FishOilTheKid said:

clam_dude said:

If something "supernatural" did exist, would it not then be part of the natural world?  Therefore, by definition, the supernatural is something which does not exist.

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Well, the normal exists and also the paranormal.  Similar.

What is natural seems to be agreed upon or a consensus.  What is supernatural is beyond this agreement.

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Mad Season said:

Ok well from my understanding supernatural is that which science hasn't been able to answer. Thousands of years ago people would look into the sky and see stars moving. They called it supernatural. Now we call them planets. Obviously science hasn't answered everything in this universe or anything under the veil, or even if there is a veil, so I think of it as supernatural. That would make the psychedelic experience supernatural under that definition since science is baffled by that experience as well. Accept you really don't know anything and that your supernatural experience is unique to everyone else's.

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Science can only go as far as our own two eyes. You can't hope to even try to answer everything in reality with it. Even the psychedelic experience is unknown after the psychoactive substance binds to our 5-HT and 5-HT2 receptors. Every human emits a frequency just like a television and every time it switches a new "channel" comes on. Science will never be able to answer this unless we fully understand our brain. So I hope that helps in why it's impossible to actually come up with scientific proof. We must first completely understand our brain and mind. It's a lot harder than cracking our genomes.

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clam_dude said:

Mad Season said:

Ok well from my understanding supernatural is that which science hasn't been able to answer. Thousands of years ago people would look into the sky and see stars moving. They called it supernatural. Now we call them planets. Obviously science hasn't answered everything in this universe or anything under the veil, or even if there is a veil, so I think of it as supernatural. That would make the psychedelic experience supernatural under that definition since science is baffled by that experience as well. Accept you really don't know anything and that your supernatural experience is unique to everyone else's.

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Yes, but now we know that it was wrong for people to call lightning, or the stars "supernatural." So why would we continue to use that word to describe things we don't understand?

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Mad Season said:

Because what other word would you use to describe something that transcends our own perception? We can only explain what we see with our own two eyes. Now we have made technology to see into space but there's still more beyond that. There's still more within us we don't know. The only thing we can do is try to explain it one at a time. That's what science is. Relentless experiments one at a time tweaking variables until there's proof of a theory. Understand that there's always something further and that it will always baffle us until we keep relentlessly trying to figure it out, and maybe eventually figuring it out. That will definitely not happen to me in my lifetime though.

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clam_dude said:

What is more likely: that there are actually ghosts of dead people walking around, (but conveniently, no evidence of this), OR someone is delusional.  It seems pretty obvious to me.

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clam_dude said:

Are you saying that lightning was at one time "supernatural," and now it's not?  That just seems like a poor use of the word to me.

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It's really as simple as that.

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Respectfully, that's hocus-pocus bullshit.

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Similarly, belief in the supernatural is also a product of our longings and desires.

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FishOilTheKid said:

It seems reality is a little bit more complex then you will allow into your own beliefs.

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Mad Season said:

clam_dude said:

Are you saying that lightning was at one time "supernatural," and now it's not?  That just seems like a poor use of the word to me.

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You make supernatural sound like it's on a pedestal. It's just SUPER natural. At one point Greeks thought lightning was from Zeus. They believed in the gods doing everything in nature. It's just what we can't describe in nature. So essentially yes lightning was once supernatural.

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r72rock said:

And while I understand what you're saying about lightning, we now know better, and can say that it isn't super natural. If, hypothetically, ESP exists, then it wouldn't be supernatural, it'd just be natural because it's occurring.

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On occasion, transpersonal adventures seem to occur in alien environments, worlds with realities very different from our own.  Often these worlds see to be located on the planes of reality that are parallel to, and which coexist with, our own.  the entities that inhabit these other realms tend to possess bizarre forms, unlike anything we know in our physical reality, the often operate according to laws that are equally strange to us.  Although many of these entities are intelligent creatures, they may have emotional and intellectual processes that bear little or no resemblance to our own.
Stanislav Grof
The Holotropic Mind

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Mad Season said:

clam_dude said:

Are you saying that lightning was at one time "supernatural," and now it's not?  That just seems like a poor use of the word to me.

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You make supernatural sound like it's on a pedestal. It's just SUPER natural. At one point Greeks thought lightning was from Zeus. They believed in the gods doing everything in nature. It's just what we can't describe in nature. So essentially yes lightning was once supernatural.

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all this beauty said:

FishOilTheKid said:

The best I could do would be to break down your reality and let them into your mind.  I don't know how to do that.

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Respectfully, that's hocus-pocus bullshit. 

Here's the thing.

There are millions and millions of people who allege having had encounters with the supernatural.  Fine.  Are you telling me that not one of them has been able to submit evidence of it to the scientific community -- evidence that would for once and for all close the debate on the subject?  Not one?

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r72rock said:

What I believe the OP was getting at was the idea that the word supernatural doesn't even make sense. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

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Mad Season said:

Because what other word would you use to describe something that transcends our own perception?

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We can only explain what we see with our own two eyes. Now we have made technology to see into space but there's still more beyond that. There's still more within us we don't know. The only thing we can do is try to explain it one at a time. That's what science is. Relentless experiments one at a time tweaking variables until there's proof of a theory. Understand that there's always something further and that it will always baffle us until we keep relentlessly trying to figure it out, and maybe eventually figuring it out. That will definitely not happen to me in my lifetime though.

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Mad Season said:

You make supernatural sound like it's on a pedestal. It's just SUPER natural. At one point Greeks thought lightning was from Zeus. They believed in the gods doing everything in nature. It's just what we can't describe in nature. So essentially yes lightning was once supernatural.

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