Do Christian beliefs hurt the study of science? Discussion in Beaverton on 2-18-15.

I (Bernie Dehler) will be debating Christian Prof. Ted Davis on the topic "Is Christian Belief Conducive to Performing Quality Scientific Research?" at Oregon State University.  Prior to that I will be previewing some of my arguments at a discussion event in Beaverton on 2-18-15.  The event is free, and you are invited to attend and participate.  Event details for the Beaverton preview can be found here:  http://www.meetup.com/Philosophical-Naturalists/events/220023678/ .

On the surface, it is easy to think "Of course Christians can do great science; there are many great scientists that were Christians, and there are even some current great Christian scientists today (such as Francis Collins)."  And I agree with that.  Then what is my counter-point? Simply this: that supernatural beliefs are harmful to the scientific endeavor, in the big picture of things.  Of course one can be a Christian and do scientific experiments; for example, doing studies on fruit fly reproduction.  But the problem comes in when EVERY SINGLE CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST says there are certain questions that only have "God did it" as the answer.

For example, we might all agree that there was a "big bang."  But who caused it? If you seriously think it was God, then it would be foolish to look for an answer with scientific methodology, since science can't explain miracles.  But where did the laws of physics come from? If you don't know, then that is evidence for the existence of God, correct? Not at all.  And this is the kind of mentality that all Christians have.  At some point, they ALL say that there was a certain point where God just poofed things into existence with his holy magic.  For those Christians that accept most of science, they might think this god-magic created the big bang and the laws of physics.  For young and old Earth creationists, they would say God did his magic in creating people (they reject that humans descended from other animals as modern science claims).

I'm looking forward to meeting Prof. Ted Davis in debate.  I knew him back when I was a born-again evangelical Christian (prior to my de-conversion in 2009).  And for the record, Ted is a really nice guy!