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Originally Posted by Frosstbyte
The point remains, in a scientific inquiry which you seem to be so concerned about, the burden is on the person presenting the hypothesis. The hypothesis, in this case, is that god exists. From a scientific perspective, the burden is not on us to disprove, but rather for theists to prove. As repeated above, an infinite number of possible things can be disproved, the disproof of which does not correspondingly prove anything. Thus, from a scientific perspective (which you may or may not care about), theists need to prove there is a god.
Which is all to say, science-as an abstract field-does not necessarily make the blanket claim that god doesn't exist, not can it. Scientists and people who choose to believe there is no god look at-what we believe to be-an overwhelming amount of evidence which strongly suggests that god does not exist. Given that evidence, we choose to make the (to us) logical assumption that god does not exist.
So you are right that science can't prove that god doesn't exist. If that in some way vindicates you, fine. It does not, however, make you any more correct. I can't disprove that my desk is made up of 300000000000000000 tiny potato chips. That doesn't mean that it is made up of tiny potato chips any more than its made out of balsa wood or plastic or metal or dried spit.
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No, IL is absolutely correct.
In scientific inquiry, you present a hypothesis...that is true what you've written. But it's on no one to "prove" anything, in fact you can't.
Science only
disproves. Science falsifies the hypothesis or fails to support the null hypothesis (the anti-hypothesis if you will). there's a slew of statistical jumproping to be done, but never would a scientist claim proof for anything...oh perhaps short of a mathmatical proof but that is not the same thing.
but to say one is an atheist, that person claims there is no deity. there is no scientific basis for the atheist. I have no idea why when these threads keep coming up there is a melding of atheism with agnosticism. they are not the same, not related on a logical basis.
and our western flavor of inductive logic is not the only, nor has it ever even been accepted to be the "best" type of science.
without listening to the whole thing, I suspect that the missing words are: "ought" and "can"
to seperate should do from ability.
ought == should (moral claim)
can == actual ability
the reason theists seperate morality from moral sense is because they are curious how, from a evolutionary standpoint, something like a moral claim would come into existence. why would humans need morals, is the base of those questions.
for a theist, morality is an objective fact. it comes from a source outside the natural order. they want the naturalist to explain how it comes to being within the natural order. it's a legitimate question.
if you want to understand it vis-a-vis the homosexual vs. homosexuality argument, although I don't think it's analogous myself, I would have to say that on the whole, theists view homosexual behavior as an action. whereas some might understand homosexual as a state of being, even if they don't admit it's basis as an uncontrollable state (e.g., a genetic state), then the person is still called to stop the sinful or undesirable behavior--even if he or she remains a "homosexual" he or she must not do the actions of one.