The naturalists fairy tale! Which one?

Our resident apologist, whose main occupation, it seems to yours truly, is to misrepresent atheists and their arguments while at the same time claiming superiority of a christian world view. Those who have visited his site, by now know that he claims to love science, well when it seems to lend credence to his religious opinions and denigrate it as soon as it challenges the religious authority.

In this post, which I think he dedicates to Rusell, is a ruse to attack naturalism and its philosophical claims while at the same time purporting to show why such a view is false. We are told,

In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts.

which is true. It is through advancement of science and a scientific worldview that we have come to the conclusion that we are not descended from two ignoramuses, who had conversations with snakes and had the task to name all other animals apart from working so hard at populating the earth, that was lots of work for eve! Was she having twins? Just a thought 😛

It seems that it can’t be pointed out often enough that science and theology are different subjects.

But this we already know. Theology is the study of nothing ans science deals with what is knowable.

At least, the New Atheists seem to have so much confidence in the idea that science is theology (and metaphysics) that they feel no need to give any reason for the strange conclusion that science answers questions about God’s existence.

For all the crimes we could be guilty of, we are not guilty of thinking theology is science. Metaphysics that our apologists is parroting here presents no testable evidence. It is a word game where the person who can talk the most is sure to win and in this case, the apologist hopes to carry the day. Whenever the religious makes claims about god that are in the purview of science, of course science must have a say. If you don’t like it, don’t make claims that are testable using the scientific method!

But it’s not only theology of which such people are ignorant. Any real respect for history would at least acknowledge the facts of past as it actually occurred.

This is an outright lie, and he knows it. We know Cicero was a Roman leader, that Marcus Aurelius lived and wrote beautiful meditations, that the church was Inquisition, that much of the NT was agreed several centuries after the said events, that the OT was written over a long period of time and that Jesus is a myth from beginning to end. So what history don’t we know?

 the earliest science was developed by Christians, and sponsored by the Church.

Did you read that? So Galileo was actually sponsored by the church when he was asked to recant? That Giodarno Bruno was sponsored by the church? You know this is why a great friend of mine calls these guys silly people, for this is being silly!

Almost no culture has believed that the universe would have regular patterns which could be observed by the kinds of experiments science uses as its stock and trade.

Let us grant him that theology makes observations of the universe. Could he list them, I know, you, my friends would want to know.

The west is so saturated in science that we never think to question this fact, and, therefore, never notice that most of us can offer no reason why reality would be this way.

If science involves observation, analysis and [experimenting] then there is no other way understanding reality. Don’t get me wrong, we can appreciate music and art without having to do experiments and I don’t mean to say we don’t learn from the humanities, no we do, but they also whenever applicable apply the scientific method.

Naturalists, for instance, can give no explanation as to why the universe should have this surprising consistency.

We can, but can the theologian do so? If the theologian doesn’t know about this world we inhabit, how could he know about a world only accessible to the dead?

David Hume famously pointed out that belief in science, as far as the naturalist can see, is based on a logical fallacy.

What fallacy please, do tell.

It was Christians, and other monotheists, who invested the effort in developing modern science because they held the conviction that a rational creator would make an ordered universe.

Seriously! And then we are told we don’t know history? Someone tell me the god of the Chinese, the Indians and all other men and women who didn’t believe in ghosts but helped to develop science?

For Russell to claim, four-hundred years after the fact, that the Christians who invented, supported, and sponsored science somehow have a less scientific worldview than those atheists who blindly trust this inexplicable Christian invention is simply astonishing.

For a blind man to call people with eyes blind is to me, rank madness! Those christians or god believers lived in a culture where the existence of god was taken as a given. However, great their contributions were, we can say, without fear, they were wrong to ascribe the workings of nature to ghosts, gods or phantoms, whatever your fancy! So what if they were christians. Our concern is the present crop of christians who only appreciate science when it cures them from funny ailments but denigrate it as soon as it shows a belief in god to be a delusion.

None of this precludes the idea that naturalists can be great scientists; the tools of science can be used by anyone. But to say that the success of science somehow refutes the belief that predicted it would work strikes me as deeply irrational thinking.

