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>>40396631
>0- There is no magic. Period.

This.

I thought OP's image was a pair of centaurs from the thumbnail.

>>40396631
0

0

>>40396631
10
But the demon's in a lead casket in a locked desk drawer, because I'm not retarded.

2 for me. I doubt its real though.

>>40396688
Same. The fact they aren't upsets me greatly.

>>40396631
2, maybe. In a romantic way, dunno. I want the kind of magic of Mieville's "The Familiar" to be real. That'd be great, even if I'll never know it.

>>40396631
Do you mean in a young girl's heart?

3

>>40396631
2 or 3

10 have an army of an undead demonicly posed army in a secret unground bunker ready to take over tje universe at a moments notice also i have all 4 gods of chaos

>>40396631
0,

but that's fine, I don't need it...

0

>>40396631
>0- There is no magic. Period.

Any other response denotes subhumanity.

>>40396631
1. I would rather the world be mundane and the afterlife unknowable.

>>40396631
0.

This applies to religion too. That said, if I see somebody casting Lightning Bolt and flying around I would reevaluate my ideas accordingly

>>40396631
in real life? 0. anyone 6 or above is mentally ill.

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0

but I wish it was 10

0

>fedorasaganstarscapequote.jpg

>>40396631
2.5. I make use of simple, low-effort magical spells from time to time, but I'm fully aware it may simply be the placebo effect and various cognitive biases coming into play and accounting for their apparent effectiveness.

There's a remote chance that ornamenting a knife with sigils and glyphs of power supernaturally sharpens and reinforces it. Far more likely, the act of doing that just locked it into my subconscious mind that "this is my special knife", and now I'm subliminally compelled to pay more attention to its maintenance than I would be otherwise. I don't care, either way I get the same result, whether I'm hacking the universe or just programming my mind with arbitrary mnemonics to change my behavior.

It's my policy to exploit any advantage I can get, and I am not remotely above including sorcery in that.

.5

There almost certainly isn't magic, but I could be wrong.

0
I was told I would get satan powers if I played DnD.
I want my money back.

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-10

What do I choose if I believe in an invisible world and god?

>>40396631
>5- ... Supernatural creatures are rare and reclusive, but people have encountered them.
Should this really be lumped in with magic?

3.

There's subtle magic in life that often defies definition and understanding. I don't know just how powerful belief and prayer really are, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I prayed on occasion and genuinely thought it affected more than my peace of mind.

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>Implying anything else but 0 is possible.

>>40396631
2 or 3, I believe that there are enough supernatural accounts to support that this. (Ghosts, Improbable events, mysterious disappearances, etc.)

2 for me.

But I agree with >>40396888

9, although 'converse' is a pretty loose term when dealing with inhuman things.

>>40396631
Define magic, asshole. Must it involve men in pointy hats shouting words of power?
If we explore space long enough to encounter an ayy lmao who can naturally read minds and teleport, would that be magic, or just a science we don't understand yet?
Seems to me like "magic" is a useless term, as the hypothetical people who practiced it for ages wouldn't call it that. They wouldn't consider it abnormal.

>>40396996
3+, depending on how outlandish the invisible world is and how much you can interact with it.

>>40396631

Clearly 0: if it's real, it's not magic.

>>40397093
Seeing as how OP's list includes things like magic schools and captured demons, I'd say he's thinking along the lines of Dresden Files magic.

2

I want to believe.

>>40396631
0 but also 8. I have spoken to Hatman.

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>>40396631
I wish it was up to even up to 4 or 5, but no matter what I know there will never be anything more than 0.

So in affect I do not. The crushing truth is that all those years of fantasizing and reading books and otherwise consuming fictional media has done nothing for us. We've grown wanting the impossible and yearning for experiences that only exist in flimsy dreams or flights of fancy. Every daydream you have of something sweeping you off your feet and out of you daily life, what ever that thing may be, is damaging you.

It can never be real.

>>40397093
You're opening up a weird can of worms, but here goes. Magic is the supernatural, or forces that defy the conventional laws that govern the ordinary realm we live in.

From there, we start going into strange philosophical territory, such as "if something defies the laws of physics, is that really magic or just our lack of understanding of the laws that govern our universe?", at which point I have to say that that's an endless debate with very little practical purpose.

>>40397209

>with very little practical purpose

And we don't want to waste our precious time with that, right?

>>40397198
Marche pls go

>>40397125
>dresden files

It's funny how you think that hack invented magic schools and captured demons. If you actually read anything decent, you wouldn't be bringing up that series outside of a "what's the male version of twilight?" discussion.

>>40396631
0, there are only things science cannot CURRENTLY explain.

>>40397093
The way magic is described is already sort of "I know it when I see it"

Really anything you can explain isn't magic by my understanding, so I'd say "0" and that there isn't really magic, just research to do. If the OP is just asking if you believe in curses and werewolves and shit of course not holy shit that's dumb

>>40397257
Science has limitations on what it can explain, since it relies on testable evidence, which is often impossible to obtain, and the very purpose of science is a debate that science itself can never answer.

Science is great, but it's just one branch of philosophy that many people don't really appreciate just how limited it is.

>>40397198
Channel it into something good, my friend.

>>40397331

This. The modern use of "science" seems to confuse it with "all knowledge that isn't made up nonsense." This is bullshit.

>>40397331
if it is not reproducible it is useless at best delusion at worst.

>>40396631
Usually, 3. Maybe up to 4, one day in the future. In a bad day, I'm 2.

I suppose life hasn't given me enough shit to destroy my optimism.

>>40397380
Your entire life is just a series of unique instances that can never be reproduced.

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>>40397093
magic is basically practical religion, religion that claims to have a practical effect on the world.

so what OP is asking is basically "are you religious or do you hold some vague quasi-religious spirituality, and to what degree do you think the forces of your religious are active in the world or just a vague presence behind-the-curtain?"

>>40397401
>implying reproducing the initial conditions will not result in the same thing again

>>40397198
Well fantasizing is also probably the only reason we aren't still in caves and are discussing concepts through electric boxes, so it's not so bad. Whether any of that makes someone "happy" is debatable, but I'm not living in a fucking cave and dying of dysentery if I can help it, so I'll take it

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>>40397401
Doesn't dispute what he said.

>>40397425
Are you implying that you're capable of doing that? The point sort of falls apart if you aren't

>>40397423
>magic is basically practical religion

This is so retarded, I urge you to stop speaking until you learn a lot more on theology. Come back in ten years.

>>40397446
Yes, yes he did. The past is past. Even time travel isn't the ability to make the past happen "again."

>>40397401
it could be reproduced with enought time and resources but what does that have to do with anything?

>>40396631
I'm afraid I've got to say 8, in the sense of having directly glimpsed a supernatural entity.

In every other way, somewhere between 3 and 4.

2, otherwise I have been waiting 30 years for nothing

It turns out the universe is pretty much just made of atoms and not much else.

Its sad that we can't go wandering the planes or whatever but at least there are no spooky skeleton guys wandering around outside of their flesh prisons.

>>40397463
If he'd typed: "basically A practical religion, A religion that claims to have a practical effect on the world."

it would at least be better.

>>40397446
Actually, it forces him into the position of either dismissing his argument, or admitting that his life is useless, meaningless, and ultimately a delusion, and that the only option left for him is to end the farce.

>>40397491
>having directly glimpsed a supernatural entity.
Storytime?

>>40397505
>but at least there are no spooky skeleton guys wandering around outside of their flesh prisons.
But... how do you know the spooky skeletons inside us aren't planning something?

