(10 votes, average: 4.40 out of 5)
Loading...This is the second guest post by Michael Shermer, from his Foreword to the new book edited by John Loftus, The Case Against Miracles. (For the first, see yesterday’s post) Michael is on the blog and is happy to respond to comments you have.
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Michael Shermer is the author of The Science of Good & Evil and Why People Believe Weird Things, among other works.
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When we are thinking about miracles, as with anything else that happens in the world, what we are after is a causal explanation, and here John Loftus cuts to the chase when he cites my friend and colleague David Kyle Johnson’s definition of a miracle—winnowed-down from Hume—as “A miracle is simply an event caused by God.” As Johnson explains, “For any given event, if we knew that God took special care to cause it, we would (and should) call that event a miracle—regardless of whether it involved the violation of natural law.” However, it is important to distinguish this from something that appears divinely-caused but was, in fact, simply a highly improbable natural occurrence, along the lines of my million-to-one odds analysis above. We want to distinguish between a natural and a supernatural event when considering miracle claims. This is why I agree with Loftus’ definition:
A miracle is a supernaturally caused extraordinary event of the highest kind, one that’s unexplainable and even impossible by means of natural processes alone.
Pulling back to look at an even bigger picture of what we’re after here in thinking about miracles is the question What is truth? This is the question I have been trying
This post gets even more interesting — how do you know what is “true”??? Want to keep reading? Join the blog. It’s chock full of interesting information and views, and it is crazily affordable — just about two bucks a month. And all the money goes to charity. So why not?
There are about 7 billion bibles in the world today that say Jesus rose from the dead, and Christians have been saying and writing that very same thing for a few thousand years. That’s some weighty, objective evidence. If a Martian stepped off a flying saucer and commanded, “take me to your leader,” and you handed him a New Testament, you would be found credible by the Martian, even if you were not a Christian. Regardless of what faith you believe, or even if you don’t believe in anything at all, Jesus of Nazareth is the person who has had the most influence on the world we live in today.
A Martian is a nonbeliever, an outsider. An outsider is the perspective with which you should approach your culturally indoctrinated faith. I wrote a book on how best to approach your religion and it’s akin to being a Martian.
The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1616147377/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_eD2bEbD4YWXJC
By this reckoning, the truth value of a claim is determined by popularity of the claim, a form of (particularly in this case) Vox Populi, Vox Dei (Latin, “the voice of the people is the voice of God”) but our Martian visitor would then likely inquire about the truth value of Islamic claims, inasmuch as there are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, not far behind the 2.1 billion Christians. And since Islam is growing faster than Christianity, it is only a matter of time before the one religion surpasses the other in numbers and, by this reasoning, the validity of their claims.
Hello Michael! I am a big fan of your Science Salon podcast! I am a Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventist. (David Koresh was not BTW. See: https://digital.library.txstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10877/1958/507.pdf?sequence=1 ) I too was a born-again Christian, but for 25 years before I quit! Anyway, I am a materialist, that is, one who believes that the only thing that exists is material substance. A spiritualist believes in the existence of the non-physical, like most religious people do. I believe the “Mighty One” of Ancient Israel is a particular being, not outside of space or time. (This is what the ancient Hebrew writings portray “El,” unfortunately translated as “God” in our English bibles, as…a being with form and substance, hair, hands, loins, sits on a throne, comes to earth at times, has messengers, has a wife and kids, etc.) Oh, and how cool, Genesis 1:27 says we humans, male and female, are made in “Their” image, (Elohim is a plural word, feminine base, “Eloah,” with a masculine plural ending, “im.”) If a human like creature, with simply human intelligence, lived for thousands of years, (an ET), their science would seem like a “miracle” to us! (I’ve heard you say this before…and this is exactly what we believe!) Scientists, as you know, are working on raising the dead. Why would they do this if there was no scientific hope this was possible? Never tell Elon Musk that something is impossible! I do not believe the entire bible is inspired….each claim must be investigated independently. The non-inspired accounts are still valuable however. There are many attestations to the risen Jesus. So many, in fact, that it would be considered historical if not believed to be impossible to us at this point in our evolutionary history. It is possible, in material reality, for an advanced humanoid ET to easily do this. And I have to say, it is difficult to explain the rise in the belief that Jesus was resurrected if it never happened. There were other “Messiahs,” other resurrection stories, but none made it off the launching pad. Maybe some claims in the Hebrew OT are correct. Maybe there is intelligent life on other planets. Maybe “Elohim” is a plurality of real beings. The Hebrew word for “create,” “bara” does not mean to create something from nothing, “ex nihilo.” It means to gather, form, name, purpose…much like an inventor would “create” a cell phone. I would love to talk to you!
The number of people who believe a thing is hardly evidence of that thing. And hardly objective.
Take a miracle story from the New Testament, say walking on water or loaves and fishes. Hypothetically, what evidence would be required to satisfy Hume’s criterion? What evidence would you require to prove these events actually happened and were miracles? Honestly, I can’t think of anything that would convince me – no minimum number of eyewitness accounts, no physical evidence. Does Hume’s Maxim amount to an assumption that miracles are impossible?
No. It does amount to rejecting mere testimonial evidence alone though, especially in the Bible, and it’s all testimonial evidence.
I have an additional problem that I’ve seen magicians like Penn & Teller walk on water and turn water into wine. They’re magic tricks. Miracles would be the equivalent of so-called “real magic”, and because good magicians can perform what appears to be real magic (but isn’t) it raises the bar for what we would be willing to accept as a genuine miracle claim.
Exactly! Magicians can be fooled by another magician. So magicians cannot reliably distinguish a true miracle from a false one. Scientists have also been duped by fakers. So scientists cannot reliably distinguish a true miracle from a false one. Which is more likely – that a scientist is fooled or an instrument malfunctions, or that a purported miracle is real? Testimonial evidence and physical evidence can falsify a miracle, but I don’t see how they can verify a miracle.
In your previous post, you suggested us nonbelievers purchase and gift a copy of your book to our favorite Catholic radio apologists and others. I’m going to skip doing that, but I will get an extra copy for my born again neighbor who has been trying to lead me to accept Jesus for over ten years! He also belongs to a weekly men of prayer group. Members “pray for people with cancers and liver problems and believe in god to heal.” Hope he enjoys it.
I ordered the book this weekend! Of course this time of year we are deluged with Christmas movies, and I love them (well, some of them), but often the message of these movies is that you just have to believe, have faith. The Polar Express, for example: the ultimate message is BELIEVE. But in the real world that is a terrible message! That is how people get conned out of their life savings. Or end up following a corrupt politician, or religious leader. A much better message would be THINK, or REASON! But then, what fun is that?
Exactly! Thanks!
Very interesting and very helpful. I would suggest adding that maybe the disciples dreamed of Jesus after His death and this seemed to them like a real appearance of Jesus. I have heard numerous people and patients claim that so and so visited them after so and so had died when what they were really describing was a dream.
In my chapter on the resurrection I offer a really good explanation for the belief in the resurrection of Jesus. It’s based on rationalization due to cogntive dissonance reduction.
Hi, Ronald. An interesting fact is that people in the ancient world, especially in first century Palestine, already believed dreams were “real” in an ontological sense. It wouldn’t have to be a particularly salient, vivid, or “realistic” dream for them to consider it a real occurrence. Both testaments of the Bible indicate this fact. If something happened in a dream, then it happened in real life. As a result, it would not have made much of a difference to the disciples if we were to inform them that they only dreamt of Jesus’ resurrection. I can imagine their response would have been, “Yeah, so what?” : )
Hi Darren –
Thanks so much for making the time and effort to participate on the blog! I have purchased JWL’s Against Miracles anthology, and look forward to getting into it, and especially your chapter 4 on psychology.
Your point here is an interesting one, and a very intuitive notion – that the ancients had a more epistemologically and ontologically “accepting” view of dreams than we moderns do.
