As far as the rather vague concept of theism is concerned, though, it's hard for me to see how that is necessarily such a turning point, decision-wise. It could be one, no doubt, but the different decision could be positive as well as negative, and overall this doesn't seem to be persuasive as a blanket censure of theism.

I had nothing so grand in mind with this thread. I'm analyzing the ways people prop up false worldviews. For example, saying that I'm prejudiced against the existence of the supernatural. If you're looking for an explanation of why this even matters, I'll give it a try.

In living everyday life, I agree with you. It's very difficult to see any negative ramifications of having a religious worldview when you look at a single person or small group. My family is religious, my friends are religious, my coworkers are religious. The issues are seen in the larger picture. What effect will science illiteracy have on us? The effect is invisible on an individual level, but the pattern emerges across the population. A critical element of education is tainted or altogether ignored because of this worldview. This impacts us in many ways, although the shifting tides that represent the influence are tough to detect on a local level.

Another reason it matter is that the fringes and extremes are tolerated or even amplified because the core worldview structure is the same. The worldview structure of a peace loving hard working American Christian is the same as the structure of a member of ISIS. The comparison doesn't go much further, as there are obvious differences that makes such people opposite in practice. But the structure is the same. Belief in the supernatural is at the core of the worldview.

The best way to fight religious extremism is to educate against the flaws that form the foundation of their worldview. This means teaching critical thinking. Simply teaching science falls on deaf ears in many cases, because foundation is already laid to a different blueprint. Trying to use the same structure and putting on different paint works to an extent, but the writing in the holy books ensures the paint can be easily changed to radical colors. For any sort of real change to happen, we have to educate why the worldview structure itself is flawed.

You would think that if you could articulate the flaw well enough, people would come to accept it. I'm endlessly fascinated at how people simply reject or weasel around this sort of thing. It makes me think there may be no impact at all. So then I guess I'm merely satiating my own fascination here.

Interbane wrote:So then I guess I'm merely satiating my own fascination here.

and i for one hope you continue to do just that for many a year to come

I often say the supernatural is synonymous with ignorance.

Johnson mentioned that what we consider natural has precedent and antecedent. It fits within the causal web. This is not limited to the laws of nature as we know them. Because there are likely natural laws we haven't yet discovered. If an event has a place in the causal web of reality, it is natural.

Any supposed miracle is within the causal web. It affects our reality. We can trace the causal web backwards, looking at the precedents and figuring out how the miracle happened. For some miracles, we can't trace the causal web backwards beyond basic precedents. Consider an event like a hurricane. We can't trace it backwards. In this case, it's because the system is so complex.

Similar events happen in the medical world. Someone miraculously recovers from cancer. Human biology is so complex, it's nearly impossible to trace how such recoveries happen.

We are ignorant of the precedents. There is antecedent which is plain to see, but the precedents are in the dark. There is a knowledge gap, sometimes due to the complexity of the system, and sometimes simply due to our inability to see backwards in time.

Arguing for the supernatural means capitalizing on this knowledge gap. It is the only possible place an argument for the supernatural can stem from. So it's easy to see how the term 'supernatural' is the same thing as 'knowledge gap'. And a knowledge gap is otherwise known as ignorance. Any and every attempt to claim a supernatural origin to an event must, by definition, be an argument from ignorance because of this.

This includes appeals to probability. How many one in a billion miracles in a row would it take to convince a naturalist that something strange is occurring? "Something strange" most certainly doesn't mean "something supernatural". Could the strangeness be inserted by the supposed witness? Or could it be edited after the witness documented the account? Or could it be probability bias(thank god I won the lottery/won the tournament/didn't die in the plane crash). Or could it be a person playing an elaborate trick? Or could it be aliens?

