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From discussions in a forum devoted to the question of God\u2019s existence: originally uploaded on 19 July 2001, with the full permission of\u00a0Sue Strandberg<\/a> (self-identified as a secular humanist): whose words will be in\u00a0blue<\/span>.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n My point was that if a mistaken conclusion is formed from scientific methods it can be and probably will be corrected using the same\u00a0methods. Nothing shows the critical, crucial importance of science more\u00a0than bad science. A continuing discussion and dispute on evidence \u2014 and a\u00a0strict accountability to demonstration \u2014 will tend to weed out bad\u00a0theories over time as long as the scientific community is not stifled from\u00a0open investigation and analysis. The fact that phrenology was discarded by\u00a0scientists themselves is one indication of this.<\/span><\/p>\n I agree; my point was 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 . . .<\/p>\n Racism has often been quite respectable in scientific circles. There was this nonsense of measuring skulls and determining \u201cintelligence\u201d and \u201ccharacter\u201d based on that (phrenology). Eugenics was also firmly grounded in supposed \u201cscience.\u201d 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 \u201cinferior\u201d black population. Steven Jay Gould wrote:<\/p>\n Racism has often been buttressed by scientists who present a public facade of objectivity to mask their guiding prejudices. (The Panda\u2019s Thumb<\/i>, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1980, 176)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As religion can be abused for nefarious ends, so can science.<\/p>\n The issue is not belief in God vs. Evolution, but the explanatory scope of miracle explanation vs. science explanation.<\/span><\/p>\n But who says truth is determined\u00a0solely<\/i>\u00a0by 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s fine as far as it goes. 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\u2019t explain everything<\/em>. Why this should be such an amazing and terrible thing (to point out the obvious) I know not.<\/p>\n What Reality \u201creally\u201d 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.<\/span><\/p>\n 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 materialistic 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).<\/p>\n If God exists and is capable of effecting events and elements in the\u00a0universe, I see no reason why a scientific approach to understanding<\/span> Me neither, which is why I think so highly of the cosmological and teleological arguments.<\/p>\n Empiricism doesn\u2019t exclude God, it simply doesn\u2019t start out with an assumption that couldn\u2019t be disproven even if wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n That starting-point has been only since (basically) Darwin\u2019s time. Before that, science didn\u2019t start with materialistic or naturalistic premises. It acknowledged the limitations of its own field of inquiry (matter) and didn\u2019t pronounce on ultimate questions of origin and metaphysics as scientists routinely have the arrogance and chutzpah to do today.<\/p>\n And by demanding that science \u201cexplain\u201d DNA or abiogenesis \u2013and by appealing to arguments such as the kalam [cosmological argument] \u2014 it seems you are already speaking of explanation in empirical terms yourself. It is then a matter of consistency.<\/span><\/p>\n 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\u00a0all<\/i>\u00a0knowledge. If materialistic evolutionary science claims to explain the universe better than the theistic concept, then we are merely requiring (\u201cdemanding\u201d) of it what it claims for itself: the ability to\u00a0explain\u00a0<\/i>materialistic evolutionary processes so that no one need appeal to God as the origin and cause of matter and the processes of natural law.<\/p>\n But we will not put up with this poppycock (I\u2019m not saying\u00a0you<\/i>\u00a0do this) of claims that the atheist stands on science and rationality and Occam\u2019s Razor with no need of God, while the Christian\/theist is supposedly standing on \u201cGod of the gaps\u201d and \u201cblind [irrational] faith\u201d and \u201cmagic\u201d with no need for (or disdain for) science. It simply isn\u2019t true: and demonstrably so.<\/p>\n 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\u00a0is<\/i>\u00a0irrational and unreasonable (even though good arguments of that sort exist).<\/p>\n They were never \u201calternatives to science,\u201d 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.<\/span><\/p>\n Anything that 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.<\/p>\n 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 . . .<\/p>\n As one skeptic put it, \u201cthere is no such thing as alternative medicine: there is medicine that has been clinically tested and verified and medicine which has not.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n 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).<\/p>\n My wife was taking Zoloft for depression, and it was making her into a \u201czombie.\u201d I found amino acids which took care of the depression, without the side effects. 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 \u2014 nothing \u201cunscientific\u201d or \u201cmystical\u201d 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.\u00a0They<\/i>\u00a0may be ignorant about these alternative remedies, but\u00a0I<\/b><\/em>\u00a0am not. Or they are beholden to the pharmaceutical companies, etc.