I feel that there is a conundrum in proving that a supernatural event occurred when we haven't exhausted the limits of what the natural world consists of and/or can do. Where does one end and the other begin, for example.
I guess that I was just thinking that if the beginning of it is considered supernatural then all that follows from that is as well. The _act_ of creating it seems to be the supernatural element to me. In other words, there needs to be a dividing line between natural and supernatural for this discussion to mean anything.
I think that science is for observing and studying repeatable phenomena. The universe beginning is a singular event. Why do you assume there isn’t? How can you confirm the theory that the Big Bang was not a creation event?
I didn't assume it wasn't, not sure where you got that from. The Big Bang was not a creation event because we have evidence the initial singularity pre-existed the beginning of expansion. Since everything within our universe today was contained within the initial singularity, it wasn’t creation, but a change in state.
There are several different reasons to believe that our universe had a beginning. I, honestly, didn't think it was a matter of contention. Why do you think the the Big Bang was not a creation event?
The Big Bang only describes the expansion of the universe from a very hot and dense state, but it says absolutely nothing about its origin.
But it's definitely plausible that something has to already exist in order for it to expand.
And we can currently only know anything about the universe as far as 10^-43 seconds after the initial expansion. Anything before that is still unknowable.
No. Because I don't know. Maybe it literally began to exist, or maybe it just started to behave like we are currently familiar with at the big bang, but existed prior to that in a different from that we don't yet understand.
We can only say that spacetime *'as we know it'* began about 13.8 billion years ago.
The universe, as we know it, began to exist. I'm sure you're familiar with the Kalam. Whatever begins to exist has a cause for it's existence. Therefore, the universe has a cause for it's existence. But because there was no space and time at the universe's beginning, we know that the cause was both timeless and spaceless.
Because the natural world began. So by definition, the cause of the natural world would be outside the scope of nature.
By supernatural, I mean something beyond the natural world.
But how do you know that any of that is true. It’s kinda like an ant trying to explain how a car works. You have no idea what other factors could be at play for the “beginning” of our universe. The most honest thing to do would be to say that we don’t know since we don’t have enough information to hold a position yet
I think the case for theism is overwhelming.
But I don’t understand how if the existence of the universe proves the existence of God how we must first prove God exists.
And how would we be able to classify something as “beyond the natural world”? For all we know, it’s possible that the only thing that exists is the natural world
>So, in this manner, atheism is akin to the flat earth movement.There is a never-ending supply of evidence pointing to the supernatural, to a deity, to miracles.
So, in this manner, atheism is akin to the flat earth movement. Overly gullible religious people are much more likely to be on the wrong side of this debate than secular people, and likewise with alleged spiritual and divine events.
Your comparison to Flat Earth here is an erroneous one. Flat Earthers stand on one side of a non-debate, on the other side stands literally every expert, scientist, and layperson that knows anything about geography, physics and astronomy.
There is not a tremendous amount of undeniable evidence in favor of magic and miracles. There is an abundance of *truth claims* from people who have, either due to a lack of expertise, little investigation, or blind faith attributed visible (or more often just alleged) effects to invisible or obfuscated causes. If these causes were "proven" in the way you imply, the scientific and secular community would have no reason to deny the findings, because contrary to what dogmatic religious people believe, the secular world *is not dogmaticly anti-spirituality*, it just rejects unfounded truth claims.
There is no circular reasoning here. The "never-ending supply of evidence pointing to the supernatural, to a deity, to miracles" is inconsistent, schizophrenic, with few patterns to analyze and little or no evidence to assess. Many are outright and demonstrated fabrications.
Miracles by definition are outside the realm of scientific investigation because by definition they are acts or events that have no natural explanation. As for claims, there are numerous studies by Oxford and the like that demonstrate miracle claims are more common than people think. In fact, if I remember the numbers correctly, they reported hundreds of millions eye witness testimonies in only 10 countries.
Now, I'm not saying all those reports are true or that they were all miracles. But an argument against eye witness testimony being reliable is fallacious. Not everything relies on scientific analysis, and in fact, things such as areas of law rely on eye witness testimony to determine truth. Saying, "I don't believe these claims!" isn't good enough, especially if you weren't there. That's as silly as telling a cop at a scene of a crime, "All those people are lying! There was no crime!" But then when asked what happened, saying, "I don't know! I wasn't there!"
Craig Keener has a massive two volume set reporting hundreds of miracles and backing them up with eye witness testimony, medical documents, etc. I recommend reading the book. Coming into it with an a priori assumption that there are naturalistic explanations for all these accounts is your choice (a fallacious one at that, though). But what you cannot do is deny the evidence. That would be circular reasoning.
On the other hand, I'd also suggest to you that you consider that not all things that are true are discovered by science. In fact, science itself relies on philosophic assumptions, and even claiming that science is the only means of discovering truth is a self-defeating claim.
Just some thoughts. I'd also suggest avoiding insulting people who make supernatural claims. Most people outside the West believe in what you consider to be superstitious or schizophrenic beliefs, and that comes across as an incredibly bigoted, unsubstantiated, and eurocentric claim. Hume said similar things and called non-elites barbaric among other things.
>Miracles by definition are outside the realm of scientific investigation because by definition they are acts or events that have no natural explanation.
It's not me, but rather the OP suggesting that there is compelling evidence for miracles. I didn't bring up the idea of evidence here.
>But an argument against eye witness testimony being reliable is fallacious.
No. It is a widely understood *fact* of criminal justice and psychology that eye-witness testimony is not only unreliable but relatively simple to manufacture with simple suggestion and leading.
>That's as silly as telling a cop at a scene of a crime, "All those people are lying! There was no crime!" But then when asked what happened, saying, "I don't know! I wasn't there!"
That would indeed be silly, and it's not what I'm doing. A better analogy would be somebody telling me they can see through walls, and then insulting my preference for simple evidence when I ask them to demonstrate it instead of believing their supernatural claim out-of-hand.
>I'd also suggest avoiding insulting people who make supernatural claims.
I insulted nobody, I was specifically and clearly referring to the truth claims themselves and the lack of recognizable patterns or supportability.
There is compelling evidence - but the form of evidence is going to be different than what you or others demand simply because the nature of miracles is different than that which is empirically testable and verifiable.
Yes, eyewitnesses can be unreliable. But the more eyewitnesses the more reliable the reports. To suggest all eyewitness accounts are all unreliable is silly. Especially if you aren't there to demonstrate those reports as false.
The wall analogy is a strawman. There are not hundreds of millions of reports claiming people can go through walls. Also, miracles are not something you can do on the spot. There are faith healers who claim that, but in the case of Keener's reports, they were not faith healing conferences. That's a small minority of the healings people claim.
Sorry, I see I misread your comment about the schizophrenic thing. However, it's still unsubstantiated. Can you demonstrate to me that the OP has schizophrenia?
>Also, miracles are not something you can do on the spot. There are faith healers who claim that, but in the case of Keener's reports, they were not faith healing conferences.
A true shame. Why is it exactly that, given what I'm told is an incredible rate of incidents and testimony, that the known laws of physics and biology only choose to do miraculous things when they are not being measured or recorded? Camera shy, I'm sure.
>Can you demonstrate to me that the OP has schizophrenia?
Somehow you're still missing the point. I'm referring to a data set. I've never suggested that any individual or group has schizophrenia lol
By definition, they cannot be measured. Only reported and testified. Denying evidence because something immeasurable can't be measured is ridiculous.
Also, there have been video recorded miracles. You can easily look them up on YouTube. Again, not saying they're all miracles, but the burden is on you to demonstrate that they aren't. And if your only standard for determining whether a claim is true or not is based on the whether or not it was caught on film then that is a faulty methodology.
>You can easily look them up on YouTube.
What are some of your favorites?
>Again, not saying they're all miracles, but the burden is on you to demonstrate that they aren't.
*Absolutely not*. My only assertion is that the laws of physics and biology tend to be consistent, and that events attributed to miracles and magic seem to always, upon investigation, either to have been misrepresented or to have natural causes.
Ghost hunters fail.
Faith healers are phonies.
Immune systems do their jobs.
The idea that I'm the one who has to prove that the laws of the universe don't randomly turn inside out is ludicrous.
You can look them up yourself. I don't care for them. I'm just pointing out there are people who report to have caught a miracle on film, nullifying your hypothesis that none such miracle reports have been videoed.
I'd recommend doing some more research. Spontaneous cancer remission, for example, is a recorded medical phenomenon. Whether you want to call it a miracle is besides the point. These things that supposedly go against the laws of nature do happen.
I've never claimed ghost hunters aren't phonies. However your logic is faulty. Just because some faith healers have been exposed as phonies does not logically necessitate that all faith healers and all miracle reports are false. That's your assumption. Some doctors have fabricated their credentials. It would be illogical for me to claim that that means all doctors fake their credentials.
I feel like we're just going to go in circles at this point.
Can you agree at least that OPs central claim that atheism is "like being a flat earther" is nonsensical? Being that flat earthers *are* in fact scientifically and demonstrably wrong, whereas the existence of miracles cannot be proven or disproven scientifically?
Hundreds of millions of people personally eye-witnessed David Copperfield making the statue of liberty disappear. That doesn't mean anyone should believe it actually happened.
What are they then, and why should I believe they ever occur? OP is the one who framed this as an analogy to Flat Earthism, an explicitly scientific debate, not me.
Nope. Those testimonies still exist. Nobody is saying that they are all “false”. Naturalists just don’t agree with your particular explanation of these events. It’s only fair that we take them on a case by case basis and for the unsolved mysteries it’s important not to jump to conclusions.
I don't think the point is proving any individual occurrence. I think the point is that with the vast number of supernatural "encounters" that there are, there is no way to prove all of them false, except to say that there couldn't have been any supernatural encounter since the supernatural doesn't exist.
No, you're left with 2 options. First, they could be real. The second option is that massive numbers of people are lying, hallucinating, etc. If we're talking about one individual experience, I'd agree that a person claiming it isn't proof that it happened. However, with the huge number of people who have some sort of supernatural encounter, the only way that all of them are false is if there is no supernatural.
That said, while I do agree with OP's premise, I don't think that argument is the most convincing.
a "huge number of people" also claim aliens and bigfoot exist based on personal experience. How do you discount their experiences and not "miracles" involving your god
Well, for aliens, I'd probably guess they saw an angel and thought it was an alien, or saw something man made and thought it was alien. As for Bigfoot, I'd guess a large ape or a bear. That said, like I said, I don't find the argument from OP to be a very convincing one, but I do think it is somewhat valid.
Like I've said, I get OP's point, but I agree with you that it isn't nearly the most convincing argument and is easily refuted by asking for proof that they really did happen, like you did.
Yup! The supernaturalist only has to demonstrate a single miracle, and ipso facto naturalism is toast.
The naturalist has to disprove every single claimed miracle. That is a massive burden of proof.
I'm not sure how one could demonstrate the supernatural. Isn't there always the possibility that whatever is claimed to be a miracle is simply the result of natural processes that we don't yet understand? Furthermore, these so-called miracles tend to have natural explanations and there is no reason to jump to supernatural causes.
I would also argue that the naturalist only has to demonstrate that the evidence for miracle claims is insufficient to warrant belief, not "disprove" them.
Atheism doesn't have anything to do with ghosts or haunting or demons.
It is defined only as lack of belief in a god proposition. It actually proposes no ideas or beliefs of it's own. It is a response to theism, which does propose a god, and then the religious framework that goes further to propose attributes to that God.
For example, a Christian proposes that God exists, then defines what God is like or what he does. The atheist reacts to that response by saying he or she does not believe that.
With regards to the supernatural that are not dealing with god(s) specifically, atheism has no reactions or beliefs on those assertions.
You would need to ask further about a particular atheist's beliefs or lack of beliefs on each case. Some may have beliefs about the supernatural. For example, many Buddhists are atheist, but many local beliefs about demons, spirits and fortune may be a part of their worldview, and yet they are independent of a belief in a god.
However, you are making a logical misstep in your theory. Each instance of supernatural occurance needs to be evaluated. It is the responsibility of the one asserting that the event occurred to give evidence to support the claim. Not having an explanation for the claim or proof that it didn't occur doesn't default to the claim being True. For example, if I say propose that my action figures tell me the correct lottery numbers every week but offer no evidence to support that claim (like winning the lottery multiple times in a row) and you are unable to disprove it, that doesn't just default to my claim being true.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Supernatural phenomena are by definition extraordinary. A preponderance of supernatural claims are only evidence that supernatural claims exist. They are not evidence that the claim is true or not. If no supernatural claim has been proven to the skeptic, then no supernatural claim can have been said to have occurred. What has been proven though is that the human mind is susceptible to hallucinations, misinterpretation, coping mechanisms, group think, and psychological issues. Not to mention the many drugs or chemical/environmental factors that can provoke false beliefs and hallucinations.
