Dialogue With an Atheist on the Relationship of Christianity and Metaphysics to the Scientific Method (vs. Sue Strandberg)

Slavery would be hard to justify as fair and unbiased if one could not empirically demonstrate that certain races were actually better suited and even better off as slaves. This was one of the most common justifications for slavery in the South, that adult black people were like children and couldn't handle independence -- the other common justification of course was that God created the black race to be the servants of the white race.

Both are nonsense and quite evil, of course.

You could use scientific reasoning to refute the first claim: science is helpless before the second claim -- all you can do is argue scripture and who has the more holy sense of the divine.

Racism has often been quite respectable in scientific circles too. There was this nonsense of measuring skulls and determining "intelligence" and "character" based on that (phrenology). Eugenics was also firmly grounded in supposed "science." The Nazis enlisted scientists and doctors every step of the way to determine whose life was worthy to be lived (one recalls their bizarre experiments). Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) picked up on this approach and utilized it for her notions of population reduction. This was a way to reduce the "inferior" black population.

Steven Jay Gould writes:

Racism has often been buttressed by scientists who present a public facade of objectivity to mask their guiding prejudices.

{The Panda's Thumb, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 1980, 176}

As religion can be abused for nefarious ends, so can science.

I agree. My point was that if a mistaken conclusion is formed from scientific methods it can be and probably will be corrected using the same methods. Nothing shows the critical, crucial importance of science more than bad science. A continuing discussion and dispute on evidence -- and a strict accountability to demonstration -- will tend to weed out bad theories over time as long as the scientific community is not stifled from open investigation and analysis. The fact that phrenology was discarded by scientists themselves is one indication of this.

I agree; my point was not anti-science, but rather, anti-dogmatism in science (or more accurately, that scientists are no less prone to the usual human shortcomings than the rest of us) - a fact of history which is often unknown or ignored by those who think that such properties are the sole possession of religionists. I would say that such unfortunate occurrences are in a sense even more shocking in science, given the very fact of its strict methodology of proof (whereas religion involves many tenets not empirically verifiable, so that much nonsense may possibly be inculcated). But does dogmatism per se surprise me in any person, even a scientist? Not at all . . .

When religion makes false claims about the nature of reality based on
spiritual insights, however, it is difficult if not impossible to refute them.

If they are irrational or demonstrably untrue, one can (e.g., the Mormon poppycock of founder Joseph Smith supposedly having found tablets of "Reformed Hieroglyphics" on a hill in New York). Other things are matters of historical investigation. With Christianity, there are some unprovable tenets which derive from larger evidences which are demonstrable and verifiable through various means. But this is true of pretty much any view. And the starting assumptions are equally unprovable, even for science. My larger point is that any field of thought shares basic similarities with virtually all others, in terms of the axiomatic nature of starting-points and inability to explain at the deepest - metaphysical - levels of analysis. Some things are simply goofy and intellectually vapid from the outset (flat-earth, KKK, doctrinaire Marxism, occultism, etc.).

In fact, there is no way for us to really know, or prove, that they are indeed false.

That's simply not true in most cases.

For instance, if a religion says that black people have dark skin because they have been cursed by God, no amount of study on melanin or evolutionary origins of race or biology or psychology is going to be sufficient to refute this because none of this addresses spiritual reality. This claim is "outside of science" and yet will impact on how we treat people. I find this dangerous.

So do I. You couldn't prove this particular false view by science - strictly speaking - because it is a religious claim. Yet this claim is made on the basis of certain texts in Genesis, involving the "curse of Ham." It is easily shown that this interpretation is groundless and without any support in Genesis, through the usual means of hermeneutics and exegesis and the linguistic tools brought to bear on biblical texts (even historical factors, such as Moses marrying a black woman, or the irrelevance of race as a social factor in ancient Mesopotamian cultures, etc.). Those things are intellectual, "scientific" methods themselves, so any Christian religion which follows the Bible would be subject to such objective analyses (not to say that there is never any disagreement on interpretation . . . ).

The same method that can claim that it is an empirical fact that God made all men equal can claim that it is an empirical fact that God made some men to rule over others, and there is no way to arbitrate between dueling divine insights.

Again, when it comes to the Bible, it can be shown that it teaches no such thing. It is much more likely, historically-speaking, that Communism or tribalism causes such a view to occur. Religion isn't spotless on this score by any means, either, but the non-religious ideologies have produced far worse fruit.

I agree that tribalism is at the root of many of our aggressive tendencies, religious or not, but I think you have expressed far too much confidence in how easily Biblical disputes can be resolved if one just examines the Gospel clearly and in the light of scholarship.

Naw; you should read my debates with Protestants who espouse a notion called "perspicuity" (clearness) of Scripture, whereby (when all is said and done) anyone can have an essential grasp of biblical teachings without the need of a Church. Catholics deny that, yet agree that the Bible's teachings are relatively clear (my entire website presupposes this), just not sufficiently so to make it unnecessary to have an authoritative teaching Church to be the court of final appeal on true and false doctrine (note: doctrine - not the orthodox interpretation of each and every verse). This is a major difference between Catholics and Protestants: "Scripture Alone vs. apostolic Tradition or succession."

I've noted that Catholics seem to feel they have a means to escape the
problem of competing interpretations of scripture by virtue of interpreting scripture as indicating a final arbiter in the form of an authoritative Church. The problem, of course, is that from the point of view of an atheist or even a non-Catholic there is still a subjective evaluation involved here, and this choice will always rest on various combinations of reason and faith. It is not Catholics (who are all in agreement) vs. Protestants (who differ with each other) but Catholics who agree vs. Lutherans who agree vs. Evangelicals who agree vs. Calvinists who agree and on and on, with each sect having divisions within it who all agree with each other and disagree with the rest, sometimes on minor matters, sometimes on matters they consider very crucial indeed.

People within a church who agree on what God is don't really see themselves as agreeing with each other but as agreeing with God. From within the Catholic religion it is relatively easy to resolve disputes by appealing to the authority of the Church as it has been set up. But whether this Church has indeed been set up by God or by men is the real dispute between Catholics and non-Catholics, and appeals to resolve this can't rest on what the Church says, but on what the Bible indicates as illuminated by faith and reason ...and we are back where we started.

Well, of course this is a very complicated and controversial issue, and is an in-house fight, as you well know.

To sum up very briefly, the Catholic notion of authority is not a circular claim in the same vein as "the Bible says so" (i.e., when spoken to an atheist or someone who doesn't accept biblical authority). The Catholic belief in apostolic succession and Tradition is historically-based, and verified by recourse to Christian history; particularly the Church Fathers.

This was more or less universally the formal principle of authority in Christianity for 1500 years, until Luther and Calvin came around and arbitrarily changed the principle to "sola Scriptura" ("Bible Alone"). That concept itself cannot be shown to be taught in the Bible, which makes it utterly self-defeating. It was adopted at first simply because an alternate to Catholic authority was needed by those who were dissenting against same and (ultimately) setting up their own churches.

Nor does the Catholic Church proclaim an infallible, authoritative interpretation for hundreds (or all) of the passages in the Bible, as is often supposed (in fact, there are only six or so of such non-optional interpretations). Rather, it is doctrine which is proclaimed in a binding sense, and alleged "proof texts" used to support false doctrines are deemed as being used incorrectly, for that reason.

There is intelligent, reasonable disagreement on virtually every tenet in Christianity, and these disagreements are often fundamental, have lasted for hundreds of years, and are unlikely to be resolved given new information or scientific discoveries. And if you bring in conflicts between different religions the probability is even more remote.

See my last response. That said, there is also a significant core area of agreement among all Christians, apart from fringe, heretical, cultic groups. This would be that which is described in C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity or roughly synonymous with the Nicene Creed.

Certainly there are disagreements in science, but appeals to empirical evidence and insistence on demonstration make it much more likely that consensus will be formed over time.

Great. I don't see that the nature of science has anything particularly to do (epistemologically) with the dogmas of religion and how they are arrived at. Why must you oppose them? They are two different things. I gladly accept both. You accept only science, so you have to run down religion to some extent as an arbitrary, irrational enterprise.

