The world naturalism prevents us from seeing

_{Denyse O'Leary

September 9, 2018

Big Bang, Culture, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design, Naturalism}

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John bloom tzo2k9tl c36b919ce9b5b33efbbe718f5c6c9f77.jpg?ts=1529434697&ixlib=rails 2.1 Biola physics prof John Bloom offers some thoughts:

For example, since the 1930s we have a growing body of data which show that the universe is expanding in a way which implies that everything in it came from a single point and an enormous burst of energy. Thus, it convincingly looks like our universe had a beginning and that something outside of this universe started it. Sound like God? Sure, and Christians can point to Genesis 1:1 and other verses as confirming this interpretation.

But if science is restricted to only providing naturalistic answers to explain what we see, then no hypothesis can include God. Therefore, scientists must postulate “imaginary time,” or “a multiverse,” or some kind of preexistent “nothing” that somehow has the laws of physics embedded in it. Many only consider it “science” as long as the answer is strictly naturalistic.

…

And it is not only the universe’s beginning which is startling. Our universe just happens to have the right size, density, chemical composition, and balance of forces to make life possible anywhere in it. The same applies to planet Earth. Secular scientists today describe Earth as “rare” and “lucky” that it has precisely the right balance of size, mass, composition, spin, sister planets, and a friendly sun to make complex life possible on it. The more exoplanets we discover, the more our earth and solar system look like an incredibly lucky throw of the dice. … John Bloom, “What Science Is Really Teaching Us” at Desiring God

Naturalism is actually rotting the sciences now. It becomes impossible to discuss what we really see (consciousness is an evolved illusion anyway) and imperative to keep fronting unlikely ideas (dark photons?)

Hat tip: Ken Francis

See also: The Big Bang: Put simply,the facts are wrong.

and

What becomes of science when the evidence does not matter?

