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Debate Score:40
Arguments:30
Total Votes:46
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 God of The Gaps (29)

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Lynaldea(1231) pic



God of The Gaps

HOKAY, so I've got a bone to pick with Atheists, and whomever this term applies to. 

There is this ordeal called "God of The Gaps" that supposes that for everything that science cannot explain, is used by some to say "This gives proof for god's existence since it is unknowable, thus far."  

Hence, using God as a means for understanding everything that science has not yet attempted to explain, and/or discovered. EXAMPLE: S C I E N C E = S   I E   C E 

If a scientists (whom does not believe in god), can claim that he/she will one day full comprehend and understand everything (including the "unknowables, like dark matter, dark energy; we know very little of these particular things in the universe), then the "God of The Gaps", somewhat makes sense, yet hardly. However, it does not because one day scientists will never fully understand and "know" all that there is to know. 

And so, the more proper would be "Since a scientist does not and can not know and fully understand everything that which it attempts to understand, then the "God of The Gaps" scenario becomes obsolete." (This is the more proper way, I believe) 

Science is not the end all to anything, and therefore, putting "god" in the gaps that "science has not understood yet" is fucking ridiculous. Ridiculous in the sense that science only "knows" about 4 percent of (their estimated 100 percent) and so therefore, people that believe in GOD should not be considered putting their beliefs in the "gaps that which science has not explained yet." 

Believing in God is similar to a scientist believing dark matter and dark energy is present; we know it's there, we can test it, but we cannot see it, nor feel it (physically), nor taste it, [ECT]. 

So what's the problem? 

        

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3 points

Religions are dying off, it's a nonsense based on stone age myth trying to explain where the thunder comes from, why flood happens... and so on.

It's time to say goodbye to superstitions.

Lynaldea(1231) Disputed
1 point

Time to say goodbye to superstitions....

Time to say goodbye to superstitions....

Say that over and over in your head, as many times as you can to make yourself believe that that's true.

Then wake up, look at the world as it is, and realize that "faith" and/or religious people, will never go away, so long as humans exist.

You can hold on tightly to your beliefs, like others will hold onto their beliefs.

And we'll see whos beliefs hold up.

Have a nice fucking christmas.

2 points

Believing in God is similar to a scientist believing dark matter and dark energy is present; we know it's there, we can test it, but we cannot see it, nor feel it (physically), nor taste it, [ECT].

So what's the problem?

The problem is the four words I bolded in your statement above. "We can test it."

We know that light can be bent in the presence of enough matter- this is called gravitational lensing. We can see several instances of gravitational lensing in many images taken from the Hubble Space Telescope. If we can see how much the light is being bent, and know how much matter it takes to bend light that much, then we know how much matter there is. But, when we look with all the different tools we have, we don't see enough matter to cause this bending of light. There must be matter we don't "see" causing it; and, since we can't see it, we call it dark matter. We can test it by observing it's interaction with things we can see, and we can measure it out to accounting for some 80% of the matter in the known universe.

Can you show me a test for "measuring" God? If not, then no; they're not similar.

Anyway, I feel one of the big problems with the application of "God of the gaps" thinking is that it's based on the premise that mankind (or, more specifically, science) currently knows all it will ever know about the universe. That we're at the apex of knowledge today, and we'll never ever learn anything new. That, a thousand years from now, none of the "gaps" will have been filled in.

If history is any indication, this is a very unstable foundation to base any line of thinking on. Just think of how many supernatural explanations have been superseded by scientific explanations. Now, try to think of how many scientific explanations have been superseded by supernatural explanations.

If you believe science knows only 4 percent, and will never know any more than that, I'd like to know how you come to such a conclusion. Conversely, if you believe science knows 4 percent, but eventually will learn more, then I'd like to know how you determine what the limit is. Will we ever know 5 percent? 10 percent? How about 50 percent? 75? How do you know where we'll stop? And how do you know none of the "gaps" God currently explains won't be filled in by that point?

And that's the problem with "God of the gaps" logic. Rather than supporting your hypothesis with testable evidence, you rely on the lack of knowledge from a competing hypothesis as being sufficient support. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. You actually have to show evidence that you're right, not just that the other person could be wrong.

Lynaldea(1231) Disputed
1 point

You've got me wrong.

I believe science believes it only knows 4 percent, of an imaginary 100 percent, created by scientists, for scientists. NOT THAT science will only know 4 percent, but that it will never know 100 percent.

I believe science will never understand and achieve all that which it seeks and desires; my evidence is the universe is all too grand for the human mind to completely understand, via science. (especially science)

God of the Gaps argument for a creationist is that since science will never achieve and know that which it seeks and desires, then for a person to say "This means that God must be true since there are unknowns." is not far off of the radar of understanding life, yet some scientists refute this so quickly, for evidence do they have that they will figure everything out at some point?

