Matt Arnold

I am an atheist, and I have a brother-in-law who is studying to be a Christian apologist. I have been debating with him that a "supernatural plane" is a violation of the scientific principle of parsimony. I recently brought up that, for Christians, miracles are a "mere possibility", even for them miracles just don't happen. So he replied by e-mailing me the following stories of events which, for him, are proof of real miracles. I am posting them here to see if anyone can help me decide how to respond. Here is how they read:
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"Kyle used to be a German linguist for the Army. The Army sent him to learn German at a school in Germany. His teacher was from the southern part of Germany and spoke a dialect common in his region. It was not the standard "high German" that you would learn if you took the language in the United States. Kyle was raised in church, but at the time of this story he was pretty far from God. Kyle's family lives in Tennessee. He was home visiting them, and went to church to make his parents happy.
During the service a woman in the congregation stood up and spoke in tongues. From Kyle's account, I gather that this was not unusual in his parent's church. But it was unusual for Kyle because the woman was speaking perfect German, and not just any German - it was unmistakably the southern dialect of German he had learned in Germany. Kyle was sure he had been set up, and began to get angry. So when the woman stopped speaking he didn't let on that he had understood anything. The church waited for someone to interpret what had been said. Then someone else stood up and interpreted the message perfectly. Kyle fumed until the end of the service and then went up to the woman who had spoken in tongues. He wanted to prove to himself that she knew German, so he politely told her about his job as a German linguist. The woman said she didn't know any German and asked Kyle to speak some so she could hear what it sounded like. So Kyle started insulting her in German. He started out kind of mildly, but when she showed no reaction he said some of the worst things he could think of. (Remember, he was in the Army.) But she never flinched. She just said, "What a beautiful language!" Kyle was convinced that the miracle was real... and it changed the direction of his life.
Now clearly, Kyle *could* have been set up. It is possible. But the effort it would have taken to teach someone in the congregation to speak Kyle's specific dialect of German correctly - even for a short time - is significant. Furthermore, I know Kyle's parents. It would be quite unlike them to deceive their son like that, even if they thought it was "for his own good." Even if they had tried, it would be hard to pull it off without Kyle catching on. After all, he was not inclined to believe that what happened was from God.
My friend Katie had an embarrassing problem. She had a job as a lifeguard and she had warts all over her body - seventy-two of them, to be exact. It was a family problem. Her father and brother had lots of warts too. Katie's mom decided to pray that God would heal her. Katie didn't have much faith that God would heal her, but she let her mom pray. After the first couple of prayers, nothing happened. Some time later, Katie's mom tried again but this time she asked Katie to agree with her in prayer.
Katie still didn't have much faith that this was going to work, but she agreed with her mother in prayer. She went to bed that night, and when she got up the next morning all seventy-two warts were gone. Katie told me that they were not just in the process of healing, but completely healed. She said she could not even tell where they had been the night before. After that, Katie's mom began praying for her brother, whose wart problem is more severe than Katie's. But for reasons unknown to them, Katie's brother has never been healed. But that doesn't invalidate the miracle in Katie's life. Warts take time to heal. I know! I've had them. For Katie to be completely healed of seventy-two of them in a single night is not natural at all. What explanation can you give except that God answered her prayer and healed her?"
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Those are the stories my brother-in-law told me. How should I approach this?

Godless Dave

Ask him if he knows Kyle and Katie personally. Can he verify that these events took place?

Or tell him this story:

Dave was a computer technican in Minnesota. One of his hobbies was gardening. For two years he had tried to grow a vegetable garden, but never got any vegetables. The first year the rabbits and squirrels dug up and ate all the plants. The second year there was a drought. The third spring Dave decided this was going to be his last try. If the garden didn't grow this time he would give up on planting it.

After he planted his vegetables, Dave did something he had never done before. He poured a silver goblet full of wine, and then dumped it on the garden while saying a prayer to Frejya, the goddess of fertility.

The very next day green shoots were coming up through the soil. That year Dave harvested bushels of healthy, tasty vegetables.

abe smith

locus classicus for discussion of miracles; & why they are not is David Hume's essay ON MIRACLES, wh you ought to be able to find anywhere; & which anyone interested in the subject ought to have read. Abe

Oolon Colluphid

As stories. People make stories up all the time (check your local bookshop). Since when is hearsay evidence of anything?

Not knowing the answer does not make divine intervention the answer by default. There's no shame in not knowing. But it takes more than mere tales to evidence such things.

I'm also curious as to why a deity with billions of stars, and six billion people on this one little planet (many starving and suffering really nasty diseases), to watch over, would concern itself with one woman's warts.

