Religion and Science

[Kbertsche]

Well according to this: Methodological naturalism is the label for the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method.


http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Methodological_naturalism

This is an extremely poor, biased definition of "methodological naturalism"! Note that this is not from "Wikipedia"; it is "rational wiki", which seems to be an anti-religious advocacy group. They mention nothing of the history of the term, including that it was coined by an evangelical Christian philosopher (deVries) to describe the operational methodology of science and to distinguish it from "ontological" or "philosophical" naturalism.

[shunyadragon]

Well according to this: Methodological naturalism is the label for the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method.


http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Methodological_naturalism

Yes, but Ontological (Philosophical) Naturalism adds the assumption that Naturalism is the only objective source of knowledge, and that other sources of knowledge must conform to Naturalism, This is not the dominate view of Methodological Naturalism, which ONLY considers the use of Scientific Methods to apply to the falsifiable knowledge of our physical existence.

Methodological Naturalism is by far the dominant view of scientists n he USA.

[rwatts]

Yes, but Ontological (Philosophical) Naturalism adds the assumption that Naturalism is the only objective source of knowledge, and that other sources of knowledge must conform to Naturalism, This is not the dominate view of Methodological Naturalism, which ONLY considers the use of Scientific Methods to apply to the falsifiable knowledge of our physical existence.

Methodological Naturalism is by far the dominant view of scientists n he USA.

I suspect that if PN = MN then all meteorologists, chemists, physicists, astronomers, geneticists, zoologists, materials scientists, embryologists, research doctors, ..... would have to be called atheists.

Mathematicians might be the only group to escape seer's wildly broad broom.


Heck, the moment any person anywhere thinks "I wonder if I can find out how and why that happened" and they try to do so without invoking the supernatural, then they could be labelled "atheist". They might have to undergo some kind of purification ritual after having done something so dirty.

[oxmixmudd]

Well according to this: Methodological naturalism is the label for the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method.


http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Methodological_naturalism

I am not sure why you are going here seer. God is not his creation. That is the overarching point of Genesis 1. God made this stuff and gave it capabilities. He commanded the Earth to make life after He made it. He put the stars in the sky to give times and seasons. And He made man in His image and told him to go forth and subdue the Earth. And so there is nothing inconsistent about probing the extant properties of the creation as they have been endowed by the creator independent of His explicit intervention. We distinguish that from the belief there is no God with the term Methodological Naturalism. If I want to know how creation behaves according to the rules of operation God has ordained, I must look at what it does 'on its own'. But that does not have anything to do with what I believe about the existence or interaction of God with His creation, except that if I believe in God, I must believe God is not capricious and has set in place an order to His creation. This is what Christian belief asserts and so there is nothing inconsistent about a Christian who is a scientist using Methodological Naturalism in his execution of his scientific pursuits.

Jim

[seer]

I am not sure why you are going here seer. God is not his creation. That is the overarching point of Genesis 1. God made this stuff and gave it capabilities. He commanded the Earth to make life after He made it. He put the stars in the sky to give times and seasons. And He made man in His image and told him to go forth and subdue the Earth. And so there is nothing inconsistent about probing the extant properties of the creation as they have been endowed by the creator independent of His explicit intervention. We distinguish that from the belief there is no God with the term Methodological Naturalism. If I want to know how creation behaves according to the rules of operation God has ordained, I must look at what it does 'on its own'. But that does not have anything to do with what I believe about the existence or interaction of God with His creation, except that if I believe in God, I must believe God is not capricious and has set in place an order to His creation. This is what Christian belief asserts and so there is nothing inconsistent about a Christian who is a scientist using Methodological Naturalism in his execution of his scientific pursuits.

Jim

This is true, perhaps I have a problem more with philosophical naturalism. Or generally that everything can be explained or accounted for by natural means.