Atheism in Medical School and the Practice of Medicine

[dadaddadaBATMAN]

Actually, it's your attitude towards mental disorders that's disturbing.

A fair point about my interpretation I suppose.

But did you really mean that not to be inflammatory?

I don't think that many people would take it as a compliment, especially not in the context of your other comments. How is it better for you to say religion is comparable to a mental disease than it is for me to say atheism is an "emotional and mental handicap?" Or perhaps you wouldn't find that insulting.

Edit: phrasing. It would be disingenuous for me to pretend like I have religious convictions. I grew up catholic and still admire many of the people in that faith

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[tdram]

A fair point about my interpretation I suppose.

But did you really mean that not to be inflammatory?

I don't think that many people would take it as a compliment, especially not in the context of your other comments. How is it better for you to say religion is comparable to a mental disease than it is for me to say atheism is an "emotional and mental handicap?" Or perhaps you wouldn't find that insulting.

Edit: phrasing. It would be disingenuous for me to pretend like I have religious convictions. I grew up catholic and still admire many of the people in that faith

I was referring to something very specific that the person I responded to had said. I did not compare religion to any disease. I simply pointed out that his particular experience which he described sounded a bit pathologic in nature.

 

[tdram]

I don't think that many people would take it as a compliment, especially not in the context of your other comments. How is it better for you to say religion is comparable to a mental disease than it is for me to say atheism is an "emotional and mental handicap?" Or perhaps you wouldn't find that insulting.

I was trying to put things in perspective. What you call "religion", another person may call "delusion". The difference is what society accepts as normal. Think about what it would be like if religion did not exist in the world, and someone came up to you and told you about this invisible deity that he talks to daily and believes created and controls the world. Would you not label that person as being "delusional"? You certainly might. On the flipside, we live in a world where religion is the norm. Therefore, the idea of atheism is often seen as "delusional", but that is an unfair characterization. See my point?

 

[dadaddadaBATMAN]

I was trying to put things in perspective. What you call "religion", another person may call "delusion". The difference is what society accepts as normal. Think about what it would be like if religion did not exist in the world, and someone came up to you and told you about this invisible deity that he talks to daily and believes created and controls the world. Would you not label that person as being "delusional"? You certainly might. On the flipside, we live in a world where religion is the norm. Therefore, the idea of atheism is often seen as "delusional", but that is an unfair characterization. See my point?

My point is that you find delusional to be an unfair characterization when it is applied to you, but fair when it is applied to others.
I think you could use a little more tact in your discussion, which is why others prefer not to discuss it.

Although having said that, I did open our discussion by calling you a jack-ass. I apologize for the tone.

 

[tdram]

My point is that you find delusional to be an unfair characterization when it is applied to you, but fair when it is applied to others.
I think you could use a little more tact in your discussion, which is why others prefer not to discuss it.

Although having said that, I did open our discussion by calling you a jack-ass. I apologize for the tone.

That's ok. You're right that I could have worded my point better.

 

[touchpause13]

"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A. E. Housman put it:

For Nature, heartless, witless Nature
Will neither know nor care.​

DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music."

I would rather believe this than anything else. I think it's beautiful, and it gives my life more meaning than any god could. I get to experience the universe in its entirety for a short amount of time, and then I fade to nothingness, as those before me have done and those after me will do. Born of dust, I'll return to dirt. Anything in between is up to me.

Thank you for sharing this, I have never read it before and it rings really true to me.

Personally, I find peace in my own mortality. I have this one beautiful amazing life and I want to use it the best I can. I want to try and leave this world better than what I found it. I don't like how much emphasis is put on the afterlife in some religions, as it just doesn't make sense to me. What I have now is enough, more than enough really. Living my life to get into heaven just doesn't work for me, I want to live my life to live my life. Perhaps others may think that it's depressing or cold, but I think it's incredibly freeing. I am completely responsible for myself, for my successes and my failures, I don't think anyone is pulling the strings. And I made a conscious decision to try and live my life in service to others, not because a creed told me to, but because I want to.

 

[LivingEdge]

Because one night or of a hundred religion might come up and it's totally better to just not make friends

Yeah, at this point in my life that's honestly pretty much how I feel about it. I already have a lot of friends, and even though I don't find the medical student body as a whole to be all that suitable for my social needs I still manage to make a few good friends just fine in school.

