Virgil Tibbs

Rational BAC, there is a difference between being capable of imagining a world beyond one's undestanding, and actually believing in that world for no reason. I could certainly imagine a world with gods, souls, magic spells, or miracles, or any number of things that would be impossible to explain, but the ability to imagine a thing does not make it more likely to be true. As far as fantasy goes, supernatural stuff is great: One of my favorite books as a child was The Hobbit. However, as much as it inspired me I never believed it might be likely to be true, even way back then.

In the real world it is supernaturalism, not naturalism that limits us. Any unexplained occurance in the natural world is an exciting puzzle that can be explored. The existence of anything supernatural would by defintion mean we would never be able to understand it. Therefore calling something supernatural paints the attempt to learn about it a waste of time and degrades our creative nature.

Why bother to try to figure out god when god "works in mysterious ways" you are not allowed to comprehend? If all powerful, supernatural god(s) did exist, he/she/it/they would be manipulating us as he/she/it/they pleased and for reasons we could not comprehend and we'd be helpless against him/her/it/them. Yeah, that would make the universe more meaningful.

Especially at this point in history, when we are only decades into exploring so many profound conceptual revolutions like quantum mechanics and relativity, calling anything supernatural is premature to say the least. It would be like a newscaster calling a presidental election after three votes are cast. If we reached a point in history where scientists were stumped and could make no advancements on any subject whatsoever, that might be a time to start thinking "magic." Right now we know there are obviously still many, many discoveries to make, and knowing we have incomplete information how can we jump to unwarranted conclusions that prevent us from asking the questions we need to explore this amazing universe?

When one has incomplete information, saying "I don't know yet" is the first step in learning. Saying "Goddidit" is the first and last step in making a dogmatic and unwarranted assumption that often can't be overturned, even by observation that later proves the dogma false (YEC anyone?).

And certainly I must mention that one does not need the addition of the supernatural to make the world around us interesting. Hell, just looking up at the night sky inspires my imagination more than a decade of dutiful church-going ever did. It's odd how so many supernaturalists waste their time imagining wonders that almost certainly do not exist when there are far more interesting things surrounding them in their everyday lives. I'll take a prefectly explainable thunderstorm or supernova over a story about some guy walking on water as fuel for my imagination any day of the week.

Tibbs