<\/p>\n Now what would you have me do? Ditch all these wonderful discoveries because they don\u2019t fit into your neat little, rationalistic scientific world and worldview? I say that all these things\u00a0can<\/i>\u00a0be explained scientifically, now or in the future.<\/p>\n If all these things can be explained scientifically, now or in the future,\u00a0then they do indeed fit into my neat little rationalistic scientific world\u00a0and worldview. If they really work for the reasons they say they work \u2014 or\u00a0work, but for different reasons \u2014 then they are not in conflict with\u00a0science at all, they are simply unexplored areas of science.<\/span><\/p>\n I agree! Isn\u2019t 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\u2019t care if it was the ligament from a baboon\u2019s knee, or ground-up turtle shells, if it worked. It works for a reason (cause and effect). I may not (almost always don\u2019t) know the reason, but I believe that it is discoverable through scientific method.<\/p>\n 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.<\/span><\/p>\n But Catholicism is not much different. That\u2019s 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\u00a0is<\/i>\u00a0a scientific outlook.<\/p>\n If God should be \u201cincluded in science\u201d then this entails that it is a\u00a0theory in science. Not having explicable mechanisms is a drawback, but no,\u00a0this doesn\u2019t rule it out.<\/span><\/p>\n Okay; well, I would say that religion and philosophy intersect with science at the point of origins and possible teleology. That doesn\u2019t \u201cmake\u201d them science, but it does mean that science cannot totally explain absolutely everything it comments upon.<\/p>\n Science itself will reduce to philosophy, certainly, since in order to use\u00a0science you have to make certain metaphysical and epistemic assumptions.<\/span><\/p>\n We agree on that.<\/p>\n But I did not think that you were trying to argue that science is an\u00a0inferior way of knowing things so much as trying to bring God explanations into science.<\/span><\/p>\n 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).<\/p>\n 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,<\/span><\/p>\n I think its conclusions lead to (or are at least not at all inconsistent with) a reasonable belief in God.<\/p>\n 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.<\/span><\/p>\n No, that\u2019s going too far. I think theism picks up where science ends, and that science points to it (if one were to get \u201cmetaphysical\u201d). Nothing in theism contradicts true science. Miracles do not because they are exceptions to the rule. Uniformitarianism cannot prove that miracle X will \u201cnever ever ever happen.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019t 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.<\/span><\/p>\n Science simply cannot rule out miracles, because they are not part of its study. How could supernatural events come under the category of \u201cnatural events\u201d? I explained earlier the distinction between this inability of science to dogmatically say \u201cno miracles\/design\/creation\u201d and the Christian\u2019s perfect right to assert that nothing in science is\u00a0inconsistent<\/i>\u00a0with various spiritual or supernatural occurrences. In other words, it is not a perfect \u201cepistemological symmetry,\u201d so to speak.<\/p>\n 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.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course. The statement \u201cthe Big Bang is a theory\u201d is a scientific one. The statement \u201cthe Big Bang is entirely consistent with the concept of creation\u00a0ex nihilo<\/i>\u201d 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.<\/p>\n So I don\u2019t think it makes sense to both argue that our scientific evidence\u00a0leads 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.<\/span><\/p>\n How have I ever \u201cundermined\u201d 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\u2019t respect a tightrope walker by claiming that he is able to walk through thin air without a tightrope. From my perspective, I am\u00a0honoring<\/i>\u00a0science by denouncing its \u201ccounterfeits.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s special. It\u2019s outside of science\u2019s scope.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s right, because God is a matter of both science (quite indirectly) and metaphysics (directly). Science is itself the philosophical viewpoint of empiricism. Science\u00a0is<\/i>\u00a0philosophy. When we come to the borderlines and intersections of different fields of knowledge, it gets very complex and tricky.<\/p>\n Evolution, for good or bad, is a scientific hypothesis, even in the\u00a0\u201cobscure points.\u201d If a God explanation wishes to compete with it on the<\/span> It cannot, and shouldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n If it can\u2019t or doesn\u2019t do so that won\u2019t mean we don\u2019t entertain it as a possibility, of course, but, like homeopathy, it won\u2019t tell us much about how the world actually works. And it better have very strong additional proof.<\/span><\/p>\n 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 \u201cexplanation\u201d 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.<\/p>\n 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, purely materialistic macroevolution, and origination of the higher complexities of biological life) without immediately adopting another explanation. I am agnostic as to God\u2019s methods, and to nature\u2019s methods where we don\u2019t have enough information to solidly posit a particular process or mechanism of change.