If I were to witness anybody walking on water, I still wouldn’t consider it a miracle. It, however, would cease to be mere fiction. And no, I don’t need to fly to the moon to believe that its gravity is weaker than ours. If you wish to argue that believing in God equals to believing that moon’s gravity is weaker than our planet’s, I am neither impressed, nor interested.
Finally, you’re mixing ‘fictional’ with ‘meaningless’.
Kirk
Um—where we slowly going is that miracles are extremely unlikely - so unlikely that they need either extraordinary evidence or childish gullibilty to be believed. I think you agree that miracles are (almost by your definition) extremely unlikely—and not just unlikely in a theory of probability sort of way, but unlikely in that something ‘IMPOSSIBLE’ is supposed to have occurred.
yeah like reindeer flying. We have the picture right in front of us. Now turn-on-the-light-of-reason, and look at it carefully.
If I were to witness anybody walking on water, I still wouldn’t consider it a miracle. It, however, would cease to be mere fiction.
What would prevent you from considering it to be miraculous? Have you not witnessed somethng that does not happen in the usual course of things? - especially given, say, 1st century AD technology.
And no, I don’t need to fly to the moon to believe that its gravity is weaker than ours.
Who said you did?
If you wish to argue that believing in God equals to believing that moon’s gravity is weaker than our planet’s, I am neither impressed, nor interested.
Man, George, don’t ascribe a belief to me when you can just up and ask me what I believe. Sheesh, if i wanted to I could dredge up the worst ways of thinking about evolutionary biology, ascribe them to you, and couch it as “If you believe this (ho ho, har har) . . .”
I’m not very inclined to tell you what I believe, if you insist on telling me what you think I believe.
I understand that most of you think that an orthodox Christian who believes in the results of the natural sciences is so bizarre that you just can’t help but make fun of it. I’ve already noticed that someone elsewhere has lectured me on evolutionary biology. Yes, yes, yes, I understand evolutionary biology, and if it will make you feel good, i’ll keep reminding you all that I like evolutionary theory, i’m for it, i’m on your side, Dr. Darwin. Sheesh.
Finally, you’re mixing ‘fictional’ with ‘meaningless’.
Kirk
Um—where we slowly going is that miracles are extremely unlikely - so unlikely that they need either extraordinary evidence or childish gullibilty to be believed. I think you agree that miracles are (almost by your definition) extremely unlikely—and not just unlikely in a theory of probability sort of way, but unlikely in that something ‘IMPOSSIBLE’ is supposed to have occurred.
yeah like reindeer flying. We have the picture right in front of us. Now turn-on-the-light-of-reason, and look at it carefully.
Okay, this is good. This is progress.
‘What goes against the usual course of Nature’ can be two things; I admit I was waiting for you to say something like ‘unlikely’. And true, the unlikely is a large class of things that go against the usual course of Nature. For examples, tt’s unlikely that the bridge will collapse (even tho’ it did), it’s unlikely that the Earth was hit by an asteroid that wiped out a lot of life (altho’ it did, it appears). Miracles aren’t those kind of things, however. Not the Christian’s notion of a miracle. A miracle is a deliberate sign, and is performed to have meaning. It’s like a signpost, something sent by one person-like being to others. It needn’t be big or common to be recognized and understood. For another example, there is only one smallish stop-sign at a crossroads; a stop-sign fifty feet large wouldn’t really better than on a foot across, and fifty stop-signs piled up at the crossroads would not make people stop fifty times more efficiently.
So for you, the non-miracle believer, you have two sorts of ‘miraculous’ in your mind, not one. MIracles in Christian thought are not wonder-working miracles, like the Baghwan Shree Rajnish used to do - you know, greyish dust coming off his fingertips, stuff like that. Jesus didn’t walk on water just because he could do it, and wanted to scare his friends in the boat. The miracle comes at a particular point of his ministry. Likewise with turning water to wine. This happens also at a key point in Jesus’ life, and ‘says’ something. I wont’ go into the details. The point is only that ‘miracle’ is deliberate, and like a sign or a letter has meaning, and therefore unlikelihood isn’t the issue. (Another example: my family are a very distant and cool bunch, but we love each other - although you can’t know that from the frequency of our letters and phone-calls. our love for each other isn’t *measured* by their frequency. And likewise neither are those wonders Christians call ‘miracles’ in the narrow sense.
