Science in its broadest sense is the maximally objective and impartial use of logic, sound reasoning, evidence, independent verification, attempts at falsification, and error correction in the process of discovering things about existence. It is the single most consistently reliable pathway that mankind has ever discovered for most accurately distinguishing between what is most likely true about existence from what is most likely not true. Put more simply, science is the best tool that we human beings have for separating fact from fiction regarding nature, the universe, or the cosmos. No other method of fact-finding has ever been shown to be reliable (not faith, not intuition, not clairvoyance, not “personal experience” or “testimony”, not argumentation alone, or anything else). Not even philosophy, by itself, has brought to humankind the amount of knowledge about the cosmos that the disciplined and systematic enterprise of science has. Philosophy alone (by this I mean argumentation alone) cannot do what science does for us because philosophy, by its very nature, does not discover things about the natural world. That is the job of science, by definition. Though it can be argued that science needs philosophy, since philosophy (broadly speaking) is the study of fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language, (and assesses propositions through the use of logic, critical thinking, and sound reasoning), due to its limitations, philosophy cannot investigate the natural world. It can only assist the process of investigation. For once a person has begun the process of making observations, and then gathering information pertaining to those observations, regardless of how small or seemingly insignificant, said person is now firmly in the realm of science since the task of science is to investigate all things that can be investigated aposteriori. That is to say, after experience, and not before. In this way, it could be argued that science is a philosophy but a very specific one.
Everything is Natural
Though the term “nature” is inherently difficult to define (similar to words like “life” or “existence”), I would like to maintain that “nature”, as it pertains to my use here, refers to all that exists or is. It is not a controversial proposition that human language evolves over time, and even though thinkers stemming back all the way to Aristotle (and prior) have used the term “natural” in varying scopes and degrees, it seems appropriate today (in 2024) to say that the word nature refers to everything that exists in some shape, form, or way. Isn’t it an extremely intuitive notion that all things that exist have a nature of some kind? So too, aren’t they naturally what they are and not what they are not? What do we call something, not yet discovered, that later becomes discovered and understood (to some degree)? Isn’t said discovered phenomena now a part of our understanding of nature? What if an alien species, who could travel through universes, instantly heal illnesses, and read minds, were discovered? What if we spent hundreds of years studying these creatures and still could not figure out how they were able to do many of the advanced things they do? Would we then be justified in claiming said beings were “supernatural” or that they had the ability to perform miracles? Wouldn’t it be more parsimonious to say that we simply don’t yet know how they are able to do what they do, but that we will continue to work on figuring it out? It definitely seems so.
But what is a miracle anyway? As the philosopher David Hume once famously put it, in his well-known paper, An Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding:
“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature…”
David hume, 1777
What would it even mean to “confirm a miracle” (a violation of the laws of nature)? Certainly, it would not mean anything close to the normal sense of the term (such as confirming plate tectonics or the germ theory of disease). If miracles are a violation of known physics/nature, then either they are not discoverable in any continuously reliable detectable way or they are simply a badly placed placeholder label for saying, “We haven’t yet figured this out”. Think about it. What happens when science advances more and discovers new things about the cosmos, thus expanding our definition of “nature”? What does the believer of miracles do then? Even still, as defined, miracles stand outside the realm of human “explorability” and thus should not be accepted as an actual explanation for anything. A claim to the supernatural or the miraculous is an incoherent concept. It could literally be argued from history that anything we had discovered, that we did not previously know or understand, was supernatural. When in reality, anything that we discover, and subsequently understand to some degree, is by definition natural! That is to say, its nature and composition is what it is and is not something else. If it is discoverable then it is indeed natural. There is no postulation of “above” or “violation” needed.
