>>From your comments on the bicycle thread, I identified you as a believer in magical thinking, with no affiliation to conservatism.
The correct term is “supernormal” , not magical. And that has nothing to do with conservatism, unless your form of conservatism is unbridled greed and slavery to the elite. (And it wouldn’t surprise me that you do believe in exactly that.)
>>The simple rules of cause and effect promote virtue. If you believe in magic, then you can commit any vile act, and then pretend that you didn’t really want the obvious bad consequences to happen because magic should have prevented anything bad from happening.
Again, I do not believe in magic. But, I do believe in a higher power who holds us accountable in the ultimate rule of cause and effect. Since you believe that life is finite and virtue is just a fear of physical consequences, then you can believe that nothing is sin as long as it doesn’t cause you any pain. Your comments in other threads bears this out.
>>There is no virtue without reality. There can be no sin, if good acts are punished by magic and bad acts are made good by magic.
See above. You believe in worldly consequences. I believe in worldly and eternal consequences. You are a hedonist (i.e. “if it feels good, do it” and the converse, “if it hurts, don’t do it”). I feel sorry for you.
I note that medieval monks were not hedonists, but were not doing very well against the Turks until those darn virtuous and consequential protestants, who had subordinated the magical church to civil authority, rescued them.
Of course the Jihadists of that day and this believed in the supernormal as you put it.
I just don’t see any good consequences from swapping momentum with a truck with me on a bicycle.
Good luck with your miracle if that happens.