Theism gives 'why' answers in personal terms, as one might tell a story. "Why is the sky blue?" can be answered in concrete terms of atmosphere and molecules and light. Or it can be answered in terms of motivation -- "because God wanted it that way" -- or in terms of teleology --"because it is prettier that way." But when we are talking about giving an ultimate account of something we often mean not just motives (if they apply), but methods (which would always apply.) The nuts and bolts of how something is, and what something is, and the modus operandi. Theism is more or less an appeal to magic in this area.

No; it is a serious attempt to explain the phenomena we observe with regard to ethics and human nature, just as much as atheism is. Belief in the supernatural is not necessarily an appeal to "magic" as if the thought is on the level of a child's fairy tale or something. I know it is fashionable to think in those terms, but I suppose both sides tend to caricature the other.

Furthermore, if we must refer to storytelling and "magic"; well, nothing is a greater fairy-tale than the more fantastic elements of the theory of evolution.

I don't think your analogy holds on the point I am trying to make. The issue is not belief in God vs. Evolution, but the explanatory scope of miracle explanation vs. science explanation.

But who says truth is determined solely by explanatory power? This is one of the fallacies which seems to keep coming up, but to me it appears to be based on the circular reasoning that scientific knowledge is the only sort of reliable knowledge; therefore anything outside of it is either inferior or suspect as irrational and epistemologically unjustifiable, and hence subject to all sorts of excessive and misguided skepticism and cynicism.

If God exists and we have good proof that it does . . .

Which would be what?

. . . then there would be nothing unscientific about bringing God into our explanations: in fact, it would be downright unscientific not to, miracles or not. We would not be able to understand how the miracles work, but we could know that they do, and that they work because they are caused by a Being who is beyond our ability to observe.

Well, of course there are many of us now and through history who do think there are more than enough proofs for God's existence.

What I was pointing out was that Evolution attempts to explain complexity by virtue of being a testable theory which endeavours to unify a large number of observations from geology, biogeography, genetics, zoology, anatomy, molecular and biochemical biology, etc. It tries to break the problem of complex forms of life down into simpler stages in order to understand how and why they formed the way they did through an interaction between genes and environment. And it relies on the same natural laws, interactions, and processes that we can observe today.

That's fine as far as it goes (and remember, I do accept microevolution). I simply deny that it has sufficient evidence and scientific data to explain certain rather extraordinary natural phenomena. It is limited just as is virtually any other theory or explanation set forth by us mere mortals. It can't explain everything. Why this should be such an amazing and terrible thing (to point out the obvious) I know not.

Hard-nosed, skeptical atheists manage to believe in a number of concepts within the sphere of macroevolution which provide absolutely no explanatory value whatever. You think an eye can evolve from a "light-sensitive spot" or a brain from organs exponentially-less complex, or DNA from the initial gasses of the Big Bang, or life itself from the same initially homogeneous conditions, or mammary glands, hair, warm-bloodedness, a different way of hearing, and an expansible thorax in mammals from their alleged ancestors, the reptiles.

I am not really saying that belief in the supernatural is itself an appeal to magic.

Okay; good.

I am pointing out that when it comes to how God actually works theists either deal with natural explanations that can be supported empirically and thus are consistent with nontheism as well or they resort to the claim that God's ways cannot be known by Man. God-explanations are unscientific not because they are supernatural but to the extent that they give no specifics and we cannot ever know how they work.

I think "non-scientific" or perhaps "supra-scientific" would be better terms, because "unscientific" suggests to most people an inferiority or lower level of knowledge and believablity and rationality.

Science might be able to tell us that real magic is afoot, but the magic itself is closed to our scrutiny.

Science and philosophy have their limitations and boundaries just as religion does.

You can simply chant the mantra "evolution" or "chance" and all is explained and answered and all difficulties removed. How is that any different from us positing "God" at the point of a complete lack of explanation (and we have far more serious philosophical proofs than biologists possess demonstrable proofs for macroevolution)? Yet our view is fairy-tale and magic and yours supposedly "science." Why is it that when we come to these topics, suddenly I become the hard-nosed skeptic and agnostic, while atheists are full of wide-open, "anything is possible" "faith"?:

There seems to be no direct proof that evolution can work miracles . . . Is it possible that man, with his remarkable powers of intellect and spirit, has been formed from the dust of the earth by chance alone? It is hard to accept the evolution of the human eye as a product of chance; it is even harder to accept the evolution of human intelligence as the product of random disruptions of brain cells in our ancestors.

{Astronomer & Geologist Robert Jastrow, founder of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, SCIENCE DIGEST, Dec. 1981, 87}

[Evolutionary theory is] one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus outside empirical science but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it. ideas, either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems, have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have become part of evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training. The cure seems to us to be . . . more skepticism about many of its tenets.

{L.C. Birch & P.R. Ehrlich, NATURE, 4-22-67, 352}

This does not mean that it [theism] isn't a true account of how we got to be the way we are, of course; but it does mean that the explanation will of necessity be deliberately incomplete and unanswerable.

Precisely as the theory of evolution is, as some evolutionists themselves admit above. Now, let me point out that I am making an analogy pertaining to the selectivity of skepticism and the "scientific attitude." I say that atheists have a double standard.

But of course, with no God, some sort of naturalistic evolution must be true, so this becomes (in practice) an unimpeachable dogma for the atheist, impervious to any difficulties because it has to be true.

Hence the epistemological and scientific silliness such as we see referred to above; rather like what Bertrand Russell states about Aquinas not being a philosopher because he dares to accept dogmas of Christianity beforehand. :-) Catholics, however, are free to accept evolution with only a few modifications (such as the direct creation of each soul by God), so we don't have to engage in this sort of special pleading and imperviousness to scientific evidence or the essential need for falsifiability (as Popper would say). We can follow the evidences wherever they lead.

An explanation normally seeks to explain something complex in terms
of something simpler, and something unknown in terms of something
better known. "God" is a simplistic answer to questions, not a simple one. It is an appeal to irreducible, fundamental complexity, in that the mysteries we seek to deal with -- life, morals, values, and mind -- have been as they are forever and ever, and are an ultimate mystery.

And this hypothesis is rationally superior to the atheist alternative, especially on moral grounds, more plausible, coherent, and consistent, as I hope to show in due course.

To say that the universe or -- more clearly -- Ultimate Reality is always and has always been puts no unnecessary elements into our assumptions.

Except that it clashes with Big Bang cosmology, which established that the universe had a beginning.

What Reality "really" is can be pragmatically assumed as something uncomplicated and basic from which more complicated things emerge due to simple processes working together over time, a coherent series of cause-and-effect which works across different levels of explanation. We can learn to understand the world in terms of smaller and smaller elements, systems, and levels, and then build our understanding from the ground up.

I find it curious that you have no problem accepting the prior axiom of a grand cosmological process of simple-to-complex, (ultimately) based on (it seems to me) numerous evolutionary assumptions which themselves are unproven, and have little or no explanatory value (the above citations), yet you dismiss the hypothesis of complex-to-complex, which forms the presupposition of theism (cosmological and teleological arguments).

Theism does the opposite. It begins complex, and then derives like from like. This is why I consider it not necessarily false, but nonexplanatory.

No more so than macroevolution, which tells us very little about process, yet claims to be "scientific" and de facto "proven." If the choice is a "science" which gives precious little explanation, and metaphysics/religion, which explains quite a bit within solid philosophical premises, I choose the latter, because it is successful and consistent and coherent within its own epistemological sphere, whereas macroevolution-without-God is not, and involves much faith and incoherence, at least given our present state of knowledge. So I am an agnostic and skeptic in these matters (and also with regard to possible alternative creationist schemas), due to woefully insufficient evidence to justify belief, just as atheists are with regard to God.

If God exists and is capable of effecting events and elements in the
universe, I see no reason why a scientific approach to understanding
would be unable to discover this.

Me neither, which is why I think so highly of the cosmological and teleological arguments.

Empiricism doesn't exclude God, it simply doesn't start out with an assumption that couldn't be disproven even if wrong.

That starting-point has been only since (basically) Darwin's time. Before that, science didn't start with materialistic or naturalistic premises. It acknowledged the limitations of its own field of inquiry (matter) and didn't pronounce on ultimate questions of origin and metaphysics as scientists routinely have the arrogance and chutzpah to do today.

