Take it on faith" is a cynical term meaning that you don't really trust them, but you'll do it anyway so they can prove themselves.

Science isn't based on faith on the professional level, it may seem like that from the lay person as we don't know the inner workings and findings but professionally no. Pointing to frauds and claiming that they are proof of faith in science just shows a gross misunderstanding of the process. Frauds prove that it is not faith based, as they are uncovered and discredited. Faith tells you to just go with it, even if it can be solidly proven (IE the shroud of Turin) a fake.

[cbayer]

10. I think faith, love and trust may all come into play for

those who are religious.

I heard a great story about science and faith the other day. The example was that there are only a handful of people in the world that really understand some of the cosmology theories being posited recently. The rest of the scientific community has to take it on faith that this small group really knows what they are talking about.

If we draw sharp lines here, I think we lose sight of the bigger picture.

While we are talking about very different things when we discuss religion and science, there are intersections and those are some of the areas I find most interesting.

[Lordquinton]

11. You'd have to provide specifics

because there are a lot of ideas coming out of the scientific world that are not theories, and there are things labeled theories that are not actually theories (like string theory, which is more like a string hypothesis) like I was saying about us being on the outside looking in, it seems like there is a lot of faith going on, but that is due to misconceptions about how science works. Theories are hard fact, you take a theory, and apply it, and it works! you successfully predict something, and advance our collective knowledge. It doesn't work and something is wrong, check your numbers, or bring your findings to your peers for review and you might have overturned a theory.

There is no faith in science because there is no room for it, all ideas are tested hundreds of times and those that don't hold up are dropped. Theories are also refined as our knowledge gets better over time.

There is a sharp line here, and I think it is disingenuous to blur it.

[cbayer]

12. I understand theories, hard facts, the scientific method, etc.

But thanks for "mansplaining" it to me (please don't take offense at that, it's meant in good fun).

But I think that there are some areas of science that are so theoretical and so beyond what is testable at this time, that faith begins to play a part.

Someone in this group posted about it yesterday and said it much better than I could"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=90710

It's in the third paragraph and I truly hope he doesn't mind me linking to it here.

[edhopper]

13. Then they are just hypothesi

And the physicist use math and what is now known to see if it is viable and come up with an experiment, a supercolider for example, to test their hypothesis.
There are some that we don't have the technology or circumstances to test (special relativity wasn't verified until the 1919 eclipse that showed light bending).
Scientist don't have "faith" their hypothesis is true. they keep trying to verify and until they do they will say they don't have enough information.
They might say they haven't found anything to contradict it yet, but never "I just believe it's true.

Big difference with religion.

One more thing, while their might only be a handful of people the likes of Newton, Einstein or Hawkins. Many, many physicist have no problem understanding their work. I would say any physicist working in the field who is worth their salt can follow even the most revolutionary theory.

[cbayer]

14. I think we are merely arguing semantics at this point.

Faith may mean something entirely different when used for religion or in other ways.

It doesn't really matter.

IMHO, both science and religiosity (or lack thereof) and matters of the heart are all valuable human realms to explore and understand. I see no battle between them. There are no winners or losers. They are valuable in vastly different ways.

And all can be used for good and for evil.

[Lordquinton]

15. Considering I have people "mansplaining" belief to me all the time

you can probably understand my point of view.

Faith never enters science. Ever, no miracles. Does that make sense? If you feel like faith plays a role, then you don't understand how science works. It really is that simple.

I elaberate, but I feel that it would be taken the wrong way.

[cbayer]

16. You saying it doesn't make it so.

You don't like the use of the word when applied to science. You want to keep it exclusively in the realm of religion.

That's ok.

Faith is not about miracles. It's about trust and belief.

I believe that the guy who I hired to calibrate my equipment was truthful about his credentials and gave me an accurate report on the maintenance he just did. I don't have the expertise to do it myself, but I have faith that the numbers the equipment are giving me are accurate and I can use them. You can call it whatever you want, but unless you are working in utter isolation and doing absolutely everything yourself, you have to have some faith in others.

You can use whatever words you want. It's just semantics at this point, and sounding a bit dogmatic.

Please stop telling me that I don't know how science works. You might find it embarrassing if you knew anything about me at all.

[rug]

4. He's claimed to prove, scientifically, that God does not exist.

God the Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exis, (2007).

That is, of course, a much different task from asserting there is no scientific evidence of a god.

It is different, too, from using that (unproved) premise to delve into the fields of history, politics, sociology and the other social sciences, which is what he does in this interview. I believe his expertise is in particle physics.

As it is, this is simply a sincerely and deeply held opinion. I hope he takes comfort in it