Craigart14

This thread is a bit disturbing. Theists seem to think that any phenomenon that science cannot explain immediately must be supernatural. Why? It simply does not follow that everything we can't understand must be supernatural in origin. There are countless observed phenomena that were once thought to be caused by god(s) but that have now been explained, controlled, or even eradicated by science. When the plague was sweeping across Europe, people thought it was divine punishment; when ebola broke out in Africa, the U.S. and other industrialized nations sent medical teams to contain it. A thousand years ago, schizophrenia produced the voice of god; now it produces a prescription from your friendly psychopharmacologist. Lightning was the weapon that made Zeus king of the gods; now it's an electical charge completing a circuit across a gap, pretty much like a spark plug. And wet dreams were once believed the result of night visitations by succubi.

No doubt anyone on this board could cite dozens of examples of natural phenomena that were once believed to be supernatural. Inductive reasoning points toward the conclusion that currently unexplained phenomena will be explained, as so many past unexplained phenomena have been explained, by science and reason. Not one of the "supernatural" events mentioned in this thread can be shown to be supernatural at all. Of course, the same is true of all the "supernatural" events in all the "holy" books in history.

I once had an essay from a freshman about logical fallacies. I really thought I had made some progress with this girl. Her essay explained that her church elders' claim that rock music caused demonic possession constituted a post hoc or doubtful cause fallacy. I perked right up, I did. Sure, it wasn't a post hoc fallacy, which requires two observable phenomena, but she was trying. Then she pointed out that a young person might well be possessed by demons, but there was no way to know if the possession was caused by music or by something else . . .

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," Hamlet says. I wonder what he and Horatio would have thought of television?

Craig

"Lord, give me chastity. But not yet." Augustine of Hippo.

hinduwoman

when someone meets with something difficult to explain he has two recourses --- he can try to find an explanation, or he can eagerly accept it as sign of something divine. A mind that is inclined towards mysticism would find anything as 'proof'.
Once my father saw sacred ash pouring out of a picture of a godman (sai Baba; maybe some of you have heard of him?). He could have accepted this as a miracle. The more eager- to-be-gulled people did. But instead he put his rational faculties to work and found by experiment that the frame of the picture contained the ash; when temperature reached a certain level, the liquid would melt and ooze out of the wood. Not of course that it satisfied the devotees.

I had dejavu episodes before puberty. But is a well attested medical phenomenon, not a supernatural one.
Oh yeah once an auto (not a cab, a light small vehicle) run over my foot. My foot survived; my very expensive thick leather shoes did not. Is this something that cannot have happened? Was God watching out for me? Was I wearing a lucky charm? [shrug]. Endless possibilities if only I would free my mind from its cage of logic and let it run spontaneously. (Of course if something was on the job, then it should have tried to save my shoes as well --- they cost Rs. !400!)

Loki

Oh, some biting language in this thread.

Weird stuff in my life? The occasional deja vu is really the most of it. I did have one of those "waking nightmares," I believe they're called, where I had a nightmare, woke up, went to the bathroom, to find a bloody corpse in the bathtub, at which point I really woke up. But then I didn't sleep again that night (it was 4 am in the summer).

If there's anything that I can't explain, that I find funny, it's that single celled organisms arose. The complexity of cells is amazing to me, and the idea that DNA has all the information coded in itself to make mRNA, tRNA, rRNA, to replicate itself is just amazing. I don't really believe natural selection yielded it, but I don't have a better explanation, so in lieu.... I'm stuck with current scientific theory.

Corona688

Arrrgh! How many times must we tell people that the origin of life and the evolution of life are completely seperate issues? :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: Look into abiogenesis maybye.

Loki

I'm assuming that this is directed at me.

I understand that they are separate topics, and your condescention is not well taken.

I am an atheist, so obviously I don't think "goddidit," I was just musing that the origin of cells, especially eukaryotic cells with extremely complex intracellular chemical processes, or things like hormones in multicellular organisms doesn't seem like something that would arise by natural selection alone. But as i said, I lack a better explanation, so for now, that'll have to suffice. It's tempted me to be superstitious and say "wow, that looks planned by something," but I can't do this intellectually with good intellectual conscience.

Gregg

Well, not all at once, no. That would be strong evidence AGAINST evolution. But given small changes over long periods of time, interesting things can happen.

Postcard73

Please remember that this thread is not about evolution.

Scott (Postcard73)
GRD Moderator