A Free One for the Apologists

[Jagella]

Hold on to your halos, Christians, but I'm about to agree with you and disagree with Bart Ehrman on an issue. Bart Ehrman insists that miracles cannot be considered historical because they are the least probable of any event. I disagree with Bart's logic because a miracle, improbable as it might seem, might be considered historical if the evidence is good enough.

I think the following is a good example of a miracle we can be assured happened. Let's say Donald Trump holds a press conference (a miracle in its own right). At that press conference our dear president begins to levitate and float around the room defying gravity. The media including CNN and Fox News (bitter enemies) get all of this on camera. The resulting video is very clear and shows that Donald had no tether or any other contrivance that could have lifted him. James "the Amazing" Randi, an arch skeptic of miracles, happens to be at that press conference. He pushes his way past the Secret Service men and carefully examines the President. His face all white Randi gushes in front of the entire press corps: "It's a miracle--a true-blue jen-you-wine miracle!"

So do you agree that good evidence trumps probability when we judge the historicity of a miracle or any other event?

[Mithrae]

[Replying to post 1 by Jagella]

Srsly? There's obviously a political angle if it happened at a Trump press conference. It's been two years since James Randi retired and his foundation's million-dollar challenge was terminated. Trump surely has enough money to buy off a celebrity whose reputation has little or no more financial value. So all you're relying on is the cameras, which can be fooled easily enough - or on camera crews who could likewise have been paid a paltry million dollars each!

Maybe instead it happened at some celebrity's birthday party which CNN, Fox and Randi were attending. But a quick glance at the week's headlines would almost certainly reveal that it could still be a political distraction effort funded by any number of billionaires. So obvious.

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 1 by Jagella]

I find it less likely to believe in miracles in this day and age.

The correct response to bart ehrman is to point out that the probability of any result from any action is infinity.

Hume's problem of causality comes to mind.

There is no such thing as a more probable result.

[Realworldjack]

Hold on to your halos, Christians, but I'm about to agree with you and disagree with Bart Ehrman on an issue. Bart Ehrman insists that miracles cannot be considered historical because they are the least probable of any event. I disagree with Bart's logic because a miracle, improbable as it might seem, might be considered historical if the evidence is good enough.

I think the following is a good example of a miracle we can be assured happened. Let's say Donald Trump holds a press conference (a miracle in its own right). At that press conference our dear president begins to levitate and float around the room defying gravity. The media including CNN and Fox News (bitter enemies) get all of this on camera. The resulting video is very clear and shows that Donald had no tether or any other contrivance that could have lifted him. James "the Amazing" Randi, an arch skeptic of miracles, happens to be at that press conference. He pushes his way past the Secret Service men and carefully examines the President. His face all white Randi gushes in front of the entire press corps: "It's a miracle--a true-blue jen-you-wine miracle!"

So do you agree that good evidence trumps probability when we judge the historicity of a miracle or any other event?

good evidence trumps probability when we judge the historicity of a miracle or any other event?

This is a fantastic point, and well said! I have never really understood people who base what they believe upon, "the probabilities." However, there seem to be a lot of folks here on this site that do just that. In fact, I have had one member who claimed, "probabilities is all we have."

Now, I understand that, probabilities are factored in, but the probabilities really have no bearing at all upon whether an event actually occurred or not.

As an example, what were the probabilities that Trump would win the election? I would say, they were not very good at all, and when I woke up that next Wednesday mourning I was in shock! This certainly demonstrates that the probabilities have nothing to do with it at all.

So, as we look at the Resurrection recorded in the Bible, we should all understand that the probability of a Resurrection occurring are, zero. However, this would have nothing whatsoever to do with, whether a Resurrection has indeed occurred.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by Jagella]

...considered historical because they are the least probable of any event.

Whether something is "probable" (likely to happen or be the case) is by definition is merely an examination of the surrounding circumstances of an event. We are not looking at the unique (or rare) event itself but examening the surrounding circumstances in order to determine if said event is logically "probable".

The first circumstance would be to determine if there is a supernatural power able to perform or enable a miracle to be possible. If we determine that no there is not, then nothing else can render the event possible, much less "probable". It is like examining the question: How probable is it that Mr Smith delivered the bottle of milk if Mr Smith does not exist?

If we figure in there *is* a God, then the likelihood of his acting in a way that could be catagorized as "miraculous" would depend on the circumstances. For example, if the event is unique, would it be in line with any revelations of his character, purpose and communicated intent. And then if the event was not entirely unique, what are the other circumstances of miraculous events and how do they compare with thre previous? (for further on this see the footnote on my post [examining a miracle]) If we have no information aboout the source, circumstances only that such a thing is possible, it would be impossible to declare the event probable or improbable, only unique.

Given the above, all things being equal, even a sceptic must conclude that the miracles presented in the bible probably did indeed happened.

RELATED POSTS

Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 870#330870

Examining a miracle
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 409#878409

Why did Jesus perform miracles?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 621#860621


Further Reading: Are Miracles Really Possible?—Three Common Objections
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2012562

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 1 by Jagella]

I think you need to distinguish between probable and probability. The two are not the same. A miracle in of itself is inherently an improbable event which is what makes it a miracle. Your example of Donald trump levitating is essentially the least probably event to expect at a press conference.

Erhman is not wrong in this regard. What your also missing is context. We don't have any well evidenced miracles. There simply is none. So evidence trumping what is or is not probable is moot when it comes to historical miracles as we don't have any compelling evidence for them in the first place. Hence we should not consider miracles historical as they are the least probable event to occur and they lack sufficient evidence to consider them in the first place.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 5 by JehovahsWitness]

Given the above, all things being equal, even a sceptic must conclude that the miracles presented in the bible probably did indeed happened.

