The "Supernatural": Burden of Proof?

[boatsnguitars]

Question:
Why should the burden of proof be placed on Supernaturalists (those who believe in the supernatural) to demonstrate the existence, qualities, and capabilities of the supernatural, rather than on Materialists to disprove it, as in "Materialists have to explain why the supernatural can't be the explanation"?

Argument:

Placing the burden of proof on Supernaturalists to demonstrate the existence, qualities, and capabilities of the supernatural is a logical and epistemologically sound approach. This perspective aligns with the principles of evidence-based reasoning, the scientific method, and critical thinking. Several key reasons support this stance.

Default Position of Skepticism: In debates about the supernatural, it is rational to start from a position of skepticism. This is in line with the philosophical principle of "nullius in verba" (take nobody's word for it) and the scientific principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Therefore, the burden of proof should fall on those making the extraordinary claim of the existence of the supernatural.

Presumption of Naturalism: Throughout the history of scientific inquiry, the default assumption has been naturalism. Naturalism posits that the universe and its phenomena can be explained by natural laws and processes without invoking supernatural entities or forces. This presumption is based on the consistent success of naturalistic explanations in understanding the world around us. After all, since both the Naturalist and Supernaturalist believe the Natural exists, we only need to establish the existence of the Supernatural (or, whatever someone decides to posit beyond the Natural.)

Absence of Empirical Evidence: The supernatural, by its very nature, is often described as beyond the realm of empirical observation and measurement. Claims related to the supernatural, such as deities, spirits, or paranormal phenomena, typically lack concrete, testable evidence. Therefore, it is incumbent upon those advocating for the supernatural to provide compelling and verifiable evidence to support their claims.

Problem of Unfalsifiability: Many supernatural claims are unfalsifiable: they cannot be tested or disproven. This raises significant epistemological challenges. Demanding that Materialists disprove unfalsifiable supernatural claims places an unreasonable burden on them. Instead, it is more reasonable to require Supernaturalists to provide testable claims and evidence.

In conclusion, the burden of proof should rest on Supernaturalists to provide convincing and verifiable evidence for the existence, qualities, and capabilities of the supernatural. This approach respects the principles of skepticism, scientific inquiry, and parsimonious reasoning, ultimately fostering a more rational and evidence-based discussion of the supernatural in the context of understanding our world and its mysteries.

If they can't provide evidence of the supernatural, then there is no reason for Naturalists to take their claims seriously: Any of their claims that include the supernatural. That includes all religious claims that involve supernatural claims.

I challenge Supernaturalists to defend the single most important aspect at the core of their belief. We all know they can't (they would have by now), but the burden is on them, and it's high time they at least give an honest effort.

Please note: Arguments from Ignorance will be summarily dismissed.

[The Tanager]

So where do you get changeless? Is this a package deal with timeless and beginningless where the beginning has to be an instant, before time started turning forward, and whatever was there, was there in a timeless state, and couldn't have changed because this would imply the passage of time?

Yes. If there is a first event, since a change is an event, the first cause would have to be changeless.

So what could you possibly observe about ghosts (or anything) that would lead you to say it was most probably supernatural?

I’m not sure what all the possibilities are or if there is anything humans could observe to distinguish ghosts as natural or supernatural. In the Kalam, it’s observations and logical relations about the nature of matter, time, causation, etc.

[William]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #80]

So where do you get changeless? Is this a package deal with timeless and beginningless where the beginning has to be an instant, before time started turning forward, and whatever was there, was there in a timeless state, and couldn't have changed because this would imply the passage of time?

uncaused,
beginningless,
changeless,
timeless,
spaceless,
enormously powerful,
mindful,
imageless
personal

Yes - re these attributes, space and time become definable when matter is organized into functional form. So I would also add "formless" to the list, more for the sake of clarity as it is implied in "imageless".

