Miracles and Probability

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liamconnor
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Miracles and Probability

Post #1

Post by liamconnor »

Suppose a new school that was highly secular: no Bible. no creation. no miracles. pure science.

This school is comprised of twenty-three 13 year olds

Now, in one of the classes--history--the teacher assigns her students (all 23) the task of explaining the origins of Christianity--that is, the first proclamation that God had resurrected a man into a new mode of life--but the explanation of this event had to be explained in purely naturalistic terms (given this is an advanced secular school). Lying, hallucination, deceit, anything goes. There are no restrictions other than that it is natural. They can explain the story of the empty tomb as a myth; as real but misunderstood; or ignore it entirely. They can make up as complex a scenario as they please: Pilate can be involved as a conspirator for a Roman test on crucified victims; the Mongols can have smuggled drugs to make Jesus look dead. Heck, there was no Jesus at all. All that matters is that the explanation is naturalistic.

Now, interestingly, every 13-year old, being very creative, came up with an explanation that was significantly different from the others (none of them were of the options above). That is, we have 23 distinct naturalistic explanations for the origins of Christianity.

Now, we do not know the details of any of these explanations. All we have is reliable evidence that all 23 middle-school students presented different accounts, and all are entirely natural.

Q for D: Without knowing the details of each and every thirteen year old student's explanation, would all 23 explanations still be more probable than the Christian supernatural one?


Or is there some probability that some explanations are less probable than a supernatural one?

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Re: Miracles and Probability

Post #2

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to post 1 by liamconnor]
The school is comprised of twenty-three 13 year olds.


First, a group of 13 year olds would most likely not understand Christianity as a religion and philosophy anywhere near well enough to even begin to craft an explanation of the origins of it. They would also not have enough of a "pure science" education to offer any serious explanation on the naturalist side. So I assume you chose 13 year olds to imply that a naturalist might choose even a silly explanation by a 13 year old over the Christian one ... because??

From a group of 13 year olds at this "pure science" school, I'd say you have a high probability of explanations that are all more probable than the Christian supernatural one, and none less probable, because the probability that a crucified human came back to life and "rose" is zero at this pure science school (this kind of thing is impossible as a physical event based on pure science). So the whole point would be moot in this pure science school.

Also, why the implication that purely naturalistic explanations might involve lying, hallucination, deceit, etc.? Was the whole point of the OP to suggest that naturalist explanations for the resurrection story are as silly as something a 13 year old might come up with?
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Re: Miracles and Probability

Post #3

Post by Divine Insight »

liamconnor wrote: They can explain the story of the empty tomb as a myth;
To begin with, Christianity is far more than just a story about an empty tomb. So if that was the only aspect of Christianity they addressed I would say that their explanations were extremely lacking and incomplete.
liamconnor wrote: Q for D: Without knowing the details of each and every thirteen year old student's explanation, would all 23 explanations still be more probable than the Christian supernatural one?

Or is there some probability that some explanations are less probable than a supernatural one?
I can't imagine any explanation being "less" probably than the Christian supernatural explanation. However, some of the explanations offered by these student may be equally absurd and clearly illogical.

From my perspective (after having studied the entire scope of Christian theology), there is zero probability that any supernatural explanation can save it.

The problem being that even if we allow that a supernatural God exists, that doesn't help Christianity. The Biblical stories are simply too self-contradictory concerning the supposed character, behavior, and directives of the Biblical God.

Now if we are talking about the Greek tales of Zeus, this all changes. There is nothing in Greek mythology that remotely suggests that Zeus needs to be righteous, trustworthy, benevolent, etc. Therefore it's pretty close to impossible to have any contradictory statements about Zeus since Zeus is under no obligation to be trustworthy or righteous. Also, Zeus never proclaimed that we must worship him above all other Gods, or follow his commandments. There is no threat made by Zeus toward us that he will condemn us to death or worse if we don't do as he says. Therefore there isn't even any reason that he would need to make his requirements of us crystal clear.

With the Christian God things are entirely different. The Christian God is supposed to be righteous, benevolent and trustworthy. Yet even the most dedicated believers in the Christian God are totally unclear on precisely what this God is demanding of us. Many Christians refuse to even claim to "know" that they are "saved".

How could a Christian not know for certain what their fate would be if their God is both clear in what he expects of them and trustworthy?

So any supernatural explanation for Christianity necessarily fails and has zero probability of being true.

Of your hypothetical 23 students, none of them could have a explanation that has less than zero probability of being true.

Therefore none of them could have an explanation that has a less probability of being true than a supernatural explanation. You simply can't have a probability less than zero.

Like I say, if you ask these students about Zeus, that would be a different scenario. There exists some non-zero probability that Zeus could be real. But the Biblical God already has a zero probability of existing, so you just can't get any less than that.

