(October 16, 2018 at 5:55 pm)HappySkeptic Wrote:(October 16, 2018 at 9:18 am)SteveII Wrote: It is only begging the question if I am making an argument for the existence of the supernatural by miracles that I can't be sure are miracles. That's not what I am doing. I am saying that given that I believe in the supernatural (for other reasons) and given the background information that such events do not happen with any regularity, it is reasonable to infer that miracle x after prayer y may be supernatural.
I can only say -- you would make a very poor scientist.
Science deals with weird postulates all the time. Saying "I'll assume my postulate is true, and then determine which of my experiments can be explained with it" is terrible. That is how pseudoscience gets done.
The problems are:
1) The postulate is not accepted fact, meaning that any stories you come up to link it to experiment are often exercises in wish fulfillment. You will not look for counter-evidence.
2) Other explanations must be ruled out before an experiment can be used as evidence of the postulate.
3) The postulate, to be useful, must make clear what it predicts, and what sort of evidence would invalidate it. Otherwise, any evidence could be woven into the postulate's story. A postulate becomes a theory when all attempts to invalidate it's specific predictions fail, and no better theory also makes those predictions.
Your investigation of miracles fails on all 3 counts.
First, that's a total non sequitur. Was Isaac Newton a poor scientist? He believed in miracles.
Second, read my last three words "may be supernatural".
1) Saying that miracles are not an accepted fact is question begging. What kind of miracle-seeking experiment would make any logical sense? The very definition of a miracle has in it the a) inability to predict and b) the all-important feature that you can only see the effect--never the cause--something that throws a monkey wrench in experiments. I never said I would not look for counter-evidence=straw man.
2) Not so. In my example back when this conversation started, spontaneous tumor disappearance by unknown causes is the other explanation. I don't have to rule it out--just recognize the probability of spontaneous disappearing tumor by unknown causes is very low. My worldview informs me that God may have an interest in healing that person. While it is unreasonable for me to say that is proof of a miracle, my inference that a miracle occurred is more probable, is reasonable.
3) Um, I predict that if God removed the tumor, it would be gone.
You can't win this debate. You would have to prove my worldview wrong.