Update: apparently, Steve Hays cannot assert that my skepticism of modern-day miracles is the result of me being stupid or spiritually dead, because
other Christians have chided Steve for his ridiculous position that one cannot deny the authenticity of Benny Hinn's miracles without endangering the authenticity of biblical miracles.
In 2014, I posted the following argument to Steve Hays at Triablogue: In short, atheists have rational justification to dismiss all modern-day miracle claims, in most cases, because the only kind of investigation that would count as objective, is the kind that was comprehensive, and the typical atheist, with a family and a job, simply does not have enough time, money or resources to go checking out, in a thorough way, modern-day miracle claims. I also had something to say about why miracle claims consistently fail the acid test of regrowth of missing limbs. Suspiciously, the "miracles" alleged today are always things that are more prone to fraud and falsification, medical error, etc. If God does miracles today to convince people of the gospel, we have to wonder why he scratched healing of missing limbs off of his magic to-do list.
Hays' response did what my argument was designed to do: force the apologist to take an irrational position.
This is my reply to Hays' criticism of my argument.
The critic’s basic
argument is that, assuming god is the omni-everything that the bible says he
is, the lack of medically verified regrowing of limbs among those who claim
documentation of miracle-healing, is suspicious, given that the regrowing of a
missing limb, clearly beyond the abilities of current science, would be the
acid test of the miracle-healing claim.
Since God never promised to heal amputees, there's nothing
suspicious about God not doing what God never said he was going to do.
Not so fast: assuming historical reliability of the gospels, you don't know that the restoration of missing limbs
wasn't a part of Jesus' healing ministry. Jesus did the very similar miracle of healing a withered hand:
10 After looking around at them all, He said to him, "Stretch out your hand!" And he did so; and his hand was restored. (Lk. 6:10 NAU)
Magical creation of new tissues must also have occurred in the healing of the blind man in John 9:7. Indeed, healing of any genuine bodily disease would require either creation of new material, or fixing the existing material, so if Jesus could heal withered hands and blind eyes, it really isn't asking him to do anything harder or different to restore missing limbs. Furthermore, Jesus allegedly promised that his followers would do even greater miracles:
12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. (Jn. 14:12 NAU)
The issue is not what God promised, but what the rational consequences are that flow from the biblical data, assuming your inerrantist view as true for the sake of argument. If God heals withered hands, why doesn't he heal missing limbs? What do you normally conclude when a claim can pass weak tests (my doctor said he was astonished that my broken back healed itself while I prayed) but cannot pass the acid test (I can't remember the name of the doctor or where I was treated)?
I said:
I think my fellow
skeptics are unwise to pursue this particular argument, since, as proven from
the article at Triablogue, this particular criticism emboldens apologists to
lure us into areas of pure speculation.
Hays:
So even though he admits that it's unwise for atheists to
pursue this particular argument, he persists in doing so anyway. Go figure.
Yeah, and the bible within the space of two verses gives reasons to both answer and
not answer a fool, Proverbs 26:4-5, but doesn't specify the exact conditions by which you can know which advice is most proper. If you can see that the author was speaking in general terms, why can't you see that was the case here, so that while the amputee argument usually does lead to useless speculation, there are times when pursuing the argument would be valid? I'm sorry for assuming you were a cut above the other apologists and that we could debate the subject without going off into pure speculation. My bad.
I said: I argue in another
post that the minimum expenses and and time lost from work/family necessary for
skeptics to track down important evidence and otherwise do a seriously thorough
investigation on miracle claims, make it absurd for apologists to saddle
skeptics with the obligation to “go check out the claims”. If the apologists at Triabolgue [sic] are
serious, they would obligate a skeptic living in America to expend whatever
resources necessary to get to southern Africa (‘Gahna), properly interview all
witnesses and get back home. Absolute
nonsense.
Hays: i) A classic strawman. I never suggested that evaluating a
miracle claim requires you to reinterview the witnesses.
