Atheism

[robvalue]

For sure, it's a definition just for the study of people using the word, rather than what the religious intend it to mean.

Yeah, it's an arbitrary line to draw. Supernatural could just as easily be called "imaginary" or "things that can do the impossible".

I think they often want to discount science and use emotions as their guide instead.

[SteveII]

Religious experiences are a supernatural phenomenon.

Seems like a claim, which, by its very nature, cannot possibly have any evidence for it. (For various reasons.)  So you have a claim with no evidence, which you can only abet by assuming the supernatural exists, which is begging the question.  This seems to be the lynchpin of your argument, so I don't see how it can succeed.  You in the past have suggested that people having foreknowledge of supernatural events is evidence in favor of people having knowledge of the supernatural nature of those events.  However that doesn't follow.  At best, it's an argument from ignorance, so the conclusion is not reliable.  This is a fundamental epistemic problem that I don't believe you can get around.  Even if people have foreknowledge of an event or attribute an event to the supernatural, that in itself isn't evidence that the event is supernatural.  You would have to assume the supernatural exists in order for the conclusion to follow, so you've once again begged the question.  I've heard your argument multiple times, and the fundamental objection remains the same.  Since we cannot have any knowledge of the source of supernatural events by natural means -- zero, zip, nada -- the only possible source of evidence for the source of a supernatural event must itself be supernatural, and once again you've begged the question.  I know you think you can get around it inductively, but I don't believe you can.  Nothing you've presented suggests otherwise.  Zero information is zero information, no matter how many times you add it to the mix.

Why can't we have natural effects that infer supernatural causes? The whole enterprise of science infers causes from their effects. List of effects:

1. The contents of the NT
2. The first century church (independent of the NT)
3. Individual personal experience as predicted by the NT
4. Other people we trust personal experience
5. Personal miracles (private, specific events that seemed to have a purpose against all odds)
6. Natural theology arguments

[I_am_not_mafia]

Why can't we have natural effects that infer supernatural causes?

Why can't we have supernatural effects that infer natural causes?

[SteveII]

Religious experiences are a supernatural phenomenon.

So, back on my post number 184 of this thread, I responded to you, and posed a question (which you conveniently ignored).

Here it is again,

I have a friend (an old surfing buddy) that became addicted to alcohol and drugs, was living on the street and doing petty crimes.

One day he walked into a Hindu temple in Los Angeles, and he claims he had a religious experience where he saw Hindu gods, and they communicated with him (the god told him to clean up his life, and that he was hurting his loved ones).

He literally quit alcohol and drugs that day. Cleaned up his life, and now owns a small business, and has a great family. He is still Hindu.

So, what do you think is more likely, he had a real experience with the Hindu god, that caused him to clean up his life, or, he had a real experience, like a change in mental states, that he misinterpreted as communication with Hindu gods?

I'd still like to get your take on this.

I think the built-in awareness of the divine coupled with his knowledge of the right thing to do worked to convince your friend that he experienced a Hindu god. Before you ask why that same reasoning does not apply to Christianity, this is what I wrote a few pages back:

For this argument to work, you have to show that the religious experiences are the same (or largely the same).  A few points:

1. Picture the world of the first/second/third centuries. Christianity was spreading across the Roman empire to India. There were no 'cultural' Christians. The converts were not atheist. They had their religion and religious experiences yet they chose Christianity. Even today, we have millions per year changing religions. We can infer from this that religious experiences are not all created equal.
2. Concepts of those experience are objectively different:
     a. My understanding is that Muslims are not big on inner ongoing religious experiences. They believe in an authoritative God that is too holy and distant to developing a personal relationship that is a constant resource helping you navigate your daily life.
     b. Hindus pursue a feeling of a divine presence as a result of meditation.
     c. Buddhists pursue states of being and enlightenment through various practices. Not sure what is considered divine or not.
     d. Christians believe that God (Holy Spirit) is actually present with you and is a catalyst for such things as the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. There is an actual causal connection between God and us on a daily basis--not a search for something that can be achieved with enough effort.
3. A base level of religious experiences throughout history is evidence that the human mind recognizes the supernatural. Methods of pursuit can be different, incomplete, and wrong.
4. All religions have some version of religious experience. All religions are exclusive. One or none are correct. Assuming they are all incorrect because they all cannot be right is a composition fallacy.

Therefore a conclusion that religious experience is not evidence for Christianity is an assertion. Is may not be proof, but it is evidence for a cumulative case.

---

Why can't we have natural effects that infer supernatural causes?

Why can't we have supernatural effects that infer natural causes?

There are. We don't have access to them--being limited in our abilities to examine anything outside the natural world.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Why can't we have supernatural effects that infer natural causes?

There are. We don't have access to them--being limited in our abilities to examine anything outside the natural world.

If an effect has a natural cause then why isn't it also a natural effect? What makes it supernatural?

[SteveII]

False analogy. Lightening is a natural phenomenon. Religious experiences are a supernatural phenomenon.

You don't know that.

How about I state:

'Lightening is a natural phenomenon. Religious experiences are also a natural phenomenon.'

How do we determine who is correct? I already have an advantage because you don't even know what supernatural means yet we know what natural means. And this enables us to test whether there are natural and scientifically rigorous explanations for religious like experiences (there are).

So your going with "billions of Christians had and continue to have epilepsy" and further, the manifestation of this epilepsy is directly dependent on the worldview one ascribes to--changing if one changes their worldview". I can't argue with that logic. 

And here you are talking about begging the question while making unwarranted assumptions that the supernatural exists when there is no evidence for it (and can't be if you don't even accept natural evidence to determine if it exists or not). So your whole argument is begging the question. No wonder you are so keen to project your own failings onto others.

I said that self-reported experiences with the supernatural are reported by billions for millennium and is therefore evidence of the supernatural. You come back with That is not evidence of the supernatural because there is no evidence of the supernatural. Do I need to say what that is? Additionally, there are several other categories of evidence for the supernatural that you are ignoring: 

1. The entire contents of the NT

2. The first century church (independent of the NT)
3. Personal miracles (private, specific events that seemed to have a purpose against all odds)
4. Natural theology arguments

I am aware of no progress on the mind/body dualism question. In fact, I think that stating that we are purely mechanistic is a belief that stems from metaphysical naturalism (philosophy) rather than actual science.

Your ignorance does not determine reality. I stated that the more scientific evidence we have, the more it looks like the brain works in a purely mechanistic way. And as I keep repeating, at no point have we found anything to suggest otherwise.

OF COURSE the brain is mechanistic. The emergent property of consciousness and why many mental events seem to be non-physical is a complete mystery. Your belief that the brain=mind is a philosophical position, not a scientific one.

---

There are. We don't have access to them--being limited in our abilities to examine anything outside the natural world.

If an effect has a natural cause then why isn't it also a natural effect? What makes it supernatural?

God is supernatural. If something that happens in the natural world affects him at all, you have an example of the natural world having an effect on the supernatural. By definition, any effect on the supernatural is not physical.

---

This is the part I am challenging. If you take the step of saying that the person's experiences are not a result of the supernatural, that is a simple assertion. Any attempt to justify that assertion becomes question begging. Your attempt to introduce a null hypothesis is simply an attempt to sneak in the assertion; since the only way to know of a person's inner experience is to ask them, the concept does not apply. 

If you are able to overcome the null hypothesis (that neuro-cultural factors that we have at least a basic understanding of are sufficient to explain the phenomenon, and incidentally, explain it better), by all means do so. If not, I should hardly take it on faith that you're on to something rather than motivated to insert the Christian God wherever you think it will fit.

All it would take is a group of people each year that became Christians from other cultures. The tremendous growth of Christianity in China is a single example that wipes out this theory.

[I_am_not_mafia]

'Lightening is a natural phenomenon. Religious experiences are also a natural phenomenon.'

How do we determine who is correct? I already have an advantage because you don't even know what supernatural means yet we know what natural means. And this enables us to test whether there are natural and scientifically rigorous explanations for religious like experiences (there are).

So your going with "billions of Christians had and continue to have epilepsy" and further, the manifestation of this epilepsy is directly dependent on the worldview one ascribes to--changing if one changes their worldview". I can't argue with that logic. 

I never said that. Stop strawmanning and deliberately making it look like I did. Not only is it intellectually dishonest, it's just a way of avoiding answering the question. How do we determine what is and is not a natural / supernatural phenomenon. You cannot say.

I said that self-reported experiences with the supernatural are reported by billions for millennium and is therefore evidence of the supernatural.

No, it is only evidence of experiences. Self reporting does not tell us whether the experiences are natural or supernatural.

Additionally, there are several other categories of evidence for the supernatural that you are ignoring: 

1. The entire contents of the NT

2. The first century church (independent of the NT)
3. Personal miracles (private, specific events that seemed to have a purpose against all odds)
4. Natural theology arguments

None of those are evidence of the supernatural except possibly 3 if they could  be verified, which they can't. (assuming of couse we had a definition of supernatural as distinct from natural, which there isn't).

OF COURSE the brain is mechanistic. The emergent property of consciousness and why many mental events seem to be non-physical is a complete mystery. Your belief that the brain=mind is a philosophical position, not a scientific one.

No it is a scientific view.

