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Could you ever prove a miracle to a non-believer?
Hotair via New York Times ^ | 12/25/2022

Posted on 12/25/2022 3:02:47 PM PST by SeekAndFind

[EXCERPT ONLY]

In 2009, on a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the Browns flew to Mozambique to investigate the healing claims of Global Awakening and Iris Global, two ministries focused on healing and revival. They brought audiometry equipment and eye charts to test people who requested prayer for deafness and blindness. The sample size was small — they tested 24 people — but they found statistically significant improvement beyond placebo effects and hypnosis.

“I was standing right there next to this woman who could not tell how many fingers were held up when you were a foot in front of her,” Candy Brown told me. “Then five minutes later, she’s reading an eye chart with a smile on her face.” She and her colleagues published the results in The Southern Medical Journal — not a prestigious publication but a respectable one with peer review — and she drew on the research for her 2012 book, “Testing Prayer.”

Skeptics complained about the Browns’ methods and field conditions. They pointed out that the hearing tests were in a noisy setting, there was no control group and test subjects would naturally want to please those who prayed for them by showing results. “That simple trick explains why both hearing and sight appears to have dramatically improved among these poor, superstitious villagers,” one critic declared. (The study explained in detail how the researchers did their best to weed out false data.)

If you want to evaluate people’s experiences at a revival in rural Africa, you probably need to give up on double-blind studies in a perfectly controlled environment. But let’s imagine for a moment that researchers could meet such standards (and that an all-powerful deity humors us and submits to this scrutiny). They might persuade skeptics that something strange happened. But is there any evidence that would persuade a nonbeliever that God was behind it — that we do not live in a closed system in which all causation is a matter of natural laws?


TOPICS: General Discusssion; Religion & Culture; Religion & Science; Theology
KEYWORDS: miracle; nonbelievers; proof
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To: alexander_busek
See where I'm going?

I believe you may be going somewhere different than where a lot of us in this thread think we are going.

121 posted on 12/27/2022 5:20:34 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: alexander_busek

If a genuine one was found, we seem to know WHY you would test them, but HOW would you do it?


122 posted on 12/27/2022 5:22:39 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: LadyDoc
And sometimes we'd have a medical emergency five minutes after I came back, or five minutes before I was scheduled to leave, and the one patient who died during transfer had a condition that would have been fatal even if I was there. so were these things coincidence, or just God doing little miracles?

The fundamental problem is that all such claims are unfalsifiable!

If someone is cured, "It was a miracle / the gracious Will of God!"

If someone dies, "It was the unfathomable Will of God!"

Were there ever "medical emergencies" not "five minutes after I came back, or five minutes before I was scheduled to leave," but WHILE you were gone - and they died?

Wasn't it Bertrand Russell who told of the English vicar who praised God for protecting his parish house as long as he lived in it - and which was destroyed by lightning after he moved out (much to the detriment of the subsequent vicar)?

Thus, God is (at best!) either omniscient and omnipotent, but not omnibenevolent - or He is omniscient and omnibenevolent, but not omnipotent.

- OR He is indeed so far above us as we are above the amœbae, so mysterious and incomprehensible to us, that it would be ridiculous to expect any rapport or rapprochement between us. (Or would you seriously expect amœbae ought to worship us / would you want to punish them if they didn't believe in us?)

Regards,

123 posted on 12/27/2022 5:29:50 AM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: alexander_busek

“See where I’m going”

No. Cartoon characters offer no hope, salvation, no spiritual strength, no unconditional love and mercy.

Can’t do it can you?; believe in something, anything greater than yourself.

You’re a glaring I believe in science Hypocrit.

You have half witted escape valves for everything that challenges your ego.

Humility escapes you.

Thanks for proving my point you with such perfection.

I couldn’t have asked for a better example.


124 posted on 12/27/2022 6:23:03 AM PST by WeaslesRippedMyFlesh (wake me up when somebody tells the truth)
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To: Elsie
If a genuine one was found, we seem to know WHY you would test them, but HOW would you do it?

Stop evading the question! Your line of arguing is intended to continue postponing a decision and delaying resolution.

"Did you have sex with that woman?"

Instead of replying honestly and in good faith with, "Well, depends upon your definition of 'sex.' But she did suck my d*ck." You would probably insolently respond like Vinnie Barbarino of "Welcome Back, Kotter," when he was lost for a valid answer: "Where? When? What?"

My point still stands: Without a bonafide miracle-worker on our hands, whom we could examine under laboratory conditions, and according to rigorous forensic standards, any such discussion (à la "A miracle-worker would be demonic if...") is pointless / purely academic.

All we can do instead is observe that, in ancient times when hearsay and oral history predominated, the tiny province of Palestine was rife with miracle-workers of every stripe. And in contrast: Today, when we have an established body of scientific methods at our command, they seem to have dried up. (Kinda like how the frequency of UFO sightings has diminished in direct proportion to smartphone use.)

