This whole topic is so superficial that anybody really concerned with the truth doesn’t really know where to start.
The first question is: have you have got your words right?
Supernatural:
adjective
of, relating to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.
of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or attributed to God or a deity.
of a superlative degree; preternatural: a missile of supernatural speed.
noun
a being, place, object, occurrence, etc., considered as supernatural or of supernatural origin; that which is supernatural, or outside the natural order.
behavior supposedly caused by the intervention of supernatural beings.
direct influence or action of a deity on earthly affairs.
Which of these definitions are meant?
If 1. there are enough inexplicable events in the world that are there, despite the fact we can’t explain them. The fact that the ancients called the influences they couldn’t understand daemons should be acknowledged in recognition of their ability to perceive these unseen influences.
If 2. there are far too numerous gods and deities to ignore. They are mostly believed in irrationally because reason doesn’t fit. It is too easy to forget that CG Jung told us that mythical narratives guide us, even if we don’t interpret dreams, and that it takes training to understand them. The Archetypes of our dreams become the figures in our tribal narratives or Gods in the dramatisation of our dreams.
If 3. well, that is just a play on words.
If 4. we still haven’t understood how conscious life, such as we have, came to be out of colliding stars and the material that became the planets. Sophisticated Humans, on the face of it, seem pretty supernatural in comparison with what else nature has provided.
If 5. there is a lot of behaviour of ancient peoples that could be seen to try and attract someone ‘up in the sky’. How did they get the idea?
If 6. it has been said by people doing things miraculously (inexplicably) to be a result of the direct influence of a deity. Perhaps someone should prove otherwise. Otherwise my answer to 1. should do.
The next question is what is meant by ‘belief’ since it is easy to say that I believe that these phenomena exist, whether or not the ancients were able to approach the subject scientifically. The whole of our existence is a mystery, and we haven’t even been able to get a widespread knowledge of self, let alone the mysteries of life. Much of our everyday life is ruled by belief.
What is meant by an ‘intelligent person’? Is it intelligent to treat everybody as knuckleheads, just because they don’t understand what I’m talking about? Perhaps I’m the problem and I should make myself more clear! As far as I am concerned, most of humanity is intelligent, it is just a question of external influences, whether that intelligence was able to thrive. I would even say that only intelligent people can be religious, and perceive the world as it is.
I don’t believe that religion is a game - except in the widest sense of the word.
If you and I have to debate the meaning of well defined words, then we will not get anywhere.
Discussions and posters who cannot think analogically are doomed to get bogged down in definitions. That is why most philosophers say that the definition of word that might be suspect are done after a general chat.
If it cannot be perceived then we could not speak about or of it because there is no experience to speak of. So how can we label something of which we try to talk about of which cannot be talked about?
But we can talk about it because we experience it all the time. There are natural things and there are super natural things.
The things Jules Verne talked about were not natural at that time . They were fiction. Ghosts are not natural yet we talk about them as they were. We create the line which separate natural and super natural things.
Supernatural is not a well defined word, for example. This is a philosophy forum. Part of philosophical discussion is making sure we use words the same way in the specific dialogue.
Supernatural can, for example, mean something about ontology. It is events that, as you say, at one point, cannot be perceived.
But it can also mean, events that some people perceive but that others think they do not.
And people have been wrong before about what some people claimed to perceive. Both thinking they were right and then also thinking they were wrong.
So one can blithely go forward in a discussion using supernatural one way, the first, and thinking one is proving something, while other people mean something else by the term and so the conversation is useless.
Useless. Cross purposes.
To rule out the discussion of the meaning of terms in a philosophy forum is to be confused about where one is.
I doubt most philosophers say that, but then I don’t think it is clear what they would mean if they did say that. Which makes me think it is even more unlikely most would say that.
It was stated that supernatural is something we cannot perceive and if it cannot be perceived then I am curious on how it can be discussed as if it were. If there is no perceiving of it or experiencing through perceiving it then there can be no discussion that holds logical merit. If something was experienced or perceived that seems odd then that is not super natural by the apparent definition that was stated above. Nature and reality is odd, for sure.
An easy way out of becoming clear in what we mean. Clarity enhances any discussion rather than getting bogged down. It is sad that your arguments do not allow for experiences that can only be explained by metaphor, allegory, analogy or myth. Many scriptures describe how an experience felt for lack of words. Your whole approach cancels these out without consideration. I know of many people who have had experiences that have guided them in life, but which they cannot explain. Very often it has been life changing.
