(Author’s note: This continues a series answering objections to the Christian worldview. A week or two ago I made a call for folks to send me their “best shot.” For the other posts in the series, simply follow the links and the pingbacks in the comments section.)
I really enjoy interacting with people who have questions and doubts about the Christian worldview (perhaps that’s because I’m one of them!). People in my Alpha group are posing some great issues, and some of the folks have made some great challenges in the Calling all Skeptics thread.
The f0llowing, though, is not among that number. It comes from Greta Christina, and several people have made more or less the same challenge. Since Greta’s was the most forcefully stated, I’ll use hers as a representative:
“[There is a] complete and utter lack of solid evidence for God’s existence. The ‘evidence’ that’s typically cited by believers for God is either religious texts (circular thinking — ‘I believe the Bible because the Bible tells me so’), or the argument from design (shattered by the theory of evolution), or ‘lots of people believe this and they can’t all be wrong’ (sure they can — lots of people believed that the sun went around the earth, too), or their own person intuition (demonstrably fallible — and not reliable as a sole source of information). I have never seen any evidence for God that would be accepted as solid by any good scientist, historian, or archeologist.”
Where to start…
First, notice that she sets fire to straw men:
“The ‘evidence’ that’s typically cited by believers for God is either religious texts (circular thinking — ‘I believe the Bible because the Bible tells me so’), or the argument from design (shattered by the theory of evolution), or ‘lots of people believe this and they can’t all be wrong’ (sure they can — lots of people believed that the sun went around the earth, too), or their own person intuition (demonstrably fallible — and not reliable as a sole source of information).”
I’m tempted to not even address her, because she obviously hasn’t taken the time to search out the more sophisticated defenses of theism and Christianity. They are out there (links to substantiate in a minute). If she has taken the time to search them out, she chose to omit mention here, which is worse. I know there are some pretty good atheist apologists out there, and I try to interact with them when appropriate (Ex: Rowe. I interact with him a bit here.). She takes shots at the man on the street Christian, then confidently declares victory.
Tell me, which Christian philosopher has argued that “I believe the Bible because it tells me so?” William Alston, perhaps? J.P. Moreland? Doug Geivett? Alvin Plantinga? Paul Moser? Paul Copan? Eleanor Stump?
The way she starts out reminds me of ye old artful dodger Richard Dawkins.
Secondly, she assumes that if there is no “evidence” to believe in God, then we shouldn’t. This, though, is far from solid. There are some things we are warranted in believing sans evidence. I need not have “evidence” to be justified in holding the belief that rape is wrong, nor do I need to have an argument for my belief in the existence of other minds. Some, like Plantinga, have argued that belief in God, for some, is indeed properly basic.
Next, she claims that the argument from design has been “shattered by the theory of evolution.”
This is news to me. I love the loaded language there (“shattered.”). Me thinks she overplays her hand, just…a…bit.
Part of the problem here is that the word “evolution” is highly ambiguous. If she is merely talking about change that happens over time within a species (i.e., Darwin’s finch beak illustrations, as well as the peppered moth experiments. Some have doubted the veracity of the peppered moth experiments, though), then even the staunchest Southern Baptist can accept it. It poses no challenge to theism and Christianity whatsoever.
If, however, she is talking about macro-evolution, or the grand story of Naturalism (The universe is a closed system of cause and effect, mutation + natural selection is responsible for all progression of life from the primordial soup to man), then I’m left scratching my head as to how that could “shatter” the argument from design.
The teleological argument has a much wider scope than the explanation that assumed by evolution. One of the things the teleological argument focuses on is the conditions that would permit the evolution of intelligent life in the first place. For instance, how could life begin at all naturalistically? I know evolutionary biologists don’t typically focus on this issue; they start after life has begun.
But if you are going to argue that the teleological argument has been “shattered” by evolution, you need to tackle that issue. It’s the least you could do.
Go here for an analysis of Dawkins’ treatment of the teleological argument. It is actually a review of the whole book, so you will have to scroll down a ways to get to the evaluation of Dawkins’ rebuttal to the teleological argument.
I know naturalistic explanations have been attempted (i.e., Dawkins’ “multiverse;” scroll about half way down the link for the subsection on the multiverse theory.), but these explanations are clever stories that are often just as metaphysical as the theistic explanations they reject. Notice the number of times the word “might” or its cousins appear in talk of the multiverse theory. That should tell you something.
What’s more, they are much more complicated (Occam’s razor, anyone?) because they multiply entities unnecessarily (for a rebuttal of the multiverse theory, see Craig).
At any rate, even if the design argument is not a good argument for God’s existence, that does nothing to support the notion that belief in God is unjustified and/or irrational. There are many other arguments for God’s existence: the cosmological argument (go here for a few articles answering challenges to the argument), the argument from consciousness, or the moral argument (More here). There’s the argument from contingency (similar to the cosmological argument).
There are arguments from the resurrection of Jesus (no, that is much, much different from “I believe the Bible because it tells me so.” If you can’t see the difference, I don’t know what to say to you.). Alvin Plantinga has given “Two Dozen (or so)” theistic arguments (click here for his lecture notes. One of these in isolation doesn’t prove the existence of the biblical God, but he’s not claiming that. But put them all together, and a powerful case begins to form.).
Others reason that some fact of the world, like evil or morality, is best at home in a theistic worldview (I take these as variations of the moral argument).
NOTE: if you are going to respond, please pick one of those arguments above, read it, consider it, then give a reasoned response. I tire of smarmy drive-by one-liners.
Of course, some have ventured non-theistic explanations of those phenomena, but they usually end up not explaining the phenomena naturalistically. Rather, they end up eliminating it instead, substituting something else in its place, and labeling that “morality” (or whatever the phenomena is, be it consciousness, free will, etc.).
For example, if you try to give an evolutionary account of ethics, you end up leaving out the prescriptive nature of morality and you substitute merely describing the origins of behavior we call “moral.”
Thirdly, I really wonder what she would count as “evidence,” and if the evidence she has for her own beliefs would satisfy that criteria. I’ve ran into some atheists whose definition of “evidence” is so stringent that they end up throwing even the most commonsense knowledge into doubt, as well as most of ancient history.
