Is the Holy Ghost legitimate?

[mfbukowski]

On 3/25/2018 at 9:25 AM, Michael Sudworth said:

Not quite.  The way we talk about truth is social convention. But the presence of a human mind, let alone human language, is irrelevant to "reality as it is." Gravity existed and was true before sentience and it will be so if/when sentience disappears.  There is only noumenon. But our human minds directly experience the noumenon and chop up and categorize our impressions into distinct phenomenon.  We require mind and language to communicate about phenomenon and so in this sense, the statements about the properties and limits of phenomenon can be declared true or false based on social convention.  But social convention and language are completely unrelated to noumenon or "reality as it is."  

My last few posts have given a decent summary, I think.

I part, yes.  Just as find much to agree with in Wittgenstein and James. I also enjoy and find agreement with Einstein, Susskin, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Descartes, Hegel, Hume, Bentham, Spinoza etc....

I push back on your assertions because your hyper-dependence on a small subset of philosophers defines your positions as radical to the point of incoherence.  You remind me of those on my mission who practiced Bibliolatry and refused to consider the BoM because it was not the Bible. You have elevated one particular theory of truth to the point where you are unwilling or unable to entertain the insights provided by other perspectives and philosophies.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_idealism

[hope_for_things]

55 minutes ago, CV75 said:

@Gray and @hope_for_things, it seems that a partial/rough correspondence theory would leave room for supernatural beliefs that are considered "valid enough," the supernatural accounting for the missing accuracy that is accepted as a sufficient reflection of reality. "Through a glass darkly" comes to mind, for example, as a concept that would support this notion.

I think Gray makes a valid point, and I've yet to see MFB make a persuasive argument against it.  I've learned a lot from MFB and his perspectives on philosophy which he thankfully has been persistent enough with trying to teach me over many threads, but on this point I'm not entirely clear about his perspective.  The Rorty quote in his signature assumes that facts about the universe are independent of "human mental states," and this seems clear and obvious to me.   

Gray's example about humans making decisions which have a direct relationship to our survival because of how those decisions relate to facts about the universe, seems clear to me.  Jumping off a tangible building and plummeting to our death is not the same as jumping off an imaginary building.  I've done the latter before in my dreams and I always wake up just as alive as I was before I went to sleep.  

Now if MFB is talking about some of the theories that we may be living in a simulation and that we can't possibly distinguish the difference between the simulation and reality, then I think that is a different conversation, but I don't think he's making that claim.  

The difference between the reality that we create through our subjective perspectives, and the factual universe seems like an important distinction to me, and it seems like the basis for much of the progress that has been made in the hard sciences over the years.  Of course those hard sciences are also build on a foundation of philosophical thought.  I'm such a novice to both science and philosophy that I can't adequately critique them, but from my limited vantage point it seems like the argument that there is a fundamental conflict between the two disciplines is unnecessary because both are interrelated from my perspective.  

[CV75]

11 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I think Gray makes a valid point, and I've yet to see MFB make a persuasive argument against it.  I've learned a lot from MFB and his perspectives on philosophy which he thankfully has been persistent enough with trying to teach me over many threads, but on this point I'm not entirely clear about his perspective.  The Rorty quote in his signature assumes that facts about the universe are independent of "human mental states," and this seems clear and obvious to me.   

Gray's example about humans making decisions which have a direct relationship to our survival because of how those decisions relate to facts about the universe, seems clear to me.  Jumping off a tangible building and plummeting to our death is not the same as jumping off an imaginary building.  I've done the latter before in my dreams and I always wake up just as alive as I was before I went to sleep.  

Now if MFB is talking about some of the theories that we may be living in a simulation and that we can't possibly distinguish the difference between the simulation and reality, then I think that is a different conversation, but I don't think he's making that claim.  

The difference between the reality that we create through our subjective perspectives, and the factual universe seems like an important distinction to me, and it seems like the basis for much of the progress that has been made in the hard sciences over the years.  Of course those hard sciences are also build on a foundation of philosophical thought.  I'm such a novice to both science and philosophy that I can't adequately critique them, but from my limited vantage point it seems like the argument that there is a fundamental conflict between the two disciplines is unnecessary because both are interrelated from my perspective.  