And by demanding that science "explain" DNA or abiogenesis --and by appealing to arguments such as the kalam -- it seems you are already speaking of explanation in empirical terms yourself. It is then a matter of consistency.

Exactly. I love empiricism. I am only demanding that it stick within its own sphere of knowledge, be applied consistently, and not claim to be the sum and total of all knowledge. If evolutionary science claims to explain the universe better than the theistic concept, then we are merely requiring ("demanding") of it what it claims for itself: the ability to explain materialistic evolutionary processes so that no one need appeal to God as the origin and cause of matter and the processes of natural law. But we will not put up with this poppycock (I'm not saying you do this) of claims that the atheist stands on science and rationality and Occam's Razor with no need of God, while the Christian/theist is supposedly standing on "God of the gaps" and "blind [irrational] faith" and "magic" with no need for (or disdain for) science. It simply isn't true. And demonstrably so.

Quite the contrary, actually. In being skeptical of certain grandiose and unsubstantiated claims of the theory of evolution, I vigorously and zealously contend that I am being eminently of a scientific mindset. I simply demand empirical evidence before I grant assent to propositions which are strictly within the realm of empirical observation. Atheists, on the other hand, often demand absolute empirical proof of a Being that is Spirit in the first place, which is irrational and unreasonable (even though good arguments of that sort exist).

I understand that you don't find the evidence for its [evolutionary theory's] truth as compelling as you think it ought to be. But that isn't relevant.

It certainly is, when such a flawed unproven theory is presented as a disproof of God or the need for God. You can't reject God on the basis that He isn't scientifically-testable, and then go on to "substitute" a theory, aspects of which are equally mysterious and untestable, and which involves equally huge or even larger extrapolations, inductive leaps, and faith.

Even assuming you are correct, the extrapolations and inductive leaps in Evolution are still being made in terms of a process. There is nothing
mysterious or mystical about replication, variation, and selection, we
observe them all the time.

But that's beside the point. I reject macroevolution precisely because it lacks these elements and therefore fails the criterion of proof. It's almost as if the atheist or secularist in effect worships science and oftentimes, politics (or something like radical feminism). Those things become lifted up far beyond what their nature would allow.

Has God been rejected on the basis that it isn't scientifically testable? I don't think I meant this. I was pointing out that all other things being
equal, a theory which proposes a mechanism is to be preferred to one that doesn't.

Only if the subject at hand is empirical in its essence. Otherwise, I don't see why mechanism is crucial.

For example, homeopathy, if true, would not only go against what
we understand about physical laws but doesn't propose any process in their place. If homeopathy actually worked over many blind clinical studies, though, this is just tough luck for the scientists (or perhaps an exciting new area of discovery.) They either need to find out now how it works or accept homeopathy as scientifically correct but currently, and maybe even permanently, inexplicable by known laws of physics. And they'll need to build it into other theories.

Being wrong about the existence of God must be a very different thing than simply being wrong about astrology or homeopathy, if you work on Christian assumptions and bring in spiritual 'facts.'

It requires (to some extent) both grace and faith. Astrology, though? That's a weird comparison. I consider it largely hucksterism. I like homeopathy. My wife and I are also into health food, vitamins, herbalism, and chiropractic. I have discovered cures or treatments for hypoglycemia and allergies and depression through these means.

Oops, I would not have used homeopathy as an example if I knew you believed in it!

Well, only because it works. Believe me, when something takes away your 4-year-old's fever, you use it. And a sneeze is a sneeze - not much complexity or ambiguity there. If a little pill takes away my allergies, I use it. I don't care what all the mechanics of that are, or what some doctor or scientist in a white suit thinks about it. When it comes to feeling lousy (whether me, or my wife or kids), I become almost entirely a pragmatist. :-)

No, I'm not going to get into an argument about homeopathy. I was trying to find claims which both you and I agree are false, but the acceptance of which does not put the acceptors automatically into the category of insanity or depravity or any other moral hellhole.

There are many such beliefs. I don't know how many we would agree on, though. You keep exaggerating the role of bad morals or will in my viewpoint towards opinions not my own.

I think you are mistaken about homeopathy, but I understand why personal experience would carry a great deal of weight with you. Personal experience carries the same weight with those who believe in the healing powers of crystals or the safe-keeping powers of rabbit's feet -- as well as with those who are experiencing the very real effects of a medicine which is on the cutting edge of a breakthrough in science.

Why could not homeopathy be an instance of the latter? Something can work before we know why it works, no? Herbalism used to be widespread before modern medicine, too. That was scoffed at, but more and more, science is discovering that these herbal cures were based on very real biochemical factors. Science - again - seems to often have this arrogant attitude that no alternate to it can possibly be legitimate.

So the medical establishment fought chiropractic tooth and nail, as well. Well, it helps my back! It helps my wife's back quite a bit (and she has scoliosis). The critics can go jump in the lake. I'm just trying to feel better, whereas the medical establishment is trying to maintain a status quo where they completely control the healing process, regardless of how many people might suffer in the meantime. They're geniuses and everyone else is a backwoods moron and a snake oil salesman. Who is being more "scientific" and compassionate then?

I don't think there is as sharp a dividing point between religious belief and paranormal belief as you seem to think. Astrology is seen as very respectable indeed by some remarkably intelligent people.

So is atheism. :-) I don't consider either particularly respectable intellectually (in terms of grand theories), but that doesn't mean I have to deny that the believers in them are intelligent. I simply believe that they are laboring under false notions. They might even apply the false premises into theories cleverly and ingeniously, but a house built on sand isn't worth very much.

Strangely -- and unfortunately, I think -- the only two times I have run into Hindus in a debate forum the argument focused on astrology: it is taught as a science at the university level in India, evidently, and Hindus feel it provides clear, clean, consistent and scientific evidence for their spiritual claims.

And Gandhi, I hear, would drink a tea with cow dung every morning. People manage to believe in many different things. Nothing ever surprises me. Hinduism strikes me as a particularly intellectually-bankrupt religion. If one is to go the eastern religious route, Buddhism or Taoism are much more respectable and devoid of the strange rituals and beliefs of Hindus.

We both seem to disagree with this (?)

Yes, I think astrology is part nonsense and part quackery (the columnists in the newspapers). And people believe in it by the millions, because, as Chesterton said (close paraphrase):

"When people reject Christianity, it isn't so much that they will believe in nothing, but that they will believe in anything."

This is interesting, because while Secular Humanists reject Christianity
(provisionally, of course ;), you could not really call us willing to
believe in anything, I think.

I think secular humanists are more in line with 17th and 18th century English rationalism, or 19th-century figures like John Stuart Mill (as I understand it, anyway).

Your major complaint is that we are too skeptical and have thrown the baby out with the bath water, so to speak.

Well, yeah; I think the excessive skepticism is a harmful thing, causing much damage to other areas of thoughts, or (often) an inconsistent application, such as extreme "faith" where doctrinaire evolution is concerned, while exercising extreme cynicism concerning Christianity, miracles, etc.

Astrology, tarot cards, chi energy, crystal power, alien abduction, spirit
channeling, leprechauns, reincarnation, levitation, ghosts, reiki healing,
psychic surgery, angels, numerology, and fortune telling are all connected to mystical, magical, religious, spiritual ways of thinking and
understanding the world, not what you see as an overreliance on science.

I agree, with regard to most of these. But many of them are eastern or New Age or occultic religious concepts, and can hardly be lumped in with western religion and Christianity in particular.

And just as I guessed so poorly with homeopathy,

I know virtually nothing about homeopathy or its supposed principles. I just know that it works. My youngest son had a fever, and these pills took it away. Would you let your child have a fever, because you disagreed with the philosophy of homeopathy? I had my usual allergies, and this worked. I use it because it works. It's as simple as that. The advocates of it may be right (insofar as it heals and cures) for the wrong reasons. They may explain what is a potentially rationally or scientifically explainable process incorrectly, but the process works nonetheless. And if it works, I utilize it, because physical health is a good thing.

