I hope this is painfully obvious but If we can overcome the personal bias issues in our thinking when discussing these kinds of ideas, we can avoid a lot of frustration with each other.
Are you willing to overcome your personal bias in discussing these issues and say, "I don't know" in regards to someone getting better. Also, would you consider like with Peter Popoff, people lie about miracles and make them up?
@@malirk Sure, people do lie about miracles however, why would I say I don't know when I see a miracle happen after praying? Even if it is a misdiagnosis, one cannot just will something out of existence.We should put effort into scientific research to replicate these things happening! To be fair "I don't know" can work aswell because there could be a hidden law in the universe we don't know about.
Digital Gnosis covered this on his channel "Bad Apologetics Ep 20" with James Fodor and others at 2:37:16. They go into detail of the problems. Also in the report she says "In a moment of years of darkness, I could see perfectly". When she wasn't actually seeing perfectly, that's a massive exaggeration. Furthermore, she had to have cataracts removed on both eyes in 2012 and wears glasses.
I'm not willing to give Fodor or his groupies any watch time, but I take it that the basic idea is that Marilyn's healing is not a good candidate for a miraculous healing given the actual progression of events - her eyes gradually healed/repaired themselves over the course of several years. If that's the case, I'm not buying it...if it can be shown that her vision substantially improved at all in tandem with the prayer. Than cites a 400% figure early in the video - if that's true, I don't think it matters if she exaggerated how healed they were or that they weren't perfectly healed. A 400% increase in vision is still significant, especially if it greatly improved the quality of her life prior to the boost. If someone goes from being virtually blind to having mediocre vision, that's still going to benefit them greatly. So the basic argument Than is making remains the same.
@@jakegreen5081To be fair, there's a lot of content from Fodor. If particular claims are being presented from them, then why watch it if you have had bad experiences watching them in the past? (Frankly, there's a lot of bloviating, so I don't think the streams are worth watching.) You presented particular claims and they were responded to. If you don't think the response is adequate, then you should explain why. Otherwise, you've conceded that the refutation is sufficient. I think that's fair.
@@TheEpicProOfMinecraf The video itself shows the problems. My post was never refuted, the woman still has eye problems and the exaggeration of seeing perfectly certainly isn't accurate.
It's better to say... 1) I don't know. 2) They lied. 3) They were misdiagnosed. All of these are answers are far more likely than it being an actual miracle. We know people lie. We know people are misdiagnosed. If we don't know the answer, "I don't know" is the best answer.
@@miguelsanchez2230 you don’t, the “prior probability” of miracles is 0 and Christians mention Bayes’ theorem to LARP as scientists for the main purpose of making people who are already Christian feel better
People started watching videos with their phone held upright. More people started doing it. Finally, people were forced to make content in this format since people watch it in this format.
Great video Than! I’m honestly astonished at the comments. There’s no real engagement with the arguments that you present but rather last ditch efforts to save naturalism.
If you'd like to engage: Than presents a story of a "miracle" from a woman who was prayed over by her husband back in 1972. She had bad vision growing up and diagnosed with degeneration. Her husband and her (According to the paper) had gone to a evangelical healer weeks before but did not know of healings outside the Bible. She had later eye exams which showed her vision had improved.
The records of her original bad vision are from a note (not included in the paper) and it's kinda like "Trust me bro" on this. You say people are trying to save this with naturalism and you're right. There are many ways to explain this naturally.
*LIES:* Just like the boy who went to Heaven, people make up stories. A whole family was in on saying their son went to Heaven. Is it too much to believe that a woman and her husband would come up with a story of a miracle healing? All they'd need to do is find a record of her eyesight from childhood and add an extra 0 to make it look bad. Then they have the actual eye exam where her eyesight is better. Making a small change to an old eye exam is a quick way to fabricate a story.
*MISDIAGNOSIS:* She could have had very bad eyesight. Her eyesight could also have been improving because the problem with her eyes with not degeneration. When her husband prayed over her, she started to try and focus more. When she was examined later, she found out her eyes improved.
Wait Wait Wait... I think I get it. By "what's stopping the flood believer from positing an unknown natural cause for the flood in the absence of evidence" do you mean "why not posit an unknown natural cause for the believer's belief that the biblical global food happened and was caused by the Abrahamic deity?" Nothing. That's the best explanation and the natural cause is very well known indeed. The believer was credulous, they read about the flood in a book, and they never challenged the claims they found within by seeking external evidence. Gullibility is the natural cause of the flood belief. If you want to ask "what's a possible unknown natural cause for a global flood we have no evidence ever happened?" ... Then you don't understand logic.
"You need to posit a specific natural cause." No. We live in nature. Nature is all around us. Unless you're willing to dispute that. Miracles also lack specificity. The problem isn't specificity. The problem is that you're positing a mechanism based on a hypothesis that lacks any evidence. Nature isn't an assumption. It's an observed fact.
"It was a miracle." Okay. What was the nature of the miracle? How do we know that the "plan" was to harm the patient but through a combination of medical intervention and luck, the plan was successfully thwarted? Why consider that a miracle, when we have no way of knowing the goals of the cause you're positing?
@@bgiv2010 It was a miracle because she claimed her husband healed her vision with laying hands and a prayer. Neither even knew this was possible when they did it! But they did it! Wow!
One never needs to debunk a miracle claim, as it is impossible to support the claim of a miracle with anything empirical. Miracle is just a word that people use to describe an event which has not yet been explained by science. Even if the event in question was in fact a miracle, you could never demonstrate that, until we would always defer to the very real possibility that we simply haven't figured out why a thing has happened yet
Is the probability of miracle from god not the same as probability of miracle from a different god that would conflict with the existence of the first proposed god? Would it not be equally likely to be magic from mischeivous pixies?
What do you mean by probability? Prior? Posterior? There's an intrinsic probability to every proposition, and there's a probability conditioned on the specific evidence.
@Jimmy-iy9pl what evidence makes the God you believe in more probable to have actioned a specific miracle claim than a different god someone else has? Does this evidence also equally support mischeivous pixies?
