Comment Thread for The Resurrection of Jesus - Apologiaphoenix vs Gary

[tabibito]

The onus is not on skeptics to disprove an extraordinary claim, the onus is on the proponent(s) of the extraordinary claim to provide evidence for that claim.

By no means. It is incumbent on persons engaging in both sides of any debate to show just cause to believe their position. So far, you have failed to do so - the best you have provided by way of support for your position is argument from incredulity. That and ridicule have been your mainstay throughout. Your "the next car to pass will be red" being a case in point.

So - what would a real equivalent to your "red car" scenario look like. Let's take a real event involving prediction ...

Some years ago, during mid winter, a man was having a phone conversation with a friend, a staunch atheist, whom he had not seen in several weeks. The friend's father lived in a town quite some distance from the city where they both lived. The man had not seen his friend's father since late summer. The man told his friend to travel home to visit his father during the coming weekend, because it would be the last opportunity for the friend to see him. The friend did so, and his father was in good health at the time. However, on the Monday afternoon, the father developed a chest infection - and on the Wednesday morning died of pneumonia.

So - ridicule away. What plausible explanation do you advance for the man's action - other than a supernatural ability to foretell the future?

[One Bad Pig]

what's an acceptable amount of evidence for a miracle

If someone who is generally trustworthy attests to it, I'm inclined to accept it as true. The greater number of people who attest to it make it increasingly likely to be true.

and do you think it's on par with that of alien encounters and abductions, magic and sightings of extinct animals?

No. Thank you for proving my point. By the way, sightings of "extinct" animals are rare, but they do happen. That's because it's rarely proven that an animal actually is extinct; proving a negative is not easy.

[Sea of red]

Are you serious, Red? You agree with their logic?

Dude, do you not understand that a bad argument is a bad argument regardless of whether we share a common belief?

PS: please make your posts shorter and more concise.

[Gary]

By no means. It is incumbent on persons engaging in both sides of any debate to show just cause to believe their position. So far, you have failed to do so - the best you have provided by way of support for your position is argument from incredulity. That and ridicule have been your mainstay throughout. Your "the next car to pass will be red" being a case in point.

So - what would a real equivalent to your "red car" scenario look like. Let's take a real event involving prediction ...

Some years ago, during mid winter, a man was having a phone conversation with a friend, a staunch atheist, whom he had not seen in several weeks. The friend's father lived in a town quite some distance from the city where they both lived. The man had not seen his friend's father since late summer. The man told his friend to travel home to visit his father during the coming weekend, because it would be the last opportunity for the friend to see him. The friend did so, and his father was in good health at the time. However, on the Monday afternoon, the father developed a chest infection - and on the Wednesday morning died of pneumonia.

So - ridicule away. What plausible explanation do you advance for the man's action - other than a supernatural ability to foretell the future?

I will answer your question with another analogy:

A woman bumps into you at the local grocery store. You do not know her, and as far as you know, she doesn't know you. She tells you she is getting a weird vibe from you. After closing her eyes and holding her hands to her head for a few seconds, she tells you that she is a medium and that someone you know who has passed on wants to contact you. She asks you if you had an uncle who was killed in a car accident 5-6years ago. You are shocked. How would she know this?

What are the possible explanations for your story and mine:

1. The Christian was told by God that his friend's father was going to die, and, the medium really is in communication with the dead.
2. Both were lucky guesses.
3. Both the Christian and the medium had inside information.
The Christian knew a mutual friend of the atheist. This friend had recently told the Christian that the atheist's father was very ill, but was hiding his terminal illness from his son, he looked well, but he had only days to live.
The medium's cousin works in the market and feeds her the names, addresses and other personal information about the store's clients. The medium did not just bump into you. It was a set up.

[Gary]

Dude, do you not understand that a bad argument is a bad argument regardless of whether we share a common belief?

PS: please make your posts shorter and more concise.

Please shut up. If you can't see that Dr. Johnson's argument completely destroys these Christians' pathetic defense of miracle claims, you are more dense than they are.

