Discussion with Darth Pringle on miracles

 No his real name is not Darth Pringle. He's a poster on CARM and one of the better atheists. He had a different name for a long time, I've known him for years. He's very intelligent and I'm not putting this up to put him on the spot or show how uninformed he is. This is an example a good challenging discussion.

I had accidentally misspoke and said something to the effect that it was his burden of proof to show that there  is no mind behind the universe. Of course I know better than that I'm not sure what the original statement was. It was probably brought on by having twenty five yapping  idiots criticizing my personality and saying I never went to school that made me just blurt something out without thinking.


Originally Posted by Darth Pringle

Response to (a):

No, we wouldn't have to demonstrate that there is no mind behind the universe. The person claiming that there is a mind behind the universe must demonstrate it. That is how the burden of proof works. We don't believe in things merely because they're possible and put forward to explain something.

Meta:

Yes that's right. I misspoke. I went beyond my usual incomprehensibility and actually said something totally stupid. I meant to say you have to show that there no good reaosn. even that's not true, I'm just getting polarized form the animosity.

guess I've been doing this too long.

DP:

There are several reasons for rejecting such a notion also. You argue yourself that it is a fallacy to take a known contingent (eg, a rabbit) and place it in the position of a necessity simply to furnish the answer to a problem (eg, where the universe came from) because it creates an arbitrary necessity. It can simply be argued that you are doing the same thing when you place "mind" in the position of a necessity to explain where the universe came from because minds (like rabbits) are only known to exist contingently. Like a rabbit, we have no clue how a mind could be thought to exist outside of time. It results in incoherency and for that reason, it can be dismissed. Now you could reply (as you have done) with "You can't prove that a mind can't exist necessarily" but that is an argument from ignorance and is just as fallacious as me responding with, "You can't prove a rabbit doesn't exist necessarily" to defend the other claim. It isn't a valid objection.

Interject an editorial comment: This is not such a brilliant idea. Trying to elinate mind by turning into an arbitrary necessity by showing analogy between that and other arbitrary necessity. There's a lot wrong with that idea.

(1) I never said God is a great big Human mind up in the sky. I said God is analogous to mind itself. The concept of mind. That's not arbitrary necessity at all because it's not putting a contingency in place of a necessity it's putting the concept on a Platonic scale appealing to it as an ideal. Obviously it's not just a big human mind but only analougs to a mind.

(2) I have long ago and many times said that all God Talk is analogy. So clearly it's not saying God is a big human mind but that God is in some sense like mind, or in some way we can appraoch the notion of God by relating it to mind. Not a mind or anyone's mind but mind itself. The concept of generating thought, organizing, planing, purposing, perceiving and generating thought.

(3) It's not an arbitrary necessity to liken a universal or ultimate ideal to some analogs thing we can understand. tha'ts not the same as putting a contingency in place of a necessity. An example of that is oscillating universe. Each big bang/crunch is a contingency, it's in nature, it's made up of contingent things, and it's asserting that this is on the eternal level. That's hardly the same as positing the idea that God is in some way analogous to mind.


DP's Response to my piont (b).

Mind is a property. If God is not a property then he cannot be identical with mind (which he can't be if he is being itself because being is not a property). Also, see response to (a).

 Meta:

Right. I am not saying that mind is property I'm saying the evdience that people use to argue that mind is a property can also be used to show there's mind behind it all. It's not a property of nature but the "brains behind Nature."

Meta:
that's for pointing that out. I must remember to be clear about that.

More commentary:  I don't know why I let him get away with that I guess I was tried of posting. The above answer about analogs takes out that first line.

DP

P1. For any X, if X is a property then God is not X.
P2. Mind is a property.
C. Therefore, God is not mind.

that has been sorted out.

That's a formal, prima facie disproof of your position. But again, "You can't prove minds can't exist necessarily" is an invalid argument from ignorance (so you can't use it to defend your position.

Commentary:  That's not a proof of anything. He's just asserting that mind and that God  can't be a property. If light can be a wave and a particle why can't God be a property?

That's not really even my position. I've said that the relation of God to mind is metaphor. Everyone one says about God is metaphor.

Response to (c).