Always Be Skeptical of Miraculous Claims
Turning then to the main point of this article, my main contention is that if we as human beings care at all about seeking truth, we should always be skeptical of claims to the supernatural or the miraculous, regardless of how tempting they may sound. What would it even mean to claim that something is “above nature” if nature is all that exists and everything that exists is natural in its own right? At best, such claims cannot be confirmed, and seemingly can never be confirmed. But they have, more often than not in the course of human history, been disconfirmed and refuted, overturned by future natural explanations requiring no magical appeals whatsoever. Indeed, the track record of these claims is abysmal and the course of history is littered with such instances. From ancient Mesopotamia to ancient Greece, Rome, and Medieval Europe, countless people have believed that a god, or gods, was responsible for all sorts of natural phenomena. It was only a relatively short time later that other people exposed these assertions as flat-out wrong and based in logically fallacious reasoning (having their roots in mistakes such as the Argument from Ignorance, and, the Argument from Personal Incredulity). Here are just a few examples from history:
- Sickness and disease
- Not caused by a god or demons
- Geocentrism
- The earth is not the center of the universe!
- Thunder and lightning
- Not caused by Zeus or Thor
- Solar eclipses
- Not a curse from a god but caused by gravity
- Comets and meteors
- Not a sign from a god or gods but a natural part of astrophysics
- Volcanic eruptions
- Not a punishment for “sin” but caused by geologic change
- Plagues and epidemics
- Not a punishment by a god for “sin” but caused by germs
- Localized floods
- Not caused by a god but by physics
- Creationism
- The earth was not formed in 6 days
- The flat earth
- The earth is not flat, contrary to religious claims
In those past times, religious folks were certain (indeed arrogant) in their assertions regarding a supernatural source for these phenomena. We now know they were mistaken (and badly so). Unfortunately, logically fallacious reasoning, mistakes in thinking and remembering, and cognitive biases are extremely common in human beings. Human perception and interpretation of perceived experiences are inherently flawed and often in error. Thus, they should not be trusted or taken at face value. Even more so, appealing to a mystery, in an attempt to solve another mystery, is a mistake (and perhaps one of the biggest kinds of mistakes promulgated by humankind since the dawn of homo-sapiens). How much immense suffering and misery has been bestowed upon the world through the avenue of dogmatic superstitious belief? This is why we need to discipline ourselves and rely upon science for fact-finding more than ever.
Turning to the other side though, why tolerate such assertions at all? For isn’t it the case that once an alleged supernatural phenomenon has been discovered, and properly explained and understood, it is henceforth no longer supernatural or miraculous at all, but natural all the same, no longer needing an appeal to the mysterious? It seems correct and prudent then to say that either a given discovered phenomenon is well or sufficiently understood, such that its descriptions are sufficient in natural explanation (and the content of its claims are demonstrable to others while also being falsifiable), furthering human knowledge of the world, or they are not. In either case, an appeal to the miraculous or supernatural (i.e. – a mystery) is not warranted since it does not add any real knowledge to the human set of facts about the world or reality (a mystery = I do not know). Under this light, claiming that something is “above nature” looks to be quite nonsensical (sort of like claiming that something is “North of the North Pole”). At the same time, such claims often simultaneously add needless confusion and tremendous harm. One need only research the countless religious wars through history, as well as theologically based harm to women, minority groups, “apostates”, etc. to see the harm that superstitious beliefs about the supernatural or miraculous have brought upon societies.
The Miraculous Can Never Be Confirmed
Second, claims to the supernatural or miraculous can never be confirmed. This may sound controversial, but is it really? Let’s start here. What does it mean to confirm something is real? This question could lend itself to an entire dissertation of its own, for which we don’t have room here. So I won’t go down this rabbit trail too far. But suffice it to say different claims require different amounts of evidence. As Carl Sagan once said:
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Carl Sagan
In a broad sense, I find this to be true. If you tell me you have a pet cat, that’s one thing. But if you tell me you have an invisible pet fire-breathing dragon in your garage, that is another! Of course, no visible or invisible fire-breathing dragons have ever been demonstrated to exist, and the same goes for the supernatural or miraculous. Thus, for the purposes of this article, and in this context, to confirm something is real it must either be immediately demonstrable to others (such that it is investigable by disinterested parties) and/or it must go through the scientific process and pass muster. It is not enough to claim that X thing is “above nature”, since nature is all that there is, including the things we have yet to discover, describe, or understand. It is also not enough to merely claim that, “I experienced it. Therefore it’s real!” since this method is highly prone to error and has no pathway for proper error correction.
