The Supernatural is inherently irrational

[Alchemist]

OK. I'm not saying that the following argument shows that the supernatural isn't real, I'm just saying that the supernatural defies reason and is therefore irrational. So here goes....

Anytime someone invokes a supernatural explanation for something, that supernatural cause is completely unfalsifiable. For example, many theists claim that God started the Big Bang. Can't falsify that. Not anymore than you can falsify my claim that it was the IPU or a giant baked potatoe that started the big bang. Or maybe a better example would be the Resurrection.

Lets presume for a moment that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Christian apologists claim that if Jesus rose from the dead that Christianity is true. However, how could someone tell that Jesus really was God? What if he was a tricky demon or an alien with a morbid sense of humor? How could anyone tell if it was Yaweh, Anubis, Ra, Apollo, Zues, or the invisible pink unicorn that raised Jesus from the dead?

The same goes for supposed miracle healings. How do you know it was God that did it? Could it not have been some other deity or supernatural being just messing with you? How could you know that it wasn't?

The answer is you can't. Any supernatural "cause" is inherently irrational. You can't tell me it was not mass murdering aliens guiding Israel out of Egypt instead of the omnipotent ruler of the universe. Why? Because the supernatural, by definition, is beyond human ability to understand and is undefinable. For instance, define God or tell me exactly what He is made of or how He creates, define what a spirit is, ect. ect.

There you have it. Belief in the supernatural is inherently irrational. We as finite human beings cannot KNOW anything about it. We can believe, but we can not have any knowledge. To make matters worse, there is no way to know which belief is correct because all supernatural belief is inherently irrational.

Have at and tear me to shreds!

[Durthorin]

OK. I'm not saying that the following argument shows that the supernatural isn't real, I'm just saying that the supernatural defies reason and is therefore irrational. So here goes....

Anytime someone invokes a supernatural explanation for something, that supernatural cause is completely unfalsifiable. For example, many theists claim that God started the Big Bang. Can't falsify that. Not anymore than you can falsify my claim that it was the IPU or a giant baked potatoe that started the big bang. Or maybe a better example would be the Resurrection.

Lets presume for a moment that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Christian apologists claim that if Jesus rose from the dead that Christianity is true. However, how could someone tell that Jesus really was God? What if he was a tricky demon or an alien with a morbid sense of humor? How could anyone tell if it was Yaweh, Anubis, Ra, Apollo, Zues, or the invisible pink unicorn that raised Jesus from the dead?

The same goes for supposed miracle healings. How do you know it was God that did it? Could it not have been some other deity or supernatural being just messing with you? How could you know that it wasn't?

The answer is you can't. Any supernatural "cause" is inherently irrational. You can't tell me it was not mass murdering aliens guiding Israel out of Egypt instead of the omnipotent ruler of the universe. Why? Because the supernatural, by definition, is beyond human ability to understand and is undefinable. For instance, define God or tell me exactly what He is made of or how He creates, define what a spirit is, ect. ect.

There you have it. Belief in the supernatural is inherently irrational. We as finite human beings cannot KNOW anything about it. We can believe, but we can not have any knowledge. To make matters worse, there is no way to know which belief is correct because all supernatural belief is inherently irrational.

Have at and tear me to shreds!

Supernatural.. outside the the natural laws as we currently understand them. Many things we accept as just part of our knowledge now were once "supernatural". Personally, to me its a null word.. a place holder for the phrase "We don't understand this yet."

Brighid Bless, Dur

[shunyadragon]

Supernatural.. outside the the natural laws as we currently understand them. Many things we accept as just part of our knowledge now were once "supernatural". Personally, to me its a null word.. a place holder for the phrase "We don't understand this yet."

Brighid Bless, Dur

I agree that 'supernatural' may very well best fit under "We don't understand this yet.", and in this sense it would not be null word, but a word used with that understanding. There are many religious beliefs, events and experiences that would not fit this category of supernatural claims. They are the events where the claims of events that are clearly beyond natural circumstances. Now the interpretation of these events may be misuderstood by those that observed or experienced them like allien abductions and they still could have been natural events.

What is clearly a problem is an ancient world where apparently supernatural events took place on a regular if not daily basis. This is one of the areas where ancient worldviews are clearly falsified by reasonable standards of the world as we know it today.

I believe in God, but an essentially very natural God that reflects the natural world and the nature of experiences that we have today.

