- You see in our world miracles like a virgin birth, resurrection and an ascension into the sky do not happen. What world are YOU living in? So if miracles do not happen in our day then they never happened in first century Palestine either. And that's the end of it.
Want more? ;-) - {{So if miracles do not happen in our day then they never happened in first century Palestine either. And that's the end of it.}}
Category errors like that are why people who pay attention to logic (whether believer or not) make fun of you, John.
Remember folks, if televisions and electric light switches didn't happen in first centry Palestine, they couldn't happen in our day either. And that's the end of it. (You can thank Bultmann for that one. Or J'oftus. {wry g})
http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2011/02/david-marshall-on-why-christianity.html
I understand that the purpose of this post is to highlight the category error. However, to draw an analogy, it's like criticizing me for scoffing at the suggestion that rats talked two thousand years ago because I can observe their inability to talk today. The category error doesn't lend any credibiity to the supposed supernatural event. The fact remains that, based on our observations today, rats can't talk and none of the miracles described in the Bible occur. None. Zippo. Nada.
ReplyDeleteWow...
ReplyDeleteThe Atheist Missionary wrote:
ReplyDelete"However, to draw an analogy, it's like criticizing me for scoffing at the suggestion that rats talked two thousand years ago because I can observe their inability to talk today. The category error doesn't lend any credibiity to the supposed supernatural event. The fact remains that, based on our observations today, rats can't talk and none of the miracles described in the Bible occur. None. Zippo. Nada."
Observing that something doesn't seem to occur today by means of the normal course of nature doesn't tell us whether it occurred in the past by some other means. With regard to Jesus' resurrection, for example, observing that dead bodies don't rise when left to themselves doesn't tell us whether God or some other entity could raise a dead body.
And your suggestion that miracles don't occur today is disputed. I've repeatedly linked you to past threads in which we've discussed some of the evidence for miracles in the modern world, like here. You keep ignoring evidence that's already been provided.
Thanks for the link, I particularly like this line: Christianity doesn't claim that God performs every miracle, so a Christian wouldn't have to argue that every miracle has been performed by God
ReplyDeleteHow about a double-blind study that proves prayer has a statistically significant effect on anything?
My efforts to combat the irrationality of intercessionary prayer are akin to peeing in the ocean. This sense of futility got me thinking about coming up with a simple prayer experiment for anyone who has even a scintilla of faith in the power of prayer. Here goes:
ReplyDeleteDecide on what you would like to pray for - we will call that result A.
We will agree that you will pray to God (or whatever supernatural being you choose) for result A to happen.
I will pray to the ghost of Michael Jackson to ensure that result A happens.
If result A happens, you will explain to me why it is more likely that God (or whatever supernatural being you chose) made it happen than the ghost of Michael Jackson or you will fairly concede that it is just as likely that Jacko did it.
If result A does not happen, we will agree that neither God (or whatever supernatural being you chose) or Jacko answer all prayers. You will then explain to me why the entity you chose to pray to selectively answers more prayers than Jacko.
Pointing out a category error and then comparing results of technology development to miracles attributed to eternal God. Fail.
ReplyDeleteNot just fail but epic fail. In fact, not just epic fail but face palm. Actually, double face palm. You know what, I might as well just come out and say what everyone else is already thinking about The Atheist Missionary and his many past misadventures: apocalyptic fail.
ReplyDeleteT.A.M
ReplyDeleteHowever, to draw an analogy, it's like criticizing me for scoffing at the suggestion that rats talked two thousand years ago because I can observe their inability to talk today.
Your analogy fails. To be properly analogous, it's like someone criticizing you for scoffing at the testimony of an honest, reliable witness that a particular rat said some particular thing at some particular point in the past. Miracles are specific, supernatural events, not general occurrences arising from natural processes. Miracles are supernatural, hence appealing to the uniformity of nature (based upon what has been observed therein) does not rule out their occurrence. Appealing to the observed uniformity of nature to rule out the occurrence of supernatural events is not unlike appealing to the observed wetness of water to rule out the existence of anything dry. It is a category error.
Moreover, the Christian does not conclude that specific miracles in the past have occurred by making an inductive inference from the observation of regularly-occurring miracles observed in the present. Rather, the Christian believes in the occurrence of past specific miracles (such as the Virgin Birth and Resurrection) because he has the testimony of God Himself to their occurrence. To discount divine testimony concerning an event that occurred in the past, on the basis of an inductive inference from things that occur in the present, is to commit a category error.
