Biff the unclean

Do you feel that you are being closed off to the possibility of any miracles happening?
Do you think the answer always lies within our natural world? no exceptions?

This is a funny thing I hear from Christians all the time. If you could address it Amie I'd appreciate it. That somehow a person's mind set has an influence on external reality.

I am closed to the possibility that a tuna salad sandwich on rye will suddenly appear on my keyboard. If one suddenly did I would be forced to consider that it was no only a possibility but was indeed a fact.
I am closed to the possibility of miracles. This attitude on my part should in no way prevent them from happening. No more than my being closed to it raining would make the sun shine.
But it might save me from being tricked into thinking miracles were happening when they were not.

The reason I am closed to miracles, that I think that the answer always lies in our natural world is that we have no reason to think that there is anything other than nature. No super natural, no sub natural and nothing slightly to the left of natural have ever been observed. Every time we have not known an answer to a question and ascribed the answer to the supernatural--and then gone on to find the actual answer--we have been wrong about it being supernatural. Every single last time.

Interesting example: Benjamin Franklin discovered that lightening was electricity--a completely natural answer--and invented the lightening rod. But Pastors in all 13 colonies damned him from their pulpits because they thought that lightening was the supernatural wrath of God. Franklin was going against the will of God according to them. Too bad because church steeples were usually the first things to burn down from being struck by lightening. They could have been saved by Franklin's rod.

Since we have never seen the supernatural, we have no reason to think that there is a supernatural. So why be "open" to it? Since the only result that we have ever observed to being open to it is a likelihood of fooling ourselves.
Instead, when we don't know the explanation for something; and since the correct answer has never been the supernatural to any question in all of the past; why not leave ourselves open to finding a natural answer to every question?

Amie

Hi Jobar

why do you hold the beliefs you hold?

yes, but have you seen everything that you believe in Jobar?

No I don't believe in those things. I do believe in God though and I feel that certain miracles did happen, I believe in the miracles of Fatima. I don't think heat caused some mass delusion. I am not saying that everything that can not be explained is a miracle, sometimes an explanation is there if you look hard enough however I don't feel that everything can be explained with a natural cause. I believe in the visions of Mary, I believe in miracles. Ultimately I think it comes down to choices of whether one has the desire to believe. I don't think my wanting to believe makes miracles any more real to me, however I think they do exist and they would exist whether I believe in them or not...

ok I can see how one would draw that conclusion since many, myself included were indoctrinated at very young ages...

Amie

Thats not what I intended the meaning of my statement, let me see if I can give some clarity here...

sure...couldn't you have least made it a grilled cheese instead?

Absolutely, I agree. when I made the statement I did, I did not intend it to mean if you close yourself off from them, they wont happen. I meant "do you feel you are closing yourself off to the possibility in believeing for any reason that a miracle can happen"

It was extremely poorly worded on my part since I felt I left a key point out of there. sowwy.

AHA! But it can also keep you from acknowledging potential miracles that may be happening...

ok I understand your thinking here...

poor Franklin he just couldn't catch a break with those pastors...

I don't think people fool themselves by maintaining beliefs in things that can not be proven (ghosts, angels, miracles, God). Let me ask you, do you think I am fooling myself in regards to my God belief?

Because there just might not be a natural answer to every question...

[ December 10, 2002: Message edited by: Amie ]</p>

Objective T

Polar Bear’s original question:

“Atheists: What sort of phenomenon would you have to experience firsthand in order to be convinced that it was (1) a miracle and (2) an act of the Christian God of the Bible?”

Considering that I am an atheist as well, it Seems to me that most of the responses from the atheists have been less than satisfactory.

Too much emphasis on the need for “proof”. For example:

“Well it would have to defy all logical explainations (I would have to be completely incapable of explaining how it may NOT have been God at work)….”--Infinity Lover

“It is impossible to rule out other roots for your miracle, and thus, impossible to even conclude that it is theistic in nature, let alone one from your god." --Vorkosigan

“Miracles are events that have no natural causes, so if you could prove that an event in history had no natural cause, then I would agree that said event was a miracle.”—Goliath
“So, basically, I feel that there are no proven miracles. There are events that we cannot yet explain but that does not in itself prove nor disprove a God.” --Fiach

In matters of fact and existence there are no proofs. Proofs are confined to mathematical and logical reasoning. Given the premises p or q and not p we may infer or prove q. No new experience will ever threaten this inference.

The paradigm of empirical knowledge is scientific knowledge but even here we never can prove our beliefs in the sense of obtaining absolute certainty. Science always leaves open the possibility of revision and falsification.

No one will ever prove that an event was miraculous just as it is impossible to prove that that it was not miraculous. The question, as Polar Bear put it, was what would convince you. He assumes we are reasonable people. Thus, we might put the question, what would a reasonable person require in order to decide that an event was a miracle and act of the Christian God?

Vorkosigan’s argument that miracles are impossible seems to me as utterly silly.

Clearly, in the case of a single event that he describes there is much room for doubt. But it takes more that the analysis of this single case to justify the conclusion that miracles are impossible.

Assuming that God is a logically possible being and assuming that God as an omnipotent being can cause events then it follows that he can perform miracles. To argue that miracles are impossible is to argue either that the existence of God as an omnipotent being is logically impossible. As far as I know this argument has never been successfully offered in print.

Perhaps I am misinterpreting Vorkosigan’s argument. Perhaps he is merely arguing that as fallible human beings we are never warranted in believing that miracles occur. If that is all he is arguing he must do more than present his one single case.