>>40397490
>enought time and resources
Enough to create another big bang? And then wait it out? Because that's what it would take.

>>40396631
Personally, I'm dead center between Case 1, Case 2, and Case 5.

I may or may not have seen a Case 8. I'm reeeeally not sure though. I was really little, and I was really sick. So make your Pascal coin flips now.

There are some things which man is not meant to know and should ABSOLUTELY NEVER TOUCH, but there are also wondrous things which man must discover and open his mind to. Chinks and chasms that might lead to paths of Faerie, that sort of thing. (But don't eat the food.) If there is magic, and I believe that it /is/ possible, (forgive me my unscientific leanings and hatred of postmodernism), normal people are only going to see it if they are /really/ looking and they /really/ believe it is possible. It simply won't work any other way. Because it's magic.

Yeah, yeah, mock me now, I know you want to. But I DO believe in faeries, dammit.

>>40397463
did i trigger you or something?

>>40397512
But all religions have practical effects. For example, look at all the charity work Christian churches do.

>>40396852
Really? I'd quite like to know your reasoning, mon frere.

>>40397538
that's clearly not the sense being talked about

>>40397533
I think you just meant modernism.

...

You might also hate postmodernism, it just doesn't fit what you said.

>>40397491
You should lay off the hallucinogens.

>>40397532
my life not the universe humans are far simpler, but once again what does this have to do with the original question?

>>40397490
>it could be reproduced with enought time and resources but what does that have to do with anything?

It couldn't be exactly reproduced unless you effectively reset the entire universe, at which point their arises a conflict of identity that only resolves itself by admitting that the reset universe is not truly identical in every regard to the original (because otherwise you didn't actually reproduce anything, but instead only have a single original that was never changed).

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>>40397514
>>40397472

Yes, that's why I posted a picture of a smug anime girl laughing. Is everyone being slow on the uptake today?

>>40397598
That assumes that nothing can exist outside the system.

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>>40396631
I waver between believing 3 and 4.

>>40397623
No, it assumes that what exists outside the system either has no effect or influence on the system (and thus is useless in this discussion) or does have some way of affecting the system and summarily must be included in the ultimate reproduction.

>>40397446
Miracles happen, bitch.

>>40397251
Item One: At no point did the good anon suggest the Dresden Files invented magic schools and demon capture.

Item Two: Fuck. You.
Dresden is good. It isn't Tolkien or Three Hearts and Three Lions but it's still a good draught of fantasy. It's like Redwall, you realize it's pretty by-the-numbers but it is still damn comfy time after time.

>>40397598
wait a min this thread is so derailed right now i might as well go with it, ok,

the thing is with people its is about continuation of conciousness and memory, technicly between sleep and awakening our body replaces enough cells that you are not the same person as you were before sleep so being perfectly reproduced is kinda both impossible and pointless its a matter of close enough.

>>40397685
Item one: Guy thinks that "dresden file magic" means something.

Item two: It's pathetically bad and self-serving writing that probably should result in an underaged ban for anyone to admit that they like it, because anyone over the age of 18 should be ashamed to put such juvenile mediocre trash on their shelf.

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>>40397257
it's not technically possible to complete science

http://www.hawking.org.uk/godel-and-the-end-of-physics.html

I've personally had precognitive dreams, but I'm hesitant to label it as magic.

>>40396631

2 or 3. I lean toward 3, simply because I've seen things that I can't rationally explain.

>>40396631
Plenty of people believe in magic. Look at all the fucking Socialists out there.

>>40397795
but you can progress from what we CUrRENTLY know

>>40397529
>be me
>grow up in a 19th century mansion
>see an apparition of a young woman two or three times over the years
>later learn that the original owner's daughter died in the house
>spooky shit, yo
There really isn't a payoff to the story, but it's hard not to believe in the supernatural when you've seen a ghost.

>>40397767
>its a matter of close enough

That's arguable. In fact, what exactly is an acceptable margin of error in this regard is another question that science itself would be quite useless in answering, because the definitions it would require are not defined by science.

You can say "close enough", but unless they're absolutely identical, it's not an accurate reproduction under the strictest of definitions (where science works best) and you'll be forced to rely on subjective evaluations in order to make your case, which ultimately undervalues the very argument of "Science can explain everything".

10 here.

What is sex like?

>>40397932
Ask the demon in a bottle on your desk, he can help you find out.

>>40396631
It is my belief that 0, but I'm willing to assume 2 as well.

>>40397923
>acceptable margin of error
delta-x*delta-p = h-bar/2

>>40397793
Give me an argument, not an ad hominem, and I might be persuaded to listen to your raging faggotry. However, your lack of a coherent argument against the /books/ within your tirade of insults against /me/ would suggest otherwise.

I admitted it was by the numbers and somewhat repetitive.

I did not say that I thought it was excellent. I said it was good.

NOW DEFEND YOUR GOD DAMNED POSITION YOU MASSIVE, COWARDLY FAGGOT.

0.

Though "magic" is a pretty broad term that you lump a lot of things into. Magic as people have ever described it outside of "awe-inspiring and cool" wish-washy crap doesn't exist.

>>40397251
Somehow I get the feeling that John Scalzi is writing this.

That or Arthur Chu.

>>40398096
I'm not here to discuss the books. Engaging in an argument with you about them is actually contrary to what I'd want to do, which is remove any and all references to that heavily marketed but poorly written series until they are justifiably forgotten.

But if you're bored, and want to read something, enjoy this link.
http://www.mrdestructo.com/2009/10/gandalf-urban-jim-butchers-terrible.html

Now, shut up.

Lets take a stab at this. Human minds are pattern searching machines, in a primeval nonmanmade world, patterns of survival death disease were significantly chaotic and nonobvious. The line between self delusion and appropriately adapted to our environment was a helluva loyalty blurrier. Primitive societies incorporate the mentally ill as gifted likely for this reason. Even now we believe in Luck and sometimes Karma or Prayer, much like primitives believed in innate spirits all around us. Existence is chaotic and we can refine or adapt to our existence through psychology and seeking mental and emotional edges to improve our lives. We think of studying and applying all that we know as being completely different than the luck Spells, Prayers, or seeking Gnosis of ancient cultures but from a different perspective it is much the same thing. The use of Willpower to improve our existence with any shred of a pattern in front of us. Magic is simply the intent and intensity of living to the utmost. The social mental emotional viruses of hope and imitation and suggestion are different but the same today. Humanity has always been drawn to bullshit and magic.

>>40396631
Up in Scandinavia they change the paths of road projects over the presence of elves. I feel like 6 is a conservative estimate of the state of the supernatural world.

>>40397427
This guy knows what's up.

>>40396631
1. I don't like it if I can't get an explanation for things that actually makes sense, but I recognise that just because I don't want something to be true, that won't just remove it entirely.

>>40398552
Wat. I'm going to need a source or some kind of reading material on this anon.

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>>40398552
>Up in Scandinavia they change the paths of road projects over the presence of elves.

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>>40398623
Welcome to /tg/.

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>>40396631
"all human knowledge and understanding" is not very much. proof of "magic" as you define it is easily gained by presenting information to a person or group of people and watching them get it horribly wrong.

>>40398623
It's the lack of sun.

>>40396631
Quite frankly, even 0 is retarded. You can't disprove an existance of an object with no definable qualities. It's more like "there's no evidence that supports the argument that there's magic in the world and it works". If somebody would somehow find some hard evidence, or a way to reproduce "magic" on the regular basic, fine. Otherwise it's safe to assume it doesn't exist.