I'm not asking about what you think of mfb's arguments, but whether you think a "rough" correspondence theory allows room for the reality of supernatural belief in the same way that you seem to accept that "facts about the universe are independent of "human mental states"." I'm not asking for a critique, just a description of how you currently understand the relationship between a "rough" correspondence theory, which you seem to accept, and supernatural belief.

I do think there is a misunderstanding of what mfb has been trying to explain, but that is beside the point.

[hope_for_things]

21 minutes ago, CV75 said:

I'm not asking about what you think of mfb's arguments, but whether you think a "rough" correspondence theory allows room for the reality of supernatural belief in the same way that you seem to accept that "facts about the universe are independent of "human mental states"." I'm not asking for a critique, just a description of how you currently understand the relationship between a "rough" correspondence theory, which you seem to accept, and supernatural belief.

I do think there is a misunderstanding of what mfb has been trying to explain, but that is beside the point.

I might not fully understand your question, but I'll make an attempt.  From my perspective, rough correspondence is just acknowledging that the reality that we humans perceive about the universe is limited and therefore not going to exactly explain facts about the universe.  There are likely many different facts about all kinds of things in the universe that we have no conceptual idea about, because we are limited to our senses and human imagination.

My view of supernatural phenomena is that it doesn't exist by definition.  Everything is natural, its just that some natural things we don't currently have sufficient ways to explain or understand how they occur.  But I have confidence that with time we will continue to make progress in explaining these phenomenon and the natural mechanisms behind them.  

So what's the relationship between correspondence theory and supernatural beliefs, I'm not sure I understand that question specifically, hopefully my points above will help.  Let me know

[SamuelTheLamanite]

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

 There are likely many different facts about all kinds of things in the universe that we have no conceptual idea about, because we are limited to our senses and human imagination.

Many different facts about all kinds of things in the universe that we have no conceptual idea?  Need a reference

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

  I've learned a lot from MFB and his perspectives on philosophy which he thankfully has been persistent enough with trying to teach me over many threads, but on this point I'm not entirely clear about his perspective.  The Rorty quote in his signature assumes that facts about the universe are independent of "human mental states," and this seems clear and obvious to me.  

And where exactly is that?

[CV75]

15 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I might not fully understand your question, but I'll make an attempt.  From my perspective, rough correspondence is just acknowledging that the reality that we humans perceive about the universe is limited and therefore not going to exactly explain facts about the universe.  There are likely many different facts about all kinds of things in the universe that we have no conceptual idea about, because we are limited to our senses and human imagination.

My view of supernatural phenomena is that it doesn't exist by definition.  Everything is natural, its just that some natural things we don't currently have sufficient ways to explain or understand how they occur.  But I have confidence that with time we will continue to make progress in explaining these phenomenon and the natural mechanisms behind them.  

So what's the relationship between correspondence theory and supernatural beliefs, I'm not sure I understand that question specifically, hopefully my points above will help.  Let me know

I appreciate the reiteration of your position, but my question was more about how these two components of your position work together. I tried to get to it here with these questions Posted Friday at 09:06 PM , but absent a reply, I tried this question.

There is a difference between supernatural belief and supernatural phenomena. You focused on phenomena, but my question was about belief, which is a component of the correspondence theory and the more unique modification, “rough” correspondence theory that came up in this thread. If you espouse that some beliefs roughly align with what can be roughly observed, a lot of wiggle room remains for inaccurate perceptions and fabulous imagination. My question is (and at this point it may look like I’m answering it for you), how are the mental products of “rough” abilities and faculties functionally any different than supernatural beliefs in relation to reality?

[hope_for_things]

11 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

And where exactly is that?

Quote

 " To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  

So the facts about the universe that exist independent of "human mental states", or the "world is out there... it is not our creation".  To me this states pretty clearly that Rorty is saying the universe and facts about it ARE out there, that they DO exist.  This is his starting assumption before talking about truth and language and human perception, which all complicate our ability to understand these facts about the universe. 

Yet to me this is the beauty of the scientific method.  That we've developed a process where we can use empirical evidence to study facts about the universe in a controlled and replicable way.  Obviously our ability to understand the complete picture about anything is very limited.  But that we can understand the processes at work well enough to build sophisticated machinery using the principles that we understand is an amazing thing to me.  

