| Subject: One quick comment |
Author:
Duane
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Date Posted: 09/13/04 10:20am
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "Ingoring the substance" on 09/13/04 12:17am
Wade and all:
Wanted to comment on this part of the exchange:
>>>Nonetheless, we have highly sophisticated mathematics
>>>imprinted in the universe that did not have to
>exist.
>>
>>No, it didn't have to exist, but it does. The question
>>is why.
>
>Precisely. Theism offers explanatory power here.
Qualities of a good theory are:
1) explanatory power
2) predictive power
3) falsifiability
Theism offers MANY explanations about MANY things - for example, I might say that, "Lightning occurs because God is angry and needs to punish anything that's tall for trying to reach Heaven by zapping it with Godly Electricity!!!"
Yep - that's explanatory power for you. And, maybe even: "The prevalence of AIDS is so much significantly higher in Africa than it is in the rest of the world because God is punishing the Africans for their heathen ways."
Well, that's certainly an explanation.
How about predictive power? Well, I'm kind of at a loss for this one... Exactly what phenomena should we expect to see if we assume that God exists? Wade? Anyone?
And finally, the real doozy - falsifiability. Damn. Theism just isn't falsifiable. If God never, ever, ever shows His face, we can't ever disprove it. Can you even describe a situation, no matter how bizarre or unlikely, in which we'd be able to say, "Yep - that objectively disproves the existence of God." I can't.
Name me a scientific theory, and I can come up with a situation in which we'd be able to say, "Yep - that pretty much shoots that theory in the foot. It's false!"
Without all three a theory isn't any good.
Duane
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