@rmtsapphire0 It's going to depend on what the evidence is. If you come across a house in the middle of the woods, the hypothesis that there's a man who lives in the woods and has built that house is going to have a pretty high posterior probability based on the evidence. That's because the hypothesis is strongly confirmed by the evidence - it's literally exactly the sort of evidence we would expect on the supposition that the hypothesis is true. In the case of theism, if you think the universe is finely tuned for life, that seems to strongly confirm theism because a universe hospitable for conscious moral agents is the sort of thing you could reasonably expect to find given the supposition of theism. Or in the case of the resurrection of Jesus, on the hypothesis that the Christian God exists and is active in the world, it's much more likely something as strongly confirmatory of that hypothesis like Jesus rising from the dead will happen if that's a true hypothesis then if the hypothesis is false. There's no strict entailment relationships here, but that's barely relevant. You can offer an infinite amount of explanations for any evidence, even in mundane cases. That's because we're not dealing with analytic truths, we're making probabilistic and abductive inferences.
@Jimmy-iy9pl so it's all an argument from intuition based on, let's face it, cultural factors for a non falsifiable or demonstrable position? How could you claim to intuit something that we have no baseline for? What does a universe not finely tuned for life look like? How does it compare to a universe that stumbled into life naturally? If life is possible (and clearly it is), you'd expect to find it somewhere in the (number of planets there have ever been) numbrr of dice rolls across billions of years. If the universe is fine-tuned for anything, it's the creation of black holes. We occupy a small percentage of one planet that was dead and empty for billions of years and will remain dead/empty for billions more after we perish. Furthermore, this only would get you to a cosmic domino. It says nothing about if the God still exists, knows everything, is a singular being, has consciousness, or is mischeivous and pixie shaped. If I come across a house in the woods, someone living there is a candidate explanation because I already know people exist and live in houses and know the signs of someone living there. I also have the ability to test and falsify this position. I could come to a reasonable conclusion. This doesn't exist for your argument.
@rmtsapphire0 No, not at all. Intuition plays no meaningful role in the sorts of inference at play here. The probability calculus is based on the prior probabilities of propositions and the evidence we're looking at. The posterior probability we end up with is going to be based on how strong the evidence is. There is a spectrum of evidential strength. Something like a large footprint in the woods is only mediocre evidence for the existence of Bigfoot, especially when compared to something like the potential discovery of unknown primate DNA in a bear trap somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
Isn't the whole divine meme idea based on the assumption of another assumption? In order for the miracle to be even on the table you have to assume a god exists in the way Christians imagine it's existence. Why would you even discuss this option if it's not out of heavy bias?...
Tell that to Than who thinks improbable natural answers (Lying, naturally healed, misdiagnosed) are less likely than a miracle which we've never shown to be true.
And in the absence of any known natural explanation, we're still not correct to label a thing a miracle, as it's far more likely that we simply don't know yet how the event happened naturally then that the natural laws were suspended
Who decided that all natutal explanation come first. Unless you have overwhelming evidence for naturalism you beg the question. The more time passes the more miraculous this event will become unless all our science in biology is false.
@@jaskitstepkit7153 until a miracle is proven (news flash, none ever have been), natural explanations will always be more likely. That's not question begging lol. I suggest you study fallacies more, because what YOU are doing is question begging, by assuming miracles are possible, since again, none have been proven 😂
We should all pray fervently that Athanasios Christopoulos return to the Orthodox Church of his ancestors and renounce the apostasy of Protestantism. The generations of martyrs cries out against this crime against the Faith.
@@MeanBeanComedy Oh but it is. How can a descendent of the Martyrs abandon the faith of the apostles and embrace the demonic lies of the Protestant heretics? How?
@@bsg111987 I dunno, but at least he stayed Christian. If you want to bring this up to him, message him privately, like Christ told us to. Don't attack him on an apologetics page, where he's refuting secular arguments. We need to show a united front to the secularists, and handle squabbles on the inside, not publicly on display. It makes us look bad.
@@MeanBeanComedy Stayed Christian? What are you talking about? He became a protestant- a follower of demons. He abandoned Christ, His Mother, the Prophets and Apostles, and the Saints and Martyrs for the demonic lies of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. The unholy trinity of paganism birthed from their lips is not Christianity. It is demonic.
Haven't watched yet, but your phrasing of demonstrating an alternative natural explanation's probability is higher than the proposed miraculous explanation seems to be a dubious point theists just never seem to grasp. There is no proposed mathematical system or equation for determining supernatural probability. The whole category of supernatural is in question. The best you will get is a ?. For example, theists do this with fine tuning all the time. Throw out a really small probability like 10²⁰⁰ then say god did it. You guys need to actually do work and produce a probability too. If you could, you might end up with a 10⁵⁰⁰, which would make it far more unlikely in comparison. I'll watch the rest now and see if you address this. Edit: Watched it. Very low is not a probability. I say the supernatural explanation is very very low so atheism wins.
I watched the video and it basically amounts to... I don't think she is lying. I don't think she was misdiagnosed. Doctors can't explain it! It had to be a miracle! Asking us to give an answer for why it occurred is ok. You to then accept the "I don't know". We're being honest in saying that. The theist is being dishonest in assuming God did it.
@_Niddy_ What I don't get is that miracles seem to happen at completely random and aren't well linked to prayers. However, someone in the other thread posted a lady doing research on this claiming people are healing in the name of God! So why not go to the blind and heal them? Just do it on video. She says this is happening but no one is willing to do it on camera for some odd reason.
I read the paper on this. It appears to be that we should believe in this miracle because a thinktank created by believers of miracles (Who are scientists) found a woman who was prayed for by her husband in 1972 and it fixed her eyes instantly.
I'll accept Than's miracles if people can go to a childhood cancer ward and lay hands and heal the kids. Start doing this and document it and I'll believe in miracles. A story from 1972 where someone could see again doesn't change my mind. What's interesting is just yesterday a friend told me a story about someone who FAKED being blind.
