Comment Thread for The Resurrection of Jesus - Apologiaphoenix vs Gary

[tabibito]

You are delusional, Tabby.

My comments could be taken as hypothetical - that you term me delusional because of them says more about your mind-set than it does mine.

So I'll phrase it hypothetically:
IF even one miracle can be shown beyond reasonable doubt to have occurred, every naturalistic objection to the possibility of the resurrection is destroyed.

[Gary]

My comments could be taken as hypothetical - that you term me delusional because of them says more about your mind-set than it does mine.

So I'll phrase it hypothetically:
IF even one miracle can be shown beyond reasonable doubt to have occurred, every naturalistic objection to the possibility of the resurrection is destroyed.

Why Science Can't Accept Miracles (Even If They Happen)

•The oft-stated claim that miracles are "outside of science" is true enough, but doesn't explain anything, and merely makes science look arbitrary and closed-minded in the eyes of non-scientists. So it should simply be junked.

•Too credulous belief in miracles can be a lazy way of dealing with any problem or explaining away any inconvenient fact. Can't see how evolution works? Must be miracles instead. Just imagine if accountants accepted miracles as explanations for discrepancies, or the police accepted miracles as explanations for how fingerprints got on things. Even if miracles occur, they could only be accepted as such after the most rigorous scrutiny. Anything else is an open invitation to intellectual anarchy.

•One principal reason science rejects miracles is that the vast majority of miracle claims have proven untrustworthy and the rest are indeterminate. Religious believers need to clean up their own house before accusing science of being unreasonable. Don't tell me that you personally are reliable. Get the whole house clean. That will pretty much keep you busy for the rest of your life, in case you're looking for a purpose in life.

•A well known fallacy in UFO studies applies here, too. UFO enthusiasts agree that fakes and mistaken observations are widespread but there is always a small "residue" of cases that can't be dismissed. But we live in a universe of patterns. If most UFO sightings are fakes or erroneous, we are justified in assuming the unexplained cases are too. The burden of proof is on the believer to show that his case is genuine. Exactly the same reasoning applies to miracles.

•Even if an unquestionably anomalous event occurred, not explainable in terms of any known laws of nature, we cannot rule out the possibility that the event is due to unknown laws of nature. Hume was right; no amount of evidence for a miracle can rule out the possibility of some hidden flaw in the evidence or unknown natural explanation. However, Hume made the unwarranted leap from "miracles can't be proven" to "miracles don't happen."

•A second principal reason science rejects miracles, therefore, is that writing something off as a miracle forecloses any possibility of explaining it in other terms.

•Even if, through some unknown means, we establish that an event is genuinely miraculous, we are left with an isolated anomaly that tells us nothing. Just because a miracle is reported by a member of some sect doesn't mean the event supports that sect's interpretations.

•The fact something is possible doesn't mean we have to regard it as likely. I may get hit by a meteorite, but I don't spend time dwelling on it. A miracle may influence the course of a disease, but most religious believers will still go to the doctor. (The ones who have the courage of their convictions and reject all medical intervention usually die.)

Source: https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/WhyNoMiracles.HTM

[Gary]

My comments could be taken as hypothetical - that you term me delusional because of them says more about your mind-set than it does mine.

So I'll phrase it hypothetically:
IF even one miracle can be shown beyond reasonable doubt to have occurred, every naturalistic objection to the possibility of the resurrection is destroyed.

I have never claimed that the Resurrection of Jesus is impossible, only that it is very, very, very, very improbable, and, that there are other much more probable explanations for the very limited evidence that exists for this claim. Big difference.

Here is a good explanation of what I mean:


A Thought Experiment

Consider a banker, a devout Baptist and complete believer in miracles. During an audit he finds $100,000 missing. All the employees' books balance. Is he going to accept that the $100,000 just miraculously disappeared? Is he going to expect the police and banking regulators to accept it? Not very likely. Even if all attempts to find fraud fail, he's going to assume that somehow, somebody pulled off a theft.