To make sure I’m not just succumbing to a relative of confirmation bias (or perhaps being prejudicial against the credulity of pre-scientific ancients), if possible, would you mind unpacking this a bit with some examples/evidence or pointing me in a direction of further scholarly reading?
And if you address this in the book, I’m looking forward to it.
Thanks much!
Hi, Hngerhman!
There is actually so much written on the subject that I’m not sure where to begin. I can point you to a few of my favorite resources on the subject, but I bet a simple Google Scholar and Google Books search can supplement this list:
1) The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East (A. Leo Oppenheim)
2) Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity (William V Harris)
3) Mesopotamian Conceptions of Dreams and Dream Rituals (S. A. L. Butler)
4) Dreams and Dream Narratives in the Biblical World (J.-M. Husser)
5) “Standing at the Heads of Dreamers: A Study of Dreams in Antiquity” (Frances Lynn Flannery-Dailey; Ph.D. diss., The University of Iowa, May 2000).
6) Dreamers, Scribes, and Priests: Jewish Dreams in the Hellenistic and Roman Eras (F. Flannery-Dailey)
7) The Dream and Human Societies (ed. G. E. Von Grunebaum and R. Caillois)
8) “Dreams and Visions in the Graeco-Roman World and Early Christianity” (J. S. Hanson)
9) Convinced That God Had Called Us: Dreams, Visions, and the Perception of God’s Will in Luke-Acts (J. B. F. Miller)
10) Dreams in Late Antiquity: Studies in the Imagination of a Culture (P. C. Miller)
Does this help?
This is phenomenal, thank you!
Would you mind pointing to sources for this first century belief about dreams? Thanks.
Please disregard my question. Your list of sources didn’t appear for me originally.
With this line of reasoning we could discount all historic claims of miracles and arrive at the unwarranted conclusion that no miracles at all are possible.
If however we assume at least one miracle can occur the historical evidence for it being in 1st century palestine would then be pretty good.
Whether no miracles are possible or at least one can occur is for now unanswerable.
What if miracles are indeed impossible? You must allow for this hypothesis.
Why must anyone assume anything about miracles?
Let’s let the objective evidence (or lack thereof) dictate what we can reasonably accept.
Yes for now we should allow both possibilities – that no mirackes are possible or that at least one miracle is possible.
If you have a method which enables you to discount all miracle claims you should be suspicious of the method. Because for now that question shouldnt be decidable.
No one in my anthology, or David Hume, has said miracles are impossible. They may be impossible, if one asks whether an incorporable spirit can act in the material world. Such a question is a metaphysical one. We’re asking epistemological questions.
But someone rising from the dead is an epistemological claim. If someone rose from the dead in the past all we would have as evidence is eyewitness testimony. According to Hume’s reasoning every instance of these claims should be discounted.
This reasoning will guarantee we mis-characterize a resurrection event should it have ever occurred.
If we’re open to the possibility of at least one miracle occurring we shouldnt be satisfied with this method of reasoning.
Hi there! While the claim that someone “rose from the dead” has overlaps with epistemology, the claim extends beyond just one field of study. A resurrection claim is (at the very least) also a medical, historical, biological, and potentially scientific claim. And depending on the date of the claim, we would not necessarily have to rely solely on eyewitness testimony. For instance, in Craig Keener’s two-volume book, Miracles, he documents numerous modern-day resurrection claims. Theoretically, a resurrection claim could appear in the New York Times tomorrow complete with video surveillance footage, medical documentation, pre- and post-laboratory results, medical examiner investigations, and (of course) eyewitness testimony. The point is that neither Hume nor anyone in The Case for Miracles suggests that these claims need to be discounted automatically. Rather, as Chapter 4 of the book explains in detail, we shouldn’t rely solely on eyewitness testimony. There are numerous psychological factors that could be at play here. In the event that all we have are eyewitness claims, however, the possibility that human testimony is mistaken (or fraudulent) will always be more likely than the notion that a natural law suddenly went awry due to an undetectable supernatural agent. By definition and by everyone’s experience (including yours), people make mistakes (or lie) far more often than physics or biology going amiss. This doesn’t mean that miracles are impossible, but it does mean we should require more than just stories (even if those stories are first-hand accounts). This was Hume’s argument. That’s his line of reasoning. It’s not a mischaracterization of miracles or resurrection claims. It’s a statement of caution that says simply, Don’t believe everything you hear or read. People are not always credible, suitable, or accurate eyewitnesses.
Thank you for your post!
brenmcg: “This reasoning will guarantee we mis-characterize a resurrection event should it have ever occurred.
If we’re open to the possibility of at least one miracle occurring we shouldn’t be satisfied with this method of reasoning.”
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No! We can be open to the possibility a miracle took place even though reasonable people must require sufficient objective evidence for it. And if no miracle rises to the reasonable requirement for objective evidence then so be it. What we would be left with is the possibility that a miracle took place but that we can’t show that it did.
That’s all a believer has, by the way. This means believers should honestly admit that even though they can’t show a miracle took place, they believe it did anyway.
Yes but that’s the point. Using Hume’s method alone you may end up discounting an actual miracle.
Yes, but there is no other alternative except to believe any miracle tale simply because it’s accepted in one’s cultural religious history. Furthermore, being naively uncritical about miracle tales will allow any nefarious huckster to take advantage of you, such that he could take your wife, your children, your money, and your life. Surely a good god would not want to put you at risk like that.
If a reasonable god created us as reasonable people then he should give reasonable people what they require. Otherwise, he would be condemning reasonable people to hell for not giving them what he created them to require.
Actually, the evidence for at least one miracle occurring in 1st century Palestine is pretty thin, not even as good as evidence for the lives of Roman citizens, much less Senators and Emperors. But the point is the principle of proportionality, or extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, which the resurrection story fails utterly to achieve.
Excellent. I hope that Michael Licona (and every other Christian apologist) will return to this blog and read this post. Your concise, very clear statements regarding how one should evaluate any truth claim are absolutely devastating to the Christian supernatural belief system! Keep up the good work. (And sell A LOT of books!)
I think that’s a super idea, as you know!
Thanks, Bart, for the heads-up on the Loftus book. I will probably buy that one, and I’ll definitely buy your book “Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife” when it comes out.
Good to know!
Great Stuff! Really enjoyed the paragraph about “eyewitnesses” with regard to resurrections.
Need to get the book — still reading his “Christianity is Not Great” book.
Thanks so much!
I have listened to Michael Shermer in debates, most recently with Dennis Prager on the Rubin report. I admire his patience and civility, considering Mr. Prager is one with a deep voice and hard to speak over. Mr. Shermer if you read this post, I must tell you that being a uneducated person myself, I would have no trouble engaging in dialogue with you. You are pleasant and easy to get along with. I am curious though. You never specified your reason for leaving faith in the above debate. Why did you? Back to the topic, Miracles. Okay, I am compelled by your analysis, some good points are made. I concur that we cannot attach, *God*, to every extraordinary event that occurs. We must also agree, that we cannot explain every extraordinary event that occurs. The Big Bang, is nothing more than a theory. Science, I am sure, is still working on plausible evidence that might strengthen their claim. Data, numbers, philosophies do not amount to conclusions, just opinions and probabilities. Look at Malaysian airlines flight that disappeared from radar after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur in 2014. Four years of search came up empty. With all the sophisticated technology and experts we have today, the 239 people on board are presumed dead, with no disclosure to the bereaved families. The 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, winning gold at Lake Placid, is unexplainable. No one, I mean no one in the right mind, could have predicted,with reasoning, the outcome. I love hockey and remember watching this event in disbelief. That is why it was dubbed ,” The Miracle on Ice’. The age of the Universe. Some will say its 14 billions old, others ( mostly believers) will say it is less than 10,000 yrs. like Grady Mcmurtry, ex-scientist. Again, compelling arguments are everywhere. We are left to choose who/what makes the most sense and that becomes difficult, especially when many great people (thinkers) are on both side of the fence. Try and change William Lane Craig’s conviction or Sam Harris. Who do you follow? What is truth, Pilate exclaimed to Jesus. Like Pilate, we all search and maybe never arriving. I think whoever wrote the Bible would of never believed 2000 yrs later we are still debating its essence. Now that is a miracle.
