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Author | Topic: Evidence for the Supernatural | |||||||||||||||||||||||
truthlover Member (Idle past 4084 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
My "practice in faith" thread got a lot of responses I wish had been here rather than there. This is sort of a thrown out continuation to thoughts on intuition and coincidence that have been brought up in various threads on evcforum.
My mom, who's visiting for a couple weeks, told me about being at work shortly before retiring last month. Her back was bothering her, and she needed to get an invoice out of the bottom drawer of her file cabinet. She told a co-worker, "We better ask God to let me put my hand right on that invoice, because if it takes too long to find, the rest of you are going to have to carry me out of this office." She opened up the drawer, stuck her hand in the middle of the files, and she separated the files at exactly the right invoice. She commented how good God was or something, and the co-worker said, "It would be hard to top that." My mom had to match the invoice with another that was in the top drawer. She opened the drawer, and the invoice she needed was pulled up, exposed in the drawer. The co-worker said, "Well, okay, maybe that tops it." At lunch that same day, an irate customer was on the phone, and my mom needed an invoice from that day's pile. It wasn't in order, filed or anything. She said the stack of invoices was about ten inches high. She put the customer on hold, commented to the same co-worker that she needed to find the invoice fast to get this irate customer taken care of, and would the co-worker take half the stack and help her find it. My mom cut the stack in half, and there, on top of the bottom half, was the invoice she needed. The co-worker started humming the Twilight Zone theme. Again, I don't think any one incident proves anything, but when people turn to God, ask for help, and experience "coincidences" like this repeatedly, then maybe you don't have repeatable, testable, scientific theory, but you do begin to have something that would carry weight in a courtroom. Okay, back to being slammed for enjoying good intervention while there's so much suffering in the world.
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doctrbill Member (Idle past 2790 days) Posts: 1174 From: Eugene, Oregon, USA Joined: |
My point is this:
Many things which we call natural today were once considered supernatural. Lightning and thunder were supernatural. Twilight was supernatural. Intuition was supernatural. Mental illness was supernatural. Everything thought to be supernatural will, in time, be demonstrably natural. Belief in the supernatural is, I believe, directly proportional to ignorance of the natural.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1504 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: Provided that's a statement of belief I agree. If you view it as fact you must critically assess the levelof bias it may impose on any data that comes your way otherwise you are operating exactly like a believer in the supernatural
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nator Member (Idle past 2195 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: So, basically, everything that happens might be supernatural, and it's up to the individual to decide if it was or not? So, considering that people can convince themselves of just about anything if they want to, there's no real way to tell the difference.
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nator Member (Idle past 2195 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: You are right, but the issue here is, are these events actually happening repeatedly at a rate which is greater than chance would predict or do people just remember the "hits" and disregard the "misses"? It has long been understood that the latter is much more likely the case. This and other normal tendencies for humans to recognize patterns and cause and effect relationships can lead us down the garden path into thinking that "something is going on" when there really isn't. That's why the scientific method is such a powerful tool. It is specifically designed to compensate for and eliminate many of these natural human tendencies to make connections when there really aren't any. On the other hand, maybe God is punishing your mom by giving her a lot of back pain. Maybe the closeness and bonding she would have experienced with the rest of the office staff had her back gone out and they had had to take her to the hospital would have been a truly great experience, but God denied all of them that by making the files easily accessable. See how easy it is to pick what situations you would like God to be responsible for and which ones you don't?
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doctrbill Member (Idle past 2790 days) Posts: 1174 From: Eugene, Oregon, USA Joined: |
I don't see it that way.
What I'm saying is that everything is natural; even your belief in the "supernatural." When you say something is supernatural it amounts to saying it is un-natural. Just because it's rare,amazing and wonderful - doesn't make it un-natural. The examples of lightning, thunder, and mental illness cannot be lightly dismissed.Not everyone belived those things were supernatural back when and not everyone believes your amazing experiences are supernatural now. Atheists benefit from prayer, intuition, telepathy and other so-called "spiritual" gifts. The invisible guy in the white robe has no franchise on natural phenomena. ------------------Bachelor of Arts - Loma Linda University Major - Biology; Minor - Religion Anatomy and Physiology - LLU School of Medicine Embryology - La Sierra University Biblical languages - Pacific Union College Bible doctrines - Walla Walla College
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Peter Member (Idle past 1504 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
I suppose it depends on your world-view.
After all the 'magical practitioner' view magic to benatural in any case ... it's all part of the universe it's just that the scope of that universe is somewhat wider for the 'practitioner' than within more mainstream worldviews. If by natural you mean governed by the laws we have so faruncovered then I disagree ... if on the other hand you mean that such things can be quantified and their rules of operation understood (or found to be non-existant) then I agree ... but then so do believers.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1504 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: I'd have to say 'yes' to that (unfortunately). Even you have alreadydone that and your answer is (invariably I would guess) 'No it was not supernatural.' We just don't know. Anything else is a matter of belief.
quote: Correct. As you have pointed out science can only investigate thanatural, repeatable phenomena of what we view to be the natural world. This discussion is heading deeply into belief systems whichby defintion defy support.
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nator Member (Idle past 2195 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: So, are you saying that nobody knows anything and all perceptions and versions of reality are to be considered equal? So, the 10 who say they are Elvis really might all be Elvis, and that this is equally likely as all ten of them being crazy?
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Peter Member (Idle past 1504 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: No. I'm saying that if we have no evidence then the bestwe can say is 'I don't know'. In your Elvis example we have a slightly different situationin that there can be only one Elvis, therefore 9 are definitely not Elvis ... without performing some tests based upon a known Elvisness we cannot comment on whether one of them is or is not Elvis. Because we assume that something cannot be the case doesnot mean that we are right. We can, if we investigate sufficently, rule out some possibilities,and logic (without bias) may be helpful.
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doctrbill Member (Idle past 2790 days) Posts: 1174 From: Eugene, Oregon, USA Joined: |
quote: I don't fully understand your reply. I do believe that much of what is currently called supernatural is in fact explainable according to modern science. But, I doubt that such things will soon, if ever, be subject to direct observation in the scientific sense. Thus not quanifiable. Are you saying that believers expect to understand and quantify the mechanism of spiritual gifts? Are you saying that believers are open to proving that spiritual powers are nonexistent? db
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nator Member (Idle past 2195 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
bump.
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nator Member (Idle past 2195 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
bump.
Truthlover?
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nator Member (Idle past 2195 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
bump
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nator Member (Idle past 2195 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
bump
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