The last 20+ years have clearly taught me that being unsociable or even overtly antisocial doesn't result in having no friends, but fewer and better friends, often of the sort you'll actually keep for decades.

 

[Mad Jack]

Yeah, at this point in my life that's honestly pretty much how I feel about it. I already have a lot of friends, and even though I don't find the medical student body as a whole to be all that suitable for my social needs I still manage to make a few good friends just fine in school.

The last 20+ years have clearly taught me that being unsociable or even overtly antisocial doesn't result in having no friends, but fewer and better friends, often of the sort you'll actually keep for decades.

I can agree with that. You just came off as having made zero friends, which is downright unhealthy.

 

[tdram]

Interesting related read: http://www.iflscience.com/brain/religious-children-struggle-separate-fact-fiction

 

[didymus]

Interesting related read: http://www.iflscience.com/brain/religious-children-struggle-separate-fact-fiction

In sum, this study suggests that exposure to religion has a profound impact on the ability of children to discern reality from fiction, whether presented with religious ideas or fantasy stories.

The researchers acknowledge that the study design was not perfect. In particular, they recognize that it may not be exposure to religion that is causing these differences, but another variable that was not taken into account in the study. Still, the researchers believe that religion is the most likely contributing factor.

Scientifically speaking, this was a terrible study, and the use of the language "profound impact" with such a poorly designed study suggests confirmation bias.

 

[tdram]

use of the language "profound impact" with such a poorly designed study suggests confirmation bias.

That's the fault of the woman who wrote the article about the study, not the study itself.

 

[tdram]

Scientifically speaking, this was a terrible study.

What's wrong with the study?

 

[didymus]

What's wrong with the study?

I'll rephrase what I said: The study itself was just fine, the conclusions drawn from the article citing the study were terrible, and reflected a confirmation bias. Also, the fact that the article included a post from the blog of thefriendlyatheist, should immediately tip everyone off that this is not an unbiased, objective analysis of the study in question.

You should look at the discussion on the actual article: http://www.bu.edu/learninglab/files/2012/05/Corriveau-Chen-Harris-in-press.pdf

The researchers go through several variables worth considering that may have contributed to the results. Where the study falls short--and they admit this much--is how they did not have many significant controls for the experiment, based the conclusions on a very narrow set of criteria, and that the respondents self-reported whether or not they attended church.

Here is a good line from the actual study: They argue that the increasing tendency to accept that an improbable event can occur may be due to older participants’ greater inclination to imagine circumstances in which an intuitively unlikely event could happen. It is possible that religious instruction helps children to engage in such imaginative reflection with respect to impossible events as well. Thus, it prompts them to think about ways an otherwise impossible event could happen even if their immediate intuition is that it could not.

The discussion also highlights how the respondents from the religious groups were better able to identify fictional or fantastical scenarios when the language used did not mimic biblical language. If, for instance, they said a character waved a wand and split open a mountain, the respondents were pretty good at identifying that as pretend. When they used language such as "so and so waved a wand and split the red sea," it became more difficult for them to distinguish. You should read the study, but the researchers suggest that the children associated stories from the Bible as dealing with real persons and real events, but would not apply those same conclusions to other people or events that were not in the Bible.

 

[EMDO2018]

Can somebody from this thread pm me, I have a situation with starting med school and religion and I want to get other perspectives

 

[Jcthoma3]

I've also been nervous about how I will be perceived in medical school. I started working in the emergency department not long ago and figured the incidence of religion would drop off with the increasing education level. Can't say that this is entirely true. I work with doctors all day who cite evidence for their decisions but at the end of the day thank the invisible man for the slow day. I keep it to myself for the most part since we're like a notch above rapists (as someone else on the thread pointed out).

 

[Jcthoma3]

That's always the answer I get - well it's supernatural so it doesn't apply. I personally think that's a cop out.

If you can blindly believe one thing, there's no reason how you can argue against blindly believing in another. If you need evidence to believe things, then you shouldn't believe in the supernatural at all until you develop a method to test and evaluate it.

It is a cop out. There is no reason to "believe" in anything that can't be known to our senses somehow and meticulously tested.

