Why I’m such a cynic

So we have some claims that weren’t established by the standards of the world.

I don’t find it unreasonable to be skeptical, but to assume that the guy is lying just because the substantiation was so limited, well, I don’t find this a thorough skepticism. It’s not a Christian skepticism where we know our God has power to raise people from the dead.

Do we know that this guy is a charlatan for reasons other than his onstage confirmation came over a cell phone? I don’t.

Fraud happens, it happens within the church, but why is it any less skeptical to demand it’s evidence in a case like this? Course one idea is that such events are very unlikely and fraud is more likely, and yet, I think William Lane Craig made a good point that the problem with judgments of likelihood here are in fact veiled theological claims done without doing thelogy (this wasn’t about miracles in general but about the resurection in his debate with Ehrman). In this case though, assumptions are made about the people involved as well.

Perhaps there could have been better substantiation. I wonder why the guy sent a text and didn’t call in person. Course, it’s not as if that couldn’t have been faked. On reflection, it’s probably just cheaper for the guy, he seems to be a native Kenyan (cousin is there), and he’d communicate in the way that he’s accustomed to, the cheap way.

I wouldn’t expect all Christians to believe an example like this and I wouldn’t use this in a setting to argue for the rationality of the belief in miracles because we have people who attest to them today, (the examples from Moreland and Miller are excellent for that), but as an example of fraud, I think it’s unfounded.

My scepticism in this case comes not from the fact that the frontman uses a totally unverifiable story and declares it to be fact, but that this whole episode (Lakeland ‘outpouring’) was mired in the guy’s irresponsible, and often New Age, behaviour. His motives in being very non-sceptical and uncynical towards stories of the dead being raised were, I believe, selfish in order to validate the appearance of revival in his meetings.

Declaring a miracle to have taken place requires empirical evidence, but the Christian can still believe it to be true before that evidence is produced. As believers we are called to test every spirit (1 John 4:1), discern the good from the bad (Phil 1:9-10) and weigh what is claimed to be spiritual (1 Cor 14:29). This is healthy and in our best interests, without losing faith.

The balance is to rely on the Holy Spirit’s wisdom without becoming jaded, cynical or sceptical by devilish counterfeit miracles, or man’s over-excited impersonations (as the video portrays so clearly).

I know you didn’t Glenn, so what exactly gives you reason for scepticism in this clip? If he honestly believed a miracle had happened and you weren’t sceptical, you surely would have been encouraged, not jaded by the testimony. As it stands, you appear to doubt either the story of a resurrection that remains unsubstantiated, or Bentley’s methods of insisting to the crowd and TV viewers ‘look everyone, isn’t God doing amazing thing among us’. I’m not sure what the root of your scepticism is in this case.

And my bad, I should have said “Rob, I never said the guy was lying,” not James.

Well again, the issue is not anyone’s honesty, it’s a question thoroughness, which is completely absent in this report.

Rob R, it’s true that the existence of dubious miracle claims is not evidence against Christianity. What I said is that it will encourage people to reject Christianity – and yes, for bad reasons. However, I don’t want to encourage people to do that.

GAHHH!, I just typed something and this websight blinked and it evaporated.

I’m not typing it all out again, here’s the abbreviated version: I agree with James Rhea’s point, but not completely his example compared to the video above. Christian Scholars have argued that is is a rationally responsible and investigatable claim that Jesus rose from the dead, but in scripture has other examples of miracles that we can’t investigate.

Of course, from the eyes of Christian faith (not mere belief without reason) we have reason to believe accept these miracles because they are part of the scriptures which we trust for other reasons.

But for that matter, so many converts believe on the gospel not because they have considered and analyzed historical and other evidences but because they felt the holy spirit move and the message rang true.

I agree that we ought to test these claims, but I see no reason to be scandalized by claims that we can’t test. I think it’s completely possible that the speaker was lead by the Holy Spirit in his affirmation and celebration of these alleged resurrections, but that’s not something I can investigate hence I don’t think its wise to be scandalized by this example a priori. I don’t know the speaker, I don’t know the man with the contact, I don’t know his contact or the integrity of his qualifications but I just don’t see the wisdom in being upset about my finitude in my understanding of the situation. I say you can doubt it, you can believe it, you can withhold judgment, but I would insist that none of these ought to be held rigidly with judgment against these people without further information to make those judgments.

Skeptical thinking is of very little use if your premise is built on faith and you are attempting to apply the tools of skepticism within that predefined faith-based framework.

That’s because you have an overly simplistic view of faith and reason that mistakenly puts one against the other and suggests it is all or nothing, either we have reason to believe what we believe and have no faith or we believe for no reasons at all. Fact is, virtually all knowledge requires some degree of faith and much faith is supported by reason though reason doesn’t take that belief all the way to absolute risk free certainty.

We have checks for what we believe and scripture is a part of that, granted much else of what even skeptics believe also plays a role in our own reasonable skepticism.

Not at all Rob. I have a fairly nuanced view of what goes in to make a belief. And I understand that there are many forms of ‘faith’ and many forms of ‘evidence’. My point is that if you have defined a framework of belief that didn’t use the tools provided by skepticism in the first place, you’ll find skepticism relatively ineffective when used within that framework because you’ll end up defaulting to a non-skepticial conclusion in the absence of evidence to the contrary. As was aptly demonstrated by Glenn with his endorsement and subsequent taking-back in the example of the guy with the lump and the change of shirts. If it weren’t for something as simple as a shirt change how would he have ever discerned otherwise? The Holy Spirit? How did that work out for him?

