Ahmad, Subboor,director. Does Science Disprove God? Sapience Institute,23 July 2020, Sapienceinstitute.org
In this webinar, the presenter covers five main topics. The first two are about science being the only method to render the truth about the world and reality and science leads to certainty. The third topic covers a response to the objection that science works so it must be true. The last two topics are about science from an Islamic perspective. The main point is that science is not the only way to find truth. The most important points are that there are different ways to reach conclusions, science cannot account for morality, science cannot prove history and science is not absolute. To strengthen his claims, the author uses quotes from philosophers of science like Samir Okasha and Elliot Sober. He provides examples for all the things that science cannot account for. He provides examples of scientific theories to explain his arguments. He uses these evidences to arrive at the conclusion that science is not the only way to find the truth and science has not disproved the existence of a Creator.
The presenter breaks down every single point and explains them in detail leaving no room for objections to his claims. I agree with what the speaker presented because the proofs are very clear. When the speaker says that science is ahistorical he asks a question, “Did Genghis Khan exist?” he then goes on to explain that the existence of Genghis Khan cannot be proven by science. The speaker states “People have observed his existence once and told us, good, but them telling us over the centuries is not scientific evidence, it is historical evidence, its testimonial evidence. Testimony is how we know the majority of the things we know.” This shows that science cannot account for historical events.
He presents the argument of atheists’ which is that “Science is the only way to render the truth about the world and reality, Science cannot render the truth about God, therefore God doesn’t exist.” Throughout his presentation he provides evidences for his claims by explaining that Science cannot account for testimonial evidence and that science is Amoral. The speaker states “You see a child, that is poor that is neglected and has no one to take care of them… you are a billionaire that could give this child a comfortable life… from a scientific perspective, when you are looking at that, can you see any moral obligation?” The speaker uses this argument to prove that even moral instincts cannot be proven by science. The questions I have are, how do atheists, who believe that science has disproved God, respond to these claims? Do they believe in history or do they disbelieve in history because it cannot be scientifically proven? Will they change their stance after being presented with these arguments and believe in a Creator? I need to look up the atheists’ perspective on whether science leads to disbelief in a Creator. If I could say something to the author it would be to provide more arguments from the atheists’ side to better understand their stance. This document tells me about my research question that there are atheists who disbelieve in a creator because they feel that science has the answer to everything in the modern world. This genre was to educate people and throughout the webinar the speaker asked questions to his audience in order to bring in some views that are contrary to what he is presenting. The author is a public speaker, debater and researcher at IERA(Islamic Education and Research Academy). He specializes in the philosophy of science with a focus on Darwin’s theory of evolution. He has a MA and PgCert in Philosophy. He is a PhD candidate specializing in the philosophy of biology.

The speaker really exemplifies the claims of his webinar lecture by stating that “The second premise which is that science cannot prove God’s existence, now technically this is true, however, science not being able to prove God’s existence does not go an inch towards the conclusion that there is no God. Science cannot prove the existence of morals, that does not mean morals do not exist, science cannot prove to us the world is real, that does not mean the world is not real.” I totally agree with this statement, the author applies the logic of attributing science to disprove God’s existence to other fields like morals and the world. This shows how this logic of searching for truth through science is not consistent.

Conclusion

The research question was “Why do people deny a Creator?” Throughout the research I explored different reasons for people rejecting in a creator. The reasons I found out are as follows: The problem of evil, no empirical evidence for a Creator, atheism is self-evident and science has disproved God. I wanted to present the perspectives of both sides, so I chose sources from atheists, theists and sources where both parties discuss their positions. So far what surprised me is that, atheists do not have any solid reason for disbelieving in a Creator. Most of the time, the reasons are emotional or they are based on the understanding of a certain faith. Sometimes it is because of studying arguments against the existence of a Creator which leads to atheism. I used to think that there was only one argument against atheists which was the creation of the universe, can something come out of nothing? After my research I found that there are many counterarguments to the contentions of atheist. The understanding of my question has deepened because now I know the arguments both for and against denying a Creator. Also I was able to understand some of the counterarguments presented by theists. Everything I learned is very important for me personally because I enjoy interacting with people of different faiths and ideologies, so this was something I was very curious about. I felt that the majority of people have this belief in a creator, but there were certain people who defected from this belief, they consisted of academics and regular people who used big words and presented complicated philosophical concepts. This made me more eager to study this ideology and understand whether it is worth adopting. The first people who need to know about this research are the atheists themselves, so that they can be exposed to a different perspective and provide more information and counterarguments from their side for denying a creator. It can also help them take an educated decision where they are aware of the implications of their ideology and also the perspective of theists, the reasons why they believe in a Creator. The next group of people that need to know about this are theists themselves, they should understand what atheism entails and why there are people who deny the divine, this will help in producing beneficial discussions to the most important question, which is the purpose of life.