If we were to prove the existence of God...

[Award Winning Boss]

Would religion cease to exist?

I know this might sound silly but would religion then become a science rather than a belief ? Remember that this is all hypothetical

Would that mean religious people are correct in thinking that God exists and no longer have a belief they have knowledge or would atheists still think they are correct since God is proof making the previous mindset of religion (as a belief) false?

Just poorly formulated thought i had in my mind

close it if you think that's necessary

[Keel]

I think Richard Dawkins in this interview conveys the idea that if we were to prove the existence of 'God' it would be an evolved science which does it. In other words it is science that proves the existence of God; religious people were right to guess the existence of God but their only justification was faith. Thus, there would still be a clear division between science and religion based on methodology in attaining this truth. Secondly, he implies that this 'God' we proved to exist would be turned into a law of science.

Go to 4:40.

Edited November 15, 2011 by Keel

[URA BOAT]

look around you, the nature that God created. science proves to us that even with all of this amazing technology people find new mind blowing hard to comprehend theory. i believe that no big bang or evolution could produce something as perfect as this world(you might be thinking that this world is not perfect, but when we get down to it, it's not the nature that is not perfect its the human interference that ruin everything perfect just because God gave humans the right of choice) yes this word is perfect. look at the human brain. the chemicals that are produced to control the human body. or lets look at something bigger the sun at a perfect distance the slightest shift will kill every thing alive, or lets look at the moon. moon= tides=wind=cooling and heating of different locations= inhabitant places...i hop you see what i'm trying to say....the more you explore with an open-mind the more you will become convinced that God dose exist.

[Ezak]

It seems to me that you are only arguing that the nature is perfect because that it is fit for humans.

[ChloeAnne95]

I'm guessing most atheists are after empirical evidence when it comes to clarification of anything, therefore, if there was scientific evidence that God existed, I imagine most would be swayed to believe it.

Personally, I don't know about the whole God thing. The world is amazing, biologically stunning. Part of me thinks a higher being would've had to make it all, but, part of me wonders - how could someone or something manage to create anything to such tiny detail and in harmony...?

Re: Evolving into a science - not sure...

I will make my mine up later. .

xxx.

[aldld]

the more you explore with an open-mind the more you will become convinced that God dose exist.

I don't mean to start what may lead into a flame war, but I'd disagree with that. You'd have to be fairly narrow-minded to claim that the world is "too perfect" and therefore "God did it" despite all the evidence to the contrary. After all, with a sample size of only one universe, we don't really have anything to compare it to so we aren't exactly the best judges of what's "perfect" or not anyway.

[ChloeAnne95]

After all, with a sample size of only one universe, we don't really have anything to compare it to so we aren't exactly the best judges of what's "perfect" or not anyway.

Completely agreeeeeee.

[URA BOAT]

their are stuff that we don't need to compare to know something. look at electric shock and the pain that follows, you don't need to go around checking all of the outlets getting shocked time after time to at last come to a decision that it is dis-conferring and painful. same here you don't need to look at other universes to say the the nature is perfect. i will agree that their is different levels of perfection, just like different levels of pain of electric shocks, but for us humans this level of perfection is pretty darn good. maybe it is the lowest level of perfection but even in that case for me and my brain this much perfection is to much to handle. you might say the you know it all but you know that that is a lie. even the smartest person dose not know half of the information that their is out there. if it got any more perfect i don't believe that our brains could handle it. people spend life and dedicate it to study only one thing and still they manage to find stuff that keeps them interested. lets say a doctor that studies human heart, even after a life long study their would be things that this person will still wonder about. their will still be stuff that he would understand.

now can you answer to me, is that not amazingly perfect.

[Ezak]

So if we manage to figure everything out, god will cease to exist? Wow, never figured. This is so much god of the gaps it's not even funny.

[citizenoftheuniverse]

I think this thread has digressed quite a bit from the original topic... But I agree with what Richard Dawkins said, that if God were discovered it would be more religion than science. Though of course there would still be the question about has this god created an afterlife, is there a "correct" religion and does this god care enough about humans to impose moral restrictions etc.

[URA BOAT]

So if we manage to figure everything out, god will cease to exist? Wow, never figured. This is so much god of the gaps it's not even funny.

i am certain that you, i, or any one else for that matter will never figure out everything. your brain can't even grasp the a simply idea of the size of the universes, and your trying to tell me that everything will get figured out. in this i see the hand of God the one who created everything from the smallest molecule, atom, participial, to the universes, galaxies, and so on.

