Miracles

[Tenure]

I've been arguing for a while now, as some people in chat know, with a bunch of Christians on Facebook. Basically, Facebook has a blogging utility, which I've been using to flesh out my thoughts on Objectivism. I figured, sure, it's one thing to read ITOE and kind of mostly understand it - it's another thing to coherently and originally recreate the main points on your own, without just quoting ITOE. Consider it part of the learning process for me.

However, I've had to contend furiously with some Christian 'friends' of mine who have gone so far as to call me arrogant for holding that my position was right:

you can hardly say my opinion is wrong, so much as i can say that yours is. please refrain from this sort of thing, its annoying and arrogant.

However, one guy has been posting about miracles. I've had to reiterate the laws of identity, causality; the axiom of existence; what morality means - over and over and over again, to try and get it into their thick skulls. As such, I've said many times that miracles don't happen, that things don't contradict their nature, that A never equals B, that a Horse never turns into a chicken, and that things never fall up (they might float, but they can't, by definition, 'fall' up). Now he's claiming to have seen many miracles in his life time.

Now, some are just anecdotal, but he claims that nearly 500 people out of a group of 5000 were healed. I've explained why no claims of miraculous events is ever going to convince me, because no matter how unlikely, a miracle is still logically impossible.

His response?

God acts according to His nature, therefore healings happen.

The above statement I can take down on my own - what I wanted was something more concrete to attack his claims with. I know the stuff about placebo effects and subjective validation, but he's claiming 500 people simultatenously cured of afflictions. I was just wondering if there's a good, solid answer? I know miracles can't happen by their very definition, but are there any documented cases I can throw in his face to back up how miracles are disproved?

The thing is, this debate isn't about the arguments. I mean, I'm staying perfectly rational and logic in my arguments, but we're not arguing for the sake of examining one another's beliefs - it's me trying to defend what I believe. It's the fact that out of all the people I know who do or can read my Notes, I want at least one of them to see past the usual Subjectivist and Theistic bullshit. I want one of them to realise that all this nonsense which they've probably picked up too, is actually easily dispelled, but it's so easy to be undermined when your enemy is basically going to flaunt how 'rationalistic' you are, and what a 'slave to logic' you are, because you're claiming even the wildly improbable to still be possible.

Edit: Some quotes from his comments:

"On the subject of prayer which you brought up before, it seems that you believe that answered prayer is simply chance. How does it work then, that 230ish people were healed of various diseases, allergies and other stuff within the space of 5 minutes, in a group of about 5000 people in a meeting I was at the other day?"

, This one is actually something what he heard, not actually saw proof for:

"One girl was unable to read due to dyslexia and had another eye problem which was to do with the connections it had with her brain. She went into the meeting with a reading age of 6 and was seeing a specialist. After she was prayed for, she was able to read whole chunks of text without any problem. She then went back to the specialist and she was stunned and confused as she realised that her patient's reading age had increased by ten years in a week!

Another example is a girl who had allergies to nuts, rubber and fruit. Even being in a room with balloons would be life threatening. However, when she was prayed for she ate some fruit, peanut butter and blew up a balloon and didn't die or feel any symptoms whatsoever. Again, doctors couldn't understand it."

"I haven't, sadly seen anyone's limbs grown back, although I've spoken to people who've witnessed it. However, since I wasn't actually there, I won't use it as an example. However, there was someone at the meeting whose fingers were not the right length proportionally due to a calcium and bone problem. Again, when she was prayed for, she was healed and her hands were back to normal.

Some of the healings were pretty minor. Some were major. It ranged from simple aches and pains to actual disabilities, as I've given a few examples of. 230 was the minimum number, some people needed actual blood tests to find out whether they had been healed or not, so that number could rise. The speaker was Adrian Holloway and the doctor there was a bloke called Pete Carter. Yes, the people did want to get better, which is why they responded and got prayed for. I'll give a few more examples if you like."

Unrelated to the event I was at, I know a bloke who's son had fluid on his brain when he was born. He was prayed for, went back for brain scans and the fluid was gone. Needless to say, the doctors were confused. Also, I was playing cricket on the beach once and a bloke dived for a catch and broke his collar bone. He had an x-ray which clearly showed it was broken, then he was prayed for, felt fine afterwards, had another x-ray which showed no fracture at all. Do bones mend themselves in the space of a week unaided?

