Have you ever had a religious or supernatural experience?

[John Dule]

These poll results are horrifying.

[John Dule]

These poll results are horrifying.

Facts are and remain the great enemy of the fundamentalist materialist.

And confusing anecdotes with facts remains the fatal flaw of the superstitious.

[John Dule]

These poll results are horrifying.

Put another way, have you ever had a weird experience of some kind or another you still can't quite explain? My experience has been that even the most committed atheists and materialists usually have, just as even the most committed religious people have usually had doubts at some point.

No. But then again, I've never done drugs, so that probably helps.

[John Dule]

And confusing anecdotes with facts remains the fatal flaw of the superstitious.

The odds are decidedly not in your favor. Craig Keener’s estimate of 100 million miracles in the last hundred years is such a large number that the odds of all of them being false or naturally explainable is roughly equivalent to the odds that George Washington was not a historical person.

Craig Keener is a lunatic, and citing him as a source is proof-in-itself that you are not serious about discussing this subject.

[John Dule]

These poll results are horrifying.

Put another way, have you ever had a weird experience of some kind or another you still can't quite explain? My experience has been that even the most committed atheists and materialists usually have, just as even the most committed religious people have usually had doubts at some point.

No. But then again, I've never done drugs, so that probably helps.

This response is absurdly self-congratulatory and unprovokedly hostile to other posters, even by your standards. 8/10, would rage again.

Yeah, I was pretty proud of it.

[John Dule]

I have never encountered any evidence that would make me presume else wise

And so you take all accounts of miracles when someone tells you of them as false, as you require your own first person experience to admit not even the actuality of something, but even the potentiality of it?

Christians don't become Christians because they see miracles happen. They see miracles happen because they are Christians.

People see what they want to see in the world. Honestly, the fact that there have supposedly been 100,000,000 "miracles"-- none of which have been verified in any scientifically documented or objective fashion-- speaks more to the willingness of Christians to see miracles in their toast than it does to the veracity of those claims.

[John Dule]

Christians don't become Christians because they see miracles happen. They see miracles happen because they are Christians.

People see what they want to see in the world. Honestly, the fact that there have supposedly been 100,000,000 "miracles"-- none of which have been verified in any scientifically documented or objective fashion-- speaks more to the willingness of Christians to see miracles in their toast than it does to the veracity of those claims.

The University of Virginia has an entire department which has verified a number of a specific type. Bruce Greyson, Peter Fenwick, Raymond Moody, and Edward F. Kelly have all published on this. Jacalyn Duffin undertook another specific group of miracles, medical miracles, and published an academic book on the subject. Jeffrey Rediger, a professor at Harvard Medical School, JUST published a book on medical miracles as well. It is one thing to argue against them - it is another to make assertions in the face of contrary evidence.

Half of these people are neuroscientists who examine why the human mind tricks itself into believing it has had a religious experience. The other half are fringe nuts like Ray Moody who are widely ignored and/or condemned by the serious scientific community. Why do you insist on trying to affirm your faith through widely discredited pseudoscience? Just say that you believe without evidence; don't try to convince yourself that you somehow arrived at these beliefs through honest and unbiased inquisitiveness.

[John Dule]

I have never encountered any evidence that would make me presume else wise

And so you take all accounts of miracles when someone tells you of them as false, as you require your own first person experience to admit not even the actuality of something, but even the potentiality of it?

Christians don't become Christians because they see miracles happen. They see miracles happen because they are Christians.

In fact, Craig Keener has pointed out that miracles are the most common among the mission field, areas with limited prior exposure to Christianity.   Sources like the China Christian Council (see 14:20) shows a large percent of Christian converts (up to 90 pct in rural areas) in China cite a healed illness as a reason for conversion*to Christianity*.  So it is clear that God, among other means, provides clear testimony to the gospel to people who have never been exposed to the faith before through miraculous healing.    

A few more points from 17:00:  Similarly, in an area in Suriname, a non-Christian man had his arm (which had been paralyzed all his life) instantly shot up, and that led to a "people movement" in Nickerie, Suriname, where tens of thousands of people converted in the area which previously only had a few hundred Christians.  We also see evidence from Yale historian Ramsay MacMullen that the leading cause of conversion to Christianity in the 3rd-4th century was healing and exorcisms, and scholar JP Moreland estimates that up to 70% of the growth in Evangelicalism worldwide over the past few decades has been linked to signs, wonders, and miraculous healing.

Throughout history, God has spoken clearly and forcefully to people throughout many nations with these glorious acts of power, expanding the kingdom of God throughout the world.   

