Atheist Bart Ehrman gets the historicity of miracles wrong.

[Paul of Tarsus]

I've watched the Ehrman vs Craig: Evidence for Resurrection debate video on YouTube several times, and as usual I am less than impressed with the polemics of Bart Ehrman. This time his fallacy involves the historicity of miracles and in particular the miracle of Christ's resurrection. His reasoning goes something like the following:

1. Miracles are the least likely correct explanation for any supposed historical event.
2. The story of the resurrection of Christ is a narrative of an event that if true requires a miraculous explanation.
Conclusion: Any naturalistic explanation of the story of Christ's being raised from the dead is more likely correct than an explanation that allows for the supernatural.

Is it true that miracles are so unlikely that any non-supernatural explanation for a claimed event is more likely true? I'm not sure why Ehrman seems to think miracles are so unlikely. While it's true that miracles are evidently rare, how probable they may be depends on the evidence for them. Ehrman seems to maintain a naturalistic view of miracles based more on an atheistic assumption than on any kind of evidence for them. That's not good reasoning.

I'd like to conclude this OP by pointing out that since I've been debating atheists, I can see that their reasoning is often as bad if not worse than the arguments made by apologists. It seems to me that there would be more atheists in the world if people stopped trying to disprove God.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to Mithrae in post #56]

You are of course right I didn't bother to look up the miracles you offered. I've no doubt it's unsubstantiated garbage. Nor am I interested in "proving" anything. Such claims are universally disingenuous outside of mathematics. The problem of induction is well defined. However we still live in an empirically understood world and we're using the internet to communicate. So hazzah for empiricism. Proven or not the mere fact of you reading this message demonstrates it's reliability in a way no religion has ever manifested.

Casting doubt on reality is the only move left to theists, and I pity you for it. Have fun believing in magic.

I wasn't going to respond to this. I was pretty confident that folk who are worth responding to would recognize that this post... isn't. It seems that I was wrong

You openly admit that you're unwilling to even glance at the available evidence, but still insist you have "no doubt" that it's garbage and, worse, in your prior post had falsely accused me offering none.

You continue your comments on the theme of "casting doubt on reality" - an aversion to doubt seems to be a recurring motif here - perhaps because I recognize the varying levels of uncertainty in most human knowledge. On the other hand it is those arguing the contrary position whose suggestions (if applied consistently) would essentially wipe out the majority of our knowledge as "can't be demonstrated to exist" but in practice amount to the special pleading of complete and utter dismissal of the conclusions of the ~55% of medical experts who've observed medical outcomes so contrary to the expected natural course of events as to be deemed miraculous.

You stoop to obvious ad hominem and strawman attacks in the absence of any rational argumentation. There's really nothing there to respond to - no coherent critique of my position or positive argument of your own - even if it seemed to be coming from a perspective interested in genuine discussion. I figured that all of this was obvious enough for others to spot it as well. But I guess at least someone likes your efforts; perhaps, in the end, this turns out to be as good as it gets for an anti-miracle stance

There are various reasons someone might "like" another person's post. One subjective reason would be if someone found another person's post to be cathartic or otherwise entertaining regardless of whether its content was intellectually robust or not. For future reference, please try not to make a value judgements of someone else's "like" that is featured on another person's post without knowing the reasoning behind it.

[bluegreenearth]

Obviously, I'm not suggesting an unreasonable pass/fail criterion here. Therefore, you are either unintentionally or intentionally arguing against a straw-man.

In post #70 we read:

At times both ['physical' and 'divine' causes] have been imaginative of course, but in the better cases neither is something we've just imagined. Both are inferred from observational evidence based on their respective explanatory merits; often excellent explanatory strength in the case of consistent/repeatable physical causes, with generally less conclusive results in cases involving human or other agency and non-repeatable phenomena.

You seem to be using the phrase "demonstrated to exist" in a manner intended to distinguish between 'physical' and 'divine' causes as if to imply that anything below, say, ~98% confidence cannot be presumed to "exist outside our imaginations":

I use the phrase "demonstrated to exist" in a manner intended to distinguish imaginary things from things that are also observed to exist outside our imaginations. I'm not sure what it means to suggest an imaginary thing has been demonstrated to exist outside our imaginations with 98% confidence. An imagined thing can either be demonstrated to exist outside our imaginations or it cannot.

This seems to be rejection of a continuum of different confidence levels and affirmation of a pass or fail approach. Can you help clarify where our misunderstanding has occurred here? It isn't as obvious to me as you're trying to portray.

Whether a thing or cause is strictly imaginary or also exists outside the imagination is a true dichotomy. Once a thing or cause has been demonstrated to exist outside the imagination, the probability that this thing or cause historically occurred can be considered on a continuum of different confidence levels based on the quantity and quality of the available evidence. If a thing or cause has not been demonstrated to exist outside the imagination, then the probability that this thing or cause historically occurred cannot be calculated because its possibility of occurring outside the imagination has not yet been established. To do otherwise would put the cart before the horse and fail to mitigate for confirmation bias when evaluating the available evidence.

