Is Religion and Science Compatible?

[UDS]

@CurtC

But you just said it again! If something has an effect on the world we live in, then that effect is observable!

The effect on our world is observable; the cause, not necessarily.

For example, consider the common Christian belief that Jesus was raised from the dead through the power of God.

As stated, hypothetically we could empirically observe and verify that Jesus had been raised from the dead. And, hypothetically for the purposes of this discussion, lets assume we observe this with absolute certainty; he was definitely dead, and is definitely later alive. There is no possibility that we are in error on either point.

But we still could not empirically observe and verify that this was worked through the power of God. We might conclude that we could not explain the resurrection of Jesus from our own understanding of the empirically observable world, and from there we might be tempted to conclude that it had indeed been worked by the power of God, or some other supernatural cause. But that, strictly speaking, would be a leap of faith which would be unsupported by any empirical evidence. Possibly our understanding of what it is to be dead, or what it is to be alive, is inaccurate. Our belief that the dead can never come to life in any natural way could be mistaken. We might be making exactly the same mistake as people who could not account for the phenomenon of lightning from their understanding of the empirically observable world, and therefore concluded that it had a supernatural cause.

In short, we might be confusing our understanding of the empirically-observable world with the reality of the empirically observable world. Which, of course, the scientific method requires us not to do. It’s inherent in every scientific proposition that it’s falsifiable; it could be wrong. In principle, however good our understanding of the natural world, it may still be wrong in some respect, and and if we correct that our good understanding would become better.

So, the resurrection of Jesus had happened and you and I had observed it, even if we believed or accepted it to have a supernatural cause we wouldn’t have observed the supernatural cause; we would be taking it on faith. If we could observe the cause of the resurrection, it wouldn’t be a supernatural cause.

Which means that, whatever criteria we have for believing or disbelieving that Jesus was raised through the power of God, the absence of any empirical evidence is a complete red herring. If this was not worked through the power of God, we would not expect to find empirical evidence that it was. If it was worked through the power of God, we would still not expect to find any empirical evidence that it was. The absence of empirical evidence tells us absolutely nothing at all, one way or the other, about the metaphysical claim, and those who mention it in this context are dragging in a complete red herring.

@Critical1

Ok at this point I have to ask you to give us an example of a supernatural claim that is somehow outside the purview of Russell’s Teapot. At this point I cannot figure out what you are talking about.

I think we need to be clear about the argument that Russell illustrated with his teapot. Russell wrote that, if it was claimed that a teapot orbited the sun between Earth and Mars, it would be nonsensical to ask him to accept the claim merely because there was no proof that there was no such teapot.

That argument is valid, and it is fully applicable to metaphysical claims. I can assert, say, that it is objectively wrong for Nazis to murder Jews, but I cannot demand that you should accept my claim merely because there is no proof to the contrary.

But you can’t validly extend this to make a stronger statement; that we must reject the proposition unless there is empirical evidence for it. A teapot would be empirically observable, and it is reasonable to ask what empirical evidence there is for a teapot in the orbit mentioned. But an ethical norm is not empirically observable, and it is nonsense to ask what empirical evidence there is for the postulated ethical norm. There might be good reasons for rejecting the postulated norm, but this certainly isn’t one.

The strong version of Russell’s teapot - that every claim must be rejected if not supported by empirical evidence - is not, SFAIK, a version that Russell himself ever advanced. He was, after all, a philosopher; he perfectly understood that empirical evidence has no relevance to metaphysical claims. Russell’s point was simply that the evidence against any claim is not a reason to accept it. But with respect to metaphysical claims the converse is also true; the absence of evidence is not a reason to reject it. Evidence, in the empirically-observable scientific sense, is just not a concept that has any application to metaphysical claims.

[Mijin]

@UDS

No, you can point and laugh to your little heart’s content. “Tastes like chocolate milk” and “has dog fur for eyes” are both empirical claims. If we define “universe” as being, or including, the totality of all empirically observable things then, if such a creature exists at all, it is within our universe. The claim is self-contradictory, unless it employs some non-obvious sense of “universe”.

Similarly, the idea of something naturally existing but being “super” natural doesn’t make a lot of sense.
But hey it’s great to have the word, because we apparently can’t apply skeptical/rational arguments to any phenomenon given that label, or else we make a “category error”.

