So you've categorically defined yourself out of the conversation? After all, any assertion you make (at all) about the supernatural comes with it a lack of evidence. And that includes the nonexistence of supernatural events, as you would necessarily be assuming that all events have a natural cause. This is still intellectually problematic.

So you're claiming that the historical support for a resurrected Jesus is equivalent to the level of evidence of the level of historical support for Xenu? Specifically that you're saying there is *NO* evidence that Jesus was resurrected?

Are you quite certain about this?

Perhaps we should delve into that. What forms of evidence do you think Scientology has?

I agree with this to an extent, but the following are also true: A false historicity of related events and places is good evidence against a religion.

But if you look historically, it's not unreasonable to think that the early Romans did not necessarily believe those myths as being historical in the sense that we think of the term. I'll have to work to dig up the link, but there are historians who think that Romans and Greeks believed in their gods in a manner similar to how Americans believe in "the Constitution" -- which is to say that it was more of a means of codifying principles than it was the belief in specific history.

If my grandfather who has been dead for several years were to come to my door tomorrow I would call that evidence of a supernatural occurrence.
It is true that I assume that all events have a natural cause because explanation in terms of natural causes is sufficient. No convincing evidence to the contrary has ever been presented.

There is no historical support for Xenu whatsoever. If I had to bet on Xenu or the resurrection then I would choose the latter but that's not saying much. The historical evidence for the resurrection mostly consists of the empty tomb and accounts of Jesus' disciples after his crucifixion. This is circumstantial evidence at best.

Your not supposed to know about xenu until you've paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and gone through thousands of hours of interrogation / auditing while hooked up to an e-meter.

We don't even have good evidence of this. The earliest accounts have been written down decades after the "fact". The authors weren't desintered third parties either, and then even these accounts contradict each other.

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Regarding Scientology: I suggest watching the documentary Going Clear (available on Netflix and Youtube) to get a better idea of how Scientology was founded, its tenets, its current leadership and their methods.

Okay. So we have at least a hypothetical example of a supernatural occurrence to work with. How would you then provide evidence that it happened?

You should really think about this carefully. What type of evidence would be convincing?

Sure. But look back at the example above. What sort of evidence would you *expect*?

Also, you've now confirmed my claim against yours, which is that historicity does in fact play a role in the credibility of claims, including claims of the central tenets of the religion.

The evidence is pretty strong in the relative terms of other events from the time period.

Which could be said about most historical documents, even those of the historians of the time.

Ironically, if they didn't contain some level of confusion, the accusation would be that it was clearly a made up event in the same way that if two witnesses share the exact same recounting of an event that their testimony is at least somewhat discounted because of collaboration and potential conspiracy.

History simply can't win sometimes.

Well I could make a photograph/video of this person and compare it with family albums. I could take a DNA sample of this person to see if it matches that of my relatives.

Now go back in time. How would you do this without the aid of the technology that you described?

Obviously you couldn't. Can you explain how this fact this makes the evidence for the resurrection any more credible or convincing?

Ok, so if you dont have natural evidence, Im not sure what other type of evidence there is

Nope. Because that's not the point.

I'm pointing out a methodological flaw in your sense of historicity. Given that in this hypothetical you lack the means of convincing yourself that something that happened is actually true (for lack of the appropriate technology), then you have essentially created a situation in which no evidence can convince you of a true statement.

This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing on its own, but merely an intellectual limitation with the system you've established. So while you can go around saying "no evidence" and pretend like you're making the statement as if you've investigated the evidence and found it lacking, the truth is that there is no evidence that can convince you of these things anyway. So you might as well be saying that you've already decided *BEFORE* seeing any evidence that you won't be convinced. If the event did actually happen, and even if the people of the time tried their best to convince you (the singular personal you) that it happened with the best that they could physically do with the technology of the time, you simply wouldn't believe them.

Once you understand this, then you'd be fully intellectually honest about the nature of your beliefs. And you would stop pretending to be evaluating the statements and claims of evidence and instead be making statements about your belief structures. Because that's where all the intellectual action (or inaction) is to be found.

I agree mostly with the above, with respect to the resurrection at least. It is not true that I could not be convinced of the existence of a divine being. It would require better evidence than non-objective accounts written decades after the event.

The gist of it is that some people choose to believe in the supernatural. I choose not to. To each his own. Some reasons why I do not believe in christianity are:

The fact that the old testament is littered with actions and commandments by God which to me seem extremely immoral.

The creation myth has been completely and utterly destroyed by science. Evolution is not 'just a theory' but fact, supported by mountains of evidence.

The fact that the observable universe is unimagenably large; the earth is not even a speck of dust on this scale. The notion that one species of primate which has only been on this planet for a tiny part of its existence had to be redeemed just seems wildly implausible to me. What makes us so special?

The Uniqueness. 'Till somebody proves otherwise, I like to believe that The Earth is special, and so are we.

You can count from one to an infinite number. Can you repeat a number twice during your counting?

What would it require?

My standard for belief in anything is objective, empirical evidence. However, if I were to personally witness something physically impossible, I still could not exclude the possiblity that my mind is playing a trick on me.

If it were not just me but many other people who witnessed this physically impossible event and they could provide objective, empirical evidence than that would do it I guess.

Can you comprehend a world beyond your senses of touch, taste, sight, balance, movement, life, concept, warmth, hearing, tone(word), smell, ego of another ?

I listed them just so to clarify the human senses and of course some of them can be debated but that's an aside.

This world I speak to (beyond the senses) is called the spiritual world or a world of non sensible conditions . Please do me some grace and not use the word "supernatural" for it deflects the issue and points to all types of aberrations of thought with those who would deny by epithets.

