Walross

Hi Christian,

I still have to go over your response to me in detail, but in the meantime, I would like to address one of the things you wrote in response to Mike:

Did you read what I wrote earlier? Even if the supernatural were to exist, no one knows what (if any) rules govern it. Therefore one cannot assign a probability to a supernatural event. If you cannot assign a probability to it, how can you possibly say it is more or less probable than anything? Regards,

Walross

Christian

Hi Walruss,

If the choice is between a phenomenon of unknown probability and a phenomenon that is virtually impossible for known intrinsic reasons … the first choice is the more sound.

And besides, the method I outlined could very well assign a probability to a transphysical (for lack of a better term) phenomenon. Not necessarily, but it could in many cases.

Respectfully,

Christian

GunnerJ

Christian,

Funny thing is, I have been wondering about something you said: You defined supernatural events as an "actual exception to natural law." Presumably, this is to exclude events which are just misunderstandings of the way the world works. My question is: how can you show that something is an actual exception to natural law, and not just a case of our knowledge of nature being flawed? If something liek the miracle of the wedding at Cana happened, it wouldn't be "supernaturla" so much as a case of new and unknown natural forces acting.

The real problem is, I don't define "natural" and "supernatural." My "worldview" doesn't even make the deliniation. You're right to say that things like gods and angels would be "natural" phenomena in my view, if they could be demonstrated to exist as well as things like the planets, gravity, and atoms.

That said, I really don't know about your new definition: "That which exists but which is not physical, and is not merely conceptual." If something exists which is non-physical, and is not just an abstract concept, how would we know? How could it interact with the physical world, and even if it did exist, why would it be "supernatural," as opposed to simply a new type of "stuff" we didn't know about before?

Here's another way of looking at it. There are two types of definitions: deductive and inductive. A deductive definition of "x" makes a general, abstract rule which everything that can be considered "x" obeys. For example, "Supernatural: that which exists but which is not physical, and is not merely conceptual." An inductive definition of "x" is simply a list of things considered to be "x," such as, in your case, "god, devil, angels, christ, ressurection, witchcraft," etc. I don't have a pre-formed bias againt things that fall into people's inductive definition of supernatural. They could exist. I simply don't acept that deductive definitions of the supernatural are coherent: one way or another, they all seem to boil down to "stuff we don't have good scientific knowledge of or explainations/concepts for." There's room for anything is such gaps. And anything you claim is in there may well exist, but it has to be properly shown to exist in order for me to accept it.

Walross

Hi Christian,

you wrote:

No, it's not more sound at all. How do you know that the phenomenon of unknown probability is not even more "virtually impossible" than the other? It's of unknown probability. Let me put it this way...

For event C, you have only two possible causes (which, I have to point out is not the case with the mice/angels argument, but for now...): A or B. A has a finite probability which can be worked out (to some degree of error no doubt). B has no definable probability. It cannot be worked out. No matter how wildly improbable A is, you simply cannot state that B is more probable than A.

If you think you can, perhaps you'd care to tell me if X is greater than or less than 2000 000 000, where X is some integer.

Excuse me, are you claiming here that you have some reliable method for quantifying supernatural phenomena? That would be quite the trick seeing as how, so far as I know, all supernatural claims that haven't been utterly ruled out are unfalsifiable, non-repeatable and non-predictive. The supernatural simply does not seem to have (at least in it's alleged interactions with the natural world) the regularity we would need in order to even begin to work out the rules that govern it, and by consequence, the probabilities of certain types of events. Regards,

Walross

BTW Christian, it's Walross, not Walruss. I don't mean to be picky, but all my life I've mistakenly been called Russ instead of Ross, and now I see it's followed me online, lol .

Volker.Doormann

'On War'

"War is the spectacular and bloody projection of our everyday life, is it not? War is merely an outward expression of our inward state, an enlargement of our daily action. It is more spectacular, more bloody, more destructive, but it is the collective result of our individual activities. Therefore, you and I are responsible for war and what can we do to stop it? Obviously the ever-impending war cannot be stopped by you and me, because it is already in movement; it is already taking place, though at present chiefly on the psychological level. As it is already in movement, it cannot be stopped - the issues are too many, too great, and are already committed. But you and I, seeing that the house is on fire, can understand the causes of that fire, can go away from it and build in a new place with different materials that are not combustible, that will not produce other wars. That is all that we can do. You and I can see what creates wars, and if we are interested in stopping wars, then we can begin to transform ourselves, who are the causes of war.

