Miracles Refuted, part 2: we don't need to investigate miracles because it's too damn expensive

Are you one of those Christian apologists who believes atheists have an intellectual or moral obligation to "check out" Christian miracle claims?

If so, why?  What's at stake?

Do you say we run the risk of ending up being tormented in hell forever by avoiding these potential supports for the truth of Christianity?

Should we put a bit more effort into it than "I found it on the internet, so it must be true"?

If so, then how comprehensive do you say our miracle-investigation should be?  A little?  A lot?  uproot my life and expend the rest of my time and money chasing down alleged Christian miracle claims?   On what basis do you decide how comprehensive an analysis of miracles an atheist is obligated to engage in?

Suppose I have a low paying job, and barely make enough to pay rent and feed and clothe my family.  While on the library internet during my day off, I go to a website where a woman in Sudan claims her Ebola infection was instantly cured while Christian missionaries pray over her.

What must the website allege, at minimum, to morally or intellectually obligate me to start spending more time and money investigating that claim?  Is here sole testimony enough to obligate me to contact her by email?  If so, how do you know?  To be consistent, wouldn't that mean I'm obligated to email absolutely everybody who made a serious claim on the internet to having been healed by miracle?  But I couldn't do that given my full time job.  Do you say the potential threat of hell justifies me in quitting my job so that I can fulfill my emailing obligations more fully?  Wouldn't that mean you are saying the potential threat of hell is more important and serious than my ability to feed and house my family?  When is the last time you ever told an atheist that their investigation of miracles was more important that their earning a paycheck to feed their families?

Do you say my obligation to check isn't that extreme?  If so, then when you point out the limits of my obligation to investigate, aren't you creating the risk that I'll hit that limit and stop investigating a miracle claim that is actually true?  You don't want to give me any excuse to feel justified to give up investigating God's work, do you?




Suppose I find Facebook post saying they were healed of back pain at the latest Benny Hinn crusade.

What amount of documentary evidence would be minimally sufficient to obligate me to check it out?
If it's nothing more than a single uncorroborated Facebook post, could I be rationally jusitified to dismiss this potential act of God and move on to more strongly attested cases, or is a single uncorroborated testimony sufficient to compel me to engage in a more comprehensive analysis of her claim?  If the latter, on what basis do you assert that a single uncorroborated allegation of Christian healing miracle on Facebook is minimally sufficient to compel my further probing of it?  Because the bible says?  Or because a lesser authority says?


If there's a whole website dedicated to a single miracle-claim, complete with medical documentation for download, and posts by alleged eyewitnesses to the miracle:

How much effort should I expend, if any, trying to authenticate the medical documents?  Should I request she sign a release-waiver so I can get the doctor report straight from the hospital, or should I use my gut feeling or something else to decide whether or not the medical report she makes available for download is authentic?  On what basis do you assert the level of concern I "should" have to authenticate alleged medical documentation of a miracle?

May I dismiss the case if she refuses to authorize her doctor to release her records directly to me?  What if it was a real divine healing, but she doesn't want to allow me access to the records?  If I can be rationally warranted to turn away at that point, doesn't that mean I was rationally warranted to avoid subjecting myself to a strong proof for God?  Are you sure its consistent with the bible to tell atheists under what circumstances they are justified to turn away from God?

What if I've been the victim of libel and advised by my lawyers to avoid volunteering my real name to strangers except where necessary to bank, pay bills, talk to police/family/friends, etc?  Would that be a sufficient justification for me to refuse to authenticate the medical record of the healing (the doctor would require that I give my real name before releasing those records to me), and thus refuse to investigate further?  Or am I somehow obligated to give up my anonymity where necessary to investigate miracle claims?  On what basis do you assert that I am so obligated?  Because the bible says, or because some lesser authority says?

Suppose I authenticate the medical report.  It says she had constant back pain for years, and now she reports no pain after having attended a healing service at her local church, and this is all she says about it on her webpage too.  How much more time should I expend on this, seeing that the doctor's basis for asserting the cure was nothing more than his trust that the patient's testimony was true?  Should I conclude the testimony is true, or do more research? On what basis do you answer that question?  Because the bible says, or because some lesser authority says?

Suppose the medical report says the patient was born blind and was blind all of her life, but shortly after her 25 birthday, proved to the doctor that she could now see just as well as anybody, and that doctor comments that he cannot find an medical explanation for this cure and had assumed this whole time that her blindness would be permanent.  How much more time should I spend on this?  Should I conclude the testimony is true, or do more research?  If do more research, how much and what kind? 