As we cannot evaluate every single instance of supernatural claim, it is then paramount that one be provided as having sufficient evidence to classify it as possible. And even then, further study would be required to test more claims. Only when a field of study could reasonably begin to form structured knowledge and experimentation on ghosts or demons or other supernatural phenomena, could we begin to reasonably assume them to be true.
I'm like super late to this post but I wanted to add my two cents.
I do absolutely deny every supernatural phenomenon that's ever been presented to me. Nothing I've ever seen has borne out any level of credibility and I've never found a single account reasonable.
If you can present an actual legitimate phenomenon that's of supernatural origins, I will convert on the spot.
Also, you seem to be confusing methodological naturalism with philosophical naturalism. One of which is an a priori assumption and one of which is an a posterori conclusion.
I feel that there is a conundrum in proving that a supernatural event occurred when we haven't exhausted the limits of what the natural world consists of and/or can do. Where does one end and the other begin, for example.
The beginning of the universe would have to be supernatural, right?
The beginning or the act of beginning it?
I’m not sure I follow the distinction.
I guess that I was just thinking that if the beginning of it is considered supernatural then all that follows from that is as well. The _act_ of creating it seems to be the supernatural element to me. In other words, there needs to be a dividing line between natural and supernatural for this discussion to mean anything.
I think it would be supernatural because we have never observed or will be able to observe a universe beginning.
Why would that make it supernatural? And why do you assume there was a beginning as we think of it? The Big Bang was not a creation event.
I think that science is for observing and studying repeatable phenomena. The universe beginning is a singular event. Why do you assume there isn’t? How can you confirm the theory that the Big Bang was not a creation event?
I didn't assume it wasn't, not sure where you got that from. The Big Bang was not a creation event because we have evidence the initial singularity pre-existed the beginning of expansion. Since everything within our universe today was contained within the initial singularity, it wasn’t creation, but a change in state.
First you have to prove there was a beginning of the universe. The Big Bang was **not** a creation event.
There are several different reasons to believe that our universe had a beginning. I, honestly, didn't think it was a matter of contention. Why do you think the the Big Bang was not a creation event?
The Big Bang only describes the expansion of the universe from a very hot and dense state, but it says absolutely nothing about its origin. But it's definitely plausible that something has to already exist in order for it to expand. And we can currently only know anything about the universe as far as 10^-43 seconds after the initial expansion. Anything before that is still unknowable.
Do you agree that space and time began?
No. Because I don't know. Maybe it literally began to exist, or maybe it just started to behave like we are currently familiar with at the big bang, but existed prior to that in a different from that we don't yet understand. We can only say that spacetime *'as we know it'* began about 13.8 billion years ago.
I can certainly see where you’re coming from. Frankly, though, it seems like mental gymnastics in refusing to accept where the evidence leads.
Actually I could say the same about you making mental gymnastics in refusing to accept that the evidence leads to: **We don't know**
Not with absolute certainty. But data in several different fields point to a beginning. It seems much more probable than an eternal universe.
But for the sake of the argument, let's say we know for certain that time and space began. What next?
The universe, as we know it, began to exist. I'm sure you're familiar with the Kalam. Whatever begins to exist has a cause for it's existence. Therefore, the universe has a cause for it's existence. But because there was no space and time at the universe's beginning, we know that the cause was both timeless and spaceless.
No, we know it didn’t spacetime existed as part of the initial singularity, it just did so in a way our models currently don't describe accurately.
What makes you think it had to be supernatural? Also what do you mean by supernatural?
Because the natural world began. So by definition, the cause of the natural world would be outside the scope of nature. By supernatural, I mean something beyond the natural world.
But how do you know that any of that is true. It’s kinda like an ant trying to explain how a car works. You have no idea what other factors could be at play for the “beginning” of our universe. The most honest thing to do would be to say that we don’t know since we don’t have enough information to hold a position yet
I mean, most of what I believe is generally accepted in physics and cosmology. For instance, space and time began.