You make a lot of unevidenced and irrelevant assertions. If you want clarity you should get and read the book. Cheers.
Hi, Veritas. We mustn’t confuse unscientific claims (e.g. Creation science), or as yet unexplainable events (the exact cause of Malaysian Airlines crashing), or unexpected occurrences (the US hockey team beating Russia) with “compelling arguments” or with “miracles.” And we most certainly should not confuse a scientific theory (the Big Bang) with its nontechnical usage among the masses. A scientific theory is not the same thing as a hunch, an opinion, or mere speculation. The truth is, underdogs winning a game or airplanes crashing (sadly) are not uncommon and have perfectly reasonable, natural explanations. They’re not miracles (properly defined) and they’re most certainly not inexplicable events.
As far as there being many great thinkers on both sides of the aisle, this may not actually be as true as you think (especially regarding miracle claims). This assertion is one of the unfortunate results of hearing things like “Fair and Balanced News” from cable television. Facts are not fair or balanced. For example, Fox News may do a segment on climate change and present one scientist who believes climate change is real and manmade. They may then present another scientist who claims the exact opposite and say, “You decide,” as if the truth of the matter were up to the viewers (and not the experts). Does this mean there are “compelling arguments” or great thinkers on both sides? No. In reality, 97-98% of all climate scientists and meteorologists concur with the first scientist. Those who disagree are usually not qualified to make a pronouncement on climate change. Likewise, the vast majority of qualified scientists, researchers, academics, and philosophers do not believe in miracles or the existence of God. According to them, the reason for their nonbelief is because they are familiar with the relevant evidence and arguments and have concluded that atheism is the most reasonable of all options (for the social-scientific evidence supporting my claims here, see the book chapter, “Moral Culpability and Choosing to Believe in God” by David Kyle Johnson in Atheism and the Christian Faith). The point is that just because some people argue for a position, doesn’t mean that their argumentation is compelling, convincing to most experts, dependent on reason, or evidentially-based. The facts are not fair and balanced. Read the book and see why! : )
Thanks, Veritas!
Merry Christmas. Thanks Darren for clarifying your position as much as I can understand. I agree with your analysis, for the most part. When I say compelling arguments, by those qualified, I mean not the one’s you speak of not qualified to make such announcements, but rather those who are. For instance, Mike Licona not agreeing with Bart Ehrman, both qualified yet holding different views/positions. William Lane Craig and John Loftus( sorry John, I put you in there because I read you studied under him), both qualified holding different views. There are many more examples, but you get my point. Yes, as you say, the listener is left to decide as if we know the answer, when in fact we are left in limbo as to what to believe. That is what I mean by compelling arguments. Mr. Ehrman, who I admire, spoke of being very few scholars, like himself, that are agnostic/atheist. Paula Frederiksen is an historian, but her views may be somewhat different then Bart’s, because she believes in Judaism. When I spoke of Malaysian flight, not that planes crash, but with all the sophistication of today, authorities and rescue missions could not locate its whereabouts, unsolved mystery. The U.S. team winning gold. You say they have perfectly reasonable natural explanations. What are they? I say it’s a miracle, because by one definition of miracle, it is a high improbable, extraordinary event that is inexplicable by natural laws. Science, I agree, should not be regarded as opinion. What I mean in citing the Big Bang, is that it’s a scientific hypothesis and one possibility that has been accepted over time. It is not certain. Richard Dawkins, who I also admire, frequently testifies, that science does not have all the answers to every extraordinary event that occurs. I am not disagreeing with you, but it must be said that some events are hard to explain no matter how well researched and written. We are merely reiterating with new words/philosopny a past theory. I encourage you to listen to a debate on miracles; Ian Hutchison and Donald Hubin. Two professors from credible schools and yet the atheist p.o.v. is somewhat surprising. Epistemology, as John refers to, is an investigation not a certainty. Can we ever know for sure?
The problem with calling the US winning an Olympic gold medal a “miracle” is that it strains any reasonable (and scholastically accepted) definition of a bona fide miracle. Even Michael Licona, William Lane Craig, and other theologians who have written on the subject would disagree with you. We know there are natural explanations for the US winning the gold because we can watch the video of it. It doesn’t take an act of god to win a game. The US hockey players scored more points in the match. The end. Nothing miraculous about it. Was it unexpected? Sure. Improbable? Maybe. Miraculous? Not even close.
Calling something unexpected, mysterious, or highly improbable a “miracle” would mean all sorts of things qualify as a miracle. For example, if I were to shuffle a deck of cards and then deal them out randomly, the likelihood of getting a straight flush is unexpected and highly improbable, but it does happen from time-to-time. That doesn’t mean it’s a miracle. Changing the definition of what a “miracle” is does not prove your point; it merely illustrates a willingness to change the facts to suit an argument. That’s not a good thing.
I wrote about my own conversion to Christianity, and my deconversion, in my book The Believing Brain, Chapter 3. Here is the relevant section:
There were a number of factors involved in my de-conversion—in my becoming unborn, again—going back to my conversion experience. Shortly after I accepted Christ into my heart, I eagerly announced to my high school friend Frank that I had become a Christian. Expecting an enthusiastic embrace of acceptance into the club he had long cajoled me to join, Frank instead was disappointed that I had gone to a Presbyterian church—and joined no less!—which he explained was a big mistake because that was the “wrong” religion. Frank was a Jehovah’s Witness. After high school I attended Glendale College where my faith was tested by a number of secular professors, most notably Richard Hardison, whose philosophy course forced me to check my premises, along with my facts, which were not always sound or correct. But the Christian mantra was that when your belief is tested it is an opportunity for your faith in the Lord to grow. And grow it did, since there were some fairly serious challenges to my faith.
After Pepperdine, when I began my graduate studies in experimental psychology at the California State University, Fullerton, I was still a Christian, although the foundations of my faith were already cracking under the weight of other factors. Out of curiosity, I registered for an undergraduate course in evolutionary biology, which was taught by an irrepressible professor named Bayard Brattstrom, a herpetologist (the study of reptiles) and showman extraordinaire. The class met on Tuesday nights from 7:00 to 10:00 pm, during which I discovered that the evidence for evolution is undeniable and rich and the arguments for creationism that I had been reading were duplicitous and hallow. After Bayard exhausted himself with a three-hour display of erudition and entertainment, the class adjourned to the 301 Club in downtown Fullerton, a nightclub where students hung out to discuss The Big Questions, aided by adult beverages. Although I had already been exposed to all sides in the great debates in my various courses and readings at Pepperdine, what was strikingly different in this context was the heterogeneity of my fellow students’ beliefs. Since I was no longer exclusively surrounded by Christians there were no social penalties for being skeptical…about anything. Except for the 301 Club discussions that went on into the wee hours of the morning, however, religion almost never came up in the classroom or lab. We were there to do science, and that is almost all we did. Religion was simply not part of the environment. So it was not the fact that I learned about evolutionary theory that rent asunder my Christian faith; it was that it was okay to challenge any and all beliefs without fear of psychological loss or social reprisal. There were other factors as well.
In the end, though, what finally tipped my belief into skepticism was the problem of evil—if God is all knowing, all powerful, and all good, then why do bad things happen to good people? First, there was the intellectual consideration, where the more I thought about things like cancer, birth defects, and accidents, the more I came to believe that God is either impotent or evil; or simply nonexistent. Second, there was an emotional consideration that I was forced to confront on the most primal of levels. I’ve never told anyone this before, but the last time I ever prayed to God was in early 1980, shortly after I decided that I no longer believed in God. What happened to bring me back one last time?
