As Mr Science has already pointed out, your reliance on Newton and Einstein as "proof" of God is the fallacy of "appeal to authority", but I'll address their views anyway.
Considering that Newton believed in some form of Christianity and that you regard religion as "useless" and that "if there is a God, we will meet him through science, not religion or philosophy", it is pretty clear that Newton doesn't exactly back up your way of thinking.
As far as Einstein is concerned, that article you linked to had a fair bit of editorialising, maybe justified or maybe not, but the Einstein quote that is most definitive about what Einstein believed was “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists". As the article states "Spinoza was a pantheist, who regarded God and the Universe as identical, all encompassing abstractions with neither volition nor purpose."
So it would be 0 from 2 as far as Ken being backed up by the giants of physics. But in the end, this extract from the article is probably a reasonable statement:
"I’m also of the opinion that the significance of Einstein’s religious views has been overrated. As I’ve demonstrated, although he never wavered in his rejection of conventional ideas of the supernatural, he was inconsistent in his public statements about God. On one occasion he even voiced his admiration for Buddhism as the best religion to “cope with modern scientific needs.” It’s as if he didn’t devote a great deal of thought to these matters. He certainly didn’t apply the same intellectual rigor to them that he did to his scientific work. This is understandable. His real passion was exploring the laws of Nature. Religion, as a human concern, was peripheral to the cosmic questions that occupied his mind."
You make this statement to Mr Science:
"[It] could be argued that I have come much closer to proving the existence of "God" than you have come to proving that "God" does not exist."
I think you'll find that most atheists don't claim to "know" with 100% certainty that God doesn't exist, or try to prove that there is no God, because quite simply, it is impossible to prove there is no God, even if this is a true statement. Your argument basically boils down to "the Universe is really, really complex, therefore God". However, as Perry stated:
"If you're asking what created the complexities of the universe, then I say I don't know. But saying a God did it just unnecessarily complicates the process for no reason. A god would have to be as, if not more, complex than the thing it creates.....thus the question is what created the God"
Finally Ken, as far as an understanding of science goes, nothing Mr Science has written in this thread strikes me as unscientific. You on the other hand seem to not have a good understanding of what science is (even if you have seen a number of popular science documentaries and have a basic grasp of certain scientific concepts). For instance, you talk about how you "employ the certainty of science" to "prove" your case. But as any scientist knows, science is not about certainty, in fact a large part of it is about the acceptance of uncertainty.
Oh, and by the way, I am a postgraduate physics student, considering you seem so intent on questioning everyone's scientific credibility (except your own, of course).
by
jutewe on
12/24/2008 04:59:18 PM EST
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