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

Would you bind God's actions to the realm of human actions? What you described was a horrible thing among many that have occured in human history. You mistakenly assume that if God is good and all-powerful, his character demands that no bad can exist.I can completely understand your viewpoint, except because it is limited it is flawed. Time may seem like an awful long... well, time with an awful lot of stuff in it, but it is meaningless. What happens happens. There will be a time though when God will bring all to account and will bring justice (not equality) to all.That child who was the victim of rape and murder went to heaven. He will be blessed greatly in eternity (if that is an applicable time-based word). Jesus said many who would be first will be last in heaven, and many who would be least will be greatest. He also said it is far better to be cast into the sea with a millstone about one's neck than to harm a little one.Just because God has held off his justice at the present time does not mean he will always hold it off. If indeed time is meaningless to God, then he never held it off. And if he never alowed situations of injustice, how would we, his creations, be able to comprehend his justice, righteousness, and love?This message has been edited by Hangdawg13, 06-10-2004 09:39 PM

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"It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings to search out a matter." Proverbs 25:2

Believe it or not Crashfrog I agree with the underlying content of this reply of yours.

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Well, if that's the case, who can be trusted to investigate any claim whatsoever?

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But the claim we are discussing is the existence of a miracle. The non existence of miracles is atheist worldview foundational truth. All I am saying is for Gil and company to have in place a mouth stopping response when someone says your conclusions are congruent with your worldview. Gil will say "maybe, but, the conclusions are based on the evidence" and if the evidence is gathered and produced and interpreted by atheists then the question still begs.Crashfrog:Is it ever possible that a team of theists and atheists could ever conduct reseach and experiments to verify and or debunk claims of miracle healing ?

Perhaps, but out of all the people in America that are professing Christians, I would say a vast majority of them do not know enough Bible doctrine or Christian apologetics to present substantial arguments to the questions raised on this site. Not that every Christian must be well-versed in apologetics. I am simply saying there are reasons why Christians are discouraged from getting into arguments and always testing authority. It is not because God is scared reasoning atheists will find out he's a fraud. It is because many do not have the interest or perseverence in such things to pursue arguments to their conclusion, and will get left alone somewhere doubting their own beliefs. There is a reason a pastor is called a pastor. He keeps his sheep from going astray and is supposed to protect them. Anyway, I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.This message has been edited by Hangdawg13, 06-10-2004 10:15 PM

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Science automatically assumes that every phenomenon has a scientific explanation whether it can be currently explained or that we need to wait 100, 1000, or 10,000 years before our understanding of the natural world is advance enough.

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In other words, miracles are excluded regardless. This is my exact point/complaint.Gilgamesh is concluding according to his worldview under the DISGUISE of an objectivity that doesn't exist.

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What phony front? Being objective is being objective, period.

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How are you objective if you subscribe to a methodology that states a natural explanation must always be found and will always be found.
We are debating claims of miracle and you and Gil are self admittedly using a methodology that always excludes the possibility of a miracle ?
This makes no sense. Please help me here Lam.

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The problem comes when trying to tell what is a miracle and what is not is how do we know if it is divinely inspired or it is just something that our current scientific knowledge can't comprehend yet?

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Loaded question.Assumes miracles happen momentarily, but only to make point about methodology being used can eventually explain that there are no miracles. You are concluding according to your worldview assumptions.

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Just think of how many things people thought were miracles 5 hundred years ago that we don't even pay attention to today.

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Such as ......

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Objectively speaking, you can't assume that something is a miracle if it can't be explained by our current scientific theories and knowledges.

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Why not ?

Hangdawg13I can see what you are saying.Let me ask you something. What do you think is the difference between a Pastor and a Rabbi?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I suppose Rabbi's typically do not believe Jesus was Messiah and Pastors do?

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.

That is a difference in belief, but what difference is their function? What part does the Rabbi play? This is important because Jesus very definitely saw himself and his disciples in the tradition of the Jewish Rabbis.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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.

