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A clarification that may help:
An atheist has no belief in a god or gods. That's all it means. Your question is probably better aimed at "skeptics". (I find the majority of atheists are also skeptics.)
So, from a skeptical point of view:
for item 1: There are thus far no recorded instances of such healings. There are, in fact, far more recorded instances of such healings being simulated for the sake of fooling an audience.
Cancer is odd stuff, being a complex relationship between external influence and internal systemic dysfunction. Science doesn't work in absolutes when discussing systems, because the universe is too complex for that. It sounds like the odds were very much against your father surviving the cancer. In the end, he beat those slim odds. It happens now and again, and needs no additional entities to explain the recovery. (That's Occam's Razor: Do not multiply entities unnecessarily.)
Item 2: As with the first item: There are no records of such an event. There are, however, many records of such an event simulated to fool an audience.
Item 3: I don't think your father was lying, either. It is more likely that his memory of the event was filled in and polished by already established beliefs. Human memory is not reliable, and far less reliable when it comes to traumatic events. The mind "fills in" gaps and inconsistencies with established ideas.
It's not a matter of "proving it does not exist" here. Because such proofs are effectively impossible. What a skeptic looks for instead is evidence enough to bother to accept an idea. Skeptics reject anecdotal evidence for a variety of reasons: People can lie, can misinterpret/misperceive what they see, have "confirmation bias", etc. Skeptics prefer evidence that can be reproduced independently. The problem with "miracles" is that they never come with repeatable results, and typically with only anecdotes to suggest they ever happened.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Jill pretty much covered it.
Con artistry, stage magic, the body doing amazing things, coincidence.
All proven and more feasible than God.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
As an Atheist I do not explain miracles. I do not need to explain miracles; there is no independently verifiable and reproducible evidence that miracles even occur. The burden of proof for proving miracles even occur rests on those who say they do, not those who do not accept their existence. The matter of explaining miracles cannot even be addressed until miracles are proved to occur.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Jill covered points 1 and 2 perfectly. Bring us actual evidence and proof that these things happened, allow some actual doctors and scientists to study it and then maybe we'll begin to even think about giving any credence to the claims that these things happened. Until then, they're just fictional stories.
As for 3, what about all those times your father had the thought "tighten your seatbelt" and then ... absolutely nothing what so ever happened? It's called cherry picking, theists are kings of doing it.
Get back to us what we request for points 1 and 2, and then we'll continue this conversation. Until then, I suggest you visit Why Does God Hate Amputees.
Organised religion is the ultimate form of blasphemy.
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This has been previously discussed in the following thread:
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/13254
I suggest you check it out.
As my name suggests I am also a skeptic and I have never seen proof of:
1)Sudden healing of bones, blind people, etc. If you have scientific and medical proof of such occurrences please produce otherwise as far as I'm concerned it is nothing but urban legend and rumors.
2)Actually I have researched the topic of glossolalia, speaking in tongues, in the past. It seems that this is a learned technique where the person experiencing the behavior activates the speech organs by turning off cortical control of speech. A connection is established to a sub cortical structure which produces the speech. It is really sub-conscious control and can be triggered by learned code words. In Acts 2:1-40 the Pentecost event has reported glossolalia where the claim is made in verse 6. On the other hand many heard only what they considered to be drunk gibberish as in verse 13. This whole account is suspicious anyway as the Disciples already had received the Holy Spirit supposedly as in John 20:22, "And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." So Either Acts is fiction or John is or both to pretty up the legends.
3)I have a sister that sees ghosts and angels or so she claims. She is also clearly a religious fundamentalist. Her visions thus far have provided no insight or provable occurrences. In other words it has no basis in the world we call reality. Perhaps she has a form of mental illness or delusion. We both grew up in a fundamentalist environment. If I won't believe my own sister why would I accept your father's word by way of your word. We all have our own internal voices that tell us, are you sure there are no cars coming from the right?
____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
How does an atheist explain a miracle? Well, where does a theist demonstrate one?
The inherent flaw in your question. To explain a phenomena would mean detailing the facts in sequence. But, if this is done, the phenomena excludes itself from the definition of miracle. A miracle is a phenomena not explained, but without an explanation taking a specific position (i.e. that it must be a miracle) is fallacious: an argument from ignorance. So one is either forced to demonstrate the phenomenology in support of a deliberate agency in greater detail (i.e. a deity) to show that mechanisms aren't always necessary and the laws of physics can be suspended on a whim, or just lump it that the e-mail forward from Mable in Human Resources doesn't prove anything.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Hello Dada and welcome to the RRS forums.
