I actually have no real concept of a supernatural but I assume theists do or at least they respond to the idea.
I thought it would all be a part of being a theist and why they believe and I don't, but theistic explanations are never particularly enlightening in my experience.
What on Earth do theists mean by it since any real natural effect on a believer would not then be supernatural and therefore testable imo.
Well, I don't think I believe in the supernatural either. I believe in the value of the world as created by God. The idea of a supernatural world devalues the world we live in. The world we live in is not natural as opposed to supernatural, it is simply what it is.
No it's more like not collecting stamps. I don't deny that God or any gods exists, I simply have no belief that any do.
That may be true for you but I don't think that was Grubby Chops' view.
You can actually not believe in something by simply being unaware of the idea after all.
I have however heard of many gods but have never seen evidence to support their existence, therefore I remain a non believer even after knowing something more about them.
I thought I answered this problem in another thread recently. I gave the example of a scientific experiment. You might be able to trace the falling of the apple to the ground through the release from my hand, through the chemicals passed along the nerve fibres in my arms and so on back to the neurons firing. But you will never be able to find any purpose in that. You will never be able to discern that the purpose of the apple being released from my hand was to test a hypothesis. You will never find any scientific evidence that the experiment was determined purely by my will and the will of other scientists present at the site of the experiment. But does this mean that you will ignore the mere hearsay of me and others who tell you that it was an experiment for a purpose?
I would venture that it doesn't mean that at all. But all you have is this hearsay from me and a few others. You have no actual hard evidence at all. You can only take it on trust.
Theists usually only disbelieve in one less god than I do, or perhaps you believe in all gods by default for some reason, even the ones you've never even heard of? :liberals:
Not at all. I struggle to believe in God. But I have this comfort: I trust the witnesses of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The disciples struggled with exactly the same issues: 'show us the Father and we will be content', they asked. Same question we've all been asking. We just want the evidence. His answer: 'If you have seen me, you have seen the Father'.
If these words are not the trustworthy and honest recounting of what Jesus said, then they are the greatest example of disingenuity I can imagine. I also, to get back to the subject, don't see how the supernaturalist can consistently account for these words, Jesus being to all appearances, a genuine man.