I do not trust Craig Keener's word on the efficacy of Christian miracles any more than I trust the word of David Miscavige on the efficacy of Dianetics. If there is ever a consensus in the scientific community that miracles are real-- say, on the same level as global warming-- then I'll get back to you. But cult members can't be trusted to represent their cult using facts.

[John Dule]

I do not trust Craig Keener's word on the efficacy of Christian miracles any more than I trust the word of David Miscavige on the efficacy of Dianetics. If there is ever a consensus in the scientific community that miracles are real-- say, on the same level as global warming-- then I'll get back to you. But cult members can't be trusted to represent their cult using facts.

This is absurd. There is no “scientific consensus” on the existence of Abraham Lincoln, or on the existence of Columbus, or on the existence of matter itself. The idea that a very narrow field such as science holds all the answers to everything and will eventually abolish the humanities is absurd. Now, it is true that 35-40% of scientists are Christians who believe in the Resurrection of Jesus, and this view is becoming more common among scientists. (This is one of two subgroups in America where religiosity is increasing.) What percent have to be Christians for you to affirm that miracles and science are not in conflict?

Experts in the field of history (which is the field of study relevant to the existence of Lincoln) agree that Lincoln exists. However, experts in the field of medicine (the field of study relevant to the existence of medical miracles) do not agree that miracles exist, and would laugh in your face if you suggested that prayer could provide an actual remedy for a person beyond the placebo effect.

What else needs to be said?

[John Dule]

[John Dule]

Perhaps I should be clearer, as it seems you have misunderstood me. I am not an advocate of faith healing - there are a number of theological problems for it. There is a clear and prescient difference between believing miracles happen and testing God by demanding they happen.

Oh I see. So you believe that prayer works as a remedy in certain cases, but these results can't be reproduced in a scientific setting because that would be "testing God." What an airtight system of logic you've constructed.

[John Dule]

What exactly is the doctor's position outside of a vague belief in the already vague concept of miracles? What exactly does he say about their utility and prevalence?  Or did you, once again, find someone prestigious who on face agrees with you and regurgitate a soundbite?

This sort of attack is unwarranted and remains so. In response to asking for evidential sources, after providing several, you have now accused me of... presenting testimony that agrees with what I said? If that is the charge, I plead guilty.

And, it is important to note that Dule, after falsely claiming that several of the people I cited actually disproved what I said, has still not responded to the point made when citing them or their research.

You cited Bruce Greyson, a neuroscientist, as evidence that people who study the brain believe in Christian miracles. Greyson's own research describes near-death experiences as accompanied by "auditory hallucinations"-- not the Divine speaking into a person's mind, but their own mind tricking them. He co-authored this paper that repeatedly and explicitly describes these as "hallucinations." Regardless of what Greyson himself thinks on the matter, it is clear that he lacks sufficient evidence to stake his reputation on authoring a scientific article attributing these experiences to supernatural causes.

Medical miracle pushers are very much like Trump's "election fraud" lawyers. They will make extreme and absurd claims publicly, but when it comes to actually staking their reputations and careers on their assertions (for example, perjuring themselves to a court, or putting their names on a peer-reviewed article claiming there is objective evidence for the Divine), they inevitably back down.

In any case, I've already spent far more time looking into your claims than they deserve. I don't believe that you legitimately think that naming half a dozen fringe doctors constitutes incontrovertible evidence that the Christian god is real. It is clear (to any objective observer, anyway) that you hold your superstitions to a different standard of evidence than you do everything else. Getting bogged down in the specifics of cherrypicked Christian dogma ignores the broader point-- there is no medical consensus that medical miracles occur, and so there is no reason for a member of the public to take such claims seriously. I've never completely closed the door to supernatural occurrences, and if presented with actual evidence I would always take it into consideration. But the fact that you are willing to believe-- lacking the extraordinary proof you'd need to bolster your extraordinary claims-- is indicative of a shocking lack of inquisitiveness, self-awareness, and basic skepticism.

[John Dule]

You cited Bruce Greyson, a neuroscientist, as evidence that people who study the brain believe in Christian miracles. Greyson's own research describes near-death experiences as accompanied by "auditory hallucinations"-- not the Divine speaking into a person's mind, but their own mind tricking them. He co-authored this paper that repeatedly and explicitly describes these as "hallucinations." Regardless of what Greyson himself thinks on the matter, it is clear that he lacks sufficient evidence to stake his reputation on authoring a scientific article attributing these experiences to supernatural causes.

Medical miracle pushers are very much like Trump's "election fraud" lawyers. They will make extreme and absurd claims publicly, but when it comes to actually staking their reputations and careers on their assertions (for example, perjuring themselves to a court, or putting their names on a peer-reviewed article claiming there is objective evidence for the Divine), they inevitably back down.

