“The facts speak for themselves.” – various people down through history
I happen to have sincere religious beliefs. I don’t think that I have any business “coloring” any reportage of facts by them. (For example, the textual-criticism evidence that indicates that St. Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus evidently werent – his, that is. And I have no clue why God might ever have chosen to have wasps or ichneumon flies paralyze living caterpillars so their larvae can survive by eating their way out. It’s not what we think of as his style! But discussing that biological phenomenon should not bring “what God must have done” into play.)
The evidence of history indicates that Joan of Arc led the forces of France to near-victory on the basis of voices that she heard claiming to be deceased saints speaking to her from heaven. There are all manner of “natural” explanations for this, and also a supernatural one… which fits Occam’s Razor – once you allow the rather major assumption of the Christian worldview, where a loving God takes deceased saints into heaven and occasionally has/allows them to perform apparitions to further his purposes.
The facts are not in dispute. Joan heard voices. The explanation of what she heard is, that I grant you. I raised it as one possible historical intervention of God, for whatever reasons he may have had for doing so. I did so in response to the tangential question raised in that thread of whether there was any good historical evidence for God actively intervening in the world. The Joan story is one such incident. Yeah, you can explain it away in terms of hallucinatory effects and Joan’s natural strategic skills. (There have been few generals who combined good strategic skills and a belief in the reality of hallucinatory guides, but still…)
Hey, if somebody reports moose tracks in downtown Detroit, it’s possible a hoax is being perpetrated. It’s possible that someone misinterpreted something he saw. It’s possible Woody Allen is including the Moose Story in a movie set there.
And it’s possible that a moose has wandered into downtown Detroit.
Don’t exclude a possible explanation because it seems unlikely. It may be the truth. Certainly its unlikeliness should keep it from being your hypothesis of choice, but it deserves space among multiple working hypotheses, because it is possible.
David B. once outlined briefly the sort of proof that would convince him of the reality of the Christian God. (And I’m sure he’d do it relative to other hypothetical gods, or other supernatural or occult phenomena, if it became appropriate in a given thread.) He is a pragmatic atheist – not having adequate proof (in his view, any proof) of the existence of God, he considers the idea fictitious. But he’s open minded enough to allow for the possibility. I have evidence sufficient for my belief. But I try to emulate him from the opposite direction – not holding to some absurdity because it’s a traditional element of faith. (I happen to accept the Virgin Birth because the circumstantial accounts seem to have some sense to them – both Joseph and Mary are skeptical of what’s supposed to happen; they know very well where babies come from, and they hadn’t done it – and because there is a possible if statistically unlikely mechanism involving parthenogenesis and a flaw in standard meiosis – which might have combined to happen once in the 10-12 billion human births since the beginning of history. But I don’t consider it an article of my faith, and if a peeping-Tom time traveler brought back evidence of Joe and Mary doing the dirty, it wouldn’t offend or upset me nor would it injure my beliefs.)
I trust this rambling post makes clear how I operate as regards open-mindedness and factual or scientific evidence, and relate them to my faith.