I have always seen a pastor/teacher as the person who leads a church and teaches Bible doctrine to the congregation thereby keeping them from being led astray by deceptive arguments.Rabbi means teacher does it not? Jesus was definately a teacher.I don't believe there is really a difference in function except that their function was outlined a little more clearly in Paul's letters to Timothy.
...I don't know where you're going with this, but I think its getting way off topic...

To me a lot of things are miracles even if I understand the scientific principles behind them, because I know God created those principles. Can you conceive of a universe with completely different laws?However, for now I will ignore the fact that the universe itself is a miracle.For the purposes of "proving" to a hardcore atheist God's action in a miracle I suppose it would have to be something beyond probability of laws of science(1 in 10^46 sound good?) or something completely unexplained by laws of science (millions of Christians vanishing worldwide).

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.

Willow wrote: Sorry, I'm getting swamped at work. What did I miss? Didn't you merely accuse me of holding a world view that excludes acknowledging the existence of miracles? I thought I tried to explain this. The guys above have articulated how science responds to such claims, and as I told you, I don't have any personal issue with a miracle claim as such.If I witness an unambiguous miracle, I will take that as prima facie evidence of the God purportedly responsible for it. In turn I will respond to that God appropriately and my incentive is that with a small lifestyle change, I score eternal life (where applicable). Easy.I have issue with cranks going around making false or deceptive miracle claims in order to increase their money and power, while increasing the misery and ignorance of others. You read me wrong. I may come across as having a dismissal manner in response to miracle claims but this is based on very lengthy personal investigation and the knowledge we have no convincingly documented case of a miracle ever ocurring in history. That makes me reasonably confident that miracles are really, really unlikely.I am and have always been ready to be knocked off my feet by some, any demonstration of a higher power. If you knew me personally you'd know this to be true. I bore my friends senseless with my endless pursuit of the supernatural. Ok, it's your claim of existence of the 1% that I am interested in. In light of your stats, I believe we can both agree that most miracle claims are bollocks. Let's drill down into this 1%Dr Scott's claim is in this 1%?Provide us with what we need to believe in this claim. I'm sure we could put together a group of individuals with a cross section of philosophies to objectively analyse a miracle claim. As stated above, scientific inquiry can proceed independently of the personal philosophical beliefs of those involved. That's why evolutionary biologists can be Christians, Muslims and atheists alike.I've got a sneaking suspicion that you'll stack the jury to exclude atheists, agnostics, any Christians that have biblical interpretations contrary to your own until we get down to Dr Scott and his buddies, who will undoubtably be the persons responsible for produce the report on his faith healing claim anyway.That's certainly not independent verification.

Jar, I enjoy reading your posts and I like the personality that comes across in your posts. I think that you have the extraordinarily rare combination of a very knowledgeable and open mindset combined with very admirable religious beliefs.I have no beef with you!But I will play ball a bit, because I expect that you can help me learn.Jar wrote: The issue is causation.The article I referenced above helps someone determine whether the healing has been incorrectly attributed to a healing method.How does the above scenario differ from: Someone is sick. Someone doesn't (or never) prays. Person gets well?Willow avoided this question.In this thread, I haven't yet brought up the issue of UNSUCCESSFUL faith healing. For every alledged account of faith healing there is another 5 scenarios arguably demonstrating the failure of faith healing. These scenarios are swept under the carpet.What would constitute evidence for that fact that faith healing doesn't work? (not just a scenario where faith healing didn't operate, due to lack of faith, God moving in mysterious ways etc)

Well thank you for that, true or imagined.Unfortunately, you are looking for certainty, causation, in an area where neither are likely.Is prayer or faith a substitute for other things?No!In the example you give... Person is sick, person gets well. Good ending.The point, at least for me, is that in my example a prayer is answered. In your's, a prayer is not asked and so it may not have been answered.Remember, for those of us that believe, GOD really does look out and over us. IMHO, he watches over not just Christians, but Jews, Atheists, puppies and particularly children. It's perfectly believable to me that God might have intervened even if unasked.But let's look at the issue of unanswered prayer.First, for a believer, that never happens. The answer may not be what one expects, but it is answered. And that is an important point. It’s probably not testable. It will unlikely ever be quantified.But it works. edited to fix spellingThis message has been edited by jar, 06-11-2004 12:34 AM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion