Miracles.
Each and every person out of that 95% had their own unique miraculous experience which they believed that only the existence of a god could explain. Though I do find it odd as to how they could invoke god as an explanation for these alleged miracles when the term 'god' is essentially meaningless and that any claimed function that this god performs is consequently meaningless as well. But that issue is for another day. For this post, we will assume for the sake of argument that the god concept does have meaning.
A good percentage of the miracles, in my opinion, could be easily explained by natural processes or simple chance. For instance, alleged medical miracles seems to convince quite a lot of people. One example is someone who is diagnosed with cancer and who prays and is instantly healed of the illness. The theist may take such an example as convincing evidence for the existence of god but I do not. This is not necessarily because I am closed minded but because if I am not there to witness and monitor such an event as well as not having any idea if there were any other factors involved that aided in the healing of that individual. Let's deconstruct this simple but common reason for belief in a god.
First of all, it could be very well possible that the individual was misdiagnosed and never really had cancer at all. Misdiagnoses are not uncommon. Second, even though the theist reports that the individual just prayed and was healed, how do we know that the individual did not take any immune system stimulating herbs? We know that certain herbs, such as the medicinal mushrooms (reishi, chaga, etc) are very effective at boosting the immune system. How do we know that they didn't start reducing the stress in their life, eating a cleansing diet, getting plenty of rest, water, sunlight, laughter, all of which have been shown effective (when taken together) at fighting cancer? Just so you know, apart from nutritional and herbal methods, the mind itself can be a powerful weapon against the fight against cancer. It (the mind) can affect virtually every cell in the body. Third, how does the theist know that the person's recovery was not simply due to the fact that the human body is extremely resillient and self healing? For example, we all know how dangerous free radicals are to our health by causing premature aging and cellular damage. However, even though they are dangerous, free radicals can be a benefit to the body. In cases like these, when the body's immune system is overwhelmed by foreign invaders such as bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells, the body can take those same free radicals, harnass them, and fire them at the body's enemies.
Another issue that I would like to briefly discuss is chance. Most theists are of the idea that chance is completely out of the question when it comes to explaining their personal miraculous experiences. For example, one person I spoke to claimed that he tried to kill himself by purchasing a gun and putting it to his head. Upon pulling the trigger, nothing happened, he then pointed the gun elsewhere and pulled the trigger again and the gun fired. This convinced him that god exists. Another example is where another individual was in a car and the car came under heavy gun fire. Not only was everyone in the car killed except him, but the bullets hit every part of the seat with the exception of his body. This convinced him that god exists.
Before I explain why neither of these examples substantiates the existence of a god, I need to lay some brief ground work regarding chance. A lot of theists claim that they do not believe in chance or luck. I have noticed though that some people define chance or luck as if there is some type of magic to it. Such a notion is evident when people make claims like, "don't do that, thats bad luck", or "wear this rabbit foot, it will bring you good luck". That is not what I am talking about when I refer to luck or chance.
Chance, according to the dictionary, simply means the absence of any cause of events that can be predicted, understood, or controlled. When a ladder detaches from a moving truck and falls on the freeway, such an event happens by chance, meaning that it was unpredictable or unexpected. Now, when dealing with chance or luck, we have to ask ourselves how much luck are we able to invoke. If a person takes all the necessary precautions and adequately ties and secures that ladder to his truck, then the chances of it dislodging is minimal, if not nonexistent. However, when dealing with millions of trucks on this planet, the chances of there being many ladders dislodging from trucks is high, because with so many different people and different situations, there will always be those who do not adequately secure their ladders to their trucks. So numbers is a critical factor when dealing with luck/chance. Another factor is time. The chances of a ladder dislodging from a truck of someone who is vigilant to secure it properly is minimal or close to damn near none. However, take that same truck driver and have him secure a ladder to his truck everyday for a million years. Considering such a vast amount of time and possible circumstances that could occur, it is clear that the ladder dislodging many times is high.
In regards to my two above examples, let us address the gun example. My friend is adamant about the fact that it could not have been due to chance, but we know now that he is wrong. The United States alone contains anywhere from 170 to 300 million guns. This does not include the amount of guns that the rest of the world has. Considering the millions of guns that are manufactured, is it unreasonable to suppose that there will be guns that malfunction? With such a high amount of guns manufactured, I see no reason to believe that every one will function perfectly. Considering the time aspect of chance, there have been countless of people over time that have committed suicide by gun point to the head. Of the thousands of millions of people who have attempted suicide, it is not surprising to see that few along the way ended up with guns that were not manufactured properly. I think the overall concept that I have outlined so far should suffice at demonstrating that chance can easily explain a group majority of the alleged miracles that people appeal to.
Of course not every personal experience is this simple. Some are in fact more complicated and/or more difficult to explain by natural means. Indeed, there have been cases where I have not had an immediate answer to a person's miraculous personal experience(s). But as I said earlier that there are so many possible unknown variables so its wise to take theistic experiences with a grain of salt.
People generally ask me what will convince me that God exists. My response for a while has been that any of the supernatural examples in the Bible would suffice for me. Christians of course come up with all kinds of excuses as to why their God does not intervene and manifest in the world today as he did in Bible times. However, over time I have slowly moved away from this approach of asking for a clear crisp divine intervention as evidence for a god. Why?
As stated above, when it comes to theistic claims of miracles being evidence for the existence of their god, there is almost always an alternative naturalistic explanation that comes to mind. Even if a naturalistic explanation cannot be thought of, a theist would have to negate every possible one before they can substantiate that their alleged miracle proves their god. But in order for them to do this they would have to be omniscient! Without knowledge of every possible naturalistic/materialistic cause in our universe, nobody can make the claim that they know that this miracle or that miracle is coming from an eternal God, let alone the god of their religion.
With that being said, we can conclude that all appeals to alleged miracles as evidence for the existence of a god are fallacious. They are begging the question (a logical fallacy of assuming to be true that which their trying to prove). Without omniscience or knowledge of every possible naturalistic explanation, to say that so and so was cured by cancer because God healed them or that this man was raised from the dead because God did it is entirely circular because they have to first assume that God exists and intervenes in the world. Again, I repeat: if they do not know of all possible materialistic causes then they cannot know it is a god. So claiming that it is a god thats doing it presupposes the theistic worldview. Arguments that are based off of assumptions as opposed to evidence are not arguments at all.
This, however, is not surprising to me. Nobody in the history of man has ever provided a valid argument for existence of any god whatsoever. Either the argument is logically invalid/fallacious, or, the argument is logically valid but lacks evidence, which would also render the argument invalid and irrational.
Some might accuse me of being closed minded and that no evidence would convince me that a god exists. But unless theists can first ascribe meaning to the term 'god' then the issue of whether or not god exists is a nonissue. There is absolutely nothing to consider. Something meaningless is equivalent to nothingness. But if the term did have meaning, then convincing people would not be an issue for such a being. With omnipotence, nothing is hard at all for that god, let alone convincing finite human beings that he exists. If anything, theists are more concerned about people believing that their god exists more than their god is concerned about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment