What is Supernatural?

You seem to be pulled in two different directions. You want things to be unknowable and unobservable, and yet you keep injecting a specific idea, the god idea, into the discussion. If it is so unknowable and unobservable then why suggest "God" to begin with? You blame others for rejecting ideas out of hand, and yet the very things we are accused of rejecting are made up from nothing. As the old saw goes, claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

So you know how God works! Great! You've found all the secrets of the universe. I think you may need another universe to explore.

Well maybe it is as defining ''darkness' as 'not light'.red and blue can be characterised by their wave length, but black can only be described as the absence of light.Or maybe my definition is incomplete a bit. I was previously using the expression ''outside of nature'' which I thought was more appropriate since it defined supernatural by distinction of nature and not by opposition, but some didn't like it either.I still think my attempted definitions are the best that have come up in this thread. Better then the ''supernatural doesn't exist no need to define it!!!'' claims that are swirling around.

My method can say absolutely nothing on what is natural(whether a God is required for existence)- this is the reason why this question is on the list of Big questions of humanity.

They are completely relevant to the point. Are you saying you can know that existence does not require Xongsong? Because again, if you can, you are special pleading. I am not making any assumptions about what Xongsong is either.So, again, can you know that existence does not require Xongsong? If you say you can, you are special pleading.

So by extension the supernatural is the absence of the natural? That's it? It's equivalent to nothing? I certainly think that is a better start since it is consistent with the structure of the word (super = above). "Outside of nature" might be better described as "perinatural", or perhaps "paranatural" which is close to paranormal.But again, we have some of the same problems. No one describes the geography of Europe as "outside of America". At some point there needs to be a positive description, a description of what actually constitutes the supernatural.

Hi,You are right, if it exists and is within our universe than it is labelled natural. The problem comes from you assuming that if something is outside our universe, we have no evidence for it. But this isn't necessarily true.We will never be able to use the scientific method concerning the center of a black hole. But we know it is real. The multiverse is a great outflow of string theory, yet probably we will never be able to empirically demonstrate it.

There is that assumption again. Why "God"? Why not (as Huntard keeps mentioning) Xongsong, or my favorite which is Marklar? Do we have to ponder whether or not Never Never Land exists, depending on whether or not Peter Pan exists? How far down the rabbit hole have you gone?You are so turned around that you can't even tell us whether or not you brushed your teeth this morning. In an effort to make God possible you have made everything impossible to determine.

No, i want to know literally everything there is to know, now. Existence is incomprehensible, it's way beyond our ability to understand. You should provide evidence for your assumption that for anything to be in existence, God is not required(i.e. existence is a natural state).

Sorry, but your answer then and now is not helping matters any. I do appreciate your attempt though. ...is the same as this: Our universe is all we know. It is our reality. This is all you can EVER experience. The 2 cannot be seperated.Everything that exists is the universe.And limiting it to what we can "do science on" is fallacious. We couldn't do science on lots of things 500 years ago. Would you have seperated an atom from nature then? You can see what a mistake it is today, though, right? Why would you impsoe this same logic today when you can see how wrong it has been in the past? It's almost as though now we need a definition for god...These are just words you're using, they mean nothing. There is no universal concept of "god" that you can place in different realms and give it attributes assigned by you - or the religion you happen to believe in. If it can't be universally accepted (and of course it can't because again, it's just a belief) then all we have is a word that changes attributes throughout time. It can mean anything at any given time.God, the word, has lost all meaning.The same with "supernatural." You can't just place it in different realms and give it attributes that you couldn't possibly evidence in anyway. This is almost nonsensical. A concept imagined is a concept imagined in reality by beings able to do so. NO ONE can imagine something that isn't within the framework of what they experienced, of the reality and world that they know (example: 10,000 years ago someone would not have been able to imagine an ipod, but they could imagine the sun being pulled by a chariot).So EVRYTHING imagined fits firmly within the framework of reality. We have neural representations, but they have restrictions. Even when people imagine aliens they still fit within a framework.In fact, I challenge you to imagine an outside of the universe and what it would look like. Care to honestly describe what you picture? Can you site one example (except for the word "god")...? No slevesque, all you have done is presented certain cultural beliefs and ascribed them qualities that are still unevidenced and undefined. If reality is anything else, then you need to provide evidence for that. As it stands, nature is all we experience and thus all we can EVER know. The problem is you're defining one undefined word with another undefined word and using that as your argument.God is not the answer because that word is meaningless. Outside of nature makes no sense because no human has ever experienced that, let alone, now wants to use it as answer.This where your position continues to fall apart.In a nutshell, supernatural is anything you can imagine it to be. From an eclipse 5000 years ago, to today, abiogenesis. It is a word, like the word "god," that means anything at any given time. It is useless. It is pointless to even try to defend (at least IMO) and those who are advocating this are failing to establish what they mean, besides using other useless and meaningless terms.I think Taq summed it up: What is red? Not blue.What is supernatural? Anything that is not natural.Oh, ok........- Oni

Analogies aren't perfect unfortunately. It was just to show that it isn't uncommon to define something in regards to something else. THe structure of the word was my first line of thinking when coming with 'outside of nature' Your analogy doesn't really describe the situation here. We can go outside of america into europe to see what it is and describe this way. This cannot be done in the case of nature, and so it limits how we can define it.A more suitable analogy would be if we were all locked up in a house with no contact with the exterior world but a little tiny hole in the ceiling. Everyday, light would start to come through the hole and follow a precise trajectory across the room and disappear. One day, the most crazy out of us would say that this light comes from a light source that is actually outside the house and who is circling us. This would explain it's trajectory. How useful would it be for the others to say:- well, where is this light source anyway ?- I can't tell for sure, but I can say that it is outside the house.- Oh but this doesn't tell us where it is. It simply tells us where it is not. That's not an answer.- Well I cannot tell you anymore then this, because this is all I can say from our point of view.Of course, his answer isn't the best one possible. But it is the only one he can give, and in fact it is sufficient enough for everybody to understand what he means and so although it isn't optimal, it still is accurate enough.

No. Existence is beyond me. No. Existence is beyond me. And I am not willing to make unwarranted assumptions that i can know what God is or whether God has anything remotely simiular to a physical appearance, and whether it's a spaghetti monster, etc. I leave this excercise to the inhabitants of kindergartens.

How does your comment relate to mine?Let me put it another way for you. Nothing can be a prerequisite for existence itself.

No dude. What he's saying is that the logic you are using runs the risk of cancelling out that which you are trying to argue for.If you say existence may require a god, then if that god exists, by your own logic, god would require a god too (or at least some other means of creation).It's the same thing as saying "complexity requires a creator." Well, then if that creator is complex too, which it has to be to create complex things, by that very logic the creator requires a creator, too. See?Bluegenes was just pointing out the error of the logic you are using.- Oni* sorry Bluegenes, I posted then saw you replied.Edited by onifre, : No reason given.

Even God? That must be another assumption. You are a human being and as such your ability to understand, unfortunately, isn't endless.