Is this statement strange? It shouldn’t be. We have always held that a believer in ghosts can be a good scientist so this apologist decides to use the statement in his favour.

I conclude by saying it is wrong and will be always wrong to believe anything based on insufficient evidence. And it is irrational to think belief in ghosts is rational.

 

 

Does Science Disprove the Bible? For the umpteenth time, yes it does!

Yours truly wonders whether apologists for christ usually have weekly meetings where they discuss the story for the week and then have the points all shared out for discussion. If that isn’t the case, I wouldn’t want some help in understanding why they, almost to the letter, keep repeating the same tired arguments? Is it in the hope that by saying something several times it gets to be true?

Having said that, let us listen to what this good christian has to tell us on the relationship between the bible and science.

He starts by asserting the special privilege of christianity, the bible and the stories therein

After all, science has disproved the very basic story line of the Bible, creation from nothing, right?

A statement that places the bible a rank higher than all other mythologies that our ancestors used as explanation about their origins, what caused things to happen in a certain way and so on. My question simply is, what makes the story of some goat herders thousands of years ago so important?

We are first asked

First, is it within the power of science to prove anything?

And I think yes. Science, considered broadly offers explanations that show why things are one way or other way.

He goes on to write

 Science does not produce fact, it takes data and produces likely scenarios to explain that data.

I would suggest to the brother to jump of a cliff if he will instead of falling, he will keep going up, if gravity is just a theory and not a fact.

We are then told

For all of its explaining power, it is only a theory, and can never be a fact.

Which, unfortunately for our friend, evolution is both a theory and fact.

By definition theories cannot become facts.

The germ theory is not a fact going by this argument, the theory of relativity is not a fact, theory of gravity is not a fact, Faraday’s theory of electro-magnetism is not a fact, and the list is endless? Did I miss something?

I hope that smart Christians who are interested in science will understand this and provide equally compelling theories that also fit with the worldview and data of the Bible.

I thought they already have, and it goes by the title Idiot design or something close, or the brother isn’t aware of this?

Second, can we completely divorce science from religion and philosophy?

This question commits a fallacy of ambiguity. The author wants to put us in a tight box. We can completely divorce science from religion but not from philosophy, as long as philosophy here doesn’t include attempts to justify a zombie apocalypse or men walking on water and so on, but philosophy taken as a love of knowledge will always go hand in hand with science.

If we stripped science from all vestiges of any worldview, there would be no way to start the process of science.

This is an outright lie. We would still do science without religion. Science, taken as a way to learn about nature or things in nature would still go on. We would still be able to make observations and draw conclusions without recourse to the god hypothesis and I know the apologist must know this.

For example, how do we know that the physical universe actually exists and is worth studying?

We don’t need gods for this. All we need is man to be curious, which she already is.

we assume the laws of logic, but why should we assume them?

These laws have been developed over time by different men over a long period of time. They are not gifts from a deity but results of long hours of thought and reflection.

we have to make assumptions about the universe in order to justify science and to justify scientific methodology. However, these assumptions do not come from science itself.

We could as well start from observing the universe and make assumptions then test this assumptions. No gods required, no outside help.

Without some sort of philosophy and worldview, when we study the natural world we would only be left with a set of data, but no way to interpret it.

Be that as it may, you still haven’t made a case for religion.

 I submit that we can only validate our assumptions with the biblical worldview.

The Hindu would not agree, the Muslim thinks you are a fraud, the Scientologist and the Mormon thinks of your book as a load of crap. So no, we make assumptions based on things we observe in nature and not some old book written by goat herders thousands of years ago.

 I think science relies upon religion in order to justify its assumptions.

Am being generous here, I would want to be told just five assumptions of science that need religion. Am patient.

 Furthermore, I think people overstate their case to say that science is the only source of truth.

Here the problem has to do with the definition what science encompass.  Once we are clear on what the other means when he talks about science, we can continue the argument.

 Is there no truth to be found in the philosophy department at the local university?

I don’t whether philosophy is concerned with truth or with asking the right question?

It needs philosophy and religion in order to function properly.

Science needs philosophy but not religion. There is nowhere science makes use of religion but religion has continued to survive for adapting itself to current scientific thinking. It needs science to validate its miraculous claims!