The Greater Miracle

Josephus as well but I agree it is faith. The laws of physics and nature have nothing to say about miracles. They can't investigate or replicate them but scientists can only say that in their experience they haven't occurred. Why do we believe anything that we can't know empirically. I started with a tentative faith, about 30 years ago. The longer I live, the more I learn of the world and the more I experience the more sure I have become of my faith. I guess if it was natural processes it wouldn't be considered a miracle at all but I genuinely believe that divine intervention is the much more likely alternative. (I have a hunch that might not be convincing enough for you though. ) You have faith that this world began and continues to run through strictly natural forces. Presumably then you believe that your sense of morality comes through those same forces and as a result you base your life on that belief. I suggest you believe but can't prove it. It must be faith.

Cool It does when the miracle in question is breaking said laws, respectively.Babies are not born of virgins. That would break a law of nature involving mammals, right? I don't. Actually, I believe a multiverse with an alien creator is a pretty good alternative as well. But we weren't talking about "alternatives", I was just referencing that facts and what they point to.You don't have to convice me.- Oni

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Of course it breaks the laws of nature otherwise it wouldn't be a miracle. Does your wife/girl friend love you. Do you believe it? Can you prove it? Frankly, I didn't have high expectations.

So then my point is made. Claimed miracles break the laws of nature, in one particular story. So it's that story - versus - the entire natural history of mammalian reproduction.How do we reject the natural history of mammals just to accept one particular story that claims to break the laws of nature?Faith...? That's it...? No. And I know this 'cause we are no longer myspace friends. Seriously though, your point is moot. Love doesn't require me to accept that the laws of nature, and physics in certain circumstances, are violated just so someone can love me.The only thing I do is trust that someone claiming to love me actually does, subjectively the may or may not. What they convey to me is the only thing I can be sure of. They told me "I love you", cool, is it true...? How do I know. They said it was so I guess subjectively they feel they do.It makes no difference what I believe, I could be completely wrong.How many cases have people been told they were loved and it turned out to be a lie?Love is not an empirical claim, it's a subjective emotion that holds no truth to it.- Oni

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

I agree that it's faith.I guess the most basic question is, "why is there something instead of nothing". We have no way of knowing. Either everything exists because of some unknown natural occurrence or else there is another intelligence outside of our space, time and matter universe that brought everything into existence.
If we come down on the side of the latter then miracles become a very real possibility as one was required to kick things off in the first place I'm not so sure. Nature always acts the same way. We always fall down and not up. We grow older and never younger. In this case we can fall in love and fall out of love. We can love, hate or be indifferent. Love seems to be something that is subjective and doesn't fit into the natural world.Evolution essentially is about the strong surviving and the weak failing. I'll accept that within any given geographic or cultural tribe we may have learned that working co-operatively can be of benefit to our survival. However, as far as my survival is concerned I'd be better off if there were fewer people on this planet using up its finite resources, but like most of us I do what I can to help people in tribes I've never had contact with in the third world. I'm sure that we both believe that there is such a thing amongst humans, and maybe even animals, as a sense of altruism. This sense of altruism doesn't appear to me to be part of the natural world yet we believe in it, even though it seems contradictory to natural law.It sure seems to me that there is something operating that is outside of natural law. That's my exactly my point. You can't prove that your wife/girl friend loves you, so you have faith in what you believe and act accordingly. You believe that the universe came from strictly naturalistic origins. You can't prove it so you have faith in what you believe and act accordingly.Edited by GDR, : dbCodes correctionEdited by GDR, : No reason given.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

You're heading the wrong way again. It's not that we have faith of something, it's that we lack faith in something else. We see no reason to believe there is anything supernatural, so until we are proven wrong, we continue in our lives. This is not faith, it is exactly the opposite. There were two threads devoted to the evolution of morality and even a discussion of altruism. Suffice it to say, there is absolutely no problem for evolution to explain altruism and morality. I suggest you look to those threads to read the discussion and perhaps add your thoughts to them:
http://EvC Forum: Morality! Thorn in Darwin's side or not? -->EvC Forum: Morality! Thorn in Darwin's side or not?

You're heading the wrong way again. It's not that I have faith of something, it's that I lack faith in something else. I see no reason to believe there is nothing but the natural, so until I am proven wrong, I continue in my life. This is not faith, it is exactly the opposite.Edited by GDR, : Dumb typo see next post.

Well OK. But whilst the natural is evidenced the supernatural is not.Thus any belief in things which are not natural does actually require faith. Well only if you ignore any concept of evidence.

But you're the one making an existential claim. You believe something exists for which there is no evidence. I have a history of things that were atributed to the gods being shown to be natural. We're now left with approximately one event that we can't (yet) explain. I'm taking the consistent approach in assuming, tentatively, that there is a natural explanation. You're bucking the trend and insisting that while everything else may be natural, this one thing just HAS to be supernatural because, well, you want it to be. I require evidence, you require none. You have faith, I have none.

You're heading the wrong way again. It's not that I have faith of something, it's that I lack faith in something else. I see no reason to believe that the spaghetti monster doesn't exist, so until I am proven wrong, I continue in my live. This is not faith, it is exactly the opposite.

