The universe didn’t force you not to believe in magic. You could have spent your whole life believing magnets are magical stones, that the electromagnetic force is magical energy, and that computer engineers are wizards who conjure spirits from magic. And you could have been 100% factually and scientifically correct.
But you chose to believe that magic is by definition not real, because you didn’t want to live in a world of whimsy and wonder. You defined magic as supernatural, in opposition to the natural world. While every scientist knows that nature is just a word for everything that exists. You chose to define magic in a way that it wouldn’t exist, denying it through tautology and not through science.
Why did you choose that?
I was trying not to sound pretentious by saying that that definition was pulled from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, but if you want to be pedantic, two can play that game.
By your definition, the fact that Donald Trump still has half the United States rooting for him after being convicted of 34 felonies could be considered magic. Extraordinary influence? Check. Seemingly from a supernatural source? Well, he clearly sold his soul to something, otherwise he’d still have one. Nuclear reactors could be magic too. Extraordinary power? Most reactors are in the megawatt range. Seemingly from a supernatural source? “Yeah, turns out these rocks are constantly tearing themselves apart at an atomic level and put out a ton of heat while doing so.” Hell, if I didn’t know how wires worked, enough so that it seemed supernatural to me, I could call the fact that electricity got to my house at all magic. The definition depends on what you consider “seemingly supernatural”, which if you’re ignorant enough or willing enough to ignore how things actually work, can be anything. It’s so broad as to become meaningless.
More to the point, to call something which you know to be natural “seemingly from a supernatural source” is to deliberately obscure its actual origin. To pretend you don’t know how it was made for the sake of joyous whimsy. Circling back to my earlier point, I like knowing. I derive joy from knowing exactly why something works. It’s fine that you don’t.
Terry Pratchett famously said that it doesn’t stop being magic just because you know how it works. Good on you for agreeing, but I do not.
For the record, though, at least in my view, calling e.g. the operation of a computer “seemingly from a supernatural source” is rather invalidating to the hard work of the decidedly natural people (like me and, assuming you weren’t lying about that degree, you) who put time and energy into making it work the way it does. Whether you intend it to or not, it very much says, “This is a wondrous piece of technology! To all appearances, God made it!”
Yeah obviously Donald Trump is a magic user. To be more precise, he has access to the Toonforce. Like Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner, he can do anything as long as it’s funny. And his big joke is on us.
Kindly read the rest of my comment and respond to that too.
No.
And yet you wonder why nobody in this thread likes you.
No, I know exactly why. It’s cause I’m not a Christian.
You posted in a fucking atheism memes community. No one here is Christian. I swear you must be searching for reasons to discount the opinions of people who disagree with you.
Nobody in this thread likes you because you’re not engaging in good faith. I see no reason to prolong this conversation. You have one reply to change my mind before I block you.
Oh, I’ve been returning your bad faith since the beginning of the thread. I’m only replying to waste your time so you won’t waste someone else’s with your nonsense.
There is simply no reasoning with anyone who likes magic.