 

[tdram]

It is a cop out. There is no reason to "believe" in anything that can't be known to our senses somehow and meticulously tested.

I wouldn't say there's no reason to believe - I've found that people certainly have their reasons, though not always logical. It just doesn't make sense to me, which is why I'm an atheist.

 

[Jcthoma3]

I don't see why you would find this puzzling, surely you can understand that a system of testing for the natural world has very limited applicability to supernatural occurrences. As far as the things that can be proven from the bible, that's the realm of archaeology and there has been some useful evidence produced from that.

I wouldn't say there's no reason to believe - I've found that people certainly have their reasons, though not always logical. It just doesn't make sense to me, which is why I'm an atheist.

I guess if you mean in the sense that believing helps you come to terms with things like death, life, hard times, etc. I'm just saying that in terms of what makes sense it's just wishful thinking.

 

[tdram]

I guess if you mean in the sense that believing helps you come to terms with things like death, life, hard times, etc. I'm just saying that in terms of what makes sense it's just wishful thinking.

Exactly.

 

[Jcthoma3]

I didn't say it "doesn't count", I don't even know what that means. Maybe you find belief in the supernatural irrational? What I find irrational is demanding that someone use the methods/test for the natural world to try and prove the supernatural world. Seems more than a bit illogical.

The standard that should be set for something to be considered real is evidence via repeatable tests. If something is supernatural it means that it falls outside of what is measurable and repeatable, so why would you believe in such a thing to begin with? The more extraordinary the claim the more extraordinary the evidence needs to be. If I tell you that an invisible god sent his son to earth or that an illiterate middle eastern man all of a sudden had god's world revealed to him, you should require much evidence before you believe something so out of the realm of what we have observed. Those would would dismiss such claims after no evidence turned up don't need to prove that such nonsense could not have possibly happened. The burden of evidence falls on the person making the claim. There is no different standard with which to judge these "supernatural" claims.

 

[WhippleWhileWeWork]

The standard that should be set for something to be considered real is evidence via repeatable tests.

I'll need to see the proof you've obtained by repeatable tests to prove that this should be the standard for something to be considered real.

I'd also like to see the evidence that
Ethics, love, logic, beauty, history and science
are real "via repeatable tests".

If something is supernatural it means that it falls outside of what is measurable and repeatable, so why would you believe in such a thing to begin with?

See above for things that most of us believe in that fall outside of what is "measurable and repeatable".

The more extraordinary the claim the more extraordinary the evidence needs to be.

I'll need the see the repeatable tests to make sure this claim is real and has evidence to back it up.

Your worldview collapses under the weight of its own demands.

 

[tdram]

I'll need to see the proof you've obtained by repeatable tests to prove that this should be the standard for something to be considered real.

If you don't believe that repeatable tests are the standard for deciding if something is real or not, you must not be a fan of evidence-based medicine. I'd be curious to know how you decide what treatments to use.

 

[LivingEdge]

It is a cop out. There is no reason to "believe" in anything that can't be known to our senses somehow and meticulously tested.

Do you "believe" democracy is a good thing?

 

[WhippleWhileWeWork]

It is a cop out. There is no reason to "believe" in anything that can't be known to our senses somehow and meticulously tested.

It's interesting that both of you have implied that using a logical conclusion is a "cop out" and that your own position is illogical (you can't use your senses and meticulously test that there is no reason to believe something that can't be known to your sense and meticulously tested). I don't find that very persuasive.

 

[WhippleWhileWeWork]

If you don't believe that repeatable tests are the standard for deciding if something is real or not, you must not be a fan of evidence-based medicine. I'd be curious to know how you decide what treatments to use.

Oh boy...

 

[tdram]

It's interesting that both of you have implied that using a logical conclusion is a "cop out" and that your own position is illogical (you can't use your senses and meticulously test that there is no reason to believe something that can't be known to your sense and meticulously tested). I don't find that very persuasive.

It seems to me that your argument is that you can't prove something because there's no such thing as proof. Not a very logical argument if you ask me.

By your logic, I could make something totally random up, claim it's supernatural, and you'd have to agree that it could be true.

 

[tdram]

Oh boy...