Could you perhaps expand on why you assess the probability of unknown natural causes as being low? Intuitively, I would assess the probability of unknown naturalistic causes as higher than divine intervention, using some of the following reasons: The probability of unknown biological mechanisms existing is very high - there are certainly many pathways we are unaware of. My confidence a God exists is very low based on my priors (note this is not the confidence a God COULD exist, just that one does) Unknown biological pathways would very likely follow existing biochemical/physiological mechanisms and fit with our understanding of the way the world works. The divine mechanism is unknown and would unlikely fit any existing understanding of how the world works (such as if we say God wills it and it happens bevause he is omnipotent or pure act or however it might be proposed- I see this as being vague and not fitting any known existing mechanism). Furthermore, our ability to retrospectively and prospectively assess the divine intervention mechanism is unavailable, which is going to severely limit our ability to interact and interrogate it, limiting the confidence we can have in it and our ability to further update our beliefs about it. In my mind (which is likely naive to this method of assessment) it seems like this approach could unduly bias assessment towards vague supernatural causes. For example, if two people unfamiliar with technology were debating how a cellphone works, and one proposes magic while the other holds it is some naturalistic mechanism that they haven't quite figured out yet, this application would insist that magic is the more probable mechanism, even if there is no previous interaction with magic nor a meaningful mechanism nor a way to further examine it, which I tend to think is less reasonable than expecting a mechanism that fits with previous understandings of how the world works. It seems that P(E|D) is very low if we assess the probability of God existing as low and not having a specific mechanism. I (again, naively) would inuit that the unknown mechanism would occupy far more of the probability space. Thanks!
I would think that the Lambertini criteria that is being used by GMRI would seek to rule out potential natural explanations. For example, natural healings are almost never instantaneous and complete because a natural healing by definition involves the human immune system, which is made up of millions of inner-working cells that take time to mend tissue, bone, fight off disease, etc. For a cure to be instantaneous, complete, spontaneous, and permanent all at the same time is not predicted under most models of naturalistic explanations. If one wants to account for how that could be done given some kind of biological mechanism, I think we're going to need more details in terms of what that mechanism would entail. Using a term like "unknown natural explanation"is way too broad to be able to make it any particular predictions. An unknown natural explanation would technically be consistent with something as crazy as a multiverse where every prayer happens to be answered by chance alone. Yes that is a natural explanation, but I don't think anyone would say that that's very plausible. So it's better to get specific with what kind of mechanism we're talking about. Likewise, I would think that if a healing is exclusive to a religious context then that would be evidence for a divine cause. If natural laws are in different towards humans, then we should expect similar kinds of healings to occur both in the context of prayer and outside of it. But if the only kinds of healings that fit these criteria occur specifically following prayer, then that would make much more sense under the divine hypothesis because it involves a being who has intent rather than a blind indifferent force of nature
@@calebjackson99 It could just be that her and her husband are exaggerating it. She had just been to an evangelical healer event prior to this. We know healers have performed stunts to make it look like they're healing people. I wouldn't be shocked if this is another person doing the same. We have no good evidence of miracle healings. People get better sometimes. People lie. People are misdiagnosed.
@@calebjackson99 I'm pretty sure her records from the 1950s about her condition are basically just a note. They're not published in the research. Seems like that would be a major thing to give as evidence.
@@calebjackson99 I would push back on a few points here. First, I don't know if these criteria are indicative of natural or supernatural causes. A divine mechanism is completely unknown, so it can make no predictions. Furthermore, there are conditions that are resolved nearly instantly (simple examples might include a headache disappearing or cracking your back and back pain resolves) and do not require an immune response to improve. Second, I am hesitant to say the subject was instantaneously and completely healed, as she went from a VA of 7/200 to 20/400 naturally (R), then 20/100 (recorded a few years later - VA at the time of the event is unknown), then corrected VA of 20/40 in 2001, so while a very incomplete data set, there seems to be some semblance of progression (with a notable jump at the point of interest). Regarding the broadness of the natural mechanism, I think a naturalistic mechanism that is desribed by physiology or biochemistry is mostly what I was referencing; but overall, I think including the less probabilistic 'natural causes' is needed for this specific analysis, as the OP divided it into divine intervention and unknown natural causes to better cover the probability space. You would need similar breakdowns of mechanistic explanations from the divine intervention theory if you were to categorize individual mechanistic pathways (which I would think is not possible, since there are no known supernatural mechanistic pathways). To your final point, I think this could be an interesting - yet technically challenging - study. If we had access to all similar events, and looked for correlation between groups (i.e. prayer/healing, prayer/no healing, no prayer/healing, no prayer/no healing). After some data and collection corrections (such as bias reporting - for example, the subject in this study didn't report it for 2 years, how many other cases go unreported?), I strongly suspect there would be no statistically significant correlation (especially given the number of prayer-no healing and no prayer-no healing cases). Even further, finding a causal mechanism would likely be impossible for a divine mechanism. Finally, I don't think this addresses the heart of my question. Given we know nothing about divine intervention (mechanistic or even its existence) this seems inherently unprobable. Whereas we know physical mechanisms exist and can examine them. Therefore, if we agree both the divine or natural mechanism are unknown, but can only have a high confidence that natural mechanisms exist, it seems the naturalistic explanation is far more likely.
Miracle do not happen, because -----> the laws of nature prohibit them, because ------> they have never been confirmed broken, because ------> Miracles do not happen. Repeat
@@malirk this has nothing to do with what I said. You’ve added nothing and I don’t think your reasoning ability is that good if you are commenting on something that has nothing to do with what you are talking about. Stop being silly lol.
@@dumbsimpleton207 You commented that "angry atheists" are here and wondered why people are here. I explained that I'm agnostic and came here because Than misuses Bayes and passes it off as good reasoning. This directly addresses your observation of people objecting to Than's arguments.
@@malirk “I’m agnostic and I value good reasoning” on a comment that has nothing to do with questioning your reasoning ability seems kinda self serving. The point of my comment wasn’t putting forth a question it was kinda made in jest at the fact you waste your time writing schizo babble paragraphs on a video that disagrees with you that only has a puddle of views in the sea that is UA-cam. “He miss used an argument because uh miracles can’t happen sweetie, allow me to write an essay in the comments” Just got one question if the Christian god was real in your worldview would you worship him, assume everything is true. Would you respect god if he were real in your worldview ?
Sure miracles are theoretically possible. A universe that has no cause is also theoretically possible. Magic is also theoretically possible. This video could be "Overcoming bad objections to magic" and still not make a convincing case to believe in magic. Why? We have no good examples of real magic.
