[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

You are approaching the question of proof of Gods existance as a scientific endevour. If the scientific community launched a study on the existance of God, and found sufficient proof of His existance then you would accept those findings.

Even if you did not participate in the study yourself? you would accept the findings of scientists (assuming of course you were allowed knowledge of the raw data, equations used, methods employed...) ?

If I had to believe something (and remember, "no belief" is a legitimate position), I'd tend to believe a well-reasoned study, conducted by competent parties, with compelling evidence and reproducible methodology. I don't put much faith in crackpots. But are you saying that you would ignore such a study entirely, instead putting all your faith in religion?

Originally Posted by Ken Wittlief

Are you aware that science as a discipline deliberately chooses not to include the possibility of Gods existance in all of its fields of study? Science studys that which is physical in nature (matter and energy), and is observable, and is repeatable (control-able in the lab, or controlled observations). God is none of these.

Where does it say that God is not observable (Moses conversed with God on the mountain) and not physical (what did they nail to the cross, if not Jesus)? And repeatablity refers to the principle that if I find something, I describe it so that someone else can duplicate my methods, and we can see if they find the same thing—this in no way limits the search for God. Science does not exclude God any more than it excludes unicorns; if evidence exists, it can be studied. So, are you therefore saying that there is no evidence?

Originally Posted by Ken Wittlief

In physics labs you run experiments, and you run them over and over. If you drop a ball ten times and it accelerates at 32'/S^2, and you record the velocity over time, but one of your trials has very different results - they teach you to ignore that data. That trial is tossed out, and attributed to sensor error, operator error... and the remaining trails are averaged to get the 'right' answer.

Why? because the one trial that produced 'unacceptable results' cannot be repeated. It cannot be explained. We dont know what caused it (impact with a mason, black hole flying by the earth, or the hand of God) so science ignores it and pretends it didnt happen.

Are you saying that science would systematically ignore God's influence, because God's influence is limited to occasional and seemingly insignificant effects? What about a plague of locusts—is this an outlier? A great flood, a new world created in a week, a booming voice from the heavens; what else could God do to get noticed by scientists. It is absurd to think that scientists are ignoring God because his past exploits have tended to be subtle.

As for the type of research you've focused on, instead consider ornithology: an expedition is organized to some godforsaken jungle, and there, a team of scientists looks for evidence of some godforsaken bird. They're not necessarily running a clinical trial, but they're still looking for evidence.

Originally Posted by Ken Wittlief

In a way you have slammed the door shut. Science is not attempting to prove or disprove the existance of God, and you say that is the only proof you will accept. That would be like saying I will only belive OBL exists when the FBI finds him. The FBI does not look for people outside the United States. They never will look for him. The CIA will, the military will, Interpol will, but not the FBI.

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Don't conflate the fact that I have outlined an impractical scenario with an attempt to divert attention, or dodge the question; I have merely set the standard of proof at the same level demanded of any other scientific study.

Can you fault scientists for believing that they won't be making productive use of their time in proving the existence of something for which it is exceedingly difficult to even gather data? I've outlined the scientific approach to finding proof of God's existence; perhaps they, as I, feel that there's simply too much to test to actually find him and show that he's not an impostor.

Originally Posted by Ken Wittlief

Science, as a discipline, assumes there is no God - not from a moral sense, but for the sake of being able to run controllable and repeatable experiments and observations. Science would not be able to draw any conclusion otherwise unless they tacked 'God willing' onto the end of every theory or law - so they simply assume there is no God.

We can make up any fanciful, unprovable thing, and then be forced to qualify our science with "'thing' willing". The scientists' assumption is that there is not enough evidence for acceptance of God: therefore they don't factor God (or unicorns, or fairies, or talking animals) into their science.

Originally Posted by Ken Wittlief

Its also interesting that you focus on evidence of Gods existance, but for some reason you dont even consider finding God Himself. If God came to your door and revealed Himself to you personally, you would reject Him? You would drag Him off to the nearest university to have Him tested by the physics department?

You would not be able to determine by yourself if you were standing face to face with the Creator of the Universe?

You would? If the entity says, "I am the creator of the universe", and then stands there, expecting you to genuflect, or at least look impressed, do you? You just accept it? How do you know it's not Satan? How do you know it's not me?

As for me, I realize that there's a another little problem: what if it's a powerful alien (hypothetically), and not God, but the alien can do 99% of the things God can purportedly do. It's likely very hard to construct a test that can distinguish the two, especially on a face-to-face, conversational basis. If the entity shows off several of his parlour tricks (parting of Lake Ontario, etc.), I might be impressed, and might even say that for lack of a better category, he's a god—but we'd have to figure out something about his history to figure out whether or not he's your god.

How do we recognize people? We know their appearance, or their voice, or know something about the way they behave, etc.—but how can you know these things about God? Do you just read scripture, and hope that you can piece together a description that fits? You must have heard of people who claim to see images of religious figures in mundane items—windows, stains, burn marks, etc.—what are they recognizing, the face of God, or a stupid pattern in a mundane object?

So, to cut to the heart of the uncertainty, I could ask the purported god to prove himself to me; then, at least, I would only have to figure out whether or not he's lying. But isn't that just another nearly-unanswerable question? Sometimes, it's better to just admit that you don't know. It's not exciting, but at least it's intellectually honest.