29 Sep 2014

Science and Religion

Religious 85 Comments

I think I have posted on this before, but repetition never hurt anyone…

I don’t think it actually makes sense to say that God violated the laws of physics. If matter behaved in a certain way that went against what otherwise seemed to be the rule, then the “rule” was wrong. That’s ultimately what it means for there to be a law of Nature. This isn’t my Christian apologist view, this is Richard Feynman in The Character of Physical Law. (Feynman wasn’t talking in the context of God of course.)

So when I think about the miracles of the Bible, I actually think if agnostic scientists from today were alive back then and observed them with their instruments etc., they would say, “Ohhhh, that’s not really a miracle. God wasn’t guiding the wise men to Bethlehem, see, there was a supernova in that galaxy…”

Or consider the plagues that struck Pharaoh and the Egyptians when Moses led the Israelites out of bondage. A bunch of them “fit together.” For example, suppose for some “natural” reason, something happened to make the river get a huge chemical imbalance so that it turned blood red. This then drove all the frogs out of the river, who overran the Egyptian households. Then the disturbance in the ecosystem caused lice and flies to soon follow. They brought disease and killed a bunch of livestock, and gave everybody boils.

Or what about Jonah getting swallowed either by a giant fish or a whale? Here I would think “whale” would be much more likely, and that he could have been in the back of the throat rather than inside the stomach, because I would think somebody would run out of oxygen in there for three days?

So anyway, this is the way I approach these Biblical stories. I think there were definitely “miraculous” things that happened and were described in print, and that this is one way God tells His story. But to me, it is even more of an accomplishment if these miracles occurred while the underlying atoms obeyed what we now think of as the standard laws of physics.

85 Responses to “Science and Religion”

  1. LK says:

    And yet that doesn’t work with many other Biblical miracles. Are you saying that Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead? He didn’t really walk on water? (or it was some fraud?). Jesus didn’t really raise Lazarus from the dead? (he wasn’t really dead?)

    And, for example, the snake in Eden talks (Gen 3:1-5 The serpent speaks human language). Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh, and Aaron throws his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it becomes a snake (Exodus 7:10). Even worse, Exodus says

    “Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.” (Exodus 7:11-12)

    So what happened here?

    • knoxharrington says:

      When we read Bob on Christianity we enter the “Spin Zone.” God can cause one-off natural events, which due to their singular nature, are really miracles. The Nile turned to blood? Not really blood but red from a naturally explainable chemical reaction created by God and never seen again -a miracle in the sense that it occurs once at divine command and is never duplicated.

      Anyone who adheres to methodological naturalism (not philosophical naturalism) in science can explain the event and not see it for what it is – a miracle.

      The rationalization process of believers (and the level of delusion) is absolutely breathtaking. It really is something to behold.

      • Impatient says:

        It is. Maybe we can explain Aaron’s staff. A strange disease caused snakes to become catatonic and stiff and straight. They became prized as staffs used by magicians. The jolt of being flung onto the stone floor woke them up.

        • LK says:

          It would be interesting to see how the resurrection of Jesus is explained scientifically, under the rationalising approach.

          • Impatient says:

            Actually, although I don’t believe the sources, which don’t agree, that’s the easiest one. People really do get catatonic and medical knowledge was pretty near zero. People thought dead have revived. If there is one miracle that fits Murphy’s approach it is misdiagnosed death.

            • LK says:

              Indeed. But, if the resurrection was no real miracle, it leaves Christian doctrine utterly bankrupt:

              “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised;
              14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.

              15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.
              16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised.
              17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have died in Christ have perished.
              19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

              1 Corinthians 15

          • knoxharrington says:

            Dutch Rationalist theologians devised the “swoon theory” to explain it. Jesus wasn’t really dead and as Impatient points out the limited medical knowledge didn’t allow them the means to know it. Christians will explain this away with the spear in the side and water gushing out of Jesus as proof that he did in fact die but then we would have to argue the historical unreliability of the Gospels.

            • LK says:

              Well, knoxharrington, the very liberal forms of Christianity can dispense even with the idea of a real empty tomb and a physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus.

              • knoxharrington says:

                Fair enough. The point is not “can someone create some possible or plausible scenario in which the resurrection might have happened” but “whether or not, given what we know about death, the resurrection is AT ALL possible.” The answer must surely be no. Unless you want to acknowledge that the other resurrected gods during that time were real as well. If you don’t, then your case is just special pleading, as in, “all the other examples are not true but my example is true, those others notwithstanding.”

              • Impatient says:

                Murphy has an answer.