If the cause of a given phenomenon is unknown or mysterious, what can accurately be said about such phenomena other than “We don’t know” or “We are just speculating here!”? Such alleged things are a mystery, by definition, since they have not been explained. They are indistinguishable from positing a sufficiently powerful alien or true wizard’s magic, as an explanation (when in fact we have no way to investigate the alien or the wizard). In order for claims pertaining to extraordinary phenomena to be confirmed they must be vetted by independent disinterested parties (in the very least). There must be a concerted effort to falsify said hypotheses (by their proponents as well as by skeptics), and there must be significant steps taken to avoid or correct errors (especially logically fallacious reasoning). Said claims must also be held with an “open-hand” approach (very tentatively, if held at all), not dogmatically from the beginning (due to prior theological commitments, for example). So too, they must be independently detectable while also being falsifiable (not merely claimed to be true by only one or a select group of people for which no independent investigation can be done).
Miraculous claims do not meet the standard of basic critical investigation. Similar to that of the claims of astrology, such claims are never open to the scrutiny of a rigorous fact-finding process. Sure, there are cases where believers of such claims pretend that those propositions are investigatable, falsifiable, and so forth, but notice how the moment an objective third party begins the process of analysis on those claims it is very soon discovered that the believers of said claims either begin to rationalize away any attempts at critical analysis (proper attempts that would falsify the claims, etc.), such that they are no longer falsifiable (moving the goalposts, for example), or it turns out those claims were never investigatable in the first place. A clear-cut example of this is when James Randi, on his TV show The Amazing James Randi, brought on a man named James Hydrick who claimed he could move objects using only his mind. However, the moment Mr. Randi put in place some very basic scientific controls (in this case packing popcorns), Hydrick was immediately unable to perform what he claimed he could and instead began rationalizing as to why he could no longer perform the task that he had just allegedly performed only a few moments prior (without the scientific controls). A similar incident took place with Uri Geller on the Johnny Carson show. But let’s say for example that Hydrick was seemingly able to move objects without the use of physical things (such as wind from his mouth etc). What would then be the explanation? Would it be justifiable to then conclude that Hydrick was able to perform the miraculous and violate the laws of known physics, or would it be better to say that we simply do not yet know the cause of why he was able to do what he did? The latter is clearly the correct answer. Even more so then, wouldn’t this also be the case for all claims to the supernatural or miraculous? I maintain that anytime someone makes such a claim, we can never draw a correlative line from the mysterious occurrence to its cause being “above nature”. Such a claim is merely an assertion with no warrant, no better than saying, “The cause is supernatural because I want it to be!” This is because we human beings cannot investigate the alleged supernatural. It is, by definition, a mystery that cannot be explored (if ever).
Suffice it to say then, since the supernatural or miraculous can never be confirmed such appeals must never be accepted as an explanation for anything since, at their base, they are an attempt to reference or appeal to that which we humans cannot interact with in any consistent or detectable way. And since such appeals add nothing to the conversation except needless confusion, often mixed with ignorance and arrogance (a frequent deadly concoction) they should be resisted or thrown out in every instance we find them. As William of Ockham once said:
William of ockham
“The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct.”
Or
“Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity”
Believing First Is Not Reliable
In the process of seeking truth, under this context, there is a stark contrast between the approach of the religious or superstitious and that of science, especially when it pertains to seeking answers regarding unsolved questions about existence (such as extraordinary claims). The first thing to note here is that religious “truth-seeking” isn’t really truth-seeking at all, but belief formation, and is most often carried out through evangelism, preaching, and attempting to gain converts by proselytizing (i.e. –trying to convert others to your religious beliefs), a kind of religious sales method. This practice is extremely common, and yet it is not talked about hardly at all in popular media. Sociologists often talk about the 3B Model of Religious Identity Formation. This model states that, in general, religious beliefs and identities are often derived by a process of social behavior, religious “ritual” practice, and a sense of belonging (very often starting with an “ascribed identity” provided to a person, by an influencer or influencers, over a period of time) then leading to that person accepting those beliefs and making them part of their identity. What’s important to note here is that religious belief formation is most often not due to careful, skeptical analysis or reasoning. Instead, it most often stems from the heavy influence of theologically based ritual practice, assertive belief repetition (such as preaching), and inclusive belonging mechanisms (such as church social type functions). It is widely known that, after much early indoctrination, listeners of sermons are encouraged to just believe the supernatural claims first, and then fill in the gaps later (i.e. “just have faith” or “believe in order to see”). In other cases, influencers encourage listeners to “pray about it”, and then uncritically accept the interpretation that any “self-talk”, or strong emotional sensations or feelings (which favor the theological claims they have already been taught) is confirmation that the supernatural is real. I call these practices “superstitious belief activators” (SBAs). These activators are often initiated by parents, grandparents, ministers, evangelists, preachers, Imams, etc. Unfortunately, SBAs do not hold any sound tenets of error correction or systems of rigorous external analysis. In fact, instead, a core intended purpose of these influencers is to gain converts, not necessarily seek the truth honestly and with as little bias as possible. In a minister’s case, their very livelihood relies upon new converts since they are most often paid by parishioners giving monthly donations (i.e. – tithing). There is effectively no real incentive for promoters of SBAs to critically analyze the extraordinary claims they are promoting. The incentive is to make sales through conversions.
