[m1n1]

There are two kinds of conversations we could be having.

(A) Where one person tries to change the other person's mind

(B) Where one person explains how a rational person can hold a position ... This is different from showing how the position is the only one a rational person can hold

Let's agree not to attempt (A)

Are you willing to try (B)?

The root of this thread was someone else saying "I honestly don’t understand how anyone who has been proximate to childbirth can believe in intelligent design"

I explained how: It's one Consequence imposed by the Governor. He would have been completely justified if he imposed the Punishment immediately instead. The root question didn't ask about goodness or mercy, only intelligent design.

The question (yours) now is: can a rational person reconcile the claim that God is good with the reality that a baby could die of cancer.

And on this particular branch of the discussion we're comparing explanations for Jesus' empty tomb.

It's entirely rational to consult Simon Greenleaf who was one of the foremost experts in judicial evaluation of evidence (he wrote a classic textbook on it used in many law schools).

There are rules about judging documents as evidence in the court of law: where were the documents found, in what manner, in what condition, how do they compare with other known examples.

There are guidelines for comparing copies, tracing and evaluating differences, and dating documents.

And there is Jewish and Roman history.

It is rational to accept the evidence as indicating that things were as I described in GP. Which is that Jesus' disciples maintained they interacted with the risen Christ _to their deaths_ and this happened _during_ the eyewitness generation. And the written documents are very numerous (thousands) and many are legitimately dated within the same generation.

It is rational to think this explanation is more credible than a hoax or deliberate deception. We're free to weigh things differently, but I'm just showing it is quite a rational option. The hoax approach is opposed by the evidence.

I'm sure some will object that it's irrational to believe in miracles. But:

One-- that is not in the spirit of the supposition "Assume omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent God." (I chatted with a co-worker once who simply could not suppose for the sake of conversation even though he was a software engineer and should have easily been able to pretend Jesus had what we computer folks call write permissions or root privileges. Actually I don't think his difficulty was intellectual so much as emotional.)

Two-- I have personal experience: a complete stranger performed a miracle on my leg. Before he did, I was shown a bone defect on an X-ray by someone else. Then, without knowing this, the stranger told me about the defect, and then he fixed me. I was sitting on the floor straight legged and actually felt my leg moving against the floor as the fix took place. Then I got another X-ray from Kaiser Permanente and it showed the defect was gone, even though I specifically told them what to look for (meaning they took exactly the correct X-ray to show it).

[scotty79]

I'm doing (B) from the start because it takes me about a second to recognize a believer and I know that there's zero chance of convincing a believer of something that contradicts their belief.

> The question (yours) now is: can a rational person reconcile the claim that God is good with the reality that a baby could die of cancer.

Not 'could', they do die of cancer and no human intervention can prevent it at our current tech level.

That's the only reason I'm still in this thread. Because I have a slim hope of seeing attempt at an answer. So far all I got is attempts at misdirection, which is super common.

> Before he did, I was shown a bone defect on an X-ray by someone else.

And you are sure this was real because X-rays never contain any artifacts that could be mistaken for a defect and radiologists are always 100% accurate.

> I was sitting on the floor straight legged and actually felt my leg moving against the floor as the fix took place.

Are you familiar with dowsing rods? Brain is perfectly capable of creating sensations of motions that are not real. Especially when it's put in impressionable state by yourself or a skillfull fraud or both.

> Then I got another X-ray from Kaiser Permanente and it showed the defect was gone, even though I specifically told them what to look for (meaning they took exactly the correct X-ray to show it).

If you weren't "fixed" the result of the second test would be exactly the same as it was. It was just a simple case of more precise and targetted measurement revealing the error in the initial one. Yet you chose to remember it as firsthand evidence of existence of miracles.

There's really no reason for me to to reiterate what atheists said online for last two decades. Just go online and look what they have to say about miracles, faith healers and such.

[m1n1]

So this has happened twice now:

  - I refer to the evidence of something in the past (Jesus' empty tomb, the change in my leg)
  - Instead of stepping closer to learn more about the evidence, you keep as far away from it as you already are and imagine things about the evidence
  - From that distance, you think your evaluation is reasonable and mine isn't. 

But that second step isn't reasonable. You're free to take it of course. But doing so precludes this from being a type (B) conversation. It's yet another kind of conversation (C) demonstrating the ease of maintaining objections by maintaining distance from the actual evidence and objecting to an imagined version of the evidence.

