Science has been hijacked by philosophical naturalism – the belief that everything originated naturally, operates naturally, and is sustained naturally apart from a Designer. Only natural explanations are allowed. Consequently, any scientist who offers a supernatural (ID) rather than a natural explanation risks both job and reputation.
However, there is not one stitch of evidence to support naturalism. Yes, we all agree that there are laws and that they operate predictably. However, there is no evidence that these laws operate naturally. Instead, there are numerous reasons that would lead us to conclude that God created and sustains everything.
Here are some logical reasons I offered to an atheist:
- There is no evidence that natural, unintelligent forces exist. Although we all agree that objects are subject to laws and respond in formulaic and predictable ways, there is no evidence whatsoever that these laws are natural, unintelligent in origin, and independent of one another. Besides, natural causation cannot be invoked to explain them, since the “natural” hadn’t yet been in existence to cause the “natural” laws. It is more likely that they find their origin and unity in the single Mind of God.
- Reason, logic, and the laws that govern this universe are unchanging. In an ever expanding universe of molecules-in-motion, naturalism can’t identify an unchanging cause to account for them. Only an omnipotent, immutable God can!
- Reason, logic, and the laws of science are uniform, wherever we look and in whatever historical period. However, for a force or law to be natural, it must have a location from which it exerts its influence. (At least, that’s our experience with the “natural.”) The sun attracts the earth because it is in proximity to the earth. We find that this gravitational influence diminishes as the distance increases. Likewise, I’ve found that I can’t pick up the WQXR radio signals, which beam from NYC, when I’m in Pennsylvania. However, the laws of science seem to operate uniformly and universally, transcending the material constraints of location, matter, and energy. Naturalism can’t explain this, but supernaturalism can.
Besides, what can account for the way that two objects attract? A law, of course! But what can account for the law? And if you can answer this, you would then find that you need to account for your answer, ad infinitum! Only with an uncaused, eternally existing God can we find relief from this problem of infinite regress.
- The laws require an adequate cause. Naturalism is unable to postulate such a sufficient cause. Our experience with causal agents informs us that the cause is always greater than the effect. If the effect was greater than the cause, it would suggest that some aspect(s) of the effect is uncaused – a scientific impossibility! However, the Creator is certainly greater than His creation.
- And there are so many other things that naturalism can’t adequately explain (life, DNA, fine-tuning of the universe, freewill, consciousness, moral absolutes, the unchanging physical laws). In order to theorize about the origins of these things, naturalism must make many wild theoretical leaps into multiverses, co-option, and the emergent properties of matter. This violates simplicity and Occam’s razor. ID, by contrast, merely postulates that an intelligent cause outside the natural order is the best explanation for it all.
- Naturalism cannot account to the elegance of the laws of science. However, ID can!
In response to this, the atheist will point to the body of “natural” explanations we have for all forms of scientific phenomena, and they’ll say:
- Look at all of the understanding that naturalism has produced. Therefore, naturalism is clearly supported by this evidence.
However, this claim can only be made by sleight-of-hand. The explanations do not provide any support for naturalism, even though we call them “natural” explanations. Instead, they are explanations that invoke the various laws of science, without consideration of whether they are natural or supernatural. Therefore, calling them “natural” explanations is highly misleading. Instead, it would be better to call them something neutral like “scientific” explanations.
I hate to be “Mr Obvious” in the room … but “supernaturalism” by definition is *not* science. It is not testable, it can never be wrong .. it meets none of the strictures of science. Of *COURSE* the forces of the natural world are natural, and YES we do have explanations for most all of it. That which we don’t we are working on…
I think claims of supernatural causation are quite testable and can definitely fall under the purview of science. And many such claims have been tested and found wanting. It’s not a question of definitions, then, is it? It’s a question of what does reality arbitrate to be true for claims (regardless of motivation of the people asking the questions) about it. Claims of efficacy of prayer, for example could have indicated a statistically significant effect and the variables could have been isolated to a particular god prayed to to instigate effect in a particular way. This kind of experiment could have been repeated and verified and falsified meeting all the requirements of the scientific method that would lend credence to a supernatural causal claim. Unfortunately for theists, no such evidence has been produced so the claim remains empty as adjudicated by reality. The same is true for faith healing, creation stories, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and so on. In every case, the natural world and what it contains is sufficient when studied to offer compelling evidence contrary to any guided interventionist agency outside of it.
