You’re probably right Mak. But sometimes I think he’s just making excuses to avoid setting up and maintaining his own blog. So much easier to hop here and hop there to leave his witticisms.
I’m sorry Makagutu. I did actually give answers, so I presume you mean that I misunderstood your question. If so, please explain and I’ll try again.
“Your knowledge of miracles necessarily comes from the bible. Apart from the biblical claims, what other reason do you have for believing in miracles?”
No that isn’t the case. I actually said something quite different to that. I said I believed based on evidence – historical evidence and medical evidence.
I base my understanding of the Bible miracles stories, like everything else in the Bible, on what the scholars say (I explain that in my long comment to Arch). The Bible miracles are historical events (or not) that can be assessed historically, and the majority of NT scholars are quite clear that Jesus was known as a miracle worker. The historical evidence for that is good, and it is then a matter of metaphysics whether we accept they actually occurred and how we explain them. Here are a few quotes:
EP Sanders: “I think we can be fairly certain that initially Jesus’ fame came as a result of healing, especially exorcism.”
G Stanton: “Few doubt that Jesus possessed unusual gifts as a healer, though of course varied explanations are offered.”
Maurice Casey and (from memory) Michael Grant believe Jesus did indeed perform healings, but by natural “folk healing”, while others (e.g. NT Wright) believe God healed through him. But the point is that Jesus’ healing miracles are well attested historically and so it is quite reasonable that I accept them as true.
Likewise I believe some modern day miracles occur because of medical evidence – of which there is plenty.
“So you only believe miracles that are attested in scripture? If it was in the Koran you would believe it? I think it is in the Hadith of Buhari.”
No that isn’t the case. I actually said something quite different to that. I said I believed based on evidence – historical evidence and medical evidence.
“You don’t know my reasons for not considering any book not divinely inspired. So what are yours.”
No I don’t, but I didn’t mention divine inspiration at all. I mentioned evidence, and I still imagine my reasons for not believing in the Islamic miracles are not very different as yours – i.e. lack of evidence.
“The Bible miracles are historical events (or not) that can be assessed historically, and the majority of NT scholars are quite clear that Jesus was known as a miracle worker. The historical evidence for that is good”
“But the point is that Jesus’ healing miracles are well attested historically and so it is quite reasonable that I accept them as true.”
I realize that UnkleE has no intention of responding to me directly, and that is fine, but if he wants anyone here to take him seriously regarding his claim of “strong evidence” for the historicity of the NT , then he better present some “strong” evidence for the sentinel miracle claim of the NT: the Resurrection of Jesus.
So far I have seen absolutely nada.
Without “strong” evidence for the Resurrection, who cares about the historicity of the rest of it?? There are miracle workers all over the world today…ask any Pentecostal. Give us your “strong” evidence for the Resurrection, UnkleE, or I for one will consider your position as nothing more than smoke and mirrors to maintain your faith (superstition) in a silly ancient middle eastern legend.
Unklee, let me put it differently. You have attempted to answer me but I find your answers inadequate or evasive. I will rephrase my questions.
You are saying you believe in miracles based on evidence. Are you saying you first investigated the evidence for miracles before you believed or you believed then sought reasons to justify your belief? What evidence did you come by in your investigations that we could investigate?
You say you base your understanding on what scholars say. Have you considered the writings of the scholars who say miracles are antecendently incredible? Do you think they make sense?
Where is this evidence for Jesus miracles? Are you by chance claiming you believe the author who wrote he changed water into wine? Is this evidence anything than the claims in the bible?
My reasons for not considering any book divinely inspired is
1. I have no belief in divines/ deities. It follows they can’t author books
2. The information contained in the books claiming divine inspiration are so common place that to claim they are not the workings of ordinary men requires suspension of belief in the workings of the human brain, something I assure you, I haven’t done.