[Pate]

Anytime someone invokes a supernatural explanation for something, that supernatural cause is completely unfalsifiable. For example, many theists claim that God started the Big Bang. Can't falsify that.

Depends on how you define falsification. Nearly nothing is falsifiable in any absolute way (IOW, nearly every hypothesis can be rescued from that kind of falsification by adding some new ad-hoc assumptions). But the hypothesis that God started the Big Bang can be relatively falsified to some degree by providing a better hypothesis.

Not anymore than you can falsify my claim that it was the IPU or a giant baked potatoe that started the big bang.

All things being equal, we should prefer the simplest hypothesis. I don't see what we gain by way of explanatory power by adding properties like those of the IPU to the entity that we postulate as the cause of the big bang. You need to give the IPU some very much godlike properties in order to make it a candidate for being the cause of the big bang, but those additional properties like being pink and being an unicorn are just irrelevant additions which contribute nothing causally relevant to the effect that we're supposed to explain (the big bang).

Lets presume for a moment that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Christian apologists claim that if Jesus rose from the dead that Christianity is true. However, how could someone tell that Jesus really was God? What if he was a tricky demon or an alien with a morbid sense of humor? How could anyone tell if it was Yaweh, Anubis, Ra, Apollo, Zues, or the invisible pink unicorn that raised Jesus from the dead?

It's a principle of rationality that in interpersonal communication our default position must be that the other person is honest. Jesus himself said that he represented Yahweh. But sure, it's possible that some kind of deception occurred. It would just seem again that adding the deception part to your hypothesis would needlessly complicate the matters. All other things being equal, it's simpler to assume that Jesus claimed to be representing Yahweh, and was subsequently raised from the dead, because he in fact was representing Yahweh. Other supernaturalistic alternatives need to create some kind of contrived hypothesis as to why some other deity would want to perform such a deception or a practical joke.

the supernatural, by definition, is beyond human ability to understand and is undefinable.

Hmm, how can something be undefinable by definition?

For instance, define God

A person with unlimited knowledge and causal capacity.

or tell me exactly what He is made of

That presupposes that God must be reducible to something more basic, which is just false.

or how He creates

Directly by his will, without a need for any intermediary causation.

define what a spirit is

A simple immaterial substance.

Have at and tear me to shreds!

Done.

[Minnesota]

I take "supernatural" to indicate an existence above the laws of nature. If there is such a thing it would not admit investigation or any amount of reasoning. That some occurrence was once thought to have a supernatural basis, but later proved not to be, is merely due to a lack of adequate evidence at the time, or the ability to process the evidence. So, while we have disproved "supernatural" causes in the past, this in no way says anything about any true supernatural existence. If one is going to claim that angels are supernatural beings, then there will never be any evidence to confirm or deny it, because the moment this was done it would remove it from its supernatural existence and place it in the natural world. But because angels (according to angel believers) ARE actual instances of supernatural existence, this would never happen.

So the supernatural, should it exist, will always remain irrational: not subject to reason. This isn't to say that what is said about a supernatural event can't be subject to reason: discussion and debate--can god create a rock so heavy even he can't lift it? (both parties agreeing that at least for the sake of argument, the supernatural exists) --but whatever is said is not independently verifiable by reason or evidence. Say what you will about any "supernatural" event, but when all is said and done, it comes down to nothing more than your say so. In the case of Christianity, this say so is primarily that of the Bible. "Jesus loves this I know For the Bible tells me so . . . . . "

[Meh_Gerbil]

Outside of 'natural' isn't the same as 'irrational'.

[salvationfound]

OK. I'm not saying that the following argument shows that the supernatural isn't real, I'm just saying that the supernatural defies reason and is therefore irrational. So here goes....

Anytime someone invokes a supernatural explanation for something, that supernatural cause is completely unfalsifiable. For example, many theists claim that God started the Big Bang. Can't falsify that. Not anymore than you can falsify my claim that it was the IPU or a giant baked potatoe that started the big bang. Or maybe a better example would be the Resurrection.

Lets presume for a moment that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Christian apologists claim that if Jesus rose from the dead that Christianity is true. However, how could someone tell that Jesus really was God? What if he was a tricky demon or an alien with a morbid sense of humor? How could anyone tell if it was Yaweh, Anubis, Ra, Apollo, Zues, or the invisible pink unicorn that raised Jesus from the dead?

