Testing a Hypothesis about the Supernatural

[Succubus]

...Regarding your last point, you mean YOU have never seen something really remarkable. There a millions of testimonies of those who have...

And the testimonies of those who witnessed these events can be found where?

1. Timing
2. Illustrating a particular point. 
3. Reinforce teachings with some authority. Example feeding 5000, Matt 9:35
4. So that people might believe (specifically stated). Example Lazarus (John 11)
5. Reward for faith.
6. Theologically significant. example virgin birth, baptism, tearing of the veil in the temple, resurrection.

Five thousand people fed and yet Matthew doesn't name one of them. Why does John not name one witness to the resurrection of Lazarus?

---

...For your point to mean anything, you need to discuss the supernatural in vague terms. However, you have just erected a straw man because that is not how people who believe in the supernatural consider this question AT ALL.

Look at the example above. If Jesus did do this thing in the context described, are you still going to hide behind "undiscovered natural causes?" No, only an idiot would think that. So what you have to say is that these events did not exist. Notice you are not really making the same argument you claim to be.

Begging the question! First you must show the thing did actually happen and then you can attempt to ascribe a cause.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Ah, the "no evidence" card. That's the card unthinking, unsophisticated, critically-thinking impaired atheists play. It is trivially easy to prove you wrong: Let's try an easy one related to the earlier post: Luke. Why is Luke not evidence?

I didn't even bother reading that religious crap at the end because I knew that you would use it as a distraction from the core of the argument that I was getting at and to avoid answering my questions. Which you are indeed attempting to do here. So predictable. The core argument you are trying to avoid is that you are making an arbitrary definition and applying it inconsistently. And pasting a dictionary definition multiple times in big bold letters doesn't change that.

To answer your question, just because something is written down in a book does not make it evidence. If it was, Harry Potter would be evidence of the supernatural.

Now answer my question which you are trying to ignore.

How is a supernatural cause different from a natural cause if both affect the nature that we can sense?

[bennyboy]

I'm curious if QM statistical outcomes can be called supernatural. If you cannot establish a specific mechanism for outcome, then on what basis will a particle be in position x rather than position y? Will we just call the unknowable "brute fact, but clearly physical," or will we accept the possibility that at the most fundamental level, there is a tremendous agnostic hole?

What, exactly, is the conceptual basis for separating natural from supernatural?

[The Grand Nudger]

Meh, if you ask a believer, you'll get incoherent goddisms.  As it stands, the supernatural is just another name for superstition.  Conceptually, the natural is a blanket term for whatever we find in the world..which would include magical forces..if such things existed.

Ultimately, the persistence of the category says more about any given persons need to carve out a little chunk of the universe for their pet beliefs than any real or conceptual separation of worlds.

[robvalue]

I can't find one that means anything. It seems to be entirely arbitrary. Basing it on our ability to explain or model something seems ridiculous, as the status can change over time.

[SteveII]

For your point to mean anything, you need to discuss the supernatural in vague terms. However, you have just erected a straw man because that is not how people who believe in the supernatural consider this question AT ALL.

Look at the example above. If Jesus did do this thing in the context described, are you still going to hide behind "undiscovered natural causes?" No, only an idiot would think that. So what you have to say is that these events did not exist. Notice you are not really making the same argument you claim to be.

And for your point to mean anything, you need to believe in the Jesus myth.  Of which, regarding miracles and magic, there is absolutely 0 evidence of.

You’re doing the same thing you always do - attempt to make the fantastic elements of your faith real through poor arguments (starting from “If this actually happened...” is laughably weak) and a litany of ‘reasons’ that are all rooted in one fallacy or another.

Again, you think you’re some learned scholar, yet you can’t even hack it with the basics.  You need to establish your premise - that Jesus existed and performed these acts exactly as described in the Bible - before moving towards your conclusion.  Instead, just like every theist, you presuppose the conclusion (what Jesus did was evidence of the supernatural) and then try to contort the premise(s) so that it logically follows.