But imagine for a moment that we took this same approach with everything else in life. What if we decided that we are going to essentially “believe first” (or be convinced, on bad or insufficient evidence, uncritically), and then go about seeking confirmation of that belief? Think for a moment about a person who became convinced that they could fly (with no technological assistance) from any height. Would this person’s life last long? Or what about a person who became convinced that they were immortal (and could not die)? Would this person last long in a war? Would this person survive long after getting bitten by an extremely poisonous snake? The consequences of this type of belief method (assuming they were genuine beliefs) would be almost immediately dire. In fact, the impact on their life would likely be swift and harsh. Unfortunately, folks who believe in the supernatural most often do not have to suffer the natural consequences of knowing what would happen if said beliefs were immediately detrimental to their lives. If they did though, would they still hold such beliefs?
Thus, because those who are promoting and defending claims to the supernatural and miraculous did not come to said beliefs by any reliable process of reasoning, (instead they did so because they were influenced to accept said extraordinary claims, prior to such claims being critically analyzed, with no reliable process of careful vetting or error correction in place) such beliefs should not be accepted. Indeed, these folks were raised amidst a subculture of beliefs, belonging, and behavior (religious ritual). In a very profound but flawed way, they started by believing first, instead of critically asking questions and carefully moving toward tentative conclusions.
Apologetics is Dishonest
What often occurs after this is that the religious person (i.e. – the person who now believes the miraculous claims they were influenced to believe from their subculture) ends up having those beliefs challenged, in one form or another, and then henceforth goes about seeking to defend them. This final process of a “defense mechanism” is often called apologetics (defending religious claims to the supernatural against any and all refutations). This term gets its name from the Greek word “Apologia” meaning “to make a defense” and is often cited from the Bible in 1 Peter 3:15 as the foundation.
“But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you…”
1 peter 3:15
One profound example of this bad faith exercise is the relatively well-known apologist William Lane Craig. Craig claims to be a “truth seeker” (as do most other apologists), and though Craig is clearly a very intelligent man, who has debated many PhD scholars on the existence of God, in a very telling video interview pertaining to why he believes the miraculous claims of Christianity he states:
“…the way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit, in my heart, and that this gives me self authenticating means of knowing that Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I don’t think that that controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. In such a situation I should regard that as simply a result of the contingent circumstances that I’m in and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence and with time, I would discover that in fact the evidence, if I could get the correct picture, would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells me.”
william lane craig
This process is contrary to truth-seeking. For one, how can you find the truth regarding a given proposition if you believe, and are indeed committed to the proposition, that you have already found it? This would be like saying that I am searching for a hammer when I am already well aware that I have something in my hand which I strongly believe is a hammer. Secondly, folks who believe claims to the supernatural or miraculous are almost never holding those beliefs tentatively. Instead, they defend said beliefs fervently and often with strong emotion. In philosophy, we call this being doxastically closed. Such an approach is like saying you are willing to let go of a feather in the palm of your hand while, at the same time, holding it very tightly with a closed fist while working to guard against anyone who wants you to open your hand in order to inspect the feather. Third, what reliable process of investigation did Dr. Craig utilize in order to confirm that he had an actual experience with “the Holy Spirit”? So far as it can be ascertained, there exists no such mechanism or method. In fact, other religious believers, of other mutually contradictory religions, make this same or similar claim; that they had their own alleged supernatural experience and that that’s how they know their beliefs are true. They might claim they had “an experience with the divine”, a “burning in the bosom”, or “the enlightenment of Brahma”, only to later rationalize away any attempts to critically analyze their beliefs. How is this not just a belief protection mechanism for making one’s belief in the miraculous unfalsifiable (and therefore unverifiable)? There looks to be no reliable error correction pathway.