In addition to this, your use of the word supernatural is so unclear that the question of belief in it cannot be addressed. It is the same when in Britain people are asked whether they believe in Brexit - what does that word entail? What are we talking about?
Yes, this is important. Two meanings get mixed together, often - one is that supernatural means stuff that does not follow the laws of the universe, is transcendent. The other is that it is stuff not yet verified through science. The latter of course could be natural. One could believe in wood spirits and psychic phenomena and ghosts and deities, but consider these natural. If one never teases out which of these meanings, you just get people talking past each other. And often the skeptics think they have proven something by saying that you cannot know supernatural things, since they cannot be experienced, since they are transcendent. Which is just sophistry based on framing the issue with one definition of ‘supernatural.’ Which is precisely what greatest does.
How are you using the word “perceiving” ~~observing, looking at or perhaps we can even use the term "subjective thinking?
Perhaps a better word to use in your quote instead of perceive in this case is to understand. Some might perceive or see something which to them would be considered to be “supernatural” in nature, as for example, a beautiful light pillar, but at the same time they do not understand that it is a natural phenomenon. Anything which we do not understand or have knowledge of, because this world is so beautifully awesome, can be experienced as having God’s or the gods’ hand[s] in it.
Perhaps one of the answers to your question is IMAGINATION. Can we, in actuality, perceive God? Yet we discuss what we have no “real” idea of to no end. I may be wrong in this though.
It was stated by some. IOW if someone says superhatural things cannot be perceived and ghosts are superatural things, then we can rule out ghosts, they are just framing the issue in a random way as if it is a proof. Perhaps ghosts end up in the category supernatual merely because they are not confirmed by science but are perceived by some.
The same knife separates the Natural from the Supernatural as that which separates Theism from atheism : faith.
The mytais supernatural events described in the bible can be either ascribed to truthful reporting, or fake observation.
But it can be that both kinds of descriptions are merely different ways of apprehending And understanding of such events.
Remember this one thing in favor of the later, God reveals Himself only to those He deems worthy÷
I agree with what you’re stating here, I am just confused because it was stated that supernatural is meaning it can’t be perceived. So if we can’t perceive it then there is no observation that can be made, even in the Bible, at least not by humans at this time or before in terms of evolution/ability.
If it reveals itself and is perceived then it is not supernatural? Is supernatural always growing like wisdom and questions and answers? is it only what we miss to perceive in a present moment or is it forever not able to be perceived?
The bottom line is that if you or I do not trust that if either of us gets bogged down in our chat on the main issues of the O.P., due to having strayed to far out of range of our definitions, we will let the other know it.
Depends on what one means by supernatural. It depends on the belief in question and how it formed. Did one acquire the belief simply because someone said it, but one has no experiential or consequential phenomena otherwise? That could certainly be problematic. Though, obviously, intelligent people can have problems or make mistakes or be mislead, so the framing of the thread and this question is unnecessarily insulting and binary (read: confused).
The ancients? Some did not think the supernatural - depending still on the definition of that term did not. Many did. I believed I mentioned before that practices can lead to experiences that many people think confirm. IOW if one read this one would think the only way to come to a belief is to listen to/read others, iow to be convinced via language.
The Alice experiment shows that children can be convinced someone is there who is not. This doesn’t cover the various ways people come to believe in supernatural entities - however that term is being defined.
This is incorrectly binary, since many people arrive at their beliefs in supernatural entities without the presence of preachers, sometimes despite what the preachers tell them it is ok to notice/experience. It also assumes that the preachers are lying, as rule, rather than that they are genuine believers, which is obviously the case, and, in fact your own arguments indicate that that is likely, since they were once children.
if there is no God it does not automatically follow that one should seek a human leader or spiritual guide.
Karpel Tunnel, So, you are not necessarily saying that the word “supernatural” has no meaning in the OP since obviously it does to GIA and would it not also to others as the focal point of the discussion?
You are just using that statement as a tool perhaps to get back on track?
I don’t think it has a clear meaning or a consistant one. I suppose I might be trying to get things back on track. Or on track. And since the title of the thread implicitly insults anyone who believes in something supernatural, I think it would likely be useful to know what he means. Obviously he includes the idea of deities, but the term usually counts for more.