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How Much Proof is Enough?

The Higgs boson explains why particles have mass -- and in turn why we exist. Without the boson, the universe would have no physical matter, only energy.

The cosmological implications are hotly debated. Can God fit in a scientific story of creation?

The answer is "no" for Lawrence M. Krauss, an Arizona State University theoretical physicist. He argued in Newsweek that the Higgs boson discovery "posits a new story of our creation" independent of religious belief.

"With enough data, physics would make God obsolete, he said. "If we can describe the laws of nature back to the beginning of time without any supernatural shenanigans, it becomes clear that you don't need God."

What will be enough evidence for science to prove that there is no god?.

I had stated in another conversation about this that no matter what science proves, the religious will just say that it is still some divine intervention. God allowed us to see this etc. etc. instead of simply showing himself. Groan!.

"Alternative medicine guru Deepak Chopra said in a YouTube video that the boson hints at a divine interconnectedness of all things.

"It only strengthens the notion that the universe comes out of a nothingness which is everything," he said."

At the end of the day, even a slap in the face does not wake people up. They ask us to prove the lack of existence of god, we give it to them in so many instances and yet they still choose to be delusional simply based on feelings rather than facts.

As usual with Huffington Post news stories, I always encourage you to read the comments as this is where most of the action happens.

Full Story Here: Higgs Boson

Also: 9 Great Nonbelievers In U.S. History

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on July 19, 2012 at 1:01pm

Sorry, Jonathan, special pleading doesn't cut it. You ARE attempting to justify a god who somehow exists despite the fact that there is no evidence for it and no rational explanation. On that basis, I could posit an uncountable number of other concepts which were equally absurd and unprovable and insist that they deserve consideration as well.

When god shows up, I'll pay attention. Until such time, it can go fish for all of me.

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Chang on July 19, 2012 at 1:12pm

Loren, explain how I am special pleading? Science must evolve to account for all future observations, even if it's God. You cannot just ignore something, if we assume for it to hypothetically exist, because you find absurd the concept of it (like God). I was playing nice, but now I will say that you are special pleading. What you are saying is something like: in the event that God exists, God couldn't exist because the laws of physics wouldn't allow it. Either that's special pleading on account of God, or it is confusing the process of scientific thinking for a perfect endpoint descriptor of natural reality, which grossly underestimates the logical component in science.

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on July 19, 2012 at 1:31pm

We have an orderly system, a system with some extraordinarily odd phenomena in it (quantum physics, black holes, etc.), but they hold to an overall system of descriptions which, to date, has worked.

If a god exists, it either works within that established system or, if it is capable of violating those laws while somehow maintaining them on a superficial level, then you're talking about a level of cosmic jiggery-pokery which would astonish Rube Goldberg. It would be like saying that the earth was created 6,000 years ago, but built to look as though it were 4.5 billion years old, as Robert Heinlein suggested in Job: A Comedy of Justice. I have no problem in considering viable possibilities, but there is a difference between possible and probable.

The concept of god as an intellectual exercise may be worth pursuit, but pragmatically, it hasn't leg one to stand on.

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Chang on July 19, 2012 at 2:09pm

I understand all that, but when you contradict my original statement that "God and science does not need to be mutually exclusive" -- by even supposing such a statement logically, you must implicitly accept a hypothetical God and figure out why it is incompatible with science. And since this is a hypothetical exercise in which God exists, God then must exist within that hypothetical framework. Science is then used to describe observations, including God, as I outlined in my previous posts.

The following arguments would be either flawed or contradictory:
1. Supposing god exists observably, and science describes the observable, then God must not exist. (contradicts)

2. If science describes the observable, and God becomes observable, then God must conform to science. (reverses cause and effect)

3. Suppose a hypothetical God is known to exist, but is not observable. If science describes the observable, the existence of God would invalidate science. (invalid argument)

I never intended that the existence of God is probable, so if you took it that way then it was a misunderstanding.

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on July 19, 2012 at 2:33pm

I guess I'm too much of a pragmatist. If god exists (particularly if it exists as described in the bible), then it steps on more toes than I would hope to count, in terms of the whole miracle business, and especially if those miracles are indeed, effects without describable causes rather than well-hidden physical laws which man could tap into as easily as god could.

