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Cause and effect and miracles

Started by Paolo, March 12, 2021, 11:36:38 AM

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Mike Cl

Quote from: Paolo on March 13, 2021, 02:43:10 AM
You idiots don't understand. I will be more specific. Not that it will help, since the best you can do is apparently insult people.

I think the irony of that message above is probably beyond your ability to understand.  You are heavy on the insulting and name calling.  Your communication skills are severely lacking.  You struggle to ask a coherent question.  And when you repeatedly fail to communicate what it is you are trying to say, you revert to what you are--a person who tries to shift the blame to the people you are addressing.  How old are you?  12?
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

aitm

Again, your bar for “miracles” is awfully...awfully low.
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

SGOS

Quote from: aitm on March 13, 2021, 08:41:55 AM
Again, your bar for “miracles” is awfully...awfully low.
I can actually relate to Paolo is a vague distant way.  All those years that I kept trying to justify faith in the supernatural while I was beginning to process more and more through logic, I kept trying to hold the door open, if only a crack, to things that were obviously irrelevant nonsense.  I guess I justified that under religion's "God works in mysterious ways" clause.  What I didn't do was post silly questions in the hopes of challenging others in atheist forums.  Nor was I quite as gullible.  At most, I would ask close friends if they actually thought there might be some sort of god, which was the only unanswerable that seemed relevant to my life.  Issues like miracles or who a preserved tongue actually belonged too are unimportant and a waste of time.

No one can give you the answers to unsolvable problems.  That you must do on your own or ask yourself if it's even worth effort.  Or you can join a cult and be told what to think.


Hydra009

Quote from: Paolo on March 13, 2021, 02:43:10 AM
You idiots don't understand. I will be more specific. Not that it will help, since the best you can do is apparently insult people.

Hydra009

Quote from: aitm on March 13, 2021, 08:41:55 AMAgain, your bar for “miracles” is awfully...awfully low.
It reminds me a lot of Gman's argument by miracles.  Suffice it to say that's not a flattering comparison.

Hydra009

#20
Quote from: Paolo on March 13, 2021, 02:43:10 AMThe first example was a mere coincidence, it could certainly be argued.

I was wrong with my second example, though. It didn't get the point across.

Anyway, let's substitute the example...

Let's say someone with severe, almost mortal CHEST PAIN (yes, did not change much) was being ''laid hands on'' by someone who claimed to be a miracle worker. Then that person stopped feeling that pain after being prayed for. Now you would not be convincing in saying it was a coincidence, for how could the pain stop right after the praying words?
I'd love to hear why praying for rain and it raining shortly after and therefore concluding that the act of praying caused it to rain contains fallacious logic and could just be coincidence but praying for someone's pain to go away and their pain going away shortly after and therefore concluding that the act of praying caused the chest pain to go away is sound logic and not a coincidence.

Are these arguments structured differently at all?

And it's not like pain often comes and goes away on its own, right?

QuoteBut NO ONE would deny the causal relationship between the prayer and the ''cure''. Or at least you could deny, but you would not be convincing to anyone.
Confidently incorrect.

Blackleaf

You know what would be really impressive? Take a man with an amputated leg and heal it back into existence. That would be hard to explain. But some stranger being healed of their invisible pain? Uh, no. That's a scam.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Hydra009

Yeah, it is kinda suspicious that prayers just do what could plausibly happen anyways.

Mike Cl

Hey, wait a minute!  Thoughts and prayers have fixed a huge number of things in this country--like mass killings, recovery from disasters (natural and manmade) sicknesses and on and on.  Yep--fixes things right up!  And that is a miracle.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Mike Cl

Paolo is, apparently, not going to share with us what he means by a miracle.  So, I will take a stab.  It is another one of those words with multiple meanings and often one person uses it in one way and another is another way.  They are not talking about the same thing.  This is how it is defined in a dictionary:

"Definition of miracle
1: an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs
the healing miracles described in the Gospels
2: an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment
The bridge is a miracle of engineering.
3Christian Science : a divinely natural phenomenon experienced humanly as the fulfillment of spiritual law
Synonyms."

My grandpa lived through miraculous times.  He was born in the 1880's and died in the mid 70's.  He saw the invention of the auto, radio, tv, airplanes, travel to the moon; any of those could be called a miracle.  And it seems to me that the go to word when we don't know what the answer is or how something works, is 'miracle'.  'We don't know, yet.' would cover it better than miracle.   
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Hydra009

Hume had a good working definition.  Miracle in the supernatural sense (as opposed to the colloquial sense, which is just a rare and usually beneficial event) means a divine intervention in the world to create an otherwise physically impossible event - a complete contravention of the normal operation of nature.

For example, a prophet walking on water or a mountain moving out of his way or laying on hands to instantly cure grievous wounds or the long-buried dead coming back to life.  Those are things that under any remotely normal circumstances just can't happen.

drunkenshoe

I think a 'miracle' is some sort of a situation which people want to be dazzled, amazed, astonished strongly, feel awe but do not want to know what it actually is because than it would lose that 'miracle' quality. The unknown, mysterious part is the important part. Because it has 'infinite' potential.

