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joeschmo's avatar

Do you believe in anything supernatural?

Asked by joeschmo (1396points) March 19th, 2019

God, a god, gods.
Superstitions.
Prayers.
Share if you will.

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32 Answers

Dutchess_III's avatar

No. The physical world is plenty awe inspiring by itself. The fact that is is real and not imaginary makes it even more incredible.

Caravanfan's avatar

Oliver’s woofing theorum. It is infallable. All hail the great prophet Oliver who brings us the word of the Gods of Woofing.

ragingloli's avatar

No.
Think about it.
Take ghosts for example.
If you can see them, they reflect, or emit, photons.
If they move objects around, like poltergeister, or make noise on their own, they interact with matter.
If they are stationary relative to the planet, and not flung out instantly into the void of space, they are affected by gravity.
Which means they are subject to the laws of physics, and are thusly part of nature, ergo natural.

Dutchess_lll's avatar

Oliver?? OLIVER??? What kind of name is Oliver for a prophet? I just don’t believe you @Caravanfan.

KNOWITALL's avatar

Sure, I believe in God and prayers. Not so much superstitions, or ghosts or aliens or anything.

Jaxk's avatar

Superstitions? Yea, maybe a little. I figure even if they are not real, I may modify my actions enough to create good or bad luck. Ergo they are real.

Zaku's avatar

Depends on what you mean by “supernatural”.

As @ragingloli wrote, if something exists, then it does, and is part of the universe, even if we don’t understand it, believe in it, or the way it exists or functions, etc., and the only things not “natural” would be “artificial” – so, things made by people? Facebook Likes are therefore not natural… but are they supernatural, or subnatural?

Merriam-Webster offers:
“1 : of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil”
“2a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature”
“b : attributed to an invisible agent (such as a ghost or spirit)”

The problem I have in answering this meaningfully is that my framework of understanding is different from the common Christian or skeptical materialist mindsets.

For example, most people seem to miss the point of most religion and spirituality, which is largely metaphorical.

For another, there are certainly spiritual experiences that people have. And it seems to me that relating to them from skeptical perspectives mainly tends to be missing the point/value/essence, and counterproductive in their fervor to deny, denounce, disprove and shame.

The question of whether my analytical materialist intellect can understand or (dis)prove my spiritual experiences seems to me to be mainly noise that tends to interfere with the positive human value in those experiences. If I climb a mountain and have a spiritual reaction to the grandeur and beauty and feel a deep spiritual connection to the living world I am a part of, and instead of embracing and feeling that and being moved by it to experience that connection and be my authentic self, I instead tell myself it’s just brain chemistry then I am throwing away one of the best experiences in life, and that part of me will tend to hide out and fester and die.

If we limit ourselves to only the experiences we fool ourselves we completely understand and have the seal of approval of our (generally very overestimated, BTW) notions of “scientific knowledge”, then we’re cheating ourselves of much potential.

Similarly, I wouldn’t say I “believe in” the spiritual things I experience, because that wording would imply to many people that misleading popular framing of the question. I know that I have had many interesting and valuable spiritual experiences, and that they seem most valuable to relate to in spiritual and intuitive ways, and even if my analytical / skeptical mind can’t help but question what they were and crave to find materialist explanations or whatever, that’s really just a side conversation.

I think many spiritual experiences are linked to our subconscious and give us access to the things our mind doesn’t have direct access to (often because we’ve repressed them in one way or another). But that doesn’t make them not spiritual, and there are many developed spiritual techniques for accessing our intuitions and subconscious and other types of inaccessible but crucial aspects of ourselves, for which skepticism is mainly just an obstacle.

But to answer the question:

I believe in gods and goddesses as useful cultural and psychological (and perhaps psychic) iconic and archetypal templates and metaphors. They are present even in the thinking of atheists and skeptics, and at least exist in that sense.

I believe in superstitions as existing in the thinking of people. They affect people that way, at least. And the mind controls the function of the body, as seen in e.g. placebo effects. They exist not just in the conscious thoughts but in the subconscious as well.

Prayers make sense to me as spiritual expressions, and perhaps in some other ways, but not in the literal “I am asking a conscious literal God to do specific material magic for me” way – though that metaphor is I think useful or at least comforting to many people. I think there is a social context where it makes sense, again in a metaphorical and/or psychological way. For the skeptics who may still be reading, if I know someone is praying for me, that idea exists in my conscious and subconscious and can/will have some sorts of effects due to my psychology.

I’ve seen and heard what seem to be apparition/ghost-like things that I don’t know a better or more useful phenomenon description/metaphor for.

I’ve had various mediumship and shamanic and other types of spiritual and intuitive experiences.

I participate in a regular dream group that often has attunements that I don’t know of any non-spiritual explanations for.

ucme's avatar

Hey, if it’s good enough for Scooby Doo…

gorillapaws's avatar

I’m on the fence with God (as in a higher power), and electricity is basically voodoo to me (ground wire AND a neutral wire? WTF?). I also believe in free will, which is kind of on shaky ground philosophically.

Caravanfan's avatar

I’m telling you. The only Gods there are are the Woofing Gods. They are especially active right about now in March Madness. This is their feeding time. Beware.