Being a pragmatist, I lean on Occam's Razor a lot. As I said earlier, we have descriptions which work to give understanding to the mechanisms which run this reality, and as Laplace told Napoleon, not one of them need the hypothesis of a god. Moving forward from this point, it strikes me as increasingly unlikely that any future discovery will require the inclusion of a supernatural being of any stripe to satisfy its description, biblical or otherwise. The god which was invented out of man's ignorance and superstition is being squeezed out of existence by man's increasing understanding.

If you want to hypothesize a god who exists despite that, knock yourself out. I still don't buy it.

Permalink Reply by Edward Teach on July 19, 2012 at 2:51pm

Why should one absurd notion, completely lacking in supporting evidence, be considered more relevant than any other fanciful invention of the human mind?

"God is an ever shrinking bubble of human ignorance." It is a catch all for those phenomena as yet lacking scientific explanation. God is simply a lazy, meaningless explanation for folks lacking in curiosity about the true nature of things.

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Chang on July 19, 2012 at 2:56pm

Edward, it's relevant because that's the topic of the thread.

Permalink Reply by Edward Teach on July 19, 2012 at 3:02pm

That is a cop out. It doesn't answer the question.

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Chang on July 19, 2012 at 3:46pm

Edward, relevance is contextual. This is an atheist (i.e. "without God") forum, and on this forum, there is the topic "How Much Proof Is Enough..." How much proof is enough for what? To disprove God. Therefore, God is a subject of this thread. Why is God more relevant than pink elephants in a thread about the disproving God? Is that what you wanted me to answer?

Or did you want me to answer why God should be relevant to humans? If that's the case, let me ask you why atheism is relevant to humans? What's the relevancy of baseball? What's the relevancy of the color yellow? What makes anything relevant? This question is impractical to answer because it requires deep exploration into the epistemological meaning of "meaning".

The short answer is God is relevant because we want it to be. Somewhere in this world, with billions of humans that could be doing anything they choose, a few people got together in an online forum called AtheistNexus.org. And in this forum, some people choose to discuss God.

And if that's a copout to you, then maybe you have already discovered the answer to the is-ought problem (i.e. why "should" we do anything?); maybe you would like to enlighten us?

Permalink Reply by Edward Teach on July 19, 2012 at 4:17pm

I'll take your continued failure to address why god is more important than pink elephants as a concession, as your personality doesn't seem to allow you to make an honest one.

The reason such a topic shows up on atheist nexus is a reaction by rational people to a tidal wave of idiots who choose to accept pink elephants simply because they can be dreamed up.

Enlightened yet? I think you may be more comfortable on Theist Nexus or Schizophrenic Nexus where absurdities enjoy endless discussion. Thank you for enlightening us with your immense wisdom on the ridiculous.

Later...

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Chang on July 19, 2012 at 4:29pm

Edward, the first thing you can do is answer what is the relevance of anything, and then maybe you will have made one of the biggest philosophical discoveries in the past few centuries. But since you cannot, then you should not expect me to do the same.

Contextually, God is relevant because this is a forum about atheism. And if a subject related to the subject on the forum isn't enlightening enough for you, you can always opt to log out -- that would have been the intelligent response.

I can assure you that making emotive, ad hominem attacks against me doesn't make you sound intelligent, even if you think you are an atheist. It isn't all that impressive that you've arrived at the conclusion that atheism is the answer. Everyone could throw a dice and pick out of a hat. The importance is how you arrived at this conclusion. If you're an atheist who is afraid to hypothesize about the existence of God, then perhaps you should do some soul searching before you call yourself "atheist".

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on July 19, 2012 at 6:34am

So long as whatever god is out there does not break the laws of physics and nature to interact with his/her/its creation (if there is any interaction at all!), it MIGHT be possible for god and science to coexist. However, the second any form of deity breaks that rule, all bets are OFF ... because at that point, we live in a world not governed by natural law but by WHIM, the whim of said being to alter circumstances as he/she/it cares to.

At that point, science becomes badly compromised, because who's to say whether something happened because of natural cause-and-effect or because god decided that was how it was going to be?

Just as faith and reason have no intersection set, so science and miracles are also self-exclusionary. I am not convinced that the two can coexist, full stop.