Has The Supernatural Hypothesis Failed?

And you should remember that claims that deal with deities and the natural world are subject to examination.And if those claims are disproved by the evidence, it does not do much good to the reputations of associated deities.Look at the claims about a global flood ca. 4,350 years ago and the young earth. Those claims bit the dust long ago, and the credibility of those still pushing those claims is nil.This does not support the existence of anything supernatural; it is rather the opposite.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Perhaps, but what kind of examination? Only claims dealing with the natural world are subject to scientific examination. If the claims dealing with deities are of the type I mentioned earlier (those using "three-letter words like 'god' or 'creator'") and regard the natural world, then they are by composition a subset of all claims dealing with the natural world and are as such subject to scientific examination; if they do not deal with the natural world, they are not subject to scientific examinationthough, to a different type of examination, no doubt. Huh? If I associate you with a dubious claim, is that a smear on your reputation, or on the reputation of the one doing the association (myself)? Agreed. And? Who would want to support the existence of anything supernatural? Who would delude themself into believing they were even capable of such a thing? Likewise, who would delude themself into believing they were even capable of the opposite?JonEdited by Jon, : Plurality... Edited by Jon, : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7

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"Can we say the chair on the cat, for example? Or the basket in the person? No, we can't..." - Harriet J. Ottenheimer

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"Dim bulbs save on energy..." - jar

Let me put this into simple terms.Folks believe in the supernatural, information concerning which is relayed to them through scripture, revelation, dogma, catechism and the like.Some of that information is in the form of claims that can be tested. The aforementioned young earth and global flood about 4,350 years ago are two such claims.The accuracy of such claims, when tested against real-world evidence, is abysmal.Does this not reflect badly on claims for and belief in the supernatural?In simple terms, what good is a deity who is wrong so often on claims that can be tested? And if those claims are wrong, what of the claims that cannot yet be tested?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

What does that even mean?The statement: God exists outside of the universe.Is not a supernatural claim, it's just a claim. The person saying it has no idea what they're saying, they've never known anything to be outside of the universe, they don't even know that there is an outside of the universe (if that even makes sense), there is no evidence for the universe having a limit... so what if anything is a supernatural claim?- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

So mathematics is supernatural! Who'd have thunk it?

I have a supernatural claim: God created the universe.
I have a natural claim: The big bang created the universe.
Ok, what then created God? Nothing, God is self existent.
Ok, what then created the big bang? Nothing it just happened.
Well if God is self existent, then what need for a universe?
I don't know.
Well if the big bang did not happen would there be a universe?
I don't know. Perhaps not this one.
One theory is that eventually all the matter that exist in the universe will be so homogenous and spread out, that there will be essentually nothing. delta s=0.
The cosmos will eventually become a very lonely place.There is something in human nature I believe that wants to resist that inevitable fate. That human conciousness in some form will survive. Is this why some look to the supernatural and gods in the hopes there is raison de entre.So is everything arbitrary, or do we just make up our own answer.
Perhaps the reason there is something rather than nothing is because something wants to exist. Otherwise there would be nothing.
Perhaps the supernatural gives some people who are resigned to nihilistic thoughts of absurdity, cause for hope that something exist greater than the sum of its parts. I now think we just need to enjoy, as best we can, what time we have.
Regardless of how or why we are here.

It is a supernatural claim only if your concept of god requires there to be a supernatural realm. Many concepts of god don't require this, so saying "God created the universe" would not be a supernatural claim. It's dependent on the individual.- Oni

So, despite lack of faith in the supernatural, you believe the deity to be the one making the claims? No; just tells us that someone was wrong about their claim on the natural world. Tested by what means? There it is again... do you really believe these folk are having information relayed to them through these supernatural media? I think they just make it all up.Jon

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"Can we say the chair on the cat, for example? Or the basket in the person? No, we can't..." - Harriet J. Ottenheimer

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"Dim bulbs save on energy..." - jar

That might possibly be the case if the claims were made by non-natural entities.If they're made by humans, though, then see my sub-title.We, and our claims and beliefs, are always subject to scientific examination.

Oh, I see. Provisos.
I fail to see how any claim of god or gods can not be considered a supernatural claim. Even if one where to say,:My god Crom is natural he lives strong on his mountain."I'd say I would like to meet him."
:Well you can't because he doesn't give interviews.

i can tell you how fortune tellers, people that speak whit the dead and similar ones do it.first they do a cold read
they check your hands for a ring, recant absence of it, your posture, your clothes, your grooming ..... the more the better idea they have what you have gone trough recently.then they make you fill the gaps while they still read you your speech pattern, posture ...so if you recently removed a wedding ring they might start i have someone on the other side who wants to talk to you about some problems in your family and you go well my wife died/ i got divorced ..... Depending on your response they make up the story as they go along.all the others do it in a similar way only on a mass scale.Edited by frako, : No reason given.

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onifre in Message 397:
... saying "God created the universe" would not be a supernatural claim.

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This is right on the nose, and in line with what I had earlier stated: "just because a claim uses three-letter words like 'god' or 'creator' does not mean it is supernatural". I think we need to get past the practice of branding claims as supernatural simply because they sound fishy; it's bad science.Jon

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"Can we say the chair on the cat, for example? Or the basket in the person? No, we can't..." - Harriet J. Ottenheimer

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"Dim bulbs save on energy..." - jar

That math is in no way necessarily tied to our reality is an argument I've made many times on these boards; I actually started a whole thread on the subject: Math's Arbitrary Non-Necessary Necessarily-Disconnected Conventional Link to Reality. Math, however, is a system of description; when it is used to describe things of the natural world, its claims are very much natural and thus subject to scientific investigation.I don't think it would be proper to classify an entire system of reasoning as supernatural or natural; it is rather the claims made by these systems that we classify and then proceed to investigate using the appropriate methodologies.JonEdited by Jon, : Expanding...

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"Can we say the chair on the cat, for example? Or the basket in the person? No, we can't..." - Harriet J. Ottenheimer

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"Dim bulbs save on energy..." - jar

That is a minor point. I think it is clear that we are not talking about the physical entity that is the claim, but rather the content of the claim. You may investigate that I am crazy and so that is why I've made such and such a claim, but this does nothing to address the content of the claim. My apologies for having not made this clear from the beginning.If it helps, we can agree that when we speak of a 'claim' it is the specific content to which we are referring and not the entity of the claim itself, whose origin may be anything. I also think it is pretty safe to assume that the word 'claim' has been used in this way throughout this thread.Anyone who has not used 'claim' in this way, but instead in the way pointed to by bluegenes, might want to step forward; it may clear up confusions.Jon

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"Can we say the chair on the cat, for example? Or the basket in the person? No, we can't..." - Harriet J. Ottenheimer

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"Dim bulbs save on energy..." - jar

How is it that you are defining 'supernatural'?Jon

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"Can we say the chair on the cat, for example? Or the basket in the person? No, we can't..." - Harriet J. Ottenheimer

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"Dim bulbs save on energy..." - jar