I kind of think it depends on how your examining the supernatural. Are you
looking at it simply through the realm of science? If you are then maybe you
might have a point. Science cannot (and personally I don't see how it ever
could) answer the question of the supernatural. Do we have a soul? Where
do we go when we die? Is there a God? Your right using science you cannot
falsify it. Which means anyone who examines the question of God merely
using science must if he wants to remain completely honest must end it in
agnosticism. I've heard some people claim you can become atheist but that
doesn't make any sense. If you can't falsify it then you can't become atheist.

Since science alone can't work you have got to move on to metaphysics.
I've been told God-of-the-gaps doesn't work in science and in a way I can
understand that. But if you go on to the metaphysical realm you are
completely free to use God-of-the-gaps after all what is someone gonna say,
"It is beyond the realm of theology"? So if you examine the question of God
using both science and metaphysics then the supernatural is not irrational
and in fact in my opinion when you use metaphysics the supernatural has a
distinct advantage.

[Ryokan]

Outside of 'natural' isn't the same as 'irrational'.

Maybe not rational, but testable, repeatable, most importantly predictable.... Pretty much.

[HRG_new]

It's a principle of rationality that in interpersonal communication our default position must be that the other person is honest.

Not when he contradicts established principles, or when we are dealing with a supernatural being. Let's not forget that we have no consistent experience with supernatural beings; and let's not forget either that "honest" does not imply "correct".

Jesus himself said that he represented Yahweh. But sure, it's possible that some kind of deception occurred. It would just seem again that adding the deception part to your hypothesis would needlessly complicate the matters.

Occam's Razor, if properly applied, would remove all supernatural explanations to start with. A Loki-type deceiving supernatural is just as needlessly complicating as an honest one. Let's not forget that honesty and deception are our anthropomorphic concepts which may have no application to the supernatural.

All other things being equal, it's simpler to assume that Jesus claimed to be representing Yahweh, and was subsequently raised from the dead, because he in fact was representing Yahweh. Other supernaturalistic alternatives need to create some kind of contrived hypothesis as to why some other deity would want to perform such a deception or a practical joke.

Who are we to penetrate the motivations of supernatural beings ?

Besides, do you also apply your line of argument to Mohammed claims (to have received the Qu'ran from the Archangel Gabriel) ?

A person with unlimited knowledge and causal capacity.

What indication do we have that such persons exist ?

That presupposes that God must be reducible to something more basic, which is just false.

By your definition of the term "God" ? Definitions do not replace existence theorems. Even if a supernatural being has spoken through the Bible, how do you know that he fulfills your definition ?

Directly by his will, without a need for any intermediary causation.

Do we have other actual examples for such a causation ?

A simple immaterial substance.

Sounds like an oxymoron. Do we have other actual examples for such "substances" ? Please consider that the definition of "Matter/"material" has changed since the 19th century.

[Amazing Rando]

Outside of 'natural' isn't the same as 'irrational'.

I would propose "nonrational" instead of "irrational."

[shunyadragon]

Outside of 'natural' isn't the same as 'irrational'.

I would take this in the manner the thread author intended, and 'not rational' may be a better wording, but than again 'irrational' may be appropriate in some cases.

[Skeptic]

Supernatural.. outside the the natural laws as we currently understand them. Many things we accept as just part of our knowledge now were once "supernatural". Personally, to me its a null word.. a place holder for the phrase "We don't understand this yet."

I agree that 'supernatural' may very well best fit under "We don't understand this yet.", and in this sense it would not be null word, but a word used with that understanding.

That would mean the use and definition of "supernatural" are incongruent (I agree -- that's the problem with many terms, particularly as related to religion). "We don't understand" doesn't mean "outside of nature." Calling things we don't understand "supernatural" just confuses things -- encourages people to form unwarranted conclusions based upon ignorance, and the body of the faithful then reaffirms the presumption. This is one of the main reasons religion is such a negative influence on humanity -- it compromises intellectual integrity.

Byron

[Captain Ochre]

My reply will largely mirror Pate's.

OK. I'm not saying that the following argument shows that the supernatural isn't real, I'm just saying that the supernatural defies reason and is therefore irrational. So here goes....

Anytime someone invokes a supernatural explanation for something, that supernatural cause is completely unfalsifiable.

You're mistaking regularity of correlation with establishment of causation.

If Jesus turned water into wine every time, you'd simply get around the supernatural element by calling the event a natural cause, wouldn't you?

