Can't prove the supernatural God

[Cato]

SteveII,

Did David Copperfield actually make the Statue of Liberty disappear? Or was it an illusion?

[IATIA]

And how did he do it?

[SteveII]

SteveII,

Did David Copperfield actually make the Statue of Liberty disappear? Or was it an illusion?

Illusion. What is your point?

[Minimalist]

http://infidels.org/library/modern/richa...kooks.html

Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels (1997)

We all have read the tales told of Jesus in the Gospels, but few people really have a good idea of their context. Yet it is quite enlightening to examine them against the background of the time and place in which they were written, and my goal here is to help you do just that. There is abundant evidence that these were times replete with kooks and quacks of all varieties, from sincere lunatics to ingenious frauds, even innocent men mistaken for divine, and there was no end to the fools and loons who would follow and praise them. Placed in this context, the gospels no longer seem to be so remarkable, and this leads us to an important fact: when the Gospels were written, skeptics and informed or critical minds were a small minority. Although the gullible, the credulous, and those ready to believe or exaggerate stories of the supernatural are still abundant today, they were much more common in antiquity, and taken far more seriously.

If the people of that time were so gullible or credulous or superstitious, then we have to be very cautious when assessing the reliability of witnesses of Jesus. As Thomas Jefferson believed when he composed his own version of the gospels, Jesus may have been an entirely different person than the Gospels tell us, since the supernatural and other facts about him, even some of his parables or moral sayings, could easily have been added or exaggerated by unreliable witnesses or storytellers. Thus, this essay is not about whether Jesus was real or how much of what we are told about him is true. It is not even about Jesus. Rather, this essay is a warning and a standard, by which we can assess how likely or easily what we are told about Jesus may be false or exaggerated, and how little we can trust anyone who claims to be a witness of what he said and did. For if all of these other stories below could be told and believed, even by Christians themselves, it follows that the Gospels, being of entirely the same kind, can all too easily be inaccurate, tainted by the gullibility, credulity, or fondness for the spectacular which characterized most people of the time.

Apparently Dr. Carrier is a bit over-optimistic about people in our own time.

[robvalue]

Can you give an example of something that has a material cause and not an efficient cause? Even better, an example that might otherwise be considered a miracle by someone at some time.

This apparently happens in quantum mechanics all the time. People consider all kinds of things miracles before they understand them. They even consider them miracles when science does understand them.

So, your position seems to be that what we call miracles have naturalistic explanations that we just don't understand yet?

No. I'm saying they might have, or they may have no efficient cause. 

1) Isn't that an argument from ignorance? 

No. I'm not making a claim. I'm refuting the claim that there are no natural causes to any given event.

2) Under that reasoning, why don't we see more of these 'miracles' if it is just a matter of misunderstanding the cause? The rarity of a miracle actually supports the premise that miracles happen. 

We don't see any miracles. We see people reporting miracles. I can't help what people report.

3) If you zero in on a particular miracle example, there are often circumstances that make the 'heretofore unknown natural causes' just at the right moment and in the right context ridiculously unlikely. 

I don't think you, or anyone, is qualified to make that assessment. You're again assuming our scientific knowledge is almost complete.

4) Whether a miracle happened or not is a probabilistic question. The more evidence and context clues the higher the probability.

No, it's an argument from ignorance. There is no way of calculating the probability of there being an explanation we don't know yet. And what is the point? If we find the explanation, the conclusion was wrong. If we never find it, we still don't know the explanation is right, and it achieves nothing.

Even if you could determine there was a supernatural cause, you could never determine what that cause is. What use is that? Any supernatural cause would look the same as any other, which would look the same as no cause at all from our perspective. We only see the resulting effect.

[Redbeard The Pink]

How would one go about ruling out all possible naturalistic causes for something? How would one account for natural causes that he just doesn't understand or know about? I'm also still waiting on a definition of "natural order."

Feel free to jump in on my answer to Rob above. I think I covered your questions there.

Well...no, actually.


For one thing, that first paragraph looks like mostly word salad. If a thing is "powerful enough to act on the natural world," and it actually does so, then the natural world should reflect its interference (which is to say that there should be evidence of what happened).


For example, if an all-powerful being really had flooded the planet a few thousand years ago, and we were all descended from the only survivors, then there would be a SIGNIFICANT baseline of expected cultural, geological, ecological, and biological evidence of the fact.


As it stands, there is not. Likewise, there is no documented case of a phenomenon being caused by something beyond the laws of nature. There are stories and phenomena that we can't currently explain, but if we don't have enough information to explain them, then we don't have enough information to say that they fall beyond the realm of natural possibility.


It is not an argument from ignorance to say that unexplainable phenomena most likely have natural causes because that assertion is based on something we know (in particular, the fact that all known causes, events, and objects are natural, and none are "supernatural").


Once you start throwing the word "miracle" around, you're basically screwed. In the same way that a "blessing" is the sort of enchantment that a god bestows, a miracle is the sort of magic that a god does. Miracles are magic, and magic isn't real.


That thing YHWH does where he makes a little man out of clay and breathes life into it? You know, the act of creating humanity? That is the "Golem Spell." That is literally how magical golems are (allegedly) made. That's why Jesus makes spit-mud to fix a blind man's eyes that one time; if you're god, and your little dirt-person has defective eyes, what do you do? Why, whip him up some new eyes...out of dirt, of course!


