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I've experienced many things throughout my entire life that were rather odd/particular and sometimes appearing and feeling magical.
As I've introspected along my life's journey I have come to attribute what I've experienced and still experience as just the way the Universe works when you are "in tune" with the energies that are all around us.
There is a lot to how we can influence and shape events in our lives through mental focus/intent/wishful thinking. And sometimes along comes interesting coinkydinks that seem like magic is all around. I used to be perplexed by the continuous mysterious things that I've experienced throughout my life, but today I am so accustomed to it that I've come to conclude that this is just the way the Universe works...at least in my world.
What is super natural or paranormal? By definition it is something that is not normally and repeatedly observed like burning your tongue on hot coffee. But it is something that people have experienced. They may not be able to prove it to you but they don't have to prove it to themselves, because they experienced what they believe is the proof.
Science doesn't accept what it can't prove. But that is the shortcoming of current science rather than of the person who has experienced the supernatural or paranormal incidents.
Those experiences are like love, if you haven't experienced love no one can explain it to you or prove it exists. But to the person who loves it is quite real. If you've never had an orgasm, no one could explain it to you. If you are born without sight, you can't understand colors.
No one even knows how others see colors. They agree a color is called red, but no one knows if what they call red, looks like the color that others call red. Our senses can't be transmitted to anyone else, we can just talk about them. There are more things unexplained by science than are explained. We have no way of knowing how much we don't know.
I would agree that it’s difficult to describe some things without having the experience for oneself. But I just don’t understand why these powerful experiences are sometimes said to be supernatural. Just because something is amazing, powerful, or unusual doesn’t mean it’s of supernatural origin.
Is it raw instinct to associate a powerful new experience (positive or negative) with the supernatural? I think it might be. I wondered if I was “demon-possessed” the first time I had a panic attack. I’ve never used psychedelic drugs, but I’ve heard the stories. Based on those stories, it doesn’t surprise me that some cultures use psychedelic drugs as part of their religious ceremonies.
You draw conclusions that simply do NOT necessarily follow. What people call the supernatural are perfectly natural things that we do not currently understand and cannot explain. Are some of them made up, probably, but so what. The entire category of supernatural is bogus.
Yes, I know that, I also know what people mean when they talk about the supernatural, but your post looked like it was saying that because people talked and believed a lot of nonsense about it, it must be true (it isn't just subjective). Now tell me, did you or did you not say that?
Quote:
Originally Posted by OzzyRules
I can tell you with 100% certainty that that is a dead end road. I know because I used to believe that myself.
And yet that is the road that has yielded all the reliable results, and the believe whatever you like road ha led to nothing much other than ever vanishing gaps for god.
What makes no sense are the inferences, non-sequiturs, and conclusions you and Arq make from my posts. The "CATEGORY of supernatural is bogus" means there is no such thing as the supernatural, just things NOT currently understood. You pretend there is some magical category of reality called the supernatural and you place God in it. I do NOT. I know God is not only perfectly natural but there is nothing else BUT God that is real. The many "controversial even ridiculous and preposterous associations, connotations, and denotations" about God in the myriad religions have no bearing on the reality of God.
No. Tzaph sees it right. Your problem is ignoring the way everybody uses the term supernatural and grabs what is quite a nice point (1) and making out that it somehow validates the claims about what isn't understood. I know you did this because you do it all the time. You cannot (apparently) tell the difference between what is validated and what you claim is true.
(1) it's an old one as well as a nice one "There is no such thing as the supernatural - there is only the natural that we don't yet understand".
ps. There's a P. s on that. Some may have seen me reference an old discussion I had here...it was quite amusing...a theist complaining that it wasn't fair that untilltheistic /supernatural claims were validates, they were no evidence. But as soon as they were validated, they became science.
I would agree that it’s difficult to describe some things without having the experience for oneself. But I just don’t understand why these powerful experiences are sometimes said to be supernatural. Just because something is amazing, powerful, or unusual doesn’t mean it’s of supernatural origin.
Is it raw instinct to associate a powerful new experience (positive or negative) with the supernatural? I think it might be. I wondered if I was “demon-possessed” the first time I had a panic attack. I’ve never used psychedelic drugs, but I’ve heard the stories. Based on those stories, it doesn’t surprise me that some cultures use psychedelic drugs as part of their religious ceremonies.
This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart, "natural vrs supernatural". We all experience the world around us in our own unique way, a person can look at a leaf and see a leaf, another may look at the very same leaf and see the mysteries the the universe, it all comes down to personal experience. Everything you do, everyday, is uniquely yours, for you and you alone experience it in your mind and your mind only.
What you call natural, is only natural to yourself. You and I may agree on the same condition we are experiencing, but I'll never know just how you experience it, just as you will never know just how I am experiencing it, but we can come to some common terms about the experience.
I do believe that all things are natural due to the fact that we can and have experienced them. The supernatural only exist in the minds eye of something I haven't experienced.
Originally Posted by MysticPhD View Post
What makes no sense are the inferences, non-sequiturs, and conclusions you and Arq make from my posts. The "CATEGORY of supernatural is bogus" means there is no such thing as the supernatural, just things NOT currently understood. You pretend there is some magical category of reality called the supernatural and you place God in it. I do NOT. I know God is not only perfectly natural but there is nothing else BUT God that is real. The many "controversial even ridiculous and preposterous associations, connotations, and denotations" about God in the myriad religions have no bearing on the reality of God.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
you have in your head and in your posts what you think people believe, what you assume people believe, what you even tell people that they believe. And it is nowhere close to what they actually believe. You don't know what people believe, you don't bother finding out, you don't listen when people do tell you what they believe, and you don't believe them when they tell you.
it's like you've got this whole litany in your head about what people believe, and guess what, they don't believe that at all.
its impossible to even have discussions with you because you are having the whole conversation back and forth with yourself.