[Ezak]

You base your existence of god off the assumption that everything is too perfect to have been come to by chance. Well tell me how you define perfect, is something perfect if it's working?

Edited November 28, 2011 by Ezak

[aldld]

You base your existence of god off the assumption that everything is too perfect to have been come to by chance. Well tell me how you define perfect, is something perfect if it's working?

Exactly. He's just saying "we don't know why such and such happens, therefore God did it." AKA "God of the gaps" (which you mentioned earlier). As scientific advances continue we close these gaps, and the idea that God did any of these things in the first place turns out to be false. Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. 1000 years ago most people would have said "because God", but now we know that it's due to the gravity of the sun and the moon and all that jazz. Same thing with many other scientific phenomena. As we discover more, God becomes a less and less likely explanation for any of the things which we still do not know.

Also, you talk about a person's inability to understand the entirety of a certain field. And I agree, of course nobody can know EVERY single thing about some field of study. But the thing about science is that large groups of people collectively gather more knowledge about the subject, and we're not limited to the memory of one person that'll disappear when he/she dies anyway. Science as a whole will continue on to solve more and more problems (it has a pretty good track record so far) and thus the gaps in our knowledge, and therefore God, will become smaller and smaller over time.

Sorry, this went a bit off topic but it felt somewhat necessary.

[Hexa]

I like the world we live in, and thus from my perception it is "perfect". But really, what does "perfect" mean other then a perception of the world. Just because it's subjective does not dismiss it's value.

But even if something is "perfect" how does that prove that god made it and thus exists?

If you bash random (completely random) keys on the keyboard if you did this for an infinite period of time, you would end up typing out plays by shakespeare and other works perfectly. Considering we're dealing with probabilities on an infinite scale it is just as possible that perfection would come to exist out of chaos as it is possible that imperfection would come out of it.

Sorry for offtopic >_<

Anyway, what exactly do you mean by god being discovered to exist? Do you mean in the grand architect sort or holy scriptures make sure to ask for forgiveness sort?

[Sandwich]

Considering we're dealing with probabilities on an infinite scale it is just as possible that perfection would come to exist out of chaos as it is possible that imperfection would come out of it.

Just to add onto this point, the nature of things is such that life is selected for by the conditions in which it finds itself. If it weren't perfect for its environment, it would die or be competed out by other creatures which were. Therefore, and given that the environment preceded life, I think it is fair to say that life has moulded itself to the environment. Many aspects of what people consider perfection is the consequence of natural selection - of course it's perfectly suited, anything which wasn't would not have been successful enough to make it through.

Arguably only 2 very unlikely events would have had to happen in the whole history of life in order for things to be as they are today, all else being a natural course from that point. Firstly, the formation of the first cell. Secondly, the formation of the first eukaryotic cell - the day something similar to a mitochondrion decided it would be favourable to live within one of its competitors. Given the extreme length of the history of time and the fact that the latter event can be explained through mutual energy v.s. environmental protection benefit (Hydrogen Hypothesis) I don't find it greatly unlikely.

In short, that the world is 'perfect' is a reflection of life adapting to live on earth, rather than the other way around. The earth did not arrive with life in mind. Just look at sulphurous volcanos deep, deep under the sea and the fact that creatures still survive down there, metabolising their energy in a completely different way to those on the surface, living in completely different temperatures of soaringly high degrees. That most certainly isn't a perfect environment! Unless you're one of the deep-sea dwellers, who have adapted to survive down there, just as we survive in our own environment [which would kill them]

[hklee321]

How is it possible that we believe in something that we don't even know actually existed? Yes, there are 'accounts' and what not about gods and such, but I think that it is a load of BS. I mean, believing in a higher being that we aren't even sure existed is like believing in unicorns. Yes, I am serious. People can write stories like if they have seen one, and they can have "Unicorn-worship groups", but that doesn't mean in any way that they are real! Yes, there are bibles. But who knows if the scriptures, or whatever the insides of the bible are called, are real? Yes, it has been passed down from people, but who's to say it isn't the modern-day equivalent to gossip? Things are changed over time, and obviously there is scientific proof of evolution. There isn't proof that everything in the bible is real. Besides, how do we know that the inside of a bible isn't simply a made-up story? It's like reading People magazine; The writers of that mag like to pretend that the gossip they put into it is real, but it isn't. It is just a load of BS that they put out to make money off of.

