Why the Word “Supernatural” Is Meaningless

[Periodically, a question comes up asking whether atheists reject the entire idea of “the supernatural” all together or whether it’s just God that we don’t believe in. I can’t speak for all atheists, but as far as I am concerned the entire idea of “supernatural” is a wholly empty and meaningless concept to begin with. Of course, every time this question is asked, I come up with a slightly different way to express my feelings, so this post just captures my various responses.]

The word “supernatural” is wholly meaningless because:

1. The natural world encompasses everything we can see, feel, hear, taste, measure or in any way detect.
   
2. In order for something to truly be “supernatural”, it would necessarily need to not be part of the natural world.
   
3. Anything that is not part of the natural world cannot be seen, felt, heard, tasted, measured or in any way detected.
   
4. Therefore, regardless of whether anything supernatural exists or not, it is meaningless to talk about it since there is no way to detect it or know anything about it. The moment it becomes detectable in any way, it ceases to become supernatural. 

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In my experience, “Supernatural” is just a term that people use to describe proposed things for which there is no proof or good evidence but which we nevertheless think might possibly exist in some sense. Or, perhaps, things that we really wish existed despite all evidence to the contrary. For example:

• We have no real proof or good evidence that God exists, but we really, really wish He did, so let’s say that God is “supernatural” to explain why we can’t detect any evidence of His existence rather than acknowledging He doesn’t actually exist.
  
• We have no real proof or good evidence that ghosts exists, but we really, really wish they did, so let’s say that ghosts are “supernatural” to explain why we can’t detect any evidence of their existence rather than acknowledging they don’t actually exist.
  
• We have no real proof or good evidence that psychic powers exists, but we really, really wish they did, so let’s say that psychic powers are “supernatural” to explain why we can’t detect any evidence of their existence rather than acknowledging they don’t actually exist.
  
• We have no real proof or good evidence that the human spirit or soul exists apart from human brains, but we really, really wish they did, so let’s say spirits and souls are “supernatural” to explain why we can’t detect any evidence of their existence rather than acknowledging they don’t actually exist.

Rinse and repeat.

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Atheists, as a rule, don’t claim to have beliefs or knowledge about ultimate or absolute truths. That’s usually the realm of theists, and atheists generally say they don’t believe those claims.

As a rationalist, however, I strongly believe that “supernatural” is just a term made up to justify a belief in something for which there is no supporting evidence. Sure, there are things in the world that people can’t currently explain. Perhaps there even things that we will never be able to explain (why does seeing a person yawn make us want to yawn as well?). But anything that we can observe or detect or that has any effect whatsoever on the natural world is, as far as I’m concerned, part of the natural world and therefore, by definition, not supernatural.

Or, to put it another way, the supernatural cannot exist because existence itself is a natural state:

1. Something can be said to exist if it is composed of matter or energy and occupies time and space.
   
2. Anything that is composed of matter or energy and occupies time and space is part of the natural world.
   
3. Anything “supernatural” would, by definition, not be part of the natural world and would therefore need to not be composed of matter or energy nor occupy time or space.
   
4. Therefore, anything supernatural cannot be said to actually exist. Q.E.D.

Geoffrey Paul Goldberg (1939-2015)

My father passed away yesterday morning.  I was vacationing with my wife and son when I got the call from my step-mother.  I can't say it was a huge shock, since he has been in generally poor health for awhile now and actually came very close to dying four or five years ago after suffering congestive heart failure and going into a coma for a week after being revived.  In fact, the doctors at the time said there was very little chance he would recover and that we should all gather to say our final goodbyes.  Which is to say I long ago reconciled myself to the fact of my father's mortality.  The fact that he managed to recover last time also meant I had plenty of time over the last four years to rebuild some bridges with him and develop a much better relationship with him that we had when I was younger.

Still, his actual passing was sudden since he wasn't in the hospital or anything like that.  In fact, I had just seen him the previous weekend and even talked to him on the phone the night before he died, just to chat.  So, yeah, I wasn't really prepared for him to be gone like that despite everything.