3. How do we tell at what point divine inspiration has stopped and it is now the human mind at work?
4. The bible’s claim to divine inspiration is found either in the bible or by its peddlers
5. We now know there were many gospels that didn’t make it to the canon. The gospels for example are anonymous. We have no way of telling what the authors had smoked to come up with such a load of crap, ‘xcuse my language.
As a side note, are you willing to accept the workings of the Egyptian sorcerers in the time of Moses as miracles? And if this be the case, you should be willing to accept that there are two powers that can perform miracles and we can never be sure really whether it is the devil that healed my aunt or god that healed my dead grandfather?
Gary, patience brother.
Unklee started by answering to Ark, then myself, he will get to you after he has answered William. I was hoping though he would get some help, maybe like from Joseph. You guys have asked so many questions and everyday keep expanding them. Even, I, would be overwhelmed.
There is only ONE miracle that needs evidence. All the others can be performed by a good magician.
UnkleE knows he has nothing better to prove that this one miracle actually occurred in human history, and not in fantasyland, other than with assumptions and second century hearsay. The truth is, UnkleE believes that a dead first century Jewish prophet walked out his grave for one simple reason:
Gary, UnkleE believes in miracles because there is evidence for them and E. P Sanders says there is evidence for them. Which means he believes in miracles not because there is evidence for them but because Sanders believes there is evidence.
“You have attempted to answer me but I find your answers inadequate or evasive.”
Hi Makagutu, how are you going? I’m sorry that is how you find my answers. But, strange as it may seem, I am not trying to please you with my answers, I am trying to answer your questions truthfully. How you react to that is something else, though of course I am interested to learn that. 🙂 Have you considered the possibility that your dissatisfaction is because I haven’t answered as you expected or wanted?
“You are saying you believe in miracles based on evidence. Are you saying you first investigated the evidence for miracles before you believed or you believed then sought reasons to justify your belief?”
I have been a christian for more than 50 years. I am a very questioning person, so I have been questioning and reviewing my beliefs right through that time. Some beliefs have changed, some haven’t. I don’t recall thinking much about miracles at the start. Biblical miracles were just part of the story which I don’t recall being emphasised all that much, and I wasn’t really aware of any present day miracle claims.
So I don’t think I can offer you a cut-and-dried sequence of events. I think the historical sequence of events in my own life is relatively unimportant.
“What evidence did you come by in your investigations that we could investigate?”
The New Testament miracles need to first be examined by seeing what the scholars write about them, as I have already mentioned. That information would be the basis of a personal choice whether to believe the stories or not, and that choice would be determined in part by our beliefs about Jesus and God, which would presumably lead you and I to different conclusions. Present day miracles must be investigated by reading about them or experiencing them. I have done some investigation, and summarised the stories in Healing miracles and God, and from there you can jump to the individual stories.
“You say you base your understanding on what scholars say. Have you considered the writings of the scholars who say miracles are antecendently incredible? Do you think they make sense?”
We need to rely on scholars who are experts in the question we are asking. If we want to know about history (in this case, whether there is good historical evidence for the miracle stories of Jesus) then we go to historians. But if we are asking whether miracles can actually occur, we are asking a question about whether God exists and whether he/she/it could or would do miracles – and those questions are philosophical and theological, and one where there is little consensus.
“Where is this evidence for Jesus miracles? Are you by chance claiming you believe the author who wrote he changed water into wine? Is this evidence anything than the claims in the bible?”
I am relying on the conclusions of the historians, which leads me to trust the accounts.
“My reasons for not considering any book divinely inspired is”
That’s fair enough. I don’t think divine inspiration is something that can be proved or not. But I haven’t ever mentioned divine inspiration, you have introduced that, so it has played no part in my reasoning here.
“are you willing to accept the workings of the Egyptian sorcerers in the time of Moses as miracles?”
The scholars generally don’t believe those stories are historical, so I’m not sure the question helps us much. But if the stories were historical, I would be open-minded about that possibility.
“And if this be the case, you should be willing to accept that there are two powers that can perform miracles and we can never be sure really whether it is the devil that healed my aunt or god that healed my dead grandfather?”