I have little confidence that you agree with me that these are probably not real or valid phenomena. You may think some are true, some are false, and some have some good evidence but you're still on the fence: I really don't know for sure where you're likely to jump on any of the above items, which seems to give the lie to the good Mr. Chesterton here.

:-) Cute. Okay; I'll comment on each individually:

Astrology,

Nonsense and (often) quackery. It is also forbidden by Jewish law in the Bible, incidentally. This was the religion of the Babylonians, which was regarded as rank blasphemy and idolatry by the Hebrews.

tarot cards,

Occultic nonsense and (often) quackery.

chi energy

Probably false, insofar as eastern religious concepts are regarded as falsehoods by Christianity.

crystal power,

Ditto. New Age gibberish.

alien abduction,

Absurd and utterly unproven.

spirit channeling,

This would be what the Bible condemns and forbids as necromancy. Christians believe that some of this stuff can occur in the demonic realm, so that it is regarded as real but evil, rather than untrue altogether.

leprechauns,

Irish mythology; of no substance. But awful fun, in a fictional, imaginary sense (I got the Celtic in my blood . . . ).

reincarnation,

Absolutely false, insofar as eastern religious concepts are regarded as falsehoods by Christianity, and stated as false in the Bible. No self-consistent Christian can believe this.

levitation,

There can be demonic or Christian levitation (there are reports of saints doing this), so I think it is real.

ghosts,

Ghosts are a permissible concept in Christianity, because we believe that the dead are alive and conscious as souls or spirits.

reiki healing,

I don't know what this is, but we would say there can be both demonic and divine healing also.

psychic surgery,

Ditto. I would think this is a demonic manifestation; thus forbidden to Christians. Weird stuff . . .

angels,

Of course we believe in angels.

numerology,

Nonsense and quackery.

and fortune telling.

Sheer nonsense.

There you have it!

When people reject Christianity, most of them believe in some other
religion. And all the forms of supernatural or paranormal claims I
mentioned above are included in at least one religion.

But you don't seem to make any distinction between the relative validity of religions, as if they were all equally irrational.

The point I was making was that all of the supernatural and paranormal
claims rest on the same kind of evidence. By accepting some through faith and historical and anecdotal evidence and yet rejecting others which rest on the same kind and type of evidence you're being inconsistent. From what I can tell the difference you see is that "well, some of them are true, so in those cases we ought to make an exception to the general rule." But you can only know they are true if you first make the exception.

While some religions -- such as Mormonism -- contain more specific claims that are directly falsifiable than others, at their foundation what
distinguishes a religious belief from a natural one is its reliance on the
subjective. The miracles reported in the Bible contradict what we are
justified in believing based on science. Thus, even if they actually
happened, they can only be accepted on faith. The belief that it MIGHT be true and this makes their acceptance "congruous" with scientific thinking forgets that scientific thought requires strictly disciplined acceptance only of those physical laws which can be open to public demonstration. Someone on this list -- I think it was Len -- noted that "the plural of anecdote is not 'data.'" Indeed.

You have insisted that you believe that knowledge should be a unified
thing, that we ought not to compartmentalize our religious beliefs from our secular ones. And yet by merging the two you end up using one criteria on those paranormal claims you think are True and another criteria on everything else. Bottom line, I do not believe that reason and revelation can be successfully synthesized because the subjective acceptance of private, nondemonstrable knowledge is in conflict with an epistemology that disciplines itself to accept only what can be objectively demonstrated.

I suspect it is not really the religionists, but the Secular Humanists, who seek a unity of knowledge. We attempt to examine all empirical claims about the nature of reality by using the same skeptical standards. It seems to me that Christians pick and choose. From my point of view there is little rhyme or reason for your acceptance of angels and levitation and your rejection of numerology and reincarnation. You seem to examine each claim not in light of the scientific evidence behind it, but whether or not it is accepted as real by Christianity and the Catholic Church. And yet when you reject the unproven you are very quick to point out that it is unproven. A
Hindu would hotly argue that reincarnation has indeed been demonstrated to the level of science, and therefore compels your reluctant acceptance -- and so it has, if anecdotes are included in science.

Science compels our acceptance because it tries to eliminates as many prior commitments as possible. To eliminate your commitments sometimes and yet bring them in other times is not a way to reconcile reason and revelation. It is a way to smash them up against each other and claim they fit.
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I personally know Christians who believe in astrology, as well as other combinations of these beliefs.

They are inconsistent and heterodox. But Martin Luther's successor Philip Melanchthon was a strong believer in it, as I documented ten years ago in my research into early Protestantism (Luther and Calvin also strongly denied heliocentrism. Luther called the Catholic Copernicus an "upstart astrologer"). You can always find gross inconsistencies among Christians, just as with anyone else. Ignorance abounds. Shoddy thinking flourishes.

To paraphrase:

"When people reject one form of the supernatural, it isn't so much that they will believe in none of them, but that they will believe in other ones."

Well, yes. 'Cept the Secular Humanists, of course

Turnabout is fair play! :-)

But if [astrology is] true, the fact that the stars and planets have a measurable effect on the lives, fortunes, and personalities of human beings would seem to support a cosmic preoccupation with human interests, a kind of universal one-ness intermixing matter and mind, a fundamental connection between the private inner world of thought and feeling and the remote outer world of object and event -- which would not make a bad apologetic. ;)

Well, the moon affects tides, right (and lunatics, and perhaps love)? I don't think it amounts to much more than that; a function of gravity.

I see a critical difference... and an ethical problem here similar to what
I referred to earlier.

I think atheism has a big intellectual problem: being hyper-skeptical about religious tenets where (in my opinion) one is not justified in doing so.

If all you thought was that atheism has a "big intellectual problem" I would not have as much of a problem with some of the ethical implications in Christianity as I do.

Good, then you won't get mad at my "disrespectful" remarks above. :-)

Heh, I don't think any of your remarks have been "disrespectful," which is one reason I enjoy our dialogue.

Well, what can I say? Great!

And I seldom get mad; I'm too cynical. Idealists get mad; they are so often unpleasantly surprised. ;)

That's weird. My impression of you was that you were quite idealistic, in the 60s sense.

I think there is a big intellectual problem for astrology, but though I may make up my mind about theories I do not at the same time make my mind up about people.

That's where we are alike, and why I enjoy your posts the best.

I do not have to connect either credulity or skepticism with damnation.

Neither do I. I leave damnation up to God. He is in a much better position than I am to make those decisions. :-)

With regard to macroevolution: it needs to be admitted that it is "inexplicable by known laws of biology and genetics." But it can't be shown to "work" beyond doubt. Homeopathy can. It either works or it doesn't. The proof is in the pudding. In my experience it does. So does chiropractic and natural treatments for hypoglycemia, etc. To Hades with doctors and scientists who want to argue with me whether my allergies or my back or my low blood sugar are improved or not. I'm being much more "empirical" than they are at that point. They are being irrationally dogmatic and reactionary.

Personal testimonies, however sincere, are not science,

No, but they may be not-inconsistent with science, as an observational evidence. The true scientific approach would want to pursue that, out of intellectual curiosity and the desire to learn and explain more.

Exactly. And one pursues intriguing anecdotes by testing to see if they
stand up to critical scrutiny. This is why some herbal cures (not all) and
some forms of chiropractic (not all)

The correct terminology is "chiropractic."

are today accepted as part of the mainstream.

Chiropractic still is not (nor herbs, I don't think). E.g., my wife had a severe pain in her shoulder. She went to a "doctor" and he proceeded to more or less brutalize her, by unnecessarily repeatedly doing things my wife said were very painful. He put her down, put chiropractic down (where my wife's scoliosis is greatly aided on a regular basis) and sent us a bill for some $300. Who is the "quack doctor" in this instance? I still get mad today, thinking about this idiot. Not that all physicians are of that ilk (I was referring to his disdain of chiropractors). Our family doctor is a wonderful man.

They were never "alternatives to science," they were untested evidence which stood up to strict investigation and rigid criteria of proof and demonstrated their merit enough to be accepted in the scientific community.

Anything which dares to differ from the medical or scientific establishment is regarded as medieval quackery, alchemy, snake oil stuff, whether it is chiropractic, herbalism, homeopathy, natural childbirth, health food, alternative cancer treatments, vitamins and minerals (this area is the least controversial, thanks to Linus Pauling and others). I know firsthand, because we have explored all of these areas (apart from the cancer treatments, which were used by my brother), to great benefit.

