JackC

Also, I think knives are a good idea. Big, fuck-off shiny ones. Ones that look like they could skin a crocodile. Knives are good, because they don't make any noise, and the less noise they make, the more likely we are to use them. Shit 'em right up. Makes it look like we're serious. Guns for show, knives for a pro. ~ Soap

Actually, he didn't say science will be able to disprove god, he said "science will be able to all but disprove ... god". So if you want to know how science will disprove god the answer is it most probably can't. If you want to know how science will all but disprove god, the answer is by continuing to fill in the gaps in our knowledge where god still finds refuge. He then said that no one would listen anyway.

It's quite simple really. There are some people going around saying that there is a god. Atheists don't believe them. a·the·ist [ áythee ist ] (plural a·the·ists) noun Definition: unbeliever in God or deities: somebody who does not believe in God or deities To be an atheist you don't have to assert anything.

Well, in the OT God was a right nutter, sending plagues, ordering rape and pillage and all manner of nasty things. Then in the NT he bacame all lovey dovey and peace and light, exept for when you're dead, then he tortures you for eternity. So quite obviously, God has paraniod schizophrenia. He knocked up a planet full of carbon based life forms to torture because the voices told him to.

I just put it down to low quality script writers.

It's rarely a mistake to read about this stuff, you can usually find a nugget of gold in even the worst book. I'd thoroughly recommend QED by Feynman though. It's a rare gem in that it makes a tough subject completely accessible without glossing over anything or over simplifying and losing the point. I wish Feynman had written more, he was bloody brilliant.

I generally don't read pop science books now because they always seem to miss the boat somehow. I read Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind and didn't much like it, similarly with Hawking's Brief History of Time. I read that one twice. Once before my undergrad course and it was a total mind fuck, and once after my PhD and I saw all the flaws in it because he'd written it for the pop science audience. I doubt I could do better though, it's slippery stuff. I've been reading Michiao Kaku's QFT but I need to learn the maths for SU(3) gauge symmetry first which has slowed me down a bit. That's a real head ache. I might try The God Particle though, I'm assuming that's about the search for the Higgs Boson? Surely You're Joking is Feynmans memoirs and it's a fantastic read. Full of really useful titbits and crazy anecdotes.

For most practical applications "shut up and calculate" works fine. That's one of the minor annoyances about being a physicist, people always want to debate the pros and cons of loop quantum gravity or string theory and they don't really appreciate the mechanics of doing the stuff before they get to the philosophy of it. I think it's a bit like putting the cart before the horse. But such is life.

Yeah Feynman was something special. Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman is one of my all time favourite books. QED is the best intro to quantum electrodynamics I've ever read and still the only pop science book I'd recommend.

That's what I said in the very next sentence. The one you neglected to quote. I don't know why you think this is a circular argument, it might not be very interesting but I can't see why it's circular. Care to explain? I just read the dictionary entry for universe and it said everyting that exists anywhere. With that definition, holes into hyperspace would be like going trough a door into the next room in the same house. But if you think different, what do you call the set of all things that exist anywhere and which bits differ between your set of all things and your universe? Like I said, the implications of broken symmetry on cosmology isn't my area of expertise. I am aware of the problems you mention, but quite what the implications of them are is not someshing I've devoted a great deal of time to. I wish I did have time to read up on it but alas...

How can you be certain?

Which is why I qualified it with "if that's true", the bit you deleted. It seems plainly obvious that if time began at some point, thare can be no before that point. This is of course providing time did actially begin. Well, the universe is defined as everything that exists anywhere. So if it began, everything that exists anywhere began at that point, including all that can be known. But if you think that the universe is less than everything that exists anywhere, which bits are not part of your universe and what do you call the complete set of everything that exists anywhere? Anyway, the many worlds interpretation is just that, an interpretation. Just as valid as the copenhagen interpretation and as far as I know, there is no way to tell which is true. For all practical purposes, I use Richard Feynmans interpretation which seems to be the most useful. Feynman simply said "shut up and calculate". Sorry, I'll have to plead ignorance here. The implications of broken symmetry on cosmology is not something I am familiar with.

