Does Science prove God does not exist?

[Alessandro]

Science shows God's work.

 

[Nathan Poe]

Science shows God's work.

True enough. Even if you believe in the scientific theories and findings, the absolute worst-case scenario is that God didn't do it quite like it was described in the Bible.

And so what? That's just something else to shove over from the "literal" column to the "allegorical" one.

 

[ObbiQuiet]

Science shows God's work.

If you believe God created the natural world, and science is the study of the natural world, then then you are correct.

 

[Ben_Hur]

- Actually...

- It is very possible to rule out the existence of a god by using science and logic together. The only trick is that we actually have to DEFINE that god and his or her attributes, and those attributes must impact us in some empirically measurable way.

- For example. Any god that is defined as:

1. The creator of the universe.
2. Omnipotent.
3. Omniscient.
4. Benevolent.

- Such a god cannot exist. It is logically prohibited.

Dude, I got an A in logic and you've shown none of the principles I learned to show a logical relationship here. You seem to imply that it is proven that items 1 through 4 are known. You're begging the question.

What you are saying (in summary), breaking it down:

A. The creater, if he exists, must be omnipotent.
B. Omnipotence is impossible.
A and B = No creator

While A is true, B has not been proven. Be is not necessarily true.

Same with 3 and 4, except in 4, Benevolence is possible, so it in its simplest form, your logic on number 4 proves the existence of God.

A. The creater, if he exists, must be benevolent.
B. Benevolence is CERTAINLY possible for someone to be.
A and B means creater is possible (wrt Benevolence only).

You would probably want to throw 4 out since it is irrelevant to your argument.

Bottom line is you can't prove a the non-existence of a creator without searching the entire universe and the other 6 of the 10 theorized dimensions (reference on the dimensions available upon request). Unless, of course, you state some rather extensive assumptions.

 

[lucaspa]

Dude, I got an A in logic and you've shown none of the principles I learned to show a logical relationship here. You seem to imply that it is proven that items 1 through 4 are known. You're begging the question.

What you are saying (in summary), breaking it down:

A. The creater, if he exists, must be omnipotent.
B. Omnipotence is impossible.
A and B = No creator

While A is true, B has not been proven. Be is not necessarily true.

Actually, it's A that is not necessarily true. Deity only has to be powerful enough to do the actions ascribed to it: creating the universe, raising the dead, etc. It is a man-made extrapolation from the power required for these actions that deity is omnipotent.

What you see in the post you quoted is an example of a strawman argument.

Bottom line is you can't prove a the non-existence of a creator without searching the entire universe and the other 6 of the 10 theorized dimensions (reference on the dimensions available upon request).

That's one way of doing it. Search the entire search space. The other way to do so is to demonstrate that the actions ascribed to deity were not done by deity. That is, to show that the universe arose thru a process other than creation by an intelligent entity. Hawking realizes that, if No Boundary is true, then that is what he has done. In No Boundary the universe just IS and wasn't created. The catch is that No Boundary has not been shown to be correct. It might be correct. But then again, creation by a deity might be correct.

 

[lucaspa]

Imagine a robot that the network of brain has been simulated for it by electronic circuits. It re-acts like a human but can we say that it feels events, which occur, and even what itself do. How we can say a combination of materials as brain or that simulated brain circuit is aware of activities that happens in itself and feels them. I think we cannot explain it without accepting the existence ghost.
Existence of ghost is a reason for existence of god.

This is equivalent to saying that consciousness requires an intelligent entity -- consciousness -- to exist. You are making a revised Argument from Design. You obviously haven't been paying attention to science fiction in a while. Remember Data on the show Star Trek: The Next Generation? Here was a postulated "robot" (actually android) capable of self-programming. The result was consciousness. In more contemporary philosophical thought, Daniel Dennett has explored the issue in the books Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Before you accept your argument as "proof", you should read and understand these.

Several programs made by Darwinian selection have produced elements of consciousness that have been good enough to fool other humans. One example is Darwinian selection to produce inventions. These inventions and the logic behind them cannot be told from inventions made by humans, and the Patent Office is considering two novel inventions by this program.

24. Jr Koza, MA Keane, MJ Streeter, Evolving inventions. Scientific American, 52-59, Feb 2003 check out www.genetic-programming.com

Oh, yes, read these two articles also:
1. GM Edelman and G Tononi, A Universe of Consciousness How Matter Becomes Imagination, Basic Books, 2000. Argue that a Darwinian model can be applied to neural activity to explain consciousness. In this "neural Darwinism", selective mechanisms on various scales arise, favoring certain neuronal firing patterns over others.
2. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/294/5544/1030 Review of memory and learning as chemical processes.

 

[lucaspa]

This is an old thread, but it has some misconceptions that still need to be corrected.

All science is based on methodological naturalism. That is that the natural universe can be understood as the result of natural processes and natural processes alone.

This is not methodologial naturalism. What you have defined is philosophical naturalism.