In any case, I've already spent far more time looking into your claims than they deserve. I don't believe that you legitimately think that naming half a dozen fringe doctors constitutes incontrovertible evidence that the Christian god is real. It is clear (to any objective observer, anyway) that you hold your superstitions to a different standard of evidence than you do everything else. Getting bogged down in the specifics of cherrypicked Christian dogma ignores the broader point-- there is no medical consensus that medical miracles occur, and so there is no reason for a member of the public to take such claims seriously. I've never completely closed the door to supernatural occurrences, and if presented with actual evidence I would always take it into consideration. But the fact that you are willing to believe-- lacking the extraordinary proof you'd need to bolster your extraordinary claims-- is indicative of a shocking lack of inquisitiveness, self-awareness, and basic skepticism.

I advise you to read that paper further. “However, the marked differences in attitudes of near-death experiencers and schizophrenic patients toward auditory hallucinations raise questions about the etiology of these hallucinations, specifically about whether in all circumstances internal voices should be classed as hallucinations. ... Regarding them in all circumstances as pathological may inhibit our investigation and understanding of their powerful influence on our world (Liester, 1996). Our finding of a high prevalence rate and predominantly positive attitudes toward auditory hallucinations following an NDE reinforces the need for further research.”

Lol! So after three pages of discussing this-- all the time claiming that incontrovertible proof of Christian miracles exists-- you are now treating the phrase "reinforces the need for further research" as a win? Again: Nobody is closing the door completely on the supernatural. I have never said that I know for certain that god/gods do not exist. But the problem here is that you are treating the possibility of miracles as proof of miracles, whereas I am saying that it is silly to stake your convictions on something that is not (yet) substantiated by evidence. The truth is that the very person you named as "proof" that supernatural miracles exist himself said that the evidence is inconclusive! And in fact, the language he uses in that paper repeatedly refers to these instances as hallucinations-- unwilling, clearly, to make any concrete argument that these experiences are caused by something external to the brain itself.

Look, all I'm asking is that you admit that your faith is just that-- faith. You shouldn't feel the need to justify your beliefs using the language of science (which will inevitably result in disappointment). You cannot reason through a belief that you didn't arrive at through reason in the first place-- so why try? Nobody's telling you that you're not allowed to believe what you want. The problem arises when you try to make others respect your beliefs as valid, in the same way that we might respect, say, the law of gravity or evolution. Your beliefs are not owed that level of respect, and the more reasonable Christians on this site-- Nathan and Scott, for example-- understand that and don't try to wage a religious war on science's terms. I have no objection to Christians who speak about their faith in terms of their personal experience with how it has improved their life, but trying to quantify supernatural occurrences in the way you're doing is simultaneously futile and oddly self-defeating.

[John Dule]

For what is worth I will say that if I ever get some sort of incurable severe desease I'd definitely be hoping for a literal miracle to happen even if I don't believe in miracles

At that point I'd look out to literally anything.

Well, this is precisely why it should be illegal for people to sell miracle cures, healing crystals, or any other quack pseudoscientific trash under the pretense that it will cure an incurable illness. It is perfectly rational for a desperate, dying person to exhaust every possible option they have to help themselves, and so it is easy for unscrupulous individuals to take advantage of them.

[John Dule]

Lol! So after three pages of discussing this-- all the time claiming that incontrovertible proof of Christian miracles exists-- you are now treating the phrase "reinforces the need for further research" as a win? Again: Nobody is closing the door completely on the supernatural. I have never said that I know for certain that god/gods do not exist. But the problem here is that you are treating the possibility of miracles as proof of miracles, whereas I am saying that it is silly to stake your convictions on something that is not (yet) substantiated by evidence. The truth is that the very person you named as "proof" that supernatural miracles exist himself said that the evidence is inconclusive! And in fact, the language he uses in that paper repeatedly refers to these instances as hallucinations-- unwilling, clearly, to make any concrete argument that these experiences are caused by something external to the brain itself.

Look, all I'm asking is that you admit that your faith is just that-- faith. You shouldn't feel the need to justify your beliefs using the language of science (which will inevitably result in disappointment). You cannot reason through a belief that you didn't arrive at through reason in the first place-- so why try? Nobody's telling you that you're not allowed to believe what you want. The problem arises when you try to make others respect your beliefs as valid, in the same way that we might respect, say, the law of gravity or evolution. Your beliefs are not owed that level of respect, and the more reasonable Christians on this site-- Nathan and Scott, for example-- understand that and don't try to wage a religious war on science's terms. I have no objection to Christians who speak about their faith in terms of their personal experience with how it has improved their life, but trying to quantify supernatural occurrences in the way you're doing is simultaneously futile and oddly self-defeating.