Haha

 

[WhippleWhileWeWork]

It seems to me that your argument is that you can't prove something because there's no such thing as proof.

Edit: Ignore list to clean up this thread a little. Strawmans and poor understanding grow boring and tedious.

 

[tdram]

No, that's not my argument. Read it again, and again, and again.

Nope, it's pretty much exactly what you're saying.

Your claim is that the supernatural is outside our perception therefore we can't find proof. Well the burden of proof is on you, the one making the claim that the supernatural exists, and since you have stated that we can't sense it, then you've effectively said that it doesn't exist since you can't possibly prove it. Sorry.

 

[tdram]

No, that's not my argument.

You should be happy I found an argument this time. Your argument is usually just you saying something really convoluted to try to confuse people, which actually means nothing when you analyze it

 

[tdram]

It's interesting that both of you have implied that using a logical conclusion is a "cop out" and that your own position is illogical (you can't use your senses and meticulously test that there is no reason to believe something that can't be known to your sense and meticulously tested). I don't find that very persuasive.

You actually don't have logic. If you can't sense the supernatural, then you can never have any proof that it exists. Belief is not proof. I can "believe" all I want that you're a murderer, but unless I have some evidence that can be analyzed by us humans, I can't send you to jail. See the difference? I can't just tell the judge that the evidence is outside our perception in the supernatural. Without proof, you can't logically reason that something exists. Therefore, as far as we're concerned it doesn't exist. Show us some proof and we'll change our minds. Until then the null hypothesis stands.

Edit: If I was to start accepting things as real that I couldn't find proof of, I'd have to accept literally everything I dream up or hear because I'd have no way to know what really does or doesn't exist. If I chose to accept one "truth" but not another, that would be pretty arbitrary, wouldn't it?

 

[WhippleWhileWeWork]

n/m

 

[Jcthoma3]

Do you "believe" democracy is a good thing?

That depends on what we agree should be the purpose of government.

 

[WhippleWhileWeWork]

That depends on what we agree should be the purpose of government.

But what is purpose, is it real? Can you test for it? Where's the evidence to suggest that purpose is real?

 

[Jcthoma3]

But what is purpose, is it real? Can you test for it? Where's the evidence to suggest that purpose is real?

Lol. Purpose is not something that needs to be supported by evidence. It is a subjective concept and defined by people. Evidence is necessary when we make objective claims.

 

[Jcthoma3]

I'll need to see the proof you've obtained by repeatable tests to prove that this should be the standard for something to be considered real.

I'd also like to see the evidence that
Ethics, love, logic, beauty, history and science
are real "via repeatable tests".


See above for things that most of us believe in that fall outside of what is "measurable and repeatable".


I'll need the see the repeatable tests to make sure this claim is real and has evidence to back it up.

Your worldview collapses under the weight of its own demands.

lol what do you mean? Ethics, love, and beauty are all subjective concepts. No one is saying this or that or that is objectively ethical, or this or that person is objectively more beautiful, or this or that person's love is objectively more real. With the history and science thing I don't think I understand. Science and history are defined by what we can prove. History is a little more blurry. You have to consider your sources and how reliable they are. Science though is literally defined by what is repeatable. lol. My wold view is that nothing should be believed as real or true without evidence. I'm not understand where that collapses under it's own demand.

 

[WhippleWhileWeWork]

If you don't believe that repeatable tests are the standard for deciding if something is real or not, you must not be a fan of evidence-based medicine. I'd be curious to know how you decide what treatments to use.

You must have missed where I listed several things that were real and yet they have no repeatable tests. Did you miss that? Because it was literally the next text under what you quoted, I'm not sure how you missed it. It's almost as if you took something out of context and built a silly straw man, but that would be out of character for you.

It seems to me that your argument is that you can't prove something because there's no such thing as proof. Not a very logical argument if you ask me.

No, you "seem" incorrectly. If you can't understand something or don't understand something you should try asking a question. Notice that you quoted me pointing out the logical inconsistently of someone else's claim and then implied that somehow I made a claim about proof and proving things. In other words, you completely made up this "argument" out of thin air.

Nope, it's pretty much exactly what you're saying.