[Critical1]

@UDS

I think we need to be clear about the argument that Russell illustrated with his teapot. Russell wrote that, if it was claimed that a teapot orbited the sun between Earth and Mars, it would be nonsensical to ask him to accept the claim merely because there was no proof that there was no such teapot.

That argument is valid, and it is fully applicable to metaphysical claims. I can assert, say, that it is objectively wrong for Nazis to murder Jews, but I cannot demand that you should accept my claim merely because there is no proof to the contrary.

But you can’t validly extend this to make a stronger statement; that we must reject the proposition unless there is empirical evidence for it. A teapot would be empirically observable, and it is reasonable to ask what empirical evidence there is for a teapot in the orbit mentioned. But an ethical norm is not empirically observable, and it is nonsense to ask what empirical evidence there is for the postulated ethical norm. There might be good reasons for rejecting the postulated norm, but this certainly isn’t one.

You should reread Russels Teapot In particular you need to get past the notion that the teapot is something we could detect. At the time it was proposed this was not possible, and at the time it was proposed the impossibility of its detection was an essential part of the argument.

“The existence of this teapot cannot be disproved. We can look and scan the skies almost for eternity, and it may always just be the case that it wasn’t in the place we looked - there may be another spot we’ve overlooked, or it may have moved while we were looking. However, given the absurd nature of the specific example, the teapot, we would rightly infer that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Russell’s audacity in the thought experiment was to question why people don’t like to apply the same, sound, logic (remembering that formal logic is independent of the actual content of an argument) to the existence of any particular deity; there is no difference in the evidence base provided, therefore there is no reason to assume a God and not a celestial teapot.”

if it helps we can clarify the claim a bit, There is a Human made China Teapot, orbiting
104 Tauri. (its a star 50 light years away) We could go even further and claim that this teapot is the source of all love and charity on earth and that it occasionally teleports to a new orbit around a different star further and further from humanity. It would still be just as likely to be true as every deity or ghost, or any other supernatural claim ever made.

Without any evidence at all to back up a claim, you have no reason to accept it, or to repeat myself again. If you accept without evidence the teachings of Jesus, Muhammad, or Vishnu, You also accept the Flying Spaghetti Monster, The Invisible Pink Unicorn, and that Raven put the sun in the sky after stealing it from a box are also perfectly valid claims about the way our universe works. You either accept outrageous claims on their face, or you reject them. The lack of evidence is all any rational person needs to evaluate such a claim. The Chocolate Milk flavored deity with dog fur eyes is every bit as likely as an all knowing, all powerful, all loving deity, or a water walking, dead talking, zombie son of god.

@UDS

The strong version of Russell’s teapot - that every claim must be rejected if not supported by empirical evidence - is not, SFAIK, a version that Russell himself ever advanced. He was, after all, a philosopher; he perfectly understood that empirical evidence has no relevance to metaphysical claims. Russell’s point was simply that the evidence against any claim is not a reason to accept it. But with respect to metaphysical claims the converse is also true; the absence of evidence is not a reason to reject it. Evidence, in the empirically-observable scientific sense, is just not a concept that has any application to metaphysical claims.

He states this as his reason for his atheism.
“I ought to call myself an agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist. I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.”

[CurtC]

@UDS

The effect on our world is observable; the cause, not necessarily.

For example, consider the common Christian belief that Jesus was raised from the dead through the power of God.

As stated, hypothetically we could empirically observe and verify that Jesus had been raised from the dead. And, hypothetically for the purposes of this discussion, lets assume we observe this with absolute certainty; he was definitely dead, and is definitely later alive. There is no possibility that we are in error on either point.

But we still could not empirically observe and verify that this was worked through the power of God.

OK, so we’re back to talking about a God who does interact with the natural world. I’m trying to keep up, but all this changing directions is tiring.

Why limit your question to something like the resurrection of Jesus? You could make the exact same argument for anything we don’t fully understand, or even for those things that we think we fully understand. That computer chip does what it does because of the actions of many transistors, but why does each transistor behave the way it does? Because God.

You can’t falsify that. Just like you can’t falsify solipsism or the idea that we live in the Matrix. But I don’t seriously consider the idea that it’s true - it’s a waste of time.

[UDS]

@CurtC

OK, so we’re back to talking about a God who does interact with the natural world. I’m trying to keep up, but all this changing directions is tiring.

