Dismissing the Supernatural

[Furrowed Brow]

Premise 1: any explanation no matter how unlikely is more likely than a supernatural claim being true.

• Proposition P:
  there is someone of unsullied reputation and of otherwise good character prepared to die for their belief they saw a man walk on water and rise from the dead.

Given just two choices

• (A) is lying
  (B) is true,

Premise 1 means it is more likely they are (A) lying, than what they say is ever going to be (B) true.

I firmly believe in Premsie 1. I'd bet my life on it.

Questions: why am I being unreasonable? What is wrong with Premise 1? Is there a better premise I should be using?

[notachance]

In a sense, time travel is supernatural in that it is beyond the laws of physics. On the other hand, why couldn't a so-called supernatural world of spirits and demons actually exist within other dimensions, and be part of nature? It's actually one of my little pet peeves that believers always insist on placing the supernatural completely beyond all imaginable science.

My pet peeve isn't that BELIEVERS do this. Mine is that NON-believers do this. That is, they insist that God, in order to BE God, (and thus a proper target for criticism and mockery) do everything in a way that shatters the very laws of nature He created to run things.

That one has never made any sense at all to me, frankly.

Hey Diana, are you suggesting that maybe God is not supernatural, but just natural?

Maybe everything about him, from his "miracles" to his very existence, could be natural, and just extremely technologically advanced and powerful.

We can already do so many of the things that would have been considered miracles/magic 2000 years ago, such as virgin births, flying, nuclear weapons, etc. So maybe if we become advanced enough that we are able to create universes with our Large Hadron Collider, then we will be as powerful as God himself.

Of course, the one thing that cannot be achieved while operating within the laws of the universe is OMNIPOTENCE. So if God is not supernatural, then he cannot be omnipotent - just very powerful. Not omniscient, just very well informed.

What are your thoughts on that?

[fredonly]

In a sense, time travel is supernatural in that it is beyond the laws of physics. On the other hand, why couldn't a so-called supernatural world of spirits and demons actually exist within other dimensions, and be part of nature? It's actually one of my little pet peeves that believers always insist on placing the supernatural completely beyond all imaginable science.

My pet peeve isn't that BELIEVERS do this. Mine is that NON-believers do this. That is, they insist that God, in order to BE God, (and thus a proper target for criticism and mockery) do everything in a way that shatters the very laws of nature He created to run things.

That one has never made any sense at all to me, frankly.

Hey Diana, are you suggesting that maybe God is not supernatural, but just natural?

Maybe everything about him, from his "miracles" to his very existence, could be natural, and just extremely technologically advanced and powerful.

We can already do so many of the things that would have been considered miracles/magic 2000 years ago, such as virgin births, flying, nuclear weapons, etc. So maybe if we become advanced enough that we are able to create universes with our Large Hadron Collider, then we will be as powerful as God himself.

Of course, the one thing that cannot be achieved while operating within the laws of the universe is OMNIPOTENCE. So if God is not supernatural, then he cannot be omnipotent - just very powerful. Not omniscient, just very well informed.

What are your thoughts on that?

Since I brought this up I'll give my view. If there is a God, it makes more sense for him to be part of nature. Not the nature we see in our everyday life, but that his existence is part of the a nature that is typically not accessible. For example, occupying alternate dimensions.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting this is LIKELY, but this seems a better hypothesis than to assume the 'supernatural realm' is an inaccessible never-never land.

[dianaiad]

In a sense, time travel is supernatural in that it is beyond the laws of physics. On the other hand, why couldn't a so-called supernatural world of spirits and demons actually exist within other dimensions, and be part of nature? It's actually one of my little pet peeves that believers always insist on placing the supernatural completely beyond all imaginable science.

My pet peeve isn't that BELIEVERS do this. Mine is that NON-believers do this. That is, they insist that God, in order to BE God, (and thus a proper target for criticism and mockery) do everything in a way that shatters the very laws of nature He created to run things.

That one has never made any sense at all to me, frankly.

Hey Diana, are you suggesting that maybe God is not supernatural, but just natural?

Maybe everything about him, from his "miracles" to his very existence, could be natural, and just extremely technologically advanced and powerful.

We can already do so many of the things that would have been considered miracles/magic 2000 years ago, such as virgin births, flying, nuclear weapons, etc. So maybe if we become advanced enough that we are able to create universes with our Large Hadron Collider, then we will be as powerful as God himself.

That's rather the POINT of being God's children, wouldn't you think? Not that we will all be able to achieve that (and not, probably, with anything like a Hadron Collider... ) any more than we are all nuclear physicists or perfectly moral, but that we will be able to understand the way the universe actually works, and perhaps repeat the process?