My college sweetheart, Maureen Hannon, a brilliant and beautiful Alaskan whom I met at Pepperdine and whom I was still dating, was in a horrific automobile accident in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. Maureen worked for an inventory company that vanned their employees around the state during off hours, sleeping supine on bench seats between jobs. The van veered off the highway and rolled several times, snapping Maureen’s back and rendering her paralyzed from the waist down. When she called me in the wee hours of the morning from a Podunk hospital hours from Los Angeles, I figured it couldn’t be too bad since she sounded as lucid and sanguine as ever. It wasn’t until days later, after we had her transported to the Long Beach Medical Center to put her into their hyperbaric chamber to pressure-feed oxygen into her tissues to try to coax some life into her severely bruised spinal cord, did the full implications of what this meant for her begin to dawn on me. The cognizance of Maureen’s prospects generated a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, an indescribable sense of dread—what’s the point if it can all be taken away in the flash of a moment?
There, in the ER, day after dreary day, night after sleepless night, alternating between pacing up and down cold sterile hallways and sitting on hard plastic chairs in the waiting room listening to the moans and prayers of other grieving souls, I took a knee and bowed my head and asked God to heal Maureen’s broken back. I prayed with deepest sincerity. I cried out to God to overlook my doubts in the name of Maureen. I willingly suspended all disbelief. At that time and in that place, I was once again a believer. I believed because I wanted to believe that if there was any justice in the universe—any at all—this sweet, loving, smart, responsible, devoted, caring spirit did not deserve to be in a shattered body. A just and loving God who had the power to heal, would surely heal Maureen. He didn’t. He didn’t, I now believe, not because “God works in mysterious ways” or “He has a special plan for Maureen”—the nauseatingly banal comforts believers sometimes offer in such trying and ultimately futile times—but because there is no God.
This is heart-wrenching. I felt my stomach drop reading this. I don’t know what else to say I’m so sorry.
On the impossibility of miracles, would you agree that, as of today, materialistic reductionism (or “physicalism”) is the surviving paradigm for understanding reality? If not, where is there room for alternative or supplemental principles?
No one says miracles are impossible in my book. It’s just that miracles don’t happen, or if they do, there isn’t enough objective evidence to show that they do.
Such logical arguments are not likely to sway the minds of people who spend their lives trying to reconcile errors in the gospel or prove the most likely historical reality is that Jesus was raised from the dead. In a modern context, I’d argue that people put similar miraculous faith in politicians who cultivate a cult of personality, and are raised to near messianic status by supporters. Would love to hear your thoughts about why people cling to discredited world views and put blind faith in leaders who give lip service to those views.
I just wanted to clarify when I spoke of Paula Frederiksen believing in Judaism. My point is she believes and Bart does not anymore. Both highly credible professors in history, yet may not be in agreement with everything relating to historic events. Personal assumptions sway one way or the other. I would not discredit anyone just because I don’t see his/her p.o.v. Oftentimes though, debaters and scholars will say to make a point, ” most scholars agree “. It is one of the most used responses when addressing a crowd, to imply majority concurs. The majority of listeners are not scholars and yet we hear this as if we should believe their claim. Lastly, the majority of Scientists you cite as having weighed the relevant evidence, conclude that atheism is the most reasonable of all options. Yes, I agree,* of all options*. Because we cannot make sense of it , a non belief is easier to accept without declaring its true.. The majority agreeing does not make it true. It just tells us that from what we know thus far, it may be the most acceptable. Someone else will come out and muster another way of looking at it and garner a following whom many may find his/her research and hypothesis compelling. If there was absolute concrete evidence on this and other difficult subjects, there would be no need to continue studies and research. It just keeps our thoughts open to possibilities and being a non-believer myself, I keep reading and enjoying never discrediting another’s belief. I hope I made myself more clear, but have enjoyed writing this during the Christmas Day. What would be better? Thanks Darren, John, Michael and of course Bart for connecting us.
(Briefly) Miracles? No. Physics, plain & simple. A person’s frequency and volume can now be measured. Take the bleeding woman in the Bible story (a mystery teaching). Jesus was probably “broadcasting at 100 Hz (spiritually enlightened) and the woman at 20 Hz (near death). She touched Jesus’s hem, he was drained of “power” and she was “healed”. Low freq. automatically raises to the higher (but not v.v.). That’s perhaps why he is said to have said that we should “follow him” (raise our frequency), and these things and more shall we do. This is where science comes in to enhance our religious practices; raise your vibration through prayer, chanting, etc.
When I first met my now wife, she held some really crazy ideas from conspiracy theorists who make money by entertaining, confusing and manipulating people. I didn’t mock or criticize her as I welcome her free and independent thought. Instead we read together some books by Michael Shermer and others which explain the approach to issues of a sceptic. Although resistant to some of Shermer’s positions initially, eventually she understood this approach and now says that she sees life with much more clarity and freedom as she looks for genuine truth. Thank you Michael for your contribution to help nullify some very silly ‘debates’ going around the net and even in publication.
Wow, what a splendid testimonial Julian! One never knows if one’s work really reaches people unless they reach back to say something. So, thank you!
Hi Mr shermer
It is amazing to talk to people of your academic size. My question is about the null hypothesis. Athough in scientific research, the aproach you give is the one that it is used, It doesn’t work to convince people that already believe in miracles. It works when you want to take a defensive position when a religious person tries to convince you but it doesn’t work if you want to convince other person to change their minds. If the second is the case, the null hypothesis should be the beliefs that those people already have and to demostrate that they are almost impossible. I mean the null hypothesis, I think, should be the belief you want to invalidate and the burden of proof should rest in the person that is trying to convince the other.
You may be right Mike, although I know of no data testing that hypothesis: that invoking the null hypothesis as a challenge to supernatural beliefs convinces anyone to change their mind. In any case, it is but one of many strategies one can employ, another being Socratic: ask lots of questions, such as “Why do you believe that?” “What evidence is there for that claim?” And most importantly: “What would it take to change your mind?”
“When we are thinking about miracles … what we are after is a causal explanation …
[and] the burden of proof is on the miracle claimant.”
Is that it? Just an exercise in how we know what we know?
Do you have something to say about the law or politics of resurrection? That would interest me. Can you walk me through the gospels and Acts and show me how their authors carefully, purposefully grounded and immunized each witness’ preposterous claim in the laws of Moses precisely because doing so would best advance Christ’s polemic against salvation by law alone rather than also and necessarily by righteousness and grace? Or, can you do the opposite; can you show me that the authors of the gospels and Acts (regardless their immortal success) were not nearly so clever?
Is your point simply that “miracles” cannot meet their medical, historical, biological, or scientific burden of proof? Or, do you explore how they may nevertheless satisfy their legal burden of proof? Or, how doing so gives social, political, justification and purpose to their preposterous claim?
I am curious if you deal with the case of Aristeas of Proconnesus, and if so, how. I bring him up to show that there was a folk belief in bodily resurrection prior to Jesus, which makes it harder for Christians to claim that Jesus’s resurrection was unique and tied to God. (Let me add that this was a folk belief, not one shared by the Greek philosophers.)
Just as a general observation, many religions, each claiming to have possession, sometimes exclusive possession, of the truth, base their claims on one or more miracles (in the supernatural sense, as you described). Thus, each such religion demands that I accept their miracles and not the miracles of the others, though each provides equal evidence (or, better, equal lack of evidence). Carl Sagan made a similar point.
I’m not quite sure what you mean. I though Aristeas was alleged to be able to leave his body in his soul and then return? That’s not what happened with Jesus: the belief in the resurrection is not that the soul left and returned. It’s that he died, body and soul, and then was raised from the dead. It’s a distinctively Jewish understanding that did not think souls lived/could exist apart from bodies or vice versa.
