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This one is for the atheists

48
EPR-radar5/11/2015 12:15:17 pm PDT

re: #32 A Cranky One


What science has done is determine that when investigating the world/universe, supernatural explanations are not necessary. So in a way science is an atheistic enterprise; it assumes that there is a natural explanation for phenomena under study.

Philosophers have given this important aspect of the scientific method a name: ‘methodological naturalism’. Doing scientific work does not require a philosophical commitment to naturalism (e.g., Einstein was religious). What it does require is that theories and explanations in science be natural as opposed to supernatural (‘goddidit’ being the canonical supernatural explanation that is categorically rejected by scientists).

I would say that it is the success of science that has demonstrated the uselessness of supernatural explanations for natural events. In a possible world with a busy Loki-type god, it would be foolish to categorically reject such supernatural explanations, and science would fail miserably.

We definitely do not live in such a world, and in fact religions should avoid making empirically testable claims, since these are most often provably wrong.