Wyrdsmyth

Imagine you are asked to be one of the primary investors in a new company. One of your friends asks you to write a check for $100,000.00, the bulk of your life savings. Are you just going to take it on his word that this company is legitimate? This is the largest financial decision you've made in your life so far. If you just take everything on your friend's word, you must have an awful lot of faith. The more reasonable person (in my opinion) will meet with others in the company, do some research, have some contracts drawn up, and in other words require lots of evidence that this company is what it appears to be.

Is that ludicrous? Do you really think it is ludicrous to want lots of evidence, lots of proof for things of IMPORTANCE in our lives?

You're right that for many things in our lives, we do go with "most likely" -- but not for the major decisions. We don't just say a guy "most likely" committed first degree murder, and sentence him to death. And when investing, as in the case above, most of us just don't write big checks and give them to people on faith alone.

And anyway, what makes you say Christianity is "most likely" in any case? I don't find it to be mostly likely, or likely at all -- from where I'm standing, it seems very unlikely to be true. If I consider these two possibilities:

(1) The Canaanite Sky-Deity, YHWH, created the world and the first man, created woman from the first man's rib, flooded the world, made a pact with Abraham in ancient times, split himself into three parts, sent one part to earth to be incarnated in flesh to die in order to save the rest of us from sins committed by the first man and woman; or

(2) Someone made all those old religious stories up.

I seriously have to go with (2) Being like the most likely explanation. I don't really know what else to say... ludicrous claims require ludicrous amounts of evidence?

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: Wyrdsmyth ]</p>

Tercel

I agree, a miracle requires a religious context as well as an unlikely/unbelievable event.

Agreed.

This has been discussed before. There do exist <a href="http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/prayer.html" target="_blank">scientific studies</a> which show a statistical effect of Christian prayer. The skeptics of course <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/gary_posner/godccu.html" target="_blank">respond</a> with various excuses and the arguments go on.
This is one of Metacrock's favourite subjects and he has <a href="http://www.webspawner.com/users/apologete2/" target="_blank">several pages</a> on his website dedicated to it.

Righto, I'll ask him to do that then... pity we wouldn't be able to read it though.

Tercel

Tercel

You say "recognistion", I say "presupposition". What reason is there to think the supernatural is an "outlier" of any sort? Something beyond the material world may exist, or it may not. It's possibility of existence though seems quite reasonable, it is certainly not inherently improbable.

Of course. But you have yet to demonstrate why we should consider the supernatural an "outlier" of any sort.

Tercel

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

Tercel

Actually, Christians who follow Process Theology would disagree and say that though God is the most being he is not all-powerful and our free-will is truly absolute.

I note Paul's case was slightly different: He already believed in the Jewish God.
Anyway, unlike the fundamentalists, I don't think "belief" in God is that important - you'll believe in God anyway when you die and meet him. Belief's not the problem, it's faith (=trust) and obedience once you've got belief that God wants. As James points out: "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that" -James 2:19

That's fine. You are an honest and rational person, I respect that, and I have no doubt God does too. I wish you all the best in your contined search for truth. Do your best to grow in goodness, love, honesty, knowledge, gentleness, kindness and self-control: Whether or not God exists these are surely worthy things.

God Bless
Tercel

HRGruemm

Because the supernatural requires a violation of what we call natural law: the regularities mankind has observed over centuries. I.e. it is an event (or claim of an event) which does not fall on our interpolation of thousands of data points.

Compare the number of data points which say that a dead person stayed safely dead with those which say that X died, but was resurrected. Obviously the latter are outliers (whether they concern Apollonius of Tyana, Elvis or Jesus).

Regards,
HRG.

HRGruemm

Thank you for saying that. I appreciate it very much (although it was not directly addressed to me) and would like to return the same wishes.

Regards,
HRG.

Tercel

But we have had claims of many, many miracles during that period also. This is not one miracle claim vs the rest regularities. Such would certainly be open for serious question. Rather, thousands of miracle claims have been made and continue to be made. Some of these claims have even been checked to the limit of human ability at the time and not found wanting. eg Bodies like Lourdes investigate alleged medical healings of the present day. Or as David Hume wrote about some miracles in his day:
"There surely never was a greater number of miracles ascribed to one person, than those, which were lately said to have been wrought in France upon the tomb of Abbe Paris, the famous Jansenist, with whose sanctity the people were so long deluded. The curing of the sick, giving hearing to the deaf, and sight to the blind, were every where talked of as the usual effects of that holy sepulchre. But what is more extraordinary; many of the miracles were immediately proved upon the spot, before judges of un-questioned integrity, attested by witnesses of credit and distinction, in a learned age, and on the most eminent theatre that is now in the world. Nor is this all: a relation of them was published and dispersed everywhere; nor were the Jesuits, though a learned body supported by the civil magistrate, and determined enemies to those opinions, in whose favour the miracles were said to have been wrought, ever able distinctly to refute or detect them. Where shall we find such a number of circumstances, agreeing to the corroboration of one fact?"
And Hume resorts simply to the fact that he still refuses to believe in miracles: "And what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events, which they relate? And this surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as a sufficient refutation."

You need to be careful with these statements: Because as David Gould has already pointed out (and I agree with him) a miracle must occur in a religious context.
That is to say, many, many people have been observed to die and not come back to life again. Thus the evidence that people do not come back to life by natural causes is pretty good, and we would be perhaps quite sceptical of one anomaly in this data since natural laws always work the same way. However, when there is a religious context, there becomes a possibility of a miracle. Our previous observation which was evidence against resurrection by natural causes do not serve to rule out resurrection by supernatural interference, nor does it provide any evidence against such an event. This was Hume’s major mistake, and why he completely disbelieved miracles despite the evidences. Try not to make the same mistake.

Tercel

[ February 14, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

HRG

Said religious context must of course come from an a priori presupposition. The conclusions drawn from a miracle will depend on this religious context.
Why, actually ?

They serve to rule out the supernatural.

Imagine the following objection:

"Of course, you did all your experiments and observations during times when the PHI-field was switched off. Thus all conclusions you draw are not valid when the PHI-field is switched on".

Wouldn't you either reject the objection as completely unsupported *) or at least:

1. ask for a demonstration that the PHI-field exists,
2. ask for a description how a switched-on PHI-field will change our observations.

*) i.e. the observations are evidence that the PHI-field does not exist.

But unless you specify what the supernatural can change and what it cannot change, any reference to the supernatural becomes meaningless.

Once the supernatural is admitted, we can as well claim that the resurrection (from begin to end) was an illusion created by Loki.
Religious context: Old Germanic pantheon. Loki is sapping the opposite forces: any Christian will not fight against him at Ragnarok.

IOW, if we admit that (within Religious Context 1 ) Being A can rise from the dead, then we have to admit too that (within Religious Context 2 ) Being B can make it appear to everyone as if A has risen from the dead, contrary to reality.

The only way out of this dilemma would be to assume Context 1 a priori, in which case the whole line of argument becomes circular (Context -&gt; Miracle -&gt; Context).

I'd call it a major insight :-)

... or have the same insight ?

Regards,
HRG.

Wyrdsmyth

Tercel, maybe you can jog my memory about the exact numbers. I know a lot of crutches have been left outside the entrance to Lourdes... but how many prosthetics?

Echo

Who determines if a miracle has occured in a religious context or not, and what are the criteria for determining this?

Alleged miraculous healings are par for the course in the New Age community, for example, but is "New Age" a religious context or not?

Is it a "religious context" if it happens to be a miracle you believe in and *not* a religious context if you don't?