explain a miracle - religious debate

[lucaspa]

@Bryan_Ekers

The article itself may be of questionable accuracy. This is, given the evidence at hand, still a simpler explanation that her being sustained by God or other supernatural forces.

It is possible that the article is not accurate. However, that is an ad hoc hypothesis. You need an independent way to determine that for a valid hypothesis.

Now, the invocation of “simpler explanation” is invalid. The idea that the “simplest explanation is the correct one” is not correct. First, it is often ascribed to William of Ockham. That is incorrect. It is from Isaac Newton. Second, there are severe philosophical problems with the formulation. Third, and most importantly, it is empirically wrong. Very often (especially in biology and human behavior) the simplest explanation is not correct.

The evidentiary hurdle I’d assign to such claims is going to be very high.

As you noted, that is a** personal decision. You can assign any level of hurdle you wish. However, if you are trying to get at the truth, then you should assign the same **level to any question. The idea that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” does not stand critical evaluation.

At least James Randi high, and I figure his standard would be along the lines of close monitoring 24 hours a day for several weeks, though I doubt the JREF would take on a case like this since I understand that don’t evaluate claims that require such extensive effort to test, nor claims that are likely to be harmful to the claimant.

That is not appropriate anyway. What we have here is a historical claim, and a singular claim at that. There is nothing to indicate that ANY and EVERY person who prayed and decided not to eat or drink would be healthy. The claim is that this particular person did. So all we can do is look at the historical evidence. What we have is what we have.

IF the accounts are true, then it looks like we are faced with a sitiuation where we do not know of any process in the universe that would account for the situation. That’s where we invoke “miracle”.

OTOH, it’s possible to doubt the accuracy of the accounts. I don’t see any independent reason to be able to definitively say the accounts are false. That is, I don’t see any documented overt bias on the part of reporter, any independent documentation of the dishonesty of any of the principals, etc.

As a scientist, I have to go with “anomaly”, which is short for “I don’t know; it may or may not be true.”

[lucaspa]

@Bryan_Ekers

Now you’re arguing over his choice of terminology, as though him saying “absurd” or “nonsense” is sufficiently rude that he can be dismissed because of it.

I’m discussing the strength of a claim. The sense of the word “nonsense” being used here is:
"words or language having no meaning or conveying no intelligible ideas

b (1): language, conduct, or an idea that is absurd or contrary to good sense"

Absurd is “ridiculously unreasonable, unsound, or incongruous”

I am saying that the claim is contradicted by the evidence. I am not talking about the objective truth value of deity, but whether the idea is “nonsense” or “absurd”. It is neither.

That dismissal does not transform into supporting evidence, though.

If you are referring to the initial post I responded to, I agree wholeheartedly. Calling “Godness” “nonsense” does not transform into supporting evidence that it is nonsense or absurd. It’s just a way to dismiss the accounts of Alexandrina’s fast and the possibility it represents a miracle.

Now, if Lobohan wants to provide supporting evidence that “Godness” is nonsense, then he has an uphill battle to overcome the contrary evidence I posted.

[fumster]

@lucaspa

You have a problem in that modern scientists don’t consider a concept of “Godness” to be nonsense. The prestigious Annals of the New York Academy of Science is devoted to the question of God and cosmology: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.2001.950.issue-1/issuetoc

What’s more, if belief in God is “absurd”, then you have the problem of at least 40% of scientists – who are critical thinkings – being so poor at critical thinking as to believe something is “absurd”.

I think instead that these claims are absurd. It is OK for you to believe deity does not exist, but it is not OK to claim that a belief in deity is “nonsense” or “absurd”. That claim is contradicted by the evidence.

Science does not work through appeal to authority, it requires evidence. If there are scientists whose belief in God is based on evidence then that would be persuasive. Are they finding phenomena that are not explainable through the laws of physics or chance? Have they made testable hypotheses and performed experiments? If so they should win a Nobel Prize and we will all need to change our thinking. But the fact that someone who grows up in a religious environment has taken on that belief is very unremarkable.

[fumster]

@lucaspa

Now, if Lobohan wants to provide supporting evidence that “Godness” is nonsense, then he has an uphill battle to overcome the contrary evidence I posted.

You posted no evidence.