Methodological naturalism states that science is limited, by its methodology, to looking only at "natural" or material causes. Science is unable to test directly for non-natural causes. They could well exist; but science hasn't got the methodological tools to look for them directly.

As I alluded to earlier, this was chosen as the method because supernatural processes are not studieably by natural tools and methods.

Here you contradict your definition. If supernatural processes cannot be studied by "natural" tools and methods, then you can't say that the universe can be understood by natural processes alone.

So what science gives you is the material component of an explanation or process. Science doesn't tell you whether there is also a supernatural component to the explanation or process.

 

[Drotar]

If anything, the fact that evolution, if I do come to accept it, has led us to the point we're at now, it makes it all the more likely that evolutionary processes were directed.

If I ever do come to accept evolution, I'd be forced to stick with theistic evolution. That eliminates the probability factors that we see of the eye and brain evolving, etc.

Nothing science could possibly come up with could ever prove God did not exist. It would at best only 'prove' that our view of Him and His creation is wrong. You may be able to prove that this god or that god does not exist, but to prove that no god exists is impossible. Nothing contradicts God's law or being- just what we understand of it/Him. TTYL Jesus loves you!

 

[Drotar]

I understood you to be a theistic evolutionist lucaspa. Your post to Ben_Hur seems to hint at something else.

Also, the fact that no boundary has not be demonstrated to be correct- are you saying there is no proof that the universe is isotropic? Alas, my feeble mind is confused again.

Third, how would no boundary prove that there is no God?

 

[The Archangel Aethariel]

As others have indicated, science cannot make any *direct* claims about the existence of God, or lack thereof. Science is methodological naturalism, that is, for the sake of procedure in the discipline, all phenomena are treated as if they driven by purely naturalistic processes.

However, while science is only methodological naturalism, the completeness of the method casts serious doubt on any falsification of ontological naturalism. In many areas of thought, humans make methodological assumptions-- geometry, mechanics, interpersonal relations, etc. Practically everything.

However, in most cases, these methodological assumptions can and have been demostrated to be only that. Take, for example, the methodological assumption in simple mechanics that air resistance is negligible. In most cases, this assumption is perfectly valid, and for good reasons-- most objects that we fire about in the air have minimal surface area and/or are aerodynamically designed. But if we were to drop a large sheet to the ground of surface area 10 (m^2), our methodological assumption would fail us-- our sheet would fall far slower than it would be predicted to with our assumption.

These kind of 'exceptions' exist to counterpoint the vast majority of methodological assumptions-- but this is not the case in science. There is no case where our methodological assumption of naturalism has failed us. If naturalism truly *was* only methodological in nature, we would expect that there would exist instances where methodological naturalism is unable to explain. Simply put, *one single well-confirmed and gratuitous* breach of 'natural law' would undercut all of our arguments for ontological naturalism. At best, it would force us to re-examine our understanding of fundamental principles, and at worse, we would have to conclude that methodological naturalism is simply inadequate for explaining the universe.

The fact that no such event has occured can lead us to one of a few conclusions:

1) Ontological naturalism is true.
2) Ontological naturalism is false, but God/god/gods are, in the visible realm, acting entirely through processes describable by naturalism, or are simply refraining from engaging in the process at all.

Of course, (2) is always a possibility. You cannot ever disprove it-- this is why a deistic-style or 'hidden' god remains a possibility that everyone must remain at least agnostic towards. Science doesn't disprove god, but the completeness of science gives us very good reason to question the rationale behind arguments for ontological metaphysical happenings.

~AA

 

[lucaspa]

If anything, the fact that evolution, if I do come to accept it, has led us to the point we're at now, it makes it all the more likely that evolutionary processes were directed.

If I ever do come to accept evolution, I'd be forced to stick with theistic evolution. That eliminates the probability factors that we see of the eye and brain evolving, etc.

Darwinian selection eliminate those "probability factors". Darwinian selection is a method for cutting down odds and making what appear to be long shots if taken in a single step to be virtual certainties if taken in small steps. See Climbing Mt. Improbable by Richard Dawkins.

Nothing science could possibly come up with could ever prove God did not exist. It would at best only 'prove' that our view of Him and His creation is wrong. You may be able to prove that this god or that god does not exist, but to prove that no god exists is impossible.

This is more a statement of faith than of knowledge. How are you so confident of predicting the future? How do you know what science might come up with? With the tools and knowledge we have now, science is agnostic. But it seems premature to speak for all time. At some future time, science might be able to settle the issue of the existence of a deity -- either for or against. To say "nothing ... could possibly come up with" is way beyond your knowledge.

In another thread -- FoC's -- you state that the universe is what it is. That holds true for the existence of god as well as anything else. Deity either exists or doesn't exist no matter what our beliefs are on the matter.

 

[lucaspa]

As others have indicated, science cannot make any *direct* claims about the existence of God, or lack thereof. Science is methodological naturalism, that is, for the sake of procedure in the discipline, all phenomena are treated as if they driven by purely naturalistic processes.

