Lets take a little break from politics and have us a real atheist conversation.
Personally, I’m open to the idea of the existence of supernatural phenomena, and I believe mainstream religions are actually complicated incomplete stories full of misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and half-truths.
Basically, I think that these stories are not as simple and straightforward as they seem to be to religious people. I feel like there is a lot more to them. Concluding that all these stories are just made up or came out of nowhere is kind of hard for me.
Supernatural phenomena do not actually exist as far as I can tell. There’s no actual evidence to my knowledge, and plenty of evidence that humans are not particularly good at perceiving or interpreting the universe around us as it actually is. Our brains are not a reliable narrator, supernatural phenomena are most likely a consequence of this rather than anything genuinely supernatural.
This argument is a very common one. It’s only valid at a scientific standpoint, since you can’t really scientifically prove something that transcends the laws of nature. However, at a historical standpoint, the existence of supernatural phenomena can be considered. There is also no evidence that supernatural phenomena does not exist.
Any non-falsifiable theory is only worth so much.
And can still be considered.
Not really, because every non-falsifiable theory is true at the same time. I mean, I can’t forbid anyone from considering.
And that’s what I’m advocating. For people to sit on the fence, instead of leaning hard-science, or hard-supernatural.
You may have misunderstood me - supernatural theories are worthless because they are non-falsifiable.
That doesn’t make them worthless. Have you ever listened to stories that may involve potential supernatural forces?
Yes, I don’t believe any of them to be true. Most cultures got incompatible explanations to them, without a way to tell which is actually correct - my take is that each explanation is made up. And because people believe those explanations, they are not interested in digging into natural explanations.
Examples: seizures, schizophrenia, natural disasters, weather, infectious diseases
I’m not sure what you mean about a historical standpoint. I don’t think there’s anything in the historical record that could be considered actual evidence of supernatural phenomena. History as an academic discipline is a kind of science and generally approaches the subject matter with the scientific method.
What? Supernatural stuff has been talked about throughout history.