My efforts to combat the irrationality of intercessionary prayer are akin to peeing in the ocean. This sense of futility got me thinking about coming up with a simple prayer experiment for anyone who has even a scintilla of faith in the power of prayer.
Your conception of God is not unlike that of a cosmic vending machine that mechanically dispenses goodies when the proper number of coins (i.e. prayers) are inserted. If you want to attack Christianity, you need to deal with the God of the Bible, not a ridiculous caricature.
My efforts to combat the irrationality of intercessionary prayer are akin to peeing in the ocean. This sense of futility got me thinking about coming up with a simple prayer experiment for anyone who has even a scintilla of faith in the power of prayer. Here goes:
ReplyDeleteDecide on what you would like to pray for - we will call that result A.
We will agree that you will pray to God (or whatever supernatural being you choose) for result A to happen.
I will pray to the ghost of Michael Jackson to ensure that result A happens.
If result A happens, you will explain to me why it is more likely that God (or whatever supernatural being you chose) made it happen than the ghost of Michael Jackson or you will fairly concede that it is just as likely that Jacko did it.
If result A does not happen, we will agree that neither God (or whatever supernatural being you chose) or Jacko answer all prayers. You will then explain to me why the entity you chose to pray to selectively answers more prayers than Jacko.
Double apocalyptic fail. It's this sort of failure that makes so much of what you write so easily lampooned. You might want to try looking into what a theology of prayer looks like (particularly one suited to Reformed theology, since that reigns in this part of the internet) before even attempting such a line of argument.
Ah Gene, TAM's too lazy for that. He just likes saying a few things that he's cut and pasted from his heroes around the net, and then when he gets trounced, he runs to the hills and waits for another day to make a further mockery of himself.
ReplyDeleteAtheist Missionary,
ReplyDeleteYour initial post was both philosophically and historically erroneous. I addressed the philosophical aspect in the first paragraph of my response and the historical aspect in the second.
You ignored the first paragraph.
You almost entirely ignored the second. You ignored all of the evidence I cited for modern miracles, but you did address one type of evidence, namely answered prayer. Your approach toward that one type of evidence was to ignore what I cited and to demand that we produce "a double-blind study that proves prayer has a statistically significant effect on anything" and "a simple prayer experiment".
Other posters here have already discussed some of the problems with your reasoning. I'll add a few other points.
Demanding more evidence doesn't explain the evidence you already have. If I cite evidence A for answered prayer, asking for further evidence in the form of B and C isn't much of a response.
There have been prayer studies that have shown positive results and others that haven't. I've heard about the studies, but haven't looked into them much myself. (Gary Habermas sometimes discusses them when he's addressing the subject of modern miracles, for example.) I have some problems with approaching this issue by means of that sort of study, for reasons like the ones discussed by previous posters in this thread. If you think such studies have the significance you've suggested, then you can justify that conclusion against the objections to it, and you can look into the studies that have already been done. That's not my responsibility. Do it yourself. My argument for answered prayer doesn't depend on such studies.
It's also worth noting that you keep holding other people to a higher standard than you apply to yourself. You want something like "a double-blind study that proves" what a Christian believes, yet you make little or no effort to support your own claims. It's one standard of evidence for yourself and a different standard for Christians.
You entered this discussion with some broad (and erroneous) claims. You still haven't supported those claims. Demanding a double-blind study or the prayer experiment you suggested doesn't prove that prayers aren't answered in the modern world, much less does it prove that no miracles of any type occur today. So far, your claims have far overstepped the support you've offered for those claims. In other words, you're behaving much the same way you've behaved in so many other threads. And you've been warned about that.
Matt wrote: it's like someone criticizing you for scoffing at the testimony of an honest, reliable witness that a particular rat said some particular thing at some particular point in the past. Exactly. My analogy is dead on the mark. No matter how supposedly reliable the witness is, we all know rats don't talk and have never talked. The only difference is that a rat talking is far more likely than a virgin birth.
ReplyDeleteJason wrote: There have been prayer studies that have shown positive results and others that haven't. I don't know if you have a scientific background but I'm pretty sure you know how ridiculously easy it would be to prove the reliability of intercessionary prayer. However, Matt will tell me that God is not a cosmic vending machine which begs the question of why you would waste time asking him to intercede on your behalf. If he sometimes answers prayers and sometimes decides not to, you are left to explain how he decides but I suppose that is a "mystery".
You folks rely on supposedly reliable witnesses to believe the most outlandish claims. However, please ask any judge in any couirt of law about the reliability of eyewitness testimony. That's when you will begin to understand the term "fail".