I believe you misunderstood me. I am an advocate of cessation of miracles theologically.

I do not argue that my beliefs, with regards to religion, love, and human rights, are as well established as gravity, general relativity, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. Unlike those latter things things of knowledge, I would be quite prepared to die to defend the former things of belief. Because of this, I am forced to conclude NOT that belief is irrational or less real than scientific fact, but rather that it is super rational and more real than scientific fact. Kierkegaard comes highly recommended, in my view.

I should be quite clear here: I do not believe in your definition of faith and belief as being without evidence. It is as clear to me that God is real as it is that I love my mother, for I have felt it in my heart. You may attempt to make your heart a slave to your head, but pigs will fly and the moon will fall before such a thing comes to pass.

Every argument I've had with theists on this matter has begun and ended in the same way. It begins with the theist asserting that their beliefs are supported by a wealth of irrefutable evidence which, if examined by an open-minded person, clearly points to the existence of the Divine. After a lengthy conversation that inevitably exposes the gaping holes in their reasoning, the theist then ends the discussion with an unrelated appeal to pathos, usually accompanied by some poetic analogies and the not-so-subtle implication that atheists are cold-hearted meanies who are incapable of appreciating beauty. At no point does the theist ever acknowledge just how far the goalposts have drifted over the course of the conversation, or the deep and obvious bias they have demonstrated in assessing their own beliefs. They act as though this last-ditch emotional appeal is a sufficient counter to the arguments presented against their claims-- for their fellow theists, it is probably enough, but it will do nothing to sway the opinion of an objective observer.

Theists have, in the past, made excellent soldiers, authors, poets, scholars, politicians, philosophers, and artists. But damn, do you guys leave a lot to be desired as debaters.

[John Dule]

Every argument I've had with theists on this matter has begun and ended in the same way. It begins with the theist asserting that their beliefs are supported by a wealth of irrefutable evidence which, if examined by an open-minded person, clearly points to the existence of the Divine. After a lengthy conversation that inevitably exposes the gaping holes in their reasoning, the theist then ends the discussion with an unrelated appeal to pathos, usually accompanied by some poetic analogies and the not-so-subtle implication that atheists are cold-hearted meanies who are incapable of appreciating beauty. At no point does the theist ever acknowledge just how far the goalposts have drifted over the course of the conversation, or the deep and obvious bias they have demonstrated in assessing their own beliefs. They act as though this last-ditch emotional appeal is a sufficient counter to the arguments presented against their claims-- for their fellow theists, it is probably enough, but it will do nothing to sway the opinion of an objective observer.

Theists have, in the past, made excellent soldiers, authors, poets, scholars, politicians, philosophers, and artists. But damn, do you guys leave a lot to be desired as debaters.

This is, from beginning to end, a lie. At no point did I suggest that irrefutable evidence existed which proved God’s existence. At no point did you demonstrate complete and utter objectivity while I goggled like a toddler over your bright intelligence. As for this appeal to pathos? It was a reference to Hume, hardly the most prominent Christian thinker in history.

I did point out a number of flaws with materialism, citing neuroscientists and physicists in their field, and you accused me of a fallacious appeal to authority after you had just insinuated that all serious scientists are materialists. You refused to answer any of these points from start to finish and have now ended with insults that are not only immoral but illogical as well. You make your fellow libertarian, Nassim Taleb, look humble and polite by comparison.

I'm not saying that you "goggled like a toddler." I'm just saying that you took it upon yourself to provide rational, scientific evidence for the existence of God-- a task that has eluded everyone in history, from great thinkers like Descartes to not-so-great thinkers like Craig Keener. This is a monumental undertaking, and it is through no fault of your own that no evidence yet exists that would actually support your claims. The problem, again, is not that your beliefs are unsubstantiated. The problem is that you expect your unsubstantiated beliefs to be treated with a respect that they are not owed.

Also, I did not criticize you for appealing to authority. I pointed out that the authorities you cited were either A) Controversial/discredited fringe theorists, or B) People like Bruce Greyson who do not actually agree with you and whose research you misrepresented. And regardless of how many individual theist scholars you can cherrypick who endorse these extremist views, that will not change the fact that these so-called "miracles" cannot (by your own admission) be replicated in a laboratory setting, which makes them 100% unconfirmed.

Anyway, I'm honestly sorry that I was impolite during this conversation, and I do tend to get carried away sometimes. However, it's difficult to respond honestly to arguments like yours without a certain degree of bluntness. I'm happy to continue this discussion if you'd like to present more arguments against the deterministic-materialistic worldview that I support, but only if you're willing to hold your claims to the same standard of evidence that you would hold others' claims.

