Excuse me Coyoteman, but Alamo-Girl did no such thing! All she suggested was that methodological naturalism is a fine tool within its proper scope; i.e., dealing with observables in physical nature. Although clearly there's more to nature than the purely physical, science has no "purchase" on questions relating to things that aren't physical (such things as information, consciousness, etc., even the physical laws themselves). You need philosophy and/or theology to engage such questions, because they are not suitable objects for scientific methodologies, dealing as they do with non-observables, or even what philosophy calls "non-existent reality." [I.e., you have "existent" reality" (the physical) and "non-existent reality" (the non-physical, yet nonetheless real). And they work together.]
The trick is to properly qualify the questions in order to determine which is the appropriate "tool set" to be used; and then to remain aware of "which hat" one is wearing -- that of the scientist or that of the philosopher/theologian. I personally think that few people can handle these distinctions as well and as honestly as Alamo-Girl.
On the other hand, I often get the impression reading you that you believe anything that is not physical or directly observable -- anything, that is, that the scientific method cannot be applied to -- simply doesn't exist. This would make you a philosopher, or even a theologian, in a certain way; but I notice you do not seem to recognize that.
Well, my two cents...FWIW.
Her comment was:
LOLOL! I laugh at the arrogance of science.And in another post she stated:What happens on this earth is insignificant over the age of the universe much less eternity.
A thing only matters if God wills it. His opinion is the only one that counts.
To God be the glory.
The most certain - and therefore, highest priority - type of knowledge for me is divine revelation.To me this is not suggesting that "methodological naturalism is a fine tool within its proper scope." It is turning one's back on science.
One who turns one's back on science has no right to opinions on science as they do not have the qualifications to justify such opinions. And if one is doing philosophy or some of those other squishy subjects, most scientists simply don't care what they have to say anyway.
On the other hand, I often get the impression reading you that you believe anything that is not physical or directly observable -- anything, that is, that the scientific method cannot be applied to -- simply doesn't exist.
Explaining or interpreting things that are not physical or directly observable involve matters of opinion or a priori belief. When opinions or beliefs differ you have no objective way of discerning among them.
It has been mentioned on one of these threads that philosophers, for example, have been debating the same questions for 2,500 years with no progress toward an answer. Why don't all of you philosophers take your debate over into the back corner of the classroom and get back to us when you actually have something?
This would make you a philosopher, or even a theologian, in a certain way; but I notice you do not seem to recognize that.
Don't talk dirty!
OUCH, that is a harsh way of putting it. God's existence would be in non-existence.
I suppose an example near at hand for what you mean would be intelligence. The problem that this is runs into is that intelligence derives its stuff from existing things. As Hume knew, existence cannot be deduced from essence. It must be the other way around. Indeed existing things are the content determinig causes of our thinking and knowing. As Gilson writes, "All real knowledges is by nature both essential and existential. Being does not come first in the sense that what comes next no longer is being. Being comes first and it stays there."
Gilson continues it a fine description of participation:
To know a thing is to be it in an intellectual way. The classical refutation of adequatio rei et intellectus which the concept is supposed to be a passive reflection of reality, entirely misses the point. It may well apply to naive essentialism, but it by no means applies to a noetic in which the knowledge of essence rests upon the vital conjunction of two acts of existing. Even abstract knowledge is not the mere copying of an essence by an intellect; it is the intellectual becoming of an actual essence in an intellectual being.
Wouldn't the distinction "possible" and "actual" be sufficient? The terms of negation work too quick to efface the participatory nature of all things.