Inductive Atheism

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Next time I see him.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

I have no idea what you are talking about. And you seem to have some sort of definition in mind that no dictionary anywhere in the world would agree with.As far as I can see by your definition the concept of a perpetual motion machine is "supernatural" but a bat transforming Dracula isn't.How does that work?

I think the two of you have that in common.To me, the most interesting thing about fictional cartoon characters and other fictional beings is that people can actually have subjective experiences of them, and believe them to be real.What the implications of this fact are for the reliability of subjective experiences and beliefs as evidence we can leave to the Thomson brothers to discover in their own sweet way.

Would you also ask him on what basis he concludes that these much vaunted "subjective experiences" are likely to have supernatural rather than natural causes?

Probably not.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Can you imagine something so obviously a buffoonery as the numerous internet anecdotes of the supreme superpowers of Chuck Norris actually becoming a religion? LOL!Here's a case where a real person gets conflated up into a fictional caricature of himself.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Why is that so hard? Why waste time scientifically investigating whether Dracula is a supernatural being when we already know he doesn't truly exist? We have Bram Stoker as the author of the Dracula story. Dracula has been scientifically explained already, and therefore cannot be supernatural. Who was the author of the Buddha story? The Jesus story (I know . . . some guy or guys that later became known as Christians . . .)?Meanwhile some crackpot garage engineer puts forth a claim that he has invented a perpetual motion machine. It appears to work according to some neighbors and a local news reporter and is as yet unexplained. What happens? He gets a visit by some investigative scientist or scientists and it gets debunked by a either an elementary scientific analysis or a not-so-elementary scientific analysis or an extensive scientific analysis. Note that he gets a visit - not some phone call from a scientist sitting in an armchair miles away. Was it ever a supernatural thing? I don't think so - just unexplained for a while. Not all things that are unexplained are supernatural. This case might be thought of as a trivial variant of The Cold Fusion Story, which resulted in a lot of visitations in the form of laboratory experiments around the world.Another kind of thing that is unexplained, but later is explained, would be Hanny's Voorwerp. Was that ever thought of as being something supernatural? Maybe it was by a couple of the wacko kind of people bluegenes brings up in Message 57. But I don't think it was ever thought of as supernatural elsewhere.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler,(the son of the Dragon, son of Dracul, aka Dracula) definitely existed and was Voivode of Wallachia and famous enemy of the Turks (along with some unfortunate political skirmishes with Hungary). Vampires were believed in, and there are many anecdotal subjective experiences of their existence stemming from Slavic lands. They were dead people that raised from the dead (possibly because a cat walked across their grave, or they died before marriage) and gained the ability to change into different animals, the desire/need for blood, the dislike of garlic, stakes and fire. It might be pointed out that you claimed 'he doesn't truly exist' based on the fact that the only source of vampiric Eastern European nobles you knew of was Bram Stoker and those that followed him...Dracula as a vampire may have been thought of by some in the Slavic lands, but it was certainly popularised by Stoker's work.Let us not disregard that as recently as the 18th Century, there was major panic about Vampires in Europe.They are as 'bone fide' as gods, ghosts, spirits and djinn as far as supernatural credentials go. Dracula is as good a suspect for vampirism as Peter Plogojowitz or Mercy Brown.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Sure. Just as I can imagine something obviously a science fiction becoming a religion. Scientology, for example.Take a Chuck Norris anecdote like "he can get coffee out of teabags". Well, Norris himself is a firm believer in an anecdote about a guy who could get wine out of water.Some people believe that Obama is the anti-Christ, and people in the past could believe that Pharaohs were gods.There are people who'll believe in pretty much anything, and people can have subjective experiences of pretty much anything.Beliefs and "subjective experiences" do not weaken scientific theories for very good reasons, don't you agree?

Yes, I am familiar with Vlad the Impaler, but he was not a fictional character with supernatural abilities in a book. If Straggler was referring to Vlad, then I would retract my viewpoint there. No. I based my claim on the assumption that Straggler was only referring to the fictional character in Stoker's book, like when he was referring to the fictional cartoon character, Casper The Ghost.So it goes.I could ask you, as an aside, if you think Bram Stoker, himself, thought his character was based on someone who had any supernatural elements that were real? I have no idea. But that's another topic....

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

He was in Bram Stoker's book, and many in life undoubtedly ascribed supernatural devilry to him. But it was a known piece of fiction about a class of being that if existent, would be considered supernatural AND that people have believed do exist. Next you'll be revising your notion that the FSM counts as an example of a supernatural being we can say is made up because we know it is made up therefore it is not a supernatural being but a fictional construct made for the purposes of satirising intelligent design creationism and 'teach the controversy' mentality.The fictional character of Dracula, was defined as being moody, angry, having a perverse sense of honour and justice, and could fly, turn to smoke and had to drink blood.This is a supernatural concept. The idea itself isn't magical. The character is fictional. But it is a concept of a thing that that has magical properties. Denying that Casper the Ghost is a supernatural concept because it is a natural pile of transparent cells with paint on them, coupled with voice acting and so on is just being ridiculous.You might as well try, in a discussion about the folklorishness of Dragons say we can't talk about stories about Dragons! Indeed - what you are doing is like saying that Smaug is not a dragon concept!Do you concur that vampires, such as the one Dracula is portrayed as, are 'supernatural beings' in as far as 'if they really existed, we'd be perfectly happy to call them supernatural since they defy everything we know about biology.'We can suggest that Dracula is a fictional character based on a real, claimed to exist, supernatural category of beings called 'vampires' or 'strigoi' or what have you. That Dracula is a known example of a supernatural creature that was 'made up'. We can look at other vampire stories and show how 'mass hysteria' and 'superstitious magical thinking' can be put forward as explanations for the many claimed subjective experiences of vampires so that we can hypothesise that all supposed 'real vampire' stories are actually inadvertant products of a flawed human brain even extending that notion to cases where historical records are too sketchy to be sure either way.

Probably for the best. His brain might dissolve into a puddle of cognitive dissonance if anything that pertinent were to get through.

Because the more you have said on this the less sense you have made. I only asked for a definition. In response you seem to be claiming that anything scientifically unexplained qualifies as supernatural except where you personally decide it’s not supernatural for some long winded reason. Who on Earth is suggesting that we need to go round scientifically investigating the actual existence of the supernatural characters in Being Human or Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Why does being an intentional fiction preclude something from being supernatural? What? A vampire is an undead being that craves human blood, has no reflection and can only be killed by mans of a wooden stake through the heart. Etc. This is a supernatural concept. Whether the vampire in question is Buffy’s undead fictional boyfriend or some Romanian Count that people actually genuinely once believed had these properties has nothing to do with whether the concept is supernatural or not. By the terms of your nonsensical definition it would seem that quantum gravity and the Higgs Boson currently qualify as supernatural.You are not making any sense. Can you just tell us what you mean by supernatural without the stories and furniture (to use your phrase).Edited by Straggler, : Being Human link

In his latest post in the Subbie great debate topic RAZ gives the clearest indication yet of what he is talking about with regard to the role of thesee much vaunted documented experiences. So apparently if people believe that they have evidence that gods exist this constitutes some sort of evidence that gods do indeed exist.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.