Lets take a little break from politics and have us a real atheist conversation.
Personally, I’m open to the idea of the existence of supernatural phenomena, and I believe mainstream religions are actually complicated incomplete stories full of misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and half-truths.
Basically, I think that these stories are not as simple and straightforward as they seem to be to religious people. I feel like there is a lot more to them. Concluding that all these stories are just made up or came out of nowhere is kind of hard for me.
I’m a strict naturalist - I believe that supernatural phenomena do not exist. I do not believe in the unknown.
Why? Supernatural phenomena isn’t really generally unknown.
What do you mean? That people experience supernatural phenomena?
If they didn’t, they would it be a thing?
Ok. I don’t believe they do experience supernatural. I think people are gullible, only selectively critical, and are often influenced by their culture to believe in supernatural explanations. And some people are just frauds. I believe honest people get tricked by their culture to regard unknown as supernatural, and by accepting that explanation, never find the natural behind the unknown.
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Supernatural phenomena is possible but not probable.
The only “supernatural” thing I believe in is reincarnation, and that’s just a game of numbers. I believe we’re on the verge of discovering that black holes birth new universes. Then your existence and rebirth just becomes a statistical eventuality. From your POV you would die and then immediately be aware of your next life; since death is a state of non-being, an infinite amount of time could pass between those two moments but you wouldn’t experience any of it. So, it isn’t really even supernatural since I don’t believe anything like karma or whatever mediates the process.
If it happens, it’s natural.
Yes, if. The whole thing hinges on whether or not black holes are actually universes. I feel that we will answer this question, and soon. Reincarnation is just what naturally follows after. But until we can lick black holes, it remains in the territory of the supernatural for now, since its all speculation and conjecture with no supporting evidence.
You know how various fantasy and sci-fi settings will say something like, “____ uses both science and magic,” when describing how the world works? That ususally makes no sense. If magic has laws consistent enough to be used in machinery, it is just another branch of science. But with that out of the way, is that the only thing magic can be?
If magic was not just another type of science, it would have to supercede the natural world. Imagine a fantasy world that has gods who bestow power to their acolytes. Rather than using a natural process that could be recreated by mortals, the gods could actually break physical laws or even write new ones on a whim. In this world, magic isn’t bound by a naturalistic worldview since it can change based on what a free-thinking entity chooses at any given moment.
That was a roundabout way of saying, “I don’t think it matters.” If the supernatural (magic) is knowable, we do not currently know it. If it turned out to be real, we may not even have a way of meaningfully interacting with it.
Sorry but I’m going to call out what I see as some pretty blatant motte-and-bailey argumentation by the OP and their offense taken to people trying to nail down the definition of supernatural is illustrative.
They have their bailey, belief in things like the occult, ghosts, demons, etc, that are almost certainly bullshit. To the extent that they can be falsified, they have been. This is the typical definition of what people think when you say “supernatural” and people are right to answer “no” when asked if they believe in it.
But then you have OP falling back on their motte when this happens, taking a nebulous definition of supernatural and asking rhetorical philosophical questions about reality, perception, and the unknown. The fallacy is that these questions do nothing to strengthen or refute the original argument about the supernatural.
Nobody is here to argue that nothing is unknown and even unknowable but that doesn’t make the things that people typically call “supernatural” any less bullshit. Demons and ghosts are just not the kinds of things that are waiting around to surprise us. And shifting the conversation from your bailey to your motte to protect your feelings on the former is not a good way to have a friendly debate.
All that aside, if you are interested in expanding your understanding of the universe then I’d really encourage you to divert the effort you’re putting into the “supernatural” into learning about the actual natural universe instead. Our universe really is fantastic on its own. There’s plenty of interesting, wacky, and unknown things happening all around us that you can learn about without resorting to magic. If anything, magic is the boring answer imo.
