Now you’re touching on the thorny question of whether mathematical concepts “exist” in the same sense that rocks and frogs exist. Which we don’t really need to address, in this thread.
Nevertheless, if God exists, then God is a proper subject of scientific (or natural-philosophical) study – just as soon as somebody invents a reliable theoscope; until then, theology is but vanity and a striving after wind.
I am not – I am simply trying to remove the confusing and meaningless term “supernatural” from the discussion. In these terms, declaring that the supernatural does not exist is not at all the same thing as declaring that any particular thing commonly classified as “supernatural” – God, magic, ghosts – does not exist. Such things might well exist; science cannot categorically rule out the possibility.
But, by the same token, it is absurd to assert, as Liberal did, that “the supernatural, by definition, is a topic that falls outside the purview of science.” There are many important and interesting topics that fall outside the purview of science – philosophy, ethics, politics, law, history, grammar, esthetics, conflicting comic-book continuities, etc. But any assertion or hypothesis about the nature of things, what things are, how the universe is set up, falls entirely within the purview of science – assuming the availability of some reliable mechanism for scientific study. If parapsychologists, using such methods as they have, ever prove the existence of telepathy or precognition or poltergeists to what the scientific community considers a reasonable degree of certainty, then they will have made a scientific discovery, not a philosophical discovery or a discovery about the “supernatural.”
Equally true. And yet, “supernatural” does have a meaning, even if nothing existing meets that description, which is why I was criticizing your definition of “natural”.
I agree with BrainGlutton on this point, that the word “supernatural” is misleading. I think most other people are using it to mean “non-physical”, or something of the sort; if (say) ghosts do exist, they’re not part of the physical world (and therefore “supernatural” on the ‘recieved opinion’ definition), but they’re still part of the natural world, and therefore describing them as “supernatural” becomes contradictory.
However, even on BrainGlutton’s definition, I would still say that God, specifically (not angels or ghosts or demons or human souls) can still exist and be supernatural, from the standard theistic viewpoint that the universe (Nature, if you prefer) is created by God and seperate from Him. I would also like to re-prod him on Aeschines’s point - one can, with perfect legitimacy, adopt a basically Platonist world-view and claim that (say) numbers exist independently of nature. This doesn’t necessarily make Platonic Forms “supernatural”, but it does show that the idea of existence outside nature isn’t nonsensical.
Isn’t that “theistic viewpoint” a mere assertion? How could God be separate from His creation if He interacts with nature? I don’t see how prayer for God to intercede on behalf of some person or cause can be of any use whatever if God is entirely separate from nature.
Numbers are symbols that can be used for counting. They are also symbols that can be used in the game called “arithmetic.” In arithmetic we perform certain well defined operations using numbers in order to produce other numbers. Quite a prosaic undertaking, all in all. I fail to see how numbers enter into the question of the so called supernatural at all.
No, you’ve haven’t got it yet. I’m not even talking about opinion but sheer fact. Science (physics, chemistry, biology, whatever) does not study mathematical truths but assumes them. Mathematics is literally–not just in my opinion–outside the purview of science. Hence, your claim that
is an empty tautology. Yes, if science can study something, then it can study something.
Whether mathematical concepts “exist” or not is, as you say, irrelvent here. But they are absolutely essential to science, and it’s a simple fact that science doesn’t study them.
Here you are doing what tomndeb pointed out: using semantics to blow off the opposition. That dog doesn’t exist, er, won’t hunt.
We know that mathematics is important; we know its relationship to science. We therefore have one example of something, regardless of its status of “existing” or not, that is not subject to scientific inquiry. It therefore follows (not necessarily, but certainly intuitively) that there might be other things likewise not subject to scientific inquiry.
Hence, your statement that
is a gratuitous assertion, inasmuch as we have at least one counter-example.
We can further expand the above to say this: Your assertion is likewise gratuitous that whatever “exists” is within the purview of science.
In actuality, a monotheistic god does not exist, but this fact is proved by philosophical arguments, not empirical study.
