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Science

Science Refutes God? Let’s Examine the Motion

Maya Bohnhoff | Feb 22, 2017

PART 2 IN SERIES Would You Vote for Science or God?

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

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Maya Bohnhoff | Feb 22, 2017

PART 2 IN SERIES Would You Vote for Science or God?

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

If you believe in God, do you have a rational basis for your belief? In the debate between science and God, atheists describe all belief in a Creator as irrational.

The framework for this series of essays—an Intelligence Squared debate that pitted two Christian believers (Dinesh D’Souza and Ian Hutchinson) against two atheists (Michael Shermer and Lawrence Krauss)—started with a singular motion up for debate: science refutes God. (In a formal debate, the motion is the premise both sides agree to argue.)

In the Intelligence Squared debate, Team A (for Atheist)’s opening statement said:

… Michael and I have the distinct advantage here of arguing in favor of the motion because in fact we have evidence, reason, logic, rationality, and empirical methods on our side, whereas the opponents have vague hopes and fears, and they’re arguing in favor of a motion that’s hanging on for its existence by mere shreds of emotional and ideological spaghetti, much like this type provided by the flying spaghetti monster, one of the equally irrational gods which science provides no support for. (emphasis added)

This opening statement does not so much summarize a strategy by which the Atheist Team means to prove that science refutes God. Instead, it employs a tactic that questions their opponents’ capacities and methods.

Lawrence Krauss

Lawrence Krauss

Even if the moderator disallowed this personal, ad hominem commentary, the audience could hardly unhear it. The portrayal of Team B (for Believer) as irrational beings who have only “vague hopes and fears” immediately prejudices the audience. In using this tactic, Krauss created a filter through which he asked the audience to hear whatever the opponent may say as irrational and motivated by fear or wishful thinking. (I appreciated that Team B did not characterize their opponents in this way.)

In reality, either side in the debate can avail themselves of evidence, reason, logic, and empirical methods if they so choose. Conversely, either side can indulge in false reasoning, wishful thinking and character assassination.

Atheist team member Krauss made what’s called a category error when he likened the Flying Spaghetti Monster to the God of historical faith. The FSM—a parody “religion” that satirizes creationism and religious interpretations of science—is the brainchild of a single human being. I’ve sat on Spaghetti Monster panels at Science Fiction conventions. They’re fun and occasionally profound, but the FSM has no place in a serious discussion of science and faith. Inserting it trivializes and mocks one side’s point of view.

Were God a human invention, He would not have the virtue of a long history of interactions with people from every age, locale, and culture. Not to mention the multiple, reaffirming genesis stories that convey cosmological information in metaphorical language suited to the capacity of the audience in just about every culture and civilization.

That God is not a human invention is supported by a collection of easily obtainable evidence. For one thing, His existence and nature are confirmed across widely diverse cultures and through millennia of revelation by individual messengers or prophets. These prophets, who come from every walk of life, make the same claims and teach the same basic spiritual principles, while flexing social teachings to fit the time. They describe their own role in bringing faith to humanity in strikingly similar terms. They are all cultural misfits. They all initially suffer rejection and persecution. Every true prophet reveals moral and spiritual teachings that initially benefit humankind and refine our characters.

The Baha’i teachings clearly say that the major prophets of God—the founders of the world’s great Faiths—have given us different paths at different times, but always with the same essential light:

Baha’u’llah continually urges man to free himself from the superstitions and traditions of the past and become an investigator of reality, for it will then be seen that God has revealed his light many times in order to illumine mankind in the path of evolution, in various countries and through many different prophets, masters and sages. – Abdu’l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, pp. 8-9.

One might contend that this is entirely coincidental, and that the messengers have a peculiar form of madness—a madness that manifests itself similarly across cultures and centuries, and that is so intoxicating to those exposed to it that it has caused billions to accept the delusion unthinkingly, regardless of their level of intelligence or the application of their rational faculties. I think Occam’s Razor—the principle of scientific preference for simplicity in all conclusions—would come down sharply against the likelihood of this kind of massive coincidence on such a grand scale.

There is no real parallel here. If someone can show historical provenance for the concept of the Flying Spaghetti Monster that is genuinely and sincerely held by a large population, then we can talk. Otherwise, the FSM is merely one more impediment to a real dialogue, and God knows we don’t need any more of those.

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Comments

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  • Shahin Sean Eghanian
    Aug 25, 2017
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    If the FSM gains momentum and millions of followers in the next few centuries would it then qualify to be part of a discussion about God? You know Baha'is are not as numerous as many other religions either and if they consider quantity a determining factor they might also exclude us from discussion about God.
  • Phil Walker
    Mar 6, 2017
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    Rather than being a coincidence (re: the fact that religion is a universal trait of current and historical civilizations), it could be by design (God created Man with the capacity and urge to know him). The residual element of Religion that cannot be explained this way is the behavior, the words, and the effect of the Founder's of the various World Religions. The skeptic must assume that Jesus sacrificed Himself for selfish reasons, and that it only coincidentally thereby confirmed the need to believe build-in to the Human design.
  • Cecilia Mostaghim
    Feb 23, 2017
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    "Say, verily God hath caused all created things to enter beneath the shade of the tree of affirmation, except those who are endowed with the faculty of understanding. Theirs is the choice either to believe in God their Lord, and put their whole trust in Him, or to shut themselves out from Him and refuse to believe with certitude in His signs. These two groups sail upon two seas: the sea of affirmation and the sea of negation." Selections from the Writings of the Bab, page 147, Excerpts from the Kitab-i-Asma
    • May 19, 2017
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      The fruit Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil—we were granted the capacity to choose and to either rise or fall depending on that choice.
  • Mark David Vinzens
    Feb 22, 2017
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    I would call my faith a mystical rationalism. We can argue rationally, but ultimately the spiritual consciousness leads into a transrational realm. People are so afraid of being considered pre-rational that they avoid and deny the very possibility of the transrational. All the mystics and prophets, sages and saints, tell us that true wisdom and understanding comes from embracing the paradoxes of life. The so-called "mystical" and the "rational" are the two sides of the same medal of truth, represented by oneness of science and religion.
  • Cecilia Mostaghim
    Feb 22, 2017
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    Science refutes God, and God doesn't care. :-))
    • Melanie Black
      Feb 22, 2017
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      One day science won't be refuting God anymore. He still won't care, though. I had never heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster until today. It sounds like something an 8 year old would come with. It is rather funny, until one interjects it into what is supposed to be a serious debate.
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