6 ms·

Naturalism insists that anything which is supernatural cannot be scientifically investigated, by definition. If you want to live your life via the scientific m

Naturalism insists that anything which is supernatural cannot be scientifically investigated, by definition. If you want to live your life via the scientific method, awesome - it's a really powerful technique for refining the accuracy of predictions. It can't ever rigorously conclude whether anything was ever divinely inspired, though.

lapestenoire 4y ago
The burden of proof rests on those who make fantastical claims, not on everyone else to disprove their claims.
- generalizations 4y ago
  The point is that science can’t comment on the “divine inspiration” claim, except to note that it’s outside its purview. Burden of proof is a whole different discussion.
  - lisper 4y ago
    > science can’t comment on the “divine inspiration” claim It certainly can. It can point out that there is no evidence that any human writing is divinely inspired, and so claims of divine inspiration are almost certainly false.
    - chickenimprint 4y ago
      See, there's the problem. You called it almost certainly false, but what are the criteria of truth? Science uses induction as a measure, meaning it presupposes that we have faith in the proposition that something will happen again because it has happened in the past. That would be akin to claiming to be immortal, because every time someone died, it wasn't you. With a little additional information, such as the recognition that you are an animal and that most animals seem to have not been immortal in the past, a good hypothesis would be that you will die, but how can you be sure that you're not the first immortal one? It might seem silly, but how can we be certain that the entirety of physics in the universe is not milliseconds from unraveling, that we're not a metaphorical barrel at the crest of a waterfall without knowing? In epistemology, only logical truths are certain, anything else is an attempt to put a confidence rating on a proposition, be it through science or religion. Neither can reach 100%, but both can certainly be 0%. There aren't even objective measures for such confidence ratings, statistical modelling is the best we have. The scientific method explicitly excludes unfalsifiable claims from its purview. If you have ever argued with a religious person, you will realize how easily deflected the argument is, that there is no evidence for divine inspiration. You could mention billions of recorded scientific findings that point toward a material world without supernatural events and still be rebuked by "So what? That doesn't mean it's untrue. You can't disprove that it happened that one time." I'm not saying that science is a pointless endeavor, just that it can never be an objective measure of truth.
      - lisper 4y ago
        > Science uses induction as a measure No, it doesn't. This is a common misconception, but it is 100% wrong. Science is the business of finding the best explanations that account for all observations. One of the consequences of this methodology is that it turns out that all known observable phenomena can be described by fairly simple mathematical laws that appear to remain constant over time. But science does not assume this.
        chickenimprint 4y ago
        >Science is the business of finding the best explanations that account for all observations. This is exactly what induction means. Even your wording is almost identical to that of the Wikipedia page on "Inductive reasoning". > One of the consequences of this methodology is that it turns out that all known observable phenomena can be described by fairly simple mathematical laws. But science does not assume this. I'm not sure you fully comprehend, it's much simpler. Science does presuppose that observations mean anything related to more general rules, otherwise what would be the point of observations, right? Otherwise all data would be equivalent to TV static and to build a house we would just hope it builds itself. The way you hedge your bets with phrases like "can be described by" and "appear to" makes me think you intuitively understand the limitations of science when it comes to capturing absolute truths, such as analytical a priori truths (e.g. all bachelors are unmarried), which are correct by definition.
        lisper 4y ago
        > This is exactly what induction means. No it isn't. You got it right the first time. Induction "presupposes that we have faith in the proposition that something will happen again because it has happened in the past". But that is wrong. Science does not presuppose this. > Science does presuppose that observations mean anything related to more general rules No, it does not. It observes that the world behaves according to general rules. It does not presuppose that it does.
        chickenimprint 4y ago
    - mensetmanusman 4y ago
      Science has no means to get at moral truths, just physical observations. It can’t even prove per definition whether moral truths exist, or why anything exists at all.
      - lisper 4y ago
        That's not true. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation
        NateEag 4y ago
        I haven't read it, but I believe that book addresses how certain behaviors may have evolved. That is unrelated to whether those behaviors are in an abstract sense "right" or "good".
        lisper 4y ago
        It never ceases to amaze me how people can appear so confident while pontificating from a position of profound and self-professed ignorance. You admit you haven't read the book, and yet somehow you know that its content is unrelated to whether or not behavior is "right" or "good". You are wrong. Evolved behavior has everything to do with it. There is no behavior other than "evolved behavior". Without that, you can't even say what it means for a behavior to be "right or good in an abstract sense" without appeal to authority.
        mensetmanusman 4y ago
        Evolutionary arguments allow for any moral behavior that improves your survival chance, which is why it isn’t taken very seriously.
        lisper 4y ago
        No, that's not true. You need to read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. Evolution produces behavior that improves the reproductive fitness of your genes, not you. And that turns out to be a very significant constraint.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    Sure, every supernatural claim from a religious text is “outside the purview of science” in the same way as that same exact claim appended with “and then a clown riding a unicorn flew overhead” is outside the purview of science.
    - drewmol 4y ago
      Good analogy, obviously if unicorns could fly humans would never have killed them all off.
  - smeagull 4y ago
    [flagged]
- brutusborn 4y ago
  I used to believe this after reading Dawkins as a teenager. After reading lots of philosophy I’ve come to believe that the question as posed is unfalsifiable and thus not possible to test scientifically. Asking “is the bible divinely inspired” is similar to asking “what is the meaning of life”, it cannot be tackled scientifically, thus it falls into philosophy and theology. The same thought process led me to abandon the Sam Harris notion that science can provide us with morals. A simple way to see my point is to ask yourself “what scientific experiment could I design to test whether science is a good basis for morality?” You will find this statement contains a categorical error: a “good” basis can only be defined prior to the experiment, thus the question can only be tackled philosophically.