Meta:

Time can't emerge from non-time. Either time is eternal (it has always existed) or it began to exist uncaused. Events can be thought to happen in any order unless they are in a casual relationship. Some the cause of time would have to exist before time and that's impossible. Placing minds in the position of necessities does not solve that problem either. 

DP

you are assuming causes can only be time bound.

 Meta: 

we know causse can only be time bound! I have in past shown a huge array of physicists and other thinkers who say this. Its' a standard assumption in sophists no change in a timeless void. Where there is no sequential order there be no cause and effect.

So when time emerges it has to be written in at the level of a rules change. What could do that but the thing that writes the rules in the first place?

moving to the miracles.

DP

We no more have to disprove every single miracle prior to disbelieving than we have to prove there are no unicorns on any planets anywhere prior to making a belief that they don't exist our working assumption. That's simply fallacious. You've been presented with this counterargument before ... 

Meta:

that's right I didn't mean to imply that. I don't think that's what I said. I said cast doubt on the process is what I meant.

DP

1. If miracles do occur, they are statistically unlikely events.
2. Natural events are very likely (we see them occurring constantly).
3. Some miracle claims are mistaken.
4. Therefore, any particular miracle claim is more likely to have an unknown and natural cause.

you can't assume that it does and write off all miracles claims on that basis that's begging the question. If natural law is just s descriptive then the fact that some people different descriptions has to alter your description somewhat.

Meta: Commentary

All the miracles claims connected with Lourdes exceed this criteria. They are well documented, they examined by experts they backed by modern diagnostic equipment and so on. Atheists are sweeping them aside based upon past examples of sweeping them aside.

Meta:

you can't just assert any particular event you can't explain can be written off becuase it's not in line with your preconceived notion of probability.

DP

The usual response to this is, "You're just biased against the supernatural!" The best response to that I've seen is, "Why are you biased against the natural, especially when natural events can be observed to be involved with just about everything going on around us?" 

 Meta

Not just biased but actually losing the phenomena writing past evidence on the basis that we didn't accept it before so it must not be true now. that shows you have a deterministic notion of probability. You can't go case by case.

DP

I think it was Kant who said (or was it Hume?), it is only reasonable to accept a miracle has occurred when the only other explanations would all be more miraculous still.

Meta:

It would be more miraculous to assume that Charles Ann's lung grew back over night by an act of nature alone without divine intervention. But I dont Believe that Kant said that because it doesn't make sense and it's stained with the kind of bravado as the BS ECREE idea.

DP

Everyone rejects miracles all miracles which do not correspond to their beliefs. For example, a dispensationalist would reject the Lourdes miracles and put them down to error or Satanic influence. A non-catholic would reject claims that Mary has appeared to certain individuals and so on. You must reject the idea that God hasn't fooled lots of people miraculously and only fooled them into thinking that we have viewed miracles. 

Meta:

(1) irrelevant

(2) not true. I'm not a Catholic. I don't Mary is the immaculate conception.

Commentary: this is moving into the discussion of my argument from epistemic judgement. Is say we habitually use certain criteria to judge the reality of experiences and religious experience fits that criteria.

DP

Yes, they did Meta. Experiences that are known to be false are known to fit the criteria. For example, the sensation that you are still when laying on a bed is ... 

 Meta

doesn't make any kind of difference becuase it's the only criteria we have and what we use. you can't pick and choose when you go by the rules and when you don't.

a)regular
b) consistent
d) shared (inter-subjective)
c) enable navigation in the world or in life

DP

With regard to C, how do you think you would cope if you had the sensation that you were spinning on a globe (which is what is actually happening) every time you tried to lay down to sleep? The sensation that you are still remains an inaccurate perception of reality. 

 commentary: that is really very irrelevant and odd that he should say that. It makes no sense becuase the criteria applies to experiences we have not hypothetical one's we don't have. It's not a matter of conviencing anyone ot have an experience they could have that we don't have.

Not only that but people are always trying to say that the criteria might lead to accepting wrong things. We use it anyway. It's the way we do understand reality so if there is a harm to using it it's not unique. It's not as though I'm trying to urge to accept a new criteria.

