Thursday, September 08, 2016

Atheist doctor defends religious miracles

Here. 

11 comments:

Ilíon said...

"(For the record, I’m an atheist.) ... Now almost 40 years later, that mystery woman is still alive and I still cannot explain why."

I see to recall Someone once saying something like, "even if a man were to rise from the dead, still they would not believe."

"Respect for our religious patients demands understanding and tolerance; their beliefs are as true for them as the “facts” may be for physicians. Now almost 40 years later, that mystery woman is still alive and I still cannot explain why. Along with the Vatican, she calls it a miracle. Why should my inability to offer an explanation trump her belief? However they are interpreted, miracles exist, because that is how they are lived in our world."

As I keep saying, 'atheists' will *always* retreat into irrationality so as to protect their God-denial from rational criticism.

SteveK said...

I'm ready to go another 200+ comments on this subject (I'm kidding)

B. Prokop said...

The real hoot here is that the atheists demand a scientific analysis of miracles, and here they have one - done by an atheist, no less. And the conclusion? It was a miracle!

Any guesses as to how they'll respond? (I'm not placing any money on anyone falling on their knees and repenting in dust and ashes.)

Ilíon said...

^ Well, as we all know, we see people survive medical "death sentences" all the time, but we never see people regrowing missing limbs. So, that's what it takes.

B. Prokop said...

Ahh... ye olde amputee dodge. What is it with atheists and amputees? If they're so gol darn concerned about amputees, why aren't they volunteering in veterans' hospitals or sending aid to war zones?

Oh, I see! They really couldn't care less about actual amputees.. they just want to use them as a prop in their "gotcha" arguments.

Pathetic.

SteveK said...

Here's a link to blog post from Mr. Briggs (not related to God or miracles, but still relevant to those that rely on statistical models to find the The Signal) and some select quotes.

http://wmbriggs.com/post/19629/

"What made the force change its mind? Hey, don’t ask. The statistical model is silent on this, just as statistical models are silent on all causes."

This kind of model, which wasn’t needed and there was no call for it, also replaces the data with non-data, the straight lines. Thus the model is a kind of smoother. The data disappears and becomes the model. The Deadly Sin of Reification has struck! Why modern science is so intent on replacing actual data with wild models will be a subject for historians to answer. I think it’s because quantification is addictive. Add that to the background hum of scientism and you get these kinds of things.

B. Prokop said...

SteveK,

Thank you for that! The branch of science I am most interested in is astronomy, and one can't help but notice that sometime in the past decade or so, models and computer simulations have mysteriously replaced actual observations in constructing a picture of how the universe "works". Thus we get "scientists" telling us with a straight face that the Earth's Moon was formed in a primordial collision between two planets, or that Neptune used to be inside the orbit of Uranus. Do they have any observational evidence of these things? None whatsoever! Yet such statements are routinely being presented as factual.. and why? Because some computer simulation said so!

It's gotten to the point where I no longer pay much if any attention to an "authority" who tells me what supposedly happened 5 billion years ago. It's like how the internet is destroying peoples' ability to read long novels, such as War and Peace. Computer simulations are taking the place of Real Science.

SteveK said...

Bob,
The data that doesn't fit "the model" is often ignored, discounted as an "obvious" bad data point or thrown away because, well, why not. That's how you end up with statements like "we have no evidence (data points) for miracle events". Well, you might if you brought back all the data you threw out, discounted and ignored.

jdhuey said...

"Now almost 40 years later, that mystery woman is still alive and I still cannot explain why. Along with the Vatican, she calls it a miracle."

What a wasted opportunity to investigate a case of long term remission. If they could have figured out exactly what was going on that enabled this woman to be such an outlier then who knows what advances could have been made. Even granting the process the label miracle should not have precluded the effort to understand what happened. Even divine intervention has to be effected through the material world and that should be studied.

jdhuey said...

"The real hoot here is that the atheists demand a scientific analysis of miracles, and here they have one - done by an atheist, no less. And the conclusion? It was a miracle!"

Her conclusion was NOT that it was a miracle, only that she couldn't explain why the woman was still alive. The "miracle" status is just a result of ignorance: we humans do hate not having a reason for everything.

bmiller said...

@ B. Prokop, @Ilíon

Things are kind of slow on this thread, so here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Calanda