All my friends and family are sending their condolences, and many of them are including words of comfort assuring me that my dad is now in a better place, that he knows that I love him, and that I will see him again some day.  None of which, of course, I actually believe, being an atheist and all.  But I do appreciate the thought nonetheless and certainly don't begrudge other people for clinging to beliefs that give them comfort or wanting to comfort me in turn.

How does one make sense of a loved one's death without a belief in God or an afterlife of some sort?  Well, that part's pretty easy, I suppose.  Everything that is born eventually dies, whether it be a fish, a cat, a horse or a man.  It's all part of the natural order, and it would be awfully strange if people didn't die the way that everything else in nature does.  Humans are obviously special, in the sense that we have a very highly developed intellect and a sense of self that provides us with a sense of our own mortality.  But that knowledge does not exempt us from the natural order.  So we don't need a belief in God or an afterlife to understand why people die or even why they die suddenly or why bad things happen to good people (and vice versa).  It's just the way things are.

How does one deal with/accept/find comfort after a loved one's death without a belief in God or an afterlife of some sort?  Ah, that's a much harder question and is probably one of the main reasons why there have been and still are so many different religions in the world.  We don't want to let people go and can't bear the thought of never seeing them again, and therefore it's very comforting to think that death is only a temporary separation and that we will be reunited with out loved ones at a later time.  As with many things, however, wishing and believing doesn't make it so.

As an atheist, I don't believe there is any extrinsic purpose to our lives, only the purpose we choose to give ourselves.  From a purely biological standpoint, the purpose of all life is to live long enough to reproduce.  Since we are intelligent, self-aware creatures, however, we have the ability to choose a greater purpose than that.  We can choose to be good people and try to make the world around us a better place.  We can choose to teach our children to be good people. We can choose to gain as much knowledge as possible about the world around us and to pass on that knowledge to others.  We don't need a God or an afterlife to define our purpose.

For this reason, I take comfort in knowing that my dad lived his life according to his own terms.  He chose to make a difference in the lives of others, and that choice will continue to have ripples throughout time long after he is gone.  He will continue to live on in my memory and that of all the other lives he touched.  He will live on in the genes he passed on to me and my siblings, who will in turn pass along to our children.  I will certainly miss him and his absence leaves a void in my heart that may never go away.  But I don't need a belief in fairy tales in order to accept that he is gone and take joy in the memories that I have of him.

As an aside, I often wonder what people really expect when they say they will see a dead loved one again some day.  If there really were a heaven and my father were up there right now, what would he actually be like?  Would his mind be in the state it was just before he died, a lot more mellow and kinder than he was when younger, but not nearly a sharp as he once was?  Would he be the person he was 30 or 40 years ago, a lot more arrogant and perhaps less sympathetic?  We all change throughout our lives, and none of us are the same person that we were years before.  We all evolve and grow and change, and sometimes it's for the better and sometimes for the worse.  Which version of us would actually be up there in heaven?  Would it be a version other people would even recognize?  I'm guessing people really expect our "souls" to be some sort of idealized version of ourselves, with all the good points and none of the flaws, but it's the flaws that often make us who we are.  And some of the things that some people might consider to be flaws in us are perhaps seen as good points by others, and vice versa.

I'm sorry my dad is dead and I will miss him.  I take comfort in knowing that he lived a good life and that I had a chance to know him both as a child and as a fellow adult. 

Accepting Evolution

Although the theory of evolution doesn't really have anything to do with Atheism, per se,  it often comes up in discussions with theists who apparently feel threatened by something which can so fully explain observable phenomena that theists have been claiming for centuries could only be explained by the existence of a divine creator.  Before the theory of evolution was proposed (and, eventually, accepted), there just wasn't any good way to explain the immense diversity of life on earth and the way it is all so interconnected.  Of course, claiming that God "must" have done it since we can't think of any other explanation is a classic argument from ignorance, but the fact remained that there were no other decent explanations for a long time.  With the theory of evolution, however, you no longer need God to explain everything, and this has led some theists to attempt to undermine its acceptance at every opportunity.  Not all theist, mind you -- the Catholic Church, for example, officially recognizes the science behind the theory of evolution and "merely" claims that God directed the process and at some point in that process injected the human soul into the mix.

