Philosophy Discussion Forums

Gordon975 wrote: ↑August 7th, 2018, 9:46 am It is interesting that when we are stressed and Swear so much of the language used is related to things of instinct and conscience, and much of it to God and people tend to do this often while professing disbelief in a deity.

I think this just shows how deep religion is ingrained into our cultures. Religion has even influenced the evolution of language to the point that we say things like "bless you" "rise and shine" and " bite the dust" without any religious intent what so ever.
The fact that poeople may make reference to god or Jesus or perhaps look up and swear at the sky is no more interesting than the completely sane and rational people who kick, punch and hurl abuse at inanimate objects when they get frusturtared with them. How times have you swore at your computer screen or thumped your keyboard? Doing these sorts of things is by no means evidence that we actually believe the computers will be responsive.
We are socially conditioned by our environments and what we see on T.V and driven to react by our emotional responses to different situations, so the fact that non religious people scream Jesus f**king Christ when they hurt themselves comes as no real suprise if the person was raised in a pro dominantly Christian nation.

Assuming that we were born to believe in the supernatural (an assumption that can easily be proven false anyway), it wouldn't lead necessarily to believe in a particular deity, even less in a particular personal deity. Such figures would be at best historical constructions dependent of particular cultural conditions.

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑September 19th, 2018, 9:40 pm Assuming that we were born to believe in the supernatural (an assumption that can easily be proven false anyway), it wouldn't lead necessarily to believe in a particular deity, even less in a particular personal deity. Such figures would be at best historical constructions dependent of particular cultural conditions.

Come on now! You cannot make such a claim without backing it up! Whoever wrote the OP is likley long gone so I’ll take on the role as best as I can in a way that it can/could be defended.

So “easily proven”? Go ahead! I imagine the crux of the point being a specific way of taking the term “supernatural” and making it a logical appeal to the pricision of language. As we learn over time many imaginings may seem like “supernatural” or “wishful thinking” only for technological know how to lead to such prevously considered “supernatural” imaginings manifesting in reality.

We are most certainly born with a curousity and the habit to overextend any tried and tested method beyond its original scope - basic psychology shows this time and again. We’re also neurologically “wired” to be overly optimistic.

I am not saying this is in anyway saying “belief in god is inborn” but rather irrational overextention of “belief” is most certainly inborn and if you think about it beneficial because if all the evidence today says we cannot do X and we never try to belief]ve beyond current evidence then we’d really struggle to advance our understanding by way of accidently stumbling across certain facts that we’d never have found if we’d not been chasing some mythical beast.

If your argument is merely that proof equals natural rather than “supernatural” then its a pointless point in my eyes. I do find the whole concept of “supernatural” to be rather baffling though once dug into enough - I was taking it at face value though in a colloquial way in order to offer slme form of counter position to your statement

Does Lucanor intend to imply that "the supernatural" is a state of being which transcends time and relativity perhaps as do Plato's forms?

Human babies are born without any idea of any gods. Depending on their culture and their parents, they may be given that ideas, so that they can go on and create gods in their own minds. Those are the only gods that really exist.

Burning ghost wrote: ↑September 20th, 2018, 5:52 am

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑September 19th, 2018, 9:40 pm Assuming that we were born to believe in the supernatural (an assumption that can easily be proven false anyway), it wouldn't lead necessarily to believe in a particular deity, even less in a particular personal deity. Such figures would be at best historical constructions dependent of particular cultural conditions.

Come on now! You cannot make such a claim without backing it up! Whoever wrote the OP is likley long gone so I’ll take on the role as best as I can in a way that it can/could be defended.

So “easily proven”? Go ahead! I imagine the crux of the point being a specific way of taking the term “supernatural” and making it a logical appeal to the pricision of language. As we learn over time many imaginings may seem like “supernatural” or “wishful thinking” only for technological know how to lead to such prevously considered “supernatural” imaginings manifesting in reality.

We are most certainly born with a curousity and the habit to overextend any tried and tested method beyond its original scope - basic psychology shows this time and again. We’re also neurologically “wired” to be overly optimistic.

I am not saying this is in anyway saying “belief in god is inborn” but rather irrational overextention of “belief” is most certainly inborn and if you think about it beneficial because if all the evidence today says we cannot do X and we never try to belief]ve beyond current evidence then we’d really struggle to advance our understanding by way of accidently stumbling across certain facts that we’d never have found if we’d not been chasing some mythical beast.

If your argument is merely that proof equals natural rather than “supernatural” then its a pointless point in my eyes. I do find the whole concept of “supernatural” to be rather baffling though once dug into enough - I was taking it at face value though in a colloquial way in order to offer slme form of counter position to your statement

Well, whatever domain the "supernatural" is supposed to be, it still will be a domain of experience. Remember, it's a world of the supernatural, and as a world with its attributes, object of contemplation, it cannot be previously formed in the mind, it must necessarily be perceived and assimilated by our understanding in order to become an experienced world, of which then can be said to be of some kind. Secondly, even it this were possible, by definition a world that comes natural to us (because supposedly it's biologically determined), wouldn't be considered supernatural, right?

We are not. It is an acquired concept.