                “Jesus of Nazareth, confirmed by eyewitness accounts and people who were willing to die for the truth of this event.”

                Never mind that we don’t have any eye-witness account, and the later accounts contradict each other, and some make no sense, and that we don’t know why any of these people died, and that other religions have martyrs.

  2. skylien says:

    In case there were really miracles done as described in the bible. Why don’t happen any today or in recent history?

    Does god think like this? “Since they can record everything now, and they have developed remarkedly in the hard sciences doing miracles today just like in the old times would basically proof without a doubt that I exist, and this would basically take the fun out of the ‘do you bilieve’ thing. So better stop with it now. It shouldn’t be too easy to get to heaven.”

  3. Robert says:

    Sorry, but I’m confused. Are you saying that these events really were miracles (which by definition are impossible events according to the laws of nature) or they were natural events misinterpreted by humans? If the plagues were merely caused by natural forces, does that not suggest that perhaps God was not behind it?

    • LK says:

      Yes, Robert — it’s a weird argument that undercuts Bob’s claim to be defending Christianity.

      If all postulated Bible miracles can be explained by science in naturalistic terms, as just improbable events, then that, by Occam’s razor, suggests that we do not need a god to explain them.

      • Bob Murphy says:

        LK you are actually meandering around the path by which I went from atheism to theism. There was a period where I thought there really was a guy named Jesus who went around healing people, but it was all psychosomatic and so we didn’t need to think there actually *was* a God who sent Jesus etc., he was just some guy who believed he was fulfilling a prophecy, that gave him confidence etc.

        But that seems like a big coincidence, the more things I had to pack into the story. With the plagues, for example, it’s not just that a series of bad things happened, it’s that this guy Moses predicted them.

        • LK says:

          Bob Murphy,

          There is no convincing evidence that the plagues or the exodus or the Biblical “Conquest” of Canaan (at least as described in Joshua) ever happened, and much evidence against it.

          As it happens, my personal academic background and PhD is in ancient history — ancient Greece, Rome and the ancient Near East. I have taught at university level on the history of ancient Egypt and the ancient world generally, and even have a published paper in a peer-reviewed journal against the historicity of the Exodus.

          I have looked at the best work done by the best academic conservative Christian apologists for the historicity of the Exodus. Their case can’t survive serious scrutiny. This is why well informed people do not take most of the Old Testament seriously, at least not before the more “historical” books like Kings, and even then there is an awful lot of fiction in it.

          • Gamble says:

            Both of you miss the bigger point. Jesus forever changed humanity. HE can make the blind man, see.

          • Enopoletus Harding says:

            Whoa. I never realized the Lord Keynes had such an academic background.

        • Impatient says:

          I read this three times trying to make sense out of it. You were an atheist who believed the bible stories?

          • Bob Murphy says:

            Not all of them but yes there was a period where I was still an atheist but I thought the most rational explanation for the world around me was that there had indeed been a guy named Jesus who did things like heal sick people, because they honestly believed (erroneously of course) that he was the messiah that they had been taught by their parents would eventually come to save them.

            • Impatient says:

              But you talked about the Moses stories like they were the last straw. That is, you believed them and wanted a tidy explanation of how they could be true.

            • Enopoletus Harding says:

              Why didn’t you come to believe an even more obvious hypotheses- all this nonsense is fiction meant to serve a larger point.

    • skylien says:

      It is really hard how an atom could follow the laws of physics and the will of god at the same time for a miracle when you need it.

      One way this was possible is if everything is already set up right from the beginning, or in one word: Fate. Then god could have arranged any miracle at the right place and time (like a story board) while they are still following physics. But then we are just pawns moving along a way from which you cannot divert and free will and believing in god loses all its meaning.

      • Bob Murphy says:

        skylien wrote:

        One way this was possible is if everything is already set up right from the beginning, or in one word: Fate. Then god could have arranged any miracle at the right place and time (like a story board) while they are still following physics. But then we are just pawns moving along a way from which you cannot divert and free will and believing in god loses all its meaning.

        But skylien, it’s not that your objection here is relevant to my idiosyncratic blog post. What you are saying is directly opposed to a huge chunk of Protestantism. There are all sorts of Bible passages saying God foreordained everything that would happen. Yes, that seems to conflict with free will, and that’s a central problem for theologians–like the existence of evil. I’m not saying I just answered your objection, but you seem to think this is a problem unique to my particular take on things.

        • skylien says:

          Right this is a general problem there, not only for miracles that still obey physics.