A few examples: though they might not explicitly state it, some hold that only things verified by the five senses count as evidence, and/or only things verified by the hard sciences count. Others go so far as to hold that only God “showing Himself” directly would count (As if He would jump through the hoops of someone actively trying to run from and deny Him. He usually doesn’t play those sorts of games with those who aren’t really interested in seeking Him.); never mind that God shows Himself directly all the time…but you actually have to be looking (see p6 of the link…RockHarbor is the church I attend, and one of my closest friends witnessed the event).
I don’t want to put things in Greta’s mouth, so I can only ask the question at this point and wait for her to be more specific. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if there were a decent bit of deck-stacking going on.
Lastly, she states,
I have never seen any evidence for God that would be accepted as solid by any good scientist, historian, or archeologist.
Wow…that’s a pretty tall claim to stand behind. Off the top of my head, I can think of a good many scientists and historians that are sympathetic to evidence for God’s existence: Edwin Yamauchi (professor of history, Miami Univeristy), Paul Johnson (one of the greatest historians of the 20th century), Guillermo Gonzalez (formerly at Iowa State), Michael Behe (Biochemistry, Lehigh University), Robert DiSilvestro (Biochemistry professor, Ohio State University), Henry Schaefer (five time nominee for Nobel Prize), William Dembski, ( Francis Collins (Scientist: Human Genome Project). Here is a lecture by Schaefer where he lists a great man more scientists. You might debate the belief of some, but no doubt many of them admit evidence for God.
Like I said, that’s just off the top of my head…
While we’re at it, she might think Darwinism is a veritable rock of gibraltar, but many scientists are starting to doubt that.
I’d say her insinuation that there’s no evidence for God that would be accepted by any good scientist, historian, or archaeologist is a huge hyperbole.
She might respond by saying, “I meant *good* historian/scientist, etc. These guys are quacks.”
If that is her response (I don’t know, I’m just conjecturing. We’ll wait for her to come back and offer a counter), then I sense a bit of jerry-manding in her meaning of “good.” These fellas possess impeccable credentials. They are experts in their fields. Their fields are relevant to our question. Just because they are proponents of ideas you don’t find palatable doesn’t make them quacks.
At any rate, in the end, their credentials aren’t the main focus: their arguments are. Their arguments need to be addressed on their own merits. While authority does add weight to someone’s words (on matters of the heart, we listen to cardiologists, not car mechanics), but the ultimate question is, “why does this authority hold this belief?” not “what is this authority’s pedigree?”
Her words about lack of evidence reminded me of a famous exchange with Bertrand Russell. After a questioner asked him what he would say if he met God after his death, Rusell responded: “not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence!”
Bullfeathers. He’s given plenty of evidence. If someone won’t believe on the strength of the evidence He’s already given, they won’t even believe if He appeared in front of them and said, “I am God. I exist.” They’d most likely explain that away too, just like everything else.
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“Bullfeathers. He’s given plenty of evidence. If someone won’t believe on the strength of the evidence He’s already given, they won’t even believe if He appeared in front of them and said, “I am God. I exist.” ”
Incorrect!
Of course, there would have to be more than “I am God. I exist.” The crazy guy on the subway does that every morning. But something akin to one of the OT miracles? That would set me well on the way to believing your story.
Outstanding job!
Excellent point. Materialists tend to grab hold of Darwinism and never look beyond it.
Perhaps, but I think most skeptics would just rationalize it away. God has offered plenty of evidence already (see Romans 1) and Jesus noted that “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” (Luke 16:31).
“If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
Which is another way of saying “no one will ever see anything like what we say happened in these books, so better include this loophole to explain the lack of miracles!”
Actually, it was foreshadowing of how he would rise from the dead and people would still suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
MorseC,
The thing is: why require that high of a standard for God’s existence? I’m fairly sure you don’t require anywhere near that much for *any* of the rest of your beliefs, including any naturalistic beliefs you have (example: about morality, the self, the nature of the world, etc).
Plus, do you think God should be *obligated* to give you that audience? If so, why? Why should he be obligated to jump through such hoops, especially when He’s given us enough evidence already?
What’s more, miracles happen all the time today. Click on the relevant link for a great example.
Rich Bordner
You do know that Greta Christina, specifically, was a religion major don’t you? Yeah, she is familiar with the best various theologians can throw at her – so this rendition of the courtiers defence doesn’t actually work even on those terms.
The sad truth of the “more sophisticated” defences is they suck just as much as your common man on the street’s defence of religion – the “sophisticated” defenders just use bigger words.
As to why we require miracles?
We require that degree of evidence to accept anything as existing. If something exists – it impacts the universe around it.
We can’t see black holes, but the effects of the black holes allow us to say that they exist. Darwin once theorised that a species of moth existed with an extremely long probiscus – because the flowers that required that probiscus existed. He was later proven right when someone found that moth.
For a god (because lets not exclude the Hindu ones from contention) to exist, it has to at least have demonstrable effects on the universe around it – these effects we call miracles.
However, these miracles aren’t happening. At all. The nearest the religious come to “Miracles” are statistically rare occurances, happening at about the rate statistics would predict them as happening at.
As to your attack on evolution, Michael Behe himself ended up having to admit in court that ID has no scientific backing – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District.
Read what he ended up having to admit there: No peer reviewed science, and this is your guy talking.
So not only do you have no evidence a serious, unbiased scientist would accept, you have no evidence a court run by a Republican judge who was appointed by GW Bush would accept.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is how bad your evidence here is.
Rich:
I don’t demand huge levels of evidence for CONCEPTS. I do, however, demand huge levels of evidence for THINGS.
If your god is a thing, then he needs a lot more evidence than if he is just a concept.
“Plus, do you think God should be *obligated* to give you that audience? ”
Sure do. Especially considering the majority of believers tell me they experienced some sort of personal revelation. If your god refuses to give me the same sort of personal revelation, why should I believe in him?
