Peanut Gallery

Straggler asks: Certainly not.For example, there should be such evidence in the case of IPUs. The wikipedia link has a rundown of possible avenues to investigate, but I don't think any of us here would accept wikipedia as scientific evidence all by itself.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

No, Straggler, you miss the point. If in fact Jesus was born of a virgin, then either the claim itself is not true, or, there is a natural explanation (not yet known to us) that demonstrates how this happened. If he in fact did walk on water, then either he didn't really walk on water, or, there is a natural explanation (not yet known to us) of how someone could walk on water. I think you get where I'm going with the rest. If the laws of nature were suspended, there still leaves the question of how...? Saying it was supernatural doesn't explain it.- Oni

Hi nwr, thanks. Bingo.That is my argument.Enojy.

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So, really, this entire thing is based on whether a word was used correctly or not...WowJustWow

Surely this is nothing more than a statement of faith that the world is naturalistic in all its workings? Why does there have to be a natural explanation? Indeed, a world that permits the supernatural is also a world in which there are things which completely lack methodological explanations. That's pretty much the definition of supernatural. However, while we live in a world in which things are explicable, there's no a priori reason to think we must.

Because nothing else satisfies. But if the word supernatural is just a linguistic place filler, then it means nothing more than "I don't know."- Oni

I would note that your satisfaction is not a requirement that reality is obliged to obey. It's not a place filler; it's the word for things that don't operate according to determinable, accessible rules. If magic/miracles were real, then they'd operate in a way that means that our only methodological explanation is "it's supernatural".

Hi, Straggler. You’re stuck on empirical demonstration of the supernatural validating religious methodology. But, this debate is not about religious methodology: it’s possible for RAZD to demonstrate the existence of one supernatural being without validating any religious methodology (e.g., a supernatural being that nobody believes in).Thus, your argument is a non sequitur. There's no reason that religious methods of "knowing" even have to be discussed in this debate.Assuming that current knowledge is a surrogate for absolute knowledge is a perfectly normal part of scientific reasoning, and it plays a useful role in the development of theories.But, in this case, supernaturalism cannot be tested directly. You can’t gather evidence that distinguishes between the conclusions, it’s supernatural and we don’t know how it works.So, if we saw a supernatural occurrence, and concluded that it was indeed supernatural, we cannot have any idea how well our conclusion, based on current knowledge, would serve as a surrogate for absolute knowledge.Thus, the concept of confidence cannot be applied to any theory that explicitly deals with the supernatural. So, all theories about the supernatural are little more than speculation.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Huntard. I find it hard to believe that you really think qualifying as a scientific theory is just an issue of word usage.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Indeed, a world with the supernatural in it is not a world that can be understood.

If you consider the second coming of Christ to be an insufficient basis for atheists to at least ponder their position then I can only conclude that you have simply a priori decided that the falsifiability of bluegenes theory is as invalid as you originally asserted and that there is no swaying you from this predefined position. You seem to have fallen into the RAZDian fallacy of demanding proofs when it suits your arguments to do so.But if you consider the second coming of Christ to be insufficient evidence upon which atheists should at least question their position I am intrigued as to what your own theistic beliefs are based on? It must be exceptionally compelling.A miraculously conceived Christ dude with DNA to match goes round raising the dead, healing the incurable and generally being as verifiably miraculous and divine as one could hope for and you want to proclaim this as a victory for naturalism on the basis that the dude in question is obviously an alien rather than anything that could possibly be described as supernatural.Yet you yourself believe in the supernatural based on some vague internal feelings of conviction.I find these two positions rather incongruent.

In the unlikely event that the second coming of Christ as conceived and envisaged by Christian supernaturalists actually occurs I think this could accurately and meaningfully be described as supernatural.If by the application of some definitional dynamics you want to relabel this as natural and in doing so render the term supernatural meaningless then I guess you can do that.But I remain wholly unconvinced that this method of argument by definition is a legitimate or even useful method of confronting the wrong-headed nature of such beliefs. There are good evidenced reasons for concluding that such beliefs are the result of human failings and inclinations. Simply defining them away as nothing seems more like a cheap way of winning a debate than an actual argument against the proposed reality of such nonsense.

But neither is anyone satified with God-did-it or it was magic. Why does supernatural get a pass? As determined by who? Is a solar eclipse something that doesn't operate according to determinable, accessible rules? Well, not today it's not, but it was once considered such. Would someone living 1000 years ago consider the universe to be working under determinable, accessible rules?A point in time where something doesn't operate with determinable, accessible rules is a point in time where not enough is understood about that something.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Sure, something like that can be described as supernatural, magical, meta-physical, whatever you want really. In some stories people can fly, in some, animals can talk. In the unlikely event that any of this actually happens, nature and reality as we understand it will need to be redefined. What definition for the word supernatural have you heard that makes it something tangible? All I every hear is something ambiguous that in the end defines nothing at all.- Oni

Well, that's a valid question. It pretty much echoes Hume's argument that there can never be convincing evidence for Miracles. It doesn't, however, speak to whether there actually can be supernatural things or not.And, personally, I think it would become obvious if there was supernatural stuff going on. Only in a universe where things actually have determinable, accessible rules. Ours appears to be such a universe but it doesn't have to be.