I’ve avoided this thread because it seems like the angels on pins argument. However, in reference to Jesus walking on water, I believe the story goes that as he walked across the water holding Mark’s hand, Mark said, “I’m sinking, Jesus, I’m sinking.” Jesus replied, “Step on the rocks you idiot.”
Occam
your joke cracked me right up and it’s lot more believable than it’s counter part.
I’ve avoided this thread because it seems like the angels on pins argument. However, in reference to Jesus walking on water, I believe the story goes that as he walked across the water holding Mark’s hand, Mark said, “I’m sinking, Jesus, I’m sinking.” Jesus replied, “Step on the rocks you idiot.”
Occam
Sometimes I don’t know when to quit.
Trivia from my interest in medieval history and philosophy:
With a name like Occam you probably already know that ‘How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?’ was originally a problem-question in medieval universities. It is a teacher’s device to teach undergraduates what it means for something to be incorporeal (whether or not it existed). In some distant century, perhaps common lore will have it that the existence of a teapot in high Earth orbit was a serious issue for some benighted philosophers and science popularizers of the 20th century. Heh: and this bit of historical speculation from a 30th century scholar’s Introduction to 20th Century Philosophy: ‘In that long distant age, so newly-stripped was their culture of the comfort of their gods that even many of these early skeptics turned immediately to bizarre and esoteric cults, such as ‘Bob’ and the ‘Flying Spaghetti Minster’ - possibly in superstitious clinging to the ‘minster’ of english churches.
Another teaching sophism was ‘Did Adam have a belly-button?’ There’s a whole book on sophisms - fallacious arguments and the problems they reveal in thinking - written by Buridan called Sophismata Asinina, all of which feature asses, and all of which are ‘asinine’. Tthe first sophism proves that ‘You are an ass’ - meaning the general second person, not you, Occam.
You are saying that a miracle is subjective and that if to an individual it has meaning, then it’s a miracle; Or does it need to have an objective meaning that even skeptics can see.
Jackson;
The ‘type’ miracles are real, not ideal; they take place in the natural world, not merely in a person’s imagination or (a little more real) long-term psychology. I won’t rule those out as miracles, they’re still not the ‘type’. Unlike stop-signs, the ‘big’ miracles are symbols that are part of the real world itself now.
Since miracles are real, individual things, they are unique in being both a symbol and a real thing. Nature is not miraculous in this way of thinking, and so is not a directly sign or symbol from God.
Water into wine, for example, is meant as a deliberate sign. My church has taught me to see several related meanings in it, but here’s a few. The literal miracle is just exactly that real water in jars is now real wine in jars. Just in that sense it’s also a sign - not evidence, a sure sign - that God exists. It’s also the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. And what a way to begin: just at the point when a party would have to wind down, a divine person appears and brings only the best - a sure sign that ‘God loves us and wants us to be happy’ as Ben Franklin says about beer.
Suppose the water-to-wine story is true. We would agree that it happened in the first century AD. May I ask, what would be proof to a skeptic of a miraculous historical event like this miracle purports to be?
Kirk
btw: I happen not to like the way ‘faith’ is used in modern debates - it’s not used among you guys, or among some protestants, anything like the word ‘faith’ is used in any other non-religious context. I have faith in people who I *can* trust. I have faith in my doctor’s advice; I have faith in expert mountaineers when mountaineering, and so on. That’s the only sensible core meaning for the word ‘faith’. I believed what my religious teachers and pastors told me, and *then* i found their words to be true to their promises. Now I have faith in God for similar reason; His presence in my life repays the effort manyfold. (None of this is flowers and roses; for example, when people finally read closely about Mother Teresa’s dryness, they’ll see ‘presence’ can be assuring even in the face of deep depression or mere lack of happy feeling.)
I have a reason for my ‘faith’. That’s just how I use the word everywhere else.
So perhaps so, my faith in God does ‘keep’ me from being too skeptical about the stories I read. However, that’s not invidious, since at this point in my life it’s my relation to God and not my relation to the stories, which I work on the hardest. So I once believed most everything in the Bible as a little kid, and absorbed the stories, and now that I’m an adult i don’t repudiate them deliberately so much as have other things upon which I deliberate, and the issue of the veracity of every event fades. Until I meet people like you of course. Still, it’s just a fact that I believe in God on rather different grounds than combing through miracles.