Comments

Seversky:
You realize that also makes the detection of design impossible. If everything is designed, any conceivable test would throw up a positive result. There would be nothing not-designed that we could use to see if the test could distinguish design from no design.
From the fact that we can never be certain that something is NOT designed it does not follow that we can never be certain that something IS designed. The flip side of what you wrote is that if everything is "natural" we can never devise a test for it. I guess you just accept it on blind belief then.Mung_{September 11, 2018
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Seversky:
You realize that also makes the detection of design impossible. If everything is designed,
Mung didn't say that everything is designed. But if everything was designed it wouldn't make it impossible to detect design- that's stupid talk to say what Seversky did.
There would be nothing not-designed that we could use to see if the test could distinguish design from no design.
We wouldn't have to if everything was designed, duhET_{September 11, 2018
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Mung @ 7
Seversky:
If God exists He has a nature, is a part of the natural order and should thereby be accessible to a methodologically naturalistic approach
I agree. God does have a nature and is natural. Everything else is created and unnatural. A methodologically naturalistic approach is therefore the wrong way to go about investigating the created and miraculous and unnatural world we inhabit.
You realize that also makes the detection of design impossible. If everything is designed, any conceivable test would throw up a positive result. There would be nothing not-designed that we could use to see if the test could distinguish design from no design.Seversky_{September 11, 2018
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Bornagain 77 Just a comment on one part of your posting #4. One scientific fact revealed by scripture and only explained by science in the mid 1800s. Genesis 3:15 "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed" (KJV) The reference to the woman's seed baffled commentators for centuries because it was a "known fact" that only men had seed and they planted it in the woman. This was especially important as they tried to explain the woman's seed in reference to Mary's role in forming Jesus human body in her womb. We now know of course that the woman's seed is the egg that a woman provides. They did not know that in the past, but accepting the truth of revelation they went to great efforts to try to explain it. The shame is that so many translations interpret the Hebrew word seed as descendants or something similar. God Bless YouGCS_{September 10, 2018
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My youngest is an IDist and still scored in the top 1% of high school students taking the MCAS-Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System.ET_{September 10, 2018
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In regards to the presupposition of methodological naturalism, inherent in the presuppositions of naturalism, is the presupposition that randomness/chaos, instead of the Mind of God, is the ultimate cause for everything.
ran·dom·ness 1. the quality or state of lacking a pattern or principle of organization; unpredictability. cha·os complete disorder and confusion.
Within naturalism, besides the universe, even our own thoughts of our own minds are held to be ultimately caused by randomness/chaos.
“One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the popular scientific philosophy]. The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears… unless Reason is an absolute, all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.” —C.S. Lewis, Is Theology Poetry (aka the Argument from Reason)
This is where methodological naturalism commits epistemological suicide in regards to science. Logic and reason, i.e. goal directed thinking, simply can never be based on a worldview that holds "complete disorder and confusion" to be the basis of the universe as well as our thoughts. As Michael Egnor stated, "Intentionality is a form of teleology. Both intentionality and teleology are goal-directedness — intentionality is directedness in thought, and teleology is directedness in nature. Mind and teleology are both manifestations of purpose in nature. The mind is, within nature, the same kind of process that directs nature. In this sense, eliminative materialism is necessary if a materialist is to maintain a non-teleological Darwinian metaphysical perspective. It is purpose that must be denied in order to deny design in nature. So the mind, as well as teleology, must be denied. Eliminative materialism is just Darwinian metaphysics carried to its logical end and applied to man. If there is no teleology, there is no intentionality, and there is no purpose in nature nor in man’s thoughts."
