Can't prove the supernatural God

[robvalue]

Let's face it, this works in reverse. People already believe in God, Jesus being magic, and supernatural events, before any sort of analysis even begins. I highly doubt anyone has ever simply examined the bible, and concluded that this is evidence of supernatural events, without already being Christian or receiving a lot of outside influence. If they have, without it being in any way suggested to them by other people, then I'd expect them to believe every work of fiction is real. It would be someone who simply can't tell reality from fantasy. Not only that: they are willing to agree to the label "supernatural" as opposed to "unexplained", on the say so of the characters in the book!

So before we start, they already believe these conclusions. This means that they have to reach them, by whatever means, during the discussion. So stopping at "unexplained" is not sufficient. Reasons must be found to validate genuinely categorising something as supernatural.

Yet there is no way. This is how previous biases force broken arguments; and that's even if we grant that everything in the bible happened exactly how it was written. It's just a series of unexplained events, which some people want to call supernatural.

It's a diagnosis by elimination, and you also have to eliminate the possibility of there being no efficient cause at all. Just saying you can't believe there are any natural explanations, or that it could happen with no cause, is just an appeal to incredulity. It's not scientific. You don't have to convince us that you are convinced. We know you are, before we even began talking about it.

[Silver]

I believe that reality is chaos.

There is no rhyme or reason except for that which humans provide it.

That is why reality follows such a random path. It's not that there is sometimes a reason for faith or sometimes a reason for doubt. Rather, chaos ensures we can never ensure anything.

Ensuring is a very human way of controlling life through personal control.

[Pat Mustard]

So this is the big question: what practical use is labelling an event "supernatural" rather than simply "unexplained"?

The significance, meaning or the conclusions we could draw from a supernatural event. Simply putting an event into the "unexplained" column sheds all significance and meaning.

So the supernatural is "real" solely because you want it to be real?

Steve, no matter how long you hold your breath, stamp your foot or pout, it's not going to happen. The world doesn't work to our whims.

[robvalue]

If people want to say I can't prove there is no "supernatural" things, they are correct. Especially since I don't even understand what it's meant to be. I have no need or desire to, especially since that's a rigged scenario.

But that doesn't mean it does exist, or that it's reasonable to believe that it exists, whatever the fragging hell it is.

However; simply believing that there is stuff we have no idea about going on, that we may or may not learn about in the future, is perfectly reasonable in my opinion. There's no need to make it sound like magic.

[Ignorant]

If people want to say I can't prove there is no "supernatural" things, they are correct. Especially since I don't even understand what it's meant to be. I have no need or desire to, especially since that's a rigged scenario.

But that doesn't mean it does exist, or that it's reasonable to believe that it exists, whatever the fragging hell it is.

However; simply believing that there is stuff we have no idea about going on, that we may or may not learn about in the future, is perfectly reasonable in my opinion. There's no need to make it sound like magic.

Why does it have to sound magical? 

If some thing (T) is acting/being in a way that does not derive from its nature (Nt), it must be acting/being according to some other thing (X) with a NATURE (Nx). 

Thing (T) is therefore acting/being supernaturally (i.e. supernatural relative to T's nature (Nt)). But the action itself is only supernatural in relation to thing T, and not in itself (i.e. relative to Nx).

Relative to (Nx), it is not supernatural at all, but natural.

So it might be the case that X naturally causes T to act/be in a way that T is not able to act/be naturally (i.e. by its own nature).

What is magical about that?

[Pat Mustard]

If people want to say I can't prove there is no "supernatural" things, they are correct. Especially since I don't even understand what it's meant to be. I have no need or desire to, especially since that's a rigged scenario.

But that doesn't mean it does exist, or that it's reasonable to believe that it exists, whatever the fragging hell it is.

However; simply believing that there is stuff we have no idea about going on, that we may or may not learn about in the future, is perfectly reasonable in my opinion. There's no need to make it sound like magic.

Why does it have to sound magical? 

If some thing (T) is acting/being in a way that does not derive from its nature (Nt), it must be acting/being according to some other thing (X) with a NATURE (Nx). 

