Atheism

I first want to call out all of the responses with "philosophical insurance".

By that I mean things like "If it IS real, it's not supernatural, so even if I rolled my eyes at it, and you prove me wrong, I'm still right"

We're just hanging out and casually talking about stuff here. No enforcers are going to come back and read these and hunt you down if someone ends up proving that ghosts or something is real. Also, you can still keep your Atheist card, if you think there might still be some weird stuff out there that science cannot yet explain.

As for me, I've had a few "Supernatural experiences" myself, and they've convinced me that there is another "force" out there that we don't understand.

I don't have anything to add to this conversation as I'm in agreement that the "supernatural" is simply how humans have historically described natural phenomena that is not yet understood.

Now... what I do find interesting is the shared art. I've seen similar styles, but not this piece. I looked it up and thought I would share because I find it to be pretty rad.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammarion_engraving

The Flammarion engraving is a wood engraving by an unknown artist. Its first documented appearance is in the book L'atmosphère : météorologie populaire ("The Atmosphere: Popular Meteorology"), published in 1888 by the French astronomer and writer Camille Flammarion.

The illustration depicts a man, dressed as a pilgrim in a long robe and carrying a walking stick, who has reached a point where the flat Earth meets the firmament. The pilgrim kneels down and passes his head, shoulders, right arm, and the top of the walking stick through an opening in the firmament, which is depicted as covered on the inside by the stars, Sun, and Moon. Behind the sky, the pilgrim finds a marvelous realm of circling clouds, fires and suns. One of the elements of the cosmic machinery resembles traditional pictorial representations of the "wheel in the middle of a wheel" described in the visions of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel.

what's the difference between higher power and supernatural phenomena?

sounds more like agnosticism to me...

Idk about "supernatural" but there definitely seems like there's a lot of undiscovered psychological phenomenon we haven't figured out. It's hard to research and quantify subjective experiences.

Personally I take them with a grain of salt, some supernatural phenomena are probably not yet understood by current science. Now I sound like an ancient aliens person meme.

I'm basically at a point where I don't think any actual magic or phenomena exists, but the disciplines of metaphysical practice themselves are worthwhile for introspection and working on your mindset. Also I don't like to give voice to my own skepticism that much - I don't defend it or argue because I can't be talked out of it and it's not very fun to be that guy. It's more fun to entertain the fanciful things and hold ideas lightly among people who are inclined to talk about phenomena.

Supernatural phenomena is possible but not probable.

The only "supernatural" thing I believe in is reincarnation, and that's just a game of numbers. I believe we're on the verge of discovering that black holes birth new universes. Then your existence and rebirth just becomes a statistical eventuality. From your POV you would die and then immediately be aware of your next life; since death is a state of non-being, an infinite amount of time could pass between those two moments but you wouldn't experience any of it. So, it isn't really even supernatural since I don't believe anything like karma or whatever mediates the process.

I've seen stuff fitting the popular descriptions for "underworld afterlife city of the dead", "the creator of the universe" and "discarnate spirits", so I sorta go with that.

I'm into meditation.

I think that arguing stories vs stories is bad epistemology and childish noise.