I think we can make the positive claim that nothing like 'gods' exist

[bilby]

QFT cannot be wrong enough to permit unknown influences to exist at the scales in question

The universe can be a simulation hosting a quantum field structure.

This allows such an unknown influence to act at such a scale for the same reason that while a computer program's structure can be deciphered to rule out a process within the program being able to do certain things at particular scales (especially thanks to Godel's contributions to incompleteness), it does not rule out these things from being done side-channel.

In other words, just because no thing in the world of, for example, dwarf fortress has the ability to know what is on the other side of the door because they are bound to the laws of their universe, I still have the power to just... Go in and look at the bits and edit them.

It would not be a matter of QFT being wrong. It would be a matter of not being bounded by or existing purely in the same system which creates the bounds of QFT.

This is why called-shot causal adjacency on demand would prove simulation/host mechanics: it is the only way to structure such behavior.

The only thing it rules out as such are non-simulating gods. It also means that making changes to the structure of reality is very dangerous, very easy to fuck up, and would lead to artifacts like shit randomly exploding so violently that it might be diffucult for some time to tell there was ever even a solar system here before the fuckup.

Again, these facts deal more exotic injuries than the standard injuries offered by the razor: it not only shows that a great many such are well and truly nonsense, but also takes from such any claim to intrinsic moral perfection, under the observation that intrinsic moral perfection is observably not a necessarily quality for entities in that position: it reveals "something with a mind no more developed nor perfect than mere humans may be such a thing, to such a thing as a 'universe simulation', and we already know humans suck."

As such, this produces a more satisfying response to Pascal's wager: that even if there is a god, he can prefer the atheist.

I can even demonstrate A universe (not this one, but contained in this one), which as I explain IS a universe IF this universe has a god, and is one for which this is true.

Sure, if physical reality is a lie (or, if you prefer, a simulation), anything goes.

It isn’t, though. So you can stop riding that hobbyhorse.

 

[Jarhyn]

if physical reality is a lie (or, if you prefer, a simulation), anything goes.

Except this is not a factual, true, or reasonable statement. Many things still don't "go" even in that world.

Simulations are not "lies", they are merely "what they are".

And they STILL cannot be something that invokes a contradiction. Minds still need structure, of A physics not Our physics, and so on.

Even of an unobserved nature, we can reasonably constrain what may be said as true of it.

It's my point that even then, it is not the case that "anything goes".

Even were all of physics a lie, not even then may tri-omni beings exist, because the problem of evil would contradict that.

 

[Jarhyn]

you can stop riding that hobbyhorse.

You also happen, by way of observation, to be visiting the same horse ranch I am, owing to the thread title.

I'm not going to not discuss the topic of an OP when the topic interests me. Am I only supposed then to post on topics that I am not interested in?

What would be the point, at that point?

I have my hobbies and oh, look, you're here too. Our hobbies must be similar.

This is a horse ranch though sir, not a donkey farm. So quit acting like an ass.

 

[skepticalbip]

Well we're all going to find zilch in physics and cosmology

If there is zilch in physics and zilch above physics, then there's zilch gods, and as pointed out.

No I meant the physics (theoretical) is not apt enough to tell you really anything, whether such things is possible or not. I'm with steve_b here.

You appear to be promoting the Christian Biblegod with all the personal descriptions of how he manipulates everything including humans. That god can be shown to be not possible.

This is crucial. Why? Because you are in error, to think I believe in the concept that "God manipulates everything." Which it seems Sean Carroll thinks so too.

Steve's idea of god seems to be whatever we don't yet know, but not your Biblegod.

I think he's been pointing out certain iffy knowledge claims

For some god is just a mysterious (to them) workings of the universe. If they are thinking of god as something like some 'power' that pervades the universe and is responsible for formation of galaxies, stars, our Sun, The Earth, etc. then science has figured that out and science calls it gravity rather than a god.

If that's the definition of the biblical God to you, then you are wrong.

So... if anyone can tell me, what definition of God did Sean Carroll use to make the "knowledge" claim that "God couldn't exist"?

