The believer and the Sceptic

[Lakonian]

Believer: In my opinion, miracles are the best proof that God exists.

Sceptic: Im not sure I know what a miracle is supposed to be.

Believer: Well,something extraordinary and unpredicatble.

Sceptic: The fall of a large meteorite, or the eruption of a volcano is extraordinary and unpredictable. ypu arrent suggesting they are miraculous surely?

Believer: Of course not. Such phenomena are natural events.Miracles are supernatural.

Sceptic: What do you mean by supernatural? Isnt it just another word for miraculous? (Consult Oxford dictionary.) It says here: 'Supernatural.Outside the ordinary operation of cause and effect'.Hmmm.It all depends on what you mean by 'ordinary'.

Believer: I would say ordinary meany familiar or well understood.

Sceptic: A dynamoor a radio would have been regarded as miraculous by our ancestors, who were not familiar with electromagnetiscm.

Believer: I agree they probably would have regarded these devices as miraculous, but erroneously, for we know they operate according to natural laws. A truly supernatural event is one whose cause cannot be found in any natural law, known or unknown.


Sceptic: Surely that is useless definition?How do you know which laws might be unknown?There may be totally bizzare and unexpected laws that we may simply happen not to have stumbled across.Suppose you saw a rock float in the air.Would you regard that as a miracle?

Believer: It depends...i would have to be sure there was no illusion, or trickery.

Sceptic: But there may be natural processes that produce super illusions that nobody woudl suspect.

Believer: Or perhaps all our experience is an illusion and we might as well give up discussing anything?

Sceptic: OK, lets not take that route. But you still cant be sure that some quirky magnetic or gravitational effect isnt making the rock levitate.

Believer: But its esier to believ in God than outlandish magnetic phenomena. Its all a question of credibility.

Sceptic: Ah, so bya miracle you realy mean 'something caused by God'?

Believer: Absolutely. Though he may sometimes use human intermediaries.

Sceptic: Then you cannot present miracles as evidence for God, or your arguements is circular.'Miracles prove the existence of an agency which produces miracles. What it realy boils down to, as you admited, is belief. You have to believe in God already for miracles to have any meaning. Apparently miraculous events in themselves cannot prove the existence of God. They might be freak natural events.

Believer: I concede that levitating rocks are dubios from the miracle point of view,but consider some famous miracles: Jesus feeding of teh mutlitude, for example. You cant tell me any sort of natural law would duplicate loaves and fishes!

Sceptic: But what possible reason can you have for believing a story written hundreds of years ago by a lot of superstitious zealots with a vested interest in promoting their own brand of religion?

Believer: You are remarkably cynical. Taken is isolation, the loaves and fishes story is nothing. you have to see it in the context of the whole Bible. It was not the only miracle reported there.

Sceptic: Remind me of another.

Believer: Jesus walked on water.

Sceptic: Levitation!I thought youd dismissed that sort of miracle as dubios.

Believer: For a rock yes, for Jesus, no.

Sceptic: Why not?

Believer: Because Jesus was the Son of God and so possesed supernatura; powers.

Sceptic: But your begging the question again.I dont believe had supernatural powers. If he did walk on water I would rather suppose it to have been a freak natural event.However, I dont believe the story anyway. Why should i?

Believer : The Bible has been a source of inspiration to millions. dont dismiss it lightly.

Sceptic: So have the works of Karl Marx. I wouldnt believe any account of his about miracles either.

Believer: You may refuse to accept the word of the Bible, but you cant dismiss the claims of hundred of people who have experienced miracles even in recent years.

Sceptic: People claim all sorts of things: meetings with aliens, teleportations,clairvoyance. Only a fool or a madman would listen to such nonesense.

Believer: I concede that many wild and fanciful claims are made, but the evidence for faith healing is compelling> Think of Lourdes.

Sceptic: Psychosomatic!Let me quote you: 'Its all a question of credibility'. I agree. Surely its easier to believe in a few freak medical events than to invoke a diety?

Believer: You cant debunk all miracles as psychosomatic. What does that term mean anyway?Its just a euphenism for medically inexplicable. Why should so many people so convinced by miracles if they were just natural freaks?

Sceptic:Its all a hang over from the edge of magic. Before the rise of science( ancient Greece), or the great religions, primitive peoples believed that almost anything that happened was caused by magic-the action of some minor god or demon. Asscience explained more and more, and religion groped towards the idea of a God, so the magical explenations became moribund. But a vestige lives on.

Believer: Your not suggesting that Lourdes pilgrims are demon worshippers!

Sceptic: Not overtly. But their belief in faith healing differs very little,maybe not at all, from beliefs concerning African witch-doctors, or spirit contacts, for example.Atavistic supersticions from the age of magic have simply been institutionalised by great religions. talk of miracles is just sanitised magic-mongering.

Believer: There are powers of good and evil. They manifest themselves in many ways.

Scepyic: And do you take evil supernatural events as evidence for God too? Does he also weild evil powers?

Believer: The relation between good and evil is a delicate theological subject. There are many shades of opinion about your questions. Mans wickedness can act as a channel for evil, whatever its ultimate origin.

Sceptic: So you would not hold God resposible for the so called ocult powers, if they exist?

Believer: Not necessarily, no.