Somebody once me asked whether it was possible to come up with grand unifying analogy or quote to fully explain the theory of evolution and make it more understandable and accepted by whose who deny it. Unfortunately, while analogies may be useful in understanding the general concepts underlying evolution, I don't think they are much use when it comes to actually accepting the truth of evolution. And this is the case with most fields of science that attempt to explain things that are not, and cannot, be perceived directly and which may even appear to contradict our everyday experiences.

Relativity is truly weird, especially when you talk about curved space/time. Sure, comparing space/time to a rubber sheet and massive objects to a bowling ball rolling along that sheet may help me understand the general idea that somebody is talking about, but at the end of the day it doesn't really help me to understand what space/time really is or accept that it can be somehow distorted by massive objects. That will only come by learning a lot of complex mathematics and performing (or at least studying) tons of experiments.  And if I insisted that all theories that describe reality must comport with my "common sense" view of the world, I would never be able to accept the validity of relativity, despite the fact that it is widely accepted among physicists and is actually used on a daily basis for such things as making adjustments to GPS satellites that are further away from the Earth's gravitational pull and therefore run at a slightly different speed than clocks on earth.  Seriously weird stuff, but also seriously true.

Quantum mechanics is even worse. It has been said that nobody truly understands it, and yet its principals have been borne out by experimentation and physicists can make accurate predictions based on the various laws that have been discovered regarding it.  Of course, the world we can observe with our eyes and ears does not operate on the quantum level, and once again my "common sense" experiences are not a reliable means of judging the validity of quantum mechanics.

Like relativity and quantum mechanics, the theory of evolution describes reality as it occurs on a scale not generally observable by our standard senses.  In the case of evolution, the scale has to do with time rather than size or speed or distance.  And, just like relativity and quantum mechanics, we cannot rely on our own "common sense" experiences as a guide to determining whether or not it is an accurate description of reality.  Once again, however, just like the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics, the theory of evolution provides an explanation as to why the universe behaves the way it does and also lets us make falsifiable predictions as to what will happen in the future.

[As a side note here, let me point out that the word "theory," when used in a scientific sense (like the theory of gravity or the theory of relativity), does not mean an unverified guess or idea.  In scientific terms, that would be a "hypothesis".  Instead, the word "theory" is used to describe a system of interrelated laws and principles that have been tested, validated and confirmed and that are used to describe a particular area of  observed reality.  In other words, you don't get to call something a "theory" in science unless it has been proven to be be true.]

To understand evolution, all you really need to know (and I hope I'm getting this right) is that (a) small, random changes are occurring all the time within all biological organisms due to such things as random cosmic ray bombardment, (b) the environment in which most organisms live is constantly changing as well (either due to a change in the environment itself or because the organisms have moved to a different environment), and (c) these two factors frequently combine so that some members of any given species find themselves better suited to the current environment (and thereby survive to pass on their genes to future generations) while other members of that species find themselves less suited (and thereby do not survive to pass on their genes to future generations). Add to that a time span of billions of years for small changes to accumulate, et voila!

The best analogy I have read to help me accept the truth of the theory evolution is the one described in Dawkin's "Climbing Mount Improbable." It doesn't lend itself to a pithy quote, unfortunately, but the general analogy compares the evolution of, say, mammals from their ancient fish-like ancestors to a sheer-faced cliff hundreds (thousands?) of feet high. To somebody standing at the base of the cliff, the very thought of leaping to the top in a single bound is impossible to consider, just like it may be impossible to imagine a fish turning into a mouse. But, the analogy continues, what if you could look at the other side of the cliff and see a gradual slope extending for tens (or even hundreds) of miles in the distance, leading from sea level all the way to the cliff's edge? If you started a journey from the very beginning of the slope, the incline would be so gradual that at no point in your journey would you ever even notice you were rising. You could travel for days, weeks, months and still appear to be traveling on perfectly level ground. And yet, at the end of your journey you would eventually find yourself thousands of feet in the air despite never having made any perceptible leaps whatsoever.  Replace "hundreds of miles" in the cliff analogy with "billions of years" in the theory of evolution, and the analogy is complete. The analogy only works, however, if you fully understand the processes involved with evolution in the first place.

