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Author Topic:   The Movie Paranormal Activity
Taq
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Posts: 10075
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 49 of 285 (612416)
04-15-2011 12:03 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by slevesque
04-13-2011 1:15 PM


Because of this, there seems to ba a qualitative difference between that, and a supernatural interaction, because if a supernatural thing isn't constrained by natural laws, then it can just as well be a one time event, unrepeatable, untestable, and unscientifically searchable.
The problem here is that you are assigning characteristics to the supernatural without even being able to show that the supernatural exists. Why can't the supernatural have predictable and testable interactions with the natural world? From what I have seen, the only reason that you are making this argument is that no one has found evidence for the supernatural. Therefore, the only way to defend the existence of the supernatural is to claim that evidence shouldn't exist if the supernatural is real. That doesn't sound like a good way to do things, at least to me.
In reading this thread I can't help but think of Harry Houdini. He spent a portion of his career debunking the psychics, mediums, and shucksters of his day. In fact, he greatly inspired Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller fame. This is why they demonstrate how magic tricks are done in the same way that Houdini demystified magic in his era. Each year Penn Jillette and a cadre of skeptics and Houdini family members get together for a seance. Before Houdini died he passed on three words to his wife so that she would know if it was really him speaking from the afterlife. These three words have been passed on through the family and are tightly held secrets. Every year the family invites people over to try to make contact with Houdini. So far, no luck even though mediums claim they have access to such information.
In the words of Penn Jillette, "Bullshit".

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Taq
Member
Posts: 10075
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 50 of 285 (612427)
04-15-2011 1:47 PM


This is one of my favorite Steven Weinberg quotes:
quote:
Once nature seemed inexplicable without a nymph in every brook and a dryad in every tree. Even
as late as the nineteenth century the design of plants and animals was regarded as visible evidence of a
creator. There are still countless things in nature that we cannot explain, but we think we know the principles
that govern the way they work. Today for real mystery one has to look to cosmology and elementary
particle physics. For those who see no conflict between science and religion, the retreat of religion from the
ground occupied by science is nearly complete." (Weinberg, S., "Dreams of a Final Theory," Pantheon: New
York NY, 1992, pp.249-250)
He hits it dead on. For millenia we lived in a world where the supernatural was all around us causing repeatable and demonstrable changes in our everyday lives. With the advent of science the supernatural disappeared as we found that these magical happenings were not supernatural afterall. For those who want to push the supernatural into the indiscernable and inscrutable it might be worth pointing out how far of a retreat this really is from where the supernatural used to be.

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