[AgnosticBoy]

Problem with miracles is that they're based on ignorance. Knowledge replaces ignorance.
If we could travel back to 1400-ish (a miracle in of itself or an understanding of space time?) to a village with a mobile device that's charged and play the villagers a saved video clip of some science fiction program, that, to them, would be miraculous. Today, it's called technology.
It's a lot easier to claim something a miracle than to prove it's not.
Are there miracles? Probably, if something happens that can't be explained - yet - one may call that a miracle. That doesn't mean it's magical or the workings of a supreme deity. It's simply something not yet understood or explainable.

I don't know what atheists you've been talking to, but the ones I know have sound reasoning, so I can't comment more on that point, other than to say simply because a person claims they're 'this or that' doesn't excuse them from having good or bad judgement, reasoning, logic, humor, intelligence, etc.
Sometimes, people stink no matter what they claim to be or believe.

It would be ideal if the criteria for a supernatural explanation was one that ensured that it wasn't some unexplained natural event, but if that were the standard, then we could never label something supernatural. I think we need to scale our standards and expectations down to what's reasonable and practical, which is even characteristic of science like when it comes to tentative conclusions, Occam's razor, etc. The field of history contains standards that are not based on absolute certainty, as well. If absolute certainty (as opposed to reasonable AND practical standards) was the standard then we wouldn't be able to know anything.

Getting back to your point specifically, I would say very few people would view supernatural events as being occurrences that are yet to be understood. Take for instance the communication abilities of a donkey. Most should accept that donkeys can not speak a human language. If someone claimed that one did so, then that person would be called a lunatic. Don't atheists attack and laugh at the story of the talking donkey in the Bible? They do so, because they accept that it's well understood, and pretty much a law of nature in a sense, that donkeys can not speak our languages. So at least when it comes to matters like these (when something defies scientific or well established knowledge), something like talking donkeys, then I think it's fair to tentatively conclude that it's a supernatural occurrence.

[Mithrae]

This seems to be rejection of a continuum of different confidence levels and affirmation of a pass or fail approach. Can you help clarify where our misunderstanding has occurred here? It isn't as obvious to me as you're trying to portray.

Whether a thing or cause is strictly imaginary or also exists outside the imagination is a true dichotomy. Once a thing or cause has been demonstrated to exist outside the imagination...

Our confidence in the reliability of that demonstration is not a dichotomy. At least, not for reasonable people: As I've pointed out numerous times already, whether aliens exist outside the imagination or whether ideas about the future are more than imagination or whether Plato existed outside of imagination - and for that matter whether the likes of dark matter or quarks are more than imaginary - are questions for which a reasonable person's state of knowledge can rarely be expressed as a simple yes or no dichotomy. I don't see much room for productive discussion if you can't see that.

[nobspeople]

[Replying to AgnosticBoy in post #84]

It would be ideal if the criteria for a supernatural explanation was one that ensured that it wasn't some unexplained natural event, but if that were the standard, then we could never label something supernatural.

To me, the supernatural is something that happens(ed) that we don't fully understand, nothing more. So, in that sense, that doesn't change what's labeled SN or not to me.

I think we need to scale our standards and expectations down to what's reasonable and practical...

I don't think we should scale down anything or we stop learning. Everyone should be skeptic of every 'miracle' like thing and work from there. IMO of course.

The field of history contains standards that are not based on absolute certainty, as well. If absolute certainty (as opposed to reasonable AND practical standards) was the standard then we wouldn't be able to know anything.

History is written by the victors, as they say. As such, IMO, history and science shouldn't be compared.

I would say very few people would view supernatural events as being occurrences that are yet to be understood.

While I take issue with the 'very few' part, I would agree many people just accept miracles as such. The term is thrown around so much that this appears to be true.

Take for instance the communication abilities of a donkey. Most should accept that donkeys can not speak a human language. If someone claimed that one did so, then that person would be called a lunatic.

Lunatic may be too strong of a word, but they would definitely raise an eyebrow or two I'd think.

Don't atheists attack and laugh at the story of the talking donkey in the Bible?

I'm sure some do, but that speaks just as much about them as it does the story.

when it comes to matters like these (when something defies scientific or well established knowledge), something like talking donkeys, then I think it's fair to tentatively conclude that it's a supernatural occurrence.

Conclude? No. Not as I see it. Consider may be a better term. But what one decides about this scenario you put forth is just as much about the person making the conclusion and their biasness than the story itself.
Miracles, Nessie, Dogman, Bigfoot, Lizard people...all these things - stories about them - should be met with skepticism I think, not total disbelief. Some of them have more evidence than others. At that point, they need investigated if one wants to truly know about them. I think that's the main thing here: if the person truly wants to understand or shrug it off. That determines how they think about them.

[bluegreenearth]

Our confidence in the reliability of that demonstration is not a dichotomy. At least, not for reasonable people: As I've pointed out numerous times already, whether aliens exist outside the imagination or whether ideas about the future are more than imagination or whether Plato existed outside of imagination - and for that matter whether the likes of dark matter or quarks are more than imaginary - are questions for which a reasonable person's state of knowledge can rarely be expressed as a simple yes or no dichotomy. I don't see much room for productive discussion if you can't see that.

