Hi all.
I'm not really back. I have simply been observing rather than participating and I am reading several of the books mentioned by the non-theists. Mack is very interesting. His viewpoints seem to me as far out as the young earth creationists, but that is a different discussion.
As for the miracles. . . .
McCulloch is the closest to seeing what I meant. Here are a few things I am not claiming.
1) I am not claiming that this woman's experience is divine in nature. It could be but I am in no position to say for sure.
2) I am not claiming that this one experience proves God and the supernatural.
What I am trying to point out is that Hume's logic and that of several other non-theists I have encountered is flawed.
I think that your viewpoint of this argument is a bit simplistic. The argument more completely goes:
1) Events recorded in the sacred texts of many religions are not the sort that we observe and that they conflict with our current understanding of how things work.
2) Either our current understanding of how things work is incorrect OR there are some inaccuracies or misunderstandings in what has been recorded in the sacred texts
3) Invoking Occam's Razor, it is more probable that things were made up or misunderstood that that miracles occur.
Point one is partially what I am addressing. This premise is not 100% accurate. The events recorded in the bible have re-occurred in modern times. Specifically the healings without any reason.
http://www.littleman.com/movies/movies/ ... aling.html
http://www.synergy-co.com/pages/townsend.html
These kinds of things happen without explanation. The second link includes sources of information, names, dates and other information to check its accuracy.
These links along with the previous one are evidence that the first premise of Hume's
1) Events recorded in the sacred texts of many religions are not the sort that we observe and that they conflict with our current understanding of how things work.
is not correct. It may explain what happens most of the time, but not all the time. Now whatever the reason, God, the force, Brahma, undiscovered science, or whatever, these things do happen.
The fact that these things happen today, shows that the non-theist claim that unexplainable things (miracles) never happen is flat wrong. A more correct assertation of the situation is that they do happen but not very frequently. So your first premise doesn't stand.
Premise two is actually a plausible admission of the possibility of god.
2) Either our current understanding of how things work is incorrect OR there are some inaccuracies or misunderstandings in what has been recorded in the sacred texts
Since my main point, that premise one is incorrect, has been shown, we must now take that information to the second level and apply it fairly. Now, there may be inaccuracies or misunderstandings, but this is not necessarily the case. Furthermore since I have just shown that similar things occur today, it negates the second option leaving us with only the first or
our current understanding of how things work is incorrect
.
With our knowledge being incomplete, this allows for the possibility of God or other supernatural intervention along with any other options which science can (or in these cases can NOT) offer.
Premise 3
3) Invoking Occam's Razor, it is more probable that things were made up or misunderstood that that miracles occur.
is no longer the best option given the evidence presented. Option 3 MUST have 2 things supporting it. Premise one and a complete knowledge of science and everything working in it. Since NEITHER of these legs is sound, we are left with two plausible solutions.
1) Something here-to-for undiscovered by science has happened and our scientific tools are unable to detect or understand it.
Or
2) Something here-to-for undiscovered by science has happened and our scientific tools are unable to detect or understand it.
Get it?
In addition to this, even if science was able to figure out what happened in these strange and far out cases, this in itself does not eliminate the possibility of God because as I have pointed out science can not disprove the existence of God. Even if we can explain everything in the entire universe (which we can't) our knowledge is still limited to this universe.
An analogy would be a very small person placed into a sealed paper bag with a flashlight. The man can shine his light around and discover everything around him all the way to the absolute maximum of his limits. But just because his flashlight isn't powerful enough to see past the bag doesn't mean that the couch in the next room doesn't exist. Thus is our wonderful science in relation to God. Just because ourwondrouss and powerful scientists can not see or touch God, does not mean that he isn't there.
Any way I digress again.
My main point is that events occur even today which appear to be without explanation. How much more so could this have occurred 2000 years ago? With this being true, I find it safe to say that the miraculous claims in the bible are not necessarily myth or legend, but may in fact be occurences much like those seen today. Totally amazing and unexplainable events which really did occur. Of course I realize the ramifications of this to the theology of the non-theists. But thats why I am here.
:2gun:
It is a first class human tragedy that people of the earth who claim to believe in the message of Jesus, whom they describe as the Prince of Peace, show little of that belief in actual practice.