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Does the god hypothesis have any explanatory value?
I don't know how this universe got started, what was before, or why it has the properties it does.
But is supposing some inexplicable supernatural beings as responsible a reasonable explanation.
I suggest answering a mystery with a greater mystery is no explanation at all. That asserting god created everything is logically an argument from ignorance.
Not being able to disprove an invisible, immaterial, undetectable, immeasurable, testable concept does not imply the claim is valid. This usually implies a weak argument or position.
Interested in your views and why. Would love to actually hear a reasonable compelling argument for the theist position.
Closing Statement from Obey No1kinobe
Thanks all for the comments.
To try sum up, on one side saying the gods did this or that is either unverifiable or false depending on the claim.
If you say the universe was made 6,000 years ago, or that the Earth sits of the back of giant turtle and flies through space, you are simply wrong. If you say a god made the universe to look exactly as we know it to be, there is no evidence of this god or how it did it. The statement can not be tested or verifed. Science has nothing to say on the matter.
Basically, if aspects of religious belief conflicts with the facts and evidence and well established theories that explain these, then the the religious belief is wrong.
But there are areas where we don't have most the answers in science. You can propose supernatural agency, a spiritual realm, immortal souls, but can not prove this either way. These are not scientific claims. They are not scientific explanations. I hope most agree on that.
To say your idea of a god or goddess created the universe is a theological assertion. Depending of the details, if they are vague enough not to conflict with the known scientific facts, then there are near infinite variations of supernatural assertions that have no evidence for what or how. These beliefs may satisfy the believers but they don't actually help us understand what really happened.
You can define something as an eternal, immaterial, powerful intelligence as a solution. You can even say it didn't need a cause or to be created. You could say it has the spiritual form of a squid. But a definition without any proof is not an explanation. You can call it Allah, Yahweh or George and believe it revealed itself to this or that prophet. Not all of these beliefs can be correct. We can not tell which is right because it is all speculative subjective waffle. But they could all be wrong.
A god could have created the universe. But for now we don't know and have no way of knowing. Its an untestable idea that explains nothing really.
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Peter Law 30+
""Not being able to disprove an invisible, immaterial, undetectable, immeasurable, testable concept does not imply the claim is valid. This usually implies a weak argument or position.""
When 'abiogenesis', 'Big Bang', 'Dark Matter', etc. are postulated, then they are included under the banner of science.
However the possible existence of a 'Spiritual Dimension' to reality is postulated it is put under the banner of ignorance.
All these are untestable, etc, by 'normal methods', but all have some evidence, however there is a bias in the scientific mainstream.
:-)
Carl Shaw
In fact I would go further: Science/physics makes the implicit assumption that all must come from the material. It is an assumption and it is untested because it is an assumption. The day when science relieves itself from this unnecessary restriction to the discovery of truth, will be the day when we can accept its findings. Until then, we are left to work it all out for ourselves!
David Hamilton 50+
Stewart Gault 30+
Big bang has lot's of evidence to back it's claims
Dark matter is the only one I think anyone would be willing to give you, but it's still not even a theory, still in the hypothesis stage.
Whereas the spiritual dimension HAS NO EVIDENCE, NO repeatable tests, NO predictability qualities
David Hamilton 50+
Scientists do not think that postulating a spiritual dimension to existence is nonsense. Scientists think that if you can't prove something, you shouldn't tell people "this is how it is"... or at least we used to. I understand your sentiment on dark matter, and a few things we teach that most of us don't really understand yet.
Obey No1kinobe 50+
Suggest we need to differentiate between established theories and scientific work in the hypothesis stages.
Also suggest schools, the media and perhaps the scientific establishment do not do a great job explaining the difference or status of various scientific concepts.
Atomic theory is very well established. Evolution theory is very well established.
I’m not aware of any established abiogenesis theories.
I’m not an expert on the big bang but I understand we have evidence that universe is expanding and have detected the background radiation consistent with the initial bang. I suggest this is a lot less speculative than say dark matter and energy but I would defer to any physicists or more knowledgeable.
Your call whether to consider spiritual claims on the same level with the more speculative scientific hypothesises. Some scientific hypothesis are superseded and thrown out when better explanations are found that explain and predict data. Some questions may be around for a long time yet.
So far natural explanations have been more effective at explaining and predicting everything reducing what is left to the supernatural speculation.