Then your standard of evidence is unacceptably low. When claims are such that they can change lives for the better or worse, it is important to make sure they really are true, to guard against what often happens, somebody being drawn away into believing false claims that engender false hope. The whole point is that you are put in a bind: If we atheists are obligated to go "check out" miracle claims, it is only fair that the type of "checking out" we are responsible to do, be the comprehensive kind since fraudulent miracle claims abound. But if you agree to that reasonable prospect, then you have to say we aren't obligated anymore, since it is not rational to expect the average atheist with family and job to come up with the money necessary to go chasing down miracle claims. But if you try to avoid the financial problem and say we are obligated to "check out" the claims only in the lesser sense of merely gathering testimonial evidence and evaluating it at a distance, then you end up doing what you did here: setting forth an absurdly low standard of evidence and pretending we can gain reasonable certainty about the truth or falsity of a miracle claim by simply evaluating testimonial evidence. In short, the only way you can intellectually obligate a skeptic to "check out" miracle claims is if you insist they perform their analysis in the comprehensive way that the average person simply doesn't have the time, money or resources to perform, thus defeating your entire purpose in challenging them to so investigate.
If, however, an
atheist is so irrational that he refuses to believe testimonial evidence unless
he personally conducts the interview, then that's his self-imposed burden of
proof.
On the contrary, that higher standard of evidence was suggested by Keener:
"Rumor tends to shape and exaggerate stories, so it is desireable to come as close to eyewitness accounts or other first-hand sources as possible. The nature of narrativisation and testimony is such that successful cures are remembered disproportionately."
You have not demonstrated that requiring personal interview is irrational or unreasonable, especially in light of the fact that today, "testimonial" evidence is easily falsified, espescially in today's world where the miracle claim usually gts advertised through the internet and other conduits. Falsified testimony is exposed in Courts every day. False affidavits, doctor error in the medical reports, photoshopping, claimant simply lying to get attention/money (viz. the Lutz's and their Amityville horror hoax). The irrational person is the idiot apologist who thinks documentary evidence short of personal interviews is sufficient to tell whether the claimed miracle is true or false. And unless you've been living under a rock, atheists are rational to require this higher standard of evidence be met given that false and unverified miracle claims are far more popular than whatever number you think are legitimate.
ii) I'd add that his complaint is very quaint, as if he were
living in the 18C, and had to interview witnesses face-to-face. Has he never
heard of email or telephones?
So apparently you think I can learn enough about a miracle claim solely through email that it will intellectually obligate me to change my worldview? You think talking with somebody solely over a phone should provide evidence of sufficient quantity/quality that I can reasonably tell whether they are lying, mistaken, or honest?
Steve, have you ever met anybody who changed their worldview solely because of evidence they obtained from email or phone? No, you haven't. Like I said, the fact that you disagree with my position here means you are forced to take an unreasonable position yourself...such as arguing that a phone call should suffice to convince me that a miracle claim is true (!?)
You may conveniently qualify that you meant email or phone in conjunction with other evidence.
Ok, what other evidence? Doctor's report? What if the miracle claim is on the internet and I downloaded the medical report from the website? Should I or shouldn't I attempt to authenticate the report? Or do you just insist that if it's from the internet, it's true?
In fact, even before the advent of airplanes,
people wrote letters to solicit information.
But since a) letters can easily be falsified, b) letters can exaggerate the truth, it only makes good sense to attempt authentication of a letter where possible, and to responsibly back off the dogmatism if the miracle-claim depends primarily on a writing whose author is no longer available to authenticate it. I think this is the part where you start telling the world why all lawyers and judges are just stupid thugs for believing that the need to authenticate testamentary materials helps the jury to know the actual truth.
Indeed, if you read about a modern-day miracle claim on the internet, do you perform any more substantive investigation than simply collecting the known written and oral testimonies?
I said: No Christian is
going to travel half way around the world to investigate a claim that the
ultimate miracle debunking has happened, so they have no business expecting
skeptics to go halfway around the world in effort to properly conduct an
independent investigation of a miracle-claim.
Hays: There's no parity between these two positions. Atheism
posits a universal negative with respect to miracles. An atheist must reject
every single reported miracle. By contrast, it only takes one miracle to
falsify atheism. Therefore, the atheist and the Christian apologist do not
share the same burden of proof. Not even close.
No, its very close; Christians must reject every claimed argument for naturalism, since it only takes one proper evidence of naturalism to falsify Christian miracle claims. Therefore, the atheist and Christian apologist share the same burden of proof. I cannot scour every square inch of the universe to verify that God isn't there, and you can't scour every square inch of the universe to verify that no successful arguments for naturalism exist. You'd be stupid to attempt such a feat.