I am distinctly unimpressed.

Clearly demonstrate that Jesus actually did this miraculous thing (hint: THE BIBLE IS THE CLAIM), and then come back to us regarding the supernatural.  Otherwise you’re simply mentally masturbating, and that’s something I feel you should do in private.

Again with the "no evidence" nonsense. 

A quick reminder of definitions:
Evidence refers to pieces of information or facts that help us establish the truth of something. Proof is a conclusion about the truth of something after analyzing the evidence. Evidence is suggestive of a conclusion. Proof is concrete and conclusive. Proof can have different thresholds. Anywhere from more likely than not (preponderance of the evidence), to beyond a reasonable doubt, to absolute. These are all arrived at by considering evidence.

So, to say that I have no evidence is simply wrong. What you mean is that in your opinion, it is not proof. That's fine, I don't care what your opinion is.

The evidence that I believe that supports my belief (another opinion) is below:

1. Person of, the message of and the insights of Jesus is compelling.
2. The NT describes actual events including the miracles, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
3. God works in people's lives today--changing people on the inside as well as the occurrence of miracles.
4. The natural theology arguments:
a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.
b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.
e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

Since you cannot 'prove' that any of these are falsely held beliefs, my conclusion (opinion) that God exists is by definition rationale (from my reasoning listed above). The amount of evidence meets my personal threshold for proof that God exists.

SO, to say there is "no evidence" you would have to address and conclusively prove ALL of these points are false. That is something you cannot do. That is why your statement is nonsense. 

Three points on the New Testament not being the claim:

1- The claim is that the events outlined in the gospels really happened--one in particular: that Jesus Christ, the son of God, came to earth to redeem humanity and provide a way for people to have a relationship with God.
2- The gospels and Acts catalog the claim. The balance are letters discussing and applying the claim.
3- The NT consists of 27 different documents written over 50 years time (give or take). It's a little bit of an understatement to describe such a diverse collection of palaeographical gold as if it were one thing: the claim.

[The Grand Nudger]

Of all things to point to as the "truth" of the nt.....acts?

No one....no one..... thinks that acts is anything other than fictional. As to your "evidence"...

1 Is just the reassertion of the fact that you believe. Neither I nor any other non-christian finds it as compelling as you do.
2 Is..yet again, the claim.
3 Is an even more fatuous claim than the last
and 4..well...a-e can be and have been conclusively disproven. Your personal threshold for belief is ludicrously short. More fundamentally depressing..though..is that you could have summed your entire post up by simply stating that you believe, and think that your beliefs are..like, totally the best! I believe that you believe that...but how do you think a statement of your preferences is supposed to establish the accuracy of your beliefs?

[polymath257]

I agree that it exists or it doesn't. And no matter how much we choose to believe or not believe in it, it makes it no more or less real.
But, if we have no way of testing for the supernatural, how can we even determine that it exists in the first place?
If 'Event A' happens, and it's claimed to be supernatural, there must be something about that event that gives you reason to believe that it is "supernatural" and not just "unknown". Supernatural is not synonymous with unknown, which is what a lot of people seem to be doing.

Okay, but context is important. I said earlier that when discussing Jesus' miracles, the context that strengthens the claim might include:

1. Timing
2. Illustrating a particular point. 
3. Reinforce teachings with some authority. Example feeding 5000, Matt 9:35
4. So that people might believe (specifically stated). Example Lazarus (John 11)
5. Reward for faith.
6. Theologically significant. example virgin birth, baptism, tearing of the veil in the temple, resurrection.

So let's stick with the example I have above. So as not to get sidetracked on a debate about the NT, let's just say for the sake of this discussion you were present and you knew the man to be paralyzed. 

