(October 17, 2018 at 7:54 am)OakTree500 Wrote:

(October 17, 2018 at 7:47 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote: I would ask you to enlighten me.... but I think that we have been around each other long enough, to know that you won't provide any specifics or reasons for this statement.   All we'll see is angry name calling and dodging the question.

evidence
/ˈɛvɪd(ə)ns/
noun

1. 1.
   the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.
   

I presume people are wanting actual FACTS to prove what you've said to be true? As the bible is self is not reliable as any sort of evidence of anything.

How so?   What principles or reasons, lead you to this conclusion?

(October 17, 2018 at 8:02 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote:

(October 17, 2018 at 7:54 am)OakTree500 Wrote: evidence
/ˈɛvɪd(ə)ns/
noun

1. 1.
   the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.
   

I presume people are wanting actual FACTS to prove what you've said to be true? As the bible is self is not reliable as any sort of evidence of anything.

How so?   What principles or reasons, lead you to this conclusion?

Mainly the way some have said "you're provided no evidence" and then you keep dodging the idea of doing such a thing. 

I mean, you either can prove it or you can't. Right now I'm leaning more towards "You can't" so, whatever man it's your life.

(October 16, 2018 at 5:40 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:

(October 16, 2018 at 9:18 am)SteveII Wrote: It is only begging the question if I am making an argument for the existence of the supernatural by miracles that I can't be sure are miracles. That's not what I am doing. I am saying that given that I believe in the supernatural (for other reasons) and given the background information that such events do not happen with any regularity, it is reasonable to infer that miracle x after prayer y may be supernatural. 

What was your original belief in the supernatural based on?

I was wondering if that was going to come up. The difference was the topic was about praying for a miracle and how do you know the brain tumor was a result of healing or natural causes. 

I would make the case that the NT miracles are different because of background information. I do plan on getting around to starting a new thread on Hume's view of miracles. I can address this then. 

Quote:

(October 16, 2018 at 9:18 am)SteveII Wrote: Natural is within this universe and made up of the material things the universe is made out of and obey a certain set of laws. The supernatural is not contingent on there even being a universe. If the universe failed to exist, God, angels, demons, whatever would still exist. This automatically creates the line you are looking for. 

IMO, we are supernatural/natural hybrids. We rely on our bodies and the physical world to develop our minds (souls). God has said that that soul/mind will outlast this body and into a new body that will not die. We will still exist in a physical world (heaven as we call it). 

That certainly is one way that you can define nature, but it's not the only way.  If supernatural things obeyed normative laws like the inverse square law, I don't see why we would distinguish one form of regularity and order of effects from another form of regularity and order of effects, especially given that your earlier remarks were that the supernatural was what nature was not.  If one is defining the supernatural as simply things which don't have a natural explanation and are not probable given what we know of natural law, that would seem to lead inescapably to an argument from ignorance.  How do you determine that gravity is a consequence of things in this universe as opposed to merely an effect caused by supernatural forces existing outside this material world?  (Indeed, some theists maintain that all natural phenomena are maintained by God.  Who am I to argue otherwise?)

The key would be not if supernatural things obeyed physical laws, it would be if they had to obey or constrained by physical laws. 

Regarding the argument from ignorance. I think you have to distinguish between a definition of a supernatural entity and a supernatural cause of a natural event--the latter being the definition of a miracle. Your example is about what makes a supernatural cause. I think one major distinction between it and natural causes is that it has no regularity/predictability/not testable. Something like gravity is extremely regular/predictable/testable. Therefore I don't think it reasonable to infer that gravity is a direct result of supernatural causes. I am a firm proponent of Methodological naturalism (I think most Christians are) when it comes to general scientific investigation of the world. The main difference is that as a Christian, I would allow for exceptions (the possibility of a miracle) when no naturalistic cause seems reasonable or likely. Can I prove any of them to a skeptic, no.

(October 17, 2018 at 8:02 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote:

(October 17, 2018 at 7:54 am)OakTree500 Wrote: evidence
/ˈɛvɪd(ə)ns/
noun

1. 1.
   the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.
   

I presume people are wanting actual FACTS to prove what you've said to be true? As the bible is self is not reliable as any sort of evidence of anything.

How so?   What principles or reasons, lead you to this conclusion?

I have a book that details several stories about individuals who have grown arms & legs back on their body after they had been cut off in various accidents over the years. The book details exactly what they did to accomplish the regrowing of their limbs.

All of the stories are from the 14th century, so unfortunately we can't directly talk to the individuals listed in the book, but we do have letters from family & friends that show very clearly that these events took place.

The book costs only $1000 but it's a small price to pay when you compare it to getting back an arm or leg.

You asked what principles or reason led to my conclusions about what is or isn't evidence.

Skeptical thinking and rational reasoning tells me that a book containing stories about events that can't be verified, nor demonstrated to be true are not evidence.

Do you plan on buying my book for $1000 or would you prefer that I provide some evidence that what it contains is actually true or not ?

