How to Answer Theist Arguments

real life wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:

Chumly wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:

I also find it ironic that creationists couch their ideas in scientific terms (ID) even though they reject the core assumption of science; methodological naturalism.

Some adhere to selective methodological naturalism! Come to think of it many (most?) people do, not just creationists.

Methodological naturalism is the basic assumption which allows us to learn from our surroundings. Even those who do not appreciate it as a foundation of the scientific method, still use it on a daily basis even if they are unaware of what they are doing.

One need not assume that all things have a natural cause to learn from our surroundings.

Correct, which is why science doesn't do that.

You need to understand the difference between methodological naturalism and mataphysical naturalism.

Wiki wrote:

Many modern philosophers of science[1][2] use the terms methodological naturalism or scientific naturalism to refer to the long standing convention in science of the scientific method, which makes the methodological assumption that observable effects in nature are best explainable only by similarly natural causes, and with irrelevance to the assumption of the existence or non-existence of supernatural elements, and so considers supernatural explanations for such events to be outside of science. They contrast this with the approach known as ontological naturalism or metaphysical naturalism, which refers to the metaphysical belief that the natural world (including the universe) is all that exists, and therefore nothing supernatural exists.

This distinction between approaches to the philosophy of naturalism is made by philosophers supporting science and evolution in the creation-evolution controversy to counter the tendency of some proponents of Creationism or intelligent design to refer to methodological naturalism as scientific materialism or as methodological materialism and conflate it with metaphysical naturalism to support their claim that modern science is atheistic. They contrast this with their preferred approach of a revived natural philosophy which welcomes supernatural explanations for natural phenomena and supports "theistic science" or pseudoscience.

It is a distinction without a difference if the bottom line is that you approach every situation assuming that you know the answer (it has a natural cause) before you have investigated.

Chumly,

I don't thnk Polkinhorne considers the implications of technology It is clear that technology is now inextricably linked with "frontier research" but the nature of the (family) relationship is far from clear.

I support the view that scientific hypotheses evolve from exploring analogies between systems via a common mathenatical model. (e.g. solar system and atomic structure). However no research is conducted in a social or political vacuum therefore paradigm shifts owe as much to funding considerations as they do to the "pure creativity" of scientists. Since research technology is expensive and indispensible, we seem to have the seeds of an "unholy alliance".

In order to understand something you have to do it naturalistically, because almost by definition, we're never going to understand something which is supernatural.

rosborne979 wrote:

In order to understand something you have to do it naturalistically, because almost by definition, we're never going to understand something which is supernatural.

Could you "understand something" by accepting the authority (for want of a better word) implicit in a given piece of technology?

- For example a software map of the world.
- Or if you came upon a crashed alien space craft and found visual records of their day-to-to lives.

It seems to me that (in particular the second example) naturalism in and of itself is not gong to help you understand the alien's day-to-day lives unless or until you can confirm it by direct or indirect measument.