# The most current scientific evidence for the existence of God? **URL:** \ **Category:** Conversation\ **Tags:** Science, Design, Atheism, Theology\ **Created:** [November 15, 2022, 2:07pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549 "2022-11-15T14:07:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6

**Author:** ![Dan\_Eastwood](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/dan_eastwood/32/2368_2.png) [@Dan\_Eastwood](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Dan_Eastwood)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 12:19pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/105 "2022-11-21T12:19:56Z")

> [@Michael\_Okoko](#): > > > [@Audrey](#): > > > > Religious texts tend to say God is known only through the heart, and that pride and disbelief are obstacles to such knowing. > > If so, one would wonder why God went through the trouble of performing miracles before the Jews and Christians to bolster their faith. It’s obvious he wanted “finite minds” to scrutinize his presence and power. Objection! Now you are claiming to understand God’s motives. 😄 ---

**Author:** ![faded\_Glory](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/faded_glory/32/7167_2.png) [@faded\_Glory](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/faded_Glory)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 12:20pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/106 "2022-11-21T12:20:29Z")

Good and evil mean nothing by themselves unless they are compared to some standard. Each one of us sets our own standards, consciously and unconsiously, based on who and what we are, on our surroundings, on our experiences, on our interests and so on. That is why there are so many different value systems around the world, even when some of them are widely shared between people. In the end I can only judge against my own standards, not against anyone else’s. I guess that makes such concepts subjective, or when widely shared, inter-subjective. Anyway, what has this to do with my observation that ‘love’ is an abstraction, a label that humans assign to a set of feelings and behaviours? Do you dispute that? ---

**Author:** ![Dan\_Eastwood](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/dan_eastwood/32/2368_2.png) [@Dan\_Eastwood](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Dan_Eastwood)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 6:12pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/107 "2022-11-22T18:12:06Z")

8 posts were merged into an existing topic: [The Argument Clinic](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-argument-clinic/15561/3) ---

**Author:** ![CrisprCAS9](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/crisprcas9/32/9145_2.png) [@CrisprCAS9](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/CrisprCAS9)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 12:30pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/108 "2022-11-21T12:30:11Z")

Fine-tuning does mean ‘as much life as possible’ the way it is used in the fine-tuning argument I was (implicitly) addressing. Obviously the universe could be finely tuned to ‘some’ goal, but that’s both irrelevant and uninteresting. And if the thing God wants is indistinguishable from the expectations of natural causation, then we can’t use observations to distinguish between the two, now can we? ---

**Author:** ![Dan\_Eastwood](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/dan_eastwood/32/2368_2.png) [@Dan\_Eastwood](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Dan_Eastwood)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2022, 4:09pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/110 "2022-11-21T16:09:20Z")

Please take personal disagreements private or to a new thread, and report back on any resolution. Thank you /fnord ---

**Author:** ![Sam](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/sam/32/11437_2.png) [@Sam](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 1:53pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/115 "2022-11-22T13:53:30Z")

> [@Dan\_Eastwood](#): > > Please take personal disagreements private or to a new thread, and report back on any resolution. Thank you > > /fnord Who is that comment directed to? what does fnord mean? ---

**Author:** ![Faizal\_Ali](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/faizal_ali/32/12416_2.png) [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 2:42pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/117 "2022-11-22T14:42:10Z")

> [@The Argument Clinic](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-argument-clinic/15561/7): > > Isn’t that conflating fact with evidence? I’m don’t think I’ve heard of a theist claim that they can prove that God exists. But I have heard them claim that their is evidence that God exists. And I am arguing that this evidence is insufficient to demonstrate that God exists. Morevover, you seem to be confirming that you have never heard a theist claim the contrary. I guess we have different understandings of what @Audrey meant by her initial comment. > [@Audrey](#): > > I’m a Christian and would love to know if you can point me to some resources or premises that show that science can indeed still point to the existence of an intelligent, relational Designer. ---

**Author:** ![Audrey](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/audrey/32/15429_2.png) [@Audrey](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Audrey)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 6:02pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/119 "2022-11-22T18:02:07Z")

> [@Tim](#): > > Natural Selection will work to develop them. Hey @Tim thanks for your reply. I am curious though how there can be an intelligent process such as natural selection that will “work to develop them” if there is no fundamental force of intelligence that is the source of the universe? ---

