Supernatural vs Natural, part 2

This is going to be a short one, because I have already written a post similar to this. This one comes at it from a different direction though, so here goes. It occurred to me this morning in the shower (again) that the term supernatural is self-contradictory, or at least the word contradicts the definition. Consider that the root word of supernatural is natural, to which the prefix super is attached. Super alters the existing condition of natural. Natural becomes supernatural, supernatural stemming originally from simply natural. Now, the commonly accepted understanding of the word supernatural is something that is "above" the natural world, somehow beyond the reaches of the laws of nature, transcendent, if you will. But this definition implies that the supernatural is more advanced than the natural, that the supernatural is what the natural stemmed from. The accepted definition contradicts what the words actually mean. It's funny that so many religions claim this secondary, newly-adopted and morphed definition, the natural world is the intentional product of those inhabitants of the supernatural realm. If this were the case, then the word natural should apply to what we actually refer to today as the supernatural, while the natural world as we call it today should actually be referred to as Subnatural, since it is the natural world which, according to many religious doctrines, is the altered state, and consequently is less-perfect than the supernatural world. Looking at things this way, it is easy to see how sub-standard religions regard their very proponents. It is deceptively masochistic to base a doctrine, or series of doctrines on the idea that those who are to accept and believe the doctrine are somehow less than what they truly are. Religions should celebrate the wonder of humanity, the inherent worthiness of our existing at all. Instead, many relegate us to a station merely one step beyond that of rocks (and some even put us below them, as even the rocks and mountains will sing his praises, while we will not, aptly attests :-)). While this is partly a semantic issue, semantics are how we communicate. Through commonly accepted ideas, not just words, but the very ideas, we became civilized. Through the words, we now allow ourselves to either continue in a civilized manner, or degenerate into our previous more primitive selves, only this time knowingly. Choose your words carefully, make sure you are really saying what you mean, or you might find yourself in the middle of a Brainwashing session, a Jihad or even a cave in the middle of the french countryside making drawings of buffalo with slightly differently colored clays you happen to find while foraging for berries, or perhaps hunting stags. Progress happens from the less sophisticated to the more, the supernatural stemmed from the natural. Unfortunately, imagination has become so complex, it has hijacked our sense of existence, and has made us believe in our own fairytales. Perhaps, this is only a rogue branch on the tree of evolution, and the trunk remains intact. Infact, I'm sure it does, but wouldn't it be nice for humanity to be around for the remainder of the evolutionary road, instead of our getting lost down this dead-end branch, too ignorant, delusional or blindly egotistic to see that we should turn around?

On Dinosaurs and Man

Here's another one for all of you young earth creationists. There is published literature out there (and I use the term literature very loosely) stating that dinosaurs and man could have and did actually live at the same time. Kent Hovind says so, as do some of his disciples (pun definitely intended). They often cite the river bed in Texas that has dinosaur footprints fossilized in it along with "giant man" footprints. The Paluxy River dinosaur and man footprints have been thoroughly discredited by science. They do not represent man and dino footprints side-by-side in geologic time at all. The "man" footprints aren't even universally accepted as being "man" footprints. But the geologic timetable is not enough of a deterrent to you young earth folks, so here's one to think about:
If man and dinosaurs existed at the same time in the same basic places on earth, how in blazes did we survive?
Velociraptors were arguably the world's most lethal predator, EVER. Six feet tall, they were just the right size to take a frail human out like a package of Ribeye in the meat section of the grocery store. We would've been like cows to them or any other carnivorous dinosaur, for that matter, that happened to spot us strolling down the wooded path whistling a merry tune. There were plenty of other similarly-sized dinosaurs that could've dined on a meal of us and still had room for dessert. There is simply no way we would be the dominant species on the earth now, if we were around when dinos were.