[John Dule]

I am a cessationist - I do not believe miracles continue in the present day, and in fact have seen no convincing accounts of such since the nineteenth century.

Then why did you begin this digression by citing Craig Keener, a man who has based his entire career on the presumption that miracles occur in modern times? Without any further explanation, this sounds like an absurd viewpoint. So god just stopped performing miracles as soon as cameras were invented? What about all the "miracles" that people claim have occurred since the 19th Century? Are you saying that those miracles are all fake? If so, then why are you so willing to discount all of those anecdotal testimonies while simultaneously accepting as fact the "miracles" that occurred in the past?

I did not misrepresent Dr. Greyson in any way, shape, or form. He has just published a book in which he explains why he thinks NDEs that he’s spent decades researching prove the existence of an afterlife, if you’re actually curious about his research. He has another interesting paper I will link here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0732118X17301903

To be clear: You brought Greyson into this argument as an example of a serious scholar who believes in "medical miracles" that point to the existence of the Christian god. So far, I all I have read from the man are articles discussing as-yet-unexplained hallucinations, in which he suggests that there might be non-materialistic explanations for these occurrences. That is a much less radical argument than the one you were initially making, and a far cry from the proof you would need to bolster such an unsubstantiated claim. Because of this, yes, I say that you are misrepresenting Greyson's work. Even if the man believes in nonmaterialistic or probabilistic factors in human consciousness, that does not mean he agrees with you that "medical miracles" are real or that the Christian soul exists.

I'll happily discuss his arguments, but even so, this is still one man's opinion. He openly acknowledges at the beginning of his article that the materialistic paradigm of psychology remains the overwhelming consensus.

1. http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5608
2. http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.7544

I maintain not only that there is a rather decent case for God’s existence if we begin within your materialistic framework, but the universe is not deterministic. It is probabilistic, and the collapse of the wave function requires a conscious observer. If a tree falls in a forest and nothing’s around to hear it, it has not fallen until something observes that it has.

I find these kinds of arguments compelling, especially the notion that subatomic particles operate probabilistically-- which could potentially both establish the existence of human free will and disprove determinism in one fell swoop. That would be awesome. The issue, of course, is that your claim is inherently unfalsifiable. It is (by definition) impossible to know how an object behaves when it is not under observation, and while I'm happy to speculate, arguing definitively for one side or the other is just futile. Sure, you're free to believe that there is some intangible quality in the observer that creates reality-- but there is no reason to believe that yet. I'm always open to the possibility of these things, but based on the knowledge we've amassed right now, the laws of causality appear absolute. If we were to find an exception to these laws (and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this exception was not based on our own misunderstanding), then that would puncture the deterministic model of the universe pretty definitively. However, no such evidence exists, so I'm forced to conclude that arguments against determinism amount to wishful thinking.

[John Dule]

The first notion is not on the basis of convenience, but upon that of skepticism. I am skeptical of miracles, and for a long time I found none after the second century even remotely compelling. However, after reading biographies and first person accounts from John Wesley, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman, I was forced either to conclude that these three people were delusional, pathological liars, or experienced miracles. I see little reason to believe the first two based upon contemporary accounts and the fact that nobody seemed to doubt it at the time - shocking considering the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were hardly more Christian than our own, particularly among the intellectual elite.

I don't know how exactly to respond to this, because I have no idea what makes some miracles more "convincing" for you than others. I do know, however, that Harriet Tubman was struck in the head when she was 13, cracking her skull and possibly giving her a case of epilepsy. It is therefore likely that the "voice of god" she experienced was somehow related to this injury-- at least, more likely than the notion that the divine was somehow speaking through her. As for why nobody doubted this at the time, that probably has less to do with the prevalence of Christianity than it does with the lack of a credible alternative explanation (which modern medicine and neuroscience can provide us with). Regardless, I'm sure you know that pointing out specific instances of "miracles" is simply not convincing for someone who isn't already converted; you have to want to believe in order to take these kinds of stories at face value.

Three questions. So, as a determinist, I assume you don’t concur with Dawkins that life began by chance?

I don't pay much attention to Dawkins, but if that's his assertion then yes, I would disagree. A deterministic model demands that every event was set in motion from the moment of the Big Bang (and, potentially, earlier). There is no chance, luck, or fortune involved. And again, I'm not wedded to this idea, and I don't particularly like it. It is simply the rational assumption based on how we understand the universe at this moment; if new and credible information arises I will be more than happy to reject this model.

Secondly, what do you think of this, which seems to indicate that superposition goes above the atomic level?

