At what point should we look for a non-materialistic explanation?

If it is non-material how do you propose that science might study it?Or are you suggesting that science should accept scripture and "divine revelation" as empirical evidence?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

If we had all invoked the supernatural everytime something that didn't fit with current knowledge occurred we would still be living in caves. A patient mentions the phrase "chicken dance", the surgeon interperets this as the patient seeing him point to things with his elbows whilst the patient is unconscious during surgery and this is evidence of the supernatural. Wow. Seriously this is up there with LindaLou and her telepathic dogs. I am not even sure that there is a phenomenon that requires explanation here? Perhaps some over zealous willingness to accommodate the belief of the patient on the part of the surgeon. But little else.Is there more detail to this story? Or is that literally it?

Bullshit.Look at the pyramids that the ancient Egyptians built in the face of their abundant supernatural beliefs. There was a little more to it than that and all I said was that it was a legitimate place for the surgeon to look for a non-materialistic explanation, not that it was evidence of the supernatural.Quit being a dick.

The thing is that non-material explanations have never been shown to explain anything with any rigour: why then should they be used at all?

The arm is not being move by thought. It is being signaled to move by a small, measurable electric current that we can duplicate using a watch battery and a resistor. If he were moving it by thought the tips his first two fingers would be resting on the outside corners of his eye brows and he'd be peering out from underneath them.

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It's not the man that knows the most that has the most to say.

quote:

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I don't quite understand what you mean by that, the mind always affects the physical world, otherwise we wouldn't be able to move at all.

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I am not sure what I meant either. Except that the mind is something non physical. Thought is something non physical. Yet able to influence and manifest into our physical reality. Kinda like what some people believe God does. (If one where to believe in such things.) When you get right down to the nitty-gritty what is really "material" what is really "energy" other than something like a mind manifesting conciousness. But I digress.

Hi Lyx2NO,

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The arm is not being move by thought. It is being signaled to move by a small, measurable electric current that we can duplicate using a watch battery and a resistor. If he were moving it by thought the tips his first two fingers would be resting on the outside corners of his eye brows and he'd be peering out from underneath them.

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Can you have movement without that electric current? Yes, I can manipulate your arm for you. But can you have a thought without a mind? No. I can not think for you.

Presumably because the relatively advanced Egyptians didn't expect gods to go around erecting vast and complex stone structures for them. Put a member of a less advanced hunter gatherer society in the shadow of the pyramids and see if he would initially assume such works as being the result of the divine? What on Earth is the difference. But it comes so naturally........

How you define the word "evidence". As "a reason to believe something" there's no difference, but me knowing that you prefer the constraints of "objective empirical evidence" it should be obvious that I wan't saying that it was that.Hence you being a dick. From my end, it seems like you do put some effort into it

So I finally embrace your definition of "evidence" at long last and all you can do to thank me is call me a dick. No no. I really am a complete natural.

You didn't do it without an electrical current. You simply moved the current over to your own arm. Many people argue a separation of mind and body, but not mind and thought. I'd be curious to know what is left of the mind, and why we would need it. I can't say that I'm not a tad relieved.The point was non-materialistic explanations. Your example had nothing to do with non-materialistic explanations. Frankly, even if the arm had been moved psychokinetically we'd not have evidence of non-materialistic explanations but of psychokinesis being material.

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It's not the man that knows the most that has the most to say.

Hi Coyote. How many times do I need to say it? The evidence is materialistic and as per topic title, the explanation is not-materialistic, as per the examples which I have cited. Have you been reading?Here's how it works. The Biblical record alleges certain events which entail the non-materialistic explanation. Observable materialistic research and history etc, in time, attest to the veracity of the non-materialistic explained claims or events recorded in the Biblical record.With DNA, the more complexity that is discovered via research, the more plausible the non-materialistic explanation becomes. With archeological research, such as the alleged Exodus site, the more corroborative evidence discovered in the region of the chariot debris in the sea, the more plausible the non-materialistic explanation for what is observed becomes.Conventional science and secularism appears to have no inclination for consideration to the possibility of a non-materialistic explanation of anything. Secularists would rather eat worms than to admit to a non-materialistic explanation for even one of the scores of fulfilled Biblical propecies, such as the amazing phenomena of Israel's preservation and restoration to return to the homeland after 19 long centuries of global exile in multiple nations, many from the opposite regions of the planet. Edited by Buzsaw, : Fix word.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Hi Straggler. See my response to Coyote. I repeat: the evidence is materialistic. The explanation is non-materialistic. Perhaps if I repeat my position enough times, you folks will get it.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

This is where I lose you, Buzz.What you appear to be saying is that when things become complicated the chance of the supernatural operating increases.I would like to ask you how this is different from people not understanding lighting at one point in time was (because at the time it was a too complicated explanation) and concluding a supernatural explanation?The lightning is material but at one time the explanation was supernatural (the anger of Zeus for example).But as we can understand more and more complicated things (in this case that lightning has perfectly material explanations) we can (and do) replace supernatural explanations with material explanations.You seem to say because we don't know now everything now that we can consequently look to non-material explanations when we have a gap in our knowledge.How many non-material explanations have been found to be correct against the ones shown (like lightning in the example above) to be correct?

Good question, Larni.Biblical implication is that there was no lightning, rain as we know it or rainbows etc before the flood when global temperature was evenly perfectly suited for very long life and larger, more robust life as per dinosaurs, mammoths and tropical vegetation in the region of the poles. So in this respect, lightning is a materialistic phenomena effected by a non-materialistically explained event.For that matter, perhaps the alleged global flood came about by some non-materialistic explanation, being that the Biblical ID god, Jehovah may have tilted the planet a few degrees or some other materialistic event beyond my ability to explain in order to effect the alleged global flood.Biblically speaking, everything observed, including lightening was non-materialistically designed. All of the laws of physics were implemented by divine design.Why do I so adamantly believe this? Because for 74 years I have observed, via study, research and personal experience, sufficient multiple corroborated non-materalistically explained phenomenal evidence to empirically convince me that there is ultimately a non-materialistic explanation (I say 'explanation) for all that is observed.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.