Edited August 10, 2007 by Tenure

[y_feldblum]

It is generally hard, with appeals to reason, to change the mind of one who rejects reason as something to be appealed to.

[K-Mac]

My first thought, on a more simplistic level, is that if all these miracles are occurring, why are there so many sick people out there? If people were really being healed, don't you think the world's sick and infirm would be jumping on the bandwagon? Why are they all going to hospitals instead of their church? And if God wants to heal all of his people, why is he letting them become afflicted with horrible disease and disfigurement in the first place?

And I agree with y_f, it's hard to argue with someone who accepts blind faith and is so irrational. That's what's so dangerous about it.

[Tenure]

Some more:

The thing is though, this person was in serious pain. Is it a probability that he was imagining the pain before, then was told that he had a fractured collarbone when actually he'd imagined the pain and the doctor made a mistake? It's not like he was in pain, was told it was fractured, then found out it wasn't fractured, just that he'd torn a ligament and would still be out of work for months!

In terms of the blind person, she was blind, went to a meeting and then could see as soon as she was prayed for. My question is whether that and all other things that happen in the same way can seriously be considered a coincidence. I then rather sarcastically commented that if it is a coincidence, then perhaps we should carry on praying for people, since this seems to be when all these coincidences happen.

[RationalBiker]

To echo y_feldblum, have any of these people you have been debating with been open to reasoning? Have any of them given concessions regarding their faith in the face of reasoning and facts?

[softwareNerd]

Is this guy talking about some specific healer?

It's a mixture of self-deception and audience-deception. A bit of research will probably throw up examples of both. However, your opponent is going to shrug it off and say that those are charlatan renegades who do not reflect on the "real" healers.

If he is strictly Christian (rather than ecumenical), a polemic approach would be to use the faith healing that takes place in other faiths, and ask if that does not prove that it's really not Jesus doing it, but simply the person's own psychosomatic processes. (As I say, this is not the truth, but a polemic approach, to see how he would defend his "reasoning".) The point being: suppose this did happen... really, suppose it did... wouldn't we want to look for natural explanations? How does God figure into it anyway?

Edited August 10, 2007 by softwareNerd

[Tenure]

I hate to pester you but - do you know any good compositories of faith healing from other religions?

And that natural causes thing: I actually said in response to him:

"If we were going without the mindset of prayer and miracles, what do we have: A guy injures himself, goes to the doctor, is x-rayed and told he has a fracture. He goes back the next week, is x-rayed again, and it turns out there is no fracture. If you want to talk coincidences and the malarky, what is more likely: the doctors made a mistake, or he seriously fractured his collarbone and was fully healed within a week?"

His response was:

The thing is though, this person was in serious pain. Is it a probability that he was imagining the pain before, then was told that he had a fractured collarbone when actually he'd imagined the pain and the doctor made a mistake? It's not like he was in pain, was told it was fractured, then found out it wasn't fractured, just that he'd torn a ligament and would still be out of work for months!

In terms of the blind person, she was blind, went to a meeting and then could see as soon as she was prayed for. My question is whether that and all other things that happen in the same way can seriously be considered a coincidence. I then rather sarcastically commented that if it is a coincidence, then perhaps we should carry on praying for people, since this seems to be when all these coincidences happen.

[KendallJ]

I hate to pester you but - do you know any good compositories of faith healing from other religions?

You can debate at this level all you want with this guy, but the reality is that he is sure it happened because someone told him the person was sick. I think if you search a little bit, you'll find that these sorts of things never stand up to scrutiny, nor do their practicioners like scrutiny. You can cast doubt on his certainty, by giving him all sorts of actual shams that he must now go account for, which will expose the fact that he hasn't ruled these things out. I think if you come up with common alternate explanations, then it is encumbent upon him to show you that God was actually the cause.

As far as his coincidence statement, what you're doing above is essentially saying, "I think it's far more coincidental that every time one of these meetings occurs there is someone in the room who is invested in having you believe that God did it."

Edited August 10, 2007 by KendallJ

[softwareNerd]

As K says, you ain't going to convince this guy.

Here's a small study of Muslim, Hindu and Christians praying for people who are ill. The atheist patients and the religious patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly better recovery than did the religious patients who did not know people were praying for them. The study is really small -- 72 people in all -- so the results are probably not significant.

