(October 10, 2018 at 5:23 pm)ASteveII Wrote:

(October 10, 2018 at 5:09 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: Yes, that is the definition of the word, “supernatural.”  That the word has a definition doesn’t necessary mean that the concept itself is coherent, nor that it can be coherently applied to the reality we exist in. The dictionary also has definitions for words such as, “ghost”, “soul”, “fairy” and “Santa”, but that doesn’t mean these concepts are (or could ever be) manifest in reality. 


That people involved in the event in question are credulous to the notion of a supernatural cause, is not in any way related to the actual cause of the event. And it does not affect the probability of that event being supernaturally caused versus naturally caused.  


So, again; rare medical phenomena happen.  How do you rationally determine that the cause can’t, and never will be explainable via science, versus a natural cause that science can and may be able to explain at some point in the future?  Because, people prayed first? I know you know what a ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’ fallacy is.


Why not? 


Scientists have managed to explain many a rare, and seemingly miraculous natural phenomena using tools such as microscopes, Steve, lol.  You talk about subatomic particles as though they aren’t in play during these supposedly miraculous healings.

Do you notice that you start by claiming the idea incoherent and then write 4 more paragraphs coherently discussing the concept? You seem to understand it fine.  Also, the ideas of supernatural, ghost, soul, fairy and Santa are all coherent no matter if they are real or not.

No. I was granting the concept to you for the sake of your example about miracles so that I could investigate the method by which you distinguish a natural cause from a supposedly supernatural cause, what ever that actually is.  In response, you gave me a fallacy, plus some bizarre reasoning about how particles behaving strangely under a microscope wouldn’t be a miracle, but strangely-behaving particles not looked at through a microscope would be. (?)

I stand by my statements earlier; that the concept of a supernatural event or object has no coherent, meaningful applicability to reality, as the word is defined by what it is not, rather than what it is. And, that there is no reason to think that anything interacting with, and leaving behind evidence in this world, is not a part of it. If it’s a part within the whole of this world, and it is evident, then it would fall under the purview of scientific inquiry.

I’m still waiting for you to explain how you determine that a cause for an event can’t be explainable by science, and I’m still waiting for you to tell me what a supernatural thing is, using positive descriptors. As I said before; you are trying to create a new and entirely separate category of things using the knowledge gaps of a category of things that already exists.  Can you please describe in detail the mechanism behind a ‘something other than natural, but we don’t know what it actually is’ cause, generating detectable, physical effects within the natural world, yet itself remaining completely undetectable?

(October 10, 2018 at 4:16 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: I'd call Jesus healing the sick a myth, given there's a complete lack of independent verification of the event.

I'd call a kid with a brain tumor being healed before surgery a yet unknown natural phenomenon, and the churchgoer prayers a coincidence.

What about all the bullshit "prayers" for people who don't get well after surgery?  That must be one of those coincidences, too.

Or, it it god saying "fuck off?"

Are you sure you have the right issue that it was? Because in the movie as well as in real life all the doctors they went to said there wasn't a cure for what the little girl had. Many some treatments can help but they said no cure and she was cured fully from hitting her head.

(October 10, 2018 at 5:09 pm)SteveII Wrote:

(October 10, 2018 at 4:53 pm)Deesse23 Wrote: Learning more about the laws of nature isnt an option, right? Throwing our hands up in the air, dropping to our knees shouting "goddidit" is, right?
Also.....please continue to the next remark.

Bolding mine: Please call in again after you have demonstrated that something like this ever happened.

It might as well be "i dont know", and then pulling "miracle" right out of your ass. Your method fails.
Too bad not enough churches fulla people (being full of it) are praying for all those starving kids in Africa. If i ever encounter such a scenario like you did, i can only hope its no miracle and there is no god who is so capricious as you suggest.

Too bad, god just wanted to help by makig this guy find his car keys. Your "method" to determine miracles failed.......again.

Oh, this time its not "miracle" but "i dont know"? Interesting.

tl;dr: please look up "argument from ignorance", because thats all it is you are preaching here: "I dont know, therefore miracle/god/supernatural/pink unicorn".

You're very new here so you get a little slack from me. I am interested in discussions ONLY. You appear to be interested in ignorant, simplistic, abusive dialog of a 13-year-old where your goal is not to learn anything about my views but rather mock what little you understand to...what end?...make yourself feel smarter than you really are? I'll leave you off of block for now, so while I am don't think you have what it takes to have a real discussion, I might be wrong and you might change your mind as to your goals when you reply to something I say.