I think this is a good thought, and one not many people think of. Yes, I am open to that possibility.
As a matter of interest, were your aunt and grandfather healed, or did you just use them as hypotheticals?
Since the comment structure has been brought up a couple of times (and not just on this post) let me address it quickly:
I love WordPress for many, many reasons, but I’m not a fan of the way comments nest. I think they should operate more like Facebook, where you can nest 1 level deep and a “reply” button sits below every comment. But in WP, even if you limit the nesting to 1 level, the most recent comment won’t have a “reply” button. You can still reply to that level of the thread by clicking the “reply” button of the top comment in that thread. But that’s not immediately obvious, so what happens instead is that people keep starting new threads, even though they’re answering a previous one. Then, when you want to find a conversation you’ve been involved in, it’s almost impossible to figure out where it is. When you turn nesting off, the most recent comments will always be toward the bottom, regardless of who they’re replying to.
Secondly, there’s not a way to set nesting for individual posts. And since so many of my posts have gone without it, if I turn it on, it tries to nest those old posts. But many of the people who were commenting in those threads used the standard reply form at the bottom of the page instead of clicking “reply” in their email or reader. Therefore, turning on nesting just results in a jumbled mess for all those old posts.
In other words, I’ve tried it both ways, and I think it’s most user friendly for this site to remain as-is. And honestly, considering the number of comments we get here, it doesn’t seem to be too much of a problem… 😉
A few of you are coming off kind of rude toward unkleE — you may not be aware of that, so I’m just trying to be helpful. Imagine how that could look to an objective bystander reading all of this:
They see unkleE’s willingness to discuss his views on a blog filled with people who don’t agree with him. That takes a certain amount of courage, which is admirable. Then they see some of us make claims like “unkleE is just doing _____” or “unklE just thinks ______” followed by descriptions of his position that seem to resemble straw men more than anything else. Just comes across as kind of petty.
Let’s try to keep this civil and respectful. It’s unlikely that he or any of us will actually change our minds about any of this, because we’re all pretty knowledgeable about the existing evidence. So instead of viewing this as a debate that must be won or lost, I prefer to view it as a discussion that will help me understand his position better, and hopefully let him understand mine better as well. I also think that makes much more impact on any lurkers.
looks like nate is just a closet theist, unkleE lover. nate just things all us atheists are too mean and is just doing what he can now to appease his fictitious god and bosom buddy, unkleE.
That article you posted is insane! And how exactly are they not going to comply? Do they think a ruling in favor of same sex marriage means they would have to marry someone of the same sex? And the comments on the article were even worse. Man, such bigotry…
revolting against your government is contrary to the NT’s teachings. interesting how they love god’s law so much that they are willing to follow it when it suits them and break it over things they despise… and in some cases over things they want to hide within themselves.
christians can still worship as they wish. they can even believe homosexuality is sinful. but that’s not good enough for a lot of them. even though they criticize muslim extremists, they would force their brand of Christianity on everyone around them in the name of jesus.
yes, i much prefer unklee and josh to these extreme douches, who would fight to suppress the freedoms of others, but moan about being persecuted when someone calls them hateful for doing so.
I think unklee and josh are both examples of kind hearted, well meaning and sincere people. I dont agree with their theology and dont understand how they reconcile the bible’s issues or reason, but I would be comfortable being their neighbors and think they would be examples like that of the good Samaritan.
I hope they take that as it’s meant, the highest compliment a non-believer could bestow to a believer.
nothing riles up the extremists like homosex. drives them (as Nate pointed out) “insane”.
it’s a shame that they give Christianity such a bad name,
because some Christians are (as William pointed out) “kind hearted, well meaning and sincere”.
if people want to believe, I don’t have a problem with that,
it’s the expectation that many have that everyone should tow the line because of their beliefs,
that’s where the real problem lies.
Finding Truth 
Sorry Mak, did I forget to mention? The man who found the empty casket was a janitor who loves country western.
