John_Maxwell_IV comments on Questions on Theism - Less Wrong

23 Post author: Aiyen 08 October 2014 09:02PM

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Comment author: Nate_Gabriel 09 October 2014 03:03:18AM 7 points [-]

I have done this. The most impressive-sounding one happened to a friend of mine who had formerly been an athlete. She had to withdraw from sports for a year because of an unexpected muscular condition. (If this is obviously medically wrong, it's probably because I changed details for privacy.) As you probably expect, that year involved plenty of spiritual growth that she attributes to having had to quit sports.

At the end of that time, a group of church people laid hands on her and prayed, she felt some extreme acceleration in her heart rate, and her endurance was back the next time she tested it. A doctor confirmed that the muscular thing was completely gone, and she's been physically active ever since.

Now obviously this isn't bulletproof. You just need her to spontaneously recover at some point before the laying on of hands. (I have no idea how likely this would be; probably not very.) The rest is exactly the sort of thing that might happen regardless of whether there's a miracle. But it still sounds really impressive. If I weren't actively trying not to spin it to sound even more miraculous, it'd sound even more impressive.

But this is just the most miraculous-sounding story I've heard from a source I trust. I only know so many people. This account is probably well within the distribution of how miraculous anecdotes can get. I'd feel weird saying "you spontaneously got better a few months earlier, and so did anyone else with a similar story."

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 09 October 2014 04:21:05AM *  2 points [-]

Can you go in to more detail on the muscular condition? This might be relevant.

Regarding an increase in heart rate, that's pretty normal to experience as a result of a social situation (think public speaking, going on a date, laughing with friends, etc.) I imagine if atheism is true, the reason theists "lay hands" on one another is because it's a social situation that seems consistently provoke an interesting and intense feeling in the person who is having hands laid on them.

Comment author: Nate_Gabriel 09 October 2014 04:47:11AM *  3 points [-]

It wasn't actually a muscular condition. My friend is surprisingly unwilling to spread this around and only told me under the extreme circumstances of me telling her I might be about to become an atheist. I wanted to change enough that if she read this on the Internet she wouldn't know it was about her.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 09 October 2014 07:54:08PM 4 points [-]

So there was a clear potential payoff to her desires in giving you a miracle story - keeping you in the fold.

I don't question her good will toward you, but I've found that the correspondence theory of truth is not as widely held as those who rely on it believe. One alternative is that truths are useful statements, whether or not they accurately model the state of the world.

Comment author: Azathoth123 10 October 2014 01:43:00AM 2 points [-]

but I've found that the correspondence theory of truth is not as widely held as those who rely on it believe.

Amusingly all the people I know who reject it are atheists (of the SJW type).

Comment author: buybuydandavis 15 October 2014 02:22:09AM *  3 points [-]

The real joke, that few have gotten the punchline for, is that SJWs aren't atheists, they're puritanical theocrats.

SJWs are special in terms of the correspondence theory of truth in that they'll explicity reject it, while many, many more of varying ideological persuasions only implicitly reject it, in failing to find it particularly motivating.

Comment author: Lumifer 15 October 2014 02:42:39AM 2 points [-]

SJWs are special in terms of the correspondence theory of truth in that they'll explicity reject it

They may be special, but hardly unique -- it's not hard to find environmentalists who also reject it, for example.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 15 October 2014 11:24:52PM 1 point [-]

What do you mean by "not atheists"?