Cerin wrote:Not failed utterly, vison! Just in the first attempt.
eta: I consider (rightly or wrongly) an atheist to be someone who has a somewhat firm and dedicated certainty that there is no God, as opposed to someone who has never had a reason or inclination to believe in God, but who isn't necessarily convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no God.
Even given your definition, Cerin, I read vison's post as clearly atheist but she was somehow unwilling to take on the mantle. Hence, my response. I don't mean to talk for her, but she asked.
I am perfectly willing to use the term "god" to describe the forces of nature, and I often do. I also use the term to refer to the forces of serendipity in human affairs. I do neither with a blasphemous intent, though I see that it might be interpreted so. The term in both respects comes with a clean pedigree: God and Nature are frequently fused in the thoughts and language of believers; God's Will and Luck are one and the same to most devout as they seek to explain that which cannot or should not be.
I use the term "supernatural" in its basest sense: not under the set of real physical laws . . . above them. No, it does not apply to something that can't be explained by the facts we have at the moment. It does apply to an event that reverses physical possibility or established natural law. Of course we can be tricked to believe this has happened. We can trick ourselves, too.
For instance, I don't doubt for a second that there are Unidentified Flying Objects. They are just that: Unidentified. That doesn't mean they are aliens who kidnap and study us. I don't believe those exist. I easily believe they are unidentified.
I don't doubt that people in Guadalupe believed they saw something in 1536, or that the people in Lourdes saw something, or that Joan thought voices were instructing her. But that's the power of the human mind to instruct its rational side about things irrational. It is not other than natural. "Supernatural" is not the same as "spiritual".
Let me just say: No proof has ever been credibly offered of the existence of the supernatural under a strict definition. Under controlled circumstances before unbiased observers, no physical law has ever been overcome. There is no proof of a "spirit world", no matter how profoundly some might believe it. No human can bend the laws of nature to his/her will. Until a person does so under adequate scrutiny, I consider such claims to be the product of the active human imagination, god bless it.
But as "truth" or "reality", it is "baloney", as Penn and Teller would call it in polite company.