          I am not saying you have to be wrong. I mean they also say “Gottes Wege sind unergründlich” (according to Google this is ‘god moves in mysterious ways’;Though I think “myterious” only means we don’t know, but “unergründlich” is much stronger because it means we absolutely CAN’T know).

          Sometimes I like to think about these things, but every time I find out that it doesn’t make sense at the end, no matter which way, and it seems it is supposed to be like this.

  4. integral says:

    Shouldn’t a plague of insects lead to yet another plague of frogs? Maybe a plague of insect-eating birds? (Thus leaving no chariot safe as long as it was parked outside?)

  5. Impatient says:

    We have seen supernovae. They don’t hang over one house. How can such a thing guide people to one house?

    • LK says:

      True, but be generous to bob!

      Presumably he just means there was some kind of rational explanation — like a shooting star or comet was misinterpreted by the Magi to be showing them where the house was, etc.

      But of course this kind of rationalising approach doesn’t explain how Jesus “rose” from the dead or how staffs were turned into snakes.

    • Enopoletus Harding says:

      Exactly. Aaron Adir has written a book on how the Star of Bethlehem must be a literary, not natural, phenomenon.

  6. Innocent says:

    Okay, so why don’t miracles happen today?

    Who says they don’t? I have seen miracles and they have astonished me. However what is a miracle? If I was to come and tell you of something to occur in the future and it happened would you believe me or would it be a lucky guess? If I stood before you and ‘parted’ the Red Sea would you then believe in God and change your life 100%? Not even the people of Israel did so.

    Miracles are hollow things. They only touch the converted, However God has made many statements that have and still will come to pass. People say, if only I could see then I would believe. Really? 100 people who witness the same event cannot get the story straight, let alone every generation needing another miracle that is so monumental.

    So God performs another miracle, one that people cannot ignore, what happens when we tell our children about it? The same thing that has happened since Moses time, it was hyperbole, it did not happen, it is simply a story to keep children ‘good’.

    My God is a God of science. The true power of god is light and light is nothing more or less then knowledge and truth. Could we nowadays cause a light to travel before a group of people to tell them which way they should go? Do we nowadays have the ability to turn ‘water’ into wine? Ironically enough do we now have devices that can tell us what dogs are thinking? the answer is yes. Is this ‘magic’? Or is it science? Yet because we see it as ‘knowledge’ somehow this diminishes God who has been around long enough to know ‘all things’.

    Suppose the red sea parting was nothing more than a tsunami? It fits the profile of one except the length of time perhaps. Yet why are all of these things less miraculous because they have natural or simple explanations?

    Finally given enough time is it not possible we will find a way to live forever? Of course we can. Now add onto all things that there dimensions and universes barely explored in science, etc. Our knowledge even today is so small that it is ridiculous. Could we not at some point be able to heal the sick simply by releasing nano bots into them from little less than a ‘touch’?

    Yet rather than see this as miracles, that the blind shall see and the deaf shall hear, we simply use it to replace God.

    God is. You can find Him if you seek. I do not know the method by which He communicates but someday we will figure that out as well. It may be very simple, so simple that we simply have not been able to uncover it yet. There are many things left to discover. Many items yet to learn. So much more light that God will bestow upon this earth.

    • Gamble says:

      I thin the biggest and most often occurring miracle I witness today is when a person is at the end of their road. They have realized they don’t have much to live for. They want to change but they have tried and know they cant.

      Then they call out. They give in and ask to be saved.

      Amazingly their life begins to change for the better. This is the miracle of Jesus Christ. The saving grace of Jesus Christ.

    • knoxharrington says:

      Miracle: “an unusual or wonderful event that is believed to be caused by the power of God.”

      This is the first definition from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. By this definition miracles happen constantly. If mere “belief” that the unusual or wonderful event was caused by god is sufficient for a miracle we are off to the races.

      A better definition would be “a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent.” (David Hume) If you jump off a building and plummet to the ground but stop short and levitate to a soft landing then I would say that qualifies as a miracle because it violates the law of nature.

      “Jimmy was in a bad car accident but he walked away with only a minor bruise and it’s a miracle” (oft heard among the faithful) does not qualify.

      There is no evidence that any of the miraculous events in Exodus took place. As I’ve said on here repeatedly, provide evidence outside of the Bible for the claims and I will be less inclined to doubt – sadly, for the believer, no such evidence is forthcoming.

  7. Gamble says:

    Humans only pretend to understand laws of physics. Sure we do our best to articulate our reality but it is only superficial.

    • Mike M says:

      Gamble,
      I believe you articulated the main issue with this discussion. Nowhere is there an element of humility. Through all the recitation of one’s credentials (see LK) and pontification of positions nowhere is there even a hint of the caveat, “as we understand it.”

