bluegreenearth wrote: ↑Tue Jun 02, 2020 8:42 pm
If it is just an idea and not a claim, then I'm not understanding the purpose of calling it to our attention.
I do not know of the 'we/our/us' you are referring to bluegreenearth but have to ask you;
Why should ideas not be called to attention?
Theism is the idea that we exist within a creation. The idea has been brought to 'our' attentions [to one degree or another] and as such is worthwhile investigating. Especially by agnostics, who's position enables this to more likely happen.
I've already clarified that my understanding of scientific naturalism is that it does not intend to falsify theism or ascertain whether a theist outlook has any merit. So, I'm not arguing that scientific naturalism would be useful in that regard unless theism can produce empirical evidence to directly support its claims.
Then you agree with me. What follows is that any non-theists who attempts to use scientific naturalism as a device against theistic ideas, are practicing/participating in fallacy.
The Declaration:
"To presume nature is the creation of a creator is to add additional complexity where there is no reasonable justification to do so."
The declaration you referenced does not require the presumption that nature is not the creation of a creator but affirms the agnostic position. How is agnosticism in regards to the claim that nature is a creation of a creator equivalent to presuming nature is not a creation of a creator? Acknowledging where the presumption of a creator adds unnecessary complexity does not require the presumption that nature is not a creation.
My argument is that the agnostic position enables the individual to examine both ideas with equal presumption.
That the theist position (we exist within a creation) brings with it more complexity, is not a great argument against having to do so. It is a weak argument from a weak position - the position being non-theist agnostic [aka weak atheist]
To actually participate in such argument, one assumes the position of non-theist [aka atheist] and one is intellectually honest if one drops the 'agnostic' position altogether, if one is to chose the easy over the difficult.
As analogy, a Rube Goldberg machine is an unnecessarily complex device designed to perform a task that could be accomplished equally well by a significantly less complex machine. Nevertheless, the Rube Goldberg machine is the one performing the task in that situation. If only the task were observable and not the machine performing the task, scientific naturalism would declare that presuming a Rube Goldberg machine is responsible for performing the task adds unnecessary complexity where there is no reasonable justification to do so. However, this declaration doesn't need to entail the presumption that the simpler machine must have been responsible for accomplishing the task. Scientific naturalism merely acknowledges that a simpler machine is all that is required to accomplish the observed task but makes no conclusions about which machine was actually responsible.
The "machine" is the creation. Your analogy reflects something other than what you are trying to use it as analogy.
Indeed, the less complex machine you refer to is the idea that we exist within a creation, because it actually fills the gaps nicely, right here and now.
But one will be unable to see something one is not willing to look at.
What is to be done with these contradictory presumptions when neither can be demonstrated as true or false?
Whatever the individual decides. For me, I take into consideration what the evidence shows in relation to both presumptions, and there is clear enough support for the idea we exist within a creation, to hang my hat on.
What can the other presumption show me?