Testing a Hypothesis about the Supernatural

[The Grand Nudger]

This is a case example of something referred to in sociology as the phenomenon of confusing doctrine.  It's endemic to successful religions (and also political movements..though, in context, that might be splitting hairs) because it has two key advantages over a clear ideology.  The first being the breadth of options available to believers.  No matter what they believe, no matter how mutually contradictory any belief sets contents might be...they can at least point to some assumed authority that confirms that predisposition.  This allows a belief set to deal with changing attitudes and mores without resorting to perpetual reactionism.  I say "allows"..bcause ebven though it presents the option...belief sets schism at an alarming rate regardless of their inbuilt flexibility. Secondly...and perhaps even more importantly, the breadth of mutually contradictory propositions plays off our tendency to become exhausted..intellectually.  We only spend so much time trying to figure out what..if anything..is true among a wide enough set of propositions we desire to hold simultaneously true. The paradoxical nature of many belief sets comes to be seen..in the minds of believers..as an affirmation of their accuracy. Mystery as explanation. Koan as wisdom. Confusion as certainty.

Can it be simulataneously true that the supernatural is not testable, or that a supernatural cause is not observable...if we then assert that people witnessed miracles and personally interact with the gods that form their asserted cause?

Can it be simultaneously true that god is unobservable but also the best explanation for anything..particularly, better than observable explanations for the very same things?  No, ofc not.  

Are arguments to the effect of asserting things like fine tuning or objective morality broadly or rationally or even by invocation of probability indicative of gods?  How could they be?  Three options present themselves in both.  Option a being that there is no fine tuning or no objective morality.  Option b that there is but each is better explained (see above).  Option C being that a god did do both even if no god is required to do either (see option b).  Out of three options..only one is even close to a god claim...and it's not a particularly strong one.

Are the myths and legends of religious believers really indicative of the truth of their contents?  Only if hercules and hera are equally real and for the same reasons.  

All of this passes for a rational belief among believers, but only because the intellectual capacity of the believer has already been completely exhausted by the simple act of forming them and they have endless opportunity to form a contradictory defense of whatever they just said when faced with a refutation of the last thing..and this will repeat itself again with the next thing. It's a tight psychological knot, lol. The fact that we see this play out in a range of social and mass movements..the amount of study done on it, and any clear demonstration of the pitfalls of this approach fall on completely deaf ears..however, because..in response...the believer thinks that their beleifs are certainly true. That their gods are really real..and while all of the above may apply to every other mass movement or ideology or religion....it just can't apply to their own.