They have their bailey, belief in things like the occult, ghosts, demons, etc, that are almost certainly bullshit. To the extent that they can be falsified, they have been. This is the typical definition of what people think when you say “supernatural” and people are right to answer “no” when asked if they believe in it.
You say that people are right to answer “no” when asked if they believe in this stuff. That is just not true at all. That’s because that as much as good evidence can be hard to come by for supernatural stuff, there is also no official evidence whatsoever that proves that such things do not exist. Therefore, the most accurate answer should really be “I don’t know”, because of the subject’s unfalsifiable nature, and how it’s outside scientific testing. You still have a right to say “yes”, or “no” though.
But then you have OP falling back on their motte when this happens, taking a nebulous definition of supernatural and asking philosophical questions about reality, perception, and the unknown. The fallacy is that these questions do nothing to strengthen or refute the original argument about the supernatural.
That “nebulous” definition of supernatural that I keep using IS the literal definition of the word. You even described it yourself how I described it on your second paragraph, first line. Yes, I have been “asking philosophical questions about reality, perception, and the unknown”. And why can’t I do that? My post is an open-ended question. This means that the conversation can go anywhere, provided that the context continues to match the topic of the post. What do you mean by “original argument about the supernatural”? Again, this post is meant to be an open-ended question where others contribute their thoughts on the supernatural, I share my opinions on their thoughts, and we agree, or disagree. There is no “original argument about the supernatural”.
Nobody is here to argue that nothing is unknown and even unknowable but that doesn’t make the things that people typically call “supernatural” any less bullshit. Demons and ghosts are just not the kinds of things that are waiting around to surprise us. And shifting the conversation from your bailey to your motte to protect your feelings on the former is not a good way to have a friendly debate.
Actually, people here have argued such, as supernatural phenomena is a mysterious topic. Nowhere have I declared that there are no BS claims in the supernatural world. However, saying that all supernatural claims are complete BS without evidence supporting it is a biased take. Some are debunked, and some aren’t, which is how we end up with unexplained claims that are beyond rational explanation. A scenario like this is the reason why we should stay open-minded about supernatural phenomena, instead of completely denouncing it.
…there is also no official evidence whatsoever that proves that such things do not exist
That statement right there sums up the problem.
No, you cannot prove that the supernatural does not exist. The same way you cannot prove that god doesn’t exist, or that there isn’t a teakettle in orbit around the sun between Venus and Mercury. The lack of evidence against their existence is not evidence for it. However, since there have been so many claims of supernatural phenomena, gods and near-sun teakettles, and none of them have been shown to be true, I feel confident in saying that they don’t exist.
Here are some interesting counterpoints though…
The James Randi prize has never been claimed. No person has been able to demonstrate the existence of supernatural phenomena in order to claim an easy 1 million dollars.
Everything that has ever been discovered has turned out to be not magic.
Yes, that’s what I said. No one has ever proven that it doesn’t exist. Therefore, you can’t completely denounce it. This concept is also applied in Science. It’s why I said that the most accurate answer you can give is “I don’t know”, if asked if you believe in it. As for James Randi, other factors can contribute to why no one showed him anything. One can be word of his challenge not getting to enough people. Like me. This is the first time I’ve heard of him and his challenge. Another one can be those who actually had something to show wanting privacy. Another can be disinterest, gatekeeping… etc. There’s many factors. If you’re interested, the story of The Skinwalker Ranch is a bizzare unexplained case involving the supernatural that you can dive into if you’re looking to research this stuff. I recommend listening to it on this channel. The guy behind it has a great voice, and nice visuals. You should also check out this channel. It’s great for skeptics, because the guy behind it debunks what he can, and leaves it for you to decide what to think of it.
You should definitely read the “criticisms” page on the Skinwalker Ranch wikipedia. Then you might know who James Randi was. Dude was a famous magician, and had multiple TV shows. I’d say for sure he’s more famous than Robert Munroe or the Skinwalker Ranch.