As for non-Christian "faith-healers", I know there are a whole lot of Hindu ones in India. My guess is that there'd be fewer in Islam, but they do exist. There's a Hindu guy called "Satya Sai Baba" who is pretty famous in India for faith healing and miscellaneous other mumbo jumbo.

James Randi probably has some articles or books on the topic; also, check the wiki.

[Tenure]

Well, the debate continues. I've said all the stuff mentioned here, I've said how a miracle cannot happen by definition, but I've got to admit, there seems to be at least something odd going on. For example:

my friend told me at church today that he was healed of an allergy to peppers at this place we went to. Before he was prayed for, it would only take a miniscule amount of pepper in his food to make him throw up....However, now that he's been prayed for, he's been eating whole peppers for the first time in his life and actually enjoying them, without feeling ill at all.

I mean, he's not the kind of guy to just lie and make stuff up. I trust him enough with that.

[RationalBiker]

I mean, he's not the kind of guy to just lie and make stuff up. I trust him enough with that.

Have you ruled out all other rational scientific explanations; biological changes, physiological changes, mental changes that can happen to a body without divine intervention?

And also, assuming you exhaust all known scientific explanations, is the next step just taking on faith that there is some connection between a bunch of people wishing for something and then it happens?

Also, are you sure it was a food allergy? Medicine.net suggests that only about 1% of adults and 3% of children have actual clinically proven food allergies though far many more people have food intolerance. You might also clarify what other symptoms, if any, the person had. I think if you look around too you might find information that sometimes allergies just appear or disappear from people, regardless of any divine involvment.

[Solid_Choke]

Well, the debate continues. I've said all the stuff mentioned here, I've said how a miracle cannot happen by definition, but I've got to admit, there seems to be at least something odd going on. For example:

I mean, he's not the kind of guy to just lie and make stuff up. I trust him enough with that.

Not saying that this proves that God doesn't exist but every spring competing in Submission Grappling would become much much harder for me because of my allergies. I would run out of endurance very quickly and if a choke was applied I would have to submit almost instantly because I simply could not breath very well. The past two years I have not had these problems at all. I haven't even gotten sick with the cold or flu either. It seems my allergies that prevented me from competing effectively certain times in the year are now completely gone. I am very ignorant of biology and don't know if allergies are just supposed to come and go at certain times in your life but in my case they did. Just a thought.

[fletch]

Well, the debate continues.

my friend told me at church today that he was healed of an allergy to peppers at this place we went to. Before he was prayed for, it would only take a miniscule amount of pepper in his food to make him throw up....However, now that he's been prayed for, he's been eating whole peppers for the first time in his life and actually enjoying them, without feeling ill at all.

You might try this approach:

To attribute a 'miracle' such as this to God is really an insult to the Amighty. What you are suggesting is that the creator of universe, the creator of all that is would reduce Himself to the level of a streetcorner magician. For a being capable of creating man from the dust of the ground, healing an allergy to peppers is the Divine equivalent of pulling a rabbit from a hat. Are you suggesting that God answers the prayers for such trivial ailments as this while ignoring the prayers of the untold millions living in squalor, dying of starvation, or enduring unspeakable torture? What type of monster would behave that way? Certainly no such creature would be deserving of the title of God. You might as well worship Sigfried and Roy. You will still get the sleight of hand that so impresses you, some degree of entertainment value, and they wont try to pass themselves off as Divine.

Generally, when I debate theology with Christians, I accept their basic premise--that there is a God. But I argue strictly from the perspective that any God would be a God of reason. You arent likely to convince a theist to abandon his belief in God, but you can get them to alter the way they view God. It may not be much, but its the best you can do. In fact, I regularly confront your fellow countrymen on the BBC Religion and Ethics website.

[Lemuel]

I was just wondering if there's a good, solid answer? I know miracles can't happen by their very definition, but are there any documented cases I can throw in his face to back up how miracles are disproved?

Maybe it's simplistic, but the next time you're in one of these debates, ask why these "miracles" never seem to manifest themselves in ways that others can see with their own eyes.