What I am suggesting is that there was a folk belief in Greece that the body could also be resurrected (or at least survive death) and become immortal. According to Herodotus (Hist. iv.14-15), Aristeas’s body disappeared from the fuller’s shop where he died (which was still locked up); he appeared seven years later and composed some verses, which suggests coroporality. He also appeared 240 years later, this time as a raven accompanying Apollo. Plutarch mentions the story of Aristeas and a few others, complaining that “In short, many such fables are told by writers who improbably ascribe divinity to the mortal features in human nature, as well as to the divine” and insists that “We must not, therefore, violate nature by sending the bodies of good men with their souls to heaven” (Lives, Romulus xxviii.6, 8)
My point is that, contrary to N. T. Wright, who quotes the Greek philosophers to show there was no belief in bodily resurrection prior to Jesus, there was such a belief among the folk. This is not to say that they are exactly the same, just that the idea that the body itself could be immortal did not start with the Jesus Movement.
I forgot to add that Wright means there was no such belief in the “pagan world” which “assumed it was impossible.” That’s why the example of Aristeas and Plutarch’s complaint are important.
Permit me to raise a second point regarding your reply. My understanding – please correct me if I’m wrong – is that Paul didn’t really go into details about how Jesus was resurrected, whether it was soul, or body and soul. The idea of bodily resurrection comes a little later with the gospels, who (at least the later ones) were fighting the Docetists and therefore made a point that the body had disappeared from the tomb.
As for your statement about Jewish understanding of body/soul, I think that perhaps better describes Second Temple thinking. How else can we can we understand the occasional Biblical references to Sheol unless the soul went there while the body stayed in the ground? Actually, I think Jews in First Temple times simply didn’t think about life after death very much, while in the Second Temple period they had all kinds of ideas, and a lot of ambiguous ones, but I don’t think it’s fair to say they had settled on one yet.
In regard to this, I was struck by a debate I saw on Unbelievable between Roger Penrose, the greatest living cosmologist and William Lane Craig. Mr. Craig kept wanting Mr. Penrose to admit that he had no explanation for the Big Bang and therefore it had to be God. But Mr. Penrose would answer, after carefully weighing Mr. Craig’s idea, that postulating a God did not explain anything, which is the problem with asserting a miracle of any kind. It stops debate and assumes there is no further or natural explanation which is far more likely. That is why science took so long to begin making inroads into our understanding of the natural world. At every point when early intellectuals came to a stumbling block of explaining natural events, the theists would claim that it was God’s will. But those who didn’t accept that went on to discover actual certain cures for disease and all of the scientific innovations that have made our life so much more enjoyable and less scary than our ancestors, even 100 years ago.
Now if you go back 2000 years, they had none of that experience to show them that the best explanations are not miracles but rather are natural, so that it seems pretty obvious that the more likely explanation is a natural one and that just like all of the miracles that have been debunked since, miracles occurring 2000 years ago were probably more unlikely. The only testimonial in the New Testament that ever appealed to me was Paul’s conversion on the “road to Damascus” but if we are to believe him then we need to start believing all of those eye witnesses that claimed to have been abducted by space aliens. But note, they have much more detailed accounts which were described and interviewed much closer to the events in question. An additional problem too, that Bart so often points out, is that the only ones who report these things are those who have something to gain by the reporting.
It seems to me Jesus’s “miracles” in the gospels are the literalization of spiritual concepts (e.g., curing the blind, replacing water with wine, making the lame walk and raising the dead). It is the difference between those who “see” and those who don’t. When we lack eyes for the truth (spiritual) we make the truth a physical thing, so we can “see” it. Jesus spoke of all these things (spiritual) and overtime they were literalized by those who can’t see thus becoming the basis for a religion which doesn’t require actual faith. Faith being the willingness to believe in what you can’t see…literally.
As a Christian, there are certainly times I wish I had better evidence for God/miracles. But Hume’s argument is an attempt to put an intellectual façade on ignoring the evidence against his belief. It’s a thinly veiled defense of biased thinking.
If God exists, then there is nothing extraordinary in believing he acted. And the fact that the author considers that any action by God could be considered a miracle shows his refusal to believe in miracles is likely just based on his belief that God doesn’t exist.
Atheists who really think they know God doesn’t exist would of course find it extraordinary that god acted just like I would find it extraordinary that Sherlock Holmes or Pippi Long Stocking acted in the world. If someone told me they played cards with Ebenezer Scrooge I would find it hard to believe. But not because that would mean an agent acted in the world but rather because I think I know he doesn’t exist! If someone told me they played cards with my brother I wouldn’t have the same sorts of hang ups and regular evidence would be fine.
If God exists there is nothing so extraordinary in thinking he took some action or caused something to happen in reality. And simply repeating that it would be extraordinary over and over again is not actually an argument. When we consider evidence that *anyone did anything* in the world we naturally rule out all the other possible explanations for the evidence. So when I read that Michael Jordan made a winning basket I would need to rule out all the other natural explanations of why the newspaper might say that he did. Maybe they were mistaken or got bad information from someone else etc. But if I don’t start out with the assumption that Michael Jordan never existed then this is not such a big deal. For people who believe in God it is not such a big deal to think he acted in the world.
You said: “If God exists there is nothing so extraordinary in thinking he took some action or caused something to happen in reality.”
Perhaps. But what evidence shows an acting god exists if we lack sufficient evidence to detect the actions of such a god?
I do find this argument somewhat amusing because often it is presented by someone who will claim that there is no evidence to support belief in God. And this is how it tends to play out:
Atheist: There is no evidence that supports belief in God!
Christian: what would you even consider evidence of God?
Atheist (usually after some wrangling): A miracle.
Christian: ok well there are many accounts that Jesus did miracles
Atheist: Oh yeah but that is just ordinary evidence.
Christian: yeah ok.
Atheist: You must provide extraordinary superdee duper evidence!
Christian: Huh? What does that even mean?
Atheist: I find the notion that God or anything supernatural exists so remote that the idea that he acted in the world could never be established by ordinary evidence it would need to be extraordinary superdee duper evidence!
Christian: Ok so what does that mean? Accounts of someone rising from the dead aren’t good enough the actual account must be extraordinary as well? Does the account have to be written in an albino princess’s blood on silk so white it would blind most mortals and be recited by someone riding a unicycle while juggling 7 lit torches? Would that be extraordinary enough?
Atheist: No not even that is extraordinary enough. In fact I can’t even tell you what would be extraordinary enough to shake my belief that God doesn’t exist. But I can tell you this. If you ever did find something extraordinary enough it wouldn’t be enough to convince me. At best it would be a tie and the tie goes to my current beliefs!
At this point most Christians realize they are no longer dealing with anyone who is rationally considering their beliefs but instead someone desperately trying to insulate their own prejudiced views from the evidence.
When it comes to believing in a resurrection from the dead in the distant superstitious past it requires a lot of strong and/or numerous pieces of corroborating evidence, unlike ordinary events. We don’t have it for the resurrection so there’s no reason to believe it.
It may even be impossible to corroborate a resurrection in the distant past, but that doesn’t change our need for sufficient objective evidence. Such a god should have waited until modern science had arrived for the ability to confirm it.
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If you agree that evidence is reason to believe something, then we have reason to believe in the resurrection and miracles.
One of the first things I learned in law school is that evidence is not a wall, it is a brick. Even if one piece of evidence does not prove your case that does not mean that one piece is not evidence. Are the accounts in scripture evidence of the resurrection? Short answer yes, of course they are, unless you want to engage in special pleading. By the way Christians engage in the same sort of special pleading when they automatically discount accounts of miracles linked to other religions. So resisting special pleading is something both atheists and Christians both need to struggle against. Perhaps you can see where my special pleading charge is coming from but a fuller explanation of how this is special pleading would take more than 1200 words so I will have to do it another day.
For now let me ask about your view of evidence. Here is a blog where I suggest the US Federal Rules of Evidence properly defines what “Relevant Evidence” means and the implications of that definition.
https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/12/23/no-evidence/
Do you think “relevant evidence” should mean something else?
Although it does happen, it is a rare trial where one side does not offer any evidence. Almost always both sides have relevant evidence to offer. Since trials often involve what in fact happened and clearly only one side is factually correct that means there can be evidence for a false claim. Let’s call this “the legal view” of relevant evidence.
comment continued in next post.
