Peanut Gallery

Hi PaulK So if you can't tell if there is a supernatural presence\beings then how can you tell if religious experiences are detecting them or not? Can you tell if a kite is detecting electricity if you do not have a means to determine whether electricity is present? Or do you just detect a lot of light and sound? But you haven't eliminated the possibility that supernatural presence is driving the whole system, and you don't see "evidence of an input that cannot be accounted for by natural means" because it is USING the natural means. You are just ASSUMING that there is no presence. You are like a Ben Franklin with his kite but no means to detect electricity explaining that "natural means" explain the light and thunder, because you have no test for electricity. But to verify that they are actually talking about experiences of supernatural beings you would have to be able to test for the supernatural beings being present. Otherwise you are just making assumptions. No, it relies on the fact that they MAY be actual experiences involving supernatural beings, and that you need to test for and empirically eliminate this possibility before you can claim supernatural presence is not involved.If you cannot detect them because you have not developed a means to detect them, then that does not mean they aren't present, just that you fail to detect them due to absence of a test procedure.Could Ben Franklin detect electricity in lightening if he didn't have a means to test for the presence of electricity? How do you know whether or not they have a detectable effect if you cannot detect their presence? How do you know that what you call "natural means" are not directed by supernatural beings, that they are how "supernatural means" are effected? Being skeptical is fine, however when you close your mind to possibilities that are not contradicted by any supporting evidence, then you are not addressing potentially valid possibilities to the question with proper scientific means.Do you have any supporting objective empirical evidence that supernatural beings do not actually exist? If not, then shouldn't you be equally skeptical of people claiming that they don't?If all you have is your assumptions based on your world view, then it is just your opinion, not a scientific conclusion.Enjoy.

I'm still fascinated as to the basis upon which you special plead "religious" experiences as warranting supernatural explanations but not other subjective experiences.If you can't tell if there is a supernatural presence\beings then how can you tell if mundane dream experiences are caused by them or not?If you can't tell if there is a supernatural presence\beings then how can you tell if sexual fantasy experiences are caused by them or not?What basis is there to conclude that some subjective experiences are caused by supernatural entities whilst others aren't. How are you making the distinction?Or are ALL subjective experiences potentially evidence of the supernatural?

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So if you can't tell if there is a supernatural presence\beings then how can you tell if religious experiences are detecting them or not?

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I've already explained that.

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But you haven't eliminated the possibility that supernatural presence is driving the whole system, and you don't see "evidence of an input that cannot be accounted for by natural means" because it is USING the natural means.

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And the same might be said of any event once attributed to supernatural beings, but now explained by natural causes. What makes this particular case so special that we need to resort to absolute proof ?

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You are just ASSUMING that there is no presence. You are like a Ben Franklin with his kite but no means to detect electricity explaining that "natural means" explain the light and thunder, because you have no test for electricity.

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Obviously that is false. If the evidence shows that religious experiences may be adequately accounted for by natural inputs and events within the human nervous system I would conclude that it is not a detection of a supernatural being = because it is NOT detecting a supernatural being, only those natural inputs whether or not a supernatural being happens to be controlling them.

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But to verify that they are actually talking about experiences of supernatural beings you would have to be able to test for the supernatural beings being present. Otherwise you are just making assumptions.

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But obviously I am NOT just making assumptions. I am coming to a conclusion based on the evidence.

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No, it relies on the fact that they MAY be actual experiences involving supernatural beings, and that you need to test for and empirically eliminate this possibility before you can claim supernatural presence is not involved.

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In fact it assumes that they MAY be actual detections of supernatural beings. Obviously if we cannot detect supernatural beings this cannot be true.

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How do you know whether or not they have a detectable effect if you cannot detect their presence?

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I did not make the claim that they did not. I was responding to your hypothetical situation which ASSUMED that they did not. Of course if supernatural beings did have detectable effects, we would potentially have a means of detecting them...

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Being skeptical is fine, however when you close your mind to possibilities that are not contradicted by any supporting evidence, then you are not addressing potentially valid possibilities to the question with proper scientific means

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Obviously you are unfamiliar with the nature of science. Science ignores many, many scenarios that are not absolutely IMPOSSIBLE. It has to, since there are too many logical possibilities to address. Heuristics for eliminating the less likely options - such as parsimony - are essential.

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Do you have any supporting objective empirical evidence that supernatural beings do not actually exist? If not, then shouldn't you be equally skeptical of people claiming that they don't?

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Actually I should not be skeptical of people being strongly skeptical of supernatural beings because they are being rational ! If anyone claims an absolute belief that there are no such things, then I will be skeptical of THAT.