[alexxcJRO]

I will not stop equating science with religion in any way that they do equate. I think you misunderstand how I’m equating them, however. They are not opposing views. In that sense, I’d probably contrast the religious with the secular, if I wanted to talk about that.
The only way I’ve said science and religion equate is in your hastily generalized principle. If you are going to lump all religious views together and then reject it because of how SOME of those views have been debunked, even if it is the majority, then you need to do so with history and science as well.
There are a dozen or two scientific interpretations of quantum mechanics. Let’s say that eventually we get that straightened out. That would mean, if it doesn’t end up being some new theory, that science was 1 for 20 (or so) there. That’s not a good probability. This is the history of a lot of scientific issues, where there were multiple scientific views and eventually we see why one is better than the others.
Does that mean we can’t trust science? Absolutely not. But, using your principle, we couldn’t trust science because there are many more failed scientific theories than there are successful ones. I’m not anti-science; your principle is. Now, instead of repeating the refrain that I’ve got this religion vs. science thing, defend your principle against my critique.

It’s confusing because I was talking against naturalism (not science) and you are critiquing those posts of mine. I agree that the scientific process works. But your principle does not. If you want to judge all religious arguments by the aggregate success rate of anything that can be called a “religious” view, then you should do the same with scientific theories and historical theories as well. In that case, nothing survives your principle. The aggregate success rate of all scientific theories isn’t good. Yet, I agree with you that the scientific process still works! We should still trust science. Why? Because each scientific argument rises or falls on its own merits not an aggregate success rates. That is a better principle to judge by, not yours. I’m not going to accept every quantum mechanics theory because science works. At most, one of them is correct. We will decide based on the evidence. It should be the same with religious arguments. Therefore, you have to deal with the actual Kalam, not dismiss it because other religious arguments fail.

Again making analogies that fail.
R: Dear sir all religious past hypotheses were wrong before the current ones in the last 100. 000 years.
Christianity is only on the market for ~2000 years.
Islam is only on the market for ~1400 years.
Hinduism-Brahma is on the market for ~4000 years.

S: Most of the science hypotheses are useful and true. Science works. Millions of things are working everyday proving how reliable it is.
So we have:
R with zero success rate and some current ones(Brahma, Yahweh, Allah) awaiting verification(being generous here).
S with overwhelmingly positive success and only few misses.

Its like comparing lets say a football team “R” that won 10 Champions League cups, 5 Europa Leagues cups, 30 Internal league cups and lost few cups with a team “S” that won zero cups, that theoretically may win something this year but so far the favors of winning are not looking promising at all.

And one human comes with a straight face and says: "believing team “R” will win after that overwhelming past failure is rational. You only have to look at “S”, they lost few cups. "
Completely ignoring the huge discrepancy in failure rate.

Science is Godzilla. Religion is a sick ant. There is no comparison to be made.
The pattern is clear. One simply debunks the other.

There are two things here, since you seem to want to bear your burden of showing Christianity is embarrassingly and certainly wrong in these areas.

First, you need to prove your interpretation of Christianity’s stories are the correct interpretation. And saying that you are just following Christians’ interpretation isn’t good enough since Christians interpret these stories differently. Second, you then need to show how they are disproven by those things you say they are. You can start with the creation story, take it one at a time, and then we’ll move on to the next one. So, if you are up to the challenge of defending your claims here, give why your interpretation of the creation story is correct and then why it isn’t compatible with cosmology.

Major red flags:
God created the stars after he created the Earth. Wrong. Stars formed on their own long before there was Earth. Earth formed on its own after the sun formed on its own.
God created two earth golems and with a magical incantation he imbued them with life. Wrong Homo Sapiens Sapiens appeared few hundreds of thousands of years ago through a natural process called Evolution.

How do you know these things are “despicable”? What are you judging that by?

Using my prefrontal cortex(PFC), simple logic and meanings of words. My own morality which is derived from my affective empathy.

We have an objective mechanism leading to a morality that is independent of religious propaganda or societal influence.

Evolution -> Mirror neurons -> Affective Empathy.

As a result of this mirroring process =affective empathy we humans(except psychopaths who have a innate problem involving the affective empathy) have developed intrinsically a sense of morality) mostly guided by the Golden Rule or law of reciprocity which is the principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated oneself.