I don’t disagree with Shermer. I only said I didn’t use that phrase. I wrote a whole book arguing that believers should shoulder their own burden of proof, as if they were nonbelievers, without any special pleading or double standards. Perhaps you haven’t read it?:
https://www.amazon.com/Outsider-Test-Faith-Which-Religion/dp/1616147377/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=wwwdebunkingc-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=GARG5ONHQ4FNUJ7V&creativeASIN=1616147377
As far as evidence goes, there are different types of evidence. The main distinction is between testimonial evidence and objective evidence. My claim is that there is no relevant objective evidence for any of the miracles in the Bible.
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Before I went to law school, I studied philosophy and I had a different view of “relevant evidence.” I thought that to be actual evidence it had to have some causal connection with what occurred. If you have a factual question such as did “OJ Simpson murder his ex wife?” or did “Jesus rise from the dead?” you have binary questions to be answered. Either they did or they didn’t happen. If they didn’t happen then anything that seems to suggest they did happen could not possibly have a causal relation to them happening. This would be impossible because that didn’t happen, and it’s impossible for something that did not happen to have causal effects. Therefore, anything suggesting that occurred could not be actual evidence at all. Let’s call this the “philosophical view” of evidence.
Now the philosophical view of evidence seems fine when we know the answer. If I murdered OJ Simpson’s ex-wife myself then I would know he didn’t do it. And since I knew he didn’t do I could watch the trial on television and I would not consider what the States attorney offers at trial “evidence” that he did it either. That is because I am definitely not in a position of genuinely inquiring about whether he did it or not. I *know* for certain he did not do it. Therefore, I know that any evidence couldn’t possibly have a causal connection to OJ murdering his ex-wife so it wouldn’t be evidence for me or the philosophical view.
However, when you are genuinely inquiring about whether something happened as opposed to already knowing whether it happened then the legal view is much better. Because on the legal view you are letting the evidence lead you to the conclusion. The philosophical view on the other hand is letting your belief about the conclusion shape how you view the evidence. And sometimes this can get so bad you may even start to think there is “no evidence at all” supporting a belief contrary to your own. Even on a topic that has been debated for thousands of years.
Now with that said, do you think the accounts of Jesus resurrection are, at least, “some evidence” of a resurrection?
To answer your last question the answer is yes, there is evidence for the resurrection, just as surely as there is evidence that Mohammad rode a horse into the heavens. It’s called testimonial evidence. We find it in the texts of the New Testament as written by non-eyewitnesses gospel writers themselves, and we have filtered down through three centuries of editors and scribes. This is hearsay evidence and wouldn’t be allowed in a courtroom because it cannot be cross-examined for consistency and truth. But it is evidence.
As a lawyer it always amazes me when philosophers try to talk about “the burden of proof” as if such a thing is helpful in philosophical discourse. The burden of proof in the law is only brought in because an official decision needs to be made and it is always clear what the standard is as well as to whom we need to prove it (e.g., Judge commission or Jury) and we also know the consequences if it is not proven. (sentencing or money award or injunction whatever)
In philosophy people talk about “the burden of proof” without any mention of these essential aspects so it inevitably adds more heat than light. You can call it the null hypothesis or burden of proof or whatever it doesn’t change the fact that it is too vague to be helpful.
https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/01/26/the-burden-of-proof-versus-the-flying-spaghetti-monster-part-22/
Proof is subjective. Lots of people watched OJ Simpsons trial and for many his guilt was proven to them beyond reasonable doubt. The Jury disagreed. Whether you I or the jury had his guilt proven is irrelevant to the truth of the matter. Nor would it be rational for you to believe he really didn’t commit the crime just because the Criminal Jury didn’t convict him. The Civil Jury did find that he wrongfully killed by the way. But none of that matters. In the law burdens of proof are often assigned to one side or the other and states often disagree on who has the burden. The burden of proof is not a matter of logic or science.
I can only post a limited number of comments and limited number of words per day on this blog so I will have to post the rest another day. Sorry, it makes discussions a bit awkward but there are good reasons for the limitations.
Right, it’s very different. But yes, there are different burdens of proof in different fields of discourse. I suppose kind of like the differences between civil and criminal suits? But I know very, very little about the law. But philosophical “proof” will be very different from proofs in physics, chemistry; those will be different from law; which will be different from history; which will be different from philosophy. Each field is based on evidence. but necessariiyl the evidence is different and the criteria of estabblishing what *counts* as evidence is different.
part1/2
Yes there are definitely different ways that proofs and evidence work in these different fields. Math may be the most unique as there tends to be more agreement on the starting premises than in other fields. But in all fields there are some similarities and philosophy generally addresses this most directly in critical reasoning courses. That is a “proof” generally involves premises and a conclusion that follows from those premises. And a proof will only be effective if the premises are accepted/believed by the person you are trying to convince. This is why rational people can, at times, look at the same data/evidence and draw different conclusions.
Whether a proof works – that is whether it persuades someone – will depend on the beliefs held by that person. It is very important to understand this subjective aspect of “proofs.” I might try to convince someone that humans evolved from apes but if they do not place the same weight on the premises I use and put more weight on other premises then my proof won’t work – persuade. The same can be said if I try to argue that people should believe in God because we should believe we can reliably understand objective morality. But if they are not attached to the notion of objective morality being important – the reasons I offer won’t convince them. If they do then the reasons I give may convince them thereby be a “proof.” Even if my premises are true and the conclusion logically follows, that does not mean the argument will be a “proof” to anyone.
Whether something is a proof depends on whether the person we are trying to prove something to *believes* the premises. The fact that the premises are true (that is the premises “accord with reality”) is no guarantee that they will be believed. Yes sometimes people reject premises because they are ignorant and even sometimes willfully so. Nevertheless, we should understand proving something to someone is always a subjective endeavor because it is dependent on their own beliefs. You are always proving something *to someone* – even if that someone is yourself. We don’t prove things to God or reality.
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This is why I take issue with people saying “the” burden of proof. Saying “the” burden of proof is an attempt to put an objective façade on a subjective matter. Putting this objective veneer on a subjective endeavor is misleading.
If I say: “I am not convinced by your argument because….” I communicating the issue *accurately*. But if I say “your argument fails to meet the burden of proof because…” then I am trying to suggest that convincing me is somehow the objective standard on which reality rests. Which is absurd. Reality doesn’t care one wit about whether I am convinced of the truth of it or not. Reality is not going to hinge on a proof being made to me.
Belief in “the burden of proof” can also lead to many intellectual problems that are demonstrated by the comments of Shermer and Loftus. One problem with taking “the burden of proof” too seriously is one might believe we are *entitled* to the truth. We think we should be able to demand evidence and proofs from others and if they don’t provide the evidence or proofs we are somehow justified in our current beliefs. Loftus asserts the scriptures are not good enough and then asks me what other evidence I have. I imagine a child king demanding evidence and then declaring that is not good enough! I, actually, don’t have a burden to prove anything to him. I can offer reasons why he should change his thinking but I do not “owe” him this.
Loftus says God should have did it different and died and rose at a different time. So even God owes him proofs of the truth! And if he doesn’t get it well then he will feel justified. This is not how reality works and the sooner we accept that the sooner we will formulate our beliefs in a way that actually conforms with reality.
Shermer even demands proofs of reality. Until reality proves itself to him it is not “[made] true.” We can try to understand reality or not. But our failure to grasp it does make reality less “true” as he suggests when he talks about proofs or evidence “mak[ing]” beliefs true. (See earlier post)
https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/01/11/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-gods-existence-proven/
You say: “Loftus asserts the scriptures are not good enough and then asks me what other evidence I have.
I, actually, don’t have a burden to prove anything to him. I can offer reasons why he should change his thinking but I do not “owe” him this.
Loftus says God should have did it different and died and rose at a different time. So even God owes him proofs of the truth!”