Hi Straggles, That I pick one example to pursue does not mean that the others are not also of concern.So do you have a means to test for supernatural presence, or do you just assume absence?Enjoy.

Hi PaulK I must have missed it. Agreed, as I have said elsewhere, that is another problem for you if you cannot test for the presence of supernatural essence. But you aren't "NOT detecting a supernatural being," you are just assuming that what you detect doesn't include supernatural presence -- you can't say you are not detecting supernatural presence UNLESS you have a means to actually detect supernatural presence. Obviously if you have no means to detect their presence, then you cannot detect them due to your failure to test for their presence and NOT because they are not there, no matter how you spin the argument. Without such a means of detection it remains a FACT that they MAY involve the presence of supernatural beings.If you are unable to measure the presence of electricity it remains a FACT that lightening MAY involve the presence of electricity. Except where it relates directly to falsification of the hypothesis in general and to a proposed falsification test in specific. Ignoring evidence that the hypothesis may already be falsified is not a proper scientific approach. Confirmation bias is not a basis for rational thought.Enjoy.

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I must have missed it.

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Odd how you replied to the explanations you didn't see.

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Agreed, as I have said elsewhere, that is another problem for you if you cannot test for the presence of supernatural essence.

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No, it's not a problem for me, at all.

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But you aren't "NOT detecting a supernatural being," you are just assuming that what you detect doesn't include supernatural presence -- you can't say you are not detecting supernatural presence UNLESS you have a means to actually detect supernatural presence.

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By which you mean the fact that the alleged method of detecting supernatural beings is not detecting supernatural beings is not a good reason to conclude that it is not detecting supernatural beings because we don't have a way of detecting supernatural beings.

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Obviously if you have no means to detect their presence, then you cannot detect them due to your failure to test for their presence and NOT because they are not there, no matter how you spin the argument. Without such a means of detection it remains a FACT that they MAY involve the presence of supernatural beings.

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The question we are discussing is not whether supernatural beings exist, but whether religious experiences are detections of supernatural beings, and how we might decide that issue. If we examine the mechanism and find that it is only detecting natural phenomena we can conclude that it is only detecting natural phenomena regardless of whether supernatural beings exist or not.

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Except where it relates directly to falsification of the hypothesis in general and to a proposed falsification test in specific. Ignoring evidence that the hypothesis may already be falsified is not a proper scientific approach.

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In other words it is the presence of evidence that is important, not mere logical possibility. Which supports my point.

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Confirmation bias is not a basis for rational thought.

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Neither is innuendo.

Then absolutely anything can be cited as subjective evidence of the supernatural. If I take a particularly satisfying morning dump and decide to attribute the intensity of this experience to some supernatural agent then I have as much evidence of the existence of supernatural entities as you do. My position is based on the "base foundational a priori assumption of science" that objectively evidenced conclusions are more likely to be representative of reaity than baselessly conceived subjective notions regarding causes.

Hi Straggles In other words, you can't answer the question directly because you do not have a means to test for supernatural presence.Enjoy.

I dispute the need to test things in the way you insist upon. In the same way that I don't have any means to test that the universe was created 1 second ago with completely different natural laws (specifically with regard to falling pens) than the ones that my memory has been falsely imbued with.Yet I still know, even before testing, that when I drop my pen it will drop as gravity predicts. Tentatively - If you insist on philosophical pendaticism. But I KNOW to all practical intents and purposes.I am holding a pen above my desk. I am going to let go of it.

What do you think my pen will do?

How confident can we be of this conclusion? Is this conclusion ultimately based on just an opinion or something more?

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Do we need to test all evidentially baseless propositions before we claim knowledge RAZ? Or just the things you don't want us to dismiss because you happen to believe in them?

Panda writes: Sorry...I was referring to the "Anything/Something" stuff you were replying to RAZD about. RAZD was asked to provide a single example and said: I was merely demonstrating that the specific examples possible were endless in the same manner that Straggler & bluegenes were demonstrating examples of made-up SNs. It was a useless question of Straggler to ask of RAZD. Perhaps I shouldn't have gone to bat for my brother there. Blame it on the ale.