It is a fact that when one sees children, women being raped, tortured or killed; when you see the face of someone experiencing intense fear/pain/suffering your mirror neurons fire and the affective empathy process is triggered. You empathize with these people for you put yourself in their shoes aka the mirroring process and because you would not want to be raped, tortured, killed(your existence to be stopped, because of the survival instinct) you instinctively find these actions abhorrent.

Humans intrinsic "Morality" is tied to Affective Empathy.

Why do you think the Kalam is trying to fill the gap of what happened before the Big Bang with God? Which premise does that?

Q: Have I not explained it already?

We have a gap in our knowledge: what happened before the Big Bang-what happened before the expansion of our universe.

And coincidentally there we have the argument for God rests. Exactly in the gap. Just like the rest of tens of thousands of failed gods hypotheses from the past.

One like yourself can ignore the pattern. One though can believe he/she/them is special and ignore the past.

I don’t believe it is very rational.

[The Tanager]

So we have:
R with zero success rate and some current ones(Brahma, Yahweh, Allah) awaiting verification(being generous here).

What evidence do you have of zero success rate on the history of religious claims? How do you know they are wrong?

S with overwhelmingly positive success and only few misses.

A huge merit of science is we are constantly admitting mistakes and improving our knowledge of how physical reality works. Quantum mechanics is, being generous, going to be 1 for 20ish. That’s not a few misses; it's 95%, being kind. This happens with most scientific issues: we have a variety of hypotheses and only one of them will end up as the closest to truth we will get. You are being very selective with your claims here.

Major red flags:
God created the stars after he created the Earth. Wrong. Stars formed on their own long before there was Earth. Earth formed on its own after the sun formed on its own.
God created two earth golems and with a magical incantation he imbued them with life. Wrong Homo Sapiens Sapiens appeared few hundreds of thousands of years ago through a natural process called Evolution.

You’ve skipped over the first step. Prove the creation story of Genesis is meant to be taken as a chronological scientific claim.

Using my prefrontal cortex(PFC), simple logic and meanings of words. My own morality which is derived from my affective empathy.

We have an objective mechanism leading to a morality that is independent of religious propaganda or societal influence.

Evolution -> Mirror neurons -> Affective Empathy.

As a result of this mirroring process =affective empathy we humans(except psychopaths who have a innate problem involving the affective empathy) have developed intrinsically a sense of morality) mostly guided by the Golden Rule or law of reciprocity which is the principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated oneself.

It is a fact that when one sees children, women being raped, tortured or killed; when you see the face of someone experiencing intense fear/pain/suffering your mirror neurons fire and the affective empathy process is triggered. You empathize with these people for you put yourself in their shoes aka the mirroring process and because you would not want to be raped, tortured, killed(your existence to be stopped, because of the survival instinct) you instinctively find these actions abhorrent.

Humans intrinsic "Morality" is tied to Affective Empathy.

How is this objective morality? Evolution has produced many people who rape, torture, and kill, not caring about treating others how they want to be treated. So why should humans act the way you think they should?

Q: Have I not explained it already?

We have a gap in our knowledge: what happened before the Big Bang-what happened before the expansion of our universe.

And coincidentally there we have the argument for God rests. Exactly in the gap. Just like the rest of tens of thousands of failed gods hypotheses from the past.

No, you haven’t. Which premise of the Kalam do you think this defeats?

[alexxcJRO]

What evidence do you have of zero success rate on the history of religious claims? How do you know they are wrong?

Q: Do you need details on why Animism hypothesis is wrong? Have you not looked into it? Really?

Q: Do you need details on why the ancient religious Pantheons hypotheses (Sumerian Pantheon, Greek/Roman Pantheon, Norse Pantheon, Ancient Egyptians and so on) are wrong? Really? Have you not looked into them?

Q: Do you need details on why thunder and lightning are not a result of the gods of thunder and lightning: Thor/Zeus ? On why Ra is not moving the sun across the sky? On why Greek gods do not live on Mount Olympus? On why Animals, rocks, trees are not gods? On why Earth and the Sky are not gods: Ki and An who did not gave birth to Enlil? And so on ad nassium.