<\/p>\n I understand that this is heretical and anathema according to many scientists today, but I don\u2019t 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).<\/p>\n If you are genuinely unconvinced by the evidence for evolution, then by all means you ought to hold back from accepting it, there\u2019s nothing wrong with that. But this is different than going on to question the worth of science.<\/span><\/p>\n I deny that I have ever done that. Why would you think that I did? I love science and theology alike.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 where every observation would look exactly the same if God existed or not. Science can\u2019t go there. But as long as you insist that God directly interferes in the workings of natural laws and divine intervention can be the \u2018best explanation\u2019 for facts like the Big Bang or the cell I think you should accept the consequences of bringing a \u201cspiritual\u201d Being into the realm of science.<\/span><\/p>\n I agree with the famed paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson that the \u201cresults\u201d 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\u2019t possibly be done. God is a spirit and any means of creation would (it seems to me) involve extraordinary processes that are not familiar to us. Yet certain phenomena like the Big Bang are consistent with the notion of God as Creator.<\/p>\n If it can\u2019t 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.<\/span><\/p>\n It is a religious\/metaphysical belief that can be shown to be quite consistent with what we presently know in science. That God created is a Christian dogma. One doesn\u2019t arrive at these beliefs through scientific experiment, but through other means. When I put forth God as an \u201cexplanation\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Because it doesn\u2019t\u00a0claim<\/i>\u00a0to be scientific in the strict sense, there is no obligation to prove mechanism, etc. (if indeed that were even possible). \u201cExplanations\u201d 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 \u201cscientific explanations.\u201d 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<\/em> (that doesn\u2019t exist) and an unseemly scoffing at those who are skeptical, such as myself. Belief in a Creator involves no such internal inconsistency.<\/p>\n But using facts in nature to argue specifically for a direct intervention of God over a natural process which is \u201csustained\u201d by God means you\u2019ve crossed into an area where different levels of proof are required.<\/span><\/p>\n Precisely, because this becomes metaphysics, as I have said all along.<\/p>\n Saying that God intervened directly in nature and did a miracle and that\u00a0the scientific or natural theories that account for the same event are\u00a0WRONG means that you are no longer in metaphysics. When the claims of\u00a0science and the claims of religion overlap and contradict each other you\u00a0can\u2019t say they are in separate areas, nor can you say they are both in\u00a0metaphysics. They are in the area where we deal with empirical epistemic\u00a0philosophy; i.e., science.<\/span><\/p>\n But they still need not contradict, simply because miracle or divine intervention is an exception to the rule, or interruption of \u201cnormality.\u201d I don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll 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 \u2014 you don\u2019t want vague generalizations that it works but we can\u2019t really know how. Your skepticism is based on the assumption that evolution darn well better show its work or you won\u2019t accept it.<\/span><\/p>\n Precisely.<\/p>\n The skeptical equivalent on the nontheist side for the inadequacy of\u00a0God explanations is not \u201cprove to us that God exists\u201d but \u201can<\/span> But isn\u2019t 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\u00a0own<\/i>\u00a0presuppositions.<\/p>\n The fact that this can\u2019t 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 \u201cthoughtful explanation\u201d that gives an adequate grounding for our knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n It is a problem only for one who makes science the end of all knowledge. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve been trying to demonstrate: that this demand itself is unreasonable because it is circular; also that it doesn\u2019t take into account that the most fundamental scientific presuppositions also are unprovable and are axioms. Everyone accepts\u00a0something<\/i>\u00a0on \u201cfaith,\u201d so to speak. This has long been a theme of my thought. I love to get to the bottom of things.<\/p>\n I really don\u2019t think we are being selectively skeptical to accept evolution but not accept that the existence of God provides an adequate solution to scientific problems.<\/span><\/p>\n Again, it is not so much that God gives \u201csolutions\u201d (scientific<\/i>\u00a0solution is implicitly implied by you, I think) to \u201cscientific problems.\u201d Rather, it is that the God hypothesis or theism provides solutions to philosophical problems which are often\u00a0falsely believed<\/i>\u00a0to be scientific problems (when in fact they go far beyond science proper). But [materialistic] scientists too often don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n Do you agree that it is\u00a0possible\u00a0<\/i>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?