New Testament scholar, Dr. Richard C. Miller, once said in an interview, when asked about the nature of apologetics:
Richard C. Miller
“It’s a fundamental violation of our own methodologies. You’re starting with the answers before you even know the questions, and that’s offensive in every way to the methodological approach of higher academics.”
Apologists will claim they are “truth seekers” or “seeking truth” about the questions of existence, life, knowledge, ethics, and so forth, when in reality they are staunchly intent on defending their beliefs about the miraculous at every turn, so as to protect the belief from being overturned. In other words, they are not actually truth-seeking. They are practicing “belief defense”, as I call it, and proselytizing to gain converts (i.e. – they are practicing religious sales). In this way then, they are flat-out lying about seeking truth.
The Giant Divide That Cannot Be Bridged
Standing in stark contrast to this approach of “believing first”, is the method of science. The honest person who seeks truth does not start with their conclusion and then work backwards toward confirmation (defending the conclusion at all costs). Instead, they start with curiosity, questions, openness, and healthy skepticism. This person admits when they do not know something upon discovering there is insufficient evidence to move forward with belief. This is especially the case when confronting and dealing with extraordinary claims (such as the miraculous claims of most major world religions). At the same time, they practice critical thinking through the proper use of logic, careful analysis, objective and disinterested error correction, and strong attempts to decrease biases while exposing logically fallacious reasoning. They also hold their beliefs tentatively, with a willingness to modify said beliefs if new evidence comes in. They prefer truth over rigid ideology and are very often extremely unlikely to be found claiming “100% certainty” about almost anything (if anything at all). Additionally, they resist tribalism or believing claims due to tribalistic influences of “belonging”.
This contrast in method exposes a giant divide. In one method, the professed truth seeker starts at the very end of the investigatory process (beginning with the conclusion they already believe). In the other model, the truth seeker starts with observation, questions, and data gathering before drawing any hypotheses or conclusions. These two approaches stand in direct conflict to one another.
The 2 Models
Model X:
Firm Conclusion → Observation → Questions → Selective Data Gathering → Confirmation
Model Y:
Observations → Questions → Data Gathering → Hypothesis → Error Testing → Tentative Conclusion
What kind of a world would we live in if all of our beliefs were formed by Model X above? Where would all of our technological advancements be (such as those in aerospace, medicine, geology, engineering, or astrophysics)? Isn’t it true that lots of superstitious people in history had used that method and therefore stunted the progress of fact-finding? It is quite easy for any reasonable person to see how such a method as X above (or anything like it) cannot, and must not, be accepted in the process of seeking truth. Unlike science, this method (whether being consciously carried out or not) is not reliable since its method of distinguishing between fact and fantasy is hugely flawed. In fact, this process often shuns skepticism, having often built-in mechanisms for inoculating believers from doubt while discouraging attempts at falsification (i.e. – death for apostasy, ex-communication, shunning, social distancing, negative gossip, possible job loss, etc).
Also, appealing to the miraculous often only seeks to satiate or pacify certain human emotions (such as the fear of death, loneliness, fear of the unknown, and the fear of others). These emotions very often present strong motivations to participate in, and perpetuate, such errors as motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, The Dunning-Kruger effect, and numerous other cognitive biases. I myself, and many other friends and colleagues with whom I am affiliated, believed many of these claims for many years, protecting and defending them at nearly every turn, for various emotionally based reasons instead of logical ones. It was only much later that many of us began to ask critical questions, turning the light of reason on those claims, that our associated beliefs evaporated (as they did not hold up to careful scrutiny). In light of this, such emotions should be resisted, fought against, or sufficiently dampened in the pursuit of truth, since they stand in the way of accurately discovering what lies within and outside our minds.