Thing (T) is therefore acting/being supernaturally (i.e. supernatural relative to T's nature (Nt)). But the action itself is only supernatural in relation to thing T, and not in itself (i.e. relative to Nx).

Relative to (Nx), it is not supernatural at all, but natural.

So it might be the case that X naturally causes T to act/be in a way that T is not able to act/be naturally (i.e. by its own nature).

What is magical about that?

If something is acting in a certain way in the real world then, ipso facto, it is acting naturally. Just because we don't have a natural explanation for something it doensn't follow that we can call it supernatural.

Nearly every single activity that theists ascribed to gods, such as thunder, crop cycles, rain, sunrise sunset and even gravity have been subsequently shown to be purely natural phenomena. And even witb the few areas we're not sure of yet most have plausible natural explanations, e.g. the creation of the universe and abiogebesisboth have multiple explanations which are natural and plausible given our current knowledge.

The problem with the appeal to the supernatural for believers is that it essentially an admission that they have no explanation and no evidence. It is an admission that they are holding a value to be truthful despite the evidence.

[SteveII]

I answered the question "what practical use" is there in distinguishing between a supernatural event or an unexplained event. I said nothing about imposing any personal interpretation or significance on an event nor did I say by simply labeling an event supernatural it is somehow endowed with significance.

As I have said many times in this thread, arguing whether an event should be put in the supernatural or unexplained columns is a probabilistic argument.

While I in no way want to start the NT/evidence discussion up again, it is useful to have an example of what I mean. 

If all we know was a man crippled from birth started walking (and that is all we can discover) we are rationally required to put it into the unexplained column.

If on the other hand the context and timing indicate the event has significance beyond the actual walking part, then we are rational to investigate what that might be in judging which column the event should be placed. So, in Matt 9 Jesus told a man his sins were forgiven. When the religious leaders grumbled that this was blasphemy, he asked what was easier to say that your sins are forgiven or to tell him to get up an walk. He told the man to get up an walk and the man did. There was plenty of context to give this even far more significance than just a man walking away.

But, see, without a mechanism that can be detected and investigated, there's no reason to add any special significance to a given theological explanation. Taking your Jesus example, yes, it could be that the contextual interpretation you have for that event is what really happened, but it also could be that the specific phonemes, spoken in that specific place, with a specific celestial alignment above (at any resolution you happen to want) caused our understanding of biology to change in that specific instant. It could also be that Jesus was a theologically motivated time traveler who deployed advanced technology under the guise of a miracle because it just so happens that in the future the time traveler owns a major stake in a bible printing company.

Let's just ignore the validity of the account and presume, for the hypothetical, that this is an event that we witnessed together: given that you have no way of detecting or demonstrating a divine source for the event (and cannot, I hasten to add, even show that such a thing is possible) how can you assign a higher probability to your miraculous explanation, over and above the time travel or unknown quirk of the universe explanations?

Merely because, contextually, an explanation is asserted or hinted at at the time, does not mean that this explanation is any more likely. Every magician who has ever performed relies on this being the case. Hell, con men rely on the same thing: implying a cause is not the same thing as there actually being that cause.

The very definition of a supernatural event make detecting and investigating the cause logically impossible. So we are only left with the result and the context. 

Continuing to ignore the validity of the events for the purposes of a philosophical discussion...

Perhaps you are right for one event. If there were hundreds of similar events and other events that illustrated power over matter, life and death, knowledge that should not have been available, etc., the contextual interpretation becomes become stronger and the probability increases that supernatural forces are at play. This would all be in addition to the fact that Jesus clearly explained the source of this power--which at the very least lends additional context clues.

[SteveII]

Right. Maybe humans can heal people, and it's just extremely rarely that anyone figures out how to harness the power. If that's the case, is it supernatural?

Maybe in a thousand years everyone will be doing it.