[hope_for_things]

On 3/23/2018 at 7:06 PM, CV75 said:

It depends on whether or not you consider the power of God to be a supernatural miracle. I do not; do you? It also depends on whether or not you consider our natural potential to be defined by our innate, biologically- and environmentally-enabled genius and strength alone, and that self-management (individually or collectively) alone maximizes these capacities. I do not; do you?

I'm not understanding what the observation that some of the people that "transform" via the principles of Christianity outside organized religion are "true" to the metaphors has to do with these semantics (I think semantics are useful). I mean, for example, some of these transformed people successfully practice faith healing as opposed to priesthood administration to the sick.

14 minutes ago, CV75 said:

I appreciate the reiteration of your position, but my question was more about how these two components of your position work together. I tried to get to it here with these questions Posted Friday at 09:06 PM , but absent a reply, I tried this question.

 

There is a difference between supernatural belief and supernatural phenomena. You focused on phenomena, but my question was about belief, which is a component of the correspondence theory and the more unique modification, “rough” correspondence theory that came up in this thread. If you espouse that some beliefs roughly align with what can be roughly observed, a lot of wiggle room remains for inaccurate perceptions and fabulous imagination. My question is (and at this point it may look like I’m answering it for you), how are the mental products of “rough” abilities and faculties functionally any different than supernatural beliefs in relation to reality?

Thanks, somehow I missed that other reply, and this helps a bit.  

Do I consider the power of God to be a supernatural miracle?  No

Do I consider our potential to be defined by our biology and environment alone?  Yes.  

The transformation I was talking about is a transformation of a relationship with your environment.  Its a difference of mindset.  It doesn't have anything to do with healing the sick or performing miracles, I don't believe in that.  

I'm not sure what you mean by a difference between supernatural belief and phenomena and how that relates to what can be roughly observed.  The observations I'm talking about are scientific measurements of empirical data and proofs in physics.  I thought that when Gray talked about a rough correspondence the term rough was being used to indicate a lack of perfection with respect to our confidence about what we observe.   If it was something different, I apologize as that was how I interpreted his point.  

[Gray]

22 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I agree and genuinely apologize. There's no excuse for that.

I think there are clear arguments there but I will let the reader decide.

It's really all in the rorty quote.

Clearly there are causes which are not mental States but we can only experience them as mental States. That's the only argument there is.

Thank you, that means a lot to me. I appreciate it.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

So the facts about the universe that exist independent of "human mental states", or the "world is out there... it is not our creation".  To me this states pretty clearly that Rorty is saying the universe and facts about it ARE out there, that they DO exist.  This is his starting assumption before talking about truth and language and human perception, which all complicate our ability to understand these facts about the universe. 

Yet to me this is the beauty of the scientific method.  That we've developed a process where we can use empirical evidence to study facts about the universe in a controlled and replicable way.  Obviously our ability to understand the complete picture about anything is very limited.  But that we can understand the processes at work well enough to build sophisticated machinery using the principles that we understand is an amazing thing to me.  

The world is out there but facts are not. Facts are propositions about what is predictable about our perceptions. That's what Rudy says when he says the world is out there but truth is not. There are no facts only interpretations.

We are traveling in the desert and see a pool of water in the distance. We predict that it will be water when we get there. When we arrive we notice that we are mistaken I didn't fact it was a mirage. Our prediction was wrong. We were incorrect in predicting the results of our perception.

Our interpretation of the perception was incorrect. But there's no reason to propose some kind of rough correspondence. Yes there are mistakes but there is no need to postulate rough correspondence which just confuses the entire Theory.

The same thing happens with the Holy Ghost. We may think we feel the Holy Ghost and predict that XYZ will happen. Instead ABC happens. Does that mean the Holy Ghost is not exist?

No we were Incorrect In predicting the results of our perception.

At other times that works fine and sometimes it does not. That's life in general. Sometimes it's a mirage and sometimes it's water. There is no certainty about anything until we experience the results. Alma 32 would say until we taste the sweetness of the fruit. There are no facts only interpretations.

Same thing for science. We perform an experiment and expect to get results ABC but get something else instead.

We we formulate the theory and either get the results we expect or not. But like dealing with the Holy Ghost sometimes we do the double slit experiment are the results say light is a particle other times it says light is a wave.

Edited March 27, 2018 by mfbukowski

[EdGoble]

https://thoughtfulmormonism.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-holy-ghost-and-umwelt-is-burning-in.html

[CV75]

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Thanks, somehow I missed that other reply, and this helps a bit.  

