I Know That God Does Not Exist

My statement was, "Since you're almost as smart as a five-year-old, show us your "proof". Message 3077You claimed in Message 3063 that "Even a five year-old child could prove that I'm taller than an ant ... but apparently, science can't." The onus is on you to back up your claim, whether I know anything about tape measures or not.Go ahead, show us your "proof".

Because science doesn't deal in proof any more than brain surgery deals in aviation.

Here is an article you might like:
Scientific Proof Is A Myth

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You've heard of our greatest scientific theories: the theory of evolution, the Big Bang theory, the theory of gravity. You've also heard of the concept of a proof, and the claims that certain pieces of evidence prove the validities of these theories. Fossils, genetic inheritance, and DNA prove the theory of evolution. The Hubble expansion of the Universe, the evolution of stars, galaxies, and heavy elements, and the existence of the cosmic microwave background prove the Big Bang theory. And falling objects, GPS clocks, planetary motion, and the deflection of starlight prove the theory of gravity.
Except that's a complete lie. While they provide very strong evidence for those theories, they aren't proof. In fact, when it comes to science, proving anything is an impossibility.
Reality is a complicated place. All we have to guide us, from an empirical point of view, are the quantities we can measure and observe. Even at that, those quantities are only as good as the tools and equipment we use to make those observations and measurements. Distances and sizes are only as good as the measuring sticks you have access to; brightness measurements are only as good as your ability to count and quantify photons; even time itself is only known as well as the clock you have to measure its passage. No matter how good our measurements and observations are, there's a limit to how good they are.
We also can't observe or measure everything. Even if the Universe weren't subject to the fundamental quantum rules that govern it, along with all its inherent uncertainty, it wouldn't be possible to measure every state of every particle under every condition all the time. At some point, we have to extrapolate. This is incredibly powerful and incredibly useful, but it's also incredibly limiting.
The curvature of space means that clocks that are deeper into a gravitational well -- and hence, in... [+] more severely curved space -- run at a different rate than ones in a shallower, less-curved portion of space. While our predictions for GPS satellites work extraordinarily well, even this cannot 'prove' that General Relativity is correct.

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In order to come up with a model capable of predicting what will happen under a variety of conditions, we need to understand a few things.

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What we're capable of measuring, and to what precision.
What's been measured thus far, under specific initial conditions.
What laws hold for these phenomena, i.e., what observed relationships exist between specific quantities.
And what the limits are for the things we presently know.

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If you understand these things, you have the right ingredients to formulate a scientific theory: a framework for explaining what we already know happens as well as predicting what will happen under new, untested circumstances.
If you look farther and farther away, you also look farther and farther into the past. The farthest... [+] we can see back in time is 13.8 billion years: our estimate for the age of the Universe. It's the extrapolation back to the earliest times that led to the idea of the Big Bang. While everything we observe is consistent with the Big Bang framework, it's not something that can ever be proven.
Our best theories, like the aforementioned theory of evolution, the Big Bang theory, and Einstein's General Relativity, cover all of these bases. They have an underlying quantitative framework, enabling us to predict what will happen under a variety of situations, and to then go out and test those predictions empirically. So far, these theories have demonstrated themselves to be eminently valid. Where their predictions can be described by mathematical expressions, we can tell not only what should happen, but by how much. For these theories in particular, among many others, measurements and observations that have been performed to test these theories have been supremely successful.

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But as validating as that is — and as powerful as it is to falsify alternatives — it's completely impossible to prove anything in science.
In science, even mathematical proofs are less than 100% certain, as it's not 100% certain that the mathematical rules apply to your physical system.
It isn't simply that galaxies are moving away from us that causes a redshift, but rather that the... [+] Larry McNish of RASC Calgary Center

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It's a leap of faith to assume that it will, and while these are often good leaps of faith, you cannot prove that these leaps are always valid. If the laws of nature change over time, or behave differently under different conditions, or in different directions or locations, or aren't applicable to the system you're dealing with, your predictions will be wrong. And that's why everything we do in science, no matter how well it gets tested, is always preliminary.