Without reading the original research paper and fully understanding their methods, I can't really respond. However, my suspicion on this subject has always been that the act of observing (specifically, the instruments used) may affect the particles in ways that make it impossible to draw solid conclusions.

Thirdly, are you familiar with Donald Hoffman’s work on the implications of evolution on neuroscience?

Based on the overview I just glanced at, it sounds like he's saying something similar to what I've thought for a while-- as creatures evolve to higher levels of intelligence, it's possible that their newfound awareness of their own existence forces them to evolve certain coping mechanisms to deal with the understanding of their own mortality, etc. This makes intuitive sense to me; I'm not sure if that's what you're referring to though.

I also wish to contend against Dule’s seeming proclamation of his own objectivity. Years ago, I discovered a fascinating hypothesis which suggests that confirmation bias and presupposition is intrinsic and the most powerful influence on our beliefs. After years of research, every piece of evidence thus far assembled supports this hypothesis without exception. This seems to indicate that objectivity and neutrality are rather difficult, if not impossible, to accurately impute in any discussion such as this.

As I've said before, I've never made any claim to being more intelligent/rational than anyone else. The only difference, I think, is that I at least acknowledge that objectivity is an ideal worth striving towards, whereas certain people seem to view it as unattainable and therefore not worth anyone's time. The problem is not that theists are biased, it is that they either do not know they are biased or do not care that they are biased. And no matter what broad claims you make about how humans are incapable of thinking purely objectively, you will never be able to draw a fair equivalency between the views of theists and the views of atheists, because one is clearly less substantiated by evidence than the other.

[John Dule]

Also, am I crazy or are these two comments completely contradictory? Like WTF does this even mean

The odds are decidedly not in your favor. Craig Keener’s estimate of 100 million miracles in the last hundred years is such a large number that the odds of all of them being false or naturally explainable is roughly equivalent to the odds that George Washington was not a historical person.

I am a cessationist - I do not believe miracles continue in the present day, and in fact have seen no convincing accounts of such since the nineteenth century.

[John Dule]

Also, am I crazy or are these two comments completely contradictory? Like WTF does this even mean

The odds are decidedly not in your favor. Craig Keener’s estimate of 100 million miracles in the last hundred years is such a large number that the odds of all of them being false or naturally explainable is roughly equivalent to the odds that George Washington was not a historical person.

I am a cessationist - I do not believe miracles continue in the present day, and in fact have seen no convincing accounts of such since the nineteenth century.

One is a philosophical point that requires a theological rebuttal. For example, I think the best rebuttal to ID is theological in nature, not scientific or philosophical.

Could you possibly be more specific? It sounds to me as though your opinions on this subject are themselves in a superposition right now.

[John Dule]

Wesley has several fascinating miracles. Beyond his raising a dead man to life, he also alleges that a mob broke into a house to murder him, and when he ran past them “but they were blinded and could not see me escape, though I could see them on the other side of the room.” (Or something of that sort.) Truth actually alleged that she got her name in a vision from God. “And He appeared to me in a dream and gave me the name Sojourner because I was to travel up and down the land, showing the people their sins, and being a sign unto them. But I asked for a second name, cause everybody else had two names; and the Lord gave me Truth, because I was to declare the truth to His rebellious people."

I won't address the specific veracity of these "miracles." I'll just say this: The odds that all of these tales of miraculous occurrences are false or embellished is far greater than any Christian would like to admit.

An example: I am an imaginative person; I like writing stories and coming up with fictional locations and characters. One time I had a fairly serious surgery on my back that required the doctors to put me to sleep with gas while they operated. During this period, I had very vivid visions of one of the locations I'd come up with. I felt that I was walking around in it and interacting with the characters I'd created. Now, if I were a Christian (and had spent all my time thinking about Jesus instead of my own fictional creations), I'd probably have seen something religious during that experience. Someone who is preconditioned to think about things in a certain way is more likely to see that mode of thought reflected in the world around them. When you have a lot of people who are all members of a group delusion (which, let's not mince words, is what Christianity is), they serve to reinforce one another's beliefs and make it more likely for people to claim that they've experienced the divine.

If I had come out of my surgery saying I went to an alien planet that I made up, I'd have been laughed at. If I'd woken up saying I met Jesus, I would've been hailed as a hero by certain people.

The observer effect clearly demonstrates that, in order for anything to actually happen, there must be an observer. As things actually happened prior to our existence, who was this observer? In other words, quantum physics is dependent upon there being no mind-independent reality. This is one reason why H. L. Mencken, for example, considered physicists to be modern day witch doctors.