Did he use the same concept you ascribe to, which I'll describe as, the Puppet Master concept? Vigorous thorough experiments resulting in the same conclusion - the conclusion, He couldn't see the "holy strings" attached , so there for.... it's impossible? Never mind conflicting with the concept of free will. Wrong faith, wrong God! What an error!

(He'd be right though, if the concept of Puppet Master was the definition).

ETA:
Anyone who wants to argue the existence of a god should first define exactly what the fuck they mean by the word, god, or they are just prattling nonsense. Your past posts indicate you are arguing for the god described in the Bible which can't exist. Some others don't seem to have actually thought through, so don't know, what they mean by the word, god, but just like the emotional warmth the word gives them (weirdly).

Indeed. it's definition. We see your (plural) definition; it looks a little different from my version!

You seem to have a bit of a reading comprehension problem. I didn't offer my definition of a god. I only gave what god believers have described as what believe. I have seen no evidence for supernatural powers so have no reason to believe they exist.

So since your idea of god is not the Bible god, even though you have argued for that in past posts, what do you believe your god is?

How do you think anyone can hold a discussion if they don't let anyone know WTF they are talking about? Certainly you hold a more meaningful meaning for the word god than that it is a noun.

 

[steve_bank]

To say science knows everything, scientific theories prove no god exists, and theories directly preclude existence of a god, therefore god can not exis is onother thing entirely.

Will not listen to the facts and evidence presented? Check.
Keeps repeating strawman arguments like a mantra? Check.

Learner, is that you? How did you get into Steve's account?

Round and round we go.

Saying based on what you know of science you conclude god can not exist is one thing.

Saying science proves 'positive' god can not exist is another thing altogether. This requires science 'chapter and verse' to be quoted.

I seeno evidence of existence of any god and I do not worry about it. I also see no science that says a god CAN NOT exist.

If anyone believes 'science' precludes gods.

p1 science says this
p2 science says that
c therefore god can not exist

If I am to be objective I have to crtique and quetion atheist and theist assetios equally.

My motto,' neither an atheist nor a theist be. Atheism can become as much an ideology as theism.
.

 

[steve_bank]

Well we're all going to find zilch in physics and cosmology

If there is zilch in physics and zilch above physics, then there's zilch gods, and as pointed out.

No I meant the physics (theoretical) is not apt enough to tell you really anything, whether such things is possible or not. I'm with steve_b here.

You appear to be promoting the Christian Biblegod with all the personal descriptions of how he manipulates everything including humans. That god can be shown to be not possible.

Steve's idea of god seems to be whatever we don't yet know, but not your Biblegod.

For some god is just a mysterious (to them) workings of the universe. If they are thinking of god as something like some 'power' that pervades the universe and is responsible for formation of galaxies, stars, our Sun, The Earth, etc. then science has figured that out and science calls it gravity rather than a god.

ETA:
Anyone who wants to argue the existence of a god should first define exactly what the fuck they mean by the word, god, or they are just prattling nonsense. Your past posts indicate you are arguing for the god described in the Bible which can't exist. Some others don't seem to have actually thought through, so don't know, what they mean by the word, god, but just like the emotional warmth the word gives them (weirdly).

What do you mean by 'what the fuck'? Is that 'what's the sexual intercourse'? What does copulation have to do with the existence of god.

 

[Jarhyn]

Well we're all going to find zilch in physics and cosmology

If there is zilch in physics and zilch above physics, then there's zilch gods, and as pointed out.

No I meant the physics (theoretical) is not apt enough to tell you really anything, whether such things is possible or not. I'm with steve_b here.

You appear to be promoting the Christian Biblegod with all the personal descriptions of how he manipulates everything including humans. That god can be shown to be not possible.

Steve's idea of god seems to be whatever we don't yet know, but not your Biblegod.

For some god is just a mysterious (to them) workings of the universe. If they are thinking of god as something like some 'power' that pervades the universe and is responsible for formation of galaxies, stars, our Sun, The Earth, etc. then science has figured that out and science calls it gravity rather than a god.