Looks like many of our home run hitters have already batted
and I noted all of them went out of the park so I don't have
anything to add except....
gee, I hate batting in the number 8 slot.
when my bone and spinal cord regenerates and i start walking again i'll convert. i'm not holding my breath though...
I think this is where the clinching difference between believers and skeptics comes in. Skeptics will demand proofs that can be demonstrated and reproduced in the laboratory. Believers will resist by saying that's a no-can-do because (a) that's not how it works and (b) they were as surprised as anyone to experience what they did - it's not as if they could turn on the miracle like a tap (=faucet). The scriptures teach that 'signs follow them that believe'. I know in skeptics' ears that must sound like a colossal cop-out, but if that is the way it works, then skeptics will never get to reproduce and experiment in the way to which they are accustomed. It seems that a prerequisite is faith, as is more than suggested in many instances in scripture (and elsewhere).
There are recorded instances of such miracles (of all types) occurring, but I suppose that because they lie outside the comfort zone of the skeptic and scientist, then they are dismissed as hearsay, fable or outright lie. I will not contest the fact that there certainly are a legion of charlatans out there preying upon the gullibility of the naive, so finding the needle in the haystack probably requires more patience and diligence than skeptics are willing to commit to something they would consider as pretty silly in the first place. Furthermore, I think it may well be a case of the conclusion having been made and dismissing the evidence that doesn't fit, which is not uncommon, even in the scientific world.
I appreciate your comments about my father's experiences, and accept them as highly plausible. That is why they didn't take the front row of my examples. To be honest, I could classify myself as a skeptical believer (which may be why my report of miracles relies too much on second-hand accounts
), meaning that I look for the more plausible solution before thinking any divine intervention was involved (beyond normal levels, as it were). I don't go around with pixie dust in my eyes, but my mind is open for things which would challenge conventional thinking...
You're going to have to help me on this one. I figured that the one implied the other. Forgive my ignorance, but is it not so? How does a non-skeptic atheist view the world? I had understood (or maybe assumed) that one doesn't arrive at atheism without first being a skeptic.
And that's why faith has no place in science. What you end up with is a precept that you then look for evidence to support. Which means that you end up ignoring evidence that contradicts the precept.
I also know plenty of skeptics who are theists because they do not apply their skepticism to their beliefs.
They really are very different things that happen to have some real correlation.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Yep. Evidence is evidence. It has objective weight, based on its reliability. I really dislike it when people reject lack of evidence because they really want their claim to be true. Think about it like a trial. In law, we have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an accusation is true, else the presumption is that it's false.
The standard for science is much higher than the standard for law. That's because it's really important for it to be. Would you want the people who build space shuttles to just "wing it" when they're doing their calculations on the structural integrity of the hull? Do you want them to accept a builder's proposal because there's no evidence that it doesn't work? Or, would you rather their proposal be scrutinized, tested, retested, and assured of reliability before you strap astronauts in?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
"Miracle" is merely a word used from ingorance to fill the gap when answers are lacking.
But Ocham's Razor takes care of this mental hickup quite easly.
Ocham's Razor, in layman's terms basically stipulates that out of many multiple explinations for a given situation, the least complicated is the most likely answer.
In any given event, something happens or it doesn't happen., vs something happening that cant happen.Human brains mistake rariety for magic. It is the same crap that caused humans to believe that elephantitus to be the work of the devil rather than a rare genetic hickup.
Airplane crashes are a good example of how people, no mater if only one dies or only one survives it is a "Miracle". When does it cease to be a miracle? When 50% live and 50% die?
How about this as an explination? Events happen or they dont and magic is not required to explain them even if we never find the answer for that specific event, because nature is real and our utopian wishes of how we want, or think an event should go, is no concern of nature.
It is rare for someone to be albino, but we don't worship an albino god. It is also rare for someone to die from the same bacteria that Jim Henson(Muppet Creator) died from but we don't blame satan for his death anymore than we would Thor.
"Miracle" is a word humans use because they want magic to exist when the reality is that it is merely luck.
If birth is a "miracle" then all the sperm who don't impregnate the egg must be as well. Otherwise the rational answer is that life is a crap shoot and what we think is magic is mere luck.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I repeat, there is no logically valid way to call something a miracle based on a lack of explanation. To say that something is a miracle under the circumstances provided, is merely to say that it's not currently explained. Under such criteria, at various points in time, fire, lightning, wind, gravity, mildew, scabs, hair growth, and alcoholism could all be considered miracles. That something is unexplained is NOT AN ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION that leads wherever you want it to go.
