Arguments Against Miracles

[mediamogul]

Thanks to everyone for giving tips and examples that I used in my email to refute Mr. Larmer's arguments. Here is what he says in reply:

A crucial difference between say Luke and Dickens, is that Dickens makes no claim to be giving a historical account, whereas Luke does. It seems a fair principle of evaluating sources which claim to be historical that if they are reliable on the facts that we can check, they have a greater claim to be reliable on the facts that we cannot. As regards your claim that people in the first century were so gullible that they would believe almost anything, I think it is mistaken. For example, Joseph is not portrayed as readily accepting Mary's story.

He is just nitpicking about the particular example which is primarily being used to demonstrate the principle that just because part of the story is fact doesn't mean the rest can't be fiction. The bootstrapping argument still has not been addressed. Evidence that the gospel got time, place, and even possibly some events right is NOT by association evidence that the supposed miracles occurred. If he had taken an intro philosophy course or studied logic he would understand the fallacy he is resorting to here is not sound. We need direct evidence that the laws of nature were contravened. This argument does NOT constitute evidence. Can you imagine, if this "method" was applied to a multitude of texts claiming supernatural events to be facts, what it would "prove". Virtually anything claimed to be truth in a text that contained some historically valid facts could be "proven" by this. It's utter nonsense.

There are many well-verified accounts of modern day 'miracles', i.e. events plausibly seen as the result of supernatural intervention. If you want to do some reading on the issue, Craig Keener's very recent book would be a good place to start. I also have collected some case studies. As to questions concerning the historical reliability of the gospel records, you might wish to look at Craig Blomberg's book on that topic.

False. They are all subjective arguments from personal experience. He most likely would discredit those supposed miracles which purport to validate other religions even though they are based on the same "experiences". This is not evidence. Are alien abduction stories accepted as scientific evidence of alien life? What about any of the million pseudo-sciences that claim first hand experience of any million ridiculous things?

Finally, what I directly argued, is that if God exists he can produce miracles without violating the laws of nature. Whether or not this has in fact happened cannot be pronounced on a priori, but one cannot dismiss miracles as antecedently improbable on the basis that they would violate the laws of nature. I do in fact believe in God and the occurrence of miracles, but my argument for distinguishing between the two forms of the Principle of Conservation of Energy and for affirming that miracles need not violate the laws of nature does not depend on making the claim that God does in fact exist.

So if once again god is an unneccessary hypothesis why has he reverted to explaining miracles based on his existence? Occams Razor prevails and positing "god did it" is multiplying entities beyond neccessity. Second of all if a "miracle" obeys the law of nature it is not defined as a miracle. He is neccessarily arguing for the existence of god. Christians are always trying to say that they aren't arguing for god's existence and that all the "evidence" just happens to point that direction. This is how they feign being scientific.