There are obviously criticisms lol. What supernatural case doesn’t have any? I still recommend checking it out though. There’s a lot to the story.
No, it looks like there is nothing to the story, other than a few local legends and gullible rube with a lot of money.
Can you link to raw video or photos of paranormal events there?.. Because all I see when I look around is dopey conspiracy theorists fucking around in the scrub
If you don’t want to check it out, that’s fine. I can’t force you to. We can agree to disagree.
I’ll tell you why I say the answer is no to whether or not the occult, demons, or ghosts exist. There’s a phenomenon in statistics where if you were to select a random element from an infinite set of equally probable elements, the probability that a specific element will be selected is 0%. Not close to 0, literally 0.
These kinds of supernatural phenomena that have no evidence belong to an infinite set of equally unlikely phenomena with no evidence. Their likelihood of being real is 0%. Only when phenomena has some tangible evidence explaining it can we elevate it to a finite set with a non-zero likelihood of being real.
If that’s your stance, it’s ok. We can agree to disagree. I still choose to sit on the fence.
While James Randi was alive, he offered $1,000,000 for proof of the supernatural. He never got that proof. I think that’s pretty telling.
There’s stuff I’ve experienced that I can’t understand or explain. Certainly, I trust other’s witnesses of their own experiences, even if they seem supernatural to me. But, I don’t consider that good enough evidence to believe in the supernatural.
There are all kinds of things in my life I have experienced that I cannot explain. For one thing, I am not an expert on everything. For another, I am a prisoner inside a skull that has to rely on not especially precise equipment in terms of sensory input. In other words, the meat sacks in our heads cannot be trusted. In fact, going back to Randi, if they could be trusted, Randi and other magicians would never have a job.
None of that is evidence for the supernatural.
Unexplained does not mean unexplainable nor supernatural.
Let me preface this by saying I tend to go with the Null hypothesis until proven otherwise, and as such don’t believe in the unproven supernatural.
Regardless, there are two ways to interpret James Randi never getting proof.
- There are no provable supernatural claims.
- Those who could prove a supernatural claim have
no use forsome reason a $1,000,000 prize would not be sufficiently enticing.
Edit: Reworked #2 for accuracy and clarity. Added wording in italics.
Re number. 2, they must also either be ignorant of the existence of charities or can’t think of a single one that could use that $1,000,000 they would have no use for. So I don’t accept that.
Perhaps. Though it’s entirely conceivable that the cost of revealing said supernatural proof would be detrimental to their life in such a way that no use of a $1,000,000 would justify it. Or, ala Mr. Manhattan, they have lost their empathy and/or worldly concern. Or they could just be massive dicks who could make $1,000,000 easier if their secret is kept, like Hayden Christensen in Jumper.
So I stand by my point that only looking at James Randi’s $1,000,000 prize as proof that “there are no supernatural claims that can be proven” is an example of sampling bias.
Assuming the correctness of a hypothesis without sufficiently disproving potentially valid alternatives is how we wound up with the acceptance of the supernatural. It’s just bad epistemology.
Regardless, I believe that James Randi’s offer, combined with the lack of any other provable and sufficiently documented supernatural occurrences means it’s more than reasonable to not hold any belief in the supernatural. I certainly don’t myself.
ETA: 3. I suppose a third possibility is they were unable/unwilling to travel or were entirely unaware of said prize. Something like a hermetic monk for example.
If I had legit supernatural powers, $1,000,000 would be chump change to reveal those powers. No way.
Yeah that’s dr evil in the 90s thinking. Manipulate the stock exchange and cash out 100 billion.
Bro, what is a hermetic monk 💀.
Definition taken from Merriam Webster (note: I’ve removed definitions not pertinent to my usage)
hermetic adjective
- b: Relating to or characterized by subjects that are mysterious and difficult to understand: Relating to or characterized by occultism or abstruseness
a hermetic discussion
- b: impervious to external influence
trapped inside the hermetic military machine
c: recluse, solitary
leads a hermetic life
So in this context, I guess I’m using both meanings. As in they are isolated monks with knowledge of the occult and esoteric.
