One of my favorite Christian apologists likes to point out that there are many things that exist, that science cannot account for directly. Science can be used to observe evidence for these things' existence, but not the things themselves. The criteria used applies to supernatural as well as the ordinary realms.
Naturalism is the idea that the only things that really exist or matter in the universe are physical things operating according to natural laws. There is no God outside of the system. There are no miracles. There are no hidden forces that drive the universe. There are no souls or spirits. There are no prophecies. There is no inspired Scripture. It's just physical stuff operating according to physical laws.
Source: Dominos, Determinism, and Naturalism
An example of something that exists that we cannot measure directly, only indirectly, is anything in the past. There is no physical way to measure things in the past. We can only measure today's evidence of it.
Another example would be something like a "motive." A motive can exist without direct evidence to proves it exists. We can measure things that result from the motive, but the motive stands alone, undetectable. But who denies the existence of motives?
Saying that science is the search for naturalistic evidence falls short when dealing with things like the past and motives. Yet we have branches of science that deal with both:
- Ontology - the study of the nature of being, existence, or reality in general and of its basic categories and their relations.
- Epistemology - the study of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification.
Many times, the above are classified as philosophy but they are science all the same. Whereas pure philosophy can deal in unprovable realms, ontology and epistemology can deal in the provable, even though there are no direct physical or naturalistic aspects to study.
Photo by: me
These are some of the most frustrating concepts to engage in dialog over with an atheist. It has been my experience that in the majority of cases they will defend some form of a naturalistic explanation for all things, deterministic or otherwise, while simultaneously arguing that their beliefs, defenses, and emotional responses to the discussion hold true meaning. This is of course untenable and somewhat ironic.
What inevitably follows is a discussion of what makes something meaningful. Of course the proposition that we can assign ultimate meaning to something by fabricating it is also untenable and gives rise to further irony. It is rare to find an atheist that is willing to admit that their worldview holds no ultimate meaning, and that as a result everything they "know" and defend is illusory. It does happen, but rarely. It is simply not congruent with our experience of the evidence that meaning does not exist, and yet without an outside source providing the framework for that meaning to flow from it is problematic to defend its existence without circular reasoning.
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Look at that awesome tree though, now don't try and tell me science can explain that!! ;O)
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Which part would you like me to explain to you?
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All of it.
Optics has always fascinated me, and I've love to hear your opinion on it.
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Thanks for upvote :-)
(it was 1% so I can only give 1% back)
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I am basically a christian, I was raised in this kind of environment, and very early on I attached in particular to the concept that Truth is Authority. It has led to all kinds of struggles in my life because I instinctively fight against false forms of Authority.
I have some concept that I can explain about what I think God is. It's basically the 'end point' of the universe. In my physics hypothesis, there is no end, time began, but it will never end, and this can be done because it takes 1 and endlessly divides it in two, meaning that the path from 0 to 1 never ends. So you could say that God is precisely every bit of information that contributes towards the propagation of Truth and thus the development of more and more individuals who know and follow it.
Thus in some epistemological sense, God exists, but there is no active component. God, in the absolute sense, is something infinite, beyond possible apprehension. But you can point at things, with a theory based on His Authority, that demonstrates his influence. It is not active. God has no ego, he does not wish anything except the central premise that what he creates blossoms and blooms into every more, ever better things, that make his creation even more beautiful than it astoundingly already is. 'The Hand of God' is simply anything where a newly discovered principle of the universe demonstrates itself concretely. It is not willed, or wanted, by this God, because God does not have any wants. It is all a gift to us.
Well, I went quite mad commenting there, but I hope you enjoyed what came out.
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