Originally posted by Griggsy

The steps are irrelevant . Prove a miracle,just one, ! What hokum.

Griggsy you can see a miracle for yourself by wanting it enought overcome your painful emotions and doubt your Atheistic religion of Scientism, that says Science is the ONLY way to think correctly, and see that Pragmatism, as a religion, will open you to see the things happening that Science can't explain. Then you can know that the Atheists dealing with the Vatican are real Atheists who have not lost their minds.

Originally posted by Griggsy

I agree with the definitions . When someone alleges that something is miraculous that she cannot explain, she just jumps to that conclusion. Perhaps another could expain it . Fortunately , scientists are not of that disposition or else we would not be where we are! It is no miracle that Jewry have survived- the vagaries of history have helped them do so, not their god .No miracle there. It is no miracle that some people survive plane crashes- good piloting and the planes themselves assure that!

Prove that I am doing so by my definitions of what a miracle is and by the specific examples I referenced.

I never claimed the Jews survival fit the cirteria for a miracle...

You are just making general statements and trying to fit me inside your imaginary box of why miraculous claims are made. You have no idea who I am or what I have seen in my life, so who are you to pontificate about my motivations?

No one.

Originally posted by Griggsy

One has to show that a god is behind natural events and that breaks the rule of parsimony.Istarted the two category mistake thread showing that natural causation and teleology just do not mix. I gave reference to Amiel Rossow's essay on Kenneth Miller's Yin and Yang. Read again what I wrote . So, from that standpoint and no real miracles , no god !

Im not claiming that God is behind natural events....a supernatural event is one that does not have a natural cause by definition..

Stop trying to use some made up general principle, such as the "rule of parsimony", as a silver bullet against miracle claims. It simply doesnt work and its also very lazy...instead of dealing with a claim on its own merit you attempt to rule it out from the start using some philosophical arguement..

Sorry...I never have put much confidence in philosophy...thats why Im an engineer..

Originally posted by cbro

Griggsy you can see a miracle for yourself by wanting it enought overcome your painful emotions and doubt your Atheistic religion of Scientism, that says Science is the ONLY way to think correctly, and see that Pragmatism, as a religion, will open you to see the things happening that Science can't explain. Then you can know that the Atheists dealing with the Vatican are real Atheists who have not lost their minds.

CBRO, no, that would be self-brainwashing. It is the matter of evidence that counts , not whims. And engineers are not verifiers of miracle claims . You are using the fallacy that ,because you cannot see why these principles apply , those who have toP use them are wrong.These principles work; the god notion is just the tautology that god wills what it wills and that explains nothing . Do those atheists use sound judgment if they are, indeed,atheists? Others find those miralcles natural , because they thoroughly investigate. Why don't these purported atheists convert? A reprobate mind? We can rule out from the start these miracle claims ,because experience shows no miralcles when the cases are thoroughly investigated! If one points out a contradiction is that phony ? No, for contradictions, even in engineering ,do not work! History is not science,but facts are require d there also. Everything is not scientific ,but everything requires evidence , else there would be more gullibility than there is now!Thanks for a pleasant response. Investigate! Maybe a fellow skeptic would add to this discussion to move it forwqrd. In my Socratic ignorance this is all I can for a while state. Oh, how about miracles of other religions?

I agree. And no one answered my post about the fact that this disease is not in fact usually deadly.

Has anyone here actually 'googled' and read about Rhuematic Heart Disease? The mortality rate worldwide is only 1-10%. And from the various sources I'm finding, it's not as difficult to recover from as was previously stated in this thread. One major source is here and there are many others to browse through. There are plenty of people who recover from illnesses and I don't know how we determine which ones are 'miracles'. It seems to be pretty silly if you think about it.

Originally posted by warcraft3

I dont follow you...

Miracles are outside of scientific explanation by definition....The very nature of a miracle assumes that it can not be explained by natural means..

How does a miracle not being physically possible rule out mere statistical improbability?

An event being improbable is one of two necessary criteria to label something as a miracle...

Many people would take a "one in a million chance" actually happening to be the sign of a miracle. The problem is that in a world where are six or seven odd billion people, one in a million odds come up all the time.

A true miracle is an event where, given our knowledge of how the natural world works, the odds of it ever occuring are 0. It can't be merely "pretty unlikely but still within the realm of natural possibility".

Which describes the case for my Mother exactly as described in the thread I referenced in my reply to Ryokan...