If we are investigating direct manipulation of the brain by supernatural entities and only have brain scans & EEG stuff and so on, plus the testimony of the subject, we probably don't have enough information to conclude either way. We can only make estimates of the likelihood of mere human imagination from all the body of psychological research in this subject.Straggler, you are asking me: Ignoring RAZD's preoccupation with "religious experiences" for the moment, the key notion of "empirical" is relying on or derived from observation or experiment - something another person could do to corroborate the results. We are talking about the scientific process, aren't we? Any single SN event observed by one observer, but then gone forever, and not available to be corroborated by anyone else would be an example. An unconfirmed observation would be a detection, no? But, because it is unconfirmed, it is not yet considered done in an empirical manner.I gave some examples to Panda. Your "seemingly philosophically insurmountable problem" is not insurmountable any more than bluegenes' "distressingly daunting task" of demonstrating that humans can make up SNs.Continuing: Maybe you meant to say "some experiences are being cited as having a greater likelihood of being caused by supernatural entities in comparison with others"? Because I haven't seen yet any experiences that have been cited as positively supernatural by the major participants in this thread. In my mind, probably it's cultural. It would probably take a very large book to describe the basis.

Are you confusing this thread with another thread on another site? Here, we are talking about SN/religious experiences/explanations. I had dreams that were SN. For example:When I first was "saved/bornagain" I had a dream that I broke a window at the house while my dad was at work. In the dream I was a young lad and worried my dad would be pissed and i'd get in trouble. In the dream I was praying to God that He would Supernaturally just fix the window. Instead he caused my dad to be late coming home and I went and bought a new window grabbed some tools and put it in myself. When my dad arrived home the window was fixed. Problem solved.It was God showing me in my born again infancy that He is not just a SN God but a practical God also. That He can be just as practical as SN. So yeah, dreams can be a result of the SN. Sexual fantasy is us using our imaginations and what's deep down in our hearts. It has a SN connection being that God gave us our sexual desires. Sex is a good "evidence" for the existance of God(s) IMO. Have you asked anyone? All you have to do is atleast have an open mind about certain things and this question becomes irrelevant. You throw the baby out with the bath water concerning anything SN and affects your ability to see clear.You have tunnel vision when it comes to the SN and want everything that pops into your imagination answered no matter how irrational it seems. It's what happens when one is so skeptical. Potentially yes. Certainly no. That's what subjective means.

Well, it seemed to me that the Matrix was a world in which Neo was plugged into a certain machine, this escaping reality or not? The real world was the one outside the Mind.( It seemed). The Matrix was in his mind influenced by a machine.The machine he was hooked up to represents the SN. The mind is affected by the SN world AND the natural world. If you accept the natural world affecting our minds and wan't to argue in case for the martix then you should conclude our minds are affected by the SN also. Well Straggler, you could always find out ya know? Do a little investigating? Or as I asked before, do you buy land then ask questions after? With the SN it seems you make you conclusions THEN ask questions. Im not sure how you plan to find out any "truth" when you're so opposed to the very subject your discussing. Why shouldn't you. If I was sceptical about buying a Ford and you had good experiences with Ford and I never owned one and only heard how bad they were and you told me different as you've owned one for the last 20 years and I said you are full of it which of us would be acting irrational and why? Maybe because he's answered it 900 times already. Why do you try and strong arm RAZD into seeing things the way YOU see them? He's not doing that to you, He's simply asking you to see the rational argument behind His argument and you want him to be atheistic towards it. That's why He cites the "RAZD concepts scale" so often, because he needs to with you. And still, you don't see it. Bluegenes has His hands full in the The Great Debate
forum. He's fallen mightily behind. See for youself the bluegenes Challenge (bluegenes and RAZD only)(bluegenes and RAZD only)[/color]Start here:Message 1

Straggler writes: Oh, you are getting close.Scientific existence is indeed something that the scientific community currently is confirming to exist.
==> Remember, my non-expert opinion does not count.Do I define supernatural in terms of what hasn't been peer reviewed? No - I am trying to use your definition from Message 114 in Inductive Atheism: Inexplicable. Look at the box diagram I made replying to RAZD: Is my Unexplainable, as noted for it's shorthand, equivalent to your Inexplicable? If not, please delineate the difference(s) so we can proceed. So my Unexplainable would expand to "not describable in a manner that shows how the phenomenon occurs that is acceptable to the scientific community", if I flesh it out. I suspect your Inexplicable might be close to this.Straggler asks: Here it is, again: I am not holding my breath....Straggler also asks: Straggler - do you really think that Thor being a real supernatural being is more possible than 1 = 0?

If you can't give an example of something supernatural that can conceivably actually exist I don't really see how this can progress any further. You are playing atheism by definitions. And why would that constitute "supernatural"? No. Your usage suggests a temporary state of affairs rather than an inherent property of something. I can prove that 1 does not equal zero. I cannot prove that Thor does not exist.So - Yes.