So yeah...if you're talking miracles, you're either talking about something from a story in a book, or you're talking about Jesus showing up on toast, or you're talking about anecdotal medical mysteries that occur at the same rates amongst theists and non-theists of all shapes and sizes. In any of those cases, you've got a long way to go and a lot of things to rule out before you get to cry magic...sorry...miracle.

[SteveII]

Can you give an example of something that has a material cause and not an efficient cause? Even better, an example that might otherwise be considered a miracle by someone at some time.

This apparently happens in quantum mechanics all the time. People consider all kinds of things miracles before they understand them. They even consider them miracles when science does understand them.

So, your position seems to be that what we call miracles have naturalistic explanations that we just don't understand yet?

No. I'm saying they might have, or they may have no efficient cause. 

1) Isn't that an argument from ignorance? 

No. I'm not making a claim. I'm refuting the claim that there are no natural causes to any given event.

2) Under that reasoning, why don't we see more of these 'miracles' if it is just a matter of misunderstanding the cause? The rarity of a miracle actually supports the premise that miracles happen. 

We don't see any miracles. We see people reporting miracles. I can't help what people report.

3) If you zero in on a particular miracle example, there are often circumstances that make the 'heretofore unknown natural causes' just at the right moment and in the right context ridiculously unlikely. 

I don't think you, or anyone, is qualified to make that assessment. You're again assuming our scientific knowledge is almost complete.

4) Whether a miracle happened or not is a probabilistic question. The more evidence and context clues the higher the probability.

No, it's an argument from ignorance. There is no way of calculating the probability of there being an explanation we don't know yet. And what is the point? If we find the explanation, the conclusion was wrong. If we never find it, we still don't know the explanation is right, and it achieves nothing.

Even if you could determine there was a supernatural cause, you could never determine what that cause is. What use is that? Any supernatural cause would look the same as any other, which would look the same as no cause at all from our perspective. We only see the resulting effect.

So what was the purpose of distinguishing between efficient and material causes? 

An argument from ignorance is believing something is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa). We need an example. Take healing the paralyzed guy in Matthew 9. It is not my claim that Jesus made him walk because I know of no other explanation.  I think Jesus healed him because:
1. If Jesus was the Son of God, he would have such power
2. The effect immediately followed the question "Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?" which gives context and purpose--a very important point in response to your last paragraph. 
3. We have the eyewitness evidence of the man getting up and walking.

See, no argument from ignorance. I have clear warrant to believe the cause was Jesus. The witnessed "resulting effect" can be combined with the context to assign a high probability that this is a miracle. The only justification to think a natural cause was responsible is to deny a miracle is possible--which would be circular.  

Of course if you want to try the old 'gospels are made up as part of a conspiracy' or the tired 'eyewitness testimony is not evidence' objections, you may do that. But neither of these (or their variations) are arguments against the possibility of supernatural causation. 

Matthew 9
1 Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. 2 Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”

3 At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!”

4 Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? 5 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 6 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” 7 Then the man got up and went home. 8 When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to man.

[SteveII]

Feel free to jump in on my answer to Rob above. I think I covered your questions there.

Well...no, actually.


For one thing, that first paragraph looks like mostly word salad. If a thing is "powerful enough to act on the natural world," and it actually does so, then the natural world should reflect its interference (which is to say that there should be evidence of what happened).


For example, if an all-powerful being really had flooded the planet a few thousand years ago, and we were all descended from the only survivors, then there would be a SIGNIFICANT baseline of expected cultural, geological, ecological, and biological evidence of the fact.


As it stands, there is not. Likewise, there is no documented case of a phenomenon being caused by something beyond the laws of nature. There are stories and phenomena that we can't currently explain, but if we don't have enough information to explain them, then we don't have enough information to say that they fall beyond the realm of natural possibility.


It is not an argument from ignorance to say that unexplainable phenomena most likely have natural causes because that assertion is based on something we know (in particular, the fact that all known causes, events, and objects are natural, and none are "supernatural").


Once you start throwing the word "miracle" around, you're basically screwed. In the same way that a "blessing" is the sort of enchantment that a god bestows, a miracle is the sort of magic that a god does. Miracles are magic, and magic isn't real.


That thing YHWH does where he makes a little man out of clay and breathes life into it? You know, the act of creating humanity? That is the "Golem Spell." That is literally how magical golems are (allegedly) made. That's why Jesus makes spit-mud to fix a blind man's eyes that one time; if you're god, and your little dirt-person has defective eyes, what do you do? Why, whip him up some new eyes...out of dirt, of course!


So yeah...if you're talking miracles, you're either talking about something from a story in a book, or you're talking about Jesus showing up on toast, or you're talking about anecdotal medical mysteries that occur at the same rates amongst theists and non-theists of all shapes and sizes. In any of those cases, you've got a long way to go and a lot of things to rule out before you get to cry magic...sorry...miracle. 

Mostly straw men and unsupported opinions. In your middle paragraph (bold), setting aside the fact that I don't know how the phrase "most likely" fits into your thesis, how would you 'know ' that no events had supernatural causes? The only way you could know that is if supernatural causes were not possible. If that is your reasoning, then you are arguing in a circle.

[robvalue]

This is why I can't debate you Steve, sorry. You effortlessly drift between a philosophical/scientific discussion and believing magical stories out of books. This has been my last attempt, as it always ends up this way.

[Neo-Scholastic]

This is why I can't debate you Steve, sorry. You effortlessly drift between a philosophical/scientific discussion and believing magical stories out of books. This has been my last attempt, as it always ends up this way.

As far as I can tell, Steve is very carefully distinguishing between the two. It is you who is attempting to conflate the two.