Look at the top predators in the world today, Lions, White Sharks, Orcas, Tigers, Crocodiles, Hyenas, etc... All are lethal to humans, if confronted with them. This is why we, as a generally uneducated population, tend to stay away from these animals. If we were to suddenly begin waltzing around the serengeti plain day-in and day-out, eventually lions and hyenas would catch on to our vulnerability and start adjusting their menus accordingly. Yes, they might not much like the way we taste at first, but I'll bet they'd get used to our stringiness and proportional lack of body fat after enough time. The same scenario would easily apply to great white sharks. Although we are not a part of their regular diet of seals, I'll bet if we were to take to swimming and bathing and generally frolicking in the tropical waters around Seal Island for an extended period of time, we'd see a dramatic rise in the number of reported great white attacks and subsequent deaths. If you can't see how this has anything to do with dinosaurs, just increase the number of lions, tigers, sharks etc. which we have on the earth today by at least a few orders of magnitude and you'll arrive at a reasonable census for the height of the population of carnivorous dinosaurs who might've been interested in us as prey. For instance, let's use Dilophosaurs (the spitting venom dinosaurs from the book Jurassic Park by Michael Crighton) as one of many examples of dinosaurs who would probably have hunted and eaten us if they could have done so. Now, let's implant those dinosaurs into the landscape of the middle east of 6,000 years ago, complete with mud and clay houses, no gunpowder or nuclear technology and only our trusty trumpets (which could come in handy if we want to knock the walls of a certain city down) and swords for hand to claw combat. No tanks, horses (although these wouldn't fare all that well against dinos either) or helicopters. Only us agriculturalists against the marauding (and very hungry) "terrible lizards". Would we even stand a chance? With nothing substantial to defend ourselves? I'm glad I don't live in this fictional world. For that matter, let's transplant all the dinosaurs from, say, the Cretacious Era into the present, and see how we humans in our clapboard houses and Ford Tauruses would stand up against a ten-ton triceratops. Would you enjoy walking out of your house everyday knowing there are hungry and voracious hunters, bigger and more cunning than you, just outside your house waiting to rip you to shreds and devour while you're still kicking and screaming? It might be nice to see or think about a dinosaur, but to confront a living and breathing one in the world, think again!
It's absolutely ridiculous to even entertain the thought of humans and dinosaurs living at the same time. It's absurd. Creationists, give me a break. Do yourselves a favor and just acknowledge the science. Your making yourselves sound ridiculous.

On Spiritual Defection

Everyone knows of people who have deserted what once they professed to believe. I myself am one who has done such a thing. The existence of defectors from one side of the science/creation dialectic to the other is well-documented: Some examples of highly esteemed individuals who have accepted christ and christianity after having tried to disprove it are most notably C.S. Lewis, Francis Collins and Alistair McGrath. I won’t try to list all the ex-christians who have given up the fantastic claims of the religious, there are too many.I confess I have not read McGrath’s work, The Dawkin’s Delusion, but I have listened to him argue against a fellow rational thinker, Richard Dawkins. I have read Dawkins’ The God Delusion, which is, biasedly-speaking, a fascinating book. I’m not sure if Collins has written anything (he was one of the original geneticists working on decoding the genome, if I’m not mistaken). I have however read Lewis’ works including but not limited to The Chronicles of Narnia. I am currently rereading “Mere Christianity” and I have read “The Joyful Christian”, The Screwtape Letters and others.
Lewis was no doubt a great author and literary giant who argued his points well enough, but made generalizations in doing so. Read Mere Christianity and you’ll see what I mean. I willingly concede his literary prowess, but this in no way diminishes the observed fact of evolution through natural selection. The simple fact that there have been refugees from one camp or the other does nothing to prove or disprove either side, it simply illustrates a rebellion by either side against their own inherited concepts. b. The concept of supposition from above undermines the argument christians make that they are looking for the truth and have found it in Jesus. They look for things they've already read, in a book that contains the answers they already believe. They find only what they’ve already decided to see. You cannot be looking for something if you already believe you've found it.
The same cannot be said of scientists. They have no book, readymade with answers they hope to hear. In order to get an answer they have to and do ask questions constantly, even of things they might have thought they already understood. The very idea of science is to study and to question.
Religion demands the opposite, do not question, have faith. To only make a point, children look for nothing. They only see things as they are. To say that any child has ever honestly asked jesus to “live in their hearts” is to turn them into play dolls. A child is in no way capable of deciding to do anything of the sort that the previous statement suggests. There is no such thing as a christian child, just as there is no such thing as a capitalist child or fundamentalist child to paraphrase Richard Dawkins. There are only children. Only adults can look for such things.
I submit that those who have “found god” have done so at times of trouble in their life, not during times of bliss. You don’t hear the testimony of someone “coming to jesus” because they were having such an easy time in life. Even celebrities such as Kirk Cameron from “Growing Pains” who admittedly was quite comfortable with his wordly possesions but felt he was missing something, come to religion, or christ in his case, from some point of dissatisfaction. Again, I’d like to hear of someone coming to god who wasn’t going through some difficulty in their life, it would at least make the idea more respectable. Christianity is a poor source of meaning for the preciousness of life that we humans have. Our lives can and do have all possible meaning if we recognize that there is no need to pay alms to a ghost of our fear-laden, overactive imaginations.c. As an assay,C.S. Lewis said something I find interesting in Mere Christianity. He said “ either jesus was a lunatic, or he was the son of god. “ I completely agree with this statement. I have seen no proof, or evidence of his divinity, although I was raised to unquestioningly believe in it. I have since read and thought of a great deal of evidence against it. I think it’s clear he was a egomaniacal, adolescent, totalitarian madman who most certainly believed himself to be divine and who had a few good things to say along with a host of more subtle and vastly more influential bad things.

