Post tagged with miracle

  • James and his resurrected brother

    June 03rd, 201107:36 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Paul begins 1 Corinthians 15 by recounting a teaching he had given the Corinthians (c. AD 50/51) which he had himself received from others: "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance...." This is technical rabbinical phrasing. One does not innovate on the teachings of the tradition. One faithfully passes it on without innovation...

  • When is a medical anomaly a miracle?

    March 04th, 201107:32 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    The following discussion of miracles is excerpted from my book Faith Lacking Understanding: "We often speak loosely of miracles: I call it a miracle that my team made the playoffs or that your old jalopy is still running. However, the formal definition of miracle concerns God's action in the world and encompasses such biblical events as the Red Se...

  • On the general skepticism about ancient miracle reports

    March 02nd, 201103:17 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Many highly educated ancient historians (by which I mean historians that study ancient history, not historians that are really old) believe that the historical evidence supports the conclusion that Jesus was resurrected. For example, they point to the strong evidence for the empty tomb, post resurrection appearances, and the beliefs of the earliest...

  • Does meticulously-tuned evil count as a defeater for meticulously-tuned good?

    July 06th, 201011:34 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    There are two key issues I want to explore further in relation to the waving statute, St. Tom's Orphanage, and other cases of synchronicity. The topic of this thread is evil and other potential defeaters to positive events with putative high MDS. Let's begin with SilverBullet: "You've clearly spent some time thinking this over, so in the meantime...

  • Divine Action and St. Tom's Starving Orphanage

    July 04th, 201005:35 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Sadly, I don't find the responses to the last post on miraculous synchronous events really addressing the question at issue, that is, the question of whether (or rather, when) it is warranted to infer divine action based on the experience of synchronous events. So let me simplify matters with a case which will help us fine-tune the ground for...

  • When 'skepticism' is the mark of a closed mind

    July 03rd, 201002:04 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    The waving statue conversation reminds me of the BC cartoon where BC looks up to the heavens and cries out: "Is anybody up there?" Immediately a marquee sign falls from the heavens and lands in front of him which says "I'm up here." Could BC reasonably conclude that this was an answer to prayer? It seems rather obvious to me that he could conclude...

  • Methodological Naturalism and the Case of the Waving Statue

    June 30th, 201010:19 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    I have noted the case of Michael Shermer twice now and I thought I would return to it and provide the full transcript. This is very instructive because Shermer, a well known skeptic and agnostic/atheist, shows just how recalcitrant so-called open-minded skeptics can be to evidence. The excerpt comes from a program on miracles which was broadcast a...

  • Does the resurrection of Jesus stand up to historical enquiry?

    November 23rd, 200911:33 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    In an earlier post, "Were New Testament Christians reliable witnesses, or were they ignorant fools?", I offered a critique of the facile, if common, assumption that the testimony of ancient people is excessively credulous and untrustworthy. On the contrary, we need to test the credentials of ancient witnesses no less than contemporar...

  • When is a miracle a miracle?

    September 09th, 200902:49 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Here's how things went down. I said to my buddy beetle496: "are you saying there is an account of how non-directed processes produced the vast store of biological information in the DNA molecule? If so, can you provide a reference in the literature for that account?: beetle496 directed me to this website which was admirably brief: http://www....

  • Why I believe Yahweh is God: A brief note to an atheist

    August 12th, 200901:39 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    One of my readers, "ConverseAtheist", has asked for the grounds I have for believing that it is Yahweh, rather than any one of the other candidates for deity -- Zeus, Allah, Ahura Mazda, Thor -- that is the true God, and thus the one correctly described as the "most perfect being". I was going to get there through an extended, subtle, and deliciou...
Page 1 of 2 PREVIOUS 1 2 NEXT
Advertisement
About this blog
An exploration of faith, knowledge, reason and doubt (with the occasional trite pop culture reference thrown in for good measure).