What about the dozens of medically verified miraculous healings? Like the guy who had his intestines destroyed them grow back? Or the guy who was going mute who had his voice restored on video? Or the guy who had his leg restored in Spain, with multiple of medical professionals to confirm it? Or in a non medical case, the flying monk that multiple hostile witnesses report to have seen, and the Catholic church specifically confirmed happened, but claimed it was a "natural phenomenon" because it really annoyed them? Seems like you simply have a presupposition that clouds your judgement.
Specific Hypothesis Requirement: For any event attributed to a miracle, one must give a specific natural hypothesis that could account for it. Without specifics, you cannot compare the likelihood of divine intervention to an unknown natural cause. Counterargument: The requirement for a specific hypothesis for natural causes sets an arguably unfair standard because we may not yet have the scientific knowledge to understand or articulate every possible natural explanation. If a naturalist says, "I don't know how this happened." we don't just instantly believe the supernaturalist because they say, "It's a miracle from God." The answer of "I don't know" should be above an answer that can not be shown to be true (i.e a God).
Transfer of Improbability: If one tries to explain away a miracle by proposing an unknown natural cause, they're simply shifting the improbability to how likely that unknown cause is given our current scientific understanding. Against Transfer of Improbability: All naturally improbable events are that have occurred or probabilistically could occur have been shown to occur. Thus anything possible via natural improbable events is infinitely more possible than a proposed supernatural claim with only Bayesian presuppositional apologetics.
Low Probability of Alternative Explanations: The alternative explanations such as lying (L), misdiagnosis (M), and unknown natural causes (U) have very low probabilities when compared to a divine intervention theory (D), especially when considering specific cases like Marilyn's healing Counterargument: Misdiagnosis and lying (intentional deceit or self-deception) are not as unlikely as they might seem. Diagnostic errors occur more frequently than one might expect. A Johns Hopkins study suggested that diagnostic errors could account for a significant portion of patient harm. Additionally, psychological factors can influence patients' perceptions and reporting of their symptoms. So it might be true that she was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disorder but the diagnosis from the 50s/60s/70s could be wrong. Optometry has progressed a long way in 50 years and we still misdiagnose people today!
@@ExploringReality No deflection. Not knowing to link source material when your addressing someone is amateur stuff. And the person actually did highlight the inconsistency and the problems. Furthermore, James Fodor showed the problems also. Also the women saying she could see perfectly is simply not true. She had medical attention and continues to do so. The Tik Tocker even points out the source material mentions "she has hypothyroidism, which could be the cause and eventually she was put on meds for that and it helped her vision"
@@jakegreen5081Many of Fodor's criticisms were addressed in the Unbelievable show with Josh Brown and Peter May, where they discussed this particular miracle. I'd point you to that for a reference. Some of the other objections raised by Fodor were brought up by the atheist in this video as well.
*The couple were not cessationists (i.e., believing that spiritual gifts such as glossolalia, healing, and prophecy are not for the present age), but they had never heard of anyone receiving a miraculous healing in the present day. The patient reported, “The only healings we knew about were in the Bible”. She indicated that her husband had never before prayed for someone who subsequently experienced a remarkable recovery. Their only prior experience with prayer for healing seems to be when the patient and her husband had briefly visited the meeting of a well-known healing evangelist, but they left before the time in the meeting when the healing practices began.*
The only other research I can find from Romez C (Lead author) is: Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer. So his only two publications are on how prayer heals people?
Then there is Zaritzky D. Their publications are have a huge gap from 1979 to 2019. With this 40 year gap, I have to wonder if they're the doctor! Meanwhile they're on both publications of PIP healing.
@@malirk and I’d say “then why did Jesus perform miracles?” If they can’t do it, then he was a liar. If you have the power and won’t do it, they they’re just jerks because I would love to heal sick People if I had that power and I’m a godless atheist
@@malirk and I’d say “well I would believe Jesus was who he said he was if I saw people heal in his name”. The reality is that I see Christian’s idolize a guy like trump and support almost every war.
@@jakegreen5081A miracle in history would be an event occurring that did not match up with the previous causes we can discover. How is that unverifiable?
@@mysotiras21 There are a lot of other events not classified as "miracles" that can still be proved or disproved, similar to as I said above (based on the prior conditions and the after effects alone). Usual examples are the Big Bang, Ceasar crossing of the Rubicon, and most of historical claims.
![[Bad] - YouTube ВСЁ? (победа VK и прощание с подписчиками)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pQ1bCOW5270/mqdefault.jpg)
I hope this is painfully obvious but If we can overcome the personal bias issues in our thinking when discussing these kinds of ideas, we can avoid a lot of frustration with each other.
Are you willing to overcome your personal bias in discussing these issues and say, "I don't know" in regards to someone getting better. Also, would you consider like with Peter Popoff, people lie about miracles and make them up?
@@malirk Sure, people do lie about miracles however, why would I say I don't know when I see a miracle happen after praying? Even if it is a misdiagnosis, one cannot just will something out of existence.We should put effort into scientific research to replicate these things happening! To be fair "I don't know" can work aswell because there could be a hidden law in the universe we don't know about.
Digital Gnosis covered this on his channel "Bad Apologetics Ep 20" with James Fodor and others at 2:37:16. They go into detail of the problems. Also in the report she says "In a moment of years of darkness, I could see perfectly". When she wasn't actually seeing perfectly, that's a massive exaggeration. Furthermore, she had to have cataracts removed on both eyes in 2012 and wears glasses.
I’ll take a look
I'm not willing to give Fodor or his groupies any watch time, but I take it that the basic idea is that Marilyn's healing is not a good candidate for a miraculous healing given the actual progression of events - her eyes gradually healed/repaired themselves over the course of several years. If that's the case, I'm not buying it...if it can be shown that her vision substantially improved at all in tandem with the prayer. Than cites a 400% figure early in the video - if that's true, I don't think it matters if she exaggerated how healed they were or that they weren't perfectly healed. A 400% increase in vision is still significant, especially if it greatly improved the quality of her life prior to the boost. If someone goes from being virtually blind to having mediocre vision, that's still going to benefit them greatly. So the basic argument Than is making remains the same.
@@Jimmy-iy9pl "I'm not willing to give Fodor or his groupies any watch time". Then you don't know what they say.