I would think testability is a mixed bag for mythic bits. After all, the act of praying (for instance) could just be a stater of mind / placebo effect. No way to test if god reached in and did anything. And the claims of “young Earth”, Noah’s Flood, etc .. which some say are literal and true merely because they are in the bible
Good science accounts for placebo and nocebo effects. I’m not saying that we could identify a specific causal agency but we could (potentially) use the method of science to gather evidence for some kind of unknown interventionist causal agency at work directly related to religious belief in action. But even this is absent from reality.
It is no less testable than naturalism.
Really? Well, please elucidate on a test for a supernatural claim? How about a test of a “young Earth” (if you believe that part) I would point out another curiosity is the “differential” of Christian belief in the natural world.
Dan, I have already provided a lot of logical evidence. What evidence do you have that things happen naturally?
Given that the null hypothesis is that there is no all powerful god, null is Latin for “none”, I would argue that there is zero evidence that there is a god that can break the known scientific constants or interfere with reality.
I would define “natural” as what is observable. An all powerful, all knowing, all good god, that created everything (we still don’t know the mechanism), cares about us, listens to our prayers, and performs miracles (the suspension of scientific constants) simply has no hard evidence to support. And such a fantastical claim, by definition, requires irrefutable evidence.
“Besides, natural causation cannot be invoked to explain them, since the “natural” hadn’t yet been in existence to cause the “natural” laws.” Perhaps you are not up to speed on modern theoretical physics. Something “causing” the big bang is not necessarily a logical question, since “causing” would require there be time before the big bang, and time might have began at the big bang.
“However, the laws of science seem to operate uniformly and universally, transcending the material constraints of location, matter, and energy.” You should read about dark matter, it sounds like it might answer some of your questions about “material constraints”.
“…the cause is always greater than the effect.” Actually, Newton disproved this in the 17th century. Every action has an equal and opposed reaction.
You talk about Occam’s razor, which recommends the explanation with the fewest assumptions. Consider this perspective, what is a more complex idea, that the cosmos has always existed, or that the cosmos is finite and was created by an entity that has always existed. If you are going to grant infinity, then why not just eliminate a step (god)?
Frank, Thanks for actually engaging what I wrote instead of merely dancing around it.
I’m afraid that your definition of the “natural” as “what is
observable” is not meaningful here, since we all agree in this kind of natural. Instead, naturalism is invoked as an ID substitute to provide an alternative explanation for the origin, maintenance and functionality of our scientific
laws.
Well, science is telling us that time did begin with matter, space and energy. This, of course, presents a huge problem for Big Bangers – Whatever caused the
Big Bang must transcend the universe!
Instead of affirming that the cause must be greater than the effect, you claim that “Every action has an equal and opposed reaction.” Even if this does pertain to causation in all its aspects, your principle still rules against naturalism which depends upon acknowledging that the effect (life, for instance) is greater than the natural causes.
The validity of Occam’s Razor resides in the fact that only one assumption or leap of faith is required – God. Meanwhile, naturalism requires all sorts of far flung assumptions or leaps to explain the various aspects of this universe. I’m afraid that you are mis-applying Occam.
science is telling us that time did begin with matter, space and energy. This, of course, presents a huge problem for Big Bangers – Whatever caused the Big Bang must transcend the universe!
Daniel, it isn’t ‘science’ telling us this: it’s reality that is providing evidence that the Big Bang seems to be a pretty good explanation for what we find in it. Asking what came before ‘time’ is not a very good question, is it? Compounding this is the assumption you make that whatever came before time (the ‘before’ is no longer a meaningful term but incoherent) must have cause other than the universe. But that’s not what the Big Bang theory is; it’s an historical point of reference. We – including you – have no clue about anything other than what evidence this reality provides us tells us about this event. Assuming a cause for it, giving this cause a name, supplying this cause with a nature you pretend to know something about, attaching purpose and meaning to this cause aimed at providing meaning and purpose to a hairy biped on an insignificant world among billions and billions and billions of planets is slightly more problematic than saying “I don’t know” to the question of how the expansion we call the Big Bang occurred, don’t you think?
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Instead of affirming that the cause must be greater than the effect, you claim that “Every action has an equal and opposed reaction.” Even if this does pertain to causation in all its aspects, your principle still rules against naturalism which depends upon acknowledging that the effect (life, for instance) is greater than the natural causes.
