FacePalm of the Day - Debunking Christianity: Should Science Be Viewed As a Metal Detector?

Apparently John Loftus' last post on science and religion provoked enough of a response that he felt that he needed to post another in response to someone who disagreed with him.

I haven't found another blog like DC where intelligent Christians and atheists meet to debate the issues. I like it. Perhaps one of the reasons is because of comments like the one from a Keith R.:

Hi, John, I’m a long time reader and sometime commenter on DC. Of the many atheist and theist blogs that I follow I would have to say that you are the best at consistently coming up with interesting topics and arguments even though I disagree with almost everything you say.

I've heard this from others several times before. There aren't too many people out there who understand the mind of the believer and who blog on a daily basis like the writers here at DC (including Hector Avalos, Harry McCall, Jonathan Pearce, Phil Torres, and the articulate articulett). Just the same, Keith R. disagreed with my recent post, Enough of This Utter Nonsense, On Knowing the Supernatural. He wants us to think of science as a metal detector, and as such, it cannot detect anything that isn't metal. Hence, there are things that science cannot detect, supernatural things. *POOF* Therefore a trinitarian incarnational atoning resurrecting ascending and soon to be returning God exists. Get this? Neither do I.

While I would not throw Keith R out of the church for taking his position, mine is a little different. I would not say that science is incapable of telling us anything about God  I would say that science is incapable of giving us the kind of detection and evidence that Loftus thinks that he needs.

Keith (may I just use your first name?) argues that "science should be viewed as a metal detector. It does a great job of detecting metal objects just as, by analogy, science is great at studying the natural world." But it cannot detect anything else except metal, soooo, "science’s inability to detect the spiritual world because it is designed to study the physical world doesn’t mean that the spiritual world doesn’t exist or that science is to blame for not detecting it." Link.

*cough*

According to the Bible, the natural world points to God. Studying it shows us that God does exist. It is true that that you can't get the Gospel out of it, God's triunity, or the purppose for creation. That is why we have history, archaeology,  many other pieces of evidence, the Bible, and personal relationship.

I've heard a lot of analogies like these from believers. None of them show anything significant at all. What this particular analogy conjures up in our heads is the prior knowledge we have that most things in the universe are not made of metal. There is water, sand, dirt, all sorts of animals, plants, rocks, and gases. We know this. So the analogy plays with our heads precisely because we have prior knowledge that most objects in the universe are not metal. This is clearly stacking the mental deck in favor of that which Keith wants us to consider. His analogy would therefore more accurately be stated like this: If all we had was a metal detector then how can we know if non-metallic objects exist in a world where all we ever experienced are metal objects?

I'd argue that it is possible to know that the supernatural does indeed exist and those who don't experience cannot conclude that there is no God because they don't detect  God. 

So let's go back in time. The ancients agreed upon four elements in the cosmos: earth, water, air, and fire (some included Aether, the mysterious element). These elements referred to the phases of matter: earth is equivalent to solid, water is equivalent to liquid, air is equivalent to gas, and fire is equivalent to plasma. No metal is specified here. As science has progressed it has discovered 117 elements to date.

Um...excuse me. The Bronze Age is ancient times. Metal was known. And many such paradigms would consider metal to be one kind of "earth". Hasn't Loftus ever watched Avatar the Last Airbender  which is based off such conceptions.

So if Keith wants a proper analogy to science it would be an Element Detector, not just a metal detector. And what detects the elements? Our five senses, along with the many instruments scientists have produced to enhance them, beginning with the telescope and the microscope. So to put this into perspective Keith is asking if there is an element that we cannot detect with our Element Detector. Think about this, please! The only way we have for detecting elements is with our present Element Detector. If there is any other reliable way I'd like to know what it is. Faith in a private subjective experience has a proven track record of repeated failures. All we have to do is look at the difference between our reliable Element Detector compared with faith as an "element" detector seen in these two world maps.

The "Element Detector" is not just our five senses and other technological instruments. It's our perceptions and reasoning  powers - hardly reliable. The funny thing is I keep reading Loftus as saying that our minds and perceptions are flawed and easily biased  yet he loves to pretend they are good enough to conclude that there is no God.