Nope. As I see it what happened before the big bang is a meaningless question since time is thought to have began with the big bang. If that's true there can be no before. Either way, the universe contains all that we can know. Even if there was a before, there is no way we can ever know about it because all the information, started with the big bang. Like a cosmic reformat. All previous information is wiped. That is if big bang cosmology is correct and it might not be, which is why it's good to test a theory. It's quite easy to test a theory and prove it wrong but virtually impossible to test a theory and prove it right. There are some scientists that think we can never know the true facts. They think that any theory we come up with is just a toy model of the real thing. And in that it is a simplified representation of reality that we can put a handle on, it will inevitably miss out some detail and will always be incomplete. I'd say that scientific knowledge probably has an asymptotic limit. Our understanding gets better and approaches some "perfect" understanding but it will never actually reach it. Well, I'm a strong atheist about some gods and agnostic/ignorant about others. It depends on the god but if god A has properties X & Y that are mutually exclusive then I'd say that was pretty good evidence that atheism for god A is justified. A certian amount of openmindedness is a good thing but sooner or later you always jump off the fence. Just be prepared to hop over it again later if need be.

Well it goes something like this. Theory predicts that X should happen under Y and Z circumstances. Engineer Y and Z circumstances and see if X happens. If it doesn't, hey presto, evidence that theory is wrong. Alternatively you could have a god with property X and property Y where X and Y are mutually exclusive. Like a square circle. Also evidence that your god theory is wrong. Of course if you haven't got a theory to test, you're stuffed but equally you have nothing to believe either.

We do! http://www.moller.com/

Yeah, that would do it for me too! Although, I'd probably want to apply for the job as Gods PR rep. The one he's got sucks.

I think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself. Before you get to JC (that's a specific god) you'd need to prove any god at all, a generic god if you will, could exist. But for the sake of argument... JC is a hard one simply due to the amount of crap written about him. The bible for example is not self-consistent, it's convoluted and it's difficult to understand. Put bluntly, it's badly written and not up to the standards I would require of myself, let alone a being worthy of the title god. So first off, he'd have to rewrite it to clear up all the gibberish in there. If that happened, at least you'd have a coherent story but any half decent writer could do that so it wouldn't prove JC did it. As long as you're stuck with the bible as it is, you'd have your work cut out to get me to believe it. As to what he could do to convince me of his actual existence, hmmm.... tough one. He is supposed to have stopped the world turning once, that would be pretty convincing. It would need to leave a permanent and measurable change in the earth that I could metaphorically poke every now and then. Eye witness testimony is just too unreliable to be considered proof, even if it is my own eyes doing the witnessing. Although being god he wouldn't need to resort to any of that, he wouldn't have to rewrite the bible or stop the world, he could simply will it and I'd believe. What would convince you?

Depends. Plenty of people have been bought back from the dead, it's a routine medical procedure. It doesn't have the same impact it did 2000 years ago.

Nope, religion is here to stay. Science may be progressing but people are as dumb as ever.

I dunno who said it but he was definately wrong.

For faith to be unnecessary. What would that look like to you? Unambiguous evidence. For god to be the only possible answer to some phenomenon. Although you'd still have to come up with a self-consistent theory of what god is. No one's managed that yet. Good question. Many things may change my perception of God, but I think it would be very hard for me to believe there isn't one (of some sort) ... back to that core belief thing. So logic and evidence won't cut it then? That's a pity and an answer that is constantly given by theists to that question.

For faith to be unnecessary. What would it take for you to stop believing in god?

Hey, no offence was taken so no appology necessary. I also thought it was funny but probably not for the same reasons you did. You see, I'm a scientist and as a consequence I have to pay a great deal of attention to removing the effects of the observers prejudice when I perform an experiment. If I let my own views or prejudices tint the results I get, then they aren't worth the paper they are written on and I'd get fired. You must see similar effects through your clinic work. Anorexics are a prime example of a persons belief colouring their perceptions and giving a false result. The same goes for a prior belief in god. That lens puts a skew on the results you get and stops you from seeing the flaws in the hypothesis. If your evidence only counts as evidence when you want to believe the implications, it's nothing of the sort. That's my beef with religion, you have to believe the implications before the evidence becomes believable. But it's damn near impossible to get someone to see that when they're wearing God goggles.

Since your add-in was clearly aimed at me, I'll bite. Why is the story of god taught in sunday schools is so badly in need of correcting? Are the teachers intentionally lying to the kids or are they all just incompetent? The fact is, god is probably the most documented character ever. Even in this small corner of the internet, there are plenty of people witnessing and posting sections of answersingenesis.org at every opportunity. I have access to exactly the same information about god that you do. I base my view of god on exactly the same information you do. The only difference between us is that you have a prior assumption that god exists when you read that information and I don't.

I wouldn't advise that. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.