From: posting-system@google.com Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2002 3:14 PM To: brian@holtz.org Subject: Re: Are irrational numbers supernatural? From: brian@holtz.org (Brian Holtz) Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated Subject: Re: Are irrational numbers supernatural? References: <200201121858.KAA28559@lsil.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.236.1.8 Message-ID: <29c16047.0201201513.59e023ac@posting.google.com> "Paul Filseth" wrote > "Esquilax" wrote: > > don't most people take "supernatural" to mean "caused by an act > > of will of a sentient entity and not implemented by any known > > physical process". > > Let's find out. Suppose vampires were real. Would you consider > the fact that they don't have reflections one of their supernatural > properties? That doesn't seem to be an act of will It would be a mistake to assume that words have a single sense. In each of its two different definitions of 'supernatural', Webster's notes a subsense that goes beyond transcendent/unusual to call out the notion of agenthood (i.e. will). It is this subsense that people mean when they use 'supernatural' in a theological context. -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net