I strongly doubt that things like gods, aliens or telekinesis exist. However, if compelling evidence were to surface that convinced me of their existence, I would conclude that they are not supernatural phenomena since they are part of the real world.
In other words supernatural things do not exist by definition in my view.
Not at all. But that’s also not at all what The Secret is claiming. The Secret is claiming that there is an actual, physical, Law of Attraction that gets you exactly what you want, if you just want it hard enough.
People keep bringing that up, but I doubt that. I know when I saw it, I saw the gorilla the first time around.
We had a thread partly about it here. Of course if you watch the video and are told “watch for the gorilla” or “watch and see if you see anything weird”, you’ll see the gorilla. But if you’re told to count the number of passes, you may very well miss it. People in that thread missed it. Google around enough and you’ll find that a lot of people missed it.
When you first saw it, what were you told to look for?
Exactly. What I’m saying is that I believe in a far less kooky version of that.
I’m going to give that a bit of thought, but right off it strikes me as somewhat circular reasoning. You impress me as defining things in a very precise manner so as to create a pigeonhole within which you can place your belief in God. But I very much appreciate your expressing your thought process.
Why do you choose not to believe in any number of other things that lack the support of scientific evidence? Do you positively disbelieve them, or do you simply consider them not important enough to form a strong opinion about?
I was at a talk - I believe by Michale Shermer, where the film was shown. I had read about it before, so of course, the gorilla was obvious to me. Afterwards, a good percentage of the several hundred person audience - I’d guess roughly half - denied having seen anything other than the ballgame. When the tape was replayed, there were many gasps and other audible sounds of surprise.
Maybe they were all faking or something, but it seemed that at least on that one occasion, a sizeable percentage of the viewers failed to see the gorilla.
Though some in my branch of Christianity do consider fortune-telling, non-Christian gods, etc. manifestations of biblical demons, I do not. Fortune-telling I consider to be a hoax. Non-Christian gods are just non-existent deities of other religions. Witchcraft - If you mean neo-paganism, I believe it’s simply another religion, like Islam or Hinduism. If you mean like Harry-Potter-style conjuring and whatnot, I don’t believe it exists.
I honestly don’t know. It’s inconsistent and probably intellectually dishonest, I realize, but it’s all I got. shrug
Thank you, that’s nice of you to say.
To answer the question you didn’t ask: I personally don’t believe that science and religion are mutually exclusive. As a character in Angels and Demons said, it’s two languages telling the same story. There was a time when I firmly believed in a 7-day creation, a literal flood, etc. I don’t anymore; I realize that these things are mythological stories told to explain scientific truths to an ancient people incapable of understanding science.
Well, there either is or there isn’t a physical law that attracts things to people when they want it bad enough. I have no idea of what a “less kooky version” would consist of, but it would by no means be The Secret. Are there any other physical laws that you know of that have lesser versions?
It seems like what you believe in is what I noted above, as stated in Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking. No mysticism, no appeal to actual, measurable forces, just the idea that a positive attitude tends to correlate with positive outcomes.
I see nothing remarkable there. Obviously, for example, a shopkeeper who is bright, energetic, friendly and happy will on average be more successful than one who is dour, argumentative, and surly. But neither one has has the ability to make actual changes in the physical world simply by thinking about it.
That’s pretty much it. Now, not having watched The Secret, I don’t really know what to expect. If they start talking about thoughts altering the aether or some crap like that, I’m going to be very disappointed. But I’m open minded enough to at least give it a chance.
For now I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and hope that when they say stuff about magnets and the universe that they’re just using sensationalistic words to appeal to a wider audience. I’ve got my fingers crossed, but I’m prepared to be let down.
But I could easily say that when I have the right attitude, the universe aligns itself to my wishes. Does that mean that I actually believe that? No, but it sets up a mental image in my mind that makes it easier to grasp. Much like when I took a course in celestial navigation, we were told to imagine a system in which the Sun and Moon revolved around the Earth. It’s not literally true, but it made the math a lot easier!
I couldn’t vote either, because none of the choices suited my belief system either. I’m agnostic on the religious issues, and pretty much agnostic on supernatural things, too - I don’t think there are many supernatural things going on in the world, but I’m not going to absolutely rule them out, either. I certainly don’t know everything that is happening or possible in the universe.