And so again, can you comprehend that there is a world beyond the senses and its called the spiritual world which of course would have to be explored or presented in proper manner but just as a person cannot create a sonata such as Beethoven it does not obviate the appreciation of the same.

Not asking for "belief" but a comprehension via thinking as to a basis for all of creation. Before you answer, the question #2 becomes "are you self creative".

1) Can one appreciate a non sense bound world ?

2) Are you self creative ?

Yes and yes. Religion does not have a monopoly on this.

What do you mean comprehend? I would put it to you that, no, you ( as in you, personally, carlo) cannot comprehend anything that is non sense bound.

What does it mean " a world beyond the senses"?

How do you "explore or present" except with the senses?

First off through thinking, which is a spiritual activity , one can comprehend a non sense bounded reality . Through "sense free thinking" one enters the world of the spiritual .

Now I understand that this doesn't do much for you as some mandate experiencing it themselves but as I said, there are men who are able to enter into this realm thus bringing forth ideas and concepts to you and I and in truth we can understand or comprehend without entering into that realm ourselves as explorers, so to speak.

In actuality, in thinking we are within that realm for thinking is a spiritual activity but the exploration is founded by others and because we can "comprehend" through thinking we are able to see the "truths" of a "healthy thinking".

Hegel comes to mind as he knew and some who study his works that this thinking was spiritual or "sense free thinking". there are others who through certain types of" meditation or focusing" are able to withdraw their focus of attention away from their senses and consequently enter the sense free realm. The ancient and recent yogis and western meditants of different scope, all attempted through different methods to enter into that realm by a actual denial of the senses.

The great leaders of religion such as Zarathustra, Hermes, Pythagoras, Egyptian and Chaldean mystery centers,Moses and others traveled this realm and brought fruits to their peoples and mankind as a whole. Plato and the great Greek philosophers were well aware of this realm and in some manner gave grace to humankind. the revelations of the Christian and Buddhist religions are of this nature but of course in our times the denial unfortunately even enters many churches who have in effect presented a materialist view of the world and deny that very world which they preach " the Kingdom of God".

Important to know that these explorers through esoteric or occult training developed "new senses" or senses of that supersensible realm or realm of the spirit. This sense development capability is within all of us in the same sense that the eye develops in evolution these new senses will be and have been developed through the individual man, not from grace as in evolution but through the individual effort of man

I know there is still something lacking so I'll stop and start another page germane to the conception of "unmoved mover" and the like; back immediately.

Gibberish.

Back again; somewhere in the causal movement to the "unmoved mover' as stated in another thread or here in this thread there can be a regression when at some point the "unmoved mover" is posited for otherwise the movement of causality if regression never stops and so the "unmoved mover" is a "stop" through reason and judgment, a spiritual activity.

I'd like to regress in another manner which I find enlightening as to whether there is a spiritual world. If we picture a man in old age and regress to his middle age with his powers and creations and continue this "picturing" to an age of strength and clarity at about 28-30 years of age to the picture of youth and its adolescent powers to childhood to the toddler to the baby who is born from the womb after developing through a pregnancy we come to the fetal conception .

The fetal conception is pictured as the penetration of the female egg by the sperm, a secretion of the human being at the time of climax. I'll stay with the orgasmic or climax in the male of the species and go from there.

William James, a well known if not great American psychologist unequivocally states : when a man cries the physical man secretes the tears and then we feel sad. First the lachrymal movement and then we feel sad.

Conradistinct is the comprehension that one "feels sad" and then we cry. This is something that we can become clear about and displays the difference between the materialist exegesis and the comprehension of the spiritual.

There are others and in the "feeling of shame" the blood rushes to the face and according to William James the blood rushes first and then we feel shame. Clear perception would state that one experiences "shame" and the blood does its rush to the face.

A third is in the feeling of "fear" the blood rushes to the center of the human body and he will appear pallid and other symptoms in this experiencing of fear.

According to William James the blood rushes to the center of the body and then we experience fear. Likewise we might say that we experience fear and the blood rushes to the center of our body.

And so, if we are able to see that the experience of fear, shame and sadness is a manifestation what may be called a "psycho-spiritual " episode then we can have traveled to a consequence of a non material or non sensible activity, at least in the usual terms of senses.

Another look or reason is that fear, shame, sadness and all those experiences of the human soul such as courage, love,even anger and hate are not physical but are well within what one experiences within this "psycho-spiritual" activity.

It is possible to state that "fear" and "shame" is created by the physical human body but it doesn't wash if one thinks in a healthy manner.If one demands the physical as the beginning then one must agree with William James and state that the human being is only physical body.

To buttress the spiritual presentation ancient and near ancient peoples ,who were us, knew that the world as we see it was and is the outer manifestation of spiritual activity for the entire world and cosmos was divine. They knew this through an atavistic consciousness which is a clairvoyant capability to which mankind has lost and gained his intellect.

Getting back to our original progression the orgasmic secretion of the sperm is a "psycho-spiritual" activity to which the very birth of the human being is ensconced. The creative activity is contained within us, not only in conception but in our very toenails, tongue and heart. We also, as contained within the cosmos, are the sensate creation of a spiritual activity which creates more than the physical body but non the less, even this physicality is consequential to the spirit.

We are not solely physical and the knowledge of man can be appreciated by study and I'll offer again:

The "Philosophy of Freedom" by Rudolph Steiner also known as the "Philosophy of Spiritual Activity" as per the author.

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/...004_index.html

and "Theosophy" by Rudolph Steiner; this can s;peak to higher bodies of man which are supersensible.

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/...009_index.html

Carlo, I appreciate your effort, that must have taken a while to write. But it doesnt seem like it helps answer my questions. Sorry.

S'ok appreciate that your read it; the best to you.

You like this phrase "objective, empirical evidence." But what does that mean with regards to a "supernatural" event or being? What are you even saying?