Atheism

[SteveII]

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For those following, first a definition: Inductive reasoning (as opposed to deductive reasoning or abductive reasoning) is a method of reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying some evidence for the truth of the conclusion. While the conclusion of a deductive argument is certain, the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument may be probable, based upon the evidence given.

P1. Miraculous effects have been specifically attributed to God (a supernatural being). Example, the paralytic healed by Jesus: "Mark 2:10...but I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, 11 “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all...". There are a hundred such examples in the NT where supernatural causation was declared or unmistakably inferred from the context. 
P2. The resurrected Jesus was seen by as many as 500 people. Recently crucified people do not walk around and declare that they have conquered death and provided a way for man's redemption and as such, this is an obvious, rather big, supernatural claim. 
     In support of P1 and P2, we have the following:
     a. Jesus most certainly was born, baptized, and died in the time period claimed. (other sources)
     b. Pete, James and John were known eyewitnesses to both the public and private events of Jesus' three year ministry (every other NT writer)
     c. They presided over the early church (Paul, Acts, first/second century docs)
     d. This early church instructed Paul (Paul, Acts)
     e. As evidenced by Paul's letters, this early church believed the claims later outlined in the gospels (long before they where written). We can infer from this the source of these beliefs were a critical mass of people who believed these events really happened which actually prompted immediate and significant action on their part--to evangelize the Roman world.  
     f. Peter, James and John eventually wrote letters emphasizing the themes found in the gospels
     g. Luke wrote Luke and Acts with the purpose of outlining the events from the birth of Christ through his present day
     h. The editors of Matthew, Mark, and John were all alive during the lifetimes of these people above (it is unknown if the actual people with the pen were eyewitnesses)
     i. The editors would have been know to the recipients of the gospels. The books were name by which apostle influenced that particular book
     j. The early church, who we know believed the claims of Jesus already, accepted the gospels. There is nothing in the early church writings that questioned them.
     k. The gospels dovetail nicely with Paul's writings based on his training directly from all the eyewitnesses (completing a loop)
     l. Alternate theories of the NT and early church provenance lack explanatory power of the evidence on all sorts of levels 
P3. The main promise of the NT is a series of specific supernatural effects on a person
P4. An untold number of people have reported such effects
P5. An untold number of people have reported minor miracles (defined as person-oriented miracles for which the goal is very narrow -- as opposed to the NT miracles which had broad application and goals). Ranges from healing, bringing about events/experiences/encounters/open doors, extraordinary strength/peace/perseverance, evangelistic success, etc.
P6. The question why anything at all exists has no naturalistic explanation (and most likely none forthcoming). 
P7. The question of why the universe exists has no metaphysically sound naturalistic explanation. There is no reason to think one will be forthcoming. 
P8. The question of why our universe has the narrow range of physical constants which seem necessary to form matter and conserve energy but under naturalism has no other explanation than fantastically amazing chance that would not be accepted in any other case.
P9. The question of why our minds seem non-physical but have causal powers over the physical undercuts hard naturalism and seems to have parallels to the concept of the supernatural (not that they are necessarily supernatural). 
P10. The question of why there seems to exist a knowledge of basic morality in most people and most people believe it to be based on an objective set of principles (moral Platonism) not derived from any evolutionary process. 
P11. There is physical evidence for the supernatural (from P1, P2)
P12. There is a persistent, growing, unbroken chain of personal reports of the supernatural (from P4, P5)
P13. There are reason to think that naturalism is an insufficient worldview and the existence of the supernatural has better explanatory powers in a variety of these gaps. (from P6, P7, P8, P9, P10)

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THEREFORE: There are multiple lines of evidence/reasoning that infer the supernatural. Bayes showed us that that more data points that you have that infer a conclusion, the higher the probability the conclusion is true. Additionally, you can apply the math the other direction and examine the probability of these events all happening/reasoning given that the supernatural does not exist. I think there has also been sufficient connections made between cause and effect to understand the framework. Claiming that because the supernatural-->natural cause/effect have a different relationship than natural-->natural cause/effect and therefore somehow lacks sufficient connection, is a category error. 

To the PeanutGallery™: You can call into question any of the premises above, but unfortunately for you, they increase each other's probability, so you have to show how almost all of them are untrue or unlikely with logical reasons and/or evidence (as opposed to asserting). Simply claiming that each one separately has not been "proven" may be true, but nevertheless is simply inadequate argumentation.