> [@Puck\_Mendelssohn](#): > > why on earth would you ever suppose that any scientific evidence for or against the existence of such a thing could exist? @Puck_Mendelssohn I do realize that you cannot find “God” or “the absence of God” with the tools of science. But the reason I started this thread, though, is that I wanted some intelligent opinions on what the scientific evidence is for a world that, _by implication_, either does or does not seem to have an intelligent Being as its source. I have gotten some really great food for thought here by asking this question. ---

> [@Faizal\_Ali](#): > > That is incorrect. > > If someone is in a state with no brain activity, they are permanently dead, and they will not be waking up to tell people what they were experiencing while dead. Dualists commonly make this mistake. Brain death and clinical death are two very different things. @Faizal_Ali Did you check out the PDF I posted by Dr. Jeffrey Long? For a near death experience to qualify as a subject for research, it has to meet a minimum score on the NDE scale. He defines the medically inexplicable aspect of them this way (pasted from his PDF): “Near-death experiences, by their very definition, occur at a time of unconsciousness and even clinical death with an absent heartbeat. Speaking both medically and logically, having a highly lucid experience while unconscious or clinically dead should be impossible. However, thousands of NDEs describe lucid conscious perceptions even while comatose. Near-death experiences often occur in association with a cardiac arrest, which means the heart stops beating.21 This condition is popularly known by the phrase “heart attack”. To understand how remarkable it is to have an NDE at a time of clinical death, it is essential to know what happens when the heart stops beating. After the heart stops, blood immediately ceases flowing to the brain. About ten to twenty seconds later, the electroencephalogram (EEG), a measurement of brain electrical activity, is flat.22 At this time there is no significant measurable electrical activity in the cortex, which is the outer part of the brain. Multiple studies show that patients are usually amnesic or confused about events that took place before or after the cardiac arrest.23,24,25 Consequently, almost immediately after cardiac arrest, it should be impossible to have a lucid, organized, and conscious experience. But when a near-death experience occurs, a lucid experience happens even while physical brain function is shut down. The NDERF website has hundreds of examples of NDEs that happened during a cardiac arrest.26 The typical high lucidity in NDEs following cardiac arrest defies any possible medical explanation. Here are two examples of NDEs that occurred at the time of a cardiac arrest: …” ---

> [@Giltil](#): > > Not sure this is completely true. Paul, for example, clearly thought that God can be inferred from observation of the natural world, making him a proponent of intelligent design! Here is what he said in Romans 1:20: _For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has been made, so that they are without excuse._ Oh, right! I agree with you completely. I should have clarified that, when someone refuses to infer God from the natural world, religious texts such as the Bible will say this is a heart issue - like a hardened heart or a willful blindness. ---

**Author:** ![Audrey](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/audrey/32/15429_2.png) [@Audrey](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Audrey)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 6:03pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/123 "2022-11-22T18:03:04Z")

> [@Dan\_Eastwood](#): > > This thread is becoming fractured, possibly fractious. Please take divergent topic to a new thread and resolve personal disagreements to stay on topic. > > Seriously folks, I have a busy day and a cold. Any amount of self-moderation you can do will be greatly appreciated. 😷 Hello @Dan_Eastwood this is my first thread. I believe I have been staying on topic, but if I have not, let me know. I am unsure who your post is referring to. Thanks. ---

**Author:** ![Dan\_Eastwood](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/dan_eastwood/32/2368_2.png) [@Dan\_Eastwood](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Dan_Eastwood)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 6:05pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/124 "2022-11-22T18:05:19Z")

> [@Audrey](#): > > Hello @Dan_Eastwood this is my first thread. I believe I have been staying on topic, but if I have not, let me know. I am unsure who your post is referring to. Thanks. You are just fine. I’m looking to clear out some of the less on-topic comments. 🙂 ---

**Author:** ![Puck\_Mendelssohn](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/puck_mendelssohn/32/11849_2.png) [@Puck\_Mendelssohn](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Puck_Mendelssohn)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 6:36pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/125 "2022-11-22T18:36:41Z")

> [@Audrey](#): > > But the reason I started this thread, though, is that I wanted some intelligent opinions on what the scientific evidence is for a world that, _by implication_, either does or does not seem to have an intelligent Being as its source. If evidence cannot bear on the truth of falsity of a proposition, it also cannot imply much, except in the fully-subjective sense of “imply,” which is useless to anyone interested in the truth. > [@Audrey](#): > > I should have clarified that, when someone refuses to infer God from the natural world, religious texts such as the Bible will say this is a heart issue - like a hardened heart or a willful blindness. And that is what a merchant of religion, like the authors of Bible texts, would be expected to say, from a purely self-interested perspective, so that’s not surprising. Is it true, though? Is it the case that whether an inference is valid is a matter of personal taste or preference? I think it is not a matter for the “heart.” And there are many of us who have no dog in the hunt, who would just like to know which, if any, of the gods do really exist, and what, if anything, they have been or are up to. The “heart” has little to do with that, and if you’ve ever examined one, you know it’s a bloody mess. ---