Your claim is that the supernatural is outside our perception therefore we can't find proof. Well the burden of proof is on you, the one making the claim that the supernatural exists, and since you have stated that we can't sense it, then you've effectively said that it doesn't exist since you can't possibly prove it. Sorry.

Please quote me saying that "the supernatural is outside our perception therefore we can't find proof". Your only real skill seems to be reconstructing arguments in a way that you can understand them, however incorrectly. You then used your previous straw man from your "seeming" above. This is my issue with you, you don't understand things but instead of asking you just rattle off more posts with silly positions that no one is taking.
Here again, since you don't seem to understand even the most basic flow of argument...
Here was the claim:
1c: There is no reason to "believe" in anything that can't be known to our senses somehow and meticulously tested.
Notice the use of "and" not "or". "known to senses" AND "tested". Not "known to senses" OR "tested". Got it? Good.

My counter claim:
1r: You can't use your senses and meticulously test that...... "there is no reason to believe something that can't be known to your sense and meticulously tested".
In other words, the demands of the claim sink the claim.

Notice, my argument and what you think my argument are are not even in the same zip code. As usual.

You should be happy I found an argument this time. Your argument is usually just you saying something really convoluted to try to confuse people, which actually means nothing when you analyze it

Most of what you are calling my "arguments" are actually just counterclaims to your claims.(or arguments that you've made up and credited to me) You again try to imply motive (trying to confuse people)? Just like your emotions last time, if you get confused, that's your issue as I'm not trying to confuse anyone, what I'm doing is trying to point out the inconsistency of some of these statements. If you can't understand that, then move on, but trying to paint my responses as intentionally "confusing" or "trying to piss me off" or whatever you're going to say next is really quite pointless.

You actually don't have logic. If you can't sense the supernatural, then you can never have any proof that it exists. Belief is not proof. I can "believe" all I want that you're a murderer, but unless I have some evidence that can be analyzed by us humans, I can't send you to jail. See the difference? I can't just tell the judge that the evidence is outside our perception in the supernatural. Without proof, you can't logically reason that something exists. Therefore, as far as we're concerned it doesn't exist. Show us some proof and we'll change our minds. Until then the null hypothesis stands.

I never said "you can't sense the supernatural", you said I said that, but I did not. I don't even know what that means. The rest of this spew is more of the same, you build a straw man and burn him down. It's old and boring by now, this is why I chose to stop engaging you a week ago. I came back to this thread to engage someone who quoted me, and yet somehow this page filled up with no less than 6 posts from you quoting me. Exchanges with you are neither challenging or interesting, they are just tedious and frustrating because you don't seem to understand much of anything I'm saying. I think this thread would be better off if you'd stop interjecting with these pointless diversions of your own creation.

 

[tdram]

You must have missed where I listed several things that were real and yet they have no repeatable tests.

Ethics, love and beauty are not "real". They're just subjective concepts in your head. Of course you can't test them. You clearly don't understand what "real" means.

I don't understand what you're saying, because what you're saying only makes sense in your own head.

Anyway I'll just let you and JC continue your debate. We've had enough.

 

[WhippleWhileWeWork]

Lol. Purpose is not something that needs to be supported by evidence. It is a subjective concept and defined by people. Evidence is necessary when we make objective claims.

lol what do you mean? Ethics, love, and beauty are all subjective concepts. No one is saying this or that or that is objectively ethical, or this or that person is objectively more beautiful, or this or that person's love is objectively more real. With the history and science thing I don't think I understand. Science and history are defined by what we can prove. History is a little more blurry. You have to consider your sources and how reliable they are. Science though is literally defined by what is repeatable. lol. My wold view is that nothing should be believed as real or true without evidence. I'm not understand where that collapses under it's own demand.

I want to remind you of your claim, below.

The standard that should be set for something to be considered real is evidence via repeatable tests. If something is supernatural it means that it falls outside of what is measurable and repeatable, so why would you believe in such a thing to begin with?

Purpose, ethics, love, beauty, are all real, yet they fail to meet the demands of your claim.
Science (the scientific method) starts with several base assumptions (reality is rational, consistent and knowable, etc) but you can't collect data on those assumptions through repeatable tests. So "science" also fails to meet the demands of your claim.
History is real but it also can't be tested in the way your claim demands.

