Thanks for your reply.
I’ve watched and studied this debate for many years, and have resolved it to the presupposition and the foundation of modern scientific inquiries.
Materialism/Naturalism et al, is the foundation for virtually all science.
I have watched as more and more theories invoke “meta-physics” in order to resolve the problems they themselves uncover.
They try to use reason and logic to explain why reason and logic are a material deconstruction of atoms and molecules.
It is a trap of predestination.
“My mind is and my thoughts are a function of the physical connections in my brain, these connections and thoughts are out of my control”. There is no free will and no free thought for that matter.
Yet they use this supposedly “evolved function” to explain how we evolved.
They want their mind to be free to explain why your mind is not free.
People should read your post. I believe you hit the nail on the head. It’s not evolution, how long is a day, can we trust the measure of half-life, etc. Materialism is the problem. Used to be Newton got the brunt of it, then Darwin and Marx, then Einstein in slightly different form, now not anyone in particular. But a certain kind of religiosity, not present in all believers, nor in equal amounts among those who have it, when presented with a materialistic worldview—not necessarily to the exusion of anything outside, just when whatever may or may not lay behind the veil of tears is systematically ignored—feel themselves trapped in an airtight casket. The idea of a watch wound long ago, unwinding in perfect order, gears moving gears as predetermined by their placement at the beginning, suffocates them.
Likewise, lots of scientists and areligious—or antireligious—types feel any reference to a world beyond the physical is the first step on the road to madness. Not all, obviously. Too many are religious to make a rule out of it. But this is what’s behind Einstein’s “finite but unbounded,” which when you think about it makes no sense, but is all about cutting out the metaphysical. And this from a guy who rejected a whole branch of physics, quantum mechanics, in part because of what he thinks Gid wouldn’t do.
They don’t want to think about what’s out there, physicists. It’s irrelevant to their work. So they cut the physical off. It’s its own thing. And it’s unbound, which can only mean there’s nothing on the other side of it. Or at least that we’re going to pretend like there isn’t.
But these are only the extremer forms. Most people who believe in science, to whatever degree, aren’t strict materialists. A little materialism doesn’t imply all materialism. Just because you think we can accurately measure radioactive decay does not doom you to think that given the initial conditions of the physical universe and all the laws of physics you could predict every future material event, down to what I had for breakfast.
Likewise, if you admit that physical reality is bound, and that maybe there’s something on the other side, you won’t automatically go mad.