> > That's because choosing the supernatural explanation after running out of natural explanations amounts to saying, "Well, we looked really hard for a way to explain this, but nothing's come up yet, so we'll just say it can't be explained and be done with it." If you can't solve a problem, you wait for more methods and wisdom to come along. It make take a very long time, but you don't give up and say that the supernatural explanation is plausible.
>
> Please say you didn't mean to write this paragraph this way. The argument you provided is a prime example of the problem the first paragraph mentions. It assumes a priori that the supernatural is not a viable explanation. That is a statement taken on faith.

I'm not sure what you mean by a 'viable' explanation. If you mean one that is consistent with other knowledge and explanations, then choosing a supernatural explanation of something is about as viable as you can get. By saying that something doesn't follow natural laws, you have *no* chance of arriving at a contradiction with knowledge of the natural world.

I didn't mean viable. I meant plausible according to one's reason. And, of course, everyone reasons differently, and has a different view of the natural workings of the universe. If you thought that God was provably a natural part of the universe (I personally don't, but I'm not saying that my reasoning is any better than anyone else's), it would most definitely be in your right to accept as a plausible explanation what I might consider implausible. This is definitely not an absolute term.

> Science makes no claims about the universe; if empirical data lead to a supernatural explanation, so be it.
>

I think we must have a terminology problem here. I would use 'empirical' in the following sense: "Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment." (from www.dictionary.com)

If we can verify or prove a natural law (which is all that science deals with), then there must be a natural mechanism which causes it. If no natural explanation has been formulated for a phenomenon, that doesn't mean that the empirical data leads to a supernatural explanation. It just means that no natural explanation has been found *yet*. To say such data leads to a supernatural explanation is to say that not only do we not have a natural explanation, but it is provable that no such natural explanation could exist. I'm not even sure such a proof would be possible.

> Same with discussing the definition of 'supernatural.' Initially assuming there is no supernatural, the supernatural must instead be labeled as something natural we do not yet understand. There is no call to do so otherwise.
>

This is probably the same point, and I may have messed up the terminology in the last post. In some places, I should have replaced 'supernatural' by 'believed to be supernatural'. 'Supernatural' doesn't mean not *yet* understood by natural laws, it means not understandable by natural laws, period. Thus, not only have supernatural phenomena not been verified, they can not be scientifically verified even in principle. Of course, you're free to say that something can be verified through faith and introspection alone. And no one has any right to say that's invalid. Just don't call it science.

--gremlinn