>>40396631
It all depends on what you consider magic. Under certain definitions, yes. Others not so much. So much is esoteric metaphor for the mundane that that it's hard to say no when you understand it as such but it doesn't do anything to dissipate the supernatural qualities.

>>40396672
Then how did Isaac Bonewitz get a Bachelor's degree in Magic in 1970?

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>>40396631
7, because you're muggle filth and you can't do shit anyway

>>40397552
Don't engage with the Atheist nega-psychics trying to hold on to their mechanistic Newtonian status quo.

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>>40396631

Personally a 2.

I'm happily willing to believe in 4 at most, though.

Admittedly, there's no way to know if all the unexplained questions and phenomena in the world are the result of something 'supernatural' or just 'natural, but unexplained.'

But I'd really like to find out.

>>40398659
would

>>40397198
You do know that you can pick up your own feet and walk out of your daily life and do literally anything else. You're only trapped because you think you are.

>>40398235
Not the anon who you replied to, but I have had my jimmies rustled and feel an irrational need to belittle you. I shall try to be as clear as possible.
You wish to completely remove the Dresden Files from reality, 1984 style, due to not liking them. This suggests that you wish for your opinion to dictate the opinions of others.
You also did not post your own argument against the books, only something very simple that does not give the reader any information on WHY you dislike them.
And furthermore, you decided to post some random URL that, from reading it, absolutely screams "THIS IS A WEBSITE THAT IS INCREDIBLY OPINIONATED AND THEREFORE UNUSABLE AS A PROPER FUCKING REVIEW".
And finally, you typed "Now, shut up" like your opinion is the final arbiter of all discussion and no-one is able to dispute your claims. This makes you look like you emigrated from /v/, to be totally honest.
So, I will take the time to say:
YOU SHUT UP AND LET THIS THREAD RERAIL
I ACTUALLY LIKED THE PEACEFUL DISCUSSION UNTIL YOU AND YOUR ETERNAL ENEMY FOR 5 SECONDS CAME ALONG AND FUCKED IT UP

>>40396631
>4- There is a more direct, religious sense of magic, where truly devoted practitioners of the highest order can perform minor miracles, but these are rare in all regards.

Sort of? I do not believe there are supernatural beings, nor do I believe in miracles of the "I willed it to happen and that made it happen, in spite of all physical law to the contrary" variety.

But I do read up on magic as a sort of religious exercise, attempting to incorporate the symbolism and thoughts into my understanding of a universe in which they absolutely do not have practical, natural application. They add beauty to my life, and the experience of the beauty the universe has to offer is at the core of what I basically recognize as my religion. I might have picked 3, but "paltry" seems the wrong word for it - there's a lot of depth here, but it's got more to do with knowing myself than with knowing how to command demons or whatever.

Also, I can't tell whether they airbrushed off the woman's nipples or she's just wearing a skintight suit, although the appearance of her tits suggests that it's either the latter or the shot was exquisitely timed.

>>40398838
>hurr de durr, dimwitted damage control

Your hypocrisy is amazing. Not nearly as amazing as your blind devotion, but still, quite impressive.

First, I don't want to remove the books from reality, I would just rather people stop pointlessly advertising a series best skipped on account of how it seems to genuinely make its fans retarded. Assuming, of course, you didn't start out retarded, though that also highly likely.

Go to the link and have a read. Be sure to post any and all arguments that might come to mind on that page so that the author can dispute all the finer points with you, though he's likely already disputed people who've already raised the points you intended to raise. He voices many of my own opinions (so why bother bringing them here?), and does so in a place where sharing those opinions is welcome, on his own personal blog.

You want to talk about that stupid series? Take it to your personal blog, you fruit.

And shut up.

>>40396631
2

>>40398988
You're so mad about the series that you make me want to read it, faggot.

>>40399049
That's great. Ignoring good advice is its own punishment.

>>40398781
>Newtonian
hue

>>40398781
>Atheist nega-psychics

That's sounds like an awesome theme for a tongue-in-cheek cyberpunk street gang.

Name suggestions?

>>40399165
The Italian Futurists.

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>>40399137
>misses the joke

>>40396631
I'm a 3 in the sense that my stance is that anything "supernatural" is merely part of a natural order which our bodies and minds are ill-equipped to understand.

I supposed I'm "blessed" enough to have supernatural encounters and be an 8.
Being one who has seen some shit, I can firmly say that you don't want magic.
You don't want the horrifying shit that comes from it.

When an object inexplicably flies across the room, you don't think, "cool!" you think, "FUCK!"

When you see the shadow of a man with a shotgun looming just outside of your vision in, you don't think, "aww, I hope he's friendly," you find out the house is wonderfully priced because he killed his wife and then himself, and you get the fuck out.

When you see dark shadows dance across your parent's backyard, you don't join them. You /k/ the fuck up and turn on the floodlights while staring at them down the sight of a mini-14. They disappear, and you find out the next day that your dad accidentally (???) made a fucking pagan circle by copying a neat design off of the internet, you bury silver coins and iron nails beneath each stone in hopes this never happens again.

The more that supernatural things stay out of our lives, the better.

>>40399280
This.

The fae are beautiful, but that does not make them any less dangerous.

Summer thunderstorms and frozen lakes, that's all I want to remember.

>>40398988
Please reread the first sentence of my post.

>>40399049
Pick it up and make your own decision.

That's what reading SHOULD be. Fuck.

I'm telling you however, that to get through the first two books is a little hard. They demonstrably improve though.

>>40399386
Thank you for bringing some intelligence to this argument, friend.

>>40399386
>They demonstrably improve though.

Too bad they never get good. The whole "the first two are shit, but the rest are not" lie is the reason why i bothered trudging through the shit, only to discover it never improves to the point where it's anything other than juvenile wank, except people like you who don't understand the sunk-cost fallacy will go to great depths to rationalize the exertion required to plow through all that unreadable garbage.

>>40399497
PLEASE STOP
I WANT TO TALK ABOUT MAGIC

>>40399497
Jesus fuck, what kind of punctuation are they teaching at your schools these days, kid?

LEARN TO FUCKING TYPE.

>>40399413
You're welcome, friend.

>>40399527
What have you seen?

What know you of the powers that sit behind reality?

Do YOU believe in faeries?

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>>40396631

>0
>i fucken love science

I'm around a 2.5. I feel like there SHOULD be magic, but there's no human way to discover it. Religion and faith are much different from magic, and those are observable if not exactly provable.

10

/thread

>>40399618
I have seen things, but not anything truly weird, unless you count my dreams/nightmares (which I don't count).

I have no knowledge of those powers, and tbh I don't really want to.

No, not really. I'd shit my pants if I found out they were real.

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>>40396631
Zero. Zilch. Nada.

>>40398827
Not the guy you replied to, but aside from the fact that you missed his point that magical fantasies are a waste of time or even harmful (a stance I don't necessarily agree with), the statement you made doesn't always hold true. There are traps in life which are difficult if not outright impossible to escape, both physical and mental ones.

0. I do not believe in magic, sadly. I miss the days when I did.

>>40399822
Like what? Actual prisons aside.

>>40399836
Men in dresses.

>>40397685
>It isn't Tolkien or Three Hearts and Three Lions
That was obvious from the fact that you said it was good.

>>40399335
Humans are dangerous to them, too.

