Magic isn't real, "supernatural" isn't a good term for religion

[Desert Snake]

So, I think I have read 'supernatural, and paranormal used for religions. These terms tend to be reserved for things that are not really connected to religion imo, if we start using terms like these for religion, why not use terms like 'confirmation bias' for skeptic conclusions. There is a big difference between religious concepts and chanting incantations over a bowl of patchouli incense.

 

[Ingledsva]

So, I think I have read 'supernatural, and paranormal used or religions. These terms tend to be reserved for things that are not really connected to religion imo, if we start using terms like these for religion, why not use terms like 'confirmation bias' for skeptic conclusions. There is a big difference between religious concepts and chanting incantations over a bowl of pochouli incense.

Apparently you haven't been to a Catholic Holiday service.


Quite a few Catholic, and Other churches, that I have been in, have preachers speaking "incantations" over the "bread" and "wine" so they become the "body" and "blood."


And hypnotic tonal chanting,


Flickering candles,


Swinging incense braziers, wafting heady clouds of scent, etc.


To put people into a stoned - err - spiritual, ecstatic state.


Just think how it must have been back when the Temple mixes actually had Marijuana and other drugs in them.


*

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Apparently you haven't been to a Catholic Holiday service.


Quite a few Catholic, and Other churches, that I have been in, have preachers speaking "incantations" over the "bread" and "wine" so they become the "body" and "blood."


And hypnotic tonal chanting,


Flickering candles,


Swinging incense braziers, wafting heady clouds of scent, etc.


To put people into a stoned - err - spiritual, ecstatic state.

That's part of what makes a Catholic High Mass so wonderful!

Just think how it must have been back when the Temple mixes actually had Marijuana and other drugs in them.

Lucky them!

 

[Ingledsva]

That's part of what makes a Catholic High Mass so wonderful!


Lucky them!

I agree. I found them very fascinating, - and you can always do your own weed before going.



*

 

[Shuttlecraft]

Topic title: Magic isn't real, "supernatural" isn't a good term for religion
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I think a good alternative word for Christianity would be "Superscience".
I mean, Jesus was able to bend the laws of physics at will to produce what onlookers regarded as "miracles", THAT'S superscience of the highest order..

"..even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."- John 10:38

The 37 MIRACLES OF JESUS
Bringing little girl back to life
Bringing widows son back to life
Bringing Lazarus back to life
Stilling the storm
Feeding 4000
Walking on sea
Feeding 5000
Coin in fishes mouth
Withering fig tree
Big catch of fish
Water into wine
Another big fish catch
Healing leper
Healing Centurions servant
Healing Peters mother-in-law
Healing sick at evening
Healing paralysed man
Healing haemorraging woman
Healing two blind men
Healing mans withered hand
Healing Canaanite womans daughter
Healing boy with seizures
Healing blind man
Healing deaf and dumb man
Healing another blind man
Healing crippled woman
Healing man with dropsy
Healing 10 lepers
Restoring a cut-off ear
Healing noblemans sons fever
Healing crippled man at Bethesda
Healing a born-blind man
Casting out demons into pigs
Curing a mute lunatic
Casting out dirty spirit
Curing a possessed blind-dumb man
Appeared to his followers after his death

Miracles of Jesus Christ

 

[Looncall]

Topic title: Magic isn't real, "supernatural" isn't a good term for religion
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I think a good alternative word for Christianity would be "Superscience".
I mean, Jesus was able to bend the laws of physics at will to produce what onlookers regarded as "miracles", THAT'S superscience of the highest order..