I haven't disagreed with you on that point. The probabilities of those things existing outside our imagination can be abductively inferred from the fact that either the set of equivalent things they belong to or the set of equivalent things comprising their component parts have already been demonstrated to exist in a controlled setting. For instance, an extra-terrestrial alien is proposed to be a carbon-based organism located on a planet in the habitable zone of another solar system, and we know carbon-based organisms exist outside our imagination on our planet in the habitable zone of this solar system. Whether carbon-based organisms exist outside our imagination or not is a true dichotomy (unless you are arguing from solipsist perspective). So, while we don't yet know with absolute certainty that a carbon-based organism exists on another planet in another solar system, the probability of such an alien's existence can be abductively inferred (albeit with a relatively low level of confidence) from the fact that the claim has an implicit empirical basis provided by our observation of an equivalent type or category of thing existing on our own planet. Now, whether extra-terrestrial aliens have visited or are currently visiting our planet is a completely different claim.

Similarly, quarks were strictly imaginary until physicists developed the technology to test the prediction that they would fail to observe precisely identified physical phenomena in a particle accelerator if the hypothesis of quarks existing was false. The fact that their predictions were and continue to be confirmed through experimentation in a controlled environment demonstrates strong evidence for the existence of quarks outside our imagination. While we currently only have the capability to imagine what quarks looks like, experimentation demonstrates that the physical phenomena expected to occur from the existence of quarks outside our imagination have been observed. Therefore, this indirect observation of quarks is sufficient to abductively infer that they exist outside our imagination. As for dark matter, I'm not entirely sure if experiments have yet confirmed any of the predictions made by the dark matter hypothesis. If they have, then it would be reasonable to abductively infer the existence of dark matter outside our imaginations as well. If they haven't, then dark matter is strictly imaginary at this point.

[Mithrae]

[Replying to bluegreenearth in post #86]

Okay, good; so contrary to your post #70, you do know what it means to suggest something has been 'demonstrated to exist' outside our imaginations with 98% confidence? And would now agree that it's a false dichotomy to say that something can either be demonstrated to exist outside our imaginations or it cannot?

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to bluegreenearth in post #86]

Okay, good; so contrary to your post #70, you do know what it means to suggest something has been 'demonstrated to exist' outside our imaginations with 98% confidence? And would now agree that it's a false dichotomy to say that something can either be demonstrated to exist outside our imaginations or it cannot?

You're still confused by my explanation. I did not contradict myself in that post. Rather than talking past you again, it might be best if I use a different approach and start with a critical thinking question:

What method do you use to distinguish things that exist strictly inside your imagination from things that also exist outside your imagination? For example, if you observed an unidentified flying object (UFO), there are numerous things you could imagine that object might be. Of the list of things you are imagining that the UFO could be, which of those candidates have already been demonstrated to exist outside your imagination and which have not yet been demonstrated to exist outside your imagination?

[Mithrae]

[Replying to bluegreenearth in post #86]

Okay, good; so contrary to your post #70, you do know what it means to suggest something has been 'demonstrated to exist' outside our imaginations with 98% confidence? And would now agree that it's a false dichotomy to say that something can either be demonstrated to exist outside our imaginations or it cannot?

You're still confused by my explanation. I did not contradict myself in that post. Rather than talking past you again, it might be best if I use a different approach and start with a critical thinking question:

What method do you use to distinguish things that exist strictly inside your imagination from things that also exist outside your imagination?

I imagine I'm not the only one confused by this series of posts As I originally said when you first introduced this 'demonstrated to exist' angle, the reality of various concepts is inferred from observational evidence based on their respective explanatory merits; often excellent explanatory strength in the case of consistent/repeatable physical causes, with generally less conclusive results in cases involving human or other agency and non-repeatable phenomena. More specifically, for the mere existence of objects the important criteria are the quality and quantity of observational reports indicating it to be so, compared with the expected volume of evidence and/or any contrary reports. For example if the NY Post alone reports on a scandal in the Biden family, concluding it to be accurate will be a much weaker inference than if CNN, the BBC and NY Times all reported on the scandal (assuming for the sake of illustration that they're independent observational reports in all cases); or given the extraordinary and counter-intuitive claim that the volume of our bodies, tables, chairs and everything else is not solid at all but mostly 'empty space,' it would be much more difficult to accept if only a few fringe weirdos stated it to be so than if hundreds of experts confirmed it. The reasoning of course is what underlies the scientific process, peer review, journalism and so on: Any individual source will to greater or lesser extents be subject to biases and sources of potential error or falsehood, but the likelihood of the same individual errors afflicting two or dozens or thousands of sources becomes increasingly small.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to Mithrae in post #90]

I had edited my previous post to include the content below, but you had already begun responding to the original post:

If you observed an unidentified flying object (UFO), there are numerous things you could imagine that object might be. Of the list of things you are imagining that the UFO could be, which of those candidates have already been demonstrated to exist outside your imagination and which have not yet been demonstrated to exist outside your imagination?