IF...

[atheist buddy]

I've had several theists make this argument:

I believe in talking donkeys and zombies and virgin births because IF God exists and he has the power to do anything then talking donkeys and virgin births can happen.

First of all, is anybody confused at all about the fact that when somebody says "If X is true then Y is true", then Y hasn't been demonstrated to be true until X has been demonstrated to be true?

In other words, if somebody says "If God exists then donkeys can talk", then the belief in the possibility of talking donkeys hasn't become reasonable until we have extablished the existence of God, indipendently of the talking donkey.

By analogy, imagine somebody said "If Jenny was at Steve's neighborhood yesterday at noon, then it's possible she could have been the murderer who killed Steve in his house yesterday at noon". It doesn't become reasonable to say that Jenny could possibly have killed Steve, until we have etablished that she was in his neighborhood at that time.

If we cannot establish that she was in his neighborhood, we cannot use the notion that she as in his neighborhood to establish she was the murderer. Similarly, if we cannot establish that god exists, we cannot use the notion that he exists to establish that talking donkeys could be possible.

Secondly, if somebody were able to establish that a God capable of making donkeys talk or getting virgins pregnant existed (nobody has in the last 10,000 years), then, by the argument above, he would have only succeded in making a case for talking donkeys and virgin births being possible. Not in demonstrating that they actually happened.

The Jenny/Steve analogy still applies. If you somehow demonstrate that Jenny was in Steve's neighborhood when he was killed, then you've only demonstrated that it's possible that she killed him, you have not demonstrated that she actually killed him. You still have all your work ahead of you to demonstrate that she killed him. And you still have all your work ahead of you to demonstrate that God actually caused a donkey to talk.

Lastly, think of the most outrageously absurd, patently impossible thing you can imagine. I dunno, that Bin Laden had the power to turn water into wine, or that Hitler resurrected German soldiers with the power of the Holy Spirit, or that Pontius Pilate was born of a Virgin. If a God who has the power to bend the laws of physics exists, then all of those things are possible, and no less so than the talking donkey or Jesus's virgin birth. An argument that demonstrates anything, actually demonstrates nothing.

Question for debate: Is there any merit to the theist argument I depicted above?

[Divine Insight]

Question for debate: Is there any merit to the theist argument I depicted above?

There's certainly not scientific merit to it. But I don't think theists are attempting to make a scientific argument. They are making more of a pure philosophical argument where they don't need to prove the existence of their God, all they need to do is offer a philosophy based upon the premise that such a magical being might exist.

However, I would argue that even then Christian theology still fails miserably. Even if I'm given the premise that a potentially omnipotent God exists, it does not follow that it would do the utterly absurd things the Christian doctrine claims it has done.

There are simply far too many extreme contradictions in the Christian theology to allow for the ideal that the God depicted in that theology can be intelligent, wise, or benevolent. Much less trustworthy!

Who in the world could trust a God who had done all the terrible things claimed by the Bible?

Also, this is supposed to be a God who is also omniscient and has a "Master Plan".

The Christian doctrine and theology absolutely forbid this to be the case.

In the Old Testament this God drowns out humanity for their sins, and also proclaims that he himself is "sorry" he ever made them.

Does that sound like a God who has a "Master Plan" that's going along just as smooth as silk?

Clearly this is a God who doesn't have any control over anything and nothing is working out as he had hoped it might.

In Christian theology things become far worse with the appearance of Jesus and the New Testament. Here we have this God "sacrificing" his son in what can only be seen as an act of pure desperation in a "Master Plan" that wasn't working at all.

A God who's original plan went totally down the toilet. Even his own Holy Texts, his own Priests, and his own Temple had turned against him. It's a God who has absolutely no control over his own "religion" at all.

Also if accepting Jesus as the sacrificial lamb of sin was the original "Master Plan" then why weren't Adam and Eve simply given this option right in the beginning in the Garden of Eden? They could have either accepted the gift of grace for all of humanity, or rejected it and that would have been the end of the drama.

This Christian theology has absolutely no merit whatsoever. And this even includes in a purely philosophical sense where we allow for a magical God to exists.

