How do you separate religion and the supernatural?

[Lotan]

This question was originally brought up by RevJP on the "Why Attack Christianity?" thread. Is there a religion that doesn't include supernatural elements? Could there be, or would it be considered a 'philosophy' or something else?

And, while we're at it...

Some of you may be familiar with the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge offered by magician and professional skeptic James Randi. In my opinion though, real evidence for the supernatural shouldn't come cheap, so I am prepared to offer...{doing my best Dr. Evil impression}... One BILLION Dollars (!!!!!) for incontrovertible, hard evidence for the existence of the supernatural. Don't worry, I'm good for it!
Now for a billion bucks you'll have to come up with something pretty choice. Never mind your uncle's NDE or a cheesy shaped like Benny Hinn. I want something good, like a staff that turns into a snake, or maybe a live demon. Also please avoid any quantum physics weirdness or arguments about strange events or coincidences that must be supernatural unless they are presented by a talking donkey. Best of luck to all!

[BeHereNow]

Dilettante: As for the entities being worshipped, don't they have to be supernatural entities to qualify as religion? I've known people who were obsessively devoted to the Beatles, yet few people would call that a religion.

Yes, we need the supernatural in there somewhere.

Also, can a mystical experience--which is always entirely subjective--be "shared" in any way, like BeHereNow wrote? Can they be accurately regarded as a source of knowledge, or rather, as a source of faith? Science and knowledge can be shared. Mystical experiences can't.

Well, we have some disagreement here.
Pentecost is an early example of a shared mystical experience. More recently, I attended a church committee decision making meeting one evening. The following day our leader remarked to the larger congregation that one could feel the spirit of the Holy Spirit move across the room that evening. I noticed many agreed with him. Shared experience.
I believe mystical experiences can lead not to knowledge, but to objective understanding, without the subjective bias. I believe this is the goal of mystical experiences, to unite being, with the Eternal, which holds all truth. This of course is not to say that all mystical experiences accomplish this. Also note that from a personal perspective, I accept “mystical” in the looser sense, which means simply beyond normal understanding, not necessarily supernatural. The more common usage would require the supernatural. I believe shared experiences are possible with the supernatural or without.
By way of analogy, my family experiences a Thanksgiving turkey dinner each year, a shared family tradition. We may each have our own subjective opinion of whether the turkey is too dry, or underdone, but this does not take away from the shared experience.

Historians have ways of discovering the truth or falsity of alleged events in the past.

Many times they do.
Many times they do not.

[otseng]

The example of the cemetery seems to be just too powerful to get over to you the fallacy - so please consider an equivalent, but watered-down version; I can sit in my living-room and feel perfectly comfortable watching a light-entertainment program on television. Then, during the same sitting a horror movie comes on (my best candidate for this being Event Horizon - shudder!). Same room, same evening, but now if I hear an unexpected sound 'off stage' I jump!

However, when you jump, I would not classify that as fear, but rather as a sudden surprise. Fear is an emotion about a probable event in the future. When you watch a horror movie, I would submit that the fear is not simply a fear of sudden noise. It is a fear of the probability that the supernatural is real. Let's use your example and suppose I went to bed after I watched Freddie Vs Jason. Quietly lying in my bed, I think I hear something moving inside my bedroom closet. Logically, there is nothing to be afraid of. I know that nothing is in closet except my clothes. Then what is the "probable event" that I'm fearing? And the same question goes for walking through a cemetery. What exactly is the probable event that is to be feared?

Furthermore, we know that nobody throughout history has ever actually been done-to-death in an encounter with malevolent spirits so no direct selective pressure can account for this. Instead, a general fear of the unknown is likely to be the operative and the scope of this is evidently wide enough to encompass contemplation of the supernatural.

Exactly my point. The probability of the supernatural must be non-zero if there is something to fear that is not natural.

[otseng]

So you would not consider Buddhism a religion? (BTW, my definition of philosophy is "a quest for wisdom, virtue or happiness through rational enquiry).

If the particular branch of Buddhism involves worship, then yes, I would consider it a religion. If it does not involve worship, then I would consider it a philosophy.

My main experiences with Buddhism has been the ones practiced in Taiwan. From my observations, Buddhism oftens involves worshipping a statue of Buddha (giving it food and praying in front of it). So, in the case of Buddhism in Taiwan, I would classify it as a religion.

As for the entities being worshipped, don't they have to be supernatural entities to qualify as religion?

What if the entity was simply in the mind of the person and it did not in fact exist, even if the person thinks it exists? Would it still be considered a supernatural entity?

I've known people who were obsessively devoted to the Beatles, yet few people would call that a religion.

If they have pictures of the Beatles plastered all over their walls, dress like them, talk like them, own every record they have ever produced, know all about their life and history, spend all their time on Beatle fan forums, and attend Beatle conventions faithfully, then it would fall within my definition. They might even be a follower of Beatlism.

[QED]

Furthermore, we know that nobody throughout history has ever actually been done-to-death in an encounter with malevolent spirits so no direct selective pressure can account for this. Instead, a general fear of the unknown is likely to be the operative and the scope of this is evidently wide enough to encompass contemplation of the supernatural.

Exactly my point. The probability of the supernatural must be non-zero if there is something to fear that is not natural.

Your conclusion is at odds with the statement I made (which you agreed with)

we know that nobody throughout history has ever actually been done-to-death in an encounter with malevolent spirits

You seem to be ignoring my observation that the reaction is instinctive, not conceptual (which is why it also affects people with no belief whatsoever in the supernatural). If you believe in the supernatural then I can understand how it might be difficult to separate reactions due to the conscious from the subconscious. I also think I may have a personal insight here which helps me see the distinction more easily: In the past I have suffered from panic attacks, where inappropriate sensations of anxiety emerge from the limbic. The conceptual part of my brain was helpless in overcoming these sensations, indeed I would be able to 'look in' as a bystander and calmly puzzle over what might be going on (think Simpsons episode where Homer is regressed under hypnosis to a past horrific event that causes him to scream. The joke is that he can't stop screaming - even though he continues about his daily routine, brushing his teeth etc. while screaming). I don't think that before this I could properly appreciate the autonomous power of the subconscious (cognitive behavioral experts don't like this term) but it corresponds to the reports you hear of people switching to auto-pilot in heroic rescues etc.

So I say again, the awareness of spooky things is not coming directly from the environment (as a real signal) nor is it coming from the conceptual part of the brain (belief that spooky things exist) but coming through the limbic which has been evolved over hundreds of thousands of generations. To find why this trait is persistent might also be to find why people have a belief in god. Personally it seems quite obvious that it equates to a selective advantage for everyone who has a heightened awareness of the unknown, for within that dark cave probably lurks real danger. The unknowns of life, death and the ultimate questions we all wonder about eventually will no doubt be informed by the same subconscious.

[Dilettante]

Also, can a mystical experience--which is always entirely subjective--be "shared" in any way, like BeHereNow wrote? Can they be accurately regarded as a source of knowledge, or rather, as a source of faith? Science and knowledge can be shared. Mystical experiences can't.

Well, we have some disagreement here.
Pentecost is an early example of a shared mystical experience. More recently, I attended a church committee decision making meeting one evening. The following day our leader remarked to the larger congregation that one could feel the spirit of the Holy Spirit move across the room that evening. I noticed many agreed with him. Shared experience.

Perhaps, but only if they all really felt the same. It's easy to think you're feeling something when you're in a group, just out of a subconscious desire to keep group cohesion. Sometimes it is just psychological suggestion.