Lets take a little break from politics and have us a real atheist conversation.
Personally, I’m open to the idea of the existence of supernatural phenomena, and I believe mainstream religions are actually complicated incomplete stories full of misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and half-truths.
Basically, I think that these stories are not as simple and straightforward as they seem to be to religious people. I feel like there is a lot more to them. Concluding that all these stories are just made up or came out of nowhere is kind of hard for me.
The only phenomenon that I take seriously as potentially supernatural, or connected to something we have no way of explaining is the experience of consciousness.
You know how various fantasy and sci-fi settings will say something like, “____ uses both science and magic,” when describing how the world works? That ususally makes no sense. If magic has laws consistent enough to be used in machinery, it is just another branch of science. But with that out of the way, is that the only thing magic can be?
If magic was not just another type of science, it would have to supercede the natural world. Imagine a fantasy world that has gods who bestow power to their acolytes. Rather than using a natural process that could be recreated by mortals, the gods could actually break physical laws or even write new ones on a whim. In this world, magic isn’t bound by a naturalistic worldview since it can change based on what a free-thinking entity chooses at any given moment.
That was a roundabout way of saying, “I don’t think it matters.” If the supernatural (magic) is knowable, we do not currently know it. If it turned out to be real, we may not even have a way of meaningfully interacting with it.
My thoughts on supernatural phenomena?
Name one.
I don’t think it makes sense as a term. If it occurs in the real world, has real impacts on it, but is hard to understand that doesn’t mean it is supernatural, just not understood. The double slit experiment is not supernatural, just hard to understand. Things can happen in coincidental ways, but something had to happen so even if very coincidental it can be natural. What would it mean to be supernatural? I mean, really, some small part of the universe behaving badly for a moment for a reason we don’t understand is not magic, it is just ignorance on our part. So I am open to phenomena, they happen, but a supernatural explanation could never be justified in my view. Just because I can’t think of why something happens doesn’t make it magic, it could far more easily be something we have seen time and again, my own ignorance.
“Natural” simply means “real”. Any phenomena that does exist, known or not, is by definition natural.
I do not currently believe in any supernatural anything, for the exact same reasons I do not believe in gods.
- There is no persuasive evidence of anything supernatural
- Many supernatural phenomena were discovered to have naturalistic explanations
- The only evidence provided for supernatural phenomena is anecdotal
It’s entirely possible for there to be supernatural stuff, but the time to believe it is when it is demonstrated.
One point that I don’t see raised a lot is that otherwise perfectly mentally healthy people can experience hallucinations. They may even find them comforting, and some even then do not believe the visions are real. I have a suspicion that a lot of ghost sightings, etc, might be such hallucinations. But I can’t demonstrate that, and I’m honestly not sure how we could, unless we can find a way to trigger such hallucinations on purpose.
Don’t forget carbon monoxide poisoning most likely contributed significantly to ghost stories before the risks of indoor fires for heat were known.
Agreed. I had a ghost encounter in 2019, as an atheist with no supernatural beliefs since 2007. I knew in the moment that it was a hallucination, but accepted it as an emotional release for what it seemed to be at the time.
Most ghost sightings happen in low lighting when our brains are trying to fill the gaps of limited information. Evolution taught meat to think and it doesn’t do the best job at times.
Well it is better (for survival) to imagine a predator than to imagine an ice cream truck.
I suppose I’m more thinking about examples like one in this comment section where they see a ghost sober in the middle of the day.
Supernatural phenomena is possible but not probable.
The only “supernatural” thing I believe in is reincarnation, and that’s just a game of numbers. I believe we’re on the verge of discovering that black holes birth new universes. Then your existence and rebirth just becomes a statistical eventuality. From your POV you would die and then immediately be aware of your next life; since death is a state of non-being, an infinite amount of time could pass between those two moments but you wouldn’t experience any of it. So, it isn’t really even supernatural since I don’t believe anything like karma or whatever mediates the process.
If it happens, it’s natural.