**Author:** ![Faizal\_Ali](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/faizal_ali/32/12416_2.png) [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 8:40pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/126 "2022-11-22T20:40:32Z")

> [@Audrey](#): > > Near-death experiences, by their very definition, occur at a time of > unconsciousness and even clinical death with an absent heartbeat. Speaking both > medically and logically, having a highly lucid experience while unconscious or clinically > dead should be impossible. Again: An absent heartbeat does _not_ mean absent brain activity. Why is this so complicated for some people to understand? Here’s an interesting article that I recently encountered. What is significant about it is that the author of the study, Sam Parnia, is someone who is often cited by those who believe in NDE’s as evidence for dualism. Yet look what he found: > Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and elsewhere, the study involved 567 men and women whose hearts stopped beating while hospitalized and who received CPR between May 2017 and March 2020 in the United States and United Kingdom. Despite immediate treatment, fewer than 10 percent recovered sufficiently to be discharged from the hospital. > > Survivors reported having unique lucid experiences, including a perception of separation from the body, observing events without pain or distress, and a meaningful evaluation of life, including of their actions, intentions, and thoughts toward others. The researchers found these experiences of death to be different from hallucinations, delusions, illusions, dreams, or CPR-induced consciousness. > > The work also included tests for hidden brain activity. A key finding was the discovery of spikes of brain activity, including so-called gamma, delta, theta, alpha, and beta waves up to an hour into CPR. Some of these brain waves normally occur when people are conscious and performing higher mental functions, including thinking, memory retrieval, and conscious perception. > > “These recalled experiences and brain wave changes may be the first signs of the so-called near-death experience, and we have captured them for the first time in a large study,” says [Sam Parnia, MD, PhD](https://nyulangone.org/doctors/1467610337/sam-parnia), the lead study investigator and an intensive care physician, who is also an associate professor in the [Department of Medicine](https://med.nyu.edu/departments-institutes/medicine) at NYU Langone Health, as well as the organization’s director of critical care and resuscitation research. “Our results offer evidence that while on the brink of death and in a coma, people undergo a unique inner conscious experience, including awareness without distress.” > > Identifying measureable electrical signs of lucid and heightened brain activity, together with similar stories of recalled death experiences, suggests that the human sense of self and consciousness, much like other biological body functions, may not stop completely around the time of death, adds Dr. Parnia. The study has not yet been published, but if it passes peer review it should put an end to the misconception that NDE’s occur in the absence of brain activity. > **[Lucid Dying: Patients Recall Death Experiences During CPR](https://nyulangone.org/news/lucid-dying-patients-recall-death-experiences-during-cpr)** > > NYU Langone study shows one in five people who survive CPR after cardiac arrest may describe lucid experiences of death. Learn more. ---

**Author:** ![Tim](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/tim/32/9381_2.png) [@Tim](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Tim)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2022, 1:44pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/127 "2022-11-23T13:44:14Z")

> [@Audrey](#): > > Hey @Tim thanks for your reply. I am curious though how there can be an intelligent process such as natural selection that will “work to develop them” if there is no fundamental force of intelligence that is the source of the universe? Natural Selection isn’t “an intelligent process” (except perhaps metaphorically) – it is a mindless brute force process of trial and error. ---

**Author:** ![Dan\_Eastwood](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/dan_eastwood/32/2368_2.png) [@Dan\_Eastwood](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Dan_Eastwood)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2022, 5:21am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/128 "2022-11-25T05:21:29Z")

2 posts were merged into an existing topic: [The Argument Clinic](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-argument-clinic/15561/46) ---

**Author:** ![Eddie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f07891/32.png) [@Eddie](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Eddie)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2022, 7:19am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/130 "2022-11-24T07:19:01Z")

