TLDR:

I think for me I would say I believe nature to be an expandable concept. Certainly the idea of other forms of consciousness is an idea that fits within nature. The idea that there may be areas outside the closed system of our universe that can interact with us is an interesting one and could work as an explanation for god, but in explaining god you reduce god to the natural. I'm capable of imagining some alternate universe idea where the laws of nature act in a different fashion, but I think the thing to do would be to expand the definition of "natural" to cover those areas as.

The idea of a god is a religious one. Most religious people at least pay lip service the the modern major organized religions that endorse dogmatic views that discourage investigation and that discourage the search for explanation from nature. That's what repulses me. Most religions have a stance that they believe there is a god and that he is believed to have accomplished acts X, Y, and Z and to have said words A, B, and C, and that he wishes us to do 1, 2, and 3. Any questioning of X, Y, Z, A, B, C, 1, 2, or 3 is heresy. God is employed as a conceptual enforcer of the dogma. For articles of faith that beg explanation the answer is that "who are we to question God?" For articles of faith that conflict with nature the riposte is that "God acts in mysterious ways, and that God trumps science." For the religious, God is an ultimate point from which further questions are unnecessary and in fact morally wrong. For one who likes to search for explanations, God represents the ultimate throwing up of one's hands and an abandonment of the search.

Of course there's also a more basic religious belief of god than that of the organized religions. Take Agnosticism, for example. Many agnostics would doubtless bristle at the idea that they held a religious belief of god, but I think the description is an accurate one. Agnosticism purports to endorse the view that whether or not god exists is an unknowable thing. The Agnostic's very use of the term "god," however is telling. If we follow the view that God may exist in some form that our modern science can't explain and that he is unbound by our natural laws because he is outside of our closed universe, then we can say very little about God, however the concept of a god does not allow it's use for natural concepts like "gravity" or "oxidation" or "evolution." So we can narrow down the extra-universal area of what could be god a little. By definition, God is an entity. The concept of god also doesn't allow it's use for sterile natural objects like "a pulsar" or "iron" or "a photon." By definition, God is a conscious entity. Other godly attributes are necessarily assignable as well, such as "importance," "power," and possibly even "beneficence." After all, the term connotes an importance that transcends simply the definition of the "conscious entity." If our universe were doubled, surely our doubles in the other universe would not be gods. In other words "god" is not a term that is used to refer simply to generic extra-universal conscious entities. So the Agnostic view is that whether or not an important powerful conscious entity of probable beneficence exists outside of our closed universe is unknowable.

Considering that nothing outside of our closed universe is knowable, the fact that we are able to assign by definition attributes to a concept like God evokes the concept of the vanishingly small probability. Considering that we are totally unknowing about matters beyond the closed universe we inhabit, the idea that we know anything about anything extra-universal is a virtual impossibility. The agnostic is forced then to dwell in the 0.01% virtual fingernail of uncertainty that exists simply due to the fact that because we know nothing, anything we suggest is possible. But is this kind of thing uncommon in the realm of science? Do scientists adopt theories that are merely virtually certain? Or do they require a more rigorous proof before they accept a theory? The answer is that for most scientists the benefit to science that derives from accepting virtually certain theories as accurate by far outweighs the negative effects of ignoring the vanishingly small possibilities.

So why does the science-minded agnostic so emphasize the fact that it is not a total certainty but merely a virtual certainty? The answer, I believe is that the Agnostic assigns great importance to the question. The question of whether there is a god or not is an existence-altering question. It is a foundation-rocking question. And to me this is proof positive that the agnostic holds a religious belief of god. To a non-religious person, the issue would be merely academic, but to one who has latched onto the 0.01% virtual fingernail of uncertainty relating to God's existence the issue is clearly of special significance. That special significance is religion.

