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  1. Naked Science Forum
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  3. General Science
  4. Are the words "natural" and "supernatural" actually meaningless?
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Are the words "natural" and "supernatural" actually meaningless?

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Offline PmbPhy

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Re: Are the words "natural" and "supernatural" actually meaningless?
« Reply #20 on: 19/03/2018 22:30:36 »
Quote from: Zer)
Terming God or referring to God as "He" or "Him" on multiple occasions attributes to machoism or masculinity and is Very Unfair from a Feministic point of view.
Nonsense. Most people on Earth do that for a good reason, i.e. because the majority of the people on Earth follow an Abrahamic religion, i.e. Judaism. Christianity and Islam and in those religions God presents Himself in the masculine. Therefore people have the tendency to respect that and follow suit. On the other the English language has no term for a generic gender.

That people on Earth follow an Abrahamic religion follows from the following facts:
Christianity - 2.3 billion (31.2%)
Islam - 1.8 billion  (24.1%)
Judaism 14 million  (.02%)

I mention Judaism only because Christian and Islamic history is rooted in Judaism, i.e. the God of Christianity, Islam and Judaism is the God of Abraham.

As to why it appears in the Bible this way is a religious question, not a scientific one. Billy Graham answers it as follows which I believe is quite a common one.
https://billygraham.org/answer/why-does-the-bible-refer-to-god-in-masculine-terms/
Quote
The answer to the question about why God is referred to in masculine terms in the Bible really has only one answer: This is the way God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. God is never described with sexual characteristics in the Scriptures, but He does consistently describe Himself in the masculine gender. ...etc
Please do your homework before you attempt to force people to think and behave like you think they should.

Also, the English language cannot have a term for the sexuality of God since it can't be literally applied to Him. See and learn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_of_God

And it'd be disrespectful to refer to God as "It.":
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Offline PmbPhy

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Re: Are the words "natural" and "supernatural" actually meaningless?
« Reply #21 on: 19/03/2018 22:34:34 »
Quote from: graham.d on 15/05/2013 09:16:53
I think you are choosing a narrow meaning of the word natural. There are many shades of meaning that are useful to use within the English language...

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/natural
Not so. In that dictionary it lists the various definitions for the various contexts in which the term is used. It doesn't mean that it has different shade of meaning. In the context of this thread it has only one meaning.
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Offline PmbPhy

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Re: Are the words "natural" and "supernatural" actually meaningless?
« Reply #22 on: 19/03/2018 23:02:07 »
Quote from: Zer0

1) Attempting to Disprove or Disqualify 'God' is simply futile. 👎
Wrong. In fact it took me decades of having an open mind and kept searching for answers to come to some.

First, what do we mean by "God". In the present context it means one of the following
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/god
Quote
1 (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being
2. (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.
Let's assume that we're discussing def #1. Then the definition itself is problematic since an entity might have created the universe but not ruled it or chose to rule it, etc.

That its possible for an entity to actually create a universe has proven plausible by physicists at MIT. See
Is it possible to create a universe in the laboratory by quantum tunneling? by Alan Guth and Edward Farhi, Nuclear Physics B, Volume 339, Issue 2, 30 July 1990, Pages 417-490
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/055032139090357J

Then there's the notion that it may be possible to travel back in time to witness the interactions of God and man such as going back to when and where Moses received the ten commandments from God. The concept of a time machine has been in the realm of plausible physics for some time now. Richard Gott at Princeton proposed a method of how to do it using two cosmic strings. The idea here is that such travel is possible within the realm of general relativity. Problems such as the grandfather paradox are avoided by introducing the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

This all uses the methodology of science. That is to say one proposes an hypothesis and then introduces a method to verify that hypothesis. Please don't make the common mistake of saying "That doesn't prove anything" because science is not about proving hypotheses or theories. Its about proposing them to fit facts and then using the theory to propose a method of verifying it. And that's what I just explained.

What is now being done to verify the accounts in the Bible is by using archeology which is then recorded in the journal called Biblical Archeology. For example; the bible records the account of Moses walking up Mount Sinai and encounters a path made of "Sapphire"  although the original Hebrew doesn't refer to it as such because sapphire in wasn't mined until Roman times. Archeologists discovered material fitting that description on Mount Sinai. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Mount_Sinai
Quote
Archaeological artifacts discovered at the top of the mountain indicate that it was once covered by polished shiny blue slate, fitting with the biblical description of paved work of sapphire stone

I could go on but the point is made.

He who doesn't seek doesn't find.
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Offline PmbPhy

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Re: Are the words "natural" and "supernatural" actually meaningless?
« Reply #23 on: 19/03/2018 23:12:55 »
Speaking of God, see
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Offline Zer0

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Re: Are the words "natural" and "supernatural" actually meaningless?
« Reply #24 on: 01/04/2018 18:28:09 »
I have the Time, resources n energy to make this thread(OP) one of the longest one in terms of scrolling down or multiple pages. 👊

But...over the years as I pass through time I seem to be getting a bit wiser. 😇
Hence I choose not to waste anymore time energy or resource on a journey which ultimately leads to nowhereland. 🍥
Been there, done that. 👎

Besides it makes no sense debating on something which seems to be non existent, Right? 😎

Please don't be judgemental if I do not respond to future posts in regards to this specific OP. 😵
I do not mean any Disrespect, Thanks. 🙏

P.S. - Just a vague one liner T-shirt quote I came across.
" I've seen God, she's Black "
✌
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Offline Tomassci

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Re: Are the words "natural" and "supernatural" actually meaningless?
« Reply #25 on: 13/07/2018 13:47:19 »
No, I don't want to use the word "god". This is everyone's own thing.

Natural can be
a) all things that are in universe.
b) Or all things that are a) plus they are rational.
c)"nature-made"=not human-made.

Let's make example:
a) a house, or a tree are natural, because they exist.

b)Tree is real. Ghosts aren't. (Or that suggests latest research.)

c) Arsenic is natural. Oganesson isn't. We made oganesson.

In these examples, a),b), and c) overlap.
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Offline rami999

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Re: Are the words "natural" and "supernatural" actually meaningless?
« Reply #26 on: 25/07/2018 22:48:48 »
super natural= above natural
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Offline Monox D. I-Fly

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Re: Are the words "natural" and "supernatural" actually meaningless?
« Reply #27 on: 02/11/2018 07:22:01 »
Quote from: Tomassci on 13/07/2018 13:47:19
c) Arsenic is natural. Oganesson isn't. We made oganesson.
What is Oganesson?
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Offline jfoldbar

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Re: Are the words "natural" and "supernatural" actually meaningless?
« Reply #28 on: 21/01/2019 00:49:21 »
the idea proposed by the OP is something that i sometimes ponder. the term 'natural'.
thousands of years ago a storm was considered supernatural. why?, because we didnt understand it.
but as science and what we can see has progressed and gotten smaller and smaller, science is essentially moving the goal posts on what is natural, with 'supernatural' getting  less room to move.
for someone to still call something 'supernatural' is this day and age could be replaced with "too small for us to see yet". is it possible in the future that we can see all where the term 'supernatural' is redundant?
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