And who said that many mental events seem to be non-physical? All the scientific evidence is that they are physical.

If an effect has a natural cause then why isn't it also a natural effect? What makes it supernatural?

God is supernatural.

You are assuming that Mr God exists when there is no evidence for his, or any other god's existance. And like with the term supernatural, there is no unambiguous definition of what a god could possibly be.

[Angrboda]

Seems like a claim, which, by its very nature, cannot possibly have any evidence for it. (For various reasons.)  So you have a claim with no evidence, which you can only abet by assuming the supernatural exists, which is begging the question.  This seems to be the lynchpin of your argument, so I don't see how it can succeed.  You in the past have suggested that people having foreknowledge of supernatural events is evidence in favor of people having knowledge of the supernatural nature of those events.  However that doesn't follow.  At best, it's an argument from ignorance, so the conclusion is not reliable.  This is a fundamental epistemic problem that I don't believe you can get around.  Even if people have foreknowledge of an event or attribute an event to the supernatural, that in itself isn't evidence that the event is supernatural.  You would have to assume the supernatural exists in order for the conclusion to follow, so you've once again begged the question.  I've heard your argument multiple times, and the fundamental objection remains the same.  Since we cannot have any knowledge of the source of supernatural events by natural means -- zero, zip, nada -- the only possible source of evidence for the source of a supernatural event must itself be supernatural, and once again you've begged the question.  I know you think you can get around it inductively, but I don't believe you can.  Nothing you've presented suggests otherwise.  Zero information is zero information, no matter how many times you add it to the mix.

Why can't we have natural effects that infer supernatural causes? The whole enterprise of science infers causes from their effects. List of effects:

1. The contents of the NT
2. The first century church (independent of the NT)
3. Individual personal experience as predicted by the NT
4. Other people we trust personal experience
5. Personal miracles (private, specific events that seemed to have a purpose against all odds)
6. Natural theology arguments

Because when one infers a cause, one is making a connection between the cause and effect, but in supernatural causation, there is no demonstrable connection between the cause and the effect by definition. The very way you've defined the supernatural rules out any reasonable inference. What exactly would such an inference be based on? It seems there are only three or four possibilities, a) prior belief, b) assumption, c) empirical knowledge, or d) supernatural knowledge. The first two are not a justification for the inference, the third is ruled out by the definition, and the fourth brings us back to a case of begging the question. Exactly how are you proposing these inferences are being made? It does no good to present a laundry list of examples in which such inferences were made unless somewhere in that laundry list is an example where the inference was justifiably made without recourse to either supernatural knowledge or mere assumption. The enterprise of science differs categorically in that it invokes the relevant connections between cause and effect in its explanations, something not possible under the definition of supernatural which you are employing (in addition to which, the epistemology of science rests on two key assumptions, that there exists a real world independent of our minds, and that this real world is knowable via the contents of our experience; the attempt to make inferences to the supernatural doesn't draw on either of these assumptions, but rather simply makes a third, namely the existence of the supernatural, which is the very assumption under debate, so can't be introduced as an epistemological assumption but must be argued for on independent grounds which themselves are shared).

I'm not going to respond to your list unless you can be more specific about any particular example. Your listing natural theology arguments as an effect seems to indicate you're just spewing potential cases in a shotgun pattern in the hopes that you might hit something.

[LadyForCamus]

I’m a stay at home mom with 4 year old and 18 month old boys; give me a break, will ya? 😛  I’m gettin’ to it, just as soon as I have a few minutes to be alone with my brain. 😉

Ok no problem.... I just wanted to clarify that their is the issue of what the category error is, and why it’s wrong. Or if you want to change your mind on that statement that’s fine too.

Edit: didn’t mean to sound like I was rushing you.

Naturally caused events, and “super” or, “beyond” or, “outside” or, “seperate from”, naturally caused events are indeed two distinct categories.  Most importantly, they’re the inverse of one another.  We know that naturally caused events have natural causes, because they’re explainable, describable, demonstrable and repeatable within the natural world.  The supernatural?  I’m not even sure what that word means beyond, “not natural”.  What is a “not-natural” cause?

I think that I am wrong, but not about the category error. Attempting to draw conclusions about an allegedly supernatural event by holding it to the same evidentiary standards we use for naturally caused events is absolutely a category error.  That’s like trying to recite the alphabet using only numbers. But, I’ll retract my proposition that, “supernatural claims demand extraordinary evidence.”  I don’t know how you could even coherently describe a supernatural cause, let alone have any evidence for it. Where the rubber hits the road for me, is that I don’t have any reason to think a “not-natural” thing could even be in existence at all.  That seems like a logically contradictory statement. What is a thing that is in existence, but not natural?  