> [@Audrey](#): > > @nwrickert Thanks! Although I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian, all that I mean by “God” for the purpose of this discussion is something like what the Stoics and other ancient philosophers considered the “logos” - an intelligent, providential force Who must be, in my opinion, also inherently relational given that we our relational. So, in other words, I mean by “God” a force capable of creating the universe we live in that contains rationality and relationality. Welcome, Audrey! It’s great to see here a younger person (an inference based on your picture), a woman (of whom we don’t have nearly enough posting here), and an Eastern Orthodox Christian (of whom we don’t have many posting here, perhaps none at all). I’m respectful of the Orthodox tradition (which has much overlap with my own Anglican tradition), and who knows, I may end up there some day. I like your generic definition of God, which keeps the discussion at a level that is not likely to degenerate into quarreling about Noah’s Flood and so on – as all too often has happened on sites where science and religion are discussed. I have not read the book by Luke Barnes mentioned above, but there are other books which make fine-tuning arguments, including _Nature’s Destiny_ by Michael Denton (and six other shorter books by Denton published by the Discovery Institute). So you can add those to your long-term reading list. I agree with some of the others about the need to distinguish between philosophical and scientific arguments. It might be the case, for example, that there are no valid scientific arguments to God, but that there are valid philosophical arguments to God – arguments which start from accurate descriptions of the world as given by current science. For the traditional Christian, “scientific” arguments for God in the modern sense (using the meaning of “science” currently operating among most scientists) are not all that important, since there were already arguments for the existence of God coming from theologians and philosophers long before modern science arose. So even if there is no way directly from scientific facts to God, it doesn’t mean there is no way of reasoning to God. You can find such reasoning in the Church Fathers and in Aquinas and probably (though I have not consulted the texts) in the medieval Orthodox tradition. On the other hand, it might be argued that the particular discoveries of modern science, including those that suggest a finely tuned universe and those that indicate the astounding complexity (far beyond anything William Paley ever dreamed of) of living systems, though not sufficient to prove the existence of God, should incline a dispassionate observer to at least suspect some overriding design proceeding from some sort of intelligence. I look forward to hearing more from you here. And if you know others from the Orthodox tradition who have religion/science questions, or have already done some study in this area from an Orthodox point of view, by all means send them here. I’ll now reply to a comment by one of the others who responded to you: > [@structureoftruth](#): > > Short answer: yes. Not that belief in an intelligent designer is obsolete, of course, but the evidence for evolution is overwhelmingly strong. As stated, this sentence implies that intelligent design is incompatible with the existence of “evolution.” But that depends on the meaning of “evolution.” Intelligent design is not incompatible with “evolution” in the sense of “descent with modification” (which is what Darwin talked about), and it’s not even incompatible with “universal common descent” (as ID proponents such as Michael Behe and William Dembski have made clear). It’s incompatible only with utterly unguided and unplanned evolutionary change. Matthew seems to realize that “design” and “evolution” aren’t necessarily incompatible, however, because in his next sentence, he suggests that an intelligent designer “chose to design by means of evolution.” However, without an unpacking of what Matthew means by “evolution”, it’s hard to say what that involves. Certainly there are people, such as Michael Denton (apparently a Deist) and Francis Collins (an evangelical Christian) who would say that God creates through evolution. But it appears that Denton and Collins conceive of the workings of evolution in at least partly different ways. Sorting out all the different proposed ways of combining a doctrine of creation with notions of evolution is a large task, and one I’ve spent about 15 years on, so if you’re interested in that combination, be prepared to do lots of reading! Once again, Audrey, glad to see you posting here! ---

> [@Faizal\_Ali](#): > > Would you find that a satisfactory explanation? If not, you should be aware that it is the equivalent of every theistic “explanation” offered for everything, ever. I’m pleased to see this attempt to avoid dogmatic generalizations. 🙂 ---

**Author:** ![Faizal\_Ali](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/faizal_ali/32/12416_2.png) [@Faizal\_Ali](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Faizal_Ali)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2022, 3:24pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549/132 "2022-11-24T15:24:10Z")

> [@Eddie](#): > > I’m pleased to see this attempt to avoid dogmatic generalizations. The video below provides an example of what ought to be considered an explanation for how the trick is done: ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/peacefulscience/original/2X/2/201c1948af41a339cf091f7cb973cac256f139a3.jpeg "7 Famous Magic Tricks Finally Explained") Now, kindly provide a similarly detailed and specific explanation of how a god has done any specific thing. Create a universe, raise a guy from the dead, build a bacterial flagellum, anything at all. Your choice. Mind you, I am _not_ asking for an argument intended to convince someone _that_ a god did this thing. I am asking for an explanation of _how_ it was done. Thanks in advance. [Previous page](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549.md?page=5) [Next page](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-most-current-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-god/15549.md?page=7)