Religions and the supernatural

[Lark]

What do you think the relationship is or ought to be? I wonder about this because I read a surprising piece in a catholic magazine lately in which discussed exorcism and suggested that the church had neglected the supernatural and it was one of the things which religious belief was a response to, the meeting of man and the supernormal and supernatural.

If you're an atheist I'd be interested to know what you think that science, or whatever substitute system of ethics and existentialism you use, is or ought to be towards the supernatural.

 

[UniqueMixture]

investigation! I think it's important to EXPERIENCE it directly like a layman and see then investigate what the experience is correlated to (I dismiss linear causation as a fantasy).

 

[antireconciler]

Wow, there is a lot going on in that post. Maybe the best way to break it down would be to try to define what you mean by "supernatural." What would you classify as supernatural, and why exactly? I would start there.

Also, please understand that "science" isn't some kind of system in itself. To make a science of something JUST IS to understand something and to build a body of theory around it based of what you see that allows you to make inferences about it and predict its course. For example, if you want to understand the ways of Jesus Christ and put to words how he acts and what it is about him that is Christ-like so you can live your life by his example, you are building a SCIENCE of Jesus. Anything you ask questions about in order to understand it, you are building up a scientific body around it. So don't throw around "science" as some alternative system people can adopt or not adopt, because there is no man who fully makes no attempt to understand, and so there is no wholly non-scientific human being who is also a conscious individual.

Yet we do call that body of theory built up from the the collective question-asking of our human race over centuries of inquiry and trying to understand our world by that name, "science", which captures the idea that all that can be known is but a single fabric. For that is the spirit in which we ask questions in the first place, believing them after all to have answers we can under-stand.

 

[Hyacinth]

I think that people should approach the supernatural with an open mind. They shouldn't accept every supernatural claim, but they shouldn't rule them all out either. There are many things in this world that are unexplained and we shouldn't close down possible avenues of exploration. Just because we can't directly perceive something doesn't mean we should assume it doesn't exist.