"..even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."- John 10:38

The 37 MIRACLES OF JESUS
Bringing little girl back to life
Bringing widows son back to life
Bringing Lazarus back to life
Stilling the storm
Feeding 4000
Walking on sea
Feeding 5000
Coin in fishes mouth
Withering fig tree
Big catch of fish
Water into wine
Another big fish catch
Healing leper
Healing Centurions servant
Healing Peters mother-in-law
Healing sick at evening
Healing paralysed man
Healing haemorraging woman
Healing two blind men
Healing mans withered hand
Healing Canaanite womans daughter
Healing boy with seizures
Healing blind man
Healing deaf and dumb man
Healing another blind man
Healing crippled woman
Healing man with dropsy
Healing 10 lepers
Restoring a cut-off ear
Healing noblemans sons fever
Healing crippled man at Bethesda
Healing a born-blind man
Casting out demons into pigs
Curing a mute lunatic
Casting out dirty spirit
Curing a possessed blind-dumb man
Appeared to his followers after his death

Miracles of Jesus Christ

If any of that actually happened, and was not just made up to con the gullible.

 

[Shuttlecraft]

I was a teenager and lived through the 1960's and could easily sit down today 50 years later and write a book called "Pop music of the Sizzling 60's".
But if I made bits of it up, people would quickly say "HEY, that's not true, we lived through the 60's too, and you're making things up!"
But they could never say that because I'd stick only to TRUE facts throughout the book!

Likewise, when the gospels were written after Jesus's death, NOBODY, not a single person, ever came forward to say "Hey that's not true, I was there!"
That's why we know can take the gospels as the gospel truth..

 

[Robert.Evans]

So, I think I have read 'supernatural, and paranormal used or religions. These terms tend to be reserved for things that are not really connected to religion imo, if we start using terms like these for religion, why not use terms like 'confirmation bias' for skeptic conclusions. There is a big difference between religious concepts and chanting incantations over a bowl of pochouli incense.

Good point... the prefix 'super' means above and beyond, such as supermodel, supercharger, superabundant etc... it does not and should not mean just ideas associated with the divine. It is used that way dishonestly, IMO, to try and show that there is no divine as all things are natural. But begs the questiion, 'What does natural mean?'

 

[Viker]

I was a teenager and lived through the 1960's and could easily sit down today 50 years later and write a book called "Pop music of the Sizzling 60's".
But if I made bits of it up, people would quickly say "HEY, that's not true, we lived through the 60's too, and you're making things up!"
But they could never say that because I'd stick only to TRUE facts throughout the book!

Likewise, when the gospels were written after Jesus's death, NOBODY, not a single person, ever came forward to say "Hey that's not true, I was there!"
That's why we know can take the gospels as the gospel truth..

That's because none of the people who wrote it were there. It would be an endless cycle of people pointing this out on both sides. Besides, I know Mick Jagger was the 5th Beatle. I was not there but I have good and credible source, we'll call him Paul.

 

[Shuttlecraft]

..none of the people who wrote it were there....Mick Jagger was the 5th Beatle. I was not there but I have good and credible source, we'll call him Paul.

Who do you think wrote the gospels, Dave Dee, Dozy Beaky Mick and Tich?
PS- George Harrison rejected Jesus and went with Harry Krishna, then after he died his ashes were slung in the "sacred" river Ganges, he's a real nowhere man now..

 

[Aupmanyav]

If any of that actually happened, and was not just made up to con the gullible.

That is a big IF. Good that you clarified. Puttaparthy Sai Baba (Puttaparthy, to distinguish him from so many other babas in India) could paroduce ash, watches, and chains from thin air.

Likewise, when the gospels were written after Jesus's death, NOBODY, not a single person, ever came forward to say "Hey that's not true, I was there!"

And you are sure that it was so, because you were there.

 

[Father Heathen]

So, I think I have read 'supernatural, and paranormal used or religions. These terms tend to be reserved for things that are not really connected to religion imo, if we start using terms like these for religion, why not use terms like 'confirmation bias' for skeptic conclusions. There is a big difference between religious concepts and chanting incantations over a bowl of pochouli incense.

What is the difference, though? It doesn't matter which aspects you personally believe to be real or not real, as that varies from person to person, faith to faith.
Both paranormal and supernatural are defined as "events that can not readily be explained by the range of normal experience or scientific explanation."

