4 professor's view on science and faith

[PaulSacramento]

http://www.veritas.org/four-professors- ... curiosity/

The veritas website is a very good one by the way.

[PaulSacramento]

In regards to the resurrection:

http://www.veritas.org/can-scientist-be ... ypotheses/

An excerpt:

To be sure, while science can’t logically rule miracles in or out of consideration, it can be a helpful tool for investigating contemporary miraculous claims. It may be able to reveal self-deception, trickery, or misperception. If someone has been seen levitating on a supposed flying carpet in their living room, then the discovery of powerful electromagnets in their basement might well render such claims implausible. But if science fails to find defeating evidence then it is unable to say one way or the other whether some reported inexplicable event happened, or to prove that it is miraculous. Science functions by reproducible experiments and observations. Miracles are, by definition, abnormal and non-reproducible, so they cannot be proved by science’s methods.

Today’s widespread materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact. What’s more, the doctrine that the laws of nature are “inviolable” is not necessary for science to function. Science offers natural explanations of natural events. It has no power or need to assert that only natural events happen.

[Audie]

You can always find somebody.

What do you suppose is with the silly strawmen, btw?

materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact.

What’s more, the doctrine that the laws of nature are “inviolable” is not necessary for science to function.

[PaulSacramento]

You can always find somebody.

What do you suppose is with the silly strawmen, btw?

materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact.

What’s more, the doctrine that the laws of nature are “inviolable” is not necessary for science to function.

You don't seem to be familiar with the materialistic view.

Materialism - Definitions & Doctrines
Materialism can refer either to the simple preoccupation with the material world, as opposed to intellectual or spiritual concepts, or to the theory that physical matter is all there is. This theory is far more than a simple focus on material possessions. It states that everything in the universe is matter, without any true spiritual or intellectual existence. Materialism can also refer to a doctrine that material success and progress are the highest values in life. This doctrine appears to be prevalent in western society today. Materialism can also refer to the term, Cultural Materialism.

Materialism as a philosophy is held by those who maintain that existence is explainable solely in material terms, with no accounting of spirit or consciousness. Individuals who hold to this belief see the universe as a huge device held together by pieces of matter functioning in subjection to naturalistic laws. Since materialism denies all concepts of Special Creation, it relies on the Theory of Evolution to explain itself, making beliefs in materialism and evolution interdependent.

[Audie]

You can always find somebody.

What do you suppose is with the silly strawmen, btw?

materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact.

What’s more, the doctrine that the laws of nature are “inviolable” is not necessary for science to function.

You don't seem to be familiar with the materialistic view.

Materialism - Definitions & Doctrines
Materialism can refer either to the simple preoccupation with the material world, as opposed to intellectual or spiritual concepts, or to the theory that physical matter is all there is. This theory is far more than a simple focus on material possessions. It states that everything in the universe is matter, without any true spiritual or intellectual existence. Materialism can also refer to a doctrine that material success and progress are the highest values in life. This doctrine appears to be prevalent in western society today. Materialism can also refer to the term, Cultural Materialism.

Materialism as a philosophy is held by those who maintain that existence is explainable solely in material terms, with no accounting of spirit or consciousness. Individuals who hold to this belief see the universe as a huge device held together by pieces of matter functioning in subjection to naturalistic laws. Since materialism denies all concepts of Special Creation, it relies on the Theory of Evolution to explain itself, making beliefs in materialism and evolution interdependent.

You dont seem to understand that these are stupid strawman statements

Nobody with a trace of sophistication would even come up with such nonsense.

materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact.


What’s more, the doctrine that the laws of nature are “inviolable” is not necessary for science to function.

Your quote there does not bear on these issues.

[PaulSacramento]

Materialism is a philosophy.
To suggest that no one of sophistication would come up with that nonsense is, quite frankly, silly.
Famous materialists:

Modern era[edit]
The French cleric Pierre Gassendi (1592–1665) represented the materialist tradition in opposition to the attempts of René Descartes (1596–1650) to provide the natural sciences with dualist foundations. There followed the materialist and atheist abbé Jean Meslier (1664–1729), Julien Offray de La Mettrie, the German-French Paul-Henri Thiry Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789), the Encyclopedist Denis Diderot (1713–1784), and other French Enlightenment thinkers; as well as (in England) John "Walking" Stewart (1747–1822), whose insistence in seeing matter as endowed with a moral dimension had a major impact on the philosophical poetry of William Wordsworth (1770–1850).