Would comprehensive investigation call for me obtaining a second and third opinion from other doctors?  If so, who should pay those doctors for rendering their opinion?  Me?  What if I my job doesn't pay enough to pay for both living expense and pay these other doctors?  Would that be sufficient to rationally warrant my refusal to obtain these independent evaluations?  How much would the objectivity of my overall investigation suffer if I refused by reason of lack of money to obtain a second professional opinion? 

Do you say the potential for another doctor to confirm the original diagnosis is so great that, if I can't pay that other doctor, I should take a second job or sell my stuff or take out a loan or make some other effort to come up with the money to obtain this independent report?  If so, on what basis do you say that the potential for the claim to be true, obligates me to make that level of sacrifice?  Because the bible says?  Or because some lesser authority says?

Suppose 3 doctors render independent opinions to me for free and they all agree there's no medical explanation for this curing of blindness?  Am I intellectually required, at that point, to draw the conclusion that this was a genuinely supernatural healing?  If so, how do you know?  How many times have doctors been wrong in the past?



What types of disconfirmation would be minimally sufficient to justify skepticism of the miracle explanation?
If the doctor was disciplined in the past for incompetently diagnosing somebody as healthy when in fact they weren't, may I be skeptical at that point, or must further impeachment be shown?

If somebody says they have personal knowledge that the evidence of the patient's lifelong blindness and the doctor's expressed bafflement at the cure, were nothing more than a conspiracy between the two to gain money and fame?  How much time and money should I expend researching that theory?



If there is adversary testimony, should I suffer the time and expense of conducting a personal interview with the patient?  If so, how long and intense should the interview be, and what questions should I ask, which are the most likely to ferret out any possible fraud, mistake or misunderstanding of anybody in the matter?

When I finish interviewing her, how much effort, if any, should I expend on interviewing witnesses friendly and hostile to her general credibility?  One witness for each?  Two?  How do you know?  The bible says, or some lesser authority says?

Suppose the miracle is supported by pictures or video:  How much effort should I expend attempting to authenticate the video?  Does the fact that videos can easiy be photoshopped justify me to remain neutral about the apparent miracle until further research has shown fraud and fakery are unlikely?  What level of research toward that end would be minimally sufficient?  An answer from the alleged person recording the video or pictures that they didn't fake anything?  If they give such answer, is that enough to justify believing them, or would I be obligated to further investigate their general credibility?

How much money and time should I invest in having a forensic specialist examine the evidence and render an opinion on whether it is faked?  $10 to my next door neighbor who is familar with photoshopping stuff?  $2500 to a professional who has testified as a professional forensic scientist in court?  What if I cannot afford the professional?  Does that justify me to stop investigating since now the question of the authenticity of the data cannot be reasonably closed?

What if the miracle claim comes from a book written by a Christian apologist like Craig S. Keener? How much time and money should I expend in the effort to convince him to allow me to access his source material and contact his alleged eyewitnesses, and how do you know your proposed amount of time and money is the right one?  Is spending $40 toward that goal too little.  Would spending $5,000 toward that goal be too much?  What if Keener says he will arrange for me to review his evidence and witnesses, but only if I pay him and the others a fee for his trouble, a fee I cannot afford to pay?  Will I have rational warrant to stop worrying about this potentially true miracle because I don't have enough money to properly investigate it, or will you say I should take a second job, take out a mortgage, get a loan, borrow money from friend/family until I can afford that fee?  If so, on what basis do you say the stakes here are so high that turning my life upside down all because of one single miracle claim by Keener is something I'm intellectually compelled to do?

 What follows is an older post I made in 2014 to the same effect: 

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.

A proper investigation is the kind that guards as much as possible against fraud.  For that reason, the investigation should attempt to authenticate as much of the evidence as possible.  There is a very good reason why courts, for example, require evidence to be authenticated before it becomes admissible: authentication reduces the chances of fraud, even if imperfectly, and so authentication makes sense.  Will any apologist seriously suggest that a good investigator will not worry about authenticating evidence?  What’s next?   Bigfoot is a real animal, because of all the videos and pictures of it on the internet?

What would authenticating evidence consist of?  Easy:  What sort of evidence is the miracle-claimant providing?

Her own testimony?  Find her and interview her. Find people who have personal knowledge of her credibility and interview them too.

Pictures or video?  Find and interview the photographer.

People who claim to be eyewitnesses?  find them and interview them.  Find people who have personal knowledge of these witnesses’ credibility and interview them too.

Medical documentation? Get a signed release of information permission form from the healed person, give it to the doctor who signed the alleged medical document, and get all of the medical history on the miracle-claimant you can, to make sure the document released to the public is authentic, and there is no “more to the story” that might challenge the assertion of miracle.