Firstly, Frank is not responsible for Newton’s Third Law; classical physics is. Secondly, with compelling evidence from all kinds of avenues scientifically explored, we find emergent properties more complex than the causes for them, which is undeniable evidence that effects can be and often are greater than its causes. But naturalism as a conclusion to how we find reality to be does not depend on this; it depends on reality alone and how it – not anyone else – arbitrates these causal claims. So far, theists are batting zero. This is clue…
Words don’t change how reality operates and playing with them in logical form based on assumptions and assertions for its premises that refuse to allow reality to play its central role in adjudicating them for truth value does not further our inquiry into how reality operates. At all. It acts to block honest inquiry with pseudo-answers contrary to how reality operates. This does not require far flung assertions whatsoever; it requires respecting reality to inform us what is true about it. Someday, Daniel, you’re going to have to face this unpleasant fact that your beliefs do not have the power to alter reality to suit them.
Tildeb, It is totally within reason to ask the question of how this world (Big bang) came about. Since space and time originated together with matter and energy and since it all had a beginning together, the cause must therefore transcend these elements. Furthermore, it must be a cause that is uncaused. It is God alone who fulfills this portrait!
Yes, it is totally within reason to ask the question HOW this world came about. And this claim falls squarely into the scientific method. It does not fall into theology or philosophy or metaphysics. We have gathered evidence. We have formulate hypotheses. We see how reality arbitrates these and find the Big Bang is a productive avenue of inquiry.
Your flights of fancy about causes is not productive if it is not willing to respect the method of inquiry into reality we call science. Re-producing an ancient philosophical framework about First Causes as if either meaningful or practical and in possession of knowledge is a dead end.
The death announcement was made in the early 1600s (Thank you, again, Galileo). Some of us have moved on. Some of us have not. And the reasons for moving into the modern era or staying in the Dark Ages I think are best answered by choosing whether or not to respect reality to describe itself to us or respect ancient faith-based beliefs imposed on it.
If we choose the former, we choose to inquire honestly into reality and utilize probabilities of uncertainty as our guide. In return, we gain applications, therapies, and technologies that work for everyone everywhere all the time to inform our claims to knowledge based on how reality arbitrates them. This method seems to work really well.
If we choose the latter, we choose to stop inquiry dead in its tracks and accept pseudo-answers of faux-certainty that in practice answer nothing and produce zero new knowledge about reality. This method doesn’t seem to work very well.
If our goal is truly to find out HOW this world came about, then which method should we choose?
Well, when they produce incompatible claims we have to choose.
Labeling a hypothetical transcendental First Cause as a description for some vague notion of ‘God’ is simply a theological sleight-of-hand more commonly recognized as a repackaged ‘I don’t know’ in a form that fools us into thinking that we do. I choose not to be fooled.
Tildeb,
I do respect science, but I also respect the very obvious
limitations of science. Most scientists understandably acknowledge that science can’t take them back before the “Big Bang.” As they point out, this is a question of pre-science, a time prior to the tools and substances of science – energy, matter, time and space and perhaps even the laws of science.
However, this doesn’t mean that we must abandon the question of origins to agnosticism. As I attempt to point out in the OP, there is a lot that we can still surmise.
Regarding naturalism, I guess I’m looking at it from a strictly scientific point of view, and science does not care what you call it. All science does is develop theories based on evidence, regardless if we call them natural or supernatural. I’m willing to believe whatever the evidence proves.
“Whatever caused the Big Bang must transcend the universe!” Why are you assuming there was a cause? Our minds look for patterns, but the cosmos are not confined to what we think “makes sense”. Scientific discoveries often contradict “common sense”. Infinity, for example, is something we cannot wrap our heads around logically, but we know it exists. The mathematical constant π, for example, is an infinitely long number. Also, ever heard of the infinite divisibility problem? Another example of our logic contradicting reality. So I would argue that the assumption that there MUST be a cause for something as mind-boggling as the big bang is not a given.
“naturalism which depends upon acknowledging that the effect (life, for instance) is greater than the natural causes.” Why are you assuming that life is greater than its cause? Life have evolved into something really interesting and complex, but that doesn’t mean that the first life was greater than its cause, just different.