Sure. Why not?

Of course, the one thing that cannot be achieved while operating within the laws of the universe is OMNIPOTENCE. So if God is not supernatural, then he cannot be omnipotent - just very powerful. Not omniscient, just very well informed.

What are your thoughts on that?

to me, "omniscience' means 'knowing everything that can logically be known." In that sense, I see no problem.

[dianaiad]

Since I brought this up I'll give my view. If there is a God, it makes more sense for him to be part of nature. Not the nature we see in our everyday life, but that his existence is part of the a nature that is typically not accessible. For example, occupying alternate dimensions.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting this is LIKELY, but this seems a better hypothesis than to assume the 'supernatural realm' is an inaccessible never-never land.

I think that your bringing this up is expressing a view of deity that I have been, with spectacular failure, attempting to talk about; it's not that deity is apart from the natural world, but having invented it, then ANYTHING He does becomes part of that natural world, and explainable within the rules of that world--because the rules change according to what is done.

My sister was a missionary in Chile for a bit; her Spanish was pretty interesting, at first. The people she spoke to were kind, though, and helped her learn. Whenever she tortured the language more spectacularly than usual, she would see the puzzled looks on everybody's faces--and ask 'is that a word?"

the answer was; "It is now."

That's how I think God's actions work in the 'natural world.' Whenever He does something within the universe He created, we can look at it from within that creation and ask 'is that explainable by the 'laws' of nature?"

...........and the answer would be--it would HAVE to be---"it is now."

[fredonly]

I think that your bringing this up is expressing a view of deity that I have been, with spectacular failure, attempting to talk about; it's not that deity is apart from the natural world, but having invented it, then ANYTHING He does becomes part of that natural world, and explainable within the rules of that world--because the rules change according to what is done.

If God is part of the natural world, do you agree that it is theoretically possible that some physical aspect his existence could be detectable?

[dianaiad]

I think that your bringing this up is expressing a view of deity that I have been, with spectacular failure, attempting to talk about; it's not that deity is apart from the natural world, but having invented it, then ANYTHING He does becomes part of that natural world, and explainable within the rules of that world--because the rules change according to what is done.

If God is part of the natural world, do you agree that it is theoretically possible that some physical aspect his existence could be detectable?

Detectable? Of course...if anything is detectable at all, then anything God does, or IS, would also be detectable. That's not the question.

The question is....given this, would it be reasonable, possible or remotely likely that He could do something that would NOT be explainable as 'part of nature'?

Given that He, erhm, IS 'nature?'

Rather......and this is frustrating.... I KNOW what I'm trying to say and I'm having the world's worst time expressing it.

We don't have, or don't accept, that level of evidence that would show us where God is in all this. We are stuck in the physical world, which changes to accommodate any and everything God does; after all, whatever He does IS, and is therefore physically possible, and therefore describable. But that's where the problem is;

Perhaps....can any scientist who can back track the creation of the universe back to within nanoseconds after the beginning of the Big Bang, and can describe the processes as they evolved, explain WHY those processes happened---and not some other process?

WHY is the speed of light what it is?

WHY is gravity, one of the weakest forces in the universe (shoot, we defeat it every second) still one of the most influential?

WHY are the laws of physics what they are?

Science doesn't care. Science is about describing WHAT they are, not why they are.

.....and anything God does, or Is, will be describable in terms of physical processes, because we will be able to see them, and tie them to some other process.

So the answer to your question is yes, because everything God has created is detectable...and no, because you aren't asking the right question.

[fredonly]

I just have a few minutes, so I'll respond one thing now, and the rest later.

WHY is the speed of light what it is?

WHY is gravity, one of the weakest forces in the universe (shoot, we defeat it every second) still one of the most influential?

WHY are the laws of physics what they are?

Although it is human nature to ask "why?", this does not imply there is always a meaningful answer. Why does a 2 year old die from cancer? Why does an earthquake and tsunami eradicate 16,000 lives? Why does Mars have 2 moons? Why didn't I win the lottery? The answer to all of these questions, and to yours, may simply be: random chance.

Although we have equations in physics, that are components of theoretical models of the way the natural world operates - they do not necessarily describe the actual, fundamental nature of the universe. There could be a single basic law (a unified field theory) that explains why various relationships exist among the apparent forces that operate. Alternatively (or in addition) there could be an enormously large number of universes, each with randomly selected sets of fundamental laws and relationships. At this stage of the game of life, there's no way to know.