What are we left with?
I'm ready to accept that there are things that science cannot yet explain. I'm ready to accept that there could be extra-universal realms where our natural laws fail. I'm ready to expand the definition of nature to cover things that are currently outside of our closed system as well as those that are within our system. I draw the line, however, at making predictions about the characteristics of anything that falls outside of the current corpus scientis. I will happily accept the virtual certainty that something we have imagined to exist outside of our universe does in fact not exist given our limited imaginations and our predilection for inaccurate predictions. And finally, even if we were to be able to know of things outside of our closed system, by the very act of our expansion of "what is natural" to include these things we will have undone everything supernatural about them and we'll have stripped them of the portion of their godly significance that derives from their basic alterity. We'll be left with a natural process that can be understood and we'll have pulled down the beard of the proverbial shopping-mall Santa.

Science could only prove god by disproving his supernature and thus by disproving him.

Who said god > supernature ?  If your going to define/limit your abilty to accept a defintion of a thing...  before you study it, you are not fit to study it.

It's a good point, but I think if we were to accept god and science then we would be expanding science to bring god under its laws rather than loosening the restriction that science applies to nature.

Maybe it all boils down to how you define God. If you think of God as all that exists naturally but that is unexplained by science then sure he could exist.
If on the other hand you define him as a being to which the laws of science cannot apply then I can't subscribe to your newsletter.

I think of it in a lot of ways and maybe don't really believe in any of it as anything more than a thought experiment.  Or maybe I do.  I'm not always sure one way or the other.

Anyway.  My point about systems: draw a circle around the universe.  That's where the laws we have defined apply.  Things or beings could exist beyond that.  You can't necessarily extend the information we've derived from within the circle to things that exist outside of it, though I also think that something that exists outside said system could not interact inside of it without wrecking it.  It would be sort of akin to how we define a closed system where certain rules apply that don't generally hold true.  Or imagine that you're a sentient molecule of water flowing in a pipe.  You might be able to come up with a set of laws that describe the system as you experience it, but I would be that you would never be able to derive the Navier-Stokes equations.  (Which is incidentally why I think we will never solve some of the questions we have in science, deities or not.  Our perspective is within the system with a limited tool set of perception & measurement)

I also wasn't joking when I posted a while ago about thinking about sentient galaxies.  If human consciousness is a product the organization of a bunch of cells firing off electric signals, I think there certainly could be other sorts of consciousness out there (or maybe I've just watched way too much Star Trek).  Or the totality of the universe could be sentient being.

And there are countless other ideas that could be explored as thought experiments or games.  I knew one professor of physics who believed in some convoluted idea that sounded an awful lot like Stargate.  Ultimately, though, whether any of the ideas are true or not also doesn't really matter to me (much as what scientists or anyone else believes).   

That all makes a lot of sense.

Science operate to describe nature not supernature. It requires superscience to describe supernature and superscience is religion.

By definition, the concept of God is antithetical to science so if science were to define God then God would cease to be God and would become god (little g rather than big G). By bringing God into the realm of the natural and thus divesting it of its supernature, scientists would be gaining purchase on a measurable, studyable, experimentable, subject which by definition could not be God.

Let's put it this way: God by definition possesses heightened importance, right? It would be silly to speak of a new alien life form as God simply because it had gone previously undiscovered by science. It would be equally silly to speak of a generic conscious entity from outside the universe as God simply because it had gone previously undiscovered by science. There's something so important about God that it commands the worship of the faithful. God has a supernatural importance. Nothing in nature has a supernatural importance. Importance itself is a human concept.

One of the concepts/principles of science is not to say the super does not/can not exists untill its actually proven not to.

or so i would of though... and just typed in my own confused style.

as for importance being a human concept. humans are flawed, we might be wrong.

ok, i feel like im trolling. not intended.

My only point is that "supernatural" things aren't "natural."
Science only deals with the latter topic.
There are things that science doesn't deal with because science hasn't developed that far yet, but that's yet a third category. Let's call it "extra-scientific."

Extra-scientific topics are not supernatural. They exist in nature but haven't been described by science.

Supernatural things are things that defy a scientific explanation. There is no possible way for science to describe a supernatural thing because as soon as it does the thing becomes natural. Whereas Extra-scientific things start out natural and stay natural even after science describes them. Moreover, God is definitionally supernatural. Were science to describe him then he would become natural and thus cease to be God.

EDIT: Incidentally this is the reason ID advocates don't speak about a God. They simply speak of a creator.

