What is your justification for disbelieving in the supernatural?

Quote:

The statistical chances for the existence of any entity complex enough to achieve all those tasks is practically negligible.

Based on which numbers can you make that assertion? Do we know what the requirements are? We know to some extent, but not near everything.

The statistical chances for the existence of any entity complex enough
to achieve all those tasks is practically negligible.

Based on which numbers can you make that assertion? Do we know what the requirements are?
We know to some extent, but not near everything.

No numbers. And I don't have to know the details of how god is alleged to work to believe
that the probability is vanishingly small. Entities that do all those things don't "just happen".

1. Do u accept, or reject out-of-hand, the possibility
that miracles have occurred (defined as the occurrence of events
that were deemed to be impossible, or improbable in the extreme)??

2. I surmise that concerning people who have mentioned social contact with discarnate entities (e.g., deceased relatives, et al), u attribute that to cerebral dysfunction of a physical nature, that there is no other possibility ?

Could it not be possible that the universe, when considered as one singularity, is an entity? I am not saying that this is so, merely that it's possible.

1. Do u accept, or reject out-of-hand, the possibility
that miracles have occurred (defined as the occurrence of events
that were deemed to be impossible, or improbable in the extreme)??

I don't reject the possibility out of hand, but I agree with David Hume's take on miracles. We should only accept them if very good evidence supports them --- evidence so good it would make the non-occurrence of the miracle an even greater miracle.

Among the supernatural phenomena I've heard alleged, none passes this test.

2. I surmise that concerning people who have mentioned social contact
with discarnate entities (e.g., deceased relatives, et al), u attribute that
to cerebral dysfunction of a physical nature, that there is no other possibility ?

I attribute it to wishful thinking.
I suppose you could call wishful thinking a "cerebral dysfunction", but it would sound a little pompous, no?

Meaning no disrespect: have u tested them all ?
or have u been satisfied to assume that the results of such tests woud be as u assume them to be ??

Lemme get this straight, Tom: if I bet a couple of horses for the Daily Double at Belmont who won, u will agree that it was a miracle IF I wishfully thought of their athletic success?

Meaning no disrespect: have u tested them all ?
or have u been satisfied to assume that the results of such tests woud be as u assume them to be ??

I think I've tested all I've heard alleged, but I have not tested all that might conceivably exist.
(I don't see how I could possibly do that.) But I assume that the supernatural phenomena most likely
to be brought up in conversations are the ones whose existence matters the most. And if my belief is false
about supernatural entities that don't matter, that doesn't matter; holding the belief anyway will do no epistemic harm.

(Sadly, I don 't have names or addresses for the participants herein.)

His family is out in the waiting area.
One of his relatives is bad-mouthing the sickie, or the deadie,
whose consciousness drifts out there to his family then & there observing his defamation.
Having taken umbrage, his consciousness and his spirit re-enter
his human body which proceeds, in due course, to legal counsel
and disinherits the foul-mouthed relative.

But if we can argue that something is possible, wouldn't that affect our 'reasonably disbelieving'?