Regarding Occam’s razor, are you conceding that god is simple? I think we would both agree that the Christian god, should he exist, and all of his qualities, amount to an incredibly complex entity, perhaps infinitely complex, an entity that could never be fully understood by the human mind. Faith that god exists is not all that is required. For your Christian god to exist, first he has to exist, then all of his qualities have to exist (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc.). You also have to assume that he is infinite, which is the only assumption required for the non-god scenario. Regardless, Occam’s razor is not considered evidence in science, it is just a guiding principal for scientist to create hypotheses which can be tested – so our debate is just philosophical.
Frank, You wrote, “Our minds look for patterns, but the cosmos are not confined to what we think “makes sense”.
Perhaps you’re right? However, logic/reason is our only operating system. Until you can find something better or more accurate, we’re constrained to stick with it.
Meanwhile, from all of our limited experience, effects have causes. Therefore, I don’t think that we are going out-on-a-limb to suppose that the universe also has a cause.
There is a great difference between actual infinities, which are logically incoherent, and potential infinities like pi.
But don’t you think that god is infinite?
Also, I don’t think the infinite divisibility problem is a “potential infinite”, because you can measure halves. Every time there is movement, it happens.
Another example, by the way, of our intuition being way off is time itself, which intuition would tell us is constant – but it’s not. Which, by the way, was proven by science here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele%E2%80%93Keating_experiment. Pretty cool experiment.
The list is very long of mistakes humans have made because of intuition, only to be proven wrong by science. When talking about something like the beginning of everything, I don’t presume to apply assumptions.
Frank, Although our assumptions/intuitions/analyses are sometimes wrong, we cannot dismiss logic, reasoning or science because of this.
Although we have to remain humble about our conclusions, I still think that we can make certain reasonable logical deductions from the facts that we do have. And I think that these deductions should lead us to the conclusion of an Intelligengt Designer.
Evidence in the sciences is not limited to logic (tho Kalam’s argument fails in this regard in particular as all you are doing is replacing one unknown with another. It adds nothing to the argument.) Evidence as in data, preferably empirical…but bring what you have.
And yes, we do have some understanding on the sources of physical forces – if you are paying attention to particle physics and the like. The same in chemistry … reactions and the like are predicated on the fundamental properties of subatomic particles .. things we do understand.
Dan, Since evidence is only in the data, I am therefore coerced to dismiss your entire data-less statement!
who is coercing you? and WTF are you talking about….
Sorry Dan! I guess I had misread you the first time! My fault!
No. I’m not up on particle physics, so I must approach your suggestion on a logical level. There are several problems encountered when we try to provide a natural explanation for the laws of science:
1. Before the laws, there was no natural to cause them, let alone maintain them in their immutable-ness.
2. You would then have to account for the cause of the cause of the natural laws. Unless there is something/Someone eternal and uncaused, this will lead to infinite regress.
3. You would then have to account for the fact that the laws are so darn elegant and operate uniformly throughout the known universe.
Your #1 is a known and accepted premise
#2 .. the first sentence is also already established. Its the 2nd sentence that goes awry. You fall back to a sightlier more eloquent version of “I don’t understand so godditit”. #3 The laws of physics actually are not uniform, Time, space and gravity are all affected by things like mass and velocity, In large part though, these laws, once established by the fundamental characteristics of particles, should be more-or-less uniform (except as noted above, regarding predictable variances) … no deity required
Dan, I don’t think that I’m saying, “I don’t understand so godditit,” rather, “ID makes a better paradigm than naturalism.”
I don’t understand your point under #3. if the laws don’t operate uniformly and predictably, we can have no science. I don’t think that you are saying this.
ID only makes a better paradigm since you can bend it to explain anything without evidence to support it. So Yeah, my oversimplified assertion is pretty much correct from where I’m sitting.
Perhaps “uniform” isn’t quite the adjective I was hoping it was … they (most natural forces) are predictable but malleable. Stirring a deity into the mix does nothing
Dan, Understandably, science has been searching for that one unifying principle that explains all others. Otherwise, we would be stuck with the unparsimonius conclusion that all the forces of nature simply originated independently, thereby multiplying our perplexity.
It is therefore amazing to me that so many reject the ultimate single Source of all truth, unity, goodness, wisdom, existence, and beauty. Only God is adequate to account for any of these!