That is not methodological naturalism. MN says nothing about "purely naturalistic processes" nor does it arise "for the sake of procedure". MN arises directly from how experiments are done.

Let's say you want to find ALL causes/entities necessary for plant growth. So you go out and get a number of plants. You put them in the following conditions:
1. Sunlight, water, soil, air
2. Sunlight, water, soil, but in a clear box where the air has been pumped out.
3. Sunlight, water, no soil, air.
4. Sunlight, no water, soil, air
5. A darkened box with no sunlight, water, soil, air.

This scientific protocol will tell you if these 4 entities/causes are necessary for plant growth. You can add others if you wish but you will follow the same scientific protocol of having a control where you KNOW the entity is absent and compare it to an experimental where you KNOW the entity is present.

Now comes the kicker. How about the supernatural? Where is my control for that? Which plant can I point to and say "this one has NO supernatural in it?" I can't. Therefore I am limited to looking at only material causes that I can set up "controls" for.

However, while science is only methodological naturalism, the completeness of the method casts serious doubt on any falsification of ontological naturalism.

The method isn't as complete as you thought. As I just demonstrated. Without controls for the supernatural, you can't make any ontological statements. Not even about "falsification of ontological naturalism". ON may be completely false, like No Boundary may be completely false. Neither can be tested.

However, in most cases, these methodological assumptions can and have been demostrated to be only that. Take, for example, the methodological assumption in simple mechanics that air resistance is negligible. In most cases, this assumption is perfectly valid, and for good reasons-- most objects that we fire about in the air have minimal surface area and/or are aerodynamically designed. But if we were to drop a large sheet to the ground of surface area 10 (m^2), our methodological assumption would fail us-- our sheet would fall far slower than it would be predicted to with our assumption.

This isn't about methodological assumptions, but about the statements of a theory. The theory makes statements about the physical world, and one of the underlying statements is that air resistance is negligible. When air resistance is not negligible, the theory is false and has to be modified.

There is no case where our methodological assumption of naturalism has failed us. If naturalism truly *was* only methodological in nature, we would expect that there would exist instances where methodological naturalism is unable to explain.

Sorry, but one of the underlying assumptions here is that "natural = without the supernatural". And it is that assumption that is unjustified. With your example above, we do have a control for the paper: solid sphere. For MN, we have no control.

Simply put, *one single well-confirmed and gratuitous* breach of 'natural law' would undercut all of our arguments for ontological naturalism.

Notice the easy out: "well-confirmed". Since such instances are going to be single, you can always take Hume's way out and simply say that there can be no sufficient confirmation. For instance, Jesus' Resurrection would qualify but you will claim that is not "well-confirmed".

However, your problem is deeper than simple denial. ON rests on something you can't test. This was put well by Butler:
"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." Butler: Analogy of Revealed Religion.

How do you know Butler is wrong? Since you can't set up two test tubes and say "supernatural is in this one but absent from that one" you don't know whether any "natural" process will work without the supernatural. Will oxygen and hydrogen burn to form water without Butler's "intelligent agent"? You don't know and can't find out. Therefore ON has nothing to stand on. It's a faith.

The fact that no such event has occured can lead us to one of a few conclusions:

1) Ontological naturalism is true.
2) Ontological naturalism is false, but God/god/gods are, in the visible realm, acting entirely through processes describable by naturalism, or are simply refraining from engaging in the process at all.

Not always. For instance, there are at least two ways that deity can act on evolution and not get caught. Since both methods were found by atheists (ONs), you can't argue bias.

1. Deity could provide certain mutations. Directing a cosmic ray such that it made a genetic change in a germ cell is not beyond deity. That would be a "gratuitous" incident, by your definition, but undetectable.
2. In the past, deity could have engaged in artificial selection. That is, deity could cause any number of "natural" phenonmenon, like lightning, to eliminate individuals like human breeders cull herds. That would also be "gratuitous" but would be undetectable.

Now you have a theistic deity who can change the playing field by these methods or by simply not having a growth factor work during an individual's embryonic development. Or any number of other times it withdraws its necessity for any physical phenonmenon.

 

[lucaspa]

I understood you to be a theistic evolutionist lucaspa. Your post to Ben_Hur seems to hint at something else.

Look at the specific arguments used by Ben_Hur. And look at my response. What matters are the specific claims, not the overall position. You can't arrive at a truthful position by using flawed claims and arguments.

Also, the fact that no boundary has not be demonstrated to be correct- are you saying there is no proof that the universe is isotropic? Alas, my feeble mind is confused again.

No Boundary eliminates the singularity of the Big Bang by having the time and space dimensions be exactly the same at a critical point during the Big Bang. This has nothing to do with the universe being isotropic. Hawking chose this condition arbitrarily. No Boundary gives us exactly the universe we see today but also makes the universe finite but unbounded. Think of the surface of a hyperbolic solid. An ice cream cone with the point rounded off. The Big Bang would be at the bottom of the solid but the solid is finite (a limited size) but it has no boundaries. Therefore no creation. It just IS and was never created.

