I'm not sure the thrust of your question. If it can, great. If god can prove its own existence, great. Evidence would be great. Until then, why believe in god over invisible, non-material elves or any of an infinite number of non-evidenced theories that could be true? Like crowTrobot said, I don't see anyone doing that. I certainly haven't said a god simply does NOT exist, and I don't think he has, either. Simply that without evidence, there's no reason to believe in something. That goes for science, too, of course. Nothing a scientist says should be accepted without solid evidence. But it's okay to leave gaps in understanding as just that...gaps. Just because science can't fill it in is not de facto evidence that science has failed and religion is the logical answer. Not knowing is simply not knowing...not evidence, itself, for "something else."
From wikipedia: Jesus is mentioned in two passages of the work The Antiquities of the Jews by the Jewish historian Josephus, written in the late first century AD. One passage, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, discusses the career of Jesus. The authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum has been disputed since the 17th century, and by the mid 18th century the consensus view was that it was at a minimum embellishment by early Christian scribes, if not a forgery. The other passage simply mentions Jesus as the brother of James, also known as James the Just. Most scholars consider this passage genuine,<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference">[1]</sup> but its authenticity has been disputed by Emil Schürer as well by several recent popular writers. Josephus' other major work, The Jewish War, makes no mention of Jesus.
4. Corollary to #2 - believe in the origin of the universe and life through strictly natural processes and reduce science's limitations through continuous improvement over existing theory through hypothesis, experimentation, observation, and proper conclusion.
There is nothing in science that explains how life started in the universe, let alone on Earth. It's no strawman.
Exactly Denny. I'd love to believe in evolution, etc but you cannot prove to me (not meaning you personally Denny lol), that you can have something created out of nothing (big bang, etc). At the same time I will not believe that there is a "god" out there who has all that power to create whatever he/she/it wants and knows good from evil and yet chooses not to act to help humanity and leaves it upon us.
Don't forget that Hitler killed 25 million russians. For some reason American's don't really care about that. But to answer your question, Hitler was a Christian himself and led his Nation as a Christian Nation. He used his Christianity as his reason. What would be the difference? That still sounds like religious violence. Lot's of different Christians say and do lots of different things. There aren't two people exactly alike anywhere on the planet. Each person has their own individual beliefs, they may be similar, but they are never the same.
Many euro's came to this country and killed millions of Indigenous people and villages in the name of Jesus. Nearly wiped out the entire race. A near genocide.
nobody said science explains how life started at this point. nobody said they believed the universe could arise from nothing. nobody said there couldn't be a causative agent. that was a bunch of astute arguing against nobody there.
1. evolution is just the theory that speciation on earth occurs gradually by descent with modification. it has nothing to do with the origin of the universe. 2. i'm not aware of any scientists working in related fields that believe the big bang was actually "something from nothing" in the sense you mean. that's another straw man.
Interestingly, there are large portions of the scientific community that admit to not even trying to find the root of everything. For example, string theorists state that we don't need to look deeper than the strings to find the root of creation because it "doesn't make sense". Well, if scientists are willing to stop there, with that explanation, they are admitting that some things just exist because they exist. Some of us believe in a God as the reason they exist. More importantly, you are assuming that people only use God as an explanation for why something is created. Many people believe in a God for things much more abstract. I consider myself a technical, scientific type, and I am religious not because I think God created dinosaurs or something like that. I'm religious, and believe in a God because of things that are not physical and can not really even be tested such as love, our souls, etc.
I wouldn't say that that's a "large portion" of the scientific community. And I've read plenty of things by string theorists, and I've read none of them say that we don't need to look any further. I'm not saying there aren't string theorists who claim that (I haven't read from or spoken to every physicist in the field, obviously), but I think you're incorrect if you're representing that as the standard view in the field. What they do say is that physical evidence of strings hasn't been found yet, the evidence is currently entirely mathemtical. But string theory has already evolved into m-theory, so obviously the idea isn't to just stop researching. I'm assuming nothing of the sort. I was responding directly to someone who gave that as his reason. I didn't generalize it in any way. I simply said I don't find the "God of Gaps" idea compelling. That applies only to people who advance religion on that basis. If that doesn't include you, it's no comment on you. That strikes me as a non-sequitor, at least as far as love goes. What does one thing have to do with the other? One can believe in "love" without postulating a deity (and certainly it can be probed scientifically and rationally, in terms of the neuroscience involved, the evolutionary reason for it, etc). Believing in souls is fine...it's equivalent to believing in "all-pervasive spirituality" or "Heaven" or any other unobservable, faith-based phenomenon. I don't have anything against such a personal belief; there's just nothing about it that can speak to another who doesn't intrinsically believe the same thing. Which makes it difficult to discuss meaningfully.
you won't find many astro or particle physicists that say that. string theorists might say looking for something more elemental than a string doesn't make sense, but that has little to do with the search for the "root of creation" in a general sense. as currently formulated string theory is falling out favor anyway because it lacks explanatory power. like god? what's the reason god exists? all current evidence indicates everything we experience including consciousness and emotions are physical in origin. and if you want to postulate something that definitionally can't be physically tested, you can't know it exists (internal "revelation" being demonstratably unreliable and useless as evidence). so in fact you're religious because you want to be.
does that really matter? wouldn't it be pretty much impossible to prove or disprove the existence of jesus?
A grave would do. Period writing about him (most everything is a century or more after he lived). Portraits of him drawn or painted when he was alive. Those things would prove he existed. I wrote in my opening post that I believe he existed. FWIW
I know a bit about string theory. What do you guys think it's based on? Other than the pursuit of some holy grail, that is.
I'm sorry, did you just say it is a "fact" that I'm religious because I want to be? You're just talkin' out of the ol' hind end this entire thread. I'll leave it at that.
any of those things would be enough proof for someone who wanted to believe he existed, but i don't think they would be enough proof for someone who did not want to believe that.
