The God of Convenience

[Lek]

Did you read the article? If you did, I'm surprised you thought I wouldn't spot the obvious flaws with the methodology right away; despite the lip service being paid to science here, the church's methods go against the very basis of the scientific method. It's an argument from ignorance: they call in these scientists- whom the article also states could be influenced or pressured by the church to give the answers they want- and then if the scientists can't find a scientific explanation, they assume supernatural causation and hand the case over to theologians, who use more presupposed claims and lacks of evidence to decide whether the thing they've assumed based on a scarcity of evidence is satan based or god based.


That's not proof. "We don't know," does not mean "god did it." That's an argument from ignorance coupled with a god of the gaps fallacy. When I ask for scientific testing and verification, what that entails is positive evidence for godly intervention, not simply a lack of conclusive proof for natural means. This is exactly the problem I had earlier, when I said these miracle claims resist actual testing; here we have a smokescreen of scientific legitimacy good enough to fool guys like you who don't really understand how science works and want to believe in miracles, but which is transparently just another part of the con game when examined by anyone who can actually name logical fallacies. I wonder, how long are these scientists given to test these claims, before the catholic church just uses their lack of conclusive results to lift the case out of their hands.

"Oh, what's that, you have no answer yet? Oh, no need to keep looking, don't bother yourself with those other tests, it's clearly a miracle, just take your paycheck and go. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..."

Okay. So you won't accept a miracle just because doctors and scientists can find no natural explanation and these people have prayed for healing from God, and have been healed, because you see no proof that it was a miracle. Therefore, you don't accept the existence of Plato and Soccrates, or scads of other ancient figures and events, or miracles at all.

There are more ways to test a claim than either the government or biased church officials. The James Randi foundation will do it for you, and even give you a million dollar prize if you can demonstrate supernatural causation for your supposed miracle. That's the James Randi foundation that's run by James Randi the atheist skeptic, by the way.

Gee. You mean that they have to convince some atheists that there is a supernatural explanation for a miracle? I'm sure that his foundation is the expert in that area.

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What temple is that? Even if that is the case, that isn't the "same type of evidence." The Academy wasn't an obscure facility where some no-name preacher may have taught. It was a major institution for education where countless well-established names learned and is very well known throughout the ancient world. Strange that Plato's name would be linked to its founding, and no other authors would dispute that fact, if it was untrue. We're not talking about an obscure cult started in the backwaters of Palestine as in the case of Christianity. On the other hand, apparently nobody knew of a Jesus of Nazareth until long after he died, in a century in which many more contemporary works survive. And don't forget, unlike Plato, whose existence is not inherently improbable (whereas 90% of what is recorded about Jesus is), Jesus supposedly performed numerous earth-shaking (quite literally) miracles during his "public" ministry.

The temple in Jerusalem was the center of Jewish faith. It was perhaps the best known building in the city and in all of Israel. People knew of Jesus before and after he died. Writers of many of the books of the new testament claimed to be eyewitness. Of course, that's what we have with Plato.

I could write a book and you could read it next week. I could say that I own an intergalactic spaceship and a rainbow-colored Chimera named Hilary Clinton. It wouldn't make any of my claims more probable, even if I placed my Chimera in known locations. That's your Jesus. If I wrote, however, that I went to Kroger, then the bank, and stopped at my girlfriend's house for cake, that would be a boring book, but it would be trivial to the point that whether or not my details were completely accurate, it would have no effect on the probability that I did something like that. For the most part, that's Plato.

So you accept Plato because he is more believable to you.