miejsca: Supernatural

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin supernaturalis, from Latin super- 'above, beyond, outside of' + natura 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanings since the ancient world, the term "supernatural" emerged in the Middle Ages and did not exist in the ancient world. Many cultures around the world lack concepts or reject distinctions between the natural and supernatural. The supernatural is featured in religious and folkloric contexts, but can also feature as an explanation in more secular contexts, as in the cases of superstitions or belief in the paranormal. The term is attributed to no…

Evidence: 38 • authority: 88

Communicative Reason and Religious Faith in Secular and Postsecular Contexts. The German philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas has shifted his position of defending secularism to now defending postsecularism This chapter describes Habermas’s usage of the terms “secularity,” “secularism,” and “postsecularism” and explains how Habermas’s usage of these three terms is best understood in relation to his philosophical theory of communicative rationality. The shift from secularism to postsecularism is based on the fact that the latter allows for better communication between religious believers and nonreligious citizens in the globalized world of the twenty-first century. Habermas argues…

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Introduction – Narrative and belief: the religious affordance of supernatural fiction

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Paranormal events are purported or imagined phenomena described in popular culture, folklore, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Notable paranormal beliefs include those that pertain to extrasensory perceptions (for example, telepathy), and the pseudosciences of ghost hunting, cryptozoology, and ufology. Proposals regarding the paranormal are different from scientific hypotheses, or speculations extrapolated from scientific evidence, because scientific ideas are grounded in empirical observations and experimental data gained through the scientific method. In contrast,…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Secular spirituality is the adherence to a spiritual philosophy without adherence to a religion. Secular spirituality emphasizes the inner peace of the individual, rather than a relationship with the divine. Secular spirituality is made up of the search for meaning outside of a religious institution; it considers one's relationship with the self, others, nature, and whatever else one considers to be the ultimate. Often, the goal of secular spirituality is living happily and/or helping others. According to the American philosopher Robert C. Solomon, "spirituality is coextensive with religion and it is not incompatible with or opposed to science or the scientific outlook. Naturalized spiritua…

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Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system, and life stance that embraces human reason, logic, secular ethics, and methodological naturalism, while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, mysticism, and superstition as the basis of morality and decision-making. Secular humanism posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or belief in a deity. It does not, however, assume that humans are either inherently good or evil, nor does it present humans as being superior to nature. Rather, the humanist life stance emphasizes the unique responsibility facing humanity and the ethical consequences of human decisions. Fundamental to the concept…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Secularity or secularness (from Latin sæculum, 'worldly' or 'of a generation' or 'century') is the state of being unrelated to or neutral in regard to religion. The origins of secularity as a concept can be traced to the Bible, and it was fleshed out through Christian history into the modern era. Since the Middle Ages, there have been clergy not pertaining to a religious order called "secular clergy". Furthermore, secular and religious entities were not separated in the medieval period, but coexisted and interacted naturally. "Secular", like "religion", is a modern Western term and concept that is not universal across cultures, languages, or time. In western cultures, things not connected w…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Levitation or transvection, in the paranormal or religious context, is the claimed ability to raise a human body or other object into the air by mystical means. While believed in some religious and New Age communities to occur due to supernatural, miraculous, psychic, or "energetic" phenomena, there is no scientific evidence of levitation occurring. Alleged cases of levitation can usually be explained by deception and fraud, such as trickery, illusion, and hallucination.