What is your justification for believing in the supernatural?

@Lustig Andrei,

Quote:

The only thing wrong with a belief in the supernatural is the use of the word 'supernatural.' It somehow implies hat there is something 'unnatural' about conditions which we, with our limited understanding, cannot explain.

AMEN!

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Curious choice of words, Frank. Wink

2 Replies

@farmerman,

Quote:

You have to understand spendi is all excited about ladies' foundation garments. He's somewhat of a stylish transvestite.

The point about lingerie fm is an intellectual one. Lingerie is a derivative of Christianity. It's a challenge you have continually ducked in your usual style.

5 errors in 18 words eh? That's over-excitability.

0 Replies

@reasoning logic,

Do you shave rl?

0 Replies

@Cyracuz,

Quote:

They are not doing humanity a service.

Are you suggesting that the Christian mission has been unserviceable?

That would be a mighty assertion indeed.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Yes. I am suggesting that. Christianity has usurped human values and sought to use them to suppress free thinking and free living.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Well give us an idea of what free thinking and free living results in if not suppressed.

You can't respectably compare pragmatic actuality with an abstract idea. What we need in order to choose is a description of the pragmatic actuality of free thinking and free living.

I think it would be anarchic chaos but I'm open to being persuaded.

0 Replies

@Tapout89,

'Paranormal' is a more interesting concept than 'supernatural'.

Rupert Sheldrake is a former director of cell biology at Cambridge Univ. who in later life has taken to investigating things normally termed 'paranormal' using good experimental design and statistical methods. This naturally enough has made him public enemy #1 to the CSICOP crowd... the good news is that there isn't anything they can do about it, Sheldrake is financially interdependent and his credentials are better than any of theirs. He has shown to a mathematical and statistical certainty that a number of things usually thought of as paranormal are real:

http://www.sheldrake.org/homepage.html

1 Reply

@gungasnake,

Sheldrakes concept of morphic resonance is kind of an interesting concept especially now that weve discovered more and more about epigenetic factors influencing a whole sort of responses in organisms (evolutionary changes not the least of them ).
He was initially villified and still has the ENglish all bent out of shape because ENgland is so damn screwed up in its several "schools of scientific thought"
In the US we have it much simpler, Most all of science is lined up on one side and the non science advocates align themselves in their snactuaries.
Hes not so "out there:" any more because he is proposeing a synthesis that considers how extra-corporeal "Stuff" is trannsg=ferred between and among speices. EPigenetics,genetic "memory" natural selection, all seem to have something in relation to some of Sheldrakes hypotheses.

Its all still quite speculative and there needs to be some definite research into how mechanisms can be documented .

Im at least open minded to his hypotheses. However, It must be noted that, like any other hypothesis, it must be gently adhered to.

2 Replies

@Cyracuz,

Exactly what i was thinking . . . that's what ya call ironic.

0 Replies

@farmerman,

What other epigenetic factors have you in mind besides evolutionary changes. Obviously psychosocial are always operative. Does your "gentle" approach run to the psychosomatic?

What evidence have you that England is so damn screwed up in its several "schools of scientific thought". Isn't the expression "screwed-up" another case, in a very long list, of basing a conclusion on the premiss. In other words another idiotic and meaningless blurt which, as one has come to expect, proves your point to your own satisfaction.

0 Replies

Everyone here talks about ‘supernatural’ events as if we have all experienced them firsthand and are unable to explain them but no one gives any anecdotal evidence for this. Most are just believing or not disbelieving the words written by others who say they have experienced some so called ‘supernatural’ event.. in a sense this just boils down to an appeal to completely unsubstantiated authority.

Most of us should just admit that we have never experienced any supernatural event and leave it at that.

2 Replies

@farmerman,

One thing I notice is that Sheldrake is very good at designing experiments which at least tell you what is happening if not how... In the case of the one little dog which always seemed to know when his mistress was heading home, Sheldrake sent the mistriss out on a window shopping excursion with one of his associates and only the associate knew the predetermined time to head home, and another associate stayed at home with the dog. Sure enough the very minute the first associate told the dog's mistress that the shopping trip was over and they needed to head home, the little dog went to the door and waited for them.

I don't see a totally physical explanation which could suffice for that one.

1 Reply

@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

One thing I notice is that Sheldrake is very good at designing experiments which at least tell you what is happening if not how... In the case of the one little dog which always seemed to know when his mistress was heading home, Sheldrake sent the mistriss out on a window shopping excursion with one of his associates and only the associate knew the predetermined time to head home, and another associate stayed at home with the dog. Sure enough the very minute the first associate told the dog's mistress that the shopping trip was over and they needed to head home, the little dog went to the door and waited for them.

I don't see a totally physical explanation which could suffice for that one.

Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home
With an appendix summarizing the controversies about this research...

You are also exaggerating...

0 Replies

@igm,

i've got a unicorn in my garage, i can't prove it because he refuses to allow me to take his picture

1 Reply

@djjd62,

djjd62 wrote:

i've got a unicorn in my garage, i can't prove it because he refuses to allow me to take his picture

Thanks for the incontrovertibly anecdotal evidence... but be sure to post the picture if he allows it in the future...

0 Replies

@igm,

Quote:

Everyone here talks about ‘supernatural’ events as if we have all experienced them firsthand and are unable to explain them but no one gives any anecdotal evidence for this.

What's anecdotal evidence?

I once traveled through the sub atomic dimensions of reality. I witnessed how something that is clearly definable from one angle becomes infinite from another, and how reality is layer upon layer of infinities inside one another.
That was after I had witnessed the walls and roof of my living room turn to marzipan, and my friend had had a rather long conversation with the stove. It was all very supernatural, but it made sense once the acid wore off...

2 Replies

@Cyracuz,

Still does eh cyr?

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
Everyone here talks about ‘supernatural’ events as if we have all experienced them firsthand and are unable to explain them but no one gives any anecdotal evidence for this.

What's anecdotal evidence?

I once traveled through the sub atomic dimensions of reality. I witnessed how something that is clearly definable from one angle becomes infinite from another, and how reality is layer upon layer of infinities inside one another.
That was after I had witnessed the walls and roof of my living room turn to marzipan, and my friend had had a rather long conversation with the stove. It was all very supernatural, but it made sense once the acid wore off...

I agree and that's my point...

One of my points...

0 Replies

@spendius,

Yes. Reality is a very old joke, and I've finally come to realize that it's supposed to be funny. All is well.

1 Reply

What is your justification for believing in the supernatural?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know