Boss jj's Silly Miracle Post

[David Sklansky]

I'm pretty much done with the religion stuff because a lot of very smart people on these forums, plus Matt Ruff, seem to think I am just using this subject as a vehicle to show off against opponents with few weapons.

But there is one loose end I want to tie up. Bossjj wrote that God told the Jews that they should not follow a false leader or messiah even if he performed miracles to entice them. I said that if the story was true, God must have said (or meant) "even if he APPEARED to have performed miracles". Bossjj later disputed that.

Boss jj CANNOT be right. Unless the words did not come from God. Because only God can perform miracles. That statement is something that Jews, Christians, Muslims, and educated atheists all agree on. Only subhumans think otherwise (and believe in astrology, mysticism etc.)

Now it is possible God didn't make this clear in his statement because he was afraid that Jews would be tricked into believing they saw a real miracle. So instead he admonished them to not follow what he knew to be magic but which some would think was legitimate. But there is no way the real God, if there is one, actually was referring to a true miracle not performed by him.

That being the case, if in fact a true miracle did occur, one must give the credit to God, even it it appears to mean he broke a promise. Because an apparent broken promise from God, is not nearly as farfetched as a miracle not performed by God.

It is reasonable for Jews to believe that Jesus was not truely ressurected. (That is an understatement.) But it is not reasonable for Jews to believe that even if Jesus was resurrected, the Christian religion is still hogwash. BECAUSE RESSURECTIONS ARE MUCH MORE INCREDIBLE THAN EVEN AN APPARENT LIE FROM GOD. Prove that Jesus was truely resurrected (Or have him come flying down atop an elephant and turn water into wine again) and all sane atheists and agnostics will become Christians. So should all Jews. If Boss jj disputes that, he wasted an awful lot of words on this forum.

[JoshuaD]

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Only subhumans think otherwise (and believe in astrology, mysticism etc.)

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Subhuman is a terrible word to use there. It's a minority of people who are able to completely accept and embrace logical arguments. It only makes sense to define "human" as the majority of creatures who are classifed that way.

That is, we're in the minority. If anything, they're the humans and we're the subhumans.

[spoohunter]

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Only subhumans think otherwise (and believe in astrology, mysticism etc.)

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Subhuman is a terrible word to use there. It's a minority of people who are able to completely accept and embrace logical arguments. It only makes sense to define "human" as the majority of creatures who are classifed that way.

That is, we're in the minority. If anything, they're the humans and we're the subhumans.

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The ability to understand, contrast and think critically about abstract ideas is such a infintesimally tiny part of what makes someone human.

[JoshuaD]

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Only subhumans think otherwise (and believe in astrology, mysticism etc.)

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Subhuman is a terrible word to use there. It's a minority of people who are able to completely accept and embrace logical arguments. It only makes sense to define "human" as the majority of creatures who are classifed that way.

That is, we're in the minority. If anything, they're the humans and we're the subhumans.

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The ability to understand, contrast and think critically about abstract ideas is such a infintesimally tiny part of what makes someone human.

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Hence me saying "subhuman" was a bad word for Sklansky to use.

[David Sklansky]

I was obviously exaggerating to make a point. Please don't hijack the thread.

[Zeno]

Your posts assumes that God, if He exists, is 'perfect', consistent, and/or wholly beneficial in regards to mankind and that He would 'break' a 'promise' to assure His continued beneficial ways. He also does not 'lie' - If I am reading all this correctly. This is all by a priori definition, I assume.

Is there no room for a God with a sense of humor?

Or a God with an unbeneficial attitude towards mankind? Or one that is ambivalent? Or partly dastardly? This would certainly make God a much more interesting character, instead of the boring and bland all goodness being always paraded about by the theists.


I would much rather live in a universe run by an insane God. Life would be much more eventful and worthwhile in my opinion.

-Zeno

[Zygote]

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I would much rather live in a universe run by an insane God. Life would be much more eventful and worthwhile in my opinion.


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I think observable evidence hints to this being true. If there is a god, his chance of sanity, by our definition, is virtually zero.

[JoshuaD]

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It is reasonable for Jews to believe that Jesus was not truely ressurected. (That is an understatement.) But it is not reasonable for Jews to believe that even if Jesus was resurrected, the Christian religion is still hogwash. BECAUSE RESSURECTIONS ARE MUCH MORE INCREDIBLE THAN EVEN AN APPARENT LIE FROM GOD. Prove that Jesus was truely resurrected (Or have him come flying down atop an elephant and turn water into wine again) and all sane atheists and agnostics will become Christians. So should all Jews. If Boss jj disputes that, he wasted an awful lot of words on this forum.

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I think by defintion, the jews would have to accept this Jesus as the Messiah, and would become christians.

I've never seen any jew say that it's impossible for a Messiah to come, it's one of their prophecies. They just don't believe Jesus was the Messiah.

[maurile]

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I said that if the story was true, God must have said (or meant) "even if he APPEARED to have performed miracles".