Now let's assume there is a witness. A long-time, highly trusted employee who is a member of the same church as the banker, and whose character is above reproach. He tells the banker he was in the vault and saw the money simply vanish before his eyes. The banker is certainly not going to expect the police to believe this story or blame them because they suspect theft. If all attempts to crack the employee's story or find the money fail, we have a lot of options to consider. Maybe the employee blacked out or hallucinated momentarily, or had a small seizure. Maybe someone hypnotized, drugged, or distracted the employee momentarily and grabbed the money.

Suppose the vault has a video camera that shows the money sitting in plain view one frame and gone the next. Our hapless employee is in the clear. Or is he? Could someone have interrupted the video feed for a second or two and simultaneously have paused the recorder? Could someone have doctored the security tape? Could someone have fed a false signal to the camera system? Or, a la the old Mission Impossible TV series, used trick photography to fool the security system?

I can't imagine anyone in banking, no matter how devoutly religious, not exploring every one of these avenues before concluding a miracle had happened. Even after accepting a miracle as the only logical explanation, I think this banker would always be prepared for the possibility of a natural explanation. The methodology here is pretty close to that of David Hume 250 years ago, who held that no evidence would be sufficiently ironclad to demonstrate a miracle. The banker wouldn't go that far, but he'd explore every other avenue first.

So why do so many people have a problem when science rejects miracles? Why would people expect the police to dismiss claims that money miraculously vanished from a bank and angrily label scientists "skeptics" for drawing the same conclusion about a tumor gone from a cancer patient? Partly it's a prejudice that scientific theories, unlike $100,000 missing from a bank and possible prison terms for the bank employees, are really not of any practical importance, so what's the harm? Actually, scientific theories are a lot more important than $100,000 missing from a bank vault - in literal money terms, let alone the whole issue of truth. ...It makes a big difference in money and lives whether we conclude someone's recovery in a $100 million clinical trial was due to the drug, the placebo effect, or a miracle.

Science rejects miracles for exactly the same reasons that accountants do when conducting audits, the police do when conducting forensics, and mechanics do when trouble-shooting cars.

The idea that we always seek natural explanations for phenomena is called methodological naturalism. It must be sharply distinguished from philosophical naturalism, which is the a priori assumption that only natural phenomena exist. It is perfectly possible to be a religious believer and still practice methodological naturalism.

From the discussion above we can draw two important conclusions about accepting miracles as explanations.

1.All theologies that accept miracles admit they are exceptional events. That's what "miracle" means. So if there's a possible natural explanation of an phenomenon, we go with the natural explanation.
2.If you stand to gain from explaining something away as a miracle, you don't get to play.

◦If you're from Enron, you don't get to claim your documents disappeared miraculously. It only happened if the FBI and the SEC said it did.
◦If you're a defendant, you don't get to claim your fingerprints miraculously appeared at a crime scene. Only the DA is allowed to say that.
◦If you're a bookkeeper, you don't get to say money miraculously disappeared from your company. If the auditors conclude that's what happened, all right, but not you.
◦If your religion needs to postulate a miracle to keep some doctrine from going south, guess what? You don't get to do that. Only someone with nothing to gain from claiming a miracle can say that.

Source: https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/WhyNoMiracles.HTM

[tabibito]

Why Science Can't Accept Miracles (Even If They Happen)

•The oft-stated claim that miracles are "outside of science" is true enough, but doesn't explain anything, and merely makes science look arbitrary and closed-minded in the eyes of non-scientists. So it should simply be junked.

Science is supposed to be dispassionate, ready to discard any theory in the face of contradictory evidence. This isn't science - it's dogma.

•Too credulous belief in miracles can be a lazy way of dealing with any problem or explaining away any inconvenient fact. Can't see how evolution works? Must be miracles instead. Just imagine if accountants accepted miracles as explanations for discrepancies, or the police accepted miracles as explanations for how fingerprints got on things. Even if miracles occur, they could only be accepted as such after the most rigorous scrutiny. Anything else is an open invitation to intellectual anarchy.

That something is inexplicable is not beyond-reasonable-doubt evidence. And the when the Church of Rome investigates reports of miracles, anything that hints at doubt is rejected - if Rome accepts that a miracle occurred, the supernatural is the only beyond-reasonable-doubt explanation: there is a very good chance that many events involving the supernatural were rejected.