ETA:
Anyone who wants to argue the existence of a god should first define exactly what the fuck they mean by the word, god, or they are just prattling nonsense. Your past posts indicate you are arguing for the god described in the Bible which can't exist. Some others don't seem to have actually thought through, so don't know, what they mean by the word, god, but just like the emotional warmth the word gives them (weirdly).

What do you mean by 'what the fuck'? Is that 'what's the sexual intercourse'? What does copulation have to do with the existence of god.

I believe there's a whole song about it, Take Me to Church by a veritable Prophet, Hozier.

 

[bilby]

To say science knows everything, scientific theories prove no god exists, and theories directly preclude existence of a god, therefore god can not exis is onother thing entirely.

Will not listen to the facts and evidence presented? Check.
Keeps repeating strawman arguments like a mantra? Check.

Learner, is that you? How did you get into Steve's account?

Round and round we go.

Saying based on what you know of science you conclude god can not exist is one thing.

Saying science proves 'positive' god can not exist is another thing altogether. This requires science 'chapter and verse' to be quoted.

I seeno evidence of existence of any god and I do not worry about it. I also see no science that says a god CAN NOT exist.

If anyone believes 'science' precludes gods.

p1 science says this
p2 science says that
c therefore god can not exist

If I am to be objective I have to crtique and quetion atheist and theist assetios equally.

My motto,' neither an atheist nor a theist be. Atheism can become as much an ideology as theism.
.

You will find the reasoning set out by Sean Carroll meets your demands; Or rather, you would, if you hadn’t already decided that it cannot, and so decided not to look at it.

That you still clearly haven’t looked at what he has to say, after all your time in this thread, gives me zero confidence that you will do so now.

I have provided summaries (perhaps not very good ones) in this thread and elsewhere on these boards, and you have never addressed their content, other than to repeat your unfounded and untrue claim that you haven’t been provided with the information in those posts, and therefore cannot accept their conclusions.

Sticking your fingers in your ears and saying ‘la-la-la’ isn’t a counterargument.

Refusing to take sides, when one side is clearly and demonstrably right isn’t noble, and is the exact antithesis of ‘not having an ideology’.

Everyone has an ideology, even if that ideology is ‘refusal to admit to having an ideology’. The difference between atheism and theism is that atheism is an ideology that survives being tested against physical reality.

Everyone has a confident answer to the question “what is 2+2”. The people who say “4” might well be rigid and dogmatic ideologues, who believe that to be the answer because they were told to by their elders and betters; It’s likely that very few of them have the mathematical skills or time to set out a proof of their position. But they are, nevertheless, right, while people who say ‘3’ are not - even if they are just as convinced of, and committed to, their answer.

Atheism remains the provably correct answer, even though most atheists hold their position as a matter of ideology or dogma, rather than having learned the physics and demonstrated their correctness via scientific means.

 

[Elixir]

...the reasoning set out by Sean Carroll meets your demands

I never read any Sean Carroll until just now, and I got stuck on the first sentence of the abstract at the top of "Why (almost all) Cosmologists are Atheists".

Here's the line:
"Science and religion both make claims about the fundamental workings of the universe."
Religions do seem to make such claims. They can do that as they are based on unquestionable dogma, usually scriptural, that must first be accepted before any subservient claims can be made.

OTOH, it is my understanding that "science", unless personified as a scientist, refers to a methodology for converging on truth, not a claims-making body of putative facts. So above, I think Sean must be referring to scientists, not science. And when reduced to that, his essay becomes a solution trying to manufacture a problem.

To me it is not surprising that such misrepresentation is required in order to meet Steve's demand for "equal treatment". But IMHO, equal treatment is not required, and in fact, is inappropriate given the relationships of religions vs the scientific method vis a vis the "workings of the universe". While it might be sloppy to say that "science has ruled out god", it remains true that the scientific method has yet to yield any evidence that"goddidit", and no science rests on any question that can be most usefully answered by "goddidit".

Maybe I should have read further but it's 87 degrees and I'm going swimming.

​

 

[atrib]

To say science knows everything, scientific theories prove no god exists, and theories directly preclude existence of a god, therefore god can not exis is onother thing entirely.