What Should Be Done?
So then, if humankind is honestly seeking truth about the world around us, and about ourselves, we ought not allow claims to the supernatural or miraculous (of any kind) to gain a foothold. Such claims are neither investigable or falsifiable. Put broadly, the use of investigation, data gathering, hypotheses, error correction, and disinterested independent attempts at falsification (through critical thinking and logical rigor), is the single most reliable method mankind has ever discovered for seeking truth. Furthermore, if those who are making claims to the supernatural or miraculous want to be taken more seriously they need to, first and foremost, stop doing apologetics and start getting honest about the beliefs they have taken for granted. This would mean loosening their prior commitments to their beliefs about the supernatural while becoming willing to both admit they could be mistaken about said beliefs while also becoming properly skeptical of those claims (just like an outside observer, who does not share in their commitments, would be). They should be willing to accept the fact that “It’s impossible, therefore supernatural/god/divine/miraculous” has never been a good argument. As the author John Loftus once wrote:
John Loftus
“The best way to test one’s adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism used to evaluate other religious faiths.”
Finally, philosophy itself (in this sense I am referring to pure argumentation alone) is not sufficient to establish the existence (or nonexistence) of these allegedly miraculous mysteries. The appropriate response must always then be “There is not sufficient evidence. We do not know and therefore belief is not warranted.”
Rebuttals & Responses
- You can’t claim the supernatural is not real. You don’t know that!
I have not written or stated that the supernatural is not real. What I am saying however is that it’s not justified to believe in it or claim that it’s true or factual since it cannot be confirmed.
- Saying there is no sufficient reason for believing a certain proposition is not the same thing as saying it is not real.
I agree, but the time to believe a proposition is after sufficient evidence has been confirmed and in this case claims to the supernatural have not been confirmed, nor can they be, since they are not investigable, or falsifiable, in any reliable way.
- You’re doing apologetics too (for atheism)!
Incorrect. Atheism holds no beliefs and is not a belief system. It is simply a lack of belief in a God or gods. That is the minimum bar for being an atheist. That is all. It makes no claims. Is “A-Unicornism” (not believing in unicorns) a belief system? Nope, and neither is atheism. Another point though, is that someone who believes in a god of some kind (maybe like the god of Spinoza, the god of Thomas Jefferson, or something else), could still tentatively hold such a belief while accepting that such a belief cannot be justified or proven. One then might claim, “You’re doing apologetics too, in general!”, to which I would respond, “Not by the most commonly used definition of ‘apologetics'” in America, or the Western world, or even the Muslim world, in 2024.” By and large, religious apologists are committed (from the outset) to the idea that: the bible is “the word of God”, that Jesus rose from the dead, that Mohammed road to heaven on a winged horse, that Mohammed is a prophet of Allah, that the Quran is divinely inspired, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, etc. These are not tentative beliefs in extraordinary claims to the supernatural. They are held in spite of any evidence to the contrary while being held in such a fashion so as to be made unfalsifiable (very similar to astrology). If they were held tentatively, perhaps the secular community would find no need to respond in the way that we do.
- Faith can be reliable!
How so? If believing things based on faith can lead to both correct and incorrect conclusions (such as believing, on faith, that one race of people are better than another race of people) then it is not reliable.
- I can believe in the supernatural and still be seeking for truth!
Not if you are claiming to be seeking the truth about the supernatural but, at the same time, are committed to the belief that the supernatural is real. The problem also is that when you are doing this you are likely applying a double standard of epistemology, artificially lowering the standard to allow in your preferred supernatural beliefs, and then raising the standard for every other proposition that may conflict with your current assumptions about the supernatural. This is not a reliable way of separating what is true from what is false.
- You have cognitive biases too!
The difference is I am working to reduce my cognitive biases as much as humanly possible. Apologists like William Lane Craig, are not. And this is by definition because those like him are practicing apologetics which bolsters and indeed encourages cognitive biases, such as motivated reasoning, because they are committed to defending their supernatural presuppositions against all critical analysis.
- But what if we discover something that seems to violate the laws of known physics? Isn’t that supernatural or miraculous?