Kardamom's avatar

No. I have no reason to.

Dutchess_lll's avatar

@Caravanfan….I tried. I could not get through all the obscure shit on your link.

Pinguidchance's avatar

God rools.

Woof.

Pray to god that superstition is only superstition.

JLeslie's avatar

No, but I like some superstitions.

Pinguidchance's avatar

JLeslie may carry both mace and mistletoe in her handbag, you have been warned.

Caravanfan's avatar

@Dutchess_lll Of course you couldn’t. You’re not a sports fan. Rick, on the other hand, will know exactly what that is about. He understands.

seawulf575's avatar

I believe in God and I pray to Him. I had a ghost at my old house that dribbled a basketball at odd times so I believe in them as well. Not sure if UFO’s are considered supernatural or not, but I have seen them as well and so I believe. Plus it seems unlikely that we are the only life in the universe.

Stache's avatar

I believe in extraterrestrial life.

That’s about it.

flutherother's avatar

Our free will is supernatural. If it were part of nature we wouldn’t really have it.

LostInParadise's avatar

I don’t believe in God, but I am envious of those who do. It must be reassuring to believe that everything happens for a reason.

I believe there must be extraterrestrials somewhere in the Universe. I don’t consider that belief in the supernatural. It would be more supernatural to believe that we are the only ones.

gorillapaws's avatar

@seawulf575 Of course UFOs exist. Anything flying that can’t be identified is a UFO. Anyone who ever saw a military drone before the public knew they existed witnessed a UFO. Imagine what it must have looked like to see the stealth bomber doing test-flights back in the 80’s, or the SR-71 Blackbird back in the day. For every aircraft that made it into production, there were probably dozens (or more) of prototypes that were tested and never released publicly.

Of course just because we can’t identify an object, that doesn’t mean it’s extraterrestrial.

joeschmo's avatar

Some of those fly in ways unattainable.

Demosthenes's avatar

I say I don’t, but if you asked me to spend a night in a haunted house, I would refuse. I don’t actively believe in it, but I can’t rule it out as possible. So I won’t take a chance with it.

seawulf575's avatar

@gorillapaws Yeah, I get all that. But things I have seen go beyond military things. I saw a grouping of 6 lights about 100 ft above the tree tops, following the power lines along a main road. The lights were about the size of a softball, orange in color. They were moving about 35 mph, zero engine noise and no shadowing shape connecting these lights. These were seen by quite a few people and ended up with a picture on the front page of the local newspaper. They were apparently following the same wires for about 20 miles or so. I was not alone when I saw them and neither I nor my friend could tell what they were. The military actually was contacted and they sent people to look into it. We were not near any military installations, the nearest being a small Coast Guard station that had one boat. The nearest military installation of any significant size was about 200 miles away. It was flying, it was unidentified, but it also didn’t have many of the characteristics I would have expected from a human craft in the 70’s…no engine noise for instance.
I also saw an oddity one night when I was coming back from fishing with my grandfather. This one was definitely in outer space. I saw something moving way out in front of us. It was a little dot moving through the sky. I thought it might be a satellite. It was moving in an arc through the sky. Then I saw another. And another. And another. 12 in all before I could not see them anymore. They were all originating from one particular star, moving through the same arc that took them through several other stars and stopped at a final star. When one got about ⅔ of the way through the travel path, another would start. The spacing, the number, and the fact they were all following the same travel path tells me they weren’t satellites. Don’t know what they were, but it was certainly odd.

Dutchess_III's avatar

@seawulf575 ”. I had a ghost at my old house that dribbled a basketball at odd times…” That is absolute proof positive of Woofington’s March Madness Theory.

@Caravanfan I know what March Madness is, duh! I just don’t care much for watching sports and the stats are annoying. Rick can’t even remember my birthday, but he can remember minute facts about Tyreek Hill. All I know is he punched his pregnant girlfriend in college, so I hate him.
Rick broke his collar bone in a flat track wreck in the month of March. I think it was 2006. BIG mistake. There was enough staff to get us checked in and to a room, then we didn’t see another soul for an hour. Everyone was in the break room watching KU and KState.

Caravanfan's avatar

@Dutchess_III Duh. The Kansas, KState game was way more important than Rick’s collar bone. He would understand.

Dutchess_III's avatar

He was pissed that there was no TV where we were. I think that was cruel and unusual.

Aster's avatar

Yes. My husband and I are believers in many supernatural entities that I won’t give the reasons for today. These include UFO’s, UFO abductions, probably Bigfoot, an Afterlife and contact on rare occasions by the dead. Well, he may not believe in the last one but my mother, father, grandmother did and I certainly do.
Belief in these things brings me a peculiar feeling of peace and contentment , especially when discussing them with family members who share the same beliefs.

Dutchess_III's avatar

We all tend to believe what our parents believe.

Aster's avatar

Well, I never thought of that. In over fifty years knowing them I never heard one single prayer. But on extremely rare occasions, which I should have pursued, I’d hear remarks about the other phenomena. But they seemed like they wanted to end the so called discussion as soon as possible. Odd.

Dutchess_III's avatar

I wasn’t just talking about religion. I’m talking about everything, whether we’re racist or conservative or liberal, whatever.

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