Luke 5:17 On one of the days while Jesus was teaching, some proud religious law-keepers and teachers of the Law were sitting by Him. They had come from every town in the countries of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. The power of the Lord was there to heal them. 18 Some men took a man who was not able to move his body to Jesus. He was carried on a bed. They looked for a way to take the man into the house where Jesus was. 19 But they could not find a way to take him in because of so many people. They made a hole in the roof over where Jesus stood. Then they let the bed with the sick man on it down before Jesus. 20 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the man, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”

21 The teachers of the Law and the proud religious law-keepers thought to themselves, “Who is this Man Who speaks as if He is God? Who can forgive sins but God only?” 22 Jesus knew what they were thinking. He said to them, “Why do you think this way in your hearts? 23 Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or, ‘Get up and walk’?

24 “So that you may know the Son of Man has the right and the power on earth to forgive sins,” He said to the man who could not move his body, “I say to you, get up. Take your bed and go to your home.” 25 At once the sick man got up in front of them. He took his bed and went to his home thanking God. 26 All those who were there were surprised and gave thanks to God, saying, “We have seen very special things today.”

Present in the series of events is 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. That's a lot of context. 

Now, using Bayes Theorem and especially Bayesian Inference, we can examine the probability of seeing the paralyzed man walk given the overall context. 



R = A Miracle Having Happened (the man walks due to supernatural causes)
B = Background information (the supernatural exists)
E = Evidence (paralyzed man walking in the context of being commanded to for the reasons mentioned)

The way you read this is 
Pr="The probability of" 
| = "given"
& = "and"

So the probability of a Miracle Having Happened given the Evidence and The Supernatural Exists OVER the probability of a Miracle Having NOT Happened  given the Evidence and The Supernatural Exists
=
The probability of Miracle Having Happened given The Supernatural Exists OVER the probability of Miracle Having NOT Happened given the The Supernatural Exists
X 
The probability of seeing the Evidence given a Miracle Having Happened and The Supernatural Exists OVER the probability of seeing the Evidence given a Miracle NOT Having Happened and The Supernatural Exists

Notice this last part of the equation. It is the probability of seeing the evidence given no miracle, no supernatural. A low value here significantly increase the overall probability of a miracle having happened.

Well, there are several issues here. First of all, the assumption B is in dispute. So you really want P(R|E), not P(R|E&B). In effect, we can eliminate B from all of this because it is irrelevant to the calculation.

A better analysis is to consider the following:
R= a miracle occurred
S= a story was told about a miracle


What we really want is the probability that a miracle occurred given that we have the story of such a miracle, P(R|S). We can argue separate situations of P(E|S), the probability that a paralyzed man walked given that a story was told that such happened. But that isn't necessary for this calculation.

Now, we have the following (I'm not doing a picture, but it is essentially your equation again):

P(R|S)/P(~R|S) = [P(S|R) P( R)]/[P(S|~R)P(~R)]

In this, the left side is the ratio between the probability that a miracle occurred given that we have a story and the probability that it did NOT occur given the story.

Now, we can agree that P(S|R), the probability of a story given a miracle, is high. But we can also agree that P®, the probability of a miracle is low (whether or not there is a supernatural, miracles have low probability). So, the top has size roughly P( R), which is low.

Now, in the denominator, P(S|~R), the probability of a story when there is no miracle is moderately high. This was a superstitious culture and stories like this were common (not just for Jesus, mind you). And, finally, given that P( R) is low, P(~R) is high. This makes the denominator on the left moderately high.

But the *ratio* between a low value (numerator) and a moderately high value (denominator) is *low*. This means P(R|S) is smaller than P(~R|S), in other words, the probability of a miracle given the story is smaller than the probability of no miracle given the story.

In other words, by your method, we see that it is unlikely that a miracle actually occurred.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Again with the "no evidence" nonsense. 

You keep referring to us pointing out that you have "no evidence" as us not being critical thinkers. But that would only be true if it was incorrect.

You have no evidence.

Responding to this by saying that this is a sign of us not being critical thinkers is a fallacious Ad hominem argument. Rather than respond to the point raised you attack the character or attributes of the people making the argument.

