What "science" disproves higher beings?

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Still, the Abrahamic God is usually depicted as an old man with a beard. And of course in Christianity there is Jesus, the embodiment of God on earth. Almost all of the polytheistic religions have anthopomorphises their Gods: Hinduism, the Egyptian religion, the Roman/Greek/Germanic religions.
And for blasphemy, to me that's a dirty word since it's been used to suppress freedom of speech for centuries. In some countries there are still laws against blasphemy, Without blasphemers we wouldn't have had people like David Hume.

Jews, Eastern Christians and Muslims do not. He is only depicted as an old man with a white beard in Western Christendom due to the Pagan traditions and how most Western Christians actually do not take their faith seriously, I don't think that anyone actually think he looks like that either, it's just like the angel-babies, it comes from Western art, it's not specified or addressed in the Christian texts, neither do people actually believe them like that, it's just a way to picture them when mentioned because we haven't reached that state of maturity yet to stop idealize God.

It's rather a stereotype than anything. God clearly said that you shall not depict him in Book of Exodus 33:20 "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see Me and live" and of the Gospel of John 1:18: "No man hath seen God at any time", he also said that he is body-less, so he shouldn't be able to made pictures of as an old man. I don't think Jesus was an incarnation of God, but even if we went off with that, it's still an incarnation, not God himself in his own 'body'.

I don't really think the word blasphemy is bad, infidel has a more negative connotation than the other.

The largest Christian denomination is Roman Catholicism and they do not believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. They believe the Bible is man-made and not infallible. The teachings of the Church in the nearly 2000 years since are just as important. So many people assume that just because something is written in the Old Testament that Catholics have to believe that. They sort of had to of course, since a literal interpretation of Genesis makes no sense in modern times. It's the same with Judaism, modern Judaism isn't just about Old Testament scrolls but also about the writings of the rabbis in the centuries after the destruction of the Temple.
It's very possible that pagan elements ended up in European Christianity. The different polytheistic religons also influenced each other and sometimes adopted each others Gods. Ultimately, the European polytheistic religions and Hinduism share a common ancestor in the hypothesised proto-Indo European religion. Odin/Wodan has some things in common with the Christian Jesus too: both have died and been resurrected, both are seen as the way to the afterlife.
And not all European Christians used depictions of Jesus or God, since the reformation many Protestant denominations have destroyed the images in the Catholic churches. Since I grew up in the Calvinist areas the Catholic Church is a bit foreign to me.

That's why I don't believe in either the Hebrew Bible and Christian Bible, they are full of contradictions, scientific inaccuracies and further on that it can't be possible for them to be word of God. But I wasn't speaking of denominations, I spoke of the two religions in general and their book without interpretations. General Christianity, especially Eastern Orthodoxy that are much more religious than Western Christianity, along with Jews and Muslims consider God to not be imagined, they are great sins. Either way, this gets off-topic on the main topic about the paradox responses. Despite what people think, God said that he is image-less and that is basically the end of argument, you can't argue against the ultimate showdown argument.

But to say that "God said" a religion first needs to decide whether a holy book is actually the Word of God, or just inspired by God (the last one is more common in mainline Christianity). Eastern Christianity also has images of Jesus btw. I'm not religous myself so I hold no opinion on that, I'm more interested in the history of religions.
Most Christians today also disagree with the Genesis creation story, so they don't take the whole Bible as the literal truth.

Well, I choose to consider it Word of God instead of Biblical inspiration right now. I'm speaking of God, not Jesus. Me too, though I am a Muslim and my responses were of course through an Islamic view when speaking of image of God, though they could be applied to Judeo-Christian belief too. I am speaking of the religion and not its followers, but I can't see how Genesis can be considered for a metaphor, a metaphor for what, exactly? It seems like a pathetic excuse to not admit their bible is wrong and that saying it's a metaphor is a way to keep make it relevant.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zblTCsThDE[/youtube] Shep shep shep your skydaddy does not exist even Stephen Hawking fails to believe in your skydaddy he has dismissed it as well. He is indeed a scientist hence gods disproven.You could challenge Stephen Hawking one of the most intelligent men on the planet but I predict an epic failure of 100% on your part. It was fun and rather entertaining and it all brought me laughs I am now satisfied.

