"Natural " Miracles CAN Count

David Sklansky · #1 10-27-2005, 03:59 AM

Regular readers of this forum should see by now that there are quite a few posters here who are much more adamantly atheistic than I am. Still, I get most of the heat. To alleviate that, I want to address a point that some of the religious folks could have right.

In order for a miracle to be persuasive as to the existence of some higher power it is NOT actually necessary that one of the laws of physics be broken. Some religious people say that God uses natural means to do miraculous events. Atheists don't buy that and assume that if there is a natural cause, then it isn't a miracle from God. For instance if the walls of Jericho tumbled down due to an earthquake, there is no miracle. Baye's Theorem or Occam's Razor applies. But not so fast.

See if you are going to invoke Baye's Theorem, you have to start raising your eyebrow if the event has a miniscule chance to happen randomly. And you must measure the chance with the realization of the PARLAY involved. If there is no parlay it is a different story. Someone finding a picture of Jesus on their grilled cheese sandwich means nothing. But if the Pope found it on the day after he was elected it would (assuming it wasn't a hoax or plant). Someone making 25 passes in a row at the craps table means nothing. A lady who does it right after getting on TV and pleading and praying for donations for the hospital she runs for cancer stricken kids in Pakistan, does.

If the stories in the Bible are all true and scientists could come up with explanations by invoking natural but rare events, you still are stupid if you don't believe in the biblical God. Because for all these rare natural events to happen JUST AT THE RIGHT TIME is so ridiculously improbable, that Baye's Theorem demands that you believe. Even if Jericho was cause by an earthquke, the tenth plague was caused by Andy Fox's dung heap, and manna came from a weird plant that blossoms every thousand years.

And yes even, if it could be shown that Jesus was resurrected because he hadn't quite died.

The point is that because all these biblical miracles happened at such opportune times, their occurrence, even through rare natural events, "breaks" the laws of probability in as convincing a way as if they broke the laws of physics. (Notice however, that miracles like finding a statue that cries are not the same parlay type situation.)

Keep in mind though that this post is pointing out that naturally caused miraculous events are probably God's hand ONLY if the other criteria are met. They firstly must have almost all actually happened. They must also have actually happened right at the critical time they were needed. And finally the "natural" explanation has to be nature caused, not man caused. If Moses knew that he had poisoned the food supply of the Egyptians, I obviously don't count that as a natural explanation.

SNOWBALL138 · #2 10-27-2005, 04:59 AM

Hi David,

In your book getting the best of it, you give the simple forumula for bayes theorum as being the specific probably of the event occuring by desired means divided by the total probability of event occuring at all.

Its not that hard to approximate the denominator in these equations (parlay included), but where are you getting your numerator from?

David Sklansky · #3 10-27-2005, 05:10 AM

Don't worry about it now. Instead you need to study this:

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RJT · #4 10-27-2005, 09:08 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Don't worry about it now. Instead you need to study this:

http://www.intellectualwhores.com/masterladder.html

[/ QUOTE ]

"Even Nietzsche knew this."

from The Ladder Theory.

#5 10-27-2005, 10:25 AM

David,

First of all, it's "Bayes'" not "Baye's."

I am probably in the "adamantly atheistic" crowd although I'm really more of an extremely skeptical agnostic. Anyway, could you please clarify what you are saying? If a miracle is "natural," at what point does God come into the picture? I just don't see what the role of God is in these "natural" miracles.

Still, if all the stories in the Bible were proven true, even if they are shown to follow the natural laws, that would certainly make me think about becoming Christian, because it would lend a great deal of credibility to those who told the stories.

andyfox · #6 10-27-2005, 11:31 AM

Your last paragraph comes down to what might be the crux of the matter: what the argument is about, often, is simply facts: "They firstly must have almost all actually happened. They must also have actually happened right at the critical time they were needed." What actually did or did not happen.

andyfox · #7 10-27-2005, 12:05 PM

"If a miracle is "natural," at what point does God come into the picture? I just don't see what the role of God is in these "natural" miracles."

If the plant that blooms only once every thousand years happens to bloom right when the Israelites will starve for lack of food, and then again at a similarly fortuitous opportune time to save the "chosen" people, it certainly would lend credence to the argument that the natural event had a divine helping hand.

The problem I see, though, with the argument, is that a particular fortuitous circumstance is emphasized or publicized, precisely because it comes at a crucial time, while many unfortuitous ones, even those that occur at crucial times, are not. My first love was baseball. For a long time, probably thirty years, I would dream about it every night. In 1981 (or so) I dreamt that the Yankees' starting pitcher would throw a no-hitter the next day. He did. Am I a seer? Were I writing a book trying to say that I was, I would bring up this fact. I would, however, ignore the fact that I dreamt about similar events almost every night of my life and none of them ever came true. And I would ignore the fact that the pitcher in question had pitched a two-hitter the game before and a four-hitter the game before that and was close to unhittable at that particular juncture in his career. I'm knowledgeable about baseball. If you asked me for a prediction about tomorrow's games 10,000 times, it'd probably be unusual for me not to come up with one that comes true.

Lestat · #8 10-27-2005, 12:23 PM

Who was the pitcher?

I know Righetti pitched one in '83 against Boston. For some reason I remember that because it was on the 4th of July.

Lestat · #9 10-27-2005, 12:58 PM

Funny because a friend of mine (a live poker pro), was using the exact same argument for why he hasn't been able to win much at online poker. He said each individual bad beat he was experiencing could be explained by normal probability. So nothing can be proved. But when combined with WHEN they happen and how OFTEN they happen, his conclusion is there must be an outside force at play. Translation = Cards don't fall normaly online.

I told him he was full of it. Might I be wrong?

Zygote · #10 10-27-2005, 01:09 PM

you win in the game life! well.... actually.... at least you're playing as best you can and can, therefore, expect better results than the rest.

oddly enough, most people don't care about achieving the best expectation. i'm curious as to what percent don't care because they can't comprehend the necessary calculations and conclusions, and what percent just haven't learned to think in such a way.

you should start a private education center.