Who knows. The key is, in order to say that the unlikely probability of a series of miracles points to something supernatural, you must definitively rule out all the naturalistic explanations. In order to rule them all out, you have to hypothesize them. And no single hypothesis is made with complete information. There is missing information, otherwise it would be a proven conclusion. The missing information is a knowledge gap, and short of going back in time, that gap will never be bridged. We must always admit that in unsolved puzzles, we lack the information to formulate the correct hypothesis or to prove existing hypotheses true. This is true by definition. So, the only way to support a claim to the supernatural is to point to this knowledge gap, which makes it an argument from ignorance.

The very concept of the supernatural makes no sense.

I would only add that the arguments against supernatural causation of events, which work well, don't work well when extended to the supernatural in general. God means different things to people, but at base it is almost always a supernatural idea and is not refuted by such logical arguments. Same with metaphysics. It also follows that no fallacy is necessarily being committed with belief in a supreme being. That supreme being sending AIDS as retribution to gays--different story. The books on critical thinking I believe always avoid citing religious ideas as examples of bad thinking, and this is probably not due to the authors shying away from offending people.

Interbane wrote:I often say the supernatural is synonymous with ignorance.

Most supernatural claims are obviously false, better explained by psychology than by physics. However, it may be possible to define a meaning of supernatural that is compatible with nature.

If we see the order of our universe as natural, we simply cannot know if that is part of a bigger order, a multiverse. If the multiverse has unifying laws which supervene upon the different laws of physics in each universe, we could define the multiverse as supernatural.

In economic language, these supervenient laws are exogenous or outside our universe, while our known laws of physics are endogenous or internal to the universe. God could be exogenous and supernatural or endogenous and natural.

An exogenous supernatural God is congruent with the monotheist theory of God as a personal intentional being, but obviously steps into a speculative realm of discussion in which we have no evidence at all. The “order” of divinity in the Bible is better explained as metaphor for the endogenous physical order of nature than by imagined revelation from a supervenient exogenous wisdom.

We do not know if any supernatural claims are true, so saying they are true is ignorant by definition.

Interbane wrote: Johnson mentioned that what we consider natural has precedent and antecedent. It fits within the causal web. This is not limited to the laws of nature as we know them. Because there are likely natural laws we haven't yet discovered. If an event has a place in the causal web of reality, it is natural.

This theme of the causal web is a beautiful, elegant and parsimonious framework for science, instanced by the operation of evolution as biology exhibits how species change over time under selective pressures within a causal web.

A complex network is formed by connections that link everything within it to everything else in it. This web of relationships is an ecosystem, whether in life, politics or orbital structures such as the sun and its flotsam. Constant mutation causes regular change, which forms stable patterns that can be measured as a causal web.

Interbane wrote: Any supposed miracle is within the causal web. It affects our reality. We can trace the causal web backwards, looking at the precedents and figuring out how the miracle happened. For some miracles, we can't trace the causal web backwards beyond basic precedents.

Precedent in law illustrates the essentially conservative nature of evolutionary change. Nothing happens that does not build upon what happened before, unless it comes into a system from outside to disrupt it.

Where the apparent disruption is too massive for evolutionary explanation, people can call it divine intervention, but that really means either there is some natural process that is not understood or the observers are inaccurate in their reports.

Inaccuracy can be deliberate or accidental, and itself introduces evolving memes into culture.

Interbane wrote:Consider an event like a hurricane. We can't trace it backwards. In this case, it's because the system is so complex.

We could reduce the incidence and severity of hurricanes by cooling the sea, if we can establish technology that can operate at that systemic scale.

Interbane wrote: Similar events happen in the medical world. Someone miraculously recovers from cancer. Human biology is so complex, it's nearly impossible to trace how such recoveries happen.

There is a big role for placebos in the psychology of healing. Health is not a simple mechanical chemical process, but a highly complex interaction between mind and matter. The spiritual input into healing can have the appearance of a supernatural miracle.

Interbane wrote: We are ignorant of the precedents. There is antecedent which is plain to see, but the precedents are in the dark. There is a knowledge gap, sometimes due to the complexity of the system, and sometimes simply due to our inability to see backwards in time.

