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The Author of this article does not wish to assert his postulations as truths; it should therefore be read as something that provokes thoughts rather than disturbing the peace.
You will have to forgive me dear reader; I am curious and have many questions. It might be unreasonable of me to ask you these things even if I know you do not have the answers. Nevertheless I shall ask as it seems to be the only way to share these thoughts and keep my sanity.
Would atheists acknowledge any form of the supernatural phenomena, that is of course one that is not attributed to a Supernatural God? If there are atheists that acknowledge or believe in the existence of “earthly-bound” supernatural /paranormal phenomena such as witchcraft, ghosts, and ancestry, and prophecies among others, wouldn't it be a logical deduction to postulate that earthy supernatural phenomena are an extension of a Divine Supernatural Being? ………. Pause and think about it for a brief second. Could it be that the Supernatural Creator also endowed his creations (humans) with paranormal abilities such as dark magic?
For atheists, part of their most potent weapons in their war against the existence of a God lies in the simple fact that science does not acknowledge the realm of supernatural or anything deemed to have miraculous properties or origins . That might largely operate in the mainstream world, but that’s just what it is – it is simply the “function of power and not truth” as Friederich Nietzsche would say. Science, it would seem is using its hegemonic status to bulldoze everything that does not conform to its methodologies and ethos, this it uses to gets its way and suppress others fields. You are probably offended by this, calm down, I have not yet made my point – you will have plenty of time to bite my head off later. In any event this is Africa, and it isn’t called the Dark Continent for nothing. In Africa and other corners of the world exists dominions of the unexplained, unquantifiable, immeasurable and scientifically unobservable phenomena. Things exist outside the comprehensions of science that beckons us to look twice and reconsider.
If people say that they do not believe in, for instance witchcraft, does that not mean it does not exist? Does that mean that the entire African Continent is mad for believing in such things? Even the most of educated intellects believe in witchcraft, but yet they do not have the means to account for it. Science just like anything else has its limits. These are not just some unfounded claims that we use to validate our arguments as you would love to believe. These are prevalent mattes and not some African fallacies you were made to believe. We need to understand the origins of these phenomena and perhaps they can be used as a doorway towards understanding Heavenly Supernaturals .
As much as we the (superstitious) would love to dispose of what most atheists call supernatural quackery, and embrace the realm of empirical evidence we are bound by the compelling realities that scientifically orientated scholars would often tell us exist only in individuals and communities – that they are not recognized by science we deem irrelevant since they are observable in our ways (African) . These realities are unaccounted for by science. It needs not be stated that science isn't the answer to everything and it damn well cannot account for everything under the sun.
I must say it’s quite a daring and borderlines on arrogance on the part of humanity to conclude that a Creator does not exist whilst we have not yet dealt with supernatural things back here at home (Earth). What business do we have looking to the heavens and questioning the existence of a Creator while we still do not fully understand the happenings of this world? We are adventures I know; perhaps we should slow down and explore the back yard before wondering off to the ends of the world looking for what might very well be behind us. But I digress, where was I?
Oh yes, the supernatural and magical stuff. Here we are, stuck again! I find myself tempted to jump to the clichéd conclusion:
“Because I cannot scientifically make sense of it, God must have done it”.
Others may say this is theists’ go-to response, but I cannot for the life of me find any other logical explanation. Perhaps you can. Seeing that this is outside the parameters of science, I fail to understand why theists are often chastised for believing in a Deity when science reaches its limitations. It is I think quite reasonable to attribute the “unexplained” to a Being/ entity greater than ourselves. Weather that being is Allah, God, Jah, Thor or Zeus of course remains debatable but irrelevant to this point. What we first need to establish/ research is that the particular deity/ entity exists or does not. We can then deal with the multiplicity aspect of it later.
Do atheists dismiss the paranormal just as they dismiss God? I understand that you (atheists) might have the edge to dismiss this as hokum, especially if you are of European descendant or scientifically orientated, but to African and Asian atheists this question begs our indulgence. Let’s face it; our backgrounds do not exactly conform to scientific principles. I am willing to bet that there are indeed atheists that believe in or have witnessed prophecies come true but chose to ignore them as their belief system do is not build to accommodate such things as they are hard wired to dismiss them as hocus- pocus. “What sorcery is this” I bet you asked yourself. Don’t you think you think by now you should ponder the implications? If you are an atheist and acknowledge some part of the supernatural phenomena don’t you think it’s time you ponder the implications of your cherry-picking? Why would you choose to believe in worldly supernatural phenomena and neglect Divine ones such as those “rumoured to have created you and the universe?