I said: Would it be too
much to ask apologists to do something more with their claim of miracle
healing, than simply provide references?
i) Actually, that would be asking too much.
Then why do your miracle defenses involve more than simply citing references to claimed miracles? Methinks you don't seriously believe that emailing to me a reference to a documentary claim of a miracle discharges your rightful burden. Otherwise, to be fair, you have to allow that atheists fulfill their burden by simply giving you references to find arguments supporting naturalism.
Just as we
accept documentation for other historical events, we ought to accept
documentation for miracles. Miracles are just a subset of historical events in
general.
But some miracle documentation is falsified. How do you discern which are falsified, if, as you believe, asking apologists for more than "references" would be asking too much? You earlier said telephones work too. If I gave you the phone number of a man living in Sudan who thinks he has found the ultimate argument for naturalism, would you give him a ring? No, of course not. Then you cannot insist you transfer the burden to an atheist immediately upon giving them nothing but "references" to miracles.
ii) His complaint only makes sense if there's a standing
presumption against the occurrence of miracles, so that miracles must meet a
higher standard of evidence. But as I've often argued, that begs the question.
Ok, so to avoid begging the question, I should react to the person seriously claiming to have walked to the store and back yesterday, no differently than I react to the person who seriously claims to have levitated by mental powers alone.
Your attempted wiggle is irrational, as must be the case when you resist the mountain of truth I threw at you with my original arguments: If we don't demand for miracles a higher standard of evidence than we demand for unextraordinary claims, then because I usually do accept, absent good evidence to the contrary, the testimony that somebody walked to the store and back, I must therefore also accept, absent good evidence to the contrary, the testimony that somebody levitated by mental powers alone. That's what logically results if we take your lower standard of evidence seriously. This guy said he walked to the store, that other guy says he can float by mental power alone, and if I dare hold the latter to a higher standard of proof before believing him, I commit the fallacy of begging the question.
Steve, have you ever been suspicious, despite inability to actually prove it false, that some testimony is false? If I told you I found $370 million dollars in authentic U.S Currency in the middle of my street last week, wouldn't your immediate reaction be one of skepticism? If so, why? Do you worship David Hume, and like him, get more and more suspicious as the claimed event departs more and more from your daily experience?
How many times have we verified that a person is capable of walking to the store and back?
How many times have we verified that a person can levitate by mental powers alone?
And you think the same standard of evidence should be applied in both cases? Like I said, you aren't going to oppose my argument justifying refusal to investigate miracles, without enduring the consequence of sounding like a fool.
iii) I'd also note in passing that if God exists, then it
would be extraordinary if miracles didn't happen. If God exists, then miracles
are to be expected.
No, that's just your Calvinist bible assumptions rearing their ugly heads. If there is an intelligent creator responsible for the universe, that doesn't automatically imply miracles are possible. That's about as dumb as the ant concluding that humans can do anything logically possible, because we have so much more power and intelligence than an ant.
iv) I'd add that belief in miracles doesn't require prior
belief in God. Evidence for miracles is, itself, evidence for God.
I said: If you seriously
believe you have evidence of a modern day healing that cannot be explained by
current medical science, set forth your case.
Hays: Testimonial evidence is setting forth a case.
I can find plenty of testimonial evidence to miracles on the internet. So do you think presenting miracle-testimonies collected from the internet constitutes setting forth a case? If so, then perhaps you think presenting testimony of Loch Ness monster witnesses constitutes setting forth a case. Sorry, Steve, the price of disagreeing with me is to show that your standard of evidence is absurdly low.
Steve, what was your opinion of the reality of the Loch Ness monster, before it was proven to be a hoax? What did you do with the eyewitness testimonies? Did you automatically believe them? If not, then how did you evaluate them before the hoax was revealed? Did you remain skeptical of the testimonies? If so, why? What was it about those testimonies that made you suspicious that whatever they might have seen was something other than a Loch Ness monster?
I said: ...God having the
sovereign right to avoid doing monster miracles, accomplishes nothing more than
helping distract the less educated Christian readers from the simple fact that
you have ZERO medically documented medically inexplicable healings.
Hays: That's just an empty denial in the face of explicit
documentation to the contrary.
And conveniently, you avoid the heat by refusing to provide even one little bit of said documentation. Come on Steve, provide for me medical documentation of a healing that you say is the most immune to naturalistic explanation. What, are you afraid that you'll start contradicting your low "testimonial evidence should suffice" standard, when I start asking what attempt you made to authenticate the report?