There is no such thing as a hermetic monk. Hermeticism is a philosophy.
Hemeticism is certainly a philosophy, however the term hermetic monk is often used to denote a member of an isolated monastic group.
ex. Article on hermetic monks in Big Sur
A paywalled article referring to hermetic monks in France
None of the aforementioned monks were practitioners of Hermeticism. So while it may not be fully accurate to the origins of Hermeticism, the term “hermetic monk” does infact exist and is infact used to refer to members of esoteric isolated monastic groups.
Beyond that, the term “hermetic”, as cited by Merriam Webster, does apply to my usage. So if you would rather read it as a “monk who is hermetic by nature”, that would also get my same point across while avoiding confusion with Hermeticism as a philosophy.
I don’t believe in “supernatural phenomena” either. If they’d exist, we’d actually have prove of their existence. There’s about 8 billion people on this planet and for some reason all the “recorded” phenomena date back to before everyone had an easy to record device in their pockets. They’ve all gone down to 0 for some odd reason, even though it is as easy as ever to actually provide literal proof - if they existed in the first place.
People who experience supernatural phenomena are experiencing either natural phenomena they are too stupid to understand, are fooled by man made things, or are hallucinating for whatever reason.
The reason why you don’t see in supernatural phenomena is because those who experience it don’t report it, because of the stigmatization surrounding the subject. If you say you saw something supernatural and reported it, people will ridicule you, or call you crazy. If video evidence is provided, it’s fake or edited. There are however videos featuring things that cannot be explained rationally, opening the door to potential supernatural explanations.
“let’s talk about a topic. But I’m gonna tell you you’re wrong with no evidence”
Weird way to spend your time, but hey, at least you got a hobby. I’m just an idiot replying to a reply of a weird hobby.
I don’t see where I told him that he’s wrong. I just told him why you won’t really hear about supernatural stuff. We’re having a conversation. I don’t know what you want me to do.
There are however videos featuring things that cannot be explained rationally
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_effect
Also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(illusion)
I saw David Copperfield walk through the Great Wall of China on live TV. I don’t think he actually walked through the Great Wall of China. I also don’t think he made the Statue of Liberty disappear.
I also saw Teller of Penn and Teller drown in a water tank with my own eyes at a live show and he stayed there, dead and unmoving, for the entire intermission. Then he was back on stage a few minutes later.
I do not think Teller drowned and came back from the dead even though that is exactly what I saw.
Yeah, most unexplained videos go through verifications to make sure it’s not FX, and when it’s not, it’s how they end up unexplained. This is especially common in the UFO community.
Verification by whom? Why should that person or people be trusted? Do they already have a bias towards believing in the supernatural?
The Pentagon.
Now you’re just lying. The Pentagon has done no such thing. The closest they have even come to what you are claiming is saying they can’t explain it.
Yes, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Unexplained. That means that The Pentagon has tried to figure out what they were looking at, but they left it as unexplained. We’ve also had many UAP hearings in congress where they disclosed a bunch of UFOs, and alien stuff. Anyway, yeah. The US govt is embracing the possible existence of extraterrestrial life running around here on Earth.
There are like 9 ghost hunting TV shows on Hulu, probably. Belief in the supernatural isn’t some underground fringe theory that will get you shunned or locked up. There are oodles of people out there that earnestly believe in spirits and psychics and auras and reincarnation and witchcraft and whatever the fuck else people can come up with to either
a.) make sense of a world they don’t understand or b.) help them feel like they have more control in a world that makes them feel powerless
And each of them would be absolutely thrilled if there was some incontrovertible proof of their particular flavor of magic, but there isn’t, and those people are suckers. If you’re willing to believe that there’s any amount of paranormal shit going on in the world, despite having no proof of it, you might want to reevaluate your position as an atheist. I know I would.