The worst the students could do is offer a naturalistic explanation that also has zero probability. So they could never go "under" the probability of a supernatural explanation for Christianity.
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Re: Miracles and Probability

Post #4

Post by Bust Nak »

liamconnor wrote: Q for D: Without knowing the details of each and every thirteen year old student's explanation, would all 23 explanations still be more probable than the Christian supernatural one?
Yes. Naturalistic explanations are always better than supernatural ones.

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Re: Miracles and Probability

Post #5

Post by Mithrae »

Bust Nak wrote:
liamconnor wrote: Q for D: Without knowing the details of each and every thirteen year old student's explanation, would all 23 explanations still be more probable than the Christian supernatural one?
Yes. Naturalistic explanations are always better than supernatural ones.
Anything that occurs must necessarily be consistent with the nature of reality, so I dislike the term 'supernatural' as being either incoherent or laden with presuppositions. Would your answer remain the same if 'miraculous' was the term used in the OP?

I assume the direction we're heading here is what if one of the explanations involved aliens with advanced technology - perhaps Jesus himself being ET's older cousin - or something even more far-fetched, would it still automatically be considered more probable (without even knowing just how vivid these kids' imaginations were) than the existence and intervention of God?


Personally, I would say there's a good chance that some of the kids' explanations are less plausible.

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Re: Miracles and Probability

Post #6

Post by benchwarmer »

[Replying to post 1 by liamconnor]

Since we are supposing things, let's also suppose this is a really bright, inquisitive group of 13 year olds. Immediately after explaining the assignment a hand went up:

A) Excuse me, may I please do the origins of Islam instead?
Teacher) Of course, I don't see why not.

B) Ms X, may I please do the origins of Hinduism?
Teacher) Yes B, you may do Hinduism.

C) How about Buddism?
Teacher) Sure. I'm starting to sense a pattern here, so how about everyone pick a different religion and come up with the best explanation that you can. Please do your research. After everyone presents their papers, perhaps we will do a follow up analysis and see if we can find any similarities. Alright now, get to work!

---->

After all the papers come in, I expect any explanations that are offered will be more probable than the supernatural given the probability of a supernatural event approaches 0% (practically by definition, since we cannot predict something which is not natural to happen).

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Re: Miracles and Probability

Post #7

Post by Bust Nak »

Mithrae wrote: Anything that occurs must necessarily be consistent with the nature of reality, so I dislike the term 'supernatural' as being either incoherent or laden with presuppositions. Would your answer remain the same if 'miraculous' was the term used in the OP?
'Miraculous' comes with the same baggage "supernatural" does. My answer would remain the same, unless the author explicitly exclude the supernatural.
I assume the direction we're heading here is what if one of the explanations involved aliens with advanced technology - perhaps Jesus himself being ET's older cousin - or something even more far-fetched, would it still automatically be considered more probable (without even knowing just how vivid these kids' imaginations were) than the existence and intervention of God?
That is exactly the angle I was going for. Aliens are automatically more probable than deities.

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Re: Miracles and Probability

Post #8

Post by Mithrae »

Bust Nak wrote:
I assume the direction we're heading here is what if one of the explanations involved aliens with advanced technology - perhaps Jesus himself being ET's older cousin - or something even more far-fetched, would it still automatically be considered more probable (without even knowing just how vivid these kids' imaginations were) than the existence and intervention of God?
That is exactly the angle I was going for. Aliens are automatically more probable than deities.
Getting deja vu - I suspect that you and I have discussed exactly that, many many moons ago! 8-) I'll try not to hijack Liam's thread though.

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Re: Miracles and Probability

Post #9

Post by rikuoamero »

[Replying to post 7 by Bust Nak]
That is exactly the angle I was going for. Aliens are automatically more probable than deities.
Yup. When it comes to aliens, we have an a priori example that you, I and liam can agree on. Assuming the aliens to have come from a planet, we can point to our own planet which has life.
Where can we point towards another a priori example of the god liam wants?
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Re: Miracles and Probability

Post #10

Post by liamconnor »

[Replying to post 2 by DrNoGods]
First, a group of 13 year olds would most likely not understand Christianity as a religion and philosophy anywhere near well enough to even begin to craft an explanation of the origins of it. They would also not have enough of a "pure science" education to offer any serious explanation on the naturalist side. So I assume you chose 13 year olds to imply that a naturalist might choose even a silly explanation by a 13 year old over the Christian one ... because??
Operative word, "likely". In this case, they are.
From a group of 13 year olds at this "pure science" school, I'd say you have a high probability of explanations that are all more probable than the Christian supernatural one, and none less probable, because the probability that a crucified human came back to life and "rose" is zero at this pure science school (this kind of thing is impossible as a physical event based on pure science).
So, any natural explanation is superior to one involving the supernatural, without even needing to know what the explanation involves?
Also, why the implication that purely naturalistic explanations might involve lying, hallucination, deceit, etc.? Was the whole point of the OP to suggest that naturalist explanations for the resurrection story are as silly as something a 13 year old might come up with?
I believe in the OP I said those explanations in fact were not submitted. However, I assume you are aware that they have all been proposed by adult scholars since the 1700's.

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