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    You can't "scientifically prove" that I didn't write this comment under divine inspiration either. Making unfalsifiable claims is not hard. I guess what you're saying is technically true, but adhering to an extremely strict interpretation of "science" doesn't strike me as terribly useful here. Science can't offer a definitive conclusive question for a lot of things in life, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have anything useful to say and can certainly inform on theological and moral matters. For example, we can conduct scientific experiments to determine whether animals have emotions, what kind of emotions they have, if they can feel pain, and things like that. This doesn't directly answer any moral questions about how animals should be treated, but such science is invaluable if you want to try and answer these moral questions. Philosophy without science is just a bunch of people talking shit.
    - brutusborn 4y ago
      Philosophy has existed long before science and produced things like democracy, so it’s unfair to claim it’s just “people talking shit.” I agree that science is very useful, but thinking that science can be applied to every problem is delusional. I think of it as a subset of philosophy (specifically epistemology). Thinking that science can be applied to morality results in dystopian situations, like nazi eugenics “improving” the population because Darwinism is scientific. How can science inform morality? You are right that it can help us determine if animals are suffering; but what we do with that information comes down to our morals, which are generated through philosophy or theology. All the proponents of scientific morality are very passionate about promoting it, but you will notice that they don’t follow through and actually develop a moral system, they just discuss it theoretically (e.g. Sam Harris)
- ars 4y ago
  You can not just ignore their claims unless you have an alternative answer to why (or how) does the universe exist. Science does not contain tools to refute or confirm any answer to that question. So it's less "fantastical claim", and more a topic that you do not have any tools to approach.
  - toast0 4y ago
    You certain can ignore their claim. It's an unfalsifable claim, so it should be ignored in a context of formal logic. But you can't assert it's negative. That's just as unfalsifable, and that claim should also be ignored in a context of formal logic. Of course, we don't always work in a system of formal logic, and it doesn't much matter to me if you choose to assume/believe works are inspired or not.
    - ars 4y ago
      > it's an unfalsifable claim, so it should be ignored in a context of formal logic The claim might be unfalsifiable, but the question is still valid. Basically you are required to answer the question. If you answer "I can't know" your answer is also unfalsifiable, and no better than theirs. i.e. your position on this matter is not superior to theirs.
      - torben-friis 4y ago
        Admittance of ignorance is undoubtedly better than a lie, in general.
        mensetmanusman 4y ago
        It’s impossible to say whether it is a lie, because of incompleteness.
        NateEag 4y ago
        Let's try the more charitable "unjustified certitude" instead of "lie".
- lo_zamoyski 4y ago
  And for the others to seriously consider the proof. What good is asking for proof if you then remain either oblivious to it or consistently refuse to engage with it?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lisper 4y ago
> Naturalism insists that anything which is supernatural cannot be scientifically investigated, by definition. No, that is not what naturalism is. That would be circular. Naturalism is the philosophical stance that things that cannot be observed do not exist. Alleged supernatural phenomena cannot ever be definitively ruled out (because new observations may confirm their existence) but to date there has never been an alleged supernatural phenomenon that did not have an adequate naturalistic explanation.
- kkoncevicius 4y ago
  Under naturalism there can never be a supernatural phenomena that would prove supernatural things exist. Because once the phenomena reaches a state where it can be measured it ceases to be supernatural and becomes a thing of scientific investigation. And while its not in a state that could be measured there is nothing to investigate. Or put it another way - naturalism is a world view that would kill any supernatural interpretation even if/when its real. And as such it cannot be used to prove nor disprove supernaturalism.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Not quite, naturalism exposes the idea that the physical world is governed by natural laws not the whims of higher powers. Or as Wikipedia puts it “a philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences” It’s a worldview that reproducibility goes out the window once you introduce supernatural forces. If the weather where actually responsive to a god who regularly changed things because they got mad, then it would be inconsistent over short time periods. It does classify things that are reproducible and testable as part of the natural world even if we don’t understand them such as gravity. Finally things that don’t have a detectable influence don’t exist. This is subtly different from materialism or physicalism which both define how reality operates.
  - lisper 4y ago
    Naturalism could demonstrate the existence of things that today are called supernatural. Ghosts. Demons. Deities. All of these things could be demonstrated naturalistically if they were observable. In that case they would no longer be "supernatural" but they would still be qualitatively different from what is today understood to be "natural phenomena".
shhdhsheh 4y ago
And it can't even tell you if science is perhaps the unified tool from god to us. What if our world was designed on purpose including drugs like LSD to enlightenment and all earth religions are wrong because they stopped listening? But hey true we don't know :-)
- lo_zamoyski 4y ago
  This is just intellectually lazy, reheated New Age blather. Serious people engage intellectually (which means humbly) with the subject matter, beginning with rigorous training in philosophy. This isn't just something about which a nerd who has watched some schlock on PBS or a read a NYT bestseller can have something legitimate or valuable to say.
smeagull 4y ago
There is space for divine inspiration as a hypothesis in science. It fulfills the same role as a flat earth hypothesis. It's up to the weirdos to prove their insane leaps, not on us to disprove.
lo_zamoyski 4y ago
> It can't ever rigorously conclude whether anything was ever divinely inspired, though. https://www.catholic.com/tract/proving-inspiration https://www.catholic.com/tract/proving-inspiration

