Can't prove the supernatural God

[robvalue]

Quick question: why bother with Jesus? In the OT Yahweh is doing magic all over the place. Jesus is relatively tame, supernatural wise.

[SteveII]

Quick question: why bother with Jesus? In the OT Yahweh is doing magic all over the place. Jesus is relatively tame, supernatural wise.

Jesus is part of Yahweh. God incarnate. One of three parts of the trinity. The culmination of all the OT.

[Redbeard The Pink]

Talk about straw men...


I'm not talking about all causes, objects, and effects...I am only talking about known ones. Of the things we know, all are natural and none are supernatural. Because of that, it is reasonable to expect that anything that occurs in nature has a natural cause, and it is not reasonable to posit or believe in causes that are supernatural until the supernatural can be demonstrated with evidence.


Furthermore, it is not sufficient to dismiss my entire post as "straw men and unsupported opinions" without actually addressing any of it. If I have misrepresented you or the Bible, you should be able to explain how (like I did at the front of this post). If I've said something that isn't supported by evidence, what was it? Your reply looks more like a cop-out than a rebuttal.

I will say that it is very reasonable to look for a natural explanation before positing a miracle happened since our experience does support that that is the case in almost all events.

All events. Our experience supports that in ALL events. Of the known explanations and causes for things, we have natural things, and we have unknowns. There are absolutely zero known, demonstrable supernatural causes, effects, or objects.


Aside from that caveat, I appreciate the concession. I am still a little unclear, however, on how you're distinguishing a regular unlikely event from a miracle. If the person happens to have prayed for it first, how do you rule out coincidence (and how do you explain the fact that prayers, regardless of the religion, have zero demonstrable effect on any outcome when compared with pure chance?)? If the person came to god or experienced personal growth from it, how do you explain when that same thing happens, but with somebody else's god? If an unexplained tumor-remission brings someone closer to Thor, is that evidence that Thor exists? If not, why should it be evidence that Jesus exists?

Let's cut to the chase. You think the description of miracles in the NT is untrue and therefore provide no support for the existence of miracles. Can you prove them to be untrue? No, you can give reasons why you think so. I think there are reasons to believe that it is true, so I think miracles happen. 

Gonna get nit-picky here.


Yes, I don't think the descriptions of miracles in the NT are true. The reason I don't think they support the existence of miracles is that that would be circular; the NT is the claim. The NT claims that miracles happened. You cannot use a claim as evidence of itself. You would have to confirm those claims with other evidence.


It is not up to me to prove that your assertion is wrong. If you are claiming that a thing does happen, it is up to you to point me to evidence that it happens. If you are claiming that a thing does exist, it is up to you to point me to evidence that demonstrates that this is true. If you have a good reason to believe that supernatural things (like miracles and gods) are actually real, then what is that reason? Until you give me a good reason to believe that your claims are true, it is completely reasonable for me to withhold belief in those claims.

So, why would I bring them up instead of some modern example? As I said above to Mister Agenda, I think the modern claims of miracles are over done. That is not to say I think that they do not happen. The miracles of the NT were of a different type. These were big, purposeful, witnessed, had theological significance.

So the Bible claims. According to what evidence do you believe that's actually true?

We do not see these types of miracles anymore.

Oh, we don't? Why do you suppose that would be? When do you suppose the last "big" miracle was? If we don't see them now, and from the past we have only accounts of them and no other evidence, how do we know they actually happened at all? Like, ever? Remember, the Bible is the claim, so "the Bible says so" is not evidence.

This is also a reason I am not going to argue if so and so's brain tumor disappeared as a result of supernatural intervention. These types are not miracles "addressed to the world" but rather personal events that in contrast to the NT events are small, for purposes that are not apparent to the everyone, and only have narrow (perhaps only personal) theological significance.

Ok, but those happen at about the same rate in all humans, irrespective of religion or lack thereof. Is it only a "real" miracle when it benefits your god? If your god is the only one doing real miracles, why don't believers in your god experience such miracles more frequently than people who don't believe in your god?

[ignoramus]

Quick question: why bother with Jesus? In the OT Yahweh is doing magic all over the place. Jesus is relatively tame, supernatural wise.

Jesus is part of Yahweh. God incarnate. One of three parts of the trinity. The culmination of all the OT.

Steve, if you acknowledge the above,  I think that proving " miracles" is the least of your problems....
Just believe man, don't try to reconcile with reality. No one was meant to.

It just makes you sound gullible...but I see you are relatively intelligent.

[robvalue]

Quick question: why bother with Jesus? In the OT Yahweh is doing magic all over the place. Jesus is relatively tame, supernatural wise.

Jesus is part of Yahweh. God incarnate. One of three parts of the trinity. The culmination of all the OT.

Sure... but you're trying to find instances of supernatural occurences. You're looking at Jesus healing someone and trying to say that can't have happened naturally. But why pick that example, when Yahweh supposedly created humans out of dirt? Or sent fireballs around the place? Or sent plagues? Aren't these more obviously "supernatural" occurences, for someone who subscribes to such notions?