Now, if you’re saying that the “supernatural” is really just an extension of the natural world, then we’re talking about a single category of things. Naturally caused things. In that case, we can expect some physical evidence for these extra-natural...(?) causes, and correctly apply our evidentiary hierarchy to draw reasonable conclusions about those claims.  Unfortunately though, you’re still faced with the problem that an alleged “extra-natural” event like the virgin birth is a claim that contradicts an overwhelming body of high-quality, scientific evidence to the contrary. All available evidence indicates that human semen is necessary for conception. Heresy, at the very bottom of that hierarchy, certainly wouldn’t even come close to overcoming or overriding that fact. Extraordinary natural claims certainly demand extraordinary evidence.

[Crossless2.0]

So, back on my post number 184 of this thread, I responded to you, and posed a question (which you conveniently ignored).

Here it is again,

I have a friend (an old surfing buddy) that became addicted to alcohol and drugs, was living on the street and doing petty crimes.

One day he walked into a Hindu temple in Los Angeles, and he claims he had a religious experience where he saw Hindu gods, and they communicated with him (the god told him to clean up his life, and that he was hurting his loved ones).

He literally quit alcohol and drugs that day. Cleaned up his life, and now owns a small business, and has a great family. He is still Hindu.

So, what do you think is more likely, he had a real experience with the Hindu god, that caused him to clean up his life, or, he had a real experience, like a change in mental states, that he misinterpreted as communication with Hindu gods?

I'd still like to get your take on this.

I think the built-in awareness of the divine coupled with his knowledge of the right thing to do worked to convince your friend that he experienced a Hindu god. Before you ask why that same reasoning does not apply to Christianity, this is what I wrote a few pages back:

For this argument to work, you have to show that the religious experiences are the same (or largely the same).  A few points:

1. Picture the world of the first/second/third centuries. Christianity was spreading across the Roman empire to India.

Right.

There were no 'cultural' Christians. The converts were not atheist.

Right.

They had their religion and religious experiences yet they chose Christianity.

Apparently. But that fact doesn't impress you as "truthfully" meaningful if it leads to a different faith. Then, the methods that result in religious experiences and may lead to the a new faith are "incomplete and wrong".

Even today, we have millions per year changing religions. We can infer from this that religious experiences are not all created equal.

Perhaps. Rather than focus on the experience, I'm more interested in the interpretations derived from the experience, and in vastly many cases those will be informed by what the person having the experience brings to the table. Those millions who change religions each year may do so for a cocktail of reasons that have little or nothing to do with an alleged encounter with the supernatural.

2. Concepts of those experience are objectively different:
     a. My understanding is that Muslims are not big on inner ongoing religious experiences. They believe in an authoritative God that is too holy and distant to developing a personal relationship that is a constant resource helping you navigate your daily life.

I can't speak with any authority on this, but I doubt those Muslims who are part of the Islamic mystical tradition feel this way. I suppose, in your view, such Muslims are making the same "mistakes" as Hindus and Buddhists, as per points 'b' and 'c' -- i.e., they are 'inferior' because they involve personal effort and search.

d. Christians believe that God (Holy Spirit) is actually present with you and is a catalyst for such things as the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Yes, that's a part of Christian belief. It's worth pointing out, however, that those allegedly inferior methods used by Hindus and Buddhists also often result in precisely those qualities you label 'fruits of the spirit'.

There is an actual causal connection between God and us on a daily basis . . .

Is this still you telling us what Christians believe, or have you slipped into making an assertion of fact?

. . . not a search for something that can be achieved with enough effort.

So St. John of the Cross got it all wrong. All he needed was Paul's doctrine of grace, and he could have avoided all that troublesome contemplation. Got it.

3. A base level of religious experiences throughout history is evidence that the human mind recognizes the supernatural.

I would replace 'recognizes' with 'posits'.

Methods of pursuit can be different, incomplete, and wrong.

Then I guess it's a good thing for you that your religion doesn't require such effort, aside from accepting those gifts you allegedly receive from the Holy Spirit.

It's convenient, anyway.

4. All religions have some version of religious experience.

Yes.

All religions are exclusive.

No, they aren't. Or at least they all weren't, before the Abrahamic faiths drove them to extinction in the West. Not all pagans converted because of a positive experience of the Holy Spirit.

Aside from your claim that Christians 'really' encounter the Holy Spirit (as opposed to interpreting their experiences through a NT lens), I don't see where you provided Simon Moon's friend any reason to doubt his experience of Krishna or whatever. "You don't need to meditate or perform any particular discipline (or concern yourself with strict observance of the Law, in Paul's view)" is a good marketing gimmick, but it makes for a lousy measure if we're concerned about the truth or falsehood of one's interpretation of experience.