Do I consider the power of God to be a supernatural miracle?  No

Do I consider our potential to be defined by our biology and environment alone?  Yes.  

The transformation I was talking about is a transformation of a relationship with your environment.  Its a difference of mindset.  It doesn't have anything to do with healing the sick or performing miracles, I don't believe in that.  

I'm not sure what you mean by a difference between supernatural belief and phenomena and how that relates to what can be roughly observed.  The observations I'm talking about are scientific measurements of empirical data and proofs in physics.  I thought that when Gray talked about a rough correspondence the term rough was being used to indicate a lack of perfection with respect to our confidence about what we observe.   If it was something different, I apologize as that was how I interpreted his point.  

If you consider the power of God to be natural, and directed at our reaching our potential, why do you consider that transformation to be defined only by our biology and environment?

Limiting the discussion to a lack of perfection in our confidence level and not in our ability to hypothesize, test, observe, interpret, analyze, understand, report, apply, etc., it seems to me that an imperfect confidence about what we observe amounts to a belief, and even a belief in something potentially unreal. To me that sounds like a belief in the supernatural, especially when one has embraced an imperfect confidence level.

[hope_for_things]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

The world is out there but facts are not. Facts are propositions about what is predictable about our perceptions. That's what Rudy says when he says the world is out there but truth is not. There are no facts only interpretations.

I would say facts exist about the universe, independent of how humans interpret those facts through human perceptions.  There are still facts about the universe that would exist without the presence of humans.  Does this make sense, the way I'm using that term?  

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

We are traveling in the desert and see a pool of water in the distance. We predict that it will be water when we get there. When we arrive we notice that we are mistaken I didn't fact it was a mirage. Our prediction was wrong. We were incorrect in predicting the results of our perception.

Our interpretation of the perception was incorrect. But there's no reason to propose some kind of rough correspondence. Yes there are mistakes but there is no need to postulate rough correspondence which just confuses the entire Theory.

No problems, I completely agree.  This is talking about human perceptions of the data, and those perceptions are limited.  

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

The same thing happens with the Holy Ghost. We may think we feel the Holy Ghost and predict that XYZ will happen. Instead ABC happens. Does that mean the Holy Ghost is not exist?

No we were Incorrect In predicting the results of our perception.

I agree with this too, its about how we interpret our perceptions, and that is not necessarily tied to any facts about the universe.  

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

At other times that works fine and sometimes it does not. That's life in general. Sometimes it's a mirage and sometimes it's water. There is no certainty about anything until we experience the results. Alma 32 would say until we taste the sweetness of the fruit. There are no facts only interpretations.

Same thing for science. We perform an experiment and expect to get results ABC but get something else instead.

We we formulate the theory and either get the results we expect or not. But like dealing with the Holy Ghost sometimes we do the double slit experiment are the results say light is a particle other times it says light is a wave.

No concerns here either.  

I'm not sure you agree with my earlier points or not after reading your post.  It seems important to acknowledge that the universe exists and will continue to exist independent of the existence of homo sapiens.  That we can learn things about this universe through scientific processes is one of the most valuable discoveries in the history of our species.  I think its important to distinguish between what we have learned through empirical analysis of data, and the imaginations of dreamers that are built on nothing substantial, replicable, or even worthy of consideration.  

The crazy imaginations of L. Ron Hubbard are not on the same playing field with the observations skilled scientists.  Sometimes I get the impression from your comments that you are suggesting that all speculative rantings are on an equal playing field with very practiced and studied disciplines.  Why you do you make comments like that?  

[hope_for_things]

57 minutes ago, CV75 said:

If you consider the power of God to be natural, and directed at our reaching our potential, why do you consider that transformation to be defined only by our biology and environment?

What else can our potentials be defined by if not nature and nurture?  

59 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Limiting the discussion to a lack of perfection in our confidence level and not in our ability to hypothesize, test, observe, interpret, analyze, understand, report, apply, etc., it seems to me that an imperfect confidence about what we observe amounts to a belief, and even a belief in something potentially unreal. To me that sounds like a belief in the supernatural, especially when one has embraced an imperfect confidence level.

My lack of complete confidence is not my holding out for something supernatural, but its allowing for all kinds of things that I currently don't understand today.  

