What is your justification for believing in the supernatural?

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

And you are also correct that Judeo-Christian theistic guesses and atheistic guesses tend to be given more respect and credence than something like “reincarnation.”

I Have a lot of respect for reincarnation because I use to be a butterfly. Wink

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I can understand the theistic position in that regard, but any atheists who elevate his/her guesses about what happens above other guesses (NOT ALL DO) are probably a bit out of focus.

It seems to me that this perceived "elevation" is what attracts people to atheism in the first place. Many people seem to mistakenly think that the alternative to a falsehood must be valid, but it can just as well be just another falsehood. There is no way to justify any belief about what happens after death, and so I don't try. I favor reincarnation towards the final ascension to the oneness of everything, but truthfully, it is nothing but a notion that tickles my fancy. But that's good enough for me.

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@reasoning logic,

Quote:

I Have a lot of respect for reincarnation because I use to be a butterfly.

Good one, RL. I got a good, friendly laugh out of that.

On our refrigerator door, Nancy has a cartoon under a magnet. It shows a cat speaking to a dog. The cat is saying, "I was a dog in a previous life, but I came back as a God!"

I find the notion of reincarnation very soothing. The only real trouble I have with it is that apparently "nobodies" like me seem not to get reincarnated. Everyone who thinks he/she was someone else in a previous life seems to have been someone famous! (Maybe that is why, for whatever reason, I have always kidded that I was a servant to Nefertiti in a previous life. Not sure what that is all about, but it is definitely something I have mentioned many times over the years.)

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@Frank Apisa,

I like to say that in a previous life I was an old beggar in a back street of New Delhi. Thank God I don't believe it. But I give it to people who claim to have been a sibling or lover of Cleopatra or a Cherokee princess. It tends to embarass them.

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@Frank Apisa,

My notion of reincarnation is that each life I live has been chosen by myself. The hardships and challenges I endure have been selected by me because they are something I need to master to progress towards "completion". This serves a function in my life in that it puts the responsibility for my own misfortune, not only my fortune, squarely on my own shoulders.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

The guess of “reincarnation” is as “valid” as “you just die and everything ends” or “you go to Heaven or Hell.”

And the guess takes you nowhere except more keyboard typing of non sequiturs. Reincarnation and going to Heaven or Hell both presuppose immaterial entities moving in space and being immortal. BTW--Hell went out of Christianity about 300 years ago. Dante was only saying what some people deserve and not that they would get it.

The newborn make more sense.

Have you people got a problem with the sexual question? You certainly seem determined to avoid it in order to continue wittering?

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

(Maybe that is why, for whatever reason, I have always kidded that I was a servant to Nefertiti in a previous life. Not sure what that is all about, but it is definitely something I have mentioned many times over the years.)

The sex slave mentality Frank. As long as you stay MOR with it there is not much danger.

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@spendius,

As a digression--there's been a report on Sky News that the alleged Yemeni bomber over the weekend who served to get fliers to agree to more spending on terrorism was working for the CIA.

Is this story true?

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@spendius,

Quote:

Have you people got a problem with the sexual question? You certainly seem determined to avoid it in order to continue wittering?

Honestly, Spendius, your posts have become so bizarre, I guess I have been passing them by. Not sure what the "sexual question" is, but if you ask it again in an understandable way, I will attempt to reply.

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@spendius,

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The sex slave mentality Frank. As long as you stay MOR with it there is not much danger.

I do not know what MOR is.

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@InfraBlue,

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To atheists they are categorically the same as gods, and ideas of explanations for existence involving gods. They are equally dismissible.

So, do these unicorns, and Spaghetti monsters...Have a stigmata....and bleed out pasta sauces?? In the way of similar wounds of Christ? Do these Unicorns and Spaghetti monsters, Have prayer masses, where people keel over on pillows, because the spirit of them has hit people??

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

My notion of reincarnation is that each life I live has been chosen by myself. The hardships and challenges I endure have been selected by me because they are something I need to master to progress towards "completion". This serves a function in my life in that it puts the responsibility for my own misfortune, not only my fortune, squarely on my own shoulders.

That is indeed a cool way to look at it....But to any Buddhist, or anyone who embraces the possibility of reicarnation....

What is the point in it all, if you're going to live a 37 million year cycle, and ultimately die from being too pure, or seeing the unjust??? Does this mean it was all for nothing? Your last concept ever will be that of pain??

If someone was truly God-like, then there really is no reason for them to experience pain, and die, again....If they do, and did, how are they God-like at all??

If reincarnation exists, would you not want that as a second or multiple way to be saved, and enter a Heaven like state? Rather than doing it the first time, and every time after, till you reach this Heaven like state?

Why would anyone want to live say 14 times, like some believe the Buddha-Kulaks did??

And if my understandings are wrong, about the Buddhist view, and people believe Buddha made it there in one try....Who is the Dali Lama??

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@XXSpadeMasterXX,

Sorry, not Heaven like state, for that still has permanence....but Nirvana...Which is endless rebirth cycles, for anyone who does not know....

Who is the Dali Lama>?

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@XXSpadeMasterXX,

Spade, I mean no insult, but your ideas of heaven do not fit into my worldview. I cannot relate.
I see all of existence as energy flow. Of that energy there is a small, small part which is commanded by me, and which I perceive as separate from everything else.
To the "logical thinker"* this perhaps implies some grand scheme or god-like supervisor who knowingly puts us through this for our benefit, but that is not part of my belief. Such notions go way beyond what I can form any useful opinions or beliefs about, so I simply do not consider it. And the key word is useful. My way of thinking about this serves a purpose in my life; it makes me responsible for my own fate.