(October 17, 2018 at 9:04 am)OakTree500 Wrote:

(October 17, 2018 at 8:02 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote: How so?   What principles or reasons, lead you to this conclusion?

Mainly the way some have said "you're provided no evidence" and then you keep dodging the idea of doing such a thing. 

I mean, you either can prove it or you can't. Right now I'm leaning more towards "You can't" so, whatever man it's your life.

I wouldn't use the word "prove", but that is more a matter of precision.   Proof is for deductive logic and math.  And often, I'm not setting out to "prove" anything.  I find that most atheists here are familiar with the evidence, even if they cannot admit it as such (I've talked to some to seem to indicate, that it is not evidence, unless they believe the conclusion). 

I set much smaller goals, and often I am more interested in the basic principles and reasoning, rather than setting a high bar of convincing those who don't want to be convinced.   Focusing in on more the details and the smaller picture, rather than the larger one.  Such as your claim that the writings of the New Testament authors is not evidence (which you didn't answer my question), or even the broader one, that theists and Christians provide no evidence.  It's more these things, that I think need to be examined, before collecting and analyzing the larger picture of the evidence.  And as I noted, I think that atheists often jump around, and once you meet the goal, they shift it to something else, and then move it along again, and then come back to where you started. 

I get tired of the changing of the goal posts, and assumptions; such as here, where I made a comment about one thing, and in order to dodge the statements and questions, and it always gets changed to proving God, where we really won't discuss anything or get to demonstrate of that famous atheists critical thinking.

(October 17, 2018 at 9:53 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote:

(October 17, 2018 at 9:04 am)OakTree500 Wrote: Mainly the way some have said "you're provided no evidence" and then you keep dodging the idea of doing such a thing. 

I mean, you either can prove it or you can't. Right now I'm leaning more towards "You can't" so, whatever man it's your life.

I wouldn't use the word "prove", but that is more a matter of precision.   Proof is for deductive logic and math.  And often, I'm not setting out to "prove" anything.  I find that most atheists here are familiar with the evidence, even if they cannot admit it as such (I've talked to some to seem to indicate, that it is not evidence, unless they believe the conclusion). 

I set much smaller goals, and often I am more interested in the basic principles and reasoning, rather than setting a high bar of convincing those who don't want to be convinced.   Focusing in on more the details and the smaller picture, rather than the larger one.  Such as your claim that the writings of the New Testament authors is not evidence (which you didn't answer my question), or even the broader one, that theists and Christians provide no evidence.  It's more these things, that I think need to be examined, before collecting and analyzing the larger picture of the evidence.  And as I noted, I think that atheists often jump around, and once you meet the goal, they shift it to something else, and then move it along again, and then come back to where you started. 

I get tired of the changing of the goal posts, and assumptions; such as here, where I made a comment about one thing, and in order to dodge the statements and questions, and it always gets changed to proving God, where we really won't discuss anything or get to demonstrate of that famous atheists critical thinking.

:Emphasis mine:

Ah, sorry about that, I'm not on the forum a whole lot.

The point of that is: the things mentioned in the new testament (Healing of the blind/walking on water/water into wine/Resurrection etc) never happened. At least not in the way it's portrayed in those stories, IE "and then magic happened". In terms of Jesus being a real person or not, I mean in all honesty, for me as a individual, I'm not against it if he was or not, the point being that it doesn't really matter, because the feats he was claimed to have performed, 100% did not happen at all. How do I know this? Because unless he was a scammer who performed magic tricks for people, [although I find it more likely that if he was real, he was just a decent guy and people basically deified him their in stories], then he's "just a man" and not the son of god. 

While it may be widely accepted he existed to a degree, that doenst automatically mean he's the son of god, OR even if he actually was a person, which to be fair some scholars still debate to this very day, because we can't verify it. My understanding is his name is supposed to be Yeshua (Or Joshua) so why aren't we calling him that?

When Atheist say evidence, or at least when I do, I mean "the thing you said happened, didn't. You say it did. Prove it to me". IE if you think Jesus healed a blind man, then how do we prove that? Why has it never 100% happened again, despite what people claim, and how come we can't recreate this? That's the point here. Atheists want, nay NEED, legitmate verifiable evidence and not "I have a book here, that says so". Just because a book is written by real people, doesn't mean it's full of facts.

Nobody is moving the goal posts, you just keep trying to score a goal with the wrong kind of ball.

Worth checking this link for info:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_f...sus_Christ

Particularly
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_f...n_evidence

Which lists the various reasons why we can't really accept anything in the NT as evidence for almost anything, with only very things coming within an acceptable date range of those to be of relevant age to when these writings are dated.

(October 16, 2018 at 5:55 pm)HappySkeptic Wrote:

(October 16, 2018 at 9:18 am)SteveII Wrote: It is only begging the question if I am making an argument for the existence of the supernatural by miracles that I can't be sure are miracles. That's not what I am doing. I am saying that given that I believe in the supernatural (for other reasons) and given the background information that such events do not happen with any regularity, it is reasonable to infer that miracle x after prayer y may be supernatural. 