When science demonstrates and explains things, phenomena and events, it requires knowledge or time, work, energy put in to understand all that. And most of the time, it is not really even possible to understand it in the real sense.

Now which one is consumed easily? Miracles. Which ones look less threatening? Miracles. I think most people are simply afraid of science and while they have a natural aversion to it, they also understand it is an incredible power.  And they see miracles or mumbo jumbo as something challenging, competing against science, checking it... :lol:
"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

Cassia

Quote from: drunkenshoe on March 14, 2021, 03:37:17 AM
I think a 'miracle' is some sort of a situation which people want to be dazzled, amazed, astonished strongly, feel awe but do not want to know what it actually is because than it would lose that 'miracle' quality. The unknown, mysterious part is the important part. Because it has 'infinite' potential.

When science demonstrates and explains things, phenomena and events, it requires knowledge or time, work, energy put in to understand all that. And most of the time, it is not really even possible to understand it in the real sense.

Now which one is consumed easily? Miracles. Which ones look less threatening? Miracles. I think most people are simply afraid of science and while they have a natural aversion to it, they also understand it is an incredible power.  And they see miracles or mumbo jumbo as something challenging, competing against science, checking it... :lol:

Indeed. When I think about the physical mechanics of a what would comprise a so called "miracle cure", it is a bit frightening. An all powerful god that created the entire universe (too immense for human comprehension) has entered our physical world and is manipulating certain molecules and cells just for a particular individual, as others suffer and then die. So this person is supposedly cured, just to die later anyways. It is the most cruel situation. Of course every member of different religions prays to different gods. And with the so called religious "near-death-experiences" (NDEs) the person encounters their particular god or prophet. Christian don't recover from their NDE and talk about Mohammad and vice-versa. It is as Hitch says...a solipsism of the worse kind.

drunkenshoe

#28
LOL Personal gods and prophets... Something for your entertainment.

I think it was the very beginning of the pandemic. In some forum, there was this thread about dreams. You know, why we dream about the specific things we do. (I remember my dreams very often, they are vivid, overwhelming, stupid and I think because of my education and occupation, all my life I had many dreams about historical figures, mythical characters, artists, philosophers, gods...you name it.)

Anyway, I told about some that affected me deeply like everyone else aaand Jesus dreams. But didn't even tell about them and just said that I had those dreams.  And there was this reverend who knew I was an unbeliever, we had conversations about it. You know that type, they are 'extra' friendly with 'people like us'? Lol... He was nice, wanted to talk about this stuff...and we did it openly. He didn't try to preach me or anythin like that. They don't try that with me for some reason in general. Probably because where I live.

The thing is he couldn't believe, how a nonbeliever, middle eastern woman who hasn't been indoctrianed in anyway can have casual dreams of walking and talking Jesus Christ. It was fascinating for him.

I've tried to explain that I have studied classical art history, and the German tradition we were tortured with dictated that you memorised the whole fucking christian iconography, while at the other side being bombarded by all kinds of images of him and other biblical figures in every kindof scene which means that in total, after just 4 years of a major, you had seen thousands of images of Jesus Christ in every style. Probably, more than I have seen my own. No kidding. I have 10 years with general Western art history after that. Going on with that it is very ordinary and standard for students like me to have those dreams. Probably, I was trying to delete and make room. Get it out, you know. That it is very common for art and art history students even to go around in paintings or murals, seeing the characters in their dreams.

Nope. It's fascinating and it has a 'meaning' because it's his god. I have told him that I have seen Moses once or twice... a fucking giant Prometheus leaning towards to my face to talk to me 'telepathically' in a dark cave, hiding from giant, organic, very vivid Egyptian gods walking around in thousands of years of huge black marble dungeons -trust me there are very few things scarier than seeing Anubis walking around in a vivid nightmare- and I still shiver remembering those, I have no idea what's my deal with Ancient Egyptian gods deep in my mind... but Nope. It's Jesus Christ. Obviously, he is involved. I love him and obviously I'm a good person.

"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

SGOS

Quote from: drunkenshoe on March 14, 2021, 09:56:06 AM
Nope. It's fascinating and it has a 'meaning' because it's his god. I have told him that I have seen Moses once or twice... a fucking giant Prometheus leaning towards to my face to talk to me 'telepathically' in a dark cave, hiding from giant, organic, very vivid Egyptian gods walking around in thousands of years of huge black marble dungeons -trust me there are very few things scarier than seeing Anubis walking around in a vivid nightmare- and I still shiver remembering those, I have no idea what's my deal with Ancient Egyptian gods deep in my mind... but Nope. It's Jesus Christ. Obviously, he is involved. I love him and obviously I'm a good person.
Now that's some serious dreaming.  I don't think I ever had a Jesus dream.  And a Moses dream?  Now that's something. How many people dream of Moses?