RE: Atheist VS Naturalist - the latter sounds more appealing to me...
May 25, 2020 at 4:08 pm
(This post was last modified: May 25, 2020 at 4:27 pm by Belacqua.)
(May 25, 2020 at 10:13 am)Rhizomorph13 Wrote: so it is a definitions game.
The term "supernatural" is notoriously hard to define. So if we're going to talk about it, it makes sense to have some notion of what we're discussing, and I offered a traditional definition. But if you'd prefer a different one, I'm willing to work with it.
Quote: I would counter with my definition of natural which would be whatever is observed (Not necessarily with eyes or ears) is natural.
Does this mean that everything that hasn't been observed isn't natural? That seems problematic to me. It would mean that for a very long time the H. pylori in people's stomachs wasn't natural, and then it became natural when we observed it. There are a lot of rocks on Mars that haven't been observed yet, but I don't believe that they are supernatural.
If you want to say that anything which has been or could be observed is natural, I think that's just a fancy way to say that everything is natural and nothing is supernatural, by definition. So you've defined it out of existence. Please correct me if I'm wrong about this.
Quote:So if a frog threw its asshole against the wall and jumped through it to another dimension and I saw it happen I would say we have a lot to learn about the true nature of frogs!
As I've said more than once now, if we could explain something like that through science and the nature of frogs, the explanation wouldn't be supernatural.
Quote:If a thing is, then it is natural. If God exists it is natural, I would argue that it would constitute the anchor point of all of nature from most definitions of god that I know.
OK, this is clear. You're saying that by definition that there's no such thing as the supernatural.
Christians who hold to the definition of supernatural I gave earlier agree with you that God is natural.
(May 25, 2020 at 10:29 am)polymath257 Wrote: And how would you know if they are unable to do this? It isn't uncommon for there to be unanswered questions for decades. For example, is dark matter supernatural? It almost seems to be by your definition.No, not at all. Dark matter is so far unexplained. I have been clear that there can be unexplained things which are natural. If in the future people worked out exactly what dark matter is and does, and we see that it operates according to its nature, then it's natural.
Quote:Science does NOT rely 'methodological naturalism' as you (and others) say.
This is a strong claim. Here are some quotes that give my understanding of why science relies on methodological naturalism. Please tell me why they are wrong.
from https://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/...ralism.htm
Quote:Methodological naturalism is not a "doctrine" but an essential aspect of the methodology of science, the study of the natural universe. If one believes that natural laws and theories based on them will not suffice to solve the problems attacked by scientists - that supernatural and thus nonscientific principles must be invoked from time to time - then one cannot have the confidence in scientific methodology that is prerequisite to doing science. The spectacular successes over four centuries of science based on methodological naturalism cannot be gainsaid. On the other hand, a scientist who, when stumped, invokes a supernatural cause for a phenomenon he or she is investigating is guaranteed that no scientific understanding of the problem will ensue.
from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/#MetNat
Quote:“methodological naturalism” is the view that religious commitments have no relevance within science
from https://infidels.org/library/modern/barb...alism.html quoting Paul Kurtz:
Quote:First, naturalism is committed to a methodological principle within the context of scientific inquiry; i.e., all hypotheses and events are to be explained and tested by reference to natural causes and events. To introduce a supernatural or transcendental cause within science is to depart from naturalistic explanations.
and from the same site, quoting Arthur Strahler:
Quote:The naturalistic view is that the particular universe we observe came into existence and has operated through all time and in all its parts without the impetus or guidance of any supernatural agency. The naturalistic view is espoused by science as its fundamental assumption."[8]
It seems to me that you and others on this thread are advocating methodological naturalism by insisting that if a frog sang Mozart we would look for and discover a natural explanation.
Back to your post:
Quote:And how you you know whether a 'natural' explanation is possible?
I deliberately chose an example which looks impossible. The music I pointed to is a duet between a soprano and a bass, in which both are singing different melodies and articulating different words. There are singers who can produce two notes at once, but no one has yet sung two parts from a Mozart duet simultaneously. I think that given what we know of the human speech apparatus, it is impossible. And a fortiori for frogs.
You are insistent that if this impossible thing were observed it would be natural. I think there are some things we can rule out as occurring given the facts of nature as we know them. But, as I have said several times now, if science finds a natural explanation then the thing is not supernatural. I am not as committed as you are to the proposition that no such supernatural thing (according to the definition I'm using) has never and will never and could never happen. It seems unlikely to me, but the impossibility of the supernatural is not something science can demonstrate. Therefore our dismissal of the supernatural is a belief about metaphysics, not a scientific conclusion.