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Comment by eeperson | Hacker News Reader

I agree completely with your first two paragraphs. I'll even buy the first sentence of your last paragraph. However, I fail to see why religion inherently conflicts with science. It is in no way clear that the scientific method can be applied to everything. Religion, or one of many other arbitrary philosophies, can fill in the parts that science does not cover.

If you start with the hypothesis that the universe was constructed by a conscious creator, how do you address that scientifically? As far as I can tell, the answer is, you can't.

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You can't start with the hypothesis that "the universe was constructed by a conscious creator" until you have some clear evidence that such a hypothesis is warranted. This is where science conflicts with religion. If you're going to say something exists, or that a certain event or entity caused an effect, you have to prove it. Just because we do not yet understand multiverses (or whatever is out there) and what happened before the big bang, just because we do not yet have sensors to see beyond the scope of space-time, does not let any self proclaimed philosopher fill in the gaps with whatever they happen to read from the nearest religious text.

It doesn't matter whether you call yourself a theologian, philosopher, or scientist, if you're going to make an assertion or assumption, you have to back it up. If you don't, you operate outside of the human body of knowledge that can be confirmed as true, or even remotely accurate.

That doesn't make sense. Once you have clear evidence of something, it is no longer a hypothesis. You can start with any hypothesis you want. Of course if you expect something to be treated as scientific fact you need clear evidence. Until you get clear evidence, it is a matter of philosophy, and you can fill it with anything that doesn't contradict the known facts.

I didn't say evidence of the hypothesis, I said "evidence that the hypothesis is WARRANTED" which is a very big difference. If apples don't fall from trees and matter is not attracted to other matter then the gravity hypothesis has no evidence for it to even be considered! We see apples fall and planets orbit and matter attracting other matter and so we think, there must be something there! So we investigate and only after much testing do we say that the hypothesis is scientific fact within the bounds it was tested.

>> Until you get clear evidence, it is a matter of philosophy, and you can fill it with anything that doesn't contradict the known facts.

NO YOU CAN'T. Why? Because the nonsense ("philosophy") you fill it with STILL REQUIRES EVIDENCE when you claim that something positively certainly EXISTS such as a creator of the universe. You can claim you HYPOTHESIZE that there exists a creator, but it is on YOU to prove that a creator exists, not on anyone else to disprove it, especially when the scientific body of knowledge, both theoretical and experimental, shows no evidence and no sign of a creator outside of humans projecting their own desires.

If a hypothesis doesn't contradict the known facts, how do you determine if it is warranted?

You only require evidence if you expect others to believe the same thing. I'm not arguing that anyone should believe in any religion. I'm arguing that a scientist can hold religious beliefs without conflict.

> the scientific body of knowledge, both theoretical and experimental, shows no evidence and no sign of a creator outside of humans projecting their own desires.

This seems like it would strongly depend on who you ask. I'm not even sure how you would come up with a criteria for this (although maybe that is just limitations in my own imagination).

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