Allowing for a magical God to exist does not save Christianity in any case.

It simply doesn't help. UNLESS we also allow that this God has no clue what he's doing and he's no smarter than the immoral barbarians who wrote the Bible. But how can allowance for that save Christianity? The Christian God would need to be an absolute buffoon who's making horrible mistakes and has no clue what he's doing. If we need to go that far to "save" Christianity is it even worth saving?

[Mithrae]

By analogy, imagine somebody said "If Jenny was at Steve's neighborhood yesterday at noon, then it's possible she could have been the murderer who killed Steve in his house yesterday at noon". It doesn't become reasonable to say that Jenny could possibly have killed Steve, until we have etablished that she was in his neighborhood at that time.

It's an arbitrary distinction to say that possibility only begins once Jenny is in the neighbourhood: Why not when she's in the city? Why not demand proof that she was on Steve's street, or in Steve's house? No, possibility refers to, well... possibilities which haven't been ruled out. Things which might be true. Unless Jenny is known to have been somewhere else, it remains possible that she killed Steve.

So has it been proven that extremely unusual events - aka miracles or the 'supernatural' - cannot happen?

Well no. We run headlong into the problem of induction there: Just because we've seen people sink into water a hundred billion times in the 20th century (observation) doesn't prove that people will sink in 2015 (extrapolation). We believe that they will because we believe that the universe's behaviour tends to be consistent, governed by physical 'laws.' Fair enough as a general rule, but we don't - and can't - rule out possible shortcomings in how we currently imagine those laws (it's certainly happened before, Newtonian gravity being the obvious example) or exceptional circumstances where those laws break down.

Whether or not there's a 'god' is irrelevant: There exist claims of directly-observed exceptions to those general rules throughout human history, and if we could be sure that the observers were honest and accurate, we'd have to acknowledge them as probably true. To do otherwise would be to adopt an unjustified stance of philosophical naturalism. But of course we know that many people are not accurate observers or honest reporters - most of those 'supernatural' claims are probably false. That doesn't mean that they're all false, however.

Christians are simply saying that they trust the sources which report those events to them. Of course there's plenty of reasons why those sources are not trustworthy, but that's another topic. The point here is that regardless of whether there's a god or not, those 'miracles' cannot be ruled out as impossible unless you've first adopted a view of philosophical naturalism - an unjustified position, in my opinion.

[atheist buddy]

So has it been proven that extremely unusual events - aka miracles or the 'supernatural' - cannot happen?

Well no.

You are absolutely right. We cannot prove with 100% certainty anything about the world around us. Nothing can be proved in the truly ultimate sense.

The probability that the earth is approximately globe shaped and spins on its axis, that donkeys don't talk, and that human semen was in Mary's vagina at some point 9 months before Jesus was born is about 99.99999999999999999999999999999999%

But it's not 100%. We have not proven it.

There is still a 0.0000000000000000000000000000001% chance that the earth is flat and static, that donkeys talk, and that Jesus was born of a virgin.

The point here is that regardless of whether there's a god or not, those 'miracles' cannot be ruled out as impossible

I agree completely. Nothing can be ruled out as impossible.

As I said, there is still a 1% chance that the earth is flat and static, that donkeys talk, and that Jesus was born of a virgin.

That small possibility cannot be ruled out completely. We must always be mindful that however close to certain we are about anything, we can never be completely sure, and we must keep an open mind about the possibility that we may be wrong.

Now, even if all evidence indicates that Jenny was 6000 miles away when Steve died, there's still a 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance that she is the murderer. Maybe she invented a teleportation device for which we have no evidence.

Would you or any other reasonable person convict Jenny on that basis?

Similarly, even if all evidence indicates that Jesus was not born of a virgin, there's still a
0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance that he was. Maybe an invisible superentity that we have no evidence for intervened.

Would you or any other reasonable person devote his life to Christianity on that basis?



If belief in something because the probability of it is greater than 0% were justified, then belief in EVERYTHING would be justified, because everything in the real world has greater than 0% probability.