An American lady came to see me a couple of years ago, during the war. She said she had lost her son in Italy and that she had another son aged sixteen whom she wanted to save; so we talked the thing over. I suggested to her that to save her son she had to cease to be an American; she had to cease to be greedy, cease piling up wealth, seeking power, domination, and be morally simple - not merely simple in clothes, in outward things, but simple in her thoughts and feelings, in her relationships. She said, "That is too much. You are asking far too much. I cannot do it, because circumstances are too powerful for me to alter". Therefore she was responsible for the destruction of her son. Circumstances can be controlled by us, because we have created the circumstances. Society is the product of relationship, of yours and mine together. If we change in our relationship, society changes; merely to rely on legislation, on compulsion, for the transformation of outward society, while remaining inwardly corrupt, while continuing inwardly to seek power, position, domination, is to destroy the outward, however carefully and scientifically built. That which is inward is always overcoming the outward. What causes war - religious, political or economic? Obviously belief, either in nationalism, in an ideology, or in a particular dogma. If we had no belief but goodwill, love and consideration between us, then there would be no wars. But we are fed on beliefs, ideas and dogmas and therefore we breed discontent. The present crisis is of an exceptional nature and we as human beings must either pursue the path of constant conflict and continuous wars, which are the result of our everyday action, or else see the causes of war and turn our back upon them.

Obviously what causes war is the desire for power, position, prestige, money; also the disease called nationalism, the worship of a flag; and the disease of organized religion, the worship of a dogma. All these are the causes of war; if you as an individual belong to any of the organized religions, if you are greedy for power, if you are envious, you are bound to produce a society which will result in destruction. So again it depends upon you and not on the leaders - not on so-called statesmen and all the rest of them. It depends upon you and me but we do not seem to realize that. If once we really felt the responsibility of our own actions, how quickly we could bring to an end all these wars, this appalling misery! But you see, we are indifferent. We have three meals a day, we have our jobs, we have our bank accounts, big or little, and we say, "For God's sake, don't disturb us, leave us alone". The higher up we are, the more we want security, permanency, tranquility, the more we want to be left alone, to maintain things fixed as they are; but they cannot be maintained as they are, because there is nothing to maintain. Everything is disintegrating. We do not want to face these things, we do not want to face the fact that you and I are responsible for wars. You and I may talk about peace, have conferences, sit round a table and discuss, but inwardly, psychologically, we want power, posit1on, we are motivated by greed. We intrigue, we are nationalistic, we are bound by beliefs, by dogmas, for which we are willing to die and destroy each other. Do you think such men, you and I, can have peace in the world? To have peace, we must be peaceful; to live peacefully means not to create antagonism. Peace is not an ideal. To me, an ideal is merely an escape, an avoidance of what is, a contradiction of what is. An ideal prevents direct action upon what is. To have peace, we will have to love, we will have to begin not to live an ideal life but to see things as they are and act upon them, transform them. As long as each one of us is seeking psychological security, the physiological security we need - food, clothing and shelter - is destroyed. We are seeking psychological security, which does not exist; and we seek it, if we can, through power, through position, through titles, names - all of which is destroying physical security. This is an obvious fact, if you look at it.

To bring about peace in the world, to stop all wars, there must be a revolution in the individual, in you and me. Economic revolution without this inward revolution is meaningless, for hunger is the result of the maladjustment of economic conditions produced by our psychological states - greed, envy, ill will and possessiveness. To put an end to sorrow, to hunger, to war, there must be a psychological revolution and few of us are willing to face that. We will discuss peace, plan legislation, create new leagues, the United Nations and so on and on; but we will not win peace because we will not give up our position, our authority, our money, our properties, our stupid lives. To rely on others is utterly futile; others cannot bring us peace. No leader is going to give us peace, no government, no army, no country. What will bring peace is inward transformation which will lead to outward action. Inward transformation is not isolation, is not a withdrawal from outward action. On the contrary, there can be right action only when there is right thinking and there is no right thinking when there is no self-knowledge. Without knowing yourself, there is no peace.

