Besides your belief that there is no higher power, what are your thoughts on supernatural phenomena?

Unexplained does not mean unexplainable nor supernatural.

There are all kinds of things in my life I have experienced that I cannot explain. For one thing, I am not an expert on everything. For another, I am a prisoner inside a skull that has to rely on not especially precise equipment in terms of sensory input. In other words, the meat sacks in our heads cannot be trusted. In fact, going back to Randi, if they could be trusted, Randi and other magicians would never have a job.

None of that is evidence for the supernatural.

Re number. 2, they must also either be ignorant of the existence of charities or can't think of a single one that could use that $1,000,000 they would have no use for. So I don't accept that.

Completely agree.

There's a whole crap tonne about the universe we really don't understand yet; especially when you get down to the quantum level, spooky action at a distance, wave functions, etc...

In a very real way, we're still just cavemen banging on rocks as far as the sum total knowledge of how things work out there in what we call "reality". So within that vast gap of what we know, and what we don't know, there's could be a lot of things going on.

Is that a ghost? or is that a momentary glitch in the fabric of space-time? Or is it just someone mistaking a cars headlight bouncing of a chandelier and into a door that is ajar at just the right angle. One of those theories is provable using the scientific method and the knowledge that we currently have. One of those theories might eventually be able to be proven with knowledge that we don't yet possess. And one of those theories is so-called "supernatural".

As a reasonable human with critical thinking skills, I'll put my money on either of the last ones before I'll put my money on the first.

I just like to dabble in the occult, and esotericism.

Why? That's pure bullshit.

Anyone who is fence sitting or undecided about naturalism or empiricism and is dabbling with 'the supernatural' is just longing for a meaning or purpose. You don't get to claim to be free of the shackles of religion but still asks questions about the supernatural - can they really claim to be free? When I left my religion it took me a really long time to deprogram. It doesn't happen over night but it takes years. You can't be half pregnant: you either are or you aren't. You don't want to call it God because it's embarrassing, but what's the difference really? At that point it's just a semantic distinction.

If something can "transcend" the laws of nature, then the ability to do that is part of the laws of nature, and thus it transcends nothing. We just didn't know all of the rules.

If ghosts are real, then they aren't breaking the rules of nature because clearly the rules of nature allow for ghosts, we just don't understand how yet, but then ghosts are natural.

By definition, anything real is natural, and anything supernatural is not.

Er um— no.

There is nothing that is “supernatural “

There is nothing that is proven and repeated not beholden to the laws of nature.

Yes it is possible, but there isn’t any proof of anything transcending nature. You’re making a “god of the gaps” argument. It is illogical to assume that god or anything supernatural keeps getting smaller and smaller so as to hide in those ever shrinking gaps.

I think the vast majority of people who are even aware of the term “string theory” only have a half-baked idea of what it is. You’re in good company!

I know that some physicists think that the force of gravity is inexplicably weak, and that gravity isn’t as powerful as it “should” be. There’s a theory out there (or maybe it’s part of a larger theory, I don’t remember) that what we perceive as gravity is just “leaking” from another dimension. That dovetails nicely with your own perspective.

I'm nit the person you asked, but is no "fun" if you intend to be educated by each of your interlocutors without even attempting to investigate anything yourself. It's lazy and disrespectful, and reeks of sealioning.

A phantom sense of something that isn't actually there. Be it feeling a touch, seeing something, hearing something, smelling something, etc. As real as it may seem to the brain experiencing it, it's entirely a product of that brain and can be caused by all sorts of things from illness and physical trauma to chemicals, lack of sleep, or even simply being deprived of stimulation.

There are like 9 ghost hunting TV shows on Hulu, probably. Belief in the supernatural isn't some underground fringe theory that will get you shunned or locked up. There are oodles of people out there that earnestly believe in spirits and psychics and auras and reincarnation and witchcraft and whatever the fuck else people can come up with to either

a.) make sense of a world they don't understand or b.) help them feel like they have more control in a world that makes them feel powerless

And each of them would be absolutely thrilled if there was some incontrovertible proof of their particular flavor of magic, but there isn't, and those people are suckers. If you're willing to believe that there's any amount of paranormal shit going on in the world, despite having no proof of it, you might want to reevaluate your position as an atheist. I know I would.

"let's talk about a topic. But I'm gonna tell you you're wrong with no evidence"

Weird way to spend your time, but hey, at least you got a hobby. I'm just an idiot replying to a reply of a weird hobby.

There are however videos featuring things that cannot be explained rationally

You can -- quite literally -- create any effect on video. You should go watch that guy that debunks YouTube videos for a living. He shows you exactly how the effects were created, etc.

Uh-huh...

99% of people don't know how electricity works. About the same for the internet. About ten people on the planet could make a computer processor

Yeah, it makes sense!

Any non-falsifiable theory is only worth so much.