Yep. I had to quote Mystic too and he gives himself away utterly, and can't see it. Because to him "God" exists because everything exists. I can tell you -all what that means "An intelligent everything". The theory makes no sense as it is a conscious, intelligent and planning cosmos with a Plan for us (God, see?) and yet animals aren't smart. And our minds aren't part of that mind, because it is obviously a separate mind - though (mystic believes) connected with us....sometimes. It just doesn't work, but you can't talk to Mystic. It's like talking to a brick wall with an abusive loudspeaker in it.
I have to say though that I find it amazing that you two are banging heads so much because it looks to me like you believe the same things - an invisible God contacted through funny feelings and imagination. I suppose the point of contention is the OT/Torah.
And yet Mystic and I agree on most things, too, and the only point of contention is I talk about a possible unproven sortagod, and he talks of one he knows exist through faith, funny feeling and fingers in the ears.
I've experienced many things throughout my entire life that were rather odd/particular and sometimes appearing and feeling magical.
As I've introspected along my life's journey I have come to attribute what I've experienced and still experience as just the way the Universe works when you are "in tune" with the energies that are all around us.
There is a lot to how we can influence and shape events in our lives through mental focus/intent/wishful thinking. And sometimes along comes interesting coinkydinks that seem like magic is all around. I used to be perplexed by the continuous mysterious things that I've experienced throughout my life, but today I am so accustomed to it that I've come to conclude that this is just the way the Universe works...at least in my world.
Yes. This is the power of self -delusion. I was joking about the shelf filler bblocking whatever i wanted to get too, because I don't even think about the 99-1 times i COULD get to it. Counting the hits and ignoring the misses is the main key to understanding amazing things that you Can't Explain without the supernatural. And we all know what we mean by that and never mind Mystic's kiddie trick that he thinks is so clever.
And once we get the buy in, then personal belief comes into play with the rejections of explanations out of hand playing the bias card, appeal to unknown and undisprovables such as Ozzy's rather typical 'science will never find out ultimate Truth", and funny feelings that all humans seem to get..so it must be God, right?
This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart, "natural vrs supernatural". We all experience the world around us in our own unique way, a person can look at a leaf and see a leaf, another may look at the very same leaf and see the mysteries the the universe, it all comes down to personal experience. Everything you do, everyday, is uniquely yours, for you and you alone experience it in your mind and your mind only.
What you call natural, is only natural to yourself. You and I may agree on the same condition we are experiencing, but I'll never know just how you experience it, just as you will never know just how I am experiencing it, but we can come to some common terms about the experience.
I do believe that all things are natural due to the fact that we can and have experienced them. The supernatural only exist in the minds eye of something I haven't experienced.
Nice post. A bit fragile. I'd like to handle it, but I don't want to mess it up. Really natural is what we see and experience through our senses and we know that's real, right? Supernatural are rather explanations that we don't know for things we do but can't explain.
There's a lot to be said for what we can explain but not by anything we can experience ourselves. Origins of Stars, or evolution for example. And the unreality of matter is as supernatural as anything, but is Science because we can understand it.
There's a lot more that we are on the edge of understanding, too.
NDE's are just that - individual to the mind, and common to humans.
God is the individual mind, personal belief that you can talk to.
Matter is made of nothing, but it is a reliable illusion.
Thus, there is not only no logical or scientific reason to credit claims of supernatural effects, causes and entities, but reasons why we should not.
I would agree that it’s difficult to describe some things without having the experience for oneself. But I just don’t understand why these powerful experiences are sometimes said to be supernatural. Just because something is amazing, powerful, or unusual doesn’t mean it’s of supernatural origin.
Is it raw instinct to associate a powerful new experience (positive or negative) with the supernatural? I think it might be. I wondered if I was “demon-possessed” the first time I had a panic attack. I’ve never used psychedelic drugs, but I’ve heard the stories. Based on those stories, it doesn’t surprise me that some cultures use psychedelic drugs as part of their religious ceremonies.
Yes. I was just wondering how to deal with this sad problem of dealing with theist thinkers. It's Belief. It's Buy -in. It's personal credibility invested in a claim (1). That's why they get so angry and abusive instead of being able to discuss it academically.
Rationality is simply setting aside personal beliefs, and personal credibility invested in them and considering alternatives instead of just brushing them away. It's not easy to do, but you get used to it. You can even get used to slipping and arguing from a biased position. You simply note that it is a biased position and make a mental note to consider the response objectively.
Now, it's pretty much known and proven that (for example) theistic apologists talking scriptural interpretation and God's likes and dislikes are simply talking to themselves and their god is simply their own ego inflated to a cosmic entity. We know because it changes it's mind every time they do. But you try to point out this compelling evidence to them and they ignore it as implacably as old Eusebius refusing to look at the front legs of the whale.
'We don't know..yet' and leaving unknowns in the pending -tray of discovery instead of picking a theory you like, investing personal cred. into it and defending it to the last bullet is something that theist can't get their heads round let alone see the value of. They truly believe that 'I don't know' is not the best option and "I know this through faith" is. All the time they think that like they can never , ever, get it right, even if they make some good incidental points.
(1) I won't even deal with the political aspect. There is an element of Conservatism supporting the Church in the UK. The Left tending not too, or being rather nonconformist. But the sheer extent of this in the US was something I had to get used to. Not only does religion drive the liburl -hatin' Right, but liburl -hatin' can apparently drive people to religion.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 03-23-2018 at 11:23 AM..
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