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00:00About 79% of the world's population identifies with a religious group.
00:05A big majority, around 85% of those people, believe in God or a higher power.
00:11According to one survey, approximately 55% of American adults pray daily.
00:17But what do you think?
00:19And could God ever be proven beyond doubt?
00:24Science and religion might initially seem incompatible,
00:28but both fields are founded on finding apparent truths concerning reality.
00:32The main difference between them is the methodology employed to determine fundamental statements.
00:37Science demands objectivity and verifiable facts,
00:40while religion places its emphasis on faith arising from scripture or dogma.
00:45Historically, there have been arguments for and against both.
00:48The power of Christ compels you!
00:51The power of Christ compels you!
00:54Science deals with hypotheses and theories, which makes it an ever-changing field.
00:59In a matter of years, a school textbook can become dramatically out of date
01:03simply due to modern discoveries invalidating once-popular ideas.
01:07So, if science is constantly evolving, what constitutes a scientific fact?
01:11Well, it is a contestable term, but some principles are backed by such an overwhelming amount of empirical evidence
01:17that they're generally seen as beyond reproach.
01:20We've known for 2,000 years, based on observations you can make with your own eyes, that the world is round.
01:26But they have all the evidence right in front of them and they still choose not to believe in it.
01:30The theories aim to explain an unexplained element of the world.
01:34The facts are objective observations.
01:36While the sciences have steadily developed throughout history,
01:39people have always asked the ultimate question, but why?
01:43It's led philosophers to debate the existence of deities for thousands of years,
01:47to the point where classical theism argues that we, as humans,
01:51simply don't have the required knowledge to define a transcendent god.
01:55But why?
01:57Why now?
01:59Bruce, you have the divine spark.
02:04If the two paths did converge and we did have empirical proof of an omniscient being,
02:09then the world would be a very different place.
02:12Okay, God is real, and arguing against that is to consciously ignore observable facts.
02:18The first concern would still centre on defining what exactly the now-confirmed God is.
02:23Countless religions exist with their own belief systems,
02:26though Hinduism, Islam and Christianity are arguably amongst the most pervasive current institutions with a deity.
02:32Many Hindus consider Brahman to be the supreme being who assumes many forms.
02:37Muslims believe in Allah, a transcendent entity responsible for creating the universe,
02:41and Christians see God as a being who sent Jesus to save humans from their sins.
02:46Significant variations exist between all three, but there are certain shared characteristics.
02:51For the sake of today's question, God is supreme, monotheistic, omnipotent and omnipresent.
02:57But, as centuries-old ideas are flung into disarray,
03:00people's primary, perhaps natural concern would still be to determine whether the certified deity is in fact their God.
03:07The global confusion would be unlike anything else ever experienced, with two main feasible consequences.
03:13The first, all current religions would dissolve to birth a new belief system idolizing the scientifically proven God.
03:20Theoretically uniting cultures, such an outcome could usher in a new era of peace,
03:25though such an idealistic resolution would be a best-case scenario.
03:29Your Holiness, there is word from America. They say an angel has foretold the apocalypse.
03:35Keep an eye on it.
03:36The second, and perhaps more plausible, outcome involves religions weaving science's God into their pre-existing belief systems.
03:43The God becomes everyone's God, but disagreements between interpretations would still happen.
03:49Here, religions without a singular deity are likely to suffer worst.
03:53The meditative teachings of something like Buddhism could survive the change,
03:57but even they don't leave much room for a factual God.
04:00In such a universe, denying God means rejecting science, which puts atheism in quite a pickle, too.
04:06Would non-believers disappear overnight?
04:08Probably not, but they might now take the form of non-conformists rather than atheists.
04:13For a real-world comparison, despite the mountains of evidence showing the Earth to be round,
04:18not everyone accepts this as an undeniable truth.
04:21Facts aren't always enough, and even a proven God wouldn't be accepted by everyone,
04:26especially if its existence isn't regularly reaffirmed by science, as a reminder.
04:31Researchers would also be far from done.
04:34Scientific facts are commonly used as bedrocks to form additional theories and laws.
04:39In the real world, again, it's a fact that letting go of your phone prompts it to plummet to the ground,
04:44but Newton's law of universal gravitation enables the speed and force of impact to be calculated.
