Is There a Difference Between Trusting Scientists and Trusting Preachers?

[SteveII]

I will clarify since this has become disjointed.

You're not clarifying, you're trying to split the baby - and that's fine...but that -is- what I'm asking you about.

1. If a religious belief conflicts with a scientific fact, it should be discarded. Scientific fact can disprove a religious claim if the religious claim is making statements about the natural world--how the world is. (for example: world is center of the universe, sickness is a judgement from God, the earth is 6000 years old, and other traditional god-of-the-gaps beliefs that have been dismissed). 
2. Scientific facts have no bearing on the possibility of supernatural causes because claims of supernatural causes do not make claims about the natural world. In fact, when weighing whether a supernatural event happened, we rely on science to tell us if a natural cause is possible/probable.]

b-mine.

Then there's no need to reference a metric that you do not accept as applicable.  You have not done so, you've simply termed those contradictory narratives "supernatural" and so exempt from the criteria that -you- proposed.  The one cannot be consistently maintained in the face of the other.  So which should we do, and why, again.....?

The trouble doesn't end there, ofc.

The world -is- the center of the universe, supernaturally.
Sickness -is- a judgement from god, supernaturally.
The earth -is- 6000 years old, supernaturally.

You cannot consistently dismiss these, unless your opinion on the exemption of the supernatural is abandoned and we re-assume the previously abandoned metrics.

Not only are you proposing inconsistent metrics, you're inconsistently -applying- them.  It's all a hot fucking mess and there's no point to it whatsoever.  You have not done what you propose should be done, and that's okay..because, according to your own comments, it cannot -be- done.  You don't believe in the silly shit™, but it's not for the rationalizations presented to us here.

I understand your point but my reply is that you need to distinguish between a religious claim that a miracle (supernaturally caused event) has occurred and a religious belief that makes a claim about the world/how it works/the way things are. With this distinction, scientific fact can certainly prove religious beliefs about how the world works to be wrong. 

We need to examine miracles some more. On one hand, supernatural interventions in the affairs of the normal course of nature are an exception, not the rule. So for proper belief that such an event has occurred, one has to have reasons for thinking so. Among other things (like theology and common sense), scientific facts can be used to examine the circumstances and reasons and if it is found that a known natural explanation is more likely, then it is more reasonable to assume no supernatural causation. However, because there is some possibility that supernatural agency was involved, it can not be ruled out 100%. So, while we can't be sure an event was not effected by a supernatural agent, I don't think we are warranted to claim so without reasons (which themselves are verifiable).