@@jakegreen5081To be fair, there's a lot of content from Fodor. If particular claims are being presented from them, then why watch it if you have had bad experiences watching them in the past? (Frankly, there's a lot of bloviating, so I don't think the streams are worth watching.)
You presented particular claims and they were responded to. If you don't think the response is adequate, then you should explain why. Otherwise, you've conceded that the refutation is sufficient.
I think that's fair.
@@TheEpicProOfMinecraf The video itself shows the problems. My post was never refuted, the woman still has eye problems and the exaggeration of seeing perfectly certainly isn't accurate.
excellent video Thanks!
Thanks for the support :)
When is it better to say "it's a miracle" vs. "idk" in cases like this?
What evidence would push you towards either of those two answers?
It's better to say...
1) I don't know.
2) They lied.
3) They were misdiagnosed.
All of these are answers are far more likely than it being an actual miracle. We know people lie. We know people are misdiagnosed. If we don't know the answer, "I don't know" is the best answer.
When the p(m)/p(~m) • p(e|m)/p(e|~M) = 1
@@ExploringRealityand then how do you make up the values for each?
@@miguelsanchez2230 you don’t, the “prior probability” of miracles is 0 and Christians mention Bayes’ theorem to LARP as scientists for the main purpose of making people who are already Christian feel better
@@miguelsanchez2230 I’ll be addressing that question in a series on bayes
Uuugghhh why is a 13 minute video in vertical format?
People started watching videos with their phone held upright. More people started doing it. Finally, people were forced to make content in this format since people watch it in this format.
Great video Than! I’m honestly astonished at the comments. There’s no real engagement with the arguments that you present but rather last ditch efforts to save naturalism.
I went through the full paper published on the claimed miracle.
You're right. There wasn't any engagement from Than on this.
If you'd like to engage:
Than presents a story of a "miracle" from a woman who was prayed over by her husband back in 1972. She had bad vision growing up and diagnosed with degeneration. Her husband and her (According to the paper) had gone to a evangelical healer weeks before but did not know of healings outside the Bible. She had later eye exams which showed her vision had improved.
The records of her original bad vision are from a note (not included in the paper) and it's kinda like "Trust me bro" on this. You say people are trying to save this with naturalism and you're right. There are many ways to explain this naturally.
*LIES:* Just like the boy who went to Heaven, people make up stories. A whole family was in on saying their son went to Heaven. Is it too much to believe that a woman and her husband would come up with a story of a miracle healing? All they'd need to do is find a record of her eyesight from childhood and add an extra 0 to make it look bad. Then they have the actual eye exam where her eyesight is better. Making a small change to an old eye exam is a quick way to fabricate a story.
*MISDIAGNOSIS:* She could have had very bad eyesight. Her eyesight could also have been improving because the problem with her eyes with not degeneration. When her husband prayed over her, she started to try and focus more. When she was examined later, she found out her eyes improved.
6:06 Could you please explain the flood analogy? On first, second, third, and fourth blush, the two cases appear incongruent.
Wait Wait Wait... I think I get it. By "what's stopping the flood believer from positing an unknown natural cause for the flood in the absence of evidence" do you mean "why not posit an unknown natural cause for the believer's belief that the biblical global food happened and was caused by the Abrahamic deity?"
Nothing. That's the best explanation and the natural cause is very well known indeed. The believer was credulous, they read about the flood in a book, and they never challenged the claims they found within by seeking external evidence. Gullibility is the natural cause of the flood belief.
If you want to ask "what's a possible unknown natural cause for a global flood we have no evidence ever happened?" ... Then you don't understand logic.
"You need to posit a specific natural cause."
No. We live in nature. Nature is all around us. Unless you're willing to dispute that. Miracles also lack specificity. The problem isn't specificity. The problem is that you're positing a mechanism based on a hypothesis that lacks any evidence. Nature isn't an assumption. It's an observed fact.
"It was a miracle."
Okay. What was the nature of the miracle? How do we know that the "plan" was to harm the patient but through a combination of medical intervention and luck, the plan was successfully thwarted? Why consider that a miracle, when we have no way of knowing the goals of the cause you're positing?
@@bgiv2010 It was a miracle because she claimed her husband healed her vision with laying hands and a prayer. Neither even knew this was possible when they did it! But they did it! Wow!
Interesting and very well articulated.
One never needs to debunk a miracle claim, as it is impossible to support the claim of a miracle with anything empirical. Miracle is just a word that people use to describe an event which has not yet been explained by science. Even if the event in question was in fact a miracle, you could never demonstrate that, until we would always defer to the very real possibility that we simply haven't figured out why a thing has happened yet
Is the probability of miracle from god not the same as probability of miracle from a different god that would conflict with the existence of the first proposed god? Would it not be equally likely to be magic from mischeivous pixies?
What do you mean by probability? Prior? Posterior? There's an intrinsic probability to every proposition, and there's a probability conditioned on the specific evidence.
@Jimmy-iy9pl what evidence makes the God you believe in more probable to have actioned a specific miracle claim than a different god someone else has? Does this evidence also equally support mischeivous pixies?
@rmtsapphire0 It's going to depend on what the evidence is. If you come across a house in the middle of the woods, the hypothesis that there's a man who lives in the woods and has built that house is going to have a pretty high posterior probability based on the evidence. That's because the hypothesis is strongly confirmed by the evidence - it's literally exactly the sort of evidence we would expect on the supposition that the hypothesis is true.
In the case of theism, if you think the universe is finely tuned for life, that seems to strongly confirm theism because a universe hospitable for conscious moral agents is the sort of thing you could reasonably expect to find given the supposition of theism. Or in the case of the resurrection of Jesus, on the hypothesis that the Christian God exists and is active in the world, it's much more likely something as strongly confirmatory of that hypothesis like Jesus rising from the dead will happen if that's a true hypothesis then if the hypothesis is false.
There's no strict entailment relationships here, but that's barely relevant. You can offer an infinite amount of explanations for any evidence, even in mundane cases. That's because we're not dealing with analytic truths, we're making probabilistic and abductive inferences.
@Jimmy-iy9pl so it's all an argument from intuition based on, let's face it, cultural factors for a non falsifiable or demonstrable position?
