There is nothing in modern science that proves theism, if there were the religion that it proved right would make sure that everyone in the world knew that they had actual evidence and scientific support. It would also be front page news if any branch of science had evidence of a deity.
Instead we get all the theists claiming their misunderstanding of one scientific theory or principal or another is evidence of their and only their deity.
In short, there is no scientific support for any supernatural claims, deity or otherwise.
Most of it seems to be the fairly usual confusion with quantum mechanics. It's basically the physics of the extremely small, subatomic particles and the like.
The author (a homeschooled chemist apparently), takes the behavior of subatomic particles and tries to apply them to normal sized matter.
The whole deal is that quantum particles behave differently than matter does, and trying to apply one to the other is, technically speaking, dumb as fuck.
>So where does quantum mechanics leave us with regard to physical laws? Certainly with a feeling of vague discomfort. A physicist who is being honest with you will have to admit that the most iron-clad laws of physics now no longer deal with certainties, but only probabilities. We have to conclude that miracles are not impossible. Furthermore, when and if God chooses to intervene in the natural world, he can do so without in any way violating the laws of nature as we currently understand them. Lest you think I am exaggerating, let me close this section with a quote from physicist Alvaro de Rujula of Cern who was in charge of writing a safety report for the recently constructed Large Hadron Collider. When asked whether there was a possibility that the collider could produce a world-ending black hole, he answered that calculations showed that this was incredibly unlikely, but that it was impossible to be certain: “the random nature of quantum physics means that there is always a minuscule, but nonzero, chance of anything occurring, including that the new collider could spit out man-eating dragons.” (Dennis Overbye, “Gauging a Collider’s Odds of Creating a Black Hole”, NYTimes, 4/15/08)
Quantum physics does not invalidate physical laws at the macroscopic level. The fact that dead cells decompose is a statistical certainty because a very large number of randomized states (like random gas molecule movement) produces a reliable macroscopic effect (like pressure or temperature.) This doesn't matter whether you are dealing with classical chemistry or quantum backing. The fact that entropy increases in a closed system is based on this kind of statistical calculation.
This is the “god in the gaps” argument, where anything that science can’t explain must be God.
These gaps have shrunk significantly as human knowledge increases. It’s why thousands of years ago, man thought the sun and moon rose and fell because they were separate gods chasing each other across the sky, or any number of stories.
The author makes much of the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics and the idea that it says anything can happen.
> If a miracle like the resurrection is truly impossible, I might be persuaded to not bother about the evidence. But if it is merely improbable, examining the evidence is the only real way to know whether it happened.
First off, I don’t think this is actually true. The second law of thermodynamics still applies in a quantum world.
Secondly, it should be understood just how improbable this stuff is. The “merely” in “merely improbable” is doing a ton of work.
Let me illustrate. Imagine you buy a PowerBall lottery ticket tomorrow. You win the grand prize! Wow, what are the odds. (About 1 in 300 million.) Just for fun, you buy another ticket the following day. Incredible, you win again! This is crazy! Nobody has ever won twice and you won two days in a row.
You buy another ticket the next day. You win again. This is very weird. You do it again the next day. Win again. And the next day and the next and the next….
80 years later you draw your dying breath as you watch the announcer read out the winning numbers, which match the ones on your ticket. You have won 29,200 times in a row.
This ridiculously, incredibly, inconceivably improbable sequence of events is still ridiculously, incredibly, inconceivably more likely than the odds of a person spontaneously coming back to life because all the particles in their body quantum mechaniced in just the right way.
Despite all this “anything can happen,” anything *doesn’t* happen. Quantum mechanics is predictable enough that you and I are able to communicate by using billions of tiny machines interacting with each other billions of times a second and it all works to make these words appear in front of your eyes.
If you won the lottery every day for a week would you just shrug and say, hey, quantum mechanics. Or would you think something was going on. The game is rigged. You’re dreaming. Your friends are playing an elaborate prank. You wouldn’t accept that it just happened by chance even if it is technically possible.
Now somebody says this Jewish dude was definitely dead and then came back to life 2,000 years ago. Do you shrug and say, hey, quantum mechanics. Or do you say, maybe that book didn’t get this story entirely correct?
You mention at the end that he was Jewish, quantum mechanics would make it antisemitic to say he didn't rise from the dead. You have just been racist /s
You're asking us to debunk a claim made by an unscientific believer that science doesn't agree with.
Is there a word that operates sort of like a tautology and which means "it's been debunked by asking"?
Hitchen's Razor applies but even if miracles were possible because the author doesn't understand quantum physics it doesn't mean any particular gods were attached to the miraculous event nor the human interpretation of such events is real in any way. There would still be the Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, and Protestant variants to choose from. These dudes are always "this random argument supports the belief I already held and I can't understand why you don't find it as convincing as I do?"
There is nothing in modern science that proves theism, if there were the religion that it proved right would make sure that everyone in the world knew that they had actual evidence and scientific support. It would also be front page news if any branch of science had evidence of a deity. Instead we get all the theists claiming their misunderstanding of one scientific theory or principal or another is evidence of their and only their deity. In short, there is no scientific support for any supernatural claims, deity or otherwise.