Some other author or investigator who has already written books or articles favorable to the miracle claim?  Ask her for a copy of all her evidence.  Ask them to explain if they failed to pursue a particular lead that might have produced a credibility problem.

Here is a reasonable hypothetical scenario that would likely occur in the event a skeptic chose to do a serious investigation into a single alleged miracle:

You read a Christian book that provides references on people who claimed miracles.  You Google the name of one such person, and you find a webpage purporting to document the healing.  There are links to medical documents and statements and emails of eyewitnesses.

Concerning the medical documents, just because you found it on the internet doesn’t mean it is authentic, right?  So a good investigator will want to authenticate medical records, and that involves getting permission from the claimant for the doctor to release their medical file, a major hurdle, it involves getting permission from the claimant for other physicians to release their other medical files to you so there is nothing about their medical condition that might falsify the claimed healing, and that is usually an unassailable hurdle (nobody typically allows release of their entire medical files to strangers outside of the legal context).

Like any insurance adjuster or criminal investigator, you will want a second medical opinion where the current documentation only gives a single medical report.  Two problems:  First, for the average American, they cannot afford to pay a physician to independently examine somebody.  We all have medical insurance because we cannot afford regular medical costs.  Second, supposing you were rich and could afford this, and you found a physician near where the miracle-claimant lives, you need to convince the claimant to consent to such secondary examination.  Apologists cannot rationally argue that, for the skeptic who gets as lucky as this, surely the claimant would consent.  Therefore, it may turn out that all the time the skeptic spends on getting the money to pay this other doctor, and all the time he spent locating that doctor and setting up the examination, were for nothing due to the miracle-claimant’s refusal to submit to a secondary examination. 

Most of us do not have the amount of time or money that would be required to get us to the point of asking the miracle-claimant to submit to a secondary medical examination.  Many investigations would cease at that point.

How about the eyewitnesses?  Here’s how investigating them would likely play out:

That webpage containing the alleged medical file also provides links to witness statements and their email addresses.  You email them.  As is usually the case, some email addresses remain current, others no longer work.  As might be expected, you email 5 witnesses and only 3 respond.  So you spend more money using people locater services to locate the missing eyewitnesses.  As usually happens, those two either don’t respond despite your sending email to their last known email address, or they respond and say they will not discuss the matter.  How would it impact the investigation if only 3 of the 5 alleged witnesses can be found?  Sure, disregarding the importance of the other two is convenient for apologetics and evangelism purposes, but how do we evaluate just how significant or insignificant interviews with the missing witnesses would have been?  Isn’t it true that where a witness can testify to something, their failure to testify reduces the objectivity of the verdict?

Those who respond assure you in their email response that their witness statement quoted on the website accurately reflects what they said.  How do you know the person responding by email really is an eyewitness, or is who they say they are?  Surely people never lie on the internet, right?  Surely people never lie to make a miracle-claim look more believable, do they?  A proper investigation would require you to authenticate those witness statements, and that means convincing the alleged eyewitness to provide you with their full legal name, address and phone number, for the same reasons that any criminal investigator would want the same three items from anybody who says they saw the crime happen.  If you were the victim of a crime and the investigator told you they located an eyewitness who provides an alibi for the suspect, would you want the investigator to get this eyewitness’s full legal name, address and phone number?

As is usually the case, not everybody that you request such information from, will give it out, even if they can correctly identify you, since for all they know, maybe you are just a scam artist pretending to be interested in a miracle claim solely to get their personal information.  So among the three responding witnesses, 2 of them give you their full legal name, address and phone number, the third chooses to cease communication with you.

There is a very good reason why civil and criminal courts require that the witness who authored a document take the witness stand.  Attempting to discern whether somebody is lying involves more than just what they are willing to write down and sign their name to.  The fact-finder is allowed to present evidence impeaching their credibility.

Suppose the two eyewitnesses left in this hypothetical are willing to grant you a personal interview so you can obtain the equal of a confession on the witness stand.

But as a good investigator, you want to make sure your interview time is better spent than in simply listening to the eyewitness repeat exactly what they said in the statements attributed to them on the website.  So you wish to obtain evidence enabling you to probe their general credibility.  That means getting names and phone numbers of other people who know the eyewitness, such as neighbors, co-employees, family or friends.   Apologists cannot provide any guarantee that people who are willing to be interviewed concerning facts in their personal knowledge, would likely give out contract information on other people, so this is another point at which the investigation might be halted, and the money and time spent getting to that point, wasted.  Why interview a witness if you have no information allowing you to probe their general credibility?

