(June 2, 2016 at 4:04 pm)SteveII Wrote: Supernatural - anything outside the physical universe and its laws.
Unnatural - within our universe and laws, anything artificially created that would not exist on its own.

That brings up an interested question. Could you have an unnatural supernatural object? Say if an angel made a cake using supernatural chemical sweetener for an all-angel potluck. Huh, have to think about that. 

You can call anything you want a fairy story or made up, but you aren't engaging the question of whether the supernatural exists with anything resembling a cogent argument.

Might something like "exonatural" or "ectonatural" be more fitting?

(June 2, 2016 at 4:04 pm)SteveII Wrote:

(June 2, 2016 at 3:38 pm)madog Wrote:  

Supernatural - anything outside the physical universe and its laws.
Unnatural - within our universe and laws, anything artificially created that would not exist on its own.

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You can call anything you want a fairy story or made up, but you aren't engaging the question of whether the supernatural exists with anything resembling a cogent argument.

I think you need to go back in this thread and see the arguments about worms creating universes, glowing green or singing ..... I won't play your game of discussing other issues, but just the one you raise here.

To your point .... can you give reference to where your bible refers to outside the physical universe? not saying you can't, but would like to read the same stuff you rely on rather than going back and forwards while you route up new stuff every time you are questioned?

On your second point see above but also consider that supernatural is the same as saying God, unless you mean there is an actual place that god resides within?

Dog.

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(June 2, 2016 at 4:46 pm)Ignorant Wrote: Might something like "exonatural" or "ectonatural" be more fitting?

Are Christians opposed to using unnatural? are you afraid it gives the game away and loses the awe interred into "supernatural"?

(June 2, 2016 at 4:46 pm)Ignorant Wrote:

(June 2, 2016 at 4:04 pm)SteveII Wrote: Supernatural - anything outside the physical universe and its laws.
Unnatural - within our universe and laws, anything artificially created that would not exist on its own.

That brings up an interested question. Could you have an unnatural supernatural object? Say if an angel made a cake using supernatural chemical sweetener for an all-angel potluck. Huh, have to think about that. 

You can call anything you want a fairy story or made up, but you aren't engaging the question of whether the supernatural exists with anything resembling a cogent argument.

Might something like "exonatural" or "ectonatural" be more fitting?

I think supernatural covers it. Super- a prefix meaning “above, beyond.” If you use a word people are not familiar with, you will lose them from the start or just create a tangent that could waste time and effort.

(June 2, 2016 at 4:51 pm)madog Wrote:

(June 2, 2016 at 4:04 pm)SteveII Wrote: Supernatural - anything outside the physical universe and its laws.
Unnatural - within our universe and laws, anything artificially created that would not exist on its own.

 ----------------------------------

You can call anything you want a fairy story or made up, but you aren't engaging the question of whether the supernatural exists with anything resembling a cogent argument.

I think you need to go back in this thread and see the arguments about worms creating universes, glowing green or singing ..... I won't play your game of discussing other issues, but just the one you raise here.

To your point .... can you give reference to where your bible refers to outside the physical universe? not saying you can't, but would like to read the same stuff you rely on rather than going back and forwards while you route up new stuff every time you are questioned?

On your second point see above but also consider that supernatural is the same as saying God, unless you mean there is an actual place that god resides within?

Dog.

I really don't know what your first paragraph is referring to.
There are many references that talk about God before time began or timeless. 
For a start, you can click here: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/God,-The-Eternal
There are many references talking about God creating the heavens and the earth (a Hebrew phrase meaning everything). 
For a start you can click here: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/God,-The-Creator
The set of supernatural things would contain God, but there are other things (angelic beings, places, people's souls--both past and present, etc.) so you cannot use them interchangeably. Also, even if Christianity was completely wrong, it still would not rule out the supernatural.

(June 3, 2016 at 11:19 am)SteveII Wrote:

(June 2, 2016 at 4:51 pm)madog Wrote: I think you need to go back in this thread and see the arguments about worms creating universes, glowing green or singing ..... I won't play your game of discussing other issues, but just the one you raise here.

