The non-thinking that is Religion.

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by Thee Alex

Actually, you should just answer the question, seriously.

Not that it's any of your fucking business, but no I'm not. Should I be? Would that make me more susceptible to your point of view?
But WHY? Why ask something like that?

[LesMts]

Originally Posted by humndislocation

I love quantum physics.

Yes, but people who aren't in the field should be very careful about extrapolating a very speculative field of science past anything larger than the subatomic.
And it's not supernatural.

[humndislocation]

Originally Posted by freakonaleash

If it doesn't adhere to a natural law, then it is supernatural.

This is just my personal opinion, I don't claim to be right on this one, but I wouldn't define supernatural to be something that just happens not adhere to known natural laws.

I'd define supernatural to be something outside of the natural altogether, outside of natural laws, known or unknown. Somethjng that doesn't have to adhere to the laws of nature at all, because it's above it.

Much of string theory is currently unproven, that doesn't make it supernatural. The sun wasn't supernatural before nuclear fusion was discovered.

That's just my two cents.

[GobbHayte]

It's a perfectly legitimate question, Alex. How do you know that at some point in the future science won't get to a point where it has to confront and accept something that just is, and has no explanation?
How do you know that the essence of the reality and the universe is not paradoxical and contradictory?
Perhaps reality can only be explained rationally down to a certain level, quantum particles obey completely different laws to protons, neutrons and electrons, so what makes you so sure that whatever essence that allows these particles to exist will ever be comprehensible to the human brain? And how do you know that the essence of the universe is not governed by something which could in someway be described as conscious?

[LesMts]

Originally Posted by humndislocation

This is just my personal opinion, I don't claim to be right on this one, but I wouldn't define supernatural to be something that just happens not adhere to known natural laws.

I'd define supernatural to be something outside of the natural altogether, outside of natural laws, known or unknown.

Much of string theory is currently unproven, that doesn't make it supernatural. The sun wasn't supernatural before nuclear fusion was discovered.

That's just my two cents.

AMEN.

[: : Scott : :]

Originally Posted by LesMts

...I'd say there is likely a sound neurological and physiological reason for the calming effect...

I would agree. I'd also conjecture that there likely sound neurological, physiological, sociological and perhaps psychological reasons for a sense of 'spirituality', or blind faith in something; something that helps people to put life into perspective and make it all seem a little less meaningless/dull.

I can't really justify this and I'm not particularly well read on philosophy/human psychology/sociology but it doesn't seem implausible that humans would have a trait such as this, to prevent or dampen tendencies toward nihlism and self destruction.

Again, obvious conjecture here, but if that were the case then would that go some way toward legitimising faith/spirituality, or even agnosticism for the feverent non-believers/militant atheists amongst you? If there were a "scientifically" verifyable physiological or sociological benefit to having some kind of faith, would you adopt one on this basis?


Edit: For what it's worth, I don't consider myself particularly spiritual or whatever. What I find more interesting than flaming people who are is thinking about why people are? Why so many people are? Why has a sense of spirituality been one of the only threads common to our kind throughout history, other than a requirement for water, air, hydrocarbons and salt.

[: : Scott : :]

Originally Posted by GobbHayte

How do you know that the essence of the reality and the universe is not paradoxical and contradictory?
Perhaps reality can only be explained rationally down to a certain level, quantum particles obey completely different laws to protons, neutrons and electrons, so what makes you so sure that whatever essence that allows these particles to exist will ever be comprehensible to the human brain? And how do you know that the essence of the universe is not governed by something which could in someway be described as conscious?

Occam's Razor probably?


Edit: Speaking of Occam's Razor, and specifically the Wikipedia article I linked to, here's a quote from it that is possibly relevant here for the benefit of those too lazy to click and scroll;

Originally Posted by Wiki article on Occam's Razor

Religion

In the philosophy of religion, Occam's razor is sometimes applied to the existence of God; if the concept of God does not help to explain the universe, it is argued, God is irrelevant and should be cut away (Schmitt 2005). While Occam's razor cannot prove God's nonexistence, it does imply that, in the absence of compelling reasons to believe in God, disbelief should be preferred.

The history of theistic thought has produced many arguments attempting to show that such reasons do exist. The cosmological argument, for example, states that the universe must be the result of a "first cause" and that that first cause must be God. Similarly, the teleological argument credits the appearance of design and order in the universe to supernatural intelligence. Many people believe in miracles or have what they call religious experiences, and creationists consider divine design to be more believable than naturalistic explanations for the diversity and history of life on earth.