Meta

Given the perceptions of past centuries before Columbus nothing illogical about assuming flat earth. When get the information to un do that and understand what's really going con we an see that it doesn't violate the criteria to move into a paradigm with a round earth. round earth is not irregular, inconsistent nor does it contradict shared perceptions.

such an odd way to argue, trying to undermine the basis for epistemic judgement which undermines scinece and the reason you are so proud of waving about like a badge man of reason smart atheist can think and reason but without that criteria that reason is nothing.
you can't make a single assumption based upon science or reason without assuming the validity of the criteria.

when it supports what you don't like you say "O that could justify belief in aliens." when it doesn't support your ideas then you rare a man of reason.

Science could support aliens! it could it could support Bigfoot. you better abandon scinece.

Furthermore, assuming that something is caused by God when it possibly isn't, isn't enabling navigation of the world / life.

yet RE does enable navigation so it must be caused by God hu? Navigation is enabled by the experiences so we must assume it's from God. that it might not be is of no consequence since the navigation is enabled.

Go with what works. truth works.

DP

Your argument assumes that we are better able to navigate the world when we have a better understanding of it. If we agree with this then finding a natural explanation for spiritual experiences (if they have one) is the best thing we can do, not simply assume that it must be God and question no further.

Meta

that makes no sense. those who don't have the experiences fare worse across the board. you are trying to cover up the fact that the experiences work. when you dont' have them you don't do as well that means attributing everything to nature is always for the best.

DP

Meta, this is another argument from ignorance. Even if someone else can't explain a phenomena, this is not proof that your explanation is the correct one. Yours still has to be corroborated and objections to it dealt with. But this is just appeal to RE again. If a person has an experience and there is no verifiable external cause then we are right to be skeptical of anyone who claims there is one.

Meta

This is another argument from ignorance. none of them are. not one. you have demonstration that they are. you have no reason to think so.

Commentary: All he says here is that RE must be intrinsically wrong. Why? I guess because it's religious. If the explains we take to those experiences (RE is not the explanation it's the phenomena that needs explaining) explains them and more then that's the explanation to use. I've eliminated naturalistic explainations. They don't work for RE. So this is the logical thing to use.



DP

The strength of your position does not rest upon someone else's failure! If you are making the claim that natural phenomena can't have infinite causal regression then it is down to you to demonstrate it. Most appear to be based on misunderstandings of infinity and a failure to grasp that a God would suffer the same problem (X is supernatural is not a magic word that somehow sweeps away conceptual difficulties in an argument).

Commentary: I don't know what means by someone else's failure. I think he's just saying just because we have not answered yet it doesn't mean we wont some day. Faith in scinece to someday save us form the angry God. He's supposed to using reason. I'm the faith guy remember? He's expressing faith in his ideology!

Meta:

X is supernatural is the atheist kings X. it's a way of saying "we get to abolish x because it's sanctioned by our ideology." The same circular reasoning as your argument against miracle. we covered up the claims in the past with this assumptino that the one's before weren't true so those weren't true so these aren't' true.

btw Darth most of these arguments you made did not come out in the previous threads. This is a case of how dialectic brings out new ideas. I forced you to dig for new material. 

 There at the last he's assuming I use his version of the SN becuase doesn't understand the real on, the one I harp on all the time.

 


I recently wrote a long essay with a lot of research illustrating the reasons for my own view of the super natural (SN) as opposed to what I consider to be the enlightenment countrified view, the continental idea that atheists attack. That essay, "The Empirical Supernatural," I posted on CARM. I had dropped the link in several posts over a long period, no one ever read it and no one ever understood what I was referring to. So I just put the whole thing in the text box and posted it direly on the board. Here are the reactions of atheists, as they just steadfastly refused to consider the evidence.





first:
not an atheist (screen name-he is an atheist in terms of the alliances he keeps)

Don't post a wall of text and expect people to take it seriously.

Really, just don't. I'd say the same if it were an atheist posting long paragraphless quotes of people who agreed with him or her. If you've got something to say, say it with economy.

Mike WC

Request, Meta: cut out all the stuff about biography and credentials. It adds a great deal of needless length to a forum post. Don't really need footnotes in an OP, either. 

william Rea
Huge cut and paste jobs combined with hubris? Well that's a winning formula!