Even your own approach to these things, lumping them in with all sorts of occultic and New Age balderdash, demonstrates a particular type of rationalist intellectual condescension, as if modern science (great as it is) is the be-all and end-all of all knowledge. No one ever figured out how to cure any malady until modern science: all the former healing techniques were mythological nonsense and placebo effect . . .

As one skeptic put it, "there is no such thing as alternative medicine: there is medicine that has been clinically tested and verified and medicine which has not."

I do my own testing and verification by reading and trying different things (and save hundreds of dollars in the process, thank you very much). As I said, I cured my own hypoglycemia in 1983 from self-diagnosis and treatment (no sugar and white flour; whole foods; various vitamins and minerals). My allergies have been greatly helped. I found another pill that helped my back pain, but it aggravated my low blood sugar (it had glucose in it). My wife was taking Zoloft for depression, and it was making her into a "zombie." I found amino acids which took care of the depression, without the side effects.

Now what would you have me do? Ditch all these wonderful discoveries because they don't fit into your neat little, rationalistic scientific world and worldview? I say that all these things can be explained scientifically, now or in the future.

If all these things can be explained scientifically, now or in the future,
then they do indeed fit into my neat little rationalistic scientific world
and worldview. If they really work for the reasons they say they work -- or work, but for different reasons -- then they are not in conflict with
science at all, they are simply unexplored areas of science. Don't confuse our current understanding of what has been scientifically verified with what is scientifically verifiable.

My argument is not with what has not yet been demonstrated, but with what has not been scientifically verified but has been accepted as true
nevertheless by using its own "scientific standards" in its own "scientific community." It is because astrology has not succeeded in convincing the mainstream of cosmological peer experts that it is not up there with astronomy in our universities.

Well, not yet, at any rate: that may change, I've read. Astrologers are
trying to get legitimate academic credentials in the United States, and
appear to be succeeding in India. The humanists will protest, of course,
but it will be hard for Christians to insist that astrology isn't
scientific "enough" to be taught to undergraduates when it already meets those looser standards of truth that allow "observational evidence" that is "not-inconsistent" with rigorous clinical proofs.

E.g., the amino acids have to do with the part of the brain that is connected with anxiety. Amino acids are manufactured by our body, as the components of protein - nothing "unscientific" or "mystical" there. But doctors would rather have her take Zoloft and be a zombie and spend six times as much, than to take a simple pill which costs about $4 per 100. They may be ignorant about these alternative remedies, but I am not. Or they are beholden to the pharmaceutical companies, etc.

Patient reports are accepted as valid reports on how the patient feels or thinks, but just as one ought to be skeptical when people claim that magic crystals work -- and yet say the same thing when ordinary glass is slyly substituted -- we need to be skeptical on cause and effect.

Like I said, isn't the removal of a migraine headache or a constant runny nose or fever or depression sufficient? If you have a migraine and something takes it away, believe me, you take it. I wouldn't care if it was the ligament from a baboon's knee, or ground-up turtle shells, if it worked. It works for a reason (cause and effect). I may not (almost always don't) know the reason, but I believe that it is discoverable through scientific method.

Homeopathic remedies, for example, often contain [no] ngredients other than water and that one special molecule of the active agent -- stuff like aspirin.

It worked . . . I don't care about the details.

Someone once wrote something to the effect that "the halls of medicine are littered with the corpses of infallible remedies that people once swore by, and which nobody uses today." Back at the turn of the century there was a fad for drinking irradiated water after X-Rays were discovered. People slowly died of radium poisoning, of course, all the time insisting that they were feeling oh so much better every day.

So because there was some silliness and falsehood, therefore all non-conventional cures are false and quackery?

And [scientists] are not being irrationally dogmatic or reactionary to insist that homeopathy pass clinical muster.

No, not in the sense of conducting experiments on effectiveness. I am objecting to the mentality that cares not whether people feel better from homeopathy or herbs or vitamins or a hypoglycemic diet (I diagnosed myself - after reading a few books - and cured myself of low blood sugar symptoms back in '83), whatever it is. I guess these folks (and you?) would say my feeling better for now 17 years was all in my head; a placebo effect? My migraines before I did the new diet were not real (they were just in my head, too LOL), so that I didn't know when I didn't have them anymore? And this is another tendency of many scientists and medical professionals. The patient or experimental subject is an idiot. Their report is worth little. To me, all of this is a perversion of science, not the true scientific spirit.

There are other possible causes for your improvement.

Why should I care? All I care is that I felt better.

Sure; as a personal, practical matter, it probably makes no difference. If it works for you, take it, it's a reasonable thing for you to do in the
circumstances.

Precisely.

However, as a general rule to live and learn by, I think it matters because we ought to care about truth.

The truth here is that the remedy somehow effects a cure.

And if it is quackery, you would do just as well or better with something else.

I would only have a problem with psychic techniques, not with any natural product which comes from God's green earth.

When a society as a whole places personal comfort over knowledge and understanding, easy assumptions over caution and care, I think people lose an important part of their integrity. And to quote Chesterton, "they will believe in anything."

But that has nothing to do with what I am talking about. Immoral sex has a lot to do with this, though.

I think this example here of the difference between us in what weight we put in personal experience . . .

Oh, so you wish to assert that one can't tell when they have a migraine headache and when they don't, or a backache, or an allergic reaction where you have to blow your nose 47 times? Do you put less "weight" in those occurrences than I do?

. . . points out what I have long said seems to be one of the main differences between theists and atheists. It is not in our hearts, our morals, or our intelligence -- it is not in the way we see God -- it is in the way we see evidence.

Perhaps so (that would fit in with my primarily "intellectual explanation" of nonbelief), but this line of argument you are currently on is quite underwhelming. I like the way you argue, because you use analogy as I do, and I love that form of argument, but the topical matter in this one is lacking, with all due respect.

Secular Humanists, ironically enough, have far less confidence and faith in the human potential to KNOW than theists seem to.

I don't think this is surprising or ironic at all, because the humanist/atheist is primarily of a skeptical bent, or what I would call "hyper-rational." Humanists are always railing against Christianity. They seem to define themselves largely based on what they are not, rather than what they are.

Yes, this is a failing among all too many of us. I agree that secular
humanists tend to talk too much about what we are against rather than what we are for. You're not the only one to point this out: it is a common criticism we often express to each other, and at least some of us take it to heart.

Glad to hear that. Thanks for sharing it with an "outsider."

But I think it may perhaps be explained in part as a function of what
Humanism is: a search for common ground in all matters. There is nothing in Humanism which is not found in many other philosophies and religions. We see this as a great strength, but it does mean that humanist viewpoints are constantly being promoted by Christians, Hindus, and all sorts of people, even Catholics -- not necessarily as "humanist" views, but what is in a label after all? We share the common true philosophy of humanity, we claim
no special knowledge or revelation.

What is promoted far less among the general public than the humanist
ethical or democratic views, however, are the epistemic views, particularly those that address the scientific investigation of testable paranormal or supernatural claims. The other night on the Larry King Show one of the spiritualists who Talks to the Dead sneered at skeptics as people who "just tear things down, instead of building people up" or something like that. Looking for what is true is not tearing anything down so much as finding the ground on which we can best build -- but the public perception seems to be that only mean, cruel people would cast doubt on stuff like whether or not the spirits of dead pets can communicate through a medium to tell their owners "I play ball lots now."

Silly, sure. Yet what may be a harmless or amusing individual folly can be disastrous when adopted by an entire culture. "If it feels good, believe it" is just as bad as "if it feels good, do it" as a general guide to life. Pleasure is not always the same as Happiness.

I agree completely. But I would not apply this to herbalism, health food, and homeopathy. I apply it to personal behavior and ethical thought.

And of course while there are many other nontheistic philosophies, Secular Humanism is often either misunderstood or vilified in the public
perception, lumped in with devil worship or the totalitarian views of
Stalin or the postmodernist irresponsible liberal feel-good politically
correct philosophies of Anything Goes. So we have to point out we're not that, either. I'll take my knocks from people who disagree with my beliefs, but I hate getting battered by people who disagree with me over things I do NOT believe.