How could you claim to intuit something that we have no baseline for? What does a universe not finely tuned for life look like? How does it compare to a universe that stumbled into life naturally? If life is possible (and clearly it is), you'd expect to find it somewhere in the (number of planets there have ever been) numbrr of dice rolls across billions of years.
If the universe is fine-tuned for anything, it's the creation of black holes. We occupy a small percentage of one planet that was dead and empty for billions of years and will remain dead/empty for billions more after we perish.
Furthermore, this only would get you to a cosmic domino. It says nothing about if the God still exists, knows everything, is a singular being, has consciousness, or is mischeivous and pixie shaped.
If I come across a house in the woods, someone living there is a candidate explanation because I already know people exist and live in houses and know the signs of someone living there. I also have the ability to test and falsify this position. I could come to a reasonable conclusion. This doesn't exist for your argument.
@rmtsapphire0
No, not at all. Intuition plays no meaningful role in the sorts of inference at play here. The probability calculus is based on the prior probabilities of propositions and the evidence we're looking at. The posterior probability we end up with is going to be based on how strong the evidence is. There is a spectrum of evidential strength. Something like a large footprint in the woods is only mediocre evidence for the existence of Bigfoot, especially when compared to something like the potential discovery of unknown primate DNA in a bear trap somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
Someone once tried to heal my vision with prayer.
My vision has since gotten worse.
(Not joking)
Isn't the whole divine meme idea based on the assumption of another assumption? In order for the miracle to be even on the table you have to assume a god exists in the way Christians imagine it's existence.
Why would you even discuss this option if it's not out of heavy bias?...
The very definition of a miracle makes every natural explanation more likely lol
Tell that to Than who thinks improbable natural answers (Lying, naturally healed, misdiagnosed) are less likely than a miracle which we've never shown to be true.
And in the absence of any known natural explanation, we're still not correct to label a thing a miracle, as it's far more likely that we simply don't know yet how the event happened naturally then that the natural laws were suspended
Who decided that all natutal explanation come first. Unless you have overwhelming evidence for naturalism you beg the question. The more time passes the more miraculous this event will become unless all our science in biology is false.
@@jaskitstepkit7153 until a miracle is proven (news flash, none ever have been), natural explanations will always be more likely. That's not question begging lol. I suggest you study fallacies more, because what YOU are doing is question begging, by assuming miracles are possible, since again, none have been proven 😂
Based on you. What will a genuine miracle look like.
We should all pray fervently that Athanasios Christopoulos return to the Orthodox Church of his ancestors and renounce the apostasy of Protestantism. The generations of martyrs cries out against this crime against the Faith.
Not really the time or place, Bo.
@@MeanBeanComedy Oh but it is. How can a descendent of the Martyrs abandon the faith of the apostles and embrace the demonic lies of the Protestant heretics? How?
@@bsg111987 I dunno, but at least he stayed Christian. If you want to bring this up to him, message him privately, like Christ told us to.
Don't attack him on an apologetics page, where he's refuting secular arguments. We need to show a united front to the secularists, and handle squabbles on the inside, not publicly on display. It makes us look bad.
@@MeanBeanComedy Stayed Christian? What are you talking about? He became a protestant- a follower of demons. He abandoned Christ, His Mother, the Prophets and Apostles, and the Saints and Martyrs for the demonic lies of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. The unholy trinity of paganism birthed from their lips is not Christianity. It is demonic.
Haven't watched yet, but your phrasing of demonstrating an alternative natural explanation's probability is higher than the proposed miraculous explanation seems to be a dubious point theists just never seem to grasp.
There is no proposed mathematical system or equation for determining supernatural probability. The whole category of supernatural is in question. The best you will get is a ?.
For example, theists do this with fine tuning all the time. Throw out a really small probability like 10²⁰⁰ then say god did it. You guys need to actually do work and produce a probability too. If you could, you might end up with a 10⁵⁰⁰, which would make it far more unlikely in comparison.
I'll watch the rest now and see if you address this.
Edit: Watched it. Very low is not a probability. I say the supernatural explanation is very very low so atheism wins.
I watched the video and it basically amounts to...
I don't think she is lying.
I don't think she was misdiagnosed.
Doctors can't explain it!
It had to be a miracle!
Asking us to give an answer for why it occurred is ok. You to then accept the "I don't know". We're being honest in saying that. The theist is being dishonest in assuming God did it.
TLDR: Theists should learn to say, "I don't know" instead of "God did a miracle!".
@_Niddy_ If he didn't leave the thorn in her eye, she'd probably be boastful.
@_Niddy_ What I don't get is that miracles seem to happen at completely random and aren't well linked to prayers. However, someone in the other thread posted a lady doing research on this claiming people are healing in the name of God!
So why not go to the blind and heal them? Just do it on video. She says this is happening but no one is willing to do it on camera for some odd reason.
Thats not how propability works
No proof was presented in this video.
I read the paper on this. It appears to be that we should believe in this miracle because a thinktank created by believers of miracles (Who are scientists) found a woman who was prayed for by her husband in 1972 and it fixed her eyes instantly.
I'll accept Than's miracles if people can go to a childhood cancer ward and lay hands and heal the kids. Start doing this and document it and I'll believe in miracles.
A story from 1972 where someone could see again doesn't change my mind. What's interesting is just yesterday a friend told me a story about someone who FAKED being blind.
Could you perhaps expand on why you assess the probability of unknown natural causes as being low?
Intuitively, I would assess the probability of unknown naturalistic causes as higher than divine intervention, using some of the following reasons:
The probability of unknown biological mechanisms existing is very high - there are certainly many pathways we are unaware of.
My confidence a God exists is very low based on my priors (note this is not the confidence a God COULD exist, just that one does)
Unknown biological pathways would very likely follow existing biochemical/physiological mechanisms and fit with our understanding of the way the world works.
The divine mechanism is unknown and would unlikely fit any existing understanding of how the world works (such as if we say God wills it and it happens bevause he is omnipotent or pure act or however it might be proposed- I see this as being vague and not fitting any known existing mechanism).
Furthermore, our ability to retrospectively and prospectively assess the divine intervention mechanism is unavailable, which is going to severely limit our ability to interact and interrogate it, limiting the confidence we can have in it and our ability to further update our beliefs about it.