Regards,

125 posted on 12/27/2022 6:30:18 AM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: Elsie
Do not makeup your face as you did at your friends house. Ambiguous or not?

Worse than ambiguous: Unintelligible! Riddled with faulty grammar! Out of context! Does not compute!

Regards,

126 posted on 12/27/2022 6:34:32 AM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: WeaslesRippedMyFlesh
Humility escapes you.

Am I the only one here lacking in humility?

Have I attacked you personally? Was the ad hominem really necessary or productive? More importantly: Does proving (or simply asserting) that I have personality faults in any way, shape, or form bolster your argumentation or shed light on the topic of "miracles?"

Regards,

127 posted on 12/27/2022 6:36:45 AM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: Elsie
Request? or Command?

Let's not waste time quibbling about that / splitting hairs!

The point is: Shouldn't we honor Christ and ignore those miracles which He performed with the request/command that they be treated with discretion?

Regards,

128 posted on 12/27/2022 6:38:54 AM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: alexander_busek

“Have I attacked you personally? Was the ad hominem really necessary or productive? More importantly: Does proving (or simply asserting) that I have personality faults in any way, shape, or form bolster your argumentation or shed light on the topic of “miracles?”

Cut the BS. Are you going to try believing in something greater than yourself or not worm?


129 posted on 12/27/2022 6:40:07 AM PST by WeaslesRippedMyFlesh (wake me up when somebody tells the truth)
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To: WeaslesRippedMyFlesh
No. Cartoon characters offer no hope, salvation, no spiritual strength, no unconditional love and mercy.

So you are admitting that the degree of belief you have in a deity, supernatural being, or other higher power depends upon how welcome, pleasant, and flattering that belief is to you personally?

Rather self-serving, wouldn't you say?

"You have presented good evidence that XY doesn't exist, sir! But I prefer to continue to believe in XY because it's comforting to me personally to do so!"

Alright...

Regards,

130 posted on 12/27/2022 6:44:47 AM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: WeaslesRippedMyFlesh
Cut the BS. Are you going to try believing in something greater than yourself or not worm?

Thanks for dropping the mask and showing us all your true colors!

Regards,

131 posted on 12/27/2022 6:46:53 AM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: alexander_busek

Well, it was a local story I first read in the local newspaper, taking place at a local hospital, and with some commentary by hospital personnel and the families of the two children.

That seems to be consistent among miracles, that they are for the principals involved, not intended to change minds, impress others or persuade people. This makes them frustrating for skeptics. But they are also frustrating for those who want to “assign the miraculous” to their belief system.


132 posted on 12/27/2022 8:29:44 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("All he had was a handgun. Why did you think that was a threat?" --Rittenhouse Prosecutor)
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To: alexander_busek

133 posted on 12/27/2022 5:31:58 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: alexander_busek

And to think that either 3 letters or just 2 could have been used to answer the question.


134 posted on 12/27/2022 5:33:07 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: alexander_busek
Let's not waste time quibbling about that / splitting hairs!

So instead of even trying to answer you'll just ask your OWN question?

Sorry; but Ol' Homey don't play dat.

135 posted on 12/27/2022 5:34:32 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: alexander_busek

Evidence is only as good as the explanation of it to the jury.

‘If da glove don’t fit...’

Classic


136 posted on 12/27/2022 5:36:54 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

Nice tagline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP-45_Liberator


137 posted on 12/27/2022 5:39:36 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie
Let's not waste time quibbling about that / splitting hairs!

So instead of even trying to answer you'll just ask your OWN question?

My question ("Shouldn't we, out of respect, just ignore those miracles for which discretion had been requested?)" preceded your hairsplitting ("Was it a request, or a COMMAND?").

It was thus your add-on question that was "holding up the show."

Okay, I'll respond to your add-on question: In one version of the Bible, it is phrased as an imperative. "Do not speak of this..." So interpret it as you will - as either a request or as a command.

Regards,

138 posted on 12/28/2022 12:47:38 AM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: Elsie
Evidence is only as good as the explanation of it to the jury.

Evidence is, indeed, pretty worthless if the D.A. submitting that evidence presents it wrongly, or incompletely, or...

Or if the jury consists of idiots...

Or if the judge instructs the jury to ignore it...

Or...

You are quibbling and holding up proceedings!

Can't we just agree that GOOD evidence is better - generally speaking, all other things being equal - as BAD evidence. THAT is my point.

Why dwell upon exceptions or try to split hairs?

Regards,

139 posted on 12/28/2022 12:50:34 AM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: alexander_busek
Why dwell upon exceptions or try to split hairs?

Indeed.

140 posted on 12/28/2022 2:44:17 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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