Mar 23, 2012 -- 1:47AM, Blü wrote:

Heretic

Perhaps what we think is supernatural is actually natural but currently inexplicable to us.

I'm still troubled by the lack of a useful meaning for 'supernatural' - you'd think five thousand years of recorded theology would at least give us an objective test to tell a supernatural being if we found one.

There is nothing supernatural about it, yet it obviously is non-demonstrable.

That observation identifies god as a superscientist rather than a being with magic powers.  I don't think people would be so quick to worship a superscientist as a magician.

No argument. However, I think that what most people do believe is arrant nonsensse. For me, rationality does not tell me what I must believe; it tells me what I cannot believe (that which is factually false or logically self-contradictory), thereby establishing the limits or boundaries to what I could believe.

Mar 23, 2012 -- 1:41AM, Blü wrote:

Jim

By definition anything supernatural is outside or transends nature.

We presently have  no reason to think that 'supernatural' or 'outside nature' means anything except 'imaginary' or 'non-existent'.

Therefore all our equipment that we use to examine nature would fail to detect the supernatural characteristics of whatever has them.

Exactly as if they were imaginary or non-existent.

If we could detect them and analyze them, then they would cease to be supernatural and they would be natural.

As if they were real. 

The main difference in  our thinking Blu is that you maintain that supernatural things, as defined above , do not exist, and I am open to the possibility that they do exist. 

Mar 24, 2012 -- 1:38AM, Blü wrote:

Jim, Heretic, lope

You all seem in agreement with, as Jim put it -

The main difference in our thinking Blu is that you maintain that supernatural things, as defined above, do not exist, and I am open to the possibility that they do exist.

I can't absolutely rule out the possibility that supernatural beings have objective existence.  But as you can see, it will take specific evidence, in effect a satisfactory demonstration, to persuade me that the supernatural is more probable than the arguments and (in my view) the evidence against it.  Just which supernatural beings might then be involved is a further and separate question.

As things stand, I have no expectation of such a demonstration; but should one be offered, I'll watch with interest.

And my attitude is, it doesn't matter. My disagreement with Christianity is largely rooted in the fact that I find the doctrines self-contradictory and blasphemous, but I also have a basic disagreement with the very idea that it is important to have the right belief or any belief. If God exists in any way, it seems absurd to assume that he/she/it is like a vain person concerned with what if anything we finite mortal beings believe.  

Mar 24, 2012 -- 10:32AM, Heretic_for_Christ wrote:

 If God exists in any way, it seems absurd to assume that he/she/it is like a vain person concerned with what if anything we finite mortal beings believe.  

In any relationship, it is important for persons to believe what is true about one another.  Otherwise, there can be no relationship.    Truth matters.

If your god doesn't care about truth, so be it.   But if your god doesn't care about what is believed to be true about him, then why do you?   You have recently stated, in response to another's belief, that it was an "insult" to your god.   Why say your god is insulted, when you say in the post above that he doesn't care what finite mortal beings believe?    

And why argue that other beliefs about God are false, when you endorse the "Elephant Analogy?"   If we are all describing God accurately, but just differently, why would you call any belief about god "blasphemous" as you regularly do?  

Apparently, when Christians describe God, they are often not really touching any part of the Elephant.   So you endorse the Elephant Analogy for some beliefs, but not all.   (Which contradicts the Elephant Analogy.)    

Mar 24, 2012 -- 6:00PM, Blü wrote:

Jim

Great link.  Much more persuasive than the Miracle of Fatima.

I usually avoid typing LOL but this time I'll make an exception.

You missed, however, the excuisite synchronicity.  No sooner did you ask to see a demonstration of a supernatural activity than one was posted on the Internet.  Personally, I am a greater believer in synchronicity than in the supernatural.