lacktheknack said:
SinisterDeath said:
As an aside, guys... As the local crazy fundamentalist religion fanatic, I'm somewhat confused by all the assertions that the supernatural "does not exist". Is that how skepticism works? I'm pretty sure that "I see no evidence, ergo it does not exist" is not quite how skepticism works. I thought more valid statements were "I see no reason for it to exist" or "there's no point in assuming it exists", but that's not how people in this thread are treating it.
Than link some phenomena that you believe to be of divine/supernatural origins?
Perhaps if you post something, perhaps us skeptics can counter it with facts/logic?
That's not the point. I'm not claiming that I have personally witnessed events that aren't explainable by common science. The point is that skepticism works on a basis of agnosticism.
Many of the "skeptics" in this thread are not skeptics, they're textbook thumpers.
Scepticism is based around evidence that has objective meaning and can be verified. Specifically it is the desire to find objective meaning and rejection of conjecture and subjective claims, even if 100% understanding is unobtainable. The only tried and true method of finding and proving objectively verifiable evidences is Science. Science is purely a study of the physical.
Now some would say this is the flaw of science; it can only explore and understand the natural reality around us. But the problem here is assuming that there is in fact a supernatural world that we cannot observe physically. The facts are as science continues its march of discovery, the number of Supernatural events continues to diminish, as what was once magical and mysterious now become physically understood, or utterly debunked, therefore making it a natural event or a piece of fiction.
Science is constantly illuminating and dispersing the fog of mysticism in our collective knowledge. This is the idea behind the "God of the Gaps" analogy. The more we learn about our universe, the fewer spaces in which our ghosts, magics and deities are capable of existing in. Even if people who believe in the supernatural accept what science says as fact, they will continue to squeeze their Mysticisms into smaller and smaller gaps in our collective knowledge.
You can be sceptical of supernatural events. First off, as mentioned above, many of histories "recorded" superstitions have found perfectly adequate, natural explanations with more myths failing to stand up to scrutiny and being debunked. What's more, many modern Superstitions and mysticisms are highly subjective and diversified. Where science finds 1 solid answer for a specific question, though it may start with many, mystics and the superstitious will have a hundred answers for the same question and that number will only increase over time.
You can't be sceptical of well established Scientific theories like Gravity, Atoms and Evolutions as it would only make you look like a fool who deliberately deprives their senses. Not only do we have concrete studies that stand as proof, we have also APPLIED sciences that have given us so much of our modern technology, methodologies, medicines and comforts that simply make those theories irrefutable at the most basic level (they are not wrong, but they may not be perfectly understood either).
Science being the humble juggernaut it is, will never claim 100% knowledge, only high percentages of certainty. But we can effectively eliminate what isn't true, based on our knowledge of what is. This is what it means to be sceptical in the scientific fields.
Just so it's known, I'm a Gnostic Atheist (sure that, with a high degree of certainty, there are no gods) and a naturalist. I don't believe in the gods of ancient texts. However I'm open to the idea that there could be a powerful force that could potentially fill the role of a god in our universe, it's just that it
wouldn't be a god in the literal sense. If anything I could argue that we already have observable evidence in the form of the physical forces and energies (known and unknown) that have forged our universe as we see it now over 14 billion years and beyond.
However I will not ascribe terminology that suggests supernatural or mystical properties. If it exists, it exists in a verifiable AND NATURAL way.
Scepticism is not a straightforward concept and, though I've noticed it used under the definition, it isn't strictly the same as Agnosticism. It is also not and shouldn't be, a state of mind that someone commits to (like agnosticism is). It is the default state of mind everyone should be at until we are shown a verifiable truth or enough truth to tip the scales in the favour of one observation over another.
I am sceptical of the claims of Alternative medicines and celebrity diets. I am not sceptical of how a specialist doctor can find out my genetic illnesses that can be past onto my progeny from a vial of my blood or why processed carbohydrates are going to put me in an early grave if I don't monitor my diet.
@OP:
Avoiding the Pedantry that seems to have engulfed the topic, I offer this:
Where the fuck are all my Erasers going? I'm in a room which is about as big as 2 fiat puntos parked side to side, with no crevices or blindspots around my desk, yet I have on several occasions dropped an eraser, immediately bent down to pick it up only to find that it has completely vanished.
It blows my mind. I have often been so flabbergasted by this that I end up in a total state of confusion for the remainder of the day.
This affects me greatly!