If you really knew your subject you'd be able to explain it to anyone.

Quit whining and man up.

This moron says this in response to a 13 page paper with 21 foot notes that he did not read. Where does he get the idea that I'm not explaining? It's such a detailed explanation it takes 13 pages but he didn't read them so how does he know I didn't explain?


boneso

 and what then? we just believe? your so arrogant that you think your posts on a forum will refute any atheists argument against it that they will have nothing left to do but submit and start believing in god! how long have you been on these forums doing the same thing over and over again? 10 years you say? more?

I've got 21 foot notes dumb ass. you might look at the evidence rather than refusing to read it. that might give you a clue as to why you should believe it.

 I think is the same guy:

do you know what the definition of insanity is? look it up and take note, your living in the past.

I assume he has reference to a truism (not the official definition) about doing the same thing over agian. Since he didn't read the essay does he know i'm doing that? Unless of course he means just trying to show them the facts is insane becuase they are too stupid to care and too inept to look. I guess I am insane then because I still keep hoping some them will grow some brains and read the evidence.

skylurker

 I haven't read this yet as I don't have time at the moment... but will try to read it later.

I don't think he ever did.He at least new he would make better mileage if he promised to read it.

However do any of these descriptions or justifications of the supernatural pertain to things like the spontaneous growth of a new set of lungs in response to a prayer request to a God or some demi-god (a Catholic saint) and that allegedly happen in greater frequency at some "special" geographical location such as Lourdes? These are examples of supernatural I have pressed you with in the past.

I suspect we are continueing on with the Tillich thing and his opposition to the supernatural. From what I have skimmed in your write-up here is that the description of the supernatural pertain to human awareness, experience and love and not miracle healing and such.

That's more or less the case. In fact, this proves my point form the Tillich discussion that he was not against the model of SN that I construct in the essay, that model does not preclude miraculous healing. It changes the concept of what's happening with miraculous healing. No long is it seen as breaking in and violating natural law (indeed how could lit violate a law that is purely descriptive?) but is the result of harmony between the two sides of the one reality, the natural and the SN. In fact Tillich alludes to this concept.

from my AW post Friday Jan 18
2013 "Was Paul Tillich Anti-Supernatural?"

Student: Well, in catechism in Sunday school, we learned that miracles imply a "suspension of the laws of nature." I suppose that is as good a definition as any.
Dr. Tillich: Where did you learn this? It is very interesting. Because this is precisely the idea which I fiercely combat in all my work, whenever I speak of these things. Was that really taught in your catechism, or by the Sunday-school teacher, who could not do better because she had learned it from another Sunday-school teacher who also could not do better?

I wrote a lot more about that in that post.

 so many stupid excuses to keep from reading it. they could have read enough to know what it says by now. but they would rather just bad mouth it and pretend it goes away. tomorrow these same people will be saying the same incorrect disproved clap trap about the SN because they refuse to study it and find the turth.

Common Atheist Misunderstanding of Supernatural

Richard Carrier (of Secular Web fame) has written a pretty good article on the supernatural. I say it's "pretty good" he obviously put a lot into it, but it brings me back to one of my old soap boxes. Its not really about the supernaural. It's not Carriers fault, I think the concept itself has been degraded. He takes science and law to task for imposing their own definitions upon the term "supernatural," terms which do not regard the metaphysical. Since "supernatural" is a metaphysical term we should have a metaphysical definition. He also argues that such definitions should take account of the way people use such terms. He then loses us by defining the term in this way:

In short, I argue "naturalism" means, in the simplest terms, that every mental thing is entirely caused by fundamentally nonmental things, and is entirely dependent on nonmental things for its existence. Therefore, "supernaturalism" means that at least some mental things cannot be reduced to nonmental things. As I summarized

in the Carrier-Wanchick debate (and please pardon the dry, technical wording):

Unfortunately, this is not what people mean when they say "supernatural" nor does it have anything to do with metaphysics. Its' not historically the way the term has been used. More important than metaphysics is theology, because this is primarily a theological term. While I agree that we should take the public use of a term into account, when we have a specialized term that is primarily the property of an academic discipline such as theology, we should consult the history of the term as well as the special to use to which it has been put.