Can I have what you are smoking here? Why should I conclude the miracles probably happened? Because you declared God exists? or given the hypothetical that we all agree God exists(sort of invalidating the skeptic angle) we agree the miracles happened to?

[benchwarmer]

[Replying to post 1 by Jagella]

What do you mean when you say a miracle is 'historical'?

Having all kinds of evidence a miracle happened does not actually make an event a miracle (if by miracle you mean a supernatural event). What it does mean is that we have historical evidence that many claims were made that an event happened.

Let's take your 'flying Donald' example. Even if we have live camera feeds and multiple witnesses, that doesn't automatically make the event a 'miracle'. It simply means we have an unexplained event. Even if multiple scientists were present with all sorts of equipment, it may still not be classified as a miracle. It would likely be classified (assuming they couldn't figure out what was really going on) as an unknown phenomenon.

Are you fine calling all unknown phenomenon miracles? Usually when a Christian claims a 'miracle' they are assuming an event caused by their god. Since we cannot detect this god, we can hardly start attributing unknown phenomenon to another unknown phenomenon. That's like saying the ghost you saw last night was a miracle from the unicorn who rules the world.

At the end of the day it all boils down to definitions. If by miracle you simply mean something that cannot, as of yet, be explained then you are not probably on the same wavelength as Christians when they hear that word. If by 'historical' you simply mean claims were made, that's fine, but that doesn't make the claimed event a 'miracle' or even true. Granted, the more disconnected, unbiased claims you have, the more sure you can be that something happened, but it may still not be clear what.

[Mithrae]

good evidence trumps probability when we judge the historicity of a miracle or any other event?

This is a fantastic point, and well said! I have never really understood people who base what they believe upon, "the probabilities." However, there seem to be a lot of folks here on this site that do just that. In fact, I have had one member who claimed, "probabilities is all we have."

Now, I understand that, probabilities are factored in, but the probabilities really have no bearing at all upon whether an event actually occurred or not.

As an example, what were the probabilities that Trump would win the election? I would say, they were not very good at all, and when I woke up that next Wednesday mourning I was in shock! This certainly demonstrates that the probabilities have nothing to do with it at all.

So, as we look at the Resurrection recorded in the Bible, we should all understand that the probability of a Resurrection occurring are, zero. However, this would have nothing whatsoever to do with, whether a Resurrection has indeed occurred.

There are at least four distinct things that people can mean when they talk about 'probability':
> The real likelihood of an event occurring in terms of its long term frequency of occurrence (frequentist probability)
> The real likelihood of an event occurring given all specific circumstances causing or constraining that event (propensity probability)
> The probability we estimate of an event occurring, given how much or how little we know about the above (prior probability)
> The probability we estimate that the event did occur, or that a given proposition is true, given further knowledge/hindsight (posterior probability - its plausibility might be a less confusing term in this case)

The former two are types of physical or objectivist probabilities, the latter two are loosely along the lines of Bayesian probability.

Objectivist probabilities are obviously much more useful if we're talking about coin flips or rolling dice, or for most requirements in the physical sciences. But for things like weather forecasts, election results, economic outcomes, historical enquiry and so on, the limitations of what we know make such objectivist approaches virtually pointless because they are impossible.

The real likelihood that Trump was going to win the election would have somewhere close to if not exactly 100%; people were going to vote the way they ended up voting regardless of whether or not the political polling managed to detect those trends. In fact if determinism were true, then everything would have either a 100% or 0% probability, whether it had already happened or not; yet even the objectivist probabilities purporting to capture the real likelihood of an event do not suggest that level of specificity in their results. So ultimately it's true that probabilities are all we have - or put differently, that there is uncertainty for every event and every proposition.

I tried to highlight these distinctions, and how they are sometimes (incorrectly) applied in the case of 'miracles' or the like, in my recent thread Probability and rare or paranormal events.



The prior probability, given what we know, of a 'miracle' occurring will always be essentially zero, because even those who believe in them agree that they are exceedingly rare and unpredictable. However the real likelihood that one will occur may be anywhere from 0 to 100%, and we really can't know which without making religious or philosophical presuppositions - pretending to know the mind of god or the true nature of reality. It seems that Bart Ehrman has confused those two concepts, and then further carried that supposed near-zero probability over into, or replacing, his posterior assessment of the available evidence.

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 1 by Jagella]

Srsly? There's obviously a political angle if it happened at a Trump press conference. It's been two years since James Randi retired and his foundation's million-dollar challenge was terminated. Trump surely has enough money to buy off a celebrity whose reputation has little or no more financial value. So all you're relying on is the cameras, which can be fooled easily enough - or on camera crews who could likewise have been paid a paltry million dollars each!

Maybe instead it happened at some celebrity's birthday party which CNN, Fox and Randi were attending. But a quick glance at the week's headlines would almost certainly reveal that it could still be a political distraction effort funded by any number of billionaires. So obvious.

OK, then allow me to move the goalposts up a bit. Let's assume there is no evidence at all for any kind of "political distraction." The whole thing has been thoroughly investigated, and there is no payoff or sleight of hand.

It's always possible to deny evidence no matter how good it might be. There's always a tiny crack that can have a crow bar inserted into.

But before you flame me, you may have noticed something about the scenario in the OP. I've posted evidence for a miracle that is relatively good. It is much better evidence than any evidence offered by apologists for miracles. It may inspire apologists to put up or shut up.