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>>40399849

Clark's Laws OP. I believe in magic because the world is pretty fucking magical. Just because we understand the physical properties of what's happening doesn't make it any less magic to me. I can see and speak to a man in China on a whim. I can witness proof of a man walking on the moon over and over again at my leisure. I can fucking fly to a part of the world I haven't seen before for the price of a month's groceries. How is that not magic?

>Obviously Anon. We aren't stupid. I mean esoteric arcane secrets that allow me to throw jars of demons at people and use virginity to conjure spirits.

Sure. I believe that given the right knowledge and tools we can do that shit too and when you see a man do that you may not see him any more differently than a modern electrician or engineer. People are just fucking cool.

>>40399849
What, like those muslim skirt-shirts?

>>40396631
>0
Don't be a fuckwit.

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>>40396631
>>40399679
I'm going with 2.5 as well.

Religion has nothing to do with it, but the Higgs particle is fucking magic.

>>40396631
0 is the most ignorant answer of all, it's basically burying your head in the ground. 1 and 2 are the only completely reasonable ones. 3 and higher would need some sort of proof, anyone choosing them without such proof is just engaging in some wishful thinking.

>>40396631
Other:

I don't know for sure, but I don't think there is.

>>40396631
0, there is no magic, and I don't associate with people who think there is.

Well, I'm a Christian. So 3, I guess.

>>40400152
You could choose any of the numbers while still being a Christian.

>>40396631
>0

Magic, by my reckoning is just a word for things that you can't explain mechanically at a given moment.

Now, I say this fully intending to purchase a copy of the Legemeton at some point, because the history of ritual magic is fascinating anthropologically.

>>40396631
0

Daily reminder that there are people in this thread RIGHT NOW who think that a number that isn't 0 is a correct answer.
God damn man...

Depends what you consider magic.

There are things we individually do not understand, yet we are OK with using on a day to day basis.

At my work there is a technology very few people understand. A lot of people are afraid of it and are quick to blame it (and everyone who works with it) whenever anything goes wrong, regardless of whether or not the technology was even involved. To them, it is a dark magic that sometime works, and sometimes doesn't.

Is it magic? Not to me it isn't.

>>40399880
I use Clark's laws in debate amongst my friends all the time. Magic and technology are interchangeable terms.

>>40400281
Daily reminder that fuck you I'm a wizard 10 is the only correct answer for me.

>>40400181
Miracles fall under the purview of magic, asshole.

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>>40396631
3

>>40400384
Even if you interpret it like that a Christian could still pick any of the numbers.

>>40396631

Magic is entirely real but because it's become so mundane nobody really recognizes it as magic anymore. Human's ability to rearrange the natural world into things which spawned from their imagination is magic; word and image create magic when arranged in sequences that effect the brain in endless ways.

Unless you define magic as something which exists outside what we confirm as reality, which therefore means it can't exist all

>>40400506
Clark's law

>>40400522
Semantics

>>40400506
>Unless you define magic as something which exists outside what we confirm as reality, which therefore means it can't exist all
This is wrong. There is nothing stopping something inherently unconfirmable from existing.

>>40400548
I meant it as support of your post. as in your thoughts are true and can be found in Clark's theory. my bad

>>40400506
>define magic as something which exists outside what we confirm as reality
Dark matter. It exists, and it's certainly gravitating, but we can't confirm what it is. Even more, there could be a hypothetical object that we cannot confirm at all like neutrinos in 30-ies that we can later find.

>>40400558

That's right, but its not really what I was getting at

What I meant was once we recognize it as a function of the universe, it stops being magical.

Therefore if there is magic; we can never experience it without stripping the property of magic from it.

>>40400607
but are those things magic or simply hard to see?

Well, seeing how magic is often compared to things so advanced that someone can't even understand it's possible, many natives could see some people as truly magical.

Hell, I barely understand some super heavy stuff, and it does sound like magic to a certain degree.

If you ask me, in a sense of wonderment and possibility, as more an optimistic view of the world, magic is real. Magic is seen through science.

Think about video games, most spells are cast based off mana, mana is a form of energy to alter things in the universe.

I mean even as I speak, I'm communicating secretly to people all over to word on global forum to interact with countless people. That's fucking cool as hell.

So yeah, I'm gonna say 10, we live in age were technology is starting to rival magic.

>>40396631
I'll go with 4.5. I was raised Baptist, but me and the rest of my family have seen some weird shit in our time. My grandparents and mother all claim to have had premonitions and visions every now and then (Never happened with me, though), and we had a poltergeist in our home for a while (freaking terrifying). So, yeah, it doesn't happen very often, but when it does, run for the hills.

>>40396631
Is there no 11th option? Because I'm an otherworldly being.

>>40400624
First they were hypothesized inside larger theorethical networks. I don't say that they're magic, I'm just saying that anon's argument is not sound.

>>40400607
>>40400624

It was bad wording on my part in the original post, but yeah we don't see them as magical; just unknown forces which can't currently be observed, only their effects and influence on other things. This is seen as not something supernatural, but a natural function of the universe that's beyond our reach.

>>40400684
>>40396631
0, my great-great-aunt was Irish and had the Sight, it suspiciously resembled normal intuition and luck.

0. I'd desperately like to be proven wrong, mind you. If a dragon were to swoop down tomorrow, declare the local mall its lair and start demanding tribute, I'd be fucking delighted. I would love for there to be a real new frontier to explore, right here on Earth where we can actually reach it.

But everything I see of "magic" is just layers of cheap tricks and self-delusion. Psychics are dramatic cut-rate guidance counselors, herbalists are chemists who won't get with the times, crystal peddlers and faith healers are either conscious scam artists or in massive denial, and so on and so on. And on the rare occasion one "discipline" gets shut down by the cold hard logic of its observable powerlessness, a new one rises up to take its place. There really aren't more things in Heaven or on Earth, but some days it seems like the whole human race is constitutionally incapable of accepting it.

Oh well. At least medical science and robotics are still turning out wonders to boggle the mind. I get to live in the future, so I can deal with not living in Narnia.

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I used to believe 0 like most people in the thread, but I have experimented with some things and believe there to be something, perhaps anything, beyond basic understand.

If it be delusion or not is irrelevant. I have caused changes in people's behavior with magic, and I have also made myself win a little money too. The trick is to not ask or hope for too much, just a nudge, so that you don't get all burthurt when your ridiculous wish didn't come true.

Honestly though, some of this shit is pretty crazy. I don't believe in any supernatural creatures so OP's rating chart doesn't apply to me, but actual magic? I'd be up to a 4 or low 5 or so.

>>40396631
>2- There might be magic beyond all human knowledge and understanding, but you hope there is.
So far as I'm aware, there is no magic and it seems to go against most everything we know about the universe. However, I think that utterly dismissing even the possibility something might exist just because we haven't been able to observe it yet is unscientific, and I WOULD like for there to be magic. It would make the universe a more interesting place.

I believe in, and practice, 'magic' as tool for interacting with those parts of my mind that aren't reachable by conventional means. It's a therapeutic and motivational activity.

I believe, that taken as such, it can have (and had) a real effect on my life and potentially lives of other people.

I do not believe those practices have any power beyond that.

So... 0, but 9?

1.5? I guess? I don't really hope one way or the other, I just believe in magic in a sense that there are some machinations of the universe that can never be explained or understood with our limited perspective. I guess that kind of falls more in line with 3, but I read 3 as believing that there is a conscious influence of this magic rather than it being a natural phenomenon. Supernatural beings and infinite cosmic shenanigans aside, I do believe that humans will die off long before they come even a fraction close to understanding the full spectrum of natural law. Extrapolation can only be taken so far.

