Exercise In Critical Thought - Miracle of Calanda

[Kitsune]

On another board, I stated that I have never seen a Miracle and that I don't believe in them. I used to believe in them but just gave up on them.

The person brought of the Miracle of Calandra

The reason why I am bringing this up is to polish up my critical thinking and argument which others might suggest. I have had people bring up miracles in other discussions.

I tried to point out some holes in the whole thing but was basically attacked that as a person who using the scientific method that I was failing. Unfortunately, for other reasons, teh whoile thread was deleted so I can refer directly.

His main argument was that Spain has a large bureaucracy at that time and that they would be impossible to fool.

Now if I understand correctly, a common trick is to bend a leg back, strap it upwards, and then use a crutch. A well practiced individual can often trick others into beliving that they only have one leg.

Most of the information seems to come from one source which is easier to fake. There is also the possibility that all of the documentation was inserted after the fact.

[Darth Wong]

Not to be flippant, but this was the seventeenth century: the same century in which the Salem Witch Hunts occurred and Galileo was persecuted for saying that the Earth revolves around the Sun. By his logic, in which official government documents = proof, there must have been real witches in Salem, and Galileo was wrong.

Governments of the era were ruthlessly theocratic, and the modern scientific method was still in its infancy. The idea that we should trust some religious revelation from the era because government officials corroborated it is completely absurd.

[Kitsune]

That was my thoughts, I just was not wording it that way. Some of the stories out of Spain from around that time are enough to curl anyone's hair

[Kanastrous]

I have noticed that frequently when discussing miracles with Christians, there's an eventual effort to underwrite the credibility of the witnesses claimed to have testified to the miracles' having happened.

In one conversation somebody insisted that their faith was ultimately underpinned by what they regarded as the unimpeachable testimony concerning Jesus' empty tomb and therefore his physical resurrection. Their insistence upon the absolute inviolable discipline of Roman soldiers and the non-existence of any conception of written fiction at the time, led them to conclude that laxity upon the part of the guards and omissions or embellishment by the writers were substantially less plausible, than a full-on miraculous resurrection.

[Samuel]

I have noticed that frequently when discussing miracles with Christians, there's an eventual effort to underwrite the credibility of the witnesses claimed to have testified to the miracles' having happened.

In one conversation somebody insisted that their faith was ultimately underpinned by what they regarded as the unimpeachable testimony concerning Jesus' empty tomb and therefore his physical resurrection. Their insistence upon the absolute inviolable discipline of Roman soldiers and the non-existence of any conception of written fiction at the time, led them to conclude that laxity upon the part of the guards and omissions or embellishment by the writers were substantially less plausible, than a full-on miraculous resurrection.

I always find it funny that there is no mention in the Roman documents and the like or in the rest of the empire- I guess that men rising from the dead happened so regularly in the Roman Empire that they stopped recording it

[Darth Wong]

I have noticed that frequently when discussing miracles with Christians, there's an eventual effort to underwrite the credibility of the witnesses claimed to have testified to the miracles' having happened.

In one conversation somebody insisted that their faith was ultimately underpinned by what they regarded as the unimpeachable testimony concerning Jesus' empty tomb and therefore his physical resurrection. Their insistence upon the absolute inviolable discipline of Roman soldiers and the non-existence of any conception of written fiction at the time, led them to conclude that laxity upon the part of the guards and omissions or embellishment by the writers were substantially less plausible, than a full-on miraculous resurrection.

What I find remarkable is the number of people who accept it on face value that third-hand description of Roman soldiers' testimony, written hundreds of years after the fact, can be considered a primary source.

[Kitsune]

I think I may have a handle on how to deal with the subject because it has come up again.

I found this quote "the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates"

Basically, it is much easier to believe than a bunch of people either lied or were deceived than it is for a limb to travel from the grave and reattach it to the person's stump.