If we live in a purely material world then how do we account for the many supernatural experiences?

Question

If we live in a purely material world then how do we account for the many supernatural experiences that people have, such as encounters with God, ghosts, spirits, etc (obviously, exactly what all of these encounters actually are are all interpreted by different people in different ways but the fact remains that people encounter things that do not fit a purely naturalistic world view). Are we really to conclude that all of these people are delusional, deceptive, or mad? Or could it be that people are having real encounters with real supernatural beings not explainable through purely scientific mediums?

If you just say that the people are crazy or deluded, is that really fair since you're not actually them and you don't knwo what they are experiencing? Just because you have never experienced it doesn't mean it's not true. I've never been to China but I don't claim that China doesn't exist.

gorgeous-----the reason it bothers me is bc they call me deluded

Answer 1

great question! Science does not have all the answers....there is much more to this world than what the natural eye can see..Praise God the true and living God....and praise be Jesus Chris the living savior....

Answer 2

"Supernatural" is a copout, and unexplained does not mean unexplainable. First off, you have to prove that something supernatural actually happened, and is not simply a mistake on the part of the observer. Divine visions are often symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy or delusional disorders, for example. "Ghost" and "EVP" phenomena are often mechanical or electrical glitches -- a "poltergeisted" picture hung a little off-center on a wall, for example, and slipping over time, or an errant board connection forming a point-contact diode in an old tape recorder. UFOs turn out to be military research projects, stray weather balloons (or otherwise, as with the Project Mogul balloons that precipitated the Roswell incident), or misperceived civilian aircraft. Psychic phenomena are often the easiest to debunk, as they inevitably turn out to be magic tricks on further examination. Even if "supernatural" phenomena were actually what they seemed to be, they'd still be subject to scientific investigation as a part of the natural world that we just don't understand yet. There is no such thing as a Thing Man Was Not Meant To Know; only things we don't yet have the tools to understand.

Answer 3

We live in a material world filled with superstitious people.

Your question is quite a broad one, because it would take a while to answer each example of "supernatural experience" that you mention. However, it all has to do with human nature. The main factors in these are our emotions, our ability to recognize patterns, characteristics of sleep, and other things.

People "feel" a connection with God because they have an emotional connection to the idea. It is not an actual connection, but just a strong feeling.

People see ghosts and hear voices because we are geared towards recognizing those patterns, even to the point of thinking they're there when they aren't. From a survival stance, it is better to imagine a person hiding in the bushes ahead when there aren't any there, than to not detect one when there is.

Most stories with ghosts, spirits, aliens, and such happen as we wake up from sleep, and there is evidence that those are just dreams that linger into when we're just waking up.

There are also other characteristics of human nature that lend itself to making up and believing myths, superstitions, urban legends, religions, and the like. To say that people are just deluded or crazy is too simplistic an answer. It is much more complicated than that, because we are complicated.

Answer 4

That is the problem with the so-called scientific people.

There was a time when most of the people believed in the supernatural. With the advancement of science the pendulum has swung to the other side and people believe everything can be explained scientifically.

I prefer the middle position.

Answer 5

The reason you believe that China exists is because the evidence to verify it is available to you. If you wanted to test China's existence you could do so rather easily.

However, the evidence suggesting that supernatural phenomena truly exist is elusive. People claim to see ghosts, but there is no evidence except testimony to support their claims. If somebody made a verifiable claim about supernatural phenomena, that claim could be investigated and determined to be true or false.

Since the claims lack verifiability in principle, you cannot say they are the same as claiming that something verifiable (like China) exists.

Answer 6

There's pictures from china, there's people from china, my keyboard says "made in china." Your ghosts do not exist, there is no evidence of them other than made up stories, or people attributing natural phenomena to "supernatural entities." You can delude yourself all you want, but there is no such thing as ghosts, god, spirits, etc. You have no proof and you never will.

Answer 7

A few years ago, I saw some pixies running around my yard. After that, some nice men in white jackets came and picked me up and took me to a nice, quite place for a while.


No, I'm kidding, but claims of encounters with spirits, etc. are undocumented, except by those people making the claims.

Answer 8

Your analogy (China) again, is flawed.

If I told everyone that a green, winged, 3-foot tall vampire told me to suck oil out of my car and therefore die and go to a greener, cleaner place in another realm, would you believe me, even though you hadn't seen him?

I don't discount or even doubt other 'levels' of existence, other dimensions, other beings, but it would take MORE disbelief in my own integrity for me to claim that I had empirical or solid knowledge of these things. I have a few 'ghostly' encounters which have made me doubt my own sanity, until others experienced them too, but I don't know what it was, so I am fine with not knowing unless I find a way to know more.

Answer 9

Well people have experienced god, angels, demons, fairies, monsters, aliens... you really believe in all mythical beings? Everything that doesn't exist you feel has objective reality simply because some psychotic had an 'experience'?

Your views are so contrary to common sense that I find it hard to understand how you're sentient and able to communicate like a thinking human being. Don't you listen to yourself?

Answer 10

There are NONE.

Anything called supernatural will have any number of explanations.

Just because you personally do not understand something, does make it supernatural. There are plenty of people out there who DO understand things.

Answer 11

Could it not be that people are having real experiences which can not as of yet be explained by science?

Just because we can't explain it does not mean it must be supernatural.

(your avatar changes from really scary to rather geeky looking when I click on your question, what's up with that?)