The visualization works best with a sphere. Look at the surface of the earth. That surface is finite. But it is unbounded in that you can go anywhere on it and can't even find a place where you are not on the sphere. The north pole would be "where" the Big Bang was but that is still on the sphere. The sphere is self-contained. It doesn't have a point where it doesn't exist and needs to be created. It just is.

Now, since Hawking's decision to make space and time be indistinguishable is arbitrary, that condition is not compelled to exist. You can get our universe if space and time are always different after the BB. So, since No Boundary predicts our universe but several other conditions also predict our universe, there is no way currently to test No Boundary. Without a way to test it, we don't know if it is correct or, more importantly, wrong.

 

[The Archangel Aethariel]

That is not methodological naturalism. MN says nothing about "purely naturalistic processes" nor does it arise "for the sake of procedure".

Well, I'm not quite sure what to say here. By definition, any process that is called 'naturalistic' is "purely naturalistic"-- there are not shades of grey regarding 'just how naturalistic' is a process. Methodological naturalism, by definition, assumes that for the experiments being performed, all objects are treated as if they are only influenced by naturalistic forces. You seem to have some sort of twisted definition of 'methodological naturalism' that honestly doesn't make much sense--by definition of the words, it means an assumption of purely naturalistic processes for the sake of procedure.

Now comes the kicker. How about the supernatural? Where is my control for that? Which plant can I point to and say "this one has NO supernatural in it?" I can't.

Of course. Which is exactly why, for the sake of procedure, we have to assume that none of the setups are operated on by supernatural forces. You seem to think that MN is merely saying "Ok, we can't make a control for supernaturalistic forces, so we're just not going to make judgments either way regarding them." This, however, is misguided-- you aren't looking hard enough at the process. Unless you explicitly rule out all possible supernatural interference, you cannot make any tenable claims about the causality involved in your experiment.

Unless you say, for the purpose of procedure, "the factors governing the growth and death of these plants are assumed to be purely natural," you CANNOT come back and say that plants require air, water, or anything else involved in your experiment. For unless you, for the purpose of the experiment, totally rule out any supernatural influence, you have no way of determining causal connections. After all, if the supernatural remains a possibility, a plant's apparant death from lack of water just as well may have been the result of a pernicious divine will.

I am limited to looking at only material causes that I can set up "controls" for.

As I've been saying, you're started in the right direction, but you're drawing radically incorrect conclusions-- you cannot even call the material parameters you set up to be causes unless you remove the possibility of supernatural intervention from your methodology.

The method isn't as complete as you thought. As I just demonstrated. Without controls for the supernatural, you can't make any ontological statements.

Your second sentence here is nonsensical-- existence of the supernatural or not plays no role in whether something is --existence is a property indepedent of whatever force holds it in existence. I can say "my chair exists" and be perfectly coherent without introducing ANY sort of judgments or controls about the supernatural. Whether God holds my chair in existence or not, the chair still IS.

This isn't about methodological assumptions, but about the statements of a theory. The theory makes statements about the physical world, and one of the underlying statements is that air resistance is negligible. When air resistance is not negligible, the theory is false and has to be modified.

I'm starting to think you just don't understand what 'methodological' means-- reach for a Webster's or dictionary.com. Saying, 'in this procedure, we assume air resistance to be negligible' is the very DEFINITION of a 'methodological assumption.'

Sorry, but one of the underlying assumptions here is that "natural = without the supernatural"

It is, again, by definition. A process is either naturalistic, or it is not. Where are you getting the idea that 'natural = with the supernatural,' since that follows explicitly from your quoted denial? How backwards can you possibly get?

For instance, Jesus' Resurrection would qualify but you will claim that is not "well-confirmed".

Given that, at the time, there was not even a well-formulated scientific method, tools of any precision, or a group of relatively unbiased individuals who witnessed the actual event, yes, I would have to say that such an event would qualify as "not well-confirmed."

you can't set up two test tubes and say "supernatural is in this one but absent from that one" you don't know whether any "natural" process will work without the supernatural.

Which, exactly as I said before, is why science has to assume that supernatural influences are absent from ALL 'test tubes,' or it can make no claims whatsoever. Butler makes absolutely no sense-- claiming that 'natural' "requires an intelligent agent" makes just as much sense as my equally arbitrary claim that 'orange' "requires a homicidal tuna fish." Moreover, claiming that the only 'distinct' (whatever he expects people to think of that) meaning of 'natural' is "fixed" or "settled" is complete hogwash-- 'natural' is defined in a great number of ways in a great variety of disciplines. I'm inclined to think Butler either doesn't know what he's talking about, or is just promoting transparently flimsy arguments. ("I'm going to define this term as X, claim it can be nothing BUT X, then proceed to assert that X requires Y, even though there is no apparant reason to think this is true. Then, I will assert that X->Y, and prove my point of Y!" Great argument, that.)

