If a religious person came home to a broken window and found a baseball within the broken glass, would they count the baseball as potential evidence the same way scientist's would?
Some say that religious people and scientists have different definitions for evidence. It looks as though there is common ground. Can't we build off this common ground to refine our definition of evidence?
PaulCyp
Favorite Answer
Why wouldn't they? True religion and true science are completely compatible.
JSGeare
Key word: "potential." Turns out the glass was broken when a bird flew into it. Little Tommy, hearing the noise, ran into the house to investigate. When he saw the mess, he dropped his ball and glove to the floor, and started picking up the glass. And just then, Mommy came home . . .
Mommy was suspicious that Tommy and his playmates were responsible for the broken window. Hands on hips, she points at the mess and reminds Tommy that she told him NOT to play ball near the house. Tommy swears he did not, that something else was the cause. In fact, he reports, he ran in because he thought maybe someone was trying to break in.
But Mommy asks why, then, is that baseball sitting right on the glass? Tommy says "I just put it down there."
Mommy grounds Tommy for 3 days, not because of the glass, but because Tommy LIED.
But just then, Mr. Wizard, the friendly but eccentric scientist from next door, appears on the scene. He, too, heard the breaking glass. "I vas verking on ze nooglear reactor ven I heard ze noise!" he said. Mommy explained the situation. Tommy, through welling tears, protested that he was not at fault.
Mr. Wizard looks over the zituation. He asks if everything is just as it was when Tommy came in; the position of the baseball in particular. Tommy says he picked up a few big pieces of glass, but otherwise everything was the same.
Mr. Wizard then explains that the baseball was NOT the cause. Why? Because? Because the mass of the spheroid would have kept it moving after it broke through the glass, although at a slower speed. Newton's first law! Therefore the baseball should have hit the floor and rolled somewhere else in the room. Momentary impact by a large bird, however, could have broken the glass, yet left no immediate evidence, especially if the bird flew away.
And that's when Tommy looked down and saw a small feather.
Not hard to find common ground on this one; material circumstances take material evidence. But the subject matter of religion is in great part not material at all; it exists in the world of ideas, concepts, philosophy. Material evidence, the stuff of science, simply doesn't work here. But that leaves theoretical physics, in which the action of particles and forces also defy collection of physical evidence, but rather rely on correlative data and derived theories of explanation expressed primarily as formulas on blackboards (and in computers). Here, perhaps, science and religion may once again run more in parallel because the subject matter is ephemeral. In a world where the seemingly improbable is more common than ever imagined, there might be some more head room for rational discussions of God. And THAT statement, itself, is just an idea.
Anonymous
Let's look at the evidence.
1) broken window.
2) broken glass inside the house
3) baseball sitting on the broken glass.
Can you take that evidence and come to a logical conclusion?
Can you come to the correct conclusion?
There is a difference.
Possibility 1) Someone was playing ball and knocked or threw a baseball through the window.
Possibility 2) Someone broke the window from the outside and placed the baseball on the glass to confuse you.
Which is it?
David F
I like the word "potential" (evidence).
The unbiased CSI agent (analogy: agnostic) would say "it appears the window was broken, by the ball, but ... this could have been staged..., the baseball player may have been framed."
A thiest with childlike faith, yet failing to exercise the mind God gave them, would say "I believe the ball was thrown through the window, even though I didn't see the batter or pitcher"
An atheist might say "It's random chance and only coincidence, that there is a ball and broken glass. Wait a few billion years, and the broken glass will organize itself into a window pane. - I demand proof there was a pitcher, before I believe the ball broke the glass".
A theist, using both faith and intellect, would seek out the pitcher or batter.
A polytheist would believe a whole baseball team was responsible.
Occam's Pitbull
Yes, but that is something that can be demonstrated in reality, unlike religious claims. Also, the more extraordinary the claims, the more extraordinary the evidence needs to be. Christians will often say that miracles occur, but can only provide second or third-hand anecdotal accounts of them; if anecdotal accounts aren't good enough in natural investigations, why would they be good enough to justify the supernatural? The baseball is telling in itself, but it is also good enough in this case: no one is claiming that 'also, the baseball was thrown by Jesus'. We can be pretty sure - never 100 percent (absolute truths are next to impossible) - that the baseball broke the window. Proving anything beyond that, like who threw it and why, would require additional evidence that we don't have. Same goes for supposed miracles - we can prove that someone who had cancer is now cancer-free, but proving why is another story. We know it sometimes goes into remission on its own - claiming God did it doesn't make it a miracle unless the direct action of a god can be demonstrated in reality through evidence.