I sympathize. I'm well-acquainted with that process and routine.

I said this [humanist skepticism about human ability to know] is ironic because the stereotype is that theists are humble enough to admit there is a God before whom they are nothing and atheists are arrogant enough to think they can find things out on their own. But I think if you examine the basic disagreement you will see that there is an enormous amount of epistemic pride in the assertion that we can correctly evaluate our own private and personal experiences to the point where doubting them is no longer doubting their source, but the honesty and worth of their Source.

Interesting comment . . .

Science is such a powerful tool because it takes the opposite stance, it works on the assumption that personal experiences need to be examined in the public arena.

But Catholicism is not much different. That's why we draw a clear distinction between private and public revelation. Private revelation (even famous stuff like the Lourdes and Fatima Marian apparitions) are not binding on anyone. This is why we have investigations for scores of years, concerning sainthood, and alleged miraculous occurrences. This is a scientific outlook.

The methods are impersonal, and ought to be capable of being duplicated by anyone. "I tried it and it worked so that is good enough for me" is a common human assumption which is correct often enough that it is trusted in areas where it is often not correct. It is a very personal method of evaluation.

So tell me how I was wrong with regard to, e.g., my hypoglycemia, and how that reveals a somehow-unscientific attitude on my part? Many doctors didn't even acknowledge the existence hypoglycemia back when I was studying about it. Apparently that is changing now.

If God should be "included in science" then this entails that it is a
theory in science. Not having explicable mechanisms is a drawback, but no, this doesn't rule it out.

Okay; well, I would say that religion and philosophy intersect with science at the point of origins and possible teleology. That doesn't "make" them science, but it does mean that science cannot totally explain absolutely everything it comments upon.

You still recognise that evolution makes an effort, failed or not, to give a specific empirical account of how we all became the way we are.

Of course.

Whether you think evolution is bad science -- or even pseudoscience(!) -- you still can see that its method of explanation is one that tries to give an account through specific processes and operations.

More and more it seems as if "explanation" is the new "god." It used to be "chance" or "natural selection." All of these things become the new "omniscient god": sufficient to supposedly explain everything.

There are areas where you agree that the theory can indeed explain a step by step process, what you call microevolution. This kind of particularized explanation is familiar to us. Evolution isn't considered science just because it talks about biology, but because of HOW it talks about biology. And you recognise it as a science.

God explanations don't do this.

To some extent they do; other times they do not. But so what? Unless your point is that scientific/philosophical knowledge is the sum of knowledge (sui generis), then this is of no relevance, and is merely stating truisms. Maybe I am missing your point.

"Like comes from Like" doesn't try to explain the nuts and bolts of why, it simply appeals to the vague intuition of Affinity. There are almost never any understandable processes or operations involved. Any attempt to explain exactly how God works a miracle is going to sound like New Age pseudoscience, so most theists wisely avoid it. Pseudoscience can be critiqued.

I have never said that creationism is science. My position has long been that creationist explanations (to the extent that they exist at all) reduce to philosophy and religion, but also that evolutionary hypotheses at obscure points do the same.

Science itself will reduce to philosophy, certainly, since in order to use
science you have to make certain metaphysical and epistemic assumptions.

We agree on that.

But I did not think that you were trying to argue that science is an
inferior way of knowing things so much as trying to bring God explanations into science.

Again, not into science per se, but into explanations of science which are already going beyond what science has authority to speak on (notably, origins of life and the universe and irreducible complexity).

Both cosmological and design arguments assume the validity and worth of empirical methods such as science: in this thread and others you seem to have been asserting either that science is a path to God,

I think its conclusions lead to (or are at least not at all inconsistent with) a reasonable belief in God.

or that theism is a powerful scientific hypothesis which best explains certain empirical facts about the world and should thus be included in scientific explanations.

No, that's going too far. I think theism picks up where science ends, and that science points to it (if one were to get "metaphysical"). Nothing in theism contradicts true science. Miracles do not because they are exceptions to the rule. Uniformitarianism cannot prove that miracle X will "never ever ever happen."

It is not too far; it is where you have gone. If you claim a miracle has happened and wish to hide behind arguments that say we can't rule anything out (which is true) you cannot then try to gain credence with science, which says we do rule things out on a tentative basis.

Science simply cannot rule out miracles, because they are not part of its study. How could supernatural events come under the category of "natural events"? I explained earlier the distinction between this inability of science to dogmatically say "no miracles/design/creation" and the Christian's perfect right to assert that nothing in science is inconsistent with various spiritual or supernatural occurrences. In other words, it is not a perfect "epistemological symmetry," so to speak.

Untestable claims are outside of science because they are untestable. You seem to be pointing out that they could still be right and then concluding that we can thus give the benefit of the doubt to what we like and dismiss the rest of what we don't like as nonsense or unproven or provisionally unlikely. This is not being "inconsistent" because we use science the rest of the time to assume probabilities on claims that do not purport to be paranormal.

And as I've mentioned before, this makes all untestable paranormal claims equally likely, or allows the individual to make an arbitrary distinction between untestable one-time incidents that are likely to be human error and untestable one-time incidents that are likely to be actual events.

Not at all, because they have to be consistent with reason and existing knowledge. I have shown you how many supernatural claims are either denied as unreal by Christianity or condemned as evil and demonic. Our view does not in fact lead to what you claim it leads to.

And I'm not even going to get into the problems with saying that paranormal claims for religions not your own are tricks of Satan. I'm too damn tired of listening to Fundamentalists tell me that all those visits by the Virgin Mary are real but just the devil's way of trying to get people to be Catholic so they can be damned.

As always, this can be abused too. But the demonic is real. The Exorcist was based on a real, and fairly famous incident. One doesn't have to adopt a ridiculous Flip Wilson "the devil made me do it" mentality in order to acknowledge the presence of personal evil and demonic spiritual forces in life. But can I prove such a thing to you? I don't expect to at all. I'm just sharing how a Christian looks at these various phenomena.

I think you want to have things both ways.

I think you are confused in your categories and epistemology, as I have stated before.

If science is pointing to something then it is pointing to a theory. That is what science points to, theories that might be wrong, not metaphysical absolutes.

Of course. The statement "the Big Bang is a theory" is a scientific one. The statement "the Big Bang is entirely consistent with the concept of creation ex nihilo" is a statement of philosophy of religion, having to do with a scientific subject. Big difference. One can do both. There is no conflict here.

So I don't think it makes sense to both argue that our scientific evidence leads to God as the best explanation for some specific problems in science and at the same time try to undermine science as a good way of knowing things.

How have I ever "undermined" science? To my knowledge, I never have. Simply pointing out what it has not the ability to do is not undermining it, but rather, being truthful and honest about it. I don't respect a tightrope walker by claiming that he is able to walk through thin air without a tightrope. Macroevolution is lousy, rotten science with no basis in experimental observation. You will disagree, but it is still not the case that I am undermining science. From my perspective, I am honoring it by denouncing its "counterfeits."

I understand this. I am saying that I see a conflict between saying that science should be tighter in its demands for proof and evidence in area X, but that area X is outside of science's proper sphere of discovery. Which is it?

Already explained.

When scientists attack creationist theories, it is seen as an attack on religion. But if Creationism were to turn out to be true, I agree with you that it would support science. What is or isn't scientific isn't the conclusion -- "God exists" is a perfectly acceptable scientific conclusion, Metaphysical Being or not -- it is the method. You don't want scientific methods used on God theory, you don't want critical demands for strong evidence, you see this as dogmatic or close-minded or reactionary.

I want consistency and clear thinking; that's what I want. Just as much as you do, I assure you.

Although the theory that God directly intervenes in nature is supposed to be accepted as most likely by scientists when they run up against a problem which is hard to solve, God should not be treated like any other theory in science, it's special. It's outside of science's scope.

That's right, because God is a matter of both science (quite indirectly) and metaphysics (directly). Science is itself the philosophical viewpoint of empiricism. Science is philosophy. When we come to the borderlines and intersections of different fields of knowledge, it gets very complex and tricky.