This is a false dichotomy, or, you seem to be applying the false dichotomy fallacy. There could be a number of scenarios, some maybe not even thought up yet. Who knows. All I'm stating is we have never had a reason to invoke the supernatural, and the times we have in the past it has proven to be wrong. Not once, not twice or ten times, every single time.Whatever it was, we know from experience that it will be natural. If this helps you justify going against the entire natural history of mammalian reproduction just to accept a single books story, then, cool. In my opinion you are over thinking this issue too much. Love is nothing more than a subjective human emotion, like anger, sadness, shyness, etc. It, like all other emotions, is an evolved trait.How could it not fit into the natural world if the only beings who express this emotion are a by product of the natural world...? No it is not. Yet the only place we see it displayed is in the natural world.Just for reference, where exactly is this "outside the natural world"...? Or is that just a defalut place you point to when things seem strange? No, that's not the point. The point is I don't care whether it's true or not, love is a subjective emotion, their subjective emotion in this case, not mine.I simply trust that they recognize and understand the emotion that they are conveying to me. Whether it's true or not is irrelevant.I don't believe anything about it, it's not for me to believe or disbelieve. I don't "believe" anything about it. The evidence for the universe points to naturalistic processes. There is absolutely NO evidence that points to anything else. Not magical faries, god(s), designers, holograms, etc. I'm not trying to prove anything. This is what the evidence shows us.YOU, on the other hand, are the one claiming that it's not how the evidence says and it is in fact something else, well, go ahead, show me the evidence...? I don't have faith that you're wrong, hell, you could be right, but you have no evidence for anything.Neither of us needs to claim anything based on faith, just show me proof for god and I'll accept that he/she can do whatever miracle you claim they can do. Until then you have nothing but an imagined entity that YOU happen to believe in.Belief does not enter into my opinion, there very well could be a god/designer/magical fary, but until evidence for them surfaces, I'll just assume people made all that stuff up, like every other fantasy.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.Edited by onifre, : No reason given.Edited by onifre, : No reason given.

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Sure there may be variations but either we are a natural creation or a supernatural one. Just because science has found natural solutions for things that were once deemed to be supernatural does not mean that it follows that the supernatural does not exist. Not at all. I'm only talking about the question of "why is there something instead of nothing". I'm not talking about a specific creator. Still it is something that we believe in but can't prove empirically. We just look for subjective evidence and draw our own conclusions as we do about our answers to theological questions. Science is able to talk about other dimensions and/or universes. I suppose I see it in something along those lines. Of course, as the only evidence we have to work with is natural evidence. It's no proof of anything but there are many, very bright, well educated thoughtful people who hold essentially the same beliefs, so it isn't just ME. Are you saying that you don't believe in your opinions?

We, as in organisms, are naturally brought into this world. Planets and solar systems and galaxies, etc, form naturally as well. The universe expanded from a quantum scale through, as all evidence currently indicates, natural processes.Where do you see a need to invoke any type of supernatural act?It's not black and white, as you put it. Either natural or supernatural, why, because you cannot even explain what you mean by supernatural, nor do you have any evidence to support the assumtion that the supernatural is something more than a imagined thing. Therefore you can't just reference it as a possible cause for anything.And besides, where would you even need to invoke it...? I don't find that question to be sensical. "Why is there something instead of nothing"...? Why not? I still don't see your point here. What do you need to believe in? Here, GDR, I love you, man. What do you have to believe about that, or disbelieve? It's my own subjective perspective. You may be able to use scientific terms to justify certain beliefs, but it is nonsense to think of those dimensions as something "outside" of spacetime, or reality.You still haven't defined what you mean by "outside of the natural world, or, outside of spacetime." I do, but I don't expect anyone else to.- Oni

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

GDR responds to onifre:

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You have one book who claims miracles occur...?

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Josephus as well

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Don't you find it interesting that you have latched onto the miracle book your parents and neighbors used? Why that one and not, say, the Iliad or the Odyssey? Why not any other religion's holy books that describe miracles?

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I agree it is faith.

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Do you not see the circular logic?

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No matter how many times you say atheists have "faith" you are still wrong.

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You have faith that this world began and continues to run through strictly natural forces.

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Incorrect. By this logic, everybody is a polytheist for the same "faith" that you assert atheists have is the same "faith" you have.You have "faith" that when you jump off a tall building, you'll plummet to the ground. You have "faith" that when electricity flows through your home's circuits, it will turn the lights on when you flip the switch. You have "faith" that germs cause disease and medical processes will cure them.Congratulations, GDR: You've just elevated the Super Bowl to the equivalent of High Holy Mass.

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I suggest you believe but can't prove it.

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And you would be wrong. Unless you are willing to say that gravity is a myth and the earth sucks, then you haven't shown how atheists have belief.That is, after all, the entire point of atheism. It is not a "belief in lack" but rather a "lack of belief."

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

GDR writes:

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Evolution essentially is about the strong surviving and the weak failing.

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Incorrect. Evolution is about noting that different morphologies have different success rates in reproduction, especially in a changing environment. "Strong" is a subjective term and there is no way to predict which morphologies will make it through the selective gauntlet to reproduce.Is a body that is short and squat and retains body fat easily "strong" compared to a body that is long and lean and sheds body fat easily? Don't you think that it depends upon the environment in which the body finds itself?You ignore sexual selection, artificial selection, and all sorts of other factors that affect which members of a population manage to reproduce down to the purely random: You may be the fastest, swiftest, smartest individual in the group, but that doesn't really help you when a rockslide crushes you and you die before you have a chance to reproduce.Evolution doesn't know what "strong" means.

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This sense of altruism doesn't appear to me to be part of the natural world

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Then you haven't looked hard enough. And I mean that quite sincerely. There have been plenty of studies into altruistic behaviour not only in humans but in other animals.

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You can't prove that your wife/girl friend loves you

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That's not quite true. Indeed, in the sense that it is possible for someone to be pretending, it cannot be "proven," but there are observations that can be made that lead one to conclude that someone "loves" someone else.But that's the way all science is: Nothing is ever "proven." It is simply "consistent with all evidence we have collected."

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.