I don't think that is sufficient Walter. You failed to even quote your
dictionary and you failed to give the full reference for your dictionary (
publisher, the year etc) I would like to look it up myself. All I see is
your statement that your desktop dictionary says nothing about naturalism.
Bookshelf 95 which has an online dictionary says this:
science (sì´ens) noun
Abbr. sc., sci.
1. a. The observation, identification, description, experimental
investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. b. Such activities
restricted to a class of natural phenomena. c. Such activities applied to an
object of inquiry or study.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition
copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed
from InfoSoft International, Inc. All rights reserved.
This clearly proscribes the supernatural as a scientific explanation. That
does not mean that God does not get involved in the universe.
My _Webster's New twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language
Unabridged_ Prentic Hall 1983, p. 1622 states
1. originally, state or fact of knowing; knowledge, often as opposed to
intuition, belief, etc.
2. systematized knowledge derived from observation, study, and
experimentation carried on in order to determine the nature or principles of
what is being studied
3.a branch of knowledge or study, especially one concerned with establishing
and systematizing facts, principles, and methods, as by experiments and
hypotheses; as, the science of music.
4. (a) the systematized knowledge of nature and the physical world; (b) any
branch of this.
Definition 1 is clearly not what is meant by science. Lots of new agers talk
about the science of pyramidology, telepathy, crystalology, UFO's and the
occult, but most folk would call that belief, not science.
If you try to say that modern science fits into definition 2 or 3 and the
supernatural is not excluded, then what experiment can you carry out which
proves the intervention of the supernatural?
If you say that science fits into definition 4 and does not rule out the
supernatural, then is your God physical?