If there were such a thing as a real miracle, it would be unsupportable because it would represent a suspension of the very avenues by which it would be investigated. You can't build a model of arbitrariness and anomalies, and because of that vagary superimpose an imagined will. And that's assuming you have phenomenology worth considering, rather than a bunch of vague and unsubstantiated generalities and anecdotes.
EXACTLY!
Reality happens and the difference between the wishfull thinker and the realist is that when answers are lacking the realist, who may be as happy about the outcome of a given event, doesn't atribute the outcome to myth and defaults to the fact it happened.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Sorry, but this does happen. Even scientists are guilty of it. To borrow from Anthony Flew's book There is a God (p. 86) "Since we cannot accept a transcendent source of life, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance from matter". Now, I don't know if this is a quote from someone, or an example of the skeptical thinking, but I at least accept that Flew is not building a straw man, i.e. this kind of thinking does exist even amongst the most lofty intellectual circles.
I'm sorry, but to maintain that this doesn't happen I find somewhat naive. Many have criticised Dawkin's work The God Delusion for just that problem: his blatant disregard or dismissal of evidence that counters his arguments.
Anthony Flew also has a few things to say about neo-atheism, labeling it as a weak versions of logical positivism, being the idea (as I understand it) that only things which can be demonstrated scientifically have meaning. Yet this idea has long been abandoned, and is untenable as a philosophy, since there is no way to determine that everything that exists can be demonstrated scientifically. So, to demand that "miracles" have to be subject to scientific control is perhaps not adequate.
I've since checked out the other thread that was suggested (thanks for that, pauljohntheskeptic!), and that got me to thinking about the relative nature of miracles, and perhaps why they seem so infrequent nowadays. With today's astounding advances in medicine, technology and science, it seems to us that almost nothing is beyond our grasp, either in terms of concept or actualisation. To our distant ancestors, the world we live in today would seem like one big miracle, whereas for us, things seem very commonplace. So there is indeed an element of perspective in a miracle. What would pass as simply mind-blowing just 100 years ago is for us everyday humdrum.
Even today doctors with their crash-carts are able to raise the , at least if the haven't been for too long. (As a side note, that's why the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the was considered such a miracle - the Jews believed the spirit ed by the deceased for three days before passing on. Jesus raised Lazarus on the fourth day.)
So in a way, our life is replete with miracles, though we hardly consider them as such. If there is a God, then what would it take to impress Him? Certainly, miracles are only such in the eyes of the beholder, and they have to challenge the limits of credulity for the beholder.
Okay, so now I'm moving on in my thinking. Miracles for the sake of miracles, then, seem rather flat. Yet, if there are some genuine miracles out there (as I'm satisfied there are), then they would indicate that there are laws that exist that are not understood or accepted by the scientific world. But this is exactly how the classic developments in renaissance thinking came about: by challenging conventional thought and daring to think outside the box. The Copernican "heresy" springs readily to mind. Einstein's theory of relativity. Quantum physics. Each of these challenged the thinking norms of their time, albeit with less and less resistance from the religious elite. Is it simply because miracles are the province of the theist that they are treated with skepticism? Would it not be worth seeking not to disprove, but to harness and reproduce? I accept that they may not work along purely scientific lines, but that is not a justification for skepticism (see comment on logical positivism above). On these forums, in many instances the atheist contributors express their joy in the wonder of the world and science and understanding, and rightly so, but I don't believe that warrants skepticism which closes the door on that which is not yet understood.
When we read that Jesus raised Lazarus from the , should we simply say it's a lie because that kind of thing just doesn't happen? Or should we rather keep the door open and accept that maybe, just maybe, there's something going on there that we just don't understand....yet.
I'm inclined to think that for many of you the heap of that comes with religion makes the though of finding the 'pearl of great price' not worth getting one's hands dirty....
Ah, Anthony Flew, the "most important atheist" that no one's ever heard of. Did you know he's so senile he can't even remember significant people cited in "his own" book? Or maybe it's just that it was ghost written.
But scientists actually do have reproduced self-replicating molecules, the basis for theories of abiogenesis. Now then, how would your hypothesis be demonstrated, if there's a mysterious deliberate agency that "just did it" somehow?
It doesn't have to be scientifically demonstrable, just logically coherent, which much of what you assume to be self-evident is not. And there is no "neo-atheism."
[TL;DR!!!!!!!!!!]
You write so much and say so little, it's infuriating.