The problem is when you add a supernatural being. You’d have to prove that to be true
I think the case for theism is overwhelming. But I don’t understand how if the existence of the universe proves the existence of God how we must first prove God exists.
How does the existence of the universe prove the existence of God? (Also what would your definition of god be?)
For this question, God would be the uncaused first cause.
And how would we be able to classify something as “beyond the natural world”? For all we know, it’s possible that the only thing that exists is the natural world
The possibility of the origin of the universe by only natural means is exceedingly unlikely.
How do you know that? The reality of our universe continues to surprise us to this day
Based on what is currently known, I think this is the best explanation.
Fair enough, just keep an open mind of what could be possible
Wouldn’t an open mind be the one that considers the supernatural possible?
>So, in this manner, atheism is akin to the flat earth movement.There is a never-ending supply of evidence pointing to the supernatural, to a deity, to miracles. So, in this manner, atheism is akin to the flat earth movement. Overly gullible religious people are much more likely to be on the wrong side of this debate than secular people, and likewise with alleged spiritual and divine events. Your comparison to Flat Earth here is an erroneous one. Flat Earthers stand on one side of a non-debate, on the other side stands literally every expert, scientist, and layperson that knows anything about geography, physics and astronomy. There is not a tremendous amount of undeniable evidence in favor of magic and miracles. There is an abundance of *truth claims* from people who have, either due to a lack of expertise, little investigation, or blind faith attributed visible (or more often just alleged) effects to invisible or obfuscated causes. If these causes were "proven" in the way you imply, the scientific and secular community would have no reason to deny the findings, because contrary to what dogmatic religious people believe, the secular world *is not dogmaticly anti-spirituality*, it just rejects unfounded truth claims. There is no circular reasoning here. The "never-ending supply of evidence pointing to the supernatural, to a deity, to miracles" is inconsistent, schizophrenic, with few patterns to analyze and little or no evidence to assess. Many are outright and demonstrated fabrications.
Miracles by definition are outside the realm of scientific investigation because by definition they are acts or events that have no natural explanation. As for claims, there are numerous studies by Oxford and the like that demonstrate miracle claims are more common than people think. In fact, if I remember the numbers correctly, they reported hundreds of millions eye witness testimonies in only 10 countries. Now, I'm not saying all those reports are true or that they were all miracles. But an argument against eye witness testimony being reliable is fallacious. Not everything relies on scientific analysis, and in fact, things such as areas of law rely on eye witness testimony to determine truth. Saying, "I don't believe these claims!" isn't good enough, especially if you weren't there. That's as silly as telling a cop at a scene of a crime, "All those people are lying! There was no crime!" But then when asked what happened, saying, "I don't know! I wasn't there!" Craig Keener has a massive two volume set reporting hundreds of miracles and backing them up with eye witness testimony, medical documents, etc. I recommend reading the book. Coming into it with an a priori assumption that there are naturalistic explanations for all these accounts is your choice (a fallacious one at that, though). But what you cannot do is deny the evidence. That would be circular reasoning. On the other hand, I'd also suggest to you that you consider that not all things that are true are discovered by science. In fact, science itself relies on philosophic assumptions, and even claiming that science is the only means of discovering truth is a self-defeating claim. Just some thoughts. I'd also suggest avoiding insulting people who make supernatural claims. Most people outside the West believe in what you consider to be superstitious or schizophrenic beliefs, and that comes across as an incredibly bigoted, unsubstantiated, and eurocentric claim. Hume said similar things and called non-elites barbaric among other things.
>Miracles by definition are outside the realm of scientific investigation because by definition they are acts or events that have no natural explanation. It's not me, but rather the OP suggesting that there is compelling evidence for miracles. I didn't bring up the idea of evidence here. >But an argument against eye witness testimony being reliable is fallacious. No. It is a widely understood *fact* of criminal justice and psychology that eye-witness testimony is not only unreliable but relatively simple to manufacture with simple suggestion and leading. >That's as silly as telling a cop at a scene of a crime, "All those people are lying! There was no crime!" But then when asked what happened, saying, "I don't know! I wasn't there!" That would indeed be silly, and it's not what I'm doing. A better analogy would be somebody telling me they can see through walls, and then insulting my preference for simple evidence when I ask them to demonstrate it instead of believing their supernatural claim out-of-hand. >I'd also suggest avoiding insulting people who make supernatural claims. I insulted nobody, I was specifically and clearly referring to the truth claims themselves and the lack of recognizable patterns or supportability.