But I think that if you have two propositions which each seek to answer the same question about facts of nature, the only way they can be truly evaluated against each other is to apply the same standards of inquiry to them. You want to say that evolution has not met its criteria at the same time that you say that God doesn't have to meet any criteria, that we go "too far" when we treat God as a powerful scientific hypothesis and wonder about mechanisms and methods, inquire into how to distinguish the will of an unknowable Being from something that is simply not known. I don't agree. I think you are being inconsistent here.

Well, I've spoken on this before, so I will desist.

Evolution, for good or bad, is a scientific hypothesis, even in the
"obscure points." If a God explanation wishes to compete with it on the
same level, it ought to provide mechanisms and processes that are equally explanatory.

It cannot, and shouldn't be required to. God is no more the end result of a scientific experiment than He is the end result of a clever syllogism. This demand is irrational, because it is unreasonable to accept something merely because it is deemed superior to an alternate explanation, despite its own grave inconsistencies and shortcomings. The rational thing to do is to withhold judgment on those portions of it which are inadequately supported empirically. But I understand the modern scientific mindset. I cited Thomas Kuhn in that regard on this list.

If it can't or doesn't do so that won't mean we don't entertain it as a possibility, of course, but, like homeopathy, it won't tell us much about how the world actually works. And it better have very strong additional proof.

How likely is it that a monkey could sit at a typewriter and type out the US Constitution, word-for-word, or assemble a Boeing 747 from junkyard materials? Genetic codes are infinitely more complex than that, yet materialist scientists think nothing about asserting that they could have come about by random mutations, under the ubiquitous "explanation" of natural selection. The rational thing is to conclude that there must be a Designer somewhere along the way. But if one makes Matter God, with all the powers of omnipotence, even omniscience in a sense, this extreme difficulty is magically annihilated.

I am free as a rational mind, with full respect and admiration for scientific method, to reject what I feel is an inadequate scientific hypothesis (in this case, macroevolution, and origination of the higher complexities of biological life) without immediately adopting another explanation. I am agnostic as to God's methods, and to nature's methods where we don't have enough information to solidly posit a particular process or mechanism of change.

I understand that this is heretical and anathema according to many scientists today, but I don't care. That takes us right back to whether science has the inherent power to determine all knowledge and all truth. It does not, anymore than any other system of thought does. And I say that is self-evident (though rarely acknowledged).

If you are genuinely unconvinced by the evidence for evolution, then by all means you ought to hold back from accepting it, there's nothing wrong with that. But this is different than going on to question the worth of science.

I deny that I have ever done that. Why would you think that I did? I love science and theology alike. It is you who question the worth of theology! :-)

It seems to me that science's validity in its ability to determine that God exists is indeed being assumed in Natural Theology. Is God being used as a type of scientific explanation? I think it is, as long as it is trying to answer scientific questions concerning the universe and man. And that means that the existence of God is a theory which is open to confirmation, refutation -- or being discarded as irrelevant or unknown.

I don't know what else to say. I've written much about these notions. My view must be difficult to get across or something. That's not surprising, since it would virtually never be heard in any public school or university (being contrary to current secularist dogma). What is unfamiliar becomes that much more implausible, by not having been heard enough to even have a chance to take on an air of plausibility, or a ring of truth.

In order to hold God back from being one hypothesis set forth against other hypotheses in science, you will have to keep God safely in the realm of philosophical ethics or metaphysics -- where every observation would look exactly the same if God existed or not. Science can't go there. But as long as you insist that God directly interferes in the workings of natural laws and divine intervention can be the 'best explanation' for facts like the Big Bang or the cell I think you should accept the consequences of bringing a "spiritual" Being into the realm of science.

I agree with the famed paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson that the "results" of metaphysics can be examined by scientific method. That is an intersection of God/metaphysics and science. But even accepting your challenge, how would one go about proving scientifically that God created any particular thing? It can't possibly be done. God is a spirit and any means of creation would (it seems to me) involve extraordinary processes which are not familiar to us. Yet certain phenomena like the Big Bang or the Cambrian explosion are consistent with special creation, and a few brave evolutionists have even admitted as much.

If it can't be proven that God created any particular thing then how can you use it as a theory which explains the Big Bang and the cell? Creation (note: not creationISM) is not a scientific theory.

It is a religious/metaphysical belief which can be shown to be quite consistent with what we know in science presently. That God created is a Christian dogma. One doesn't arrive at these beliefs through scientific experiment, but through other means. When I put forth God as an "explanation" of the Big Bang or the cell it is not a scientific approach in terms of experiment and observation and testable hypotheses. It is a metaphysical belief without knowledge of all the particulars. I have always held this view, ever since I studied the evolution controversies, back in the early 80s.

Because it doesn't claim to be scientific in the strict sense, there is no obligation to prove mechanism, etc. (if indeed that were even possible). "Explanations" of the evolution of the eye or of life and suchlike, however, are of an entirely different order. They claim to be scientific through and through, yet fall short of the mark because they explain little. They are, in effect, metaphysical theories masking themselves as "scientific explanations." But this is intellectually dishonest, because they are not accurately described for what they are, and there is a pretense of detailed, technical, scientific understanding and an unseemly scoffing at those who are skeptical, such as myself. Belief in a Creator involves no such internal inconsistency.

Of course the Big Bang and the Cambrian explosion are consistent with the existence of God: what isn't?

That isn't the claim. It is that these things are consistent with possible acts of creation.

Theologians are on top of all the mountains. And whatever is found or discovered it is still possible to go one step over or above or behind or beyond and say God is the sustaining reality for that.

No different than the inability of so many evolutionists to admit that they don't have a lock on the whole of reality . . .

But using facts in nature to argue specifically for a direct intervention of God over a natural process which is "sustained" by God means you've crossed into an area where different levels of proof are required.

Precisely, because this becomes metaphysics, as I have said all along.

No, I am saying that claiming that God sustains everything that happens or
is "consistent" with everything that happens is a metaphysical claim.

Yes.

Saying that God intervened directly in nature and did a miracle and that
the scientific or natural theories that account for the same event are
WRONG means that you are no longer in metaphysics. When the claims of
science and the claims of religion overlap and contradict each other you
can't say they are in separate areas, nor can you say they are both in
metaphysics. They are in the area where we deal with empirical epistemic
philosophy; i.e., science.

But they still need not contradict, simply because miracle or divine intervention is an exception to the rule, or interruption of "normality." I don't have to throw out science simply because I believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ or the miracle of the loaves (feeding of the 5000). I agree that there is overlap. I strongly disagree that you have revealed some glaring epistemological or logical inconsistency in my thinking in these areas thus far. Perhaps you can persuade me on some particulars in due course . . .

You are arguing against scientific theories you deem to be inadequate, and in order to do that you either have to stand on scientific turf and argue using its methods or stand far aside and scorn science as just one of the many culturally-bound relativistic ways of choosing to see the world.

No, my friend. This is yet another false dichotomy, brought on by an inadequate epistemology and a seeming "science-only" mindset. It only works by assuming your own assumptions from the outset. But I don't accept them, so this has no relevance to my position. It shows quite a bit about the inadequacy of yours, though, I think.

I don't have to (and don't) scorn science at all. I scorn materialistic or dogmatic science, because I think that is not what science is about in the first place. Again, I make arguments along these lines in two ways:

1. When I am critiquing the inadequacy of evolution, I use the criteria which evolutionists themselves use, and cite scientists as to the problems and mysteries therein. It is a critique of the internal consistency, just as Argument From Evil purports to be, with regard to the Free Will Defense. I don't have to mention God at all to do this.

The argument is that your objections have been met, or are not the problem you think they are. But I'm not getting into this thread, which seems defunct now anyway.

2. And when I am positing God in this regard, I am already consciously in the realm of metaphysics, even though there are some connections to science. I don't have to prove God in a laboratory, nor do I think it is even possible. God is a spirit, and it requires some faith to believe in Him. Neither of those entities sound particularly scientific to me.

And I disagree. You are not in the realm of metaphysics when you claim that mysterious spirit actions are a better explanation for an observation than natural scientific theories which may or may not have adequate support. You are in the area of empiricism, since your theory might be proven wrong.

I think I agree. You have spoken so much of this metaphysics vs. science thing that I sometimes get confused as to what point you are making at the moment.

