Kirk Durston writes:
[S]cience reveals that nature, composed of space, time, matter, and energy, had a beginning. Scientism requires a natural explanation for the origin of nature, a logical impossibility. One cannot provide a natural explanation for the origin of nature without assuming the existence of nature in that “natural” explanation — a circular fallacy.
Yet another way materialism makes people stupid. It requires them to say there is a natural explanation for nature itself.
“Scientism requires a natural explanation for the origin of nature,…”
No, “science”, does not require this.
tin @ 1:
You are quite correct that science does not require a natural explanation for the origin of the universe. We are not talking about science. We are talking about scientism. They are not the same thing.
A few things often follow from this …
1. Feigned incomprehension. All of a sudden, they don’t understand the issue. Clouds of ambiguity, deliberate misunderstanding and minutiae roll in to obscure the obvious contradiction and stupidity of materialism.
2. Multiverse – which is an imaginary universe-generator. The origin of this would remain unexplained.
3. Nature is eternal. But that is contradicted by the science indicating a beginning for nature.
4. Quantum weirdness. Quantum events cause things to come into existence from nothing – but this requires physics to exist before anything physical does, and physical forces remain unexplained.
5. We don’t know. If you don’t know, and since God is the best explanation, then you should stop being an atheist.
Of related note is this comment I read last night:
A few notes along the same line:
Among all the ‘holy’ books, of all the major religions in the world, only the Holy Bible was correct in its claim for a transcendent origin of the universe. Some later ‘holy’ books, such as the Mormon text “Pearl of Great Price” and the Qur’an, copy the concept of a transcendent origin from the Bible but also include teachings that are inconsistent with that now established fact. (Hugh Ross; Why The Universe Is The Way It Is; Pg. 228; Chpt.9; note 5)
Verse and Music:
“You are quite correct that science does not require a natural explanation for the origin of the universe. We are not talking about science. We are talking about scientism. They are not the same thing.”
But are you not assigning a characteristic to “scientism” (which I think is a bogus term) that is based on your opinion as opposed to observed evidence? Racism is quite easily defined. A person who thinks that people from a different race are somehow inferior is demonstrating racism. A person who unjustifiably discriminates against someone of the opposite sex is displaying sexism. By using the term “scientism”, all you are doing is saying that anyone who follows the scientific process is a displaying “scientism”.
If that is the case, I am guilty as charged. And proud to be guilty as charged.
Nice quote by George Smoot, BA77. His book “Wrinkles in Time” is a wonderful account of his COBE leadership and what led up to it.
Spoiler Alert – he ends the book with that wonderful story of Scientists, after reaching the top of the mountain of cosmological understanding, look and see Theologians already there smiling in appreciation of the truth:)
Edit…yes, Smoot just another Theistic Scientist confirming yet another groundbreaking Science fact – in this case the CMB.
Edit some more…Stephen Hawking called Smoot’s discovery “the scientific discovery of the century, if not of all time”.
One Last Edit…Maybe Hawking updated his claim after Krauss discovered “something from nothing”? Lol no:)
tin
No
There is no circularity. We have overwhelming evidence for the existence of nature. It is not unreasonable to infer that the natural world had a natural origin. In practice, I think most materialists, when pressed, will admit that we simply don’t know how and why it all began and, for the moment, we will just have to live with it as an open question.
tintinnid @ 5. You don’t understand the terms being used in the debate. What’s more disturbing, you don’t show the slightest urge to educate yourself. Here’s a hint: Google “scientism.” It has a commonly accepted meaning (not the one you ascribe to it). Until you do, you are just embarrassing yourself.
Seversky @ 8 hooks together two propositions:
[1]
[2]
It is blindingly obvious that as a matter of very simple logic, proposition [2] does not follow from proposition [1]. Therefore, proposition [2] is just hanging out there as bare unsupported statement trying to disguise itself as an argument. I am reminded of the car insurance commercial where the guy in his underwear who has just locked himself out of his hotel room tries to hide behind a potted plant. The shear absurdity of the attempt makes it funny.
“We have nature; therefore nature must have created itself.”
I don’t even have to erect a counter-argument. The assertion, like the guy standing behind the potted plant, is absurd on its face.
