filtherton

Well, i would guess that there have been just as many verifiable occurences of direct god observation as there have been verifiable occurences of direct electron observation. That being said, i don't have a problem with the gist of what you're saying, it's just that how you are justifying it isn't internally consistent, and seems to contradict your position concerning the efficacy and implications of science. This is a microcosm of the problems that i generally find with people who attempt to use science to argue against theism; i don't find fault with their perspective, just that their justification is flawed and inconsistent.

If you want to come at the issue of theology from the perspective that one should avoid believing in things for which there is no objective, verifiable evidence, then you are essentially arguing for skepticism to such an extreme degree that belief in anything would be impossible.

All you can really claim is that certain standards of evidence are superior to others based on some arbitrary, perhaps philosophical notions about what should be considered evidence and what should not. Even then, these standards must necessarily based on circular logic- you essentially justify the accuracy of your observations by assuming the accuracy of your ability to observe.

You can only create some sort of evidenciary threshold and say that everything on one side is questionable and everything on the other side isn't. This is implicit in the scientific process, and is the reason why arguments against theism can't be based on some notion of objective standards and be logically consistent. This inconsistency is largely superficial, since science generally does a pretty good job of creating models that accurately model reality. Superficiality aside, if one is to argue from a perspective of logical and evidenciary supremacy, one should be able to do so without contradicting one's self.

Well, models are models. They aren't reality, they just predict it well under a given set of assumptions. You can model fluid mechanics using completely different models and come to the same conclusions. They both provide accurate data, which one is reality? If you guessed "Nobody fucking knows." you are correct, because nobody fucking knows.

If you were to attempt to apply either of these models to completely different types of matter, say bose-einstein condensates, and expect any sort of accuracy in your predictions you would probably be sorely dissapointed. This is because models are built based on assumptions, and they are only good for what they're good for. Pretty much every model i've come across is based on the assumption that the laws that govern our universe are valid and active, and because of this it seems a little suspect to think that any of these models could be used to predict the conditions of a universe with different governing laws. You might as well just claim that there existed some sort of deity.