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Indeed, I've known a lot of religious people like the ones you speak of. And I've known and read from many other "religious"/deist people who think those types

Indeed, I've known a lot of religious people like the ones you speak of. And I've known and read from many other "religious"/deist people who think those types of people are silly. >If there was real compelling evidence of supernatural behavior I'd change my mind, but whenever it's been claimed and tested - it's bullshit. How is it possible to test for "supernatural behavior"?

fossuser 6y ago
> ""How is it possible to test for "supernatural behavior"? - "I'm a psychic and can tell what's in these containers without looking" - "I can detect water with magic rods" - "I can heal you with the power of god" It's worth watching An Honest Liar about the life of the Amazing Randi. What's interesting is even when Randi shows people how they're being tricked they refuse to believe it. The above examples are pretty easy to test (and people do), but believers just ignore the results or make up reasons why results don't matter or can't be tested.
- loveistheanswer 6y ago
  Those are of course easy strawman examples of charlatans trying to make money. This Carl Sagan quote is relevant: >An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    Sure - technically every atheist should be agnostic in the sense that you can never know anything with 100% confidence, but pragmatically you live as if you're an atheist. In the strict sense I'm "almost certain there is no god", but no one can be truly certain given the nature of the things Sagan points out. Just because something is hard to prove with certainty doesn't mean the probability is equally likely. You can't really be a strict atheist about magic sea fairies either, but you probably are (in the sense you that you think they don't exist). Priors matter for things. While many of those people were charlatans, many of them are also earnest. The water rods people really believe they can detect water with the sticks and have stories about how they helped a friend with a leak and such. Many astrology people really believe they can make personality predictions (they can't unless they're vague enough to be predictive of nothing). It's not all conartists.
soylentcola 6y ago
Maybe I'm just being snarky or missing the real meaning of the term, but I think of "supernatural" as something that is beyond any capacity to test or prove. Anything that can be proven would fall under my definition of "natural", even if it's beyond my capacity to explain or understand. By definition, I'd consider any sort of gods, demons, ghosts, or whatever to be either nonexistent or something that exists (which would imply that it's something natural and operates in some currently unknown way).
- loveistheanswer 6y ago
  >I think of "supernatural" as something that is beyond any capacity to test or prove. I agree. It's worth noting that the fundamental nature of our consciousness could fall into that realm, judging by how it is scientifically impossible to isolate and control for, and is thus seemingly indefineable.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Free will is supernatural. That is why leading atheists posit that it doesn’t exist.

fossuser 6y ago

> ""How is it possible to test for "supernatural behavior"? - "I'm a psychic and can tell what's in these containers without looking" - "I can detect water with magic rods" - "I can heal you with the power of god" It's worth watching An Honest Liar about the life of the Amazing Randi. What's interesting is even when Randi shows people how they're being tricked they refuse to believe it. The above examples are pretty easy to test (and people do), but believers just ignore the results or make up reasons why results don't matter or can't be tested.

loveistheanswer 6y ago
Those are of course easy strawman examples of charlatans trying to make money. This Carl Sagan quote is relevant: >An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.
- fossuser 6y ago
  Sure - technically every atheist should be agnostic in the sense that you can never know anything with 100% confidence, but pragmatically you live as if you're an atheist. In the strict sense I'm "almost certain there is no god", but no one can be truly certain given the nature of the things Sagan points out. Just because something is hard to prove with certainty doesn't mean the probability is equally likely. You can't really be a strict atheist about magic sea fairies either, but you probably are (in the sense you that you think they don't exist). Priors matter for things. While many of those people were charlatans, many of them are also earnest. The water rods people really believe they can detect water with the sticks and have stories about how they helped a friend with a leak and such. Many astrology people really believe they can make personality predictions (they can't unless they're vague enough to be predictive of nothing). It's not all conartists.

soylentcola 6y ago

Maybe I'm just being snarky or missing the real meaning of the term, but I think of "supernatural" as something that is beyond any capacity to test or prove. Anything that can be proven would fall under my definition of "natural", even if it's beyond my capacity to explain or understand. By definition, I'd consider any sort of gods, demons, ghosts, or whatever to be either nonexistent or something that exists (which would imply that it's something natural and operates in some currently unknown way).

loveistheanswer 6y ago
>I think of "supernatural" as something that is beyond any capacity to test or prove. I agree. It's worth noting that the fundamental nature of our consciousness could fall into that realm, judging by how it is scientifically impossible to isolate and control for, and is thus seemingly indefineable.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Free will is supernatural. That is why leading atheists posit that it doesn’t exist.