What more can I say at this point? If there is a supernatural "element" who wants to be detected by us there is no other way but to provide our senses with objective reliable data. We cannot detect that which is undetectable. It is impossible for us to do anything different if this supernatural "element" expects us to be reasonable people.
 
By what standard doe Loftus know that he is "reasonable"? The thing Christianity posits is that without God calling us Himself, we cannot know Him. We can only know of Him.

Private subjective experiences by contrast, do not count for anything at all. Even if someone had one, he or she should doubt it as an unreliable brain fart.

It's interesting how Loftus jumps to the conclusion that something is wrong with a person if he/she experiences God but does not consider the possibility that it his faculties that have failed.

Such experiences happen during a trance-like moment of mediation, or prayer, or singing songs of worship to any and all supernatural "elements" from the beginnings of human civilization.

That's not how the Bible describes a single encounter with God. It's doesn't describe any of my  experiences or anyone I know. If this is what Loftus experienced, this might explain why he was never born again.

Just think of the trance-like state that believers would attain during the cadence-like rhythmic beating of the ancient Aztec drums as a high priest gutted a virgin on the altar, in sacrifice to Xipe Totec, so the sun would rise the next day, or the rain would come. They knew with certainty that their god existed and that he wanted them to sacrifice that virgin based on the same private subjective experiences Christians have today. Yep, the same exact ones. If this isn't what's going on in the heads of believers of all shapes and stripes, then what is?

Not the same at all. I don't have to go my own subjective experiece. God would not tell me something that would conflict with any of the messages He gave us through His Word. If my thoughts or conclusions conflict with the Bible (and that has happened), the red flag is waving. I know that I need to re-align myself with what the Word is. An Apostate is one who refuses to do that.

So it isn't the case, as Keith opines later, that his God doesn't want us to have absolute knowledge of his existence lest he force us into believing.

Many Christians take this viewpoint because they believe that God willed for humanity to choose God of our own free will without intrusive influence. While this position is not one that salvation hinges on, I don't agree. Without God we cannot choose Him. (John 6:44;Romans 8) .

The case is far far less than this. His God has not given us ANY evidence of his existence at all except for private subjective experiences and the 2nd- 3rd- 4th-handed written testimonies from ancient Christian believers who had private subjective experiences.

That is not true. We have creation. We have moral laws engraved in our minds. We have Jesus' Resurrection. We have the Bible which is extremely more reliable than Loftus likes to pretend. 

Keith simply does not think of his God as a reasonable one, for a reasonable God who wants, no demands, reasonable belief should give reasonable people what reasonable people need to believe. I am not demanding anything of God. I am a reasonable person who needs what Keith's God is not providing. I am not alone. His God doesn't even abide by the parable of the Lost Sheep. He's losing many of his sheep every day and is doing nothing objectively to keep them in the fold.

Loftus is  incorrect. No one is reasonable - at least on God's level. I want to know what makes Loftus think he is reasonable? And why does he think God owes him to provide the evidence he thinks he wants? I'd argue that if God did, it would not make a single difference in Loftus' decisions. God does abide by the Lost Sheep Parable.   To argue that God doesn't care about a single one of his sheep is to assume that there are sheep going to hell. That's not possible. God's not loosing a single sheep. John Loftus and other unbelievers should consider the possibility that maybe because they don't hear his voice is because they are not His sheep. The failure is not in God but in us. Jesus said the following:

¹⁴ “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— ¹⁵ just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. ¹⁶ I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. ¹⁷ The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. ¹⁸ No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” - John 10:14-18

And Jesus also Said.

²⁵ Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, ²⁶ but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. ²⁷ My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸ I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹ My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all^[c]; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. ³⁰ I and the Father are one.” - John 10:25-30

Debunking Christianity: Should Science Be Viewed As a Metal Detector?

FacePlant of the Day - Debunking Christianity: Enough of This Utter Nonsense, On Knowing the Supernatural

John Loftus likes to pretend that if science cannot be used to confirm something then there is no reason to there is no validity to it. He agrees that we can't trust our own perceptions, yet thinks that science is the great equalizer. Further, anyone who points out that science can't tells us everything we need to know about reality is labeled by him as a science hater. This is not true. While he claims that believers have major intellectual problems he fails repeatedly to explain how science protects him from the same problems. He also fails repeatedly to correctly explain who Jesus is and what Christians believe about Him.