lapestenoire 4y ago

The burden of proof rests on those who make fantastical claims, not on everyone else to disprove their claims.

generalizations 4y ago
The point is that science can’t comment on the “divine inspiration” claim, except to note that it’s outside its purview. Burden of proof is a whole different discussion.
- lisper 4y ago
  > science can’t comment on the “divine inspiration” claim It certainly can. It can point out that there is no evidence that any human writing is divinely inspired, and so claims of divine inspiration are almost certainly false.
  - chickenimprint 4y ago
    See, there's the problem. You called it almost certainly false, but what are the criteria of truth? Science uses induction as a measure, meaning it presupposes that we have faith in the proposition that something will happen again because it has happened in the past. That would be akin to claiming to be immortal, because every time someone died, it wasn't you. With a little additional information, such as the recognition that you are an animal and that most animals seem to have not been immortal in the past, a good hypothesis would be that you will die, but how can you be sure that you're not the first immortal one? It might seem silly, but how can we be certain that the entirety of physics in the universe is not milliseconds from unraveling, that we're not a metaphorical barrel at the crest of a waterfall without knowing? In epistemology, only logical truths are certain, anything else is an attempt to put a confidence rating on a proposition, be it through science or religion. Neither can reach 100%, but both can certainly be 0%. There aren't even objective measures for such confidence ratings, statistical modelling is the best we have. The scientific method explicitly excludes unfalsifiable claims from its purview. If you have ever argued with a religious person, you will realize how easily deflected the argument is, that there is no evidence for divine inspiration. You could mention billions of recorded scientific findings that point toward a material world without supernatural events and still be rebuked by "So what? That doesn't mean it's untrue. You can't disprove that it happened that one time." I'm not saying that science is a pointless endeavor, just that it can never be an objective measure of truth.
    - lisper 4y ago
      > Science uses induction as a measure No, it doesn't. This is a common misconception, but it is 100% wrong. Science is the business of finding the best explanations that account for all observations. One of the consequences of this methodology is that it turns out that all known observable phenomena can be described by fairly simple mathematical laws that appear to remain constant over time. But science does not assume this.
      - chickenimprint 4y ago
        >Science is the business of finding the best explanations that account for all observations. This is exactly what induction means. Even your wording is almost identical to that of the Wikipedia page on "Inductive reasoning". > One of the consequences of this methodology is that it turns out that all known observable phenomena can be described by fairly simple mathematical laws. But science does not assume this. I'm not sure you fully comprehend, it's much simpler. Science does presuppose that observations mean anything related to more general rules, otherwise what would be the point of observations, right? Otherwise all data would be equivalent to TV static and to build a house we would just hope it builds itself. The way you hedge your bets with phrases like "can be described by" and "appear to" makes me think you intuitively understand the limitations of science when it comes to capturing absolute truths, such as analytical a priori truths (e.g. all bachelors are unmarried), which are correct by definition.
        lisper 4y ago
        > This is exactly what induction means. No it isn't. You got it right the first time. Induction "presupposes that we have faith in the proposition that something will happen again because it has happened in the past". But that is wrong. Science does not presuppose this. > Science does presuppose that observations mean anything related to more general rules No, it does not. It observes that the world behaves according to general rules. It does not presuppose that it does.
        chickenimprint 4y ago
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    Science has no means to get at moral truths, just physical observations. It can’t even prove per definition whether moral truths exist, or why anything exists at all.
    - lisper 4y ago
      That's not true. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation
      - NateEag 4y ago
        I haven't read it, but I believe that book addresses how certain behaviors may have evolved. That is unrelated to whether those behaviors are in an abstract sense "right" or "good".
        lisper 4y ago
        It never ceases to amaze me how people can appear so confident while pontificating from a position of profound and self-professed ignorance. You admit you haven't read the book, and yet somehow you know that its content is unrelated to whether or not behavior is "right" or "good". You are wrong. Evolved behavior has everything to do with it. There is no behavior other than "evolved behavior". Without that, you can't even say what it means for a behavior to be "right or good in an abstract sense" without appeal to authority.