0: You are arrogant, not quite as clever as you think you are, and also boring
1: The lowest reasonable answer, but also the worst one.
2-3: An acceptable degree of belief
4: The highest answer you can provide without being challenged.
5: The final degree of belief before crazytown.
6+: Crazytown

Is there something like a 0.5? Magic definitely is not real, but I sometimes wish it was. Like, it's not a 2 (magic might be real and I hope it is). I know it's not real. I just think it'd be cool if it was.

>All of those people answering something beside 0
People make fun of us atheists but I prefer being a fedora tipping edgelord to literally believing in spellcraft.

>>40403149
Believing in spellcraft is 4+.

>>40399897
>There might be an invisible undetectable demon fucking me in the ass 24/7. Not accepting the possibility this is true is narrow-minded

>>40402291
Got me curious, what sorta stuff have you "done"?

>>40403188
He lied on the internet.

>>40396631
I am a either a 0 or a 2. I would like there to be some king of magic in the world, but I have never seen credible evidence of such. Therefore eventually in the absence of evidence to the contrary one should accept the null hypothesis, that there is no magic. Never stop challenging the null, but accept that assume it is valid fou subsequent experiments.

In the studies of anthropology, magic is just proto-religion, or sometimes actual religion.

There are also some strange people that think quantum physics are magic, but in actuality it's just the universe being an asshole.

0- there is no magic on Earth in this universe

Magic would require the laws of classical mechanics and universal constants to be different from what we know them to be. Also where would you get the Energy for a working of magic? And microcosm/macrocosm that is the underpinning of most western versions of magic doesn't have a logical mechanism for how it would work in most cases.

Now if there are places in our universe where physics work differently (which wouldn't surprise me, simply based on the size of the universe, particles popping into and out of existence at the quantum level, and statistics) then who knows what would be possible there at that time.

The only place we know of where something like sympathetic magic appears to work is with quantum entanglement. And even then, particles are entangled; sympathetic magic requires that a small part of something can affect a larger something at a distance. So they are not really equivalent.

>>40403261
Wow I did not check that last sentence. Assume it is valid for future experiments is the core of what I was trying to say.

>>40396631
That's a pretty shit list, I know people who believe in fortune telling, or mystic healing, and say they have experienced the latter, but don't believe in any sort of supernatural creature like fairies. At most they believe in ghosts, but not confidently.

>>40403312
You, I like you. You make sense.

>>40403149
What is conventionally called magic in the hermetic or mystic sense and tradition is most often a metaphor, one that when understood makes it hard to say "no, I don't believe in magic". It's an interaction with the world through esoteric means and an occluded lens.You're divining the shape of things you can't directly experience through their direct expression and manipulating them.

You can disagree as to whether it's magic, but the learned talents of what constitutes a wizard in the traditional sense do go beyond the capabilities of an average person and work in ways that aren't immediately obvious. I'm speaking of a wise man that can use words to shape reality in ways others cannot. Now we would call this psychology and memetics, but the mastery of it on a more artistic rather than scientific level makes it difficult to distinguish from magic, and in many ways, it is.

>>40397331
It's true that there are things that science can't explain right now, and things that it will probably never be able to explain, but those things are not really explainable any other way.

Science doesn't have all the answers, but it has the only answers.

>I. Law of World Views
>The world we perceive is actually the interface (mixture) of the noumenal world (the Tao, the objective reality that is unknowable), and our selves (the subjective).
>Changing your world view does not change the eternal, real world, but it does change the perceived world. This is important because it is the world we touch, see, and act upon.
>Changing your world view makes real changes in the world which is real to us. (See below, VIII. Law of Reflection.)
>Because there are an infinite number of ways to perceive the world, there are an infinite number of ways we may assemble with our awareness.
>The true underlying reality is unknowable to us as long as we retain the world view of separateness and self. You can become one with the universe but you cannot step back and observe it, because you are in it. You cannot observe a phenomenon without altering it by your mode of perception. There is no such thing as an independent observer. You participate in creating the world by perceiving it.
>The Magician's Companion: A Practical & Encyclopedic Guide to Magical & Religious Symbolism, pg. 12

That is, magic is a set of methods for altering your worldview effectively on-demand. This is typically with the aim of making certain goals more easily achievable. It isn't about fireballs and flying around. There's really nothing supernatural about it. The ritualistic trappings just make it easier to change one's mindset.

I have no flipping idea where that fits on OP's chart, but that's where I stand.

>>40403442
It means that magic exists in the same sense that religion exists, but that there's nothing supernatural about it. So in OP's chart that'd be a 0.

>>40403430
>Science doesn't have all the answers, but it has the only answers.

No, that's being retarded on a level that makes you not only unable to function as a human being, but easily leads to simply making wrong assumptions based on limited knowledge that renders you a psychopath.

Science is great, but when you limit yourself to only being able to understand and accept what science can explain, you can't even begin to work with science to start.

>>40403497
Truly, the key to knowledge is calling people who disagree with you retarded.

Science includes the practice of minimizing the risk of false assumptions based on limited knowledge. False assumptions based on limited knowledge are where superstition and magic come from.

Where the hell is you guys' sense of romance and wonder?

>I am 100% rational all of the time and make only the most informed decisions. I have never seen anything I don't understand. Magic cannot exist.

>the power of science is wonderful. Science is the best and better than magic. I would say science is the same as magic but magic is trash for the superstitious.

>I often debate with my friends (and always win) because I am very very smart and rational and blah blah blah

Come on! Can't you just for a second let go of all of your preconceptions and have faith that somewhere in the world there might be something completely wonderful and terrible and strange? Unexplainable and world-shattering in its beauty? I bet you are all """atheists"" too

0.5 - it doesn't exist, but I kind of wish it did.

8
Electricity is magic

>>40403552
>I have never seen anything I don't understand
Scientists are more willing than other people to admit when they don't understand something, or to change their opinions when better evidence comes along. I would argue that this enhances their ability to appreciate wonder and the unknown, because they do not deny the unknown. It's the supernaturalists who pretend to understand everything at once and then cling to their opinions in spite of any evidence to the contrary. That is much more petty and less wonderful than exploring what the universe is really like.

>>40396631

2.

I'm always fascinated with the idea of expanding human knowledge of what is possible or impossible. It's why I got a science degree.

An entire new, untapped field of study? That would be wondrous.

>>40403520
The practice of "minimizing the risk of false assumptions based on limited knowledge" itself is something that cannot be constructed without looking beyond the limitations of science, nor can it be readily defined or even implemented without recognizing that science by itself is not a complete view of the world.

>False assumptions

See, and that's where you've made your next mistake, because you've assumed the assumptions to be false, with really no way of proving this assumption, especially not with the limited applications of science. To even begin to try and dismiss magic and superstition requires looking beyond science, since science has a fairly limited scope of what it can effectively interact with.

Before you get stir crazy, I'm not saying anything about magic being real, what I am saying is that science isn't quite as all encompassing and powerful as you seem to believe it is.

And, Science is not immune to false assumptions, and it is in itself a series of assumptions based on limited knowledge.