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You’re probably right Mak. But sometimes I think he’s just making excuses to avoid setting up and maintaining his own blog. So much easier to hop here and hop there to leave his witticisms.
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I think, Dave, you have that covered.
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http://patriotupdate.com/2015/04/we-will-not-obey-christian-leaders-threaten-civil-disobedience-if-supreme-court-legalizes-gay-marriage/
oh, those poor Christian leaders.
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“Nan, that is a good one and you have given arch another reason to add to his list of arguments against WP” – It’s OK, I’ve long since run out of ink.
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“You didn’t answer my question.”
I’m sorry Makagutu. I did actually give answers, so I presume you mean that I misunderstood your question. If so, please explain and I’ll try again.
“Your knowledge of miracles necessarily comes from the bible. Apart from the biblical claims, what other reason do you have for believing in miracles?”
No that isn’t the case. I actually said something quite different to that. I said I believed based on evidence – historical evidence and medical evidence.
I base my understanding of the Bible miracles stories, like everything else in the Bible, on what the scholars say (I explain that in my long comment to Arch). The Bible miracles are historical events (or not) that can be assessed historically, and the majority of NT scholars are quite clear that Jesus was known as a miracle worker. The historical evidence for that is good, and it is then a matter of metaphysics whether we accept they actually occurred and how we explain them. Here are a few quotes:
EP Sanders: “I think we can be fairly certain that initially Jesus’ fame came as a result of healing, especially exorcism.”
G Stanton: “Few doubt that Jesus possessed unusual gifts as a healer, though of course varied explanations are offered.”
Maurice Casey and (from memory) Michael Grant believe Jesus did indeed perform healings, but by natural “folk healing”, while others (e.g. NT Wright) believe God healed through him. But the point is that Jesus’ healing miracles are well attested historically and so it is quite reasonable that I accept them as true.
Likewise I believe some modern day miracles occur because of medical evidence – of which there is plenty.
“So you only believe miracles that are attested in scripture? If it was in the Koran you would believe it? I think it is in the Hadith of Buhari.”
No that isn’t the case. I actually said something quite different to that. I said I believed based on evidence – historical evidence and medical evidence.
“You don’t know my reasons for not considering any book not divinely inspired. So what are yours.”
No I don’t, but I didn’t mention divine inspiration at all. I mentioned evidence, and I still imagine my reasons for not believing in the Islamic miracles are not very different as yours – i.e. lack of evidence.
Thanks again.
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“The Bible miracles are historical events (or not) that can be assessed historically, and the majority of NT scholars are quite clear that Jesus was known as a miracle worker. The historical evidence for that is good”
“But the point is that Jesus’ healing miracles are well attested historically and so it is quite reasonable that I accept them as true.”
Just where is this historical attestation?
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I realize that UnkleE has no intention of responding to me directly, and that is fine, but if he wants anyone here to take him seriously regarding his claim of “strong evidence” for the historicity of the NT , then he better present some “strong” evidence for the sentinel miracle claim of the NT: the Resurrection of Jesus.
So far I have seen absolutely nada.
Without “strong” evidence for the Resurrection, who cares about the historicity of the rest of it?? There are miracle workers all over the world today…ask any Pentecostal. Give us your “strong” evidence for the Resurrection, UnkleE, or I for one will consider your position as nothing more than smoke and mirrors to maintain your faith (superstition) in a silly ancient middle eastern legend.
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Tick, tock…tick, tock…
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Zzzzzzzzzzzzz….
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Unklee, let me put it differently. You have attempted to answer me but I find your answers inadequate or evasive. I will rephrase my questions.
You are saying you believe in miracles based on evidence. Are you saying you first investigated the evidence for miracles before you believed or you believed then sought reasons to justify your belief? What evidence did you come by in your investigations that we could investigate?
You say you base your understanding on what scholars say. Have you considered the writings of the scholars who say miracles are antecendently incredible? Do you think they make sense?
Where is this evidence for Jesus miracles? Are you by chance claiming you believe the author who wrote he changed water into wine? Is this evidence anything than the claims in the bible?