Will not listen to the facts and evidence presented? Check.
Keeps repeating strawman arguments like a mantra? Check.

Learner, is that you? How did you get into Steve's account?

Round and round we go.

Saying based on what you know of science you conclude god can not exist is one thing.

Saying science proves 'positive' god can not exist is another thing altogether. This requires science 'chapter and verse' to be quoted.

This has been done in this thread. A summary of the pertinent science has been provided by bilby, and others have linked you to that post even after you have ignored it. If you want greater detail, you have to buy the book and read it for yourself. If you don't understand what is being discussed, ask for help and someone will clarify. Please stop pretending that this information has not been provided to you - that is dishonest.

I seeno evidence of existence of any god and I do not worry about it.

Have you read the fucking posts or bothered to respond to its content? Apparently not. Whose fault is that?

If anyone believes 'science' precludes gods.

p1 science says this
p2 science says that
c therefore god can not exist

If I am to be objective I have to crtique and quetion atheist and theist assetios equally.

My motto,' neither an atheist nor a theist be. Atheism can become as much an ideology as theism.
.

Says the guy who has made it his mission to ignore all the information presented to him, and persist in repeating his baseless claims.

 

[bilby]

OTOH, it is my understanding that "science", unless personified as a scientist, refers to a methodology for converging on truth, not a claims-making body of putative facts.

“science” is both. A methodology, and the results of applying that methodology to the observable universe.

But the definitions of words are unimportant; It’s their meanings that matter. If you prefer to say “The scientific method includes amongst its myriad results the surprising information that it is physically impossible for gods, ghosts, souls or any other phenomenon to interact with individual human beings, in ways which we would not have been easily able to detect, were any such interactions occurring; And therefore allows us to conclude that no such hypothetical phenomena can possibly exist”, that’s fine. It perfectly good English to abbreviate the bolded portion to “Science tells us” or “Science says”.

 

[steve_bank]

I have had Bilby on ignore for years.

His 'science' tended to be derived from science fiction more than actual mathematical theories.

Link to a paper disproving god from MIT or Cal Tech that has appeared in a peer reviewd journal.

In the 90s Hawking said he colud prove the unverse coud create itself without god. He also said black holes were god;s way of keeping things secret from us. Because someone with scientific credentials says something does not make what he or she says science.

First and foremost there is no collective 'science' that says anyting. There are mathematical theories some demons ted some theoretical. How you interpret them is philosophy and religion. Interpretation of physical theory, meaning.

Consider that in thermodynamics texts it is stated that conservation of energy and mass can not be proven, only that no exceptions have been observed.

You can speculate using science that a god can not exists, but you can never prove it.

Science is people working alone or in groups. There is no pope of science that ordains interpretations, unlike religion and aspects of philosophy.

Unless you want to inst humans can and do know everything about the universe then objectively and philosophically a god can not be ruled out.


Our observations are based largely on detecting the electromagnetic spectrum of radiation. It would be hubris to argue things we can not detect can not exist.

 

[Elixir]

“The scientific method includes amongst its myriad results the surprising information that it is physically impossible for gods, ghosts, souls or any other phenomenon to interact with individual human beings, in ways which we would not have been easily able to detect, were any such interactions occurring; And therefore allows us to conclude that no such hypothetical phenomena can possibly exist”, that’s fine.

Nope. I’ll take issue with it until a rigid and enforceable “scientific” definition of “all gods” is offered as part of the statement. Otherwise, I think it wise to restrict statements about the impossible to specific gods with specific attributes that contradict observation.

I don’t believe science ‘says’ things about what isn’t, either as a method or as a body of knowledge. Science concerns what is. We don’t hold science to saying the earth is not 6000 years old. Its job is to provide a best estimate of the earth’s age based on repeatable observations. If religious dogma contradicts, that’s not by design of science and is of zero scientific consequence either way.

 

[atrib]

I have had Bilby on ignore for years.

So you don't know the argument or the underlying facts and you have made no effort to find out. But you are certain that the argument is flawed, or perhaps even that no such argument has been made. Is that a fair assessment of your position?

