God is Real

I welcome Pro to Debate.org, and I am pleased to be part of it. I wish such discussions would happen more often. Methodology My general viewpoint of "pure science" is formulated with a few criteria of belief decision-making broadly accepted among practitioners of science: Explanatory power - evidence should be strongly expected by a proposition [1]. Consilience - hypothesis should expect many diverse sets of evidence [2]. Plausibility - the proposition should be implied from broadly-accepted truths [1]. Putting gods to the test The hypothesis of the gods does very well with the criterion of consilience, because the hypothesis explains everything in the environment. God explains the existence of the universe, life, human intelligence, religion, rainbows, and lightning bolts. And, indeed, such things have been popularly explained with the gods for many thousands of years. In the ages when the principles of electrical currents were never conceived by human thought, lightning bolts were explained with a blow of the hammer of Thor, the raging justice of Zeus, or other divine powers. Gods explained anything that could not be explained any other known way. However, the hypothesis of the gods is sorely lacking in the other two relevant criteria: explanatory power and plausibility. Firstly, the hypothesis of the gods fails the criterion of explanatory power, not just because direct scientific evidence of the gods is lacking, but also because indeed the gods may explain everything we can possibly conceive of, not just everything we know. The universe as it currently exists is little or no more expected of the proposition of the gods than any other state of the universe that we can imagine. Most damningly, the hypothesis of the gods fails the criterion of plausibility, because the objective gods (as they are typically described) are very much not expected from what we generally know and have verified about the known universe. The proposition of Thor’s hammer that causes lightning bolts, for example, does not fit the general model of the universe built and studied by countless observations of both heaven and Earth. This is not just a problem for Thor, but the same quality applies even more so to the more popular Abrahamic “God”; this point is not just asserted by critics, but God is commonly believed by advocates to be independent from all known patterns of observations of nature. This belief is known as “transcendence,” which stresses “the otherness of God from creation” [3]. This common doctrine has the benefit of protecting God from some arguments, but it causes the hypothesis of God to be maximally implausible. Scientific model The scientific model of the universe aims to explain the universe in terms of a narrow set of natural patterns. These fundamental laws--including but not limited to the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, big bang theory, theory of evolution by natural selection, and memetics--do not explain all of the data conceived and conceivable (unlike the gods), but such patterns explain a vast amount of the specifics of the evidence with both explanatory power and plausibility. These claims are mere assertions for now, but I would be happy to provide specific examples of how science has powerfully explained observations according to the three given criteria if Con requests it. Request for further information Pro introduced several pieces of allegedly scientific evidence in support of his position, and I request that he provide further details. Examples may include: “Exodus from Egypt” “David slaying Goliath” “parting of the Red Sea” “Underwater cameras showed pictures of… huge chariot wheel at the bottom of the Red Sea, they were also able to confirm that the design was the same as it was at the time of Moses.” Ideal evidence would be citations to scientific studies published in peer-reviewed journals. But, lacking that, I would at least appreciate citations to any type of source of such information. Thank you. References [1] C. Behan McCullagh, Justifying Historical Descriptions, p. 19. [2] Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, p. 9. [3] William A. Dembski, “Transcendence (Entry for New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics),” http://www.designinference.com...