Siddartha, I don´t quite get your point: If the universe is the effect, then what is its cause? Science has now answer to the question if there is a God. You believe that or you don´t. It is therefore no contradiction at all to be a scientist and a believer. Contradictions only begin with literal interpretations of holy texts such as the Bible. There, science does give a different view. I agree that being a creationist and a geologist indicates a case of schizophrenia.

Dear Jonas Kley, it was very unfortunate that the issues involved with the question did not seem very clear to you. However, I would like to thank you for adding comments on the subject. At the very onset, there is no point to take the universe, the open ended embodiment of everything that we can conceive of as the 'effect'; rather the better standpoint is perhaps to accept it as the cause-effect duality. Each and every phenomenon is an effect as well as acting as an agency to cause something else. If the things are not seen in that light, one must search a site for god to stay outside the universe to initiate the creation of the universe which has already been accepted to include everything. Thus, the question is not related to our belief system, it is the breakdown of the scientific logic that should worry a scientist who is a believer as well. And, that was the field of my investigation. What is the mechanism working behind the split personalities to deliver scientific theories and reasoning in their specialized fields maintaining a contradictory view point regarding forcings involved in general rules of creation, be it a simple thing or the universe as a whole.

The answer is not!

I accord with the answer of Jonas.

It would have more likelihood the question:

Does theism come as a natural choice to the scientists?

For example Thomas of Aquinas proposed 5 arguments (or ways) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinque_viae) regarding the existence of God, and the Aquinas' second argument is the argument from first cause that address to your example:

[The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.]

Besides I found your affirmation a little offensive for the believer:

"Thus, the question is not related to our belief system, it is the breakdown of the scientific logic that should worry a scientist who is a believer as well. And, that was the field of my investigation. What is the mechanism working behind the split personalities to deliver scientific theories and reasoning in their specialized fields maintaining a contradictory view point regarding forcings involved in general rules of creation, be it a simple thing or the universe as a whole."

because I can't see any contradictory view point between my faith and the logical reasoning, but I can point to the split personalitie of an atheist with his problem of contradictory view points between his/her incredulity in God and his work on the study of His creation.

Dear Siddartha Lahiri,

it is not so much the issues that aren´t clear to me, it is your reasoning. As you wrote in your question, science is about all phenomena "that can be investigated". Would you agree that there are things that cannot be investigated? E.g., anything happening before the big bang? There must have been something, or we violate your "nothing from nothing" rule. You define the universe as "everything that we can conceive of". Serious scientists have conceived the idea of multiple universes, of which we can see only one. More correctly, this would mean that what we call "universe" is but a small part of the entire thing. I see no way of scientifically proving that what we can see (including with whatever kind of sophisticated tools) is all there is. I concur with Guillermo that greater philosophers than you and me have dealt with this question without coming to the same conclusion as you do.

Thanks to Guillermo and Jonas for expressing their philosophical standpoints. First, I must clarify that the question raised and ideas exchanged were not intended to offend anybody.

Secondly, we should definitely pay serious attention to the great philosophers who did hard work to establish their beliefs in certain systems of thinking. Scientific thinking has its own history of evolution. If we are indebted to Thomas Aquinas for at least creating a space, a working space for the scientists to experiment and draw their conclusions which may not support the 'truth' of a conformist, yet it could claim a place in the society. The space was definitely expanded a lot by Rene Descartes who could at least provide relief to the thinkers about their 'self existence'. However, admiring Descartes does not mean to subscribe his ideas relating body-mind interactions in 'pineal gland'. There are so many other examples. Appreciating the great Aristotle does not mean to support his ignorance about the number of teeth a woman possesses. The point is appreciating greater philosophers does restrict the right of lesser mortals to put questions to the members belonging to the royal court.

Coming back to the definition of "universe', if it includes everything, it can not have a boundary. Unless the existing universe is bounded by some kind of surface, simultaneous existence of multiple universe, in spite of involvement of greater philosophers cannot be taken by real physicists of any stature, great or small too seriously. "Nothing can come from nothing" is incontestable.

I would note that metaphysics seems to come naturally to scientist, now whether or not they include some form of theism within their metaphysics is a different story. However, science often finds itself at a point where there is no further data to examine and hypotheses which cannot currently be tested are all that is left. Anytime that science reaches that point, the hypotheses are in the realm of metaphysics.

William has rightly observed that scientists cannot help but confront metaphysics almost naturally. If the hallmark of metaphysics is testified by its chronic abhorrence of data based measurements, one cannot do science unless an apparently simple event is expressed in the form of a data-set. Thus, the growth of science is invariably associated with shrinking of metaphysics. However, it is not possible to identify the fencing between the domain of metaphysics and applied physics. The struggle continues. Metaphysics can always rejuvenate during the periods of major crisis and drag the inquisitive minds to a state of surrender. The onus goes to Physics to put forward new explanations based on new data sets to bring back a steady state of mind and resolve to struggle with heightened elan and courage.

Dear Suddhartha

Although may be some examples of overlapping between physics and metaphysics, they have and they will forever have their own field of study. Metaphysics has not any abhorrence of data based measurements, what it has is the interest for studing the first principles behind all the real being like: existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics).

