Evidence for a god. Do you have any ?

[LadyForCamus]

[quote='LadyForCamus' pid='1829173' dateline='1539208769']

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No. I was granting the concept to you for the sake of your example about miracles so that I could investigate the method by which you distinguish a natural cause from a supposedly supernatural cause, what ever that actually is.  In response, you gave me a fallacy, plus some bizarre reasoning about how particles behaving strangely under a microscope wouldn’t be a miracle, but strangely-behaving particles not looked at through a microscope would be. (?)

I stand by my statements earlier; that the concept of a supernatural event or object has no coherent, meaningful applicability to reality, as the word is defined by what it is not, rather than what it is.  And, that there is no reason to think that anything interacting with, and leaving behind evidence in this world, is not a part of it.  If it’s a part within the whole of this world, and it is evident, then it would fall under the purview of scientific inquiry.  

I’m still waiting for you to explain how you determine that a cause for an event can’t be explainable by science, and I’m still waiting for you to tell me what a supernatural thing is, using positive descriptors. As I said before; you are trying to create a new and entirely separate category of things using the knowledge gaps of a category of things that already exists.  Can you please describe in detail the mechanism behind a ‘something other than natural, but we don’t know what it actually is’ cause, generating detectable, physical effects within the natural world, yet itself remaining completely undetectable?

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First, I want to point out the bold to Mister Agenda. It would seem I understood your position perfectly.

Second, you throw around the word fallacy a lot. What did I say that you think is a logical fallacy.

I don’t, actually.  And I try not to unless I’m fairly confident that I’m correct in my charge.  Even then, we all make errors from time to time. That’s how you hone a skill. I’ve already explained to you exactly which fallacy I believe you committed, but I’ll get it:

If a whole church is praying for a little boy (like my brother-in-law) who had a brain tumor and on the morning of his surgery he had a CT scan for the surgeon to map his cuts, there was no tumor. Never came back. That might be a miracle.

So, again; rare medical phenomena happen.  How do you rationally determine that the cause can’t, and never can be explainable via science, versus a natural cause that science can and may be able to explain at some point in the future?  Because, people prayed first? I know you know what a ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’ fallacy is.

Many words are defined by what it is not. 'Darkness', 'evil', 'cold' off the top of my head.

You’re right.  We also have the words, “light”, “good”, and “warm”.  I can tell you what these things are by describing their characteristics.  If someone asks me what light is, I don’t need to default to, “well, it’s not dark.”  What positive descriptors do we have for the supernatural?  That’s what I’m asking you for.

Scientific inquiry can only investigate what originates in the natural world by natural processes and leaves natural effects.  If something is not part of the natural world, by the very definition of science, it cannot be scientifically investigated.

Scientific inquiry can investigate anything that is evident. Observable. That’s the whole basis of the scientific method.  If miracles are part of a causal chain that is affecting the world we live in, they are subject to scientific investigation and observation.  At this point they are disqualified from the poorly defined category of ‘the supernatural’.

At best (and consistent with both definitions of science and supernatural) you can investigate the effect to see if there are any natural causes. We don't have the tools to investigate the supernatural and even if we did, they would--by definition--not be scientific tools. And what is this about the supernatural being undetected? We can detect it by it's effect.

If you can only observe the effect, then you have no evidence or reason to think that the cause was more likely ‘supernatural’, than ‘natural, but not yet explained’, because you have no way of detecting a supernatural cause, lol.

For example, say someone is crucified. Then comes back to life 3 days later and he says God raised him from the dead--and say you were there the whole time. Are you going to say that the supernatural was undetected? There are a whole host of things that we know about only because of the observed effect--gravity comes to mind.

This is getting silly.  I would say it’s most likely that the guy wasn’t ever really dead.

How do we know there is not a forthcoming natural explanation? The plain answer is you don't.

I appreciate your honesty here.

That's why I brought up context. The context provides some probability inputs. For example, Jesus and the crippled man. What is the probability that the man, sometime during his life, naturally spontaneously regenerated a key part of his back and was able to walk with no physical therapy? It's low but not zero. What is the probability of the man regenerating a key part of his back naturally at the very moment Jesus says "so that everyone here knows that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins, I command you to take up your bed and walk"? There's too many leading zeros to write that percentage  on this entire page.

Steve, you have no good evidence that any such thing happened at all.  Could you at least pick a supposed miracle from our lifetimes?  

If you want to question every miracle on the grounds that a naturalistic cause might be discovered, fine. You are not irrational to do so. But your objection does nothing to make the concept incoherent and certainly not to undercut someone believing in the supernatural and supernatural events as part of a larger worldview.

I just want someone to tell me what it IS.  That’s all.