I think it's also human nature to plug in an answer when we have a gap in knowledge. The answer theists tend to use for filling such gaps is: God. For them, it appears, SOME answer is better than NO answer.

[dianaiad]

I just have a few minutes, so I'll respond one thing now, and the rest later.

WHY is the speed of light what it is?

WHY is gravity, one of the weakest forces in the universe (shoot, we defeat it every second) still one of the most influential?

WHY are the laws of physics what they are?

Although it is human nature to ask "why?", this does not imply there is always a meaningful answer. Why does a 2 year old die from cancer? Why does an earthquake and tsunami eradicate 16,000 lives? Why does Mars have 2 moons? Why didn't I win the lottery? The answer to all of these questions, and to yours, may simply be: random chance.

Perhaps...but 'random chance' is an answer.

It's also not a very good one. Nothing is ever quite random. Yeah, one can flip a coin, but the causes of its landing heads or tales is not simply random chance. A whole slew of things comes into play; the force of the flip, for instance, which determines how many times the coin turns before it lands; the wind. The temperature of one side of the coin vs. the other, which may influence, however slightly, the speed of the flipping. Who knows?

Close enough to random, perhaps, for us not to identify all the causes, but 'random?' Perhaps not.

Seems to me, actually, that assigning these things to 'random chance' takes as much faith/belief as figuring that God did it. Unless you can prove that 'random chance' is, in actuality, truly random?

Although we have equations in physics, that are components of theoretical models of the way the natural world operates - they do not necessarily describe the actual, fundamental nature of the universe. There could be a single basic law (a unified field theory) that explains why various relationships exist among the apparent forces that operate.

Most scientists think there is. Or hope there is, or seek for it like the Holy Grail. It does seem reasonable that there would be, come to think of it. Shoot, if it turns out that there ISN'T, I'd call that evidence for a Creator, rather than other wise.

Alternatively (or in addition) there could be an enormously large number of universes, each with randomly selected sets of fundamental laws and relationships. At this stage of the game of life, there's no way to know.

Why not both? Multiple universes would not disprove a "Theory of Everything" for any one of 'em, would they? The most that their existence would indicate is that the 'theory of everything' needed another layer.

I think it's also human nature to plug in an answer when we have a gap in knowledge. The answer theists tend to use for filling such gaps is: God. For them, it appears, SOME answer is better than NO answer.

Ah. "God of the Gaps."

The problem with this handy solution that you are dismissing my questions/ideas as is this: If I say that God did it, (and I do,) but ALSO say that we not only can figure out HOW He did it, but that we are quite capable, eventually, of doing so--and even more, that we are SUPPOSED to, how do you figure that the 'God of the Gaps" idea fits in there anywhere?

[Sing]

Perhaps...but 'random chance' is an answer.

It's also not a very good one. Nothing is ever quite random. Yeah, one can flip a coin, but the causes of its landing heads or tales is not simply random chance. A whole slew of things comes into play; the force of the flip, for instance, which determines how many times the coin turns before it lands; the wind. The temperature of one side of the coin vs. the other, which may influence, however slightly, the speed of the flipping. Who knows?

Close enough to random, perhaps, for us not to identify all the causes, but 'random?' Perhaps not.

Seems to me, actually, that assigning these things to 'random chance' takes as much faith/belief as figuring that God did it. Unless you can prove that 'random chance' is, in actuality, truly random?

Diana won't actually read this as I'm on ignore, but Id like to speak to it at any rate.

Diana points out some factors that she says are not necessarily random. Temperature, force of flip, exct. One could argue either way weather or not these factors are indeed random or not random. But at the end of the discussion, as is the case with many of the arguments Diana raises, we are arguing very miniscule points of conjecture here. Yet she is equating these very small things to very large things. She says:

Seems to me, actually, that assigning these things to 'random chance' takes as much faith/belief as figuring that God did it.

Even if there are some small factors that could be argued successfully as being influential on the randomness of an outcome, the fact remains that these factors are small. To illustrate my meaning, maybe flipping a coin is only 90% random, and 10% other factors which are not random that influence the outcome.

Contrast this with evoking god for said event. There is no tangible evidence what so ever to justify Gods existence. If you can't make a solid argument that God exists, how on earth are you going to evoke him as the causality for an event?

Again to illustrate my meaning, where flipping a coin might only be 90% random, the possibility of god influencing the outcome of the flip is 0% based on tangible evidence. Note the randomness of an event is actually based on tangible things, where God is not.

Yet Diana in her infinite wisdom easily equates the two. There is a major disconnect in her reasoning between her opinions and reality.