I’m not sure whether it is the case that primitive cultures have a category of things they think of as “supernatural”—pagan religions were certainly quite literal: they lived on Olympus, they mated with humans, they were birthed. I wonder whether the distinction between “natural” and “supernatural” only comes about when it becomes clear that gods don’t belong in the former category.
I had a paragraph about that, citing Explain/Worship/Ignore, but I decided that it detracted from the point I was trying to make.
If you already think that primitives did not use the label “supernatural,” then you already think there isn’t much evidence of supernatural phenomena—at least compared to the post I was responding to.
I’m not sure whether it is the case that primitive cultures have a category of things they think of as “supernatural”—pagan religions were certainly quite literal: they lived on Olympus, they mated with humans, they were birthed. I wonder whether the distinction between “natural” and “supernatural” only comes about when it becomes clear that gods don’t belong in the former category.
I had a paragraph about that, citing Explain/Worship/Ignore, but I decided that it detracted from the point I was trying to make.
If you already think that primitives did not use the label “supernatural,” then you already think there isn’t much evidence of supernatural phenomena—at least compared to the post I was responding to.