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

 

Edited March 27, 2018 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

I am sorry but I do not have the words that can explain it to you.

The universe exists independent of us. I've never said anything that would contradict that. I simply suggest that you keep reading the Rorty quotes until it makes sense to you.

Rorty is saying facts are sentences about our perceptions, not about the world. Facts are in sentences about our perceptions not in the world I can't say it any other way. Since sentences are linguistic so is truth. Truth is a property of sentences and not of the world. Either the sentence correctly interprets the perception so that we can repeat the same perceptions by doing the same procedures as in an experiment or not.

Conclusions are always about our perceptions and not necessarily about the world as it is independent of our perceptions. One cannot get outside of our perceptions to know the world as it is. As long as we have human bodies we will human perceptions.

That's my last shot that's the best I can do.

Obviously there are goofball theories that some believe. The bottom line really is what scientist called peer review.

Peer review is exactly what it says. It is a judgment by a community about whether or not a given theory is crackpot or solid.

The same technique Works in a judge and jury in finding out the facts.

The truth is not in the world the truth is in the Judgment of review by peers. Within a community. That's about the best we can do and that's about the best I can do in explaining it.

This was dictated on my phone so spelling etcetera maybe weird.

Edited March 27, 2018 by mfbukowski

[CV75]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

What else can our potentials be defined by if not nature and nurture?  

My lack of complete confidence is not my holding out for something supernatural, but its allowing for all kinds of things that I currently don't understand today.  

It seems to me that if you consider the power of God to be natural (and ours as well), you would define our potential the same way you define His. What measures do you use, and what processes do you measure, in defining the power of God?

Unless your lack of complete confidence excludes anything you now believe that is not so, you would have to agree that is functionally the same as believing in the supernatural (i.e. the non-natural).

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

What else can our potentials be defined by if not nature and nurture?  

My lack of complete confidence is not my holding out for something supernatural, but its allowing for all kinds of things that I currently don't understand today.  

All you are doing here is changing the definition of Supernatural into natural. It's all just words. You are saying that it's just all natural phenomenon that has yet to be understood scientifically. I don't think anybody disagrees with that. That is like D&C where it talks about immaterial matter.

All that seems Supernatural now can later be explained in a scientific way if science decides to go in that direction.

Edited March 27, 2018 by mfbukowski

[CV75]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I would say facts exist about the universe, independent of how humans interpret those facts through human perceptions.  There are still facts about the universe that would exist without the presence of humans.  Does this make sense, the way I'm using that term?  

On the same token, the world existed before you came into it, but as long as you did not exist, you could not have said it is real.You can only do that because you yourself exist and formulated an interpretation, in great part from what other people have told you. The same with the inhabitants of the world; as long as you did not exist, you could not have said they are real, either.

[Michael Sudworth]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I would say facts exist about the universe, independent of how humans interpret those facts through human perceptions.  There are still facts about the universe that would exist without the presence of humans. 

The way I see it is like this.  Before humans, the universe did its thing as the universe.  But with the emergence of sentience, life forms began to distinguish and discriminate between what they perceived as distinct functions of the universe.  Obviously this ramped way up with human beings as we can talk and coordinate.

So when we say "This water is cold." Or, "This water is hot." We are using the distinctions we perceive to give a name to something we observe in the universe.  No such thing as "hot" existed prior to human language. "Hot" is entirely a product of the human mind.  However, the state we now call "hot" (and understand to be emissions of energy) has always been. So if we want to be really pedantic we can say things like "Things we now call stars are what we now call very hot in the center."

The fundamental point is that there is no objective distinction between "things" in the universe.  Distinction and difference is *purely* a function of the human mind and human language. Does our language change or impact the universe being the universe?  No, but it allows us to communicate and coordinate within it.  The trick is not to mistake the name we give things for the things themselves.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Michael Sudworth

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

I am sorry but I do not have the words that can explain it to you.

The universe exists independent of us. I've never said anything that would contradict that. I simply suggest that you keep reading the Rorty quotes until it makes sense to you.

Rorty is saying facts are sentences about our perceptions, not about the world. Facts are in sentences about our perceptions not in the world I can't say it any other way. Since sentences are linguistic so is truth. Truth is a property of sentences and not of the world. Either the sentence correctly interprets the perception so that we can repeat the same perceptions by doing the same procedures as in an experiment or not.