I'll just point out again that while your concern that evolution has not accumulated enough direct empirical evidence may or may not be justified, you are still criticizing evolution on scientific grounds. You are demanding specifics, you want to know exactly HOW it works -- you don't want vague generalizations that it works but we can't really know how. Your skepticism is based on the assumption that evolution darn well better show its work or you won't accept it.

Precisely.

The skeptical equivalent on the nontheist side for the inadequacy of
God explanations is not "prove to us that God exists" but "an
explanation ought to show its work -- HOW does God work?"

But isn't that applying a scientific epistemology and methodology to a non-material entity, and religion and metaphysics? On the other hand, I am criticizing evolutionary theory by using its own presuppositions.

The fact that this can't be known (unless you are going to claim that God works through nature and thus all natural explanations show how God works) is a problem when it comes to deciding which kind of explanation is a "thoughtful explanation" that gives an adequate grounding for our knowledge.

It is a problem only for one who makes science the end of all knowledge. That's what I've been trying to demonstrate: that this demand itself is unreasonable because it is circular; also that it doesn't take into account that the most fundamental scientific presuppositions also are unprovable and are axioms. Everyone accepts something on "faith," so to speak. This has long been a theme of my thought. I love to get to the bottom of things.

I really don't think we are being selectively skeptical to accept evolution but not accept that the existence of God provides an adequate solution to scientific problems.

Again, it is not so much that God gives "solutions" (scientific solution is implicitly implied by you, I think) to "scientific problems." Rather, it is that the God hypothesis or theism provides solutions to philosophical problems which are often falsely believed to be scientific problems (when in fact they go far beyond science proper). To put it more simply: both approaches (broadly: evolutionism vs. creationism) eventually break down into metaphysics. But scientists too often don't admit that their thought is doing that, while the theist freely admits it. So it is a question of intellectual honesty and categorization, to a large extent.

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Well, let us cut to the chase on this.

I love that phrase . . . :-)

Do you agree that it is possible that questions such as the Big Bang, abiogenesis, cell formation, and the origins of the human drive to form moral systems MIGHT have a natural explanation which science can discover?

Of course. I have already admitted this on the list. You must have missed it.

I know you think that the current theories on these subjects are not adequate, sufficient, complete -- but is it possible that there COULD be a natural scientific explanation for these factors which would be adequate, sufficient, and complete?

Yep.

Could there ever be empirical discoveries that would persuade you that naturalist theories on these issues, at least, are scientifically sound ... and that God may exist, but sustains or created or caused the natural means?

All Christians believe that God created and sustains His creation, whether He used evolution as the means or some form of miraculous special creationism. All theistic evolutionists (guys like Kenneth Miller or Lecomte du Nouy) - I believe - would say that God had to put the initial potentialities into matter to make the subsequent developmental evolution possible in the first place. This is no novel concept. Many Catholics and other Christians are evolutionists.

I'm aware that evolution doesn't directly address the question of God's existence -- usually, science itself has nothing to say one way or the other on metaphysical questions which either claim to be about other realities we can't observe or would look the same whether they were true or not. How would one go about trying to prove that everything is, or is not, inside some other totally inaccessible reality, for example? What kind of observation would be to the point?

No scientific one that I can think of. As I wrote before, one can only determine if the scientific explanation is consistent with some brand of creationist metaphysics or theistic evolution.

I claim that these questions are indeed scientific questions.

Again, how would one prove in a laboratory that God is sustaining the existence of any physical thing? That can no more be done than an analysis of the cells of Jesus Christ could prove that He was both God and man.

Yes, one could not prove or disprove that something is being metaphysically sustained. But that is just my point. We cannot imagine what such a proof would look like. But we can both very clearly recognise that abiogensis, the cell, evolution, and cosmological theories like the Big Bang could have supporting evidence one way or the other. A scientific theory can not only be wrong, but can be known to be wrong.

Yep.

If not, then you should stop demanding evidence you would never accept, no matter what.

This is moot.

Someone years ago could have insisted that the origin and nature of
lightning was not a scientific problem, but a philosophical one. Where is
the demarcation point?

At events and amazingly complex systems where we don't have the slightest clue as to origin or process, and where known laws cannot even begin to explain them. As Michael Behe stated: we should have the courage to go where the facts lead, even though it may make us uncomfortable. This is not true at all with lightning, though it may have seemed so at one time. People once thought comets were supernatural things too. With more knowledge, that was shown to be a false assumption.

And with more knowledge, things like "irreducibly complex" cells might become explained as the result of understandable natural processes in evolution.

Then I might accept the standard evolutionary theory with regard to that point, but not until then.

You say this has not happened yet, but surely you don't mean to then dogmatically claim that it could not happen, especially when so many people are taking reasonable stabs at the question.

Of course not.

Your very demand for stronger empirical proof in evolution shows that you are dealing with a science question and know this.

Scientists are working on the problem (irreducible complexity, etc.), but what they have told us thus far is little more than "empirical metaphysics" at best and fairy tales at worst.

You must have some sort of thing in mind that would persuade you, some finding or experiment or formula or series of discoveries which would give us a "clue" to a natural explanation.

Sure: an explanation which has causal steps and real descriptions of mechanism and process, like that in any number of other scientific areas; something which has some substance and is not simply believed because it fits into a larger theory; something which gives us more than reverent, faith-filled invocations of the goddesses of Mutations and Natural Selection, as if the mere stating of the words solves the problems under consideration.

You can always keep God above science by keeping it in metaphysics. God-as-theory is far too vague to ever be wrong. Evolution could be wrong. This is what makes it a scientific theory.

It almost seems as if you wish to worship science as this amazing thing, because it stresses falsifiability. Well, I agree that it is wonderful, but it is only one means of knowing among many. I don't see why science has to be King, while all other knowledge is inferior and scoffed at.

I don't worship science. How can one worship something that scoffs at blind
obedience and insists you can be wrong?

Just as I can worship a God who scoffs at blind obedience and insists I can be wrong . . .

How can you worship something which has conclusions which are forced to keep changing?

Just as I worship Someone Whose Moral Law "forces" me to keep repenting when I fall short of it.

It's just that I'm very impressed with a method of learning that doesn't worship me.

Me too! I sure know God doesn't worship me! LOL

When you get right down to it, revelation worships Man by demanding that he trust.

I don't follow your point.

You equate trust in an infallible God to trust in a method that insists
that we don't give ourselves too much credit for infallibility, because you
see God as a Being that humbles one in the same way that science can humble
someone. The problem here is that you are putting apples against oranges --
or, rather, apples are being put up against apple-picking.

God isn't a method. God isn't an approach to how we learn and understand
things. God is a claim to knowledge itself, a presumed personal Being that
creates and rules the universe and tells us things so that we may learn and
understand. This use of God as a means to knowledge is different in a very
critical way from the use of our reason to get to the knowledge that God
exists as this means. Humbling yourself before God's revelation is NOT the
same as using a method that humbles you, that takes care that you do not
make claims that can't be corrected. In order to humble yourself before
God's revelation you must simply assume that you are right about what you
see as a revelation from God. Faith is central to this. And faith is a
method that flatters us by telling us to believe.

How can you be so indignant when you see what you think is faith as being
used in evolutionary theory and then indulgent when it is used on miracle
claims? If miracle claims are not in any way inconsistent with science then
why the problem with leaps of faith in any other area? How can you insist
that you don't need to use scientific methods on God because God is a
metaphysical being and then claim that scientific methods are perfectly
capable of showing that it is more likely that God exists than that it
doesn't?

I think you recognise the arrogance of faith when you see it used on
scientific claims. The inconsistency is that you don't see that this kind
of faith is arrogant whenever it is used.
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It tells us to admire and cultivate the terrible certainty that one point of view is right -- that revelation is a revelation from God, who cannot be wrong, and not from ourselves, who can.

Such a thing is either possible or not. I say it is clearly possible. Now the trick is to determine whether it is actual. We believe it is, partially based on corresponding reason, and also based on faith. Are 2+2=4 or a=a or e=mc2 also "terrible certainties"?

My complaint is that you are using God as a means to explain nature in direct competition with scientific the