But suppose both witnesses provide you this personal information anyway (!?).  You are a good investigator, you prefer the method of interview that guards against possible fraud more so than interview by phone or email, you prefer a face-to-face interview for the same reason courts of law require witnesses to testify in the physical presence of the jury.  Here is what it would cost on average to conduct witness interviews, assuming you don’t live in the same state as they:

    Plane Ticket – $1000 (you can’t take the bus because you have work and family responsibilities requiring quick return)

    Motel – $140 for two days/two nights to complete interview (cheaper motels are likely unsanitary).

    Food – since investigator is traveling by plane, she likely wont be hauling along enough groceries to last the two days it would take to complete this interview, so to avoid restaurants she must buy groceries that are ready to eat and can be kept in a motel room not necessarily equipped with a refrigerator.  Two days worth of such food – $10

    Camera and Video  – If you doesn’t already have a digital cam with video capability, $100

    Rental car for two days – $100 (if you have to get home within two days, you are ill-advised to just hop on a city bus in a town you never lived in and find your witness this cheaper haphazard way).

    Rental car gas for two days – $60

And here’s the bad news:  that’s more than a thousand dollars just for one single claimed miracle.  When the California-based skeptic has to spend $1000 investigating a single miracle claim originating in Maine, there will be more miracle-claims for her to investigate down in Texas.  Who would seriously argue that the skeptic is obligated by reasons of objectivity and fairness to keep shelling out $1000 a pop for every single miracle claim apologists cite to?

And here’s even worse news.  It could easily be that the witnesses live in different states, in which case you’ll be purchasing at minimum at least one more plane ticket, one more motel for at least two more nights, and one more two-day rental car.

The more witnesses available to be interviewed, the higher go the expenses of the good investigator who doesn’t want to leave any stone unturned.

In short, if skeptics got lucky and managed to find the needle in the haystack, and came across a website documenting a miracle, and found witnesses willing to be interviewed, the minimal expenses for investigating this one claim would run from $1000 to $3000 just for a single claim.

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, but even if we assume such interview could be completed in one day for $100, how many times do apologists think skeptics would be obliged to pay $100 to investigate a miracle claim?  If you believe at least 10 miracle claims are true, does rationality require that the skeptic spend $1000 just to investigate those?  What if the skeptic doesn’t have that kind of money?  Do you suggest he move his family to cheaper housing, sell the car and take the bus, sell their expensive possessions at a garage sale or pawn them, save the grocery money by eating only at the local bum shelter, take a second job, etc, ?  Objectively investigating miracle claims becomes kind of stupid at that point, wouldn’t you say?

What bright ideas do you have for the married miracle skeptic whose wife homeschools their children, who has only one job?  Maybe he should be willing to place his fiances in jeopardy just to go investigate a miracle claim?  Maybe he should put his kids in public school so the wife has free time to take a job thus generating more funding?

What about the skeptic who thinks spending her limited time and money on her family is far more important than financing miracle investigations?  Is she irrational for that reason?

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?

If you can rationally presume the best evidence of naturalism is already known and doesn’t prove the case, then skeptics can rationally presume the best evidence of miracles is already known and doesn’t prove the case.  If you don’t have to answer every last naturalistic argument, skeptics don’t have to answer every last miracle claim.

When apologists say skeptics and unbelievers have a responsibility to examine the evidence in support of miracle-claims, they do not seriously appreciate how much time and money would need to be expended to do professional level investigation (i.e., the type of evidence-gathering that guards against possible fraud as much as civil and criminal investigations try to, i.e., personal interviews, plane tickets, locating the witnesses, locating and interviewing the character witnesses, etc.).

Us skeptics have lives and families, and for those of us who have good paying jobs, we already invest the money in our families, so we still cannot afford to spend a minimum of $100 and the loss of two days away from family and jobs, each and every time a miracle claim with identifiable witness is alleged somewhere by some Christian.

And if apologists are consistent, they will insist that skeptics have a burden to investigate documented miracle claims, and since those can be found all over the world, the cost in time and money to the skeptic to properly investigate miracles occurring halfway around the world from her skyrocket far beyond $100 or $1000, which thus renders investigating them in a properly comprehensive way, irrational at best.

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.  The logic of the apologists, if followed consistently, would require the average atheist to stop spending money feeding and housing her famnily, and spend it whenever necessary to facilitate further investigation of miracles.  Only a fundamentalist fanatic would try to convince atheists that sacrificing for Jesus is more important than sacrificing for family.

If the apologist does not want the skeptic to be irrational and stupid, then the apologist does not want the skeptic to conduct the type of thorough investigation of any modern-day miracle claim that has the best chance of exposing fraud.  They just want us to see a picture on the internet of the outline of Jesus in a taco shell, then suddenly discover on that basis alone which version of Christianity is the “right” one.  LOL

Miracles refuted, part 1: miracles cannot be coherently defined, so they are dismissed on semantic grounds alone

Apologists have been plagued with the problems inherent in properly defining the word they use routinely when dialoging with skeptics: "miracle".

