Keith Russell

Ojuice:

In naturalism, you still cannot breathe water. You still cannot survive (unassisted) below a certain depth, due to the pressure.

The ocean, even to a naturalist, is still a mostly unknown, inhospitable, mysterious place.

Poetics can describe the ocean, but only metaphorically. (And, understanding something poetically/metaphorically, is hardly the same thing as applying a supernatural meaning to it.)

Keith.

[ December 20, 2002: Message edited by: Keith Russell ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

And postulating Thunder as the farts of the Jabberwocky allows us to talk about it as "the changeless, power-filled, foreign-to-humanity place that it is".

As for all this "changeless" ocean nonsense, there is a great deal that has been learned about ocean changes, all available to the naturalist and inaccessible to your self-induced Neptune-centric ignorance.

Ojuice5001

</strong>What's your point? Also, this comment implies that natural and supernatural explanations are either/or, that claiming a supernatural explanation means saying there is no natural explanation and vice versa.

But, the ocean changes much more slowly than the land. In the Ice Ages, the conditions on land were radically different, and the conditions in the ocean were much more similar to those in the present.

[ December 20, 2002: Message edited by: Ojuice5001 ]</p>

emotional

It doesn't. Knowledge of the cosmos is dependent upon the uniformitarianism of natural law. When you add the supernatural into equation, you could easily get an instance of 2+2=5 or pigs flying or any such alteration. Wherefore you can't know anything. See more <a href="http://www.geocities.com/stmetanat/selfdeception.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.

Ojuice5001

Like most arguments for naturalism, your page fails to consider that an event can have both a natural explanation and a supernatural one, and if necessary a supernaturalist can claim that all supernatural causation is of this kind.

Suppose someone did destroy a china shop and claim it wasn't them or any other natural entity, it was the gods. Obviously they are claiming that the gods can break the china items without any natural means. Now, while I can see why that proposition makes sense, I personally think it may well be false.

I think that miracles probably don't exist (though they might). Even if they do exist, alleged miracles are simply too rare, too elusive, and often too silly, to be a major part of how the gods rule the world. I have given thought to how the gods can be active in the world without ever once doing anything that can only be done supernaturally. The best and only answer I have is to believe that the gods' activity consists exclusively, or almost exclusively, of tinkering with chance events (and causing revelations of themselves to any creature that has all the necessary qualities; these events are also both natural and supernatural). Thus the gods could not just break the china by an act of will, they would need to influence a chance process in such a way that something breaks the china. Perhaps by influencing the brain of someone who is on cocaine, or that of a wandering bull, or by causing water to seep into the roof of the shop, you get the idea.

This position seems strange to some, but it is mine. It, and any other like it, means that it is not inconsistent to believe in supernatural causes, and at the same time to say that they couldn't make pigs fly and that particular events must have a natural explanation.

Goliath

Ojuice,

Prove it.

Sincerely,

Goliath

doodad

It appears that early man's ability to create or conceptualize things such as a supernatural being outran his ability to develop scientific answers for human behavior, human thought, and natural phenomena such as the force of gravity, the relative movement of the earth, moon, and stars, to name a few.

Perhaps one of the factors that lead to so much fantasy and superstition is the fact that the science of behavior, psychology, did not develop well until more recent times. Early on, people didn't seem to have a way of explaining the workings of the human mind in a rational manner.

I don't know if one could classify creativity or the ability to conceptualize as intelligence or not, but it is certainly a talent that involves some mental prowess or facility. To me it's remarkable that people moved from viewing their faith objects as material items or something in nature such as the sun, the wind, or the rain to those of a supernatural nature. It seems to me to be a relatively small step in genius to shift the imagined powers of a stone idol to those of a supernatural being, because in either case one is still dealing with a belief that has little or no basis in fact. However, the dude that saw the virtue of a supernatural being over that of a material object that could be damaged, stolen, or destroyed wasn't exactly picking his nose. He appears to have made a very substantial advance
in the sophistication of belief systems that had a faith object.

Is such creative genius a mark of intelligence? I don't know, but it looks pretty clever to me.

Ojuice5001

I thought I did. Say the gods want a particular baby to have genes that make for a genius, rather than the genes of an ordinary person. Therefore, they affect meiosis, the moment of conception, etc., all of which are influenced by a lot of random factors, in such a way that the genius is born. This event has both a natural explanation (the normal factors of conception) and a supernatural explanation (the gods made the factors happen this way rather than some other).

Now, if you meant, prove that this is actually the case, that's harder and I'm not prepared for it at this point. I was saying that my position is a consistent and tenable one, and any attempt to prove naturalism has to apply to it. And I stand by that claim.

Jayhawker Soule

As you should. Your position is consistent, tenable, and precisely worthless. You should be proud.

Duck!

"Polytheism makes events intelligible as the will of the gods. And most polytheists have ideas of specific pantheon, which can be expected to cause the events that we see"

Are any of the following more or less intelligible or useful the the above?

"Reincarnation makes events intelligible as the effects of karma. And most reincarnationist have ideas of a specific karmic universe, which can be expected to cause the events that we see"

"Aliens makes events intelligible as the effects of extraterrestials. And most alien theorists have ideas of a specific alien race, which can be expected to cause the events that we see"

"Christians make events intelligible as God's will. And most Christians have ideas of a specific Biblical interpretation, which can be expected to cause the events that we see"

"Muslims make events intelligible as Allah's divine grace and mercy. And most Muslims have ideas of a specific sect of Islam, which can be expected to cause the events that we see"

"Fred the street crazy makes events intelligible because they are broadcast to him via hidden radio receivers embedded in his teeth. And Fred has an idea of a specific government conspiracy, which can be expected to cause the events that we see"

All of the above are or seem consistent to the people who believe them. So what? Does an explanation become "intelligible" merely because a bunch of people find it consistent or believable?


Duck!

[edited fur awfull grammer and speling]

[ December 20, 2002: Message edited by: Duck of Death ]</p>