Teleology and the Mind - Michael Egnor - August 16, 2016 Excerpt: From the hylemorphic perspective, there is an intimate link between the mind and teleology. The 19th-century philosopher Franz Brentano pointed out that the hallmark of the mind is that it is directed to something other than itself. That is, the mind has intentionality, which is the ability of a mental process to be about something, rather than to just be itself. Physical processes alone (understood without teleology) are not inherently about things. The mind is always about things. Stated another way, physical processes (understood without teleology) have no purpose. Mental processes always have purpose. In fact, purpose (aboutness-intentionality-teleology) is what defines the mind. And we see the same purpose (aboutness-intentionality-teleology) in nature. Intentionality is a form of teleology. Both intentionality and teleology are goal-directedness — intentionality is directedness in thought, and teleology is directedness in nature. Mind and teleology are both manifestations of purpose in nature. The mind is, within nature, the same kind of process that directs nature. In this sense, eliminative materialism is necessary if a materialist is to maintain a non-teleological Darwinian metaphysical perspective. It is purpose that must be denied in order to deny design in nature. So the mind, as well as teleology, must be denied. Eliminative materialism is just Darwinian metaphysics carried to its logical end and applied to man. If there is no teleology, there is no intentionality, and there is no purpose in nature nor in man’s thoughts. The link between intentionality and teleology, and the undeniability of teleology, is even more clear if we consider our inescapable belief that other people have minds. The inference that other people have minds based on their purposeful (intentional-teleological) behavior, which is obviously correct and is essential to living a sane life, can be applied to our understanding of nature as well. Just as we know that other people have purposes (intentionality), we know just as certainly that nature has purposes (teleology). In a sense, intelligent design is the recognition of the same purpose-teleology-intentionality in nature that we recognize in ourselves and others. Teleology and intentionality are certainly the inferences to be drawn from the obvious purposeful arrangement of parts in nature, but I (as a loyal Thomist!) believe that teleology and intentionality are manifest in an even more fundamental way in nature. Any goal-directed natural change is teleological, even if purpose and arrangement of parts is not clearly manifest. The behavior of a single electron orbiting a proton is teleological, because the motion of the electron hews to specific ends (according to quantum mechanics). A pencil falling to the floor behaves teleologically (it does not fall up, or burst into flame, etc.). Purposeful arrangement of parts is teleology on an even more sophisticated scale, but teleology exists in even the most basic processes in nature. Physics is no less teleological than biology. https://evolutionnews.org/2016/08/teleology_and_t/
Of supplemental note:
THE ARGUMENT FROM REASON - John M. DePoe Excerpt: (CS) Lewis closes the third chapter of Miracles with this conclusion: Reason is given before Nature and on reason our concept of Nature depends. Our acts of inference are prior to our picture of Nature almost as the telephone is prior to the friend’s voice we hear by it. When we try to fit these acts into the picture of nature we fail. The item which we put into that picture and label "Reason" always turns out to be somehow different from the reason we ourselves are enjoying and exercising as we put it in. [. . .] But the imagined thinking which we put into the picture depends—because our whole idea of Nature depends—on thinking we actually doing, not vice versa. This is the prime reality, on which the attribution of reality to anything else rests. If it won’t fit into Nature, we can’t help it. We will certainly not, on that account, give it up. If we do, we should be giving up Nature too. http://www.reasonsforgod.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/DePoe-The-Argument-from-Reason.pdf “People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature-the laws of physics-are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least they do not do so in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.” —Paul Davies (cited in, The Historic Alliance of Christianity and Science) "You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way.. the kind of order created by Newton's theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the 'miracle' which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands There lies the weaknesss of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but "bared the miracles." Oddly enough, we must be satisfied to acknowledge the "miracle" without there being any legitimate way for us to approach it ." Albert Einstein - Goldman - Letters to Solovine p 131.
bornagain77_{September 10, 2018
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Seversky:
If God exists He has a nature, is a part of the natural order and should thereby be accessible to a methodologically naturalistic approach.
I agree. God does have a nature and is natural. Everything else is created and unnatural. A methodologically naturalistic approach is therefore the wrong way to go about investigating the created and miraculous and unnatural world we inhabit.Mung_{September 10, 2018
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Seversky:
If you consult Wikipedia, you can find a long list of creation myths from around the world.
Including the most hilarious of all of them- your position
If God exists He has a nature, is a part of the natural order and should thereby be accessible to a methodologically naturalistic approach.
That doesn't follow and Newton's four rules are a better way to conduct science
No, discrediting methodological naturalism, which is your purpose, would certainly diminish the efficacy of science
Nonsense as Newton's four rules are a better guide for science. But you wouldn't know as science eludes youET_{September 10, 2018
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Seversky then claims
No, discrediting methodological naturalism, which is your purpose, would certainly diminish the efficacy of science