A Christian commented on a recent post having to do with how science could know the supernatural:

Let's posit for a moment that the supernatural does exist. It then follows that science, which by definition focuses on the natural, would have absolutely no means to measure it or detect it. It could thus never serve as a method and no scientific protocol could ever be established to rule it out, regardless of how real the supernatural would be.

Oh my gosh, believers have just pawned us god-hating atheists now, haven't they? *Throws in the towel in defeat.* Wait, on second thought, this is utter hogwash and it should be easily seen. So here goes.



Nope. Atheism has been pawned by God through over 40 authors and a period of 1500 years.

Let's grant that science by its very nature cannot detect the supernatural, or better, a supernatural being, since that's surely what he believes. Why would it bother anyone if this is the case? I see nothing problematic about this conclusion at all. If science cannot detect a supernatural being then science cannot detect a supernatural being. It's only a problem for a particular kind supernatural being, one that wants to be detected, and/or one whom we need to detect in order to live a good life both here and later in the afterlife. Without these additional characteristics a mere supernatural being is an unnecessary hypothesis, one we can safely live without.

 So Loftus admits that if a supernatural beings is necessary to live a good life here and in an afterlife we cannot safely live without him. I can hear the objection that Loftus is talking about being able to detect such a being. The problem however is that the God of  Judaism and Christianity can be detected. More than that He says that we have no defense for concluding that He does not exist.

 ¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. - Romans 1:18-20

I'm aware that people trying to side-step this by claiming that this scripture is wrong because we don't know if God exists. I invite people to read Paul's letter more carefully. He's not claiming that people instinctively know about Jesus and the need to believe and confess by default.  Far from it.  The letter builds from the idea of just knowing that there is a God to how you can learn more about that God in detail. In the above passage, the argument is that we know God exists because we can know somethings about God from what has been made. Let me make it simple: we can know more about God from just looking a what God has created - through um science. This means you do not have luxury of unbelief.

So we need to additionally suppose that a supernatural being wants to be detected and/or that we need to detect her in order to live a good life both here and later in the afterlife. Well then, whose fault is it if we cannot detect her through science?

According to Romans 1, science can help us to know about God. Who is right? Loftus or God? Due to my own studies in science and engineering, I'd have have to believe that God is the one who is right. 

It wouldn't be the fault of science. It can only detect the detectable based on the standard rules of evidence-gathering. So if science cannot detect the supernatural and she wants detected then the fault for this state of affairs is laid clearly on her back. No one else is to blame.

No, the problem is how you have interpreted the evidence, not the evidence, nor science. The fault is in you.

⁵ Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. ⁶ The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. ⁸ Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. - Romans 8:5-8

If you are a committed atheist or have no relationship with God, Paul was talking about you. 

 In fact, it must be what she wants, even though believers have been reduced to making stupid arguments in defense of religious experience as evidence for their three-in-one incarnating atoning resurrecting God. They have been reduced to looking like fools, since William Lane Craig still has not answered my challenge regarding the so-called testimony of the inner witness of the Spirit. I don't suspect he can. I don't think any believer who accepts the inner witness of the Spirit as reliable testimony can answer my challenge. Give it a go, someone, will you?

Does anyone not get this?

Loftus, obviously doesn't get it. If one just follows Paul's argument. He starts with studying the creation - science, to consciousness and morality, and then to Jesus Christ. One who can dismiss the testimony of the Holy Spirit has never had such an experience. Given that Loftus claims to have once been a believer must have never had such confirmation which best explains his apostasy. And given that God never expects us to live on Blind faith nor on just your feelings or what you think, no Atheistic argument based on these claims work.

Let's go deeper. Let's think outside the present realities for a moment, something required when comparing any given hypotheses. The whole idea that science cannot detect the supernatural is a hindsight Christian rationalization for justifying the Christian faith due to the onslaught of modern science.

Science has never disproved the Bible.  Atheists like Loftus like to keep asserting this lie but when pressed they can't really offer up a single example. There isn't a single example. Sometimes people like to bring up macroevolution but there isn't unanimous assent to macroevolution being a fact. In fact it's still under heated debate. Sometimes people point to the order the Bible says things came into being in Genesis 1 and 2 as being in conflict with science. However not everyone agrees. Dr Hugh Ross, an Astronomer, does an excellent job in showing how this conclusion is not necessary.  