At no point have I changed direction. I have consistently maintained that the supernatural cannot be empirically observed. I have always acknowledged that an (unobservable) supernatural may affect the observable world.

Why limit your question to something like the resurrection of Jesus? You could make the exact same argument for anything we don’t fully understand, or even for those things that we think we fully understand. That computer chip does what it does because of the actions of many transistors, but why does each transistor behave the way it does? Because God.

You can’t falsify that.
[/QUOTE]

Good man. Thought I’d lost you there for a while, but you’re keeping up. You can’t falsify that, or any other mathematical proposition. Therefore, you need some basis other than falsifiability for evaluating and accepting, or rejecting, metaphyisical propositions.

@CurtC

But I don’t seriously consider the idea that it’s true - it’s a waste of time.

And you may have perfectly good reasons for not seriously considering that this, or any other metaphyisical proposition, may be true. All I’m saying is that “it’s not scientific” is not a good reason. And, therefore, metaphysical propositions are not inherently incompatible with science. Which was the question asked.

[UDS]

@Mijin

Similarly, the idea of something naturally existing but being “super” natural doesn’t make a lot of sense.
But hey it’s great to have the word, because we apparently can’t apply skeptical/rational arguments to any phenomenon given that label, or else we make a “category error”.

All you’re doing here is arbitrarily excluding the possibility that the supernatural may be real for the (entirely subjective) reason that “it doesn’t make a lot of sense”.

Once you do that, then of course any claim which treats the supernatural as a possiblity can be dismissed without further examination.

But your starting position - that the reality of the supernatural “doesn’t make a lot of sense” and so cannot be admitted - is, of course, not falsifiable; it’s not a scientific position. And while you’re perfectly entitled to adopt non-scientific positions becaus they “make sense” to you and cannot be refuted, you can hardly accept anyone else to accept them on that basis - Russell’s teapot, and all that. And you can hardly claim that your positions is any better grounded than the position of people who adopt different non-scientific positions that “make sense” to them.

[BrainGlutton]

@UDS

So there is, and can be, no evidence for non-empirical claims.

Well, except in purely logical fields like mathematics.

[UDS]

@BrainGlutton

Well, except in purely logical fields like mathematics.

But what gets treated as “evidence” for mathematical purposes wouldn’t be accepted as such for the purposes of the scientific method. The scientific method requires empirically-observable evidence.

(Nitpick: Is “evidence” a concept much employed in mathematics? My impression would be that it’s not, but I defer to actual mathematicians.)

[Trinopus]

@Critical1

We can always restate the argument by moving the Teapot to cygnus x-1.

“To Infinity…and Beyond!”

@UDS

. . . I think we need to be clear about the argument that Russell illustrated with his teapot. Russell wrote that, if it was claimed that a teapot orbited the sun between Earth and Mars, it would be nonsensical to ask him to accept the claim merely because there was no proof that there was no such teapot.

. . . But you can’t validly extend this to make a stronger statement; that we must reject the proposition unless there is empirical evidence for it. . . .

The strong version of Russell’s teapot - that every claim must be rejected if not supported by empirical evidence - is not, SFAIK, a version that Russell himself ever advanced. . . .

This is why a lot of people favor a third category, much akin to the famous Scots verdict of “Not Proven.” This is the category of questions we don’t know how to address…now. Maybe later.

Isaac Asimov had an essay on the strange double-refractive properties of Iceland Spar Crystal. For centuries, scientists were aware of it…and had no explanation for it. So…they set it to one side. They didn’t deny it; they didn’t draw any conclusions. They just put it on the back burner and stopped fussing with it.

Then one happy day, somebody figured out polarized light, and there was the answer.

As I said earlier, maybe some “supernatural” questions are actually “natural” questions waiting for us to figure out the answer. Someone might develop a kind of super-polarized light that lets us sees ghosts in dark rooms.

(I’m betting against it, but it might happen. The Padres might win the World Series some year…)

[UDS]

@Trinopus

This is why a lot of people favor a third category, much akin to the famous Scots verdict of “Not Proven.” This is the category of questions we don’t know how to address…now. Maybe later.

