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Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Seeing is believing

John W. Loftus said:

“My views are not based upon a hasty generalization. My views are based upon every waking moment of my life. I have never seen God's working or his miracles, so I am every bit rational to conclude he didn't work in the past.”

So if Loftus has never seen ball lightning, then it’s rational for him to dismiss the testimony of others to the existence of ball lightening.

“The problem is that I won't live that long, nor have I lived in the past. I can only judge things by what I have experienced in the present. And in the present times miracles do not occur. So I have every right to think they did not occur in the past either, and that claims of them cannot be substantiated with evidence.”

i) Nothing could be more irrational than to make one’s personal experience the yardstick of what’s possible or real.

ii) The only reason Loftus takes such an extreme position is that by excluding all testimony, he can thereby exclude religious testimony.

iii) To claim that miracles don’t happen at present is a bare assertion which disregards a great deal of contemporary testimony to the contrary.

“So tell me, how many events have YOU experienced that require a supernatural explanation?”

This is an arbitrary standard of evidence. A rational rule of evidence is the best available explanation of a given event, not the only explanation or necessary explanation.

Once again, Loftus must resort to special pleading to preempt any evidence that would undercut his atheism.

First he limits probative evidence to his personal experience.

Then he limits probative evidence to only what is absolutely required to account for a given event.

“It's just interesting to me that Christians must argue that ancient people were not as superstitious as they really were, and then they have to downplay our knowledge today, arguing that science isn't solid enough. Do you use a computer?”

i) Of course, Jason never contended that ancient people were not as superstitious as they really were.

ii) Rather, Jason has argued that Loftus exaggerates the gullibility of the ancients.

People are no different today than they were in the past. You have credulous people today, just as in the past.

You have sceptical people today, just as you had in the past.

iii) Why is Loftus appealing to science? Science makes many claims about the past, present, and the future which fall outside the scope of Loftus’ personal experience.

iv) How is computer science relevant to his claim?

There’s a difference between technology and scientific theorizing.

Is science a window onto reality? Hard to say. Science deals with appearances.

It may deal with appearances at the microscopic and macroscopic level, as well as naked-eye observation; it may artificially enhance our sensory perception, but it is still limited to appearances.

It works at the level of appearances. Of phenomenal relations. Of how things appear to the observer.

But that tells us nothing of the degree to which appearance and reality correspond.

“And I can't think of a properly interpreted OT prophecy that unequivicably pointed to the nature or mission of Jesus that wasn't misapplied to him, or that wasn't based upon a nebulous hope of theirs. The so-called messianic psalms, if interpreted correctly by the grammatical-historical method, and not through midrash or pesher, were merely psalms of hope and anguish from the writer's perspective alone.”

This is another blanket claim, shorn of any supporting argument.

“And as far as the superstitious people in the Bible goes, I have done a unique analysis of the Bible in my book (my longest chapter) and found superstitions everywhere. That is, taking the Bible at face value, as you might do, I document the various superstitions among those people. I will post something on our blog from my book today to show you the kind of superstitiousness there is in the people of the Bible. Just ask yourself, is there anything like that in today's world? I'll share only one incident...there are many many many more of these. Here goes....”

Why is Loftus making claims about the past? He has told us on numerous occasions that it is rational for him to disbelieve anything that falls outside the scope of his personal experience.

By definition, events from the distant past fall beyond the purview of his own experience.

Why does he dismiss past (as well as present) testimony to the occurrence of the miraculous while he appeals to past testimony regarding the extent of superstition in the ancient world?

For Loftus, past testimony is reliable if it happens to agree with him, but unreliable if it happens to disagree with him.

3 comments:

  1. What I'm saying is that I have never seen an event in my expereience which requires a supernatural explanation--that is, something which science cannot explain based upon the laws of nature.
    Sure you do, you see it every day, it's called the universe, which science has no explanation for. It's called life, which science has no explanation for. If you claim they do then you obviously don't understand the proper use of the term. Unsupported foundational assumptions are philosophy, not science. Also principles of operation are not an explanation of causes.

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  2. Well, you're either left with an uncaused effect, or a Creator who made it from nothing. Either way it's not natural; hence must be supernatural. Matter does not create itself. So one is left with the problem of the inability of natural laws to explain its existence. If left with a choice between self-generating matter and an intelligent Creator the rational one is decidedly not matter generating itself. That's a pretty big argument in favor of God. So rationally the preference would be in favor of God.

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  3. So what you believe is that inanimate matter generated itself, which is not only irrational, but counter intuitive. Matter cannot generate order and it cannot establish laws; universal, physical, moral, or otherwise. It cannot accomplish any of what you claim it can. It can merely exist. It cannot create, nor can it possibly overcome the odds against the random generation of the simplest thing we see. When you get 50 zeros behind a probability it's statistically zero. As in can't happen, won't happen, it's probability is zero. No amount of books claiming we "Climbed Mount Improbable" will make it a real possibility.
    Now it's true you have a preference, and that preference has absolutely nothing to do with reason, logic, or science. And when you claim it does you simply make yourself look foolish. It's because you don't want to deal with the reality of a creator. As to your claims against "my God" they boil down to this, You think that a God who could create the universe ex nihlo (from nothing) should be comprehensible to you, fit your moral view, and should "prevent suffering". Now this fails to recognize a few things, not the least of which is that what you really want is a god who looks like you. Such a desire is silly, and in fact such a god could never be God. You’re back to anthropomorphism, which is what idol worship is. You talk about the gullibility of the ancients, but you’re practicing one of the oldest superstitions, a god in the image of man.
    Then you wish to blame the state of the world on God. In reality it's our fault, or to even personalize it further it's your fault. (and of course mine, and everyone else’s). Then you imply that, “God should fix this!”, but you don't really desire that, cause then you'd be dead and in hell. The real "moral" of Noah is this, if God got rid of all the "bad" people there would be no people. What are you suggesting? That God should have made you an automaton?
    Finally you fail to appreciate the irony of what you're saying, which is essentially "God, protect me from myself". That's the ultimate in laziness and narcissism. "Hey God, how dare you expect me to be responsible for myself, You should do everything for me. How dare You demand anything of me. It's not fair..." That, at it's heart, is the atheists whine. The fact is that there’s plenty of evidence of both God’s existence and nature.
    The laws of the universe scream out “There’s a God”. Further He’s left us a written revelation unlike that of any of the competing claims. But like those who watched Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead and still refused to believe the issue is not one of evidence, and never has been. Tell the truth, you are not unique. You’re problem is not one of knowledge or evidence, it’s one of rebellion and anger. It shows with every post you make. Nobody could make the tortured arguments you do unless they are trying to willingly deceive themselves. The problem is not that we don’t understand your arguments, but that we reject them outright. Now lest you think I'm ad homming you that's not my assesment of your state, that's Gods assessment per His word. I pray you genuinely find repentance, because what you are doing, leading others into condemnation, is one of the most wicked things I can imagine. If there is a just God you have a very serious problem, and we both know there is.

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