What you say about my X-rays arises not from any familiarity with them whatsoever, but starting from your conclusion and stepping backwards to what must be the cause.

If instead you learned more about my X-rays, you'd hear from me how the chiropractor showed the sideways bending of my spine (how many degrees to the left here, and back to the right there) by adding lines between corresponding vertebrae points and showing the angle deviation from vertical.

And then he showed me the cause which was the top of one femur was higher than the other, because one leg was longer than the other, the X-ray being captured in the standing position, barefoot with heels firmly planted etc. On the X-ray, he drew a line across the top of the femurs and showed the angle that deviated from horizontal.

And then he said it's like I've been stepping in a pothole my entire life and my spine has compensated by bending sideways. The difference is big enough to affect my spine but small enough that other people never noticed. And since it happened gradually as I grew, I never noticed either. But you'd also hear from me he wasn't hedging like there was any doubt about the X-ray's interpretation.

(The chiropractor lost my business because I could just put a little shim in one shoe and my spine wouldn't have to compensate anymore, and in fact this was his suggestion. No, he didn't try to sell me a shim. Yes, if a different interpretation of the X-ray were possible that'd allow him to keep my business, he would have said so.)

But the stranger noticed entirely independently and weeks later. I wonder if you suppose this was at some big tent revival where someone advertised a healer was in town.

No, if you had asked, if you had stepped closer to the evidence instead of keeping your distance and reasoning backwards from your chosen conclusion after imagining whatever you did, you would learn this was an ordinary boring Sunday at a boring church where I never saw or expected anything like this to happen, and he (truly a random dude that no one announced) singled me out, did his unexpected deed, and left. No one knew him, no one paid him, he didn't gain anything from it. He approached me unbidden, I didn't seek him out for a healing nor did I expect to ever see one much less experience one.

What is the reasonable explanation how this happened in separate places instead of the chiropractor and this stranger knowing each other and trying to gain from this?

You mentioned susceptibility. I wonder if you suppose I might be the gullible type who goes to big tent revivals. But if you stepped closer and asked, you'd learn I have two degrees from MIT and have spent more than two decades dealing with computers where the only thing that counts are facts. My friends from MIT who are believers are not susceptible either. Given a choice between one church that is known for good Bible studies vs another that has people speaking in tongues etc we would all prefer to go to the former.

I opened my eyes during the experience so I not only felt it, I saw it. The follow-up X-ray was the exact same setup body position. It's what the doctor ordered after I described the chiropractor's conclusion about my legs. Perhaps you are reasoning from an anti supernatural presupposition -- that anything supernatural is immediately dismissed. But as I said before, it's easy and reasonable to accept that IF God exists, then he can resurrect just as easily as you dragging a file back out of your trash.

The same goes for Jesus' tomb. If you would step closer and look at the evidence, you would see that the hoax theory is weak. My goal is not to convince you to change your mind because that's a type (A) conversation. My goal is to show you that resurrection is a reasonable explanation. Or rather, my challenge to you was to come up with a reasonable explanation of the empty tomb given the evidence. But now I realize it'd only feel like a difficult challenge if you're familiar with the evidence, which you are not. You could be, if you came closer to it and looked.

One fellow who looked at the evidence was a member of President Nixon's Watergate scandal. He experienced from the inside how hard it was to keep a conspiracy going. He saw what it's like to crack under the pressure. There's no way he could believe Jesus' disciples could carry to their painful deaths the supposed secret of a staged resurrection. This person was Chuck Colson.

Another is Lee Strobel who wanted to disprove Christianity. But the key is he came closer to the evidence with his skills as a professional investigative journalist to really attempt a direct undeniable smack down on it. He wanted to know it in exacting detail to totally refute it in a hit piece. But the evidence is so strong that he became a believer.

If you or anyone else is interested, here are some resources

Evidence That Demands a Verdict vols 1&2, Josh McDowell

Included in volume 1:

  - think the Bible is no different from any other book? See chapters 1 and 4
   - how can you trust the Bible when it wasn't officially accepted by the church until 350 years after the crucifixion? See chapter 3
   - how do we know what we have today from the Bible authors was not changed from the originals? See chapter 4
   - how can you believe in Jesus when all we know about him comes from biased Christian writers? See chapter 5
   - *how can Christians say Jesus rose bodily from the grave? There are lots of possible explanations ...  see chapter 10*

Included in volume 2:

  - are the gospels a reliable record? See chapters 16 through 27

The Testimony of the Evangelists, Examined by the Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice -- Simon Greenleaf

Case for Christ, Lee Strobel

If you are willing to step closer to the evidence and take an honest look, these are available.