I don't think calling others' religion a "BS" was a good choice and so far off the topic. I don't mind if you believe in it or not, but please don't go around saying such things. It offends people.

[kim luffy]

Well, if God DID exist, wouldn't that just strengthen their faith? i think most atheists would disagree since they've been so caught up in saying that God doesn't exist that their ego's will not allow them to believe that. If you get what i'm saying. I mean, i'm an atheist and in my own opinion, i doubt i'd care or mind if he did or didn't.

[aldld]

Well, if God DID exist, wouldn't that just strengthen their faith?

Technically if it were proven that god did exist, there would be no more need for faith since any rational person who is skeptical of the claims of a religious organization could simply present them with the evidence, and if this person thinks rationally and the evidence is sufficient, they would at least take it into consideration. You could also argue that even if a certain premise is found to be true, unquestioning faith is still irrational. Of course not everybody is rational so you'd end up with people following religious beliefs for both irrational and rational reasons. (not counting cultural/social pressures, or other forms of utility of religion, etc.)

i think most atheists would disagree since they've been so caught up in saying that God doesn't exist that their ego's will not allow them to believe that.

Atheism really just means a lack of belief in a god/gods, and there's a difference between saying "I don't believe god exists" and saying "I believe god does not exist". The latter is of course a much stronger statement, whereas a simple lack of belief does not necessarily entail a belief of nonexistence. There's also the question of what a "belief" really is, but for this purpose I'll take it to mean to mean holding the position that a certain proposition is true. So if you don't believe that a certain statement is true, it doesn't necessarily mean you believe that it's false, it could simply be that we just don't know, which doesn't quite justify a strong belief either way.

From there I guess you get various "categories": Agnostic atheists believe that we don't know for certain whether or not a god exists (some might say it's impossible to know for certain). So it's more useful to reason in terms of probabilities. Agnostic atheists would claim that, given what we currently know, either the existence of god is unlikely or that, since there is very little evidence to support the existence of a god (as described by any religion), it's irrational to hold the strong belief that a god does exist. As far as I know, most atheists (myself included) tend to fall into this category since it mainly stems from a lack of belief/knowledge with the understanding that, with sufficient evidence to oppose their current position, they would have to reevaluate what they believe.

So really, the beliefs of most atheists do not necessarily assert a strong belief that there is no deity since it is generally based on reason, rather than preaching "god does not exist". I mean I'm sure there are some people who are like that. Richard Dawkins even formulated a spectrum of theistic probability, a scale from 1 to 7 with strong claims of knowledge at both extreme ends. From the the article:

Dawkins argues that while there appear to be plenty of individuals that would place themselves as "1" due to the strictness of religious doctrine against doubt, most atheists do not consider themselves "7" because atheism arises from a lack of evidence and evidence can always change a thinking person's mind.

[krusader]

If God was proven to exist religion would still continue to exist since, we really haven't proven if God is indeed what religious scriptures claim it to be. So we would be having the same divide as we would be have now, since we didn't answer few questions:

a. Does God even care about us or does he view as some discarded science project?

b. Did we make direct contact with God: e.g: conversation, or some sort of transmission of information, which proves our religious texts (e.g bible) right or wrong?

c. Does 'God' hold any power over us?

If we discovered if god, and discovered he doesn't care whether we do 'good' or 'bad' religion would cease to exist. Since all religions have some form of punishment and reward system based around divine rules.

Edited March 16, 2012 by krusader

[krystinawashereXD]

How is it possible that we believe in something that we don't even know actually existed? Yes, there are 'accounts' and what not about gods and such, but I think that it is a load of BS. I mean, believing in a higher being that we aren't even sure existed is like believing in unicorns. Yes, I am serious. People can write stories like if they have seen one, and they can have "Unicorn-worship groups", but that doesn't mean in any way that they are real! Yes, there are bibles. But who knows if the scriptures, or whatever the insides of the bible are called, are real? Yes, it has been passed down from people, but who's to say it isn't the modern-day equivalent to gossip? Things are changed over time, and obviously there is scientific proof of evolution. There isn't proof that everything in the bible is real. Besides, how do we know that the inside of a bible isn't simply a made-up story? It's like reading People magazine; The writers of that mag like to pretend that the gossip they put into it is real, but it isn't. It is just a load of BS that they put out to make money off of.

I don't think calling others' religion a "BS" was a good choice and so far off the topic. I don't mind if you believe in it or not, but please don't go around saying such things. It offends people.

Oh, crap, I totally didn't realize that. Sorry