This is a severe problem because the discussion will be fruitless unless we reasonably guard against using incoherent terms, and the only way to guard against incoherent terms is to define them in a mutually agreeable way, since skeptic and Christian have to first agree on what a miracle is, or could be, before they can move on to discuss possible real-world examples.

I claim that "miracle" cannot be defined coherently, at least not sufficiently to enable scholarly debate about whether they've ever actually happened.  Let's take a look at the possibilities.

First, all definitions are question-begging to some extent.  You only agree that a "car" is defined as "vehicle" because you have already acknowledged that "vehicle" refers to a real-world thing which you've also previously described as "car".  So in ordinary discourse, a skeptic and Christian could not reasonably discuss miracles until they agree on the definition of "miracle".  Furthermore, a skeptic would not be unreasonable to require "miracle" to pass the same criteria, i.e., "miracle" must be defined by something the skeptic already believes is true, or has experience of, since that is the ultimate reason why anybody will agree to define a word the way somebody else defines it.

Second, a miracle cannot be defined as an act of God, since to do so is to close the debate, the atheist doesn't believe in God.  It may be technically true that this can be overcome by the parties first debating God's existence, but it remains just as true that until they resolve their disagreements on atheism, defining a miracle as an act of God does little more than unfairly favor the Christian before the debate gets started.

Third, a miracle cannot be defined as an event that lacks a naturalistic explanation, since otherwise we run the risk of calling a currently unknown naturalistic phenomena a "miracle", and of course, it is reasonable to carefully avoid creating the risk that we define things in a way that causes us to misconstrue reality.  And history abundantly shows that, little by little, phenomena we used to think supernatural, wasn't.  For example, we no longer assert that those who throw themselves to the ground, go all stiff and froth at the mouth while being largely unresponsive, are possessed by a demon, otherwise, we'd have to say demons can be overcome by epilepsy medication.  Christians do not believe Jesus can be phased out by pharmaceuticals.


Fourth, no, the dictionary doesn't help, that would be as stupid as saying God can be established by the simple fact that "god" has a dictionary entry.  The dictionary defines "miracle" in various ways


So there you have it:  an atheist is reasonable to refuse, if they so wish, to discuss "miracles" until they resolve with the Christian they are dialoguing with.their disagreement about God's existence.  And an atheist is reasonable to refuse, if they so wish, to define a miracle in a way that creates the risk that she will later misconstrue a naturalistic phenomena as a miracle.

So if a Christian points to an alleged "miracle" and challenges us to show that a naturalistic explanation is more likely true than the magical one, we are perfectly reasonable to insist that carefully defining our terms before we start the dialogue is crucial to any debate on any subject, and therefore, unless the parties can agree on what "miracle" signifies, trying to debate whether a term corresponds to any reality, without first properly defining the term, simply isn't academically respectable.

Demolishing Triablogue, part 4: Steve Hays' absurdly low standards for miracle-investigation

 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.

Friday, August 22, 2014

Expect a miracle Posted by steve at 1:07 PM

    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.

Rebuttal to James Patrick Holding's "Tactitus-Test"

Holding has posted a video to update his former Shattering the Christ-Myth book entry on the issue of Tacitus' infamous reference to Christ.

Here are the problems I have with his update:

First, he admits, without giving any sign in the video that he is being sarcastic, that one of the tests he uses to decide whether an atheist's writings are worthy to read, is how they deal with the Tacitus passage.

His exact words are:

"One of my chief gauges for whether an atheist is worth any attention,
is their treatment of the reference to Jesus in Tacitus' Annals"(video at 0:19 ff)

 The tag for the video reads:

Published on Jul 7, 2017  

A suggestion for dispensing with fundy atheist books

 
Holding's criterion here is absurd:  a) scholars sometimes have much good to say even if they fumble on what you think is a basic truth.  You don't ask whether they deserve attention, you ask what their specific argument is and how they backed it up; b) under Holding's logic, an atheist would be justified to say Holding is not worth attention, because Holding so egregiously defies ALL biblical scholars who agree with the plain NT prohibitions against  filthy communication, jesting and slander:

 3 But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints;
 4 and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. (Eph. 5:3-4 NAU)

 21 "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,
 22 deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.
 23 "All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man." (Mk. 7:21-23 NAU)

 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. (Eph. 4:31 NAU)

8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. (Col. 3:8 NAU)

I document Holding's guilt in disobeying these things elsewhere on this blog.

I also explain there that since Holding talks filthy even to other Christians, he cannot escape this criticism by saying those bible verses are limited to in-house Christian discussions.

