the role of \"the scientific method\" in agnostic thinking (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 25, 2010, 21:29 (5105 days ago) @ John the Agnostic

Welcome to John the Agnostic, who asks what is the role of "the scientific method" in seeking proof of God's existence or lack thereof.-You'll see from the different threads on the forum that this question lies at the heart of many of our discussions. My own impression from these is that without a great deal of faith, there is no way off the agnostic fence. The very fact that there are theist, atheist and agnostic scientists (Darwin having been one of the latter) suggests that you're never going to get "proof", but let me try to summarize the debate so far.-Inevitably the scientific method is applied to researching the origin and structure of the universe and of life. The more we learn about these, the more complex they appear ... and we're still nowhere near understanding them. Theists believe that this complexity is so great that the very idea of its coming about through unconscious chance is virtually inconceivable, and therefore the obvious conclusion is that the universe and life were designed. Similarly, the sheer mystery ... still unsolved by science ... of how matter can become conscious of itself suggests to the theist that there is some kind of intelligence that is independent of matter. The scientific method can therefore be used in this way to establish the comparative likelihood of God's existence. Atheists, on the other hand, argue that science continues to make great strides in its understanding of how the material world works, and in due course it will be able to create life and come up with an adequate explanation of how the universe fine-tuned itself naturally, how the mechanisms of life assembled themselves naturally, and how consciousness is the product of purely chemical processes in the brain. My agnostic view is that the theist conclusion (there is a conscious designer) and the atheist conclusion (science will one day come up with a materialist explanation for all the phenomena we don't understand) both require a degree of faith I simply cannot muster.-You ask if science might have a role in proving that God doesn't exist. My own answer to that would be no. If scientists cracked every code and succeeded in creating life from scratch, it would still have required intelligence to do so, and in any case, if someone maintains that there is a force beyond the scope of science, how can science prove otherwise?-As far as tangible evidence is concerned, this comes down to your own subjective assessment of what constitutes evidence. There are many people who regard their religious visions, psychic experiences, inner convictions as evidence enough. David Turell and I are currently discussing near-death experiences on the thread Spirituality and the Brain. How "tangible" are these? The materialist view varies from downright scepticism to attempts at physical explanations. If the scientific method can't actually come up with the answers, does that mean the experiences are to be discounted? In other words, is science the only way to find out the truth about God's existence?-I hope this summary is adequate, but I'm sure others will leap on any flaws in it, and I hope you'll give us your own views on it too. Despite the strident, self-confident pronouncements of some proselytizing atheists and some religious fundamentalists, nobody knows the truth, and each of us can come up with insights that others may not have had. -Once again, welcome to the forum.