“Why should he be obligated to jump through such hoops, especially when He’s given us enough evidence already?”
Because, if your stories are to be true, all his evidence took place amongst primitive illiterates in the middle of a desert. If I want the world to know about me, that’s not how I do it.
“What’s more, miracles happen all the time today.”
Define miracle.
Those folks may have had personal revelations, but that isn’t a requirement to be a Christian. The book of Acts chronicles the early church and the thirteen Gospel presentations therein focus on facts and reasons. It never claims you must have some sort of experience to be saved.
Well, lacking good evidence, I’m not going to believe.
If your god exists, he knows that. After all, if he exists, he made me this way.
So really, not believing would be your god’s fault.
Good luck with that
And if God doesn’t exist, then Darwinian evolution made us all this way – so why do atheists hyperventilate about religion so much? Seems kinda irrational.
Actually, he knows exactly why you don’t believe:
Romans 1:18-20 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
“And if God doesn’t exist, then Darwinian evolution made us all this way”
Well, no, evolution made us this way. There are a number of problems with Darwin’s initial ideas, which have been worked out and changed since.
But I’m being nitpicky.
“so why do atheists hyperventilate about religion so much?”
Because the actions of certain religious people cause the gasping for air of the rest of us.
Believe me, I’d rather not.
That seems inconsistent to me. If you think you should get a pass from God because He “made you that way” then why wouldn’t we all get passes from judges because evolution “made us this way?”
If evolution caused religion, how can you say any of it is wrong?
Because evolution made us this way biologically. We are not only our biology, but also our experiences.
If there is a god, and that god is omnipotent, then that god is literally responsible for all our actions. Or else it is not omnipotent.
Setting aside your misunderstanding of omnipotence, please demonstrate how adding experiences in a completely evolutionary worldview makes us responsible for our actions.
We still have free will. We can make choices, and those choices are impacted by both our biology and our experience.
It’s the Christian worldview that has an omnipotent god that implies we have no free will and are not responsible.
After all, why does a group of responsible people have to have someone else take their punishment?
First things first. Your claim appears to be that evolution, in the broadest, God-free (not Godfrey
) sense brought us here. That is as deterministic as it gets.
So how can we be held accountable? I am not responsible for my genetics, and I am not responsible for the experiences that happen to me. And my reaction to those experiences would be based on my biology. So how can a judge or anyone else hold me accountable for my behavior? (other than the tautology of them just doing what their chemical reactions tell them to do.)
Folks,
I ask that if you are going to dissent, please pick an argument and engage with it…point out how the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises, or that the premises aren’t true, or both. Most of what you guys have to say deals with peripheral or irrelevant points.
Bruce,
“You do know that Greta Christina, specifically, was a religion major don’t you? Yeah, she is familiar with the best various theologians can throw at her – so this rendition of the courtiers defence doesn’t actually work even on those terms.”
–Her original objection sure didn’t sound like it. She started off by attacking a straw man, then she made a few other errors, which I all pointed out in detail. Given that she’s a religion major, I hope she comes back and actually engages with one of the arguments I linked to.
“The sad truth of the “more sophisticated” defences is they suck just as much as your common man on the street’s defence of religion – the “sophisticated” defenders just use bigger words.”
–Like I said above, all you did was assert “your arguments suck!” but this is far from actual engagement.
“For a god (because lets not exclude the Hindu ones from contention) to exist, it has to at least have demonstrable effects on the universe around it – these effects we call miracles. However, these miracles aren’t happening. At all. The nearest the religious come to “Miracles” are statistically rare occurances, happening at about the rate statistics would predict them as happening at.”
–I provided a link to Craig on the teleological argument. Please interact with that. Besides, you merely assert that miracles aren’t happening at all, but I provided *eyewitness testimony* about a miracle. Just calling it a “statistically rare occurence” is argument by labeling. It’s not convincing to strong arm something off the table by defining in a way that suits your assertion. If you want other testimonies (including books), I can point you in the right direction and give you some links.
“the gospels if history was scientific.”
–Can you clarify for me? I don’t quite understand what you are saying here.
“You need some contemporary sources – and there aren’t any.”
–Why do I need contemporaries? Also, define “contemporary.” This is another example of a standard of evidence that is unreasonable and not applied elsewhere in history. To throw out Tacitus and Suetonius just because they don’t fit your stringent definition of “contemporary” is a stretch. Tacitus wrote from the early second century. How much closer can you get? If someone wrote a biography of Washington in 1850, would we have to throw him out?
Besides, we have some pretty good “contemporary” sources (albeit, non-Roman)–Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul’s letters. Refer to the proper links for background on their veracity.
“As to your attack on evolution.”
–you are responding to a part of my post that is utterly irrelevant to the main claim. All I did was mention that some scientists doubt Darwinian evolution. I could take that line out and everything else would stand….its a peripheral issue.
–Secondly, I am a fan of ID, but that’s another side issue. I didn’t make use of it in my post. What I did make use of was the teleological argument, which has a wider scope than just ID. It doesn’t depend upon ID for its soundness. Evaluate that argument please.
–Thirdly, if Behe admitted, as you say, that ID “has no scientific backing,” then he wouldn’t be an ID proponent! That is a huge twisting of his words. You are brushing over a large amount of details relevant to the case. I’m not an expert on the Dover case, but I can tell that by looking at the context of the testimony in question and the considerable amount of discussion that’s happened since then.
here
is a transcript of the relevant testimony.
here
is one example of a response to the Dover trial by an ID proponent. You gotta go about 2/3 of the way down to get to his response about the peer review comment.
here
is a link to some examples of peer reviewed publications supportive of ID. I don’t know enough about peer review to be able to defend this page from critics, but at least there’s the link. Readers can take a look and judge for themselves.
M.C,
“Define miracle.”
–As I’ve already mentioned, I provided a link to a pretty good example. Jack Deere’s book, *Surprised by the Spirit* gives many other examples. I can point you in other directions *if you are truly interested.*
As far as a definition of miracle goes, I’m going to quote something by Craig in my next comment. I refer you to that quote, for he does a much better job at explaining than I ever could. Stay tuned.
