Talk:Supernatural/Archive 10

Everyone here is missing the point
It seems to me that the conversations in most of the above threads (particularly the threads regarding Bloodofox's edits) are extremely tangential. Both the notion of centering the article around a skepticism toward Christian supernatural claims, and the idea of excluding all mention of them-- are equally inadmissible.

Supernatural is a neutral term, we should all be aware of the definition from Merriam Webster; "of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe, especially of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil". By this definition, the primary focus should be philosophical descriptions of an order of creation beyond the natural universe, and arguments both for and against the existence of it, as cited by philosophers in prominent scholarly works. By this definition furthermore, the secondary focus of the article (see: "especially") Should in fact be how such a supernatural order relates to and manifests in religious and/or supernatural claims. It's hard to negate that the most prominent, globally influential, and widely known religious claims are in fact the Christian ones... but more importantly they are the ones which have been given the most thorough treatment in philosophical theology (E.g. in the works of Aquinas) and the most thorough rebukes in skeptical scientism, so it makes sense that they take a somewhat prominent spot. Of course Greek metaphysics are important here too, but the works of Aquinas widely incorporate and expound upon them already. The article as it stands right now reads like something you'd see on rationalwiki: One-sided jeering drivel from an atheist perspective of absolute methodological naturalism and thus the a priori rejection of anything supernatural. It reads like an article on Santa Claus. Regardless of your personal inclination; the sheer volume of historical and philosophical writings on the supernatural is not done justice by that. The second definitions from Merriam Webster: "departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature", and "attributed to an invisible agent (such as a ghost or spirit)" also do in fact bring in to relevance any accounts of miracles and various claims of spiritual apparitions. But so far all I've seen in this talk section is low level bickering about which if any should be included, no meaningful discussion on how to include them properly. Allow me to make some suggestions;

The introduction to the article should start with a description of what exactly what supernatural means, it should be a no-nonsense and straightforward description of the philosophical concept of metaphysical order and existence beyond nature ('nature' in the ontological sense; space-time-matter), as well as a short example list of how that order is said to interact with the natural order, something to the effect of: "...such as religious claims, accounts of miracles, and spiritual apparitions". It should do so in as few words as possible, in a completely neutral manner, simply describing it without any leanings as to whether or not it truly exists. Perhaps the summary could end with something like "...The existence of supernatural entities and the verity of supernatural claims is a topic which has been widely debated by philosophers and scholars throughout history." -- True and neutral, giving no more credence to one side than the other. The current summary is an abomination that misses the mark with its descriptions and then goes straight into scientistic debunking. Awful, really awful. On a side note the above appeals to NPOV in regards to scientific explanation are also guilty of this. The article is about the supernatural, so it makes no sense to approach it from a perspective that a priori rejects that.

After the introduction the article should indeed have a section on religion, but here's the important part; this section should be neutral and strictly stick to ideas which can be cited in the writings of philosophical theologians and their descriptions of the supernatural order. Some of Aquinas' treatments of Christian metaphysics would do well here. There are some Islamic and Hindu writings that I'm sure would be at home here too but I'm not as familiar with them; open to suggestions. Grecian concepts of chaos and primordial existence would also fit in this section. Specific claims of pantheon gods and miracles such as those attributed to Jesus Christ should be in a subsection, kept brief, and end with links to main articles. A very short mention of angelology and demonology could fit here if kept very brief, not too religion-specific and leave off on links to main articles as well.

Further sections should deal with claims of ghosts, telekinesis, ESP, and the like. I'm sure those will be far less contentious so I'm not going to go into detail here. The article can end with a section on criticisms of supernatural claims as well as arguments in support of it, and perhaps a short list of notable events with widespread supernatural attribution.

It's really that simple, y'all are making way more of a stink about this than it needs to be. Anyone who agrees with my rough outline or has suggestions to improve it I'm open to discussion. --Artillex (talk) 23:10, 29 November 2018 (UTC)


 * "Further sections should deal with claims of ghosts, telekinesis, ESP, and the like." Agreed, and that's pretty much what I had. That's exactly what I did, and everything else you're saying too.


 * But no, they deleted the whole fucking lot out of hand. But thankfully, they've rebuilt the article completely since then.


 * LOL, nah, just kidding, it's still a gutted, smoking hole. GliderMaven (talk) 23:32, 29 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Damn, your content looks like it was pretty good too. Ironic that the person who deleted it told you to come visit the talk page.  But here's us in the talk page, saying your content is the right kind of content.  They gave no explanation of what they think was wrong with it.  I'll try putting it back in...BrianPansky (talk) 19:43, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Supernatural
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Supernatural's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "ReferenceA": From Demon: Siam Bhayro, Catherine Rider Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-Modern Period BRILL 2017 ISBN 978-9-004-33854-8 p. 53 From Witchcraft: Bengt Ankarloo & Stuart Clark, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Biblical and Pagan Societies", University of Philadelphia Press, 2001 From Cognitive dissonance:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 23:19, 19 January 2019 (UTC)


 * ✅ GliderMaven (talk) 03:41, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, everyone is missing the point
Supernatural is a word that can be used as an adjective or a noun. When used as an adjective it is just begging an explanation for a purported phenomena. But in that context it is a nonsense word. If I point to an object. like a grill cheese sandwich with what appears to be an image of Jesus on it, it is a natural cheese sandwich, made from natural bread, cheese and butter in a natural pan over a natural heat. When you refer to it as a supernatural cheese sandwich what you are actually doing is proffering an explanation as to how what appears to be an image of Jesus came to it's surface. Everything we can actually point to is natural. The same as when it is used as a noun. For example saying that the cheese sandwich with an image of Jesus on it was created by the supernatural. Again, everything involved with the sandwich was natural. You are just explaining it by claiming it was created by the supernatural. And that is the fundamental problem with the term Supernatural. If god appeared to us today, it would be an alien. Some might even want to catch it, study it, possibly even dissect it. It would be all natural.

When people use the word "supernatural", they are not saying it is unexplained, quite the contrary, they are saying that it can't be explained naturally. But here is the confused part with the term. Anything that exists is real. If it's real it's natural, that's what natural means, it means it's real. It means it exists. If it's not real, it doesn't exist. So is the supernatural real? Does it exist? If so then it is natural, not supernatural. That is why if god appeared today, he would be an alien. Maybe an alien that can create a universe, but an alien all the same. Gkochanowsky (talk) 00:34, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Nomination of Superstitions in Muslim societies for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Superstitions in Muslim societies is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Superstitions in Muslim societies until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Bookku (talk) 05:27, 24 November 2020 (UTC)