Comments on: Theism & Atheism: Miracles https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16120 Announcing appearances, publications, and analysis of questions historical, philosophical, and political by author, philosopher, and historian Richard Carrier. Mon, 05 Apr 2021 02:37:21 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.2 By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16120#comment-29584 Sat, 18 Jan 2020 19:46:37 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=16120#comment-29584 In reply to william meredith.

You could add: the secular science of psychology and cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy have solved the “demon” thing.

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By: william meredith https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16120#comment-29533 Mon, 06 Jan 2020 16:27:29 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=16120#comment-29533 Miracles:

Feeding 5000 people, twice. How about feeding 6 Billion, every day. That was considered impossible, but was solved thanks to my god – science.

Curing a few people of blindness. How about restoring sight to millions of people thanks to simple cataract operations, thanks to my god.

Curing a few people of diseases. How about completely eradicating a disease from the planet, or drastically reducing the probability of most people contracting many diseases, thanks to my god.

Casting out demons. I’ve never quite understood that one since I never met a demon or someone possessed by one. I guess it is solved by reducing ignorance and superstition in the world, thanks to my god.

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16120#comment-29513 Sun, 05 Jan 2020 18:48:17 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=16120#comment-29513 In reply to Michael.

I think you’re right. I make a similar point about how we mistake ourselves into believing supernatural things are even possible, by not thinking through the fallacious shortcuts we tackle in our reasoning, in The Argument from Specified Complexity against Supernaturalism.

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16120#comment-29510 Sun, 05 Jan 2020 18:21:02 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=16120#comment-29510 In reply to Mario Van Kirk.

Atheists have only ever responded to god claims with evidence and arguments for the improbability of gods. Thus meeting their burden of evidence. That’s the only reason the burden now has shifted to theists.

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16120#comment-29509 Sun, 05 Jan 2020 18:19:49 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=16120#comment-29509 In reply to Mario Van Kirk.

What I’m driving at is if atheism has always been a negative response to positive theistic claims (and historically, this has always been the case), why wouldn’t the burden of proof always fall on the theist?

And what I’m driving at is that this is only the case because atheists have thereby already met their burden of evidence (with abundant evidences and arguments for the improbability of a god). And that is why the burden now falls on the theist.

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By: Mario Van Kirk https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16120#comment-29494 Tue, 31 Dec 2019 11:34:20 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=16120#comment-29494 In reply to Mario Van Kirk.

What I’m driving at is if atheism has always been a negative response to positive theistic claims (and historically, this has always been the case), why wouldn’t the burden of proof always fall on the theist?

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By: Mario Van Kirk https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16120#comment-29493 Tue, 31 Dec 2019 08:35:37 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=16120#comment-29493 In reply to Richard Carrier.

You don’t need Bayesian probability to establish burden of proof. Who bears the burden of proof can be established on historical grounds alone. For example:

Since the god debate and the terms upon which it is argued were first started by theists, and atheism only exists because it is a response to theism on terms initially set by theists, it is theists who always bear the burden of proof.

Conversely, the atheist never bears the burden of proof because he is merely responding to the god hypothesis, which was initially offered by theists, in a debate whose terms were initially set by theists. Historically speaking, all atheism is a response to religious arguments first devised by priests and theologians.

Conclusion:

The theist always bears the burden of proof.

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By: Michael https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16120#comment-29489 Mon, 30 Dec 2019 17:08:21 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=16120#comment-29489 “For example: That I saw Aleister Crowley cure a paralytic with a crystal wand could be entirely true and entirely credible—but it does not follow that he actually did what I saw. We can thus prove I really saw that. But we have a lot more work to do before we can believe that what I saw is what really happened.”

I think a major problem is that our language uses potentially misleading shortcuts, so that if I were to say “I saw Aleister cure a paralytic with a crystal wand” as ‘accurately’ as possible, I would have to say something like “At a time when I’m quite sure I was experiencing reality (and not having a vision/dream), I appeared to see the person I know as Aleister Crowley appear to cure a person who I’m quite sure was actually a paralytic (and not a stooge, etc) with what looked to me like a crystal wand.”

This is obviously a convoluted way of talking. But people get genuinely confused, thinking that “I saw him CURE someone” means “the person was really cured”, which isn’t a claim that we can objectively make, since we are by nature subjective experiencers.

It’s like tossing out all the low priors…

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16120#comment-29422 Mon, 23 Dec 2019 21:25:00 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=16120#comment-29422 In reply to Alif.

It’s unclear what your point is.

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16120#comment-29420 Mon, 23 Dec 2019 21:23:55 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=16120#comment-29420 In reply to Mario Van Kirk.

Hume’s argument was proto-Bayesian (Bayes was his contemporary; Hume did not know of his discovery when he wrote On Miracles).

Your reasoning isn’t sound. Lots of things that only happen once or rarely happen actually happen. So no frequentist argument can reach the conclusion that simply because something is rare, that it’s false. You need a more sophisticated calculation than that. And when you work out what that would have to be, you discover just was Thomas Bayes did. There is no way around it.

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