The sort of case that Polar Bear suggests when he refers to all the internet infidels given the power to heal in the name of Jesus Christ seems to be the sort of example that falsifies Vorkosigan’s position.

Clearly this would not prove that miracles occur nor prove that the Christian God is responsible for miraculous events but it is that sort of event that might well convince reasonable people.

The idea of replication applies here as well as in science. One reason we accept scientific claims is because we can replicate the experiments that led to them. In Polar Bear’s example we have something similar to replication. The miraculous healing occur more than just one time—infidels (plural) go out and replicate the healings.

I can imagine many other cases in which reasonable people would conclude that God exists. None of these cases would prove there are no natural explanations nor would they prove that the Christian God exists.

Suppose we could travel back in time and witness the resurrection of Jesus. Suppose we could travel with him into to hell for three days and accompany him into heaven. None of this would PROVE anything but if enough reasonable people could replicate the experience then we might reasonably conclude that the Christian God is responsible for the resurrection—which I take it a paradigmatic case of a miracle.

It seems to me that all of this talk about miracles misses the major point. Given that reasonable people could well be convinced that the Christian God exists if he were to perform miracles, then why does he not perform them? There seems to be not a logical inconsistency between the claims that God is all-loving and all-powerful and the fact that there is so much POINTLESS evil in the world but the existence of so much evil makes it very probable that there is no such God.

In the end, if we should meet God, he has a lot of explaining to do. The more interesting question is, what sort of explanations for all the seemingly POINTLESS evil that God might give you would you find satisfactory?” I can’t think of any good explanations.

Objective T

Jobar

Clarke's Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Jobar's Corollary to Clarke's Law: Any true magic (miracle) would be indistinguishable from a sufficiently advanced technology.

What that means is that no matter how miraculous some event appears to be, if we can repeat it (or have it repeated) often enough, we will find a natural explanation. (With the admission that 'often enough' may take centuries or millenia.)

Amie, you ask about *my* beliefs. Well, in one sense of the word- absolute belief, or Faith- I have *no* beliefs. The beliefs which I do hold are all held with a certain degree of tentativeness. Oh, there are lots of things which I am extremely certain of- the constancy of the speed of light, or the love of my family for me, or the dependability of my own senses.

It's very important to realize that holding absolute beliefs is unscientific, and contrary to reason. That fact is one of the good arguments for agnosticism, and the reason why so many believers try to make out atheism to be a belief in the sense of Faith. (That's a discussion for another time and place, though.)

Family Man

Amie --

I'm going to simplify our discussion, since there are areas where we agree and others where we lack the information to discuss intelligently. But you did ask some questions that deserve an answer.

Of course not. If presented with convincing evidence that miracles did indeed occur, I'd change my opinion. Please understand that I have no emotional commitment to my position. I don't need a purely naturalistic solution. I simply note that naturalistic explanations are convincing while supernatural ones are shaky at best.

Until convincing evidence is presented that a supernatural realm exists, yes.

Until I see the story, I can have no take.

Biff the unclean

when I made the statement I did, I did not intend it to mean if you close yourself off from them, they wont happen. I meant "do you feel you are closing yourself off to the possibility in believeing for any reason that a miracle can happen"

This is a "Catch 22." It is fine to close yourself off to the consideration of miracles because there is no reason for them to happen. If there was a reason then they wouldn't be a miracle. Just something with a reason that science can study. To qualify as a miracle they must be impossible. And since it's not possible for the impossible to happen then there is no need to even consider it.

AHA! But it can also keep you from acknowledging potential miracles that may be happening...
Sorry, I'm from "the old-world" and so have old-world manners. Please don't mistake my feeble attempts at being polite for the acknowledging of potential miracles.


I don't think people fool themselves by maintaining beliefs in things that can not be proven (ghosts, angels, miracles, God). Let me ask you, do you think I am fooling myself in regards to my God belief?
Yes, I haven't a doubt. You are fooling yourself. You just told me you were, sentence before last.
It comes down to the simple question 'can you prove that there is a God'. You have already admitted that you cannot prove his existence. Having no way to prove it you cannot possibly know whether it is a fact or not. But you have decided to consider it a fact anyway. Now this has nothing to do with if there is a God or not, this is only about YOU and what YOU know and think. You have decided to consider God's existence a fact despite your complete lack of proof. Now you might give this behavior a flattering title like "FAITH" and consider it a positive attribute. But in actuality it is not "faith;" it is "credulity" and it is a negative attribute not a virtue. It is fooling yourself.

Because there just might not be a natural answer to every question...
I forget where I heard it, probably in some old movie. But the saying was that you could tell if a person was crazy if they always expected a different result from the same action.
Every question ever asked has had a natural answer. The supernatural exists only in fiction not in fact. No one in the history of the world has ever even seen anything supernatural.
It is not realistic to think you will be the first.

Kharakov

I didn't believe in God until a miracle happened to me in my own home.

I was hanging out at my house waiting for an important phone call when I had to drop a deuce (no.2). While I was on the toilet the phone rang!!! I had to duck walk to the phone to answer it... of course it was just a friend wanting to see if I wanted to hit the center for a beer.

I went back to the toilet and beheld that my turds had formed a crucifix that actually looked like jesus was nailed to a cross!!!

I called a priest from Our Lady of Victory to come over to my house to see this miracle of the lord.

Upon witnessing this miracle of the lord the only thing the priest could say was "Holy Sh1t!".

Mageth

That was just Mr. Handey on a surfboard.

thebeave

Err, I think you mean Mr. Hankey (the Xmas poo).