Isaac Asimov had an essay on the strange double-refractive properties of Iceland Spar Crystal. For centuries, scientists were aware of it…and had no explanation for it. So…they set it to one side. They didn’t deny it; they didn’t draw any conclusions. They just put it on the back burner and stopped fussing with it.

Then one happy day, somebody figured out polarized light, and there was the answer.

As I said earlier, maybe some “supernatural” questions are actually “natural” questions waiting for us to figure out the answer. Someone might develop a kind of super-polarized light that lets us sees ghosts in dark rooms.

(I’m betting against it, but it might happen. The Padres might win the World Series some year…)

Oh, sure. We can easily point to phenomena which our ancestors ascribed to supernatural causes (the sun rising each morning, lightning) because they couldn’t explain them by reference to their understanding of the world but which we know to be entirely natural. And anything we currently can’t explain may be explicable when our knowledge of the world is improved, as it always can be.

(And, for what it’s worth, I’m a bit more confident than you. You may bet against it, but my default assumption is that “supernatural” questions generally are “natural” questions waiting for us to figure out the answer.)

So there is never, ever a scientific case for saying that something that is currently unexplained, or that defies our current understanding of the world, must have a supernatural cause.

What this underlines, though, is that we need some tools for evaluating metaphysical claims about reality, because science doesn’t offer any. Religious claims are just a particular case of such claims, but this is generally true. Rejecting religious claims, as a class, because they are “not scientific” makes about as much sense as rejecting mathematical claims as a class, or ethical claims as a class, for that reason. These questions can’t be scrutinised by science, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be subjected to any meaningful scrutiny, and in fact we scrutinise metaphysical claims of all kinds, and accept or reject them or suspend judgment on them, all the time. What we do in this regard is entirely non-scientific. But it’s not possible to live a human life and not do this.

(It is, though, possible to live a human life and be in denial about the fact that we do this.)

[Critical1]

@UDS

What this underlines, though, is that we need some tools for evaluating metaphysical claims about reality, because science doesn’t offer any.

“The problem isn’t the problem, the problem is your attitude about the problem” Captain Jack Sparrow

We already have tools for evaluating metaphysical claims, for some reason you keep insisting that these claims are somehow special. Any claim needs evidence of some kind do back it up. You insist that science cannot look at things like the after life, and you are not wrong about this, You are wrong in your approach to the issue at hand. Taking the afterlife, or virgin birth, or water walking, or demons/ghosts/spirits as examples. You keep trying to see if these claims can be examined and FAILING to see that the claim in and of itself is made by people. People say Jesus walked on water. and those people have nothing to back that statement up. People claim to see ghosts/spirits/demons/all sorts of silly stuff. The fact that they claim to have some experience or knowledge of the supernatural does not remove the burden of proof. Every supernatural claim is just an ordinary everyday pile of BS made up by a human. You need to stop thinking that God is some kind of independent outside of the universe creature/not creature that we can’t possibly study and start looking at the source of the claim…plain old every day people. Usually with some kind of vested interest in the claims being believed by others instead of just being curious if the claims are true or not.

@UDS

Religious claims are just a particular case of such claims, but this is generally true. Rejecting religious claims, as a class, because they are “not scientific” makes about as much sense as rejecting mathematical claims as a class, or ethical claims as a class, for that reason. These questions can’t be scrutinised by science, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be subjected to any meaningful scrutiny, and in fact we scrutinise metaphysical claims of all kinds, and accept or reject them or suspend judgment on them, all the time. What we do in this regard is entirely non-scientific. But it’s not possible to live a human life and not do this.

You don’t reject them because of science, you reject them because they are nonsense, on their face. When someone comes up to you and says “did you know dog is god spelled backwards? thats because dogs are gods creatures, I can put myself into the eyes of the dog, thats how I know they can’t see me” You don’t just think “HOLY SHIT DOGS ARE GODS CREATURES! WE SHOULD WORSHIP THEM” you just wonder what is wrong with the person making such strange statements (true story, high functioning Autistic I met a while back)

in short, Stop giving weight to meaningless untestable woo and start looking at the source of that woo.

[UDS]

@Critical1

“The problem isn’t the problem, the problem is your attitude about the problem” Captain Jack Sparrow

We already have tools for evaluating metaphysical claims, for some reason you keep insisting that these claims are somehow special.

I’m not insisting that metaphysical claims are special. I’m just saying that they’re not scientific claims. (Unless, of course, you think that “not scientific” = “special”. But I wouldn’t agree.)