Edited by Zzyzx to remove excess numbers that change page width

[Mithrae]

So has it been proven that extremely unusual events - aka miracles or the 'supernatural' - cannot happen?

Well no.

You are absolutely right. We cannot prove with 100% certainty anything about the world around us. Nothing can be proved in the truly ultimate sense.

The probability that the earth is approximately globe shaped and spins on its axis, that donkeys don't talk, and that human semen was in Mary's vagina at some point 9 months before Jesus was born is about 99.99...%

Of course, you've just made up an arbitrary (and idiotically long, screwing up the page width) number there on the basis of nothing whatsoever. Are you an astronomer, or an astronaut? If not, you're pretty much just taking other people's word for it that the Earth spins on its axis. It's exceptionally unlikely that there's some vast conspiracy to fool us into believing that - but how exactly did you calculate those odds?

How did you calculate the odds of a virgin birth? Maybe the probability of the existence of some kind of god/s is somewhere in the order of 20-80%, but how exactly did you calculate the likelihood of a diety wanting to experience humanity first-hand? Presumably it wouldn't be too likely if there were millions of other planets out there with intelligent life - but if we're the only ones, or one of only a few, perhaps our potential deity would be curious about us. (Of course if memory serves your 'reasoning' on this point was something along the lines of "potato" ) And that's to say nothing of scenarios like artificial impregnation by aliens, or some kind of weird genetic/ovary malfunction...

But cases where we can calculate an exceptionally low likelihood of an event with some precision show a more fundamental problem with the angle you're trying to argue here: The 'probability' that Billy Jones won the lottery this week is perhaps 0.0000001%, for example, but that obviously doesn't make it untrue. The question is whether or not you believe his claim that he did win it. If you do, the 'probability' of his winning the lottery is irrelevant.

Guesses about how improbable unusual events may be are a good basis on which to be sceptical of said claims; to expect a higher level of confidence in them before giving them any creedence. But they're not a basis for dismissing them entirely out of hand - and as I said, that remains the case regardless of whether or not there were a god.

[atheist buddy]

So has it been proven that extremely unusual events - aka miracles or the 'supernatural' - cannot happen?

Well no.

You are absolutely right. We cannot prove with 100% certainty anything about the world around us. Nothing can be proved in the truly ultimate sense.

The probability that the earth is approximately globe shaped and spins on its axis, that donkeys don't talk, and that human semen was in Mary's vagina at some point 9 months before Jesus was born is about 99.99...%

Of course, you've just made up an arbitrary (and idiotically long, screwing up the page width) number there on the basis of nothing whatsoever. Are you an astronomer, or an astronaut? If not, you're pretty much just taking other people's word for it that the Earth spins on its axis. It's exceptionally unlikely that there's some vast conspiracy to fool us into believing that - but how exactly did you calculate those odds?

How did you calculate the odds of a virgin birth? Maybe the probability of the existence of some kind of god/s is somewhere in the order of 20-80%, but how exactly did you calculate the likelihood of a diety wanting to experience humanity first-hand? Presumably it wouldn't be too likely if there were millions of other planets out there with intelligent life - but if we're the only ones, or one of only a few, perhaps our potential deity would be curious about us. (Of course if memory serves your 'reasoning' on this point was something along the lines of "potato" ) And that's to say nothing of scenarios like artificial impregnation by aliens, or some kind of weird genetic/ovary malfunction...

But cases where we can calculate an exceptionally low likelihood of an event with some precision show a more fundamental problem with the angle you're trying to argue here: The 'probability' that Billy Jones won the lottery this week is perhaps 0.0000001%, for example, but that obviously doesn't make it untrue. The question is whether or not you believe his claim that he did win it. If you do, the 'probability' of his winning the lottery is irrelevant.

Guesses about how improbable unusual events may be are a good basis on which to be sceptical of said claims; to expect a higher level of confidence in them before giving them any creedence. But they're not a basis for dismissing them entirely out of hand - and as I said, that remains the case regardless of whether or not there were a god.

Hi. Quick yes or no question. Kind of a tangent to our debate.

You are on the jury of a murder trial. These two facts are presented to you:

FACT 1: On Oct 14th 2014 at 9:32am Steve was standing at location X

FACT 2: The distance between location X and location Y is 3000 yards.

