Family Man

No, but seeing how that are no proven miracle claims, and miracle claims are routinely rejected by educated men, there are no good reasons to accept any of them.

Translation: I only accept miracle claims that support my conception of god.

Which, of course, means you're guilty of special pleading. If you reject the claims made for the divinity of Julius Caesar without disproving it, why do I need to disprove the miracle claims of the religion of your choice? In other words, you just proved my point for me. You reject it for the very simple reason it isn't proven. There are no other miracle claims I know of that are proven either. Thus, I am perfectly justified in rejecting your miracle claims.

What you said exactly was:

I suppose you could say you didn't say "clear and convincing", you simply said "in clear violation of natural laws", but you'd just be quibbling. Which means that you've pulled me into this conversation on patently false pretenses, simply so you can shift the burden onto me. So retract away; you take away your credibility by doing so. Your inability to support you contention that god is a being that can clearly violate natural laws is duly noted.

As for your Hume thing:

I once went to a David Copperfield show. He cut himself in half and put himself back together. I saw it with my own eyes. It was clearly impossible. Is Copperfield supernatural, or simply a very good illusionist? Did these people witness a real miracle, or were they simply fooled? Who knows, since none of us were there. You'd think if it was all that convincing we would have all learned it in school. And, in fact, those $2.99 a minute psychics can provide quite convincing testimonials themselves. In short, eyewitness testimony is frequently unreliable, so I find Hume's argument entirely convincing. Personally. I think it is a generally accepted principle that nearly all educated people accept routinely.

Consider this, being the Christmas season. I recently saw that Christmas classic, It's a Wonderful Life. I always get a kick out of when they walk around town with Clarence claiming to be a guardian angel. No one believes him. They all think he's crazy. Now, if acceptance of miracles were routine -- as easily accepted as, say, the law of gravity -- then you'd think everyone would have accepted this guardian angel as a matter of course. In fact, if you think of it, if guardian angels appeared on earth as regularly as the movie implies they do, you'd think everyone would have accepted it ("Oh, yeah, I had a visit by my guardian angel just last year") The fact is, people are routinely skeptical of miracle claims (which is why I suppose you didn't tell us of your friend's miracle). It is the standard position, and not extraordinary at all.

And, in fact, even famous Christian scholars won't make the claim that the Resurrection was a definite, actual occurence. I've posted these before, but they always been ignored. Maybe you'll have something to say about it.


[QUOTE]
From Raymond Brown's Commentary on the Gospel of John:
In discussing the narratives in particular, we

CX

I'm a bit too tired to attack this with full vigor this evening and I'm in a foul move and likely to just rant incoherently, so I'll try to get to it later in the week. This is a busy (and stressful) week for all of us who celebrate Xmas.

Sauron

1. Please point to someone who said that no god exists.

2. All that skeptics are saying is that there is no affirmative proof for the existence of god(s), and that no phenomena exist that require divine intervention. That is different from what you said. So right out of the starting gate, you are 100% off the mark.

In true fundie fashion, you've deliberately mis-identified the topic of discussion. In an attempt to shift the burden of proof away from yourself, the claimant, and onto the skeptic.

Hope you didn't think it would work.

Sauron

Hmm.

Well, if that was your point, then your point was wrong.

Mike and Cowboy reject your statement not based upon their faith, but based upon the fact that:

1. "god" is defined in a contradictory way;

2. rejecting claims that are nonsensical or contradictory does not require faith at all, but instead requires reason;

3. there is no affirmative evidence for god(s); and

4. they have no burden of proof to demonstrate the non-existence of god(s).

Too bad, you lose.
<img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

Sauron

Why does that matter? Is truth decided by majority vote?

Of course you are. You must have thought that it afforded your position some advantage, otherwise why bring it up in your very next sentence?

But if this were the year 800 AD, the majority of people might believe in one-horned horse-like mammals. What happens to your "truth by majority vote" argument then, Pollyfish? Is it really your position that the truth of a claim depends upon what year the claim is being made?

SingleDad is correct: you've been around here way too long to not realize the crater-sized holes in your lame, pathetic argument. The only conclusion is that you're trolling.

[ December 25, 2001: Message edited by: Omnedon1 ]

[ December 25, 2001: Message edited by: Omnedon1 ]</p>

Sauron

Translation: I didn't realize what a corner I had painted myself into, or how difficult defending my position would be.

Translation: hopefully I can back away from my earlier statement, and nobody will ask me any more hard questions.

Sauron

The continued rejection of such miracles is perfectly justified. How?

By the fact that there have been NO EXAMPLES of valid, certifiable miracles which have come to light. Zero. Zip. Nada.

So:

• all the examples we have ever encountered and tested today are bogus;
• all the examples we have ever encountered are more easily explained by natural causes than 'divine intervention' (Occam's Razor);
• the examples we have encountered have included deceit, accidental confusion, hysteria, honest error;
• we know that these forces (Occam, deceit, confusion, etc.) worked in the past the same way that they work today

After you examine and are forced to reject your 5,000th claim of a so-called miracle, there is a pattern that even someone like yourself can see.

And what is more, Pollyfish, you KNOW that this is a valid pattern, and a justifiable reason to reject such miraculous claims. How do I know that you are aware of this?

Simple. Because if you had an example of a miracle claim that could satisfy and fulfill the Occam/human error/deceit/fraud/hallucination criteria, then you would have brought forth such an example long before now. But you haven't. Hmm. Wonder why.

Your continued silence on this topic informs everyone that you realize that you have no such examples, and you are merely unhappy with the standard of proof. <img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

[ December 25, 2001: Message edited by: Omnedon1 ]

[ December 25, 2001: Message edited by: Omnedon1 ]

[ December 25, 2001: Message edited by: Omnedon1 ]</p>

Family Man

Here's another way of looking at it that shows how bogus Polycarp's argumentation is.

He would have us believe that there is this huge set of miracle claims that has been generated over the ages, and that it is an extraordinary claim to say all of them are false. Thus, apparently, we are supposed to infer the existence of God.

There are huge problems with this, not the least of which is the following. Among that set of miracle claims, there is a subset that would suggest that Polycarp's preferred monotheism isn't correct. I posted one example, but surely there are many, many others. This poses an insuperable problem for Polycarp. If he dismisses all those miracle claim that, in effect, requires acceptance of polytheism, then he's doing the same thing we do. If he accepts them, then how does he square the resultant polytheism with his monotheism?

In short, Polycarp posted an argument without clearly thinking it through. Yep, he does resemble Nomad and Layman, doesn't he?

Sauron

Here is another problem with it. His "position" (and I use the term loosely) amounts to saying, "Anything which pops up frequently in human history must be true."

Oh, really?

In that case, we should all believe in:
1. ghosts of the dead coming back to visit, warn, and/or trouble the living;
2. little people and/or people who are hidden from view of normal humans;
3. the ability of animals to talk;
4. magic

Each and every one of these items occurs numerous times in cultures all over the world. Therefore, by Pollyfish's "criterion", we are forced to conclude that all of these must be true.

The list goes on and on.

Jobar

Polycarp, you say that it is an extraordinary claim to say that no miracle claim in all history is truly miraculous.

OK, I agree.

My extraordinary evidence- if ANY sort of miracle can be demonstrated, then James "The Amazing" Randi has one million dollars which he has publicly agreed to give to the one demonstrating it. (His public and long-standing bet requires that the demonstration must meet terms agreed upon beforehand by himself and the demonstrator, so as to avoid fraud.) He still has his money.

Ergo, I conclude that no one can produce a clear and indisputable 'miracle'. If such could be done, I find it most extraordinary that Mr. Randi is not a million poorer.