<\/span><\/p>\n Of course.<\/p>\n I know you think that the current theories on these subjects are not adequate, sufficient, complete \u2014 but is it possible that there COULD be a natural scientific explanation for these factors which would be adequate, sufficient, and complete?<\/span><\/p>\n Yes. But of course even if this were<\/em> the case, it wouldn\u2019t disprove God. Apples and oranges.<\/p>\n Could there ever be empirical discoveries that would persuade you that naturalist theories on these issues, at least, are scientifically sound \u2026 and that God may exist, but sustains or created or caused the natural means?<\/span><\/p>\n 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 Darwin\u2019s friends Asa Gray and Kenneth Miller and Lecomte du Nouy) 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.<\/p>\n I\u2019m aware that evolution doesn\u2019t directly address the question of God\u2019s existence \u2014 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\u2019t 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?<\/span><\/p>\n No scientific one that I can think of. As I wrote before, one can only determine if the scientific explanation is\u00a0consistent<\/i>\u00a0with some brand of creationist metaphysics or theistic evolution.<\/p>\n I claim that these questions are indeed scientific questions.<\/span><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Someone years ago could have insisted that the origin and nature of\u00a0lightning was not a scientific problem, but a philosophical one. Where is\u00a0the demarcation point?<\/span><\/p>\n At events and amazingly complex systems where we don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n And with more knowledge, things like \u201cirreducibly complex\u201d cells might become explained as the result of understandable natural processes in evolution.<\/span><\/p>\n Then I might accept the standard evolutionary theory with regard to that point, but not until then.<\/p>\n You say this has not happened yet, but surely you don\u2019t mean to then dogmatically claim that it could not happen, especially when so many people are taking reasonable stabs at the question.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course not.<\/p>\n Your very demand for stronger empirical proof in evolution shows that you are dealing with a science question and know this.<\/span><\/p>\n Scientists are working on the problem (irreducible complexity, etc.), but what they have told us thus far is little more than \u201cempirical metaphysics\u201d at best and fairy tales at worst.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cclue\u201d to a natural explanation.<\/span><\/p>\n Sure: an explanation that has causal steps and real descriptions of mechanism and process, like that in any number of other scientific areas; something that has substance and is not simply believed because it fits into a larger theory; something that gives us more than reverent, faith-filled invocations of the goddesses of Mutations and Natural Selection, as if the mere stating of the words magically solves the problems under consideration.<\/p>\n 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.<\/span><\/p>\n 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\u2019t see why science has to be King, while all other knowledge is inferior and scoffed at.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t worship science. How can one worship something that scoffs at blind\u00a0obedience and insists you can be wrong?<\/span><\/p>\n Just as I can worship a God who scoffs at blind obedience and insists\u00a0I<\/em><\/b>\u00a0can be wrong . . .<\/p>\n How can you worship something which has conclusions which are forced to keep changing?<\/span><\/p>\n Just as I worship Someone Whose Moral Law \u201cforces\u201d me to keep repenting when I fall short of it.<\/p>\n If you try to define God as a metaphysical assumption, then I don\u2019t think you can bring in God in the form of observable miraculous supernatural interventions which can be distinguished from ordinary natural occurrences and thus lead us to belief in God.<\/span><\/p>\n We can neither prove nor disprove God from science. But that doesn\u2019t mean that one is prohibited from positing that perhaps some sort of Creator\/Designer God can provide a good explanation in terms of First Cause for phenomena which remain quite mysterious to us. Even Einstein spoke of some sort of \u201cspirit\u201d in the universe, and I don\u2019t think you would question\u00a0his<\/i>\u00a0commitment to scientific method. Even David Hume accepted a version of the argument from design.<\/p>\n And of course science\u00a0began<\/i>\u00a0in a thoroughly Christian milieu. Naturalism or materialism was not believed to be central or fundamental to the definition of science or its method till basically after Darwin\u2019s time. This dichotomy you speak of was not always there. Relatively little conflict between science and God or Christianity was observed before 1859, though there were occasional exceptions, such as the much-ballyhooed Galileo incident. Newton could be a devout theist (Arian, not Christian), yet discover what he did. Likewise with Copernicus, Mendel, Pasteur (who was very fond of the Rosary), Pascal, Kepler, Boyle, Fleming, Faraday, Agassiz, Maxwell, Linnaeus (all of whom were Christians or theists), and on and on.