If we can’t explain a discovered phenomenon, what justifies calling it supernatural or miraculous? Also, since in the history of humanity tons of claims to the supernatural so far have been overturned by future natural explanations, while at the same time, none have been independently verified, doesn’t it seem like an irrational and unjustified leap to call those discoveries supernatural instead of admitting we don’t yet have an explanation?
- But what about all the good that has been done by people who believe in the supernatural, and b/c of their belief?
In order for people to do good to one another, I maintain, claims to the supernatural are not required. Lots of societies demonstrate this. Yet, history shows us that getting people to do great harm, and to inflict great suffering, is far easier when you insert supernatural claims. “Because the boss says so” mixed with “Your reward is in the next life” have proven to be disastrous. It is true that dogmatic belief in general has caused great harm (think of Joseph Stalin), yet still, this does not let religious claims off the hook. Both have to go. Stalin is no longer around, but these pernicious beliefs in the miraculous are. One could ask though, “Without my belief in the supernatural, why do good at all?” There is a very long answer to this, but for now, the simple answer is; that you want others to do good to you and because you are more likely to live a happier, more fulfilled life.
- My belief IS tentative too!
Really? Please enlighten us in the comments. What fact (or facts) if easily shown, would overturn your beliefs in the miraculous? In other words, how is your belief honestly falsifiable? Please note that any answer you give that is similar, or analogous, to the responses given by astrologers, will not suffice (since those answers just kick the can down the road, requiring their own falsification). Also, if you are committed to the belief that you have had an experience with the divine, how does this not greatly impede your ability to allow for your supernatural beliefs to be falsified?
- The people who started science were Christians! They were truth seekers who believed in God too!
They didn’t need religion or beliefs in the supernatural to seek out facts about the world (as evidenced by lots of truth seekers throughout the ages who did not accept those claims but who still pursued truth). But, it is also interesting how those folks were raised to believe many claims to the miraculous, using model X, and then later began using something closer to model Y for exploring the natural world. This is yet another divide! Why not turn the light of reason (using model Y) toward those assumed beliefs? They did not do this. What this shows is that it’s possible for a person to hold a double standard of evidence (one for their supernatural beliefs and another for all other things).
- We can rely on philosophy too!
Oh? How so? How does philosophy, by itself, reliably (with error correction) get you to “the supernatural” which supposedly interacts with the physical world, in the same rigorous and reliable way that the natural sciences do?
- What about divine revelation?
What alleged divine revelation has been confirmed by a rigorous process of independent investigation, attempts at falsification, and error correction (i.e. Model Y)? As far as I can tell there are none. There are just “believers”, who really want it to be true, defending it because they started believing it using something like Model X, and are committed to its defense.
- You’re guilty of positing verificationism!
Where did I ever state that all knowledge must be verified? I have stated no such thing. You might claim though, for example, that your belief in the supernatural is “properly basic”, but that’s just a claim that could be made by just about anyone about just about anything (once again, not reliable). I could say the same thing in the opposite direction. Would it be convincing?
- You have an anti-supernatural bias!
Would it make any sense if I said you have an anti-nonsense bias? According to the way I am defining the word natural, everything that exists is natural (including an alleged god if it exists), and since language is a human-invented construct, I am fully within my rights to do so. Therefore, there is no such thing as the supernatural by definition. If you think that there is then it is up to you to provide a meaningful distinction that doesn’t ultimately end in circularity or an argument from ignorance or incredulity fallacy. What is something that is supernatural? If you say that it is “above the natural” then how is the word ‘natural’ being defined? If you attempt to define the term “natural” in a way that merely alludes to the things that we can currently explore or know in corporeal reality then my argument stands. Just because we don’t know something, or don’t understand something yet, does not make it supernatural. Again, once we discover something, figure it out, describe it sufficiently, etc it is no longer the alleged supernatural. On the contrary, it becomes part of the reality (i.e. nature) that we know. If it turns out tomorrow that we discover there is a multiverse, for example, then our knowledge of nature has now expanded, just as it always has throughout history. The biggest point here is for apologists to stop pretending that we know everything right now, and that anything we don’t understand must be from the supernatural, or that “it’s impossible and therefore must be from the miraculous”. That’s just arrogant and has not been a good argument since as far back as human written history. Thus, the assertion, “We will never understand it!“, which is a very common assertion made by tons of religious apologists throughout history, is nothing but a bald assertion with no backing. It demonstrates incredulity. Simply put, this argument makes the same mistake as its predecessors from ancient history and therefore should be abandoned. There are things we human beings do not yet know and do not yet understand, but this fact does not in any way, shape, or form mean that we are justified in believing they are from the supernatural. “We don’t understand it” means just that. We don’t yet understand it. It does not however mean, “It has to be miraculous”. It’s time to start getting more comfortable with saying “I don’t know”, instead of sticking to a prior incredulous commitment.