I mean, if you already believe Jesus himself is supernatural, then there's no discussion anyway. But if it's just his acts that are supernatural, supposedly, then you're just guessing. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. We can't even examine any evidence directly, all we have are stories. Even if we believe the stories, it doesn't tell us how he did what he did. He doesn't get to credit himself just because he did something that can't be explained.

The magician doesn't get to say he actually teleported a card because you can't figure out how he moved it from one hand to the other.

Depends on the source of the power. If the power is contingent on the physical universe and its laws, then no, not supernatural. 

Do we believe Jesus is supernatural a priori or do we believe he is supernatural from proposed evidence? I think it would be the latter. As I mentioned in the reply to Esquilax, in Jesus' case, a variety of events (and their corresponding context) as well as Jesus' claim as to the source of the power give us enough information to begin to assemble a bigger picture and therefore significance. Hypothetically.

[SteveII]

Let's face it, this works in reverse. People already believe in God, Jesus being magic, and supernatural events, before any sort of analysis even begins. I highly doubt anyone has ever simply examined the bible, and concluded that this is evidence of supernatural events, without already being Christian or receiving a lot of outside influence. [1] If they have, without it being in any way suggested to them by other people, then I'd expect them to believe every work of fiction is real. It would be someone who simply can't tell reality from fantasy. Not only that: they are willing to agree to the label "supernatural" as opposed to "unexplained", on the say so of the characters in the book! [2]

So before we start, they already believe these conclusions. This means that they have to reach them, by whatever means, during the discussion. So stopping at "unexplained" is not sufficient. Reasons must be found to validate genuinely categorising something as supernatural.

Yet there is no way. This is how previous biases force broken arguments; and that's even if we grant that everything in the bible happened exactly how it was written. It's just a series of unexplained events, which some people want to call supernatural. [3]

It's a diagnosis by elimination, and you also have to eliminate the possibility of there being no efficient cause at all. Just saying you can't believe there are any natural explanations, or that it could happen with no cause, is just an appeal to incredulity. It's not scientific. You don't have to convince us that you are convinced. We know you are, before we even began talking about it. [4]

1. You mentioned a lot of things together like they were a single thing. We have discussed before the people have a built in propensity to believe in the supernatural and therefore most do not dismiss the possibility. Since many people end up in other religions (or make up their own "spirituality"), I do not think that people start with Jesus is supernatural before any analysis begins. 

2. Not redoing the NT debate. But do you really think "why not every work of fiction" argument is a good one? 

3. If you "grant that everything in the bible happened exactly how it was written" and you still claim unexplained, then your reason is clearly that supernatural events cannot happen. You are arguing in a circle: they didn't happen because they cannot happen.

4. You should always apply the scientific method to an event. If it is determined that what we know about science cannot explain it, you are saying we are not justified in going further than that. But why not? Only a a priori belief that the supernatural does not exist stops you (see above #3 why that is a problem).  As we have been discussing, we can look for context to see what column we might put the event in. You are right, it's not scientific. By definition, it can't be.

[Whateverist]

If people want to say I can't prove there is no "supernatural" things, they are correct. Especially since I don't even understand what it's meant to be. I have no need or desire to, especially since that's a rigged scenario.

But that doesn't mean it does exist, or that it's reasonable to believe that it exists, whatever the fragging hell it is.

However; simply believing that there is stuff we have no idea about going on, that we may or may not learn about in the future, is perfectly reasonable in my opinion. There's no need to make it sound like magic.

Why does it have to sound magical? 

If some thing (T) is acting/being in a way that does not derive from its nature (Nt), it must be acting/being according to some other thing (X) with a NATURE (Nx). 

Thing (T) is therefore acting/being supernaturally (i.e. supernatural relative to T's nature (Nt)). But the action itself is only supernatural in relation to thing T, and not in itself (i.e. relative to Nx).

Relative to (Nx), it is not supernatural at all, but natural.

So it might be the case that X naturally causes T to act/be in a way that T is not able to act/be naturally (i.e. by its own nature).

What is magical about that?

I would just say anyone talking out his ass has said something shitty.  In this case, I couldn't tell you what that was however.