Update: I have since read Mcgrath's Dawkins' Delusion. I found it to be well-written, but ironic in it's analysis of the God Delusion. Mcgrath spends his time belittling Dawkins' blunt stance on the backwardness of religion, as opposed to spending his time defying the philosophical points Dawkins relays in his own book. I thought Mcgrath's book should have actually disproven something from Dawkins' book, but Mcgrath purposefully states that while it is possible to do so, he chose not to. Why not? If it can be done, and Dawkins represents the antithesis of what you as a human believe why not write a book that actually does dispel what Dawkins says (especially when you take time in your book to say it can be done). This is a good example of how a person can sound intelligent and think semi-intelligently, yet still, spiritually speaking, behave as, at best, an adolescent and at worst, an infant.

On Presupposition

It has been said that all of humanity begins thought with presuppositions. Whenever someone begins to think about a certain topic, they do so with a particular bias of some sort. For instance, if one begins to think about the existence of earth and how it came to be, chances are they will presume either the idea of creation or the idea of evolution to be true, seeing as how these are the two dominant explanations. Having this presumption makes discovering supportive proofs for it easier to find regardless of the slant of the person.
Said another way, if you already believe in something (creation or evolution), you will look specifically for the “proof” to support your point of view and use it as evidence for your position.
It seems to me that the word presupposition (supposition would do just as well) itself means belief or at least pre-belief. If you start with a supposition of something, you suppose it to be true beforehand. Why not just say you believe this and be done with it?

There is a problem with saying that all human thought begins with presupposition.
What I mean is, children don’t have pre-existing suppositions of any topic of thought. They and we all begin with an innocent mind. It is only after society, religion, our parents and extended family etc.. distort this innocence into their own conceptions do children lose the innocence of ideas and pure thought. Since we all began as children, it follows that none of us began with supposition. As adults, we might very well do so, but that is simply because we have inherited the suppositions of our parents/teachers/friends; they are not our own.
What we decide to do with those inheritances is a decision we as adults have to make, but as children we do and think what we see and are told to.
We teach our children to have our stances on such things as religion, politics and socially acceptable behavior. If we teach our children to be brave enough to think for themselves and how to do so, will we usurp indoctrination and free our children to be more humane.
Starting with a supposition does not however mean that any “proof” found is false. It only ensures that the proof was more easily discovered because of deductive reasoning or intuition.
Charles Darwin set off aboard the H.M.S. Beagle in 1831 with no intention of finding proof of his then unrealized theory of natural selection.
It was in fact the other way around, he observed what was there and formulated his theory afterwards, which he laid down in “On the Origin of Species” (1859) much later.
He did not believe that evolution through natural selection was true in advance of his trip. He observed it in practice during his voyage. His training for the clergy would most certainly not have put the idea in his mind.
It is quite fortunate for us that he chose a different career path.
The finches he studied on The Galapagos Islands were as unknown to him as they were to Noah until of course he found them and observed the differences in the shapes of their beaks. These differences he noted were, from island to island, specifically acclimated to harvesting the particular foods available on each island.
He did not have any idea that this arrangement of the physical attributes of the local wildlife on remote islands in the Pacific Ocean would exist.
The situation he observed led him to his eventual thoughts on natural selection, not the other way around.

Scientists probably do as a general rule start out with one supposition though, that being, the truth is discoverable, and worth the effort.

Evolution through natural selection is a concept, which does not need to or can be proven, due to the definition of a Theory. Creation doesn’t even qualify as a theory by definition.
I refer you to an interesting article that I believe might shed some light on the subject.

All we can do is test a theory.
Theories by definition can never be “proven”, they can only stand up repeatedly to tests, or fail to do so. If they stand up, they are accepted as true until such time as they fail.
I will happily concede that such a time may come for the theory of evolution, but I personally don’t think it will, considering the theory has survived intact since 1859.
Creation is untestable.
This disqualifies it from the discussion of viable theories for existence. A theory has to be testable, in order to see if it is rigorous enough to withstand doubt.

The scientific theory of evolution through natural selection is completely testable. It has been tested over and over again. It may be disproven someday, but up until now it has not been and this only testifies to it's resilience to scrutiny. Creation, however, can easily be debunked by simply thinking of all we know now, that the authors of the bible did not know.

Creation is the fantastically superstitious myth of scientifically ignorant Arabic peasants from a few thousand years ago for which (to quote Sam Harris) a wheelbarrow would have constituted emerging technology. That the world at large can buy into this children’s story is laughable.