Your miracle

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nobspeople
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Your miracle

Post #1

Post by nobspeople »

Some say miracles are real, while others say they're not. The naysayers often point out to limbs not growing back, other dead people not raising up and 'living their best life', no one since Mosses has interacted with a talking and burning bush that's not consumed, etc.
Yet believers do point out that Billy Bobchristian was 'healed' from his sin. Or Bobby Billchristian survived his 11th hour surgery that saved his life. And the like.

For discussion:
So, here's your chance, believers, once and for all. What miracle have you experienced that you KNOW was a miracle and that it was from god (if you're willing to have it, potentially, challenged - and why shouldn't you? You have faith it's real that's all that matter to you, right? Why not use this time to witness the power of your god?!?)?
Have a great, potentially godless, day!

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Re: Your miracle

Post #51

Post by brunumb »

[Replying to Mithrae in post #50]

Or, we simply don't have an explanation! Inventing gods or supernatural beings is not a valid approach to explaining phenomena when there is no evidence for them. That is precisely what is happening. Gods can be used to explain anything and everythingwithout there being any sign that they are involved at all. They really explain nothing.
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Re: Your miracle

Post #52

Post by Mithrae »

brunumb wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 5:29 am [Replying to Mithrae in post #50]

Or, we simply don't have an explanation! Inventing gods or supernatural beings is not a valid approach to explaining phenomena when there is no evidence for them. That is precisely what is happening. Gods can be used to explain anything and everythingwithout there being any sign that they are involved at all. They really explain nothing.
Similarly, we simply don't have an explanation for anything else whatsoever? Inventing 'laws of physics' or 'nature' is not a valid approach to explaining phenomena when there is no evidence for them. That is precisely what is happening. 'Laws of nature' can be used to explain anything and everything without there being any sign that they are involved at all. They really explain nothing.

I suspect the problem you're running into here may stem from a vague or poorly-defined view of what it means to explain something. For example based on a very extensive discussion a couple of years ago with FarWanderer and Bluegreenearth (my perspective from which is best summarized in this post), I would say that explaining an observed phenomenon means situating it within a broader, coherent theory with better parsimony, breadth/scope and depth/specificity than competing alternatives. I'm certainly open to hearing a more useful definition - dictionary definitions such as "a statement or account that makes something clear" seem like useless tautologies - but going with this one, broad theories such as naturalism or theism certainly can be viable explanatory tools depending on how well they meet those three criteria.

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Re: Your miracle

Post #53

Post by brunumb »

Mithrae wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 6:45 am Inventing 'laws of physics' or 'nature' is not a valid approach to explaining phenomena when there is no evidence for them. That is precisely what is happening. 'Laws of nature' can be used to explain anything and everything without there being any sign that they are involved at all. They really explain nothing.
What on earth are you on about? Who is inventing 'laws of physics' or 'nature' to explain anything? We have no evidence for anything supernatural. If you can demonstrate that those alleged miracles were performed by some supernatural agency, please do so. Even demonstrating that such a thing is possible would be a good start.
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Re: Your miracle

Post #54

Post by JoeyKnothead »

Mithrae wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 4:18 am Sure, I've seen that argument before; we need miracles to know that a god exists and we need to know a god exists before we can acknowledge miracles.
That right there's a problem for the claimant, not for anyone who might challenge that claimant.

But it certainly does point out the difficulty of claiming miracles're the product of one's favored god concept. And how that god can't be shown it to be but a concept.
In a similar vein we might say that 'nature' or the 'laws of physics' are not a viable explanation for any observed phenomena until their reality is first established,
Stub you a toe real good, you'll find nature's there, and have you a toe stubbed reality both.
and the mere observation of those phenomena does not constitute evidence for the reality of laws of physics.
Plenty fair. I personally consider these "laws" to be merely comments on the matter at hand.
Ultimately therefore everything would be unexplained to this standard we are contemplating, and theism/miracles would be on at least equal footing with any other speculation.
Wiping out what we know don't get us no closer to miracles.
Recognizing that high explanatory threshold is actually quite important, because when taken to extremes the 'god of the gaps' accusation is one which implies an established explanation of reality which hasn't actually been established: If reality...
Now you're ifing. Ifing ain't a good way to prove much.
If reality were a pool table,
Analogies're a poor substitute for fact.
If reality were a pool table, say, we've 'explained' the motions of the blue and red balls by reference to the white ball, but until we've got a complete explanation of the entire situation it would seem a little hollow to mock as 'god of the gaps' those who suggest that external agency was the cause for the white ball's motion.
By what means can we confirm the white ball...