Nice try, but his statements have been largely discredited. Still failing to see any peer-reviewed material here that meets the challenge, but to answer your video and discredit your go-to resource, I'll share a few relevant links consisting purely of material that is peer-reviewed:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1308599/Stephen-Hawking-wrong-You-explain-universe-God.html
The very title of which is this:


http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3141
in which this is quoted:


Also an Archbishop who responded:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1308616/Stephen-Hawking-Archbishop-Canterbury-attacks-claim-God-did-NOT-create-Universe.html


And Professor John Lennox (of Oxford) even wrote an entire book discrediting this one video:
http://books.google.com/books?id=lbBLCMjHFCUC

I don't need to. I have God on my side, and clearly there are accomplished individuals who also agree with this

In turn, this means that the Bible can not be taken as the literal "Word of God", but only as a collection fumbling attempts by a series of humans to explain their existence with allegory, analogy, and metaphor.

So ... who gets to decide which parts of the Bible are literal, and which parts are metaphorical, anyway?

Besides, anyone who tries to explain theology with science (or vice-versa) likely understands very little about either topic.

again, someone who reverses the burden of proof.

science DOESN'T HAVE to prove that "god" (in any shape or form) doesn't exist, since it makes no such claim, but religion (once again, as a whole) claims that one DOES exist, so the burden of proof is on them.

also, science did explain a lot of nature without needing to use a god, and there are non-supernatural explanations for every slightly belevable story in the bible.
true, this does not prove one does not exist, but it means he isn't needed, debunking the 'proof' given by religious fanatics.

OP is using a classic trick by asking for something he knows that science cannot provide, and using the lack of evidence for option "A" to be evidence for option "B", neglecting the rest of the alphabet on options.

To be even more specific, the Hebrew Scriptures where written by late Bronze Age early Iron Age dudes who believed the Earth was flat, that the Sun went around the earth and who did not know that all material stuff is made of atoms.

ruveyn

You've cited Lennox twice there. He's a mathematician, not a physicist. He's also a known apologist

I also am not sure Rowan Williams is in a position to criticise M-theory.

Peter Woit, on the other hand, has exactly the right credentials, and his points are made well. However, I don't believe anything you have posted is peer reviewed. In this instance it doesn't really matter, but you claimed you would only submit peer reviewed content.

Science can't prove a negative. It, however, can prove (and has) that most of what's been traditionally attributed to a higher being can be explained without the use of said higher being.

Seems I have. Didn't even catch that quite honestly.

The book is peer-reviewed, but just to throw in a few more peer-reviewed sources, in MLA format:

Ray, Walter Alan. Is God Unnecessary?: Why Stephen Hawking Is Wrong According to the Laws of Physics. iUniverse, 2012.
McGettigan, Timothy. "Stephen Hawking's God: A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion." The Socjournal (2013).

Hyland, Terry. "The science delusion: freeing the spirit of enquiry." Journal of Vocational Education & Training 66.1 (2014): 107-111.

Gentry, Robert. "Creator God Rules The Universe Because Hawking Built The Big Bang On A Foundation Of Quicksand." Bulletin of the American Physical Society 59 (2014).

Science does not take a stance that anything is proven. Even when something is beyond all reasonable doubt, science will still call it "the theory of..." So to make science a criteria of proof in the original question is anathema to how science works. Ya just canna make it work, Captain.

OK, I'm not sure you know quite what "peer-reviewed" usually means in the context you are using it. Generally, the work is submitted to a series of experts before publication. They suggest changes and the work is not published until they are happy. It is rare that this will happen with whole books - getting a series of experts to each review a chapter is more common. Neither of the books you cite thank reviewers, which is standard - otherwise how would anyone know that they were peer reviewed?

The sociology blog post you cite is riddled with errors - it spells "Mlodinow" wrong, for example, and also waffles on about discredited Freudian ideas. It's not peer reviewed - indeed, the journal has stopped being peer reviewed altogether since 2010.

Hyland is a book review, not peer reviewed primary literature. The book being reviewed is discredited (Rupert Sheldrake's The Science Delusion).

So that leaves Gentry. Again, that's not a paper, as far as I can tell. At first, I thought it was probably a letter, but no, it's a summary of a presentation. http://absimage.aps.org/image/APR14/MWS ... 000100.pdf
Of course, I did not see the presentation, but the abstract is not promising - lots of grandstanding, little of worth. The only substantial thing is the claim to have discredited redshift, but without any evidence that's useless. Again, this is not peer reviewed.

It's generally considered academic malpractice to cite something you haven't actually consumed. You certainly haven't consumed Hyland. I would be surprised if you saw the Gentry presentation, but if you did, then perhaps you can shred some light (pun not intended) on the flaws in redshift that Gentry points out.