I am more or less an atheist and skeptic but probably more open to the possibility of the supernatural than most atheists. For one thing I believe that subjective consciousness is a profound mystery which science doesn’t really understand. I am not sure what a scientific analysis of subjective experience would even look like.
I think it’s quite possible that some types of religious activity, for example Buddhist meditation, have uncovered truths about consciousness which are beyond regular scientific investigation. At the same time there are no specific non-scientific beliefs that I can say I believe in. So in practice my world-view is pretty naturalistic.
I’m not sure where you think my circular reasoning is. Defining terms is simply being precise, since I wasn’t sure from the OP exactly what was meant. So if you meant something different than what I thought you did, you can know what my response would have been.
As you surmised, many “supernatural” things I am agnostic on–either I don’t care or haven’t really thought about them. Things like ghosts or reincarnation. Other things I am actively doubtful: alien UFOs, bigfoot. How things fall into the first or second category is based on my life experiences, and largely irrational. I certainly don’t expect anyone to believe as I do. In a way it’s like asking why someone’s favorite food is their favorite food (that’s probably my type 1 supernatural, rather than my type 2).
Hmm, I believe in God (in the classic Christian sense) and the existance of angels/demons. Also that human beings have an eternal soul that persists after the death of the body. I checked the second option but maybe I should have chosen the third.
I don’t believe in ghosts, poltergiests, etc.
A lot of books like the Secret are basically goal-settings, the practise of optimism, problem solving skills and other life skills wrapped in a New Age, ‘the universe is full of energy’ tasty bacon skin to make it more acceptable to the mass (I think). But I can’t stop rolling my eyes when reading the book. It reads too much like a Minbari religious text (nope, even way over the top. That we are made of ‘star stuff’ sounds all right. That the entire universe is at my beck and call is another thing)
My Definition: A deity is anything that is conscious and which can manipulate matter and energy in ways that violate natural laws. Everything else is an engine.
As our understanding of the universe grows, we rely less and less on “God’s Will!” to explain how stuff works, I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I don’t think there are any deities. I would not, however, rule out the existence of beings that can do stuff that we would consider “impossible” because we are examples of those types of beings to our counterparts just a few hundred years ago.
Bull Fcking Sht!
The case you mention was cited in the film What The *#@! Do We Know, one of the biggest piles of crap ever foisted on the American public. It has no proof whatsoever. This is because it never happened.
I believe in God, but not in the Church nor any system of organized religion.
Also, I have a ghost in my condo.
I guess I should explain that last one. The previous resident was elderly, and it’s a 2 BR condo. Sometime in her life she had asked her daughter and son-in-law to move in to help take care of her. Then she passed in her sleep, in the unit, and the daughter/son sold the unit to my landlord. Then I moved in.
I’ve had several incidents of hearing noises, things being moved around the place (I am very anal about what goes where) and several weird events as my key not working to unlock my front door (verified by friends and neighbors. I sleep in the lady’s room, and several times while in that stage of sleep where you’re trying to figure out whether or not to wake up or sneak the extra 10 minutes in, I have felt “a presence” near my bed. One time, I swear it felt like somebody had placed a heavy hand on my mattress telling me to get up or I would be late. (Not quite like a punch on my mattress, but rather a firm setting of hand down)
I sleep with my door closed, but the bathroom door directly across from my door stays open and the light stays on all night long. One time, about 3 AM (when the roomies were out of town), I swore I was awakened by the sound of the front door closing (it is a loud door) and then I saw the shadows of *feet *underneath the bedroom door, lit by the background of the bathroom light. I blinked and was startled by the sight, and rose up in bed. When I looked again, the feet were gone.
I don’t know her name, but I call her Madge. Or sometimes Margie if I feel like making her feel welcome. She freaks me out, but she’s not dangerous, so I don’t mind.
The building I live in is full of seniors, and my friends on other floors have their own stories as well about seeing / hearing things, but since they’re not my stories I don’t have tale-telling rights.
When I was a teenager I saw what I believed at the time to be a ghost. Now, 34 years later, I don’t know what it was.
I do believe that there is much more that we don’t know about the universe around us than we do know.
I do believe there are things that science cannot explain yet. Also, I believe in strange things happening from coincidence.
I don’t believe in god, astrology or other woo-woo stuff.