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Even in theoretical physics, the most mathematical of all the sciences, our "proofs" aren't on entirely solid ground. If the assumptions we make about the underlying physical theory (or its mathematical structure) no longer apply — if we step outside the theory's range of validity — we'll "prove" something that turns out not to be true. If someone tells you a scientific theory has been proven, you should ask what they mean by that. Normally, they mean "they've convinced themselves that this thing is true," or they have overwhelming evidence that a specific idea is valid over a specific range. But nothing in science can ever truly be proven. It's always subject to revision.
In the standard model, the neutron's electric dipole moment is predicted to be a factor of ten... [+] billion larger than our observational limits show. The only explanation is that somehow, something beyond the Standard Model is protecting this CP symmetry. We can demonstrate a lot of things in science, but proving that CP is conserved in the strong interactions can never be done.

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This doesn't mean it's impossible to know anything at all. To the contrary, in many ways, scientific knowledge is the most "real" knowledge that we can possibly gain about the world. But in science, nothing is ever proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. As Einstein himself once said:

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The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an inexorable and not very friendly judge of his work. It never says "Yes" to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says "Maybe," and in the great majority of cases simply "No." If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter "Maybe," and if it does not agree it means "No." Probably every theory will someday experience its "No"—most theories, soon after conception.

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So don't try to prove things; try to convince yourself. And be your own harshest critic and your own greatest skeptic. Every scientific theory will someday fail, and when it does, that will herald a new era of scientific inquiry and discovery. And of all the scientific theories we've ever come up with, the best ones succeed for the longest amounts of time and over the greatest ranges possible. In some sense, it's better than a proof: it's the most correct description of the physical world humanity has ever imagined.
Ethan Siegel

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I am a Ph.D. astrophysicist, author, and science communicator, who professes physics and astronomy at various colleges. I have won numerous awards for science writing...

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And, Phat, you read this and agree with it, yes?

What would be proof? We can show this is a demonstrable fact. Is that not enough?

A demonstrable fact is a fact. It has no choice. I’m not sure what else could be added. “Fact” is the pinnacle of reality. The more we have, the more of reality we understand. Like evolution. We have so many 100s of millions of facts (little pieces of reality) that we can see the patterns in detail and categorize the lot into comprehensive and verified theories of what happened, when and how.And don’t get me started on physics. I’m thinking it was Matt O’Dowd who said that physics makes us wizards capable of predicting the future and manipulating the foundations of reality. Gotta have more respect for wizards. They do some other real wizard stuff too like look into the past and watch whales evolve.

yes. (And don't go mentioning God.) I've no need to prove Him anyway. He proves Himself to me when needed. My biggest challenge is to listen. Some people rather like the idea of being Wizards. Highly evolved animals and their dreams!

Is there a difference between "demonstrable fact" and "proof"?If so, what is it?

Altar Boy, that was MY question to you. Is there a difference in your mind?

If science can't prove anything, it can't prove that anything is a fact; nor can science prove anything about reality. If science can't prove anything, it can't prove anything about evolution. What a pity no theories about how evolution produced the history observed in the fossil record can be verified.It can't even be verified that life's history is one of a contiguous biological process.But I'm digressing from the thread, so enuf on that.

I can't see any difference between "demonstrable fact" and "proof".

Yes, we like that. Just like those who like the idea of being acolytes to a bloody monster.

Then when the facts show you reality why do you deny it as "not proof"? The demonstrable facts which make the theory of evolution a reality must be the proof you are looking for.

​ Honestly I can't figure out what monster you are talking about...though organized religion historically could be a valid culprit. Soldiers coming home from Viet Nam used to be labeled as "baby killers" which had some truth to it--though war, in general, is hell by definition. And in that case, the "monster" in question was both the United States and the spread of global Communism in general. Don't kid yourself...they would have killed our babies too if they had a longer reach!I did look up your boy Matt O Dowd and watched a few episodes of PBS Space Time. It was fascinating and highly inconclusive, as any good science show should be! Quantum physics is as close to Majik as any human mortal will ever get.

Edited by Phat, .

Edited by Phat, : changed sub title

You're being dishonest. You know damn well what monster he's talking about - the one who threatens to roast us in Hell, the one who created Hell in the first place, the one who lets children die horrible deaths. No it isn't. War has been figuratively compared to Hell. You should probably stop using the phrase "by definition" entirely.