‘objective’ is actually a technical word in philosophy - I rarely use the word. The ‘type’ miracles are real, not ideal; they take place in the natural world, not merely in a person’s imagination or (a little more real) long-term psychology. I won’t rule those out as miracles, they’re still not the ‘type’. Unlike stop-signs, the ‘big’ miracles are symbols that are part of the real world itself now.
Since miracles are real, individual things, they are unique in being both a symbol and a real thing. Nature is not miraculous in this way of thinking, and so is not a directly sign or symbol from God.
Water into wine, for example, is meant as a deliberate sign. My church has taught me to see several related meanings in it, but here’s a few. The literal miracle is just exactly that real water in jars is now real wine in jars. Just in that sense it’s also a sign - not evidence, a sure sign - that God exists. It’s also the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. And what a way to begin: just at the point when a party would have to wind down, a divine person appears and brings only the best - a sure sign that ‘God loves us and wants us to be happy’ as Ben Franklin says about beer.
Kirk
What a bunch of worthless double speak. There is not a hint of rationality found here, only a lame attempt to rationalize a belief system based on faith. This is not a personal attack, I am merely pointing out the irrationality of such thinking. This type of apologetics is found expressed this way from many Christian apologist.
What a bunch of worthless double speak. There is not a hint of rationality found here, only a lame attempt to rationalize a belief system based on faith. This is not a personal attack, I am merely pointing out the irrationality of such thinking. This type of apologetics is found expressed this way from many Christian apologist.
. . .
First, the pertinent question wasn’t proving anhy miracles exist, only what Christian theology typically says they are. You’re just too angry to see straight.
Well, alow me to treat you as you treat me. You lie in print - to be fair. Of course your words are a personal attack, and with a pretty small fig-leaf to cover it. ‘Double-speak’ and ‘lame’ aren’t descriptions, they’re insults. Is there any decent lexicon where they’re calm debater’s terms?? I’m not that stupid as to swallow this as ‘merely pointing out’ anything.
Shouting on your soapbox doesn’t makes your bold claims that i’m double-speaking so. Go prove I double-speak about the definition of a miracle - line by line. What, are ya chicken??
If this is only what Christian theology says they are, then how can you argue what I have said is an insult to you. There is another example of double speak. Perhaps, when you present Christian apologetics you won’t be so insulted next time it’s called exactly what it is, worthless and a lame attempt to rationalize a belief system based on faith.
If this is only what Christian theology says they are, then how can you argue what I have said is an insult to you. There is another example of double speak. Perhaps, when you present Christian apologetics you won’t be so insulted next time it’s called exactly what it is, worthless and a lame attempt to rationalize a belief system based on faith.
Since I own it, and think it’s honest and not double-speak - and that’s obvious, since here I am, a Christian, writing it down. So of course, you’re insulting me - it’s called ‘tarring with a broad brush.’ It has an official *name*.
What a laugh. I wouldn’t care if you’re Robert Price. The only appropriate answer to what I have said is, right - it is a lame attempt to rationalize a belief system based on faith. It is a way to keep the faith alive. It is nothing less then double speak to bolster the fact there is no evidence for miracles. Desperately wanting to reinterpret what doesn’t fit into any rational evaluation. It’s a way to say science doesn’t matter here, I can find ways to believe in my faith while claiming I understand the limitations to claims of miracles. Since you own it, no wonder why you find what I say as an insult, that does not make what I am saying any less true. Did you claim this was your personal view, no you went on to say “what Christian theology typically says they are”. That’s the problem right there, the double speak is very familiar, saying such nonsense as “miracles are real, individual things, they are unique in being both a symbol and a real thing.” To want to play the game of we don’t need evidence for claims of miracles while knowing full well that Christians do believe in miracles (unless you find Jesus rising from the dead to be within what is known in nature) is nothing less then double speak.
First, the pertinent question wasn’t proving anhy miracles exist, only what Christian theology typically says they are. You’re just too angry to see straight.
Kirk
I’m going to call you on this Kirk. This is a deliberate attempt to manipulate and you know it. You personalized this right away by saying, “you’re stoned, right?” You’ve replaced it now to deflect from what you have done. Call it fair play in the world of Christain apologetics. Where have I seen this before....
