I think the place I would start—and did start—is with the question, “Have I ever personally experienced a miracle?” I quickly discarded most possibilities and came down to just a few, all of which were fundamentally a strong of events, each of which was individually highly unlikely. But unlikely things happen every day, so that’s not enough to say it is a miracle.
Next, I would ask if people I personally know and trust have experienced miracles. I’d ask them about their experiences. For me, I knew no one who had experienced anything that sounded like a miracle. Again, there were some unlikely coincidences, but that’s not really enough. If one of them claimed to have experienced a true miracle, then I’d keep evaluating their credibility over a long period of time. Does their story change? Reasonable consistency would be more credible. Do they act like I would expect them to act if they had really experienced a miracle? A non-believer suddenly becoming a devout missionary in the absence of any personal crisis would be credible. Do they get anything by claiming to have experienced a miracle? Someone getting attention from conspicuous religiosity is less credible for me, though that doesn’t necessarily make sense: if I had personally experienced a miracle, I’d think that I would sell off all my worldly possessions to talk about it as much as possible. Is this yet another in a series of flighty decisions? Going from new age to confused to born-again is not very persuasive for me. And so on.
Finally, given that people have cell phones with cameras now, and given that virtually everything else shows up on YouTube, I would think that there would be at least some credible video. I’d also think that I wouldn’t be able to analyze whether it is credible, given the possibility of a good special effects studio. But I bet someone else would and that I would hear about a truly inexplicable video.
I’ve seen people pray in tongues, felt an overwhelming sense of God’s presence, had it reported that my face was glowing during prayer once (I held up a hand to see if I could see any reflected light; no dramatic effect, wasn’t sure if I saw the light or the power of suggestion), that sort of thing.
I haven’t seen anything super dramatic, but enough to be convinced that either God is real, or human beings are frighteningly good at self-deception.
I have seen people speaking nonsense syllables in altered mental states. (I am using the “rationalist taboo” technique here.) Was your observation any different from this?
My observation was that people said syllables that I didn’t understand. As for telling if it was another language or nonsense, finding that one of the phrases actually made sense in another language would be very strong evidence for the existance of God. Proving that it was nonsense would be harder-how do you know when you’ve checked all the languages?
Does something like “koriata mashita mashuta amon hala” mean anything in any language anyone here knows? It sounds somewhat Japanese to me.
finding that one of the phrases actually made sense in another language would be very strong evidence for the existance of God
Or maybe that they already heard the phrase (in a movie? at an airport?) and somehow it stuck in their memory, even if they don’t speak the language.
Proving that it was nonsense would be harder-how do you know when you’ve checked all the languages?
And even if you did, someone could still claim it is some extinct language from thousand years ago, or a secret language of angels, or perhaps the text is spoken backwards, or...
Does something like “koriata mashita mashuta amon hala” mean anything in any language anyone here knows? It sounds somewhat Japanese to me.
Google Translate says it means: “Huh beneath Mashuta Amon was Korea”. Definitely a revelation… or someone watching too much anime.
Finally, given that people have cell phones with cameras now, and given that virtually everything else shows up on YouTube, I would think that there would be at least some credible video.
Um, most of the miracles I’ve herd are not the kind that seem miraculous in a video stripped of context.
That itself is a point against the existence of miracles. If miracles don’t exist, you’d expect that all reports of miracles look like non-miracles on video. The result is entirely expected if miracles don’t exist, but extremely contrived if they do.
If faith healing only does one specific thing, that’s a plausible explanation: perhaps by chance the one specific thing it does doesn’t look good on video.
But faith healing isn’t supposed to do only one specific thing. It supposedly can heal a lot of different things—yet somehow all of the things it heals don’t look good on video. That’s a much bigger coincidence—why can’t it restore lost limbs, or cause scars to vanish in seconds, or grow hair on a bald person, yet it can cure hundreds of different conditions, as long as they’re indistinguishable on video from not-curing?