•One principal reason science rejects miracles is that the vast majority of miracle claims have proven untrustworthy and the rest are indeterminate. Religious believers need to clean up their own house before accusing science of being unreasonable. Don't tell me that you personally are reliable. Get the whole house clean. That will pretty much keep you busy for the rest of your life, in case you're looking for a purpose in life.

Science neither rejects nor accepts a matter as determined until such time as an adequate determination can be made. "Indeterminate" results tell a scientist that no determination can be made.

•A well known fallacy in UFO studies applies here, too. UFO enthusiasts agree that fakes and mistaken observations are widespread but there is always a small "residue" of cases that can't be dismissed. But we live in a universe of patterns. If most UFO sightings are fakes or erroneous, we are justified in assuming the unexplained cases are too. The burden of proof is on the believer to show that his case is genuine. Exactly the same reasoning applies to miracles.

No scientist makes a determination while contrary data can't be dismissed.

•Even if an unquestionably anomalous event occurred, not explainable in terms of any known laws of nature, we cannot rule out the possibility that the event is due to unknown laws of nature. Hume was right; no amount of evidence for a miracle can rule out the possibility of some hidden flaw in the evidence or unknown natural explanation. However, Hume made the unwarranted leap from "miracles can't be proven" to "miracles don't happen."

Miracles can be proven to the stage of "beyond reasonable doubt". Much of our experience cannot be proven beyond all possible doubt.

•A second principal reason science rejects miracles, therefore, is that writing something off as a miracle forecloses any possibility of explaining it in other terms.

Piffle. Science has accepted things as theory quite frequently and abandoned them when contrary data demonstrates them to be invalid.

•Even if, through some unknown means, we establish that an event is genuinely miraculous, we are left with an isolated anomaly that tells us nothing. Just because a miracle is reported by a member of some sect doesn't mean the event supports that sect's interpretations.

Quite so.

•The fact something is possible doesn't mean we have to regard it as likely.

Leaving aside the self evident fact that a miracle is by definition unlikely - once a miracle has been shown beyond reasonable doubt to have occurred, evidence that otherwise may seem improbable is shown to need more careful investigation.

One look at this list makes it clear that no scientist worthy of the name had any part in its preparation.

[Mikeenders]

"In short - some version of the supernatural is inescapable to the thinking person."

No. Ask the overwhelming majority of scientists: There is no need to assume the supernatural is the cause of anything. There is no need to jump to the conclusion that a "ghost god done it" just because we do not yet know the answer to all of life's mysteries. We simply say, "We don't know the answer...yet" and leave it at that.

There comes a point when not pointing out stupidity is just a form of lying so I will not lie to you - You are not a thinking person so of course everything flew over your head. I pretty much predicted it would did i not? I even listed a few of the supernatural concepts that scientist DO APPEAL to and still common sense eluded you. any appeal to a multiverse is an appeal to a reality outside of this universe and is such super (beyond) this universe (nature). MANY SCIENTISTS APPEAL TO THE MULTIVERSE your poor uneducated soul . Scientist such as Krauss do appeal to everything coming out of nothing - again like I said a supernatural appeal no matter how he or you spins it. the idea of nothing creating everything is not an appeal to materialism because nothing is not a material.

Time and time again in human history we have discovered that what we thought are supernatural events are simply natural acts of nature.

You've fallen on your head and swallowed nonsense. Until you know where the universe itself comes from you have no ultimate explanation for anything - only transient descriptions of what is presently taking place or what took place yesterday. All we know is that the universe follows certain laws and we have no explanation of the cause of any such law. we do not know that ANY event has a naturalistic ultimate explanation. We can ascertain how things work but we have no ultimate explanation for anything no matter how much you beg and the point goes over your head. Even your nonsense phrase "simply natural acts of nature" is childish redundancy thinking. Its not even a matter of not knowing now. THINK!!. Everything cannot have a natural explanation no more than every domino in a domino train can be hit over by another domino. Even if you invoke an infinite past domino chain you are still left with everything not having a natural explanation in that domino chain in reference to dominos being hit over.

This is where Scientism turns the mind of people like you into mush with the horse nonsense that "We don't know yet" but the scientific process is capable of answering all questions in the great by and by (a mythical fairy tale within itself). Rather than no scientist agreeing with me almost ALL agree that we have not a single explanation for how any law comes to be. Meanwhile you invent poppycock about history. Every time lightning fell people didn't say "oh thats a supernatural act." they recognized that certain laws and order caused these things and ascribed them to an order from God not Zeus throwing lightening bolts. There still remains no alternate explanation for laws proven by science - again all science has done so far is describe how things work it has not found an ultimate explanation for ANYTHING in the universe.

So yes - again - the non materialistic supernatural reality is obvious and inescapable for the THINKING PERSON, I made effort to indicate that you need not apply yourself on that basis. In essence the only real distinction between a thinking person who is a theist and a thinking person that is a non theist is the matter of whether the causeless realities (which have no naturalistic explanations but exist as I am that I am or is because it is) is whether or not ultimate reality includes intelligence or not. Besides that on ultimate origins the atheist if he is a thinker will find himself with little other difference on the that issue. He will invoke an "is because it is" and the theist invokes an "I am because I am"

Babble on with some inanity proving that the whole thing went a mile over your head. At this point its all we expect anyway.

[tabibito]

I have never claimed that the Resurrection of Jesus is impossible, only that it is very, very, very, very improbable, and, that there are other much more probable explanations for the very limited evidence that exists for this claim. Big difference.

The level of improbability is significantly reduced when any miracle can be shown to have occurred beyond reasonable doubt.

I can't imagine anyone in banking, no matter how devoutly religious, not exploring every one of these avenues before concluding a miracle had happened. Even after accepting a miracle as the only logical explanation, I think this banker would always be prepared for the possibility of a natural explanation. The methodology here is pretty close to that of David Hume 250 years ago, who held that no evidence would be sufficiently ironclad to demonstrate a miracle. The banker wouldn't go that far, but he'd explore every other avenue first.

Oddly, this is the same methodology that Rome has adopted. Evidence sufficient to make any doubt thoroughly unreasonable needs to be the yardstick before declaring that a miracle has occurred. However - once it is established beyond reasonable doubt that a miracle has occurred, the bar for "thoroughly unreasonable doubt" isn't quite as high as it otherwise would have been.

So why do so many people have a problem when science rejects miracles?

It doesn't. The most that science will declare is an absence of beyond-reasonable-doubt evidence for miracles. Science as such does not concern itself with the supernatural - it investigates natural phenomena.

Science rejects miracles for exactly the same reasons that accountants do when conducting audits, the police do when conducting forensics, and mechanics do when trouble-shooting cars.

The idea that we always seek natural explanations for phenomena is called methodological naturalism.

Anyone thoroughly investigating claims of the occurrence of a miracle adopts the same approach.

It must be sharply distinguished from philosophical naturalism, which is the a priori assumption that only natural phenomena exist. It is perfectly possible to be a religious believer and still practice methodological naturalism

.

Who'd have thought?

From the discussion above we can draw two important conclusions about accepting miracles as explanations.

1.All theologies that accept miracles admit they are exceptional events. That's what "miracle" means. So if there's a possible natural explanation of an phenomenon, we go with the natural explanation.

You complain quite bitterly when this kind of approach is adopted by apologists - and rightly so.

2.If you stand to gain from explaining something away as a miracle, you don't get to play.

A person who has witnessed a miracle has something to gain by declaring it, so he doesn't get to play. Neat - you eliminate any opportunity you might have to ascertain whether a supernatural event occurred.

◦If you're from Enron, you don't get to claim your documents disappeared miraculously. It only happened if the FBI and the SEC said it did.
◦If you're a defendant, you don't get to claim your fingerprints miraculously appeared at a crime scene. Only the DA is allowed to say that.
◦If you're a bookkeeper, you don't get to say money miraculously disappeared from your company. If the auditors conclude that's what happened, all right, but not you.
◦If your religion needs to postulate a miracle to keep some doctrine from going south, guess what? You don't get to do that. Only someone with nothing to gain from claiming a miracle can say that.