For an inductive argument to be persuasive it both needs data points and an absence of defeaters.  I'll ignore the latter for the moment.  As regards to your list, the only data point in that list appears to be the cases argued in the bible, which has problems which I won't go into here.  The other observations of the supernatural fail, generally, because the inference to the supernatural doesn't have a rational foundation.  If a man in Bedlam believes he is Napoleon Bonaparte because he's insane, that doesn't count as an inductive data point for the proposition that he is Napoleon Bonaparte.  If people inferring the source of their experience was supernatural exists because of previous belief, assumption, or error in their thinking, it doesn't count toward the conclusion.  You only get to count those data points that are arrived at through rational justification, which gets back to the problems outlined before. 

Two points:

1. Alvin Plantinga has written extensively about Reformed Epistemology Justification is a property of a person holding a belief. Warrant is a property of the belief. 

According to Plantinga, a belief, B, is warranted if:

(1) the cognitive faculties involved in the production of B are functioning properly…; (2) your cognitive environment is sufficiently similar to the one for which your cognitive faculties are designed; (3) … the design plan governing the production of the belief in question involves, as purpose or function, the production of true beliefs…; and (4) the design plan is a good one: that is, there is a high statistical or objective probability that a belief produced in accordance with the relevant segment of the design plan in that sort of environment is true.[53]
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Plantinga's warrant theory is the basis for his theological end: providing a philosophical basis for Christian belief, an argument for why Christian theistic belief can enjoy warrant. In the book, he develops two models for such beliefs, the "A/C" (Aquinas/Calvin) model, and the "Extended A/C" model. The former attempts to show that a belief in God can be justified, warranted and rational, while the Extended model tries to show that specifically Christian theological beliefs including the Trinity, the Incarnation, the resurrection of Christ, the atonement, salvation etc. Under this model, Christians are justified in their beliefs because of the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing those beliefs about in the believer.

James Beilby has argued that the purpose of Plantinga's Warrant trilogy, and specifically of his Warranted Christian Belief, is firstly to make a form of argument against religion impossible—namely, the argument that whether or not Christianity is true, it is irrational—so "the skeptic would have to shoulder the formidable task of demonstrating the falsity of Christian belief"[56] rather than simply dismiss it as irrational. In addition, Plantinga is attempting to provide a philosophical explanation of how Christians should think about their own Christian belief.

This type of belief is different than

2.  An argument from personal experience does not have to presuppose the belief to start off with. I think all that is necessary is such an argument presupposes that you trust or rely on some other faculty of some other belief-producing or cognitive process. In other words, you can reason from any of the premises above that your experiences are probabilistically related to God.  

As to the occurrence of post-biblical miracles, the general pattern is one where there is no foreknowledge that the events are going to occur, as well as the inference being made on the basis of an argument from ignorance (we can't explain it naturally, therefore it's a miracle).  So those aren't justified inferences either.

The inference is justified if the probability of the event happening given there is no God, is sufficiently low. For example, bumping into a person that changes your life: you may not have justification to label it a miracle (although it may be). On the other hand, disappearing tumors from a boy's brain when there are hundreds of people asking for a miracle have an extremely low probability of happening in the timeframe of a week given there is no God. It is not proof, but the inference is reasonable. Example is my brother-in-law as a boy. They still have the scans. They scanned again to map the tumor in pre-op and there was no trace. Doctor said "if you believe in miracles, that's what it was". 

As far as the natural theology arguments, while I haven't conducted the relevant survey, they all seem to follow the same general pattern as post-biblical miracles in asserting that because there is no natural explanation for some fact or phenomena, the explanation must be supernatural.  None of the aforementioned data points really count as any kind of contribution to an inductive argument, or at the very least, they are so insignificant that they generally can be dismissed.

Now, as to whether the accounts in the bible count as justified inferences to the supernatural or not, I'm currently mulling that over some more, so in the meantime, we'll simply have to agree to disagree.  I think we're both aware of the problems involved in using the bible to make a strong inductive argument.  Regardless, at the very least, I've demonstrated an argument, successful or not, against accepting the personal experiences argument that doesn't rely on question begging.  I can think of another such argument, but since the debate was about Mathilda's conclusion, I'll leave her to make her own case.  So, from my perspective, there do appear to be legitimate non-question-begging arguments for Mathilda's conclusion.  Whether her argument is one such, I don't know.  Nonetheless, your jumping to the conclusion that her argument was necessarily question begging appears not to have been sound, and, dependent on whether or not your rephrasing of her argument was valid or not, was likely a result of either flawed thinking or uncharitable interpretation.  So, it remains to be seen whether your characterization of her argument was or was not a straw man.  But it seems to be the case that you haven't shown that it wasn't with your "almost all universal negative claims" argument.  You actually need to engage with her argument, as I stated before.

Now, given that I'm still mulling over certain relevant issues, specifically whether the biblical testimony can count towards the conclusion that the supernatural exists on a naive acceptance of its reports, and that this was essentially aimed at supporting Mathilda's arguments in the first place, I'm going to bow out of this discussion for now.

Perhaps I'll add something later.