real life wrote:Would you agree that anything fitting the definition of 'supernatural' that I have given (deity or no), would therefore NOT fit the definition of 'scientific' ?
No, i would not. For example, your
partial copy and paste job lists this as a definition of supernatural:
"departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to
appear to transcend the laws of nature" (emphasis added)
I have highlighted the verb "appear" because it is crucial to pointing out the flaw in what passes for logic at your house. Prior to concerted naked eye astronomical observation of celestial bodies, the sun, moon and almost all of the stars appeared to move in reference to the earth. Therefore, a common assumption was made (the evidence is in the most ancient texts which we have available) that the cosmos was geocentric. However, Semitic and Greek astronomers paid careful attention to the positions of celestial bodies, noted their position with reference to the day of the year and stationary landmarks on earth, and determined that there were celestial bodies which did not move predictably in a pattern with reference to the position of the earth. The Greeks called these
asteres planetai (rendered into the Roman alphabet), meaning "wandering stars." The Sumerians and the Chaldeans were at a loss to explain these, and rationalized them as self-willed bodies which moved freely. The Greeks, however, did the math, and came to the conclusion that whereas these "wandering stars" moved in an apparent erratic fashion with reference to the earth, they moved "rationally" in reference to the sun, and that the motion of the "wandering stars" could be explained with a heliocentric model of the cosmos. (See, specifically, Aristarchus of Samos.) This was the basis of Ptolemaic astronomy (Ptolemy, writing much later in the 2nd century explicitly alleged a heliocentric cosmos in his
Almagest) , and was the majority astronomical model in Eurasia west of China for literally thousands of years (i am simply avoiding a discussion of the understanding of astronomy in China).
But this was finally questioned by Giordano Bruno; although Galileo Galilei had stated that he supported heliocentrism, he obscurely noted that he did so for mathematical reasons, and that the position did not necessarily describe reality. Bruno overtly, and Galileo inferentially described the sun as just another star, and Bruno overtly stated that there were no reason to assume that the sun is the center of the cosmos.
Therefore, any explanation of the movement of celestial bodies which, originally, did not envision the earth as the center of the cosmos would
appear to transcend the laws of nature. A little mathematical sophistication, and it became a case that any explanation of the movement of celestial bodies which did not envision the sun as the center of the cosmos would
appear to transcend the laws of nature.
Both models are false. That the motion of celestial bodies with reference first to the earth, and later with reference to the sun,
appeared to lead to those conclusion did not make the conclusions true, nor did it make any other conclusion false, or supernatural.
As for the other portion of the partial definition which you provided, "of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe," much of what i have already explained applies to that definition, as well. It was not until reliable telescopes were available that the planets, those "wandering stars," were determined not to be stars at all, but to be what we now understand by the word planet, which is to say satellites of our star such as is the earth upon which we reside. That someone hasn't the means to make a scientific observation is no good reason to appeal to the supernatural to banish ignorance.
Quote:Scientific types who admit that their ideas cannot be supported by scientific law have by default admitted that they believe (without evidence) in a supernatural origin of the universe, imho.
The most that could be said in such a case is that those whose arguments you deride are the mere victims of ignorance, but "ignorance in good faith." You, however, consistently demonstrate yourself to be willfully ignorant, in that you make false statements about scientific concepts and the current state of scientific knowledge in the effort to support your theistic superstitions. Of the two, i far more despise your position.
Additionally, there is absolutely no logical basis in language to assume that because someone believes anything about cosmic origins without evidence
ipso facto believes in a supernatural origin for the cosmos. Once again, the fact of ignorance is not evidence for the supernatural. It were entirely possible for someone to believe something in the absence of evidence without appealing the supernatural. People who, before the Michelson-Morley experiment, believed in a "luminiferous aether," then popularly known as the "cosmic ether," operated under a mistaken assumption that observational physics supported that thesis, and they were by no means making a appeal to the supernatural to explain the transmission of light in the cosmos. They were ignorant, but they weren't reliant upon superstition.
You have a very poor logic in operation when you leap tall concepts in a single bound in order to come down on the side of a contention that those with whom you disagree operate on no better logical ground than you do. Your derailed train of thought does not lead to a logical conclusion that scientific ignorance is grounds for an allegation of supernatural agency.
Quote:Hope you are having a great day. Thanks for your willingness to discuss.
When you write things like this, i could just puke. I don't for a moment believe that you give a rat's ass if i live or die, or what my health or state of mind might be. It is my firm conviction that you indulge in such remarks (and Baddog has begun to copy the technique) in order to make yourself appear to be calm and reasonable, and by implication to cast those with whom you habitually disagree as at least mildly hysterical and illogical, and at the worst, as obsessive and hateful.
For so long as you indulge that sort of mealy-mouthed hypocrisy, i will continue to describe your feeble and failed attempts to argue from what in your understanding constitutes science, and what you seem to think (absent a shred of evidence) is logic as idiotic, or patently stupid. You get out of these discussions what you put into them. Your false bonhomie earns your a richly deserved contempt and the invidious characterizations which it merits.