“Well, lacking good evidence, I’m not going to believe.”
–I couldn’t come up with a better way to substantiate my ending point than your comments. You keep repeating “there’s no evidence, there’s no evidence,” but you have yet to interact with *one* of the arguments I linked to. I even linked to an eyewitness account of a bona fide miracle, and you act like I’ve never brought it up. Remember, in my post I asked for dissenters to choose an argument and dive into it. Point out which premise is false, and/or point out how the premises don’t justify the conclusion. When you continue to repeat the same assertion without interacting with the *main substance* of what I wrote, that sounds disingenuous to me.
“After all, if he exists, he made me this way. So really, not believing would be your god’s fault.”
–Do not blame God when you abuse a gift He has given you. Free will is God’s gift, and in His graciousness He gives you considerable leeway in how you use it–that even extends to your rejection of Him. Your words remind me of my students, who, when they receive an F grade, say to me, “Mr. B, why’d you give me an F?” They think it’s somehow my fault. My reply: “No, I didn’t give it to you. That’s what you earned. I gave you opportunity after opportunity to repent and to raise your grade, but you wasted it all.” I don’t use the actual word ‘repent,’ but you get the picture. Also, think of it this way: your boss gives you a paycheck, and you have the freedom to squander that or spend if wisely. If you squander it in gambling and get yourself in a heap of debt, you won’t be able to blame your boss: “he’s the one that gave me the money anyway. He *knew* I had a bad gambling habit! It’s his fault!” Something makes me think that were it the other way around (if the Christian claim was that He forced belief upon you), that you’d find a way to object to that as well.
“Well, no, evolution made us this way.”
–Think about what is true of humans if evolution (in the macro sense) is true: humans are the product of completely natural forces. We are one substance–physical. At bottom, we are comprised of a very complicated arrangement of matter. The natural laws of cause and effect determine the world of matter, so those laws dictate our existence as well. If the evolutionary worldview is true, you might think you have free will, but you don’t. There is no room to insert a self that acts freely and independent of physical causes. It’s all c-fibers firing and chemicals reacting, all the way down. That’s a pretty big pill to swallow, in my mind.
Andrew,
“I agree with you that Zeitgeist is crap. Bob Price and Richard Carrier, however, qualify as “real” Biblical historians, and as such I think the mythicist hypothesis deserves to be engaged on its merits rather than simply dismissed. You also might want to avoid citing J.P. Holding if you’re demanding credentials; I think Holding is a prison librarian or something — he’s certainly not an academic or a scholar.”
–I actually thought I did engage the hypothesis on its own merits. I cited specific examples of alleged parellels, and I put forth what I found in the research. I demonstrated that the parallels don’t hold, and what would need to be shown if the borrowing hypothesis were to prove legit. I also gave specific instances of where Jesus is mentioned outside the Bible, I engaged with the doubt about Josephus, and I provided some links that discussed the Bible’s veracity as a historical source. Wherever my post left things sketchy, I provided links to more detailed treatments. What I did was far from a dismissal. This is a blog; I can’t write a book.
About Holding: ok, I don’t know much about him being a prison librarian, but I’ll concede the point–by most standards, he’s not a scholar. What follows from this? The best that follows is that I should be cautious, which is exactly what I said in my post about the “myth” proponents. I said their lack of credentials is a big red flag, but they still could be right, so it’s important to examine their arguments on their own merits. You need to do the same; be cautious about Holding, but examine his arguments on his own merits. I’m playing by my own rules here.
–Lastly, your point about Price and Carrier is still a fair one–they deserve to be interacted with (do both guys think Jesus never existed? That was what I was referring to in the relevant paragraph). So, why don’t you email me a link to something Price (not a book, but an article, essay, or paper)
or Carrier wrote and I’ll devote a future post to it.
Bino,
All Neil did was say he didn’t follow your point. It was a request for clarification and further elaboration. Then you say: “Then it seems already we’ve identified one area where your theory of Christian – Hellenistic syncretism fails to explain the data. Good to know.” Rather than help him see the superiority of your arguments, you’ve rushed to judgment and prematurely declared victory. Plus, you keep steamrolling with other questions before your last ones were answered. All this makes me think you have ulterior motives in entering this conversation. Please, engage the arguments I brought up in my original post or you will be banned. I have little patience for folks that just come here to run their mouths.
M.C,
On second thought, the quote is kinda long and involved, so I’m just going to link you to the whole article. Scroll about half way down (subtitle “miracles”) for the relevant part:
Craig
Like I said above, all you did was assert “your arguments suck!” but this is far from actual engagement.
Well that is the problem with your courtiers defence now isn’t it? Because you don’t actually present the arguments, you just say that Greta hasn’t been confronted by them. You assert based on an appeal to authority which goes ad-infinitum.
No matter how many theologians we have read, you will come up with another boring old sot for us to read, who will say pretty much the same things all the other boring old sots said and say “Well you haven’t read XYZ so you aren’t qualified to comment” without actually having to present those arguments yourself.
All you need really to keep that one going is a nice long list of names and you never actually have to argue your position.
Why do I need contemporaries? Also, define “contemporary.”
Consider that with Washington we have people who wrote about him when he was alive, who had actually met him. We have pictures of him painted at the time. We have documents he signed too. These sources would have to be cited by a book on his life written by someone who came after he died before we took it seriously. Your analogy there is kind of pathetically weak.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul’s letters.
John was the first gospel – if I remember correctly was about 70 years after the events in question. Paul himself never physically met Jesus – he had a revelation on the road.
For it to be a contemporary account it would have to be firsthand. That means it would have to be someone who was alive at the time, in the area in question. Both the Jews and the Romans were literate peoples, yet we have nothing written about Jesus or the miracles he performed.
As can be demonstrated by Cargo Cults and John Frum, people can come to accept the existance of someone who never actually existed fairly quickly. Those cults sprang up during WWII, in fairly small communities.
Josephus was 40 years after the events in question, and his account is highly questionable in terms of whether it was an interpolation. It is accepted by a lot of historians at this point more for want of stronger evidence than for it being 100% reliable.
