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Author Topic:   Supernaturalism: Does It Work?
zephyr
Member (Idle past 4550 days)
Posts: 821
From: FOB Taji, Iraq
Joined: 04-22-2003


Message 7 of 41 (70270)
12-01-2003 12:07 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by MrHambre
12-01-2003 5:38 AM


Has anyone even codified a supernaturalist methodology? I see a lot of after-the-fact reasoning, a lot of "God could have done something totally different than the completely reasonable explanation from natural phenomena, and I will insist that he did because my faith requires it." I've heard of the occasional field trip by creationists, but nothing I would call an actual methodology.
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? What is the creationist "method," apart from reading the Bible and searching for verification?
I know I'm sorta conflating supernaturalism and Christian creationism here, but given the likely participants, it seems like a reasonable approximation....

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 Message 1 by MrHambre, posted 12-01-2003 5:38 AM MrHambre has not replied

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zephyr
Member (Idle past 4550 days)
Posts: 821
From: FOB Taji, Iraq
Joined: 04-22-2003


Message 10 of 41 (70278)
12-01-2003 12:30 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by MEH
12-01-2003 12:18 PM


I never advocated the exclusion of anyone from the practice of good science simply because they hold particular views, nor did I suppose any intellectual gulf between theists and non-theists or any other division. There are plenty of good scientists who are Christians, Moslems, Jews, and followers of many other religions. They still happen to use methodological naturalism to get good results.
I asked what a supernaturalist methodology would look like if you codified it. I mean, the scientific method I learned in school is pretty cut-and-dried. If you claim you're doing objective science, then you'll need to show your version. I don't see anything nearly so specific and well-founded in what you wrote.
Your last sentence is a grammatical disaster. I can only guess what you're trying to say. Would you care to rephrase it?

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zephyr
Member (Idle past 4550 days)
Posts: 821
From: FOB Taji, Iraq
Joined: 04-22-2003


Message 14 of 41 (70295)
12-01-2003 1:18 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by MEH
12-01-2003 12:48 PM


Re: Supernatural and Superfluous
Forgive me if I was overly harsh. I simply want to know what exactly you're claiming. All I really got was something like "methodological naturalism is a paradigm," which is really pretty obvious. But you seem to assume that impartiality to the existence of the supernatural is the same as denying and excluding it. That's not how MN guides science. It merely says that anything that can't be quantified and repeated is unreliable as an answer to an inquiry. Such phenomena may exist but will not aid our attempts to inform ourselves and advance human knowledge.
Personally, I think the division between natural and supernatural is artificial as conceived by most people. Over time, countless forces and occurrences have crossed the line from supernatural (beyond our comprehension and therefore subject to speculation and supposed revelations to the chosen) to natural - like human reproduction, diseases, electricity, and magnetism. In the process we have discovered the supposed revelations were pretty much dead wrong.
There could be all kinds of forces beyond our current understanding, and whose details we currently lack the technology (and maybe even methods) to discover. However, this is no good reason to suppose a supernatural realm. The very concept of such a realm quite possibly owes its very existence to now-known phenomena and our past ignorance about them. The more we advance, the more we need to ask ourselves whether that mysterious "other side" really exists, when all the things that used to populate it keep migrating to the domain of repeatable experiments.

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 Message 11 by MEH, posted 12-01-2003 12:48 PM MEH has replied

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zephyr
Member (Idle past 4550 days)
Posts: 821
From: FOB Taji, Iraq
Joined: 04-22-2003


Message 17 of 41 (70299)
12-01-2003 1:40 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by MEH
12-01-2003 1:19 PM


BINGO. As far as the distinction between the two, I think it is generally pointless. Even if there were a creator, I would avoid lumping everything into one category or another. I would prefer extradimensional explanations for deities and demons, for example - in general, render the world we can see as a subset of something more. Regardless, natural/supernatural is not the best way to look at these questions.
As I see it, though... the existence of a creator doesn't have to be an a priori assumption. Granted, it may be so in the majority of cases, and certainly most people don't reason their way to that decision. We are often conditioned to believe or disbelieve; we either retain our conditioning, rebel/convert, or just lose/gain interest for a variety of emotional or social reasons.
As concerns methodological naturalism, I see it as a pragmatic device that does not claim to serve the determination of complete and absolute truth. It is useful and continues to prove its usefulness. The question remains, is there an actual methodology which incorporates the presupposition of a creator (or at least a "supernatural" world)? If so, what does this methodology look like and what are its verifiable results?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by MEH, posted 12-01-2003 1:19 PM MEH has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by MEH, posted 12-01-2003 1:59 PM zephyr has not replied

  
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