Of what use is magical & fantastical thinking?

[This is an answer I supplied to a question in Yahoo Answers. I thought it was good enough to stand on its own as a separate blog entry.]

The very notion of the supernatural is self-contradictory. If something is supernatural, then it is "beyond nature." But if it can interact with us, with material beings and things, then it must itself be material & natural, a part of our universe. The only alternative would be a god who was completely removed from our universe, never interacting with it. But in that case, its existence becomes a moot point.

Since the first cavemen heard spooky wind blowing and attributed it to spirits, humans have had a bad and annoying tendency to engage in magical thinking, particularly whenever something happened that they couldn't explain. This creates all sorts of problems, especially later on when we ARE able to explain stuff, but the previous mystical belief has solidified into a religious belief that is nearly impossible to dispell, even with tons of evidence against it.

Humans believe all sorts of weird and irrational things. Why? Because WE WANT TO. One of the unfortunate signs that we are still a primitive species is that we have a hard time accepting that our wishful thinking is indeed fantasy and not reality. In the TV show "The X-Files," Fox Mulder had this poster up in his office. It's a picture of a flying saucer with the caption, "I Want To Believe." That sentiment is one of our most self-destructive ideas, and has done more than just about any other idea to retard the process and the maturity of the human species.

Is it really such a cruel, unbearable world if it is completely naturalistic, with nothing supernatural? Does nature brook no wonders of its own? What benefit is there in believing in stuff with no foundation in reality, no evidence to support it, no chance of passing objective scientific scrutiny?

death

Death sucks.

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine lost his father. The father had been admitted into a hospital for a medical emergency, and passed away while my friend was en route to there.

About a week ago I learned that the cancer my dad had been battling on and off for the past 15 years, was now terminal. He's got a year hopefully, maybe even two or three depending on the effectiveness of the treatments he's getting now, but he won't be recovering from this.

Then just yesterday, I lost an uncle (one of my mom's brothers). He had been in declining condition for a while now with heart problems, but his passing was still rather sudden.

Dammit. I need some Grim Reaper Repellent.

I don't believe in an afterlife. The whole concept never made much sense to me, except as a human invention as a primitive way to teach morals and also as a comforting way of dealing with the grief of death. Me, I find no comfort in this kind of wishful thinking. For the person who dies, death is the end. It is oblivion. It is no more thinking, feeling, remembering, or experiencing.

For those around the deceased, death is a phase transition. When a person is alive, they are in your past, present, and future. Your past as memories of that person, your present as interactions & experiences with that person, and your future as future plans & events with this person. When they die, they are no longer a part of your present or your future, only your past. You will never again have new meetings, events, talks, or experiences with this person. They are forever-more removed from our lives, residing only in the untouchable, unreachable past.

If I'm sounding a bit fatalistic or nihilistic right now, I don't mean to. If anything, death should be a reminder of just how precious our own lives are. We shouldn't squander it with petty worries, or making life unpleasant for others. (If only the politicians would take that to heart!) Life really is a great thing to experience, and the longer you can live, the better. As for myself, I'm hoping to live a nice long time--not so much because I fear death, but because I just love living. I don't want to miss a thing!