(January 22, 2010 at 7:58 pm)fr0d0 Wrote:

(January 22, 2010 at 2:05 pm)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Just ask me if I have belief in the supernatural and I'll say no. It's that simple.

What if it's completely natural?

I take it you mean by this the following: what if (part of) what is now seen as supernatural becomes verifiable, can be stated in consistent falsifiable terms and can be empirically tested?

Then of course it will be assimilated into the natural. Resistance would be futile.

But both you and I know that there is too much inconsistency in the broad range of supernatural claims to ever fit side by side in nature.

That's not what I meant. I have zero belief in superstition, and am suggesting that religious observance could be entirely naturally based, there being no supernatural component in reality. It depends how far you want to take interpretation down the literalist or allegorical route.

For example: God's effect on the universe is entirely natural. God instigated nature so this couldn't be any other way.

(January 23, 2010 at 7:11 am)fr0d0 Wrote: That's not what I meant. I have zero belief in superstition, and am suggesting that religious observance could be entirely naturally based, there being no supernatural component in reality. It depends how far you want to take interpretation down the literalist or allegorical route.

For example: God's effect on the universe is entirely natural. God instigated nature so this couldn't be any other way.

But that is the god of the gaps. Nothing can be attributed to him that's observable, verifiable and stated in falsifiable terms. The minute it is established through empirical evidence that our visible universe originated from a collision in the multiverse, your god has to retract to not only the 'outside' of the universe, but also to the 'outside' of the multiverse. As long as nothing of your god is observable, verifiable and can't be stated in falsifiable terms labeling it as 'natural' has no meaning it all.

It isn't God of the gaps... quite the opposite: everything that is observable can be attributed to him.

(January 23, 2010 at 7:25 am)fr0d0 Wrote: It isn't God of the gaps... quite the opposite: everything that is observable can be attributed to him.

I don't say you can't. You can attribute yourself into coma if you like. But not in the realm of observable, verifiable fact you can.

If my observance has no meaning, neither has yours. Disparaging it is pointless. Given a naturalistic position you have no objection, just a different point of reference.

(January 23, 2010 at 7:46 am)fr0d0 Wrote: If my observance has no meaning, neither has yours.

You're wrong. I've consistently spoken of observable, verifiable facts of nature throughout. You try to mix that what you can attribute in your head with these facts.

(January 23, 2010 at 7:25 am)fr0d0 Wrote: It isn't God of the gaps... quite the opposite: everything that is observable can be attributed to him.

That doesn't make it true though.

Stands on balcony with arms stretched onward and speaks in a deep dark voice: "I hereby attribute all that is observable to the great Garglemoth"

Looks around, but nothing changed noticebly at all.

So attribution is easy and leaves no observable trace, explains nothing and has no predictive or descriptive power whatsoever. QED

(January 22, 2010 at 11:14 pm)KichigaiNeko Wrote: I can't help but draw a correlation between the "New Atheism v3.0" and the fact that teenagers insist that THEY and only THEY have discovered the truth.

All seems rather infantile imho.
Atheism = Absence of a deity

KISS it kiddies.

Didn't they discover sex too?