The point is that if Holding is going to assert that an atheist's failure to get basic shit like Tacitus right, rationally justifies the Christian to give the atheist no "attention", then he has to agree that atheists are justified under the same logic to be equally dismissive toward professing bible-believing Christians who get basic Christian morality wrong...which would mean his logic justifies atheists in refusing to consider anything Holding has to say.

Holding may quibble that the two situations are not the same, but if so, there's more:  Under Holding's logic, the atheist would be justified to give no attention to Christians who do worse than get basic Christian morality wrong, but who are intentionally deceptive and obstinately refuse correction for years after it has become obvious that they were in the wrong.

Has Holding ever been intentionally deceptive and obstinately refused to correct himself after it became obvious that he was in the wrong?  

Yes.  Ever since 1998, Holding has insisted in numerous discussions and articles that the bible scholarship of the Context Group is accurate and cutting-edge, and supports his belief that modern-day Christians have biblical justification to talk in mean nasty insulting shaming demeanor toward anybody who publicly attacks Christianity.  So far, I am the only person on the internet to have exposed the fact that the Context Group has totally disowned Holding, more than once, in no uncertain terms, and they have declared his most comprehensive effort to justify insulting demeanor, to be an "obvious perversion" of Context Group work in general, founder Richard Rohrbaugh's work in particular, and that it perverts the New Testament as well, to such an extreme degree that Rohrbaugh doesn't even find Holding's magnum opus so much as worthy of a response.  Holding was made aware since 2008 of the Context Group's low view of him personally and professionally, yet for whatever reason, he has refused to modify his God-wants-you-to-talk-shit magnum opus or delete its references to Context Group scholarship

Is Holding just extremely forgetful of the obvious, despite multiply repeated notices/warnings these last few years?  Or does Holding have a serious sin of pride that prevents him from having common decency and basic honesty?

What is worse?

The atheist who gets Tacitus wrong, or the Christian apologist who refuses to acknowledge the truth that he has 'obviously perverted' the work of the very scholars he uses to support his most cherished belief?

If Holding is going to dismiss an atheist because of a single blunder in a basic area, wouldn't an atheist have even more rational warrant to dismiss Holding where it is proved Holding has dishonestly continued using scholars that he already knows have asserted accused him of making 'obvious perversion' of their work?

Getting Tacitus wrong is far more likely due to accident or simple ignorance, since his infamous reference to Jesus has produced an avalanche of scholarship advocating both Christian and skeptical views.

Getting basic honesty and common decency wrong for more than 20 years, is far less likely to be a case of innocent mistake/oversight.

So...does Holding agree that, if one can show that he really is the dishonest scumbag most atheists think he is, one will have sufficient rational warrant to dismiss everything else he has to say?

Holding in the video says when he peruses an atheist book, he immediately looks for their treatment of the reference by Tacitus.  Again, Holding appears to be losing his mind...there is no logical or rational connection between getting Tacitus wrong, and being so stupid that one is unworthy of any further attention.

Worse, Holding encourages the Christian watching the video to do likewise:

"I'd like to recommend the Tacitus test to you as a way to figure out whether a book is worthy taking seriously or not.  If a fundy atheist does botched job like this one, then you can pretty much ignore anything else he has to say, and save yourself the time and the pain of reading his work." (video at 2:20 ff)

 I guess there's a new low in the new era of Christian scholarship.  Thanks but no thanks.  I won't ask whether a blunder in a basic area justifies me to give no attention to somebody, I'll instead simply ask what their specific argument against my belief is, and how well they supported it.

Holding, true to form, just cannot provide reasons why atheists are wrong, in this video he has to flash a picture of a roll of toilet paper and characterize the atheist work as not even worthy for wiping one's ass (video at 0:45 ff)

Holding then criticizes a 30-year-minister-turned atheist for invoking R.T. France and other authorities for the proposition that Tacitus scholars largely believe Tacitus' source was mere "popular understanding".  Holding then says this is not how most Tacitean scholars view the matter.  What he doesn't tell the viewer is that R.T. France is a Christian, and professor of NT, whose commentary to this effect is hosted at leaderu web site that also hosts Bill Craig's stuff.

There, France says:

(a) The brief notice in Tacitus Annals xv.44 mentions only his title, Christus, and his execution in Judea by order of Pontius Pilatus. Nor is there any reason to believe that Tacitus bases this on independent information-it is what Christians would be saying in Rome in the early second century. Suetonius and Pliny, together with Tacitus, testify to the significant presence of Christians in Rome and other parts of the empire from the mid-sixties onwards, but add nothing to our knowledge of their founder. No other clear pagan references to Jesus can be dated before AD 150/1/, by which time the source of any information is more likely to be Christian propaganda than an independent record.

