"1. a Creator of the sort described in the various religious traditions humans have espoused cannot be described, defined, or subjected to testing on an empirical basis"
I like science. I am very interested in the scientific method, as long as it seeks The Truth of any matter.
When a particular element is left out of any research, then the conclusion Can Be called into question.
Scientifically there is inductive and deductive reasoning. We do not need to PROVE there is a God by testing or endeavoring to define Him.
As rational human beings we can perceive when an object has been well designed. Sometimes we are even able to distinguish the particular designer by looking at the form of the design.
The more I learn of humans, trees, grass, stars, the planets and what is on some of the planets, I perceive a very detail oriented design from one who thinks at such depth it is beyond our comprehension. The convoluted interconnectedness of all of this speaks so loudly of A Designer.
I wonder why we could not have scientific discussions that just take God as a GIVEN? We have all sorts of GIVENS that are much less pervasive and profound.
We don't even define particular GIVENs. They are just ACCEPTED.
We have Euclidian Geomety and Non-Euclidian Geometry.
Let us have Scientific Enquiry that Includes a possible vector from a Designer. To be tolerant let us name this the Non- Accident Scientific Method.
Don't you get tired of all these Scientific Pronouncements claiming something happened because of an accident. Isn't that a cop out.
Have a good day.
when you begin from the belief that every phenomenon, even diametrical opposites - health and illness, beauty and ugliness, efficiency and inefficiency, organization and entropy, diversity and specialization, excellent design and shoddy design - all point, equally and in themselves, to the self-same Creator, there is simply no way to communicate with you on the matter: When you look at things through a lens which assumes that all discrepancies can be waved off by citing a mysterious deity, you set up a shield against rational discourse which is, bluntly, more effective and impermeable than that offered by the angriest scorned teen on PMS.
"GodDidIt" may be true.
However, by answering everything, it explains NOTHING.
It neither defines nor suggests process nor mechanism, includes within its universally broad "applicability" an inutility to define what events are natural versus which have been guided or altered, and cannot EVER be subjected to measurement, modelling, prediction, or testing. That being so, how can a scientific METHOD be crafted to explore "non-accidental" phenomenology?
For one final time, in the probably vain hope that you will at last absorb the data and accept it as an honest definition of a limit of science:
EMPIRICISM CAN NOT ASSESS A DIVINE ENTITY WHO SUPPOSEDLY CAN DO ANY THING HE SHE OR IT WANTS WITHOUT LEAVING A TRACE; TRYING TO DO SO WOULD BE FUTILE, SO IT DOES NOT BOTHER TRYING.
Empirical science is, by its absolute nature, concerned ONLY and EXCLUSIVELY with what can be measured and tested.
SCIO is the province of empiricism.
CREDO is a matter of faith.
One may be true and the other false.
By some ultimate standard:
BOTH might be false.
BOTH MIGHT BE TRUE.
But by practical standards, the two cannot mix.
"It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense and can't see things as they are."-G.K. Chesterton