My reasons for not considering any book divinely inspired is
As a side note, are you willing to accept the workings of the Egyptian sorcerers in the time of Moses as miracles? And if this be the case, you should be willing to accept that there are two powers that can perform miracles and we can never be sure really whether it is the devil that healed my aunt or god that healed my dead grandfather?
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Gary, patience brother.
Unklee started by answering to Ark, then myself, he will get to you after he has answered William. I was hoping though he would get some help, maybe like from Joseph. You guys have asked so many questions and everyday keep expanding them. Even, I, would be overwhelmed.
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There is only ONE miracle that needs evidence. All the others can be performed by a good magician.
UnkleE knows he has nothing better to prove that this one miracle actually occurred in human history, and not in fantasyland, other than with assumptions and second century hearsay. The truth is, UnkleE believes that a dead first century Jewish prophet walked out his grave for one simple reason:
He wants to.
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Gary, UnkleE believes in miracles because there is evidence for them and E. P Sanders says there is evidence for them. Which means he believes in miracles not because there is evidence for them but because Sanders believes there is evidence.
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“You have attempted to answer me but I find your answers inadequate or evasive.”
Hi Makagutu, how are you going? I’m sorry that is how you find my answers. But, strange as it may seem, I am not trying to please you with my answers, I am trying to answer your questions truthfully. How you react to that is something else, though of course I am interested to learn that. 🙂 Have you considered the possibility that your dissatisfaction is because I haven’t answered as you expected or wanted?
“You are saying you believe in miracles based on evidence. Are you saying you first investigated the evidence for miracles before you believed or you believed then sought reasons to justify your belief?”
I have been a christian for more than 50 years. I am a very questioning person, so I have been questioning and reviewing my beliefs right through that time. Some beliefs have changed, some haven’t. I don’t recall thinking much about miracles at the start. Biblical miracles were just part of the story which I don’t recall being emphasised all that much, and I wasn’t really aware of any present day miracle claims.
So I don’t think I can offer you a cut-and-dried sequence of events. I think the historical sequence of events in my own life is relatively unimportant.
“What evidence did you come by in your investigations that we could investigate?”
The New Testament miracles need to first be examined by seeing what the scholars write about them, as I have already mentioned. That information would be the basis of a personal choice whether to believe the stories or not, and that choice would be determined in part by our beliefs about Jesus and God, which would presumably lead you and I to different conclusions. Present day miracles must be investigated by reading about them or experiencing them. I have done some investigation, and summarised the stories in Healing miracles and God, and from there you can jump to the individual stories.
“You say you base your understanding on what scholars say. Have you considered the writings of the scholars who say miracles are antecendently incredible? Do you think they make sense?”
We need to rely on scholars who are experts in the question we are asking. If we want to know about history (in this case, whether there is good historical evidence for the miracle stories of Jesus) then we go to historians. But if we are asking whether miracles can actually occur, we are asking a question about whether God exists and whether he/she/it could or would do miracles – and those questions are philosophical and theological, and one where there is little consensus.
“Where is this evidence for Jesus miracles? Are you by chance claiming you believe the author who wrote he changed water into wine? Is this evidence anything than the claims in the bible?”
I am relying on the conclusions of the historians, which leads me to trust the accounts.
“My reasons for not considering any book divinely inspired is”
That’s fair enough. I don’t think divine inspiration is something that can be proved or not. But I haven’t ever mentioned divine inspiration, you have introduced that, so it has played no part in my reasoning here.
“are you willing to accept the workings of the Egyptian sorcerers in the time of Moses as miracles?”
The scholars generally don’t believe those stories are historical, so I’m not sure the question helps us much. But if the stories were historical, I would be open-minded about that possibility.
“And if this be the case, you should be willing to accept that there are two powers that can perform miracles and we can never be sure really whether it is the devil that healed my aunt or god that healed my dead grandfather?”
I think this is a good thought, and one not many people think of. Yes, I am open to that possibility.
As a matter of interest, were your aunt and grandfather healed, or did you just use them as hypotheticals?
Thanks.
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ep sanders, was he one of the uncorruptable saints?
sure looks like one.
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SIDE NOTE:
Since the comment structure has been brought up a couple of times (and not just on this post) let me address it quickly:
I love WordPress for many, many reasons, but I’m not a fan of the way comments nest. I think they should operate more like Facebook, where you can nest 1 level deep and a “reply” button sits below every comment. But in WP, even if you limit the nesting to 1 level, the most recent comment won’t have a “reply” button. You can still reply to that level of the thread by clicking the “reply” button of the top comment in that thread. But that’s not immediately obvious, so what happens instead is that people keep starting new threads, even though they’re answering a previous one. Then, when you want to find a conversation you’ve been involved in, it’s almost impossible to figure out where it is. When you turn nesting off, the most recent comments will always be toward the bottom, regardless of who they’re replying to.
Secondly, there’s not a way to set nesting for individual posts. And since so many of my posts have gone without it, if I turn it on, it tries to nest those old posts. But many of the people who were commenting in those threads used the standard reply form at the bottom of the page instead of clicking “reply” in their email or reader. Therefore, turning on nesting just results in a jumbled mess for all those old posts.
In other words, I’ve tried it both ways, and I think it’s most user friendly for this site to remain as-is. And honestly, considering the number of comments we get here, it doesn’t seem to be too much of a problem… 😉
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Hey guys,
A few of you are coming off kind of rude toward unkleE — you may not be aware of that, so I’m just trying to be helpful. Imagine how that could look to an objective bystander reading all of this:
They see unkleE’s willingness to discuss his views on a blog filled with people who don’t agree with him. That takes a certain amount of courage, which is admirable. Then they see some of us make claims like “unkleE is just doing _____” or “unklE just thinks ______” followed by descriptions of his position that seem to resemble straw men more than anything else. Just comes across as kind of petty.
Let’s try to keep this civil and respectful. It’s unlikely that he or any of us will actually change our minds about any of this, because we’re all pretty knowledgeable about the existing evidence. So instead of viewing this as a debate that must be won or lost, I prefer to view it as a discussion that will help me understand his position better, and hopefully let him understand mine better as well. I also think that makes much more impact on any lurkers.
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looks like nate is just a closet theist, unkleE lover. nate just things all us atheists are too mean and is just doing what he can now to appease his fictitious god and bosom buddy, unkleE.
William is just obviously joking.
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@SPG
That article you posted is insane! And how exactly are they not going to comply? Do they think a ruling in favor of same sex marriage means they would have to marry someone of the same sex? And the comments on the article were even worse. Man, such bigotry…
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Well played, William 😉
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revolting against your government is contrary to the NT’s teachings. interesting how they love god’s law so much that they are willing to follow it when it suits them and break it over things they despise… and in some cases over things they want to hide within themselves.
christians can still worship as they wish. they can even believe homosexuality is sinful. but that’s not good enough for a lot of them. even though they criticize muslim extremists, they would force their brand of Christianity on everyone around them in the name of jesus.
yes, i much prefer unklee and josh to these extreme douches, who would fight to suppress the freedoms of others, but moan about being persecuted when someone calls them hateful for doing so.
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I think unklee and josh are both examples of kind hearted, well meaning and sincere people. I dont agree with their theology and dont understand how they reconcile the bible’s issues or reason, but I would be comfortable being their neighbors and think they would be examples like that of the good Samaritan.
I hope they take that as it’s meant, the highest compliment a non-believer could bestow to a believer.
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nothing riles up the extremists like homosex. drives them (as Nate pointed out) “insane”.
it’s a shame that they give Christianity such a bad name,
because some Christians are (as William pointed out) “kind hearted, well meaning and sincere”.
if people want to believe, I don’t have a problem with that,
it’s the expectation that many have that everyone should tow the line because of their beliefs,
that’s where the real problem lies.
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