I said: Steve says Craig
Keener has cited documented cases of body-part regeneration. Cf. Miracles The
Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. So there’s prima facie evidence that
God heals some amputees (or the equivalent). Does Steve know of anybody who has
attempted to obtain the medical documentation and/or witness statements that
Keener has cited?
Hays: Do atheists make the same demand for cures in general?
Excuse me, Steve: I asked you whether you know of anybody who has attempted to obtain the medical documentation and/or witness statements that Keener has cited. Your answer doesn't help me obtain documentation to support your extolling of Keener's evidence. Please answer directly.
If a
patient recovers from stage-1 cancer, do they refuse to believe it unless they
can read the medical records for themselves and interview the patient?
I don't believe whatever a doctor tells me, until I've had time to examine for myself the evidence that led him to his conclusion. After all, doctors have been wrong plenty of times about whether somebody has "recovered" from cancer. Also, your attempted analogy is fallacious, as the reason we usually believe a doctor without attempting to independently verify his accuracy is because we know he is aware of a malpractice suit that might come his way if he lies or distorts the facts and we believe him in a way that causes us further unnecessary injury. There is no equally motivating threat hanging over the head of a miracle-claimant. You lose.
I said: Notice
the unexamined bias.
It would be
helpful for apologists to provide the one case of body part regeneration they
feel is the most compelling, and lets get the ball rolling on the subject of
just how good the medical documentation, diagnosis and witness statements
really are.
Hays: Demanding evidence of body-part regeneration is an
artificial litmus test for miracles.
I did not express or imply that body-part regeneration was supposed to be any litmus test for miracles. I was talking about the cases of body-part regeneration Keener alleged in his work, which you cited to, supra. You and/or Keener are indeed making the claim that there is evidence for body-part regeneration miracles, but so far, you seem more interested in sophistry than in getting down to business and providing me with those "references". Don't make a claim and expect atheists to cower in fear unless you back it up with argument and evidence. When you get in the mood to subject to atheist scrutiny the one body-part regeneration miracle testimony that you believe can most likely survive the test of investigation, send me the "references" for it.
I never took that demand seriously in the
first place. I'm just calling their bluff.
What are you talking about? Are you saying you don't take seriously claims of miraculous body-part regeneration?
Atheists who refuse to consider evidence for miracles in
general, and instead resort to this decoy, betray their insincerity. Logically,
the case for miracles is hardly confined to one artificial class of miracles.
True, but you are still stuck with the ominous fact that despite your god allegedly finding it no more difficult to restore missing limbs than to heal fever, the former is conspicuously absent among miracle claims that can be investigated to any significant degree. It's not really different from the guy who claims to have graduated from Harvard with his medical degree, but can never quite get around to supplying enough information to enable positive verification or falsification of anything beyond graduating from high school. Sorry Steve, but its perfectly reasonable and rational to pick a time when the failure to pass the acid test is the point where initial skepticism justifiably begins. I can accept that some guy on the street is telling the truth that he is a brain surgeon, but I 'm gonna start having problems with the claim if for unknown reasons he always dodges attempts to verify his medical education or occupation. The issue is not what's true, but what's reasonable for the investigator to believe if their attempts to verify are met with silence.
I said: Apologists think
they score big on the objectivity scale by insisting that skeptics and atheists
do their own research into the claims for miracles that appear in Christian
books. A large list of miracle-claim
references may be found in Craig Keener’s two volume set “Miracles (Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2011)”. But if we are
realistic about the time and money required to be expended in the effort to
properly investigate a single modern-day miracle claim, it becomes immediately
clear that the apologist advice that skeptics should check out those claims, is
irrational for all except super-wealthy super-single super-unemployed
super-bored skeptics.
Hays: That's ironic, considering the obvious fact that Keener
isn't "super-wealthy, super-single, or super-unemployed."
No analogy, Keener's obvious motive to do whatever investigation he did, was his Christian faith, and regardless, you cannot reasonably expect atheists who have lives and jobs not involving Christianity, to suddenly give up their mode of life and go chasing down miracle claims. He didn't properly investigate, as he himself admits his miracle references are just that (i.e., "I lack the means to evaluate all of the claims adequately", 241,
"When I have offered judgments that some reports are likely authentic or inauthentic [perhaps based on my training as a biblical critic] I have offered opinions based on where I think evidence points, but often the evidence at my disposal is quite limited, and inevitably my judgments will sometimes be wrong....
