How to select which supernatural to believe?

[Angrboda]

To believe in ANYTHING supernatural one may as well believe in EVERYTHING supernatural; like witches, goblins demons, gods, talking trees, vampires and dragons to name a few. Why be selective? When no evidence exists for any of them, why dismiss any and not all?

It's not necessarily a straightforward question what constitutes evidence for the supernatural and thus what evidence there is and for what.

On one level, it's not clear what supernatural actually means in practice. Some define the supernatural as that which is, among other things, not natural. As a straight forward definition, that seems to suggest there can be no valid evidence, depending on views of evidence typically in play. But it's not clear that this is a useful or practical definition from an operational standpoint. Richard Carrier in one of his blog entries suggests that a more meaningful understanding of supernatural is agency that effects the environment through the will of the agent alone, and not through natural means. Thus, if a witch wills her enemy's penis to shrivel up, it does so through her will-power alone and not because she caused it to shrivel up by applying shriveling powder to his penis or something. So on that level, it's not clear what the proper understanding of supernatural should be. Under Carrier's definition, again there is no evidence, but it does make clear the possibility that under some reasonable definition, evidence may be possible, and that, the inability to see the possibility for evidence is an artifact of holding an improper understanding of the supernatural and how to define it.

The other level is that it's not always clear what should be considered evidence and what should not be considered evidence. Someone here repeatedly argued that Jesus' announcing he was going to heal someone being followed by that person being healed was evidence that Jesus had supernaturally healed them. This doesn't strictly follow as Jesus may have simply known healing was imminent but wasn't the cause or that Jesus was using natural means of healing the person of which we, the author, and Jesus' disciples were in the dark about. It's possible Jesus' agency led directly to the healing but it's also possible that it didn't. Still, if it didn't, his announcing healing right before it seemingly magically happens seems difficult to explain other than something he supernaturally caused. Does this count as evidence? Strictly speaking, no, as the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from the premises and it's not clear that the possibility that the arguer concluded is any more probable than any of the explanations otherwise such as Jesus having precognition but no actual healing powers -- he just happens to know when aliens are going to invisibly use their advanced technology to mysteriously heal someone. Still, intuitively it seems more probable. I'm not sure why that is, but it's probably because the supernatural explanation is more familiar than the one involving aliens. However, our familiarity with an explanation doesn't in and of itself make that explanation more probable.