Part of my thinking is that I redefine god(s) to be whatever suits me at the moment, instead of feeling confined to the magic man definition that plagues the major monotheistic religions.  At any given time in my thinking, it might refer to some race of aliens that seeded the earth for life, to some collective consciousness/god as the universe idea, to an entity outside of this particular closed system responsible for its creation, to some aspect of my own consciousness that I encounter when I'm really fucking high, or anywhere in between.  

If you ask me if I believe in a magic man who intervenes in the world, then the answer is no.  I don't believe in a supernatural god.  So strictly speaking in regards to the argument you've laid out, I think that would make me an atheist.  I don't self-identify that way, though.  I self identify with some flavor of deism, but mostly consider it a bunch of thought experiments.

Yeah, that works. And I'm not immune from spiritual feelings anyway even if I self-describe as an atheist. I experience feelings of profound reverence and worshipful love and astonished amazement just like everyone else. It's what makes us humans. Organized religion is particularly interesting because it represents a distilling of or perhaps more accurately a crystallization of millennia worth of spiritual sentiment spanning generations worth of individuals. It reflects ancient understanding and as static and fixed as it purports to be, it does morph over time. I think it's something that's locked in and hardwired into the human mind. As much as I fight it, there is definitely some kind of a basic kernel of truth behind the religious position that atheists have a religion of their own. There's no structure to an atheist's spirituality, though. Essentially the same applies to agnostics, I guess, and minimalist deism might also share much of the lack of structure. It would seem that people who adopt these philosophies act as their own religious leaders independent of all others. Maybe religion is a vestigial cultural-evolutionary stepping-stone that led to communal living in humans...

Ok that's enough for me on this topic. It's degenerating into horizon-gazing stoner-talk now.

some race of aliens that seeded the earth for life

That was an awesome STNG episode.

And this whole conversation is reminding me of Sagan's Contact.

I love Carl Sagan.

Carl Sagan - 'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)

I loved Carl Sagan as well. I have a hard bound copy of "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" Didn't much care for the character as portrayed in the Dark Skies series but adored the Cosmos series.

scientists would be gaining purchase on a measurable, studyable, experimentable, subject which by definition could not be God.

Why? Regardless of "his" supposedly for the moment existence, I refuse to believe we will forever be incapable of detecting or measuring his influence precisely.
If he exists and created the entire of our existence then there must be "by definition" a way to prove or disprove such a claim definitively through science.

If some scientists want to believe in a god then fine let them work to prove his existence, because I am firmly convinced that in the endeavor they will eventually prove the exact opposite.

Great posts btw guys, good food for thought.

Why?

Because God is a supernatural entity. If science is capable of coming to terms with it then it's natural. If it's natural it's not God because God is supernatural.

I misspoke slightly earlier when I suggested that as soon as God-the-supernatural-entity is nailed down by science then he loses his supernature.
In reality, as soon as God-the-supernatural-entity is nailed down by science then we realize that we were wrong that it was a supernatural entity to begin with. Since God is a supernatural entity by definition, the only option left is that what science will have nailed down cannot be God.

Why?

Because God is a supernatural entity. If science is capable of coming to terms with it then it's natural. If it's natural it's not God because God is supernatural.

I misspoke slightly earlier when I suggested that as soon as God-the-supernatural-entity is nailed down by science then he loses his supernature.
In reality, as soon as God-the-supernatural-entity is nailed down by science then we realize that we were wrong that it was a supernatural entity to begin with. Since God is a supernatural entity by definition, the only option left is that what science will have nailed down cannot be God.

Right, but god being a supernatural entity refers only to the human invention of god. No matter which way you look at it, there may or may not be a god, but we thoughtful apes don't have the slightest way to prove or disprove this, nor would we likely be able to comprehend the answer if it were revealed to us. I think we sell the idea of a god short. The kind of ridiculously powerful being I could imagine fitting what we refer to as a god would be far beyond anything we could understand.

And the beauty of looking at it this way is that it matters not at all whether or not one professes to "believe in god".

If science is capable of coming to terms with it then it's natural. If it's natural it's not God because God is supernatural.