We are certainly approaching that level of understanding: http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/new-discovery-simplifies-quantum-physics/
or if you would like to really invest some time in learning, try http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02986885?LI=true#page-1
Daniel, I thought I effectively responded to your #1 and #2; your lack of response indicated to me that they had an effect. Please respond:
1. To say “before the laws” does not make sense if time itself came into being at the big bang. It would make as much sense as saying “before god” in your worldview. To make your argument you have to disagree with the big bang. Is that your contention?
2. You are already proposing that something can be infinite and uncaused: god. Why can’t the same phenomenon apply to space/matter/energy?
3. How does the problem of an infinite regress not apply to god?
4. Regarding your ID argument. It appears you are relying on the human ability to recognize design and infer a designer. Tell me, do you think a snow flake looks designed? If so, according to ID, you must think that god designs each snowflake independently and miraculously.
Frank,
Thanks for your thoughtful challenges.
First of all, there must be something transcendent,
something outside of the universe of space, time, and matter. Otherwise, you encounter the problem of infinite regress – that any cause requires its own cause, ad infinitum. If we are left with infinite regress (IR), we must
sacrifice science in a sense. IR tells us that there are no real or sufficient explanations. Whatever explanation we offer never finds bedrock. It just continues endlessly.
This is one reason that we maintain that God is eternal and uncaused. If God is uncaused, then we can have an adequate explanation. Also, if God isn’t eternal, we are left with two unacceptable choices – #1, the universe sprang into existence without a cause from nothing at all, or #2, the universe is eternal.
Both seem to be more fraught with problems than the
God-hypothesis. Just dealing with #2, science now maintains that the universe and time had a beginning together, meaning that they can’t be eternal and
suggesting that something caused them.
Even more compelling, the idea of an eternal universe is
logically incoherent. As we cannot count to an infinite number (year) in the future, we are also unable to count to an infinite number (or year) in the past. This means that if we started from the eternal infinite of the past, we could never have arrived at the present, since an infinite number of years would first have to pass. This is an impossibility! However, if God is outside of time – and time began with the universe, according to the latest scientific
assessment, then this problem cannot pertain to God.
THE LAWS: Perhaps I’m wrong about this, but I tend to think that they transcend the universe along with its limitations.
DESIGN AND THE SNOWFLAKE: Yes, the snowflake is clearly designed! However, we have to distinguish the design resulting from God’s laws and the design resulting from God’s extra-lawful governance. Therefore, since
snowflakes are the result of laws, God need not design each directly without the mediation of laws.
Got it. Here’s why I think your logic is not sound:
INFINITE REGRESS. Remember the problem of infinite divisibility that I presented? To me that indicates that, when it comes to infinity, our intuition is not accurate. To me it indicates that there is something about infinity that we cannot grasp and make sense of, despite its obvious existence. If you think that we can use our intuition about infinity, please explain how infinite divisibility is not a problem. Otherwise you can’t use infinity for or against any argument because we do not (and possibly cannot) understand it.
“science now maintains that the universe and time had a beginning together, meaning that they can’t be eternal and suggesting that something caused them.” Science is not suggesting anything of the sort. You are making the leap of faith that it was caused, and that your particular deity caused it. Science can only make sense of evidence, not a lack thereof.
GOD IS ETERNAL. According to you, god is outside of time. The universe is also outside of time before the big bang. You have the problem of infinity as well as an infinite regress of causes in both cases. I know believers like to say “god is uncaused, therefore that solves the problem,” but to a skeptic that does not accept the bible as automatic truth, simply calling something “uncaused” does not add anything to the argument, because the same can be done to anything.
THE LAWS. Yup, scientist think the laws are consistent throughout our universe. But you act as though there are parts of the universe where there is nothing, so there is nothing to maintain the laws, therefore god must do it. Did you not read my point about dark matter? Also, “space” is something, and it is everywhere. There is nowhere in the universe that is devoid of space, time, matter, and energy. Are you making a different argument or did I just debunk it?
SNOWFLAKE. I think you missed the point of this argument. Proponents of ID use the human ability to recognize what was designed specifically by god in a miraculous act, and what came about simply through the constant laws of science. ID proponents clam that the complexity of life did not arise from the laws of science, but from a miraculous “alakazam” moment when god stepped in and created all life on earth from dust (which is not consistent with scientifically observed laws). For this argument to hold, the human ability to recognize design and accurately infer a designer needs to be strong, because the entire argument rests on this assumption. I just gave you a clear example where that intuition fails, and you agreed.