For example, many theists claim that God started the Big Bang. Can't falsify that. Not anymore than you can falsify my claim that it was the IPU or a giant baked potatoe that started the big bang. Or maybe a better example would be the Resurrection.

It's kind of hard to falsify any proposed cause of the Big Bang, "supernatural" or not. Prior to the Planck time it is supposed that natural laws work differently. So, nothing is predictable in terms of the natural laws that you're accustomed to observing. If you call those unpredictable states "natural" then haven't you made naturalism unfalsifiable?

Lets presume for a moment that Jesus really did rise from the dead. Christian apologists claim that if Jesus rose from the dead that Christianity is true. However, how could someone tell that Jesus really was God? What if he was a tricky demon or an alien with a morbid sense of humor? How could anyone tell if it was Yaweh, Anubis, Ra, Apollo, Zues, or the invisible pink unicorn that raised Jesus from the dead?

We probably hope that his own words give some insight into the cause.

The same goes for supposed miracle healings. How do you know it was God that did it? Could it not have been some other deity or supernatural being just messing with you? How could you know that it wasn't?

Strictly speaking, you wouldn't--but this scenario is easily turned against you: How do you know that God doesn't specifically cause every single event that you have taken as "natural"?
Both of us end up with inductive arguments using reasoning that is not itself based on methodological naturalism.

The answer is you can't.

Nor can you rule out God as the cause of all natural things.
So does your argument resolve anything?

Any supernatural "cause" is inherently irrational. You can't tell me it was not mass murdering aliens guiding Israel out of Egypt instead of the omnipotent ruler of the universe. Why? Because the supernatural, by definition, is beyond human ability to understand and is undefinable. For instance, define God or tell me exactly what He is made of or how He creates, define what a spirit is, ect. ect.

Physicists call the formation of certain quantum particles truly random, meaning that their occurrence is unpredictable in essence. By your measure, it would seem that random formation of quantum particles is irrational.

There you have it. Belief in the supernatural is inherently irrational.

Back to the drawing board, physicists. Keep working on the QM thing until you can predict those quantum particles with precision.

We as finite human beings cannot KNOW anything about it. We can believe, but we can not have any knowledge. To make matters worse, there is no way to know which belief is correct because all supernatural belief is inherently irrational.

Have at and tear me to shreds!

Your beliefs concerning the universe prior to the Planck time are inherently irrational, no?

[shunyadragon]

Physicists call the formation of certain quantum particles truly random, meaning that their occurrence is unpredictable in essence. By your measure, it would seem that random formation of quantum particles is irrational.



Back to the drawing board, physicists. Keep working on the QM thing until you can predict those quantum particles with precision.

No need for a drawing board, just a basic understanding of quantum physics and the nature of randomness, which is not complicated in this case.

This is false, the predicability of the formation of certain quantum particles is not dependent on them being truely random, or following the 'chaos' model of patterned randomness. The quantum particles always form when the proper conditions are created under controled conditions. These experiments have been conducted thousands of times and the particles are always formed. This is 100% predictable. It is the pattern of their formation under these conditions that is considered truely random.

Your beliefs concerning the universe prior to the Planck time are inherently irrational, no?

NO!

[Pate]

It's a principle of rationality that in interpersonal communication our default position must be that the other person is honest.

Not when he contradicts established principles

Can you be more specific? Which principles do you have in mind?

or when we are dealing with a supernatural being. Let's not forget that we have no consistent experience with supernatural beings; and let's not forget either that "honest" does not imply "correct".

The principle of honesty as a default position is essentially a priori principle. If you'd really decline to apply it in the context of human affairs from the beginning, you wouldn't even be able to get a "consistent experience" of a relevant sort, on the basis of which you could then test the principle.

But anyway, I was thinking of this principle more in the context of Jesus as a human being, not in the context of God. Even if he was more than human, he was no less than human. The principle can thus be applied to Jesus's claim that he represents Yahweh. But of course you're right that "honest" doesn't imply "correct". I never claimed otherwise.

Occam's Razor, if properly applied, would remove all supernatural explanations to start with.

I have to disagree with that. But even more importantly, this discussion is set up in such a way that the existence of the supernatural is granted for argument's sake and the disagreement is over whether one can legitimately come to conclusions with regard to the plausibility of different supernaturalistic alternatives, and therefore your assertion, even if true, would do nothing to refute my argument.

A Loki-type deceiving supernatural is just as needlessly complicating as an honest one. Let's not forget that honesty and deception are our anthropomorphic concepts which may have no application to the supernatural.