These are the only facts available to you.

The prosecution makes this argument: "We don't know if Steve is alive or dead. We don't have any evidence that he is dead, but it's possible that he is. We don't know if Jenny was standing at location Y on Oct 14th 2014 at 9:32, but she might have been. If Steve is dead (which we don't know), then Jenny, who might have been standing at location Y, might have killed him, but only if she has a long range sniper rifle, given the distance between them. We have no evidence she knows how to use or even owns a sniper rifle, no evidence she killed Steve, no evience she was at location Y, no evidence Steve is dead. Therefore Steve is dead and Jenny killed him".

Here is my yes or no question: As a member of the Jury, would you vote to have Jenny executed for murder on the basis of the facts and the prosecution's argument?

Yes or no?

I know this is a tangent. We will get back to what we were talking about, the instant you answer with a simple yes or no.

[OnceConvinced]

I don't think the Jenny/Steve analogy is quite correct the way you have stated it. What we are talking about here is that if X is true than Y COULD be possible. ie, if Jenny was in the area then it COULD be possible for her to kill Steve because she is a person who has the ability to kill someone else.

Likewise, if God IS real and he IS a God then he could possibly make a donkey talk. Doesn't necessarily mean he did make the donkey talk, but he could if he wanted to, because he's a God, much like Jenny could POSSIBLY kill Steve if she really wanted to. It becomes a possibility rather than an impossibility.

I'm pretty sure that's what people mean when they make that "If" statement.

[atheist buddy]

I don't think the Jenny/Steve analogy is quite correct the way you have stated it. What we are talking about here is that if X is true than Y COULD be possible.

No. Most Christians try to argue that if X is true then Y is PLAUSIBLE. Not just possible.

They BELIEVE that a donkey ACTUALLY TALKED based on this argument.

Likewise, if God IS real and he IS a God then he could possibly make a donkey talk. Doesn't necessarily mean he did make the donkey talk, but he could if he wanted to, because he's a God, much like Jenny could POSSIBLY kill Steve if she really wanted to. It becomes a possibility rather than an impossibility.

It's already a "possibility" albeit an extraordinarily remote one, that the earth si flat, that donkeys can talk, that horses and reindeer can fly, that snowmen come to life when a silk hat is placed on their head, etc.

We cannot truly categorically rule out that hypothetical possibility.

If Christians wanted to just argue for the non-impossibility of crazy fairy tales, they wouldn't need to indroduce middle-man hypotheticals such as a God who makes them possible.

All they have to do is declare: It's impossible to completely rule out the hypothetical remote possibility that we are wrong about the earth being globe shaped, and about zombies being fictional.

I would agree.

That's not what they're trying to do. They are trying to argue that actually believing in those crazy stories is JUSTIFIABLE.

I'm pretty sure that's what people mean when they make that "If" statement.

I'm pretty sure it's not.

[Zzyzx]

.
As a Limey friend was fond of saying when encountering IF statements (in any context), "Yes, and pigs might fly IF they had pink gauzy wings."

IF statements generally indicate that the speaker is speculating (and often trying to pass that off as credible information).

[Unhand Me Sir]

Question for debate: Is there any merit to the theist argument I depicted above?

Yes, I think that perhaps there is.

I doubt that the theists you've been debating have presented this as a proof of talking donkeys, virgin births etc which should persuade you to believe in them. They most likely see it as a rebuttal of your view that there was no virgin birth because that's not how biology works.

A believer in the virgin birth isn't under the mistaken impression that sometimes that sort of thing just happens. They're as aware as you and me that it's impossible - it wouldn't really be worthy of note otherwise. That's the whole point of miracles.
If people regularly served lunch for 5000 using a few loaves and fishes it would make a really rubbish story.

The disagreement here isn't about what's possible and what isn't but about whether the normal rules are ever suspended. Pretty much by definition you can't offer empirical evidence against that. It would be a circular argument if you tried.

This isn't to say you have any good reason to believe in miracles. But demonstrating that they're impossible misses the point.