Will oxygen and hydrogen burn to form water without Butler's "intelligent agent"?

Will they burn to form water without my amorphous, metaphysically prior shade of blue? Or maybe, will you be able to post tommorow without the intervention of Descartes' Evil Demon? Or, yet, does this post even exist unless Santa Claus does the tango while drinking a dry vodka?? Who knows!! Then again, who cares? Because wild skepticism supported by nothing but logical possibility and assertion aren't treated as philosophically valid objections.

Not always. For instance, there are at least two ways that deity can act on evolution and not get caught. Since both methods were found by atheists (ONs), you can't argue bias.

Oh, pssh, of course not. Atheists are never biased. I love you roll your assumptions and a hidden ad hominem into the same sentence

1. Deity could provide certain mutations. Directing a cosmic ray such that it made a genetic change in a germ cell is not beyond deity. That would be a "gratuitous" incident, by your definition, but undetectable.
2. In the past, deity could have engaged in artificial selection. That is, deity could cause any number of "natural" phenonmenon, like lightning, to eliminate individuals like human breeders cull herds. That would also be "gratuitous" but would be undetectable.

Both of those cases are covered EXPLICITLY by "God/god/gods are, in the visible realm, acting entirely through processes describable by naturalism." What else did you think I meant, if not exactly those kind of scenarios?

~AA

 

[lucaspa]

Well, I'm not quite sure what to say here. By definition, any process that is called 'naturalistic' is "purely naturalistic"-- there are not shades of grey regarding 'just how naturalistic' is a process. Methodological naturalism, by definition, assumes that for the experiments being performed, all objects are treated as if they are only influenced by naturalistic forces.

LOL! Semantic games. Remember the term is methodological naturalism. That "methodological" is part of the term, and that term rules out the "purely" part.

You seem to have some sort of twisted definition of 'methodological naturalism' that honestly doesn't make much sense--by definition of the words, it means an assumption of purely naturalistic processes for the sake of procedure.

I want you to look at the sources I am using carefully. NONE of them are creationist or even theist.

Of course. Which is exactly why, for the sake of procedure, we have to assume that none of the setups are operated on by supernatural forces.

We don't make that assumption. Rather, we wouldn't be able to identify the supernatural even if they were there.

The problem is that you are using "supernatural" the same way as creationists. For you "supernatural" is some other material process than the one being studied. For MN supernatural is another component to a complete process.

You seem to think that MN is merely saying "Ok, we can't make a control for supernaturalistic forces, so we're just not going to make judgments either way regarding them."

Bingo! Exactly right!
"To say it for all my colleageues and for the umpteenth millionth time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists." SJ Gould, Impeaching a self-appointed judge. Scientific American, 267:79-80, July 1992.

Unless you explicitly rule out all possible supernatural interference, you cannot make any tenable claims about the causality involved in your experiment.

Sure I can. I can say the material processes discovered by science are sufficient as material processes. What you don't get is that creationism is a material process. Don't let the invocation of God fool you. Creationism is saying that entities are made thru a material manufacturing process other than the one we observe thru science. Species are manufactured elsewhere and placed on the planet. Earth did not form by gravity, but was manufactured elsewhere and placed in its orbit. Life did not arise by chemistry on the earth, but was manufactured elsewhere and placed here. Or elements were rearranged by different processes than we have found now such that life resulted.

What I cannot say, but what you want to say, is that the material processes are the only processes at work.

Unless you say, for the purpose of procedure, "the factors governing the growth and death of these plants are assumed to be purely natural," you CANNOT come back and say that plants require air, water, or anything else involved in your experiment.

Sure I can. I can say that plants require these material components for growth. Do they also require an additional component: a supernatural component? I don't know. I've never seen a plant where I know it does not have a supernatural with it so I don't know if the plant will survive without it.

After all, if the supernatural remains a possibility, a plant's apparant death from lack of water just as well may have been the result of a pernicious divine will.

Does not follow. Death from lack of water is due to lack of water, because I have an identical plant with water and it doesn't die. What you are trying to say is that the material components are not necessary, but that does not follow at all. They are necessary. The question is whether they are sufficient. Is there a requirement for another, supernatural, component?

This is what you have done:
"It should come as no surprise that many individual scientists, such as Provine, extrapolate from hard evidence and, as part of their private world view, apply the rules of their profession to reach metaphysical conclusions about what kinds of things do or do not exist. Provine is obvously impressed with the explanatory power of evolutionary theory and sees no justification for invoking surpernatural concepts. ...But there are no generally accepted criteria for when an explanation should be felt to be adequate [emphasis in original] We have no alternative but to consign such judgements to the private world view of each individual. Johnson is right to challenge scientists who, in speaking to the public, fail to distinguish between well-documentd conclusions of science and their own metaphysical extrapolations." K.D Fezer, Is Science's Naturalism Metaphysical or Methodological? in Creation/Evolution, vol 39, pp31-33, 1996.