Again I want to stress that this is a belief. I have no justification, no reason other than personal preference for selecting this particular way of thinking over any other belief. I have no illusions about it being true. It is merely a pleasant fantasy which allows some measure of closure regarding issues that I cannot know anything about, but which still enter my thoughts.

*By "logical thinker" I am not referring to any type of person. I am talking about the part of each of us that is given to systematic pondering over issues we ourselves stipulate.

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@spendius,

Quote:

As a digression--there's been a report on Sky News that the alleged Yemeni bomber over the weekend who served to get fliers to agree to more spending on terrorism was working for the CIA.

Is this story true?

Here is today's NY Times article on the issue, Spendius. It appears there is an element of truth in it...although the connection to the CIA was through Saudi intelligence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/world/middleeast/suicide-mission-volunteer-was-double-agent-officials-say.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2_20120509

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Honestly, Spendius, your posts have become so bizarre, I guess I have been passing them by.

Now you are using non sequiturs to guide your actions.

See post No 4,976,636 on page 19. And there are others where the sexual question is either addressed directly or just alluded to. I think the problem you have with the post on page 19 is that it is too easily understood.

I don't think my posts are in the least bizarre and especially not when compared to the metaphysical nonsense I am seeing on this thread not to mention the woeful ignorance regarding the function of supernatural beliefs in social organisation. Claiming that they are bizarre, an assertion, as an excuse to evade responding to them is serious weakness of the sort ostriches are famous for when they are alarmed.

I am making the case, in line with the thread title, that belief in the supernatural is justified on the basis that it is the only way to provide order and progress in a society and that it is a serious weakness to undermine such a belief, whether it is genuine or acted out ritually.

Heresy is the preaching of a doctrine which is considered by authority to lead to long term degeneration of the culture. The doctrine may well have short term attractions when considered superficially or delicately. As communist atheism was thought to have. Now President Putin attends church.

A revealed religious doctrine provides a set of ground rules with transcendental authority, which promoters of FSMs and Unicorns have not yet revealed, and those ground rules, when accepted, are not subject to lobby groups, PACs sponsored by a handful of oligarchs, and the rhetorical tricks of mundane beings such as we are with our natural propensity to engage in the whole unrestrained gamut covered by the Seven Deadly Sins which are just as tempting to the ruling elite as to the man in the street. Probably more so.

Would you be so good as to consider the post on page 19 as that is the least you could do as a member of a debate group. If being an agnostic excuses you doing that then so much for agnosticism and the mode of operation we can expect if ever you persuade us all to adopt the superior position you claim agnosticism is. You are arguing for universal a priorism and that is a Tower of Babel.

You need to provide answers on the sexual question based on legislation once you undermine the supernatural authority which has hitherto been evolved to manage it. And on the property question.

What is the agnostic position on the disposal of the dead?

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@spendius,

Quote:

I am making the case, in line with the thread title, that belief in the supernatural is justified on the basis that it is the only way to provide order and progress in a society and that it is a serious weakness to undermine such a belief, whether it is genuine or acted out ritually.

Are you saying that without a god to fear people would not obey the rules? That is true for many Christians. I've heard several say that if they didn't have to fear the wrath of God they would have killed people several times.
This suggests to me that belief in the supernatural serves to inhibit spiritual growth and serves to perpetuate fear, war and conflict by keeping individuals in a state of mental infancy their whole lives.

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@Frank Apisa,

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I do not know what MOR is.

It is a common acronym in the music world for "middle-of-road" and refers to pap music of the sort one hears tinkling away unobjectionably in locations popular with MOR people.

Fantasies concerning Nefertiti are easily kept in that range although I suspect there is an a priori assumption that the lady was drop-dead gorgeous which I very much doubt was the case in real life.

Quote:

And the Heiress, Great in the Palace, Fair of Face, Adorned with the Double Plumes, Mistress of Happiness, Endowed with Favors, at hearing whose voice the King rejoices, the Chief Wife of the King, his beloved, the Lady of the Two Lands, Neferneferuaten-Nefertiti, May she live for Ever and Always"

And well used to having slaves whipped to the bone for the slightest disturbance to her academic etiquette.

Flaubert toured Egypt and did some research on the females. He reported that they had an odour which was not conducive to refined European tastes.

What's the agnostic position on etiquette. Stendhal said that the Book of Etiquette was the most important publication of the 18th century.

I'm a barmaid man myself.

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@Cyracuz,

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This suggests to me that belief in the supernatural serves to inhibit spiritual growth and serves to perpetuate fear, war and conflict by keeping individuals in a state of mental infancy their whole lives.

What is more important Cyr is preventing society from degenerating into mental infancy. Individuals are expendable I'm afraid.

And what is "suggested" to them is neither here nor there.

That these things are suggested to you is not evidence that a belief in the supernatural serves to inhibit spiritual growth and serves to perpetuate fear, war and conflict by keeping individuals in a state of mental infancy their whole lives.

You have obviously not read Thucydides or Gulag reports.

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@spendius,

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What is more important Cyr is preventing society from degenerating into mental infancy.

That is done by educating individuals, empowering them to make informed decisions, not by oppressing through fear and upholding ignorance.

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Individuals are expendable I'm afraid.

What is society but a whole bunch of individuals?

And besides, if history teaches us anything, it is how not to do it. We need to think fresh and creatively with human values as the prime directive.

1 Reply

What is your justification for believing in the supernatural?

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