As to Behe:
He says quite clearly that ID has not had one peer reviewed article published. Not one. For the scientific community to accept it as good science it needs to be subject to peer review – otherwise it hasn’t been accepted.
And you can’t pretend that science is biased one way or the other, cherished and long held concept (Like creationism, which was the dominant idea when Darwin was just boarding the Beagle) have been revised, thrown out and utterly discredited by the scientific community before.
Now your “Miracle.”
Okay, lets see: A woman who was blinded by a stroke suddenly regains her sight and mobility.
A stroke is based on a blood clot cutting off blood supply to the brain. It can cause siezures. While it is rare for a stroke victim to completely recover, it isn’t actually unheard of for it to happen – particularly under unusual stimulus.
This is because while you cannot regrow nerves (Okay, technically you can, but they grow so slowly as to make it no difference), your brain can reorganise itself to compensate for damage.
Further, a large portion of what a stroke victim suffers is born of frustration leading to depression – which can lead to them just “giving up” eventually.
Having a bunch of very nice people showing up and showing concern, can actually help on the psychological side of the condition.
The point here is that this is a statistical blip, these things happen. Now, for a miracle to occur…
Take an amputee, and have him regrow a limb. Have someone who has actually lost his eyes regain his sight.
The point being this shouldn’t be issues where we can shrug, say “That’s interesting, but it is essentially in keeping with statistics on the matter, every now and then someone does recover.”
“I even linked to an eyewitness account of a bona fide miracle, and you act like I’ve never brought it up. ”
Do you understand that eyewitness accounts are the worst kind of evidence?
They are evidence, don’t get me wrong, but that’s why I’ve specifically said “good evidence”.
For every eyewitness miracle story, I can point to 20 eyewitness alien abduction stories. Why should I trust some and not others? Easy answer, I don’t trust either unless there’s better evidence to back the eyewitness testimony up.
“Free will is God’s gift”
Does he give it to everyone, without reservation? Does he ever revoke it? The Bible seems to have at least one huge episode of your god ‘hardening’ someone’s heart to keep them from acting.
I’m sorry, but if you created everything, and you know everything that’s going to happen, and you knew those things before you created everything, those creations have no free will. They can only act out what the god already knows is going to happen, and the god made them that way.
“Your words remind me of my students, who, when they receive an F grade, say to me, “Mr. B, why’d you give me an F?” They think it’s somehow my fault.”
If you created that student, and everything that affects that student, and knew going in that the student would fail and you designed it that way, then it would be your fault.
You can’t have it both ways. Either your god is omnipotent and omniscient or he isn’t. If he is, no free will. If he isn’t, free will, but why call it god?
“Like I said above, all you did was assert “your arguments suck!” but this is far from actual engagement.
Well that is the problem with your courtiers defence now isn’t it? Because you don’t actually present the arguments, you just say that Greta hasn’t been confronted by them. You assert based on an appeal to authority which goes ad-infinitum. ”
–Bruce, I provide a substantive amount of links that give the arguments. That’s doing more than merely give a list of names. If all I did was give a list of names, that would be different. The post was already quite long and I didn’t want to make it longer by trotting out lengthy arguments, but I still wanted to substantiate my points. Links are a good way to do that. Those that don’t want to read every argument aren’t subjected to an incredibly long post, and those that wish to interact with one of the arguments can follow the right link.
I’ll answer your other points later.
> > “I even linked to an eyewitness account of a bona fide miracle, and
> > you act like I’ve never brought it up. ”
> Do you understand that eyewitness accounts are the worst kind of
> evidence?
It’s worse than that.
As far as I can tell Rich is unable to say exactly what he imagines a miracle is. This doesn’t take a link. It takes ten words.
He also fails to think through the basis on which one might recognize something as evidence of a miracle.
If you don’t state your case precisely, it cannot be overcome. Except by the observation you don’t really have a case, you have purdy words.
Bino Bolumai
/ In Bino Veritas >
Bruce,
Seems to me like you’ve misunderstood the point of me trotting out names. Recall the context: Greta issued a challenge in which she relied upon attacking straw men. She said the “typical” arguments for God’s existence were 1) I believe it b.c the Bible says so, 2) arguments based on personal intuition 3) many people believe X and they can’t all be wrong, and 4) the argument from design. What that showed me is that she either didn’t know of better arguments or she chose not to bring them up for some reason.
And no, the better arguments aren’t just 1-4 dressed up in more sophisticated language. I challenge anyone to connect any of Greta’s statements to one of the arguments I linked.
That was the context of what you are calling my “courtier’s defense.” This, though, is a peripheral point to my case. I think it still stands (Greta was attacking straw men), but I can take it out and my main case still goes on.
In the main part of the post, I linked to some arguments. I’m sorry if you don’t like my strategy of linking; I only have so much time in the day, and I also know people generally aren’t going to want to wade through an extra, extra long post that goes an inch deep and a mile wide. Here, though, are the main arguments I referenced:
–the moral argument
–the cosmological argument
–the teleological argument
–the argument from the resurrection
–the argument from consciousness
–moral truths are best at home in a theistic metaphysic rather than a naturalistic one
–the properly basic nature of theistic belief
All I am asking is that you pick *one* and respond to it. No need to attack every one; I know you have a day job as do I…of course, if you want to, go ahead…I just won’t fault you if you focus on one. I think the discussion will be much more productive if we go about it this way than handling minor points.
No, I will not respond by “continuing to throw out more names.” That is an unfair and unsubstantiated accusation.
As to Behe:
I’m afraid I’m not really knowledgeable on Kitzmiller V. Dover. But tell you what; I’ll study up on it and devote a post or two to it in the future. Then, if you really want to discuss that case in depth, you can have at it.
The case, though, is another thing that’s not central to this discussion. Bruce, I ask you: which argument (cited above) does your comments about Kitzmiller and Behe apply to?
Furthermore, let’s say, *for the sake of discussion,* that I agree with your comment: ID is 100% religion and Behe is a crack.
What follows from that?