So, yes. Yes, these terms are suitable for many religious claims; gods, ghosts, magic, etc.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Who do you think wrote the gospels, Dave Dee, Dozy Beaky Mick and Tich?

PS- George Harrison rejected Jesus and went with Harry Krishna, then after he died his ashes were slung in the "sacred" river Ganges, he's a real nowhere man now..

The first begs an answer. George Harrison was Brahman (you too are), that form over, he could be in a million things, probably also in the vegetable that I ate this afternoon. How can one know what happened to the atom of Oxygen one breathed in last night?

 

[The Neo Nerd]

Likewise, when the gospels were written after Jesus's death, NOBODY, not a single person, ever came forward to say "Hey that's not true, I was there!"
That's why we know can take the gospels as the gospel truth..

Not having anything to refute something is a very poor way to judge the truth of something. Absence of evidence is by no means evidence of absence.

In fact their is much debate over the historicity of the gospels.

Historical reliability of the Gospels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Iti oj]

I was a teenager and lived through the 1960's and could easily sit down today 50 years later and write a book called "Pop music of the Sizzling 60's".
But if I made bits of it up, people would quickly say "HEY, that's not true, we lived through the 60's too, and you're making things up!"
But they could never say that because I'd stick only to TRUE facts throughout the book!

Likewise, when the gospels were written after Jesus's death, NOBODY, not a single person, ever came forward to say "Hey that's not true, I was there!"
That's why we know can take the gospels as the gospel truth..

Because the bible is a compilation, and didn't exist until after every one was dead.

 

[FunctionalAtheist]

I was a teenager and lived through the 1960's and could easily sit down today 50 years later and write a book called "Pop music of the Sizzling 60's".
But if I made bits of it up, people would quickly say "HEY, that's not true, we lived through the 60's too, and you're making things up!"
But they could never say that because I'd stick only to TRUE facts throughout the book!

Likewise, when the gospels were written after Jesus's death, NOBODY, not a single person, ever came forward to say "Hey that's not true, I was there!"
That's why we know can take the gospels as the gospel truth..

Boy you evidently don't know your history. People were killed for saying hey that's not true. There were councils held to 'decide' which of the contradictory versions should be 'official.'

 

[FunctionalAtheist]

So, I think I have read 'supernatural, and paranormal used or religions. These terms tend to be reserved for things that are not really connected to religion imo, if we start using terms like these for religion, why not use terms like 'confirmation bias' for skeptic conclusions. There is a big difference between religious concepts and chanting incantations over a bowl of pochouli incense.

Hem, I think the accurate terms should be used, wouldn't you agree with that. So what does 'super' natural mean? It means anything that is not of nature. Nature obeys natural laws, has mass and extension, can be seen, heard, felt, etc.

Not all religious concepts are supernatural, but most are burried in the supernatural. As time has passed, the gods have moved more and more from the natural to the supernatural for one single reason; natural concepts of god can be proven wrong, and have been.

So it is the religious person that has shifted the concept toward the supernatural, merely because that is the only place they can hide there beliefs in the darkness of ignorance.

Now, you come along and it seems like, ok we have removed all the elements you can disprove, let's not question what we put in the supernatural by saying we shouldn't call it supernatural...

Oh, ok, now I get it...Hogwash!

 

[Tiapan]

Meta physics - that which operates outside universal physics
Like "magic", Angels, seraphins, jins, devils, gods, spirits, ghosts, fairies, easter bunnies, trolls etc ie the supernatural

lovely concept but simply human invented deception and connivance .

Only the gullible "believe" and faith is the excuse.

However patchouli is real.

Cheers

 

[Shuttlecraft]

..George Harrison was Brahman (you too are), that form over, he could be in a million things, probably also in the vegetable that I ate this afternoon..

Who says that, an ancient mystic?
And how does he know, is he just guessing or what?

 

[Shuttlecraft]

..In fact their is much debate over the historicity of the gospels..

That's not debate, it's just more conspiracy theories..