I could not personally investigate all the reports with interviews and certainly not with medical examinations..."), he does not claim to have done more investigation into his myriad miracle claims than what was necessary to obtain the references. And it wouldn't matter if he had...I would be investigating his investigation, and as such, no, I would not "just believe" should he have described participating in some healing event that he solemnly testifies he watched miracles take place in. I'd then have to evaluate Keener's own credibility, and that cannot be done by email or phone, unless you'd agree that when you are framed for murder, it is sufficient for your attorney to deal with the prosecution's witness against you solely by phone and email? If the importance of avoiding jail justifies the heightened standard of evidence, how much more so the importance of avoiding getting suckered into some cult?
I never said you have to be super-wealthy, super-single, or super-unemployed to produce a long list of miracle claims. And its not ironic since, if you were to claim some healing took place in Africa, the only American citizen atheist that could do a properly thorough job of investigation, authentication of testimony and testing for fraud, would have to be super-wealthy, super-single, or super-unemployed. Your suggestion that such atheist need not operate at such high standard of evidence does little more than subject him to the possibility of being deceived by a clever fraud, and God knows, the world is full of fraudulent miracle claims. Insisting on the higher standard of evidence creates the benefit of further guarding against being drawn into a cult or false religion by means of clever fraud.
Indeed, as
Keener said in the introduction, "I have no research team, no research
assistants, and no research funds; nor have I had sabbaticals to pursue this
research" (1:12). What hinders an atheist from doing what Keener did?
Nothing, because putting together a long list of anecdotal references to miracle claimants doesn't require one to be super-wealthy, super-single, or super-unemployed, and I never said otherwise. What I said was that
properly thorough and comprehensive analysis and testing of miracle claims cannot be done by the average person but only by those who are super-wealthy, super-single, or super-unemployed. Putting together a list of miracle claim references does not constitute
properly thorough and comprehensive analysis and testing of those miracle claims. Agreed?
I said: Apologists,
desperate to cut the skeptic’s costs as much as possible so as to leave them
“without excuse”, will suggest ways to cut the costs as described above...
Hays: Another strawman. Atheists are already without excuse.
Preaching the choir. Feel better?
I said: What bright ideas
do you have for the married miracle skeptic whose wife homeschools their
children, who has only one job?
Hays: Since when did atheists join the Christian homeschooling
movement?
Ok, so you use the stupid premise that you don't know when atheists joined the homeschooling movement, as substitute for direct answer? If you have any bright ideas of the sort I asked for, please give them. Steve, is there a reason why you think the atheists who tangle with you, shit themselves in fear every time you challenge them? Not only am I not seeing it, I highly doubt you'd accept a formal debate challenge. Would you like to have a formal debate about my challenge (i.e., that atheists have full rational justification to dismiss miracle claims before bothering to investigate them)?
I said: If skeptics need
to stay open to the possibility of miracles merely because they cannot
rationally go around investigating each and every miracle claim, then must you,
the Christian apologist, stay open to the possibility that miracles don’t
happen, on the grounds that you don’t have the time or money to investigate
every single naturalistic argument skeptics have ever come up with?
Hays: Once again, these are asymmetrical positions. It only takes
on miracle to exclude atheism, whereas atheism must exclude every miracle.
Once again, these are not asymmetrical positions. It only takes one successful argument for naturalism to exclude Christianity.
I said: And the bad news
is that it doesn’t matter if we investigate a single claim and come up with
good reasons to remain skeptical of it….there are thousands of other miracle
claims complete with identifiable eyewitnesses and alleged medical
documentation that we haven’t investigated.
Hays: i) That's the dilemma for atheism. A position with an
insurmountable burden of proof. Good luck with that. Not my problem.
On the contrary, it IS your problem because you cannot call somebody a fool for refusing to do a half-assed job of investigating something. When you counter my proposal of serious interviewing and authenticating documents, with the prospect of relying solely on testimonial evidence an perhaps email and phone, you are asking atheists to do a half-assed job of investigating miracles. I am not unreasonable to reject your half-assed proposal as irrational, insist that only a comprehensive investigation will suffice, and then dismiss miracles immediately since employing the proper methodology would cost more money and time than anybody could rationally expect anybody to expend. You start telling me that investigating an alleged healing in Germany is more important than my earning a paycheck to keep my family fed and housed, and your circle of followers will either decrease or sink further into absurd fanaticism.
ii) Atheists are like paranoid cancer patients who refuse
treatment until they can verify the treatment for themselves.