[Grumman]

@lucaspa

As you noted, that is a** personal decision. You can assign any level of hurdle you wish. However, if you are trying to get at the truth, then you should assign the same **level to any question. The idea that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” does not stand critical evaluation.

The reason extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is because ordinary claims have already had the majority of the necessary evidence vetted.

Take cats. We have already established from experience that cats exist. Therefore, it isn’t that large a leap to assume that if your coworker says a cat is living in their garden, they are speaking the truth. We do not know from experience that fairies exist, so if your coworker says a fairy is living in the garden, it is not reasonable to take them at their word that this is true.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@lucaspa

It is possible that the article is not accurate. However, that is an ad hoc hypothesis. You need an independent way to determine that for a valid hypothesis.

Okay, just be sure to apply the same standard to the newspaper. Did they verify the she was going for extended periods without sustenance, or just report what people were saying?

Besides, a hypothesis that a newspaper was wrong is on quite a different level than a hypothesis that God exists and was supplying physical nutrition to her or removing her need for physical nutrition.

Now, the invocation of “simpler explanation” is invalid. The idea that the “simplest explanation is the correct one” is not correct. First, it is often ascribed to William of Ockham. That is incorrect. It is from Isaac Newton. Second, there are severe philosophical problems with the formulation. Third, and most importantly, it is empirically wrong. Very often (especially in biology and human behavior) the simplest explanation is not correct.

Thanks for the history lesson, but so what? Newspapers do make mistakes, and report things that are untrue or wildly exaggerated. My standard is that this (and a number of other mundane alternate explanations) will have to be ruled out before I start seriously considering that God must be involved.

I’d even be willing to entertain the possibility that she had an extraordinary starvation-survival advantage, able to synthesize her own vitamins or something. This would pretty fascinating in and of itself, certainly worth study and analysis.

As you noted, that is a** personal decision. You can assign any level of hurdle you wish. However, if you are trying to get at the truth, then you should assign the same **level to any question.

Okay. Is it possible she was an alien? Does that question get the same “level” of hurdle as being her being sustained by God? Is it possible she was an extremely intricate robot, good enough to fool medical science in the 1940s? Is it possible she was part plant, and sustained by photosynthesis?

If these are not worthy of the same level of consideration as a hypothesis involving God or one involving an incorrect newspaper article, please explain.

That is not appropriate anyway.

You’re going to have to explain why I should accept your evaluation of what is and is not appropriate. Since the event is historical, I accept that we can only speculate on numerous aspects of it (and thus far, any implications that God was involved, or that God even exists, remain speculative), but were a comparable claim advanced today, I can see a few ways it could be rigorously tested.

IF the accounts are true, then it looks like we are faced with a sitiuation where we do not know of any process in the universe that would account for the situation. That’s where we invoke “miracle”.

Well, you can invoke it if you like. I’d be prepared to admit that science (i.e. our understanding of the processes of the universe) is currently insufficient. We would expand our scientific knowledge by studying the case carefully and extensively, well beyond just reading newspaper accounts of it.

IF the accounts are true, of course. That remains quite a large assumption.

OTOH, it’s possible to doubt the accuracy of the accounts. I don’t see any independent reason to be able to definitively say the accounts are false. That is, I don’t see any documented overt bias on the part of reporter, any independent documentation of the dishonesty of any of the principals, etc.

I’m prepared to accept for the sake of argument that nobody involved was intentionally lying. This does not prove they were correct, though.

As a scientist, I have to go with “anomaly”, which is short for “I don’t know; it may or may not be true.”

What is “it” in this sentence, exactly?

And I agree with fumster in that I see no “contradictory evidence” that you have presented.

[CurtC]

@lucaspa

Six years without any food and water is tougher. It appears we can rule out intravenous feeding since the expertise and equipment is not present. By “expertise” I mean the overall nutritional knowledge available in the 1940s. No one would know enough to formulate an IV formula that could keep a person alive and healthy for 6 years.

You’re making this way too hard. It’s much simpler than an IV by someone who knew more about nutrition than anyone else on Earth. She ate some small amount of food.

The evidence for this conclusion is overwhelming.

[TonySinclair]

@lucaspa

What’s more, if belief in God is “absurd”, then you have the problem of at least 40% of scientists – who are critical thinkings – being so poor at critical thinking as to believe something is “absurd”.

