Real,
You have once again completely missed the boat. The fact that there is a dictionary definition for 'supernatural' shows only that the idea exists in language, and nothing more. When I said 'supernatural' is not meaningful, I meant it is not meaningful to reality as it is.
If the supernatural was a real force, a true mover, there should be some naturalistic effects rooted in supernatural causes. If the supernatural is powerless to manifest in the natural world(as you seem to be implying), that leaves it as an impotent non-factor anyway.
You are attempting to bifurcate reality. There is no reasonable or rational grounds to do so. There is no good reason to think there is a separate reality called the 'supernatural'
Just for the sake of argument, Doc:
What would constitute a demonstration of the supernatural?
neologist wrote:Just for the sake of argument, Doc:
What would constitute a demonstration of the supernatural?
pssst. Nothing that could eventually be explained away by naturalistic means.
get it?
Would I be made welcome in this conversation
I always come back to "able2know" when I get stressed. I find the intellectual stimulation and the challenging viewpoints - because there are so many conflicting opinions when we take it to its most basic (or advanced) level - worthwhile for me to be a member.
I believe the topic of discussion at the moment is the supernatural.
I was under the viewpoint and limiting myself temporarily to the premise that the supernatural is a perceptual phenomena. Does that not depend on what we actually obseve at the time?
I have great experience with the supernatural as it would be understood by the average "man on the street".
Although I really do not claim to be an expert on this topic. The only experience I have it on a personal level.
Bartikus wrote:neologist wrote:Just for the sake of argument, Doc:
What would constitute a demonstration of the supernatural?
pssst. Nothing that could eventually be explained away by naturalistic means.
get it?
Hmmm. If God is truly the author of all natural law, then all things/events would have a natural explanation, irrespective of our ability to replicate.
neologist wrote:Just for the sake of argument, Doc:
What would constitute a demonstration of the supernatural?
Pretty much anything that happens that can be shown to demonstrably free of any natural causes.
If just one tiny little thing anywhere in the universe could be shown NOT to have a possible natural cause....that would change EVERYTHING.
Doktor S wrote:neologist wrote:Just for the sake of argument, Doc:
What would constitute a demonstration of the supernatural?
Pretty much anything that happens that can be shown to demonstrably free of any natural causes.
Can anything, even theoretically, meet this criteria? Or would we just pronounce the event an 'unknown'?
rosborne979 wrote:Doktor S wrote:neologist wrote:Just for the sake of argument, Doc:
What would constitute a demonstration of the supernatural?
Pretty much anything that happens that can be shown to demonstrably free of any natural causes.
Can anything, even theoretically, meet this criteria? Or would we just pronounce the event an 'unknown'?
Supernatural phenomena would be impossible to observe (by definition), but they would not necessarily be outside the reach of scientific investigation. We could discover some effect caused by a supernatural force and draw conclusions based on the observable effects.
(
David Bohm considered the idea that elementary particles might be the result of subquantum activity.)
Re: The necessity of religion
Monolith wrote:I'm an atheist. There is nothing which suggests to me a god in the form that most religious texts describe. That said, ive come to feel that religion (in any form) is an absolute necessity and that atheism is abnormal.
Nearly every centenarian is religious. There was an article in National Geographic last year that mentioned how a common theme among the worlds oldest people was a strong faith. NatG isn't exactly a scholarly publication, but it's not TIME either. But you dont have to look very hard to find even stronger evidence:
http://ageing.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/2/207
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=10680272&query_hl=15&itool=pubmed_docsum
Certainly there are other factors to long-life than faith, but its very telling that faith is such a large part of all of these peoples lives. Religion has been a part of human society since our first steps as modern humans. Even before modern humans... there's evidence that neanderthals practiced ritual burials. Perhaps our reliance on religion has evolved to become a necessity? Perhaps those of us who don't have faith are actually harming ourselves?
I'm going to come onto this site in an intellectual capacity :wink:
What doI feel about the topic that is open for discussion I think "afist peeps" (atheist people) - I have no probs wiv.
Although I happen to think...
The individual's perception is a key issue that is open to debate.
I am taking too much time devoting myself to this website at the moment though.
*cannot stretch myself as much as I doing. The powers that tell me this life is in game - are screaming@me_relax - I asked them whether that was a very valid e-mail address [?]....
echi wrote:Supernatural phenomena would be impossible to observe (by definition), but they would not necessarily be outside the reach of scientific investigation. We could discover some effect caused by a supernatural force and draw conclusions based on the observable effects.
But no matter how unusual the observed phenomena would be, science would never assume it was supernatural. It would only assume a lack of data or lack of a model to account for the phenomena.
It's common for science to begin to test what some people claim is a supernatural phenomena, but it's impossible for science to ever determine that something is supernatural.
Even on those occasions upon which an effort is made to scientifically test that which is alleged to be "supernatural," the object is only ever to determine if there are natural explanations for the alleged phenomenon, or to determine if the alleged phenomenon might actually not have taken place--i.e. the invidivual or individuals reporting the phenomenon hallucinated, lied, misunderstood, etc.
"UFOs," unidentified flying objects, are a perfect example of this, and the same standard can be applied to allegations of theistic manifestations or miracles. I haven't the least doubt that people commonly see, or think they see, objects, or what they believe are objects, which are flying, or which they believe are flying, which they are then and subsequently unable to identify. That does not constitute evidence that they have witnessed a visitation of extraterrestrial aliens.
Similarly, with allegations of theistic manifestations or of miracles, one of the first questions to be asked is whether or not the event has actually occured as reported; the second question to ask is whether or not references to supernatural causation or beings is appopriate, or whether or not naturalistic explanation might plausibly be advanced. After all, we do know (silly philosophical logic chopping aside) that the natural world exists, and at the point at which both a natural and a supernatural explanation are advanced, the former is perferrable, just because the latter is not subject to proof, and does not refer to anything known to exist.
And then there's the piece of bread with someone's face in it! lol... was it the Virgin Mary? I can't remember now but it was all over the internet.