So I won’t bother responding to Sev’s non-argument. Instead, I invite our readers to ponder the psychology behind it. Seversky seems to believe he has explained something when he plainly has not. He seems completely satisfied with an absurd assertion that any child could pick apart with a moment’s reflection. Here’s the really interesting question. What motivates materialists to do this? It beggars belief; yet it happens all the time. Seversky is obviously not an idiot; sometimes he makes decent arguments and comes up with penetrating observations. Yet, here is this apparently intelligent man saying something so absurd there is no need to even rebut it. How can this be?
“tintinnid @ 5. You don’t understand the terms being used…”
Barry, with respect, not accepting, and not understanding, are not the same thing at all. You wield the term “scientism” like a weapon. But it has no effective meaning other than that given to it my you and others who oppose how science is practiced. It has no more meaning than the term “IDiot” that is often used to describe people who support ID.
Frankly, I think that people who use such terms (scientism, IDiot, etc,) use them because they are too intellectually immature to discuss the subjects on their own merit.
I realize that being this blunt will likely get me banned on UD (as it has in the past), but I hope that the amnesty, although I am very late in taking advantage of it, was not just more blowing smoke.
TT: Nope, scientism is an unfortunately apt term for one of the errors of our day: http://www.uncommondescent.com.....rm-or-not/ KF
not only does nature not account for nature but, more personally and more obviously a falsification of naturalism, nature cannot account for our free will
podcast – Are Humans Simply Robots? Nancy Pearcey on the “Free Will Illusion”
http://www.discovery.org/multi.....more-30001
Casey Luskin interviews Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture Fellow Nancy Pearcey. Discussing her new book, Finding Truth: Five Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes, Pearcey points out the inconsistency of evolutionary materialists who hold that free will is simply an indispensable illusion.
GEM: “TT: Nope, scientism is an unfortunately apt term…
So, given that you are responding in this way (a meaningless OP references Lewontyn) refute my statement that:
“…people who use such terms (scientism, IDiot, etc,) use them because they are too intellectually immature to discuss the subjects on their own merit.”
To be fair, I might amend that and say …”in their own words and thoughts”.
TT: The case of the Lewontin 1997 NYRB review of Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World provides a major double example of precisely the Scientism BA has been concerned about, As Merriam-Webster quite properly defines: an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities). The brush-aside and dismissal fail, and I have responded to your further remarks in that thread. KF
I agree with this – it seems obvious that if you’re going to explain the origins of something then you have to assume that that something exists. But I don’t see that it’s circular. As far as I can parse it, Durston’s argument seems to confuse two arguments (and I might be wrong, to some extent I’m guessing what the full argument is):
1. Nature exists. This is a natural explanation for how it came about, therefore nature exists, and
2. Nature exists. This is a natural explanation for how it came about, therefore we can explain why nature exists
The former is circular, but I’ve never see anyone make that argument.
I wonder if the context of the quote will make Durston’s argument and logic clearer. Or perhaps he could turn up in teh comments to help clarify.
Incidentally, I think the same logical form of the argument could be used for an explanation, for example:
Bob O
For philosophical and logical reasons, God is described as self-existing, self-explained, eternal and uncreated.
Counter points to that are:
1. Nature is eternal and self-explained (refuted by science)
2. The origin of nature is Nothingness (but nothing has no potential)
A self-explained, eternal, completeness of Being is a better explanation than Nothing.
Therefore the best explanation is God.
Seversky:
Natural processes only exist in nature, so that would be a problem for a natural origin to nature.
FYI – BuzzFeed Article: I Asked Atheists How They Find Meaning In A Purposeless Universe
The premise of causality is foundational to science. But naturalism must insist, contrary to both science and reason, that nature caused nature. Hence scientism. But this is not, “an open question”. If nature had a beginning, it was also caused to begin. Materialists simply refuse to answer.
Dr. Atheist teaches his students that the laws of nature, “were, are and always will be” (echoing Sagan’s “Cosmos”) here: Dr. Atheist
leodp, Dr Atheist LOL 🙂
shared to fb
Thanks, BA. OT, but you might also like this:
We are mist