Nothing interesting, as far as I can tell. None of the arguments I mentioned are damaged, for none of them depend upon ID for success. It doesn’t even follow that ID is false; all that follows is that its not science, and science doesn’t have a monopoly on knowledge and reality. Not even close. Other disciplines give us knowledge too. Science even depends upon non-empirical, non-scientific claims to operate.
Now, more to a direct response about your Behe comments: again, I get the hunch you are glossing over *lots* of relevant details. I did a small bit of snooping around last night (including your Wiki link), and from what I could tell, the case was much more complex than your paragraph summary.
All I can say at this point to the reader is to examine the links I referenced last night (Behe’s actual testimony, in context; one person’s analysis of the decision; Discovery’s list of peer reviewed publishings from IDers) and decide for yourself.
Lastly, you are stretching things when you say Behe admitted ID “is not backed by science.” In substantiating that, I know you make much capital of the notion that ID has not been peer reviewed by the sci. community and therefore hasn’t bee accepted by the sci community. That is another non sequitur, though. All that means is that the majority don’t hold to it, and there could and are all sorts of reasons why.
*If* the sci community at the time doesn’t peer review something (again, check out Discovery’s link on more detail to this), does that mean the idea is “not backed by science?” To make that jump requires some equivocation and undefined terms. What is the sci community? What does it mean for something to be peer reviewed? If the majority doesn’t accept ID (which is the best you can get, I’m afraid. Saying the “sci community” hasn’t accepted it is just false, since some scientists do accept ID), why does that mean ID isn’t “backed by science?”
Your words about ID “not being backed by science” are too strong at this point.
My miracle:
Can such drastic change happen so quickly naturally? Keep in mind that the woman was in quite a drastic and sorry state (blind, bedridden) for two years. This goes past someone who is depressed. Also, the context of it was immediately after a group prayed for her. Looks to me like someOne monkeyed with her body.
I’d be more inclined to accept your explanation if the change happened slower over time.
As far as “eyewitness testimony” goes, geez, fellas, I regularly eat dinner with a guy who was there. He’s not a crook, and he doesn’t put tinfoil on his head and camp out in Roswell. I’m gonna take an innocent until proven guilty stance with him. Plus, it was corroborated by many other people I regularly rub shoulders with.
Bino,
I’ll do you one better: I’ll put it in a haiku.
event that’s not brought
by any natural cause
in a time and place
Not exactly poetic, but at least the syllables fit.
The reason why I gave the link is because Craig gives good background as to different definitions of natural law, and the definition of a miracle differs slightly depending on how you define natural law. Pretty much all the definitions, though, have an “all things being equal” assumption in them. That is, they all assume that there’s no intervention from the outside, so a law states what is the case or what will happen given that no other factors are interfering.
If you do an experiment in a science lab, for example, things should follow natural laws unless, that is, you step in and jerry-rig things. Then you’ll get different results than what the laws would predict.
This way, if a super-natural or natural force is acting, a law isn’t violated and doesn’t need to be revised.
All that to say: a miracle is an event that cannot be produced by the relevant natural causes at a certain time and place.
As far as the identification of miracles go, it depends much on the context. If the miracles happen at a conspicuous time (during prayer, or, say, when Jesus heals a cripple by saying “stand and walk”), these don’t recur regularly in history, and if these instances are numerous and various, then most likely the cause is not natural.
> All that to say: a miracle is an
> event that cannot be produced by
> the relevant natural causes at a
> certain time and place.
I see. I am not aware that I have come across any such events. Perhaps I didn’t know what to look for.
A.
What precisely are the observable characteristics of an event that identify it as a miracle?
I know this question is abstract. Let me give an example of what I’m asking for.
If I observe that an animal has two humps, big feet, and can go a week in the desert without water, I conclude it’s a camel. I have a list of things that I observe about an animal that lead me to conclude it is a camel. I’m asking you to do the same thing for a miracle. I’m asking for a list of the observable features of a miracle.
So, again, what precisely are the observable characteristics of an event that identify it as a miracle?
B.
On what basis do you believe those characteristics correctly identify miracles?
Also abstract. Let me give an example of what I’m asking you for.
The features I listed for the camel – I didn’t make them up. Over the years people have observed many animals with exactly those features. And when we see an animal with those features, we say, “There’s another one.”
So I’m asking, what observations have similarly been made regarding miracles – events that happen with a non-natural cause. What were the events that were first observed that led you, or Dr. Craig, to know that this sort of event exists in the first place?
In keeping with your definition, the question is:
1) what were the events that you classify as miracles, and
2) On what basis do you know that the events you have in mind were caused by something other than natural law?
> As far as the identification of
> miracles go, it depends much on
> the context. If the miracles happen
> at a conspicuous time (during
> prayer, or, say, when Jesus heals
> a cripple by saying “stand and
> walk”), these don’t recur regularly
> in history, and if these instances
> are numerous and various, then
> most likely the cause is not
> natural.
I honestly don’t understand how this might work. May I ask you to use the example of Jesus walking on water. I think this makes your conspicuous time, don’t recur regularly bit unnecessary. I am happy to agree that the laws of nature prevent people from walking on water. If someone walked on water, some power beyond the laws of nature must have been the cause. Do we agree?
The thing about your analysis I don’t understand is “If the miracles happen…”
I’m sure you meant to say, “If the events happen…” – otherwise your analysis would be circular.
But my real question is, How do you determine whether the event actually happened?
For example, with the walking on water business, I wasn’t there. You weren’t there. We don’t yet have an event. What we have is a story that claims there was an event. Maybe the event was real. Maybe it wasn’t.
I myself think the probability the event in the story isn’t real is finite. I know lots of stories about magic events that guys just made up. Maybe some guy made up our Jesus on water story.
On the other hand, I’ve never seen anyone walk on water. And I’m pretty sure from what I know about the laws of nature, that it can’t be done – unless God suspended the laws of cause and effect and made someone walk on water.
So two possibilities present themselves, either
1. We are certain the story about the event was made up (a finite probability), and the event did not really happen (zero probability, by the laws of nature)
OR…
2. God suspended the laws of cause and effect and made someone walk on water.
But to say, as you do, that “most likely the cause is not natural”, you must be able to observe the likelihood that God does in fact suspend the laws of cause and effect.