If you have anything of worth to say related to the topic, then say it but dont resort to ad hominems. Makes you look pathetic, particularly when i criticized the same of your fallacies with the same rebuttals as Lady. Claiming that i am too stupid to understand your arguments, after having factually revealed how you rely on fallacies (just like Lady did) and poor reasoning makes you look even more pathetic. Your condescension only is the topping on that cake of projection.

(October 10, 2018 at 6:07 pm)178Kristy Wrote: Are you sure you have the right issue that it was? Because in the movie as well as in real life all the doctors they went to said there wasn't a cure for what the little girl had. Many some treatments can help but they said no cure and she was cured fully from hitting her head.

I did my research and provided a link. You do yours.

(October 10, 2018 at 4:38 pm)KevinM1 Wrote:

(October 10, 2018 at 4:25 pm)178Kristy Wrote: That literraly happened. Someone was healed miraculously from something not even surgery can heal you of. I don't remember the exact name of what it is but also in the brain I believe. There's a movie about it called Miracles from Heaven. You can do some research on it. Blind restoring sight can also happen, I speak for myself here.

It wasn't the brain, it was the 'stomach' (actually, intestines).  And, in the movie version at least, the condition does have several treatments (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intestinal...procedures).  A quick search for what the book was about doesn't mention the actual diagnosis, but I don't care enough to do a deep dive.

Regardless, there's nothing precluding these things from being yet unknown natural phenomena.  Indeed, I'd say it's far, far more likely that it's that rather than some god randomly saving a child from something they afflicted that child with in the first place.

Wait wait wait, stop the presses.  Who cares about some second and thirdhand miracle story making the rounds and churning profit through credulous moviegoers.

Am I reading this right, up above...Kristy.  You once were blind, but now can see....miraculously?

And just for completeness' sake, because apparently Google is too hard for some to handle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracles_from_Heaven

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(October 10, 2018 at 6:20 pm)Khemikal Wrote:

(October 10, 2018 at 4:38 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: It wasn't the brain, it was the 'stomach' (actually, intestines).  And, in the movie version at least, the condition does have several treatments (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intestinal...procedures).  A quick search for what the book was about doesn't mention the actual diagnosis, but I don't care enough to do a deep dive.

Regardless, there's nothing precluding these things from being yet unknown natural phenomena.  Indeed, I'd say it's far, far more likely that it's that rather than some god randomly saving a child from something they afflicted that child with in the first place.

Wait wait wait, stop the presses.  Who cares about some second and thirdhand miracle story making the rounds and churning profit through credulous moviegoers.

Am I reading this right, up above...Kristy.  You once were blind, but now can see....miraculously?

Heh.

I think what I find the most humorous about these miracle claims is what's actually left unsaid.  Suppose these stories of miraculous healing are true.  It really doesn't paint an appealing picture of their god, does it?  I mean, first of all, god makes these people suffer horrible afflictions.  But, worst of all, there's no pattern to those he supposedly cures.  For every cancer kid that was 'saved' by a church full of people praying for them, there are many more that simply die too young.  For every devout believer that can miraculously see after slowly going blind, there are many more who are at least as devout who simply lose their vision altogether.

And we're supposed to view this capriciousness as a positive quality?  As something enticing to believe in?  As evidence of good character from a purportedly divine source?

Please.

But "Mysterious ways!" KevinM1! It's the "Mysterious ways!" all the time.

*Sigh*

So... SteveII and/or RoadRunner79 have drifted past the whole "Something from nothing." and 'Uncaused cause." thing, then?

Not at work.

(October 10, 2018 at 5:59 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote:

(October 10, 2018 at 5:23 pm)ASteveII Wrote: Do you notice that you start by claiming the idea incoherent and then write 4 more paragraphs coherently discussing the concept? You seem to understand it fine.  Also, the ideas of supernatural, ghost, soul, fairy and Santa are all coherent no matter if they are real or not.

No. I was granting the concept to you for the sake of your example about miracles so that I could investigate the method by which you distinguish a natural cause from a supposedly supernatural cause, what ever that actually is.  In response, you gave me a fallacy, plus some bizarre reasoning about how particles behaving strangely under a microscope wouldn’t be a miracle, but strangely-behaving particles not looked at through a microscope would be. (?)

