The Einstein Pool, a Christian science fiction novel by Jake Danger
Metaphysical naturalism is the philosophy that only spacetime, matter, energy and the laws of physics are fundamental, and that all else is derivative. There are no gods or devils, no heaven and no hell. Even our own consciousness is an emergent property of (derived from) combinations of spacetime, matter and energy acting under the "laws" of physics. Astronomer Carl Sagan expressed the idea aptly: "I am a collection of carbon, hydrogen and atom molecules called Carl Sagan." Nothing can violate the laws of physics (with some derogations at the quantum level), so miracles are out of the question. Even if there was God, he would be standing in the cosmic unemployment line because, with no need to push the planets around their orbits, he wouldn't have anything to do.
Science is not equipped to detect miracles because, by assuming that the laws of physics cannot be broken and by demanding that a phenomenon be repeatable to be proven, it assumes the non-existence of miracles and therefore begs the question of whether they occur or not. Miracles, however, are by definition violations of the laws of physics and by definition non-repeatable. If the parting of the Red Sea was repeatable, scientists would just find a way to describe it mathematically and call it the Law of the Parting of the Red Sea -- conveniently, still no need for a God. Even if its mechanism were not fully understood (that is, mathematically describable), the response would simply be "Just because we don't fully understand a phenomenon is no reason to attribute a supernatural cause to it." If you objected to that pathetic excuse for an "explanation" you'd be faced with a chorus of atheists screaming "god of the gaps, god of the gaps. god of the..."
The Einstein Pool, a Christian science fiction novel by Jake Danger
2 comments:
This post has it backwards, it's Miracles that are begging the question. The problem isn't scientists assuming blindly that the laws of physics never change, but that there are no reliable, factually justifiable cases OF the laws of physics never changing. The theist is the one begging the question ,by saying Miracles can exist if the laws of physics don't apply. The scientists are simply looking at the preponderance of evidence and saying, hey, it looks like the laws of physics haven't changed in such a way as to allow these miracles. Furthermore, even if you use this argument to throw out Scientific explanations of miracles, you still are left with the problem that pretty much all of these miracle claims fail to produce any sort of reliable historical evidence as well. (for example, we've never found a bunch of Hebrew artifacts or Egyptian corpses and chariots at the bottom of the red sea. I don't mean to say that we NEED to find that, but that is the sort of evidence that fails to support miracles, even once we remove "scientific theory" from the equation. The argument almost comes down to "miracles are a special case, and therefore don't need to leave evidence." but if miracles don't leave any form of evidence anywhere at all at any point of time, then isn't that basically the same as them never having happened?
science would like to observe an un-repeatable phenomena, a puzzle with no solution could captivate you a lifetime.
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