Tell me how to calculate the probability God suspended the laws of cause and effect and made someone walk on water. What measurement shall I make?
Or shall we just agree all those miracle stories were made up?
Bino Bolumai
/ In Bino Veritas >
Bino,
Ok, now you raise some good questions and issues. Good stuff. I will think about them and get back to you.
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the moral argument:
You should be grateful she didn’t, this is one of the worst arguments for religion given how many immoral religious people there are, and how many upright and moral atheists there are. It is essentially bigotted.
the cosmological argument
Is an element of argument from design – and doesn’t actually lead to God. A “First cause” wouldn’t have to actually be sentient for it to be a first cause, God on the other hand is. Aside from that, it doesn’t actually solve the question, it just begs it, after all from whence came God? And you can’t say “God always was” because if God always was, why couldn’t the universe have always been?
the teleological argument
Isn’t essentially an argument from design, it is THE argument from design, using a big word to describe it.
the argument from the resurrection
The record of that resurrection is the Bible, so it fits precisely into 1, because without the Bible there is no record of that resurrection. Raising it in defence of Christian belief is essentially, circular reasoning.
the argument from consciousness
This is an argument from design – it is also contradicted by physical evidence. Brain damage can change someone’s character quite drastically, indicating that “consciousness” is actually and effect of the physical biological processes going on in our brains.
moral truths are best at home in a theistic metaphysic rather than a naturalistic one
This is just a retread of the argument from morality. It is like saying morality is best at home in a white skin, while ignoring highly moral black people. It fails to account for evidence to the contrary in the presence of highly moral atheists.
the properly basic nature of theistic belief
Which is just saying the argument from intuition in different words.
So, apart from the argument from morality (Which is actually also an argument from design come to think of it) all of those arguments fit into Greta Christina’s four categories.
So, umm, you know everything there is to know about natural causes?
I know I wouldn’t make that claim.
While there is a lot we don’t know about – the gaps in our knowledge are vast – that doesn’t make the unknown unnatural, it just makes it unknown.
If there is a God, then it is a natural God – because what is “Natural” is essentially part of reality. Our “Scientific laws” are merely our way of figuring out the natural, they don’t govern nature, nature governs them.
So to call a miracle something that cannot occur due to natural laws is nonsense. A miracle is something that indicates in an unmistakable manner a mind sufficiently beyond our current understanding as to qualify it as a god.
Can such drastic change happen so quickly naturally?
They can happen over a period of time, and manifest quickly under a good stimulus due to psychological effects that prevented the person realising they had recovered.
Which is the point to how stroke can cause people to suffer depression.
As to Behe:
The Scientific community is perfectly willing to publish minority views. Evolution, when it first began to hit the mainstream, was a minority view yet it gained steam as the evidence piled up.
Passing peer review means you applied scientific principles to your work, and your experiments can be repeated for the same results. What it means is that nobody has to believe you, anybody can repeat the same experiment and get the same results, whether they are religious, atheist, agnostic or apatheist.
With peer review, your basic facts are verified by someone checking them.
Now with the DI and other religious organisations, “peer review” is tainted by their bias in favour of a specific outcome, which leaves them less trusted, and thus not considered a real form of peer review.
What Behe admitted to when he said that ID was not peer reviewed science was that the basic facts couldn’t be verified thus meaning that the evidence just wasn’t there.
Just note that I am not going to be online until Monday, so it is going to take a while for me to respond to your counter-arguments.
Bino,
Haven’t forgotten about you. It will still be a few days.
In the meantime, I wanted to let everyone know that I’ve replied to Bruce in a separate post:
http://pugnaciousirishman.com/2009/03/05/skeptics-answered-no-evidence-contd/
Bino,
Here are some general thoughts.
>I’m sure you meant to say, “If the events happen…” – otherwise your analysis would be circular.
–Good point. Noted.
I think its best to take a particularist answer to your question of observable characteristics. A particularist in Epistemology is someone who starts with clear cases of knowledge and tries to glean a list of qualifications for something being knowledge, rather than the other way around. Trying to start by making a list can get you into all sorts of problems.
Might we take the same attitude towards identification of miracles? That is, lets start with an event that pretty much everyone would agree would be a miracle if it happened, and use that event to come up with our list of observable characteristics.
Lets go with the Resurrection of Jesus. What do we observe here? First, I think both you and I would agree that natural laws don’t permit such a thing. The more we learn about decomposition of cells, the more it seems natural law won’t allow a resurrection. Much more reasonable to attribute it to supernatural causes. Second, notice the momentous context: the resurrection wasn’t just a random event. It served as the vindication of his otherwise blasphemous claims. Jesus predicted it, even. Third, while there have been claims of other resurrections (which need to be assessed on their own merits or demerits, not dismissed out of hand), something like this doesn’t happen in a patterned way regularly. That is, if the events surrounding it were repeated (brutal and multiple trials, crucifixion, stabbed in heart before taken down from cross, laid in a tomb, left for three days) with someone else, we wouldn’t see a resurrection. The guy would stay dead.
So, it can be difficult to know whether a miracle has occured in some cases, we at least have a few things that could serve as identifiers and could help increase the probability that a certain event is miraculous. They are similar to the ones I listed before: momentous time/context (was the person experience a radical healing after a prayer?), the event doesn’t repeat itself in a regular pattern (for example, just saying certain words like “be healed” or just re-creating the physical conditions of the event won’t bring about the same results), and we know that natural laws, if left alone, usually won’t permit the event.
If all those earmarks are present, the probability a miracle has occured is increased.
Now, if one of those earmarks isn’t present, does that mean a miracle has not occured? For example, what if it is possible that natural law could bring it about (for example, someone’s cancer goes away inexplicably)? In that case, a miracle still might have occured, its just that our confidence in such a notion would go down.
