A Logical Argument Against Miracles

[EvieTheAvocado]

He sure is posting a lot on my thread for a guy who knows that I can't even see his posts, lol.

It's not "your" thread dear. 
The subject (and the incorrect reasoning of Hume) was of interest.

Yep, good to remember that while we can put others on ignore we can't exclude them from the threads we create.  Once created, they become community property and open to all.

It's also good to remember that if someone has misrepresented what I've said while they're on my Ignore List ... they've still misrepresented what I've said.

Because, of course, by "my thread" I just meant "the thread that I've created." Obviously, I'm not stupid enough to be one of those sorts of people who are like "Hey this is my thread!" when it's not even in the support section and it's just an ordinary thread. Considering that I've always been on some atheist forums of some sort off and on since 2008 . . . I think I'd have grasped that by now!

I mean, there's NEVER been a time when I've told someone to get off "my thread" ... that's obviously not what I meant. It was just shorthand for saying "I can't understand why the guy who was being either persistently disingenuous or otherwise unhelpful in a disagreement with me (with seemingly no effort to address the actual point or admit even the most obvious of truths in support of that actual point before he then went on to act as if that that wasn't the actual point) and who dropped me a "positive" rep that said negative things—passive aggressive on his part: I'd prefer a negative rep as at least that would be honest and he'd be using the Rep Point System properly—is so interested in posting on a thread that I created. I couldn't see what he was saying but I just imagined it was something stupid, disruptive or incorrect as that's mostly what I've seen from him so far."

He can post here as much as he wants. I was just confused, that's all ... as he doesn't seem very interested in being productive, from my POV ... which is why he ended up on my Ignore List in the first place. I negative repped him with why I think he's a waste of time.

[EvieTheAvocado]

Lol @SYZ Do you REALLY think my argument isn't valid or are you just teasing me?

[SYZ]

I guess your poll is missing an option that suits me, so I was forced to vote "It is neither valid nor sound".  Sorry.

As an integral part of my ignosticism, I have no opinion either way on so-called "miracles" apart, of course, from
granting the concept itself no credence.

[EvieTheAvocado]

I guess your poll is missing an option that suits me, so I was forced to vote "It is neither valid nor sound".  Sorry.

As an integral part of my ignosticism, I have no opinion either way on so-called "miracles" apart, of course, from
granting the concept itself no credence.

But those 3 options cover all the options, lol.

An argument is always either both sound and valid, or unsound but valid or both unsound and invalid.

Sounds to me like the argument to you must be valid but unsound ... because you don't accept some of the premises because you're not clear on what some of the definitions are supposed to even mean ... because you're an ignostic.

By the way, did you know that another name for an ignostic is a "theological non-cognitivist"? Pretty groovy eh? It's basically saying "Theology is cognitively meaningless" lol. Which is kinda cool.

I think that there are plenty of gods that aren't clearly defined ... but there are plenty that are clearly defined but contradictory and therefore impossible ... and there are plenty of others that are both clearly defined and non-contradictory but they require such mental gymnastics that they are highly implausible to say the least.

[SYZ]

Sounds to me like the argument to you must be valid but unsound ... because you don't accept some of the premises because you're not clear on what some of the definitions are supposed to even mean ... because you're an ignostic.

Yeah... I guess that's true.  Your argument as it stands is valid.

I like this site:  Validity and Soundness

[EvieTheAvocado]

Yeah, learning about validity and soundness and their differences, some years ago, greatly improved my ability to argue in a debate. Well worth checking out.

Here and three short videos that do a great job of explaining it, too. Watch them from top to bottom.

[Paleophyte]

Actually it's not a sound argument, (for the reason I stated) as well as :
Hume defines a miracle as "a violation of the laws of nature" ("Of Miracles," section 10, paragraph 12 in An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding").

That is false. Theology, Biblical Studies and scholars teach (in the 101 version of each of those fields) that a "miracle" is a totally natural event (NOT a "violation of the laws of nature") in which a believer sees "the hand of God working", and a non-believer sees a natural event. Hume was no theologian or scholar of religion.

So, what they're saying is that miracles are subjective.

I'll stick with Hume. By that definition, miracles are impossible.

[EvieTheAvocado]

Sure, the theists may supposedly extend the natural realm to involve miraculous events so Hume is supposedly misrepresenting the theist's position by saying that the supernatural involves suspension of the natural laws of physics ...

... but, in reality, he's not misrepresented them at all. Because the whole point is that in effect, and for all intents and purposes, such a version of the ''natural' world would basically be doing that.

A natural world with such occasional absurdities that are completely unfalsifiable and indistinguishable from illusion is exactly like a supernatural realm that occasionally intervenes on a natural one and suspends the laws of physics. The effect is identical ... Hume's way of conceptualizing it is just the clearest way of looking at it.