- Philosophy is part of science. So I can discover God or the supernatural with philosophy or arguments alone!
It’s actually the opposite. Science, broadly speaking, is a philosophy. However, it is not a philosophy that relies solely upon arguments, and that is the key point. Arguments, in and of themselves, are insufficient for making new discoveries about the world. Some might argue that discoveries in mathematics are a counter-example to this point. Setting aside the question as to whether or not numbers actually exist, mathematics is a human-invented language that is used to describe the world around us in a specific way for a specific purpose. In that way, mathematics is a tool. Thus, I would argue that such discoveries are not a counter example at all. Perhaps more importantly though, extraordinary claims about reality would certainly fall under this rubric. Such claims require observations about the world around us, not just fancy-sounding arguments. I love philosophy as well but would it be sufficient to use only a philosophical argument to allegedly prove that universe traversing, immensely powerful, space aliens exist? If not, then it also does not work for alleged Gods or the alleged supernatural, especially when, by and large, it is being claimed that such alleged beings interact with the world in a detectable way.
- Philosophy has discovered things about the world (like numbers, abstract objects, and moral truths)
I beg to differ. It is highly objectionable as to whether or not philosophy, on its own, has discovered (and confirmed the existence of) anything at all, let alone alleged “things” like numbers, alleged abstract objects, or moral truths. One might argue that philosophy on its own (that is to say “apriori” – prior to experience) has discovered alleged “things” like the laws of logic. However, I would beg to differ here as well. “Laws” are human-constructed propositions (made of human-constructed words, which are sounds or inscriptions written on a page or screen) that are used to describe reality. Our brains then interpret those constructs. A “law” is like a map which points to a “place”, which in this case is reality or existence. In other words, human language is descriptive (not prescriptive). There is no such “thing” as a “law”. There is reality “out there” and we discover and describe that reality by experiencing it, investigating it, using our tools for documenting and communicating it, and gathering data for use in potential testing. This in no way implies that philosophy (i.e. – arguments by themselves) have “discovered” anything. Philosophy is important (arguably very important – I hold a degree in philosophy myself). However, philosophy does not and cannot do the task of discovering new truths about the world around us like science does. If it could, why would we need science?
Notes:
- David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning The Human Understanding (Posthumous 1777, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm).
- Frédéric Ducarme & Denis Couvet, What does ‘nature’ mean? (Nature 2020, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0390-y)
- “Argumentum ad Ignorantiam”. Philosophy 103: Introduction to Logic. Lander University. 2004. Archived from the original on 30 April 2009. Retrieved 29 April 2009.
- Bennett, Bo. “Argument from Incredulity”. www.LogicallyFallacious.com. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
- Jiří Pospíšil and Pavla Macháčková: The Value of Belongingness in Relation to Religious Belief, Institutionalized Religion, Moral Judgement and Solidarity
- Marshall, Douglas A.: Behavior, Belonging, and Belief: A Theory of Ritual Practice, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Nov., 2002)
- 1 Peter 3:15, Bible Ref, ESV https://www.bibleref.com/1-Peter/3/1-Peter-3-15.html#:~:text=ESV%20but%20in%20your%20hearts,hearts%20revere%20Christ%20as%20Lord
- Craig, William Lane: Interview with Dr. William Lane Craig: Handling Doubt, Stanford University, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C3T17aKPCI&t=87
- Miller, Richard C: Christian Apologetics are Academically Irrelevant, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYSjEJFWa0c&t=1403
- Loftus, John W. Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity (Prometheus Books, 2008).