1. Exists
2. Got put in motion

That seems core to your carrying on about them other balls.

Ya see what ya got here, is ya got a big ol pool table, but ya ain't showed us no miracle. Specifically one put up by your favored god concept, who, evidently, is a cue ball.
However in more general terms, we don't actually use such a lofty (and borderline circular) standard of requiring something to be unequivocally proven before we contemplate it as an explanation for observed facts, not even in the sciences let alone in more mundane areas of knowledge.
But declaring there's a god, and he done miracles, only ya can't show ya speak truth, that ain't so mundane.

To continue with analogies, that's like saying I fix up a fine mess of creasy greens, only I won't give ya none to tell if I do or not.

At least with my declaration, we already know creasy greens're delicious when ya fix em right.
I might be Teddy Roosevelt, but I ain't.
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Re: Your miracle

Post #55

Post by Mithrae »

brunumb wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 7:13 am
Mithrae wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 6:45 am Inventing 'laws of physics' or 'nature' is not a valid approach to explaining phenomena when there is no evidence for them. That is precisely what is happening. 'Laws of nature' can be used to explain anything and everything without there being any sign that they are involved at all. They really explain nothing.
What on earth are you on about? Who is inventing 'laws of physics' or 'nature' to explain anything? We have no evidence for anything supernatural. If you can demonstrate that those alleged miracles were performed by some supernatural agency, please do so. Even demonstrating that such a thing is possible would be a good start.
Without demonstrating a feasible alternative under the same criteria demanded of theism, gods/miracles would stand on equal footing with anything else: An apple falling on someone's head would be just as miraculous as a fulfilled prophecy about a three day old corpse rising to life and flying up into the heavens, because there would be no better framework for understanding the former than the latter. That's essentially what some folk are proposing in this thread, that sunrises and babies and abiogenesis are 'miracles,' and I'm guessing that you would agree that those are borderline absurd suggestions, that there is an important, substantive difference between a sunrise and a healed amputation. Wouldn't you? But such a perspective can only exist under the presumption of a meaningful framework by which the sunrise is explained and a healed amputation is, for now, not explained - the most common such framework being philosophical extrapolations from scientific naturalism.

If you don't see any substantive difference between a sunrise and a healed amputation, please let me know; any discussion of a 'miracle' would obviously be utterly meaningless in that case! Or if you believe that there is a substantive difference, but you think the framework under which the former can be meaningfully explained is something other than a variation on scientific naturalism, I'd be even more interested in hearing about that. But for now it seems most charitable to suppose that this is a meaningful discussion, that you do see a substantive difference between the two, and that our shared framework for explaining the former is most likely a variation on scientific naturalism: Therefore, if you are demanding that theism/miracles as an explanatory framework must be justified according to certain criteria, we must first ask whether variations on scientific naturalism (or whatever other framework you propose) can be justified according to those criteria. If not, either the criteria are faulty or you'd be engaging in special pleading, or both.

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Re: Your miracle

Post #56

Post by TRANSPONDER »

brunumb wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 7:13 am
Mithrae wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 6:45 am Inventing 'laws of physics' or 'nature' is not a valid approach to explaining phenomena when there is no evidence for them. That is precisely what is happening. 'Laws of nature' can be used to explain anything and everything without there being any sign that they are involved at all. They really explain nothing.
What on earth are you on about? Who is inventing 'laws of physics' or 'nature' to explain anything? We have no evidence for anything supernatural. If you can demonstrate that those alleged miracles were performed by some supernatural agency, please do so. Even demonstrating that such a thing is possible would be a good start.
:) I know what out Mithraic friend means. I believe that he is not denying the natural/physicas explanations for what we know, but is arguing that what we can't explain might not be physics.

That is of course an unsound argument, and he should know it by now. Since so much that was once unknown and unexplained is now known to have natural causes, the default hypothesis for the unexplained is natural/physical, not God (name your own, anyway). It only is ever proffered as an argument for God because they believe in their god a priori. and they think (illogically) that 'God' is the default hypothesis where there is any unknown, doubt or question, or gap for God.

That is how the Theist mindset works and why it is always logically wrong.