This god is not the Biblical God, the Quranian God or Buddha or whatever because I know that is where you draw the venom with which you use to ridicule atheism. Perhaps organised religion with its many flaws and contradictions is what hinders us to give the notion of a creator a fair chance. We have so much anger and hate towards religion as we might perhaps attribute the evil in the world towards organised religion. This is merely the supernatural creator. He/She/ It is neither good nor bad. He/ She /It is simply the designer and contractor of all that exists.
Perhaps I am jumping the gun here. Is it that those that acknowledge or believe in the existence of earthly supernatural also believe in a supernatural deity? If so my argument is then rendered moot to this school of thought! This is pointless to you then, but please do carry on reading.
I don't know but I might be getting ahead of myself again……….. If the supernatural phenomena do exist and one acknowledges it, it may still not be a reason to think that there exist a link between earthly paranormal phenomena and the Divine Supernatural Being. Evidence of earthly supernatural things, if ever established would be just that and it should therefore not be used as an extension towards validating a supposed link between the two. But how would we then account for things like dark magic, things like prophecies, things like a certain Queen in South Africa having the power to artificially/ supernaturally make it rain ? Certainly not through science I hope. I understand that these are claims one cannot furnish the evidence for, but never the less they exist in the minds and hearts of billions of people. I understand such people may be ridiculed for their beliefs and convictions, even writing this article might be social suicide.
For science to dismiss such claims as hogwash simply because they are without evidence I reckon is taking the easy way out. I understand in scientific customs the onus is on the one making the claims to come up with evidence. But if you simply say the burden of proof lies with me you merely won the debate on grounds established by your own discipline, not mine. The problem remains. People still believe in God, People still believe in their ancestors, people still believe in prophecies and people still believe in voodoo and so on.
Anyway, must we now take everything that comes from science as point of departure even if it does not accommodate or fails to realise what we know is reality? Science must not function as an axiom that it would whimsically make statements and expect them to by default be the point of departure by all other disciplines and doctrines. Nevertheless this is how scientific thinkers posit their views. Not taking anything away that science has accomplished, but this attitude is simply arrogant. There exist a difference between a nonsensical statement and a seemingly impossible but yet probable and reasonable one. The Russell’s tea pot analogy is an under the belt blow mechanism of reductio ad absurdum (reducing one’s argument to ridiculous proportions to legitimize yours.). To say there is a tea pot somewhere in space orbiting the sun is such an example of a ridiculous and nonsensical statement. And yet, the scientific evidence vs. Supernatural phenomenon is built around this argument. It simply does not mean the one making the claims has lost the debate. It only seeks to ridicule and therefore appear to be superior. You have simply removed yourself from the tangled mess of finding evidence; you have simply taken yourself out of the equation. You have not won anything. Lack of evidence for does not mean non-existent.
Anyhow, if people were to actually demonstrate and record evidence of supernatural phenomena science would simply negate them because they may not be repeatable yielding the same outcome over and over again or whatever it is that they use to validate their experiments.
It would be a nice clear environment where we do not have to deal with the scientifically unfathomable and simply dismiss the notion of paranormal phenomena, sweep it under the mat and move on with simple life. But for some of us this is why we are still clinging on the idea that there may be a God. This is why there exist agnosticism rather than a complete and definitive atheism.
We are given to understand that the supernatural things like witchcraft and miracles have no method of being explained and understood. They are not explainable and remain in the closet, if we have reached this conclusion about earthy paranormal behavior then perhaps we should take the same conclusion about the Heavenly ones , that is we have no way of knowing or we were designed to not be able to know. But knowing us, it would be naïve to think it shall come to pass.
Until we teach ourselves not to approach everything the scientific way, I fear we might not make any significant progresses in our quest to understanding the many mysteries of existence. I believe it was the poster boy of science, Albert Einstein himself who described madness as doing something over and over again expecting different results. Perhaps we should listen to his wise counsel.
