The movement against miracles was, not surprisingly, influential in the natural sciences. Simply put, if we’re not to appeal to miracles, then the world must have arisen naturalistically. This had a profound effect on the critical thinking, or lack thereof, of the time. Speculative hypotheses, with little basis in fact, enjoyed serious consideration and triumphant acceptance.
The bar was placed exceedingly low for such theories as pure conjecture became acceptable and celebrated science. Monumental scientific problems with the notion of spontaneous origins went ignored and evolutionary theories (from cosmological to biological) soon became “fact.”
Today strictly naturalistic, evolutionary, theories are a given. They simply are accepted as true, or as true as anything in science can be. And it also is a given that miracles are false. But what evolutionists prefer to overlook is that there is a causal relationship here. The latter made way for, and mandated, the former.
http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2015/06/miracles-are-glaring-problem-for.html?m=1
I don’t want to mischaracterize Intelligent Design, but…
So he knows nothing of Behe?
He does have a point about how poofs are contrary to actual explanation, however. And the poofs are so much easier than untangling complex phenomena. I mean, we could have stuck with weather gods and not bothered with meteorology, and if we would just say that life appears to have the patterns of evolution via poofs we could ignore the fossils and DNA.
Like IDists generally do, except for armchair “analysis.”
Glen Davidson
Indeed it would be, if Hunter were correct about what evolutionary theory says. But he isn’t correct about what it says (and doesn’t say).
As usual, Hunter’s over-simplification obscures really interesting and important issues. One of the deep issues he overlooks is that what happens in the 17th through 19th centuries is that our modern understanding of explanation is constructed and also contested.
Spinoza’s rationalistic argument against the logical possibility of miracles made him one of the most reviled philosophers for over a century. (As late as the mid-19th century, being accused of Spinozism was enough to get a professor dismissed at some German universities.) Hume’s empiricist argument against the reasonableness of accepting that miracles on the basis of testimony alone was also regarded as highly dangerous, though less so in 18th-century Scotland than in Spinoza’s 17th-century Netherlands.
The historical process that led to our seeing Spinoza and Hume as the heroes of the story of the Enlightenment is part of the historical process that led to our understanding that miracles are not explanations.
I would argue that this historical process is the history of cumulative success of “naturalistic” explanations. If science and engineering were not successful, they would be dismissed rather quickly.
It just occurred to me that there is an interesting disconnect between the assertion that physical bodies are mysterious in origin and at the same time rather irrelevant, considering that they exist for an infinitesimal percentage of the life of the soul. It seems to me that most, if not all, religions treat people as hermit crabs inhabiting a shell that is ultimately unnecessary and irrelevant.
The phrase “mortal coil” suggests a spiral mollusc shell. I wonder if that connection has been made before.
Yes, this thought experiment has been suggested by others:
Imagine all the things we know about, and put them into three categories: Natural Origins, SuperNatural Origins and Unknown Origins. Do this from the start of human understanding to the present day. Which categories have grown and taken from other categories. Which category remains at zero throughout time?
That’s right. It’s the success of the explanation, not any a priori assumptions, that’s doing the heavy lifting.
One thing that Ladyman and Ross get right in their book is that the really important concept is verification as criterion of epistemic significance. Neither naturalism as an a priori metaphysics, nor empiricism as an epistemological, nor verification as a theory of meaning, are what we really need — but verification as a criterion of how interesting an assertion is, is what really counts.
That’s a strain of Platonism that finds its way into Christianity through multiple vectors, including — actually quite importantly, historically speaking — Marsilio Ficino’s revival of Neoplatonism during the Renaissance against Thomism. The Pythagoreans taught that doctrine before Plato. There’s nothing like that in Thomistic Catholicism, Russian Orthodoxy, or Orthodox Judaism so far as I know.
Let’s be honest. Darwinism is a glaring problem for evolution.
That’s why it is being replaced. Gradually. By a process of natural selection.
How fitting.
Mung,
Where as religion… Just stays wrong .
Still hurting Richardthughes? Don’t rely on youtube videos as a “reliable” source for claims meant to embarrass Christians. oh, gee. Matthew mentions wise men from afar and Luke mentions shepherds from the nearby hills. BIBLICAL CONTRADICTION!
It’s ok though, I still want to like you 🙂
That empire wide census.. are you going to get to that Mung? Of course not. That would involve thinking, most skeptical of us all. Turns out your deep biblical study is at odds with most Christians. Shame they’re not as super-smart as you. Apart from basic maths, logic an other minor things.
Mung,
To be replaced by a view approximating to that widely held in 1858? How unusual.
So now you’re an expert on Roman taxation? Like you were an expert on Philo?