To put an end to outward war, you must begin to put an end to war in yourself. Some of you will nod your heads and say, "I agree", and go outside and do exactly the same as you have been doing for the last ten or twenty years. Your agreement is merely verbal and has no significance, for the world's miseries and wars are not going to be stopped by your casual assent. They will be stopped only when you realize the danger, when you realize your responsibility, when you do not leave it to somebody else. If you realize the suffering, if you see the urgency of immediate action and do not postpone, then you will transform yourself; peace will come only when you yourself are peaceful, when you yourself are at peace with your neighbour."

". . . it is important to understand, not intellectually but actually in your daily life, how you have built images about your wife, your husband, your neighbor, your child, your country, your leaders, your politicians, your gods - you have nothing but images.

The images create the space between you and what you observe and in that space there is conflict, so what we are going to find out now together is whether it is possible to be free of the space we create, not only outside ourselves but in ourselves, the space which divides people in all their relationships.

Now the very attention you give to a problem is the energy that solves that problem. When you give your complete attention - I mean with everything in you - there is no observer at all. There is only the state of attention which is total energy, and that total energy is the highest form of intelligence. Naturally that state of mind must be completely silent and that silence, that stillness, comes when there is total attention, not disciplined stillness. That total silence in which there is neither the observer nor the thing observed is the highest form of a religious mind. But what takes place in that state cannot be put into words because what is said in words is not the fact. To find out for yourself you have to go through it."

"When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind."

Some 40 years ago i read this impressive thougths, which were written shortly after the world war II by a spirtual teacher.

There is are reality of nature to perceive. To look out for a supernatural nature is a refusal to accept the reality, as it is . Christ claims to be followers of Jesus. But in my long life I never have heard a Christ, living elementary core teachings of Jesus. I have given some examples from the gospels, but there is also no reply concerning these examples from you. I think, if Christ's thinks that they can find the truth with assertions of unnatural claims, without to be able to demonstrate, that they have the capability to distinguish between truth an untruth, that's recognizable a path of spiritual bondage in blindness. Not the refusal of reality is taught by Jesus, he has said, cited by John (8:32): "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." No Christ respects the truth of nature as it is . If nature in whole is to be understand as god, it is a rejection of god, that the Phantom of Christianity works on teaching the untruth about nature instead then truth.

Volker

Starboy

Hi Christian,

This thread has been going on for some time now and this point may have already been presented, but just in case here goes.

There is not exactly a basis for the approach of science. It is more a practical matter. Because science uses experiment on nature to support scientific explanations it essentially uses the natural to explore the natural. Kinda like using stones to make stone tools. Because of this science has an implicit definition of the word ‘natural’ which labels everything that can be detected by the natural as natural. So what science has done is label everything we could ever know about reality as natural. That would leave everything we can’t ever know about reality as possible candidates for supernatural. However, what can be said about something we can never know anything about? Nothing. So at best the supernatural is irrelevant and at worse the supernatural is nothing.

Starboy

Biff the unclean

Chris: Your arguments are specious and you haven’t backed up anything you've said. Your claims are not worth investigating. No meaningful discourse has occurred between us.

It is not my fault if the GI library in Korea is poorly stocked (did you look in Gibbon?), or if the web if flooded with Christian nonsense. I looked on the web myself, page after page of Xian ranting, couldn't find an actual history to give you.
Don't blame me for your own short comings.
It used to be thought that the account in the bible was completely wrong. It wasn't until 1968 that archeologists found the first proof that any crucifixion had ever been done with spikes instead of just ropes.
You can't suffocate without pressure on your chest. That's why trapeze artists don't turn blue. You can't put pressure on the chest-even if we overlook the rope (it being so common maybe it was there and not mentioned)--without the legs being broken. A big iron spike through the feet would give tremendous support. It would hurt like hell, but it wouldn't let you sag down. It would prevent pressure on the chest and not promote it.

