216.178.212.94 writes:
>Let me now respond: Science is first
based on an untestable belief--that physical reality is all there is to
reality. Only after that belief is believed
(for which there is no test to test), does everything make sense
about what is or is not testable.
I disagree. Science is based on the testable
assumption (not a belief) that the physical world is real.
Period. There are no limitations as
to other worlds. All possibilities are always open, and, if there’s
evidence for them, there’s acceptance
.
As to whether there is a non-physical
world or not, that is indeed not testable except in cases where the
non-physical world interacts with the
physical world. If such existed, how would we even know about it?
Proponents make claims, that is, people
say that they can go to and/or interact with a non-physical world.
Once a non-physical world interacts
with the physical or alters something in the physical, then it becomes
testable.
So far, the claims have not stood up.
In other words, when someone tells me that he/she can use the
non-physical world to predict the future,
or see inside a locked box, I can test that. When that persons fails
to be able to do what he/she said he/she
could do, the only reasonable conclusion is that there was
probably no non-physical world in the
first place. Note the probably. No absolutes, no beliefs.
Keep in mind the important distinction
here. Science is not saying that these people have to do certain
things to prove the existence of a non-physical
world. The people themselves are the source of what they
say the non-physical world is like and
how they can manipulate it. It’s the non-physical world experts
themselves who set the expectations.
They are also the ones who determine what is to be tested for.
Unfortunately, non-physical world proponents
usually blame science for their own shortcomings when they
fail to do what they say they can.
Fred Askew