The majority of the scientific community generally does not accept these arguments, and prefers to rely on explanations that deal with the same phenomena within the confines of existing scientific models. Among leading scientists defined as members of the National Academy of Sciences, 72.2% expressed disbelief and 93% - disbelief or doubt in the existence of a personal god in a survey conducted 1998[2] (an ongoing survey being conducted by Elaine Ecklund of Rice University since 2004 indicates that this figure drops to as low as 38% when the definition of "God" is expanded to allow a non-personal god as per e.g. Pantheism or Deism).[3] According to the typical scientific view, the necessity of a God in the teleological argument is challenged by the effects of emergence, leading to the creation-evolution controversy; likewise, religious experiences have naturalistic explanations in the psychology of religion. Other theistic arguments, such as the argument from miracles, are sometimes pejoratively said to be arguing for a mere God of the gaps - whether or not God actually works miracles, any explanation that "God did it" must fit the facts and make accurate predictions better than more parsimonious guesses like "something did it", or else Occam's razor still cuts God out.

Rather than argue for the necessity of God, some theists consider their belief to be based on grounds independent of, or prior to, reason, making Occam's razor irrelevant. This was the stance of Søren Kierkegaard, who viewed belief in God as a leap of faith which sometimes directly opposed reason (McDonald 2005); this is also the same basic view of Clarkian Presuppositional apologetics, with the exception that Clark never thought the leap of faith was contrary to reason. (See also: Fideism). In a different vein, Alvin Plantinga and others have argued for reformed epistemology, the view that God's existence can properly be assumed as part of a Christian's epistemological structure. (See also: Basic beliefs). Yet another school of thought, Van Tillian Presuppositional apologetics, claims that God's existence is the transcendentally necessary prior condition to the intelligibility of all human experience and thought. In other words, proponents of this view hold that there is no other viable option to ultimately explain any fact of human experience or knowledge, let alone a simpler one.

Considering that the razor is often wielded as an argument against theism, it is somewhat ironic that Ockham himself was a theist. He considered some Christian sources to be valid sources of factual data, equal to both logic and sense perception. He wrote, "No plurality should be assumed unless it can be proved (a) by reason, or (b) by experience, or (c) by some infallible authority"; referring in the last clause "to the Bible, the Saints and certain pronouncements of the Church" (Hoffmann 1997). In Ockham's view, an explanation which does not harmonize with reason, experience or the aforementioned sources cannot be considered valid.

[humndislocation]

Originally Posted by Thee Alex

ARGH!!! FUCKING HELL!!!!

BUT ONE DAY WE WILL UNDERSTAND!!

Not necessarily. It's quite possible that it'll be impossible to discover the true nature of things.

We're limited in what we can prove, by the way the universe works. Like for example, we can't see objects smaller than the wavelength of light, because they're too small. It happens that there are other methods we can use to see very small objects, but I don't think that you can take for granted that there will always be a way around the limitations of the universe.

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by humndislocation

This is just my personal opinion, I don't claim to be right on this one, but I wouldn't define supernatural to be something that just happens not adhere to known natural laws.

I'd define supernatural to be something outside of the natural altogether, outside of natural laws, known or unknown. Somethjng that doesn't have to adhere to the laws of nature at all, because it's above it.

Much of string theory is currently unproven, that doesn't make it supernatural. The sun wasn't supernatural before nuclear fusion was discovered.

That's just my two cents.

Fair enough But it is a dictionary definition all the same.

I personally don't think there is any connection between string theory and the supernatural either, but I don't discount that there could be something that we will never explain but continues to give people meaning and inspiration to their lives.

We will just have to agree to disagree, it's a pity that Alex is so rigidly anti the people who think differently from him, that is spoiling this thread.

The second part of that programme Atom is starting on BBC4!

[humndislocation]

"of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal."

I think the wording of that dictionary definition is ambiguous. I would interpret it to agree with my definition that the supernatural is that which doesn't adhere to natural laws, known or unknown.

[Dashingmajor]

Originally Posted by : : Scott : :

I would agree. I'd also conjecture that there likely sound neurological, physiological, sociological and perhaps psychological reasons for a sense of 'spirituality', or blind faith in something; something that helps people to put life into perspective and make it all seem a little less meaningless/dull.

Did Richard Dawkins not mention something like that in one of his documentaries? That people that claim to have some religious experience exhibit the same stimulation of the dopaminergic reward pathways that drug abusers do? Maybe not, but I'm sure I've seen/read that somewhere.

It could well be that religion is genetic. One single gene that activates these pathways when other neurochemical processes indicate a need for them.
Those folks who are atheists, don't have that gene activated, and eventually, it could evolve to be permanently switched on or off.

Maybe the rise in religious fundamentalism is symptomatic of the evolution of this gene being switched on...

hmm, if only I had paid a bit more attention at uni, I could have studied this further.

[: : Scott : :]

Originally Posted by Dashingmajor

Did Richard Dawkins not mention something like that in one of his documentaries? That people that claim to have some religious experience exhibit the same stimulation of th