Why does God have to be supernatural ? as far as i know all god did was create the universe and has the ability to know all...  which is not exactly supernatural. Unless you believe scince will not be able to do the aformentioned.

I covered all this under TLDR.

The main point is that if we say we can't know if God exists then it implies that we have a definition of God in our head. Si's going the route of the ultra powerful creature that is so powerful that we can't comprehend it. HoJo's going the route of the omniscient creator. These are both good attributes for "God" as we understand the idea. There are definitely other characteristics we could attribute to God. God is a conscious entity. God has influence over humans. God has worship-worthy significance. For many God is a beneficent being. All of these are great. The only problem is that as soon as we make a single prediction concerning a matter that we all recognize to fall deeply outside the realm of that which we can know, we are holding onto the possibility that a matter of vanishingly small likelihood could be accurate predicted. With each additional attribute predicted we multiply the unlikelihood that we've predicted accurately. Before we've finished describing our version of what god is we've predicted God into virtually certain non-existence. (Note: If we go the other direction and try to define God as minimally as possible, our definition dissolves. Can belief in God be described as simply as the belief that there are things we can't know. I would say no.) So why are we willing to dwell on the vanishingly uncertain prediction in this case when in all other cases we are happy to accept the virtual certainty that our blind guesses about things we can have no way of understanding are totally and obviously wrong?
Let's say I made the cavalier prediction that written in 40-foot letter cut from the living rock at the highest point of the Maxwell Montes was the final message written from God to his creation... in English. Given what we know about my experience with the Maxwell Montes range and given the average probability of messages cut into living rock on all ranges with which we are familiar, we can say with virtual certainty that there is no message on the highest Maxwell point. We can never know for sure without visiting the range and searching around, but somehow this vanishingly small possibility doesn't bother us. In this situation we would not declare the matter uncertain but we would declare it incorrect. Shouldn't the burden of proof (or even the burden of furnishing even a shred of evidence) lie on the person asserting that there is a message on Maxwell Montes rather than on the one assuming that a blind prediction relating to unknown subjects makes such a thing impossible?

The question comes up: how do we know that god is supernatural? The term "God" is a loaded term. If, like the ID adherents, you believe there is a creator somewhere out there in what I had earlier called "extra-science" (i.e. in that area of nature that is as yet undescribed by science) then this creator will necessarily be bound by the laws of science. To the atheist this is simply a part of nature. Your use of the term "god" to describe this creator is akin to using the term "god" to refer to your Irish Setter (who is also a member of nature). To the agnostic, God is an unknowable quantity. Since science is capable of knowing all that exists within nature, to the agnostic God is at the very least extra-natural. The same goes for the theist of course, although to the theist God would definitely be super-natural.

To the agnostic, God is an unknowable quantity.

umm, youre telling me what I believe ? or that there is only one way to be agnostic.

No, that's pretty much straight from Websters.

I love Carl Sagan.

Carl Sagan - 'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)

I heard that the other day on RRR... fabulous piece of music.

I loved the "Cosmos" TV series when I was a kid... it went a long way to forming my opinions on a lot of things. Huge pity Carl Sagan died so young.

No, that's pretty much straight from Websters.

So that would be the Koran for agnostics ?

I don't know what religion I am. I like tits & beer.

I don't know what religion I am. I like tits & beer.

That's the best religion.  Strip clubs are a sacrament.

I don't know what religion I am. I like tits & beer.

That's the best religion.  Strip clubs are a sacrament.

Ah, a fellow believer. Peanuts are on the house, my son.

So that would be the Koran for agnostics ?

No, no. I'm just saying the common definition in place for agnosticism describes it in relation to a supernatural god and/or supernature at large.
Belief in the idea that we don't know everything is just as much a secular concern as it is a religious one.
According to common definitions the atheist will say that all unknown is natural.
The religious person will say that within the unknown lies God: a supernatural entity with attributes X, Y, and Z.
The common-definition agnostic will say that whether or not the virtual certainty that the religious person has predicted wrongly on matters that are logically beyond his ken is in fact reality is a matter we cannot know because absolute certainties are impossible.
I think that's silly, personally. Or at least a very fuzzy and muddled position.

I heard that the other day on RRR... fabulous piece of music.