Sceptic: So there are at least two types of supernatural events, then: those that originate with God...what you have called miracles...and the nasty ones...the black arts, shall we say...the origin of which is controversial.Then there`would be the natural ones, I suppose. Like psychokinesis and precognition?It all sounds a bit complicated to me.Id rather belive that all these topics are just primitive fantasies, a relic of the age of magic, a vestige of polytheism.Your belief in miracles is just the respectable end of a spectrum of neurotic primeval superstitions, and quite unworthy of a God of the majesty and power that you describe.

Believer: Its seems to be not at all unreasonable to suppose that supernatral powers exist, and can be manipulated in a variety of ways, for good or evil. faith healing is the good side.

Sceptic: And provides evidence of God?

Believer: I believe so.

Sceptic: What about the failures, the unfortunate ones who dont rspond to the healing? Doesnt God care about them? Or does his power waver occasionally?

Believer : God moves in mysterious ways, but his powers is absolute.

Sceptic: Thats just a platitudinous way of saying you dont know. And if Gods power is absolute why does he need miracles anyway?

Believer: I dont understand.

Sceptic: an omnipotent God, who rules the entire universe, and who can make anyting happen , ha no need of miracles. If he wants to avoid somebody dying of cancer he could prevent them contarcting the disease in the first place. In fact, I would regard a miracle as evidence that any God had lost control of the world, and was clumsily trying to patch up the damage, What is the point of God doing all these miracles?

Believer: Through miracles, God demonstrates his divine power.

Sceptic: But why is he so obscure about it? Why does he not write a clear proclaimation in teh sky, or turn the moon tartan, or something else utterly incontrovertible? Better still, why not avert some major natural disasters, or prevent the spread of devestating epidemics?However wonderful a few cures at Lourdes may be, the stock of human misery is enormous. I repeat, teh miracles you describe seem unworthy of an omnipotent God. Levitation, multiplying fishes....they have the air of a cosmic conjuring act. Surely they are just products of puerile human imagination?

Believer: Perhaps God is averting disasters all the time.

Sceptic: Thats no answere! anyone could claim the same. Suppose I say that by pronoucing an incarntation each morning I prevent world war, and cite as evidence the fact that world war has indeed not broken out? In fact a group of UFO buffs claim just that.

Believer: Christians believe that God continually holds the world in being, so i a sense everything that happens is a miracle, and all this talk of distinction between natural and supernatural is actualy a red herring.

Sceptic: Now your shifting ground. You seem to be saying God is nature.

Believer: Im saying that God causes everything in teh natural world, though not necessarilly in the temporal sense. He doesnt just set the whole thing going and then sit back. God is outside the world, and above the laws of nature, sustaining all of existenece.

Sceptic: It seems to me we have a semantic quible here. nature has a beautiful set of laws and the universe runs along a path way of evolution mapped out by thosw laws. you describe exactly the same thing in theistic terms by talk of 'upholding'. Your God is only a mode of speaking, surely? What does it mean to say God upholds the universe? How is it that different from simply saying that the universe continues to exist?

Believer: You cannot be content with the bald fact that the universe exists. It must have an explanation. I believe God is that explanation, and his power is employed at every moment sustaining the miracle of existance. In most cases he does this in a orderly way...what you would call laws of physics.....but from time to time he departs from this order and produces dramatic events as warnings or signs to human beings, or to assist the faithful, such as whne he parted the Red Sea for the Hebrews.

]Sceptic: What I find hard to understand is why you think that this supernatural miracle-worker is the same as teh being who created the universe, who answeres prayers, who invented the laws of physics, who will sit in judgement and so on.Why cant all these individuals be different supernatural agents? I should have thought that with so many miracles apparently supporting many different and conflicting religions, a believer in miracles would be obliged to concede the existence of a whole host of supernatural beings in competition.

]Believer: One God is simpler than many.

Sceptic: I still dont see how...so called miraculous events, however remarkable, ca be regarded as evidence God exists.It seems to me you are simply exploiting the fairy godmother instinct we ll have, turning 'Lady Luck' into a real being and calling her God. How can you take these miracles seriously?

Believer: I dont find anything incredible in God, who is creator of all, maipulating material objects. Compared to the miracle of his universe, what is so remarkable about God parting teh Red Sea?

Sceptic: But you are still basing your arguement on the asumption that God exists. I agree that if a God of the sort you describe...infinite, omnipotent, benevolent, omniscient, and so on does exist, teh Red Sea would be triviality for him. But how do we know he does exist?

Believer: Its all a question of faith.

Sceptic: Precisely!

[Lakonian]

I was going to add this to my site, i porbbly still will. I believe this peice written by Paul Davies sheds light on how man is so consumed by the desire to believe in a omnipotent being, and how science goes forward by analysing the "miracles".

Hope those who have the patience to read take something from it.

[South of Heaven]

Originally Posted by Lakonian

I was going to add this to my site, i porbbly still will. I believe this peice written by Paul Davies sheds light on how man is so consumed by the desire to believe in a omnipotent being, and how science goes forward by analysing the "miracles".

Hope those who have the patience to read take something from it.

Nice one! And it might come in handy mehmehmeh

[4runner]

This is what is known as a "strawman". Instead of dealing with the real thing, you set up a caricature of it that is easy to knock down.

[Promethean Fire]

Hi runner, im Lakonian.

Can you elaborate on how your are applying a straw man to such an undeniable perfect back and forth arguement that leads to truth?

Or are you putting faith infront everything you say?

Something tells me your a believer......help me believe too 4runner, and i bet it will just come down to blind faith.