Yes, if. The whole thing hinges on whether or not black holes are actually universes. I feel that we will answer this question, and soon. Reincarnation is just what naturally follows after. But until we can lick black holes, it remains in the territory of the supernatural for now, since its all speculation and conjecture with no supporting evidence.
Our Brains are a meat pudding that runs on less electricity than a light bulb. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to get some hallucinations and signal interference. Especially when the pudding is stressed or poisoned. Plus we straight up know there are senses and ranges of senses we do not preserve. Reality is another thing all together through the eyes of a mantis shrimp. Our perception is incredibly biased and limited, so miracles (magic) are an easy explanation when our senses fail us.
I’m fully atheist, but I have seen ghosts in front of me, clear as day, while completely sober, during the daylight.
I have also seen some wild, completely unexplainable things. There’s too much out there.
I have too, in company no less and we both saw the same thing. It’s disheartening to see such ready dismissal of what I saw by others though lol
You probably need to check the mushrooms you were eating.
You are one of the reasons why people don’t report such things. You just went straight to ridiculing him without even knowing the context.
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I’m basically at a point where I don’t think any actual magic or phenomena exists, but the disciplines of metaphysical practice themselves are worthwhile for introspection and working on your mindset. Also I don’t like to give voice to my own skepticism that much - I don’t defend it or argue because I can’t be talked out of it and it’s not very fun to be that guy. It’s more fun to entertain the fanciful things and hold ideas lightly among people who are inclined to talk about phenomena.
Evidence?
I think it’s hard to find “true experiences with the supernatural” credible because even if the person believes it happened: humans make for awful sensors. They might feel warm when they’re cold or vice versa. They regularly see things that don’t exist. More than half of us appear to be some kind of moron.
And why would a ghost be unmeasurable? Why could something be truly ethereal when everything ever measured or recorded is not? Plus, the seemingly random limitations on any sort of fairy, ghost, or deity make it pretty much dead in the water as far as theories go. Imagine this, you’re some kind of land-god of wealth and/or stealing and potentially eating babies. But you go years or decades without fulfilling your own theme or being seen by humans? And you can’t leave your territory as defined by human maps like you need permission from city councilmen?
All of this on top of the belief I hold that life is a culmination of billions of tiny mechanisms that, upon systemic failure, result in something akin to gears no longer turning in a clock means: either machinery and electronics all have “souls” or humans don’t. Where would you draw the line? Do waterfalls have souls? The grand canyon? Dogs?
So pretty unlikely, all things considered.
People do not understand that visual hallucinations can happen to anyone when they are sober. Our brains are not perfect machines.
Overall, 84.8 percent of the volunteers that took part in the study reported having experienced some form of anomalous visual experiences in their life. More than a third of them (37.8 percent) reported that they had experienced an actual visual hallucination similar to what a patient with a psychotic disorder may experience. When the scientists analyzed the additional questions of whether an experience would agree with a clinical definition of visual hallucinations, about 17.4 percent of volunteers had experienced a hallucination that met these criteria.
And I’m guessing the other 15.2 either didn’t remember or didn’t really understand the question.
It’s even more a problem with hearing things that aren’t there or, far more commonly, just hearing something but misidentifying it. The whole EVP thing that “paranormal investigators” are so fond of is all about hearing a sound and just assuming that sound is a voice because of our flawed brains (and flawed ears).
Humans seem to be wired to be like this. That’s why pareidolia is a thing.
Honestly, 15% sounds like it’s right in the range of the number of people who will just lie on surveys - be it purposefully or not – in order to present a superior version of themselves to a piece of paper.
Personally I take them with a grain of salt, some supernatural phenomena are probably not yet understood by current science. Now I sound like an ancient aliens person meme.
I respect that you still consider it.
“Fifty thousand years ago there were these three guys spread out across the plain and they each heard something rustling in the grass. The first one thought it was a tiger, and he ran like hell, and it was a tiger but the guy got away. The second one thought the rustling was a tiger and he ran like hell, but it was only the wind and his friends all laughed at him for being such a chickenshit. But the third guy thought it was only the wind, so he shrugged it off and the tiger had him for dinner. And the same thing happened a million times across ten thousand generations - and after a while everyone was seeing tigers in the grass even when there were`t any tigers, because even chickenshits have more kids than corpses do. And from those humble beginnings we learn to see faces in the clouds and portents in the stars, to see agency in randomness, because natural selection favours the paranoid. Even here in the 21st century we can make people more honest just by scribbling a pair of eyes on the wall with a Sharpie. Even now we are wired to believe that unseen things are watching us.”