How do you know that things actually happened prior to our existence? If you really want to go down the solipsistic route that only the observer creates reality, then why not argue that there was nothing before there was man? It sounds as though you are trying to blend quantum mechanics and your own subjective Christian faith into a single entity, in a Deepak Chopra-esque new-age philosophy. And in any case, as Disco pointed out, the problem with observing photons is not that "nothing happens without our observation," it's that the act of observing alters the result of the experiment.

Hoffman sort of reminds me of William James here. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, James argues that the truth claims of a religion are an improper measurement - instead, they should be measured by their utility. On this note, he places Christianity and Buddhism as the best religions in the world. Advocates of this religious utilitarianism today include Bret Weinstein, Jordan Peterson, and Brian Greene.

Hoffman’s actual point is that we are designed for fitness, not truth, and as such we are not seeing things accurately. All living things - or at least most living animals - are conscious agents, and humans are conscious agents all the way down. He explains it in contrast to physicalism in this video at 42:00-43:30.

It's interesting to me that Hoffman says at the beginning of his video that "fitness" and "truth" are separate things, and then immediately launches into an explanation of how that beetle nearly went extinct because it was insufficiently evolved to distinguish between its fellow beetles and glass bottles. That sounds to me like a direct refutation of his point; truth and fitness are the same thing, and if the beetle had more accurately perceived reality, it would not have had this problem. We see this all the time in the human world with cultists who have extreme beliefs-- refusing to engage directly with reality almost inevitably comes back to bite you in the ass. If you drink some Kool-Aid because you want to travel to a higher plane of existence, you die. If you storm the US Capitol under the pretense of some internet conspiracy theory, you find yourself friendless and in jail.

Now, it's true that living things often operate along "shortcuts" to conserve time and energy. The superficial categorization this beetle was apparently performing is actually quite similar to human categorizations ("All Mexicans are lazy," "Women belong in the kitchen," "Immigrants need to go back where they came from"). We tend to simplify and generalize because that makes things easier for us in the short term. However, the notion that any living thing can be radically divorced from reality and yet still "fit" to live in it is fairly absurd-- as the beetle demonstrates.

[John Dule]

To smear the fact that the discoverers of quantum mechanics openly acknowledged its undoing materialism as New Age Woo is nonsensical.

You are beginning with a scientifically accepted principle (subatomic superposition) and, from there, leaping to extreme and unsubstantiated conclusions (nothing exists unless a conscious human observes it) while operating under the guise of scientific inquiry. If that isn't "New Age Woo," I don't know what is.

[John Dule]

You are beginning with a scientifically accepted principle (subatomic superposition) and, from there, leaping to extreme and unsubstantiated conclusions (nothing exists unless a conscious human observes it) while operating under the guise of scientific inquiry. If that isn't "New Age Woo," I don't know what is.

Things exist without conscious observation, but not without observation. The Hoffman hypothesis, if proven true, would eliminate materialism entirely. Indeed, many prominent physicists agree with me that materialism and quantum mechanics are incompatible.

Even if the quantum state were proven to have properties that could be construed as truly "random," you still have a number of hurdles to get over before you make your case solid. Namely:

1) Does the existence of subatomic superposition actually affect things on our level of reality? The article you posted earlier would suggest that this is true, but that is far from being a scientific consensus.

2) If the principle of subatomic superposition affects our level of reality, then how does it do this? Does this account for the apparent "randomness" of chaos theory? Or is the result something more perceptible, such as human consciousness itself?

3) By this stage, you have disproven determinism. But because this is all still predicated on the existence of particles, you have not yet disproven materialism. The question now is: Is there a factor outside of the material essence of reality that affects causality?

4) If the answer to #3 is yes, then by this stage you have disproven materialism. But regardless, you are still several massive leaps of faith away from proving that Jesus Christ was the son of God who died for our sins (which I presume is something you believe). Yes, obviously there are individual pieces of evidence that appear to run contrary to determinism (just as there are individual pieces of evidence that appear to support Christianity). But when examining these competing bodies of evidence altogether, it is factually wrong to say that religion-- and specifically the Christian religion-- has more evidence on its side. The difference here is that you are beginning with your conclusion (that Christianity is real) and then attempting to gather evidence in support of that argument, picked from various sources that are frequently in conflict with one another. I, however, am trying to begin with as few assumptions as possible, following the chain of logic wherever it takes me.



(Also, please respond to my earlier question. I still have no idea what you meant when you said you were a "cessationist.")

[John Dule]

The article previously posted does not “suggest” this is the case. There are dozens of studies which show that quantum mechanics applies above subatomic level - that is the largest one documented.