>>40400384
There's quite a fundamental difference between the two, as most people who know a thing or two about theology will tell you. Magic implies a result when certain conditions are met. These could be anything, from being a mage, to sacrificing a lamb, to ritual chanting et cetera. You replicate the conditions, and magic happens.
The prime example is Moses splitting the sea. He raises his staff and prays, and the sea parts before him and his people. If that were magic, you'd be able to split the sea if you stood on the same cliff, with the same staff and say the same prayer.
A miracle in the biblical sense is entirely different, it's not god performing some sort of large-scale magic, but rather something that follows out of the natural order of things. God frees the egyptian slaves because that's how things are supposed to go and WILL go, and the sea will part before moses like it's always been the plan. Moses didn't perform the miracle, the staff and prayer were no necessary nor sufficient conditions for the splitting of the sea to happen. It happened, and moses said his prayer because that's simply how things were going to happen when god decided Moses was to be his chosen one, and moses accepted. It'll only happen once, even though similar miracles beyond human understanding may occur at some later point in time.

Then of course, magic could also be used in the sense of any perceived supernatural act that cannot be explained by common human understanding, in which case biblical miracles, supposed elves in Scandinavian forests, and wizards conjuring demons are all magic. But as is obvious, such a definition is way too broad to be functional, as everyone believes in their own brand of magic, and 'common human understanding' is as it turns out, a very very narrow term.

Of course magic is real, I'll be becoming a wizard later this year.

>>40396631

11
Fuck you, mortal.

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>>40396631
8

Because memes have clearly transcended reality and become a form of ritual magic.

>>40403604
I never said that science was all-encompassing or all-powerful. What I am saying is that the areas that can't be examined by science can't be meaningfully examined by anything else either.

>To even begin to try and dismiss magic and superstition requires looking beyond science, since science has a fairly limited scope of what it can effectively interact with.

Not really. Dismissing claims that have no evidence is very basic application of the scientific method. There's no reason to consider magic or superstition to be true unless it makes some kind of claim that can be independently verified, at which point it ceases to be superstition and becomes another branch of science.

>>40403584

sorry. I was emotional and I made my straw man say something different than what I wanted him to say.

What I meant was
>I have never seen anything I can't understand after enough careful study and observation

I get frustrated when people say that they can figure everything out eventually. There has to be something unperceivable or unexplainable in the world. It's too big for there not to be

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I am literally dumbfounded that anyone on this board is even remotely considering answers other than 0 (or 2 at absolute most given your wording). What the fuck is happening here, this is a joke right? I always thought /tg/ was the most sensible board but here are all these dudes who LITERALLY believe in fucking magic.
>People ITT who give nonzero answers

>>40403650
There very well may be truly unexplainable things. Like the big questions, like why there is something rather than nothing. But the thing about unexplainable things is that they're unexplainable. Priests and magicians can't explain them any better than scientists. In the very best-case scenario they'll all be equally clueless about a subject.

0. I wish there was, the world as it is feels so fucking boring at times...but 0.

>>40403644
> can't be meaningfully examined by anything else either.

You seem confused, almost as if you're trying to use the word "science" to mean a lot more than what it is.

To begin with, thanks to the limitations of science, you can't even use it to argue that any part of science is "meaningful." The very concept of "meaningful" is something that is beyond the ken of science.

>Dismissing claims that have no evidence is very basic application of the scientific method.

You first have to define evidence, especially when talking about the concept of "no evidence." There's plenty of "evidence" that points to the existence of ghosts, at which point we have to sit down and work through defining what degree of evidence would allow us to accept their existence, since we'd never be able to dismiss their existence through the constraints of science alone.

I think you really need to start appreciating that science uses a lot of material outside of itself, because while wide and varied, it's still rather limited in the scope of what it can interpret.

>>40403637
What the fuck?

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>>40396631
10. I will never be convinced otherwise.

>>40403776
>you can't disprove ghosts, therefore ghosts
Is this nigga srs?

>>40403794
No, what was said that "There's evidence of ghosts, not zero evidence."

0

>>40403750
Wouldn't it be much more boring if the ancient cultures who invented magical rituals had it all figured out and there was nothing more to learn after that? If the cosmos conformed to our pre-existing beliefs and just made us comfortable?

>>40403783
Magic.

>>40403813
>Find mass grave
Oh, what happened here? Looks like some mass execution! A religious ritual to find favor with ancient gods?

>A Million Years Ago
"Welcome to McCannibals. Thog take order."

>>40403776
And you seem confused as to what science even is. Yes, philosophy, including the philosophy of science, can't be tested empirically. But if it could be, then that would be much better than the mass of opinions we have now. Scientists choose, without evidence, the worldview that says that there is an objective external reality that we can learn things about with our senses and test and confirm amongst ourselves. They choose to believe this because if it's not true, then it's impossible to learn anything about anything. It's the more empowering option.

I wish I believed in something. I'm always hoping I guess.

I do think I believe in a Death though.

>>40396631
1.5
Whatever the fuck you mean by 'magic', if humanity can't understand/use it to mechanize the universe, it doesn't matter if it's there or not.

>>40403813
Interesting way of looking at it. I don't think I'd lose much sleep over the reached limits of human knowledge...but a world of ultimate comfort and hedonism where magic is basically just some omnipresent technology certainly isn't what I had in mind. In any case it's only one of the many ways a world with magic could possibly look like.

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>>40396631
2 or 3. I don't think "magic" in and of itself (especially as the type of people who smell like patchouli think of it) has any effect, and I think a lot of "magic" in the form of rituals only has any effect as a placebo or mind-over-matter, but I also think that there's some weird/spooky shit out there that's hard to explain with science as it currently is.

For example, deja vu. I get it really bad, normally from dreams I had years before. It's rarely about anything important, but I firmly believe that I sometimes dream about things before they happen.

Personally, if I had conversed with fairies by now I would have been cursed to shit.

I would have tried to fuck the fairies.

>>40403842
A lot of paleolithic mass graves we find are from old-timey genocide. Turns out making prisoners dig their graves and then killing them and dumping the bodies into the pit is fairly traditional!

>>40403852
>But if it could be, then that would be much better than the mass of opinions we have now

But it can't.
That's the bottom line.

Saying "Gee whiz, wouldn't life be great if everything was as relatively easy as science is?" doesn't magically make science the end-all be-all, it just makes it very useful for practical applications.

However, if the only base of knowledge you are willing to accept is science, than you really don't have anything except a lot of data and rules, with no purpose except accumulating more for its own sake.

0.

>>40396631
4+5.
There is a more direct, spiritual sense of magic (while I believe faith have its place in a spiritual world, religion in itself isn't "magical", for good or ill), where truly devoted practitioners of the highest order (like guys or gals who would be both gifted and in the right place at the right time and worked probably friggin' hard can perform minor miracles, but these are rare in all regards; and supernatural creatures, like the Fae, are rare and reclusive, but a few people have encountered them.

Inb4 hurr durr random encounter : no, I never saw a Fairy. I saw a strange woman on a road while hitchhiking who was freaking weird, and not in the usual way, but apart from that memory, nothing springs to mind. Yet I believe, not because I want it to be true in particular, I would be fine with a world completely explained by science, but I know a lot of things in the past were considered magic and became rational after we explained them.

>>40403891
Who WOULDN'T try to fuck a faerie?

Although if you just wanna fuck a fairy you can always get on Grindr, anon.

I don't believe in magic. That being said.....

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clarke

>>40403911
What do you mean by "minor miracles"? Like, wiccans givin' people the clap with a piece of amethyst on a stick? Water to wine stuff? Faith healing?

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>>40403912
I'm talking about the little ones, anon.

>>40403929
Nah. The word miracle, again, like religion, is misplaced.

