“Why do deities need supernatural tricks“: A Rebuttal
One day twin brothers were having a quiet conversation, and the meaning of life came up.
What do you suppose it’s all about? the first brother asked.
It’s about getting what you can in the here and now, brother two answered. There’s nothing else after this.
Seriously? His brother wrinkled his brow. You mean, when we leave, we …
Go into oblivion. What else could it be? I mean, when you’re gone, you’re gone. If you go first, I won’t see you again and vice versa.
It all seems so pointless.
That’s why you have to make every minute count while you’re here. Grab what you can. Live for the moment. Eat and sleep like there’s no tomorrow, because there really might not be one.
I don’t know. I have this feeling that there’s more.
Crazy talk.
No. It’s talk that makes me think there’s more. I’ve heard things.
What kind of things?
You know, voices. One especially. Over and over I hear, ‘I love you boys.’
Your imagination.
I don’t think so.
Look around. You see any mysterious person who might be talking to us?
Well, no.
All right then.
But why couldn’t this person, you know, be somewhere else and when we leave here we join them there?
Because there is no other place.
How can you be sure?
Do you SEE another place?
Well, no.
Case closed. If you can’t see it, taste it, smell it, feel it, or taste it, then it doesn’t exist.
You said ‘taste’ twice and you left out hearing.
Do you hear anything now?
No.
All right then.
But I’ve told you, I hear this voice almost every day. Sometimes it even sings.
You’re losing it. And I’m stuck with a crazy for a brother.
Why is it so crazy to think there’s a world beyond the one we know?
Because you have no evidence, no proof.
I’m telling you, I do have proof. I’ve heard the voice of one telling me how much we’re loved.
That’s nothing but your wishful thinking tricking your mind into believing something that has no basis in fact.
How do YOU know there’s no basis in fact?
Show me this mysterious, invisible person. Where are they, huh?
Next time I hear their voice, I’ll wake you up.
Don’t bother. If I have a sour stomach, I can imagine things too. Hearing voices of invisible people is not proof.
Then what is?
How about an actual person, right in front of my face?
I don’t think it works that way. Somehow, I think we need to go to the I-love-you person, not the other way around.
You’re making this up.
No, actually I’m not. I’m on my way now.
And with that the first of the twin boys was pushed through the birth canal and born.
![PowerElementsCharacterDevelopment[1000][1]](https://rebeccaluellamiller.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/powerelementscharacterdevelopment10001.jpg?w=205)
A Christian Worldview of Fiction 
Nice story! I’m not clear why it’s a rebuttal though. 🙂
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Glad you thought it was a nice story, VW. 😀
It was a tongue-in-cheek “rebuttal.” I wanted to make the point that intelligent minds don’t know everything. To limit reality to what we know based on our own ability to sense, observe, study is to restrict it by our finitude. It’s the same as an ant saying, No, there couldn’t possibly be something called a human.
Becky
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I do agree you, and your story makes the point well. Our understanding of existence here may well mean nothing on a larger scale. But it in no way makes me understand why a divine being with a seriously divine message would need supernatural tricks.
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Violetwisp, staying with the image of the story, how would you think someone from outside the womb would go about making him or herself know to someone inside? It would take something “unnatural” or “supernatural” for them to be really known. The voice calling is similar to what we in this world can know about God because of His creation, but as you so often demonstrate, people can give other explanations for the existence of creation, so the only surefire way God could introduce Himself was through “supernatural tricks.” The thing is, even those are doubted and explained away, so I guess naming them “surefire” is wrong. But let’s say, the method hardest to ignore.
Becky
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A clever little parable. I don’t really see it as an argument or rebuttal, but I think another layer of meaning comes from the spiritual significance of birth, rebirth, new birth. Christianity isn’t the only religion to use the rebirth metaphor, but it’s probably the only one to directly extend the metaphor to the mother’s womb and the process of being physically born from a dark state of proto-life into the real world.
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Thanks for the comment, Bainespal. I hadn’t actually thought of the birth/new birth parallels. I like that your thinking went there and that you passed that along to the rest of us.
I was focused more on the idea that we humans have limits to our knowledge. From inside the womb, there’s no way our intelligent minds can fathom what awaits on the other side. It’s simply not possible.
In that way I was rebutting violetwisp’s idea that there is no supernatural because our rational minds haven’t found evidence for it.
Becky
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Haha, you got me. I think the photo at the beginning was very clever, and it set me up for the surprise ending.
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Thanks, Robert. I almost put up a picture of a couple babies, but I thought that would be a pre-mature give-away. 😉
Becky
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