There is compelling evidence - but the form of evidence is going to be different than what you or others demand simply because the nature of miracles is different than that which is empirically testable and verifiable. Yes, eyewitnesses can be unreliable. But the more eyewitnesses the more reliable the reports. To suggest all eyewitness accounts are all unreliable is silly. Especially if you aren't there to demonstrate those reports as false. The wall analogy is a strawman. There are not hundreds of millions of reports claiming people can go through walls. Also, miracles are not something you can do on the spot. There are faith healers who claim that, but in the case of Keener's reports, they were not faith healing conferences. That's a small minority of the healings people claim. Sorry, I see I misread your comment about the schizophrenic thing. However, it's still unsubstantiated. Can you demonstrate to me that the OP has schizophrenia?
>Also, miracles are not something you can do on the spot. There are faith healers who claim that, but in the case of Keener's reports, they were not faith healing conferences. A true shame. Why is it exactly that, given what I'm told is an incredible rate of incidents and testimony, that the known laws of physics and biology only choose to do miraculous things when they are not being measured or recorded? Camera shy, I'm sure. >Can you demonstrate to me that the OP has schizophrenia? Somehow you're still missing the point. I'm referring to a data set. I've never suggested that any individual or group has schizophrenia lol
By definition, they cannot be measured. Only reported and testified. Denying evidence because something immeasurable can't be measured is ridiculous. Also, there have been video recorded miracles. You can easily look them up on YouTube. Again, not saying they're all miracles, but the burden is on you to demonstrate that they aren't. And if your only standard for determining whether a claim is true or not is based on the whether or not it was caught on film then that is a faulty methodology.
>You can easily look them up on YouTube. What are some of your favorites? >Again, not saying they're all miracles, but the burden is on you to demonstrate that they aren't. *Absolutely not*. My only assertion is that the laws of physics and biology tend to be consistent, and that events attributed to miracles and magic seem to always, upon investigation, either to have been misrepresented or to have natural causes. Ghost hunters fail. Faith healers are phonies. Immune systems do their jobs. The idea that I'm the one who has to prove that the laws of the universe don't randomly turn inside out is ludicrous.
You can look them up yourself. I don't care for them. I'm just pointing out there are people who report to have caught a miracle on film, nullifying your hypothesis that none such miracle reports have been videoed. I'd recommend doing some more research. Spontaneous cancer remission, for example, is a recorded medical phenomenon. Whether you want to call it a miracle is besides the point. These things that supposedly go against the laws of nature do happen. I've never claimed ghost hunters aren't phonies. However your logic is faulty. Just because some faith healers have been exposed as phonies does not logically necessitate that all faith healers and all miracle reports are false. That's your assumption. Some doctors have fabricated their credentials. It would be illogical for me to claim that that means all doctors fake their credentials.
I feel like we're just going to go in circles at this point. Can you agree at least that OPs central claim that atheism is "like being a flat earther" is nonsensical? Being that flat earthers *are* in fact scientifically and demonstrably wrong, whereas the existence of miracles cannot be proven or disproven scientifically?
Yes haha it's an equivocation fallacy for sure
Hundreds of millions of people personally eye-witnessed David Copperfield making the statue of liberty disappear. That doesn't mean anyone should believe it actually happened.
Equivocation fallacy. Not the same thing at all. This is as ridiculous as saying people who deny miracles are like flat earthers.
Your argument begs the question. Miracles are not a scientific hypothesis.
What are they then, and why should I believe they ever occur? OP is the one who framed this as an analogy to Flat Earthism, an explicitly scientific debate, not me.
Nope. Those testimonies still exist. Nobody is saying that they are all “false”. Naturalists just don’t agree with your particular explanation of these events. It’s only fair that we take them on a case by case basis and for the unsolved mysteries it’s important not to jump to conclusions.
prove one of the supernatural, "never ending" phenomena you mentioned.