Sometimes these philosophical discussions get frustrating, because of the limits of communication.  Which makes me question at some level the merits of such tedious discussions that require so many precise definitions of terms that you lose the regular guy with these discussions.  You want me to keep re-reading a quote I've read a hundred times now?  I guess if you keep doing something long enough its supposed to all the sudden make sense, or a person might die in the process.

I'm not critiquing Rorty's quote, I'm critiquing your use of it, and I'm trying to explain this in regular terms that I use in street parlance because I'm not educated in philosophy and can't quickly get up to speed on it.  

Facts or attributes about the universe must exist independent of humans trying to describe them.  Can you agree on that statement as an a priori statement?  

I'm not talking about how humans describe the facts, or put them into language, I'm talking about the attributes about the universe that exist before humans ever discovered them.  I'm talking about what is out there in the universe, something is out there, and it has attributes, whether or not humans observe these attributes and try to explain them, the objects that are in the universe EXIST and they have unique attributes.  

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Conclusions are always about our perceptions and not necessarily about the world as it is independent of our perceptions. One cannot get outside of our perceptions to know the world as it is. As long as we have human bodies we will human perceptions.

When science makes conclusions about how electronics work and is able to use these conclusions to build a computer that allows me to type this message to you, I find that truly amazing.  Who cares that its all tied up in our perceptions.  You seem to want to discount the practical and pragmatic use of science because you are so stuck on trying to prove a point.  We get great value from the sciences, it seems like you are trying to fight a battle that is completely pointless to try and win some kind of argument that has no utility.  And for someone who's a pragmatist, don't you find the efforts you keep putting forth on topics like this to be ironically counter pragmatic?  What are you trying to gain through this argument that has value?  

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Peer review is exactly what it says. It is a judgment by a community about whether or not a given theory is crackpot or solid.

The same technique Works in a judge and jury in finding out the facts.

The truth is not in the world the truth is in the Judgment of review by peers. Within a community. That's about the best we can do and that's about the best I can do in explaining it.

This was dictated on my phone so spelling etcetera maybe weird.

I'm not claiming peer review is perfect or that the truths we get are complete and perfected.  Of course there are elements of bias and group think involved.  The system is still the best that our human race has created up to this point.  Its not a beauty contest though, there is rigor in many cases and incentives to disprove the theories of others or come up with a new theory that overturns the prior consensus.  

[hope_for_things]

2 hours ago, CV75 said:

It seems to me that if you consider the power of God to be natural (and ours as well), you would define our potential the same way you define His. What measures do you use, and what processes do you measure, in defining the power of God?

Unless your lack of complete confidence excludes anything you now believe that is not so, you would have to agree that is functionally the same as believing in the supernatural (i.e. the non-natural).

Use of the word "power" sounds supernatural in that context.  God doesn't have any "power" in my view.  Our potential, the potential of a rock, the potential of a black hole, they are all rooted in nature and nurture.  I can't define God, we have nothing that we can use to define God.  God is an imaginary friend, so whatever people imagine defines what they think about God, but none of it can be evaluated objectively. 

Whatever I believe that is not so, I will adjust that belief as soon as I see compelling data to support it.  I try to follow the evidence.  Why does that make it so I functionally believe in the supernatural, I don't understand.  

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

All you are doing here is changing the definition of Supernatural into natural. It's all just words. You are saying that it's just all natural phenomenon that has yet to be understood scientifically. I don't think anybody disagrees with that. That is like D&C where it talks about immaterial matter.

All that seems Supernatural now can later be explained in a scientific way if science decides to go in that direction.

Yes, in essence I'm saying that supernatural doesn't exist because everything that seems miraculous has a very natural mechanism to it.  However, I would also say that we have no evidence to support the widely used religious claims for supernatural interventions.  In religious circles people have this sense of magical thinking that comes from the tradition of religion that holds to special powers for deity and the agents of deity.  I don't see the world through that lens.  

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, CV75 said:

On the same token, the world existed before you came into it, but as long as you did not exist, you could not have said it is real.You can only do that because you yourself exist and formulated an interpretation, in great part from what other people have told you. The same with the inhabitants of the world; as long as you did not exist, you could not have said they are real, either.

Right, and I couldn't speak or think before I came into existence.  But what's the point?  Does the Sun exist because humans exist to observe it, or would the Sun exist independently?