I'm thinking more about the fact that a Fae can make you lost. That someplaces have inherent weird phenomenas related to they're nature. Like weird ghostly stuff going on.
Like a real wizard being able to put a curse on you. Not a huge stuff you know, won't give you a heart attack. But will probably make your life shittier. Stuff like that.

Nothing new age, no.

>>40403939
>not wanting to take ancient queens to pound town
>not wanting to make gae bolg jokes as you try and talk The Morrigan into anal
What's the fun in sex if they can't push back?

>>40403990
>a real wizard
Do you believe in wizards? Do you think they're more Gandalf-y, as in, inherently supernatural god-babies or something, or humans who have learned ostensibly TOO much?
also please remember to use the proper "their", Anon. This is /tg/, we're better than that.

>>40403993
Look, by blood I'm only supposed to see Swiss and Polish mythological creatures. I don't know what Swiss fairies are like, but you better believe I'm not sticking my dick in anything from Polish woodlands.

>>40404015
I'd think Swiss fairies would be like German ones, only without the carefree attitude and sense of humor.

>>40397505
>It turns out the universe is pretty much just made of atoms and not much else.
Not necessarly. Scientists update theories all the time, and while atomic theory has stood for hundreds of years it could be replaced with another that gives us a better simulation of the universe. For all the jokes, even string theory could lead somewhere. Even presuming our current theories bare a strong resemblence to reality, observations suggest that 90% of the mass of the universe is Dark Matter with incredibly poorly understood properties.

Where does conciousness come from? Why does the universe outside of our solar system not fit our laws without fudging them? Might there a layer of complexity beneath quantum mechanics that explains the randomness? There are plenty of questions remaining, we're not going to run out for millenia, and there's plenty of room in there for explaning all the odd experiences humans have. Once it's been explained you might not want to call it magic of course.

In case it's not obvious, I'm around 2.5ish:
There is an infinite amount we don't know, almost all of which behaves in incredibly complex ways (if it was simple, we'd already understand it). At all scales this complexity is likely to generate phenomena that you could consider similar to life/intelligence. You could call an energy fluctuation that appears to make decisions a demon if you wanted to, though I'd try not to.

>>40404100
Swiss dwarves are excellent. They make infinitely replicating cheese.

>>40403939
you take your gay midget porn back to /d/

>So many idiots
You are become reddit, destroyer of boards.

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>>40403720
Oh sure, magic may sound absurd, but consider that most of what you know about the world comes from wise old men in white robes who ritualistically operate strange apparatus that allow them to divine secrets of the cosmos unobservable to ordinary men. To join this erudite brotherhood, one must spend years in a specialized academy studying maddeningly complex texts under the tutelage of the elders of the craft.

Is it such a big jump from that to wizards?

>>40404698
Which posters, in your infinite wisdom, are the idiots?

The ones who believe or the fedora-tippers?

>>40400318
>Magic and technology are interchangeable terms.
I'm not into etymology so I could be wrong, but I heard the words "magic" and "machine" have the same root, which is incredibly fitting.
Also, the French word for computer compares it to a god.

>>40396631
3 for me, I keep an open mind.

>>40396631
2 if you cont god omnipotency and jesus crhsit powers as magic instead of powers

Around 2.5 on a good day, I think?

I want to believe, you have no idea how much. I really do, which is why I am so incredibly into fantasy and shit, and been looking into a lot of wicca lately. But I'm a skeptical fuck, and when I don't see or experience shit really happening, it just doesn't flip the switch

But at the same time, I know that there are things out there really weird going on. People that follow a religion or another report incredible stuff sometimes, and that ranges from christianity to Umbanda to wicca, and so I start to wonder.

Maybe it is something that can be explained, maybe not. But I like to believe.

I just wish that I hadn't grown up in a huge capitol, maybe being closer to nature and in a little closer knit/more superstitious place would've given me the chance. Or made me into a closeminded amish. Who knows.

My stance on life regarsing magic is "I can't prove it in a way that makes any sense. But just in case, I'm not going to actively fuck with the occult. Who knows, right?"

>>40397380
I hate the whole le hat man of euphoria meme, but you are, like, the king of /r/atheism.

>>40403720
tg is a (relatively) open minded board but most of us collect little plastic figures and play make believe. That's what we have in common here. Sensibility be damned.

>>40403720
A lot of people think that not believing in magic means that you're some sort of ultra close-minded militant atheist.

>>40398552
>>40398612
>>40398623
They most assuredly do not.

Source: I am Scandinavian and have never heard of this. Maybe they do it in Iceland, but inbreeding does strange things to a population.

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>>40406419
Yeah, it's in Iceland.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/mar/25/iceland-construction-respect-elves-or-else

Crazy bastards.

>>40406517
Iceland is not part of Scandinavia. Scandinavia is defined by the Scandic mountain range, which does not extend across the sea.

>>40403593
This

>>40396631
1

Fuck the gods, fuck the supernatural, Man must flourish.

>>40396631
4, 8

<2: Disgusting
>5: Insane

There is, at least, a god; who has a very human sense of humour; thats all i'm sure about him/her/it.
I've seen wicked things in my life; subtle, but decisory things, that admit no other answer.

>>40396631
3, with a hint of 8.

When I was 6 I jumped headfirst from halfway up a stairway to the bottom (common sense was in short supply). Somehow I just floated down and landed on my side, uninjured. Of course, my siblings weren't watching and the parents were out, so it can't be verified, but w/e.

As I see it, magic is science we as humans have yet to understand. Put that wherever you think it fits on the scale.

Speaking as someone who has been cursed, I'd say it exists.

I'm going through a phase where arguments structured on solipsism ("your worldview isn't allowed to have axioms; now accept mine unquestioningly") are really getting to me, so...

0? 1? 2? No forms of conventional magic have been found to be any more than placebos, but it would be cool for there to be something real out there. Or maybe even 3, if there are things that explicity counteract the scientific method...but every work of fiction is more anthropocentric than reality as we know it, so there's no reason to think there's suddenly this massive field of things what are immune to understanding and actually care about human concepts. So I'm going with 1 or 2, I dunno; the chances are slim.

>>40403188

Exactly what I said in the post.

I made somebody I knew on the internet treat me differently and I won money at a casino using magic. But that's about the extent of my abilties, I haven't tried or done much else.

9
>>40396901
Mentally ill is what muggles call magicians.

There are supernatural beigns but they are propably something our sciencist cant understand yet. Or just something that is working and cant be explained
So 2,5

>>40407026
>i'm
>decisory
If your grasp on reality is as tenuous as your grasp on grammar, that explains a lot.

>>40396631
3.5, OP

Magic mostly comes from the Devil. How did Pharaohs magicians turn their staves into serpents to emulate the miracle of God? And even then, I don't know if that's quite the magic description you're looking for.

0

>>40408691
Early Judaism was a different sort of monotheism than what we think of today. They did claim that their god was the only god, just that he was the most important god.

Think about the commandment "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." It's not saying that other gods aren't real, or even that you can't believe in other gods, but only that the Jewish God must be foremost in your devotion, and that his commandments must take priority over those of other gods.

So Pharaoh's magicians turned their staves into snakes by invoking the power of Ra or Set or whoever, but their power was lesser than that of the god Moses could call upon.

>>40407258
Come on, you can't just say you've been cursed and not give us a storytime.

>>40396631
Magic is just technology.

>>40407570
>"your worldview isn't allowed to have axioms; now accept mine unquestioningly"
Wow, you've completely missed the point of solipsism, anon

>>40409777
So, in a world where Nietzsche killed God but not all those other gods, being a pagan wizard could actually have measurable effect?