@Critical1

Any claim needs evidence of some kind do back it up. You insist that science cannot look at things like the after life, and you are not wrong about this, You are wrong in your approach to the issue at hand. Taking the afterlife, or virgin birth, or water walking, or demons/ghosts/spirits as examples. You keep trying to see if these claims can be examined and FAILING to see that the claim in and of itself is made by people.

The claim that Jesus (or anyone else) walked on water can certainly be scientifically investigated. (In principle, at any rate. Obviously at this remove there are practical difficulties to conducting such a satisfactory investigation, but if walking on water occurs it is an empirically observable phenomenon, inherently capable of scientific investigation.) And I entirely accept that if somebody tells you that Jesus walked on water it is reasonable for you to ask what evidence - founded on empirical observation - there is for this, and to accept or reject the claim based on your evaluation of the evidence presented. I have never suggested otherwise.

But “an empirically observable event occurred” is not a supernatural claim; it’s a claim about an empirically observable event, which is pretty much the opposite of supernatural. It might be a very surprising claim, if our current understanding of the natural world is that such an event is impossible. But if, in fact, the surprising claim is established by evidence, the default conclusion is not that it had a supernatural cause, but that our current understanding of the world must, in this regard, be wrong. Nothing supernatural there. Nothing incompatible with science, either.

To make a supernatural claim, you have to go further; you have to say that the empirically observable event had a supernatural cause. And it’s that claim for which it is meaningless to demand empirically-observable evidence. It’s a contradiction in terms. If we could empirically observe the causative phenomenon, it would not be supernatural. The most we could do is to say that that observed causative phenomenon itself had a supernatural cause. And so on.

@Critical1

People say Jesus walked on water. and those people have nothing to back that statement up.

Actually, they do. They have accounts written by people who were closer to the event than we were.

Of course, as already stated, this is the kind of evidence that you can observe and evaluate. And it’s entirely reasonable to say that if the claimed event occurred it would be very surprising, and for such a surprising event you require a fairly high degree of convincing evidence. And for that reason you might conclude that the rather limited evidence available - second-hand (at best) written reports from decades after the event - doesn’t even come close to convincing you that an event of this kind occurred.

And of course, if you don’t accept the event occurred, you don’t have to ask yourself what caused it; a non-event doesn’t require a cause. So questions about whether the cause could be supernatural, or how you would form a view on such a claim, become irrelevant or meaningless, or at best hypothetical.

@Critical1

You don’t reject them because of science, you reject them because they are nonsense, on their face. When someone comes up to you and says “did you know dog is god spelled backwards? thats because dogs are gods creatures, I can put myself into the eyes of the dog, thats how I know they can’t see me” You don’t just think “HOLY SHIT DOGS ARE GODS CREATURES! WE SHOULD WORSHIP THEM” you just wonder what is wrong with the person making such strange statements (true story, high functioning Autistic I met a while back)

in short, Stop giving weight to meaningless untestable woo and start looking at the source of that woo.

If the OP had asked whether religious woo and science were incompatible, the answer would be that of course they are. Science is incompatible with woo of all kinds.

But finding (or simply inventing) an example of religious woo and showing that it’s incompatible with science doesn’t prove that religion is incompatible with science. The unstated (unexamined, unproven, unacknowledged) thesis in that argument is that all religious claims are woo. They all involve claims on a par with “dogs are divine” and “god has dog fur eyes” and such. Whereas the reality - the empirically observable reality, the reality that people in this thread really should be engaging with without having to be reminded of it - is that not all religious claims are of this kind. Monotheism does not just claim a supernatural cause for surprising and startling events; it claims a supernatural cause for perfectly ordinary events as well; events whose reality is abundantly proved by empirically observable evidence. Events like, say, the phenomenon of existence.

One of the foundational axioms of the scientific method is, in fact that things do exist. Existence is a real phenomenon, not an illusion. Because it’s axiomatic, it can’t be scientifically investigated or proven, but it’s taken for granted. It’s meaningless, within the scientific method, to ask why things exist. How a particular thing came into existence, yes, science can explain that. But the phenomenon of existence itself has to be just taken as a given.

