Autonemesis

This is just another way of stating the tautology that what has not yet been learned, is not yet learned. In what way are the laws describing natural phenomema, phenomena in and of themselves?

Afghan

This, surely, is the point: natural laws are not natural phenomena, therefore they are not part of nature. They are not observable, they are inferable from natural phenomena, just as the agency of gods is also inferable (falsely perhaps) from natural phenomena.

Both systems have this agency at the bottom, whether this be a system of fundamental laws or a system with more personal characteristics. So, I suppose the question is, is the degree of personality and sentiment ascribed to the underlying system the difference between an atheist and a theist? If it is, how do we quantify this personality?

Jayhawker Soule

You've said nothing but that god(s) and science are opposing attempts at explanation. One has proven increasingly useless, the other increasingly useful - all of which we can discuss in due course. For now, I'm more curious about what seems like coyness [e.g. "(falsely perhaps)"]. Do you believe that "the agency of gods is also inferable from natural phenomena"?

Rather than cleverly troll for a debate, why not simple state and argue your position?

Jobar

Afghan, I think you are confusing supernatural phenomena with subjective phenomena.

Our human ability to create abstract patterns, like words and numbers, is not supernatural. Extremely complex, oh yes- but not magical in the least. The laws of nature are simply our descriptions of nature- as highly regimented and precisely delineated as we can make them. We must constantly test these descriptions against the wordless and numberless reality that is nature.

We do not have a truly complete and accurate description- yet. But, considering that our race has been doing science on a serious basis for only a few centuries, I think we are doing rather well at it.

I call myself an atheist/pantheist- I am not sure if you are groping for a pantheistic definition of God, which can be (somewhat imprecisely) defined as the totality/unity of reality (nature). I am aware that this has its problems- 'God is everything' is semantically equivalent to 'God is nothing'. If there is no God apart from nature, there may simply be no reason to use the word 'God'.