A bit of healing is like a wet fart in comparison.

[SteveII]

Jesus is part of Yahweh. God incarnate. One of three parts of the trinity. The culmination of all the OT.

Sure... but you're trying to find instances of supernatural occurences. You're looking at Jesus healing someone and trying to say that can't have happened naturally. But why pick that example, when Yahweh supposedly created humans out of dirt? Or sent fireballs around the place? Or sent plagues? Aren't these more obviously "supernatural" occurences, for someone who subscribes to such notions?

A bit of healing is like a wet fart in comparison.

An OT supernatural act are often isolated one-time events recorded years or centuries later by often a single source. Flashier yes, but not going to be a lot of discussion on why I think they did or did not happen. 

Most of the NT events have multiple attestations, different points of view, more miracles working together to form a bigger picture, context and purpose clearly evident, and we can see an unbroken chain of belief they actually happened.

[SteveII]

Jesus is part of Yahweh. God incarnate. One of three parts of the trinity. The culmination of all the OT.

Steve, if you acknowledge the above,  I think that proving " miracles" is the least of your problems....
Just believe man, don't try to reconcile with reality. No one was meant to.

It just makes you sound gullible...but I see you are relatively intelligent.

If you take that path, you would not be able to compare religions against each other and see which one makes more sense. I think it is very important to test for internal consistency and relation to the real world. 

BTW, the trinity is not an attempt to reconcile with reality. It is a straight up, spelled out doctrine in the NT.

[SteveII]

I will say that it is very reasonable to look for a natural explanation before positing a miracle happened since our experience does support that that is the case in almost all events.

All events. Our experience supports that in ALL events. Of the known explanations and causes for things, we have natural things, and we have unknowns. There are absolutely zero known, demonstrable supernatural causes, effects, or objects.

Aside from that caveat, I appreciate the concession. I am still a little unclear, however, on how you're distinguishing a regular unlikely event from a miracle. If the person happens to have prayed for it first, how do you rule out coincidence (and how do you explain the fact that prayers, regardless of the religion, have zero demonstrable effect on any outcome when compared with pure chance?)? If the person came to god or experienced personal growth from it, how do you explain when that same thing happens, but with somebody else's god? If an unexplained tumor-remission brings someone closer to Thor, is that evidence that Thor exists? If not, why should it be evidence that Jesus exists?

Your first paragraph relies on dismissing the entire NT (and any other claims of miracles). But in addition, even though you are carefully wording your sentence, you are really saying that events can only have naturalistic explanations. You are simply moving "unknowns" over to the naturalistic column for no reason other than they must not have had a supernatural cause. Why is this not the equivalent of saying " miracles do not exist because miracle can't happen"--which is circular?
I do keep hearing the claim that healing happens at the same rate between religious and non-religious. Do you have something that explains that study? Please note, I was not using modern healing miracles as evidence in this discussion because of some of the reasons you pointed out.

[SofaKingHigh]

Steve, if you acknowledge the above,  I think that proving " miracles" is the least of your problems....
Just believe man, don't try to reconcile with reality. No one was meant to.

It just makes you sound gullible...but I see you are relatively intelligent.

If you take that path, you would not be able to compare religions against each other and see which one makes more sense. I think it is very important to test for internal consistency and relation to the real world. 

BTW, the trinity is not an attempt to reconcile with reality. It is a straight up, spelled out doctrine in the NT.

Why then are you using, in your very next post, the NT as a means of proving miracles.........unless this is a hypothetical discussion?

[SofaKingHigh]

All events. Our experience supports that in ALL events. Of the known explanations and causes for things, we have natural things, and we have unknowns. There are absolutely zero known, demonstrable supernatural causes, effects, or objects.

Aside from that caveat, I appreciate the concession. I am still a little unclear, however, on how you're distinguishing a regular unlikely event from a miracle. If the person happens to have prayed for it first, how do you rule out coincidence (and how do you explain the fact that prayers, regardless of the religion, have zero demonstrable effect on any outcome when compared with pure chance?)? If the person came to god or experienced personal growth from it, how do you explain when that same thing happens, but with somebody else's god? If an unexplained tumor-remission brings someone closer to Thor, is that evidence that Thor exists? If not, why should it be evidence that Jesus exists?

Your first paragraph relies on dismissing the entire NT (and any other claims of miracles). But in addition, even though you are carefully wording your sentence, you are really saying that events can only have naturalistic explanations. You are simply moving "unknowns" over to the naturalistic column for no reason other than they must not have had a supernatural cause. Why is this not the equivalent of saying " miracles do not exist because miracle can't happen"--which is circular?
I do keep hearing the claim that healing happens at the same rate between religious and non-religious. Do you have something that explains that study? Please note, I was not using modern healing miracles as evidence in this discussion because of some of the reasons you pointed out.

Stevie babes, this is an atheist forum.

Pretty much everyone here dismisses the entire NT, as much as we dismiss the Q'uran, the Torah, Harry Potter and most other fictional fantasy.