In my mind (which is likely naive to this method of assessment) it seems like this approach could unduly bias assessment towards vague supernatural causes. For example, if two people unfamiliar with technology were debating how a cellphone works, and one proposes magic while the other holds it is some naturalistic mechanism that they haven't quite figured out yet, this application would insist that magic is the more probable mechanism, even if there is no previous interaction with magic nor a meaningful mechanism nor a way to further examine it, which I tend to think is less reasonable than expecting a mechanism that fits with previous understandings of how the world works.
It seems that P(E|D) is very low if we assess the probability of God existing as low and not having a specific mechanism. I (again, naively) would inuit that the unknown mechanism would occupy far more of the probability space.
Thanks!
I would think that the Lambertini criteria that is being used by GMRI would seek to rule out potential natural explanations. For example, natural healings are almost never instantaneous and complete because a natural healing by definition involves the human immune system, which is made up of millions of inner-working cells that take time to mend tissue, bone, fight off disease, etc. For a cure to be instantaneous, complete, spontaneous, and permanent all at the same time is not predicted under most models of naturalistic explanations. If one wants to account for how that could be done given some kind of biological mechanism, I think we're going to need more details in terms of what that mechanism would entail. Using a term like "unknown natural explanation"is way too broad to be able to make it any particular predictions. An unknown natural explanation would technically be consistent with something as crazy as a multiverse where every prayer happens to be answered by chance alone. Yes that is a natural explanation, but I don't think anyone would say that that's very plausible. So it's better to get specific with what kind of mechanism we're talking about.
Likewise, I would think that if a healing is exclusive to a religious context then that would be evidence for a divine cause. If natural laws are in different towards humans, then we should expect similar kinds of healings to occur both in the context of prayer and outside of it. But if the only kinds of healings that fit these criteria occur specifically following prayer, then that would make much more sense under the divine hypothesis because it involves a being who has intent rather than a blind indifferent force of nature
@@calebjackson99 It could just be that her and her husband are exaggerating it. She had just been to an evangelical healer event prior to this. We know healers have performed stunts to make it look like they're healing people. I wouldn't be shocked if this is another person doing the same.
We have no good evidence of miracle healings.
People get better sometimes.
People lie.
People are misdiagnosed.
@@calebjackson99 I'm pretty sure her records from the 1950s about her condition are basically just a note. They're not published in the research. Seems like that would be a major thing to give as evidence.
@@calebjackson99 I would push back on a few points here. First, I don't know if these criteria are indicative of natural or supernatural causes. A divine mechanism is completely unknown, so it can make no predictions. Furthermore, there are conditions that are resolved nearly instantly (simple examples might include a headache disappearing or cracking your back and back pain resolves) and do not require an immune response to improve.
Second, I am hesitant to say the subject was instantaneously and completely healed, as she went from a VA of 7/200 to 20/400 naturally (R), then 20/100 (recorded a few years later - VA at the time of the event is unknown), then corrected VA of 20/40 in 2001, so while a very incomplete data set, there seems to be some semblance of progression (with a notable jump at the point of interest).
Regarding the broadness of the natural mechanism, I think a naturalistic mechanism that is desribed by physiology or biochemistry is mostly what I was referencing; but overall, I think including the less probabilistic 'natural causes' is needed for this specific analysis, as the OP divided it into divine intervention and unknown natural causes to better cover the probability space. You would need similar breakdowns of mechanistic explanations from the divine intervention theory if you were to categorize individual mechanistic pathways (which I would think is not possible, since there are no known supernatural mechanistic pathways).
To your final point, I think this could be an interesting - yet technically challenging - study. If we had access to all similar events, and looked for correlation between groups (i.e. prayer/healing, prayer/no healing, no prayer/healing, no prayer/no healing). After some data and collection corrections (such as bias reporting - for example, the subject in this study didn't report it for 2 years, how many other cases go unreported?), I strongly suspect there would be no statistically significant correlation (especially given the number of prayer-no healing and no prayer-no healing cases). Even further, finding a causal mechanism would likely be impossible for a divine mechanism.
Finally, I don't think this addresses the heart of my question. Given we know nothing about divine intervention (mechanistic or even its existence) this seems inherently unprobable. Whereas we know physical mechanisms exist and can examine them. Therefore, if we agree both the divine or natural mechanism are unknown, but can only have a high confidence that natural mechanisms exist, it seems the naturalistic explanation is far more likely.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste
Miracle do not happen, because -----> the laws of nature prohibit them, because ------> they have never been confirmed broken, because ------> Miracles do not happen. Repeat
I can't tell if this is supposed to be a parody. This is not an argument.
OOF! Phusiognomy is soooooooo real! 😬😬😬
How do you manage to get so many atheists angry with you in so little time? Genuinely impressive my man.
You earned my subscrible, good video!
I'm agnostic.
I value good reasoning.
Assuming God did it when we don't know is bad reasoning.
@@malirk this has nothing to do with what I said.
You’ve added nothing and I don’t think your reasoning ability is that good if you are commenting on something that has nothing to do with what you are talking about. Stop being silly lol.
@@dumbsimpleton207 You commented that "angry atheists" are here and wondered why people are here. I explained that I'm agnostic and came here because Than misuses Bayes and passes it off as good reasoning.
This directly addresses your observation of people objecting to Than's arguments.
@@malirk “I’m agnostic and I value good reasoning” on a comment that has nothing to do with questioning your reasoning ability seems kinda self serving.
The point of my comment wasn’t putting forth a question it was kinda made in jest at the fact you waste your time writing schizo babble paragraphs on a video that disagrees with you that only has a puddle of views in the sea that is UA-cam.
“He miss used an argument because uh miracles can’t happen sweetie, allow me to write an essay in the comments”
Just got one question if the Christian god was real in your worldview would you worship him, assume everything is true. Would you respect god if he were real in your worldview ?
@@dumbsimpleton207 I would. Do you have convincing evidence for this God?
If God exists, then the probability that pigs can fly goes way up.
Trump jury APPLY HERE
My only objection to miracles is... *We don't have a single miracle on record that is confirmed.*
Sure miracles are theoretically possible. A universe that has no cause is also theoretically possible. Magic is also theoretically possible. This video could be "Overcoming bad objections to magic" and still not make a convincing case to believe in magic. Why?