Aiyen:
I think the place I would start—and did start—is with the question, “Have I ever personally experienced a miracle?” I quickly discarded most possibilities and came down to just a few, all of which were fundamentally a strong of events, each of which was individually highly unlikely. But unlikely things happen every day, so that’s not enough to say it is a miracle.
Next, I would ask if people I personally know and trust have experienced miracles. I’d ask them about their experiences. For me, I knew no one who had experienced anything that sounded like a miracle. Again, there were some unlikely coincidences, but that’s not really enough. If one of them claimed to have experienced a true miracle, then I’d keep evaluating their credibility over a long period of time. Does their story change? Reasonable consistency would be more credible. Do they act like I would expect them to act if they had really experienced a miracle? A non-believer suddenly becoming a devout missionary in the absence of any personal crisis would be credible. Do they get anything by claiming to have experienced a miracle? Someone getting attention from conspicuous religiosity is less credible for me, though that doesn’t necessarily make sense: if I had personally experienced a miracle, I’d think that I would sell off all my worldly possessions to talk about it as much as possible. Is this yet another in a series of flighty decisions? Going from new age to confused to born-again is not very persuasive for me. And so on.
Finally, given that people have cell phones with cameras now, and given that virtually everything else shows up on YouTube, I would think that there would be at least some credible video. I’d also think that I wouldn’t be able to analyze whether it is credible, given the possibility of a good special effects studio. But I bet someone else would and that I would hear about a truly inexplicable video.
Max L.
David Copperfield manages to fly around without even a special effects studio. How would you imagine a video who can’t be explained to look like?
Have I ever personally experienced a miracle?
I’ve seen people pray in tongues, felt an overwhelming sense of God’s presence, had it reported that my face was glowing during prayer once (I held up a hand to see if I could see any reflected light; no dramatic effect, wasn’t sure if I saw the light or the power of suggestion), that sort of thing.
I haven’t seen anything super dramatic, but enough to be convinced that either God is real, or human beings are frighteningly good at self-deception.
A third possibility is that there’s some sort of non-theistic magic, or at lest gods rather than God. There’s also the simulation hypothesis.
I have seen people speaking nonsense syllables in altered mental states. (I am using the “rationalist taboo” technique here.) Was your observation any different from this?
My observation was that people said syllables that I didn’t understand. As for telling if it was another language or nonsense, finding that one of the phrases actually made sense in another language would be very strong evidence for the existance of God. Proving that it was nonsense would be harder-how do you know when you’ve checked all the languages?
Does something like “koriata mashita mashuta amon hala” mean anything in any language anyone here knows? It sounds somewhat Japanese to me.
Or maybe that they already heard the phrase (in a movie? at an airport?) and somehow it stuck in their memory, even if they don’t speak the language.
And even if you did, someone could still claim it is some extinct language from thousand years ago, or a secret language of angels, or perhaps the text is spoken backwards, or...
Google Translate says it means: “Huh beneath Mashuta Amon was Korea”. Definitely a revelation… or someone watching too much anime.
Um, most of the miracles I’ve herd are not the kind that seem miraculous in a video stripped of context.
That itself is a point against the existence of miracles. If miracles don’t exist, you’d expect that all reports of miracles look like non-miracles on video. The result is entirely expected if miracles don’t exist, but extremely contrived if they do.
Faith Healing doesn’t look like much on a video. A person with cancers who stops having cancer doesn’t suddenly look different.
If faith healing only does one specific thing, that’s a plausible explanation: perhaps by chance the one specific thing it does doesn’t look good on video.
But faith healing isn’t supposed to do only one specific thing. It supposedly can heal a lot of different things—yet somehow all of the things it heals don’t look good on video. That’s a much bigger coincidence—why can’t it restore lost limbs, or cause scars to vanish in seconds, or grow hair on a bald person, yet it can cure hundreds of different conditions, as long as they’re indistinguishable on video from not-curing?