Why does our species seem so open to supernatural hype?

Often when we think of anti intellectualism or anti science movements the whipping boy is evangelicals. While there is definitely some crazy claims in modern Christianity concerning resurrections and supernatural healings there is also aspects of this in every culture and race. A strong belief in voodoo curses can be found among African Americans in southern USA. There are lots of Asians who still strongly believe in astrology. In Mexico and SW USA you can find hispanic men and women who believe in black magic curses. Most muslims
believe in beings of smokeless fire. Lots of old white men believe in Bigfoot and within Wiccan and witchcraft “ traditional nature paths” you’ll meet woman after woman who believes in tarot cards and the healing powers of crystals and old ladies that open windows and burn sage to drive out evil forces. Almost all kids can be said to have wild imaginations.

It seems like our species has a driving force towards belief in the other worldly.

Are there any scientific explanations for it? Pros snd Cons? Could God have used that to his advantage.

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Evolution. We have hyperactive agency detectors and our feeble capacity for reason is swamped by our passions. That obviously has higher survival value than the other way around. Or rather the other way around is biologically impossible to attain obviously. How could pure reason possibly be selected for?

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Because we know Something has to be behind it all. We know we didn’t just pop by out of the blue one day.
Fact is, life from other worlds is all around us 24/7 and once in a blue moon or so we sense their presence. In fact, the entire universe is a battlefield where war goes on in different dimensions— all of it over our souls. Vicious, deadly, huge battles go on in the background of our reality continuously.

String theory only works with multiple dimensions.
We didn’t know that 90 percent of our universe was composed of dark energy and dark matter until just recently. We couldn’t see them.

An equally valid question is: why do some people quickly dismiss the supernatural and things which cannot be disproved?

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I have no idea what you said, but it sounded pretty profound and more than worth a little :heart:

Hey Ralphie, that’s my failure to communicate. Love the love brother.

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Who said that? Who? :grin:

I guess for me it’s because the extraordinary claim is the one that needs to be proven.

Take Bigfoot. Hundreds, if not thousands of people claim to have seen it. From ole joe hick in the trailer park to doctors and so on. Some even seemingly develop trauma from it. Ive seen grown men who seem to sincerely believe Bigfoot is real and while camping attacked him and killed his dog and the guy was breaking down and his wife said sometimes while driving he has panic attacks near the woods and so on.

Yet there is no footage.
There are no dna samples from hair or scat.
None have been found dead on the side of the road and there has been no fossils.

There is no evidence outside of someone saying so. I have no reason to believe in it.

I know of women who sincerely believe that by reading tarot cards they can understand someone’s future. The symbolism in those cards are just as authoritative and spiritual as the scriptures are to Christians. They shape entire world changing events around these cards. Yet I don’t believe it personally.

There are degrees of feeble.

But then why does everyone reject some things which cannot be disproved while allowing those which they are inclined to believe? I hold some things on faith alone because life doesn’t permit one to vet everything one needs to believe in order to live a fulfilling life. Like Christians I don’t feel compelled to reject everything I believe but can’t vet. Unlike at least most Christians I have no use for a supernatural category. My intuition is that everything that exists is natural, even though we may not be bright enough to connect all the dots.

I think the better approach is to accept that there are things we don’t know while embracing uncertainty on some matters.

There may be a Bigfoot. I don’t know.

I have seen numerous supernatural events myself, but people who don’t know my character personally may not believe my account of them.

Some have more than one degree. :grin:

I’ve experienced wondrous things but all of them happened right here on planet earth or in dreams. The nature of our experience can change and our capacities with them but i see no role for the supernatural to help me make sense of any of it. To my mind that categorization simply places experience beyond understanding. I have no problem admitting experience can resist understanding, but I see no reason to assume it is in principle beyond understanding for all time. What is beyond this hominid mind of mine need not be unrestrained by the laws of nature. More likely our grasp of those laws just isn’t that good.

I remember them.
You wouldn’t believe how many people stare right at me and scream their bloody heads off only to forget they ever encountered me 24 hours later. After swearing to the police I was the most hideous frightening thing they ever witnessed, they calm down for some reason. .

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Like what? They aren’t proved in the first place: there is no need to disprove them.

For example, that God might actually lead or instruct a person to do a specific task at a specific time.

One reason why I don’t believe it now is because when God gave specific tasks to people and he called them out for it they were able to do several things.

  1. They could share specific prophecies that came true within their generation. Not just general ambiguous Nostradamus ramblings that can be interpreted dozens of ways but specific things like these people will attack, this temple will be destroyed and so on.

  2. They had the ability to lay on hands and instantly raise the dead, heal the sick or cast out these demonic beings regardless of that persons faith. Unbelievers became believers because they were healed.

Now says there is no one able to do that. No one can go into a hospital and heals dozens of sick people with cancer, hesrt attacks and so on. It’s always I know someone or I heard a story from someone I trust or I can’t do it because it’s testing god and ect…

Same as no voodoo priestess can stick a needle in a doll and harm me and no woman can send a cat to my hiuse that transforms into a beast and drag me to some otherworldly place in the hollow of a oak and so on.

Just like a woman can’t lift a big car single handedly off of her child because of some she hulk transformation from adrenaline.

If I pick up a book in the woods found in some decrepit cabin I want have howling wind carrying on it the whispers of the dead forcing me to pick up a chainsaw and cut my way through band so on.

Extraordinary claims must be able to prove themselves. Questioning them and proving them wrong is often impossible. I could say I see fairies flying about the moonlit prairie and you would have a hard time disproving it. Your disproving it would be me not being able to prove it.

Healing is not like that. It is very targeted and done at the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

Consider the example of Jesus from John 5:

After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew[a] Beth-zatha,[b] which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.[c] 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a sabbath.

There were many sick there. Only one was healed.

Not beyond the dispensation of the apostolic He doesn’t. No. Including healing.

Well, we won’t agree on that — as many of us see God as continuing to work.

And many of us have seen the effects in our lives or the lives of friends and others.