Do you have the right to be an atheist?

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

@Cato ,
Our ignorance does not make something supernatural by definition.

Actually,by definition it does,since our scientific knowledge/understanding would not be able to explain a particular phenomenon due to our ignorance.

@Aristocatt ,
I'm not sure if that's where we are disagreeing at i'll have to think about it.
But staying up at 1:28am with a sleepy brain isn't helping me much,i'll think about it and i'll find something we are mutually disagreeing on and we can then further progress our argument.

[Simon Moon]

I think I am starting to get a taste of the frustration others here are having with your posts.


It doesn't matter if every human ever born believes it is supernatural, based on their belief that it is impossible, if another race has discovered how to do it, it is not supernatural.

The problem with this argument is that you automatically assumes that humans are aware of the discovery of this another race.
If we did it'd of course not be supernatural,i agree.
But we don't.
That's what makes it supernatural.

Yep. I'm officially frustrated by your lack of critical thinking skills. 

I did not assume anything. 

It does not matter if we are unaware of the aliens discovery. Just because we believe it is supernatural, does not make it supernatural.

If humans never discovered how to create heavier than air flight, and an alien race showed up in a biplane, it would not be supernatural. No matter how many humans thought it was.

[Simon Moon]

Actually,by definition it does,since our scientific knowledge/understanding would not be able to explain a particular phenomenon due to our ignorance.

And there is it. This is known as the fallacy of 'argument from ignorance'. 

It is the foundation of the majority of theist arguments. 

The inability to explain something does not make it supernatural, by default.

All it means is that whatever the phenomena is, is explainable. Full stop.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

The problem with this argument is that you automatically assumes that humans are aware of the discovery of this another race.
If we did it'd of course not be supernatural,i agree.
But we don't.
That's what makes it supernatural.

Yep. I'm officially frustrated by your lack of critical thinking skills. 

I did not assume anything. 

It does not matter if we are unaware of the aliens discovery. Just because we believe it is supernatural, does not make it supernatural.

If humans never discovered how to create heavier than air flight, and an alien race showed up in a biplane, it would not be supernatural. No matter how many humans thought it was.

I think you misunderstood me.I didn't mean that you assume the existence of the aliens that made this discovery.
I meant that your argument assumed that humans knew about and had a clear idea of the discovery these aliens made.Which would make it natural because we can now explain it according to our scientific knowledge.
But since we don't,we can't.
I understand your frustration,it i were you i would get frustrated too.

---

@Simon Moon,


Supernatural: " attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature. "

I don't know what you just did there but you definitely made a logically incorrect assumption.
According to this definition, 
The inability to explain something does make it supernatural, by default.

If it doesn't,there is something wrong with the definition,not with my argument.

[Whateverist]

I understand your frustration,it i were you i would get frustrated too.

Guess that that means whatever you are doing is working, hey?  You might be better off to plea bargain a designation of "Poe" at this point to avoid what is a very strong case against your ability to reason.

[Simon Moon]

Yep. I'm officially frustrated by your lack of critical thinking skills. 

I did not assume anything. 

It does not matter if we are unaware of the aliens discovery. Just because we believe it is supernatural, does not make it supernatural.

If humans never discovered how to create heavier than air flight, and an alien race showed up in a biplane, it would not be supernatural. No matter how many humans thought it was.

I think you misunderstood me.I didn't mean that you assume the existence of the aliens that made this discovery.
I meant that your argument assumed that humans knew about and had a clear idea of the discovery these aliens made.Which would make it natural because we can now explain it according to our scientific knowledge.
But since we don't,we can't.
I understand your frustration,it i were you i would get frustrated too.

You still don't get it.

If aliens discovered how to teleport, and humans were totally ignorant of the existence of theses aliens, and totally ignorant of the possibility of teleportation, it would still not matter if every human thought that teleportatiion was supernatural, it would not be supertatural. 

Just because some phenomena has an unknown explanation, does not mean that it is supernatural. It only means that the explanatiion is unknown.

[Aristocatt]

@Cato ,
Our ignorance does not make something supernatural by definition.