By the way, this argument has been discussed in multiple threads over the past year or two in posts by bilby, myself and others. You may have missed them, or you may not have understood what was being discussed, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt and believe that you genuinely don't know. You could also have done some independent research using the keywords "standard model of physics" and "sean carroll", but apparently you couldn't be bothered to do that either.

His 'science' tended to be derived from science fiction more than actual mathematical theories.

So you know the argument cannot be right because.... bilby said so?

Link to a paper disproving god from MIT or Cal Tech that has appeared in a peer reviewd journal.

Dr Sean Carroll is tenured faculty at CalTech. And his work is easy to find. You can buy his books from Amazon, watch his lectures on Youtube, or read his science blog. And nothing that he says on this particular topic is even remotely controversial in the scientific community. You would know that had you actually made an effort to find out.

 

[bilby]

“The scientific method includes amongst its myriad results the surprising information that it is physically impossible for gods, ghosts, souls or any other phenomenon to interact with individual human beings, in ways which we would not have been easily able to detect, were any such interactions occurring; And therefore allows us to conclude that no such hypothetical phenomena can possibly exist”, that’s fine.

Nope. I’ll take issue with it until a rigid and enforceable “scientific” definition of “all gods” is offered as part of the statement. Otherwise, I think it wise to restrict statements about the impossible to specific gods with specific attributes that contradict observation.

I don’t believe science ‘says’ things about what isn’t, either as a method or as a body of knowledge. Science concerns what is. We don’t hold science to saying the earth is not 6000 years old. Its job is to provide a best estimate of the earth’s age based on repeatable observations. If religious dogma contradicts, that’s not by design of science and is of zero scientific consequence either way.

You are absolutely correct; Which is why this result is so surprising.

The thing is, you don’t need to know anything about gods to make this determination.

If you want to know if A can influence B, you don’t need to know anything about A, as long as you know every possible way that B can interact with the rest of reality.

There was no particular philosophical reason to expect that we would ever know every possible way that humans can interact with the universe; But it turns out that we can and do know that - and that the number of possible interactions is small (four, to be precise).

Like many results from Quantum Physics, this result is counterintuitive, weird, unexpected, and at odds with a number of things we previously thought of as highly likely. And, also like other results from Quantum Physics, this one matches theory to experiment with astonishing accuracy. It’s not wrong; We have checked.

If you know all the ways humans (who are made of matter) can interact with everything else, then you can rule out any unknown influences, without needing to know any more about them than that they aren’t one of the four influences that can interact with matter at human scales and temperatures.

No hypothetical fifth force can exist that can interact with a human without atomising him. So if you posit that a human has an immaterial ‘soul’, you must be wrong, unless that ‘soul’ interacts with the corporeal body by one of the four forces. And if it did, we could have and would have detected it.

Any ‘fifth force’ that can interact non-explosively with a human would have to be carried by a particle of sufficiently low mass as to have been created and detected in the LHC. No such particles have been detected. So either mass-energy equivalence is wrong (ie E does NOT equal mc²); Or Quantum Field Theory is wildly, hugely and obviously wrong (it’s not - QFT is one of the best tested theories in the history of science); Or gods cannot interact non-destructively with human scale matter without being obvious and easily detected doing so.

We almost certainly don’t know all of the possible ways that matter can interact. But we DO know all the ways that matter can interact at the modest temperatures and scales human beings inhabit.

A human being IS (at least in part) a physical phenomenon that can only interact with the rest of reality in four ways - Via the Strong and Weak nuclear forces, Electromagnetism, and Gravity.

Gravity cannot carry the soul of a dying man away without also affecting the whole population of Earth, because gravity acts at vast scales. The Strong and Weak nuclear forces cannot do it, for the opposite reason - they don’t have the range to get the soul (or the prayers, or the miracles) into or out of the body.

And Electromagnetic effects are well understood and very easy to detect. If they were responsible, we would see it.

Theologians have spent the entire period of the enlightenment claiming that there’s an unknown, possibly unknowable, way in which god interacts with man. But we now know ALL of the ways that man interacts with reality, and the only way that we could have missed detecting this ‘mysterious way’ would be for it to be non-real, or in other words, nonexistent.

