How does "Science prove that the miracles of the Bible did not happen" ?

[Whateverist]

Science does not disprove the miracles of the bible.  It does give us a good foundation upon which to doubt they happened.  Particularly the flood and the Exodus.  

The miracles aren't evidence of God because you have to accept the existence of God first in order to then go on and make a plausible case for miracles.  That's circular.

Ancient people made up miracle stories.  Each of them is consistent with their own theories about gods and the universe.  We don't conclude that they're all true.  The more likely explanation is that people of the time were gullible and made up stories.  If you think the stories made up about your god are 'special' then you need to justify that.

So I've been reading more into Jaynes' "The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind".  From that point of view one's own actions and insights could inspire a sense of the miraculous and lead one to attribute the input of the gods.  Of course gods so construed are not literal, separate or omni anything.

[Emzap]

Thank you everyone for your input! 

I'm really not here to debate the topic. I'm really just interested in understanding the argument I've been given to consider. It sounds as if most of you agree that science cannot and does not try to disprove Biblical miracles. That was the main thing I was looking for. I was struggling to come up with examples for your side of the argument, but its not the argument that needs to be debated. 

The real element of debate would be science doubting miracles or giving alternate explanations that do not include an all powerful God, not disproving them. 

[SteelCurtain]

The real element of debate would be science doubting miracles or giving alternate explanations that do not include an all powerful God, not disproving them. 

Science doesn't doubt anything. People offer realistic counter explanations to purported phenomena.

The point is that a miracle is by definition a supernatural event. If one makes an extraordinary claim, that same person mist provide extraordinary evidence for said claim. It is not incumbent on anyone else to disprove that claim.

For example, if I told you there was a troll in my closet that gives me an unending supply of Reeses Pieces, it would not be up to you to prove that the troll doesn't exist. It would be up to me, the claimant, to prove that it does.

[ApeNotKillApe]

The men who wrote the Bible were ignorant primitives who knew nothing about the importance of method in discerning what can be known to be true. And naturally the Bible contain numerous scientific inaccuracies. The earth is not flat, bats are not birds, the sun cannot just 'stop in the middle of the sky' and miracles are completely impossible according to everything we know about anything at all and even if some miracle did happen, the Bible contains multiple contradictory accounts of events and as such can't be trusted as a reliable account of them.
The assembled knowledge of the last two thousand years puts the Bible in contradiction with basic knowledge we teach to children, which inherently renders it useless as a reliable accounting of anything.

In addition, without getting into the specific claims of the Bible, what enables us to discard the Biblical miracles can be consumed in razor form.

"What can asserted without evidence can dismissed without evidence."

"What cannot be settled by experiment or observation is not worth settling."

"The explanation that requires the least numerous, most parsimonious assumptions is probably the correct one."

[The Valkyrie]

Does science disprove the blue pixies at the bottom of my garden?

Yes.

They're actually red bottomed pixies living in your basement.

[Doubting Thomas]

Despite popular conservative Christian belief, science isn't out constantly trying to disprove the bible or God's existence. Science has actual work to do.

[brewer]

Thank you everyone for your input! 

I'm really not here to debate the topic. I'm really just interested in understanding the argument I've been given to consider. It sounds as if most of you agree that science cannot and does not try to disprove Biblical miracles. That was the main thing I was looking for. I was struggling to come up with examples for your side of the argument, but its not the argument that needs to be debated. 

The real element of debate would be science doubting miracles or giving alternate explanations that do not include an all powerful God, not disproving them. 

Can I ask who gave you the argument to consider? Did they have a position regarding miracle/science prior to asking the question?

And what will you take back to that person now that the question has been posed and responded to?

[Doubting Thomas]

The real element of debate would be science doubting miracles or giving alternate explanations that do not include an all powerful God, not disproving them. 

Check out the thread where we're currently discussing the "miracle" at Fatima, where the sun supposedly danced in the sky.  The alternative (and more rational and likely) explanation was that it was caused by ocular effects of staring at the sun for a while, mass hysteria, and possibly also thermal waves in the atmosphere.

Of course, this kind of disproves any sort of miracle.

Oh and when it comes to debating miracles, science, or things like "creation science," a handy guide is that the more you have to invoke magic, the less likely your explanation is true.

[Simon Moon]

Thank you everyone for your input! 

I'm really not here to debate the topic. I'm really just interested in understanding the argument I've been given to consider. It sounds as if most of you agree that science cannot and does not try to disprove Biblical miracles. That was the main thing I was looking for. I was struggling to come up with examples for your side of the argument, but its not the argument that needs to be debated. 

The real element of debate would be science doubting miracles or giving alternate explanations that do not include an all powerful God, not disproving them. 

You seem to have a big misunderstanding of what science does.

Science can only observe the natural world. It is bared from examining the 'supernatural', because there is nothing observable and repeatable to test.

While science does not specifically try to disprove "miracle' claims from ancient texts, they tend to get disproven as a byproduct of science's investigation of the natural world.

There are almost always better explanations for 'miracle' claims in the Bible, that are completely natural, so it becomes unnecessary to appeal to the supernatural to explain them.

By the way, what do think about miracle claims in the religious texts of other religions? After all, people of other religions offer the same reasons for believing the miracles of their religious texts as you do for the ones in the Bible.

[downbeatplumb]

Does science disprove the blue pixies at the bottom of my garden?

Yes.

They're actually red bottomed pixies living in your basement.

How did they get the red bottoms?.......could it be because of a certain bottom obsessed member?