Frank,
There is a big difference between potential infinities, like
heaven, and actual infinities that are logically incoherent. I therefore tend to place your infinite indivisibility among the former.
I’ll let the readers decide if what you just said is a copout to my challenge.
I’ll assume you agree with me on the other points, or are having trouble debunking them. I just hope you include them when you teach your arguments in the future to your apologetics students, because to leave them out would be to teach a one-sided argument.
Frank, It is ironic that you so quickly indict me for not answering all of your challenges, but my ONE response you have neglected to answer:
“There is a big difference between potential infinities, like
heaven, and actual infinities that are logically incoherent. I therefore tend to place your infinite indivisibility among the former.”
Happy to. But I’m not sure I understand your distinction between “potential” and “actual”. You think that natural and supernatural overlap (or are one and the same), so there’s no distinction there. I doubt you would say that god is “potentially” infinite; you probably think he’s infinite beyond a shadow of a doubt. You go on to place the problem of infinite divisibility into the “potential” category, and thereby attempting to make it less of a problem, I’m assuming?
The main difference I see between the origin of everything and infinite divisibility, is that we see infinite divisibility every day. It happens right in front of our eyes, constantly; and every time our intuition and logic fails us. We cannot see what happened at the beginning of everything. Yet you want to diminish infinite divisibility as “potential” and raise up the origin as the only real problem with infinity? To answer your question, I’m not seeing any rationale for doing so, aside from the fact that it fits your presupposed world view.
Frank,
There is a world of difference between what is ACTUALLY infinite and what is only POTENTIALLY infinite (the potential to divide something infinitely). The former is logically incoherent and latter isn’t. A cosmos that always existed is actually infinite. As I tried to point out before, such is not a logical possibility (sorry if I wasn’t clear). If the cosmic had always existed for an infinite number of years, there is no way we could ever have traveled over this infinite number of years to arrive at the present.
Pi or potentially dividing something infinitely doesn’t
violate logic. Yes, you can potentially divide something infinitely, but as soon as you say, “I HAVE divided something infinitely,” I’d have to retort that this isn’t a possibility. However many times you might have divided it, you can still divide it more times – meaning you had never actually divided it an infinite number of times.
Here’s what this means – the universe had a beginning.
Therefore, it is appropriate to ask the question, “What cause was pre-existent and adequate to cause the universe?”
I think that only God can fit this puzzle. He would have to
transcend the logical and physical limitations of our space-time universe and to be uncaused, infinite and omnipotent – everything that the Bible says He is!
I see now. We have a different view of infinite divisibility. You are looking at it like a math equation, like pi. But I am not. Pi certainly is a math equation. But infinite divisibility applies to movement (i.e., physics), because distance is measurable in space. Every time you move from point A to point B, you conduct an experiment on infinite divisibility. According to our understanding of space, you should never reach B. There is a logical breakdown of our understanding of physics. Physicists have been working on this for some time. There are theories related to the speed of light, but it appears we simply don’t know how anything reaches point B. It’s similar, in fact, to the problem of infinite regress that you propose for the origin of the universe: we should never be able to get to now if there is an infinite regress; similarly, we should never be able to get to point B – but we do. This is why I think the two are analogous, and show our lack of understanding of infinity, or our inability to understand it.
With regards to the rest, the best we can say, according to the evidence collected, is we don’t know. You choose to insert an “uncaused” deity into that gap, in fact, you insert your particular deity. I’m willing to wait until convincing evidence comes in; be it natural or supernatural.
Frank, I Certainly respect your openness. I am convinced that those who want to know the truth will know it. The entire Bible promises as much. Moses, for example, stated:
Deut. 4:29 But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Coming from a Jewish home and as a committed Zionist, I was interested in God, but He had to conform to my specifications, and therefore, I wasn’t finding Him. However, He does reveal Himself to those who really want to know Him.
Science has been hijacked by philosophical naturalism.
Straw man.
Science is methodological naturalism. Science is not a philosophy but a method to investigate the world that reliably and consistently produces knowledge that seems to work for everyone everywhere all the time. That knowledge production is what justifies the value of the method and continues to open up new avenues of fruitful inquiry.
You are trying to pretend that this is somehow beside the point while you type away at a computer! In its place for the respect it richly deserves, the method of science is altered by you into something it is not: a means by which those who find this method produces knowledge incompatible with their religious assertions are victims of a conspiracy.