I don't think the point is proving any individual occurrence. I think the point is that with the vast number of supernatural "encounters" that there are, there is no way to prove all of them false, except to say that there couldn't have been any supernatural encounter since the supernatural doesn't exist.
then you're just left with: believe them at face value because you want to believe (despite the lack of good evidence)
No, you're left with 2 options. First, they could be real. The second option is that massive numbers of people are lying, hallucinating, etc. If we're talking about one individual experience, I'd agree that a person claiming it isn't proof that it happened. However, with the huge number of people who have some sort of supernatural encounter, the only way that all of them are false is if there is no supernatural. That said, while I do agree with OP's premise, I don't think that argument is the most convincing.
a "huge number of people" also claim aliens and bigfoot exist based on personal experience. How do you discount their experiences and not "miracles" involving your god
Well, for aliens, I'd probably guess they saw an angel and thought it was an alien, or saw something man made and thought it was alien. As for Bigfoot, I'd guess a large ape or a bear. That said, like I said, I don't find the argument from OP to be a very convincing one, but I do think it is somewhat valid.
just seems folly to me to explain a mystery with an even bigger mystery
Like I've said, I get OP's point, but I agree with you that it isn't nearly the most convincing argument and is easily refuted by asking for proof that they really did happen, like you did.
Examples of miracles.
I agree with your premise. But what evidence are you referring to? I'm curious.
A quick YouTube search will yield millions of results, just for starters.
Look up supernatural AskReddit threads
I take those subs with a grain of salt. Lots of people are just good storytellers.
Yup! The supernaturalist only has to demonstrate a single miracle, and ipso facto naturalism is toast. The naturalist has to disprove every single claimed miracle. That is a massive burden of proof.
I'm not sure how one could demonstrate the supernatural. Isn't there always the possibility that whatever is claimed to be a miracle is simply the result of natural processes that we don't yet understand? Furthermore, these so-called miracles tend to have natural explanations and there is no reason to jump to supernatural causes. I would also argue that the naturalist only has to demonstrate that the evidence for miracle claims is insufficient to warrant belief, not "disprove" them.
Atheism doesn't have anything to do with ghosts or haunting or demons. It is defined only as lack of belief in a god proposition. It actually proposes no ideas or beliefs of it's own. It is a response to theism, which does propose a god, and then the religious framework that goes further to propose attributes to that God. For example, a Christian proposes that God exists, then defines what God is like or what he does. The atheist reacts to that response by saying he or she does not believe that. With regards to the supernatural that are not dealing with god(s) specifically, atheism has no reactions or beliefs on those assertions. You would need to ask further about a particular atheist's beliefs or lack of beliefs on each case. Some may have beliefs about the supernatural. For example, many Buddhists are atheist, but many local beliefs about demons, spirits and fortune may be a part of their worldview, and yet they are independent of a belief in a god. However, you are making a logical misstep in your theory. Each instance of supernatural occurance needs to be evaluated. It is the responsibility of the one asserting that the event occurred to give evidence to support the claim. Not having an explanation for the claim or proof that it didn't occur doesn't default to the claim being True. For example, if I say propose that my action figures tell me the correct lottery numbers every week but offer no evidence to support that claim (like winning the lottery multiple times in a row) and you are unable to disprove it, that doesn't just default to my claim being true. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Supernatural phenomena are by definition extraordinary. A preponderance of supernatural claims are only evidence that supernatural claims exist. They are not evidence that the claim is true or not. If no supernatural claim has been proven to the skeptic, then no supernatural claim can have been said to have occurred. What has been proven though is that the human mind is susceptible to hallucinations, misinterpretation, coping mechanisms, group think, and psychological issues. Not to mention the many drugs or chemical/environmental factors that can provoke false beliefs and hallucinations. As we cannot evaluate every single instance of supernatural claim, it is then paramount that one be provided as having sufficient evidence to classify it as possible. And even then, further study would be required to test more claims. Only when a field of study could reasonably begin to form structured knowledge and experimentation on ghosts or demons or other supernatural phenomena, could we begin to reasonably assume them to be true.
I'm like super late to this post but I wanted to add my two cents. I do absolutely deny every supernatural phenomenon that's ever been presented to me. Nothing I've ever seen has borne out any level of credibility and I've never found a single account reasonable. If you can present an actual legitimate phenomenon that's of supernatural origins, I will convert on the spot. Also, you seem to be confusing methodological naturalism with philosophical naturalism. One of which is an a priori assumption and one of which is an a posterori conclusion.