I stand by my statements earlier; that the concept of a supernatural event or object has no coherent, meaningful applicability to reality, as the word is defined by what it is not, rather than what it is.  And, that there is no reason to think that anything interacting with, and leaving behind evidence in this world, is not a part of it.  If it’s a part within the whole of this world, and it is evident, then it would fall under the purview of scientific inquiry.  

I’m still waiting for you to explain how you determine that a cause for an event can’t be explainable by science, and I’m still waiting for you to tell me what a supernatural thing is, using positive descriptors. As I said before; you are trying to create a new and entirely separate category of things using the knowledge gaps of a category of things that already exists.  Can you please describe in detail the mechanism behind a ‘something other than natural, but we don’t know what it actually is’ cause, generating detectable, physical effects within the natural world, yet itself remaining completely undetectable?

First, I want to point out the bold to Mister Agenda. It would seem I understood your position perfectly. 

Second, you throw around the word fallacy a lot. What did I say that you think is a logical fallacy. 

Many words are defined by what it is not. 'Darkness', 'evil', 'cold' off the top of my head. Scientific inquiry can only investigate what originates in the natural world by natural processes and leaves natural effects.  If something is not part of the natural world, by the very definition of science, it cannot be scientifically investigated.  

sci·ence
ˈsīəns/
noun

1. the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
   

At best (and consistent with both definitions of science and supernatural) you can investigate the effect to see if there are any natural causes. We don't have the tools to investigate the supernatural and even if we did, they would--by definition--not be scientific tools. And what is this about the supernatural being undetected? We can detect it by it's effect. For example, say someone is crucified. Then comes back to life 3 days later and he says God raised him from the dead--and say you were there the whole time. Are you going to say that the supernatural was undetected? There are a whole host of things that we know about only because of the observed effect--gravity comes to mind. 

How do we know there is not a forthcoming natural explanation? The plain answer is you don't. That's why I brought up context. The context provides some probability inputs. For example, Jesus and the crippled man. What is the probability that the man, sometime during his life, naturally spontaneously regenerated a key part of his back and was able to walk with no physical therapy? It's low but not zero. What is the probability of the man regenerating a key part of his back naturally at the very moment Jesus says "so that everyone here knows that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins, I command you to take up your bed and walk"? There's too many leading zeros to write that percentage  on this entire page. 

If you want to question every miracle on the grounds that a naturalistic cause might be discovered, fine. You are not irrational to do so. But your objection does nothing to make the concept incoherent and certainly not to undercut someone believing in the supernatural and supernatural events as part of a larger worldview.

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(October 10, 2018 at 8:07 pm)Peebo-Thuhlu Wrote: But "Mysterious ways!" KevinM1! It's the "Mysterious ways!" all the time.

*Sigh*

So... SteveII and/or RoadRunner79 have drifted past the whole "Something from nothing." and 'Uncaused cause." thing, then?

Not at work.

There are no example in this universe of something from nothing. It is simply impossible. 

QM indeterminate particles are not an example of something uncaused. RR posted previously:

Quantum mechanics merely describe what takes place at the quantum level.  It makes no reference to causes, but that does not imply that there are no causal entities involved.
Feser hypothesizes that perhaps Oerter understands the law of causality to refer to some sort of deterministic cause, and since quantum mechanics are supposedly indeterministic (a disputed interpretation), the law of causality could not apply.  Feser notes that “[t]he principle of causality doesn’t require that.  It requires only that a potency be actualized by something already actual; whether that something, whatever it is, actualizes potencies according some sort of pattern –deterministic or otherwise — is another matter altogether.”

The fact of the matter is that quantum mechanics has not identified causeless effects or invalidated the causal principle.  For any event to occur it must first have the potential to occur, and then have that potential actualized.  If that potential is actualized, it “must be actualized by something already actual,”[2] and that something is what we identify as the cause. https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2012/...principle/

(October 10, 2018 at 8:36 pm)SteveII Wrote: [quote='LadyForCamus' pid='1829173' dateline='1539208769']

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No. I was granting the concept to you for the sake of your example about miracles so that I could investigate the method by which you distinguish a natural cause from a supposedly supernatural cause, what ever that actually is.  In response, you gave me a fallacy, plus some bizarre reasoning about how particles behaving strangely under a microscope wouldn’t be a miracle, but strangely-behaving particles not looked at through a microscope would be. (?)

