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[Evil Genius]

> nonreductive physicalism

Here's a very strong argument against nonreductive physicalism, which isn't an argument for reductivism, but phrases it in terms of "a third way". http://people.umass.edu/lrb/files/bak06agaM.pdf

The point must be contended that none of these explanations are satisfying from an understanding perspective as none of them provide any conclusive evidence that any of them are true (where any of them are reductivism, nonreductive physicalism, and the aformentioned "third way"). You're correctly pointing out that choosing between the two is a false dilemma. The choice isn't A OR B, it could be C-Z or something as yet undefined. So, the best claim we can make in that absence of evidence is "we don't know for sure", which is a skeptical viewpoint, and in support of the null hypothesis.

> Religious evidence is meant to be an interpretive construct, not a scientific conclusion

Then it's not evident, it's interpreted. The two concepts are contradictory and mutually exclusive: If something can be interpreted, then it's not evidently evident, it's open to interpretation. If you and I can observe the same phenomena and report entirely different experience, we only have anecdotes and this is not evidence. I could equally intrepret your story to be evidence of Zeus, the God of lightning, and produce equal interpretations which must be valid, about how they got the name wrong... but this doesn't get us any closer to the truth of the matter.

> Faith is certainly as I have defined it

I get what you're saying... according to Wikipedia, faith has 5 definitions:
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing
2. the observance of an obligation from loyalty
3. fidelity to a person, promise, engagement
4. a belief not based on proof
5. a particular system of religious belief, such as in which faith is confidence based on some degree of warrant

I'm saying I'm using the 4th definition of the term here. You, I think, may be referring to 1, and/or 5? Yes, I understand that you can use the 5th definition to refer to my understanding, based upon evidence, that the sun will come up tomorrow, and that this is not fact because between then and now the sun may blow up. I get it. But facts are NOT the same as faith, and faith does NOT mean that which is believed upon "reasonable evidence", it's just "a prescribed way of thinking as dictated by religion" which itself has not met the burden of proof in terms of producing a viable method for revealing the truth.

> What available evidence do you have suggesting the impossibility of God speaking from a particular source location?

Good try, shifting the burden of proof. Just because I can't demonstrate something is impossible, that does not demonstrate that is isn't impossible, or that it is possible. You're making a positive claim, namely that god spoke through the bush, and the only evidence I have for it is stories about it. We don't have any good reason to suspect that the entirety of the laws of nature were suspended so that a diety could speak through a bush. All available evidence points at the supernatural, assuming it exists, not making itself evident, so therefore I say I have evidence that the supernatural is a claim without evidence.

[jimwalton]

Thank you for the conversation. Now we might be getting somewhere.
> the best claim we can make in that absence of evidence is "we don't know for sure"

You have come to the same conclusion I was advocating: "How do laws come about without a lawmaker?" The answer may be: we don't know. While there may be possible explanations for how laws can derive on their own, possible Ockham's Razor would advise us to infer the most reasonable and simplest conclusion: laws most reasonably come from lawmakers. And while it's no guarantee, it is a logical (perhaps the most logical) conclusion.

> Then it's not evident, it's interpreted.

You are trying to draw a bold line between evidence and interpretation, but you seem to be ignoring the scientific and logical process whereby we interpret evidentiary data to deduce scientific conclusions, make historical judgments, or even inductively decipher what our senses perceive. As any scientific philosopher will tell you, in the end, "Science seems to be little more than opinion." That sounds extreme to me, but it has been said. Thomas Kuhn says, "[There is] no standard higher than the consent of the relevant community (scientific mob rule)." Sociological studies contend that the knowledge of science is culturally determined. Darwinism itself is an interpretation of observed data. The anthropological artifacts of human evolution are interpreted by paleoanthropologists. Physicalism itself is a reductive interpretation of what we think we know.

A sunset can be described in terms of the spectral analysis of the lights (fact), but that fails to explain, let alone convey, its beauty. In fact, without interpretation, the data has missed the point entirely. Matters such as these cannot be encompassed scientifically: "Just the facts, Ma'am." What about Beethoven's 5th Symphony? I can analyze its data, but my interpretation is what gives it significance.

Our five senses tell us that there are different ways to approach reality. Musicals and physicists will perceive Beethoven's 5th differently. The unity of the world is not compromised by recognizing the difference between standing in the woods, seeing a painting of the woods, or reading a novelist’s description of the woods. Memory is more than just electromagnetic interactions. Maintaining a differentiated understanding of knowledge doesn’t undermine the unity of the world or even realism in our conception of it. In reality, both religious thought and philosophical thought depend upon and have recourse to evidence. Where they differ from science, and from each other, is in what they regard as evidence and in the different weight they accord to different types of evidence. Science insists that evidence must be in the form of clear repeatable experiments. Other types of discourse (religious, philosophical, literary, historical, jurisprudential, and artistic scholarship) place more emphasis on testimony, narrative, human nature, personal experience, etc. Science claims superiority because it can produce greater consensus, while the other disciplines are more characterized by disputation and controversy. This leads some to conclude that science is knowledge, and all other disciplines are mere opinion (dogma, fashion, culture). The existence of God is not a scientific question, but a metaphysical, philosophical, and theological one. But that's OK: There are many problems that science cannot solve and that are outside of its scope. I subscribe to a more integrated approach to knowledge, and not the inherent limitations of a strictly scientific perspective. As good as science is, it has its limitations, along with every other discipline.

Your line of demarcation between faith and fact doesn't hold up in the real world. Faith's Venn diagram intersects reasonably with evidence and facts, and Science's diagram is filled with interpretations and both presuppositional and evidentiary beliefs.

> You're making a positive claim, namely that god spoke through the bush, and the only evidence I have for it is stories about it. We don't have any good reason to suspect that the entirety of the laws of nature were suspended so that a diety could speak through a bush.

I would not expect God speaking through a bush to leave behind evidence to mark its occurrence, any more than the rainbow I saw two nights ago did. The only way you can know that the rainbow was there is by anecdotes and what you interpret to be a reliable consensus of those anecdotes. But there is no reason to believe "the entirety of the laws of nature were suspended so that a deity could speak through a bush." It may not even have been what we call "real fire," and so there's no reason to have suspended any laws for God's presence to inhabit a physical entity.

> All available evidence points at the supernatural, assuming it exists, not making itself evident, so therefore I say I have evidence that the supernatural is a claim without evidence.

This is simply untrue. There are so many stories of people experiencing supernatural beings, and of people witnessing supernatural events that the evidence is plentiful that a deity has made himself evident. While modern skeptics, such as yourself, blow these all off as the rantings of idiots and the superstitions of the ignorant, perhaps it is you who is ignoring the evidence to fit your belief system than it is the supernaturalists concocting a false reality.