And if you're a fundy atheist you don't get to decide, because you have as much to gain as the person who is a member of any other group with a vested interest. The only person qualified to conduct an investigation, or to make a determination, is an agnostic. And if he found the claims validated, he would no longer be without vested interests, and therefore would no longer be entitled to a say. The only person who gets locked out of making a reasoned decision is yourself.

[Mikeenders]

Science is supposed to be dispassionate, ready to discard any theory in the face of contradictory evidence. This isn't science - it's dogma.

Not only that but the whole thing is fallacious but common among skeptics. "Science states" "Science does not accept" "science rejects" are all silly personifications of science. People reject conclusions. People speak. Science is just a tool that forbids no conclusion. This is a just a not so subtle way for atheists to stack the deck and hijack science. Not only is science compatible with supernatrual conclusions MOST SCIENCES WERE FOUNDED with a supernatural/theistic understanding to begin with. Thats just a historical fact.

[tabibito]

Not only that but the whole thing is fallacious but common among skeptics. "Science states" "Science does not accept" "science rejects" are all silly personifications of science. People reject conclusions. People speak. Science is just a tool that forbids no conclusion. This is a just a not so subtle way for atheists to stack the deck and hijack science. Not only is science compatible with supernatrual conclusions MOST SCIENCES WERE FOUNDED with a supernatural/theistic understanding to begin with. Thats just a historical fact.

I'm comfortable with anthropomorphic personification.

[Darth Ovious]

Your fundamentalist, literalist world view is a minority. Even a large segment of Christianity has abandoned the belief in a bodily resurrection and a virgin birth. Your positions are considered by most educated people to be silly nonsense.

Except science has proved that a woman can be impregnated without the use of sex and also there is a section of science dedicated to reversing cell death in order to repair cells to bring people back to life. However we all know that this is silly nonsense.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...urs-death.html

[Gary]

Science is supposed to be dispassionate, ready to discard any theory in the face of contradictory evidence. This isn't science - it's dogma.

That something is inexplicable is not beyond-reasonable-doubt evidence. And the when the Church of Rome investigates reports of miracles, anything that hints at doubt is rejected - if Rome accepts that a miracle occurred, the supernatural is the only beyond-reasonable-doubt explanation: there is a very good chance that many events involving the supernatural were rejected.

Science neither rejects nor accepts a matter as determined until such time as an adequate determination can be made. "Indeterminate" results tell a scientist that no determination can be made.

No scientist makes a determination while contrary data can't be dismissed.

Miracles can be proven to the stage of "beyond reasonable doubt". Much of our experience cannot be proven beyond all possible doubt.

Piffle. Science has accepted things as theory quite frequently and abandoned them when contrary data demonstrates them to be invalid.

Quite so.

Leaving aside the self evident fact that a miracle is by definition unlikely - once a miracle has been shown beyond reasonable doubt to have occurred, evidence that otherwise may seem improbable is shown to need more careful investigation.

One look at this list makes it clear that no scientist worthy of the name had any part in its preparation.

But if we know that very rare, natural phenomenon do occur, how would you know a miracle has occurred and not one of these rare, but natural events? The truth of the matter is that neither I nor science can prove that miracles do NOT occur (which is exactly what the author of the above article says, and what I have been saying all along), but neither can theists prove that a miracle DID happen. Any event could be a miracle or it could be a very rare, natural phenomenon. My position is that since miracles cannot be proven, the events that theists claim to be miracles are therefore NOT proof of the divine, only proof that very bizarre phenomenon occur in our world. Could an invisible ghost god be the cause of these very bizarre phenomenon? Yes. But so too the cause could be a very natural explanation.

Miracles claims are NOT proof of the divine!

[Gary]

There comes a point when not pointing out stupidity is just a form of lying so I will not lie to you - You are not a thinking person so of course everything flew over your head. I pretty much predicted it would did i not? I even listed a few of the supernatural concepts that scientist DO APPEAL to and still common sense eluded you. any appeal to a multiverse is an appeal to a reality outside of this universe and is such super (beyond) this universe (nature). MANY SCIENTISTS APPEAL TO THE MULTIVERSE your poor uneducated soul . Scientist such as Krauss do appeal to everything coming out of nothing - again like I said a supernatural appeal no matter how he or you spins it. the idea of nothing creating everything is not an appeal to materialism because nothing is not a material.