——
For the record I never mentioned the burden of proof. What I have argued is that reason demands this or that. No one owes me anything, certainly not your imagined non-existing god. Reason itself demands it. If your god is a reasonable deity who desires us to be reasonable with the evidence, then when I say reason itself demands it, your god demands it. Or, your god created us to be reasonable people yet desires us to be unreasonable.
I am genuinely glad you do not share Shermer’s view on the burden of proof. I thought perhaps since he is writing the introduction to your anthology and this is a blog post introducing your book, you might agree with what he is saying. But apparently that is not the case. Just to be clear, he says:
“The null hypothesis is that your claim of a miracle is not true until you prove otherwise. Here we say that the burden of proof is on the miracle claimant, not the skeptic or scientist to disprove the miracle claim.”
When he says “here we say” the “we” definitely does not include you, correct?
One of the essential parts of any “burden of proof” is to understand the consequences of not meeting that burden. Shermer repeatedly seems to say the consequence of not meeting the burden of proof is that the claim is not true.
Do you agree with Shermer that the truth of whether a miracle occurred hinges on whether a claimant can prove it occurred? What about other claims? Are they “made true” by the proof as Shermer suggests? Do you agree with me that Shermer’s view is a huge departure from the traditional view of truth? I wonder why he chose to radically redefine such basic terms like “truth.”
Now you tell me what “reason demands”. When did reason name you as it’s spokesperson? Joking aside, this is my point about taking “the burden of proof” too seriously. You personally find the evidence unconvincing and so you think believers have a burden to provide more evidence to you, if they want to convince you. I would have no issue with that. That would be the accurate description of what is happening.
But that doesn’t sound grandiose enough so you claim “reason itself demands” more evidence! Implicit in this is that all your background beliefs are just fine and since you are not convinced by the evidence presented thus far Reason itself demands more evidence. Do you see how this dovetails with the points I made and you replied to?
I don’t disagree with Shermer. I only said I didn’t use that phrase. I wrote a whole book arguing that believers should shoulder their own burden of proof, as if they were nonbelievers, without any special pleading or double standards. Perhaps you haven’t read it?:
https://www.amazon.com/Outsider-Test-Faith-Which-Religion/dp/1616147377/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=wwwdebunkingc-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=GARG5ONHQ4FNUJ7V&creativeASIN=1616147377
As far as evidence goes, there are different types of evidence. The main distinction is between testimonial evidence and objective evidence. My claim is that there is no relevant objective evidence for any of the miracles in the Bible.
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If you share the views Shermer expressed in his post talking about the burden of proof, why did you think it was important to say “For the record I never mentioned the burden of proof” in response to my comments addressing his views on the burden of proof? It just seems like a misdirection to take the time to do that. But OK, I don’t want to quibble too much.
You now say you agree with Shermer. And that being the case we disagree about basic assumptions and concepts. For example I subscribe to the view that a proposition is “true” if it accords with reality. This is called the correspondence view of truth. This is the traditional view of truth in western civilization and the most popular view among professional philosophers. (according to philpaper surveys https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl?affil=Target+faculty&areas0=0&areas_max=1&grain=coarse ) Based on this view of truth there is an objective reality and our beliefs are “true” when they match that reality. In my view reality and truth are objective and does not change depending on anything being proven to us, or not.
You and Shermer take a different view. He seems to think something is true when it is proven. This is a fundamental difference of assumptions we are making and will almost certainly need to be sorted out before we are even speaking the same language. This is the third time I am posting about this and so far you have not addressed this at all.
Another assumption is your assumption that it would be extraordinary to assume God would act in the world. Again it is an assumption you base your arguments on but I don’t share the assumption. So I am asking you why should I think it would be extraordinary for God to act in the world? It would seem extraordinary if he did not act in the world. But again you don’t engage on this basic assumption so what you say simply doesn’t apply to me. IMO you are taking a wrong turn right out of the gate.
You shoulder the burden of proof, just as surely as you demand believers in other religions to do so. I wrote a book defending this idea called, “The Outsider Test for Faith.”
One can hold to the correspondence theory of truth as an ideal which we never fully achieve. So Pragmatism isn’t in as much odds to the correspondence theory as you imagine. Dr. John Shook is a leading expert on Pragmatism. He says:
“Pragmatism says that anyone finding out what reality is like has to examine all available evidence pro and con, and then go get fresh evidence that tests the current view. Pragmatism is about the scientific method. It looks like relativism to someone who wants final answers right now. Only one pragmatist, William James, ever said that what is useful is true, and he only said that to make a helpful analogy, not explain the theory. If morality, not reality, is the topic, pragmatism is skeptical towards people who think they know the absolute rules for life. Test those rules by applying them in the real world – you will find out you actually know a lot less. Morality should serve what is good for all lives; lives must not be sacrificed for abstract principle.”
I wrote in more detail about Pragmatism here: http://www.debunking-christianity.com/2018/02/relativism-pragmatism-reviewing.html
As to Shermer, I’m pretty sure he’s not demanding proof as in proving with certainty. That ideal has probably never been broached. Rather, he’s speaking of proving beyond a reasonable doubt.
As to extraordinary events, have you read chapter 3 in my book where I write about them? You should.
You need to start thinking differently right out of the gate. In your mind you already believe your god did the specific divine actions in the Bible. So by your lights such a god as you believe in would have done those very actions! See the circular nature of this assessment? “My god did the actions recorded in the Bible. So it’s not surprising my god would have done the actions in the Bible.” If you didn’t already believe in your god the actions recorded in the Bible would indeed be extraordinary. So let’s consider any other different non-Christian religion and consider the supposed divine actions of those gods. They are extraordinary claims of extraordinary events because they are not what we would expect to happen in the natural world. The reason is that the ordinary operations of the natural world set the standard for what we consider extraordinary. Cheers.
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I have tried to address our differing assumptions in the comments (as well as concepts like what constitutes evidence for you and whether you agree with the federal rules of evidence on that) but you have not given any substantive responses. Instead you offer a link to different book that you wrote.
Are you saying this other book addresses the issues I have raised here? For example do you try to defend the view that truth hinges on “the burden of proof” being met? If you say yes and give me the chapter I will gladly buy the book and read at least that chapter.
However, based on the summary and some reviews, the book seems to argue something I already agree with. That is that we should not discount evidence of other faiths. I have also written that we should not do that. But I also explain why arguing about this based on some imagined burden of proof can be a problem when you are considering many different exclusive options.
https://trueandreasonable.co/2019/04/10/answering-the-many-gods-problem/
Do you address any of these points in your book?
But that is really a separate issue from how Shermer is defining truth and whether we should assume it would be “extraordinary” for God to act in the world.
Bottom line, I posted specific objections to your views. If you want to respond I would be interested in reading them. If you don’t want to respond that’s fine as well. But given that your basic views of the world are so different than my own I am not inclined to try to read everything your wrote to see if maybe it may address some of the issues I find relevant or interesting.
Yes, my book addresses those questions. On Amazon you can read a selection before getting a copy at your local library. The burden of proof is to met by people who believe in extraordinary claims just as surely as they require it of others. No double standards are allowed if one wants to be honest in searching for the truth. In fact, given that people are raised to believe in wildly different religions, we know that indoctrination within one’s religious culture is an utterly unreliable method for getting religion right. So upon becoming an adult every person should question his or her religion from the standpoint of an outsider with the burden of proof. Just cogitate on one photo with its implications:
http://www.debunking-christianity.com/2020/01/religion-photos-of-year-and-their.html
Cheers
“You shoulder the burden of proof, just as surely as you demand believers in other religions to do so.”
I don’t demand believers of other religions shoulder any burden of proof, so according to your logic I don’t owe any burden of proof either. I take full responsibility for my own thoughts and beliefs as I think everyone should. I will never understand why anyone would think another person is under a burden to prove anything to them. At least outside of court or debates where we have to manufacture a set of rules to resolve a debate in a set time.
