ChristianKl comments on Questions on Theism - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: gjm 08 October 2014 10:24:09PM 28 points [-]

So, a few observations on miracles.

  1. There are miracle stories in every religious tradition and plenty of not-exactly-religious traditions. Unless there's some big difference in credibility -- which I'm not aware of any reason to think there is -- if you think "no smoke without fire" about one set then you should think the same about the others too. Which means you either have to believe in lots of different gods, or believe in one god and lots of evil spirits (or something) that just happen to do more or less the same sorts of miracle. (Or, I guess, believe that miraculous things happen but they're brought about by people's latent psychic powers or something, but that's pretty far from any religion's account of these things.)

  2. When miraculous stories are investigated carefully, they consistently seem to evaporate. This happens even when the people doing the investigation belong to the religion that claims responsibility for the alleged miracle. For instance, consider something commonly cited as evidence for miracles: the shrine at Lourdes, to which pilgrims in their millions trek in the hope of miraculous healing. The Roman Catholic Church has a process -- to its credit, not a completely ridiculous one -- by which it certifies some healings there as miraculous. Although the process isn't completely ridiculous, it's far from obviously bulletproof; the main requirement is that a bunch of Roman Catholic doctors declare that the alleged cure is inexplicable according to current medical knowledge. As an example, the most recent case is of someone who had a tumour that went away after she bathed at Lourdes. (My understanding is that this is a thing that occasionally happens, miracle or no.) So, anyway, they appear to certify about one miracle per two million pilgrims, and I think pretty much all the pilgrims are there in hope of healing. One per two million! (If you think the alleged cures are so improbable that they couldn't happen naturally one time in two million, I have a bridge to sell you.)

  3. In some situations (those in which a lot of these miraculous healings tend to occur) it really isn't difficult to get people to think more has happened than really has. Consider, for instance, the case of Peter Popoff. Lots of miraculous healings at his meetings -- but the whole thing was a fraud.

  4. In general, unfortunately, people do lie. And make mistakes. And see what they hope or expect to see. And tales "grow in the telling", so that after a few steps of Chinese Whispers something sounds far more inexplicable and impressive than it ever really was.

You might try the following experiment: Talk to some of your Christian friends, and ask them for the most impressive examples they have personally experienced of miraculous interventions by God. If in fact there are no miracles, what you should expect is that (1) the things they cite won't, on the whole, be all that impressive; (2) the more careful and intelligent of them will have less impressive experiences; (3) the most impressive experiences will be the least verifiable.

Comment author: ChristianKl 09 October 2014 10:14:14AM 1 point [-]

I guess, believe that miraculous things happen but they're brought about by people's latent psychic powers or something, but that's pretty far from any religion's account of these things.

When it comes to established religions that might be true. On the other hand the "The Secret" style New Age ideology solves things that way. It makes it much easier for them to pick and choose from a lot of separate frameworks.

Comment author: gjm 09 October 2014 11:16:32AM 1 point [-]

Sure. But it doesn't sound as if Aiyen is seriously considering the possibility that that sort of New Age ideology might be correct. If his/her question is about (say) evangelical Christianity versus scientific naturalism, then explanations of miracles in terms of latent psychic powers don't increase the credibility of Christianity.

Comment author: ChristianKl 09 October 2014 11:42:10AM 2 points [-]

I think that looking at a variety of different belief systems shows how bad Christianity actually is. It underlies that there little reason to prefer Christianity over alternative belief systems.

Comment author: gjm 09 October 2014 12:43:19PM 1 point [-]

That was part of what I was trying to point out by observing that if the evidence for Christian miracles impresses you, you should probably be comparably impressed by the evidence for miracles from any number of other sources.