If you remain unwilling, then this branch of the conversation dies here. The record will show you maintaining the hoax/misremembering explanation as reasonable _only_ from a position of unawareness of the evidence. And I would then move to the other branch that you're waiting for. This wasn't a delay tactic. Perhaps I don't have as much free time as you, or my posts take longer to compose than yours -- they contain more as you can all see.

[scotty79]

> From that distance, you think your evaluation is reasonable and mine isn't.

If somebody describes a convoluted closed physical system and concludes that energy is not conserved I don't really need to delve into details to know they made some mistake somewhere.

> What you say about my X-rays arises not from any familiarity with them whatsoever, but starting from your conclusion and stepping backwards to what must be the cause.

What I say arises from my familiarity what X-Ray (and even a medical test in general) is. It's perfectly sufficient to explain your particular experience.

Again, no need to delve into details especially since bottom line is "faith healing exists".

> The difference is big enough to affect my spine but small enough that other people never noticed

This is quite common. Not many people are perfectly symmetrical.

> But you'd also hear from me he wasn't hedging like there was any doubt about the X-ray's interpretation.

People can say what they think very confidentiality regardless of whether they are right or wrong. Being wrong feels exactly the same as being right. At least until you find out you were wrong.

> But the stranger noticed entirely independently and weeks later

Having one slightly shorter leg is unnoticeable for people who don't look for it. But if somebody looks it's not invisible. You can see one shoulder a little bit lower, or pelvis tilted or maybe you can see it in the way person moves. I imagine it's easily spotted by a manipulator that already looks at you like a piece of exploitable meat rather than a person and has extensive experience with people complainig abou health issues.

> he (truly a random dude that no one announced) singled me out, did his unexpected deed, and left. No one knew him, no one paid him, he didn't gain anything from it.

I know this kind of people. Met some. They imagine they can be helpful and they try to help according to their beliefs without intent to exploit. What they earn this way is feeling of utility and being special. Usually they do very little harm. Never any good.

> You mentioned susceptibility. I wonder if you suppose I might be the gullible type who goes to big tent revivals.

You voluntarily went to a church for the purpose other than sightseeing. Not all tents are made of cloth.

> But if you stepped closer and asked, you'd learn I have two degrees from MIT and have spent more than two decades dealing with computers where the only thing that counts are facts.

I absolutely believe you. I have no doubt you have a special brain. Away from the median. This is a hint. Special brains are usually special in many ways at the same time. For example mine is firmly in top 1 pecentile of IQ but also schizoid, ADHD and HSP and possibly away from the median in some other subtle way that may not even have names yet. Your's are high iq and highly able to sustain focus, but also gullible towards mystique. I've already met an intelligent person similar to you. She was capable of doing fairly advanced computer stuff but couldn't reject obviously fake ideas like some woman being true reincarnation of Anne Frank. It's as if she had high intelligence but totally broken bullshit filter that even in average people enables them to reject irrational things quickly. High intelligence might make this process harder because you tend to overthink and decide you can't reject something until you find a specific, well motivated reason for rejection. To sum up, great sequential thinkinig while nearly completely lacking heuristics that can save you from wasting your effort on thinking about useless and fake stuff. If you want to delve into something I'd highly recommend topics of neurodivergence to better understand yourself, better employ your strengths and better mitigate your weaknesses.

> My friends from MIT who are believers are not susceptible either.

Birds of feather flock together. But somehow I feel like you are the strongest believer among them and some of them don't really agree with you about the reality of some things you sincerely believe in.

> Given a choice between one church that is known for good Bible studies vs another that has people speaking in tongues etc we would all prefer to go to the former.

That's commendable.

> I opened my eyes during the experience so I not only felt it, I saw it.

You do have muscles. Muscles do sometimes twitch. And even if they didn't, vision isn't 100% accurate, sometimes you think you've seen motion, esp in your periferial view, but there wasn't any. Noticing motion is primal survival skill. Those systems are evolutionary tuned to be a bit overactive rather than miss important signal.

> It's what the doctor ordered after I described the chiropractor's conclusion about my legs.