No, blind trust in a doctor is justified by the threat over his head called "malpractice suit". No such motivation exists over the head of those who make miracle claims. I believe you said something about two positions being asymmetric?
They make
irrational, time-consuming demands on the oncologist to prove the efficacy of
cancer therapy.
Nope, its more likely he's telling the truth to the best of his ability, than that he is lying. While on the other hand, whether a miracle claim, found somewhere on the internet, is telling the truth, deluded or intentionally deceptive, remains unknown unless one wishes to expend the money, time and resources necessary to investigate them in a way that guards the most against fraud or mistake.
But the oncologist is under no obligation to accede to their
unreasonable demands.
So apparently you are the dumbest idiot on the planet, since a doctor is required by law to provide the patient with their own medical records at their request and to explain the reasons why the doctor gives the diagnosis or prognosis that she did.
He's not the one with the life-threatening disease. He
has nothing to prove to the paranoid patient.
So in your world, doctors do not attempt to prove their conclusions to paranoid patients who ask for such case to be made. They simply discharge them, send a bill, and ignore requests for explanation and evidence. I told you fundy Christianity comes with irrational consequences, but no, you wouldn't listen.
It's the patient whose life is on
the line. It's the patient who has everything to lose.
If the patient is diagnosed with stage-1 cancer, but refuses
treatment for 8 months while he conducts his own "independent"
investigation–by interviewing other patients–then even if he succeeds in
satisfying his personal curiosity, and is now amendable to therapy, by that
time he will have stage-4 cancer–at which point therapy is futile.
Again, automatic blind faith in a doctor is justified because they are regulated by law and endure the threat of a malpractice suit for negligence or willful deception, achieving the desired result of reducing the chances that they are lying or mistaken, to nearly zero. No such inducement to tell truth hangs over the head of random miracle claimants found all over the world, as abundantly testified to by the thousands of falsified miracle claims, Benny Hinn and 99% of all faith-healing televangelists, who function here as prime examples.
I said: If the apologists
here saw video footage of a dog flying around a room using biological wings
sprouting out of its back, would they insist on making sure all other
alternative explanations were definitively refuted before they would be open to
considering that this was a real dog with real natural flying ability? Then
skeptics, likewise, when confronted with evidence for a miracle healing, would
insist on making sure all other alternative possible explanations were
definitively refuted before they would start considering that the claimed
miracle was genuinely supernatural in origin.
Hays: i) That's an argument from analogy minus the argument.
Where's the supporting argument to show that miracles are analogous to flying
dogs?
Is there any serious difference between flying dogs, talking donkeys and talking serpents?
Answer the question, you frightened barking child! If somebody got in
your face and insisted their video of a flying dog is authentic and
proves at least one dog has genuine natural flying ability, would you or
would you not attempt to authenticate this? Or would you rely on
Hume's automatic dismissal of miracles to tell yourself it's so likely
that fraud is afoot here that you are rational to dismiss the claim before investigating it?
I posit a flying dog, while you posit bizarre creatures with multiple faces, whose figurative interpretation is far from obvious (Ezekiel 1:6,
Calvin adopts the literal interpretation
and so does inerrantist LaMar Eugene Cooper, so you cannot assert the literal interpretation is the result of spiritual deadness). If anything, it is YOUR bizarre creatures that are less likely to be true than a flying dog. Again, the cheribum on top of the Ark are human-like and have wings (Ex. 25:20). I guess this is the part where you ask me why I think winged dogs are analogous to winged humans? Again, your religion requires you to believe in quasi-human-like "seraphim" that have six wings (Isaiah 6:1-2), and because they are said to "fly", this is reasonably interpreted as implying there is air in heaven, since the wings are presented as the basis upon which it flies. Go take a long walk and do some soul-searching before you bite back that flying dog are more ridiculous than talking snakes, talking donkeys, and flying four-faced quasi-humans. If your religious defense mechanisms were not on red alert, you'd scoff just as loudly at the prospect of a talking donkey as you do at the prospect of a flying dog.
ii) Instead of dealing with the actual evidence for actual
miracles, atheists deflect attention away from the evidence by floating
hypothetical examples. But that's a diversionary tactic.