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) wrote that "...materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself".[7] He claimed that an observing subject can only know material objects through the mediation of the brain and its particular organization. That is, the brain itself is the "determiner" of how material objects will be experienced or perceived:

"Everything objective, extended, active, and hence everything material, is regarded by materialism as so solid a basis for its explanations that a reduction to this (especially if it should ultimately result in thrust and counter-thrust) can leave nothing to be desired. But all this is something that is given only very indirectly and conditionally, and is therefore only relatively present, for it has passed through the machinery and fabrication of the brain, and hence has entered the forms of time, space, and causality, by virtue of which it is first of all presented as extended in space and operating in time."[8]

The German materialist and atheist anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach would signal a new turn in materialism through his book, The Essence of Christianity (1841), which provided a humanist account of religion as the outward projection of man's inward nature. Feuerbach's materialism would later heavily influence Karl Marx.

More recently thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze have attempted to rework and strengthen classical materialist ideas. [9] Contemporary theorists such as Manuel DeLanda, working with this reinvigorated materialism have come to be classifies as 'new materialist' in persuasion. [10]

New materialism[edit]
“New materialism” has now become its own specialized subfield of knowledge, with courses being offered on the topic at major universities, as well as numerous conferences, edited collections, and monographs devoted to it. Jane Bennett’s book Vibrant Matter (Duke UP, 2010) has been particularly instrumental in bringing theories of monist ontology and vitalism back into a critical theoretical fold dominated by poststructuralist theories of language and discourse.[11] Scholars such as Mel Y. Chen and Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, however, have critiqued this body of new materialist literature for its neglect in considering the materiality of race and gender in particular. [12] [13] Other scholars such as Hélene Vosters have questioned whether there is anything particularly “new” about this so-called “new materialism,” as Indigenous and other animist ontologies have attested to what might be called the “vibrancy of matter” for centuries. [14]

Scientific materialists[edit]
See also: Physicalism
Many current and recent philosophers—e.g., Daniel Dennett, Willard Van Orman Quine, Donald Davidson, and Jerry Fodor—operate within a broadly physicalist or materialist framework, producing rival accounts of how best to accommodate mind, including functionalism, anomalous monism, identity theory, and so on.[15]

Scientific "Materialism" is often synonymous with, and has so far been described, as being a reductive materialism. In recent years, Paul and Patricia Churchland have advocated a radically contrasting position (at least, in regards to certain hypotheses); eliminativist materialism holds that some mental phenomena simply do not exist at all, and that talk of those mental phenomena reflects a totally spurious "folk psychology" and introspection illusion. That is, an eliminative materialist might suggest that a concept like "belief" simply has no basis in fact - the way folk science speaks of demon-caused illnesses. Reductive materialism being at one end of a continuum (our theories will reduce to facts) and eliminative materialism on the other (certain theories will need to be eliminated in light of new facts), Revisionary materialism is somewhere in the middle.[15]

Some scientific materialists have been criticized, for example by Noam Chomsky, for failing to provide clear definitions for what constitutes matter, leaving the term "materialism" without any definite meaning. Chomsky also states that since the concept of matter may be affected by new scientific discoveries, as has happened in the past, scientific materialists are being dogmatic in assuming the opposite.[16]

[Audie]

Materialism is a philosophy.
To suggest that no one of sophistication would come up with that nonsense is, quite frankly, silly.
Famous materialists:

Modern era[edit]
The French cleric Pierre Gassendi (1592–1665) represented the materialist tradition in opposition to the attempts of René Descartes (1596–1650) to provide the natural sciences with dualist foundations. There followed the materialist and atheist abbé Jean Meslier (1664–1729), Julien Offray de La Mettrie, the German-French Paul-Henri Thiry Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789), the Encyclopedist Denis Diderot (1713–1784), and other French Enlightenment thinkers; as well as (in England) John "Walking" Stewart (1747–1822), whose insistence in seeing matter as endowed with a moral dimension had a major impact on the philosophical poetry of William Wordsworth (1770–1850).

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) wrote that "...materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself".[7] He claimed that an observing subject can only know material objects through the mediation of the brain and its particular organization. That is, the brain itself is the "determiner" of how material objects will be experienced or perceived:

"Everything objective, extended, active, and hence everything material, is regarded by materialism as so solid a basis for its explanations that a reduction to this (especially if it should ultimately result in thrust and counter-thrust) can leave nothing to be desired. But all this is something that is given only very indirectly and conditionally, and is therefore only relatively present, for it has passed through the machinery and fabrication of the brain, and hence has entered the forms of time, space, and causality, by virtue of which it is first of all presented as extended in space and operating in time."[8]

The German materialist and atheist anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach would signal a new turn in materialism through his book, The Essence of Christianity (1841), which provided a humanist account of religion as the outward projection of man's inward nature. Feuerbach's materialism would later heavily influence Karl Marx.