Prescientific superstitious people would never have said this, primarily because modern science had not yet arisen. Anything that could not be explained by the science of their day was considered an act of God. Their God was constantly intervening in their world, even causing the sun to rise every morning. "You want scientific evidence that God exists?," they would ask. "You can see it every single morning when the sun rises," they would answer. This was considered "scientific" evidence in the minds of believers because, as always with believers, scientific evidence is considered by them to be the lack of scientific evidence. Get it? I don't either. This is the basis for a great deal of pseudoscience, something I've written on before right here, which has gotten the 3rd highest hits at DC in seven years of Blogging.

I don't get why God is still not responsible for things that we actually understand and can predict. The more we learn through science, the more questions arise. We also know that something is holding reality together. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that everything is breaking down - tending to disorder. Yet things are still being refreshed and living things are still being born. How why? The more we look into the atom, the more smaller and smaller particles there are and the more we don't know what is holding it all together. Science is important and necessary, but it's doesn't lead us away from God.

Not only this, but if we believe the Bible then anyone who wanted scientific evidence for God would just have to sail in Noah's boat, or cross the Red Sea with Moses, or live for forty years in the wilderness on manna and be led by a pillar of smoke by day and fire by night. They could go to the circus where for an extra shekel Balaam's ass would talk, or in the booth next to it they could see Elisha's actual axe head float in a tub of water. They could follow Jesus around, or Paul, or Peter, and see blind men who were healed, and dead men who lived to tell stories about their After Death Experience (ADE vs NDE).

Yes, miracles served as empirical evidence for God. However God is still doing miracles today. Didn't Loftus ever experience a move of  God intervening in his life or someone else? I thought he said he was a Christian. If he had never experienced such why would he waste that much time as "Christian"? I'm not buying that. If I had never seen God move or intervene I would have been giving up being a Christian the first year after I was saved.

So when Christians admit science cannot detect a supernatural being what they're doing is conceding the whole argument. They're conceding science has correctly concluded that a supernatural being cannot be detected. Let. This. Point. Sink. In.

Science can't conclude that there is no God to detect because it shows evidence that there is a creator. I concede no such thing given my own education in Physics and Chemistry and that God doesn't expect me to believe Him despite the realities of science.  As a methodology for finding out about the universe science cannot be wrong, but scientists can be wrong (and have been) in the conclusions they draw.

Breathe slowly and deeply if you feel like fainting. Get some smelling salts on hand. Sit down if you must. For if science could detect a supernatural being then Christians would be crowing about it. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. Don't try to Billy Goat me to death with your endless "buts." I know them. I've used them myself in defense of an indefensible faith. There are no ifs ands or buts about this.

Funny it doesn't seem to stop atheists from crowing about lack of evidence while they shut their eyes and stick their fingers in their ears. 

To drive this point deeper, if there is a supernatural being who wants us to detect her then she could have either, 1) kept modern science from arising in the first place,

He's been using modern science. 

or 2) kept on providing scientific evidence in verifiable miracles in the same ways we read in the Bible.

Interesting that Loftus ignores the verifiable miracles we have today. Too bad. He should read more of Dr Gary Habermas' work.

Such a supernatural God could easily have kept modern science from arising merely by keeping any thought of scientific progress away from the minds of people who were close to attaining such a thought. See, that was easy. *Snap* You're now stupid.

Why would God do that? Instead God has put scientific progress in us. And he's been merciful enough to gift it to even to unbeliever too blind to appreciate God or acknowledge God.  Scientists like Isaac Newton credited God for their successes.

Or, much more interestingly, such a God could have created an earth as a flat disk in a much smaller universe just as we find described in the Bible, with the sun moon and stars created on the fourth day to revolve around the earth, with no amphibians so evolutionary science could not have arisen. If God had created the universe in six literal days then *BAM* along with other things modern science could never have arisen at all.

I don't know what's more pathetic - that Loftus thinks that the Bible teaches that the earth is flat  that that the solar system is geocentric or the possibility that Loftus may have thought that this when he thought that he was a Christian.

Christians, could your God have done this or not? Yes or no? Now then, please tell us all why the rise of modern science is a much greater value to your God then the loss of so many billions of people to hell. You do realize that modern science is one of the major factors reasonable people all over the world think your faith is bunk, don't you?