You are asserting, without evidence, that the material causes alone are adequate. The material causes are indeed necessary, but are they adequate or sufficient? Is that all you need? You don't know but are trying to jigger the system to say you know when you don't.

existence of the supernatural or not plays no role in whether something is --existence is a property indepedent of whatever force holds it in existence. I can say "my chair exists" and be perfectly coherent without introducing ANY sort of judgments or controls about the supernatural. Whether God holds my chair in existence or not, the chair still IS.

Changed the claim. I was speaking about causes. You changed it to "existence". You contradict yourself. If God holds your chair in existence, then the chair's existence is not "a property independent of whatever force holds it in existence." If existence depends on God sustaining it, then it's not "independent". In this case, the statement "the chair exists" depends on God sustaining the four basic forces such that matter can exist.

I'm starting to think you just don't understand what 'methodological' means-- reach for a Webster's or dictionary.com. Saying, 'in this procedure, we assume air resistance to be negligible' is the very DEFINITION of a 'methodological assumption.'

You confused yourself by mixing the method of testing a theory with the theory itself. It's not a "methodological assumption" but rather a restriction of the theory: Objects will fall at this speed as long as there is no air resistance. Therefore, to test that statement, you have no air resistance. The method comes from the statements of the theory.

A process is either naturalistic, or it is not. Where are you getting the idea that 'natural = with the supernatural,'

Sorry, typo. That should have read "natural = without the supernatural".

Now to repeat, that is a statement of faith, not of science. Science can't tell you if the supernatural is present or not. No controls.

Given that, at the time, there was not even a well-formulated scientific method, tools of any precision, or a group of relatively unbiased individuals who witnessed the actual event, yes, I would have to say that such an event would qualify as "not well-confirmed."

All those criteria are irrelevant. Who could have witnessed the event and not been called "unbiased" and are you saying accurate observation could only occur if you have a well-formulated scientific method? Nonsense.

As I said, you can always find a way to use "well-confirmed" to weasel out of anything. Here's how Hume did it:
The essay is "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding". "Where shall we find such a number of circumstances, agreeing to the corroboration of one fact [miracle]? And what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events which they relate? And this surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as sufficient refutation."

Butler makes absolutely no sense-- claiming that 'natural' "requires an intelligent agent" makes just as much sense as my equally arbitrary claim that 'orange' "requires a homicidal tuna fish."

This isn't arbitrary or unconnected like your strawman. Butler is hypothesizing what is behind or in addition to the material causes we study. He is hypothesizing that, in order to occur regularly and each time, the process requires an intelligent agent. Again, show me the experiment that shows Butler to be wrong. Your noise and thunder shows you can't.

Moreover, claiming that the only 'distinct' (whatever he expects people to think of that) meaning of 'natural' is "fixed" or "settled" is complete hogwash-- 'natural' is defined in a great number of ways in a great variety of disciplines. I'm inclined to think Butler either doesn't know what he's talking about, or is just promoting transparently flimsy arguments.

Darwin didn't think the argument was so flimsy. He included the quote in the Fontispiece to Origin of the Species.

You left out "stated". I can see why. Think about it. When we say "natural process" aren't we referring to processes that are fixed or settled in certain circumstances? Like your sphere and sheet of paper dropping. In those circumstances, the "natural" behavior of those objects is "stated" by the law of gravity, isn't it?

Will they burn to form water without my amorphous, metaphysically prior shade of blue? Or maybe, will you be able to post tommorow without the intervention of Descartes' Evil Demon?

If your shade of blue or Descarte's Evil Demon is an intelligent entity that sustains the universe, maybe not. What you are doing now is just trying to duck by changing names. But, a rose by any other name ...

Because wild skepticism supported by nothing but logical possibility and assertion aren't treated as philosophically valid objections.

Really? Want to try talking about tachyons?

Oh, pssh, of course not. Atheists are never biased. I love you roll your assumptions and a hidden ad hominem into the same sentence

There was no ad hominem. I happen to admire the work of both Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. It's just that you couldn't dismiss the arguments as coming from apolgetics. But you managed to try to dismiss the arguments anyway! Not deal with them, but dismiss them.

Both of those cases are covered EXPLICITLY by "God/god/gods are, in the visible realm, acting entirely through processes describable by naturalism." What else did you think I meant, if not exactly those kind of scenarios?

OK, so you have the bases changed by some process not described by naturalism or have the organisms in the past drop dead by supernatural means during artificial selection. Could you still detect them by science? If so, show us how.