Science tells us that the Earth isn’t 6,000 years old, by setting upper and lower bounds on possible ages for the Earth, and noting that “6,000 years” falls outside that possible range.

It similarly tells us that intervention by unknown influences (including, but certainly not limited to gods) can only occur outside the bounds of the energy density ranges we can test in the LHC. And we know that humans cannot survive (or even remain intact) except in a small range of energy densities that sits well within those bounds.

It’s just as correct to say that science tells us the Earth is not 6,000 years old as it is to say that science tells us that no gods exist. At least, no gods that interact, or can interact, in any way, with humans and their immediate environment.

Planets that are 6,000 years old certainly exist, but cannot possibly sustain human life. Unknown forces probably exist, but cannot possibly affect humans without disintegrating both the humans and a large volume of their surroundings.

 

[bilby]

So you know the argument cannot be right because.... bilby said so?

That undeniable fact has been holding me back for years.

 

[Elixir]

Science tells us that the Earth isn’t 6,000 years old, by setting upper and lower bounds on possible ages for the Earth, and noting that “6,000 years” falls outside that possible range.

I disagree, despite your very cogent and IMO accurate description of the limited range of conditions that support human life.
Science tells us that various observations indicate that the age of the earth lies between lower and upper bounds. It does not iterate all the “wrong” ages eliminated by that range statement. PEOPLE - even laypersons - can accept or deny the positive findings emergent from scientific methodology, and accept or deny the indication that 6000yo not only lies outside the range, but is a scientifically wackadoodle assertion. That’s not science “speaking”. It’s people who may or may not understand the scientific basis for establishing the range of possibility, who have at least noticed that scientists’ work is reliable enough that GPS works, spacecraft can be landed on Mars, etc., causing them to accept the age range statement without the need to verify it. That’s who “says”.

 

[atrib]

So you know the argument cannot be right because.... bilby said so?

That undeniable fact has been holding me back for years.

What are you doing here? Don't you have a new science fiction book to write or something?

 

[abaddon]

The thing is, you don’t need to know anything about gods to make this determination.

Yes you do. You need to know they're limited to affecting human's particles in a detectable way and are incapable of hiding it.

If you know all the ways humans (who are made of matter)...

If you're implying they're made of matter and nothing else then you're doing philosophy and not science.

... can interact with everything else, then you can rule out any unknown influences, without needing to know any more about them than that they aren’t one of the four influences that can interact with matter at human scales and temperatures.

This argument is a restatement of metaphysical materialism. But you're saying "physics" in place of admitting it's a philosophy called metaphysical materialism: 'Our model of reality is limited to the detection of matter, so it detects nothing but matter, so therefore nothing is real except matter'.

No hypothetical fifth force can exist that can interact with a human without atomising him.

But what if the "fifth force" is God and God, because he's not limited to physics, decides not to atomize the human?

... we now know ALL of the ways that man interacts with reality...

If god's a force and interacts with humans only using forces and has no power to erase the traces of doing so, then your argument works. You're talking as if god is necessarily just another item within the set of items that your model allows (particles, forces, mechanisms).

The model works for some things, and maybe it's true too. But your argument entails the unscientific claim that your model is the totality of reality and that all claims must fit your model or they're false. All claims that don't fit your model are unscientific, yes. But unscientific = false is philosophy, not science. Positivists call their philosophical speculation "science" to attribute science's reputation to their speculations. But it's philosophy, and to be good philosophy it's important to doubt the basic assumptions better.

-----

What would be the point of believing in a hard-to-detect god? I don't know... That's one of my philosophical reasons for not believing in one. My point here is that philosophy should be called philosophy.

Also, if the aim is the deconversion of theists, "science says so and if you don't agree then you're ignorant" is bad strategy. If you want a chance at getting a theist to consider "oh, what's convincing to me isn't convincing to others so maybe I should think on it a little more" then you offer reasons we should all doubt ourselves better. If you want to lend support to the theist claim "you people are just believers too!" then you lay out all your beliefs and make a display of your deformation professionelle like you're doing.