The good thing about this exercise is that you know that not only your cheerleaders read thee threads. That is why you threaten to censor anyone who doesn't drink your kool-aid.
As if because prayer studies would show validity, TAM would suddenly believe Jesus rose from the dead.
ReplyDelete"...God is not a cosmic vending machine which begs the question of why you would waste time asking him to intercede on your behalf."
ReplyDeleteApply this own logic to any request you might present to a spouse or friend. 'Well, since it's not guaranteed this person will comply with my request, I shouldn't even waste time asking them to do it.' Doesn't that seem a bit bizarre even on this simple analogy? (And it's not as if the Bible itself endorses any such view that God is a cosmic vending machine.)
My manager didn't give me a raise, therefore, he doesn't exist.
ReplyDelete"That is why you threaten to censor anyone who doesn't drink your kool-aid"
ReplyDeleteSkeptics are hilarious. A conspiracy lurks around every corner!
The Atheist Missionary said:
ReplyDeleteHow about a double-blind study that proves prayer has a statistically significant effect on anything?
On the one hand, I don't necessarily presume all prayer experiments are legitimate. Or even that such a phenomenon can be scientifically evaluated in the first place, at least not without several caveats explicitly spelled out beforehand.
On the other hand, to answer TAM on his own grounds, here is a study. And here is a broader scoped lit review. Another study here, accompanied by a news report. Finally, although not directly relevant to the question at hand, this is a potentially provocative study in other ways.
THE ATHEIST MISSIONARY SAID:
ReplyDelete"I understand that the purpose of this post is to highlight the category error. However, to draw an analogy, it's like criticizing me for scoffing at the suggestion that rats talked two thousand years ago because I can observe their inability to talk today."
That's an argument from analogy minus the argument. Where's your argument to show the two are comparable?
As usual, you're a fake rationalist: rationalistic rhetoric absent rational argumentation.
"The category error doesn't lend any credibiity to the supposed supernatural event. The fact remains that, based on our observations today, rats can't talk and none of the miracles described in the Bible occur. None. Zippo. Nada."
A typically boneheaded comment from you since the resurrection and ascension of Jesus wouldn't be repeatable events throughout church history, or before. There's no presumption that if they occurred once, they would occur more than once. To the contrary, they have a time and place in redemptive history.
But that would force you to actually think, rather than parrot whatever you read on infidel blogs.
The Atheist Missionary said...
ReplyDelete"My analogy is dead on the mark. No matter how supposedly reliable the witness is, we all know rats don't talk and have never talked."
How do we know that rats don't talk? Based on general observation of inarticulate rats?
But if numerous credible witnesses reported talking rats, then that would be prima facie grounds to question the assumption that rats don't talk.
An appeal to human experience cuts both ways. So your counterexample begs the question.
The Atheist Missionary said...
ReplyDelete"You folks rely on supposedly reliable witnesses to believe the most outlandish claims. However, please ask any judge in any couirt of law about the reliability of eyewitness testimony."
i) Since eyewitness testimony is used in courts of law throughout the world, that's a pretty dumb statement.
ii) If you discount the reliability of eyewitness testimony, then you're in no position to deny the existence of talking rats, for their existence or nonexistence would be an observational datum.
The Atheist Missionary said...
ReplyDelete"How about a double-blind study that proves prayer has a statistically significant effect on anything?"
While answered prayer has evidential value, prayer doesn't exist to prove the existence of God.
It's not a card-reading experiment to test ESP, as if God is going to perform under laboratory conditions to convince the investigator. God is not a circus seal.
Perhaps we should take bets on whether TAM is a talking rat. Although he can use words, he seems to lack human intelligence.
ReplyDeleteIt's pathetic enough that Atheist Missionary uses such bad arguments. And those bad arguments have often been refuted. And those refutations are easy to find. It's even worse than that, though.
ReplyDeleteHe repeats bad arguments that were refuted less than a day ago by people responding directly to him. His rat analogy has already been answered. So has his appeal to God as a "vending machine". He doesn't interact with the answers, but instead just repeats the bad arguments he started with.
Then there's the ridiculous dismissal of eyewitness testimony in the context of appealing to the eyewitness testimony of a judge, a judge who serves in a court system based on the general reliability of eyewitnesses. What about Atheist Missionary's appeals to science in previous discussions? How does he know what happened during scientific experiments, for example? He trusts the testimony of witnesses. Just how ignorant and self-contradictory do you have to be to appeal to things like the eyewitness testimony of a judge and sciences that are built on eyewitness testimony, all the while dismissing eyewitness testimony as unreliable?
