(February 9, 2014 at 8:03 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Unfortunately, by invoking a god to account for this one reality you have not only multiplied the entities beyond necessity, you've also upset Thomas Aquinas:

"Further, it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God's existence."

When wielding parsimonious razors, amateurs are advised to wear gloves.

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however, invoking methodological naturalism to dismiss God as a causal explanation for natural phenomena is not good science. after all, what if it turns out that God really did design the information-rich DNA structures of life?

(February 15, 2014 at 11:34 pm)snowtracks Wrote: however, invoking methodological naturalism to dismiss God as a causal explanation for natural phenomena is not good science. after all, what if it turns out that God really did design the information-rich DNA structures of life?

... Then the moment you find evidence of that, it'll be rational to accept it as true. That's why the conclusions of science are only ever tentative, but the scientific community equally won't bend over backwards for every ludicrous "what if?" scenario you cook up.

(February 15, 2014 at 11:34 pm)snowtracks Wrote: however, invoking methodological naturalism to dismiss God as a causal explanation for natural phenomena is not good science. after all, what if it turns out that God really did design the information-rich DNA structures of life?

however, invoking methodological naturalism to dismiss the idea that the entire universe was secreted by the Great Space Worm from its mighty Gonad last Saturday is not good science. after all, what if it turns out that the Great Space Worm really did secrete the entire universe last Saturday?

(February 9, 2014 at 6:36 pm)Sword of Christ Wrote: If you have a god that is testable and understandable to science that is the God of the Bible who is beyond all that. Of course science didn't exist when the Jews began to believe in this kind of God as opposed to the other pagan nature controlling gods who would be scientifically observable if they existed.

One wonders how the Jews managed to survive without a method for testing claims and experimenting in order to refine certain processes and methods. Oh, right: god made it rain food, campfires, clothes, and wheels.

(February 15, 2014 at 11:53 pm)Esquilax Wrote:

(February 15, 2014 at 11:34 pm)snowtracks Wrote: however, invoking methodological naturalism to dismiss God as a causal explanation for natural phenomena is not good science. after all, what if it turns out that God really did design the information-rich DNA structures of life?

... Then the moment you find evidence of that, it'll be rational to accept it as true. That's why the conclusions of science are only ever tentative, but the scientific community equally won't bend over backwards for every ludicrous "what if?" scenario you cook up.

This. In spades.

Merely suggesting possible causes and explanations is only the first step of a very long and involved process of experimentation, fact-checking and correction. Sadly, all-too many amateur pulpit pundits are content to leave all the hard work to others better versed in the rigours of scientific method that they deride so much, yet depend upon for their very existence.

(February 16, 2014 at 8:48 am)Tonus Wrote: One wonders how the Jews managed to survive without a method for testing claims and experimenting in order to refine certain processes and methods. Oh, right: god made it rain food, campfires, clothes, and wheels.

They rejected the kinds of gods science would eventually disprove beyond a doubt in favour of a God that is scientifically unfalsifiable and this was 3000 years before the invention of modern science. What they did have an understanding of universe as a self sustained natural order, even if their scientific details of this order were way off. The Biblical God still fits into the picture of a complex naturally ordered rationally understandable universe that science can study. There is no Zeus or Thor up there in the sky if there had been we would be able to see them with telescopes.

(February 17, 2014 at 8:11 am)Sword of Christ Wrote: They rejected the kinds of gods science would eventually disprove beyond a doubt in favour of a God that is scientifically unfalsifiable and this was 3000 years before the invention of modern science. What they did have an understanding of universe as a self sustained natural order, even if their scientific details of this order were way off. The Biblical God still fits into the picture of a complex naturally ordered rationally understandable universe that science can study. There is no Zeus or Thor up there in the sky if there had been we would be able to see them with telescopes.

The bold is not a good thing! It is an irrational thing!

(February 17, 2014 at 8:11 am)Sword of Christ Wrote: They rejected the kinds of gods science would eventually disprove beyond a doubt in favour of a God that is scientifically unfalsifiable and this was 3000 years before the invention of modern science. What they did have an understanding of universe as a self sustained natural order, even if their scientific details of this order were way off. The Biblical God still fits into the picture of a complex naturally ordered rationally understandable universe that science can study. There is no Zeus or Thor up there in the sky if there had been we would be able to see them with telescopes.

What an amazing admission! So mankind has continued to redefine their gods so as to keep them just out of reach. I agree with that. We were always coming to this point, where humans would become so technologically advanced that theists would need to move god outside of reality itself. You are really just promoting the last step in the process, where the theist gives up trying to find places to hide his nonexistent god, and simply proclaims "you can't detect him at all, so there!"

You're so close to finally being free from that self-deception. You're only really one more step away, IMO.

(February 17, 2014 at 8:11 am)Sword of Christ Wrote:

(February 16, 2014 at 8:48 am)Tonus Wrote: One wonders how the Jews managed to survive without a method for testing claims and experimenting in order to refine certain processes and methods. Oh, right: god made it rain food, campfires, clothes, and wheels.

They rejected the kinds of gods science would eventually disprove beyond a doubt in favour of a God that is scientifically unfalsifiable and this was 3000 years before the invention of modern science. What they did have an understanding of universe as a self sustained natural order, even if their scientific details of this order were way off. The Biblical God still fits into the picture of a complex naturally ordered rationally understandable universe that science can study. There is no Zeus or Thor up there in the sky if there had been we would be able to see them with telescopes.

Hey this is majorly unfair. The Great Space Worm is also scientifically unfalsifiable!!! The Great Space Worm still fits into the picture of a complex naturally ordered rationally understandable universe that science can study, including the mighty unfalsifiable Gonad that excreted us.

(February 17, 2014 at 8:14 am)Esquilax Wrote: The bold is not a good thing! It is an irrational thing!

Science is limited to what we can see with our eyes or is physically there to be detected in whatever way. You're claiming that everything that exists necessarily has to fit around the limits of what we can perceive in that manner for no good reason. But why does everything that exists have to fit around our own physical limitations? Here's a 3rd century quote from Origen for instance.

"The study called inspective is that by which go beyond things seen and contemplate something of things divine and heavenly, beholding them with the mind alone, for they are beyond the range of bodily sight."

He would agree that God is beyond the range of what modern science would ever be able to study as God is not something that ever worked that way to begin with. If you were to go back in time and demonstrate everything that modern science has revealed to him it wouldn't have shattered Origens faith in God/Christianity seeing as he already understood the distinction between the non-physical transcendent God and the visible natural world.