      We arrogantly think we have it all figured out and boast of our accomplishments and citations of others to support our opinions, yet we don’t fully comprehend what we don’t know and we understand things only within a limited context. A humble pursuit of this topic will yield more understanding.

  8. Bob Murphy says:

    The confidence with which some of you state what is possible and impossible is very entertaining. There are literally books being written by MDs talking about people coming back from being clinically dead. Yes, these well-documented episodes happened in a modern hospital environment, but some of you seem to be claiming that it is literally impossible for a human to be dead and then alive again in the future. No it isn’t.

    • LK says:

      No doubt what you mean is that some people are clinically dead for a short time, but can be resuscitated by modern cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

      What cases are there of people coming back from the dead after being crucified and being dead for 72 hours?

      • LK says:

        E.g, after serious decomposition has already started.

      • Dan says:

        There are multiple stories of people coming back to life on the autopsy table. Here’s one where a little girl comes back to life at her funeral. http://hollywoodlife.com/2014/07/14/toddler-comes-back-to-life-funeral-filipino-girl-video/

        • LK says:

          Except it is unlikely those people were even dead in the first place. When you are in a third world nation, and medicine is poor, mistakes are made.

          • Dan says:

            There are stories like that in the US and other first world countries, but I have a feeling none of them will count in your eyes either.

      • Bob Murphy says:

        “What cases are there of people coming back from the dead after being crucified and being dead for 72 hours?”

        Jesus of Nazareth, confirmed by eyewitness accounts and people who were willing to die for the truth of this event.

        LK you are changing your statements here on the fly. Before you were saying it was impossible for people to come back from the dead. Now you are saying, “OK I’m not talking about all the documented cases, I want you to prove it for the case where Neil deGrasse Tyson wasn’t overlooking with a clipboard. Ha! Got you.”

        • Impatient says:

          Wait a second. The credibility of that is what we’re looking at. As in, you say that happened with Jesus, but when has it ever happened otherwise? So you can’t cite Jesus to argue it’s plausible about Jesus.

          And what’s this 72 hours you guys are talking about? If he supposedly died on Friday afternoon and was gone by Sunday morning, that’s closer to 36.

          I won’t even get into the eyewitness claim.

        • LK says:

          I never stated anywhere above that it is “impossible for people to come back from the dead”. Anyone familiar with modern medicine knows well that it is possible to be clinically dead for **short periods**, and be revived by modern cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

          That, however, does not help you with Jesus’ alleged resurrection, which supposedly happened after he had been dead for 72 hours. Your argument in your original post is:

          “So when I think about the miracles of the Bible, I actually think if agnostic scientists from today were alive back then and observed them with their instruments etc., they would say, “Ohhhh, that’s not really a miracle. “

          As I point out, it is extremely implausible to think up any situation in which that would happen with Jesus’ alleged resurrection — a man killed by crucifixion (who really died and wasn’t just mistakenly declared dead) and then dead for 72 hours.

          • Bob Murphy says:

            OK LK sorry, you’re right, I misunderstood your initial reactions. When you said “it would be interesting to see how Bob can rationalise Jesus coming back from the dead” I thought you meant that coming back from the dead was an intrinsically hard thing to rationalize. But if you meant, given all of the other circumstances in the gospel story about that particular death, fair enough.

          • Tel says:

            People have been caught in water under ice and have come back from the dead quite a long time later. Mind you many people caught under ice never come back.

            Act of God really.

        • Grane Peer says:

          Dr. Murphy, I think there is little to be accomplished here. If you presented a white crow, why, that wouldn’t be a crow at all because crows are black. If jesus was resurrected from the dead he probably wasn’t really dead maybe just appeared that way due to a mixture of tetrodotoxin and bufotoxin and what they saw was just zombie jesus.

        • Robert says:

          “Jesus of Nazareth, confirmed by eyewitness accounts and people who were willing to die for the truth of this event.”

          But what eyewintesses? The Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses, but decades or even generations later. Nor do any of the Gospels actually mentioning anyone seeing the resurrection, instead they merely find an empty tomb.

          The only claims made of the disciples actually seeing Jesus are very vague (which is odd considering the resurrection is the cornerstone of Christianity) or suggest the appearance of a ghost rather than a human resurrection (such as appearing out of nowhere in a locked room).

          • LK says:

            Not to mention this passage in Matthew about his alleged post-resurrection appearance:

            “But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful.” (Matthew 28:17).

            Hmmmm… Some “were doubtful”. That’s a bit strange.