The evidence that I believe that supports my belief (another opinion) is below:

1. Person of, the message of and the insights of Jesus is compelling.
2. The NT describes actual events including the miracles, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
3. God works in people's lives today--changing people on the inside as well as the occurrence of miracles.
4. The natural theology arguments:
a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.
b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.
e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

It's hilarious and tragic that you think that's evidence. It's not evidence. As I said, using your standard of evidence, Harry Potter would be evidence of the existence of witches and wizards. Funny you ignore this point.

You have no evidence. Just a few deliberately half-baked definitions which you use for arguing for whatever magic you wish for. If you had clear definitions then you'd be able to answer the following question rather than continually ignoring it:

How is a supernatural cause different from a natural cause if both affect the nature that we can sense?

Because even if you could try answering this (you can't) then it wouldn't help you.

Because we know that in the past supernatural explanations have been shown to be incorrect when we've managed to come up with a natural explanation.

How can you tell the difference between a natural explanation that we do not yet have and a supernatural explanation that we will never know?

The supernatural is just a placeholder for natural explanations that we have not yet arrived at. And for you it's just a way of convincing yourself that you are justified in believing the fairy tale you were brought up with.

And you still think you're a critical thinker Dunning Kruger boy?

[SteveII]

Why can't you connect the dots in many cases? Context seems to be very important. I have written this before (I think to you actually):

When discussing Jesus' miracles, the context that strengthens the probability that the cause was supernatural, might include:

1. Timing 
2. Illustrating a particular point. Example Mat 9 Jesus told a man his sins were forgiven. When the religious leaders grumbled that this was blasphemy, he asked what was easier to say that your sins are forgiven or to tell him to get up an walk.
3. Reinforce teachings with some authority. Example feeding 5000, Matt 9:35
4. So that people might believe (specifically stated). Example Lazarus (John 11)
5. Reward for faith.
6. Theologically significant. example virgin birth, baptism, tearing of the veil in the temple, resurrection.

In the first place, you didn't understand what I wrote.  I said that you cannot connect the effect up to any particular cause, and specifically that you can't connect these miracles up to God as the cause.  If miracles have no causal story, as you seem to be implying, then you can't connect them up to anything.  Perhaps Jesus was just a very powerful wizard?  Or perhaps one of the disciples was the wizard, and was simply playing Jesus for a rube.  Or perhaps these things just simply happened out of the blue, and the real miracle is that Jesus was able to predict when these uncaused events would occur, and used that ability to hitch his star to something higher?  (I could make a mint if I could only predict when people's cancers were going to go into remission.  Televangelists today play this very angle.)  You don't know because by definition, the supernatural does not have an ordinary cause.  You've severed any possible link between event and cause, because by definition, there isn't any link between the two that we can discern.

You are trying to force deductive reasoning (the conclusion is certain) into a place that only calls for inductive reasoning (the conclusion is probabilistic). All these possible scenarios become less likely the more data you have. 

Beyond that, believing that the accounts in the bible happened as recorded is simply begging the question.  People frequently mistake the order of events even right after something occurs, much less 20 or more years after the fact.   And if events occur out of order, say the person was healed and then Jesus made his proclamation, it's a known fact that people tend to reorder things in their mind to make a coherent story; memory is more reconstruction, than recall.  But it's irrelevant, as the point is that all the miracles in the bible, under your definition, simply become unexplained phenomenon.  This robs the bible of any authority it might have had and opens up a whole range of alternate explanations for the claims about God made therein.

It has nothing to do with begging the question. I believe the accounts are generally accurate. I have additional current evidence (personal, personal knowledge of anecdotal evidence, etc.). I think some natural theology arguments make a point.  A cumulative case is not question begging. 

Regarding accuracy of memory, that theory only goes so far. It might be good for an event or two, but the more data you have from different sources, the more that is unlikely to the point of improbable. It is almost certainly true that the Christians of the period believed these things to be true. It is the only theory that fits all the facts.