>>40396631
Not really. I'm intensely skeptical of the idea but don't necessarily preclude the idea that it could exist.

So I guess a 2. I hope that there is, because the world is a bleak and boring place right now.

0. See here. >>40403312
/thread

>>40407570
If something goes against current scientific theory it isn't magic the theory is just wrong and needs updating. There is no such as thing as magic in the sense that you can just state 'It's magic; I aint explaining shit' as people often do on this board. Even if things like spells were real scientific theory would be updated to include them and explain their origin (after investigation and experiment showing how they work). It probably be to do with the use of some sort of currently unknown energy type. Would actually for all the 'dark energy' we think is out there.

>>40409777
>777
You can't hide from us, Satan +1.

>>40396631
2, second part of 5, and 8.

I can live perfectly fine with complete mental shut-ins that say 0. I'ts ok to believe that. What I hate is those bigots that think "0 BUT if somebody cast a spell in front of me, I will change it". That's and insult to faith and trusthing your own guts, both things I respect.

>>40415959
7 is God's number. Satan is only 6 because he fell in trying to equal God, but never could.

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>>40406419
>inbreeding
I heard that Icelanders have an app that warns them if someone they are wanting to fuck is their relative.

>>40416153
>Judging people who change their opinion based on new evidence (i.e. the majority of humanity) as 'faithless.'
>Implying that not believing in fairies (for example) until seeing one for yourself makes one faithless.
>Even worse; implying that upon seeing undeniable proof of 'x' one should continue to not believe in 'x.'
Idiot. You are an idiot.

>>40396631
All of the people saying 0 seriously confound me.

I personally stand around 2-3.

>>40416153
What if my guts tell me to think "0 BUT if somebody cast a spell in front of me, I will change it"?

>>40416351
Well I thought this was an argument of 'belief' in which case I don't need to be objectively certain of my claim I just need to think it is the most likely thing out of my given options. I personally believe that there is no such thing as magic because I've experienced 0 evidence for its existence but at haven't seen proof that it isn't real either so I don't know that its not real. But like I said belief doesn't require certainty.

>>40416306
>implying that upon seeing undeniable proof of 'x' one should continue to not believe in 'x.'
Then have a damn open mind. Do you realize that you are basically describing a 1 or 2, rigth?

>>40416375
Your guts are passive aggressive. Unless they mean that "There ARE no magic unless someone proves YOU ANON the other way around". If that's the case they are alright. You gotta be consistent.

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>>40416636
>Then have a damn open mind.
Lol wut? Your the one who's being narrow minded because you won't change your mind ever whereas I have the open mind because I will dipshit.

>You gotta be consistent.
Fuck you I do what I want.

>>40396631
0.

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2 for the most part.

In most situations I'd internally scoff at the idea of magic existing in some form or another in our world, figuring that anything we can't explain just hasn't been studied enough for us to make proper sense of it. But part of me is willing to believe that (and kinda wants) there are some supernatural forces present that lurk beneath the surface of our everyday lives. The first, more dominant part is trying to fully assert a more "logical" worldview and the second part is hoping for a bit more a more strange and mystical world.

So no I don't sincerely believe in magic, but I kinda want something to give me a reason to.

>>40396631
2 is the most reasonable answer.

Like, how dare we even begin to assume we know everything about the universe, we can't even see certain wavelengths of light like some birds can. There's things that have happened in the entire universe, are happening right now and will happen we will never, ever know about, because we have physical limitations on the amount of things we process.

Atheistfags will interpret this to mean I am a die hard Christian fundamentalist. I'm not. But believe away, atheists.

Making black and white euphoric assumptions is the absolute height of arrogance.

>>40396631
9.

Not even trolling, I have literally stood in the presence of a polytheistic deity and spoken to her. Hard to go back to my fedora-tipping ways after that.

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Why do Atheists even bother living if it's all for nothing?

>>40417621
Presumably because not living is even worse when you're a godless commie.

And why is that weird loli's face always getting posted in /pol/'s Christian threads?

>>40398752
Because he tailored his degree, as per the rules of his university.

>>40397463
Except that's pretty much how actual practicing occultists view/treat it.

Check your privilege, monotheist scum.

>>40396631
none of these really fit, I'd say somewhere between 5 and 6.

Some evidence, since real scientist like that and it makes fake ones angry:

http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/9375431

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1991-17109-001

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/000712604773952449/abstract;jsessionid=C3C645562B8F2A62B88C13EE46E46A13.f04t01

Serious question for the majority of you saying zero, what probability against chance would a perfectly designed experiment have to produce to make you re evaluate your belief?

>>40396631
>8
Saw a ghost once.

>>40397425
It wouldn't. Quantum physics bitches.

>>40397505
>not much else
No spacetime
no subjective experience
no mathematics

I believe this is what atheists really believe.

>>40398235
Are you the kind of massive faggot that can't even write as well as Butcher or Rowling and so gains a false sense of superiority by criticizing their work, rather than producing something of your own and honing your craft, because you are too lazy to put in the time or thin skinned to have your work criticized?

>>40417542
>her
Okay, I'm basically obligated to ask whether she was hot. So, was she?

>>40399165
October New Moon

>>40417641
>not knowing the Child Empress

>>40410770

I did it a long time ago.

Basically, I bumped into a yogi while visiting relatives in India, he apparently cursed me, my grandmother and a bunch of other relatives did some kind of counter curse and had my mother do a monthly ritual when we got back to the States. Eventually, I went to college and my mother couldn't do the ritual, whereupon I fell incredibly ill and had to be hospitalized. Still have nerve damage from that around my eyes.

>>40403888
Isn't mind over matter pretty much magic anyway though?

>>40418060
Absolutely.

She appeared to be an exceptionally tall and thin central Asian woman with luminous pale skin and elaborate silver jewelry adorning her body. In other news, being visited by a goddess who pre-dates the taboo against exposed female breasts is a wonderful thing.

>atheists accusing me of being crazy in 10, 9, 8...

>>40418154
Sheeeit, I knew that face looked familiar.

>>40418450

i dont think you're outright crazy. i think you think you saw what you didn't. mental disorder even, but i dont think less of you for it. i wish better for you.

incidentally, i fucking hate fedora faggots. burn all fedoras and anyone attatched to them.

>>40418450
She have a name?

>all these zeros
I'm sorry /x/-tan but we must choose cold reality.

>>40418450
How'd that happen?

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>>40418662

>infinite wonder of the universe
>even more amazing that it got this way on its
>own
>even more amazing that we have the tools to
>solve it all

>we are a way for the cosmos to know itself

reality is only cold to those who hate being here. you should probably start cutting if that's how you view things.

>>40418576
Well, that's a hard one to say for sure. We did not share a common language.

As near as I can tell, she is probably Selardi.

>>40418667
Not a damned clue.

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>>40417621
Why do Christians continue living when they could be out mass converting and then killing so they are guaranteed heaven? Be the sacrifice to guarantee that others get happy fun times forever.

Because you dont want to die or kill thanks to instincts hardwired into your brain from millions of years of evolution.

So i'll keep living and doing good to others since this is the only life I get and I better make the most of it for me and everyone else. Pic related is why I continue living.

>>40396631
>Do you believe in magic?

...When the music is groovy,
it makes me feel happy like an old-time movie

>>40396742
I think he means how the music can free her whenever it starts.[\spoiler]