            • Bob Murphy says:

              Hmmmm… Some “were doubtful”. That’s a bit strange.

              Sounds like you guys!

            • Impatient says:

              Interesting. So even assuming these accounts are reliable, which is a whopping great dubious assumption, this contradicts Murphy’s Doubting Thomas comment doesn’t it?

              • LK says:

                Yeah, just imagine if such a thing really happened: a man appeared before the disciples in Galilee claiming to be Jesus resurrected (ignore for the moment the absurd tales about him blasting off into outer space afterwards!), even though they never saw him rise from the dead, and actually don’t really know what happened to him, just that there was an empty tomb.

                So some of them think it is him, but others actually think it is *doubtful* that it is him.

                What the…? Is that the incredible, rock solid evidence that a man was actually resurrected?

          • Bob Murphy says:

            The only claims made of the disciples actually seeing Jesus are very vague (which is odd considering the resurrection is the cornerstone of Christianity) or suggest the appearance of a ghost rather than a human resurrection (such as appearing out of nowhere in a locked room).

            Look, believe me, I totally get if you think these stories are all made-up; I used to think that too. But there’s this (Jn 20: 24-29):

            24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

            But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

            26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

            28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

            • LK says:

              Why should we think these things even happened?

              The earliest Christian writings are in fact Paul’s letters, and the gospels come later; John is the last of the gospel, written c. 100 AD.

              In Paul, there is not one shred of direct evidence in 1 Corinthians 15:3–6 for the view that the disciples saw a walking, talking corpse: rather, their “appearances” appear to be in the same category as Paul’s: dreams and hallucinations of their dead leader. Paul says nothing about anyone finding an empty tomb or women seeing Jesus.

              Moreover, when you go on to read 1 Corinthians 15.35–53 you see that Paul says that Jesus had a “pneumatic body” (in soma pneumatikos in Koine Greek) when he was resurrected. Paul seems to envisage a direct resurrection from the grave to heaven, where Jesus became a heavenly being with no flesh and blood, and clearly that rules out a “fleshy” bodily resurrection on earth as in the gospels.

              1 Corinthians 15.35–53 makes it clear that Jesus’s new “pneumatic body” was totally different from his dead body of flesh and blood. Paul says “what you sow is not the body that is to be” (1 Corinthians 15.37) – that is, what is buried (a body of flesh and blood) is not the resurrected pneumatic body.

              Paul even says “flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of god” (1 Corinthians 15.50) – so the “pneumatic body” will not be one of flesh and blood nor have flesh or blood (but be of some heavenly substance), so it is clear Paul couldn’t have believed any stories like the doubting Thomas one, which were probably later fictions.
              .
              That is why the Paul and the earliest Christians as described in Paul’s letters show no interest in an empty tomb. The “proof” of Jesus’s resurrection for them was nothing but dreams and aural and visual hallucinations.

            • Impatient says:

              What? You ‘totally get’ if we think these stories are fables but then you cite one of the stories to refute us? Why can’t that story be made up? Why can’t it be a fable too?
              It’s like you’re exploring new frontiers in circular reasoning.

        • Enopoletus Harding says:

          I say the eyewitness and martyrdom accounts are fabrications.

      • Andrew Keen says:

        I must’ve missed the part in the Bible where it said that Jesus was clinically dead by 2014 medical standards.

        • Mike M says:

          Its right below the passage that states God created Man with infinite wisdom and understanding of all things around him. sarc off

    • knoxharrington says:

      “There are literally books being written by MDs talking about people coming back from being clinically dead. Yes, these well-documented episodes happened in a modern hospital environment, but some of you seem to be claiming that it is literally impossible for a human to be dead and then alive again in the future. No it isn’t.”

      Finally, a breakthrough. The “resurrection” of Jesus is commonplace, not special and happens with enough regularity that MDs are writing books about it. Now that is settled – why should anyone, given that resurrection appears to be no big deal, believe that Jesus was god, the son of god or anything in between?

      I am glad Bob can freely admit that the basis for Christianity, Jesus atoning sacrifice, was nothing really special and deserves no special consideration.

      • Major.Freedom says:

        Only one problem. Jesus was dead for three days.

        I’d like to see Murphy’s confidence about Jesus have soke support of documented evidence from MDs discovering corpses in the morgue suddenly coming back to life after three days.

        On a side note, I just don’t get how he doesn’t appreciate the fact that the way he comes down on atheist/agnostic folks for being so “confident”, in order to be consistent he would have to apply that same negativity with full force, and perhaps even more, to his own confidence in the Bible storirs, God, Jesus, etc.