Methodological Naturalism adds nothing to science and has actually hampered research in that the presupposition of naturalism has constantly sent researchers down blind alleys, (Junk DNA, Vestigial Organs, Multiverses etc...) Seversky then states
but you would find – just like the girl who died on her living-room floor from untreated diabetes in spite of the fervent prayers of her family – that God is no substitute
Methodological naturalism, and Darwinian explanations in particular, are misleading, detrimental, even completely useless, in medicine.
Why Understanding Intelligent Design Helps Us to Understand Physiology - Philip Anderson - March 23, 2017 Excerpt: The progress of my career from wide-eyed and nervous first year medical student to head of an anesthesiology department and examiner for the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa was at no point aided by an understanding of Darwinian evolution, even though I was taught it and was first in my university class in biology. And my understanding of Darwinian evolution has not in any way benefited the manner in which I treat patients. Quite the opposite! Every year, when I give the annual opening address at our hospital when welcoming new graduates and senior medical officers, I point out that it is only when you understand the human body as the pinnacle of design that you can truly care for patients. Studying the Darwinian theory of evolution at medical school may align the beliefs of medical students with those of their colleagues in the biology department, but it in no way benefits them as physicians or helps them practice medicine. On the contrary, as the candidate I was helping illustrates, a lack of understanding of design in physiology may hinder their performance. A student happy to embrace design will have one less mental hurdle to overcome. https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/03/why-understanding-intelligent-design-helps-us-to-understand-physiology/ Against "Darwinian Medicine" – Dr. Michael Egnor - August 9, 2016 Excerpt: Darwinist Randolph Nesse has been peddling "Darwinian Medicine" for years.,,, He argues for integration of Darwinian science into medical school curricula,,, The very admission that Darwinism has had no role in medical science is a telling argument not for its inclusion, but for its irrelevance. Medical science is remarkably successful. Antibiotics, cybernetics, cancer chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, hip replacements, heart transplants, and a host of near-miraculous advances have greatly extended our lifespan and improved the quality of our lives -- all without Darwin. Whether or not Darwinian hypotheses can be teased out of some medical advances, it is simply a fact that doctors and medical researchers pay no attention to Darwinian speculations in their work, and their work has been astonishingly successful. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/08/against_darwini103058.html In fact, besides being useless to medicine, Darwinian evolution, to the extent it has influenced medical diagnostics and research, has been harmful to medicine (i.e. malpractice) - December 2016 https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/what-exactly-does-evolutionary-medicine-do-that-requires-this-expensive-outlay/#comment-622443
Moreover, Prayer, and belief in God in general, though certainly not a replacement for good medicine, is found to be significantly beneficial both physically and mentally.
Can attending church really help you live longer? This study says yes - June 1, 2017 Excerpt: Specifically, the study says those middle-aged adults who go to church, synagogues, mosques or other houses of worship reduce their mortality risk by 55%. The Plos One journal published the "Church Attendance, Allostatic Load and Mortality in Middle Aged Adults" study May 16. "For those who did not attend church at all, they were twice as likely to die prematurely than those who did who attended church at some point over the last year," Bruce said. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/02/can-attending-church-really-help-you-live-longer-study-says-yes/364375001/ Study: Religiously affiliated people lived religiously affiliated lived “9.45 and 5.64 years longer…” July 1, 2018 Excerpt: Self-reported religious service attendance has been linked with longevity. However, previous work has largely relied on self-report data and volunteer samples. Here, mention of a religious affiliation in obituaries was analyzed as an alternative measure of religiosity. In two samples (N = 505 from Des Moines, IA, and N = 1,096 from 42 U.S. cities), the religiously affiliated lived 9.45 and 5.64 years longer, respectively, than the nonreligiously affiliated. Additionally, social integration and volunteerism partially mediated the religion–longevity relation. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/study-religiously-affiliated-people-lived-religiously-affiliated-lived-9-45-and-5-64-years-longer/ Can Religion Extend Your Life? - By Chuck Dinerstein — June 16, 2018 Excerpt: The researcher's regression analysis suggested that the effect of volunteering and participation accounted for 20% or 1 year of the impact, while religious affiliation accounted for the remaining four years or 80%. https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/06/16/can-religion-extend-your-life-13092 “I maintain that whatever else faith may be, it cannot be a delusion. The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health - preface https://books.google.com/books?id=PREdCgAAQBAJ&pg=PR11#v=onepage&q&f=false “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health – page 100 https://books.google.com/books?id=PREdCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA100#v=onepage&q&f=false