For those who are interested in reading more about the reliability of eyewitnesses, see here.
My analogy is dead on the mark.
ReplyDeleteUh-huh. You either need to read my comment again more carefully, or learn to deal honestly with what other people say. I gave detailed reasons as to why this is not the case. How about dealing with them, instead of simply asserting the opposite?
No matter how supposedly reliable the witness is, we all know rats don't talk and have never talked.
If there is divine testimony to the occurrence of a rat speaking (such as there is to a talking snake and a talking donkey), then we would not know that rats have never talked. In fact, we would know that there is at least one rat that has said something at some point in the past. As I've said before, to discount divine testimony concerning an event that occurred in the past, on the basis of an inductive inference from things that occur in the present, is to commit a category error.
The only difference is that a rat talking is far more likely than a virgin birth.
And how, perchance, do you calculate these probabilities? If you've never observed a talking rat, or a virgin birth, then how can you assign an appropriate probability to the occurrence of such events? If such events never happen, being inconsistent as they (putatively) are with the laws of nature, wouldn't their probability both be 0? In that case, both would be equally unlikely. So how do you justify this claim?
However, Matt will tell me that God is not a cosmic vending machine which begs the question of why you would waste time asking him to intercede on your behalf.
ReplyDeleteBasically, what you are saying is that if I am not guaranteed to be successful in getting X from God through prayer, then I am "wasting my time" in praying for X. But if this is true for prayer, then there is no reason why it is not true for any other activity. That is, if I am not guaranteed to be successful in doing X, then I am "wasting my time" in doing X. But this is nonsense. Nobody lives this way, for few, if any, of the things that we do are guaranteed to be successful. If the guarantee of success is a necessary condition to be properly motivated to do something, then nobody would be properly motivated to do much of anything. Yet, as ridiculous as this principle is, you apply it to prayer without any argument or justification. And then you expect Christians to take you seriously!
Per Jas. 4:2, there are some things for which prayer is a necessary condition. That is:
1) If I do no pray for X, then I will not receive X.
On the other hand, God is a person, not a machine, so prayer is not a sufficient condition for receiving things:
2) If I pray for X, it is not necessarily the case that I will receive X.
But, God exhorts us to pray in Scripture, according to His will and with the proper motives (Jas. 4:3, 1 Jn. 5:14-15), so:
3) If I pray for X, according to God's will and with the proper motives, there is a good chance I will receive X.
(1), (2), and (3) are coherent. Suppose that I want some thing X that is conditioned upon prayer. According to you, prayer is a waste of time because I am not guaranteed to receive X. However, if do not pray, I am certain not to receive X. On the other hand, if I pray with the proper motives, and X is according to God's will, there is a good chance I will receive X. What is more rational - to say "I'm not guaranteed of receiving X, so I won't even bother to pray" or "God might grant X if I ask Him for it, though He also might not"? In the first case, one will not receive X. In the latter case, one might indeed receive X. Given that one wants X, is it more rational to take a course of action by which one will not receive it, or to take a course of action by which one very well could receive it? So, what you claim regarding prayer is irrational on Christian grounds.
Of course, this ignores the fact that we are commanded to pray (1 Th. 5:17), and thus have a moral obligation to do so. Moreover, the proper motivation for prayer is not simply to get things, but to entrust God with our cares, needs, and concerns (Phil. 4:6-7, 1 Pe. 5:7), and glorify Him in so doing. Even if God does not give us exactly what we ask for, prayer serves its purpose in that it enables us to express our dependence upon Him, in a way that draws us closer to Him, and brings honor and glory to Him. So, to question why we pray if God is not a "cosmic vending machine" is to miss the whole point of prayer in the first place. Like I said earlier, if you want to attack Christianity, you need to deal with the God of the Bible, not ridiculous caricatures.
Let's consider the talking rat. If we had reliable witnesses that say they saw a talking rat, there may be many possible explanations for that. 1) the Rat could have been a mechanical rat. 2) it could have been a real rat with a cleverly hidden receiver/speaker. 3) It could have been a real rat given the supernatural ability to speak. 3) it could be another being disguising himself as a rat. There are many possible explanations (some even that TAM would except (e.g. 1 and 2)) yet he dismisses them all as absurd. You can grant that eye-witness testimony can establish the fact of something without taking the further step to discover the underlying causes of that event (whether natural or supernatural).
ReplyDelete