        I mean, Jonah LIVING in a whale? Holy confidence!

        • Bob Murphy says:

          MF wrote:

          ’d like to see Murphy’s confidence about Jesus have soke support of documented evidence from MDs discovering corpses in the morgue suddenly coming back to life after three days.

          Well Major Freedom I googled for about 45 seconds and found this story from 2012 about a Russian woman whom doctors declared dead, spent 3 days in the morgue, and then came back to life.

          I’m guessing this won’t cause you even the slightest twinge of doubt though.

          • LK says:

            From the story:

            “On the morgue incident, chief doctor of Tomsk Regional Clinical Hospital Maksim Zayukov, said: ‘As of now I cannot explain why this mistake happened,’ The Siberian Times reported.”

            What is more probable?:

            (1) That they mistakenly declared her dead? or

            (2) Or that she really died and came back to life by some unknown natural process or miracle?
            ————
            If you are trying to use these in some inductive argument by analogy to explain Jesus’ s death and alleged resurrection:

            On (1), that would suggest Jesus wasn’t really dead. A mistaken was made.

            On (2), it suggests that occasionally some people come back to life by some unknown natural process or by miracles.

            But then the inference that in this case and in Jesus’ case it *must* have been a miracle, AND by a Christian god (which requires massive further justification) just doesn’t necessarily follow.

            There is still space for a rational explanation here.

            Of course the most probable explanation is (1): a mistake was made.

          • knoxharrington says:

            Is this woman the “Daughter of God”? She just replicated something seen only one other time (a three day death and resurrection). Hosanna in the highest! The Bible is true!!

          • Major.Freedom says:

            Honestly it wouldn’t, because someone having no oxygen to their brain for 3 days would have resulted in such massive damage that even IF such an obviously bogus story from crazy town Russia were true, she would have been a total vegetable.

            She wasn’t dead. She was thought dead.

            Did you know that after 1 day of being dead, bodies already start to decompose?

            I don’t think 45 seconds of Googling and cutting pasting whatever story fits the bill, is something that will shake my confidence.

            I think maybe your supreme confidence that Jesus was able to come back to life after being dead for 3 days, is coming head to head with my supreme confidence that he didn’t.

            So what now? Point to the other’s confidence as a character flaw?

            We’re all confident in our own ways. Confidence per se I don’t think is something to attack. Christianity advocates confidence after all!

      • Bob Murphy says:

        knoxharrington I was actually planning on doing a post making this exact type of point next Sunday. My purpose was going to show how ironic it was that some of the critics here can a priori blow up evidence of divine providence–at the same time they think they are being empirical and willing to see where the evidence leads them. I’m glad I can link to this comment to show I’m not attacking a strawman.

        • Impatient says:

          I think this comment proves you are not seeing knowharrington’s point at all.

          How is asking about decomposing bodies rising up a priori? It’s based on all we know about dead bodies. Like Major.Freedom asks above and LK asked earlier. Bodies decomposing in a hot climate for days are things we have experience with. they don’t get up and walk. Tha is not a priori.

          And it’s not the least bit odd to say “Bob Murphy’s evidence is dreadful, and his other argument undercuts his religion.” That’s perfectly coherent.

          You are the one making an incoherent argument here. Exaggerating slightly you say
          1. Jesus is Lord because he came back from the dead, what a miracle, it proves he’s divine.
          2. Hey lots of people come back from the dead, it’s pretty commone really, don’t dare call them divine that’s blasphemy.

          knox is exactly right. Sometimes you say the resurrection is a fantastically special event. But the when the quality of your evidence, your supposed withnesses, is questioned based on normal evidence you say, hey nothing special, can easily happen.

          • Bob Murphy says:

            Impatient, no, I’m not objecting to Knoxharrington if he says, “I would like to see some evidence besides centuries-old tall tales.” That’s perfectly understandable. What I’m referring to is him saying this:

            Finally, a breakthrough. The “resurrection” of Jesus is commonplace, not special and happens with enough regularity that MDs are writing books about it. Now that is settled – why should anyone, given that resurrection appears to be no big deal, believe that Jesus was god, the son of god or anything in between?

            I am glad Bob can freely admit that the basis for Christianity, Jesus atoning sacrifice, was nothing really special and deserves no special consideration.

            He has thus set up a catch-22: Either I admit there is no scientific evidence that the gospel miracles happened, in which case no rational person should believe Christianity, OR I show there is scientific evidence that they occurred, in which case they’re not miraculous and no rational person should believe in Christianity.

            If that’s Knoxharrington’s position, OK fine, but then he shouldn’t think his rejection of Christianity is due to the evidence. No matter what happens, he will be right.