You've fallen on your head and swallowed nonsense. Until you know where the universe itself comes from you have no ultimate explanation for anything - only transient descriptions of what is presently taking place or what took place yesterday. All we know is that the universe follows certain laws and we have no explanation of the cause of any such law. we do not know that ANY event has a naturalistic ultimate explanation. We can ascertain how things work but we have no ultimate explanation for anything no matter how much you beg and the point goes over your head. Even your nonsense phrase "simply natural acts of nature" is childish redundancy thinking. Its not even a matter of not knowing now. THINK!!. Everything cannot have a natural explanation no more than every domino in a domino train can be hit over by another domino. Even if you invoke an infinite past domino chain you are still left with everything not having a natural explanation in that domino chain in reference to dominos being hit over.

This is where Scientism turns the mind of people like you into mush with the horse nonsense that "We don't know yet" but the scientific process is capable of answering all questions in the great by and by (a mythical fairy tale within itself). Rather than no scientist agreeing with me almost ALL agree that we have not a single explanation for how any law comes to be. Meanwhile you invent poppycock about history. Every time lightning fell people didn't say "oh thats a supernatural act." they recognized that certain laws and order caused these things and ascribed them to an order from God not Zeus throwing lightening bolts. There still remains no alternate explanation for laws proven by science - again all science has done so far is describe how things work it has not found an ultimate explanation for ANYTHING in the universe.

So yes - again - the non materialistic supernatural reality is obvious and inescapable for the THINKING PERSON, I made effort to indicate that you need not apply yourself on that basis. In essence the only real distinction between a thinking person who is a theist and a thinking person that is a non theist is the matter of whether the causeless realities (which have no naturalistic explanations but exist as I am that I am or is because it is) is whether or not ultimate reality includes intelligence or not. Besides that on ultimate origins the atheist if he is a thinker will find himself with little other difference on the that issue. He will invoke an "is because it is" and the theist invokes an "I am because I am"

Babble on with some inanity proving that the whole thing went a mile over your head. At this point its all we expect anyway.

Are you the "Mike" who leaves comments on Nate's blog "Finding Truth"?

[Gary]

Except science has proved that a woman can be impregnated without the use of sex and also there is a section of science dedicated to reversing cell death in order to repair cells to bring people back to life. However we all know that this is silly nonsense.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...urs-death.html

Do you believe that a woman can be impregnated without human sperm? Do you believe that a woman can be impregnated by an invisible ghost? If yes, do you have any research to support this claim?

[Christianbookworm]

Talk about circular reasoning. Saying that miracles are impossible because miracles are impossible doesn't prove anything.

[tabibito]

I'll outline a ridiculously over-the-top scenario. In doing so I am running the risk of having you misunderstand the intent, and giving you the opportunity to misrepresent what I am saying. Nonetheless, I will outline the scenario anyway.

Asan is a casual observer with prior satisfactory evidence that miracles occur.
Bsan is also a casual observer, but with no prior satisfactory evidence that miracles occur.

They see someone raise his hand and point at another person.

Consider three possible courses that events may take.

The person who raised his finger says:

1/ "People like you should be struck by lightning." The person he is pointing at is immediately struck by lightning.

2/ "summon lightning." The person he is pointing at is immediately struck by lightning.

3/ "summon lightning." The speaker is hit by lightning and suffers no harm, and he shifts his hand slightly. The lightning travels through to his outstretched hand from whence it streams out to strike the ground at the other person's feet.

option 1/ would leave neither Asan nor Bsan with reason to believe the strike was anything but coincidence.
option 2/ would give Asan justification for declaring witness to a miracle, but not Bsan - Bsan would only have strong cause to believe the possibility of miracles.
option 3/ would give both justification for declaring witness to a miracle.

[Mikeenders]

Are you the "Mike" who leaves comments on Nate's blog "Finding Truth"?

hopeless trolling. He now wishes to switch to conversing about some guy named Nate.....sigh.