How to select which supernatural to believe?

[Angrboda]

It seems there is a straightforward argument for prophethood being the only way one can possibly know God's intention (assuming he exists)

(1) for every prophet PR, the prophet PR is either lying or unknowingly misguided
(2) there is no other kind of claimed divine revelations in reality other than those of PR's.

(3) From 1 and 2, there is no divine revelation whatsoever.

(4) God is supposedly benevolent and wants His creatures to know him.

If 4 is true:

(5) From 3 and 4, God as so defined, doesn't exist.

If 4 is false:

(6) God doesn't want his creation to know Him or worship him. And so from a practical point view, any rational individual should act as though He doesn't exist.

If the above argument is true, and that God exists, then there is at least one PR who is genuinely a prophet.

There are plenty of ways to spin from there.

If there are many prophets worshipping many gods (as now), and one of those gods exists, by your argument, there is at least one genuine prophecy.

The problem is there doesn't seem to be any way to narrow down from the set of all prophets to only those that are genuine (e.g. prophesy for the right god).

So, ultimately, even if your argument is valid, it's of no practical use in identifying gods and/or prophets.

[The Architect Of Fate]

It seems there is a straightforward argument for prophethood being the only way one can possibly know God's intention (assuming he exists)

(1) for every prophet PR, the prophet PR is either lying or unknowingly misguided
(2) there is no other kind of claimed divine revelations in reality other than those of PR's.

(3) From 1 and 2, there is no divine revelation whatsoever.

(4) God is supposedly benevolent and wants His creatures to know him.

If 4 is true:

(5) From 3 and 4, God as so defined, doesn't exist.

If 4 is false:

(6) God doesn't want his creation to know Him or worship him. And so from a practical point view, any rational individual should act as though He doesn't exist.

If the above argument is true, and that God exists, then there is at least one PR who is genuinely a prophet.

There are plenty of ways to spin from there.

If there are many prophets worshipping many gods (as now), and one of those gods exists, by your argument, there is at least one genuine prophecy.

The problem is there doesn't seem to be any way to narrow down from the set of all prophets to only those that are genuine (e.g. prophesy for the right god).

So, ultimately, even if your argument is valid, it's of no practical use in identifying gods and/or prophets.

Yup only a bunch of human claiming to be prophets 

[R00tKiT]

I agree that this doesn't help one determine which prophets are genuinely sent by God. My argument definitely can't be used to prove God's existence as this would be circular: We assume god exists to determine which prophet confirms our assumption. It's only useful if one is convinced a benevolent God exists for some given independent reasons.

We can still narrow down the set of possibilities with very simple considerations: a prophet can't make logically impossible statements like the trinity (assuming Jesus really claimed this, and, arguably, he didn't). A true prophet obviously won't make a false prophecy. But let's say a self claimed prophet, let's call him Brandon, tells us he's from God and provides us with a book of hundreds of pages filled with all kinds of ancient wisdom and religious supplications, should we believe Brandon?

Obviously, if Brandon's book doesn't contain anything other than what anybody else can say or write, we have no good reason to accept his claim. However if, upon investigating the circumstances of Brandon's production of the book, we conclude that the contents of his book are factually true , unavailable to anyone in his surroudings, and can't be discovered by independent thought or any amount of creative genius, then this definitely increases the probability that he might be exactly what he claims.

[The Grand Nudger]

If there are "given independent reasons" outside of so called prophets, then why did you just finish insisting that the only way to know about this stuff..is prophets...and not any independent investigation?

As usual, which of these two assholes has it right?

[Jehanne]

That a human being could, in advance, predict the exact head/tails outcome, in advance, of 100 coin tosses (or, 1000 or 10,000) and have that event ascribed to naturalistic causes is, in my opinion, abjectly absurd.  I see no reason to discuss that further.