Gee, will Mr. Holding assert that because Christian R.T. France got Tacitus wrong, the Christians he instructed before his death would have been wise to drop his classes?  Why should an atheist's mistake on Tacitus justify thinking they have nothing worthy of note, but Christian scholars who make the same mistake, might still have something worthy of note?  Nah, Mr. Holding just has a very stupid inconsistent criterion for truth, which he employs or doesn't employ as expediency dictates.

The fact that France was a Christian scholar means he was predisposed to accept the Tacitus-reference as gospel.  When a Christian doesn't agree that some Christian argument is forceful, its probably because they found evidence sufficient to overcome their pro-Christian predisposition, especially when the Christian is a scholar who puts he reasons in the arena, and not just an average liberal Christian with private views.


Holding will have an extremely difficult time locating properly qualified Christian scholars who agree with  him that it is a sign of good scholarship to toss another scholar's book out the window, because she fumbled a point that you think is basic.  Then again, having absolutely zero bible scholarship to back his views, has never bothered a man laden with the sin of pride like Holding.  The fact that no scholars support many of his points just assures him that God has chosen him to be the first to see these deep theological mysteries.

By the way, as an atheist bible critic, I overcome the alleged secular references to Jesus, with Paul's infamously unexpected and near total lack of interest in the historical Jesus.  Paul's silence on the historical Jesus is far more grave than the weakenesses of the secular references to Jesus. It doesn't matter what conclusion is warranted from Paul's near total silence;  whether Jesus didn't exist, or existed as a far less dramatic person than the gospels depict, either theory does fatal violence to fundy Christianity.

I also defeat the implications of the secular Jesus references with arguments that there are hopeless contradictions between Acts and the gospels.  It doesn't matter which source contained the fiction, either theory fatally injures the inerrancy doctrine. Check back to see my updates to that effect. 

Holding next says Tacitean scholars do not share France's view, but let's clarify:  France didn't say this reference is a forgery...he said Tacitus wrote it and was likely relying on second-hand or "popular understanding".  With that clarification on record, then either Holding is a liar, or unacceptably ignorant.

17 years ago, Jeffery Jay Lowder documented that while the scholars mostly think the passage authentic, some of them harbor France's view that Tacitus' source was something other than independent fact-checking or the imperial archives:

Scholarly debate surrounding this passage has been mainly concerned with Tacitus' sources and not with the authorship of the passage (e.g., whether it is an interpolation) or its reliability.[83] Various scenarios have been proposed to explain how Tacitus got his information. One possibility is that Tacitus learned the information from another historian he trusted (e.g., Josephus). Another possibility (suggested by Harris) is that he obtained the information from Pliny the Younger. According to Harris, "Tacitus was an intimate friend and correspondent of the younger Pliny and was therefore probably acquainted with the problems Pliny encountered with the Christians during his governorship in Bithynia - Pontus (c. A.D. 110-112)."[84] (Defenders of this position may note that Tacitus was also governing in Asia in the very same years as Pliny's encounters with Christians [112-113], making communication between them on the event very likely.)[85] Norman Perrin and Dennis C. Duling mention a related possibility; they state that Tacitus' information "is probably based on the police interrogation of Christians."[86] Yet another possibility (suggested by Habermas and defended by McDowell and Wilson) is that Tacitus obtained the information from official documents.[87] (I shall say more about this possibility below.) It is also possible that the information was common knowledge. Finally, there is the view (defended by Wells, France, and Sanders) that Tacitus simply repeated what Christians at the time were saying.[88] The bottom line is this: given that Tacitus did not identify his source(s), we simply don't know how Tacitus obtained his information. Holding himself admits, "Truthfully, there is no way to tell" where Tacitus obtained his information about Jesus.[89] Therefore, we can't use Annals XV.47 as independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus.

There's impressive support for saying the majority scholarly view generally agrees with France's view that something other than objective fact checking the historical existence of Christ in the Roman archives, was the reason Tacitus asserted the existence of Christ, even if the other scholars don't argue the exact same way France did.

Notice:  France's view is also held by Wells and Sanders.  So when Holding says in his video that France's assessment is not shared by anyone with any level of expertise in Tacitus, what he means is that if a scholar agrees with France's assessment of Tactius, Holding thus thinks said scholar doesn't have any level of expertise in Tacitus.

Holding says Tacitean scholars do not characterize Tacitus as somebody who would be sufficiently blasé in his sourcework so as to assert somebody's existence solely because of popular understanding, but why does Holding think an ancient historian basing his view on popular understanding is blasé?  Does he think all 1st century historians didn't represent something as fact unless they exhausted their own first-hand investigation of the official sources?

How did Matthew know about the allegedly false story spread by the Jews recorded in Matthew 28:15?  Did he conduct interviews with the original Christ-hating Jews who started the rumor, and thus subject himself to certain death for being a follower of the executed insurrectionist?  Or is Matthew, like so many other places in his gospel, depending on popular tradition (Christian or otherwise) as his source?

According to Metzger, some of the early copyists inserted material that could only have been sourced in popular understanding.  See John 5:4.  Other Christian scholars, who espouse inerrancy agree:

The reader should recognize that vv. 3b–4 (present in the KJV) are a later scribal addition to the story, probably inserted into the text by an early copyist who believed in such mythical manifestations and who sought to support the man’s belief pattern by such a statement. In terms of an explanation it is possible that the man’s theory here may have been based on the occurrence of an interesting natural phenomenon in which at high water times the pool apparently was infused by a periodic influx of spring water that stirred the pool with excess water.

Borchert, G. L. (2001, c1996). Vol. 25A: John 1-11 (electronic ed.).

Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 232).

Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

All scholars agree Luke was not with the original apostles before Jesus died, yet Luke reports the temptations of Jesus which happened before his ministry began.  Luke 4.  The bible never expresses or implies that any disciple was with Jesus, or was even a disciple, at the time of these temptations, so Luke can only have known about these stories, at best, by original disciples telling him what Christ told them.  That's called 3rd-hand hearsay.

Does Holding still think 3rd-hand hearsay is blasé?  Of course not.  If the bible said 2+2=5, the problem will be with the ungodly world for being spiritually dead, since for Holding, the bible having errors is like God being an atheist...there's a fixed natural law logically preventing any errors in the bible.  As as well there should be, because fighting critics of inerrancy does what preaching the prosperity gospel does, it causes idiots to donate their cash, and as we all know, the cash is what its all about.  Holding could very easily pay for his ministry by himself and his own work, but perhaps he thinks the "you should tithe" parts of the bible (1st Tim. 5:18) are more important than the "I didn't accept charity from you" parts. 2nd Thess. 3:8

One thing we can be sure of, Holding will not be quoting any properly credentialed Christian scholars who agree with him that noting one error in a basic area justifies tossing the entire work in the garbage.  Common sense dictate what proper objective peer-review would be, and Holding has done nothing here but hit an all-time low.

Holding is apparently fearful that if his followers read a bible-critic's book all the way through, they will encounter significantly weighty justification to abandon the faith (i.e., stop tithing to him), and having discovered that he fails to defend the faith convincingly, has resorted to the new low of trying to give his followers reasons to turn away from good critical arguments before testing them on the merits.

Once again, how much is implied when an atheist gets Tacitus wrong one time in a single book, and how much is implied when a Christian apologist gets his own favorite Context Group scholars wrong for 20 years running, and continues thereafter despite knowing they have disowned him for more than 5 years?

Only a deluded follower of Holding would trifle that the atheist mistake has greater potential to mislead.


 Somebody pointed out the obvious and Holding tried to parry:

DecKrash1 day ago

Maybe I'm just playing devil's avocate here, Mr. Holding, but why would an atheist treating Tacitus with flippant derision be proof that the rest of what he/she has to say isn't worth reading? That's not to say that what you said isn't true; it's just that maybe they might have done a passable job on scholarship, but dropped the ball on things like their research into Tacitus. Not judging; I'm just curious.

tektontv1 day ago

I'm being a bit satirical; hence the end comment. But in general, I have found that this is indeed a good measure for the lack of scholarship in the books as a whole; it can serve as a convenience for a typical reader that has other things to do. That said, as someone who does this as a job, I also check a few other markers and paragraphs in my real-world treatments. The thing is, I could have picked any one of a number of markers and said the same thing. :P

Then by Holding's logic, dismissing everything else he has to say without testing it on the merits, is justified because he violates even more basic notions like honesty, integrity and consistency, and he violates them specifically in the area of his use of scholarship.  So to be consistent, Holding will have to agree that if one finds him making errors in such basic things, dismissing all else he has to say "can serve as a convenience for a typical reader that has other things to do."

Holding doesn't let on that he does more fact-checking than his video suggests, until he is called on the carpet for how silly it would be to employ his recommendation as prescribed.

I also note that because Holding seems to think he is above the typical reader who has other things to do, he must think that the average person is not intellectually obligated to check out a criticism as thoroughly as he does.  Does he extend that logic to atheists?  If an atheist is not a scholar but a typical reader that has other things to do, can he do what Holding's followers all do, sneer his criticisms at his enemies, than walk away and justifiably avoid discussion?