More recently thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze have attempted to rework and strengthen classical materialist ideas. [9] Contemporary theorists such as Manuel DeLanda, working with this reinvigorated materialism have come to be classifies as 'new materialist' in persuasion. [10]

New materialism[edit]
“New materialism” has now become its own specialized subfield of knowledge, with courses being offered on the topic at major universities, as well as numerous conferences, edited collections, and monographs devoted to it. Jane Bennett’s book Vibrant Matter (Duke UP, 2010) has been particularly instrumental in bringing theories of monist ontology and vitalism back into a critical theoretical fold dominated by poststructuralist theories of language and discourse.[11] Scholars such as Mel Y. Chen and Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, however, have critiqued this body of new materialist literature for its neglect in considering the materiality of race and gender in particular. [12] [13] Other scholars such as Hélene Vosters have questioned whether there is anything particularly “new” about this so-called “new materialism,” as Indigenous and other animist ontologies have attested to what might be called the “vibrancy of matter” for centuries. [14]

Scientific materialists[edit]
See also: Physicalism
Many current and recent philosophers—e.g., Daniel Dennett, Willard Van Orman Quine, Donald Davidson, and Jerry Fodor—operate within a broadly physicalist or materialist framework, producing rival accounts of how best to accommodate mind, including functionalism, anomalous monism, identity theory, and so on.[15]

Scientific "Materialism" is often synonymous with, and has so far been described, as being a reductive materialism. In recent years, Paul and Patricia Churchland have advocated a radically contrasting position (at least, in regards to certain hypotheses); eliminativist materialism holds that some mental phenomena simply do not exist at all, and that talk of those mental phenomena reflects a totally spurious "folk psychology" and introspection illusion. That is, an eliminative materialist might suggest that a concept like "belief" simply has no basis in fact - the way folk science speaks of demon-caused illnesses. Reductive materialism being at one end of a continuum (our theories will reduce to facts) and eliminative materialism on the other (certain theories will need to be eliminated in light of new facts), Revisionary materialism is somewhere in the middle.[15]

Some scientific materialists have been criticized, for example by Noam Chomsky, for failing to provide clear definitions for what constitutes matter, leaving the term "materialism" without any definite meaning. Chomsky also states that since the concept of matter may be affected by new scientific discoveries, as has happened in the past, scientific materialists are being dogmatic in assuming the opposite.[16]

Your last quote had nothing to do with this...

materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact.


What’s more, the doctrine that the laws of nature are “inviolable” is not necessary for science to function.

Perhaps you could bold the portions of the new quote that are on topic and mention these things? Something about scientific "facts" and "inviolate laws"?

[PaulSacramento]

Audie, I know that philosophy is not your forte, but are you seriously tell me that you don't understand the premises ?

[IceMobster]

Am I the only one who thinks Audie is becoming self-indulgent?

[Audie]

Audie, I know that philosophy is not your forte, but are you seriously tell me that you don't understand the premises ?

Three tries.
Didnt think you could do it.

[IceMobster]

Alright, I've read the whole thing.

Seriously, I don't think I can agree with this: "materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact. "

Imo, this is pretty much correct, though.
"What’s more, the doctrine that the laws of nature are “inviolable” is not necessary for science to function. "

[PaulSacramento]

Seriously, I don't think I can agree with this: "materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact. "

What part of that don't you agree with?

[IceMobster]

something contrary to the laws of science unable to happen is a scientific fact... except in the case of demonic obsessions, i suppose.... and miracles... meh, I don't even know...

[PaulSacramento]

something contrary to the laws of science unable to happen is a scientific fact... except in the case of demonic obsessions, i suppose.... and miracles... meh, I don't even know...

The comment says:
"...materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact. "

That means that the statement of "events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen" is a metaphysical statement and not a scientific one.
In short, one can NOT state, scientifically that events outside the laws of science ( laws of physics for example) can't happen.
To state that one is making a metaphysical claim and NOT a scientific one.

[Audie]

something contrary to the laws of science unable to happen is a scientific fact... except in the case of demonic obsessions, i suppose.... and miracles... meh, I don't even know...

The comment says:
"...materialist view that events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen is a metaphysical doctrine, not a scientific fact. "

That means that the statement of "events contrary to the laws of science just can’t happen" is a metaphysical statement and not a scientific one.
In short, one can NOT state, scientifically that events outside the laws of science ( laws of physics for example) can't happen.
To state that one is making a metaphysical claim and NOT a scientific one.

With all the overstated news-of-the-obvious qualities of a headlines announcement that
turtles cant fly.