OK, I'll drop the claim about UUs. I'll also back off my assertion about ethical societies, since my actual experience with them is pretty limited. Maybe there are religious groups sans supernatural, maybe not.

But I'll hold onto this: Whether an attendee of explicitly religious or explicitly secular organizations, what people actually believe does vary. There are people who attend religious services who don't, in fact, believe in supernatural stuff. There are very secular atheists who hold onto some supernaturalistic ideas. Why? Because people just aren't 100% consistent in what they think, or 100% consistent between what they do and think. People waffle, slip and slide, and sneak in the back door of all sorts of things, including belief and disbelief.

Under the best of circumstances, we are not entirely rational beings. What we rationally think doesn't strictly govern what we feel, and what we feel can alter what we think -- round and round we go.

@Bittercrank
I'm still thinking about the way people categorize systems like religions and philosophy. People think of religions as being about supernatural beliefs, and people think of philosophy as not necessarily including supernatural beliefs.

So, I see no reason to argue with this observation

There are people who attend religious services who don't, in fact, believe in supernatural stuff. — Bitter Crank

@Bittercrank
I'm still thinking about this topic in relation to the way people categorize systems like religions and philosophy. It seems to me that people think of religions as being about supernatural beliefs, and people think of philosophy as not necessarily including supernatural beliefs.

So, I see no reason to argue with this observation

There are people who attend religious services who don't, in fact, believe in supernatural stuff. — Bitter Crank

I guess it's pretty tangengial, but what about movements like gnosticism and theosophy?

Perhaps we should hesitate before being so sure we can divide beliefs between the natural and supernatural. — mcdoodle

On the other forum, Mariner often used to remind us that 'metaphysical' and 'supernatural' are basically synonymous, the first derived from Greek, the second from Latin.

I think 'supernatural' has become a 'boo word', because of the inherent naturalism of today's culture. We instinctively want to believe in only those things for which there is, or might be, a scientific account. And culturally, it's not too hard to draw the line; there are ideas and beliefs that will be generally regard as being outside the bounds of naturalistic explanation. So in that sense, much of the debate is shaped by about what to include, and what to keep out, of what might constitute 'a naturalistic account'.

But then I often reflect that we still don't know enough about nature to know what is 'super' to it. Much of what we do every day would have seemed supernatural to our forbears.

There are very secular atheists who hold onto some supernaturalistic ideas. — Bitter Crank

I recall reading in one of those Pew research reports that a significant proportion of self-described atheists still believe that there is a higher intelligence. (Just don't call it 'God'!)

I recall reading in one of those Pew research reports that a significant proportion of self-described atheists still believe that there is a higher intelligence. (Just don't call it 'God'!) — Wayfarer

Indeed, I find that the main belief of most people is ietsism.

To believe in something is to believe, for example, that for every effect there must be a cause. But is that ietsism? Or is ietsism to be covertly religious/mystic?

No. Watch Leah Remini.

Indeed, I find that the main belief of most people is ietsism. — Thorongil

Ietsism (Dutch: ietsisme (pronounced [itsˈɪsmə]) – "somethingism") is an unspecified belief in an undetermined transcendent force. It is a Dutch term for a range of beliefs held by people who, on the one hand, inwardly suspect – or indeed believe – that "there must be something undefined beyond the material and that which can be known” than we know about, but on the other hand do not necessarily accept or subscribe to the established belief system, dogma or view of the nature of a Deity offered by any particular religion.

Yeah, I can buy into that. But, I wonder what distinguishes ietsism from deism or a belief in Logos or some kind of pantheism or panentheism (Stoic theology has qualities of both pantheism and panentheism)?

Perhaps deism, pantheism, panentheism, and Logos could be seen as forms of ietsism?

Religion, in general, has the feature of there being some ancient doctrine according to which adherents are expected to think and behave.

This doctrine may perhaps discreetly be changed by the religious leaders of the day, but remains generally constant.

Along with this doctrine comes a multitude of traditions,etc picked up over time and constricting the followers of the religion into some specific frame of life.

Philosophy on the other hand, is a lot less fixed and indeed quite visibly changes and develops as time passes.

Although some common culture may naturally form around philosophers of some particular school of thought, this is entirely accidental and not something promoted by the philosophy itself, although that may of course differ according to the focus of the philosophy in question.

There are however, entities such as buddhism, which straddle the line between philosophy and religion.

Can you give an example of a religion (not people who claim to be followers) that doesn't include supernatural beliefs? — anonymous66

In addition to Scientology, another example is LaVeyan Satanism.

Re: Scientology.. (from wiki)

Theological doctrine

Scientology does not preach or impose a particular idea of God on Scientologists. Rather, people are expected to discover the truth through their own observations as their awareness advances.

