You Can't Disprove a Miracle

[Cyberman]

That's what I said earlier. Just don't get upset if what you present as evidence doesn’t actually evidence what you think it does.

[ignoramus]

I went through all this recently. I'll post the video again.

It's an equivocation between our scientific theories which model the "laws of nature" and the actual "laws of nature". Equivocations are bad.

Angry Atheist to the rescue:

I agree, we should not rule out any event a priori because our "laws of nature" are more descriptive than prescriptive. However, that does not rule out supernatural causes. Science cannot tell us if supernatural causes exist or not.

There are many issues not yet understood in quantum physics.
Do we call these supernatural events? Call them what you want.
They are repeatable phenomena from our natural universe.

Does science think there is divine intervention at play here? 
Not with a zero track record.

Science can tell us with 100% certainty that Disney style magic has never occurred.
Is this not what would be involved if God intervened?

All the claims of miracles are results of a biased mind joining the dots.
Draw me 2 dots and I can join them with any picture you like in between.

[robvalue]

The supernatural is usually defined so that there can be no evidence of it.

When that is the case, you have stuffed yourself. It's unfalsifiable, and therefor useless.

It is always premature to jump to an unsupported conclusion. We can't possibly ever rule out every natural possibility. There's nothing to be gained by predicting that we won't. It's just relabelling "don't know yet" as "we'll never know" and calling that supernatural. Maybe we'll find out one day, in which case such a claim is categorically wrong. Maybe we'll never find out. Even in the latter scenario, jumping to useless, unfalsifiable conclusions achieves nothing. We don't know. It's as simple as that.

Also, just because we might never know what the explanation is, what on earth makes that supernatural? Is it defined in terms of our ability to study it? If a more advanced race managed to study it just fine, would it then be natural?

It's not at all clear that there is anything that isn't natural. Trying to define it is extremely problematic and unscientific.

"Might be supernatural... Might be God... Might be my god..."

Wild speculation, used to make a theist feel better about conclusions they have already come to.

[The Grand Nudger]

So we agree that perhaps evidence can?

If evidence could, then science could, you need to make up your mind. Is it more important to you to have a place to hide your non-existent miracles, or to -have- your non-existent miracles?

[SteveII]

There are many issues not yet understood in quantum physics.
Do we call these supernatural events? Call them what you want.
They are repeatable phenomena from our natural universe.

Does science think there is divine intervention at play here? 
Not with a zero track record.

Science can tell us with 100% certainty that Disney style magic has never occurred.
Is this not what would be involved if God intervened?

All the claims of miracles are results of a biased mind joining the dots.
Draw me 2 dots and I can join them with any picture you like in between.

Yea, science does not think anything. Science cannot tell us if there are supernatural causes to events. Science can only explain naturally caused events--therefore providing the distinction between the two.  You are making your own claim that miracles are a result of biased minds. You cannot know that. Since you cannot prove there are no supernatural causes, you are simply applying your bias.

[Cyberman]

And so the dance repeats itself.

"It's not our job to prove something is not a miracle. It's your job to demonstrate that it is."

[SteveII]

The supernatural is usually defined so that there can be no evidence of it.

When that is the case, you have stuffed yourself. It's unfalsifiable, and therefor useless.

It is always premature to jump to an unsupported conclusion. We can't possibly ever rule out every natural possibility. There's nothing to be gained by predicting that we won't. It's just relabelling "don't know yet" as "we'll never know" and calling that supernatural. Maybe we'll find out one day, in which case such a claim is categorically wrong. Maybe we'll never find out. Even in the latter scenario, jumping to useless, unfalsifiable conclusions achieves nothing. We don't know. It's as simple as that.

Also, just because we might never know what the explanation is, what on earth makes that supernatural? Is it defined in terms of our ability to study it? If a more advanced race managed to study it just fine, would it then be natural?

It's not at all clear that there is anything that isn't natural. Trying to define it is extremely problematic and unscientific.

"Might be supernatural... Might be God... Might be my god..."

Wild speculation, used to make a theist feel better about conclusions they have already come to.

The miracle would be the evidence of a supernatural cause. So to argue against miracles because we can't define the supernatural cause is not logical. 

You talk of unsupported conclusions. If all of our science says it is extremely unlikely that event x happened in y circumstances yet it happened, that is not unsupported. You cannot rule out every natural cause, but you can assign probability. For example, the probability of a man crippled from birth eventually walks would be low. However the same man starts walking at the exact time some stranger tells him to is significantly lower.

[SteveII]

And so the dance repeats itself.

"It's not our job to prove something is not a miracle. It's your job to demonstrate that it is."

I started out talking about probability not indisputable proof. Even if an event happens that is very low probability of natural causes and higher probability of supernatural causes, there is still a chance it was natural causes. My argument is that there is no basis to set supernatural causes as probability = 0.

[Expired]

Until somebody shows an event was caused by the supernatural with indisputable proof, the probability of the supernatural = 0.

[robvalue]

How do you assess the probability that laws of nature we don't know about could account for an event?

It would certainly be more probable than supernatural laws we don't know about, and that we don't even know are a real thing at all.

It's not like we have a book of all the natural laws and we're at page 99 out of 100.

What do you accomplish by labelling things "supernatural"? Please tell me one practical purpose. Especially considering the natural cause could be found the next day, and then you are literally wrong. If you're just saying "it could be supernatural" that is a useless statement. It could be any unfalsifiable explanation.

And indeed, we don't know that it could. It would be consistent, but it might not be possible. If there is no supernatural, then it can't be an explanation. You can't define it into existence. You may be defining an empty set.

You are still 3 complete non sequiturs away from getting anywhere near your own personal God. Like I said in my video, the only reason to keep using that word is it sounds a bit like God.