Science Against Magic

Last week we were on the subject of how science can’t be used to prove magic.  I think it’s only fair that this week we discuss how science also can’t be used to disprove magic.

I have seen many an argument about religion where someone will bring up the scientific problems with some miracle or another.  They will break out the math to show that there is not enough water on the Earth to cover the entire surface of the planet to prove that Noah’s flood was impossible or they will point out the problems with stopping the spin of the earth without killing everyone to prove that the sun standing still in the sky is impossible.  I always hated these arguments.  They seem completely pointless to me.

You see, we are talking about magic here.  The claim is that the fairy that created everything made it happen with his magic.  Where did all the water come from?  Magic, of course.  Where did it all go?  Again, magic.  Why didn’t people go flying through the air when the Earth stopped spinning?  Magic again.  Frankly I don’t know how these arguments even seem to confound Christians at all, but they do seem to.  Yes, the entire planet being covered with water is impossible.  I don’t need to know how many cubic meters of water there are on the planet and the surface area that water would have to cover to flood the entire world to know that no fairies ever flooded the Earth.  And if I believed that the entire planet was covered in water for 40 days because my fairy made it happen, you’re not going to convince me that it didn’t happen with facts.  Quite frankly, if I believed that I wouldn’t be much interested in facts anyway.

The argument my fellow atheists are making in this case is basically, “This magic thing could not have happened because this part of it is scientifically impossible.”  Well, it’s magic, so ALL parts of it are scientifically impossible.  The arguments you should be making are things like, “There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest a global flood ever happened.  In fact, the evidence says just the opposite” and “No historical document ever recovered has made the slightest mention of the sun ever stopping in the sky except the one that claims a fairy did it”.  If these marvelous magical events had happened there would be evidence of them somewhere other than Grimm’s Fairy Tales…er…the Bible.  There is not.  Yes, magic is scientifically impossible.  That’s why it’s called “magic” and not “the theory of magic”.

Of course, this particular flaw goes both ways, as I point out regularly.  Many Christians try to pervert science to prove that their particular fairy exists.  They do this by starting with a conclusion and any evidence they find to support it is absolute proof.  It’s really too bad that they don’t understand science better.  If they did, maybe they wouldn’t distrust it so much.  The way science works is you start with the evidence and you use that, alone, to draw what conclusions you can.  You can’t support a conclusion with evidence, you draw a conclusion based on the evidence.  This is the biggest flaw with religious pseudoscience today and, unfortunately, people have become so ignorant and distrustful of the ways of science that these pseudosciences are fooling a large percentage of the population into believing they have some merit.

More to the point, though, if there was a super powerful fairy which created our universe and which resides outside of our universe you could not prove its existence with science.  Science can only speak to our observations.  Our observations are limited to phenomena within our own universe.  Since we cannot peer outside of our own universe to where this fairy resides, we can find no evidence that it resides there, especially given that we can’t even tell where “there” might be, much less that “there” even exists at all.  Scientific method requires a “natural explanation” based on observation.  Fairy magic is not a “natural explanation”.  It is a supernatural explanation.  The very design of science precludes using magic as an answer and the very nature of a being capable of creating our universe precludes its creation from being powerful enough to detect it.  Unless, of course, it specifically made itself detectible!  Didn’t think of that, did you!  But then you have to ask, “Why?”

Why would it make itself detectible by science?  What would the purpose be?  Does it want to show itself to us?  This is ludicrous.  This is, basically, the same argument given for crop circles.  Aliens are trying to communicate with us!  Really?  Are they retarded aliens?  Do space ships come standard with the crop flattening ray, but aliens can’t afford the deluxe package to get the ship with the radio?  Is the Wing Dings font the only public domain font on their planet?  As a form of peaceful communication flattening crops to draw unintelligible symbols is pretty damned stupid.  Their society would have to have devolved into something akin to the society in the movie Idiocracy.  Likewise, a God who wishes to communicate with us would be pretty damned dumb to think the best way to do that is irreducible complexity, something most people don’t really understand and those who do mostly refer to as “bullshit”.  The idea that any god would try to communicate with us through such a strange and confusing means as science instead of just talking to us like he supposedly used to is just plain stupid.  To communicate with all of mankind he chooses a method which only a very small percentage can understand, which those who can understand only see if they want to and which those who haven’t drawn the conclusion first, then looked for supporting evidence simply don’t see…well, I wouldn’t think the smartest being in the universe would forget how to talk to its own creation.

There are no miracles any more.   There are no miracles because we have the technology to expose hoaxes.  Yes, some are still claimed here and there.  Mostly either the standard for “miracle” has either dropped so low that the fact that the sun shines counts or it happens in butt-crack-of-the-world little countries whose biggest income is…can you guess?...miracle based tourism.  Of course, they still happen in churches.  At least, that’s the claim.  I used to go to church.  I heard this claim all the time.  I’ve never seen a miracle.  And there has never been one scientifically proven either.  If God wants to communicate with us he’s sure doing a piss poor job of it.  And I’m supposed to be convinced he left some convoluted evidence of his existence in some “undisprovable” so-called science?  If he wants to show me that he exists I’m pretty sure he knows where to find me.  The idea that he left clues in science is as stupid as the idea that aliens are leaving friendly messages for us by destroying our crops to draw symbols whose meaning we can only guess at.  That’s not communication at all.  That’s just being an ass.