Then perhaps you'd be interested in the somewhat worse but still pretty good sequel:
Symphony of Science - 'We Are All Connected' (ft. Sagan, Feynman, deGrasse Tyson & Bill Nye)

There's a third song as well, but I haven't gotten to the point where I like it yet...

Ha ha!

You guys are fighting about agnosticism.

Calm down you bigots! What's with all the hate?

Straight out of a south park episode!

No, no. I'm just saying the common definition in place for agnosticism describes it in relation to a supernatural god and/or supernature at large.
Belief in the idea that we don't know everything is just as much a secular concern as it is a religious one.
According to common definitions the atheist will say that all unknown is natural.
The religious person will say that within the unknown lies God: a supernatural entity with attributes X, Y, and Z.
The common-definition agnostic will say that whether or not the virtual certainty that the religious person has predicted wrongly on matters that are logically beyond his ken is in fact reality is a matter we cannot know because absolute certainties are impossible.
I think that's silly, personally. Or at least a very fuzzy and muddled position.

How many times do I have to type that god dont have to be supernatural ? For you it might have be, but we are not talking about you.

You're the one that chose to use a word already in common English use to define your beliefs. I just accepted it at face value. If your brand of agnosticism is different than traditional agnosticism then I can't really speak to it without you divulging more about your unique beliefs that you call "agnosticism."

If God isn't supernatural then he must be part of nature. So he must fall under the laws of nature. Nature is knowable.
Agnostic = a gnostic = non gnostic = non knowing/non knowable.
You can see why I was confused about your label.
It seems to me you're a believer in the possibility that everything was created by one natural source and that this source is omniscient. Omniscience strikes me as a supernatural quality, but I haven't put much thought to it and I think you'd end up deep in philosophical waters about experience-based knowledge versus inherent knowledge and anyway this gets too deep for me. Still if we accept the position that this "God" is strictly natural, then it is knowable, and I can't imagine where that leaves your agnosticism.

EDIT: I had a thought. Perhaps you mean to say that "God is unknowable" goes too far, but that "God is unknown" is accurate. I guess that's true. God is certainly unknown to science. I think the thing that bothers me about that is the idea that by even framing the discussion around something that was pulled out of pure imagination to describe something that may exist in the realm of the unknown, we're already walking down the exponentially diminishing pathway of probabilities. Fixating on this infinitesimal probability is only something that applies (for many people) to the topic of God. I just don't see why the issue is of such importance that the normal probabilistic analysis breaks down unless the subject (God) is imbued with supernatural significance. If you maintain that your conception of God lacks supernatural qualities then the only other reason I can think of to hold out for the possibility of a god is to defer coming down on either side of the argument and/or to soften your position in the face of opposition. Both rationales seem mushy to me.

Calm down you bigots! What's with all the hate?

No hate here. I may not agree with HoJo's belief but I'll defend to the death his right to believe it.

 "Agnostic = a gnostic = non gnostic = non knowing/non knowable."

a simple version.  ( in relation to how god can exist and not be 'god' in the religious way )

God can proven to be natural and still be God. Sure God might turn out to be an Alien with way too much time on its tenticles or the result of the multiverse seroiusly fucking up when it tried to install an exhaust pipe. but it would still be what God was. I already posted the only things needed to be considered God,  to have created the universe and to know all. Both (i believe) within the grasp of science.

now...some agnostics think you can also have something natural happening without the direct or indirect actions of soemthing sentient,  but you may not know it is natural nor be able to define it as natural, that then becomes suitable for the label of God. big bang is the best example of that. personaly this is not where i place god.  I dont place god anywhere other than in the exhaust type examples and even then it's not something i think about.

the agnostic does not always place god at the '7th day he rested'  level. infact ive never met one who does. but i have heard of them.

If you would like you could consider me to be an ultra liberal atheist, however, I shall stick to Agnostic with a science bias.

Is this semantics ?  maybe it is,  personaly as somebody who believes in science i cannot throw out the possibillty of something meeting the criteria of god at this point in the knowledge base of science.

I get you. My only argument lies with probabilities. Your view is that probabilities are not certainties.
It's an attractive viewpoint for many.