All that said, I am myself not a fan of the word “supernatural” (or “paranormal” for that matter).
I think the meaning of “supernatural,” however, is fairly clear in Christian theology. Namely, God makes the rules of Nature and can overrule them or reconfigure them at His discretion. Further, “supernatural” beings like angels are not subject (at least not totally) to the same physical rules that we are.
A dumb concept, but there you go.
I’m sorry, you still appear to be making a distinction without a difference for the purpose of defining the argument in a way that makes it easier for you to make a point. There does not appear to be any way for science to rule either that God does or does not exist, so how does a declaration that there is no supernatural actually affect your argument? If ghosts could exist, then they would be supernatural, so what is the point of your distinction?
What are your definitions of natural and supernatural and how do the definitions change the discussion. (And why, since we have a word in common currency that distinguishes between the natural and that which is not, do you feel the need to throw away the word?)
(Tevildo, I don’t think you’re clarifying things with your distinction between the non-physical and the supernatural. Can you reconcile your post with BrainGlutton’s?)
Yes, I accept that the idea of God intervening in the world is a mere assertion, a matter of faith. The issue, however, is whether BrainGlutton’s view that “everything which exists is by definition natural” is a tenable one. I would say that “God is not part of nature”, by itself, does not imply “God does not exist”.
Do you accept that a belief that numbers exist in and of themselves, without needing natural things for them to apply to, is legitimate? I’m not asking if you believe it yourself, just if you regard it as a belief one can hold without being logically inconsistent.
My apologies.
On the specific point, I would say:
If ghosts exist - or, rather, if the phenomena traditionally attributed to ghosts are actually due to ghosts - then they are part of the natural world.
Something which is part of the natural world is, by definition, not supernatural.
I think the confusion is over “natural” rather than “supernatural”, hence my (apparently unsucessful) attempt to replace it with “physical”. Ghosts may be able to influence physical things, but they’re not in themselves physical.
Hmm, maybe. However this seems to me to be the sort of question that philosophers argue about for centuries without ever coming to a conclusion.
I will merely say the the hypothetical existence of numbers without anything to apply them too is not particularly useful and doesn’t correspond to the actual existence of numbers as we have them. Numbers exist because they are useful and not in and of themselves. If we didn’t have a need to count things, for example to divide up cattle or to determine if we have enough arrows for the hunting trip or where our property ends I don’t think there would be any such thing as a number.
Reading my own argument, I now realise it implies that an inteventionist God is also natural. Hmm. I think I’ll wait for some more opinions before further committing myself. 
And just look at how far the thread has wandered from the question of why evolution is so unaccepted in the US.
Well, it’s not really helpful to say that 51% of Americans are idiots.
No doubt. But my view is that many people simply refuse to accept the idea that we, the apples of God’s eye, are the result of chance changes to the physical characteristics in apelike animals of 6 million or so years ago.
If people claim that a particular historical person really lived, was clinically dead, and was then verifiably resurrected back to life, it seems to me they have impinged on the territory of science. They have inevitably introduced an “overlap”. (Note that the “overlap” exists whether or not there is a contradiction: Perhaps historians–history here considered to be part of “science” very broadly construed; the realm of empirical experiments and observations–might conclude that at they very least this person who was supposedly killed and resurrected did at least exist, and even that he was put to death in the manner the faith claims he was. If these things are confirmed, that means that in principle they could have been not confirmed, and even that evidence against them might have been found.)
To flatly state that such claims are beyond the proper realm of religion seems rather presumptuous when they have been central to the avowedly religious faith of many hundreds of millions of people. It smacks of the “No True Scotsman” on a rather grand scale.
“Religion” is such a broad term that has been applied to so many different forms of belief that I don’t think you can make any categorical statements about whether or not it overlaps with and can therefore possibly be contradicted by (or at least partially confirmed by) empirical science. Clearly, some religions can be. Probably others cannot be, including (at least since the 20th Century) some versions of Christianity: but the beliefs of a heck of a lot of Christians throughout history–and not just a handful of evolution-denying American “fundamentalists”–are based on purported historical events.
