Subduction Zone
Regular Member
You are using an argument from ignorance fallacy. "I don't understand therefore God" is not very convincing and should not be.
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You are using an argument from ignorance fallacy. "I don't understand therefore God" is not very convincing and should not be.God's eyes tell me that EVERYTHING is a miracle. We're not just here on this planet because of some 'random' act of "nature". Life is too 'perfect' for that. A miniscule closer to the sun, we'd burn up. A miniscule farther away, we'd freeze. If gravity changed one direction or another, we wouldn't exist...
It's all just too complicated...and 'perfect' for *me* to dismiss a 'Creator' of some sort...
Who said he DIDN'T anticipate? If God made us with a free will, He'd already know WHO is going to submit to His will, and who wouldn't...and WHY.If God had a plan a billion years ago, why does he have to intervene over and over in modern times? Why couldn't he anticipate everything and get it right the first time?
Nope. Because IF I was omniscient, AS GOD IS, I seriously doubt that I would have done what God has done...simply because, I don't have HIS knowledge.If you were omniscient, you wouldn't have to step in, because you could have given them perfect instructions and prevented any possible mishap.
Why does God have to "break the laws of nature" in order for something to be a miracle?You haven't answered my question. When and where does God break the laws of nature in the 'new job' or 'financial windfall' examples?
Why should God do that?Is there any evidence of God nudging the guy to look again for the car keys? Why not just prevent them from being lost in the first place?
You're right. Women ARE being raped...children ARE being murdered....and kittens ARE being abused. But how is ANY of this God's 'fault', if he gave ALL of us free will?Meanwhile women were being raped, children being murdered, kittens being abused, etc and God took no action because the car keys were more important?
Mysterious ways, indeed.
Who said he DIDN'T anticipate? If God made us with a free will, He'd already know WHO is going to submit to His will, and who wouldn't...and WHY.
Nope. Because IF I was omniscient, AS GOD IS, I seriously doubt that I would have done what God has done...simply because, I don't have HIS knowledge.
You are using an argument from ignorance fallacy. "I don't understand therefore God" is not very convincing and should not be.
Er...um...Sorry, not even a hint of grape. How about levitating that dead tree stump and tossing it on the burn pile?
This kind of search blindness is extremely common and an example of how much of our everyday behaviour is delegated to automatic routines corralled and parameterised by conscious attention.I once attended a church service in which the speaker talked about how he lost his car keys, and he looked everywhere. Finally, he took a second look in a place he'd checked earlier, and there they were. A miracle!, he pronounced. Am I to believe God transported the keys to that location, or maybe the guy just *thought* he'd checked there earlier? Which is more likely?
You misunderstand; the 'argument from ignorance' fallacy means that the argument being proposed makes a claim about reality based on some lack of knowledge or understanding. The simplest form is claiming something is true because it hasn't been disproved, or claiming something is false because it hasn't been proved. But it also applies to claims like, "I have no idea how this could happen - (so) it's a miracle".It's really funny that so many atheists don't want to argue and/or debate...they only want to insult...belittle...criticize...and condescend...and THEN some. Referring to what I wrote as "ignorant" only tells me that you're not in the mood for decent conversation.
That's just not cool...
Incorrect. It is the other way around. You may not have understood how you did that. It was rather obvious to anyone that can reason rationally.No, I didn't'. If that's what you think I wrote, then you didn't read it the right way.
It's really funny that so many atheists don't want to argue and/or debate...they only want to insult...belittle...criticize...and condescend...and THEN some. Referring to what I wrote as "ignorant" only tells me that you're not in the mood for decent conversation.
That's just not cool...
Who said he DIDN'T anticipate?
If God made us with a free will, He'd already know WHO is going to submit to His will, and who wouldn't...and WHY.
Because IF I was omniscient, AS GOD IS, I seriously doubt that I would have done what God has done...simply because, I don't have HIS knowledge.
Why does God have to "break the laws of nature" in order for something to be a miracle?
Is there any evidence of God nudging the guy to look again for the car keys? Why not just prevent them from being lost in the first place?
Why should God do that?
You're right. Women ARE being raped...children ARE being murdered....and kittens ARE being abused. But how is ANY of this God's 'fault', if he gave ALL of us free will?
You can use your free will to harm...OR to love. That is, love your neighbor. So, why did He give us free will in the first place? To enable US to have a choice. God doesn't want a bunch of robots.
Heck, it would be easy for Him to command the universe to beckon to His call. He already KNOWS what's going to happen.
That poor woman.I worked 40+ years in health care. Here's my one experience with a miraculous cure. My patient was a very nice 60+ year old lady with advanced osteoarthritis of her hip. She was beyond the point where physical therapy, and medication would do much good. She really needed a hip replacement. But she was reluctant to have that kind of major surgery. She and her husband were devout Christians of the Pentecostal/Charismatic variety. They often went to large-scale revival services of several big-name evangelists that they liked. After not seeing her for while, she comes in the office one day looking like she just won the lottery. She was happy, and looked better than I'd ever seen her. She had gone to a healing ministry several days ago. The evangelist laid hands on her, and all the attendees prayed for her. She said she finally felt the power of God come over her. She didn't pass out, but said she would have fallen down if she wasn't being held up by other congregants. And right at that moment, the pain was gone. She could walk normally without her cane, and didn't need any medication for the first time in years. She came in the office to let me know that a miracle had occurred. She was cured. And honestly, she looked great. She was in high spirits, was walking well and had a good range of motion in her hip. We had radiology facilities in the office, so I sent her for a hip x-ray to document her recovery. Of course, there was no change. The joint space was still gone, the bone spurs were still there, and the femoral head was still collapsed. She wasn't cured, but I wasn't going to burst her bubble. I just told her the x-rays hadn't changed much yet, but I was glad that she was feeling better, and I asked her to keep in touch with me. It wasn't more than a week that she was back in the office. This time she needed a wheelchair. The pain and stiffness came back worse than ever. Not only was she suffering physically, but now was also in spiritual distress. Thinking maybe she had somehow displeased God, and he was punishing her by returning her pain and disability.