 

[lucaspa]

"First, science is a limited way of knowing, in which practitioners attempt to explain the natural world using natural explanations. By definition, science cannot consider supernatural explanations: if there is an omnipotent deity, there is no way that a scientist can exclude or include it in a research design. This is especially clear in experimental research: an omnipotent deity cannot be "controlled" (as one wag commented, "you can't put God in a test tube, or keep him out of one.") ... I think this methodological materialism is well understood by evolutionists. But by excluding the supernatural from our scientific turf, we also are eliminating the possibility of proclaiming, via the epistemology of science, that there is no supernatural. ... so also is science self-limited in another way: it is unable to reject the possibility of the supernatural. Scientists, like other teachers, must be aware of the difference between methodological and philosophical materialism and not treat them as conjoined twins. They are logically and practically decoupled." " Eugenie C Scott, chapter "Creationism, Ideology, and Science" in The Flight from Science and Reason edited by Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt, and Martin W. Lewis, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol 775, 1996. pg 518-519. Dr. Scott is head of the National Science Education Center, which has the primary goal of combating the teaching of creationism in schools.

Needless to say, it is the attempt to join methodological and ontological (philosophical) naturalism that started this discussion.

AA, I'm doing what the head of NCSE tells us to do.

Eugenie C. Scott in review of Johnsons's book. On the WWW at http://natcenscied.org/aladont.htm
"Science as practiced today is methodologically naturalistic: it explains the natural world using only natural causes. Science cannot explain (or test explanations about) the supernatural. There is also an independent sort of naturalism, philosophical naturalism, a belief (not science, but belief) that the universe consists only of matter and energy and that there are no supernatural beings, forces, or causes."

 

[The Archangel Aethariel]

LOL! Semantic games. Remember the term is methodological naturalism. That "methodological" is part of the term, and that term rules out the "purely" part.

No...a process is either treated as naturalistic, or treated as not naturalistic. Maybe you're just misunderstanding what I'm saying, although I thought I was clear. However, since this is somewhat ancillary to the real contention, I'm just going to ignore this for now.

I want you to look at the sources I am using carefully. NONE of them are creationist or even theist.

See, there you go again. Why would I care if the sources are creationist or theist? A qualified professional in the field is just that, regardless of their beliefs.

The problem is that you are using "supernatural" the same way as creationists. For you "supernatural" is some other material process than the one being studied. For MN supernatural is another component to a complete process.

No, I've never committed myself to the position that a supernatural process is necessarily material. Moreover, I'm not sure why you would think that. It does not at all seem inconsistant to think that supernatural processes would be immaterial for a great deal of their causal chain, until they possibly terminate in material and physical results. Presumbly, this is how any supernatural entity such as god, ghosts or whatnot would work on the world.

What I cannot say, but what you want to say, is that the material processes are the only processes at work.

I want to say that? I never knew. The best I'm ever going to say is there is no reason to believe immaterial processes are at work. A categorical denial of the possibility of supernatural processes would clearly be absurd. I cannot ever say "there is no god of any sort," "there are no supernatural influences of any kind," or any other such universal negatives. You clearly know enough about the subject to know better, so why strawman my position as something absurd?

Sure I can. I can say that plants require these material components for growth.

No, really, you can't Without the methodological assumption that the process are wholly material (in causality and in origin), you can't make any sort of claims to to why the plant dies. Again, you have no way of denying the possibility that the ENTIRE reason the plant died was because some deity giggled the plant's metaphysical lifeline. For all you know, the growth and death of the plant is in no way influenced by the material factors you are controlling. This seems to be your first fundamental difficulty here, so let me try to give you a more general example.

You have object A in a box. There are two, and only two types of processes that can act on A. Let's call them X-Processes and Y-Processes. You can control X-Processes, and vary the degree to which they are used on A. However, Y-Processes are a total mystery to you. You know they might exist, and might be working on A, but you honestly don't have any clue about them, and you have no way of finding out.

Now, you apply processes X1, X2, and X3 to A. A suddenly turns blue. What you want to say here is that "I can say that A requires these X components for growth. Do they also require an additional Y-component? I don't know." But, honestly, you have no idea that X1, X2, and X3 are requisite for the blueness of A. The blueness of A might demostrate a strong correlation with your Xs, but if you admit the possibily of Y-Processes, there is absolutely no way you can make any sort of judgment regarding causality.

I'm starting to think we're just speaking past each other-- I'm certainly not denying that natural processes might require an additional supernatural element. However, for the purpose of the experiment, if you want to make ANY sort of actual claim, you need to act as though only well-defined X-processes are acting on A. Science works by a continual expansion of what it considers to be 'legitimate' X-processes. Eventually science always hit a wall were current accepted process assumptions are inadequate, and new ones have to be introduced to explain current data. What I AM saying is that all of the X-processes defined by science fit into a very narrow window of "naturalistic processes." Certainly, this does not preclude the possibility of non-naturalistic processes-- sure, they could be working on the world. But there isn't any reason to believe that they are.

You are asserting, without evidence, that the material causes alone are adequate.