            • Impatient says:

              But I don’t think you have hhis argument right. Let me pretend to be knox for a second and rephrase it.

              “Bob, you claim this miracle happened and that you have convincing evidence for it. Now you need pretty good evidence to prove a miracle I think, since they are so extraordinary. But all you have is some lousy literary sources. Do you have anything else?”

              “Yes, I have evidence that people rise from the dead as often as they buy a new toaster, maybe more often.”

              “That won’t do Bob. You are calling this a miracle, something so extraordinary it proves Jesus was god. Something even bigger than water into wine. If people pop up from the tomb that often, well it’s not the sort of miracle or proof you claim.”

              “Oh heads you win tails I lose you mean?”

              “No, I mean you need proof of this particular alleged miracle, not proof it could have happened pretty easily even without divine intervention.”

              • Bob Murphy says:

                Impatient wrote:

                “Yes, I have evidence that people rise from the dead as often as they buy a new toaster, maybe more often.”

                I realize you are exaggerating both for comedic effect and to make your position clear, but this is really a bit much, Impatient. I was responding to what I thought were claims that the gospel accounts were physically impossible, and that I was wrong to say a scientist could go back and, after much study, come up with an explanation that didn’t violate the laws of physics as we understand them.

                I’m curious which of my actual statements you think matches up with your Pretend Bob statement above.

              • Dan says:

                Dr. Murphy, Ken B isn’t really known for accurately restating your position. I wouldn’t count on his new name causing any change in that standard.

            • knoxharrington says:

              Bob, with all due respect, you were the one who brought up the commonplace nature of resurrection – I was hoisting you on your own petard. I don’t think anyone clinically dead, no brain or heart function for three full days, can “resurrect.” A kid who falls through the ice and is revived an hour later doesn’t meet that criteria.

              Believers, like you, want to use science to prove that the resurrection could take place. Fine. My point is that even if the resurrection is possible that doesn’t get you anywhere you want to go with regard to Jesus’ divinity. Ok, Jesus resurrected. So what? That doesn’t prove anything given your scientific proof that resurrection is possible. Either it’s a non-event or it’s an event of world historical importance, as Ralph Raico would say.

              The burden of proof lies on the person asserting the claim. Produce ANY evidence that the miracles asserted occurred. The Bible doesn’t count. A reference to Spider-Man in a Fantastic Four comic doesn’t prove Spider-Man is real. Show me non-Biblical sourcing for ANY miracle as set forth in the Bible which cannot be explained in a naturalistic way.

              My rejection of Christianity, and all god claims, is the lack of evidence. Produce some evidence – you are asserting god exists. Show us.

              • Bob Murphy says:

                Believers, like you, want to use science to prove that the resurrection could take place. Fine. My point is that even if the resurrection is possible that doesn’t get you anywhere you want to go with regard to Jesus’ divinity. Ok, Jesus resurrected. So what? That doesn’t prove anything given your scientific proof that resurrection is possible. Either it’s a non-event or it’s an event of world historical importance, as Ralph Raico would say.

                OK, I’m glad you keep reaffirming your view on this. I hope you can see why it would be utterly pointless for me to continue this conversation. You are admitting that even if I could literally convince you, using empirical methods that had Richard Dawkins’ seal of approval, that Jesus of Nazareth really was crucified, died, was buried, and rose from the dead on the “third” day, that it wouldn’t budge you on the question of your salvation.

                Believe me, I understand that that tangential remark was a throw-away line on your part, and that your main argument is that this is all bunk, that you DON’T think some guy Jesus died and rose again, etc. But it’s remarkable to me that you are admitting even if I could convince you otherwise, you still would see no reason to seriously consider Christianity. That is some serious a priori commitment to your metaphysical worldview. I am only dwelling on this because I hope you realize it’s there.

              • knoxharrington says:

                Take the blinders off, Bob. You have the burden of proof here. I pointed out that if you are correct and resurrection is common that it makes Jesus divinity less likely and not more likely.

                Where is the evidence that the miracles took place? Convince me that they took place using evidence. Sadly, for you and other believers, you have NO evidence that any of the miracles attesting to God’s manifestation in daily life or that his son was resurrected took place. Just admit that you can’t back up your claims with good evidence. As I said before, the Bible itself cannot be used to assert that the claims it makes are true. Where are the contemporaneous sources attesting to the zombie walk in Matthew, the parting of the Red Sea, that Adam and Eve really are the first people, etc. Where is the evidence for any of this? Forgive me my incredulity while I stand back in awe or your inability to recognize the manifest weakness in your position and your complete and utter gullibility.