And the doctors conclusion was that chiropractor was full of it. Which is often the case because chiropractors are not doctors. They have bo actual medical knowledge. US is very particular place that awards them any credibility. In most other first world countries chiropractors are on the level of something like acupuncture and homeopathy, slightly higher than energy healing, because they actually do some action on your body.

> But now I realize it'd only feel like a difficult challenge if you're familiar with the evidence, which you are not. You could be, if you came closer to it and looked.

I think you can abandon the thread of the tomb because evidence for and against it lies far outside of anything I might concievably be interested in the short decades I have left on this rock. The only thing that's even remotely interesting to me is your intense interest in it. The psychological effect it has on you. And why you'd rather seek evidence to confirm it rather than disprove it. After all that's the rational way, when you have an amazing idea you should seek why it might be false, not why it might be true. Instead you try to offload this job to other people who sought to disprove it but failed. Why don't you seek people who sought to disprove it and believe they succeeded? Read what ateists have to say about the tomb. Many of them, especially from US, had religious upbringing, sometimes even had some religious functions and were intensly interested in their religion but that interest and effort lead them ultimately to accidentally disproving it beyond their reasonable doubt despite the pain and struggle they felt as believers in this process. They talked about it openly on the internet.

> And I would then move to the other branch that you're waiting for.

Thank you.

> This wasn't a delay tactic.

I believe you didn't apply any conscious tactics. Your mind just gravitates toward this subject.

> Perhaps I don't have as much free time as you, or my posts take longer to compose than yours -- they contain more as you can all see.

That's very likely. Don't worry. I won't miss your answer whenever it comes. Thank you for this conversation.

[m1n1]

This weekend I spoke with someone who (together with two others) prayed for a woman whose right arm was visibly shorter than her left (around 5 inches) -- so much so that she always had to roll up her right sleeve because otherwise it'd be too long.

The right arm was shorter because she broke it as a child and it healed in a way that interfered with proper growth.

After the prayer the arms were the same length. So no need for x-ray arguments or any concern about any single person being susceptible or gullible since this was a group of 4 individuals.

They knew the "patient" beforehand, and they continued to interact over the next several weeks. She was from Taiwan. Her chosen English nickname was Diane. And this occurred in London.

The anti supernatural supposition is not a moving of the goalposts. It is actually the removal of goalposts. You can't score a field goal if the goalposts are denied entirely.

[scotty79]

> You can't score a field goal if the goalposts are denied entirely.

I'm sorry, but reality doesn't owe you a win in a game you made up.

> The anti supernatural supposition is not a moving of the goalposts. It is actually the removal of goalposts.

I'm sorry, but I'm not in this business. But if you can find a person that can demonstrate a miracle you can take them to James Randi foundation, demonstrate a miracle, recieve 1 mln dollars and split it between yourselves. Maybe it's not a lot of money but providing humanity with the first actual evidence of supernatural in history is reward in itself. You can try score your goals there.

> After the prayer the arms were the same length. So no need for x-ray arguments or any concern about any single person being susceptible or gullible since this was a group of 4 individuals.

I am sorry, but you haven't spoken to 4 people, you spoke to 1 who could (and probably did) make up the other 3 as well as the event itself.

Sometimes you meet honest person that participated in the event staged by dishonest, but I don't suspect it's the case this time since the person you spoken to claims he knew the woman beforehand, unless it was just for a short period that was part of the setup.

You have to pay more attention to your input channels.

You have the same symptoms as the person I knew. Tendency to seriously underestimate propensity of people to lie, cheat and believe in lies. It's as if you can't imagine why a person would lie or cheat you assume that what they say is accurate description of their accurate perceptions.

If you are really about truth seeking there's a ton of materials about how the faith healers do what they do. Maybe you'll see some examples of what you experienced or heard about, for example here:

https://youtu.be/vxR5-2LginE?si=ZF4mbFlfWVsDpaRZ

Please watch the whole thing and read top comments under the video. I know it's gonna be hard but please do try.

[m1n1]

I watched the video. My experience didn't match any of the 4 methods shown. Not sure why he didn't include the 5th "and possibly 6th" ways that he thought of in the video.

Again, I felt my leg moving against my pants while seated _fully_ on the ground and the guy only had his hands lightly touching my shins. I felt the legs moving against the pants against the floor where he couldn't have affected it.

The video's 4 methods show you have to hold both feet/ankles in order to pull off the trick.

Are you an athiest - and believe that existence is limited only to energy and matter?