Science is inherently atheistic

[polymath257]

polymath,
natural to me is the perception of or description of characteristics of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation, logic and experimentation. They don't necessarily have to be tangible, they can be forces or universal laws or logically sound constructs like gravity, entropy and math.

What identifies something as a 'natural phenomenon'?

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Nobody is claiming that holes exist.  It is a description of an absence of something, whose absence can be described by other means.  The supernatural is not simply the absence of something, it is something that is claimed to exist.  And that requires a positive definition because it is a claim of something existing.  If you want to say a hole doesn't exist,  I don't have a problem with that.  Holes don't exist.  If you are saying the supernatural similarly doesn't exist, I don't have a problem with that either, but you do.  I don't have the first clue what it means for something to be other than nature, just as I have no idea what color something is if they tell me it is not black.  We know what items do not belong to the things that are not belief in a god because the class is well defined.  We don't know what things belong to the class of not natural because we don't know what things belong to the class of natural.  That is essentially the problem you have.  Not nature doesn't point to anything specific.  It's just a catchall for anything we can't identify as natural.  Which makes all arguments in favor of it essentially arguments from ignorance.  So even if there is such a thing as the supernatural, believing that there is is irrational.  Are you trying to tell me your beliefs are irrational?

Let me ask you a related question.  Are there supernatural causes that are not agents or other intentional subjects?  Can dark matter be supernatural?

Addendum, theists often mistake atheism as containing items it doesn't contain.  So from observation, theists commonly mistake class boundaries as definite when they aren't, and indefinite when they are.  As a practical matter, we can identify beliefs that are not a belief in God, but we can't know what they believe based upon this apophatic definition, even if problematic.  It would seem your example proves my point rather than the reverse.  We don't know an atheist's positive beliefs that are not a lack of belief in gods, so that class is equally indeterminate if interpreted that way.

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Yes by your definition my beliefs are irrational because they are objectively unjustifiable and based on a belief in supernatural causes. It isn't an argument from ignorance if I'm not presenting it as a false dichotomy. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, without the tools and perspective to qualitatively evaluate. There have been things that were supernatural that aren't now. Does that mean that supernatural things don't exist? No. I believe the scientific method is great for testing the known natural physical world. It's great at falsifying superstition and bringing more understanding into our world.

Let me try and explain my perspective, At one point sickness was supernatural. It was demons and angels. Then science corrected that to be smelly things caused disease, thus making it a natural explanations for the supernatural. Then science corrected itself again to say it was bacteria and it was a different natural explanation. Supernatural can be a catch all for things we don't understand at the time, but that doesn't mean they can't be known. If everything in the universe can at one point be known, then everything in the universe would be natural. That would still leave things outside of the universal constraints and rules or eternal things as supernatural. Until we have a perspective or tool that could measure the eternal, or outside our universe there will still be supernatural. I think we are digressing tough and I'm sleepy. I'll pick this up later.

So things changed from being supernatural to being natural when we got explanations for them?

Doesn't that make labeling something as supernatural is the same as declaring ignorance about it?

Are quantum events 'supernatural' because they are not deterministic? Why do you think there are things 'outside of the universal constraints and rules'?