What are the historical accounts you're talking about? What is the evidence for these events happening?

Let's just call this apologetic technique for what it truly is, namely the realization that science cannot speak to the truth or falsehood of miraculous claims, and so other disciplines have to fit the bill.

Bob doesn't like this argument, but as of yet I have not seem him bring anything substantive against it except his own personal incredulity that people don't worship science as much as he does.

karl:


No historical accounts. It was just a hypothetical example.

The evidence might be an old document that talked about some ancient alchemist turning a base element into gold. For example, the story of Hermes Trismegistus.

I say miracle, you say powerful story. You say potato, I say pototto.

Though I doubt Bob will respond its worth responding to point 1 in greater detail.

The argument made by Bob, and the arguement made by most skeptics is that science somehow "knows" that there are no occurrences of X in the present, and as such, we believe that with high probability stories of X in the past are false.

First off, its worth noting the phrase "science knows". Science does not "know" anything about specific ocurrences of events. Science can tell us if a certain event is in violation with established scientific "laws" or if an event is not in violation with those laws. That is it.

Most events however, given specific descriptions, are not in violation of scientific laws. Let's take shapechanging for example. Let's take alchemy for example. Specifically turning lead into gold. Is this impossible?

The difference between lead and gold is the differences between the number of protons and neutrons in the different atoms, as well as the arrangment of the corresponding numbers of electrons. To turn lead into gold we must take away the correct number of each particle (specifically removing 3 electrons / protons and 8 neutrons) from lead.

Now, science can tell us that certain methodologies are incapable of turning lead into gold. For instance, it can tell us that chemical methods cannot turn lead into gold as chemical methods cannot strip away elements from the nucleus. But if all I know is that "someone turned lead into gold" science cannot say that this is impossible. Moreover, science cannot even say that it is unlikely. For science to say that the event is "unlikely" is for science to make a probabilistic statement. But by what methods could science make such a statement? One possible way is that the atheist could say that since many methods to turn lead into gold do not work, there exists no working method. This is fallacious inductive /statistical reasoning however. By conducting a sampling of the space of all possible alchemic methods, (if the sampling is a good one) we may conclude only that there are very few methods by which lead can be turned into gold at best. This is a conclusion that would not be debated by the alchemist at all. I would also say that we have no way to conduct a good sampling of this space, as the space of all such possible methods is essentially infinite. From an inductive reasoning standpoint the idea that "All methods I have thought up do not turn lead into gold, therefore no such method exists" is very weak induction.

So at best we find that when science is used to judge a pass event it can at best, say that the event is in violation of "scientific laws". Moreover, science can only due this when the method behind acheiving the effect has been stated. If we only know that an effect has occurred, science cannot say or "know" whether or not the event has happened at all.

Now there is a different type of argument to be made. Namely, we disregard science for a bit, and we no longer consider whether or not event X violates scientific laws at all. Rather, one says that event X is "improbable" and therefore given a past description of event X, there is a more likely explanation than "event X actually occurred". I'll deal with this later.

B36:


What do you say to the people in different religions when they list miracles in their own faith? Do you accept them? Or are you as unimpressed as I am about yours?

I suggest you be consistent and treat both Christian miracle claims and those in other religions with the same criteria.

On that topic, is the story of someone miraculously saved in Haiti evidence that Yahweh loves his people or that Vishnu does?

There are "Christian" answers to any miracle claim. When people claim, for example, to have seen the Virgin Mary, I deny that they actually saw her, but I would not as quickly deny they saw something.

A miracle in Haiti does not prove any god or God's love, but it does prove that something very special occurred.

I do think that if there were a true miracle in Haiti, it would be evidence for the existence of a minor, limited deity rather than for the grand God of Christians. It may be that there is a small deity that tries to take care of us, but is not powerful enough to change the laws of nature, and so could not prevent the earthquake.

Meunier:


Yes, that would be a better answer than the Christian one in the face of the Problem of Evil.

Bob,

Why? God must allow evil, in order for the maximum potential of good to occur. This is called plentitude. As I explained in a previous post, there are certain kinds or levels of good which can only occur in the face and wake of evil. God's glory cannot be fully realized by us unless He sometimes takes His hand away.