                Just produce good evidence for your position Bob. That’s all I ask. Produce some evidence that the claims on which your faith hangs are based in fact. You can do that, can’t you?

              • Impatient says:

                This is funny. Knox has repeatedly asked for evidence of a PARTICULAR miracle. Bob has provided none. Instead he presents an argument thst maybe the alleged event could have possibly maybe happened as a NONMIRACLE. Yet Murphy cannot see any problem.
                If you could prove to me all details you claim about Jesus then I would give serious thought to converting. So I bet would knox. But that is what you refuse to do. You seem to be arguing BOTH that resurrection is so extraordinary it would be a miracle and so commonplace it’s easy to believe in. And then you say knoxharrington is trying to have it both ways.

              • knoxharrington says:

                Thanks Impatient – very well put.

              • Harold says:

                Maybe a post next week is needed. I don’t see your point Bob. It is fine to believe in God or whatever, and it seems pointless to try to work out *how* God the miracles – whether by affecting the weather or wholesale violation of what we think of as natural laws. Pretty much anything is scientifically *possible* if given enough time. The sugar could un-dissolve into a lump at the bottom of the coffee through normal molecular motion. It does not happen because it is overwhelmingly unlikely. Were it to do so, it would be a miracle. Would it make any difference that we can offer a scientific explanation?

        • knoxharrington says:

          I’m glad I can help, Bob. In that post please point to contemporaneous, non-Biblical sources for evidence of the miracles attested to in the Bible. Egyptian references to the plague, Nile turning to blood, walking on water, feeding the multitude, healing lepers, zombies in Matthew, etc. Any non-Biblical source which backs up any of these things as being true would be exceedingly helpful in proving up the “irony.”

          It is not that I’m sure that these events didn’t take place – it is just that no good evidence exists that proves they took place. I’m willing to see where the evidence leads me – just provide good evidence – and the Bible doesn’t count for a variety of reasons which are regularly discussed in this forum.

      • Ben B says:

        I don’t think Bob said that resurrection was commonplace. He only said that there were MD’s writing books about people being resurrected. Perhaps Bob’s use of the word “literally” gives the impression that it is commonplace; however, I understood him to mean that people on this blog seem to be outright rejecting that it’s possible even though there exists at least some documented medical research on the subject.

        Besides, why does something have to happen with regularity before someone writes a book about it? I mean, this entire thread includes discussion about part of a book where the events allegedly do not happen with regularity.

        I’m not sure Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God solely because he rose from the dead; I mean it helps his case based on his prior actions, but the fact that he rose from the dead would probably not be enough evidence for Christians either.

  9. S.C. says:

    But to me, it is even more of an accomplishment if these miracles occurred while the underlying atoms obeyed what we now think of as the standard laws of physics.

    There are plenty of television specials—usually History Channel ones—that try to explain Biblical/religious things in scientific terms. Like Atlantis was the island of Crete struck by a landslide-induced tsunami, the parting of the Red Sea was caused by strong winds, and others. I consider such explanations to merely be a fad.

  10. Tel says:

    Has anyone seen the way Bob drives? It’s a miracle no on has been hurt.

  11. Raja says:

    Is Bob not a causal realist driver?

  12. knoxharrington says:

    Why are Impatient’s posts being deleted?

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Because it’s Ken B., knox.

      • knoxharrington says:

        Sorry – I must have missed that along the way.

        • David Bockman says:

          Sorry, I’m Jewish. We look at this question a little differently. Our Judaism does not look to miracles for justification. We, instead, look to the covenant we have with God. In a way, the laws we follow are results oriented: if we follow the lawsand see that we are better people and the world is a better place (or at least our corner of it), then what need do we have for miracles? God (as we understand it) wants our loyalty and obedience, not our belief in the supernatural against all rational thought. And, by the way, the plagues in Egypt are not even called “miracles” by the Biblical text. They are “signs and wonders” (something along those lines. Did God send them, did they work? They helped the Israelites, rescued them, and taught them that it was better to leave Egypt than be stuck forever in a repressive slave society. To get somebody to leave his home and head out into the desert on a journey to who-knows-where – now THAT’S a miracle in my book. In the Hebrew bible (does not contain Christianity’s ‘New Testament’ that changed all the rules), miracles happen, but they are not the center of any questions of God’s existence or human worth. They simply ARE. In thatway, they behave pretty much like natural laws: humans don’t control them, even if they ARE wowed by them. God, as we see it, wants us to use our God-given brains to do the right thing. That’s the measure of a religious adherent’s faith.

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