There are however videos featuring things that cannot be explained rationally
You can – quite literally – create any effect on video. You should go watch that guy that debunks YouTube videos for a living. He shows you exactly how the effects were created, etc.
Yes.
Uh-huh…
I have experienced weird things and I think it is something that is an explainable natural phenomena that humans attribute to the supernatural in their ignorance.
Like the “ominous feeling” of a basement being stuff like radon or unshielded wiring, things that are explainable without the supernatural.
A feeling that something is watching you? Some people end up experiencing supernatural phenomena after having such feelings. Especially if it’s accompanied with a sense of dread.
Delusions and hallucinations are a thing. Ever feel your phone vibrating in your pocket when it actually wasn’t ? That’s a hallucination, nothing supernatural about it. Feelings aren’t a reliable way to assess reality, and relying on feelings to make decisions is a recipe for disaster.
Do you think that the current reality we experience as humans is true reality?
Sure. There’s no reason not to, considering the brain, which is a physical object. Everything we think and do is a product of the physical world.
Actually, no one knows. There isn’t any hard concrete evidence that proves that this current reality is absolute true reality.
Unless there’s evidence of an alternative reality, you might as well be talking about leprechauns and unicorns.
We are overzealous pattern recognition machines.
The proto-hominids who saw a tiger in the bush when there wasn’t one had a higher chance of passing on their genes than the ones who didn’t see a tiger when there was one.
And now their descendants see tigers in the stars.
If LLMs have taught us anything about pattern recognition machines it’s that when they don’t find a pattern to match they don’t say they have no matches… they just pull a somewhat fitting match off their arse, or an outright random one. They hallucinate.
And that’s even before we get to our actual minds. We’ve got pattern recognition machinery in our retinas. What reaches our brain is already highly processed (to make tigers easier to spot), and then it gets into the visual processing part of the brain, which uses sophisticated autocompletion using previously stored patterns to fill in the blanks and highlight anything remotely interesting… often including things that aren’t there (see optical illusions, for instance). That’s what we “see”, and then we get to make up stuff based on that (and the same probably applies to our other senses, too).
Add to that that we’re notoriously bad at recognising randomness (or lack thereof). A coin falls heads up four times in a row and we suspect shenanigans, as if it wasn’t as likely or unlikely as any other pattern.
We see some craters that look like a smiley face (pattern recognition strikes again) on Mars and we think it’s a fake picture (it’s 2024, after all), or a Watchmen reference. And when we learn it’s actually real our hair stands up. We get goosebumps. It can’t be natural. Must be super natural. Aliens. Gods. Ancient civilizations. All while we ignore the thousands of craters that don’t look like a smiley face.
But, hey, at least we’re not getting eaten by hidden tigers, so win some lose some, I guess.
Seconding custard_swallower. Strict naturalism. I see no reason to believe in any supernatural claim of any kind.
Relatively recently I had a new hypothesis for some of the feelings people attribute to hauntings; bad vibes. I know someone who smokes indoors in their home. Before I had purged supernatural beliefs of all kinds from my worldview I thought there was some kind of curse or haunting wrong with the place. No, it’s the ill effects of third-hand smoke.
Belief in non-theistic supernatural phenomena appears to be a crutch for theistic supernatural belief; it gives a convenient explanation for something so that you don’t exercise your rational faculties to find the real reason and then have the kind of experience that can contribute to unraveling god-beliefs.
Of course, there are rational explanations to things that people think are supernatural, but some things transcend rational explanations, and remain unexplained. This is where we may start to consider the supernatural.
I’ve yet to find any such thing and those that have been presented to me tend to be in the ‘we have insufficient information’ category for why it can’t be clearly determined what happened. People love to wedge the supernatural into those crevices in spite of still not being a good fit.
My thoughts on supernatural phenomena?
Name one.
Astral projection/OBEs.
Fake bullshit.