The term suffers from a callsic symptom; he thinks "Super" as the prefix would make supernature the opposite of nature. So starting from this juncture,the assumption that these diametrical opposites is symptomatic of what has happened in the degrading of the term in the first place. He then uses his own philosophical hobby horse to define "nature" and thus defining "supernature" (a term he doesn't use but the proper term none the less) is just a matter of advancing the opposite concept as the definition. But "Super" doesn't mean opposition nor does it mean opposite, nor does it mean immaterial, way out, or imaginary. it means "above," "over" or "superior." What this means for defining the term I'll get to in a moment.

Carrier goes on to illustrate the way the term is used,in his eyes, by talking about ferries and demons and the force in star wars without ever realizing that most of that is not defined as supernatural. I don't recall a line in the movie saying "use the force, Luke,... it's supernatural."

I have previously illustrated my own understanding of supernatural, which excludes this kind of phenomena, the ferries and so forth. That was published on this blog, so I'll repeat it here.

I have several pages about the supernatural on Doxa.

Supernature



The problem in all these discussions about the supernatural is that we are dealing with a degraded concept. The notion of "Supernatural" is a misnomer to begin with, because modern people construe the idea as another place, an actual location that you can go to. It's the unseen invisible world that is filled with ghosts and magic and so forth. It's in the realm where God can heaven are, we supposed. But what they don't realize is that this is the watered down, dilapidated concept. It's not even understood well by Christians because it was destroyed in the reformation.


The term "supernatural" comes from the term "supernauturalator" or "Supernature." Dionysus the Areogopite (around 500ad) began talking of God as the supernaturalator, meaning that God's higher nature was the telos toward which our "lower" natures were drawn. St.Augustine has spoken of Divine nature as "Supernature" or the higher form of nature, but that is speaking of nature in you, like human nature and divine nature.

In the begining the issue was not a place, "the realm of the supernatural" but the issue was the nature inside a man. Human nature, vs. divine nature. The Sueprnatural was divine nature that drew the human up to to itself and vivified it with the power (dunimos) to live a holy life. This is the sort of thing Paul was talking about when he said "when I am weak I am strong." Or "we have this treasure in earthen vessels." The weak human nature which can't resist sin is transformed by the power of the Godly nature, through the spirit and becomes strong enough to resist sin, to be self sacrificing, to die for others ect ect.

This was the "supernatural" prior to the reformation. It was tied in with the sacraments and the mass. That's partly why the Protestants would rebel against it. St. Austine (late 300s early 400s) spoke of Christians not hating rocks and trees, in answer to the assertion that Christians didn't like nature. But the extension of the natural world as "nature" didn't come until latter. The idea of "the natural" was at first bsed upon the idea of human nature, of biological life, life form life, that's what the Latin natura is about.


Prior to the reformation Christian theologians did not see the supernatural as a seperate reality, an invisible realm, or a place where God dwells that we can't see. After the reformation reality was bifurcated. Now there came to be two realms, and they juxtaposed to each other. The realm of Supernature, is related to that of Grace, and is holy and sacred, but the early realm is "natural" and bad it's meyred in sin and natural urges.

But all of that represents a degraded form of thinking after going through he mill of the Protestant Catholic split. The basic split is characterized by rationalism vs feideism. The Catholics are rationalists, because they believe God is motivated by divine puropose and wisdom, the Protestants were fiedeists, meaning that faith alone apart form reason because God is motives by will and sheer acceptation, the desire to prove sovereignty above all else.

The rationalistic view offered a single harmony, a harmonious reality, governed by God's reasoned nature and orchestrated in a multifarious ways. This single reality contained a two sided nature, or a mutli-facets, but it was one harmonious reality in wich human nature was regeuvinated thorugh divine nature. But the Protestant view left Christian theology with two waring reality, that which is removed from our empirical knowledge and that in which we live.