I think instead that these claims are absurd. It is OK for you to believe deity does not exist, but it is not OK to claim that a belief in deity is “nonsense” or “absurd”. That claim is contradicted by the evidence.

What evidence? That a minority of scientists are theists? If true, that is evidence only for the power of childhood indoctrination.

The OP asked for an explanation of the “miracle,” and it has been given: there is no miracle involved in slowly starving to death on a diet of bread and water, and those who claimed she ate or drank less than that are either lying, or honestly mistaken.

Now I would like you to explain why her prayer for healing was not answered. Here is an except from the Gospel of St. Mark (KJV):

===========
11:12 And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry:
11:13 And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.
11:14 And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.
…
11:20 And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.
11:21 And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.
11:22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.
11:23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

You call yourself a scientist, so do the experiment. Pray for a million dollars, or just kill a tree in your front yard. Jesus said you would get anything you asked for. He didn’t say it had to be what God wanted. He didn’t say it had to be noble or unselfish. On the contrary, he went out of his way to show that it could be mean and petty, like cursing the tree for having no figs (even though figs were out of season), or stupid and useless, like casting a mountain into the sea.

Oh yeah, and he didn’t say that sometimes the answer is no, or that the answer will be given sometime in the next 50 years, and will be a subtle “sign” that you have to notice and correctly interpret. He said you would get instant, concrete results.

You can’t do it (you can prove me wrong by praying for the words, “Yes I can!” to appear in large red letters on my living room ceiling). People try and fail every day. In the 14th century, all of Christendom prayed for their families or towns to be spared from the Black Death, and they still died in droves.

THAT is evidence, and it proves that the Bible is bullshit.

[fumster]

It’s amazing that religious people are unaware of the sheer lunacy they believe in. Are we really having a serious discussion about the chance that God miraculously let someone slowly starve themselves to death over several decades? What kind of miracle is that? At least pick a good miracle. God could have made the Jews invisible so the Germans didn’t find them, prevented polio, or made it so that 8 track tapes didn’t jam. But no, he wanted to watch the progress of someone slowly dying. If you do think he/she/it really did that why in the world would you think it is a good thing?

[Czarcasm]

God hit me, and I didn’t die immediately. It’s a miracle!

[Lobohan]

@lucaspa

You have a problem in that modern scientists don’t consider a concept of “Godness” to be nonsense. The prestigious Annals of the New York Academy of Science is devoted to the question of God and cosmology: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.2001.950.issue-1/issuetoc

“Godness” is meaningless, because every theist will come up with a different definition. It’s mush-mouthed nonsense that is invoked to make drivel seem deep.

What’s more, if belief in God is “absurd”, then you have the problem of at least 40% of scientists – who are critical thinkings – being so poor at critical thinking as to believe something is “absurd”.

People brainwashed from childhood can continue to believe stupid things. The evil of religion is that it is hooked and barbed and sets deep.

I think instead that these claims are absurd. It is OK for you to believe deity does not exist, but it is not OK to claim that a belief in deity is “nonsense” or “absurd”. That claim is contradicted by the evidence.

Stop. You are wrong. There is no real evidence for the existence of God. If you had some you would present it.

[Lobohan]

@lucaspa

Now, if Lobohan wants to provide supporting evidence that “Godness” is nonsense, then he has an uphill battle to overcome the contrary evidence I posted.

My evidence is this, [points at an empty box labeled, “Evidence for the existence of God.”]

If you are asserting something, you need to support it, not disprove it. If you thought about it for a minute, you’d understand that.

If you need to disprove things, then Superman might exist. Then Spiderman might exist. And vampires. And space-ninjas.

You can’t prove those things don’t exist. So can’t you see that you’re being unreasonable in your standards?

[Razncain]

@lucaspa

There is a discrepancy in the claims. In the Vatican site, the woman subsisted on the wafer of bread of the Eucharist. However, in the first site Lossee provided, we find this:
"We were told that you do not take food.

• That is true. I stopped eating and drinking six years ago. "

That is NO food or water.

One plausible explanation (among many) that immediately stood out with me, is that she maybe didn’t lie here and the Vatican was right in that she still took the Eucharist. When asked if she stopped eating and drinking six years ago, she simple didn’t consider the Eucharist as food or water.

@lucaspa

What is undisputed is the fact that the patient has lived for years without taking anything by mouth, neither food nor drink."