Hypotheticals are standard argument fare. Apparently you are new to the concept? And there's no diversionary tactic. If you believe in flying four-faced creatures and talking donkeys/talking snakes, it is rational to expect that you are open to the prospect of believing in flying dogs.
iii) Moreover, it's self-defeating. If an atheist concocts
the most ridiculous hypothetical he can think of,
I rebuke you in the name of Jesus, you idolatrous Hume-worshiper, you. Your puny little pool of life experience is such a tiny fraction of reality, you have no rational justification to assume that flying dogs are "ridiculous". Just because you haven't experienced them doesn't mean other people haven't. What's next? You gonna deny Jesus rose from the dead because you have no experience of anybody else who resurrected after two days of being dead?
then, yes, the example
strains credulity. But that's because he went out of his way to concoct an
artificially ridiculous example. That's a circular exercise. Unbelievable because
he made it unbelievable.
What is it about a flying dog, that motives you to characterize it as an "artificially ridiculous" example? Would you cite any traits of the dog that are analogous to the equally bizarre creatures mentioned in the bible? The answer is obvious, but if you give it, you risk sounding like one of those idiots who think their own pool of life experience is a sufficient pool of knowledge from which to justify declaring what's possible and what's not.
You wouldn't want to look stupid, so you'll likely avoid answering that question directly.
5 comments:
rockingwithhawking8/23/2014 2:37 AM
In addition to
Steve's excellent response:
1. Edward Goljan
is basically a celebrity in modern medical education. He's quite well-known.
He's a board certified pathologist, and a former professor in an Oklahoma
medical school. Presumably porphyryredux can contact him via email.
I don't believe getting response by email constitutes the type of properly thorough miracle investigation I defended against Hays' attacks above. When you come up with the money to allow me to travel to wherever Ed is living so I can personally interview him, and pay my expenses involved in obtaining and authenticating the medical reports allegedly documenting the miracle, let me know. So far, your "sourcing" your claims about him in wikipedia is laughable. My time and money are important. I don't start investigating miracles merely because one was alleged in a publicly edited encyclopedia. snip
2. Does
porphyryredux raise the "body part regeneration" objection because he
objects to miracles in general and uses "body part regeneration"
miracles to show miracles aren't possible, or because he's assuming human
"body part regeneration" is preposterous in and of itself?
Because he thinks that if Christianity is true, restoration of missing limbs wouldn't be so rare among miracle claims. If miracles are for testifying to the gospel, restoring missing limbs does the job no less than putting cancer into remission. Sure is funny that the one miracle whose naturalistic explanation is the most unlikey and unreasonable, is the one that can never be verified, despite Christians who claim plenty of other miracles are verified. If God is going to part the Red Sea to the point that it was a wall of water on either side of the Israelites (Exodus 14:22), then you won't be wasting my time with any "God-doesn't want-to-violate-their-freewill-with-too-powerful-evidence" nonsense.
Ever notice that Benny Hinn never heals missing limbs? Would any fool argue that this is because God is allowed to heal in whatever way he chooses? Wouldn't most sane people say the reason Hinn's miracles never include the type that constitute the acid test, is because he isn't doing miracles in the first place?
If the former,
then as Steve has alluded to, there are other classes of miracles. So even if
(ad arguendo) "body part regeneration" miracles are shown to be
false, it hardly disproves the possibility for the miraculous in general.
Yes, it doesn't necessarily falsify miracles in general. But it's a pretty good probability argument. Again, sure is strange that the only miracles we ever hear about, even assuming with Christians that some miracles have been verified as real, are those which are more susceptible to fraud or error, than restoring of missing limbs. The one miracle we
never see confirmed is precisely the one that would be the acid-test. Why does God bother doing half-assed miracles that don't send skeptics diving their faces into the ground in solemn remorse? If you want an employer to hire you, do you do less than your best to impress her at the interview?
If the latter,
then it seems it's not the miraculous with which porphyryredux takes issue but
rather the idea of human "body part regeneration" itself. As such, we
don't really need to say anything more.
3. However, just
for fun:
a. There are some
"body parts" which can regenerate (e.g. skin, liver). Likewise, there
are stories of kids regenerating their fingertips. See here for example. Or for
a more scholarly take, check this out.