Now we're starting to get to the second fundamental difference. You cannot have evidence that material causes alone are adequate. It is impossible to mop of the every last drop of skepticism as to produce such evidence. But the argument here is not about being able to produce that kind of evidence-- we both know it can't be done. The real point is that you can't produce any evidence to show that supernatural causes so much as exist, or even have a relationship with the world. As I have said multiple times thus far, and you keep avoiding, the point is not that ON can be proven as a definitive truth (it cannot be, ever), but that there is no justifying reason whatsoever for believing that supernatural forces exist.

You contradict yourself. If God holds your chair in existence, then the chair's existence is not "a property independent of whatever force holds it in existence." If existence depends on God sustaining it, then it's not "independent".

I'll assume you just misread me. 'Existence' is an independent property from 'reason for existence,' in that they are not the same thing. That is the only sense in which independence is required. Just as I don't need to make ANY sort of judgments regarding the manufacturing plant or chemical makeup of paint to tell you what color a bike is, I don't need to make ANY sort of judgments regarding god or the supernatural to tell you that something exists. I am perfectly justified in making ontological claims such as "I am" without making a "control" for the supernatural. If you're going to dispute this, I suggest you explain the problems you see with me making the ontological statement "I am." I mean "independent" as "distinct," not as "totally unrelated." I was unclear on that, I should have just said distinct and avoided the confusion. Bad word choice

All those criteria are irrelevant. Who could have witnessed the event and not been called "unbiased" and are you saying accurate observation could only occur if you have a well-formulated scientific method? Nonsense.

Oh, ok. If accurate measurements, unbiased observers, and an accurate method are all "irrelevant" to making an event well-confirmed, I would really, really love to hear what you think is a better method. Also, I would point out that I said "relatively unbiased." No-one is perfectly unbiased, but you can do a lot better than sympathetic cult members.

This isn't arbitrary or unconnected like your strawman. Butler is hypothesizing what is behind or in addition to the material causes we study. He is hypothesizing that, in order to occur regularly and each time, the process requires an intelligent agent. Again, show me the experiment that shows Butler to be wrong. Your noise and thunder shows you can't.

And I'm hypothesizing that, in order to occur regularly and each time, the property 'orange' requires a 'homicidal tuna fish' somewhere in the world. Again, show me the experiment that shows me to be wrong. Just because Butler pretends to be reasonable does not make him so-- his claim is just as vacuous and arbitrary as my own.

Where on earth have you gotten the idea that I have to prove whatever you make up to be wrong? Just because you, or Butler, or anyone else simply asserts that something exists without evidence does not mean that I have to come around and prove the opposite. Have you ever heard of the burden of proof?

You left out "stated". I can see why. Think about it. When we say "natural process" aren't we referring to processes that are fixed or settled in certain circumstances? Like your sphere and sheet of paper dropping. In those circumstances, the "natural" behavior of those objects is "stated" by the law of gravity, isn't it?

Actually, I left out stated because I didn't feel like writing all three, given that they're all synonyms are used here. Of course, maybe it was a conspiracy I never argued that those definitions were not accurate, but they by no means encompass the broad range of definitions attributed to 'natural,' and furthermore, do not imply the existence of an intelligent agent.

Really? Want to try talking about tachyons?

Not particularly, given that zippy subatomic particles don't have anything to do with the bullet you're trying to dodge. As a general rule, if you require theoretical physics to prove your point in a debate that isn't explicitly about theoretical physics, you're probably just grasping for justification. (This it the First Corollary to the First Law of Internet Debate, which states the same thing, except in regard to Nazis and Hitler.) Argument by obsfuscation isn't a very good strategy.

It's just that you couldn't dismiss the arguments as coming from apolgetics. But you managed to try to dismiss the arguments anyway! Not deal with them, but dismiss them.

I love how agreeing with what you wrote and saying I already stated that myself counts as a "dismissal" I'd better be careful not to agree with you again, eh? Wouldn't want to come off as dismissive

Fundamentally, your misconceptions seem to be stemming from a mind-boggling refusal to accept the burden of proof for your assertion. If you could, I'd really appreciate why you think you don't have to accept the burden of proof for your (and Butler's) wild assertions about supernatural powers and entities.

~AA

 

[Drotar]

Because the problem made, lucaspa, is that "God" was not defined. It may be possible to prove that Zeus does not exist, or that Shiva does not exist, but to disprove the existence of "God" before you even know what God is folly.

Is God the square root of 1, an invisible elf on my head, or the God of Christianity? How exactly are you simply going to disprove "God"? To disprove all conceptions of who and what God is and could possibly be is impossible. Unless "God" is defined, "God" can be anything and anyone. So science cannot disprove God's existence.

Now, can science disprove the God that Christianity portrays? That's another story. But simply disproving "God" before you know who or what He is is an impossible feat.

 

[Drotar]

I understood you to be a theistic evolutionist lucaspa. Your post to Ben_Hur seems to hint at something else.

Also, the fact that no boundary has not be demonstrated to be correct. Could you elaborate on this.

Third, how would no boundary prove that there is no God?

Please respond. TTYL Jesus loves you!