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brazil84 comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong
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I'm a little confused -- are you saying that by definition, supernatural beings do not exist?
Otherwise, what's your evidence/argument?
Yep. The concept of a supernatural being is incoherent.
Not according to the Richard Carrier definition of "supernatural", which I would argue is a more accurate interpretation of the term.
Upvoted for interestingness, but that definition still leaves no room for supernatural beings as far as I'm concerned (assuming I'm interpreting Carrier's post correctly).
That's because I don't draw the distinction between minds and mental things and the 'nonmental' that Carrier does - I've effectively ruled out the supernatural by fiat because I treat it as axiomatic that the mental is just a kind of physical.
I see - along the lines of theological noncognitivism, then. It's an unusual position, in my experience.
Kinda, though I try to acknowledge that different people mean different things by 'God.' For example, some people equate God with love. If you do that God obviously exists.
If God really were love, praying would be a complete waste of time. I suspect such statements are not actually expressions of factual content.
Why? The placebo effect and other mindhacks apply to any sort of ritual or 'magic'. If you accept this, then worshipping 'love' or 'warfare' or other god-forms is not a waste of time at all--the purpose and effect of prayer need not involve anything supernatural.
That ... is a good point, actually. It doesn't affect my argument - the one I elaborated with my Thom Yorke example - but it does complicate the situation in ways which should be acknowledged.
That's very plausible.
[ETA: It sure is an expeditious way to interpret such statements, though.]
You're right - best is to inquire for additional details when someone proposes such a statement.
I tried probing deeper (just out of curiosity) the first few times I was told 'God is love/an energy/kindness/a force', but found that my conversant usually had difficulty elaborating beyond the initial statement. There seemed to be some extra, hard to articulate component to what they thought but they were usually unwilling and/or unable to communicate it to me.
After a time I decided to just politely go 'Hmmmm, I see' and try changing the subject whenever someone equated God with something mundane in conversation. I think I must have started doing that mentally as well - hence why I take the statement at face value when I hear it.
More rigorously, the distinction between "natural" and "supernatural" must be in the map, not in the territory. As Aleister Crowley put it in his Book of Lies:
Ok, in that case just take the supernatural part out of the definition. Define God as some entity who did essentially what is ascribed to God in the Hebrew Bible. i.e. He created the Heavens and the Earth, etc.
I don't have a paper copy of the Bible so I used this. I tried to read it from the beginning, but it didn't make any sense. At first I thought 'God' must have been Hebrew for 'Big Bang,' but that didn't fit. I can't really work out what this 'God' would even be if it existed - it's like trying to deduce what the Jabberwock is. So I guess God is about as likely to exist as slithy toves.
I'm confused again. Are you telling me you are an atheist?
About Hebrew Bible God? Of course! Unless you can think of some sensible way to interpret Genesis (and the rest of it) that hasn't occurred to me and lets you salvage a God.
Do you understand that in the West, when people say they believe in God, they are normally referring to the God of Abraham?
And do you agree that there exists weak evidence for the existence of God?
That is what I thought when I was younger. In practice I've found that when talking to people in depth about their idea of God, they often have a slightly different idea of what God is supposed to be than other people I've spoken to.
Yes: a lot of people claim to have experienced God directly, which is weak evidence for God's existence. (Assuming they're all talking about essentially the same thing when they say 'God,' anyway.)
Sure; also there is hearsay documentary evidence (the Bible) and apparently even some scientific studies which supposedly demonstrate the power of prayer.
But by what standard do you reject such evidence?
If I recall correctly, there are studies that demonstrate the power of believing one is being prayed for, whether or not one actually is. In studies where the people being prayed for don't know about it, there is no significant difference.
Rejecting an interpretation of the evidence != rejecting evidence.
(Incidentally, I tried pulling up meta-analyses on the effect of prayer and found this Cochrane meta-analysis which finds no consistent effect of being prayed for on ill health.)