(March 24, 2012 at 3:49 pm)rationalnick Wrote: Hello, I'm new to this forum, and I was spurred into joining to obtain knowledge with regards to debates about various aspects of religion. I was recently at a talk entitled "Are Miracles Believable?" where I assumed there would be a discussion about the veracity of miracles. However, it turned out to be a group of people confirming amongst themselves, using scientific "evidence" that the miracles depicted in the Bible were not only self-evidently true, but also distinct in their proof of god's existence.
I emailed him after the talk to ask him about what his arguments were for his presumption that the miracles depicted in the Bible actually happened, and that if he didn't have certain extra-Biblical or scientific evidence, why he was using scientific evidence (stating that the law of thermodynamics allows for an "open system" universe that god can manipulate without violating the laws of nature) to formulate his assertions. Here is what he sent me, and I was wondering if those who are more eloquent and learned on the subject could provide arguments that I could use in return:
"The thrust of my talk was to suggest that miracles cannot be a priori ruled out as somehow unscientific or violating the laws of nature. What that means is that one cannot dismiss a document as unhistorical simply on the basis of whether it contains accounts of miracles. Rather it would be deemed reliable or unreliable on the basis of other criteria for deeming whether a document is reliable, i.e. how close is it in time to the events it records, how reliable is it concerning things we can check.
Thus, for example, Luke is writing within the lifetime of people who were contemporary with the events he records and would have had access to them. Also, Luke on issues that can be checked, e.g. details of geography, governance, proper titles for officials, has been found to be very reliable. So a principle for evaluating his reports of miracles would be that if he is reliable on details that can be checked he is probably reliable on details that cannot be checked.
There is also the fact that if contemporary accounts of miracle turn out to be reliable, this provides some degree of evidence for thinking old accounts such as those found in the New Testament are reliable.
As regards mythic accounts such as Poseidon, there is no historical detail or setting and certainly no appeal to eye-witness testimony. As regards Mohammed's vision, it is intrinsically harder to make the case, since we have only his report, whereas in the case of a physical miracle, there is the possibility of abundant eye witness testimony."
Thanks in advance for any advice that is given to assist me in furthering this discussion with him.
Nick
Where was the talk and who was the speaker? And what was the evidence that Luke's gospel was reliable? And more importantly, why did you buy into the bullshit that the bible is reliable?