 

[Jcthoma3]

I want to remind you of your claim, below.



Purpose, ethics, love, beauty, are all real, yet they fail to meet the demands of your claim.
Science (the scientific method) starts with several base assumptions (reality is rational, consistent and knowable, etc) but you can't collect data on those assumptions through repeatable tests. So "science" also fails to meet the demands of your claim.
History is real but it also can't be tested in the way your claim demands.

Those things AREN'T real in an objective way though. WE give those things their meaning. Science doesn't care about our meaning. Things fall towards each other. Like charges repel. Opposites attract. The crusades happened. China is on the other side of the world. Those are things for which there needs to be evidence (there obviously is). The things you mention don't require evidence because we aren't claiming anything objective about them. We give them their meaning and definition.

 

[WhippleWhileWeWork]

Those things AREN'T real in an objective way though. WE give those things their meaning. Science doesn't care about our meaning. Things fall towards each other. Like charges repel. Opposites attract. The crusades happened. China is on the other side of the world. Those are things for which there needs to be evidence (there obviously is). The things you mention don't require evidence because we aren't claiming anything objective about them. We give them their meaning and definition.

So we'd have to conclude that science is only equipped to tell us certain things, about certain things. However there are other things that science is of little use to explain or tell us much about, correct? (ethics, love, beauty, purpose, etc)

 

[Jcthoma3]

So we'd have to conclude that science is only equipped to tell us certain things, about certain things. However there are other things that science is of little use to explain or tell us much about, correct? (ethics, love, beauty, purpose, etc)

Science can't tell us about subjective things that we made up, like God. lol.

 

[tdram]

So we'd have to conclude that science is only equipped to tell us certain things, about certain things. However there are other things that science is of little use to explain or tell us much about, correct? (ethics, love, beauty, purpose, etc)

Well these are concepts that we generate in our brains. They're not actual things that exist in the world outside of our brains. Science can explain the process of generating them (the neurotransmitters, neural pathways, etc).

 

[Jcthoma3]

Well these are concepts that we generate in our brains. They're not actual things that exist in the world outside of our brains. Science can explain the process of generating them (the neurotransmitters, neural pathways, etc).

Good point. Science can definitely tell us HOW these things work in an objective, biological sense.

 

[WhippleWhileWeWork]

Science can't tell us about subjective things that we made up, like God. lol.

And coming back around to my original argument that you quoted....Science is also not the appropriate tool to tell us much about a supernatural "object", like God.

 

[dadaddadaBATMAN]

I'll need to see the proof you've obtained by repeatable tests to prove that this should be the standard for something to be considered real.

I'd also like to see the evidence that
Ethics, love, logic, beauty, history and science
are real "via repeatable tests".


See above for things that most of us believe in that fall outside of what is "measurable and repeatable".


I'll need the see the repeatable tests to make sure this claim is real and has evidence to back it up.

Your worldview collapses under the weight of its own demands.

I think I might understand what the object of contention is here.

Whipples is placing "God" in the same bucket among the intangible and non-testable type "concepts." God is not an object, but rather a worldview/interpretation of events/whatever term you'd like. Applying scientific criteria to this type of object makes little sense, any more than objectively testing the reality of "science" or "ethics" makes sense.

Other posters are considering God to be a physical being, force, or other construct. They therefore apply the same criteria to measuring such as they would to any other physical force/being, etc. They find no evidence of God's existence.

 

[dadaddadaBATMAN]

And coming back around to my original argument that you quoted....Science is also not the appropriate tool to tell us much about a supernatural "object", like God.

This is actually many posts back now, but I would point out that while science and ethics cannot be tested, the outputs can be. I can test how precise a person's response is to a specific ethical situation, or how consistent scientific tests are.

The same can be done for religion, and find significant heterogeneity. This certainly doesn't make it "wrong," it simply makes it inconsistent.

 

[WhippleWhileWeWork]

I think I might understand what the object of contention is here.

Whipples is placing "God" in the same bucket among the intangible and non-testable type "concepts." God is not an object, but rather a worldview/interpretation of events/whatever term you'd like. Applying scientific criteria to this type of object makes little sense, any more than objectively testing the reality of "science" or "ethics" makes sense.