A huge merit of science is we are constantly admitting mistakes and improving our knowledge of how physical reality works. Quantum mechanics is, being generous, going to be 1 for 20ish. That’s not a few misses; it's 95%, being kind. This happens with most scientific issues: we have a variety of hypotheses and only one of them will end up as the closest to truth we will get. You are being very selective with your claims here.

Nonsensical, illogical, irrelevant ramblings.

Conflating a general hypothesis with the changing of some details.

Evolution of species for example is just one general scientific hypothesis. The details that have been added or changed does not make it 10 or more scientific hypotheses sir. 10 failed details or wrong things contained in a general scientific hypotheses does not make it 10 scientific general wrong hypotheses.

The working general hypotheses are much more in number then the failed or discarded ones like Spontaneous generation, Geocentric universe, Miasma theory of disease and so on.

You’ve skipped over the first step. Prove the creation story of Genesis is meant to be taken as a chronological scientific claim.

1. Let me guess. Here it comes to the rescue the whole it's a metaphor card.
It does not mean what it says at face value because it contradicts reality. Therefore I am gonna twist and turn the text into what I need in order not to let go of my precious beliefs.

I understand Bible contains different kinds of types of literature: laws and rules(Deuteronomy), history, poetry and songs(ex: psalms-Songs of Solomon), wisdom sayings and proverbs(Proverbs), Gospels(Mark, Luke, Matthew, John), letters(Paul), and apocalyptic writings. And some of these writings have metaphorical writing in them like the poetry and songs, Jesus parables, wisdom sayings and proverbs.

But saying all of those writings involving those stories I mentioned are metaphorical in nature is just a pathetic excuse of people who do not really know anything about literary devices. I know some because I used to write poetry in my early teens.


Its clear the authors of the Bible did not meant to write the Exodus and Moses story, Creation and Adam and Eve story, Samson story, Noah story, Joshua story and so on as fiction or as some weird metaphorical parables. They were wrote as events that really happen from their perspective.

2. It's not just about the order. Its about the fact that God did not create the specified things like for example two earth golems which he then with a magical incantation imbued them with life. Homo Sapiens Sapiens appeared few hundreds of thousands of years ago through a natural process called Evolution.

How is this objective morality? Evolution has produced many people who rape, torture, and kill, not caring about treating others how they want to be treated. So why should humans act the way you think they should?

Not all humans have an innate intrinsic morality tied to Affective Empathy.

Off course you missed the "except psychopaths who have a innate problem involving the affective empathy)".

Child-murderer, torture-killer, and rapist of 140 boys Luis Garavito did not have this objective mechanism working.

PS: And by the way existence of psychopaths disproves your God hypothesis.

No, you haven’t. Which premise of the Kalam do you think this defeats?

I don't understand why it is so hard to understand.

There is a gap in our knowledge. We do not know what happened before the Big Bang, before the expansion of our universe. And the current religious people are putting their god in the gap just like the rest of billions of simpletons before that. God through a magical incantation started the expansion of the universe.

Ancient Egyptians: We do not know how day night cycle works, why the sun apparently moves across the sky. We have a gap in our knowledge. Why not just put Ra there. He moves the sun across the sky.
It's basically the same thing.

[Purple Knight]

So where do you get changeless? Is this a package deal with timeless and beginningless where the beginning has to be an instant, before time started turning forward, and whatever was there, was there in a timeless state, and couldn't have changed because this would imply the passage of time?

Yes. If there is a first event, since a change is an event, the first cause would have to be changeless.

It would not, however, have to remain changeless once time started up.

So what could you possibly observe about ghosts (or anything) that would lead you to say it was most probably supernatural?

I’m not sure what all the possibilities are or if there is anything humans could observe to distinguish ghosts as natural or supernatural. In the Kalam, it’s observations and logical relations about the nature of matter, time, causation, etc.

That's why I'm saying, I don't think supernatural even has a good definition. If we can't even speculate - if we can't, for example, write a story in which ghosts exist and are supernatural - then we don't even know what the word means. To people who believe in the supernatural, it just means, we can't explain everything, which is a truism. To people who don't, it means something like things not having logical causations, in which case its negation is probably a truism.