This distinction between an antecedent and a precedent is worth clarifying. Did you mean that antecedents include everything that happened before, while precedents are the subset of antecedents that are similar to an event?

Interbane wrote: Arguing for the supernatural means capitalizing on this knowledge gap. It is the only possible place an argument for the supernatural can stem from. So it's easy to see how the term 'supernatural' is the same thing as 'knowledge gap'. And a knowledge gap is otherwise known as ignorance. Any and every attempt to claim a supernatural origin to an event must, by definition, be an argument from ignorance because of this.

The evolution from myth to science includes the shift from authority to evidence as the basis of assent.

Pre-scientific societies needed a theory of everything, but in the absence of quantum physics and relativity they used fireside chats as the way to their consensus. The stories with the greatest staying power survived the mill of cultural evolution to become a society’s mythology.

These stories proved durable due to how they touched neural sentiment, not because they accurately described reality. But at the same time, myths have a grounding in reality, such as observation of law, seasons and stars, producing a message with a deep hidden allegorical real meaning, touching resonant symbols.

Interbane wrote: This includes appeals to probability. How many one in a billion miracles in a row would it take to convince a naturalist that something strange is occurring? "Something strange" most certainly doesn't mean "something supernatural". Could the strangeness be inserted by the supposed witness? Or could it be edited after the witness documented the account? Or could it be probability bias(thank god I won the lottery/won the tournament/didn't die in the plane crash). Or could it be a person playing an elaborate trick? Or could it be aliens?

Anomalies historically generate a shift of paradigm, as from Ptolemy to Galileo and from Newton to Einstein. A new encompassing theory is simpler and provides a better explanation of all the evidence. Resort to belief in the supernatural is only ever a stopgap.

Interbane wrote: Who knows. The key is, in order to say that the unlikely probability of a series of miracles points to something supernatural, you must definitively rule out all the naturalistic explanations. In order to rule them all out, you have to hypothesize them. And no single hypothesis is made with complete information. There is missing information, otherwise it would be a proven conclusion. The missing information is a knowledge gap, and short of going back in time, that gap will never be bridged. We must always admit that in unsolved puzzles, we lack the information to formulate the correct hypothesis or to prove existing hypotheses true. This is true by definition. So, the only way to support a claim to the supernatural is to point to this knowledge gap, which makes it an argument from ignorance.

There never has been any verified miracle. Always the better explanation is that people wanted to believe something so the story evolved to claim that their wish had actually been fulfilled. So the durability of miracle stories must point to how they satisfy some social comfort and sentimental desire.

Interbane wrote: The very concept of the supernatural makes no sense.

Thanks Interbane, that was all good comment. By definition the supernatural makes no sense, if we consider the etymology and meaning of sense in its relation to science, perception, evidence, reason, induction, deduction and proof.

The supernatural ‘common sense’ of a religious community is always evidence of mass delusion, and where it conflicts with scientific knowledge, religion is by definition nonsense. How this common nonsense could evolve into good sense still has to respect how supernatural belief fills social needs, embedded in a web of community entanglements.

Pulling out one supernatural thread can make the whole weave unravel. The bigger challenge may be to see how supernatural myths can evolve into natural understanding, respecting how the story preserved the myth including its hidden meanings.

supernatural

i still can't think of anything to put in that category.

but then my estimation of natural was pretty super to begin with

Robert wrote: The bigger challenge may be to see how supernatural myths can evolve into natural understanding, respecting how the story preserved the myth including its hidden meanings.

yes i suspect over time that we will continue to look into the category "supernatural" and think, oh what's that doing in here

i'm imagining "god" thinking "call me mr. natural"

sometimes i look at what the chosen ones call "natural" and it opens like a lotus and i am left speechless, astounded, blown away and back again, and it all seems like a giant tesseract, i can't take it in and yet .... here language breaks down and i have to use metaphor to speak about the unspeakable....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr8jEIQKgZI

consider me gone

Robert Tulip wrote:This distinction between an antecedent and a precedent is worth clarifying. Did you mean that antecedents include everything that happened before, while precedents are the subset of antecedents that are similar to an event?

