Theists, Do you prefer supernatural beliefs to natural explanations?

The answer to your question is virtually resolved( in your mind) by your own preamble, so why bother to ask I wonder?

Even to attempt to deal with so many invalid propositions and presumptions would be kind of futile as you already have declared your hand.

Nevertheless a plain answer is that natural or supernatural are simply gradations of scientific knowledge.

What is outside our experience or replicability we automatically call " supernatural, magic or miraculous". Most of present day scientific discoveries fell into such categories only one or two generations ago.

With your superior knowledge ,intellect and youth you should already be aware of such parameters.

The problem is that scientific enquiry limits itself by interposing foregone conclusions as you have done in your presumptuous preamble.

In order to expand knowledge, discovery and human intellect we have to exercise our Super -natural " faculties of imagination, vision and creativity.

It seems to me perfectly natural and scientific to enquire of the author before decimating his library and re -writing His knowledge to suit ourselves.

We are clearly made in the image of "God" however we perceive Him..Natural or Supernatural that is the way the human mind and spirit comes closer to The Author of Life. Just as we may love a work of art , literature or music the most important quest is to learn of its originator,its creator.

As I look out on an incredible winter wonder land I see not only nature but the mystical, miraculous and Super natural genius of a Perfect provider. To reduce all that to scientific jargon would be to debase the human spirit to a mere ganglion of nerves and random mutations.To me modern thinking is intellectually untenable but then I am fortunate not to have been born clever .But how grateful I am.

Since I believe God is rational and created the natural order, I prefer natural explanations for natural phenomena. But since I believe God is supernatural, I do not limit all of reality to the physical cause and effect continuum. In other words, I believe God gave us the ability (and responsibility) to understand the material world. Logic works, and is never violated in the natural order. But God can intervene directly if he chooses to do so. To me, then, a miracle is something that cannot be explained naturally. Miracles are possible, but I don't think God's existence "makes anything possible". If someone claimed to have witnessed a miracle, the first thing I would do is look for a natural explanation.

I guess this all boils down to a simple sentence. I do not believe in magic.

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Abiogenesis: Since I believe God designed the universe expressly for the generation and support of life, I'd have no problem with a credible scientific model for it. The laws of the universe could very well be such that abiogenesis is possible (although I don't see how). But that does not explain why those laws are exactly the way they are. God's creation of Life began in the very first instant of the big bang.

You need to get out of america and do some study in europe. True mysticism is something that invites and beckons you deeper into understanding each question calls out many more interesting beautiful ones. Your view of science is rather limited, unless you are hoping for a simple elegant answer like 42 and then you can take the day off. I am sure I would become frustrated if I spent too much time arguing with creationists because although I should allow them a different paradigm, a metanarrative with which we have no fused horizons, il n'y a pas dehors texte and all that, I just tend to get angry with them because they are so stupid and ignorant. But that's my stuff, I figure they are there to help me become less of an asseshole. So today I thought I'd have a go at you, no hard feelings, and take a semester in Europe visit Rome eat pasta, or try one of the parochial British universities and develop a sophisticated false accent and take up snuff sniffing and meerschaum smoking before they make it illegal. Divine trickster though I like never realized the Xtians had come up with that Cartesian defence, makes a lot of sense coz he must have had a sense of humour when he came up with us lot.

I hope your question doesn't rule out answers from other than a theist. As an atheist, yes I suppose I would like a supernatural reason for creation, simply because I would find such reason even more staggering than a natural reason since it's so very unlikely. However, in the final analysis, a natural reason might be just as difficult to prove, even with all the evidence, as is a supernatural reason with absolutely no evidence. We humans simply love to be amazed by nature and reality, and how these seem to conform to the laws and mathematics inherent in our universe without fully understanding them. We are however blessed (or cursed) with a degree of logic, and my logic tells me that the universe and all that's in it including our conscious minds, comes about by the process of natural events from an infinite void that is not nothingness. There simply isn't enough space or reason for a supernatural overseer; a complex creator derived from the imagination of primitive people. But those same primitive people were also blessed (or cursed) with the need for an explanation, so they invented many mystical accounts which have evolved into the great religions. Einstein and Darwin make logical sense, and who knows maybe M-theory will one day explain much more about nature. Super-nature however will always remain beyond the imagination of logical minds.

Modern science and atheism are hard to reconcile with each other.

Darwin`s evolution 30 years ago seemed to be proven, but now it is bankrupt based on the micro evolution we have today.The "Big Bang" theory limits the universe in time and space:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_th%E2%80%A6

also the "Big Bang" experiment will be finished in 2010 !

The theory of the relativity of Albert Einstein has the definition of eternity, and then if the universe is not eternal what is eternal ?

If it was God ,God would be eternal.God always was is and will be and nobody created God

I prefer both. It is an interesting point of view you show, and I agree that learning about something is more exciting then simply saying "God did it". However, there are many things that the scientific community proposes that are too "chance-like". Meaning there's no explanation of how a single stroke of chance lead to it, out of thousands to millions of other chances. So 1/1,000,000 chance this happened? What was the catalyst that allowed it? There are many of the proposed concepts that have this sort of probability, and to me, without any explainable catalyst, I personally, have no other option but to venture towards some form of intervention from somewhere.

However, I do believe that if God put us here, we should learn about our world and understand it as completely as we can in a fully scientific fashion. Nothing prevents us from doing such, and no one should put all their stock into one section of life, learn your surroundings, and learn about your planet.

1) Theists, Do you prefer supernatural beliefs to natural explanations?

No. In my experience, all validated natural explanations confirm or, at the very least, coincide with my supernatural beliefs.

2) What I wanted to know was whether theists would find a natural explanation to, let's say, abiogenesis, more satisfying than their supernatural belief.

Again: I see no difference, personally. God created life from "earth" using the tool of abiogenesis - a tool that he created? Fine with me. God created life from "earth" the same way that a potter creates a fancy-schmancy porcelain "vas"? Fine with me.

Jim, http://www.bible-reviews.com/

Abiogenesis is actually the explanation of God's creation. In Genesis 1:9 - 12 it seems to state that abiogenesis is exactly the cause of the first forms of life:

And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds....

I believe that the more we study nature through scientific investigation, and the greater we develop our understanding of theology, the closer we come to uniting the science and theology.

Of course they do, however abiogenesis is not widely accepted, however Its much better than saying god did it.

nature comes from God