Touchstone,
Your post continues to show your philosophical confusion on the matter. For one thing, there are no “godless principles of science”. Yes, they are naturalist, but for any believing scientist, including the first scientists who invented the scientific method in the first place, natural causes are not godless, but secondary causes through which God as primary cause lets His creation unfold.
That’s precisely the reason for calling them “godless”. In and of themselves, they are completely secular concepts. The theology of those who pioneered modern science proves the point. Newton had all sorts of crazy ideas, but when it comes to science, none of that is applicable. Operational models like Newton’s are godless, naturalist; one has to wrap god belief around them, to suppose that they are secondary causes through which God acts. That idea, that God is acting through nature is a conspicuously non-scientific idea. You won’t find that in
any scientific models. None.
This is classical philosophy and theology from many centuries before the scientific revolution, but I don’t expect you to be informed about such rational subtleties – after all, religion and theistic philosophy is just “irrational superstition” to you.
Oh, I’m aware of the history. Modern science is just methodologically secular, naturalist, in practice. Or, to be more precise, it’s methodologically naturalist; if some natural god was discovered – Zeus throwing down thunderbolts from a mountain somewhere, say – science could study that kind of god as a matter of natural phenomena, which this kind of god would be. But concerning supernatural deities, scientific epistemology does not and cannot address such – it’s a divide by zero. Natural explanations and models for natural phenomena.
I have made my case, and anyone, except you, who has closely followed my arguments and who knows both about science and philosophy, will logically agree with my arguments. I am finished discussing this matter with you. If you intend to continue to believe in the concept of a non-existing “scientific worldview” I cannot stop you from being irrational on this matter.
You said yourself that naturalism was a worldview. A scientific worldview is just naturalism as a worldview with explicit support for scientific epistemology, which naturalism supports but doesn’t require (you can embrace a naturalist ontology metaphysically, but reject model-based epistemology, for example).
Your replies have only confirmed what I have observed over and over again through the years: Atheists tend to be philosophically confused and uninformed. That confusion may not always be the underlying reason why they became atheists (though sometimes it appears to be), but it certainly facilitates the transition to atheism.
I don’t think you’ve identified what the confusion is. Do you, for example, deny that science, even the practical, methodological practice, rests on the metaphysical axiom that our experiences reflect extra-mental reality to a sufficient degree that we can build models?
This is Philosophy of Science 101. Once you understand the metaphysical underpinnings of modern science – all modern science, then the world view is implicit, for those that want to embrace it. It’s not just an operational axiom, at that point, but an all-encompassing interpretive framework.
Several years ago I might have become an atheist myself, had not my knowledge of philosophy and the analytical thinking associated with it held me back at that point (and that then gave me breathing space me to thoroughly inform myself about issues like the fine-tuning of the laws of nature and the Argument from Reason, issues that I knew next to nothing about at the time). No need for me to brag about the philosophical knowledge that I had then, though – I had acquired it under fortunate circumstances that were not based on my own merits. I got “lucky”, I guess. Otherwise I might very well be on your side now.
Oy. I will just that paragraph marinate in itself. No need to say more, here.
-TS
Petitio principii!