No! I stole the words from Johnson without fully understanding them. I assumed I did. I looked them up after your comment. Precedents are closer in the causal web. Thanks for clarifying.

If we see the order of our universe as natural, we simply cannot know if that is part of a bigger order, a multiverse. If the multiverse has unifying laws which supervene upon the different laws of physics in each universe, we could define the multiverse as supernatural.

I agree with this. But as the conversation matures, I suspect a multiverse will be considered a natural thing. There is supervenience in our universe, but this is merely a matter of different layers of natural law. Even if the laws change, if uniformity isn't a thing, we would still consider the shifting of laws natural. So even an alien order of natural laws is still natural, just of a different kind.

But this will only become clear as the conversation matures.

DWill wrote:God means different things to people, but at base it is almost always a supernatural idea and is not refuted by such logical arguments.

Can an idea be supernatural? Or do you mean, an idea about the supernatural? Logic applies to all reasoning, even reasoning about the supernatural. I understand that people will still believe, and that is a palliative to some. Belief itself is not a fallacy. It's the attempted support of the belief that is potentially fallacious. If you try to do anything with the belief, other than simply hold onto it, then it is potentially fallacious. Name a single person who merely holds onto belief, without doing anything with it or about it.

youkrst wrote:but then my estimation of natural was pretty super to begin with

Interbane wrote: Can an idea be supernatural? Or do you mean, an idea about the supernatural? Logic applies to all reasoning, even reasoning about the supernatural. I understand that people will still believe, and that is a palliative to some. Belief itself is not a fallacy. It's the attempted support of the belief that is potentially fallacious. If you try to do anything with the belief, other than simply hold onto it, then it is potentially fallacious. Name a single person who merely holds onto belief, without doing anything with it or about it.

Theology's been a going concern for a long time. What most theologians and others we call believers do is theologize, about God of course, which seems to be in some way about the supernatural, though not in the sense that I think you meant when starting the thread. Do many of these go about their business without their belief leading them to particular logical fallacies? I think so. If they're doing something with the beliefs, the actions seem to meld pretty well into mundane life. That's all I meant when I made the comment you quoted. As I recall from a long while back, there was a lot of talk from the pulpit about God working in the world. That was the import of most of the sermons. I don't believe that, but don't think it can be judged a fallacy in the same manner as the belief in specific miracles. How about you?

DWill wrote:Theology's been a going concern for a long time. What most theologians and others we call believers do is theologize, about God of course, which seems to be in some way about the supernatural, though not in the sense that I think you meant when starting the thread. Do many of these go about their business without their belief leading them to particular logical fallacies? I think so. If they're doing something with the beliefs, the actions seem to meld pretty well into mundane life. That's all I meant when I made the comment you quoted. As I recall from a long while back, there was a lot of talk from the pulpit about God working in the world. That was the import of most of the sermons. I don't believe that, but don't think it can be judged a fallacy in the same manner as the belief in specific miracles. How about you?

If you accept that belief in god is based on faith, then there is no issue. That premise can be taken and put through a thousand permutations without any fallacy. For example, you could reason that god works in the world. Only when you try to justify belief in the supernatural do you run into issues. The issue here is that when you accept a complex belief on faith, you build a large portion of your worldview around it, anchoring knowledge to it and cementing it in place as if it were knowledge itself. Unjustified belief is okay, but not in the central sphere of your worldview.

DWill wrote:God working in the world. That was the import of most of the sermons. I don't believe that, but don't think it can be judged a fallacy in the same manner as the belief in specific miracles. How about you?

Saint Paul had an interesting line on that when he said in Romans 8:28 that God works for the good of those who love him. I had thought this was God works for good through those who love him, but that was a misreading on my part. Dietrich Bonhoeffer defined God as "the beyond in the midst of the world", an interpretation of the core Christian incarnation concept of word made flesh.