You've got something brown on your nose. Wipe it off. It's disgusting.

[psstein]

There are massive problems with Johnson's position. His argument is question begging, as is Hume's, which he rejects for not being strong enough.

[tabibito]

By no means. It is incumbent on persons engaging in both sides of any debate to show just cause to believe their position. So far, you have failed to do so - the best you have provided by way of support for your position is argument from incredulity. That and ridicule have been your mainstay throughout. Your "the next car to pass will be red" being a case in point.

So - what would a real equivalent to your "red car" scenario look like. Let's take a real event involving prediction ...

Some years ago, during mid winter, a man was having a phone conversation with a friend, a staunch atheist, whom he had not seen in several weeks. The friend's father lived in a town quite some distance from the city where they both lived. The man had not seen his friend's father since late summer. The man told his friend to travel home to visit his father during the coming weekend, because it would be the last opportunity for the friend to see him. The friend did so, and his father was in good health at the time. However, on the Monday afternoon, the father developed a chest infection - and on the Wednesday morning died of pneumonia.

So - ridicule away. What plausible explanation do you advance for the man's action - other than a supernatural ability to foretell the future?

I will answer your question with another analogy:

A woman bumps into you at the local grocery store. You do not know her, and as far as you know, she doesn't know you. She tells you she is getting a weird vibe from you. After closing her eyes and holding her hands to her head for a few seconds, she tells you that she is a medium and that someone you know who has passed on wants to contact you. She asks you if you had an uncle who was killed in a car accident 5-6years ago. You are shocked. How would she know this?

What are the possible explanations for your story and mine:

1. The Christian was told by God that his friend's father was going to die, and, the medium really is in communication with the dead.
2. Both were lucky guesses.
3. Both the Christian and the medium had inside information.
The Christian knew a mutual friend of the atheist. This friend had recently told the Christian that the atheist's father was very ill, but was hiding his terminal illness from his son, he looked well, but he had only days to live.
The medium's cousin works in the market and feeds her the names, addresses and other personal information about the store's clients. The medium did not just bump into you. It was a set up.

You have dreamt up a scenario that satisfies you - but look again: where are the parallels? The father in the story I gave you died of pneumonia - and on the weekend that his son visited, he showed no symptoms of pneumonia. You have also failed to address the issue of why the atheist paid any attention to what he was told. Moreover, while your scenario might serve to satisfy some, it certainly would not satisfy the Christian - who knows that nothing of the sort happened.
The task here is to convince that Christian that nothing miraculous was involved. What can you dream up to support your contention that there can have been no miracle and that there are no gods.

[Apologiaphoenix]

You believe JP Moreland's ear sprouting story because he is a respected member of your Faith. If he were a fundamentalist Muslim claiming that Allah had caused an ear bud to sprout, would you be so willing to believe him? I doubt it.

Why not? People aren't mistaken about that kind of thing. I would have no problem and in fact have believed similar claims from a Muslim. You just don't go with it because it goes against your faith that miracles don't happen.

Let me give you one possible explanation for Moreland's ear sprouting experience:

It is a faith healing service. The crowd has been whipped up into an emotional frenzy. They are all believers in miracles. Moreland and the ear-less man were not standing in front of a group of skeptical medical professionals. The man truly believed that Moreland could re-sprout his ear.

Moreland prayed for Jesus to start the ear-sprouting. The man, gripped with hysteria, violently grabs his head, causing a contusion to the area of the severed ear. A hematoma (collection of blood) develops and a bump/protrusion of skin/tissue begins to swell from the area of the opening of the ear canal.

"A new ear is growing. Praise Jesus!"

Wow. Seriously? You think someone like Moreland is stupid enough to think something like this? If he says he saw a new ear, that means he saw a new ear

I challenge you to provide just ONE miracle claim from Keneer's book or any other miracle claim, for which we are unable to provide a more probable, non-miracle explanation.

I challenge you to read his book because I already provided the list of miracles from the book that was worthy of looking at.

[Apologiaphoenix]

William,

Nick wants to convince you that miracles are just as probable in human experience as non-miracle causes for rare, odd, difficult-to-explain events.

Do show where I have said this.

Good night but you are such a fundamentalist.

[Apologiaphoenix]

I guess I’ll have to read the account before I can understand why the first two are the least likely… but knowing that I haven’t read it, and knowing how claims of events aren’t always the most dependable evidences of events, then it shouldn’t be hard to see why I think this just looks ridiculous.

Do you think someone is mistaken about an ear growing back?

Mine is of dogma? No, it’s of observation and reason. IT could be that these events have indeed transpired, but they did so outside of my observation and outside of reason. They happened without the usual cause and effects.

I don’t believe in ghosts, unicorns or yetis either. They could all exist, but I’m afraid it would take much more that a fuzzy photograph or people’s word for it. Surely, this is understandable.

No. It's dogma. Miracle accounts are also based on observation and a number have medical documentation and even mention in secular newspapers. Being skeptical of miracles does not mean you are reasonable. It means you are skeptical. When more and more evidence piles up against the position, it is unreasonable. No argument has been given that is persuasive as to why miracles cannot occur and have no occurred. Miracle accounts have been presented and you have to accept for your position that most people are lying or delusional.

Lying, deluded or telling the truth… why do act as if these are the only options? Are we understating “deluded” the same?

Because they are. Either the person is saying X is true while knowing it is not, which is lying, or they are saying X is true, while it is not meaning they think it is for some mistaken reason, which I am putting under the word deluded, or else they are saying X is true and it is true, in which they are telling the truth.

If someone is delusional that they have a false or unrealistic belief. The twerm is more often use dto describe someone who is gullible or stupid, and I don’t think someone has to have wacked out ideas in order to fall for some of this. If you mean the term to imply only being mistaken, then okay – people are routinely mistaken about things.

If that’s how you mean it, you should understand that there are different levels to being mistaken.

Here’s an interesting little article that touches on some of it if you’re interested.
http://psych.stanford.edu/~bt/memory...sh-tversky.pdf

I have explained what I mean. If you know of a fourth option, give it.

Just curious. If other “spirits” can perform miracles as well as the biblical God, then are there other gods or still just the one?

No. This assumes deity is a class of being. It isn't. God is not part of a genus but rather being in His very nature. This is shown through good arguments in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition.

And if you place your standard of evidence extremely low, then that’s gullible. So we need an in-between areas. Clearly, some things are more believable than others. Some things are just much more common while other tend to resemble fiction. So there is not one standard of evidence, but changes dependent on the claim or event. So it’s not that I’ll not believe anything, I clearly believe some things; but certain things are too farfetched for me to accept on the word of strangers. People are misled or misleading all the time for all manner of reasons, and I can’t pretend to know them all, I just know that they happen, the miraculous is still just a yet to be validated claim or idea for me.

And we believe testimony that can send people to death row on the testimony of strangers regularly. I prefer to think that the common man is not really as stupid as we think he is and if only a few people were claiming miracles, that'd be something. When millions all over the world are if not more, that's something else.

Yeah, I think they’re either lying, embellishing, or mistaken somehow. I sign from god delivered to a select few is a great sign – for those select few. But once it’s done and gone, it’s no longer a sign from God but a claim from man, in world filled with claims from men.

That, and their claims run counter to my present understanding of the world. It is literally the definition of gullible to discard all other experiences and knowledge at the word of some.

And your evidence that your present understanding of the world is accurate is?....

I am not quite sure what you’re saying. A stone’s nature is mass and matter. It’s the forces acted upon its mass that put it in motion.

So is a feather's nature. It has mass and matter as well. Do they fall the same way on Earth? Nope.

Aristotle had some good points, but like everyone has been shown that he was off in some areas as we’ve progressed. It’s not a slight toward Aristotle as he did the best he could with what was available. “Dear is teacher, but dearer still the truth,” is one of my favorite Aristotle quotes.

Correct. Much of Aristotle's science is bunk. Much of it is not. That does not apply to his metaphysics.

But also, this isn't much of an argument. It would be like saying "William has got some things wrong in this thread. Therefore everything he says should be viewed with suspicion." Saying people got things wrong is not an argument to show they did not get some things right. The argument is simply about metaphysics. For that, referring to today's scientists will frankly be useless. Scientists are not philosophers in that sense.

And even so, that doesn’t mean his statement was accurate.

Of course not, but it eliminates lying and if he's persuaded he's telling the truth, it's up to us to examine the claim.

I don’t know Paul or his motives, but it is possible that he was lying, or that he was mistaken, and considering the subject, I would say that those are much more likely than his statements being accurate.

I have presented the scholarly evidence that does not doubt the appearance tradition. This is not the issue with scholars. Ludemann tried to get this to fit with Acts 2 and Pentecost, but he has since abandoned that position and is not sure last I heard what Paul is referring to. Paul is sharing a statement known to Christians all over. This would mean that no Christian ever bothered to go and consult these eyewitnesses, which flies in the face of rich and influential pagans and Gentiles becoming Christians.

And perfect conjecture. “They would have known,” “they could have checked,” all just made up defenses. But even if they were true, WE can’t verify it. So you’re suggesting that we can trust the assumption that Paul was 100% accurate, based off of the assumption that the Corinthians knew exactly who he was talking about, knew their names and actually verified it. It’s a lot to assume. It’s also not how I see people behave in church or mosques today – your experience may be different, but I really doubt it.

And people in churches today do not live in honor-shame societies where their reputation is on the line for what they believe and where claims of falsehood can be met with death. What would it be like for people walking around Jerusalem and other areas to claim they had seen Jesus risen and He was the Lord? Ask yourself what it would be like to be a Christian in a country where ISIS has a strong hand and claim that Jesus is Lord.

And again, Paul’s letter wasn’t a conversation, so it’s not like anyone could have asked right then, or clicked “reply” on their email.

Actually, it is one. Paul is replying to questions that they have at the time. In the sequel to this letter, we see no indication that any of this was disagreed with.

LOL, well, I didn’t say that everyone thought he was liar and that everyone thought he was trustworthy. So, do you disagree that some people must have accused him of lying? Do you also find it hard to believe that people that Paul taught trusted him? So some people called him a liar, which is why he was defending that accusation. And then other people, likely some in the church he was writing to, found hi trustworthy.
The world isn’t so black and white.

So it looks like the standards change when it suits you. Earlier, Paul had a reputation as a liar. Now he has a reputation as someone they would trust. Which is it? If he had a reputation as a liar, to preserve his honor he would want to change that. If he had one as trustworthy, to preserve his honor he would want to keep that trust.

Is every early historical claim about any figure always assumed true?
This is kind of silly.

I didn't say anything about it being true there. I said it's a major figure and it's early. We would love to have this for any other ancient figure. Your adding in to my claim is what is silly.

I don’t really see what that has to do with anything. And of Christianity has miracles central to it, it seems all the more problematic for it that other religions also have “verified” miracles.

I believe you're the one who had started the discussion about miracles and other religions. I was just answering.

Memory work. Yeah, that used to be more prevalent, but you must know that doesn’t mean their memories were better, that means that the things they made efforts to memorize and recite were locked through their extra efforts and practice. The elephant man didn’t date that far back, and he wasn’t called that because of his memory.
You may trust everything from oral tradition and everything written by ancient societies, but I do not share your trust in them.

No. I know no such thing. In fact, I am quite certain their memories were better and ours are usually horrible. Now if you think this is not the case, then please present scholarship on ancient societies and how they handled oral tradition.

Do you think they read Homer once and memorized the entire thing? No, the rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed. Do you think they rehearsed every detail of their lives in that way? And then not everyone made a practice of this memory work. Life was slower back then.

Of course they rehearsed, but even still, many people heard things one time and they could memorize it all. Lord has shown this in even some modern societies where oral tradition is strong. Jews especially valued memorization. A young student was to repeat a text of Scripture 400 times and then do it from memory. If he couldn't, he did it 400 more times.

I am not skeptical of Alexander the Great. There may be certain events I’m a little skeptical of, but Alexander the Great is not on the same level as Deity-man dying, coming back to life and flying away. If you can’t see that, then there may no help for you as you likely have some mental deficit or you’re just not being honest.

Our first biographies of him show up 400+ years after he lived. If 400+ years isn't a problem, the timeframe for the Gospels shouldn't be.

And the passage time does create issues in memory, as well as allow time for legend and other errors to manifest. When did Paul wrote his letters? It wasn’t the next day, spo while they were earlier than the gospels, there was still a passage of time.

Then you should discount Alex because that's centuries later and that's a passage of time. Again, your methodology would destroy all of ancient history.

And even then, 1 Cor 15 does talk about a spiritual resurrection. Sure, it can be explained away, but it’s an opinion in the written text, and within the written text, there is still room.

I have pointed to the work of Martin, Licona, Wright, and Gundry on this issue and argued repeatedly why this isn't a spiritual resurrection. There has been no response other than to repeat the claim.

But even then, I just don’t care as the claim, and that’s all we have is the claim, that a man came back from the dead and then flew away about a month later… so while that seems perfectly reasonable and plausible to you, it is entirely outside of my experiences and knowledge of the word, while lying, mistaken and insane people, wacky religions and silly superstitions are not.

Then do what stein and OBP and Adrift and others have been asking along with me. Give a better explanation of the data.

I think so, but I’m not religious about it. Your thought?

Why would you say you just think so? I don't know a historian who doubts this of the time.

And for good reason.

No. It's never hinged on them because I prefer to use earlier material with claims accepted by critical scholars.

Exactly. You look for possible natural explanations and so do I. That’s what I’m doing with all of it. I find the natural explanations much more credible, much more likely.

This ignores much of what I said unfortunately.

I’m afraid I couldn’t offer specifics when we’re speaking in general terms, but does it really take that much imagination? Money, glory, attention, pride, and likely much mush more. There were cult leaders. They were motivated by something and felt like they gained something.

Money? Sorry, but the early church was persecuted. That would mean the loss of possessions. Glory? From who? A Jew would want the glory of God most and to change their most cherished beliefs about Him would require darn good evidence. Attention? Oh they got attention alright. They got lit on fire for Nero's ceremonies. They got shamed. They got persecuted in general. Pride? Yeah. It feels good to be the leader of a sect seen as deviant and to be declared deviant yourself. Paul would definitely change his nice position with the Sanhedrin for that.

I find that we do not agree.

Could you offer a percentage of the critical scholars in that the field that believe history shows that jesus was actually crucified?

The only ones I know who deny this are mythicists.





“The fact of the death of Jesus as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable, despite hypotheses of a pseudo-death or a deception which are sometimes put forward. It need not be discussed further here.” (Gerd Ludemann. .”What Really Happened To Jesus?” Page 17.)

Christians who wanted to proclaim Jesus as messiah would not have invented the notion that he was crucified because his crucifixion created such a scandal. Indeed, the apostle Paul calls it the chief "stumbling block" for Jews (1 Cor. 1:23). Where did the tradition come from? It must have actually happened. (Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Third Edition. pages 221-222)

Jesus was executed by crucifixion, which was a common method of torture and execution used by the Romans. (Dale Martin, New Testament History and Literature. Page 181)

Or look at John Dominic Crossan:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-d..._b_847504.html

"Jesus' execution is as historically certain as any ancient event can ever be but what about all those very specific details that fill out the story? Are they fact or fiction and, if fiction, what is their purpose, intention, meaning?"

Dionysus and Osiris come to mind, though there may be others – I’ll have to check.

There are multiple ideas of what happened to Dionysus. Osiris meanwhile came back to life....in the underworld! He never returned to life again.

Still a resurrection. And jesus, according to the Gospels anyways, arose in his earthly body still – just like the boy. With Christ, his wounds were still present, and now I wonder if the decomposition of three days was still also visible, or if that was healed/repaired except for the wounds of the spear and nails…

He would have had to have been. If all that was done was the body that was crucified got up again with no healing, no one would have thought this was a new and glorified body. David Strauss said this years ago and he was no friend of Christianity.

Except you wont. You demand absolute proof for the natural explanations to your miracles while expecting that everyone believe the miracles based on nothing more than claims.

No. When you've given a natural explanation, I've shown what I consider problems with it. Those are not responded to other than pointing to biases and such supposedly that I find unconvincing. Meanwhile, every miracle account that is presented here is ipso facto dismissed.

God did it may seem simpler when it comes out of the mouth, but it’s not simpler as it leads to more questions as is counter to how we know the world operates.

Yeah. Ancient people knew the same kind of thing too. No one here is just saying "God did it." We're noting the life of a person charged with religious significance and a claim centered around their very theistic claims. The earliest eyewitnesses said it was a resurrection and we see that the other explanations are flimsy.

There’s a missing persons report. The defectives and other offices spent years looking, but cant find the body. Finally someone presents the simplest hypothesis, “I bet he flew into heaven.”
It explains why the body’s missing, why they hadn’t been able to find it and where it is now plus it solves the case. Maybe the simplest isn’t always the best… just only when it relates to the resurrection claim or other miracle claims you like?

They would need to give evidence of that claim. We have in fact given evidence. We've argued He died, was buried, was seen again bodily and this by large crowds of people, and that the evidence was enough to convince the people who had the most to lose in an honor-shame society. We have not just said "He flew into Heaven."

I don’t think you should be. It’s pretty obvious and I had thought well known.

Feel free to show it happened with Jesus.

LOL, good grief, I don’t think they actually saw a ghost. You believe in ghost stories?
“well they saw something…”

Who said it was a ghost? It was just something. Even if it's a hallucination, they are still convinced they are seeing something.

They saw something that they mistook for something else. Do you really believe in ghost stories? Do you all feel this way?

I don't believe in ghosts, but I do believe that people are certain they see dead loved ones again and you know what it means to them every time? It means the person is dead. I don't know of cases where this happens and they say "Open the tomb! My spouse is alive!"

The same in the ancient world. If you saw someone like that, they were dead. A Jew would say it was the person's angel for instance.

Yeah, don’t worry about clarifying, I guess…

I asked you to show something happened. If you have a case, make it. Don't just throw out an idea. Give evidence from the best scholarly material why that should be accepted.

Lack of education is still relevant because it speaks to an ignorance as well as a predisposoition to superstition.

Not in this case. For what reason would one superstition be traded for another, especially if this other one would put you on the outs with Rome and Judaism both and would mark you as shameful in your society as a whole?

Any recommendation?

Sure. Try Wax Tablets of the Mind, or try the Lost World of Scripture, or try Memory, Jesus, and the Synoptic Gospels.

I wonder who they sat down for evaluation… or you’re not referring to scientific testing or testable knowledge, but rather on opinions and thoughts based upon what was written… Are you talking about memory work again?

I can quote Shakespeare. My little brother could recite the entire movie of Monty Python’s Holy Grail. We all were drilled in biblical, memory work. Memory still works just as well as long as we practice just as hard.

They get this by reading the ancients and by studying similar societies today. There are still oral societies today where memorization is praised.

Vets? I guess it depends on where they served. The invasion of Iraq had plenty of dead people laying in the streets for weeks, but that did eventually cease. I couldn’t speak with any firsthand knowledge regarding any other theater.

But what’s your point? I don’t have PTSD, but who do… they’re less stable for the crazy stuff they saw, but had they seen it every day, they’d be cured… like the better functioning, smarter and better memory equipped 1st century ancients?

Do you have any indication that this is going on in the case of Jesus? Do you have any indiciation of PTSD or that these were people who claimed to see dead people every day?

Youre just not making good sense and adding additional impactions with your phrasing.

Nice assertion.

You comfortable considering the possibility without scholarly input?

In an area that is readily available to all, sure.

[Sea of red]

Please shut up. If you can't see that Dr. Johnson's argument completely destroys these Christians' pathetic defense of miracle claims, you are more dense than they are.

You've got something brown on your nose. Wipe it off. It's disgusting.

You jackass. I'm throwing you a life jacket to keep from drowning and you're going "screw you! I can save myself!". You've got this thing were you go on and on with no real point (much less insight) and whining that anybody that disagrees with you is stupid. People have pointed out where you are not arguing well (including some of atheists on this board) and you just keep pushing in. Do you really think anybody takes you seriously? Dude, nobody really does. I keep in touch with most of the atheists on this board, and all of them that have mentioned you think you're a complete dumbass; some of them wonder if you're a parody.

Fact is, you failed miserably to disable Nicks arguments during your debate with him and people started out thinking you were just inexperienced. But instead of just turning around and taking the defeat like a man, you've babbled on about nothing, and you've managed to embarrassed yourself in a way I've only seen an atheist do once in my time on this site. That's a real accomplishment buddy, because I've seen em' all.

I was on Infidels for years, on AF after that, and then I moved to this site. I've argued with these guys off and on for fifteen years - committing blasphemy many times along the way. I was doing this long before it was cool, amigo. So maybe just go and pick on someone you're own size that's dumb enough to spend more time on you.

Keep on going though. You're hot $$$$ right?

[Adrift]

Why not? People aren't mistaken about that kind of thing. I would have no problem and in fact have believed similar claims from a Muslim. You just don't go with it because it goes against your faith that miracles don't happen.



Wow. Seriously? You think someone like Moreland is stupid enough to think something like this? If he says he saw a new ear, that means he saw a new ear



I challenge you to read his book because I already provided the list of miracles from the book that was worthy of looking at.

Asks for an example of amputated body parts growing back. Says that'll get his attention. Finds one. Still couldn't have been a miracle.

Skeptics constantly ask why God doesn't do some sort of special magic to prove that he exists just for them (having already ignored the most obvious miracle that is this universe). If only God came down and walked on water, calmed storms, healed people at a touch, then they would believe. No they wouldn't. Some people will always find a reason not to believe. Anything is possible, but God.

[Gary]

There are massive problems with Johnson's position. His argument is question begging, as is Hume's, which he rejects for not being strong enough.

Please give a specific example.

[RumTumTugger]

Please shut up. If you can't see that Dr. Johnson's argument completely destroys these Christians' pathetic defense of miracle claims, you are more dense than they are.

You've got something brown on your nose. Wipe it off. It's disgusting.

I see we have a sufferer of Dunning/kruegar syndrome

[Gary]

You have dreamt up a scenario that satisfies you - but look again: where are the parallels? The father in the story I gave you died of pneumonia - and on the weekend that his son visited, he showed no symptoms of pneumonia. You have also failed to address the issue of why the atheist paid any attention to what he was told. Moreover, while your scenario might serve to satisfy some, it certainly would not satisfy the Christian - who knows that nothing of the sort happened.
The task here is to convince that Christian that nothing miraculous was involved. What can you dream up to support your contention that there can have been no miracle and that there are no gods.

No, Tabby. You have missed the entire point of our discussion: We skeptics are not trying to convince Christians that this miracle or any other miracle did not happen. We are only trying to show you that there are always alternative explanations, and, that you cannot prove as absolute fact that this particular event was a miracle or that any other odd, rare event is a miracle. You can believe it, but you can't prove it.

How do you know this story is 100% accurate? How do you know that some of the details haven't been exaggerated, embellished or even fabricated? You don't. And that is our point. It is a story that has been passed around from one person to another, and when stories are passed around details can be changed.

Once again: Skeptics cannot prove that miracles do not happen, and, believers cannot prove that they do. Each one of us must evaluate the claim and determine for ourselves if there is a more naturalistic explanation of the facts. Believers have a much lower threshold for believing that a miracle has occurred, and we skeptics believe Christians have this low threshold due to the fact that they so very much want to believe a miracle has happened.