Method of Madness: post-hoc reasoning and confirmation bias.

Well, if that's the case, who can be trusted to investigate any claim whatsoever?You know what the funny thing about science is? It works no matter what you believe. Try it at home. Stand in front of your TV set and believe, as hard as you can, that even though it's plugged in and it worked an hour ago, it won't work now. Go, on, believe it.And then press the power button. Surprise! Your TV works regardless of your biased worldview.None of us here are likely to be impressed by claims that can only be substantiated if you agree to already believe them. When your premise and your conclusion are the same thing - "assume God exists - therefore we can conclude that God exists" - you're just reasoning around in circles, and getting nowhere.Science is science because it's designed to eliminate the biases of the participants to the greatest degree possible. What you're talking about is an excercise in mental masturbation.

Right. Which is an event, and it either happened, or it didn't. If it happened, then it left evidence that it did, or else, how would it have come to our attention in the first place?Even a miracle is an event that happens in the universe. Therefore it should be ameinable to scientific investigation. Hardly. It's more like a conclusion based on the avaliable data.The "foundational truth" of atheism is that it is a lack of belief about the supernatural. Not a belief that it doesn't exist. It's simply the position that we trust the evidence to lead to conclusions, and we don't come to conclusions about things for which we have no evidence. As long as they were willing to abide by the scientific method, then yes. The method exists to make irrelevant the personal beliefs of the researcher.If a nine-year-old girl can debunk faith healing and be published in JAMA, I rather suspect a team of atheists and theists, or a team of circus performers and dour librarians for that matter, would be able to do the same, provided they do the same thing the girl did - adhere to the scientific method.

It's not that they get discarded "regardless." It's just that you've chosen to define "miracle" in such a way that it's indistinguishable from ignorance.The thing about ignorance, though, is that you can't tell if you'll always be ignorant, or if you'll learn the answer tomorrow.If you don't like it, why don't you come up with a definition of "miracle" that is actually useful to science? If you can't define miracle in any testable way, then the simple principle of parsimony means we have to throw it out. If you're soo keen to get scientific recognition of miracles, then you have to play by science's rules, same as everyone.

But since science is always a work in progess, how would that prove anything? Again, how are we supposed to tell the difference between something science doesn't understand yet, and something it won't ever understand? Again, you've equated "miracle" with "ignorance", which means nothing can ever be a miracle.As for low probabilities, well, sometimes low probability things happen. Winning the lottery is a pretty low probability, but people win the lottery. Repeated trials make low probabilities certainties.

If that's what happened, though, is it really a lie?

Well, just to toss in an extra wrinkle, what if her rapist converts to Christianity? I mean, honestly and sincerely, and recieves forgivness from his sins from God?Wouldn't that piss her off, maybe a little? Wouldn't she maybe think "what the fuck? It's not God's place to forgive that man, it's mine." On the other hand, if the murderer made such a convincing speech that the President tearfully pardoned him, maybe you'd come to a completely different conclusion?I guess the point is, one can hardly posit heaven as a place where cosmic scores are settled in a religion that believes in ultimate universal redemption for the asking. Actually, it's the definition of "perfect."

"Questioners" would be the better term, I think. Like that guy in the Bible. What was his name? Oh yeah, Thomas.

Ah, I see. The old excuse - "in the hereafter, all will be made clear." Well, that's fine, I guess. All sins were paid in full to God. What about the debts owed to other people?I guess what I'm getting at is, it sounds like a situation where a guy owes me and Bill money. So the guy goes to Bill and says "I can't pay the debt." And Bill says "that's ok, all your debts are forgiven."Well, that's great for the guy, but what right does Bill have to forgive debts that he isn't owed? We say that criminals have a "debt to society", and we posit heaven as a place of judgement for those who escape Earthly justice. But what right does God have to forgive that debt when it's not owed to him in the first place?Maybe you can't understand my questions or my viewpoint, and it really doesn't matter, because I'm pretty confident God doesn't exist. But maybe you can understand why I find something hollow in a religion's attempt to portray itself as simultaneously vindictive and retributive.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 06-21-2004 03:36 AM

Why? Just because that's happened every time so far that we've done the experiment?It's called the "inductive fallacy", and it's the position that, even though a given experiment has had the same result for each of 1000 trials, you still can't be absolutely, positively certain of the outcome of the 1001st trial.I know it seems like nit-picky hairsplitting, but it's an important realization of the limits of scientific inquiry, and the necessity of scientific tentativity. Our scientific models will always be approximations of the basic physical principles.

Welcome to Philosophy 101. The questions you've just asked come under the heading of "Cartesian Doubt."Hopefully your next question is "if we can't know the difference between any of these alternatives, does it really matter?"

I guess it's up to you, I guess. Myself I don't worry so much about what I can't ever, by definition, know.I don't usually throw myself against brick walls, conceptual or otherwise. A difference that is no difference is no difference, as Rrhain likes to say. If there's no situation where the "real" nature of reality makes any difference, who cares?Science is just as useful in a "fake" reality as in a "real" one, if you catch my drift. Ok, but what does that have to do with the nature of reality? These are two separate questions. You'll find, I hope, that your purpose is something you have to choose for yourself. It has nothing to do with the nature of reality. Well, I'm glad it works for you, but remember that even abuse victims find fulfillment in their relationships with abusers. I recall using the same words - "indescribable" - to explain my relationship with God; it turned out that the reason I thought it was "indescribable" is because it's hard to describe the feeling of "I should be fulfilled but I'm not; maybe if I pretend I am I will be."Your milage may vary, I guess.