If absolute determinism (wherein contingency is actually zero) is incorrect, then chaos theory would explain a number of things materially. It would not explain a number of problems with the materialist’s explanation consciousness! If we are to grasp that, we must begin by understanding that neural plasticity seems to indicate that purely mental processes or actions affect a purely physical brain and body. This is fundamental to even beginning to explain problems with a reductionist materialism and will be necessary for neurology and psychology.

I'm curious as to how you draw the line directly from the quantum state to disproving materialism/determinism. Obviously I see the connection-- but the fact that matter (albeit subatomic matter) behaves in a counterintuitive way does not in itself disprove materialism, yes? There is a big difference between materialism and determinism. To disprove materialism, you would have to prove that factors outside of the material world (supernatural factors, for example) interact with the material world and influence causation. To disprove determinism, you would have to establish the existence of an "uncaused cause"-- something that behaves truly randomly and operates outside the realm of the laws of causation. These are two different tasks; you could have a nonmaterialistic deterministic world (such as the Calvinists argue for) just as easily as you could have a materialistic nondeterministic world. In any case, the fact that certain pieces of matter behave in as-yet-unexplained ways does not disprove either materialism or determinism; such an argument still only addresses physical particles, and it also does not sufficiently demonstrate that the behavior of such particles was not predetermined by prior causes.

I apologize - I thought your belief system was that of an atheist. If I had known you were an agnostic, then I will reconsider this chain further. Was I incorrect about your belief system being atheistic?

I don't like the "agnostic" label because I think it's a cop-out. I think the only fair way of looking at the dilemma of god is to say that you cannot know for sure whether or not such a supernatural force exists, but there is currently not enough evidence to make a convincing argument for it. I don't think you'll meet many atheists who say they know for sure that there is no god; the consensus view is that a godless world is the only logical interpretation given the information we have at present.

For the record, this will hold true even if the Rapture happens one day and the Christian god is revealed to be the one true deity-- the people who currently believe in god today will always have been wrong to do so, because they never had the proper amount of evidence to jump to such a conclusion.

Essentially, I think lesser miracles require some sort of human miracle worker. If you’re interested in a deep dive, there’s a great deal of theological literature on cessation and continuation available, and many videos on YouTube. But to vastly oversimplify, I require a rather high standard to believe someone is capable of being a miracle worker and am, as such, skeptical of claims of people performing miracles unless those people are apparently capable of such.

Ok, but do you believe that there have been miracles since the 19th century or not? Because in one post you said that the odds of there being none during that time period were the same as George Washington not having existed.

[John Dule]

Quantum mechanics, such as it is, and modern physics research is problematic for materialism because atoms aren’t exactly physical “things” as such. I do agree that laws and causality approach one rather than zero - I don’t think they reach one absolutely, because to do so would be to violate themselves.

Materialism necessitates the principles of locality and local causation. Ronald Hanson, in 2015, demonstrated lack of locality on particles more than a kilometer apart. Local realist theories which also hinge upon determinism(statistical dependence) and thus a lack of free will are therefore highly implausible.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.05949.pdf

What do you mean exactly by "atoms aren't physical things?" I know that there are massless particles, but atoms are not in that category. Regardless, I generally agree-- I have long thought that if there is a proof against determinism to be found, it lies within the quantum realm. If the behavior of subatomic particles (or "strings") is proven to be truly random, I will more than happily latch onto that as a nice way of telling myself that there's a chance I have free will. However, without understanding quantum mechanics on a more fundamental level, we can't make a judgement like that yet.

I think the major issue with extrapolating quantum states to our physical world is that-- without any sort of unifying theory-- we lack a sufficient explanation for how quantum factors could influence larger-scale events. And quantum-level events, even if they are governed by a set of different laws than standard physics, still may obey a different set of causal norms that would not disprove determinism. Again, the proof against determinism is an uncaused event, not an event that obeys different causal laws than what we are used to.

I actually concur with you about the implications of opposing agnosticism. Even if there is no afterlife or God, the people who currently do not believe in God today will always have been wrong to do so, because the evidence suggests a contrary interpretation of the facts.

To be clear, all you have done in this thread is argue against materialism and determinism. Some of your arguments are fair-minded and convincing. However, you have not yet made a single reasonable argument for the existence of a creator, and I think you know that.

None which I believe are satisfactory, but that could result from my own lack of research. My absence of evidence thus far is not conclusive evidence of absence, hence why I am an advocate of moderate cessation. However, I don’t think the materialist has correctly evaluated these because the presumption of zero without any theological reasoning is rather poor grounding.

So... you believe that miracles have happened in the past 100 years, but you've never heard of any that were convincing to you? Then why cite Craig Keener? The man blathers on endlessly about the "miracles" he supposedly witnessed while running a 102-degree fever in the Congo or whatever; his picture should appear beside the dictionary definition of "unconvincing."