Originally Posted By: Bill S.
Orac, you are absolutely right; I see no real distinction between saying "it has always been so" without explanation, and saying "God made it so".
May I interject and say I agree with--who was it?--Bill S, who said that much of this thread is about the philosophy of science, not about facts of science that are easily provable by experiment.

IMO, as long as we acknowledge that philosophizing is going on, this is OK. After all, as I am fond of pointing out: Philosophy is the mother of the sciences and the arts.

That being said, may I give a quote some thoughts posted, recently, in wondercafe.ca by one known to me and with whom I have much in common. The full thread is posted below. My friend calls himself PANENTHEIST. He writes:
Quote:
To be more precise on panentheism it is not supernaturalism - but religious naturalism. Here are some thoughts:

William James (1842-1910)--a Harvard professor and founder of the school of pragmatic philosophy/psychology]--said that religious belief is “the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves there to.”

Robert Wright--Journalist and scholar http://www.evolutionofgod.net/ --goes on to say, “Science has its own version of the unseen order, the laws of nature. In principle, the two kinds of order can themselves be put into harmony — and in that adjustment, too, may lie a supreme good.”
As a panentheistic unitheist, to avoid conceptualizing a man-like god who is hovering over us like a superhuman being from a comic strip, I use the code-word G.O.D. Panentheist goes on
Quote:
What is suggested is, by looking at the world as it is, one can begin a metaphysics that is open to an interactive, relational view of what is actual. It is not at all unscientific. By inspecting a physical system there is evidence for some purpose by some higher-order creative process.

This idea of emergence opens the possibility that into the process, in every nano second, some aim, higher order, is offered to push the system in novel directions.

It is only a possible push, for the world or actual entities can resist and reject the push as individuals - deny it is there. However, it has entered the system and the push becomes part of the data for the next moment in experience....
BTW, here is the link to the full discussion:
http://www.wondercafe.ca/discussion/reli...onverted?page=2


Last edited by Revlgking; 10/12/11 03:20 AM. Reason: Always a good idea!
G~O~D--Now & ForeverIS:Nature, Nurture & PNEUMA-ture, Thanks to Warren Farr&ME AT www.unitheist.org