Do we have evidence against the supernatural?

To me, this is the crux of the whole debate: How can you define something only in terms of what it is "not"?Before we could detect them, x-rays were "not physical". Does that mean they were spiritual? Even today, x-rays are "physical" only in the effects which we can detect.Give us a definition - or even a description - of what the "supernatural" or "spiritual" is. Until then, everything is the not-yet-understood physical.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Certainly not. It is going to depend on what sort of god this is. If it is a deistic god that started everything up, then stepped back and allowed nature to take care of itself, then you can reasonably say that this is a supernatural god. But if you have a god who continually and repeatedly meddles with nature (creating a global flood, manually controlling the direction of evolution, impregnating a virgin), then you have a god that is very much a part of nature, perhaps even a pantheistic god.The trouble with YECs is that they want it both ways. They want to insist that their god is supernatural, yet they also want to insist that their god meddles with nature.The creationists are, in effect, painting themselves into a corner. You can think of a room, and somebody painting the floor. The painters are the scientists, who are spreading naturalist paint over all that they discover. The supernatural is the part that is left as unpainted. YECs complain that science ignores the supernatural. But science is not ignoring anything. Science is systematically painting the entire room, and "supernatural" simply refers to the part that they haven't yet got to. At some future time, human consciousness will be given a scientific explanation. After that, there will be very little left in the supernatural (i.e. unpainted) part of the room.

Here's a description that we are all familiar with through private experience. Spiritual=mental.

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Give us a definition - or even a description - of what the "supernatural" or "spiritual" is. Until then, everything is the not-yet-understood physical.

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IMO, for something to exist outside the natural world, we must know the boundaries of the natural world.We don't have definite boundaries. We have known and unknown. Even if something is existing within our midst unknown to us, it is within the natural world. IMO, this has been personified into ghosts,demons, etc.; but if our spirit turns into a ghost after death, I would think it would still be part of nature.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

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Here's a description that we are all familiar with through private experience. Spiritual=mental.

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Now THAT's begging the question !How do you know the mental phenomena are not natural ?

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But suppose there was a god and this god made nature. Now we've got something that is supernatural. And if we've got that, we could have more, like little gods that God made out of supernatural stuff.

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Then our homes could be considered to be supernatural because we built them, not nature itself. We used materials from nature or devised from natural materials.If a god created our nature from the materials around him, then we are part of his nature and therefore he is a part of ours, not outside of it.Personally I think the word supernatural is a general word for things that are unknown and/or imagined and doesn't really have any substance outside of stories and literature.

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"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France

Once again semantics and defining terms reduces the argument to lingustic psycobabble. I propose that things that are supernatural are things that are beyond the physical laws of the universe or mathmatics and are unable to be described, falsified, tested or in anyway explained by any means known to current human inquiry.Therefore: The existance of black holes and singularities are supernatural since physics is limited in it's ability to make sense of this phenomenon which does exist and has been verified by observation within our own galaxy.We can infer a supernatural thing exist by confirming how it affects the universe , but are unable to produce the data or natural laws by which it operates.This does not mean that the phenomenon in question is un-natural, it very well may be. It only means that it appears to defy natural laws, and is hence deemed supernatural. Either by modern science or a tribal pygmy looking at a 50 inch plasma television with surround sound. Your thoughts? **edit spelling errors.This message has been edited by 1.61803, 10-04-2005 04:07 PM

I don't know. I assume they are natural. I was just trying to describe "spiritual."ABE: In other words, I am assuming that what we call "mental" is really physical, despite my private experience of feeling incorporeal.But if one wanted a definition of "spiritual" besides just "not physical," "mental" is possible.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 10-04-2005 03:43 PM

Follow the thread of the discussion. You used a "spiritual being" as an example of something supernatural. Then to explain what you mean by "spiritual" you refer to emntal phenomena. But how does that help unless you mean that mental phenomena are supernatural ??

I think I have been. I made a general reply to the thread in which I suggested that "supernatural" would mean whatever did not fit into the system of naturalism. In my view, black holes would not qualify as supernatural, even though our knowledge of them is uncertain because "in principle" we can fit them into the natural system.But if there was a spiritual being walking around, we might have trouble fitting that in. By "fitting in," I mean that we can see in principle how such a thing can be produced naturally.But if something is spiritual it's not physical, and I have the idea that something has to be physical to fit into the natural system. I defined "spiritual" as "not physical," and a poster suggested I needed a definition that was not a mere negation. So I came up with "mental." If there was a real mental entity hanging about, then such a being would fit the definition of the "supernatural."This message has been edited by robinrohan, 10-04-2005 04:25 PM

But what is a "mental entity" in your usage ? Doesn't it just confuse things further to use a label which already has other meanings without explaining your usage ?o

The advantage of using the word "mental" rather than "spiritual" is that we all have a private experience of mentality, so we know what is meant in a private sense even though we can't define it. But if "spiritual" was something different from "mental," we would have no idea about that.So a mental entity would be a mind with no body.

OK, but the term "mental entity:" is already used for things like thoughts. And then we get into the question of what we mwan by a "body". There are weird SF ideas which would involve minds which have a substrate other than matter. Whether such things could actually exist or not it is at least thinkable that a mind of some sort could exist naturally without what we would ordinarily think of as a body.I realy think you would be better off just saying that you mean a spirit, like the Loa of Voudoun or a ghost.

Makes good sense to me. Nicely put

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything natural is physical--that's my idea.