04:50Then there's Einstein's theory of general relativity,
04:53which tries to explain why the phone falls downwards rather than floating upwards or remaining suspended in mid-air.
04:59And so, proving God proposes a whole new range of mysteries.
05:03Why does God exist? How does God impact other fundamental theories?
05:07Even if nothing appears to actually change, our entire understanding of the natural world would be challenged.
05:13As would our thoughts on the birth of the universe and life itself.
05:16Written with the finger of God.
05:24Scientists wouldn't be satisfied with only confirming God's existence, and would next seek to understand God's will.
05:31Meanwhile, those who had previously had faith in God would see that taken away from them, too.
05:36There'd be no need to believe in something we know to be true.
05:39Both shifts could have a major impact.
05:42For example, the afterlife.
05:44While exceptions do exist, most religions assume admission into the good place is in some way determined by a person's lifelong efforts.
05:52Come on in.
05:54If this became scientific fact, it should create worldwide peace of mind.
05:59If the conditions to avoid the bad place were known, criminal behavior should theoretically decline since there's no escaping judgment.
06:06However, accountability isn't always a credible deterrent for crime, so a completely safe utopia is still dubious.
06:13Human accountability is one thing, but the reverse also holds true.
06:17Godly responsibility.
06:19Things like earthquakes and tsunamis suddenly seem a lot more purposeful.
06:23Like the Old Testament's Great Flood, any catastrophic disasters would be seen as a clear message from God, rather than an act controlled by nature.
06:31By extension, areas subjected to fewer disasters could suddenly, and dangerously, claim a divine superiority over less fortunate places.
06:39Natural events have often been attributed by some to some sort of divine plan in the past.
06:44But there'd now be a switch between believing everything happens for a reason and knowing that it does.
06:49And that reason would be God.
06:51But, more than that, we'd need to determine if and where free will and God's will differ.
06:57If a flood happens, would it 100% be God's fault?
07:00Or does part of the blame still lay with whoever was in charge of maintaining flood defenses?
07:05We've lost everything.
07:07God's presence would place every incident under a microscope,
07:11possibly undermining humanity's basic ideas of justice and fairness.
07:15Karl Marx famously described religion as the opium of the people, a quote often presented as a criticism of theology.
07:22And while religion's place in society would clearly change, its hold on the people probably wouldn't.
07:28In fact, a confirmed God could have an even greater sway over its followers,
07:33discouraging the masses from revolting via a belief that the Kingdom of God rewards suffering.
07:38Our mortal lives could be more widely seen as only stepping stones,
07:42because in this alternate reality where God and the afterlife are a given,
07:45who'd be willing to risk eternal damnation for a non-conformist 60 or 70 years on Earth?
07:51Inevitably, though, feelings of fear, paranoia and contempt would brew.
07:55This would perhaps lead to the formation of a new form of atheism,
07:59populated by those who, for various reasons, would refuse to bow to any God, regardless of whether it had been proven.
08:06Over the course of history, various societies have worshipped physical beings as living deities,
08:11from the Egyptian pharaohs to pre-1945 Japanese emperors.
08:15But even then, not everyone fell in line.
08:18If God was fact, there'd still be those who defied it.
08:21Nevertheless, the removal of God's transcendence would still constitute massive change.
08:26The having of faith is a vital part of most belief systems, but it has little place in science.
08:31By actualizing God, science would elevate humans to a similar level,
08:35potentially even superseding the supreme being before long.
08:39Knowledge is power, and there'd be no greater knowledge or power than this.
08:44Finally, would people readily accept science's God as the endpoint of everything?
08:48The question of who created God, or who created the creator, has existed since the days of Aristotle.
08:55The argument says that a cause and effect chain can't be infinite.
08:58So, something must exist that causes but was not affected.
09:02If you accept the idea, then that something is God.
09:05Modern science kicks against this train of thought as there's nothing to suggest a chain can't be unlimited.
09:11But, if science suddenly found in favour of God, then the endpoint theory might also be confirmed.
09:16Whether or not it'd afford our lives with any more or less meaning is another question entirely.
09:22But, that's what would happen if the existence of God was scientific fact.
09:27What do you think? Is there anything we missed?
09:29Let us know in the comments, check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you subscribe and ring the bell for our latest content.