Actually,by definition it does,since our scientific knowledge/understanding would not be able to explain a particular phenomenon due to our ignorance.

@Aristocatt ,
I'm not sure if that's where we are disagreeing at i'll have to think about it.
But staying up at 1:28am with a sleepy brain isn't helping me much,i'll think about it and i'll find something we are mutually disagreeing on and we can then further progress our argument.

It is, and my question is pretty simple.

Think of it like this.  There is an object, say a sphere.  A quality of that sphere would be that it is round.
Similarly a quality of me, is that I am alive.

The answer to the question is yes, supernatural is a quality applied to an object.

Any time you say X is Y, Y is a quality of X.
So when you say "aliens are supernatural", you are making an assertion about the quality of an alien race.

Here is how this works, using an easier example:
If I were to utter one assertion, that assertion could either be true or false.
Whether it is true or false will give me a particular quality.  That quality being that I am either honest, or dishonest.
Say the assertion was, "yesterday I went outside".
You however do not know if I went outside, but you decide to come to the conclusion that I am being dishonest.
So you, in disbelief, say ,"You are dishonest".
Say I did in fact go outside yesterday.  If I provided you sufficient enough proof that I did in fact go outside, your opinion of me might change.  You might then go onto say "You are honest".

Now the question is, was I a dishonest man until I provided you evidence and then I became honest, or was I honest the entire time?

If you say that I was honest the whole time, you adhere the statement below.
The qualities of an object do not change unless the object itself changes.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

My ability to reason or my intellectual level doesn't matter as long as i'm constantly supplying logically valid arguments.
Would it make my arguments any more true(to you) if i had an extraordinary IQ or won some very prestigious debates?
No.

I do not matter,my existence is irrelevant,my intellectual doesn't matter,my reasoning skills doesn't matter - ideas matter.The ideas that i'm supplying matters,and as long as they are logical they are not unreasonable.

@Simon, 
Then the phenomenon would be natural to the universe.I don't see how that particular phenomenon would be natural to human beings.

@Aristocatt,
I'm officially too tired as of now.Your arguments are actually quite worth something and it'd be an insult to read them in my current state.
Good Night

[Simon Moon]

Yep. I'm officially frustrated by your lack of critical thinking skills. 

I did not assume anything. 

It does not matter if we are unaware of the aliens discovery. Just because we believe it is supernatural, does not make it supernatural.

If humans never discovered how to create heavier than air flight, and an alien race showed up in a biplane, it would not be supernatural. No matter how many humans thought it was.

I think you misunderstood me.I didn't mean that you assume the existence of the aliens that made this discovery.
I meant that your argument assumed that humans knew about and had a clear idea of the discovery these aliens made.Which would make it natural because we can now explain it according to our scientific knowledge.
But since we don't,we can't.
I understand your frustration,it i were you i would get frustrated too.

---

@Simon Moon,


Supernatural: " attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature. "

I don't know what you just did there but you definitely made a logically incorrect assumption.
According to this definition, 
The inability to explain something does make it supernatural, by default.

If it doesn't,there is something wrong with the definition,not with my argument.

Yeah, you're here just to yank everyone's chain, right?


Yes, that is the definition of supernatural alright.

But who says that if teleportation were to occur in my presence, I would "attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature"?

I might just say, "That was weird. I wonder what the explanation is?". 

Again, just because something is unexplained, does not mean that it is supernatural. It just means that it is unexplained. 

[Simon Moon]

My ability to reason or my intellectual level doesn't matter as long as i'm constantly supplying logically valid arguments.
Would it make my arguments any more true(to you) if i had an extraordinary IQ or won some very prestigious debates?
No.

I do not matter,my existence is irrelevant,my intellectual doesn't matter,my reasoning skills doesn't matter - ideas matter.The ideas that i'm supplying matters,and as long as they are logical they are not unreasonable.

But you are not making logically valid arguments. Your arguments are provably fallacious.  

You have been arguing for pages using the fallacy known as 'argument from ignorance'.