Thus, Seversky's insistence that God has no place in science or in anyone's personal life is found to be detrimental to both science and to people's personal lives. In short, Seversky is, as usual, completely wrong in his atheistic claims.bornagain77_{September 10, 2018
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Seversky asks:
If you consult Wikipedia, you can find a long list of creation myths from around the world. What makes the Christian version preferable to all of the others?
It is very interesting to note that 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)
(Genesis 1 – Transcendent Origin) Scientific Evidence For God's Existence (Hugh Ross) – 17:00 minute mark - video https://youtu.be/4mEKZRm1xXg?t=1032 The Most Important Verse in the Bible - Prager University - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BqWdu1BnBQ The Uniqueness of Genesis 1:1 - William Lane Craig - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBXdQCkISo0 Faith, Fact, and False Dichotomies - Austin L. Hughes - 2015 Excerpt: Coyne issues the following challenge to his readers: “Over the years, I’ve repeatedly challenged people to give me a single verified fact about reality that came from scripture or revelation alone and then was confirmed only later by science or empirical observation.” I can think of one example, which comes from the work of St. Thomas Aquinas (whose writings Coyne badly misrepresents elsewhere in his book). Based on his exposure to Aristotle and Aristotle’s Arab commentators, Aquinas argued that it is impossible to know by reason whether or not the universe had a beginning. But he argued that Christians can conclude that the universe did have a beginning on the basis of revelation (in Genesis). In most of the period of modern science, the assumption that the universe is eternal was quietly accepted by virtually all physicists and astronomers, until the Belgian Catholic priest and physicist Georges Lemaître proposed the Big Bang theory in the 1920s. Coyne does not mention Lemaître, though he does mention the data that finally confirmed the Big Bang in the 1960s. But, if the Big Bang theory is correct, our universe did indeed have a beginning, as Aquinas argued on the basis of revelation.,,, http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/faith-fact-and-false-dichotomies
Seversky then states
If God exists He has a nature, is a part of the natural order and should thereby be accessible to a methodologically naturalistic approach.
Seversky reveals that he has a profound misunderstanding of what naturalism, and what methodological naturalism in particular, actually entail: The Naturalistic and/or Materialistic worldview holds as a primary presupposition that "only matter is real, that the world is just physical and that there is no supernatural (or metaphysical) existence, or that if there is, it has no impact on our physical world.",,,
What is the difference between naturalism and materialism? Excerpt: Naturalism is the view that the world can be explained entirely by physical, natural phenomena/laws. Naturalists either assert that there is no supernatural (or metaphysical) existence, or that if there is, it has no impact on our physical world.,,, Materialism is the related view that all existence is matter, that only matter is real, and so that the world is just physical. It simply describes a view on the nature of the universe, while the different branches of Naturalism focus on applications of effectively the same view. Thus, the difference between the two is the purpose of the definition - materialism makes an argument about the ontology of the universe, while naturalism takes a premise (effectively that of materialism) to make an argument on how science/philosophy should function. https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/2406/what-is-the-difference-between-naturalism-and-materialism
That is to say, most of modern science operates under a false naturalistic and/or materialistic presupposition of reality, called methodological naturalism, which holds that all possible scientific explanations for reality in general, and for biology in particular, are exhausted by purely natural and/or material explanations. The fatal flaw with presupposing methodological naturalism, as the following articles show, is that methodological naturalism denies the reality of agent causality right off the bat (which happens to be something that each of us experience first hand.)
Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys - Paul Nelson - September 22, 2014, Excerpt: methodological naturalism (MN). As (Stephen) Meyer defines MN: "scientists should accept as a working assumption that all features of the natural world can be explained by material causes without recourse to purposive intelligence, mind, or conscious agency. (p. 19)" https://evolutionnews.org/2014/09/methodological_1/ Do You Like SETI? Fine, Then Let’s Dump Methodological Naturalism - Paul Nelson - September 24, 2014 Excerpt: Assessing the Damage MN (methodological naturalism) Does to Freedom of Inquiry: Epistemology — how we know — and ontology — what exists — are both affected by methodological naturalism. If we say, "We cannot know that a mind caused x," laying down an epistemological boundary defined by MN, then our ontology comprising real causes for x won’t include minds. MN entails an ontology in which minds are the consequence of physics, and thus, can only be placeholders for a more detailed causal account in which physics is the only (ultimate) actor. You didn’t write your email to me. Physics did, and informed you of that event after the fact. "That’s