RE: Theists: What is the most compelling argument you have heard for Atheism?
March 21, 2017 at 8:28 am
(This post was last modified: March 21, 2017 at 8:31 am by Brian37.)
(March 21, 2017 at 8:08 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: I don't disbelieve categorically that miracles do not occur. What I do however do is discount that a bunch of stories written during a time of superstition, credulity, and legend making constitutes sufficient evidence that a miracle has occurred. That's just being plain gullible, and as noteed is a different standard than you hold other religions to account for.
I most certainly dismiss the word "miracle". That is simply another gap filling word. It is used because of the person having selection bias and sample rate error. It is being selective about what one wants as an answer instead of looking at a larger sample of similar events that do not have the same consistent outcome.
If a passenger jet crashes and only 1 person dies out of 300 they use the word "miracle". If 299 people die and only 1 survives they still use the word "miracle". When does the word not get used? When 150 survive and 150 dont?
If a plane crashes and someone lives or dies it is a result of the countless conditions from pilot skill, weather, mechanical and angle of impact and seat on the plane. Neither surviving or dying are good luck or bad luck, but CONDITIONS.
The word "miracle" is pointless to me considering 50 to 60 million humans die worldwide per year on average, from everything you can imagine. We die in the uterus, stillborn, from childhood disease, famine. Adults die from disease, accident, crime, natural disaster and war and everyone dies from old age eventually. You can only try to delay death, but you cannot avoid it regardless. The word "miracle" is a bullshit superstitious gap filling word and is as hollow as the word "god".
It is pointless to gap full with a lucky horseshoe or rabbits' foot as much as it would to chalk your survival up to Apollo, so the word "miracle" is a junk word. There is only life then death, no "miracle" required to explain either life or death, it is simply nature. It is a gap word really that humans use to express a sense of relief but falsely attach it to woo/luck/magic or a god. There is no way to water down that word to use it in any real context of a scientific explanation.
