What is supernatural?

Agreed. But would you say that it is possible to say that there is less free will than had once been thought? Or to put it another way conditioning limits the arena that free will could operate in?I'm thinking of the study Damasio cited in his book:The feeling of what happens : body and emotion in the making of consciousnessWhere the initiation of a muscle response to make a choice occurs before the individual reports making a choice and suggests that if we have free will it would be more in the area of inhibiting an impulse that is underway rather than in choosing to do something.lfen

Let's just say I don't think people act as freely as they probably could. Most people do the same thing over and over again, act out the same pantomime, stay in the same comfortable zone, talk to the same kinds of people.We generally keep doing what we've done in the past, and what people expect us to do in the future.

Absolutely correct, especially for a card carrying atheist.supernatural = more natural.

If you're going to joke, I wish you'd use smileys to indicate.

You asked for a definition !Seriously, what is wrong with my def. ?

I can't make sense of it, I guess. Did you care to elaborate?

Works for me. Notice that this makes the ID "designer" supernatural, and ID a religion by default.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

To elaborate would require an excursion into theology, and I don't think this is what you had in mind.But very quickly:Jesus = supernatural.He hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors and they didn't feel condemned.But the established religious community of His day said He had a "devil".This means the percieved worst sinners are equated to be more natural and those who are supposed to be more righteous are unnatural.I am on a tricky/slippery slope but it is nontheless true.My point: The real Jesus is misrepresented - He aint no freak - He is just more natural.

Hi CF. This is the first I've logged into your thread and just began reading so I'm coming in cold turkey. I tend to go on two or three theads and cover them adequately with the limited time I have to give here but will do what I can for your purpose here.1. According to the Bible there exists a dimension of created beings which are invisible to earth inhabitants, but which are capable under the direction of God or Satan, depending on whether the evil or the good can manifest themselves to humans in different ways.2. What is natural and what is supernatural, I guess, depends on whether you're and angel or other spirit being or human. If an angel were answering your question, he would consider himself and his kind, as well as you and I as natural. But to humans who can see them they are supernatural. So I guess the supernatural is that which cannot be manifested on earth by humans or the devices humans make to make things existing manifest. For example we would consider invisible air waves to be natural since they can be manifested via human devices, but not so with demonic powers. Demonic powers can, however be manifested via such mediums as witchcraft, spiritualist mediums who achieve levitation etc when they give themselves over to these powers which we fundamentalists consider to be demon spirits. There is the Holy Spirit of Jehovah who under certain conditions manifests himself to humans who are enough committed to God's gifts and powers. An example of this was some of the spiritual revivals of Charles Finney, powerful evangelist under who's preaching whole communities were smitten with sin conviction, some coming under this power even as they came near to the places where the preaching was done. Other manifestations have been healing and other miraculous gifts. Still others are such things like historically fufilled Biblical prophecies some of which have been brought forth her and through archeological discoveries such as the chariot parts at the Nuweiba crossing.3. My beef with secular science concerning this spiritual dimension which is known by some to exist in the universe is that they not only refuse to investigate and research such things as the Exodus crossing or anything which implicates what they consider to be supernatural, but they forbid the discussion or mentioning of it in classrooms of learning. Thus the ignorance.4. The term supernatural is in actuality a term which should be confined to the secularist ideology if indeed it does exist, for if it exists, it then becomes another dimension of the natural. If scientists were to begin to research and seek out the fact of it's existence to the extent and dilligence that they do for other existing things, imo, they would not have to go far before it's discovery would have to be acknowledged in their curriculum.Psalms 8:5 seems to classify mankind as "a little lower than the angels," in reference to prophecy of the then future messiah's birth as a man. In otherwords angels are of the supernatural higher dimension of beings which exist in the universe.

That is just not true - I can think of at least one poster here who is engaged in serious academic research in this area. I think what you mean is that they refuse to take sad feeble frauds and liars like ron wyatt as anything but jokes.

In your opinion, is this supernatural dimension accessable and investigatable by science? So, then, you do believe that the existence of angels, demons, God, etc. is a question science can answer?

(1) If some people know that it exists then they must be able to describe how to determine that it exists in a manner easily reproducible by others. If this cannot be done, then it cannot be part of science, as that is one of the prerequisites. If this can be done then it is no longer supernatural (as you note in point 4). This kind of leaves supernatural as being necessarily beyond the realm of science, imho.(2) The complaint that science is not looking for your spiritual plane to me is less than completely true: there has been a lot of interest in finding evidence of extrasensory perceptions, including perceptions of "ghosts" and any other form that has come down through myth, superstition and the basic religions. The fact that interest has declined is due to the absolute absence of any confirmed reproducible positive evidence.Note that redefining words for your purposes reduces communication rather than enhance it. The standard definition is in the dictionary so that all people using the words can agree on their meaning and thus know the sense conveyed in any communication using those words. If this definition does not work for you then you need a new word for your purpose. Alternatural?Also the term "secular science" is redundant: science by definition does not include supernatural within it's scope -- it is necessarily secular. See paragraph (1) above if you have problems with this.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

A secularist professional scientist?

The answer to your question is implicated in my post. Which of them is researching on site at the Nuweiba crossing, for example? I answered that already also. The answer is "yes" if they were to go at it big time like they do on lesser significant projects.

Buz, we've been over this many, many times. The answer is that there is no evidence that there ever was a Nuweiba crossing or any land bridge to make a crossing. When you factor in that there is no evidence that there ever was an Exodus, why would anyone waste their time investigating the Nuweiba crossing?Now as to the topic.If it was proved that there was something like the Exodus it would still not be evidence for the supernatural!

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion