https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/why-science-points-to-god-more-than-ever/
Many claim science has disproved God. However, author Fr. Robert Spitzer believes just the opposite is true. In his new book, Science at the Doorstep to God , he claims that today there is more science-based evidence for God, the soul, and life after death than ever before.
Who? And citations please for where they made this exact claim.
Spitzer appears to have no scientific background whatsoever, so any claim of âscience-based evidenceâ should be viewed as purely apologetics.
Physics/Cosmology can show the likelihood of finitude in universal space-time âŚ
This seems highly unlikely to be correct. If it is, then where is the probability of this calculated. Citation please.
(implying a beginning of physical reality)
This does not necessarilly follow. There could have been a predecessor space-time continuum (or all sorts of other things happening).
If a beginning of physical reality is likely, then physics/cosmology can also show the likelihood of a transcendent intelligence needed to explain the exceedingly, exceedingly high improbability of the fine-tuning of initial conditions and constants needed for any lifeform to develop in our universe.
I.e. the same tired old balderdash you presented in this thread.
Peer-reviewed medical studies of near-death experiences, terminal lucidity, and intelligence in hydrocephalic patients imply a credible possibility, if not a likelihood, of consciousness outside of the physical brain/body as well as survival of that consciousness after clinical death (flat EEG, fixed and dilated pupils, no gag reflex, etc.).
This would appear to be a highly strained implication, a less-than-credible possibility, and no, not a âlikelihoodâ at all.
This sort of hand-waving exactly why I regard such supposedly âscientificâ apologetics, especially when presented by somebody that has no expertise in the scientific fields they are making claims about, as essentially âbottom-feedingâ.
I strongly doubt that he is correct in that assertion, but lay it on us.
âManyâ? Could you be more specific? How many?
Well, he would, wouldnât he?
Why donât you summarize his main arguments, so we know whether we would be wasting our time hearing stuff weâve heard a million times already.
To avoid messages multiplying faster than we moderators can handle them (
), please note that the several responses to your post are basically asking the same thing:
No need to reply to everyoneâs messages separately. If you can just respond to these questions in a single message, that would be very helpful to the moderators. We really donât want to have to move another thread to the unmoderated Argument CIinic. 
Edit: Moved to side conversation, so this topic is no longer moderated.
(post deleted by author)
Thank you, kindly. I will try to follow your guidelines. I understand Iâm not trying to cause any problems. Honestly, I am not making the claim. Thatâs why the original post was a question mark I am truly interested in knowing if science is pointing more towards God or pointing more away?
I would say that itâs neither pointing towards nor away from God. The considerations that would lead someone to or away from God seem to be prior to science (based in philosophy/metaphysics) and theism, as far as I can tell, doesnât make any specific scientific predictions.
The problem is that God is not a scientific hypothesis. We have no idea how the universe would be different if God were or were not involved. There seems no way to come up with such a hypothesis
Regarding Martin Rees: There are several problems. First, neither he nor anyone else knows the possible range of physical constants, so the probability of the ones we observe canât be estimated at all. Second, he considers only a universe like ours containing life like ours. There may be many conceivable universes unlike ours that would contain life like or unlike ours. There is in fact some literature on variation in one or more of his numbers that still results in the possibility of life not unlike ours. Given all that, nobody can say that fine-tuning either exists or would be necessary.
Thank you John that was the opposite of being Harsh-man! So mighty obliged.
I agree with you completely.In fact, itâs kind of hard to try to empirically find evidence for something that is not quantifiable such as God. I also understand that the scientific method requires testable hypotheses and falsifiable claims in order for observation and experiments to be accurate, testable, and repeatable with the same results.
What are your thoughts on qualifiable evidence such as things that have a quality, not a quantity, for example, I love my mother. Is there a way to quantify the love that we feel? Is it just simply a neural-chemical state?
Do you feel that matter comes before mind? Or that mind precedes matter?
And Rees regards the Multiverse as the most likely explanation for Fine Tuning - or did at the time he authored his book Just Six Numbers.
I would add that the Fine Tuning argument has to be speculative at best given the current state of our knowledge and I donât believe that it has ever been refined into a satisfactory argument. Which it would need to be to support the claim that âscience points to Godâ.
Thank you LOL for that lengthy piece of plagiarism that does absolutely nothing to substantiate Spitzerâs statistically nonsensical claim of an âexceedingly, exceedingly high improbabilityâ.
Further evidence that apologetics is nothing but braggadocio, exaggeration, sloppy reasoning and wishful thinking.
Then we are done here, arenât we? Feel free to invite whom ever else you wish, who is willing to make a case and defend it.
It would help keep track of what claims you are and arenât making, if you would correctly format your posts to differentiate which bits are you speaking, which bits are you quoting somebody else. E.g. posting:
> Many claim science has disproved God. âŚ
⌠becomes
Many claim science has disproved God. âŚ
This indicates that you are quoting Vogt saying this, not saying this yourself.
Also, a question contained in the title of a post would generally be viewed as a rhetorical question.
But, in answer to that question:
Does Science point to God now more than ever?
The answer is that, when it is an apologist who is not a scientist making the claim that âScience point[s] toâ something, almost certainly no it does not. They are simply attempting to falsely expropriate the mantle of science for their claims.
My question to you in return is:
Why do you keep posting random stuff from apologetics websites on here?
Betteridge says âNoâ.
So do I.
We have empirically validated means of quantifying other subjective states such as pain. So I donât see why not.
Pain Scales: Types of Scales and Using Them to Explain Pain
I believe so, yes. However, the qualifier âjustâ smuggles in the assumption that the emotion is then, for some reason, less meaningful or important than if it was produced by some non-physical process or being. If love was the result of the immaterial being Cupid shooting immaterial arrows into our body, what would that change?
Iâm afraid that this question too is not well defined. The meaning of âmatterâ is clear enough, but âmindâ, I suspect, is carrying a lot of unspecified baggage for you. From what I can see, âmindâ is something that happens in the brains of human beings and possibly a few other animals. Itâs dependent on matter and canât pre-exist matter. You may want to expand the definition to nebulous and undefined beings (who nevertheless are able to sit in chairs), but I see no reason to do so.
More importantly, you would appear to have agreed that the answer to your title question is ânoâ; science canât point to God, because there is no scientific hypothesis of God to be evaluated by evidence.
The only possible definition for âlife like oursâ would seem to be life that can consider its own origins regardless of physical form. That isnât very helpful, as it only limits the probability of something we canât calculate.
The fine tuning argument attempts to rule out one specific series of events as unlikely, but fails to identify any other series of events as more likely. Even if we accept that certain events are essentially impossible, there is no favored alternative.
Fine tuning arguments also tend to abuse math, but thatâs another topic.
If anything, a case could be made that feelings like this are all the more impressive for being âjustâ physical (ultimately) phenomena.
How amazing is it, one could say, that nature ended up producing beings like us who can feel as we do by nothing more than mere chemistry? How did it do that, one could wonder, or why, and go on investigating both questions in any number of ways.
On the other hand, if there is a magical component, divorced and independent of physical limitations, one might question why our experience is, great as it may be at times, only this great and no greater, only so limited, only so finite. It could be downright disappointing, that with all the limitless power available to what ever god devised it all, something so earthly, mortal, and finite was the best they would come up with, at least for mankind, the alleged pinnacle if not point of their creation.