(January 11, 2010 at 3:26 pm)Tiberius Wrote: Origins is a scientific question, hence why materialism is used to answer it (as I stated above). Of course, science has no way of knowing whether the universe didn't just come into being last Thursday and that everything was crafted to look older by some kind of extra-dimensional being. Since the possibility that this happened isn't 0, it could be how it all happened.
However, if the material evidence tells a certain story, and there isn't any other reason to disbelieve it, science will follow that evidence, and so will a lot of people rationally.
I reject materialism on the level that materialism is defined as "energy and matter is all that exists". I can't make that statement and be intellectually honest, since I do not have this knowledge. However, that isn't to say that making an assumption of materialism in certain subjects (science specifically) doesn't lead to good results, because it very clearly does. The material world does exist, and it seems to act very well on it's own, but "seeming" and "being" are very different things.
Unless there is a good reason to believe that something other than material happened, the material evidence is usually the best way to go. The material evidence says that the universe began 13.7 billion years ago. It *could* have begun 6,000 years ago, with various supernatural occurrences making it look like it began 13.7 billion years earlier, but there isn't any good reason to believe such a thing.
If you assume materialism for science and then admit that the origin of the universe could have happened in other than a materialistic way, how can you rationally say that origins is a scientific question, i.e., one that can be answered using materialistic assumptions? If you only uses materialistic assumptions for science and you treat origins as a scientific question and the universe came to be in other than a materialistic manner, then it seems that science would never be able to discover that manner because it would automatically be rejected for its lack of adherence to materialism. Consequently, I think you are kidding yourself that science (scientists in general) would follow any evidence that is not materialistic, no matter how good it was. (Note, from my point of view one does not need to assume materialism to carry out science. One can legitimately carry out science using assumptions of "uniformity of nature", i.e. that nature generally behaves in a law like fashion. That is quite different from materialism overall but for operational science it would seem to produce identical results.)
So from your point of view what would constitute a good reason to believe something other than material happened?
(January 11, 2010 at 3:26 pm)Tiberius Wrote: So I don't ask for "evidence" that God exists, I ask for "reasoning". Logical arguments would convince me that a God existed, but no such arguments have been convincing as of yet. All of them either rely on presuppositions that cannot be verified themselves, or faulty logic and fallacies.
Wouldn't a mere logical argument for the existence of God then make God contingent on the logic? In other words it seems that if logic is the ultimate presupposition in your world view and it can be used to prove God, then logic is then superior to God and His authority. (From my world view, God is the creator of the universe and everything therein and is the ultimate authority. Nothing can be more authoritative and trustworthy for us than God and His Word. The only way we can really know about God is if He revealed Himself to us. Of course, I think He did that throughout history and that this was recorded as His Word, the Bible.)
I know you are at least somewhat familiar with TAG as I have seen you mention it to Fr0d0. Could you explain why you think that it either relies on "presuppositions that cannot be verified themselves, or faulty logic and fallacies"?