So much for a miracle cure. If anyone deserves to be in agony, it's these charlatan evangelists.
Another thing to consider is whether what science desribes at the moment is not the result of some supernatural cause. Science can only describe whats happening. It doesn't have any creative power. So the assumption is that everything we see is the result of naturalism. Its more or less circular reasoning in that science sets the criteria and then goes about finding evdience that meets that criteria and discounts any other possibility.Another thread had a curious title.
Independently REPEATABLE evidence of miracles. Which is a logical contradiction in the sense that by definition researchers cannot repeat the supernatural, otherwise it wouldn’t be supernatural.
So all that can be done is
1/ to identify evidence of the unexplained.
2/ to confirm it is inexplicable, by breaking a fundamental paradigm of science as it is known
( eg prophecy as a simple example because of time arrow, consciousness outside the brain )
3/ that there is no credible means of faking the evidence.
The only repeat possible is reassessment of evidence, not repeat the event.
But 1-3 deal only with defining something as supernatural, not a miracle which ascribes a cause.
Since God is not in the model of science , nor can science proclaim Him as a verdict, a limitation of science, not God.
So all we can do is is state
4/ it occurs in the theistic context
And
5/ the church adds other conditions too
Reality is there is a lot of such evidence.
Take miracle healings at Lourdes.
The lame walk, the blind see.
The process is massive to declare it so, from a large medical panel any qualified medic can join, most are not religious. They declare inexplicable , not just unexplained. ( Lourdes medical commission do that part )
The second declaration is by the church 4/ 5/ which is just as stringent. Many healings declared supernatural by medics, don’t pass the churches criteria as miracle. .
So what is left?
Take this. A pelvic cancer before cancers were in anyway curable had destroyed all the pelvic bone to a leg bone connected only by small amounts of soft tissue.
Journey to Lourdes healing waters.
Bone reappeared albeit a shorter leg. Pain disappeared. Cancer gone.
Appeared in serious medical journals.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6027009/pdf/10.1179_0024363913Z.00000000015.pdf
A medical doctor Heads up the commission for typically 10 years a time.
A couple have written books.
Foreknowledge doesn't equal causation. Just because He knows in advance what's going to happen, doesn't mean He's causing it to happen. And even though we can't surprise God, that doesn't make us automatons.Then he wouldn't need to intervene.
It's not really free will if our actions are determined in advance. If I can't make a decision that will surprise God, then I'm an automaton.
There was a quote from a priest...I can't remember who, but he said something like, "If I had God's power, I would change the world. If I had God's knowledge, I'd leave everything as it is."If you were omniscient, you wouldn't need to intervene because you could have planned everything in advance perfectly.
It's ONE definition of a miracle. There are others.Because that's the definition of a miracle.
Letting them get lost and then solving the problem via a miracle isn't very efficient, especially with so many other problems in the world that are not being solved via miracles.
No, not His fault. Ours.If he created us all, knowing everything that would happen, and does nothing to stop it, then it's his fault.
If he knows in advance what we're going to do, we're robots and nothing more.
If he knows what's going to happen, when he planned it all in advance, then there is no free will. Again, we're robots.
So He made everything as it is, knowing exactly what will happenForeknowledge doesn't equal causation. Just because He knows in advance what's going to happen, doesn't mean He's causing it to happen. And even though we can't surprise God, that doesn't make us automatons.
Just as an example...When both of my daughters were born, I knew that my oldest would go to college, and my youngest would not. It was predictable (for me) simply because I knew both of them very well. I knew their personalities...their likes...their dislikes. Now, because I knew them, did I cause them to go to college/not go to college? Nope.
I see God the same way. He knows what I'm going to do/think/say/write before *I* know. He knows all of us better than we know ourselves. He sees our future before it happens. But he's not making it happen.
There was a quote from a priest...I can't remember who, but he said something like, "If I had God's power, I would change the world. If I had God's knowledge, I'd leave everything as it is."
It's ONE definition of a miracle. There are others.
No, not His fault. Ours.
I dont suppose you'd have any interest in a different pov.God's eyes tell me that EVERYTHING is a miracle. We're not just here on this planet because of some 'random' act of "nature". Life is too 'perfect' for that. A miniscule closer to the sun, we'd burn up. A miniscule farther away, we'd freeze. If gravity changed one direction or another, we wouldn't exist...
It's all just too complicated...and 'perfect' for *me* to dismiss a 'Creator' of some sort...
Another thing to consider is whether what science desribes at the moment is not the result of some supernatural cause. Science can only describe whats happening. It doesn't have any creative power. So the assumption is that everything we see is the result of naturalism. Its more or less circular reasoning in that science sets the criteria and then goes about finding evdience that meets that criteria and discounts any other possibility.
Even if there was a miracle science will find a way of explaining it naturalistically even if that explaination is not what is actually going on. So in that sense there can never by moracles according to methological naturalism.
But when you consider that as science has explored reality down to the tiniest particle twords nothing it becomes counter intuitive and beyond science and the ideas being presented to account for this stepping into the non-verifiable what is the difference. It seems science is limited and we may need to expand beyond science to really understand whats happening.
Like consciousness may be a fundelmental of reality. This seems to open the door for explaining reality better than science but yet is rejected.
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