Science claims that for everything it has not known, "god" is used to fill in the gaps of understanding it; yet science will never know everything that which it wants to know.

Finally, this argument is actually sound. The evidence is obvious.

2 points

Science and religion are two sides of the same coin.

The only difference is the individual reasoning.

A religious view is a logical thing to have because giving yourself a strong mythological belief will allow you to have incentive towards living your life well and not be distracted by certain things that would otherwise limit your existence.

A scientific tendency is logical thing to have because the desire to learn the truth greatly contributes to your ability to serve the advancement of the human race, or perhaps just simply serve others by making them happier because of what you discover. (After all, Albert Einstein didn't want the theory of relativity to have irrefutable evidence, but he did not deny the evidence because he wanted to serve others, not himself)

Because of the nature of these two things, I possess both. No need to have a conflict between the two. They both help, in theory, and they both have the potential to limit our advancement. We don't need to eliminate either for the human race to prosper, we simply need to use both wisely.

1 point

Thank you chatturgha for answering in a mature manner, unlike others posting on this debate.

Great post.

1 point

"NO NEED TO HAVE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE TWO."

No need to have conflict between the two.

No need to have conflict between the two.

Where does this leave you?

It keeps you contained, realized, that science and religion can learn and proceed tremendously, if they were to work together as a "team".

"We simply need to use both wisely."

FUCKING AMEN!

Elvira(3446) Banned
1 point

Would this be the same for the FSM, or the Lord Frog?

1 point

You are right. Science probably won't know everything so God is a possibility. Where God in the gaps gets interesting is to look at history. At one point in time, "god" explained almost everything man saw in the natural world. Now, god explains almost nothing because science has shown over and over that in fact it's not "god", and that there is a real, natural explanation. God in the gaps is more relative when you look at that history. Its very difficult to put God in any gap, when science proves over and over that it can fill that gap.

The other thing that gives science "more credit" is because by it's very nature science is constantly trying to prove itself wrong. Scientists are skeptical, admin fallibility, can't rely on faith (feelings), and benefit financially and professorially by proving each other wrong. This is a powerful feedback mechanism that keep scientists and the scientific process honest and on the right track to finding real answers. The faithful cant say the same for their belief in god. As a mater of fact, many religions consider it blasphemy to even "contemplate" that god does not exist.

1 point

Science cannot fill every gap that which it seeks, and even many scientists claim this! The others that believe one day they will understand everything there is to know about the universe are more delusion than a person believing in unicorns, or even a god.

The problem is that things like Dark Matter must exist, whereas God is unnecessary and ridiculous.

I'm not sure I quite understand the OP. Are you arguing that putting God in the gaps of science is justified or unjustified?

2 points

I'm saying that the GOD OF THE GAPS is defined and perceived that "God" explains everything that "science cannot".

I say that since science cannot achieve everything it wants to (and that's to 'understand and observe' the WHOLE universe) and so then having put "God" into the "unknown, the gaps" of science is not proper or right.

Since science is not the end all to "truth", then there are no GAPS.

And so if a person says "Well, since science cannot explain these phenomena, then it must be true."

(The belief in a God or GODS is not so crazy after all)

And I say, who's to say that what these people believe in are as "true" as what science claims to be true.

There is no such thing as GOD OF THE GAPS.

In short, God can exist and does, and science does exist.

2 points

Agree.

And of course there's nothing crazy about concluding that God must be at all. The only crazy is atheism, the stuff of pure irrationalism, pseudo-scientific claptrap imagining that science can affirm or falsify anything beyond the empirical.

There is no such thing as a God of the Gaps. That’s nothing but atheistic baby talk about nothing at all.

The only gaps around here are those in the atheist’s brainless blather.

There once was an atheist operating under the illusion that greater scientific knowledge was the very solution to the problem of infinite material regression. But the more that we learned, the more he got burned by the fact that the problem went on without any definitive resolution . . . in spite of his materialistic delusion.

First, you assert that we can't ever know everything there is to know. Granted, this is probably true, but we don't yet know what sort of things we can't know. There are a few things we can't delve deeply into now, sure, but sometimes it just takes one quick discovery or invention to open up a whole world of knowledge. We don't know when those will happen or what overall impact on our knowledge they will have, so it is foolish to assume that anything we can't yet suss out is...unsussable.

Why is "God of the Gaps" thinking wrong?

a) it is dishonest. It claims we know something that we don't.

b) it is kind of stupid, as it shows favoritism to ignorance.

c) it presupposes a supernatural cause to something before we've even had a good chance to study it.

Lynaldea(1231) Clarified
1 point

You've said it. "but we don't yet know what sort of things we can't know."

This is precisely the point...As much as you agree that sciecne can't know "everything" you say "well we haven't gotten that far yet, so who knows."

My philosophy is not within the realms of "what if", I believe in the "what is"...

WHAT IS is that science does not know everything. And so, therefore, there are "things in this universe" that does not need an ouch of "modern science" to understand it.

THE GOD OF THE GAPS should not exist.

It's sole purpose is blurry; there are no GAPS, anywhere; there are relative truths, and truths, no GAPS. Especially since most parties ought to agree that science is not the end all.

MuckaMcCaw(1970) Disputed
1 point

As much as you agree that sciecne can't know "everything" you say "well we haven't gotten that far yet, so who knows."

Actually, I said we PROBABLY can't know everything. The limits of our ability to learn and understand are unknown as of now, but since we are still discovering new things, we can be assured that we haven't reached them. It is possible that our only true limit is time; that there is simply too much to know for us to know it all before we die off.

Anyway though, what is wrong about saying "we haven't gotten that far yet"? Its honest. Saying that we know for a fact that God is responsible is dishonest. At absolute best he is a hypothesis, and a poor one at that since it is an unfalsifiable hypothesis. The only reason God is even considered capable of doing everything attributed to him is because we include "all powerful" as part of the definition right out of the gate.

My philosophy is not within the realms of "what if", I believe in the "what is"...

You believe in a force that exists outside of the realm of observation, testability and necessity. Your philosophy isn't just "in the realm of 'what if'", it is composed ENTIRELY of possibility instead of confirmed truth.

WHAT IS is that science does not know everything. And so, therefore, there are "things in this universe" that does not need an ouch of "modern science" to understand it.

Ludicrous reasoning. Again, we don't know what we can't know. So there is nothing at this point that is definitively unknowable.

It's sole purpose is blurry

No, its purpose is quite clear: to identify an error in the reasoning of those make the claim. It does not, on its own, refute the claim, it simply says that the reasoning is weak. Example:

Theist: What caused the universe?

Atheist: The Big Bang.

Theist: Well, what caused the Big Bang?

Atheist: We aren't sure, but there are theories...

Theist: You don't know! So it had to be God.

The Theist is ignoring that there are proposals and that those proposals are better supported than God. The theist is also making a fact claim, while failing to support the claim or even undermine the competing claim in any way but "AHA! You don't really know", when the theist his/herself does not really know either.

there are no GAPS, anywhere;

"Gaps" refers to gaps in human knowledge. Are you claiming that there are no gaps in our knowledge?

I bang my head against the wall when i see these types of debates, and the arguments found within them. Science, especially at this stage, can not prove or disprove God. We don't know what to look for. Relgion is just having faith that there is a God, and atheism is the lack of the faith due to uncertainty. If someone really wants to be at the most logical standpoint of the issue, that would be the agnostic perspective "i don't know, so i will not assume to know".

0 points

Please, if you do respond to this debate, stay within the realms of the perspectives being questioned. Not simply "god is no longer needed and nor are the superstitions nor are the FSM." Quite frankly those responses are lame, dull and boring. Thanks.

nummi(1432) Disputed Banned
1 point

Lame, dull, and boring? Yet they are true.

You know what is lame, dull, and boring to me? Always the same idiotic responses in defense of religion/god. Responses that lack logic and a sense of reality completely. Although I have to admit, with their incredible stupidity they are rather funny, if not funny then just entertaining.

As to this debate, stupid. Very stupid.

If there is just one crazy person the person will be sent to a nuthouse. If there's a lot of crazy persons then a new religion is born, as if there's nothing wrong with a lot of them, but if just one then it is a very big and bad thing. Sounds about right, then you look at our world and you see it really is so. Fucked up, right?

If you saw a person talking about some god of candies and all the sweet things, who visits children in their dreams, takes them to a special land of playfulness and happy time, and then plays with them, and if people die they will turn back to children, go to that land, and stay there to play and be happy forever, as if it was actually true, yet giving no evidence, what would you think of that person? Now, if you would see a person talk about the good old jesass and god saying whoever "believes" it will go to a place of peace and happiness and all the good stuff when they die, yet giving no evidence either, what would you then think of that person? First is crazy and the other is not crazy, right? If so then what does that say about you?

Lynaldea(1231) Disputed
1 point

nummi, you're ranting to the wrong person here. You're fucking preaching to the choir. Your opinion is fucking weak.

First of all you're talking shit about extremists here, about corrupt fucktards running some religions. You're clumping together all religions as a whole, using jessas and the christians as your culprit for being "pissed off and annoyed at idiotic responses."

Fuck you for stating my debate is stupid.

You're lame fucking analogies are so weak and dull that you're the fucking one sounding crazy, asshole.

This debate is for not for the generalizing. This debate is specifically questioning the illogical aspects of the "God of The Gaps" ordeal.

This isn't a fucking debate to bash on certain people and their beliefs.

Fuck off nummi.