What is supernatural?

The Supernatural refers to conscious magical, religious or unknown forces that cannot ordinarily be perceived except through their effects. This word is often used interchangeably with preternatural or paranormal. Unlike natural forces, these putative supernatural forces can not be shown to exist by the scientific method. Claims of supernatural phenomena conflict directly and fundamentally with current scientific understanding.A concept of the supernatural is generally identified with religion, although there is much debate as to whether a conception of the supernatural is necessary for religion (see The nature of God in Western theology and Anthropology of religion).Generally, most people contrast the supernatural with the natural, while some people believe that these two concepts are compatible.There have been many attempts to verify claims of supernatural phenomena scientifically. All are generally considered failures, although proponents often claimed to show startling and unusual results. Most scientists claim that the experiments are best classified as pseudoscience, that they have been experimentally flawed, statistically invalid, and/or not repeatable. Many critics of such experiments state that believers fool themselves into seeing results due to magical thinking.Many events once accepted as supernatural are now understood as manifestations of a natural, explainable nature that were misinterpreted.Most religious people claim that these phenomena, being essentially "unnatural," are not appropriate for scientific study (see also William James, The Variety of Religious Experience).The supernatural is also a topic in various genres of fiction, such as fantasy and horror. Some examples of supernatural phenomena are miracles, ghosts; psychic abilities like psychokinesis and telepathy are better classified as paranormal than supernatural.John Drane writes that science is perpetuating "intellectual arrogance" when it does not accept the possibility of supernatural events and miracles: "To say that unique events can never happen, or that the supernatural does not exist, when most people of most ethnic groups at most points in history have claimed otherwise, is merely to perpetuate the intellectual arrogance of previous generations of Western thinkers, and far from providing an answer to the questions raised by history it merely begs larger and more important questions about the nature of Western intellectual culture." In response, most scienists and historians regard such arguments as fundamentalist religious apologetics.

Crashfrog writes:nothing can be perceived except through its effects, and most of the natural forces we're aware of were "unknown" at some point.

crashfrog writes:I'm saying that what you consider the "spiritual realm" will come to be understood simply as a hitherto-unknown area of the natural realm.

crashfrog writes:Not in a perfect world, in our world. In the real world.

I never said there wouldn't be a spiritual realm; just that the spiritual realm is still part of the natural world.

crashfrog writes:I never said there wouldn't be a spiritual realm; just that the spiritual realm is still part of the natural world.

crashfrog writes:He can't trancend the natural world and still do things in the natural world. If he can do things in the natural world, he's part of the natural world.

crashfrog writes:What would lead you to conclude that "spiritual effects" will never be understood?

crashfrog writes:God cannot be both A and ~A at the same time.

crashfrog writes:God, being an entity and not a number, cannot have a value at all.

crashfrog writes:God cannot be both A and ~A at the same time.

crashfrog writes:Works for me, but until then, will you agree that there's nothing we know to be supernatural, but plenty we know to be unexplained?