One can claim to be in chronic pain, or be blind, and another may have a condition that remits of its own accord - no one can see these things as there are no visible symptoms. It's always some internal condition no one can quite see that gets healed, but it's never something like growing back a severed arm, or severe burn scars healing over. Whatever mystical miracle force is healing people, it doesn't prefer that people actually know for themselves that this sort of thing is real ... nor does it believe in permanent cures - I've heard from a few places (sorry, no citations) that the symptoms of those claiming to be faith-healed "mysteriously" relapse very soon.

[thejohngaltline]

To echo Lemuel, the never regrowing a severed limb thing (or coming back from the dead, or something drastic and truly inexplicable) is a good point to get him with.

Richard Dawkins touches on that point and on miracles in general in this clip from his documentary, "The Root of all Evil?"

Keep in mind, though, that there comes a point when debating with someone who is simply irrational in such a fundamental way becomes a waste of your time. You know miracles are bogus, you know there is no God, and you know why you're right about both of those things. So debating with this guy might, eventually, become just a drain of your energy and prove utterly unproductive. But if you have the time and energy, then hand it to 'em!

[Tenure]

Well, I took everything you guys have said and I think I've held up a pretty cogent argument. I'm asking him for proof of any of the claimed miracles, perhaps a copy of his friend's medical record? Perhaps a link to a medical journal where a Doctor has reported his patient suddenly going from being blind to seeing? You'd think miraculous things would at least warrant a mention in the Funny-pages of a medical journal.

Doctors don't like to write about things that they can't explain. A medical journal would be kinda crappy if it just said "someone got well again unexpectedly... I can't really explain it". You should think more practically.

He says, which I really don't believe. I remember seeing an interview with Randi. It was him and Dawkins on stage together doing an interview/conversation thing. Dawkins asks him something like, "Well, what if you find something, but it isn't a miracle or magic, but an identifiable, scientific phenomenon", to which he replies (again, paraphrasing): "My project is mistaken as just wanting to dismiss anything presented to me. But the thing is, scientists want to find something. The $1,000,000 challenege is a small price to pay, if it means I get to discover something new!"

So, yes, I've got him on the ropes it would appear, about stuff that couldn't just heal on its own. Blindness (He claims to have heard of one, but no evidence), Limbs growing back (detailed account of what happened - funnily enough, no evidence), AIDs (again, a story, no evidence).

Angry at me questioning his sources and lack of evidence, he asked me if I demand that Dawkins provide sources in 'The God Delusion'. I've asked how one is supposed to provide sources, when one is presenting a rhetorical argument, beyond just referencing back to what other people have said? Unless of course he's accusing Dawkins of lying about the arguments he rebuts in that book, because I've certainly heard almost everyone of it expressed by people I've personally met.

[RationalBiker]

I find that religious people like to credit their god for the good things (the miracles) as proof that you should believe them. However, when bad things happen, either it's not god's fault or you get the whole "he works in mysterious ways" load from them. "Wait, you expect me to know every possible scientific explanation for someone's sudden change in a condition, and if I fail you can automatically credit god, but you don't have to know every possible way god might accomplish something to use him as an explanation?" A bit of a double standard. God apparently "wins" all otherwise unexplainable good things, but man is responsible for all unexplained bad things. Right.

I might ask them is your god responsible for the person who is faithful, prays and goes to church and then gets run over by a tractor trailer or develops an unexpected brain aneurysm and dies.

This is somewhat similar to what happened to my mom. She had been a "believer" most of her life, but in the later part of her life (mid 60's but other typically pretty healthy) she really "got religion" and started going to church and everything. My mom did not like to be around strangers at all, she didn't like to have to "dress up nice", so going to a new rather rich and fancy church where she only knew one other person was a dramatic change in her character. Within a year of her starting to go to church she was walking through a parking lot when a blood vessel burst in her brain and she was dead within 24 hours. No warning whatsoever. My sister and sister-in-law prayed hard all night for her to pull through. Prayer didn't seem to work that time. The only change in her life was that she had started praying and going to church. Was that god's reward for his faithful? Who's responsible for this "anti-miracle"?

I certainly don't blame any invisible being for this, and I seriously doubt her praying or going to church had anything to do with what happened at all. Rather, my mom's apparent good health fueled her reasoning to NEVER go to a doctor for an annual check up or a physical. It's not a given that if she had gone to the doctor for check ups that she would have discovered and prevented her unexpected demise, but the possibility exists that she could have.