        mensetmanusman 4y ago
        Evolutionary arguments allow for any moral behavior that improves your survival chance, which is why it isn’t taken very seriously.
        lisper 4y ago
        No, that's not true. You need to read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. Evolution produces behavior that improves the reproductive fitness of your genes, not you. And that turns out to be a very significant constraint.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  Sure, every supernatural claim from a religious text is “outside the purview of science” in the same way as that same exact claim appended with “and then a clown riding a unicorn flew overhead” is outside the purview of science.
  - drewmol 4y ago
    Good analogy, obviously if unicorns could fly humans would never have killed them all off.
- smeagull 4y ago
  [flagged]
brutusborn 4y ago
I used to believe this after reading Dawkins as a teenager. After reading lots of philosophy I’ve come to believe that the question as posed is unfalsifiable and thus not possible to test scientifically. Asking “is the bible divinely inspired” is similar to asking “what is the meaning of life”, it cannot be tackled scientifically, thus it falls into philosophy and theology. The same thought process led me to abandon the Sam Harris notion that science can provide us with morals. A simple way to see my point is to ask yourself “what scientific experiment could I design to test whether science is a good basis for morality?” You will find this statement contains a categorical error: a “good” basis can only be defined prior to the experiment, thus the question can only be tackled philosophically.
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  You can't "scientifically prove" that I didn't write this comment under divine inspiration either. Making unfalsifiable claims is not hard. I guess what you're saying is technically true, but adhering to an extremely strict interpretation of "science" doesn't strike me as terribly useful here. Science can't offer a definitive conclusive question for a lot of things in life, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have anything useful to say and can certainly inform on theological and moral matters. For example, we can conduct scientific experiments to determine whether animals have emotions, what kind of emotions they have, if they can feel pain, and things like that. This doesn't directly answer any moral questions about how animals should be treated, but such science is invaluable if you want to try and answer these moral questions. Philosophy without science is just a bunch of people talking shit.
  - brutusborn 4y ago
    Philosophy has existed long before science and produced things like democracy, so it’s unfair to claim it’s just “people talking shit.” I agree that science is very useful, but thinking that science can be applied to every problem is delusional. I think of it as a subset of philosophy (specifically epistemology). Thinking that science can be applied to morality results in dystopian situations, like nazi eugenics “improving” the population because Darwinism is scientific. How can science inform morality? You are right that it can help us determine if animals are suffering; but what we do with that information comes down to our morals, which are generated through philosophy or theology. All the proponents of scientific morality are very passionate about promoting it, but you will notice that they don’t follow through and actually develop a moral system, they just discuss it theoretically (e.g. Sam Harris)
ars 4y ago
You can not just ignore their claims unless you have an alternative answer to why (or how) does the universe exist. Science does not contain tools to refute or confirm any answer to that question. So it's less "fantastical claim", and more a topic that you do not have any tools to approach.
- toast0 4y ago
  You certain can ignore their claim. It's an unfalsifable claim, so it should be ignored in a context of formal logic. But you can't assert it's negative. That's just as unfalsifable, and that claim should also be ignored in a context of formal logic. Of course, we don't always work in a system of formal logic, and it doesn't much matter to me if you choose to assume/believe works are inspired or not.
  - ars 4y ago
    > it's an unfalsifable claim, so it should be ignored in a context of formal logic The claim might be unfalsifiable, but the question is still valid. Basically you are required to answer the question. If you answer "I can't know" your answer is also unfalsifiable, and no better than theirs. i.e. your position on this matter is not superior to theirs.
    - torben-friis 4y ago
      Admittance of ignorance is undoubtedly better than a lie, in general.
      - mensetmanusman 4y ago
        It’s impossible to say whether it is a lie, because of incompleteness.
        NateEag 4y ago
        Let's try the more charitable "unjustified certitude" instead of "lie".
lo_zamoyski 4y ago
And for the others to seriously consider the proof. What good is asking for proof if you then remain either oblivious to it or consistently refuse to engage with it?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

