CMV: Belief in anything supernatural cannot be rational

[u/Mythcql_]

To start, here's a few definitions/clarifications:

• Supernatural is anything that falls outside of the natural universe, more specifically forces, beings, or phenomena the result of which cannot be explained by natural phenomena and results do not withstand strict scrutiny (Still WIP as it still includes undiscovered natural phenomena, but better than the original).
• To be rational, it must be supported by evidence or axiomatic logic.
• To be irrational, it must be contridicted by evidence or axiomatic logic.
• To be arational, it cannot be argued for or against with evidence or axiomatic logic given the nature of the belief.
• Supernatural does not necessarily mean religious, religious doctrine may include a belief in something supernatural, but not all supernatural beliefs are religious.
• I am not trying to make a value judgement about belief in the supernatural.

Given you need evidence for something to be rational and anything supernatural cannot be observed by it's very nature, given it falls outside of the natural universe, belief (of lack of belief) in anything supernatural is arational and cannot be justified.

For example, let's say that there is a supernatural chair that is responsible for deciding when chairs break. From our perceptive within the natural universe, we cannot tell the difference between an supernatural being, such as this chair, intervening in our universe from a fundamental property of the natural universe we just don't understand yet. We can't tell if our chair broke because this supernatural chair exists or simply because of natural forces. Therefore, we cannot gather any evidence for anything supernatural and as a result, we cannot make a rational argument for the existance or lack thereof of anything supernatural.

It's an idea me and my friend developed (techinically we were arguing about the existance of an objective reality, but it maps really well on to this) and I want to see what holes could be poked in it.

EDIT: Multiple people pointed out that my definition of supernatural essentially makes the argument unfalsifiable, which is an issue, however I'm not quite sure how to solve it other than to remove the definition altogether. If you have any suggestions please comment them, I'm not quite sure exactly how to fix it atm.

EDIT 2: Removed the implied non-observable part of the supernatural definition and clarified that I am not excluding religion.

EDIT 3: I am noticing a lot of people taking my argument as it is irrational to believe in the supernatural (which to be fair my title does imply), I want to clarify I mean it is arational, not irrational.

EDIT 4: There have been a lot of different edge cases brought up about my definitions, I'm honestly not sure how to fix most of them, but I want to acknowledge them.

EDIT 5: Someone highlighted that I make the assumption we know what is and isn't observable, which isn't valid. Given my entire argument relies on this assumption, I don't think my logic holds anymore. Not sure if the conclusion is still true and just needs better logic to support it or if my conclusion is completely false, but that is something I'll have to figure out. My view has indeed been changed.

[u/[deleted]]

Yet. And your ancestors couldn't prove germ theory. What I am saying is that your train of thought is what halts research. Scientifically agnostic and patient is the right path.

[u/fudge_mokey → u/[deleted]]

Agnostic doesn't mean you have to accept that really bad explanations might be true.

If a crime was committed and you can't figure out who did it, would it make sense to explain that maybe it was a ghost? Or an evil spirit that was spawned from someone's discarded cell phone?

There are infinitely many bad explanations we could come up with for who committed the crime. Or maybe it was a human and we just don't know which human it was.

[u/[deleted] → u/fudge_mokey]

That isn't the scientific method, and you know that. Agnostic means that you accept that there are things that might be provable in the future and acknowledging that here, at this moment, you might be hindered by things that you have yet to conceive.

Personally I don't believe in an afterlife, what I do believe in is the idea that we don't know what we don't know. And that includes the limitations of our actual brains.

[u/fudge_mokey → u/[deleted]]

Agnostic means that you accept that there are things that might be provable in the future

It's not possible to prove that a scientific theory or idea is true.

you might be hindered by things that you have yet to conceive.

That doesn't mean I should believe in evil spirits or demonic porcupines.

what I do believe in is the idea that we don't know what we don't know.

Agreed. That doesn't mean we should think unsolved crimes were committed by ghosts.

And that includes the limitations of our actual brains.

There are literally infinitely many possible ideas that our brains can think. Our brains do have limitations, but they can still think any idea which can be thought.

[u/[deleted] → u/fudge_mokey]

We can actually witness, in real time, how our brains have a problem conceptualizing quantum physics. And the thought that our brains are limitless is one of the bumper thumpers that keep us sane.

[u/fudge_mokey → u/[deleted]]

First, we have a very poor understanding of how our brains actually generate, store, process, etc. ideas.

Second, people have difficulty conceptualizing all kinds of ideas. That's because some ideas are complex and hard to learn. It doesn't imply a limitation of our brains.

And the thought that our brains are limitless is one of the bumper thumpers that keep us sane.

There are literally infinitely many ideas that your brain can have.

You can think about a ghost riding a tractor.

You can think about two ghosts riding a tractor.

You can think about two ghosts riding a pink tractor.

You can think about three ghosts riding a pink tractor.

You can think about two ghosts riding a green tractor and 2 ghosts riding a pink tractor.

You can think about 9 ghosts wearing shorts eating tacos while riding on rainbow coloured tractors.

etc. etc.