Oolon

scombrid

That German linguist is an oldie. There are several variants. All have the same MO: Use the person's name to make it seems as if you know them. Then make the person seem skeptical themselves. "Blank wouldn't have believed it to be real either except for condition x." The story is likely fabricated by somebody that believes it ok to lie to harvest souls. Then the story spreads and is exagerated by enthusiastic believers.

The two most popular variants of the language miracle are: Someone who speaks a language goes to a church where nobody speaks said language. Someone speaks in tongues during a service and it just so happens happens that the jibberish spoken is in the language of the visitor.

Next is one of my favorites. I can't remeber where I heard this. It was either Night Spawn on POD forums or Lil's little friend here in a previous miracle thread.
-A kid goes on a mission trip to a country where he (always refered to by name) doesn't speak the language. All of a sudden he becomes fluent for the duration of the mission trip. When he returns home he suddenly can no longer speak the language anymore. In this instance the presenter of the story refers to the little linguist as "my friend such and such" as if he knows them. I've heard the story twice and both people knew "kyle" personnally. Either it's a small world or they're lying about knowing the miracle receiver.


The wart story is new to me. But it shares traits with the first. "My Friend Katie" and poor wart covered Katie is initially a skeptic.

Cretinist

I too have heard a variant of this <a href="http://www.skepdic.com/glossol.html" target="_blank">glossolalia</a> urban legend. It's really a shame that God decides to have one woman speak German for some nobody like ‘Kyle’, yet makes everyone else utter gibberish when any linguist tries to study the phenomenon.

Koyaanisqatsi

Beside the fact that the "Kyle" story is impossible to verify by either of you since neither was actually there (or speak German, as do I), let's assume it's entirely true for the sake of argument. I have a few observations...[*] The English language is largely based upon German, so it's entriely possible that the "translator," having a dormant or otherwise unknown penchant for deciphering "languages" in general, was able to discern the "gist" of what she was saying based on that alone.

Several years ago I met a girl I was interested in at her hotel room near Kennedy airport. She had just flown in from France, where she had been living for the past three years. As a result, she was having difficulties transitioning back to speaking English and I discovered that the more we sat there and drank, the more I was able to understand what she was saying, even though I don't speak French.

A similiar thing happened to me when I first went to Germany. The more I drank (i.e., the more I relaxed and didn't try to interpret) the more I could understand and speak the language, because at some point my mind simply stopped trying to listen, then translate, then comprehend, I just simply "snapped" into it and boom, I could speak and understand it fluently.[*] The woman had Multiple Personality Disorder and during her religious ferver, "switched" personalities to one that spoke German (this is a far more reliably documented phenomonon, BTW; many MPD sufferers have a personality who speaks several different languages)

What was most likely?[*] The woman was lying and did indeed speak fluent German and was a shill (along with the translator)

As for the warts, perhaps they were like genital warts that come and go and their first remission just happened to coincide with the desperation of the last ditch effort of prayer?

Entire cancers spontaneously disappear, but as far as I know, only cult members think it has anything to do with their cult beliefs.

I would simply tell your brother-in-law to restrict your discussions to things that both of you had actually witnessed. In that way, you can present the position that no deity was necessarily involved and he can defend the position that without a deity the event could not have happened in that manner.

Oh, and one other thing. What about all of the Muslim stories, where they prayed to Allah and their warts disappeared?

And of course you might want to bring up the hundreds of trillions of people over the centuries who prayed until they bled that their son or daughter wouldn't be raped, murdered, tortured, etc. and God said, "Sorry. Warts I can do, but your daughter must be brutally raped and then left for dead. It is my will; it is my plan; do not question me."

Synaesthesia

Miracles, as far as I am concerned, is an artifact of a superstitious methodology.

Undercurrent

There's a whole web site (www.snopes.com) full of these great stories that never happened. People are so gullable when a story clicks with their preconcieved notions. The only thing you can do is ask for references.

m.

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by Matt Arnold:
<strong>Katie's mom decided to pray that God would heal her... After the first couple of prayers, nothing happened. Some time later, Katie's mom tried again but this time she asked Katie to agree with her in prayer.</strong>

Why did Katie's mom's god not work a miracle when the mom prayed?

Perhaps he was slightly deaf; with both Katie and Mom praying, he finally heard the request and snapped into action.

<strong>After that, Katie's mom began praying for her brother, whose wart problem is more severe than Katie's. But for reasons unknown to them, Katie's brother has never been healed. </strong>

This proves my theory : when only Mom prays, her voice is too soft for the hard-of-hearing god to understand her.

Moral of the story : pray loud, real loud.