We might be able to prove in an argument that something hypothetical like the first cause is rightly defined as supernatural, but that tells us nothing about what something supernatural would be like, as opposed to what that same thing would be like if wholly natural. For example, if ghosts existed and were supernatural versus if they existed and were so natural that you could pick up a dozen at Whole Foods for $24.99.

[Diogenes]

How is this objective morality? Evolution has produced many people who rape, torture, and kill, not caring about treating others how they want to be treated. So why should humans act the way you think they should?
....
No, you haven’t. Which premise of the Kalam do you think this defeats?

Evolution has produced many people who rape, torture, and kill... This is an invalid conclusion, for several reasons. According to the Biblical theist, GOD produced these sociopaths, these criminals, since he made everything. Yes, Yes, he "gave us 'free will.' Then he repented he made us and drowned everyone but his favorite drunk, Noah. And, according to this absurd myth, nothing changed. Sociopaths and criminals as you describe reemerged. And you blame evolution? Why not blame God?

Evolution is just a description of how organisms change. It is not some motive force. It does not have consciousness. It does not do anything. But by studying the process we understand that social mammals have come together in groups for mutual protection and production and thus they have developed a code of conduct or morality [as I have explained ad infinitum with the ref. to which NO ONE here has ever even attempted an argument against.

There will always be outliers, individuals who have not been sufficiently socialized, people and other animals who disregard societal norms. But it is entirely arbitrary when you blame this on 'evolution' when your imaginary 'God' is just as logically the culprit.
....
Re: the "Kalam" argument, you would be well advised to drop it. It has been repeatedly debunked whether or not you think so. Continuing to promote it only holds you up to (largely silent) ridicule. Among other problems, the K argument works just as well for the 'Devil' or any pagan 'god' as it does for your chosen 'god.' It is just a silly argument and no different from the one made by Aquinas, except it is dressed up in philosophical clothes from a modern era.

[William]

[Replying to Diogenes in post #87]

Evolution is just a description of how organisms change. It is not some motive force. It does not have consciousness.

How can you (we) tell? I ask because, just in observing the process I see a mindful thing occurring.

[The Tanager]

Q: Do you need details on why Animism hypothesis is wrong? Have you not looked into it? Really?

Q: Do you need details on why the ancient religious Pantheons hypotheses (Sumerian Pantheon, Greek/Roman Pantheon, Norse Pantheon, Ancient Egyptians and so on) are wrong? Really? Have you not looked into them?

Q: Do you need details on why thunder and lightning are not a result of the gods of thunder and lightning: Thor/Zeus ? On why Ra is not moving the sun across the sky? On why Greek gods do not live on Mount Olympus? On why Animals, rocks, trees are not gods? On why Earth and the Sky are not gods: Ki and An who did not gave birth to Enlil? And so on ad nassium.

No, I asked you for evidence for your claim that religious claims have a zero success rate. That means you would have to show why all of them are clearly wrong. That’s a big claim to have to support. I don’t think you can do it. I don’t expect you to be able to do it. I don’t think you not doing means my religious claims are correct. The point is that it is an irrational claim you are making and, therefore, it does nothing to answering the questions in our discussion.

Nonsensical, illogical, irrelevant ramblings.

Conflating a general hypothesis with the changing of some details.

Evolution of species for example is just one general scientific hypothesis. The details that have been added or changed does not make it 10 or more scientific hypotheses sir. 10 failed details or wrong things contained in a general scientific hypotheses does not make it 10 scientific general wrong hypotheses.

The working general hypotheses are much more in number then the failed or discarded ones like Spontaneous generation, Geocentric universe, Miasma theory of disease and so on.

Even then it’s still going to be less than 50% because you don’t have a general hypothesis immediately accepted by every scientist. Maybe scientists all eventually change their mind, but there are plenty of defunct religious views as well. If you aren't counting defunct scientific views, you can't count defunct religious views.

1. Let me guess. Here it comes to the rescue the whole it's a metaphor card.
It does not mean what it says at face value because it contradicts reality. Therefore I am gonna twist and turn the text into what I need in order not to let go of my precious beliefs.