The true Christian view of the Sueprnatural doesn't see the two realms as juxtaposed but as one reality in which the natural moves toward its' ground and end in divine nature. It is this tendency to move toward the ground and end, that produces miracles. A miracle is merely nature bending toward the higher aspect of Supernature.

but with the Protestant division between divine sovereignty, acceptation and will motivating the universe, we mistake univocity and equivocity for nature and supernature. We think nature and supernature are not alike they are at war, so difference marks the relationship of the two. But to make the Suepernatural more avaible they stress some aspect of nature and put it over against the rest of nature and pretend that makes it sueprnatuarl, this is univocity, it's the same. So will and acceptation, soverigty, God has to prove that he is in charge, these are all aspects of univocity.

It's the natural extension of this bifurcation that sets up two realms and sees nature as "everything that exits." or "all of material reality" that sets up the atheist idea that supernatural is unnecessary and doesn't exist.

The medieval Christian doctrine of the supernatural has long been misconstrued as a dualistic denigration of nature, opposed to scientific thinking. The concept of supernature, however, is not a dualism in the sense of denigrating nature or of pitting against each other the "alien" realms of spirit and matter. The Christian ontology of the supernatural bound together the realm of nature and the realm of Grace, immanent and transcendent, in a unity of creative wisdom and purpose, which gave theological significance to the natural world. While the doctrine of supernature was at times understood in a dualistic fashion, ultimately, the unity it offered played a positive role in the development of scientific thinking, because it made nature meaningful to the medieval mind. Its dissolution came, not because supernatural thinking opposed scientific thinking, but because culture came to value nature in a different manner, and the old valuation no longer served the purpose of scientific thinking. An understanding of the notion of supernature is essential to an understanding of the attitudes in Western culture toward nature, and to an understanding of the cultural transition to science as an epistemic authority.

The ontology of supernature assumes that the natural participates in the supernatural in an ordered relation of means and immediate ends, with reference to their ultimate ends. The supernatural is the ground and end of the natural; the realm of nature and the realm of Grace are bound up in a harmonious relation. The Ptolemaic system explained the physical lay-out of the universe, supernature explained its theological relation to God. The great chain of being separated the ranking of creatures in relation to creator. The supernatural ontology is, therefore, sperate from but related to cosmologies. This ontology stands behind most forms of pre-reformation theology, and it implies an exaltation of nature, rather than denigration. This talk of two realms seems to imply a dualism, yet, it is not a metaphysical dualism, not a dualism of opposition, but as Fairweather points out, "the essential structure of the Christian faith has a real two-sidedness about it, which may at first lead the unwary into dualism, and then to resolve ... an exclusive emphasis on one or the other severed elements of a complete Christianity...such a dissolution is inevitable once we lose our awareness of that ordered relation of the human and the divine, the immanent and the transcendent, which the Gospel assumes." Yet, it is this "two-sidedness" which leads unwary historians of into dualism.

In his famous 1967 article, "The Roots of Our Ecological Crisis," Lynn White argued that the Christian belief of the Imago Dei created "a dualism of man and nature;" "man shares in God's transcendence of nature." This notion replaced pagan animism, it removed the "sacred" from the natural world, and with it, inhibitions against exploiting nature. Moreover, by the 12th century, nature became a source of revelation through natural theology. In the Latin West, where action prevailed over contemplation, natural theology ceased to be the decoding of natural symbols of the divine and became instead an attempt to understand God through decerning the operation of creation. Western technology flourished, surpassing even that of Islamic culture (although they still led in theoretical pursuits). Thus, White argues, medieval theology did allow science to grow, but at the ultimate expense of the environment.

The insights of feminist scholarship, however, suggest an even more subtle argument for the denigration of nature. Feminist theologian, Rosemary Radford Ruther, argued that there is an identification between the female and nature, the male and transcendence. Women have been disvalued historically through the association between female sexuality and the "baseness" of nature. Londa Schiebinger, calls attention to the fact that the Judeo-Christian cosmology placed women in a subordinate position. Gender was more fundamental than biological sex, and it was a cosmological principle, "...Men and women were carefully placed in the great chain of being--their positions were defined relative to plants, animals, and God." The subordination of women was predicated upon their position in nature. "Male" and "Female represented dualistic cosmological principles penetrating all of nature, principles of which sexual organs were only one aspect. One might suspect that the place of women on the great chain of being is indicative of the true status of nature itself in Christian ontology; an overt denigration of women indicates a covert denigration of nature.