At least Dawkins kept his cool.

We have both argued our presuppositions and clearly neither one of us is going to budge.

At this point we’re just rehashing the same points. Congrats on getting the last word!

See, now we are asking a different question altogether. We’re not asking “does God exist” but rather “why does He do what He does”.

In my view the second question is integral to the first, because it seems to me that, if he exists, he’s doing exactly what we would expect him to do if he didn’t.

I know cancer goes into spontaneous remission. But tumors don’t disappear in a matter of days never to return.

Actually there’s recently been several experiments wherein the test animals, after being given certain chemicals (for instance, estrogen in guinea pigs), they rapidly develop apparently cancerous tumors; when the chemical is removed, the tumor clears up. But the vast majority of reports of tumors suddenly disappearing are probably either hoaxes and urban legends, or mistaken diagnoses. If any remain, they are easily attributable to pure chance. Our bodies sometimes get rid of these things on their own.

The fact that miracles happen exactly as often and as conclusively as we would expect them to if there no God isn’t evidence against God. You can explain any set of facts when you’re dealing with the supernatural. But the amount of rationalization required to account for these facts should tell you that your ‘miracles’ aren’t in the slightest sense real evidence for your god.

Basically, you can do two things that any reasonable person should consider good evidence. Either find a well documented case of a prayer resulting in something blatantly impossible happening (like spontaneous limb regeneration), or else present rigourously controlled research showing a clear and significant trend of those who pray more often receiving cures and such.

There’s a reason for these things. I understand that statistically the frequency of these events is not enough to prove it. I get that. But that still does not explain how they happen.

That’s like me saying, “I understand that statistically the frequency of someone winning the lottery is not enough to prove that God specifically chose me to win it. I get that. But that still does not explain how it happened.” When you say “there’s a reason for these things”, it isn’t because there’s actually a good reason for thinking that; you say it because you want it to be true. That isn’t good enough for me.

In his documentary The Root of All Evil?, Richard Dawkins visits Lourdes, where millions have come in search of miraculous healing, and according to the clergyman he meets there, eighty have received definite ‘miraculous’ cures.

Actually, the number is 66 recorded miracles. 80,000 people per year visit, and this has been going on for over 100 years, and they have 66 miracles that have occurred (although he never gets into what kind of miracles, the ailments that were healed, and the veracity of the accounts).

I just watched part 1 of that documentary again last week. I’ve seen it probably 10 times now. I find it to be a bit rhetorical, but a fantastic resource to challenge your faith (something I highly recommend that all Christians do regularly).

Nathan

I know cancer goes into spontaneous remission. But tumors don’t disappear in a matter of days never to return. It’s too easy to discard that and call it “unlikely”! There’s a reason for these things. I understand that statistically the frequency of these events is not enough to prove it. I get that. But that still does not explain how they happen.

Does God not care that two-thirds of us do not believe in Him?

Actually he expects it! Satan is alive and well in the end-times, and he is a master at what he does best!

It is indeed sad that most choose the Prince of the Power of the Air for a short season, but ours is only to try and find as many elect as possible in our short season.

As I have said before… “Many are called, but few are chosen.”

I think that, regardless of their frequency, the fact that miracles DO HAPPEN should be enough to at least put a crack in your argument of a “provisional conclusion”?

Uh, no, because the ‘miracles’ that do happen are exactly what we would expect if there were no God. All your ‘miracles’ are things that are simply rather unlikely to happen in any given instance; but when we examine the larger picture and check just how often these unlikely events occur, we find that while individual instances are unlikely, the data set as a whole is not. Given a very large number of chances, we would expect to find a few drastically unlikely events. We find a few. Not many, a few, and no more than we would expect from pure probability. Do you believe that every single time a cancer spontaneously goes into remission, it is a miracle? That God has directly intervened? If so, then we’ve certainly seen a number of true miracles. But if not, and only some incredible recoveries are actually miraculous, then such events are merely unlikely, not impossible. And again, given enough chances, unlikely events will happen.

Jesus gives us some clues, like when He says that He did no miracles in his home town because of their little faith.

This smacks strongly of the type of language used by mediums to explain why they can’t perform their communions with the dead with the lights on, or in the presence of skeptics. Why is this sort of excuse reasonable for Christianity, but not for any other religion or belief? Is God hiding?

All the miracles you reported in your own life are also reported, and with about equal frequency, by those of every other religion and no religion. Miraculous healings are reported by Christian TV faith-healing charlatans, by ‘mystic’ or New Age faith-healers, by UFO ‘abductees’. Christiniaty is in no way special in this regard. Christian healings aren’t more complete, or faster, or more convincing, or more common. Christian testimony of communion with their God, of spiritual healing and positive life changes, are no more convincing than testimony from any other religion. Why doesn’t this say something to you? Does God not care that unbelievers are praying to false deities? Does God not care that two-thirds of us do not believe in Him?

I don’t think this discussion has gotten that far yet… I think we are still in apologetics territory.

Faith doesn’t require proof as it’s foundation, but it also doesn’t ignore the facts either. If I’m having a bad day, I admit it. Then I trust God to get me through the difficulty. That’s faith.

George:

I have George Mueller’s biography at home where he talks about the regeneration of limbs. I’ll dig it out and find a quote tonight (I’m at work).

I haven’t read Dawkins’ book, so my response won’t be very specific. However, I’ll say that in the area of miraculous healing there is a LOT I don’t understand. I don’t understand why sometimes God heals, and other’s He doesn’t. Jesus gives us some clues, like when He says that He did no miracles in his home town because of their little faith (“a prophet is without honor in his own home…”). He often said things like “Your faith has healed you.” This suggests that perhaps the healing is in some way dependant on the faith of the sick one. Other places there is evidence of God healing someone who clearly had NO faith whatsoever. Like I said in an earlier comment, being a Christian doesn’t simplify your life.

All that to say, I don’t think you can answer the frequency of miracles question without using theology. We can’t do that without using scripture because that is the foundation of any theological argument.

I think that, regardless of their frequency, the fact that miracles DO HAPPEN should be enough to at least put a crack in your argument of a “provisional conclusion”?