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Re: Your miracle

Post #57

Post by brunumb »

Mithrae wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 8:30 am Without demonstrating a feasible alternative under the same criteria demanded of theism, gods/miracles would stand on equal footing with anything else
Outdated criteria for incurable diseases.
Rare instances where totally unexpected remissions occur.
Delayed response to previous medical treatment.
Deceptive and fraudulent claims.
Falsified evidence.
Errors in diagnosis or the investigation of actual cases.
Gullibility and acceptance of dodgy claims.
Etc, etc...
We can go on and on with feasible natural alternatives.

On the other hand, proposing the involvement of gods or supernatural entities that have not been demonstrated to exist in reality is not on any sort of equal footing by a long shot. Once you have established that such things actually exist, you can put them on the table for consideration as a feasible explanation. It is not a matter of simply being dismissive. There is nothing yet there to dismiss.
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Voltaire: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
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Re: Your miracle

Post #58

Post by TRANSPONDER »

That's it indeed. Even without that materialist default (and the Believers hate that almost as much as they hate the burden of proof :P ) equal argument means that the god (whichever) claim has no more force than the possibility that it's natural. It means 'don't know' is the logical and evidence based answer - not God.

I have to mention a debate between Dillahunty and some preacher whose name escapes me. His argument for God was to say 'they don't know' in a sneering and mocking tone. It was a monumentally wretched argument and did him no credit. But I get why he thought it was valid. "We know it's God. What do the atheists have as an alternative? "Don't Know" :D They have Nothing") That is how they think it works.

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Re: Your miracle

Post #59

Post by Eloi »

Mithrae wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 8:30 am (...) what some folk are proposing in this thread, that sunrises and babies and abiogenesis are 'miracles,' and I'm guessing that you would agree that those are borderline absurd suggestions, that there is an important, substantive difference between a sunrise and a healed amputation. Wouldn't you? But such a perspective can only exist under the presumption of a meaningful framework by which the sunrise is explained and a healed amputation is, for now, not explained - the most common such framework being philosophical extrapolations from scientific naturalism.

If you don't see any substantive difference between a sunrise and a healed amputation, please let me know; any discussion of a 'miracle' would obviously be utterly meaningless in that case! Or if you believe that there is a substantive difference, but you think the framework under which the former can be meaningfully explained is something other than a variation on scientific naturalism, I'd be even more interested in hearing about that. But for now it seems most charitable to suppose that this is a meaningful discussion, that you do see a substantive difference between the two, and that our shared framework for explaining the former is most likely a variation on scientific naturalism: Therefore, if you are demanding that theism/miracles as an explanatory framework must be justified according to certain criteria, we must first ask whether variations on scientific naturalism (or whatever other framework you propose) can be justified according to those criteria. If not, either the criteria are faulty or you'd be engaging in special pleading, or both.
Mmmh, interesting. Can you "verbalize" those differences? Maybe we can arrive to the definition of "miracle".

PD: Do you know what is "argumentum ad passiones"?

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Re: Your miracle

Post #60

Post by Eloi »

In the events that can be classified as "miracles" many variables are involved. Some would be:

1) the knowledge, the information, knowing the how the event can be achieved, the process
2) power, the energy to run the process
3) the time in which the process is carried out to obtain the result, if it is in a short time and the difference between the initial and the final state is very large, the impression is greater
4) the view of the process: when you are seeing what is happening it is usually less impressive and the final result may be less or more miraculous; but perhaps the process is hidden from view, and what remains before us practically appears "out of nowhere", because it was not seen coming
5) the resources to get the process started, the instruments, the tools, the material, and if required everything necessary to control the process to achieve a specific result
6) if the process occurs by itself, or someone set it in motion to achieve the result; Is there an initial author of the process?

There could be other variables involved. So, if I think on these (maybe others) variables: what is a miracle? Are they possible?

Let's say there is a group of scientists studying how to regenerate organs or limbs of the body. In fact, those laboratories exist, because that process actually occurs in some animal species. Let's say they figure out how to do it, but they don't make it public. An experimental patient visits a medical center and undergoes the procedure, which in less than a week (let's say) grows a fully functional finger where he had lost it. A friend of him can see the end result, but the person cannot tell him how he got his finger back. So he tells him that he visited a man who was able to accomplish this. Can that be considered a miracle?

Now: can there be a non-human "civilization" with enough knowledge and power, perform similar acts? Would that be "naturalism" from the human point of view? Would it be a miracle?

And, if we showed a smartphone to a person in the 12th century... would it be magic for that individual? Would it be magic from our own point of view?

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