Desrtopa comments on Questions on Theism - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: Aiyen 08 October 2014 10:26:12PM 7 points [-]

The main prediction that comes to mind is that if Christianity is true, one would expect substantially more miracle claims by Christians (legitimate claims plus false ones) than by any other religion (false claims only). If it is false, one would expect similar miracle claims by most religions that believe in them. Does anyone have data on this one way or the other?

Comment author: Toggle 08 October 2014 11:17:30PM *  3 points [-]

I looked around a bit, and there are a few things challenging this measurement. Buddhism and Hinduism explicitly conflate miracles with supernatural human powers, and seem to take a dim view of both (they're also not theistic in the relevant sense anyway). Islam reports many miracles (starting with the Holy Quran itself, of course), but since Al-Ghazali seems to reject material causality entirely in favor of everything being miraculous- the challenge here will be reporting events that a Christian would also interpret as miraculous or supernatural, which the religion tends to see as superstition. Judaism is probably insufficiently distinct from Christianity for your purposes. Wiccans certainly report many spirit communications and magical experiences, more often than most Christians- the invocation of these events is core to the faith, although again you might not consider these miraculous as such due to the lack of monotheism (an equivalent might be transubstantiation during the Catholic communion ceremony). Same with many new age spiritualists.

In other words, most world religions don't even really have false claims of contemporary miracles in the theistic sense you mean, for the same reason that Christians rarely report remembering their past lives. Islam and Wicca come closest, but these are both religions that were influenced by Christianity at the time of their founding. So even the 'Christianity is false' universe would predict a preponderance of miracle reports to exist within Christianity.

Comment author: Desrtopa 15 October 2014 03:44:44PM 2 points [-]

I looked around a bit, and there are a few things challenging this measurement. Buddhism and Hinduism explicitly conflate miracles with supernatural human powers, and seem to take a dim view of both (they're also not theistic in the relevant sense anyway).

In what way is Hinduism not theistic in the relevant sense? It is, in one sense, monotheistic, and on that scale it posits an effectively non-interventionist deity, but on the level on which it's polytheistic, the deities tend to be highly interventionist.

Comment author: Toggle 15 October 2014 09:36:19PM 2 points [-]

It can also be atheistic, depending on the school. The Brahman is not necessarily thought of in anthropomorphic terms; this religion has a lot going on under the hood.

That said, looking at the population shares of each of the important schools of Hinduism, it looks as if by far the more common forms of worship invoke a particular, personified supreme being. So I suspect that you're more correct than I was, and we can include most mainstream forms of Hindu worship under 'monotheistic, with expected miracles' banner. Happily, that gives us an example not substantially influenced by western Christianity.