Agreed....several so called miracles I heard about growing up turned out to be misdiagnoses after further inquiry...

I have. Thats one of the reasons I believe in God to begin with...I have seen and experienced things that do not have any coherent, consistent explanations outside of an intelligent and very powerful being causing things to happen deliberatly.

If you have witnessed a true miracle, then you are one of the lucky few to whom God has shown his power. Unfortunately God hides this same power from everyone else, including scientists searching for objective evidence. Why would he do this?

Originally posted by To Griggsy

Stop trying to use some made up general principle, such as the "rule of parsimony", as a silver bullet against miracle claims. It simply doesnt work and its also very lazy...instead of dealing with a claim on its own merit you attempt to rule it out from the start using some philosophical arguement..

The problem is that the rule of parsimony happens to work in most cases, and that's why it's used. In the absence of evidence, it's simply not a very good idea to choose a favored hypothesis when you do not have adequate evidence for that hypothesis in particular. In all matters where evidence "can" actually be marshalled to resolve an issue, parsimony seems to work better than arbitrary explanations. In other words, the simplest explanations for a phenomena have an excellent track record of being the best.

Originally posted by Rationalist

Many people would take a "one in a million chance" actually happening to be the sign of a miracle. The problem is that in a world where are six or seven odd billion people, one in a million odds come up all the time.

I would not define a miracle as a "one in a million chance"...although the improbability is one of two criteria I have for a miracle...

Originally posted by Rationalist

A true miracle is an event where, given our knowledge of how the natural world works, the odds of it ever occuring are 0. It can't be merely "pretty unlikely but still within the realm of natural possibility".

I think this definition has some problems though...we could say that even if our current knowledge gives a chance of zero it is possible that future knowledge will show that the event is possible...so I dont find this definition to be very useful...

A miracle isnt just some random unlikely event...there are many observations of unlikely events occuring. For example...the probability that someone will win the lottery is different than the probability that you specifically will win the lottery. Yet people do win the lottery...is this a miracle? No..its just probability.

A miracle has to be an event that isnt just improbable, but has intentionality as well. Many events that I would like to label a miracle I can't based on my own criteria and that goes for most miracle claims I have heard from family and friends.

Many Christians I know are not eager to share "experiences" or "miracles" with me because I end up telling them the event isn't worthy of a supernatural label.

Originally posted by Rationalist

If you have witnessed a true miracle, then you are one of the lucky few to whom God has shown his power. Unfortunately God hides this same power from everyone else, including scientists searching for objective evidence. Why would he do this?

I don't really know and it is something that I struggle with almost on a daily basis...everytime I pray I ask God why he doesn't do more visible miracles and I never get an answer.

I continue to pray (often with tears) that He does something like healing an amputee so that people can have no doubt they have witnessed a miracle.

Originally posted by Rationalist

The problem is that the rule of parsimony happens to work in most cases, and that's why it's used. In the absence of evidence, it's simply not a very good idea to choose a favored hypothesis when you do not have adequate evidence for that hypothesis in particular. In all matters where evidence "can" actually be marshalled to resolve an issue, parsimony seems to work better than arbitrary explanations. In other words, the simplest explanations for a phenomena have an excellent track record of being the best.

I dont necessairly disagree with you here, but assuming that this rule applies to every case in such a way that rules out a miracle seem to be foolish to me. One has to look at each claim as an individual case and go from there.




Russ

Originally posted by warcraft3

I would not define a miracle as a "one in a million chance"...although the improbability is one of two criteria I have for a miracle...



I think this definition has some problems though...we could say that even if our current knowledge gives a chance of zero it is possible that future knowledge will show that the event is possible...so I dont find this definition to be very useful...

A miracle isnt just some random unlikely event...there are many observations of unlikely events occuring. For example...the probability that someone will win the lottery is different than the probability that you specifically will win the lottery. Yet people do win the lottery...is this a miracle? No..its just probability.

A miracle has to be an event that isnt just improbable, but has intentionality as well. Many events that I would like to label a miracle I can't based on my own criteria and that goes for most miracle claims I have heard from family and friends.

Many Christians I know are not eager to share "experiences" or "miracles" with me because I end up telling them the event isn't worthy of a supernatural label.




I don't really know and it is something that I struggle with almost on a daily basis...everytime I pray I ask God why he doesn't do more visible miracles and I never get an answer.

