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'?

[Amarok]

This renders the supernatural a worthless non thing

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[Amarok]

[Brian37]

Super cognition claims are a mere reflection in comic book form, of our species evolutionary drive to survive, and our fear of being finite, and our drive to have control over our environments.

It is a projection of our own qualities.

[Mister Agenda]

As inherently atheistic as carpentry or plumbing, I suppose.

[Dr H]

• Atheism does not merely concern rejecting deities, as you'll see on Wikipedia/atheism, or point 2 below.
  

• Modern Science is an atheistic endeavour. Since we didn't always have modern science, it is probably no surprise that Modern Science emerged from "archaic science/religion/protoscience" in the scientific revolution, as religion was literally dropped from science in the scientific revolution or age of enlightenment.  See "Wikipedia/protoscience", or "Wikipedia/Scientific revolution". A quick example: See when "astrology/religion/archaic science" was dropped from "modern science/astronomy", on Wikipedia/astrology and astronomy.
  

• This does not mean I am saying religious scientists can't exist. However, atheistic scientists are scientists that tend to objectively analyse the truth value of religion; they precisely align with the scientific endeavour of disregarding religious endeavour. This contrasts non-atheistic scientists on this matter, who disregard or "turn off" scientific endeavour while analyzing religion.
  

Atheism is a condition of belief.  Science is not an entity that has beliefs; it is an epistemological method employed by humans to assist in testing their beliefs about the world.

[Rahn127]

You have your choice of two airplanes from which you can fly anywhere in the world.

Airplane A) was built and tested by engineers who understand and use science. They may or may not be atheists, but they do use science effectively to demonstrate the safety and use of every part that the plane utilizes.

Airplane B) was built by a bunch of biblical scholars who know next to nothing about science. They prayed to their god every step of the way and he showed them how to build an airplane. Airplane B appears to be a box crate with plywood wings attached to it. There is a lawn mower engine and it's blades strapped to the front of the crate.

Which one would you like to fly in ?
The one built based on a secure foundation in science or the one that god built ?


Science is inherently realistic and demonstrably true

[Minimalist]

The "conflict thesis" is a historiographical approach in the history of science which maintains that there is an intrinsic intellectual conflict between religion and science and that the relationship between religion and science inevitably leads to hostility;

All I know is that when the church lost its power to burn scientists at the stake the conditions of the world noticeably improved!

“We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins -- they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of to-day -- of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago.

These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars -- neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience -- and for them all, man is indebted to man.”

― Robert G. Ingersoll

[Belacqua]

All I know is that when the church lost its power to burn scientists at the stake the conditions of the world noticeably improved!

Name one person burned at the stake for doing science.