Dr. Shook seems to take a negative view of relativism generally. Accordingly it is odd you would use him to support Shermer’s relativism where things become true based on how much evidence he has of them. Im not sure we should follow Dr. Shook’s lead anyway. He says people don’t know about morality and then makes a moral assertion himself.
No one cares so much about whether you or I or Dr. Shermer believe we have enough evidence to be convinced of a view. People want to know whether the view accords with reality. That is what it traditionally means for something to be “true” and that traditional meaning is what gives the term “truth” its luster.
Even very young children want to know what is “true” in the sense of corresponding with reality. If I told my kids something they would ask “In real life?” This was before they were in kindergarten and even they had concern as to whether a view corresponded with reality – which is what we would traditionally call a concern for truth. If you no longer want truth to mean what corresponds with reality because that no longer fits with your atheism or other epistemic views but you still want to steal some of the glory of the term and apply to something else – that is not great. But if you do that at least offer a new word for the concept that used to mean “truth” and you will find people no longer care about this new “truth”. This new word that applies to beliefs that correspond with objective reality (as “truth” used to) will be of more interest.
Why do you reject the traditional view of truth based on the correspondence theory of truth? The traditional view can be expressed along the lines of “a proposition is true if it accords with reality.”
There may be problems with that definition but it usually captures what we mean when we say something is true. Moreover, people want to know reality. So if you want to redefine “truth” to mean something other than that which corresponds with reality, people will want a new word for that which corresponds with reality. That is because our desire to search for the truth is ultimately driven by a desire to understand what is real.
https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/01/05/in-real-life-and-reasonable/
You replace the traditional definition of truth with something that is overly subjective and therefore I believe you demean the very notion of “truth.” You say:
“The null hypothesis is that your claim of a miracle is not true until you prove otherwise.”
As is typical when a philosophical burden of proof comes up you don’t say who we need to prove it to, what the standard of proof is, or what the consequences are for not proving it. That makes precisely understanding what you are saying impossible. But the bigger problem is you seem to make the truth itself contingent on some proof being made to someone.
According to the view of truth, passed on for millennia in western thought, claims are “true” based on reality regardless of whether they are proven to you or anyone else. The earth was orbiting the sun long before Copernicus, Galileo or anyone else proved it. It was true that the earth orbited the sun and those who thought different were wrong regardless of what was proved to them. The proof did not “make” it true as you seem to indicate.
To suggest something is not true until it is proven to someone is to commit the fallacy of argument from ignorance (as it was traditionally understood) in an egregious way. This is a common irrational line of thinking for those who try to take an objective burden of proof too seriously. I have a bit more to say about this in my response to Dr. Ehrman.
It is clear that philosophical views as expressed by Hume are biasing history departments.
I just wish historians in this field would be honest about that, and admit they do not analyze miracles using historical criteria because they think the philosophical arguments expressed by Hume are so strong they overwhelm any historical analysis. That is they reject the idea that miracles may have happened for philosophical reasons as opposed to historical analysis.
Then a student would know that your views on miracles are based on philosophical arguments not historical analysis. The student could then consider the philosophical argument made by Hume with people who have a degree in philosophy.
None of your guests talking about how compelling Hume’s argument is have such a degree. And as someone who has a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy I can tell you the argument is not all that well received among philosophers.
If they end up thinking Hume’s philosophical argument is not so strong after all then they might look to historians that actually do apply historical criteria to answer whether miracles have happened.
My sense is that no one reallyis directly reliant on Hume these days, although a lot of people agree that he was clearly on to something. It is not possible, though, to do history without philosophical assumptions. We assume, for example, that the past happened. That’s not something that can proved historically. It’s a philosophical question. Hume, as you probably know, was basing his argument on historical probabilities.
“…no one really is directly reliant on Hume these days, although a lot of people agree that he was clearly on to something.”
You and your guests reliance is direct and explicit. And yes “a lot of people” thought he was on to something, but they tend not to be people who actually engage in philosophy. Philosophers tend to agree Hume was at best unclear, and no attempt to rehabilitate his arguments on miracles has achieved anything close to consensus support – not even for atheist philosophers. So why do Historians accept Hume’s dubious philosophical view as mathematical truth? Fear.
Again, I think it is perfectly respectable for for a historian to say I am not going to use historical criteria for miracle claims because my personal philosophical views trump historical analysis. But I strongly disagree with saying miracle claims don’t pass historical muster, when you refuse to apply the historical criteria.
Certain philosophical assumptions are required to do history. But one can do history even if they believe God exists, and therefore miracles are not always so unlikely that any historical evidence must be automatically discounted as Hume suggests.
Have you read Hume’s argument about why miracles are less likely than false claims about miracles? That seems to me to be inherently and demonstrably true. If you do know the argument, I’d be interested in your response. It is not, as people often claim, simply and anti-supernaturalist bias. It is a historical judgment based on what is more probable, which is how historical judgments necessarily are always made.
Assume family members that you trust, and 500 other people including Loftus and Shermer testify that they saw a person say Islamic prayers over different corpses and then asked Allah to raise them from the dead, and sure enough they rose from the dead!
Are they mistaken, lying, etc? Assume you go through that and are satisfied as much as you could be from testimony that at least some of the people really were dead and this really happened. They knew they were really dead etc. Maybe at the end of the day you decide to think even that testimony is still not enough to believe. Ok fine. But if you are going to say all that testimony is not even *evidence* that someone may have rose from the dead, then yes you are hopelessly biased.
Do you agree? This is why philosophers would reject the position that testimony could never be evidence of a miraculous event. Maybe many would say they would never be convinced by testimony. But to say testimony could never even be *evidence* at all requires extreme bias.
I’d say that what you’re asking about Loftus and Shermer and 500 others is precisely what we do NOT have with the resurrection of JEsus. We have only one author who claims he saw Jesus alive. The others do not tell us they saw him; someoene else tell us they saw him, and he does not indicate he heard it from them.
Response to BDEhrman March 27, 2022 at 3:45 pm
Ok but the question was whether the testimony I described would be evidence. You are trying to skip to your conclusion (that you don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead as a historical fact) but I am trying to understand your methodology. Can there ever be testimonial evidence supporting that something supernatural happened? Or are you so convinced that nothing supernatural ever happened in history that you would not even entertain that testimony of it would count as evidence? Again I am not saying you would find the testimony *convincing.* Just whether you would consider it evidence at all. I assume you know there can be evidence for claims you do not find ultimately convincing. I mean you would agree that people have historical evidence to support views that contradict your own right? Or do you believe that anyone that holds a view of history that contradicts your own can’t have any evidence for that view?
Yes, any testimony is taken as evidence, and then considered as such. In U.S. law one can submit as evidence claims to supernatural occurrencs, but judges are not allowed to admit them as evidence. So it is evidence for those submitting it but not counted as evidence by the ruling authority. Evidence is anything that anyone takes to help establish what probably happened. The fact that someone considers it evidence doesn’t have any bearing on whether others see it as acceptable or as having any weight at all. I myself take claims that miracles happened to be “evidence,” but of such a weak nature that it doesn’t stand up to other kinds of evidence that can explain the same phenomena less problematically.
If miracles still occur today, there is every reason to believe they occurred in the New Testament. As one who has been healed instantaneouly three times, neither I nor my doctor can deny miracles. Twice an unknown person gave me a word of knowledge about my condition, how long I had it, and recounted what the doctor said to me. I was healed IMMEDIATELY and verified by my doctor. In terms of answered prayer, one prayer I prayed required 20+ conditions to be met in order for the prayer to be answered. In tears I prayed, “Lord PLEASE take me back to California.” An hour later my boss at IBM Boca asked me to replace someone in an IBM class in San Jose, the flight attendant asked me to switch places–led me to meet a San Jose IBMer going home, he was married to an IBMer whose department had an APPROPRIATE opening, he arranged an interview, I was offered the job, my manager let me transfer. Calculate just those probabilities (plus why me?, timing, class could have been in any IBM location, my coworker couldn’t go, I had just completed a project similar to the one in San Jose).