... the Church of Scientology has no set dogma concerning God that it imposes on its members. As with all its tenets, Scientology does not ask individuals to accept anything on faith alone. Rather, as one’s level of spiritual awareness increases through participation in Scientology auditing and training, one attains his own certainty of every dynamic. Accordingly, only when the Seventh Dynamic (spiritual) is reached in its entirety will one discover and come to a full understanding of the Eighth Dynamic (infinity) and one’s relationship to the Supreme Being.[118]

118 "Does Scientology have a concept of God?". www.scientology.org . Retrieved 2015-12-31.

From the Scientology site above... "DOES SCIENTOLOGY HAVE A CONCEPT OF GOD?

Most definitely. In Scientology, the concept of God is expressed as the Eighth Dynamic—the urge toward existence as infinity. This is also identified as the Supreme Being."

What about Havens gate?
They did not have super natural beliefs, but were they a cult or a religion?

Do you have to have a large enough fellowship to be considered a religion?

Yeah, I'd say they count, too. And yeah, the cult/religion line seems to be one of just how many followers/just how much history, etc. the movement has, which makes it a pretty gray line.

Perhaps deism, pantheism, panentheism, and Logos could be seen as forms of ietsism? — anonymous66

Maybe! However, I would tend to think these -isms are more defined than ietsism, which picks out that supremely (and seemingly deliberately) vague, unhelpful, and frustrating reply that one's typical fellow apes give in response to whether they believe in God: "I think there must be something out there," "I believe in a higher power," or "I think there's something bigger than myself." These phrases are fit to make any philosopher fly into a rage, but they represent, in my view, the extent to which people have pondered anything metaphysical and make up the predominant belief of most people today, at least in the industrialized world.

Religion is a type of philosophy...

And vice versa

Historically few philosophers died for their beliefs.

Only something supernatural can express the Supernatural.' — mcdoodle

What do you think this means?

It sounds like the suggestion that there is something truly Supernatural encoded by or hinted at by tales of miracles. (Hope you don't mind the interjection.)

I've been thinking about the meaning of Wittgenstein's 'Only something supernatural can express the Supernatural.'

(There is an essay online by Cecilia Rofena from a book 'Wittgenstein and Plato' which expressly links their notions of the divine, you can find bits of it in Google books. She argues that the added word 'something' in the English translation has a wrong implication which isn't in the German.)

To me Witt is writing about what I think of not as supernatural but as 'extra-natural'. Our ordinary use of language, and the scientific enterprise, both assume a 'natural' world. This is the world of facts as he would have put it at the time of his writing the Tractatus.

But section 6.4 of the Tractatus outlines what such language - and science - cannot talk about. Having spent most of his book on the world that is the case, does this make sense of the world? No. (No wonder Russell was shocked at what his pupil came up with) 'The sense of the world must lie outside the world.' (6.41) 'It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is transcendental. (Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same.)' (6.421) Of course, he does very occasionally put ethics into words all the same :)

So I suggest he talking about what we would currently call a different discourse or level of discourse. These are things of which it's difficult to speak, because our language is ill-suited to such matters. Ethical behaviour has effects but...

'If the good or bad exercise of the will does alter the world, it can alter only the limits of the world, not the facts--not what can be expressed by means of language. In short the effect must be that it becomes an altogether different world. It must, so to speak, wax and wane as a whole. The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man.' (6.43)

I think there is an unresolved contradiction here. The word 'only' is odd. For earlier in the Tractatus of course the limits of my language are the limits of my world. So to alter those limits is to alter something profound. And indeed this seems implied in 'altogether different world'. But there isn't then a clear link between good exercise of the will and happiness, or bad and unhappiness. Some debate is heavily abbreviated here.

I don't mean Witt wasn't in some way religious. He was particularly drawn to Kierkegaard and debated what Kierkegaard implied for him. But most of the time religious concern wasn't - back to the op - what for him his own philosophy was about.

Religion reveals truths which make substantive contributions to the lives of the faithful.
Philosophy makes no substantive contribution to what we know, it analyzes how we know what we know.

Religion reveals truths — Cavacava

How do you know this?

How do you this? — Heister Eggcart

I do this like this bruv... :D

I just woke up, forgive my typo Lord Agu.

The faithful say its revelation, and they believe it's true. I don't doubt their belief, do you?

Truths about what?

Philosophy makes no substantive contribution to what we know, it analyzes how we know what we know. — Cavacava

Do you know this because of religious revelation?

I am not sure what you are asking. Can you rephrase.

You said religion reveals truths, about what?

And I wanted to know how you know this is true.

Philosophy makes no substantive contribution to what we know, it analyzes how we know what we know. — Cavacava

Was that a truth that religion revealed to you?

It reveals truths about God and life, why and how to live a life of faith. It adds something material, substantial to their lives. [to best of my understanding]

Philosophy makes no substantive contribution to what we know, it analyzes how we know what we know.
— Cavacava

This my opinion about Philosophy role's , and it was presented to differentiate between Philosophy and what Religion says and does.

Is it your belief that religion is the only way to have truths revealed about life and god?