I think saying “Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God” is likely a theological claim not subject to scientific confirmation or disproof. On the other hand, saying Jesus of Nazareth was born in a certain place and time, that his mother was a virgin when he was conceived and born, that he died in a particular manner, and that he was resurrected in such a way that outside observers could objectively confirm that fact, all in principle take place in the area of science. And of course if all those things could somehow be confirmed, they might influence your acceptance or rejection of the “Son of God” claim, even if the “Son of God” claim isn’t something that is itself subject to empirical test.
How not?
Not sure I follow that, but, even then, God would still fall within the purview of science, wouldn’t He? For practical purposes, any actual scientific study of God would likely be impossible without His cooperation or at least acquiescence, which has not been forthcoming to date. But He would still be a valid (and important) object of study – and scientists would continue to say, as of everything else they study, “Having obtained what we think is X reliable but very limited set of raw data from studying God, we feel we can with reasonable confidence draw Y set of very limited conclusions (theories) about God; and, beyond those limits, we can posit hypotheses but we can claim to know nothing.”
IOW, not even God is something that “by definition falls outside the purview of science.” Science has never studied God up to now because it has no way to do so; and has never included God as a hypothesis in any scientific theory only because no theories have strictly required God as a necessary hypothesis. Occam’s Razor and all that.
To impinge on science, people would have to claim that they have tested (are testing, will test) a theory predicting the resurrection of a particular person (or of people generally). A statement is scientific if it makes a falsifiable prediction.
Science need not predict past events prior to them happening, it can also describe and then predict evidence that would confirm or disconfirm their having happened. That’s how all forensic sciences work. The claim that Jesus died and came back to life is a testable, falsifiable claim. Of course, there isn’t anywhere near enough evidence available to ever evaluate it scientifically, but that doesn’t mean that if presented as an everday FACT, claimed to have happened in the same way that I stepped on a bus to work this morning, that we can’t demand evidence or proof before we accept it as such a fact.
This, I think is the basic problem with a lot of religious discussions about things like historical events. It would be all well and nice if believers simply said that they believed something on faith, that it was true in an entirely different sense from “I brushed my teeth last night” is true. But that claim is rarely enough for most believers, especially if they are evangelizing. They want to appeal to the very compelling everyday sense of “fact” because they know it is effective in arguments and convincing people in a way that faith beliefs are often not: or at least it’s much much easier. So instead of being satisfied with faith, they appeal to the empirical world of facts and everyday experiences: try to grab the easy advantage of solid, everday, common “fact” without really wanting to do the legwork required. That’s an unfair two-step.
I think most anti-religious scientists at the very least stick mostly to one domain and are thus causing less problems. They have picked empirical truth as the only one worth a damn, and they confront claims made about what is true. However, some do blur the line when they try to judge not religious fact claims, but religious faith itself, and then do not acknowledge that that particular discussion is one of judgements about the value of empiricism vs. faith, not something that is itself an empirical debate.
By and large, however, I find it pretty hard to believe that the anti-religious opinions of Dawkins or PZ Myers are really as harmful to the debate and communion between science and religion as someone like Duane Gish or even Dembski.
I am in agreement that the concept of supernatural is at best a viciously confusing introduction into any debate. Especially gievn that we do not, and if we adopt empiricism as the proper way to find out, can not ever fully define the “natural,” it makes little sense to erliably assign and make use of a category of “not-natural.” Calling something natural tells me precisely nothing helpful about it. Telling me that something is supernatural tells me even less than nothing: it creates all sorts of grounds for confusion and error and pointless controversy. None of those debates are useful if all we care about is finding a common standard like existence, or even a divergent standard that we can at least understand (like faith, or spiritual truth). I certainly don’t see the point in getting into a shouting match over whether the death and ressurection of Jesus Christ was a natural or supernatural eevnt when we clearly don’t have enough natural evidence to discuss that side of things and the supernatural permits anything and nearly everything. There are alot more interesting and productive discussions we can have that might actually resolve some issue of interest in an other than purely semantic manner.