Look up Robert Monroe.
Neat I guess. Still not a real thing.
I see altered states of consciousness mentioned a lot. Basically means your brain isn’t functioning like normal. It does not mean that you’re able to move your consciousness outside of your body.
Go ahead and look up pseudoscience.
No, like dive into his work. The gateway tapes, his books, his partnership with the CIA… etc. You should read the documents. Just a glance at a few Google results isn’t enough.
You didn’t look up pseudoscience, did you?
Well, if that’s what they’re calling it, they’re right. It’s not science now, is it? This is supernatural shit. I still recommend watching this video if you’re feeling too lazy to research. The guy behind the channel is great for skeptics. Debunks what he can, leaves the unexplained for you to decide.
It’s entirely possible that supernatural phenomena exist. It’s also possible that what we call “supernatural” is merely science we don’t understand yet. After all, things like lightning and disease used to be attributed to gods, evil spirits, witchcraft, etc. I guess I’d call myself an open-minded skeptic, if that makes any sense.
The point of “super” natural is that it CAN’T be explained using the rules of our universe. Unexplained things that COULD be explained aren’t super. They’re just natural.
Makes sense.
99% of people don’t know how electricity works. About the same for the internet. About ten people on the planet could make a computer processor
Yeah, it makes sense!
I first want to call out all of the responses with “philosophical insurance”.
By that I mean things like “If it IS real, it’s not supernatural, so even if I rolled my eyes at it, and you prove me wrong, I’m still right”
We’re just hanging out and casually talking about stuff here. No enforcers are going to come back and read these and hunt you down if someone ends up proving that ghosts or something is real. Also, you can still keep your Atheist card, if you think there might still be some weird stuff out there that science cannot yet explain.
As for me, I’ve had a few “Supernatural experiences” myself, and they’ve convinced me that there is another “force” out there that we don’t understand.
The only phenomenon that I take seriously as potentially supernatural, or connected to something we have no way of explaining is the experience of consciousness.
Fair. You should check out Robert Monroe.
Idk about “supernatural” but there definitely seems like there’s a lot of undiscovered psychological phenomenon we haven’t figured out. It’s hard to research and quantify subjective experiences.
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I disagree. Supernatural is anything that transcends the laws of nature. Something that transcends the laws of nature is not natural.
To paraphrase Tim Minchin, the supernatural has either not been proved to exist or has been proved to not exist.
If you can test it - it’s natural. If you can’t test it - you can’t prove it even exists.
Inability to test something does not prove it doesn’t exist.
It doesn’t prove it, no, but it doesn’t need to. The burden of proof is on the one making a claim, so any claim should come with a way to test it. Otherwise, you can ALWAYS say, “Well, the flying spaghetti monster did it. You can’t prove me wrong.”
What are the laws of nature? You keep saying that as if it proves something but haven’t defined it. Where do the laws come from?
The laws of physics, biology… blah blah blah. I really wish we’d stop arguing about the definition, because it won’t really go anywhere. You know what I mean when I say supernatural.
Proofs start from axioms, which the ‘laws of nature’ as defined by you, are not. I don’t know what you mean, which is why I asked. You’re only revealing your own lack of critical thought here, this isn’t a gotcha like you think it is.
What do you mean by gotcha? I think you’re just being difficult really.
No I just come from a STEM background where we have a bit of a rigorous process for concluding that something is true. You’re starting with the conclusion and saying everybody else is stupid and difficult who points out the flaws in your logic.
I don’t know what STEM has to do with supernatural phenomena but ok. I also have a STEM background, but I haven’t mentioned it until now because it’s not relevant. I have not called anyone stupid here. The reason why I’m saying you’re being difficult, is because you are so fixated on the definition of the word supernatural, that you’re missing the whole point of this discussion. Even the mod called this out somewhere in this comment section. Most people here just want to be dictionaries, that they’re missing the deeper part of the conversation.