<\/p>\n What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? ;)<\/span><\/p>\n Early science had very much to do with Jerusalem. This was no coincidence at all. And unless the history of science is understood, then much of what I argue falls on deaf ears, because the presently fashionable categories of thought and fields of study do not permit it. The only place it can be relegated to is \u201cthe fundamentalist, backward, anti-scientific mentality.\u201d That\u2019s because the discussion hasn\u2019t even been allowed in schools and universities for several generations now.<\/p>\n So whoever talks differently is immediately labeled by many as ignorant of science and its findings, as Behe was when he dared to think differently and not take in the prevailing evolutionary orthodoxy with his mother\u2019s milk. I\u2019m not saying\u00a0you\u2019re<\/i>\u00a0doing this to me. I\u2019m speaking generally.<\/p>\n If you succeed in demonstrating the inadequacy of evolution as explanation you will be supporting science, not attacking it.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s what I\u2019ve claimed all along.<\/p>\n Religion is built upon the idea that there are eternal truths which are given to us directly through revelation and intuition, and the most important thing is to have faith, to believe, to accept. \u201cQuestion all things,\u201d says Socrates. \u201cUnless ye become as a little child ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven,\u201d says the Bible. At some point any synthesis of these views is going to run into a conflict.<\/span><\/p>\n Now Sue, your extreme dichotomies are getting to be a bit too much to take. You act \u2013 typically for a modernist or postmodernist \u2013 as if science and philosophy involve no axioms and unproven starting-assumptions, and as if religion has nothing whatever to do with rationality and reason. So for you (as with Bertrand Russell) Thomas Aquinas is no philosopher? We believe that there is reason and there is revelation, and that the two do not have to necessarily conflict. They are simply two forms of knowledge.<\/p>\n I\u2019m saying that there is a basic difference in the way science and Greek\u00a0philosophy approach truth, and the way religion does.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course there is, but so what? What\u2019s your point? Are we back to my previous query about your perspective: that science is all there is? Even if atheism were granted as true, this would not be self-evident at all.<\/p>\n Reason is the means of working out solutions to problems. Revelation is the\u00a0means of getting an answer without all the fuss and bother.<\/span><\/p>\n If God in fact exists, that is the nature of the case, just as I get a \u201crevelation\u201d from a car mechanic or a brain surgeon about my motor or my brain \u201cwithout all the fuss and bother.\u201d And thank God for that! I have less than no interest in either \u201cphilosophical procedure.\u201d<\/p>\n That the two do not necessarily conflict is not important.<\/span><\/p>\n It is supremely important. But the fact that you so easily dismiss this might explain why we keep acting as ships passing in the night.<\/p>\n It is not up to the philosopher to show that revelation is not adequate:<\/span><\/p>\n They do all the time by denying that it is a valid category of thought and knowledge.<\/p>\n it is up to the religionist to demonstrate to the philosopher that it is.<\/span><\/p>\n One can\u2019t do so when the opponent has eliminated the possibility of it by means of a charge (explicit or implied) of \u201cillegitimate category.\u201d The atheist obviously has a huge problem with it (it is categorically impossible because there is no God to give it). The deist and the like has less problem, but there is still a huge hurdle to jump. One only has so much time. I can\u2019t dismantle Mt. Everest with my hands and rebuild it again.<\/p>\n And without the ability to rationally demonstrate truth, revelation collapses on any terms but its own.<\/span><\/p>\n It is testable by things like miracles and fulfilled prophecy; the first is evidence of a superior power over nature, and the second indicates superior knowledge: consistent with omnipotence and omniscience (and possible timelessness).<\/p>\n We already agree that science can give us true knowledge of the world, we\u00a0stand on common ground here. You have to show me that revelation can give\u00a0us true knowledge of the world, too, and you can\u2019t do it by using\u00a0revelation, but by using the same approach you and I share for everything\u00a0else, that of reason and science.<\/span><\/p>\n Its evidences are mainly in the realm of historico-legal evidence, and you don\u2019t seem to think much of that, either.<\/p>\n Science was done by many Christians, but I do not think it came out of the mystical revelation of Jerusalem; I think it came out of the rational marketplace of contending ideas that was Athens.<\/span><\/p>\n It was both. Greek philosophy more fully interacted with Jewish\/Christian thought in the Middle Ages. Out of this milieu came modern science. If it was\u00a0solely<\/i>\u00a0Athens, then surely it would have developed back during Aristotle\u2019s time. But it required the input of Christianity. Why do you think that is? And how can Christianity be something so allegedly foreign to science, when it was so instrumental in its formation? This is why history is so crucial to study.<\/p>\n
\nwould be unable to discover this.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nsame level, it ought to provide mechanisms and processes that are equally\u00a0explanatory.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nexplanation ought to show its work \u2014 HOW does God work?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n