I'm going to cut up these two posts, because I want to address an issue, and examine a very good point he makes. I just want to make it clear up front that these are not complete quotes (though they are accurate, and not horribly out of context).
I further see - as per the initial post in this thread - that anyone who accepts the possibility of the supernatural as an explanation for what we observe, is to be assumed to be mentally retarded.
Absolutely not. Most scientists are theists -- in the United States the majority of those are Christian. I too think the picture is a cheap shot (the episode WAS humorous) but it is targeting people who not only accept the POSSIBILITY, but claim that supernatural and undetectable forces WERE the cause of many natural things. It's a cop-out in science to construct a theory that is utterly un-disprovable because the posited forces are, by definition, undetectable.
Regardless of whether the available evidence as measured by science is consistent with a supernatural explanation the poisition is that this explanation must be excluded as a possibility.
Yes. Because otherwise there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY to draw any conclusions. There is no way to figure out whether it was God of the Bible, Thor, Ra, or a magical pink unicorn. Absolutely ANYTHING could be consistent with a supernatural explanation, so positing a supernatural explanation provides absolutely no insight or predictions into the phenomenon.
Do you claim that we are currently able to observe and measure everything that exists?
It's very important in this sort of discussion to read closely how phrases are worded. Nobody's claimed that we are currently able to obeserve and measure everything in the universe (much less supernatural forces outside!) We are distinguishing things that ARE measurable from things that are not. If the force is measurable, it is natural. If not, it is supernatural. This is BY DEFINITION whether you like it or not.
Of course, supernatural entities COULD have observable effects, but one would (again by definition) not be able to observe the force or the process. Scientists know this, but the success of science suggests that the vast majority of effects in the universe have natural causes. Science has over and over destroyed a "god of the gaps" so it would be foolish to yet again say, "oooh, we don't understand what caused THAT, let's put God THERE!
Hypothesize for a minute that God is real in an objective sense, just that he exists in a form that we are not currently able to observe.
If He then chooses to make himself visible, we are now able to observe Him, but he is no more or less real than He was before. Why is he then not classed as "natural" ?
Note that we still have not observed God. We have observed God's effect on the world. If God emits light, it is not because there are electrons heating up little filaments on his garments, or because there's nuclear fusion going on inside him. We would see photons that APPEARED to be entirely without a source.
Say God moved a mountain from the Alps to the middle of the Sahara. Can we measure how this happened?
You make a very good point -- it IS possible that some observations are of supernatural effects. What science CANNOT do is explain these effects. Further (and more importantly) the scientific method requires that experiments and measurements be repeatable. It is ENTIRELY possible that miracles and supernaturally-caused events have been recorded by scientists! It is just as reasonable to ignore these events (after trying hard to figure out why your measurement devices glitched) because without repeatability, there is absolutely no way to systematically rule out variables and be reasonably sure of the source.
We agree -- as most Christian scientists do -- that science would likely not recognize a miracle if it were measured. That said, it is relatively simple to show where natural forces WERE the cause of an event. I am certain that God moves and performs miracles, and it appears that in his wisdom, he has designed natural laws that maintain the universe without the constant need for poking and prodding to get it back on track.
To touch on the topic of this forum, a global flood as described in Genesis would have MASSIVE effects that are not observed on the Earth. This is a whole other topic for another thread, but in short, we CAN show that the Earth appears to have been formed by natural causes we CAN measure. Because of this, to suggest that it was God that did it as described in the Bible is no more supportable than to suggest that a magical pink unicorn created the universe last Thursday. That's a very simplified version though, and because I don't have time now to write an essay (or a whole other thread) I'll leave it there. If you want to go into it further, do feel free to start another thread rather than further muddle up THIS thread.