Hopefully, this analogy  provides with a framework to understand how evolution is even possible, similar to how the bowling ball on a rubber sheet analogy might help somebody understand the concept of warped space.  It's not an exact analogy, but it should help (assuming, of course, that somebody actually wants to understand how evolution could possibly be true instead of just rejecting it out of hand).  Having said that, let me just address a few of the most common criticisms I have seen and heard lobbed at evolution by those who clearly do not understand how it could be possible:

• If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes around today?  This is an easy one to answer -- humans did not evolve from apes!  At least, not from the apes that are around today.  Instead, humans and apes both evolved from a common ancestor species millions of years ago and we turned out different from modern apes because we moved to different locations than they did, encountered different challenges than they did, faced different environments over time, etc. It's sort of like asking, "If the English language evolved from Germanic roots, why are there still German speaking people today?"
  
  
• If evolution is true, why don't we ever find any "transitional" fossils that are clearly in between two other species?  The answer to this is that scientists have actually found many different transitional fossils, especially in recent years.  Numerous fossils have been found in the fossil record that show some characteristics of fossils found earlier in the fossil record and some characteristics of fossils found later in the fossil record.  The problem is that some people either are not aware of these discoveries (willful ignorance, perhaps) or require impossible standards for "transitional" like a fossil that is half duck and half crocodile, despite the fact that the theory of evolution clearly states that evolution is a gradual process with no sudden leaps from one species to a wholly unrelated species on in a single generation.  No duck ever gave birth to an animal that wasn't a duck, but over millions of years what is a duck now may be quite different from what was a duck back then.
  
  
• If evolution is true, that means we are just animals and therefore have no reason to act morally toward one another.  Well, aside from the fact that this is basically arguing from the consequences (a logical fallacy where you try to disprove something simply by pointing out the possible negative consequences of that thing), I would have to take exception at the "just" part of this criticism.  True, evolution means that humans are animals, but why do we have to be "just" animals?  A dolphin is not "just" an animal -- it is an animal with a highly specialized, perhaps unique, ability to navigate underwater using sound.  An eagle is not "just" an animal -- it's an animal with exceedingly keen vision and the ability to soar through the sky.  And man is not "just" an animal, either -- he (or she) is an animal with a highly developed intelligence and moral sense that has evolved over time to help us better survive in our environment.  The fact that we are animals doesn't mean we can't be different from other animals in significant ways, and it certainly doesn't mean that we have to act like other animals any more than you would expect an eagle to act like a dolphin (or to act like a penguin, for that matter).
  
  
• Evolution is just a "theory" that Darwin made up and scientists have blindly put their faith in it ever since!  Actually, no.  As mentioned above, the scientific use of the word "theory" (as in the "theory of gravity" and the "theory of relativity") used to describe a system of interrelated laws and principles that have been tested, validated and confirmed and that are used to describe a particular area of  observed reality.  Darwin (and others like him) may have first proposed the idea of evolution, but it didn't become a scientific "theory" until it had been thoroughly tested, revised, expanded upon, and confirmed by generations of scientists looking at many different fields for corroboration.
  
  
• The odds of a complex organism like a human arising purely by "chance" are as ridiculous as a tornado whipping through a junkyard and assembling a complete, working jumbo jet airplane purely by chance! You're right, that would be rather ridiculous. But the theory of evolution doesn't actually state that everything happened purely by chance. Yes, it requires chance mutations to occur and accumulate over time, but that's just an ingredient in the recipe and not the recipe itself. The actual process of evolution is driven by the pressure of natural selection. It may be chance when one animal develops more hair than another member of the same species, but it's not chance when that hairier animal survives when the climate gets colder and the less hairier animal doesn't.
  
  
• Evolution can't explain how life got started in the first place.  You are right, it can't.  But, then again, neither can the theory of gravity or the theory of relativity.  And that's because none of those theories actually claim to answer that question and their validity therefore does not rest on whether they can answer it or not.  There is a completely separate field of biology called Abiogenesis that does try to come up with theories to explain how life could first arise (whether from inanimate matter or some other way, such as having been carried to Earth on a comet).  Evolution, on the other hand, starts with the assumption that life exists and then explains how it became so diverse.
  