Yeah, that is why they are wrong. 

 Of course, that's why you reject the other religious faiths as well. Ahhhh, the good 'ole double standard days which will end soon, but we'll have to wait for my soon to be released book The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True.


I'm really hoping that Loftus does a better job actually describing what Christians believe in this book, because so far he has not gotten it right in his blog posts. He'd have a point if he could demonstrate that the Bible is actually wrong about something.

Isn't it funny that the more science has explained the fewer and fewer miracles believers claim to have experienced, exactly in the same way that science has disconfirmed the existence of UFO's from Mars?

Explaining day and night or the seasons or how birds fly is not the same as explaining how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead or walked on water. Don't get confused about what a "miracle" is  and isn't Science also cannot tells us the why, but it does a good job of helping us understand how.  Nothing about purpose. It's all meaningless without a designer or a creator. Science is a long way from explaining a lot of things. And what we can understand and demonstrate as true beyond a shadow of doubt points to God.

Debunking Christianity: Enough of This Utter Nonsense, On Knowing the Supernatural

Gospel According to "Supernatural" Redux

I like them show Supernatural a lot. I like the action and dialogue and even the twists and turns on mythology and legends. Unfortunately, it's take on Christian theology and the Bible is completely wrong.

Angels
The show talks about angels almost the same as demons in that angels must interact with reality by possessing a human being - with human consent. Demons don't apparently need permission to possess a human. The problem is that there is no where in scripture that tells us this about angels.

Lucifer
Lucifer made the demons and Lucifer is an angel. The Bible tells us that Lucifer and the demons are all fallen angels.

Anti-Christ
The show represents the anti-christ as one half-human and half-demon. The show even goes as far as saying the Bible is wrong that the anti-christ is Lucifer's son. No where does the Bible say anything about the anti-christ being half demonic.

Aside from a couple of miracles, the show doesn't address God at all. And Jesus is never mentioned. The show casts God as an absent father who cares nothing about his Children. He makes no intervention as the events of the show gets worse and worse - as if he never existed and even characters - humans, angels, and demons say as much. I think the show's creators are saying important things about free will and how they see who God is. It's a world view that is shared by our culture.

The Gospel According to "Supernatural"

There is this show on the CW called "Supernatural". The premise of the show is that two brothers are hunters who travel around opposing supernatural and demonic forces that hurt people. Recently, instead of bunches of stand-alone, crisis-of-the-week episodes, there has been a couple of major story lines. In the first one the brothers and their father face the demon who killed the boys' mother and in the course of it the fathers sells his soul to demon in exchange for saving the older brother, Dean's life. And at the end of season 2, Dean sells his soul in exchange for the life of his younger brother, Sam. They defeated the demon they were after who was attempting to open a gateway between hell and earth, but Dean had only a year to live before he was going to hell. At the beginning of season four, Dean's soul was freed from hell by angel, and the boys had a new mission to stop the demons from starting the Apocalypse by freeing Lucifer via opening 66 seals. At the end of the season 4, the brothers discover that the Angels lied to them. They wanted the seal broken so that Lucifer could rise and be defeated...however looking at the billions of human lives that could be killed as collateral damage. Should be an interesting season starting next September when the show continues.

Although it's enjoyable fiction. I saw the following post and I thought it brings up important questions.

Is "Supernatural" For Atheists?

I think it's important to think about what the show says about God, angels, and demons. The show presents an unbiblical view of God. It's complete fiction. God is largely silent. The angels in the show seem to be operating just like us. Many of them have approached God as agnostics because they have never seen God nor interacted with Him. Also it makes no sense that people could make deals with demons without input from God. Demons do not have power on their own. They can't do anything unless God allows it. The show depicts good and evil as equals and opposites. The Bible does not say that. God is supremely in control. And because of Jesus, Lucifer has already been defeated. It's over. We are just watching the final acts play out. God is portrayed form a deist point of view. As if He made everything and then went on vacation sentencing us all to make it up as we go. The Bible says that God is constantly and purposely working in the creation he created and as well transcends. It is supremely important that the show is fiction and if you want to know what Angels are really like and who God is, you have to study the Bible.