Response #1:That's not our problem. Just like the little girl who says "how do you define fairies?" If she believes in them, and wants us to believe also, it's her burden to provide coherent definition. But have fun defining "miracle" in a way that an atheist cannot correctly criticize as question-begging. Act of God? Phenomena for which no possible naturalistic explanation will work? Phenomena for which no known naturalistic explanation will work?
“How do you define ‘miracles’?
A miracle is commonly described as an event ‘that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws.’But since science is an on-going enterprise, what we thought naturally inexplicable today could very well be naturally explicable tomorrow. Now, you can be "reasonable" to believe a miracle-report, but that doesn't render the skeptic unreasonable. Reasonableness takes far more into account than simply whether a belief is "accurate".
Given that definition, most cosmologists (even atheist cosmologists) already believe in at least one miracle. The ‘Standard Cosmological Model’ for the origin of the universe (the theory accepted by most astrophysicists) is ‘Big Bang Cosmology.’Then count me out. The Big Bang is garbage scientifically, as admitted by several creationist organizations (ICR, AiG, etc) who also say the BB is unbliblical to boot.
This model describes a universe that came into existence from nothing.No, the BB says the universe exploded from a singularity. Your additional theory that the singularity popped into existence from nothing, cannot be defended. All you can do is talk like an advocate of the Copenhagen school of quantum mechanics, and then pray your readers don't discover that some schools of QM are deterministic.
If all space, time and matter began at a point in the distant past and came into existence from nothing, the cause of the universe must itself be non-spatial, non-temporal and non-material.Logically, that's correct. But there is no such thing as "non-spatial". Yup, I'm a physicalist.
That means the cause of the universe ‘is not explicable by natural or scientific laws.’ Since the cause and the origin of the universe already falls into the definition of ‘miraculous,’ why would anyone doubt the veracity of other miracles?” Since the cause and the origin of the universe already falls into the definition of ‘miraculous,’ why would anyone doubt the veracity of other miracles?Easy, because the people who reported those miracles are either too unknown to enable a credibility assessment, or what they say wasn't corroborated by others, or their reports are given an unknown number of years after the alleged event, or they have credibility problems justifying skepticism toward their testimony.
Response #2:That's because words like "supernatural" and "non-physical" and "immaterial", when used the way Christian apologists intend, constitute incoherent concepts.
“Some people reject the existence of miracles based on their belief that the only forces governing the universe are ‘natural,’ ‘physical,’ or ‘material.’
As far as natural law, we might be wrong, but the point is we are not "unreasonable" to judge reports of phenomena based on our prior experience. Only fools would pretend to be totally objective in evaluating a report no matter how far it departed from their experience of reality. In that case, I'd be so busy investigating non-Christian miracle claims, I'd never have any time to look into Christian miracle claims. You wouldn't want that, would you? Well then gee, exactly how comprehensive must one's investigation into "miracles" be? Not longer than it takes to respond to your internet posts? Not longer than it takes to read "God's Crime Scene"?
And how would you feel if you found out that, after i accepted your challenge to check out miracle claims, I went to the local bookstore to get your latest book and I died in a car crash along the way and went to hell? Wouldn't you feel guilty for necessarily implying (by telling me to "check it out" something that takes time), that I could safely delay the day of my repentance? Maybe you need to revise your apologetics invitations in accordance with Ezekiel 3:18.
For example, if you reject the existence of anything ‘extra’ or ‘supra’ natural, you’re not likely to believe in miracles that violate natural laws.Correct. The notion that there's an "outside the universe" is incoherent and that's enough to justify rejection of the concept.
But, we have a shared knowledge of non-physical and non-material realities: we have a daily, common experience of consciousness and mind,False, consciousness and mind are physical, this is more reasonable than a theory saying they come into the head from another dimension. My theory violates Occam's Razor less, so its going to remain reasonable even if not infallible.
and we also experience free agency.Your Calvinist brothers will now accuse you of heresy. But either way, freewill doesn't make sense. Free from what? The laws of physics? No, the chemicals in our brain determine our moods and feelings, which obviously affect our choices. The fact is that we automatically assume, from the lack of scientific evidence otherwise, that we are "free to chose". But the sense of freedom is illusory. The dog probably feels free to do what he wants too, but you'd probably say dogs don't have freewill because they don't have the "image of God".
Strict atheists (like neuroscientist and philosopher, Sam Harris) reject the existence of mind and free agency because they know they cannot be explained physically or materially.No, he doesn't reject "mind", he rejects the mind/body dualism as understood by Christians. He simply thinks the mind is nothing more but the brain in action.
If our common experience reveals the existence of non-material and non-physical realities that cannot be governed by ‘natural,’ physical law, why would anyone reject the reasonable existence of other realities that aren’t governed by ‘natural,’ physical law?”We wouldn't, but whether the alleged existence of those other realities is "reasonable" is precisely where we will continue to disagree. But either way, you haven't shown that anything real can possibly be "non-physical", so your analogy places no intellectual constraint on me.
Response #3:He was correct. If belief in actual 'truth' is the goal, then we should not believe reports of what occurs rarely unless the evidence for any such event passes more strict tests of authentication than the evidence we have for common events. Extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence. So I don't believe my buddy when he says he got a hole in one on the golf course unless I'm satisfied this claim passes more strict tests of authentication than we normally require for common claims.
“A famous skeptic named David Hume argued against the existence of miracles because he believed that evidence for what occurs repeatedly (or regularly) ought to outweigh evidence for what occurs rarely.
Since miracles occur so infrequently and are rare in our uniform experience, Hume argued that we shouldn’t believe in them....unless the evidence for them outweighed the evidence we have for normal events.
But miracles are – by definition – rare events that violate natural laws and common experience.No, a miracle by definition is an act of God, so unless you wish to piss off your Calvinist brothers and assert that god hardly ever acts...
If we are willing to accept the evidence for rare events (like the evidence offered by ‘Big Bang’ Cosmologists), and our most common, uniform experience is non-material and non-physical (our experience of consciousness and free agency), why would anyone reject the existence of a miracle on the basis of its rarity?”This reasoning doesn't place an intellectual obligation on me, as I deny the BB, I deny that humans have free agency, and deny that any real thing that is "real" can be "non-physical", which linguistically seems to have a lot in common with "non-cheesecake".
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