  
• But, what about [insert anomaly mentioned exclusively on creationist websites that seemingly "disproves" some tangentially related principal]?  I don't have room to mention every single thing that creationists have come up with over the years in an attempt to "disprove" evolution.  The important thing to remember, however, is that not only does evolution stand as the best explanation ever devised for every bit of observed biological phenomena, and not only has it shown again and again that it has strong predictive powers, it is also corroborated by many other branches of science.  If the theory of evolution were just based on the observed fossil record, then maybe attacking the validity of the fossil record could be an attack on the theory itself.  Instead, though, the theory of evolution is based on corroborating observations from the fossil record, from the genetic analysis of living species, from field examinations of species evolving in the wild, etc.
  
  
• But, there's no actual proof of evolution!  Oh, go read a book.  Preferably one written by an actual scientist with a degree from a real university with a degree in a field actually related to the study of evolution.  That is, of course, if you actually want to learn all about the proof instead of just repeating what others have told you. Creationists have been shouting "there's no proof of evolution" for over a hundred years, ignoring or dismissing every single bit of evidence that comes along, as if simply stating that something isn't true will somehow make it not true. Or, in other words, yes there is actual proof of the theory of evolution. Lots of proof. So much proof that it could (and actually does) fill entire libraries. You just have to be willing to look at it.

The Difference Between Theists and Atheists

[Hopefully, I’m not about to set up a straw man as I represent what the typical theist believes (assuming there even is such a thing as a “typical” theist), but the following is based on my own personal experiences growing up as a theist and a wide variety of conversations I have had with theists since becoming an atheist.]

In recent years I have watched and/or engaged in numerous discussions (sometimes rising to the level of a debate, sometimes much more informal) between atheists and theists of one sort or another. What I find most interesting about these discussions is how each side approaches concepts such as “proof,” “evidence,” “truth” and “reality” from radically different perspectives, to the point where it’s almost as if each side is having a completely different conversation. And, as I reflect on my days growing up ensconced in a religious worldview, I realize that the same arguments that I find least convincing now are the ones that made the most sense to me back then, and the ones that seem the strongest now were the most laughable to me then. I think, when you get right down to it, both sides feel their beliefs (or lack thereof) are just so obvious as to not even need explanation and can’t understand why the other side just doesn’t “get” it.

So, without further ado, here are some of the key differences I have noticed between atheists and theists that affect and shape their world view. You’re mileage may vary, of course, but I’m hoping this exercise will at least help each side understand where the other side is coming from and dispel the notion that one group is just too stupid or too wicked to ever see the light.

1. The Vastness of Creation As a theist, I was taught to see the glory of God in all of creation. The beauty of a flower, the majesty of a sunset or a rainbow, the magnificent panoply of stars in the night sky, etc. As science revealed more and more of the wonders of the cosmos (thank you, Hubble space telescope), it just showed how much more vast and beautiful God’s creation was than we previously knew. The bigger the universe got, the more impressive God seemed.
   
   As an atheist, I still marvel at the beauty of the universe. The more our knowledge of the universe expands, however, the smaller man’s place in that universe seems and the notion of any sort of personal God who created us, watches over us, answers prayers, etc., seems more and more ridiculous. Instead of proving how great God is, the vastness of creation proves that God was invented by people who thought the observable world was all that existed and that the concept of God is no longer relevant today.


2. The Burden of Proof As a theist, I was taught that faith in God is something we were supposed to have without any hard evidence or proof. In fact, I was taught that life was a test to see who had enough faith to believe without such proof and that man would somehow be deprived of his free will if God ever provided irrefutable proof of his existence. One frequent analogy was comparing life to taking a test in school, where having all the answers written on the board in front of you would totally defeat the purpose of taking the test (and presumably studying and learning before the test). Therefore, if somebody doesn’t believe in God, it is up to them to somehow prove that God doesn’t (or can’t) exist. And even if somebody does manage to prove that God (or specific descriptions of God) doesn’t or can’t possibly exist, it doesn’t really matter since it’s all about faith. In other words, you cannot disprove something that does not require proof in the first place.
   