I understand Bible contains different kinds of types of literature: laws and rules(Deuteronomy), history, poetry and songs(ex: psalms-Songs of Solomon), wisdom sayings and proverbs(Proverbs), Gospels(Mark, Luke, Matthew, John), letters(Paul), and apocalyptic writings. And some of these writings have metaphorical writing in them like the poetry and songs, Jesus parables, wisdom sayings and proverbs.

But saying all of those writings involving those stories I mentioned are metaphorical in nature is just a pathetic excuse of people who do not really know anything about literary devices. I know some because I used to write poetry in my early teens.


Its clear the authors of the Bible did not meant to write the Exodus and Moses story, Creation and Adam and Eve story, Samson story, Noah story, Joshua story and so on as fiction or as some weird metaphorical parables. They were wrote as events that really happen from their perspective.

If it is clear, then show the reasons to believe that. You aren’t offering any support. You are simply assuming your interpretation is the correct one and then using empty rhetoric to try to mask that. I don’t believe the creation story of Genesis is myth (technical term, not a synonym for false) because it contradicts science or whatever, but because of studying the book itself within its historical context. It is a different genre because of specific reasons. If you can’t give reasons for believing it is a specific genre, then perhaps you are twisting and turning the text into what you need in order not to let go of your precious beliefs.

2. It's not just about the order. Its about the fact that God did not create the specified things like for example two earth golems which he then with a magical incantation imbued them with life. Homo Sapiens Sapiens appeared few hundreds of thousands of years ago through a natural process called Evolution.

Yes, prove that the Bible says evolution didn’t happen as well.

Not all humans have an innate intrinsic morality tied to Affective Empathy.

Off course you missed the "except psychopaths who have a innate problem involving the affective empathy)".

Child-murderer, torture-killer, and rapist of 140 boys Luis Garavito did not have this objective mechanism working.

Okay, so you call those disagreeing with you a psychopath. So what? That’s just a term. Why is affective empathy objectively better than psychopathic tendencies?

PS: And by the way existence of psychopaths disproves your God hypothesis.

Your claims are growing. If you support them, I’ll analyze them and respond.

I don't understand why it is so hard to understand.

There is a gap in our knowledge. We do not know what happened before the Big Bang, before the expansion of our universe. And the current religious people are putting their god in the gap just like the rest of billions of simpletons before that. God through a magical incantation started the expansion of the universe.

Ancient Egyptians: We do not know how day night cycle works, why the sun apparently moves across the sky. We have a gap in our knowledge. Why not just put Ra there. He moves the sun across the sky.
It's basically the same thing.

Here are the main premises:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

I think you believe you are defeating the second premise by saying we don’t know that the universe began to exist because we don’t know what happened before the Big Bang. But, if so, I think you misunderstand what ‘the universe’ refers to here. The ‘universe’ refers to all of spatio-temporal energy/matter, whether that existed before the Big Bang or not. The arguments in support of premise 2 work whether something pre-existed the Big Bang or not.

[The Tanager]

It would not, however, have to remain changeless once time started up.

I completely agree.

That's why I'm saying, I don't think supernatural even has a good definition. If we can't even speculate - if we can't, for example, write a story in which ghosts exist and are supernatural - then we don't even know what the word means.

It doesn’t mean we don’t know what supernatural means; it means that we don’t know what ghosts are.

To people who believe in the supernatural, it just means, we can't explain everything, which is a truism. To people who don't, it means something like things not having logical causations, in which case its negation is probably a truism.

No, it doesn’t mean that. It simply means “non-natural,” which isn’t a truism.

We might be able to prove in an argument that something hypothetical like the first cause is rightly defined as supernatural, but that tells us nothing about what something supernatural would be like, as opposed to what that same thing would be like if wholly natural. For example, if ghosts existed and were supernatural versus if they existed and were so natural that you could pick up a dozen at Whole Foods for $24.99.

It tells us the only thing that all supernatural things (whether they exist or not) share in common: they aren’t made of natural stuff. That’s what a negative definition does. The word ‘negative’ is negatively defined. We know what it means, even though that doesn’t tell us positive things about it. Positive attributes of any supernatural thing would come out with other arguments, but it wouldn’t change what ‘supernatural’ means.