To your point .... can you give reference to where your bible refers to outside the physical universe? not saying you can't, but would like to read the same stuff you rely on rather than going back and forwards while you route up new stuff every time you are questioned?

On your second point see above but also consider that supernatural is the same as saying God, unless you mean there is an actual place that god resides within?

Dog.

I really don't know what your first paragraph is referring to.

There are many references that talk about God before time began or timeless. 
For a start, you can click here: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/God,-The-Eternal

There are many references talking about God creating the heavens and the earth (a Hebrew phrase meaning everything). 
For a start you can click here: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/God,-The-Creator

The set of supernatural things would contain God, but there are other things (angelic beings, places, people's souls--both past and present, etc.) so you cannot use them interchangeably. Also, even if Christianity was completely wrong, it still would not rule out the supernatural.

(June 3, 2016 at 11:20 am)SteveII Wrote: Also, even if Christianity was completely wrong, it still would not rule out the supernatural.

Correct, the set of supernatural things has never been shown to contain even one element whose existence could be verified. So Christianity's being correct or incorrect is as irrelevant for the supernatural's status as it is for anything else.

Unless we can actually learn anything about the supernatural, I don't see what relevance it has.

We don't know what it wants, if anything. We don't know how to communicate with it. We can't stop it doing things. We can't do anything to it.

Until we learn something about it, it's a ghostly background figure that we just have to accept is there (or not). When we do learn something about it, hey presto, it's not supernatural anymore. And so it goes on.

Waving about a storybook does not count as "knowing about the supernatural". It counts as a story with magical sounding elements.

SteveII Wrote:

Ignorant Wrote:Might something like "exonatural" or "ectonatural" be more fitting?

I think supernatural covers it. Super- a prefix meaning “above, beyond.” If you use a word people are not familiar with, you will lose them from the start or just create a tangent that could waste time and effort.

Except that there are so many connotations to 'supernatural' that a new word without all that baggage could well be useful. When you say 'supernatural', people think 'intentionality, angels, ghosts, magic, gods, God, miracles', and so on. If you want to talk about what might be the case outside of our cosmos; exonatural does the trick without bringing all that in, and is intuitively understandable, to boot. For instance, if the universe was formed by a runaway vacuum fluctuation, the state of affairs from which the present universe arose could be considered exonatural, and the physical laws that apply within the universe might not apply between or before universes.

(June 3, 2016 at 11:40 am)Mister Agenda Wrote:

SteveII Wrote:I think supernatural covers it. Super- a prefix meaning “above, beyond.” If you use a word people are not familiar with, you will lose them from the start or just create a tangent that could waste time and effort.

Except that there are so many connotations to 'supernatural' that a new word without all that baggage could well be useful. When you say 'supernatural', people think 'intentionality, angels, ghosts, magic, gods, God, miracles, and so on. If you want to talk about might be the case outside of our cosmos; exonatural does the trick without bringing all that in, and is intuitively understandable, to boot. For instance, if the universe was formed by a runaway vacuum fluctuation, the state of affairs from which the present universe arose could be considered exonatural, and the physical laws that apply within the universe might not apply between or before universes.

I wish I knew what the supernatural was really supposed to be about.  Above?  Beyond?  DNA would seem to be above what is known of genetics, but then it rightly takes its place among the natural.  If God, the angels, cherubs and all manner of demigods were discovered to exist why shouldn't they take their place among the natural?  I just can't see how anything that exists at all is not natural, leastwise I question our ability to know the difference.

Also, from the point of view of a supernatural entity, other supernatural entities would probably be considered natural. So again it's subjective. Is a computer programmer supernatural if his program becomes self aware?

If they did the creating, so we are all essentially artificial, wouldn't that make us the supernatural/unnatural ones? They were already there, presumably "naturally" so. Unless they were made by other extra-supernatural things.