lisper 4y ago

> Naturalism insists that anything which is supernatural cannot be scientifically investigated, by definition. No, that is not what naturalism is. That would be circular. Naturalism is the philosophical stance that things that cannot be observed do not exist. Alleged supernatural phenomena cannot ever be definitively ruled out (because new observations may confirm their existence) but to date there has never been an alleged supernatural phenomenon that did not have an adequate naturalistic explanation.

kkoncevicius 4y ago
Under naturalism there can never be a supernatural phenomena that would prove supernatural things exist. Because once the phenomena reaches a state where it can be measured it ceases to be supernatural and becomes a thing of scientific investigation. And while its not in a state that could be measured there is nothing to investigate. Or put it another way - naturalism is a world view that would kill any supernatural interpretation even if/when its real. And as such it cannot be used to prove nor disprove supernaturalism.
- Retric 4y ago
  Not quite, naturalism exposes the idea that the physical world is governed by natural laws not the whims of higher powers. Or as Wikipedia puts it “a philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences” It’s a worldview that reproducibility goes out the window once you introduce supernatural forces. If the weather where actually responsive to a god who regularly changed things because they got mad, then it would be inconsistent over short time periods. It does classify things that are reproducible and testable as part of the natural world even if we don’t understand them such as gravity. Finally things that don’t have a detectable influence don’t exist. This is subtly different from materialism or physicalism which both define how reality operates.
- lisper 4y ago
  Naturalism could demonstrate the existence of things that today are called supernatural. Ghosts. Demons. Deities. All of these things could be demonstrated naturalistically if they were observable. In that case they would no longer be "supernatural" but they would still be qualitatively different from what is today understood to be "natural phenomena".

shhdhsheh 4y ago

And it can't even tell you if science is perhaps the unified tool from god to us. What if our world was designed on purpose including drugs like LSD to enlightenment and all earth religions are wrong because they stopped listening? But hey true we don't know :-)

lo_zamoyski 4y ago
This is just intellectually lazy, reheated New Age blather. Serious people engage intellectually (which means humbly) with the subject matter, beginning with rigorous training in philosophy. This isn't just something about which a nerd who has watched some schlock on PBS or a read a NYT bestseller can have something legitimate or valuable to say.

smeagull 4y ago

There is space for divine inspiration as a hypothesis in science. It fulfills the same role as a flat earth hypothesis. It's up to the weirdos to prove their insane leaps, not on us to disprove.

lo_zamoyski 4y ago

> It can't ever rigorously conclude whether anything was ever divinely inspired, though. https://www.catholic.com/tract/proving-inspiration https://www.catholic.com/tract/proving-inspiration