   As an atheist, I’ve come to realize that the mere act of stating something does not, in and of itself, make that thing true. Sure, there are some things that we all accept as true in order to make our way in the world (e.g., that actions have consequences, that we are not all just living in a Matrix-style dream world, that the basic laws of physics aren’t likely to change from one day to the next, etc.), but we should also not accept as true anything that has no good evidence to support it. Similarly, we should reject any statement or belief when there is sufficient evidence to its contrary. Therefore, if somebody believes in God (or aliens, or Bigfoot, or homeopathy, or chiropractic, or magic), those beliefs are wholly irrelevant unless the person has some good evidence to support them. And, similarly, an abundance of evidence to the contrary of those beliefs is a good reason to reject them. In other words, you can’t prove something without actually providing proof.


3. Evidentiary Standards As a theist, I was taught that the best sort of evidence for the existence of God was personal experience, both my own and those related by others (so called “faith promoting stories”). Since God doesn’t want to take away our free will by revealing himself directly to us and since he also “moves in mysterious ways,” we have to rely on our feelings. If we pray to accept Jesus into our hearts and be forgiven and then feel all warm and fuzzy inside, that’s all the proof we need. If we hear stories about how other people accepted Jesus into their hearts and felt all warm and fuzzy inside, that’s all the proof we need. After that, we can see the hand of the Lord wherever we look. If I pray to get a new job and I get it, it’s proof that God exists and loves me. If somebody I know survives a car accident, it’s proof that God was watching out for him. Anything and everything good that happens to me, especially when I pray for it, is sufficient proof that God exists and cares about me. Interestingly, I find that many theists actually do require higher evidentiary standards when it comes to other areas (magic, aliens, Bigfoot, etc.) but seem to lower those standards when it comes to their religious beliefs. Of course, I also know some theists who are willing to believe anything (that doesn’t contradict with their religious beliefs, that is) as long as there is anecdotal evidence for it, whether it be chiropractic, homeopathy, reiki, etc., but I don’t think there’s necessarily a connection.
   
   As an atheist, I have learned that anecdotal evidence is worthless unless it is reproducible under controlled conditions. Some people misinterpret what happens to them. Some people just plain lie about their experiences. The human mind is great at self-deception and you can make yourself feel all warm and fuzzy inside about just about anything if you want to hard enough. Plus, there’s a little thing called “confirmation bias” which is the nearly universal tendency to remember anything that supports your beliefs and discount, ignore or forget anything that doesn’t. If I pray for ten things and one comes true, I become convinced that the one time it worked “proves” my beliefs are right and I just ignore the fact that the other nine times equally “disproves” my beliefs.


4. Appeals to Authority As a theist, I was taught that it didn’t matter what “most” people thought about a subject – what mattered was what the Bible said. And, since the Bible is often hard to understand and seemingly contradictory, it’s important to follow the words of those who have been appointed by God to reveal His truth to us. And it really only takes one so-called “authority” who agrees with what I already believe to counter a multitude of authorities who disagree. And this expands beyond religious beliefs to any science that may possibly contradict my religious beliefs. If, say, the theory of Evolution seems to contradict with the revealed truth of the Bible, all it takes is one “expert” (regardless of his background and education) who points out what appear to be flaws or contradictions in the theory to disprove it. Or if, say, the idea that mankind is contributing to climate change seems to contradict my belief that the Earth was created for our benefit and God will always protect us, then all it takes is one “expert” (regardless of his background and education) who points out what appear to be flaws or contradictions in the theory to disprove it.
   
   As an atheist, I also need to rely on authorities. As much as I would like to learn everything about everything, I simply don’t have the time, resources or, quite frankly, intelligence to do so. The difference is, however, that I rely on those who actually have the background and education and experience to know what they are talking about. And I rely on experts whose views are shared by other experts in the same and related fields. If I have trouble understanding the mechanisms of the Theory of Evolution, for example, I don’t just rely on the fact that a smart guy named Charles Darwin came up with it over a hundred years ago. Instead, I rely on the many thousands of people that have devoted their lives to studying it, verifying it, and expanding it since that time. If 97% of all climate scientists – those actually trained to do the research and understand the data – have stated that the evidence unequivocally shows that man-made climate change is real and dangerous, I will accept their authority on the subject over a lone geologist who thinks he has discovered the “truth” that everybody else has missed.