Quote Originally Posted by John56 View Post
Wolfscout and tessa, such wonderful points, thank you.

Tom,

I am sorry to jump on the bandwagon here but it sounds like the scientist is making the same assumptions and jumping to conclusions that SOME of the Christian right is. I know many religious people who are intelligent and tolerant of all beliefs. And they do not condemn me for mine.

And how is it different to say "Evolution does not exist because it isn't in the Bible." as to say, "How can Supernatural events take place when it is not in this Chemistry book, or physics Book, or whatever"

Faith is important to everybody. And I would say tolerance is important to the world and universe as a whole.
Well said John.

Tom, the problem you have is not that religion is talking about God and the supernatural, but that these views conflict with your faith. (I am using the second most common definition of faith here, ie. Belief in something not based on proof.) If you did not believe in the supernatural being non existent without a shred of proof to back up this belief, it would be a lot easier for you to let people who do believe in it walk in their ignorance.

I personally do not believe in ghosts, and have watched documentaries that claim to offer proof. If someone actually asks me for my opinion, I will tell them that ghosts have always been proved to be something explainable when investigated by a group of scientists and magicians, yet I do not feel a need to shove this view down peoples throat, because I can also acknowledge the possibility that I am wrong.

This is the true scientific approach to a problem. I am willing to investigate what I believe and what I do not believe, and am willing to admit I do not have all the answers. There are things I know also.

Earlier you used the example of gravity in trying to poke holes in someones argument about having an open mind. I ignored this because I was sure that you knew that your argument was not a valid one. Gravity is a demonstrated fact, not a theory or a hypothesis. There are laws that govern the interaction of gravity on everything in the universe, including the totally massless photon.

Yet on a quantum level, the laws that we live by break down. Conservation of matter and energy do not apply. Gravity does not apply. Even the speed of light is no longer an effective barrier.

Can you tell me that God, if such a being exists, is not capable of interacting with the universe on a quantum level, thus producing things which appear to us to be supernatural? Just a little thought experiment, like Schroedinger's cat. Who is to say that that cat is not both dead and alive until we observe it? Current quantum theory tells us that that subatomic particle actually waits for us to open the box to check on the cat before it decides wehter or not to kill the cat. If anything smacks of the supernatural to me, it is the idea that a subatomic particle makes a decision based on what I do, yet scientific theory backs this up.

Who are we to say that the supernatural does not exist when we do not fully understand the natural?