Irrelevant, I don't say body-part regeneration is logically impossible, I simply say that I'm highly suspicious of this idea that the almighty creator of the universe, who apparently didn't previously mind blowing people's minds with monster miracles, today does only half-assed portents in ways subjecting them to legitimate disagreement by reasonable people. Sounds to me that it's not the work of an intelligent god, but the work of active human imaginations with a bit of willful deception and innocent ignorance thrown in.
So in principle,
what's so absurd about "body part regeneration"?
Nothing, especially for a god who doesn't find it harder than curing fever. So why is he always allegedly curing fevers but never missing body parts? How about a certified brain surgeon who by choice takes a job as a mere nurse at an elementary school? Would you respond to me "Who are you to judge him on what he wants to do?"? Or would you respond "it's not very likely that it was solely by choice that a certified brain surgeon would take up work as a school nurse"?
c. Of course, if
it's not absurd, if it's possible future scientists and doctors could
regenerate body parts for amputees or others, then doubtless future atheists
would raise the objection that what previous generations thought miraculous
must've been due to some then-unknown natural process. I imagine some things
will never change.
Not likely: You'd have to prove that in the past some people really did have their missing legs or arms restored before science got the capability of doing it, before atheists could make that objection, and you won't be proving any such thing in this life or any other.
ANNOYED
PINOY8/23/2014 8:11 AM
Good point.
It's interesting that modern claims and documentation of miraculous restoration
of sight isn't awe inspiring and seemingly miraculous to atheists.
It shouldn't be. I've asked Steve Hays to provide me documentation for the one healing miracle in modern times he thinks is least susceptible to naturalistic interpretation, and he chose to engage in sophistry instead of getting down to actual business. Should he ever escape philosophical hell, and judge Christianity worth something more than his ability to trifle about trifles, I'll be ready to analyze the evidence.
That's
probably due to the fact that modern doctors can restore certain forms of
blindness. But before doctors were able to do that atheists back then probably
would have claimed the restoration of eye sight as nearly impossible and
therefore the Biblical accounts of miracles (and their accompanying theology)
are unbelievable.
The less often something happens, the more justification to be skeptical of any claim that it actually did happen. yeah, people win the lottery, but only a fool would immediately believe the stranger who asserted such a thing. Yeah, golfers have gotten a hole in one before, but if I have the slightest reason to believe a particular golfer has more motive than truth in telling me such a story, I'll have full rational warrant to be skeptical. You cannot avoid the absolute truth that the more rare some act is, the more rational we are to be skeptical absent good evidence to the contrary. No, Steve, "good" evidence is not email, telephone and affidavits. "Good" evidence is
authenticated evidence that survives naturalistic explanations.
Let me know when you ever feel compelled to actually get down to business and start providing what you believe to be the best of your evidence for modern-day healings or other miracles.
This reminds
me of a Biblical passage:
Never since
the world began has it been heard
that anyone opened the eyes of a man born
blind.- John 9:32
What was
impossible then, modern doctors can do now in some instances.
I don't see your point. ancient atheists who balked immediately at claims of restored vision might have technically been wrong since some types of blindness can indeed be fixed. But what's the point of observing that they were wrong in the past about the body's natural ability to heal from certain types of illness or disability?
BTW, the
healing of the blind man from Bethsaida in Mark 8:22-26 has the marks of
authenticity because it appears to describe a modern phenomenon called
post-blind syndrome. When modern doctors heal some people of blindness, they
can sometimes experience post-blind syndrome, where their brains can't
interpret the messages their (now working) eyes are sending them. Here's a
Breakpoint article on it.
No, its perfectly reasonable to assume there were plenty of people born in the first century with a curable condition of blindness, who did not receive their sight until later in life, and who testified to how bizarre the world looked while their sight restoration was in progress. And you unwittingly support David Hume with your answer: You appear to think the criteria for mark of authenticity, is the degree to which a claim corresponds with verifiably true past events :)
In my blog HERE I
explain why I disagree with Craig's apparent view that special providence is
never miraculous.
If even spiritually alive people cannot agree on God's providence, spiritually dead people have full rational warrant to completely dismiss the subject as nothing but sophistry and illusion. Though they retain the right to enter the fray if there's nothing good on cable.