Among philosophers - and among scientists who think about the matter - it’s trite that the phenomenon of existence isn’t inherently necessary. We can imagine an alternative state of affairs in which nothing exists, ever. There is no inconsistency or incoherence in such a state of affairs; no self-contradiction.

And, having imagined that, we can ask ourselves “why does *this[/i[ state of affairs, in which things exist, prevail, rather than that, in which nothing exists, when it could equally be either?” Science has no answer to this question, since the reality of existence is a fundamental given as far as science is concerned. Religion offers an answer. You may or may not find the answer useful or persuasive; you may or may not like it; you may in fact have no interest in the question, or in any answer to it. None of that matters. What you have to show, if you claim that religion is incompatible with science, is that all the answers that diverse religious traditions offers to this question, and to every other question, are incompatible with science. I don’t see anyone in this thread attempting to do that, or even acknowledging that that is what they need to do. But it is.

[Critical1]

@UDS

To make a supernatural claim, you have to go further; you have to say that the empirically observable event had a supernatural cause. And it’s that claim for which it is meaningless to demand empirically-observable evidence.

Ok, lets try this again, give us your list of supernatural claims that fit this description, 6 things? 3? I will settle for one but a short list would be awesome.

[UDS]

@Critical1

Ok, lets try this again, give us your list of supernatural claims that fit this description, 6 things? 3? I will settle for one but a short list would be awesome.

One is all that is needed to refute the incompatibility of religion and science. Principle of parsimony, and all that.

“God is the fundamental ground for the existence of all things that exist.”

[Critical1]

So the circle we have been dancing around in is simply, A person makes a claim and you say its meaningless to demand evidence for and I point out that you don’t need evidence, Your claim is just words. We still have no reason to even discuss the topic. Why would the statement

@UDS

“God is the fundamental ground for the existence of all things that exist.”

even warrant conversation? Making a claim does not make it true, or meaningful, of course there is no point in asking for evidence, there is no point in even talking about such a silly claim. The religious love to act like this is something critical, like the idea of objective morality. They love to get all worked up over the notion that atheists must be immoral because they don’t have a source for their morality when it is the same place the religious get it from.

[Mijin]

@UDS

All you’re doing here is arbitrarily excluding the possibility that the supernatural may be real for the (entirely subjective) reason that “it doesn’t make a lot of sense”.

Once you do that, then of course any claim which treats the supernatural as a possiblity can be dismissed without further examination.

That’s not what I said.

I said that the word itself is meaningless. e.g. if ghosts exist, then they are a part of nature. They are a naturally-occurring phenomenon.

It seems the word “super” natural is just used by many to mean we cannot apply normal skeptical and rational arguments to discussing whether such phenomena exist.

[UDS]

@Critical1

So the circle we have been dancing around in is simply, A person makes a claim and you say its meaningless to demand evidence for and I point out that you don’t need evidence, Your claim is just words. We still have no reason to even discuss the topic. Why would the statement

even warrant conversation?

What does that matter? The question is not whether the claim - which is a pretty fundamental monotheist claim; it’s pretty much the first statement in the bible and the first statement in the creed - warrants conversation. The fact that you’re in this thread at all might suggest that you, at any rate, do think it warrants conversation, but maybe your just passing the time while waiting for a bus. As I say, it doesn’t matter whether the statement warrants conversation. All that matters is whether it’s incompatible with science.

@Critical1

Making a claim does not make it true, or meaningful, of course there is no point in asking for evidence, there is no point in even talking about such a silly claim. The religious love to act like this is something critical, like the idea of objective morality. They love to get all worked up over the notion that atheists must be immoral because they don’t have a source for their morality when it is the same place the religious get it from.

You’re just free-associating, now, Critical1. I haven’t said anything of this kind, and such a claim is not intrinsic to religion.

[CurtC]

@UDS

“God is the fundamental ground for the existence of all things that exist.”

Well that’s a content-free statement.

[Latro]

@CurtC

Well that’s a content-free statement.

“Fundamental ground for existence”.
Does this mean anything in english?

[Czarcasm]

@Mijin

That’s not what I said.

I said that the word itself is meaningless. e.g. if ghosts exist, then they are a part of nature. They are a naturally-occurring phenomenon.

It seems the word “super” natural is just used by many to mean we cannot apply normal skeptical and rational arguments to discussing whether such phenomena exist.

It’s the curtain you’re not supposed to peek behind.