Clouseau

Well, go on. You 'always' ask Bible literalists if they truly believe there are cherubim and a flaming sword out there somewhere right now in Mesopotamia, and you have a fundamentalist right here in placebo. I keep forgetting that about the only fundies here are atheists.

Yes, twelve baskets, observed, measured. Unless you can prove otherwise.

Sauron

No, what you have is a 2,000 year old unsubstantiated and uncorroborated claim of that. Apparently you think that writing something down is the same as evidence.

By that evidentiary standard, there are nine worlds, and a great World Tree that reaches to Asgard and Midgard. All observed and measured, by the limp standard you have set forth.

Roland

You forgot their all-purpose response to any such absurdity: Noah's Flood washed them away.

VoxRat

Sounds like a slogan.
Is there any substance behind it?

spin

There is no reason to exclude the supernatural. But there is a necessity for you to be able to objectify it in order to include it. If you cannot do so, there is no way for you to know that what you are talking about is related to the real world and not a delusion. Who can logically accept what you say if it cannot be distinguished from delusion?


spin

Amaleq13

I have difficulty believing you could honestly be this confused by what I wrote.

Clouseau

You're much too kind. I think that persons of quite average ability can perceive that, without 'the relevant evidence' that is held to disprove the existence of the supernatural, one cannot discount the possibility that the supernatural exists.

Sauron

By that line of argument, a statement that "leprechauns don't exist" would be faulty as well, but somehow I don't think you'd object to someone making that claim. After all; denying the existence of leprechauns doesn't exactly gore your ox, does it?

But therein lies the flaw in your argument: it's based in the semantics of how the statement regarding the supernatural. It is as if you objected to the statement:

"there is no such thing as a green crow"

Fine. Just change the statement to read:

"there is absolutely zero affirmative evidence for a green crow, in spite of two centuries worth of claims that have been examined and found faulty. Moreover, people who claim to have seen a green grow cannot even agree on what the green crow looks like. Finally, claims for a green crow are contradictory among themselves, and are also contradicted by evidence which we *do* have about the nature of crows."

The statement is tightened up and more precise now - are you happy? You should *not* be; the quandary facing you hasn't changed: you want to believe in something for which no affirmative evidence exists, and for which a mountain of contradictory evidence can be found.

Again:
You're the one claiming that there is a supernatural in the first place, in spite of no evidence. Burden of proof is on your back, not on the back of skeptics.

Amaleq13

No question about it. I am often too free with the benefit of the doubt.

I think that persons of average ability can perceive that this represents an obvious and illogical effort to shift the burden.

Absent evidence supporting a given supernatural claim, no good reason exists to accept it. That is what should be apparent to the rational individual of average intellect.

Clouseau

It's a good fault, I suppose. The only drawback is that people are often liable to be too free with the benefit of the doubt with regard to themselves, though.

Obviously we have different perceptions of what constitutes average ability.

Absolutely. So we must reject the claim here that

'The supernatural cannot happen'

until such time as, for the first time in history, convincing evidence is supplied to support it.

Which is indeed what the rational individual of average intellect has based his world view upon continuously since pre-historic times.