― Peter Watts, Echopraxia
While James Randi was alive, he offered $1,000,000 for proof of the supernatural. He never got that proof. I think that’s pretty telling.
There’s stuff I’ve experienced that I can’t understand or explain. Certainly, I trust other’s witnesses of their own experiences, even if they seem supernatural to me. But, I don’t consider that good enough evidence to believe in the supernatural.
Unexplained does not mean unexplainable nor supernatural.
There are all kinds of things in my life I have experienced that I cannot explain. For one thing, I am not an expert on everything. For another, I am a prisoner inside a skull that has to rely on not especially precise equipment in terms of sensory input. In other words, the meat sacks in our heads cannot be trusted. In fact, going back to Randi, if they could be trusted, Randi and other magicians would never have a job.
None of that is evidence for the supernatural.
Let me preface this by saying I tend to go with the Null hypothesis until proven otherwise, and as such don’t believe in the unproven supernatural.
Regardless, there are two ways to interpret James Randi never getting proof.
- There are no provable supernatural claims.
- Those who could prove a supernatural claim have
no use forsome reason a $1,000,000 prize would not be sufficiently enticing.
Edit: Reworked #2 for accuracy and clarity. Added wording in italics.
Re number. 2, they must also either be ignorant of the existence of charities or can’t think of a single one that could use that $1,000,000 they would have no use for. So I don’t accept that.
Perhaps. Though it’s entirely conceivable that the cost of revealing said supernatural proof would be detrimental to their life in such a way that no use of a $1,000,000 would justify it. Or, ala Mr. Manhattan, they have lost their empathy and/or worldly concern. Or they could just be massive dicks who could make $1,000,000 easier if their secret is kept, like Hayden Christensen in Jumper.
So I stand by my point that only looking at James Randi’s $1,000,000 prize as proof that “there are no supernatural claims that can be proven” is an example of sampling bias.
Assuming the correctness of a hypothesis without sufficiently disproving potentially valid alternatives is how we wound up with the acceptance of the supernatural. It’s just bad epistemology.
Regardless, I believe that James Randi’s offer, combined with the lack of any other provable and sufficiently documented supernatural occurrences means it’s more than reasonable to not hold any belief in the supernatural. I certainly don’t myself.
ETA: 3. I suppose a third possibility is they were unable/unwilling to travel or were entirely unaware of said prize. Something like a hermetic monk for example.
Bro, what is a hermetic monk 💀.
Definition taken from Merriam Webster (note: I’ve removed definitions not pertinent to my usage)
hermetic adjective
- b: Relating to or characterized by subjects that are mysterious and difficult to understand: Relating to or characterized by occultism or abstruseness
a hermetic discussion
- b: impervious to external influence
trapped inside the hermetic military machine
c: recluse, solitary
leads a hermetic life
So in this context, I guess I’m using both meanings. As in they are isolated monks with knowledge of the occult and esoteric.
There is no such thing as a hermetic monk. Hermeticism is a philosophy.
Hemeticism is certainly a philosophy, however the term hermetic monk is often used to denote a member of an isolated monastic group.
ex. Article on hermetic monks in Big Sur
A paywalled article referring to hermetic monks in France
None of the aforementioned monks were practitioners of Hermeticism. So while it may not be fully accurate to the origins of Hermeticism, the term “hermetic monk” does infact exist and is infact used to refer to members of esoteric isolated monastic groups.
Beyond that, the term “hermetic”, as cited by Merriam Webster, does apply to my usage. So if you would rather read it as a “monk who is hermetic by nature”, that would also get my same point across while avoiding confusion with Hermeticism as a philosophy.
If I had legit supernatural powers, $1,000,000 would be chump change to reveal those powers. No way.