In contrast to this is the belief in intelligent design unsupported by the reality it purports to describe (other than a ‘just so’ story).. It produces no new knowledge (to date)and no new avenues of inquiry (to date). It doesn’t produce applications, technologies, or therapies that work (to date). This lack of knowledge production, lack of anything explanatory that is of practical and useful work, is what determines ID to be equivalent to religious belief in creationism. That’s not the fault of those who respect the method of science. It’s the fault of those who continue to invest confidence that there really, really, really is agency behind reality and who think that by knocking down science with misrepresentations and linguistic logic gymnastics, the incompatible belief in creationism will somehow gain what it has never (yet) produced: knowledge about how reality works.
Tildeb,
You claim that ID “produces no new knowledge.” This is beside the point! Both ID and its opposite, naturalism, provide their own interpretations of the knowledge – the findings of science. They also provide
theoretical guidance to guide the research.
You also claim that the assertion that Science has been
hijacked by philosophical naturalism, is a “Straw man.” However, it is not straw men who are getting fired for violating the prevailing orthodoxy. Instead, it is responsible scientists who are trying to breathe life into a rigid institution where only naturalistic insiders can find a place.
Please don’t confuse methodological naturalism with
philosophical naturalism, an entirely different creature. We all endorse
natural methods.
The opposite of naturalism is supernaturalism. (I’m glad you accept that ID falls squarely into this category.) As a method of inquiry, science (not philosophy) finds no evidence for the existence (as a causal agent in this reality) of this alternate reality. What we find exists wholly in this reality. For many of us, this more than sufficient. There have been opportunities to find evidence that should be there if supernaturalism worked as an equivalent explanation. For example, it would. help your cause if prayer or faith healing actually worked. But there is no evidence it does, nor is there any compelling evidence that cannot be adequately and fruitfully be explained inside this reality alone without any designer. In fact, the evidence we have looks exactly as it should if there were no causal intervention. This is a clue…
There simply is no need for supernatural hypotheses. To guide research with such hypotheses has been shown not to be just inadequate and fruitless but a stimulant for all kinds of superstitious nonsense that causes real harm to real people in real life. This, too, is a clue…
ID proponents are free to find compelling evidence to show otherwise – to show effects of a causal agent outside of this reality – but (so far) to no avail. That failure belongs to the proponents alone. Science, as a method, is neutral on such matters. But the fact is that all indications arbitrated by reality point away from supernatural causal effects. Unless you think reality is conspiring against you, your thesis has no merit. It is promoted only by religiously motivated people (and not scientists who respect what reality has to say in this matter) who wish it were otherwise.
So if you’re going to do science, you can’t hide behind claims for some version of Oogity Boogity as an ‘explanation’ and expect to be taken seriously because it’s empty of scientific merit. It assumes no need for causal and compelling evidence from reality, which is why it is classified as a faith claim. Faith is not science and science is not faith. These are not synonyms because their methodologically are incompatible (contrary epistemology). That’s why it’s important to understand that science is a method of inquiry and not a product. Faitheists confuse this point all the time to try to paint science as an equivalent kind of faith-based belief when it is simply not so. Anyone can do science and do it well but only faitheists can ‘do’ faith. And that’s why your conspiratorial accusations against ‘science’ regarding this religious notion of creationism called Intelligent Design are empty of validity. It’s not true. People who don’t do good science should be fired from positions where they are expected (and paid) to do good science. It’s not a question of ‘naturalistic insiders’ somehow controlling the evidence reality contains. It’s reality who has adjudicated the designer claims and found them lacking. And the best method we have for investigating how this reality works (as well as producing technologies, therapies, and applications that work for everyone everywhere all the time based on this understanding) is not an equivalent kind of pseudo-explanation (godidit) founded on supernatural faith claims but realty-based, evidence-based, science. Let’s allow reality to arbitrate claims made about it rather than faith claims imposed on it.
“For example, it would. help your cause if prayer or faith healing actually worked. But there is no evidence it does.”
Evidently, you are reading carefully self-screened studies. Try reading “God: The Evidence” by former atheist Patrick Glynn.
Besides, You haven’t addressed the challenge of the OP – that there no absolutely no evidence that things originated or happened naturally. Nor have you engaged the positive logical evidence for ID. Instead, you dogmatically claim that there is no evidence.