All the experimental sciences are founded behind principles that may not be demonstrated. The study of them is one example of the field of metaphysics. Your position was that of the logical positivism: that we have to treat the metaphysical questions as meaningless, but this paradigm was discredited more than 50 years ago by people like Nelson Goodman, Willard Van Orman Quine, Norwood Hanson, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, J L Austin, Peter Strawson, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_Positivism).

About your previous post, I agree that "Nothing can come from nothing" is incontestable, then the Universe can not include everything. God is out of the created universe.

The "laws" that our physical sciences have "discovered" keep changing though.  I highly doubt that we have "unambiguous empirical evidence that there are only two such laws". Psychology, especially Abnormal Psych, strongly suggests that there is an awful lot to reality that we simply do not yet recognize. 

Now just what is "proven" by the existence of the evidence from Abnormal Psych is unclear.

I would note that atheism is a position taken when true scientific skepticism concludes that sufficient evidence has been examined without evidence for the existence of God.  Theism is a position taken when true scientific skepticism concludes that sufficient evidence has been examined and provided evidence for the existence of God.  The individual scientist must decide when the evidence is sufficient for either conclusion.

For scientist ,it may be a ,belief & unless a sound faith within it ,they may go for only a rational approach & if they may go for the rationalist attitude ,their tuning of mind will be that of atheists & in this line they may not believe in existence of God .

However even with their rational approach ,if they believe in nature & his creation in the range of WATER-FIRE,EARTH,AKASH & such other elements which have created the object of research in the laboratory & i believe in the laboratory work the said are basic element to process for the action & research connected  therewith in which mode the scientist should take the approach ,it only depends on their believe & faith .

This is of course my personal opinion 

Manuel, you are quite right that belief requires an assumption.  This applies even to the belief that we have knowledge.  We humans have developed what appears to be a coherent, consistent system that we call knowledge, and as long as the generally accepted assumptions underlying it are correct, or at least not falsified, we are set. 

The one basic problem I can see is that most of us, if not all of us, accept that there is a specific self that only the individual can perceive, and that the self the individual perceives is the true self for that individual.  Yet where does one stand to observe oneself observing oneself?  This set up an infinite regression which is not possible.  The alternative is that anyone who believes that they know themselves via internal sight, introspection or whatever other term one wishes to use, is lying to themselves, thus introducing a flaw into our "knowledge".   That most, if not all of us do this is a psychiatric truism, insofar as there is truth available that is.

Thus if scientists are being honest with themselves,  they should admit that they have lied to themselves and are not perceiving the truth.  I would thus argue that the proper stance for scientists is not atheism, but rather agnosticism.  It is simply not possible to truly know.  One may accept that there is sufficient evidence or that there is not sufficient evidence, possibly a large enough lack to render further looking for evidence to be viewed as meaningless, but never enough for absolute certainty one way or the other.

Most of the material sciences emerged in the west, particularly in Europe which is a Christian dominated area. So naturally most of the early scientists came from Christian families. During early periods of scientific developments, the scientists had to have approval of the church elders for communicating scientific truths to the masses over whom Church had greater control.

In the Catholic world prior to Galileo's conflict with the Church, the majority of educated people subscribed to the Aristotelian geocentric view that the earth was the center of the universe and that all heavenly bodies revolved around the Earth. Galileo defended heliocentrism of Copernicus and as a result had to face Church Inquisition which put him under house arrest for rest of his life and publication of any of his works was forbidden. Such incidents played major role in alienating the scientific community from the Church and therefore the God.

Besides, in religious world, there are primarily two kinds of belief about the nature of God. The first and the most common is the personal God having a human looks. And the second and somewhat difficult to comprehend is the impersonal formless God who is a pure Spirit. Both this categories of God fall under the classification of Dualism. Because in this the observer maintains his/her seperate identity from the God he observes. There is another conception of God in Hinduism which is known as non-dualistic Vedanta. In this the observer evolves to a state of mind where he realizes that "Brahma satya jagat mithya" which means God alone is real and the world is an illusion. In this state the seperation between the observer and the observed is obliterated. In Christian religion, this is equivalent of Jesus saying, I and my father in heaven are one. At another place he says Kingdom of heaven is within. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.

Now this non-dualistic conception of God is as good as atheism. And this is what the scientists are heading for. Knowingly or unknowingly. All these three aspects of God are helpful to different people in different stages of development.

The convenience about pushing the idea /reality of God it is the most personal and subjective matter to conceive. It is important to note that life appears as an emergent property of the system rather than one imposed in the system by external influences (I cite the article about the uniqueness of life in the universe at the bottom).

This framework, arises right away a condition of independence from God, but it also enhances on the other hand the need about deciding if we were created, or not, since we are unique in the universe. Within this condition of independence we are free to believe, which is the most personal and subjective matter. By believing, we can understand that it is an act that is not falsifiable or by experimental research, it is not repeatable, since it is unique for every human being. Thus, the decision to conceive the convenience about pushing God in or out, it is personal, unique and subjective. I would like to go forward with the question and add that, by that simple and personal decision, we reach the most fundamental aspect about life, and it is, its purpose. God’s purpose for us, or our own purpose for life. Both decisions deserving all due respect beyond science.

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