But I get the feeling that you are trying a little misdirection on me, because you don't want to consider the base question.

Jesus is pronounced dead after a few hours of torture. But he tuns up alive and walking about thirty six hours later. Since he shows up alive why would we think that he was ever dead, and not that somebody made a simple mistake? When things like that happen today, and they do, it is never considered supernatural. Why would you make an exception for Jesus?

Christian

Walross,

Sorry about the name slip up!

I have read before that mathematicians claim an event is “impossible” after they reach a certain level of improbability. For example, it is not impossible that all of the air molecules in a room would stack up along one wall, suffocating anyone in the room. There is an actual probability of that happening which can be worked out. But mathematicians call it impossible because of the high degree of unlikelihood.

If an event is mathematically “impossible” (even though there is a probability assigned), then it would be valid to chose a solution of unknown probability instead.

The technique I laid out begins with the Bible as the highest level of authority for investigating truth claims. Even if the account of the Angel of God killing 180,000 soldiers was not in scripture … I would still know from the rest of scripture (the first step in my process) that angels exist, and that they do in fact kill people at times.

Thus, rather than starting with the assumption that angels do not exist, I start with the knowledge that angels do exist. That makes all the difference in the world. And such an assumption does not beg the question …. just because angels exist does not assume anything about whether they killed those particular soldiers. As Lewis said, most claims of the supernatural are false.

With the knowledge that both mice and angels exist, I can evaluate the data objectively. I look to biology to provide information on what mice are capable of and what they are likely to do. I look to scripture for information on what angels are capable of and what they are likely to do.

There is no reason to think that an angel would not kill 180,000 soldiers at God’s command. There are good reasons to think that mice would not catch an entire army by surprise and eat through all of their bow strings.

With the fallacy of begging the question removed, an objective analysis concludes that angels are the more probable cause here. It would be important to not admit that passage of scripture as the Word of God … since that would be begging the question.

Scripture contains the rules of the supernatural (things which exist beyond the physical world). With careful exegesis and analysis I could even assign a number to the probability of a supernatural event (with a given error of probability). The degree of error might be pretty large, but as long as some relevant scripture is available a probability could be theorized.

Respectfully,

Christian

Christian

Rimstalker,

I suggested a method in my epistemology post to Chris and Walross. Short answer … I would evaluate it first by scripture, then logic, then whatever academic discipline was relevant, and last I would reluctantly consider anecdotal evidence.

I'm glad I understood that correctly.

I believe the supernatural can interact with our world. I suggest evaluating supernatural claims by the process I defined for Chris and Walross. Of course that requires a belief that the Bible is of supernatural origin, but lots of people have arrived at that conclusion by evaluating the evidence. Most supernatural claims are false, but if it is consistent with scripture and it is the most probable solution after considering all four levels of authority I defined above … the it makes sense to conclude that it really was a supernatural event … or if you prefer an example of something that exists beyond what is physical interacting with the physical world.

C.S. Lewis claimed that the reasons for the supernatural are metaphysical rather than evidential (a summary of his argument is a couple of posts back to Mike). I think it’s possible for an open-minded person to arrive at a supernatural conclusion evidentially, but maybe the metaphysical reasons are more compelling. I don’t fully grasp his argument for the supernatural on those lines.

I submit that it is possible to arrive at the conclusion that the Bible must be of supernatural origin through inductively examining the evidence for the Bible. There are plentiful examples of highly intelligent and skeptical people who have done so. Such a conclusion would give you a deductive starting point for evaluating supernatural claims.

Again, most supernatural claims are false. Will there still be cases of mistakenly identifying a natural event as supernatural with my approach? Yes. That can happen when the theories asserted by my four levels of authority (scripture, logic, all other academic disciplines, anecdotal evidence) is incorrect. The theory of scripture is “theology,” and I have no doubt that my theology is imperfect.

Respectfully,

Christian

Christian

Volker,

What I call 'supernatural' is part of reality as it is.

Respectfully,

Christian