A Loki-type deity surely is more anthropomorphic than Yahweh as portrayed in the 1st century Judaism, so if you have a problem with anthropomorphism, why do you even bring that up?

But actually I would like to see an argument instead of a mere assertion if you're saying that honesty and deception are somehow necessarily human concepts that would not be applicable to other persons beside humans, if such persons exist.

Or perhaps your point is just that personal supernatural entities do not exhaust the set of all possible supernatural entities, and thus we can't be sure that if the resurrection had a supernatural cause, it had to have a personal cause (and consecuently we can't be sure that personal terms apply to the cause)? In that case I would agree, but then you brought the point up in a confusing context, as you were just talking about "A Loki-type deceiving supernatural", which would surely be personal.

Who are we to penetrate the motivations of supernatural beings ?

This is where you have to realize the overall coherence, as well as simplicity, as a criterion for evaluating the hypotheses. There seems to be no way around the fact that monotheism is simpler than polytheism. However, monotheism also has the consequence that tthe monotheistic god is the cause of the universe that we obseve. The fact that the universe seems to function in a remarkably rational and predictable way would clearly be evidence that the creator is a rational being, which would already fit into the model of personhood with which we are familiar. So, this gives us confidence that at least in the monotheistic paradigm we can speculate in an informed manner on what motivations such a supernatural being might have.

Besides, do you also apply your line of argument to Mohammed claims (to have received the Qu'ran from the Archangel Gabriel) ?

Yes, I do. Remember that the principle that I outlined represents the default position that's most warranted. A default position can of course be overturned with the evidence, but that may not be even necessary in the case of Mohammed (there are no comparably good reasons why Mohammed's belief that he had recieved a supernatural revelation could not be have come about without requiring either dishonesty on M's part or a supernatural cause).

For instance, define God

A person with unlimited knowledge and causal capacity.

What indication do we have that such persons exist ?

I think that we could examine some fine-tuned versions of the traditional arguments for God's existence and put them into the context of standard criteria (such as coherence, simplicity and explanatory power) for evaluating basically any theoretical claims, and the result would be that we would have "indication" that a hypothesis that postulates such a person would be the one that overall best explains the data.

Of course I realize that the claim I just made is controversial. What is more important in the context of this discussion, however, is that such a definition of God would, by those criteria, be the most plausible supernaturalistic alternative.

And what is even more important is that even if there's no good evidence for the existence of God, that wouldn't refute my reply to Alchemist, as he challenged the possibility of defining God in a coherent way, which of course isn't as a task even dependent for its success on whether such an entity actually exists.

By your definition of the term "God" ? Definitions do not replace existence theorems. Even if a supernatural being has spoken through the Bible, how do you know that he fulfills your definition ?

If you're granting (for argument's sake) that the Bible is God's revelation, I can of course appeal to the fact that the Bible seems to present God as being omniscient and omnipotent. Or was this intended as a "how do you know that God doesn't deceive us" type of question?

or how He creates

Directly by his will, without a need for any intermediary causation.

Do we have other actual examples for such a causation ?

Do we need to have such examples? This is actually nothing more than a logical consequence from the definition of God as having unlimited causal capacity, coupled with Ockham's razor.

I think I can demonstrate this follows from the definition and O's razor if needed, but it's actually a bit beside the point, because I was responding to Alchemist's challenge, which at this point was: "For instance, define God or tell me exactly what He is made of or how He creates, define what a spirit is, ect. ect.". He seemed to challenge even the coherence of the idea of God. That's what I was responding to.

Furthermore, you'll be very hard pressed to find other relevantly similar examples for the central claims of the other competing metaphysical views too, including metaphysical materialism. The claim that God can create directly by his will is based on the most foundational ontological assumtion of the theistic hypothesis, namely that the ultimate reality is a non-material person. A competing claim in the materialist hypothesis would be that the ultimate reality is non-personal matter. The mere fact that we're talking about the basic,ultimate ontological commitments excludes the possibility of finding relevantly similar examples.

define what a spirit is

A simple immaterial substance.

Sounds like an oxymoron.

I'm sure it does, if we define the term "substance" by the way it's more commonly employed in our everyday life (substance abuse etc.). But if you're using the term in its normal the philosophical sense, it's not an oxymoron. Or at least you've made a significant philosophical breakthrough if you can compellingly demonstrate that it's an oxymoron.