That's a very surprising statement coming from an atheist. I completely agree, of course, that there is a threshold of small probabilities beyond which it's no longer reasonable to deny the supernatural cause. Still, a skeptic can find ways to reject your assessment, that a miracle such as predicting 100 consecutive coin tosses may indeed, at least theoretically, have a naturalistic explanation. It's not hard to suggest some far-fetched scenarios : say, some really concealed sleight of hand allowing one to manipulate the outcome of coin tosses, or something similar. And even if such scenarios are not available, the skeptic can still get away with the well-known general objection: they guy correctly predicting 100 consecutive outcomes has a burden of proof, he needs to establish supernatural causation independently. It's clear in this example that there is problem, a big problem, with the level of evidence some atheists suggest to accept that there is a supernatural being. 

I am tempted to say that only a supernatural being can know/detect/understand supernatural causation, it's almost a matter of semantics: by definition of supernatural, it's beyond natural means to investigate it any way. 

I am going to anticipate one common objection to what's above: but God supposedly wants us to know Him? Well, yes, that's why he sent prophets, and made the world in such a way that only through prophets can one know ultimate reality, and not through any other kind of independent investigation.

You're back!! But, yes, I agree with you completely; utterly small probabilities, if specified a priori, would constitute a miracle, and hence, supernatural agency.

[The Architect Of Fate]

No you can't all prophets are the same and have the same amount of evidence and any attempt to say your religion has more is simply biased

[The Grand Nudger]

His bias is unavoidable. The crack logic isn't. We've got false dichotomies, hidden premises, unsound premises, and non seqs...and all in service of an assertion he immediately rejects with the next breath as it becomes inconvenient.

[R00tKiT]

Yes, of course there has to be independent reasons for believing God exists.I said that prophets are the only way to know God's intentions/true religion/message. No religious experience of any kind can by itself establish God's existence.

One establishes God' existence first, then argues that He's benevolent, and finally shows that a particular religious experience of a prophet is most likely caused by God, as a result of his benevolence/his willingness to reveal his intentions. I don't know nor ever saw any other promising way to argue for theism from first principles.

[Jehanne]

Yes, of course there has to be independent reasons for believing God exists.I said that prophets are the only way to know God's intentions/true religion/message. No religious experience of any kind can by itself establish God's existence.

One establishes God' existence first, then argues that He's benevolent, and finally shows that a particular religious experience of a prophet is most likely caused by God, as a result of his benevolence/his willingness to reveal his intentions. I don't know nor ever saw any other promising way to argue for theism from first principles.

If the prophets truly are from God, why can't they provide clear & convincing evidence of such??

[Neo-Scholastic]

I agree that this doesn't help one determine which prophets are genuinely sent by God. My argument definitely can't be used to prove God's existence as this would be circular: We assume god exists to determine which prophet confirms our assumption. It's only useful if one is convinced a benevolent God exists for some given independent reasons.

We can still narrow down the set of possibilities with very simple considerations: a prophet can't make logically impossible statements like the trinity (assuming Jesus really claimed this, and, arguably, he didn't). A true prophet obviously won't make a false prophecy. But let's say a self claimed prophet, let's call him Brandon, tells us he's from God and provides us with a book of hundreds of pages filled with all kinds of ancient wisdom and religious supplications, should we believe Brandon?

Obviously, if Brandon's book doesn't contain anything other than what anybody else can say or write, we have no good reason to accept his claim. However if, upon investigating the circumstances of Brandon's production of the book, we conclude that the contents of his book are factually true , unavailable to anyone in his surroudings, and can't be discovered by independent thought or any amount of creative genius, then this definitely increases the probability that he might be exactly what he claims.

If I am not mistaken you consider yourself a Muslim. As such, most of what you mention are IMHO secondary theological disputes (like the unity of God) that arise after initial first principles on which we already agree, such as, "only useful if one is convinced a benevolent God exists for some given independent reasons." What kind of independent reasons? Well, first off having reasons for a belief is not the same as having evidence justifying belief. The atheists, by and large, seem to believe that the subset of beliefs justified by evidence is superior to the larger set of reasonable beliefs. When it comes to natural science, I would generally agree with them; whereas when it comes to philosophy such an approach is questionable, to say the least.