Inspired by lil_shepherd, but not aimed at her or anyone specifically

[avevale_intelligencer]

I dislike the word "supernatural."

Nothing in this universe is supernatural. Nothing outside it, assuming there is an outside, is supernatural. Nature is what is real. "Supernatural" means beyond real, which is another way of saying "not real." I don't like words that prejudice the discussion. (Alternatively, of course, it could be read as simply "beyond that which occurs in nature," in which case the Severn Road Bridge is supernatural, but I don't think anyone seriously uses it in that way.)

If there is any kind of deity, if any part of us exists apart from the body and survives its death, these things are part of nature and are therefore natural. We just don't see them, the way we don't see bacteria or dark matter unless we look with special instruments. There aren't any reliable instruments to see the "supernatural" yet, and since half of the people in our society who might be able to develop them are fully invested in proving the "supernatural" doesn't exist, and the other half are fully invested in being the only people who are authorised to deal with it, it's unlikely there ever will be.

There is nothing supernatural to life. But there's more than we can see.

Comments

[keristor.livejournal.com]

No, the meaning I quote doesn't apply to the Sydney Opera House (except that I have to take the existence of Sydney and any houses there on faith since I haven't been there). It only applies to your quoted meaning "beyond that which occurs in nature", mine encompasses anything which humans (or other animals) do as part of 'nature'. I am quite happy accepting that the Opera House and your PC, and for that matter you, actually exist somewhere and was created by 'natural' means which are well understood (less well understood in the case of human reproduction but still a matter of reproducible phenomena).

Yes, you were demonising it by saying that it prejudices the discussion. It doesn't, in itself, it only describes a set of phenomena about which we know little including whether they exist or are illusions. Scientists have been investigating such 'supernatural' phenomema for centuries -- for instance rocks which fall from the sky as well as the donner und blitzen mentioned before. The problem is with the attitude which says "I don't understand this therefore it does not exist / is an illusion / a conspiracy / a deception" and that attitude will not be solved by blaming a word for "prejudicing the discussion". If you get people to use 'undetermined' to describe those things then in a few years you will be able to blame that word as prejudicial, because that's how it will have become used.

Just as happened with N*****, N****, 'black', 'person of colour', etc. Indeed, it seems that the more words used to describe something are changed because they have acquired 'bad' connotations the faster the next word also acquires those connotations, because a large number of people actively want those connotations. They want to use racial terms as derogatory, they want to say that some lines of enquiry are unworthy. Changing the word doesn't change the attitude.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I am not demonising a word if I indicate a dislike for it.

Changing the word doesn't change the attitude? Well, that's George Orwell told then. Still, you're probably right. I've long believed that nobody ever changed anybody else's mind about anything--either they choose to change it themselves or they don't. So, no hope. Figures.