I continue to feel insulted at the attempted application of science to the question of God.
I would not go out of my way to apply science to the question of supernatural creatures if so many religionists, at least here in the USA, were not trying to apply their preposterous religious bullshit to the question of science. We recently had an entire state government briefly forced to treat so-called "creation science" as though it were a respectable scientific theory
in children's schoolbooks. This is not something that we can afford to politely sit around and watch happen.
You choose your beliefs, allow me mine. As long as I don't try to ram my beliefs down your throat, what do you care if I believe that your dog and parrot are conspiring to take over the world and enslave you?
That would be a perfectly lovely situation, but it is not the one in which we are living, at least here in the USA and in much of the world. Two enormous factions of religionists, the Christians and Muslims, "believe" that it is their sacred duty to force their beliefs on the rest of us. Evangelical religion is not something that can simply be brushed off graciously in the name of tolerance, because evangelical religionists
do not "believe" in tolerance. If you're not a Christian or a Muslim, then I have no quarrel with you. At least not a rigorous one who believes that violating the rights of the rest of us is justified by the need to save us from Hell. But many Americans are Christians and Muslims and do believe that violating our rights is justified, and I insist with extreme and righteous prejudice that they fuck off because that belief in their right to violate my rights is incompatible with the American way of life.
Next you'll say that philosophy is useless because it can't be examined properly using the scientific method.
No, I won't say that philosophy is useless. I might say that philosophy is useless in the context of scientific inquiry, except that it is clearly not. Philosophy is like mathematics, a tool that can be used in the service of science. Logic is philosophy, in fact in many universities the Philosophy 101A course is Logic because if you don't understand and practice logic you won't be much of a philosopher. Many of the principles that comprise the scientific method are grounded in logic, such as the Rule of Laplace (extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence) and Occam's Razor (it's sensible to always investigate the simplest hypothesis first). In fact my statement in my previous post of the fundamental principle upon which science and the scientific method are based is a philosophical statement.
Belief is accepting something as true regardless of evidence or lack thereof.
Yes. But accepting something as true without evidence is irrational faith, whereas accepting something as true with evidence is at least rational faith and at most proper science.
I can point to nature as proof of God. . . .
Huh? Not in a place of science you bloody well can't, even assuming you meant to say "evidence" rather than "proof." You'd be saying that the existence of the natural universe is dependent on the existence of supernatural forces, and unless you've succeeded where hundreds of generations of your religionist ancestors have failed you have no evidence of the existence of supernatural forces, much less of their ability to affect the natural universe.
. . . . and the response is that God is not a prerequisite for nature, and really both statements are true and valid, because nature does not preclude God.
Your logic is getting inscrutable there. Could you possibly restate that? It doesn't really make sense.
You believe in only what can be proven. . . .
You don't understand science if that's what you think. Nothing can be proven in science. Things can only be disproved. A correct statement of my philosophy is that I do NOT believe in things for which there is no evidence. This is the second time in your post that you have muddled the distinction between proof and evidence, and I begin to wonder if you really understand the difference.
. . . . and yet you believe in things that you can only see the effect of. This is different how, exactly?
You've lost yourself in your own muddle. The correct statement of my philosophy is that I do not believe in things for which there is no evidence, and I accept as
true beyond a reasonable doubt but not infallibly true things for which there is evidence of weight commensurate with the extraordinariness of their nature. There is no inconsistency there. Again, it's not the way this element of the scientific philosophy is customarily stated but there's still nothing remarkable about it.