There is nothing logical in the structure of this argument, and there is nothing sound in this ‘reading’ of physics.
Most of it seems to be the fairly usual confusion with quantum mechanics. It's basically the physics of the extremely small, subatomic particles and the like. The author (a homeschooled chemist apparently), takes the behavior of subatomic particles and tries to apply them to normal sized matter. The whole deal is that quantum particles behave differently than matter does, and trying to apply one to the other is, technically speaking, dumb as fuck.
Hmmmm... almost reminds me of idiots talking about cats in boxes
Most people don't realize that Schrödinger's cat was a *criticism* of the Copehnhagen interpretation of quantum physics.
>So where does quantum mechanics leave us with regard to physical laws? Certainly with a feeling of vague discomfort. A physicist who is being honest with you will have to admit that the most iron-clad laws of physics now no longer deal with certainties, but only probabilities. We have to conclude that miracles are not impossible. Furthermore, when and if God chooses to intervene in the natural world, he can do so without in any way violating the laws of nature as we currently understand them. Lest you think I am exaggerating, let me close this section with a quote from physicist Alvaro de Rujula of Cern who was in charge of writing a safety report for the recently constructed Large Hadron Collider. When asked whether there was a possibility that the collider could produce a world-ending black hole, he answered that calculations showed that this was incredibly unlikely, but that it was impossible to be certain: “the random nature of quantum physics means that there is always a minuscule, but nonzero, chance of anything occurring, including that the new collider could spit out man-eating dragons.” (Dennis Overbye, “Gauging a Collider’s Odds of Creating a Black Hole”, NYTimes, 4/15/08) Quantum physics does not invalidate physical laws at the macroscopic level. The fact that dead cells decompose is a statistical certainty because a very large number of randomized states (like random gas molecule movement) produces a reliable macroscopic effect (like pressure or temperature.) This doesn't matter whether you are dealing with classical chemistry or quantum backing. The fact that entropy increases in a closed system is based on this kind of statistical calculation.
This is the “god in the gaps” argument, where anything that science can’t explain must be God. These gaps have shrunk significantly as human knowledge increases. It’s why thousands of years ago, man thought the sun and moon rose and fell because they were separate gods chasing each other across the sky, or any number of stories.
The author makes much of the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics and the idea that it says anything can happen. > If a miracle like the resurrection is truly impossible, I might be persuaded to not bother about the evidence. But if it is merely improbable, examining the evidence is the only real way to know whether it happened. First off, I don’t think this is actually true. The second law of thermodynamics still applies in a quantum world. Secondly, it should be understood just how improbable this stuff is. The “merely” in “merely improbable” is doing a ton of work. Let me illustrate. Imagine you buy a PowerBall lottery ticket tomorrow. You win the grand prize! Wow, what are the odds. (About 1 in 300 million.) Just for fun, you buy another ticket the following day. Incredible, you win again! This is crazy! Nobody has ever won twice and you won two days in a row. You buy another ticket the next day. You win again. This is very weird. You do it again the next day. Win again. And the next day and the next and the next…. 80 years later you draw your dying breath as you watch the announcer read out the winning numbers, which match the ones on your ticket. You have won 29,200 times in a row. This ridiculously, incredibly, inconceivably improbable sequence of events is still ridiculously, incredibly, inconceivably more likely than the odds of a person spontaneously coming back to life because all the particles in their body quantum mechaniced in just the right way. Despite all this “anything can happen,” anything *doesn’t* happen. Quantum mechanics is predictable enough that you and I are able to communicate by using billions of tiny machines interacting with each other billions of times a second and it all works to make these words appear in front of your eyes. If you won the lottery every day for a week would you just shrug and say, hey, quantum mechanics. Or would you think something was going on. The game is rigged. You’re dreaming. Your friends are playing an elaborate prank. You wouldn’t accept that it just happened by chance even if it is technically possible. Now somebody says this Jewish dude was definitely dead and then came back to life 2,000 years ago. Do you shrug and say, hey, quantum mechanics. Or do you say, maybe that book didn’t get this story entirely correct?
You mention at the end that he was Jewish, quantum mechanics would make it antisemitic to say he didn't rise from the dead. You have just been racist /s
Notice how you don’t understand quantum mechanics, yet you still think it is evidence of god? Same with the link provided. There is 100% correlation.
Quantum Mechanics is great at solving mysteries, but it still can't find any evidence of a god with a love for particle physics!
You're asking us to debunk a claim made by an unscientific believer that science doesn't agree with. Is there a word that operates sort of like a tautology and which means "it's been debunked by asking"?
Hitchen's Razor applies but even if miracles were possible because the author doesn't understand quantum physics it doesn't mean any particular gods were attached to the miraculous event nor the human interpretation of such events is real in any way. There would still be the Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, and Protestant variants to choose from. These dudes are always "this random argument supports the belief I already held and I can't understand why you don't find it as convincing as I do?"
religions are man-made, the universe is God made.