Other posters are considering God to be a physical being, force, or other construct. They therefore apply the same criteria to measuring such as they would to any other physical force/being, etc. They find no evidence of God's existence.

Thanks for your thoughts on this, and this is certainly part of the communication problem. But I'd like to point out that I'm using a word, and that word has a definition, and by definition it falls outside of the realm of what the scientific method is intended for and is useful for. I honestly don't understand how anyone is confused on or would contest this point. (not you) I'm only making the most basic of logical connections between the definition and a consequence of that definition.

su·per·nat·u·ral
[soo-per-nach-er-uh

l, -nach-ruh

l] Show IPA
adjective
1.
of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.

 

[dadaddadaBATMAN]

Thanks for your thoughts on this, and this is certainly part of the communication problem. But I'd like to point out that I'm using a word, and that word has a definition, and by definition it falls outside of the realm of what the scientific method is intended for and is useful for. I honestly don't understand how anyone is confused on or would contest this point. (not you) I'm only making the most basic of logical connections between the definition and a consequence of that definition.

su·per·nat·u·ral
[soo-per-nach-er-uh

l, -nach-ruh

l] Show IPA
adjective
1.
of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law orphenomena; abnormal.

Maybe part of the question is whether "supernatural" is a viable category at all: I think this is a part of the assertion put forth by the other posters.

There is an issue with such a category: it is possible to reclassify anything as "supernatural," and thus give it a status beyond argument or further examination. I would venture a guess that you might find such an argument trivial in other contexts.

As you (or perhaps I'm remembering another poster?) have pointed out on numerous occasions, legitimate religions and faiths rarely stifle questioning. Rather, they welcome it, along with acknowledgement of the limitations of human knowledge and ability. If this seems valuable to you, then why would you resort to an argument that only exists by defining itself beyond examination?

To me, this ability to question a faith/religion helps distinguish religions from cults.

I apologize for the convoluted language and poor sentence structure, and I will clarify if needed. At the moment I prefer to be lazy, so I'm not going to edit.

 

[WhippleWhileWeWork]

Maybe part of the question is whether "supernatural" is a viable category at all: I think this is a part of the assertion put forth by the other posters.

I don't know what you mean by "viable category". It seems viable enough that the majority of man for the majority of known history has accepted it as a category and that we're talking about it now. Then again I could be way off on what you mean by that phrase.

There is an issue with such a category: it is possible to reclassify anything as "supernatural," and thus give it a status beyond argument or further examination. I would venture a guess that you might find such an argument trivial in other contexts.

I don't think that's true and I've never seen that as an actual argument. There seems to me to be a great many things, most things, that can not be reclassified as supernatural. I could be missing something here though.

It's also not correct to link supernatural with a status beyond argument or further examination. God and his existence has been argued for millennia, the entire field of apologetics is based on examination and arguing for or against the claims and truths about the supernatural.

As you (or perhaps I'm remembering another poster?) have pointed out on numerous occasions, legitimate religions and faiths rarely stifle questioning. Rather, they welcome it, along with acknowledgement of the limitations of human knowledge and ability. If this seems valuable to you, then why would you resort to an argument that only exists by defining itself beyond examination?

I think my argument is being mischaracterized.
Again, I've never tried to say that the supernatural is beyond examination, I've been very careful with my language. I've argued that the scientific method has little or nothing to say about the supernatural, by definition as others have demanded that we adopt the scientific method to "prove" God's existence. I find this highly illogical and a non-starter. (as I've demonstrated using the definition of the word)
One of those limitations of human knowledge and ability is trying to "test" for the supernatural, in my view.

Most conversations about God, historically, have been relegated to the realm of philosophy, for good reason. This new demand for scientific proof for everything is self contradicting to me.
"The only things that I'll accept to be true must be proved by the scientific method"
"Ok, prove that the scientific method is the only way to determine truth"
"...."

There are things like the archaeological record and the eyewitness accounts recorded either in the historical record or the bible that we can look to for evidence, but these are not "proof" as is being defined in this context. However, they are examined and they are argued.

To me, this ability to question a faith/religion helps distinguish religions from cults.

I'm all for questioning beliefs and assumptions, but I'm not for unreasonable demands that make little sense to me.