Well I dispute it, and it’s not considered a fact. Anyone that has ever looked into such claims know that even scientists can be easily duped by 12 year old kids, and doctors are no different. If a phenomenon such as this actually occurs, then surely with over 7 billion people on earth today, one can be found today that makes the same claim. Just one, that is all that is asked. Surely, it wouldn’t be asking too much to set up a proper protocol under James Randi type conditions and see if this person really doesn’t need to eat or drink anything. Why is it, these stories are always well into the past? Of the thousands of people claiming amazing abilities that the James Randi foundation has looked at, not a single one has even made it past the preliminary rounds. Think this one would have fared any better?

[Razncain]

@lucaspa

You have a problem in that modern scientists don’t consider a concept of “Godness” to be nonsense. The prestigious Annals of the New York Academy of Science is devoted to the question of God and cosmology: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.2001.950.issue-1/issuetoc

What’s more, if belief in God is “absurd”, then you have the problem of at least 40% of scientists – who are critical thinkings – being so poor at critical thinking as to believe something is “absurd”.

I think instead that these claims are absurd. It is OK for you to believe deity does not exist, but it is not OK to claim that a belief in deity is “nonsense” or “absurd”. That claim is contradicted by the evidence.

They depend on public funding, do they not? Sounds like a publicity stunt. What are the odds that these 40% of scientists would give God quantifiable terms, being scientists and all? I’d be more interested in their arguments; then I could determine if their arguments are as absurd as the theologians. Have you seen any of them?

While you’re seeking out scientists, take a good look at one of the most prestigious institutions which is the NAS (National Academy of Sciences) and why do you suppose that 93% of leading scientists still reject God with the majority of them being atheists and the rest agnostics. That number is higher than at any other time they have taken the survey.

[Learjeff]

@Human_Action

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

I prefer Huck Finn’s definition:

Faith is believing in stuff you know ain’t so.

[Askthepizzaguy]

@TonySinclair

You call yourself a scientist, so do the experiment. Pray for a million dollars, or just kill a tree in your front yard. Jesus said you would get anything you asked for. He didn’t say it had to be what God wanted. He didn’t say it had to be noble or unselfish. On the contrary, he went out of his way to show that it could be mean and petty, like cursing the tree for having no figs (even though figs were out of season), or stupid and useless, like casting a mountain into the sea.

Oh yeah, and he didn’t say that sometimes the answer is no, or that the answer will be given sometime in the next 50 years, and will be a subtle “sign” that you have to notice and correctly interpret. He said you would get instant, concrete results.

You can’t do it (you can prove me wrong by praying for the words, “Yes I can!” to appear in large red letters on my living room ceiling). People try and fail every day. In the 14th century, all of Christendom prayed for their families or towns to be spared from the Black Death, and they still died in droves.

THAT is evidence, and it proves that the Bible is bullshit.

Thank you for writing this.

Religious folks need to read it a thousand times over.

Finally, why are **all **of God’s miracles shit that human beings can fake or can’t prove happened?

A thousand years ago when there were no video cameras, God did fantastic shit that is literally unbelievable.

Now he’s reduced to making the virgin Mary appear on toast and allowing little girls to starve themselves.

What a feeble and pathetic God people believe in. Sure, back in the day, he appeared to people all the time. Made frogs and locusts and lice and rivers of blood appear out of nowhere. He drowned the whole planet.

Now he makes fancy toast. Give me a fricking break.

If you believe this shit, you should also believe Hercules killed the Hydra. There’s as much evidence and reasoning behind that after all, and it doesn’t even involve magic. Just the killing of a fictional creature by a dude.

[Wallaby]

@fumster

It’s amazing that religious people are unaware of the sheer lunacy they believe in. Are we really having a serious discussion about the chance that God miraculously let someone slowly starve themselves to death over several decades? What kind of miracle is that? At least pick a good miracle. God could have made the Jews invisible so the Germans didn’t find them, prevented polio, or made it so that 8 track tapes didn’t jam. But no, he wanted to watch the progress of someone slowly dying. If you do think he/she/it really did that why in the world would you think it is a good thing?

This. It’s a pretty bloody feeble miracle all up. If that’s supposed to inspire us, it isn’t very effective.

Either God in the Christian form doesn’t exist, ot he’s rather pathetic.