 

[bilby]

The thing is, you don’t need to know anything about gods to make this determination.

Yes you do. You need to know they're limited to affecting human's particles in a detectable way and are incapable of hiding it.

No, you don’t. You just need to know that particles cannot interact in ways that can be hidden. And QFT is clear about this - if it’s possible for particles to interact in these hypothetical ‘hidden’ ways, QFT needs to be very significantly and obviously wrong, and it’s not.

If you know all the ways humans (who are made of matter)...

If you're implying they're made of matter and nothing else then you're doing philosophy and not science.

I an not implying that, and thought I had made that clear; My argument requires only the humans are made at least partly of matter, and that anything else that we are justified in calling a part of that human must interact in some way with the material portion of that human.

... can interact with everything else, then you can rule out any unknown influences, without needing to know any more about them than that they aren’t one of the four influences that can interact with matter at human scales and temperatures.

This argument is a restatement of metaphysical materialism. But you're saying "physics" in place of admitting it's a philosophy called metaphysical materialism: 'Our model of reality is limited to the detection of matter, so it detects nothing but matter, so therefore nothing is real except matter'.

Not at all. I am saying that nothing is real unless it can somehow affect matter. That it turns out that matter cannot be influenced by non material forces is surprising, but an unavoidable result of QFT. We can choose to reject QFT, or immaterial influences on matter, or both; But we cannot keep both.

And there’s no basis for rejecting QFT that doesn’t also reject the entire scientific method, leaving us with zero knowledge of anything, and just incredibly lucky that all our technology happens to work; While there’s every good reason to reject the idea of hypothetical influences that have never ever been detected in any way.

No hypothetical fifth force can exist that can interact with a human without atomising him.

But what if the "fifth force" is God and God, because he's not limited to physics, decides not to atomize the human?

That’s possible, as long as humans have no physical components at all.

... we now know ALL of the ways that man interacts with reality...

If god's a force and interacts with humans only using forces and has no power to erase the traces of doing so, then your argument works. You're talking as if god is necessarily just another item within the set of items that your model allows (particles, forces, mechanisms).

When the model describes all of these interactions, he either is, or he cannot interact.

The model works for some things, and maybe it's true too. But your argument entails the unscientific claim that your model is the totality of reality and that all claims must fit your model or they're false.

No, it really doesn’t.

All claims that don't fit your model are unscientific, yes. But unscientific = false is philosophy, not science.

Well I take offense at being accused of being a philosopher but as science is a subset of philosophy, I am not sure that you are actually saying anything substantive here.

Positivists call their philosophical speculation "science" to attribute science's reputation to their speculations. But it's philosophy, and to be good philosophy it's important to doubt the basic assumptions better.

I have no problem with doubting assumptions; But for QFT to be wrong enough to allow human scale matter to interact in unknown ways requires doubting observations - hugely accurate observations, that match the theory as exactly as we have ever been able to measure anything - and therefore boils down to solipsism. Insofar as we can know anything, this is part of that anything.

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What would be the point of believing in a hard-to-detect god? I don't know... That's one of my philosophical reasons for not believing in one. My point here is that philosophy should be called philosophy.

Also, if the aim is the deconversion of theists, "science says so and if you don't agree then you're ignorant" is bad strategy. If you want a chance at getting a theist to consider "oh, what's convincing to me isn't convincing to others so maybe I should think on it a little more" then you offer reasons we should all doubt ourselves better. If you want to lend support to the theist claim "you people are just believers too!" then you lay out all your beliefs and make a display of your deformation professionelle like you're doing.

Your argument rests on the assumption that I am seeking to disprove ‘philosophical gods’ - any gods a philosopher can pin that label on. But ai am disproving theological gods - any gods anyone has ever believed in.

These are very different things.

Philosophical gods are a key element of a rather pathetic argument that boils down to “OK, you can prove my God impossible; But you can’t prove this hypothetical entity that I invented for this discussion impossible, and I am declaring it to be a god, therefore gods are possible, therefore my God is possible after all”. They have no other purpose, nobody believes in them, and nobody thinks that they even exist.