I stand by my statements earlier; that the concept of a supernatural event or object has no coherent, meaningful applicability to reality, as the word is defined by what it is not, rather than what it is.  And, that there is no reason to think that anything interacting with, and leaving behind evidence in this world, is not a part of it.  If it’s a part within the whole of this world, and it is evident, then it would fall under the purview of scientific inquiry.  

I’m still waiting for you to explain how you determine that a cause for an event can’t be explainable by science, and I’m still waiting for you to tell me what a supernatural thing is, using positive descriptors. As I said before; you are trying to create a new and entirely separate category of things using the knowledge gaps of a category of things that already exists.  Can you please describe in detail the mechanism behind a ‘something other than natural, but we don’t know what it actually is’ cause, generating detectable, physical effects within the natural world, yet itself remaining completely undetectable?

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Quote:First, I want to point out the bold to Mister Agenda. It would seem I understood your position perfectly.

Second, you throw around the word fallacy a lot. What did I say that you think is a logical fallacy.

I don’t, actually.  And I try not to unless I’m fairly confident that I’m correct in my charge.  Even then, we all make errors from time to time. That’s how you hone a skill. I’ve already explained to you exactly which fallacy I believe you committed, but I’ll get it:

Quote:If a whole church is praying for a little boy (like my brother-in-law) who had a brain tumor and on the morning of his surgery he had a CT scan for the surgeon to map his cuts, there was no tumor. Never came back. That might be a miracle.

Quote:So, again; rare medical phenomena happen.  How do you rationally determine that the cause can’t, and never can be explainable via science, versus a natural cause that science can and may be able to explain at some point in the future?  Because, people prayed first? I know you know what a ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’ fallacy is.

Quote:Many words are defined by what it is not. 'Darkness', 'evil', 'cold' off the top of my head.

You’re right.  We also have the words, “light”, “good”, and “warm”.  I can tell you what these things are by describing their characteristics.  If someone asks me what light is, I don’t need to default to, “well, it’s not dark.”  What positive descriptors do we have for the supernatural?  That’s what I’m asking you for.

Quote:Scientific inquiry can only investigate what originates in the natural world by natural processes and leaves natural effects.  If something is not part of the natural world, by the very definition of science, it cannot be scientifically investigated.

Scientific inquiry can investigate anything that is evident. Observable. That’s the whole basis of the scientific method.  If miracles are part of a causal chain that is affecting the world we live in, they are subject to scientific investigation and observation.  At this point they are disqualified from the poorly defined category of ‘the supernatural’.

Quote:At best (and consistent with both definitions of science and supernatural) you can investigate the effect to see if there are any natural causes. We don't have the tools to investigate the supernatural and even if we did, they would--by definition--not be scientific tools. And what is this about the supernatural being undetected? We can detect it by it's effect.

If you can only observe the effect, then you have no evidence or reason to think that the cause was more likely ‘supernatural’, than ‘natural, but not yet explained’, because you have no way of detecting a supernatural cause, lol.

Quote:For example, say someone is crucified. Then comes back to life 3 days later and he says God raised him from the dead--and say you were there the whole time. Are you going to say that the supernatural was undetected? There are a whole host of things that we know about only because of the observed effect--gravity comes to mind.

This is getting silly.  I would say it’s most likely that the guy wasn’t ever really dead.

Quote:How do we know there is not a forthcoming natural explanation? The plain answer is you don't.

I appreciate your honesty here.

Quote:That's why I brought up context. The context provides some probability inputs. For example, Jesus and the crippled man. What is the probability that the man, sometime during his life, naturally spontaneously regenerated a key part of his back and was able to walk with no physical therapy? It's low but not zero. What is the probability of the man regenerating a key part of his back naturally at the very moment Jesus says "so that everyone here knows that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins, I command you to take up your bed and walk"? There's too many leading zeros to write that percentage  on this entire page.

Steve, you have no good evidence that any such thing happened at all.  Could you at least pick a supposed miracle from our lifetimes?  

Quote:If you want to question every miracle on the grounds that a naturalistic cause might be discovered, fine. You are not irrational to do so. But your objection does nothing to make the concept incoherent and certainly not to undercut someone believing in the supernatural and supernatural events as part of a larger worldview.

I just want someone to tell me what it IS.  That’s all.