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Doing a miracle and appearing to do a miracle are the exact same thing since miraculousness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Nobody can literally do a miracle in the sense of violating physical laws. Since physical laws are just correct descriptions of what happens and what doesn't happen, to say that physical laws can't be violated is a tautology.

So a miracle can't denote something that literally violates the laws of nature, or else miracles are just a non-sense concept. It must be something that appears to violate a law of nature -- something that we, in our limited knowledge, have no explanation for.

Therefore, an event is miraculous if and only if it appears miraculous after we've examined all the evidence -- just like a thing is beatiful if and only if it appears beautiful after we've examined it from every angle.

[bossJJ]

I've already addressed this. First, in the Hebrew bible, God does tell not to follow someone who tells us to follow other gods, even if he produces a miracle (Deuteronomy 13:1-5, NRSV). There are several verses where God says that the Torah is to be observed forever and He forbids us from changing it. He also tells us not to follow anybody who tells us not to follow it, or who tells us to follow other gods. It also says that God doesn't lie or change His mind.

God spoke to the entire Jewish nation we He gave us His Torah. If He really did lie or change His mind, if He really wants us to do what He had previously forbidden as idolatry; if He really wants us to follow someone that He told us not to follow; if He really want us to stop following laws that He said were eternal - then it makes more sense that we should get another national revelation. How else can we be sure the message is from Him? Why should we believe that He gives us His new truth through an alleged personal revelation to some violent, spiteful so-called miracle worker that no one even noticed during his alleged lifetime?

Second, if the truth is with whoever has the biggest miracle, then it's impossible, in practice, to know what the truth really is. There are thousands of claims of miracles in various religions, as well as thousands of individuals who have claimed to have a personal revelation from God. It would be impossible to examine them all and know which, if any, are true. In most cases, it would be just one person, or a small group of people, who claimed to see the alleged miracle. How can you know if they are telling the truth? Or maybe they believe it really happened, but they were deceived.

It's highly unlikely that Jesus was resurrected. No one even made the claim until several decades after his alleged death, and no one from his alleged lifetime even noticed him. But an alleged resurrection could be easily faked 2000 years ago. Maybe he wasn't really dead, or maybe it was somebody else that they saw after his death. Lots of pagan gods (allegedly) had virgin births and were resurrected from the dead. The early Christians just made the same claims for their god.

You talk about, "if Jesus really was resurrected..." Well, in reality, it's impossible to know either way. We need (and we actually have) a better way of knowing who has the truth. We have God's word in the Hebrew bible, and anybody who contradicts it (like Jesus, Mohammed and Joseph Smith) is obviously not from God, no matter how many miracles he allegedly performs.

The whole idea that God keeps changing His mind, and that He expects us to discover the current "truth" by investigating all miraculous claims, is ridiculous and unworkable. If it were true, and we really were supposed to follow Jesus, then Christians have no way of knowing if their religion is still true. God may have been lying about that, or maybe He changed His mind again, and their program of "salvation through Jesus" is no longer be in effect. Maybe they are actually supposed to be Muslims now, which is why God sent Mohammed. If Christians believe that God will lie or change His mind, and that the truth is with whoever has the biggest miracle, then they should be investigating all the claims of miracles in other religions.

In reality, or course, Christians don't do that. Instead they reject all religions that contradict the gt (as they understand it), and just dismiss out of hand all claims of miracles in other religions. They are hypocrites; They criticize us for rejecting religions (like Christianity) that contradict our bible, and they claim that we should seriously study Christianity, and investigate it, because it is true, and the miracles prove it. Yet they do not study or investigate other religions and their miracles. However, Christianity can be true only if God lied or changed His mind, and only if the resurrection proves that Christianity is true. Therefore, since God changes His mind, He may have done so again. Christianity may no longer be the correct religion to follow.

Third, even if Jesus really was resurrected from the dead, how does it follow that therefore everybody should become Christians? Why assume that the Christians' interpretation of the event is correct? And that our interpretation is wrong? We believe that God told us not to follow such people even if they produce a miracle. That certainly implies that false prophets can have real miracles. Why would God say this if He really intended us to follow whoever has the biggest miracle? How could that possibly work in practice? How can we know who has real miracles?

Why not believe that Jesus was a man who God resurrected from the dead for some reason? As I've mentioned before, we believe that the prophet Elijah resurrected a boy from the dead (I Kings 17). God worked through the prophet. We don't assume that either Elijah or the boy were God, or even the messiah. We will know the messiah because he will fulfill the messianic prophecies. Why should we believe that God was lying about what the messiah will be and do?

But if you want to believe a Christian interpretation, which one? How do you know which denomination is correct? How do you know what the resurrection really means? And how do you know that God hasn't since then changed His mind about that? Maybe God sent Mohammed to explain to the Christians that they had it all wrong, that Jesus was only a prophet that they were never supposed to worship.

Even in the gt, Jesus didn't claim to be God. So why should we believe it? How can that interpretation be correct?

Did Jesus Claim to be God?