Another

One of the problems with this board is that everyone more or less thinks like me and there is little dispute.

So maybe there will be blood in a different vein.

Does anyone have a "threshold" for a supernatural explanation ? Under what circumstances or with what evidence would or should one consider "the god explanation" ?

Appreciate your thoughts.

Coleman Smith

Another said, “Does anyone have a "threshold" for a supernatural explanation ? Under what circumstances or with what evidence would or should one consider "the god explanation" ? “

Many would use the usual response that the claim for the supernatural is an extraordinary claim and therefore requires extraordinary evidence.

I would accept ordinary evidence.

The proponent need meet only those requirements that would be required by the Food and Drug Administration for the licensure of a new cough syrup.

Of course this means that the advocate must define the components of the supernatural with the same mathematical precision that the Bureau of Standards uses to define the metric system.

The components must defined using the standard definitions found in the scientific literate and in physics, chemical handbooks and the USP.

The evidence must but adduced by recognized protocols, must subject to adversarial peer review and must be published in the recognized scientific journals.

In the alternative the advocate might consider just producing the Mother of All Son of a Bitches on the 50-yard line on Super Bowl Sunday.

Coleman Smith

jayh

This would move it from 'supernatural' to 'natural', but that is ok. There is no way to evaluate 'supernatural' because it is by definition unexplained by current understanding, hence indistinguishable from ignorance.

IOnthe other hand, if there were a god who had serious interest in human affairs, his interactions should be consistent, understandable, unambiguous. Not hard-to-explain things that happened in other times, but plain, everyday interaction with humans. Not stage tricks but simple relevant, to the point information and converstion.

j

Another

I'm sort of in the same boat and would need a clear label. It should be known that taking a yard stick to god would kind of either make him a natural phenomena or go "poof" in a puff of Hitch-hiker logic.

A clear label is a reasonable request for proponents of manufacture. I mean, about everything known to be manufactured has a label on it of one form or another.

So god, if existing, is only detectable with a clear (undisputable label).

Does that bother anyone ? It is my own position, but I find it disquieting (even though reasonable).

Thanks for your time.