RE: Theists: What is the most compelling argument you have heard for Atheism?
March 21, 2017 at 2:54 am
(This post was last modified: March 21, 2017 at 2:56 am by Whateverist.)
(March 20, 2017 at 11:51 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:(March 20, 2017 at 8:33 pm)Whateverist Wrote: But how else can we ever judge a claim except by the conceptions we've acquired up to that point? For a claim that by definition for a miracle is impossible by all prior understandings, it is very hard to say in advance what the standard should be. All I'm sure of is that connecting the dots for the natural aspects of the claim will in no way bridge the way to vouchsafing the part which is alleged to be 'miraculous'.
Human beings are not born naturalists; but rather, are instinctively aware of and attuned to the ineffable, sublime, and uncanny. My challenge is to your assumption that "a miracle is impossible by all prior understandings." I submit to you that exclusion of the miraculous is the result of cultivating a mindset against it.
That's probably true about the mindset. But I think you scrambled what I said about a miracle. Isn't a miracle something for for which we have no natural explanation? That was my meaning. Admittedly I'm aware of no god or genie who is able to do such things by magic. But I wasn't saying it's impossible for such a thing to exist. I don't pretend to know that, I merely don't find any reason to believe it.
