Replies

“So therefore it is a religious conference and not remotely scientific”

You are asserting an unsupported philosophical position that anything religious is automatically unscientific. Your assertions are also ambiguous because they blur the line between something not being science versus something being anti-science. Science is not everything. It is not the only way of knowing something. If I know something through my trust in a reliable and credible witness, I do not derive my knowledge by science; yet this is a far cry from my approach being anti-science.

For example, I know George Washington to be a historical figure, not due to scientific testing of a theory, but due to a consistent, credible, historical record in this regard.

“By definition science can only consider naturalistic explanations, this conference will be based on supernatural explanations.”

By whose definition? Science is defined by philosophy, particularly a philosophy of science. Philosophies are not derived from scientific principles but vice versa. Further, philosophies, including a philosophy of science, make axiomatic assumptions that cannot be scientifically tested. For example, causation is an assumption. It is, without any contention on my part, a reasonable assumption. But it is an assumption.

Or mathematics. Science relies on math, yet math is a logical construct not based on “naturalistic” experiments, but the reverse. Math is derived from axioms which is why math equations can be proved while scientific theories cannot.

Science must make a leap of faith to rely on simple math equations such as 2+2=4. While this equation may seem to be an obvious “truth”, it is not. Our natural experiences and scientific observations tend to support the “truth” of math, but this is not proof. Math is only proved in relation to the assumptions, not in relation to observations.

I take issue with your assertion that science can only address natural explanations. That is not true. Scientific theories are testable explanations of observable data, i.e. facts. What is observable and measurable is in the natural realm, but not necessarily the explanation.

We are all well aware of the scientific experiments which tested the popular assumptions at the time of spontaneous generation. Spontaneous generation would or at least could be a supernatural phenomenon. By showing that it was not even occurring, this possible explanation was eliminated.

This is an example of an extremely common error of logic and a frequent argument put forth by promoters of evolution. On the one hand it is argued that supernatural explanations are not falsifiable and are therefore unscientific (because they cannot be tested). On the other hand it is argued that science has disproved (i.e. falsified) some specific supernatural claim. Well, which is it? You can’t have it both ways.

It is similar with supernatural claims of the Bible, whether it is creation or the resurrection from the dead. There were eye witness accounts of people who saw Christ crucified and verified to be dead. Then subsequently these same people witnessed Him to be alive as He was present over a period of many days.

John describes the experience in I John 1 empirically: “that which we have seen, that which we have heard, and that which our hands have handled”. This is empirical evidence of what has no natural explanation. To look for some other explanation would only be for philosophical reasons in which a person is unwilling to accept that some natural events have a cause that exists outside the bounds of the laws of nature. For those who concede the possibility of this philosophically, it only matters that the resurrection of Christ is a credible historical fact as documented by eye witnesses.

The desire to find some natural explanation is not driven by science but by philosophy. The willingness to accept the evidence presented is not anti-science.