We have no good examples of real magic.
What about the dozens of medically verified miraculous healings? Like the guy who had his intestines destroyed them grow back? Or the guy who was going mute who had his voice restored on video? Or the guy who had his leg restored in Spain, with multiple of medical professionals to confirm it?
Or in a non medical case, the flying monk that multiple hostile witnesses report to have seen, and the Catholic church specifically confirmed happened, but claimed it was a "natural phenomenon" because it really annoyed them?
Seems like you simply have a presupposition that clouds your judgement.
Specific Hypothesis Requirement: For any event attributed to a miracle, one must give a specific natural hypothesis that could account for it. Without specifics, you cannot compare the likelihood of divine intervention to an unknown natural cause.
Counterargument: The requirement for a specific hypothesis for natural causes sets an arguably unfair standard because we may not yet have the scientific knowledge to understand or articulate every possible natural explanation. If a naturalist says, "I don't know how this happened." we don't just instantly believe the supernaturalist because they say, "It's a miracle from God." The answer of "I don't know" should be above an answer that can not be shown to be true (i.e a God).
Transfer of Improbability: If one tries to explain away a miracle by proposing an unknown natural cause, they're simply shifting the improbability to how likely that unknown cause is given our current scientific understanding.
Against Transfer of Improbability: All naturally improbable events are that have occurred or probabilistically could occur have been shown to occur. Thus anything possible via natural improbable events is infinitely more possible than a proposed supernatural claim with only Bayesian presuppositional apologetics.
Low Probability of Alternative Explanations: The alternative explanations such as lying (L), misdiagnosis (M), and unknown natural causes (U) have very low probabilities when compared to a divine intervention theory (D), especially when considering specific cases like Marilyn's healing
Counterargument: Misdiagnosis and lying (intentional deceit or self-deception) are not as unlikely as they might seem. Diagnostic errors occur more frequently than one might expect. A Johns Hopkins study suggested that diagnostic errors could account for a significant portion of patient harm. Additionally, psychological factors can influence patients' perceptions and reporting of their symptoms. So it might be true that she was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disorder but the diagnosis from the 50s/60s/70s could be wrong. Optometry has progressed a long way in 50 years and we still misdiagnose people today!
Not posting the link to the persons objections shows he had points you rather not show or couldn't address.
I literally played the clip lol
@@ExploringReality You literally didn't post the link
@@jakegreen5081 great deflection 😆 I just posted the link
@@ExploringReality No deflection. Not knowing to link source material when your addressing someone is amateur stuff. And the person actually did highlight the inconsistency and the problems. Furthermore, James Fodor showed the problems also. Also the women saying she could see perfectly is simply not true. She had medical attention and continues to do so. The Tik Tocker even points out the source material mentions "she has hypothyroidism, which could be the cause and eventually she was put on meds for that and it helped her vision"
@@jakegreen5081Many of Fodor's criticisms were addressed in the Unbelievable show with Josh Brown and Peter May, where they discussed this particular miracle. I'd point you to that for a reference. Some of the other objections raised by Fodor were brought up by the atheist in this video as well.
Okay... the report on this seems odd...
*The couple were not cessationists (i.e., believing that spiritual gifts such as glossolalia, healing, and prophecy are not for the present age), but they had never heard of anyone receiving a miraculous healing in the present day. The patient reported, “The only healings we knew about were in the Bible”. She indicated that her husband had never before prayed for someone who subsequently experienced a remarkable recovery. Their only prior experience with prayer for healing seems to be when the patient and her husband had briefly visited the meeting of a well-known healing evangelist, but they left before the time in the meeting when the healing practices began.*
So they don't know of claimed present day healings but they went to a well-known evangelical who does healings?
The only other research I can find from Romez C (Lead author) is:
Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer.
So his only two publications are on how prayer heals people?
Then there is Zaritzky D. Their publications are have a huge gap from 1979 to 2019. With this 40 year gap, I have to wonder if they're the doctor! Meanwhile they're on both publications of PIP healing.
J W Brown shows publications from 1932... is this guy a vampire.... ok this is weird... and not right (Or he's a vampire).
For the first guy, why don’t YOU show us a miracle. Jesus said you’d be able to do them, so do it
They'll just say one of two things:
1) If we did, you wouldn't believe!
2) God says not to put him to the test!
@@malirk and I’d say “then why did Jesus perform miracles?”
If they can’t do it, then he was a liar. If you have the power and won’t do it, they they’re just jerks because I would love to heal sick
People if I had that power and I’m a godless atheist
@@Moriningland They'll tell you people saw Jesus do miracles and doubted Jesus.
@@malirk and I’d say “well I would believe Jesus was who he said he was if I saw people heal in his name”. The reality is that I see Christian’s idolize a guy like trump and support almost every war.
@@Moriningland They'll tell you that you wouldn't actually believe and that Joe Biden is putting babies to death.
Really great reply!
No other explanation needed. Miracles are just *unverifiable claims* .
What does this even mean? What defintion of 'explanation', 'miracle', and 'verifiable' are you using? How is a miracle unverifiable?
@@Jimmy-iy9pl "How is a miracle unverifiable"
Take any in the bible.
@@jakegreen5081A miracle in history would be an event occurring that did not match up with the previous causes we can discover. How is that unverifiable?
As one-time events, miracles can be neither proved nor disproved.
@@mysotiras21 There are a lot of other events not classified as "miracles" that can still be proved or disproved, similar to as I said above (based on the prior conditions and the after effects alone). Usual examples are the Big Bang, Ceasar crossing of the Rubicon, and most of historical claims.
All this bayesian theorem stuff has really poisoned your mind.
That DAMN Logic! How DARE anyone rely on it!!!!!!!!!!
@@thepalegalilean it’s not logical. It’s just made to seem logical to gullible followers.
@@thepalegalilean No. It's not logic. It's the misuse of Bayes. Selecting priors that confirm your posterior.
@@Pancakegr8 I have a feeling both you and I might understand Bayes better than Than and The Pale Galilean.
You've clearly convinced yourself and almost no one else....
Check out all the theists in the comments cheering Than on. They really find it impossible to believe that she was misdiagnosed or lied.