About your second question–how do we determine that X event actually happened:
This is a straightforward historical question, and thus, the event in question needs to be assessed like any other historical event would. It should be assessed on an equal par with other events in history. In talking about one of Hume’s arguments against miracles (Hume had a few…:)), Craig notes,
“…since a miracle is just as much a matter of sense perception as any other event, it is, in principle, provable by historical testimony in the same way as a non-miraculous event. Qua history, they stand exactly on a par.
“It is contrary to sound historical methodology to suppress particular testimony out of regard for general testimony. In the case of the resurrection, for example, if the testimony which we have in the New Testament makes it probable that Jesus’ tomb was really found empty on the first day of the week by some of his women followers and that he later appeared to his disciples in a non-hallucinatory fashion, then it is bad historical methodology to argue that this testimony must be somehow false because historical evidence shows that all other men have always remained dead in their graves.
“Nor can it be argued that the testimony must be false because such an event is naturally impossible, for it may well be the case that history proves that a naturally impossible event has, in fact, occurred.
“As Paley contended, Hume’s argument could lead us into situations where we would be led to deny the testimony of the most reliable of witnesses to an event because of general considerations, a situation which results in an unrealistic scepticism. In fact, as Sherlock and Less correctly contended, this would apply to non-miraculous events as well.
“There are all sorts of events which make up the stuff of popular books on unexplained mysteries (such as levitation, disappearing persons, spontaneous human combustions and so forth) which have not been scientifically explained, but, judging by their pointless nature, sporadic occurrence, and lack of any religious context, are probably not miracles.
“It would be folly for a historian to deny the occurrence of such events in the face of good eyewitness evidence to the contrary simply because they do not fit with known natural laws. Yet Hume’s principle would require the historian to say that these events never actually occurred. The fact is, the historian does, in certain cases, seem able to determine the facticity of a historical event without knowing how or whether it accords with natural laws.”
Hope this helps. I know this isn’t exactly exact, but its a start. I’m no doubt going to continue to think about your questions and run them by smarter minds than I. If I come up with anything else, I’ll let you know.
I asked direct questions and got…1,000 words of indirection.
Asked What precisely are the observable characteristics of an event that identify it as a miracle?, you fail to list those characteristics.
Asked On what basis do you know that the events you have in mind were caused by something other than natural law? you fail to give that basis.
Asked Tell me how to calculate the probability God suspended the laws of cause and effect and made someone walk on water. What measurement shall I make? you fail to calculate that probability, you fail to identify a method.
Let us accept then that your theory cannot answer simple basic questions—because your theory is circular. The resurrection is real because it’s a miracle. The resurrection is a miracle because it is real.
When you say…
The more we learn about decomposition of cells, the more it seems natural law won’t allow a resurrection. Much more reasonable to attribute it to supernatural causes.
…the “much more reasonable” part is not true. You have no basis whatsoever to make this claim. We know that now because you were asked how you might measure this probability, and you failed to answer.
The truth is you want the magic story to be true. You believe the magic story must be true. So you make up facts as if it were true. You are creating myth.
Which is, no doubt, how the magic story got told in the first place.
Bino Bolumai
/ In Bino Veritas >
we at least have a few things that could serve as identifiers and could help increase the probability that a certain event is miraculous.
Oops. I missed this. Don’t know what I was thinking.
I’ll get back to you.
Bino
> I think its best to take a particularist
> answer to your question of
> observable characteristics.
> around.
> ….Trying to start by making a
> list can get you into all sorts of
> problems.
There’s no trouble making a list for camels. I see a camel, I make a list. Hump. Fur. Desert.
But you can’t do that for miracles. You have never observed an event whose cause you can reasonably identify as not natural. So you can’t list the observed characteristics miracles.
Let us accept then that miracles are not real in the sense that camel and trees and people and stars and gravity and everything we have ever touched or heard or seen or tasted or smelled are real. I mean real in the sense that anyone has ever seen one.
Miracles are real in the sense that you can’t give us a list of what they’re like because you can’t give a single non-circular time one has happened.
> Might we take the same attitude
> towards identification of miracles?
> That is, lets start with an event that
> pretty much everyone would agree
> would be a miracle if it happened,
> and use that event to come up with
> our list of observable characteristics.
> Lets go with the Resurrection of
> Jesus. What do we observe here?
….
> If all those earmarks are present, the
> probability a miracle has occured is
> increased.
Your analysis is circular. “The resurrection is a miracle. Miracles look like the resurrection.”
I agree that if our resurrection legend were true, it would be a story about something that couldn’t happen by natural causes. But it does not follow from that that a real miracle event must look like our resurrection legend event. It could be that events do happen by non-natural causes, but that our resurrection legend event isn’t one of them. Our story may just be a story.
And it does not follow that miracles – things that happen outside natural cause – do in fact happen. You haven’t yet established that our resurrection legend recounts an event that really happened.
If Jesus were to return to Earth as an orange duck in a spandex bra, that would be a miracle. It does not follow from this that if Jesus does miraculously return it will be in the form of an orange duck.
> About your second question–how do
> we determine that X event actually
> happened:
> This is a straightforward historical
> question,
If you want my opinion, the reason the number of self proclaimed unbelievers in the US has doubled in 20 years is, believers keep bringing up silliness like W. L. Craig’s “You can’t prove it’s not true”. Makes you look unserious.
> This is a straightforward historical
> question,
I can’t believe that is true. Otherwise, when I asked the direct question…
“Tell me how to calculate the probability God suspended the laws of cause and effect and made someone walk on water. What measurement shall I make?”
…you would have given a direct answer.
Instead you just repeated your earlier analysis. …
The more we learn about decomposition of cells, the more it seems natural law won’t allow a resurrection. Much more reasonable to attribute it to supernatural causes.
But since you fail to answer the simple direct historical question, we now know “much more reasonable” is not true. You have no basis whatsoever to make this claim.
You were asked how you might measure this probability, and you failed to answer. Because it can’t be done.
The truth is you want the magic story to be true. You believe the magic story must be true. So you make up facts as if it were true. You are creating myth.
Which is, no doubt, how the magic story got told in the first place.
Bino Bolumai
/ In Bino Veritas >
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