I continue to pray (often with tears) that He does something like healing an amputee so that people can have no doubt they have witnessed a miracle.





I dont necessairly disagree with you here, but assuming that this rule applies to every case in such a way that rules out a miracle seem to be foolish to me. One has to look at each claim as an individual case and go from there.




Russ

That place of obfuscation has just again erroneously declared four saints and will declare John Paul 11 and the late king of Belgium saints. The gullible eat that up . The Vatican is a mini-state for anecephalics!

As Hume showed, miracles have to overcome all experience as does anything that would take the place or add to a theory.One cannot confirm any of those miracles. There was no Amazing Randi to verify them! Miracles in the form of remissions or misdiagnoses happen all the time to naturalists as to anaturalists

Originally posted by familyof5

I agree. And no one answered my post about the fact that this disease is not in fact usually deadly.

Nick:

That is because they are blinded by their worldview.
Post it again in bold letters and in size three.

Wait... That would be a conter example--

We can't have that.

Cheers,

Nick

Andre Iguadalas dunk in last years slam dunk competition was a miracle indeed. Michael Jordan performed many miracles himself. Also i can shoot electricity out of my fingers, which some may claim is also a miracle.

Originally posted by Griggsy

As Hume showed, miracles have to overcome all experience as does anything that would take the place or add to a theory.One cannot confirm any of those miracles. There was no Amazing Randi to verify them! Miracles in the form of remissions or misdiagnoses happen all the time to naturalists as to anaturalists

David Hume's argument against miracles is actually quite circular.

He says that miracles have to "overcome all experience," in order to be real miracles. But you can only know if they have to overcome all experience if you already know that all reports of miracles are false. And we can only know that if we already know miracles don't ever happen. Hume merely takes the "supernatural" out of the equation before beginning.

As an aside, I think it's quite interesting that the skeptical retorts in this thread all completely miss the point. Pointing out that the ratio of healed people versus unhealed people is completely irrelevant. If even one miracle or any sort of spiritual experience is confirmed, then atheism is false. If even one of the thousands and thousands of people that went to the Lourdes was legitimately healed, then pointing out the people that weren't healed means nothing at all.

Originally posted by P-Dunn

David Hume's argument against miracles is actually quite circular.

He says that miracles have to "overcome all experience," in order to be real miracles. But you can only know if they have to overcome all experience if you already know that all reports of miracles are false. And we can only know that if we already know miracles don't ever happen. Hume merely takes the "supernatural" out of the equation before beginning.

NICK:

Fine, then post a sound, deductive argument that shows the existence of miracles.

P-DUNN:
As an aside, I think it's quite interesting that the skeptical retorts in this thread all completely miss the point. Pointing out that the ratio of healed people versus unhealed people is completely irrelevant. If even one miracle or any sort of spiritual experience is confirmed, then atheism is false. If even one of the thousands and thousands of people that went to the Lourdes was legitimately healed, then pointing out the people that weren't healed means nothing at all.

NICK:
Emphasis mine.

That is a non sequitur.
That there is a mircle does not prove the existence of a god(s).
Especially because without said"god" actually being there to take credit for it, we could ascribe the allged supernatural event to a cornucopia of things.

Secondly, even if JC did a bunch of magic tricks, he could have been an alien.
It is much more propable that he was an aliean then he was the creator of a universe over 26 billion light years across and over 12 billion years old.

Magic tricks don't prove the existence of a god.

Sorry.

Nick

Just how many people have visited lourdes in total? It would be a million at least (the very least) and only 67 miracles!

Originally posted by Jme

Just how many people have visited lourdes in total? It would be a million at least (the very least) and only 67 miracles!

Here's a question I've heard asked a lot that I would like an answer to: At Lourdes and similar places you always see crutches and wheel chairs displayed. You know, to show that those who couldn't walk on the way there could walk when they left. So, how come there's no prosthetic legs are arms displayed?

No, going by experience is just what we go by until the evidence says otherwise, so Hume was not trying to assume what he had to prove just as Newton's laws were found not adequate for everything when new evidence overcame its experience. Show miracles that in principle that science can't explain.Natural causes fit situations adequately, not requring ad hoc explanations. Skeptics have investigated enough miracles that like patent officials rejecting patents for perpetual motion machines ,they can doubt any supernatural miracle. Remissions and false diagnoses happen all the time. Bleeding statues are a dime a dozen and Marian appearances are nothng. To see a miracle is another account of pareidolia.