I'm not sure what you mean about a historical standpoint. I don't think there's anything in the historical record that could be considered actual evidence of supernatural phenomena. History as an academic discipline is a kind of science and generally approaches the subject matter with the scientific method.

What do you mean? That people experience supernatural phenomena?

To paraphrase Tim Minchin, the supernatural has either not been proved to exist or has been proved to not exist.

If you can test it - it's natural. If you can't test it - you can't prove it even exists.

What are the laws of nature? You keep saying that as if it proves something but haven’t defined it. Where do the laws come from?

It rightly suffers stigma because it does not follow the scientific method, but claims to have scientific merit.

There also hasn’t been any proof that supernatural phenomena doesn’t exist

You can't prove a negative. Which is why in the scientific method, the onus is on the person making the claim to provide the proof, not the other way around. That's why we rarely engage in debates with people who don't grasp that concept, because for the most part they're argument comes down to "You can't prove it doesn't exist, so therefore I'm right."

There also hasn’t been any proof that supernatural phenomena doesn’t exist.

You can play that game all day with anything. It's not a valid argument.

Just because we do not know all the laws dosen't mean something dosen't have an explanation. The universe is under no obligation to make sense.

I'm saying that it's not worth asking this question yet. There are a bunch of other foundational questions that need to be asked and answered first (there is a never-ending loop of ask/ answer, btw, it can be quite infuriating), before this supernatural question can be asked scientifically.

I'm saying let's focus on finding and asking these more basic questions first, then we can take the little baby, scientifically sound steps towards asking what the answer to life, the universe, and everything is. Ironically, if there is any purpose in life, it's finding our own special way to take these little baby steps for humanity.

As the article says, "The supernatural is hypernymic to religion. Religions are standardized supernaturalist worldviews." It also says "the supernatural is featured in folklore and religious contexts, but can also feature as an explanation in more secular contexts, as in the cases of superstitions or belief in the paranormal. The term is attributed to non-physical entities, such as angels, demons, gods and spirits."

There may be "non-physical entities, such as angels, demons, gods and spirits," but semantics clarifies how I would interpret their existence. They aren't entities as described by religious beliefs. Instead, they would be "natural" and certainly "alien" to the human experience. If they violate natural laws, it's only because humans lack the understanding to comprehend their nature.

There are absolutely "phenomena" beyond our current understanding. And you are correct when you say "mainstream religions are actually complicated incomplete stories full of misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and half-truths." Science and history have shown this to be exactly the case.

With that said, I am apostate for a good reason. Religion doesn't have the answers I zealously sought. It simply cannot, by its very nature and definition, do that. Science is the only way humans might honestly understand the world around them. While pragmatically I'm atheist, in terms of belief, I'm agnostic.

Alien non-physical entities may exist. Perhaps it's probable... somewhere in the universe. However, most religious beliefs can be demystified and logically explained false. For everything else, such beliefs make good stories. Until science proves or disproves the belief though, it remains just that--belief in a story.

I'd give anything to practice "magic." It's probably why I read so much fantasy. I love science fiction because it envisions so many very different and greater things. Frankly, I could have been spared an incredible amount of pain if there truly was a "benevolent" god I could trust. It would be absolutely wild to know that, beyond my short frail human existence, there factually is an afterlife.

More important to me than anything is Truth. Believing in something for which there is no evidence does me more harm than good. Trusting in that which is known and natural keeps me steady and able to embrace the moment rather than laying false hopes in an improbable future.

Sure. There absolutely could be non-physical entities. I would call them "alien" because that better describes them than our religious terms. If they exist though, I'd wager they wouldn't be friendly to humanity either by nature or intent. Angels and demons make better story devices than they do real life neighbors. We are at the top of our food chain. The last thing we need is to encounter something worse than we humans already are. If science ever proves that other beings exist, then we need to immediately determine next how to ensure human autonomy and survival amongst something that would more than likely be a threat.

I'm on the page of discrediting soft-sciences. Because they are not rigid and testable, they are filled to the brim with what are essentially witch-doctors who read the tea leaves so-to-speak. Social sciences especially. They are a pseudo-science that has infected the minds of many.

Delusions and hallucinations are a thing. Ever feel your phone vibrating in your pocket when it actually wasn't ? That's a hallucination, nothing supernatural about it. Feelings aren't a reliable way to assess reality, and relying on feelings to make decisions is a recipe for disaster.

I've yet to find any such thing and those that have been presented to me tend to be in the 'we have insufficient information' category for why it can't be clearly determined what happened. People love to wedge the supernatural into those crevices in spite of still not being a good fit.

It's a bad Victorian picture of their defective understanding of the medieval mystical world view.

Yes, that's what I meant.

SUPERnatural means "above" nature

TRANScend means to cross the threshold to a new plane

Those both imply higher powers in their name. You might not consider the higher power to be sentient or good or whatever, but you're literally arguing for a higher power, just under a different name.