I can only say -- you would make a very poor scientist.

Science deals with weird postulates all the time.  Saying "I'll assume my postulate is true, and then determine which of my experiments can be explained with it" is terrible.  That is how pseudoscience gets done.

The problems are:

1) The postulate is not accepted fact, meaning that any stories you come up to link it to experiment are often exercises in wish fulfillment.  You will not look for counter-evidence.
2) Other explanations must be ruled out before an experiment can be used as evidence of the postulate.
3) The postulate, to be useful, must make clear what it predicts, and what sort of evidence would invalidate it.  Otherwise, any evidence could be woven into the postulate's story.  A postulate becomes a theory when all attempts to invalidate it's specific predictions fail, and no better theory also makes those predictions.

Your investigation of miracles fails on all 3 counts.

First, that's a total non sequitur. Was Isaac Newton a poor scientist? He believed in miracles. 

Second, read my last three words "may be supernatural". 

1) Saying that miracles are not an accepted fact is question begging. What kind of miracle-seeking experiment would make any logical sense? The very definition of a miracle has in it the a) inability to predict and b) the all-important feature that you can only see the effect--never the cause--something that throws a monkey wrench in experiments. I never said I would not look for counter-evidence=straw man.
2) Not so. In my example back when this conversation started, spontaneous tumor disappearance by unknown causes is the  other explanation. I don't have to rule it out--just recognize the probability of spontaneous disappearing tumor by unknown causes is very low. My worldview informs me that God may have an interest in healing that person. While it is unreasonable for me to say that is proof of a miracle, my inference that a miracle occurred is more probable, is reasonable. 
3) Um, I predict that if God removed the tumor, it would be gone. 

You can't win this debate. You would have to prove my worldview wrong.

Any evidence claimed by a theist is mere delusion created to be protected from a harsh truth of reality.

(October 17, 2018 at 9:24 am)Rahn127 Wrote:

(October 17, 2018 at 8:02 am)RoadRunner79 Wrote: How so?   What principles or reasons, lead you to this conclusion?

I have a book that details several stories about individuals who have grown arms & legs back on their body after they had been cut off in various accidents over the years. The book details exactly what they did to accomplish the regrowing of their limbs.

All of the stories are from the 14th century, so unfortunately we can't directly talk to the individuals listed in the book, but we do have letters from family & friends that show very clearly that these events took place.

The book costs only $1000 but it's a small price to pay when you compare it to getting back an arm or leg.

You asked what principles or reason led to my conclusions about what is or isn't evidence.

Skeptical thinking and rational reasoning tells me that a book containing stories about events that can't be verified, nor demonstrated to be true are not evidence.

Do you plan on buying my book for $1000 or would you prefer that I provide some evidence that what it contains is actually true or not ?

So then, you are saying, that I can deny any testimony, that I have not seen for myself.    By this standard, then I can say that there is no evidence for evolution.   There is no evidence against President Trump, I don't even have any evidence that Sweden exists (my apologies to Brian and ABBA). 
A large issue, with such analogies, is that they rely only on personal incredulity.  They don't provide any details, reasons, or principles, with which to discuss anything.  It's really just trying to make a "you too" claim to prove one's argument.  The problem is that there are no specifics in your scenario.   You want me to make a decision not based on the evidence, but my feelings, without the evidence being examined.  I'm not saying that you jump in blindly and without examination and corroboration of the evidence.  Nor that you have to say yes, to everyone trying to sell you something.  I look at reviews online, when what they are selling seems too good to be true (actually for most things).  
However when a documentary or scientist is also telling me something which seem incredible, I look for others testimony; and hopefully, I'm rational an unbiased enough to evaluate that evidence, and perhaps change my views.

(October 17, 2018 at 10:06 am)SteveII Wrote: 1) Saying that miracles are not an accepted fact is question begging. What kind of miracle-seeking experiment would make any logical sense? The very definition of a miracle has in it the a) inability to predict and b) the all-important feature that you can only see the effect--never the cause--something that throws a monkey wrench in experiments. I never said I would not look for counter-evidence=straw man.


You can't win this debate. You would have to prove my worldview wrong.

Well, no. You're the one claiming it's true, so you have to prove that it's correct. As always, that's the burden of proof.

The problem is with "Miracles", in the  billions [or thousands if that's your belief] of years that the earth has been in existence, and all these supposed miracles that have happened, why has it never happened to a scientist?

You supposed god knows that atheists are questioning it, why not perform a miracle and turn all our science books into bibles in front of our very eyes? Better yet, why not just physically appear in the sky right now, and tell us it's real?

You say "oh well you can't predict a miracle etc etc" well that's bull shit I say. You're only "proof" they EVER happened is in the NT and OT. Without that, you have nothing, other than the word of crazy people who say they've seen something that they haven't.

Steve, with said burden, you have to prove yourself right.