crazy," you reply, "I certainly did write my email." Okay, then — to what does the pronoun "I" in that sentence refer? Your personal agency; your mind. Are you supernatural?,,, You are certainly an intelligent cause, however, and your intelligence does not collapse into physics. (If it does collapse — i.e., can be reduced without explanatory loss — we haven’t the faintest idea how, which amounts to the same thing.) To explain the effects you bring about in the world — such as your email, a real pattern — we must refer to you as a unique agent. If ID satisfied MN as that philosophical doctrine is usually stated, the decades-long dispute over both wouldn’t have happened. The whole point of invoking MN (by the National Center for Science Education, for instance, or other anti-ID organizations) is to try to exclude ID, before a debate about the evidence can occur, by indicting ID for inferring non-physical causes. That’s why pushing the MN emergency button is so useful to opponents of ID. Violate MN, if MN defines science, and the game is over. https://evolutionnews.org/2014/09/do_you_like_set/
As was hinted at in Paul Nelson's preceding article, the denial of agent causality by methodological naturalism is simply insane. But the insanity inherent within methodological naturalism and/or materialism is not just limited to the denial of agent causality. The insanity inherent within methodological naturalism goes much deeper than that,,,
Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – 39:45 minute mark https://youtu.be/8rzw0JkuKuQ?t=2387 Excerpt: Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris), who has unreliable beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the reality of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Bottom line, nothing is real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, Paper with references for each claim page; Page 37: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pAYmZpUWFEi3hu45FbQZEvGKsZ9GULzh8KM0CpqdePk/edit Thus, although the Darwinian Atheist firmly believes he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to. It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be. 2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
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Seversky @2
Seversky: If God exists He has a nature, is a part of the natural order …
I take it that you define “nature” and “natural order” as consisting of solely physical stuff. If so, then I would like to argue that you cannot incorporate God — nor consciousness, nor morality, nor rationality and so forth — into “nature.”
Seversky: … and should thereby be accessible to a methodologically naturalistic approach.
Not if a methodological naturalistic approach confines its focus on physical stuff.
Seversky: Unfortunately, there are some, including some here, who have difficulty distinguishing an answer from an explanation and it’s not evolutionary biologists. Put simply, God is a name not an explanation.
God exists in a fundamental way and therefore does not have an (external) explanation. The naturalistic assumption, that every real item can be explained by something other than that item, is simply an incoherent idea.Origenes_{September 10, 2018
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For example, since the 1930s we have a growing body of data which show that the universe is expanding in a way which implies that everything in it came from a single point and an enormous burst of energy. Thus, it convincingly looks like our universe had a beginning and that something outside of this universe started it. Sound like God? Sure, and Christians can point to Genesis 1:1 and other verses as confirming this interpretation.
If you consult Wikipedia, you can find a long list of creation myths from around the world. What makes the Christian version preferable to all of the others?
But if science is restricted to only providing naturalistic answers to explain what we see, then no hypothesis can include God. Therefore, scientists must postulate “imaginary time,” or “a multiverse,” or some kind of preexistent “nothing” that somehow has the laws of physics embedded in it. Many only consider it “science” as long as the answer is strictly naturalistic.
If God exists He has a nature, is a part of the natural order and should thereby be accessible to a methodologically naturalistic approach. Unfortunately, there are some, including some here, who have difficulty distinguishing an answer from an explanation and it's not evolutionary biologists. Put simply, God is a name not an explanation.
Naturalism is actually rotting the sciences now.
No, discrediting methodological naturalism, which is your purpose, would certainly diminish the efficacy of science but you would find - just like the girl who died on her living-room floor from untreated diabetes in spite of the fervent prayers of her family - that God is no substituteSeversky_{September 9, 2018
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Predictably, it makes for a hilarious read. Yet, at the same time, there is a barely-suppressed anger that prompts me to declaim that those disgraces to rational thought should be kicked out of the Academy. Yet that too is unrealistic ; not simply because 'money talks' and the multinational sugar-daddys hold all the aces (i.e. b/s doesn't walk) ; but because this side of the Apocalypse, should not such worldly folly reign supreme, from the bankers down (or 'up', according to selected criteria)? The tares that should be left in the fields until the harvest.Axel_{September 9, 2018
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PM
PDT}

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