Proving the Bible is false in few words.

[Caecilian]

It therefore follows that:
1. Anything that could be explained with reference to god, could be explained at least as well without reference to god. Thus 'god' has zero explanatory value.
2. 'Miracles' either didn't happen, or have a naturalistic explanation.
3. Following on from 2, the bible becomes a collection of myths.

No

1. God has no business with explanatory values, ever.
2. or did happen <-- how did you eliminate this option?
3. it is necessarily beholden to the observer to accept or deny the claim. Which as I keep saying, is the whole point. It is also crucial that there's no sway on that choice empirically.

In reply to your replies to my questions:
1. We seem to have an agreement here. 'God' as a concept doesn't have any explanatory value. I'm happy to accept your point that 'god' shouldn't have any explanatory value. After all, I'm an atheist, so what 'god' should or shouldn't do isn't down to me.
2. Maybe I wasn't very clear first time round. I'll try re-phrasing the point:
If an event that is a 'miracle' did or does indeed occur, then that event must have a naturalistic explanation which is at least as good as the spiritual explanation.
This seems to be a necessary entailment from 1, since if it isn't true, then there will be the possibility of events which have 'god' as part of the best (or even only) explanation. That would mean empirical evidence for god, and 'god' having explanatory value.
3. Yeah, you've made this point a number of times. Why is uncertainty so important?

Caecilian Wrote:
All facts, including all phenomenal facts, are metaphysically necessitated by the microphysical facts. If P is a statement that reports all the microphysical facts and Q is a statement that reports all phenomenal facts...then:
(Entailment Thesis) P -> Q is metaphysically necessary.

Perhaps you could translate that philosobabble into English and I'll do my best to answer. Or PM Arcanus and see if he's willing to discuss philosophy with you... he's conversant in it.

Sorry about the philosbabble. I find it alarmingly easy to slip into it.

Will try to translate, although philosobabble -> English is sometimes tricky.

Microphysical facts are the facts re. very low-level physical states- think of quantum mechanics and you'll be close enough. P is the complete set of microphysical facts that describes the universe in terms of low-level physics. Obviously, it isn't (and will never be) a practical proposition to actually know P, but we're talking metaphysics here, so practicalities aren't an issue (one reason why I'm not so keen on metaphysics).

Phenomenal facts are the facts re. higher-level phenomena such as objects, stars and also conscious states, social institutions etc. Q is the complete set of phenomenal facts that describe the universe on higher levels of analysis. It explicitly includes facts about phenomena that aren't normally thought of as physical - i.e. mental and social phenomena.

Materialist monism says that P necessarily entails Q. In other words, given P there is no other way that Q could be.

Sound good to you?

i'm sorry for 'flying off the handle'

No problem.