Skepticism asks that you settle for “I don’t know” in the absence of evidence as opposed to filling it with an explanation which, in itself, is devoid of an reasonable explanation.

I understand that sometimes we have to take leaps of faith in order to further work out or test ideas but I maintain that if you have chosen an explanation that is based on no known natural laws then you owe it to yourself to question that founding belief day and night if you are genuinely interested in the truth. As opposed to building an entire apologetics around it which seems all to common these days.

Glenn, I understand how you came to the conclusions you did. But it nicely illustrates how ineffective token skepticism can be when placed in a non-skeptical framework.

As an aside, I’ve come to realise over the years that almost all people are genuine in their beliefs. But that many, many people are self-deceived (I have seen it in myself) with all the best of intentions. This is usually down to not being quite as rigorous as we should be when examining truth claims and especially down to refusing to re-examine them when later challenged which ups the ante and makes it even harder to critically examine our beliefs and so on and so on. Thus, people often *are* genuine when making various claims but this apparent genuineness is not a reliable indicator of truth. We seem hard wired to accept the claims of people who we detect to be genuine but once we’ve seen self-deception in ourselves we learn that we have to be a little more critical of people who are ‘genuine’ in their claims.

Tell me Glenn, at what age did you first form a belief in God? What evidence convinced you that there really is a God and that he will sometimes intervene in the workings of the world by way of miracles?

If you are anything like me you believed because because you were taught it at a young age or you, at some point, made a leap of faith where you probably ought to have suspended judgement and awaited more evidence. If so, this means that you’ve established a non-skeptical framework in which to operate. Skepticism will fail in a framework like this for the reasons I outlined in previous comments.

I used to believe in miracles and even claimed to have witnessed miracles. But on applying the skeptical method to the miracle claims of other religions (religions I *knew* not to be true) it dawned on me that if I’d been born into that particular religion I’d be applying exactly the same criteria to Christian claims of miracles. That’s when I realised that I wasn’t being honest in my search for truth. I had to hold my own dear beliefs to the same standard as I held the beliefs of others I already had little reason to mistrust.

So, yes, I can understand how you think you are being dutifully skeptical and how you might perceive me as having a “dogmatic view that no supernatural events are even possible”. But please realise that I *don’t* have this view. I come from a position of having believed and then having tested and found that many of my beliefs were ill-founded.

Perhaps it is true that miracles happen! I really don’t know. All I know is that either I can find very reasonable natural explanations for just about every miracle claim I investigate and for those that I can’t (regardless of the religion) I suspend judgement as skepticism demands.

I’ll stress again that if, instead of suspending judgement, you have chosen an explanation that is based on no known natural laws then you owe it to yourself to question your founding belief ceaselessly if you are genuinely interested in the truth. And I don’t see a lot of self-questioning going on amongst Christians. Which should ring at least some alarm bells.

Glenn, re the changing shirt, I’m not convinced the miracle is real at all. However, I’m prepared to believe that the people passing it off as a miracle genuinely believed it to be a miracle and are not intentionally being deceptive. It is them that is deceived as well as all those that swallow their story. If they’re like most Penetecostals (at least in my experience of it) as long as healing is prayed for in Jesus’ name then any answer to that prayer is a miracle, even if that healing comes through ‘natural’ means, be it medical intervention or normal bodily recovery. Sadly there’s a lot of fear in the Pentecostal movement – fear that perhaps you aren’t a real Christian if you don’t have a spectacular testimony.

I guess what that means is that there’s a lot of work to do because there’s a heck of a lot of people who genuinely believe the events of Pentecost are normative for Christian life today.

I have personal experience of (at least) 3 miracles…
1) My own experience of God’s love, effecting a dramatic transformation in my thoughts, emotions, relationships, and perceptions
2) A gift of faith or knowledge that a close relative would be OK through a very risky operation, despite being given only 10% chance of survival
3) A dramatic healing of my friend’s eye (probably would have been amputated the next day, it was that bad), I personally saw it as did several others.

Also I sometimes have prophetic type insights or revelations when praying for people — feelings, songs, or pictures

Still I have lots of doubts but can’t deny that God is around doing stuff. Especially because of item (1) in my list.

Glenn, my question is entirely relevant because we were talking about the value of skepticism from within a non-skeptical framework. I.e. a framework who’s core propositions have been arrived at without good use of the tools skepticism has to offer (suspending judgement, etc). The way you bristle at the question is telling.

Nathan, just on the off-chance, are you the same Nathan I met a couple of months ago at The Horse And Trap in Auckland?

Damian, there is clearly a charitable way to interpret my “bristling” at the question. I already explained it. To call it “telling” for a whole other reason may well be a case of your bias confirmation tendency showing – a tendency that I freely admit that we all have. The fact is that whether or not one is a healthy kind of skeptic is not contingent on whether one was raised in a context where people had religious beliefs – any more than whether or not one is an outright dogmatist who always and only suspends judgement when the only expalantion available is a supernatural one is contingent on having been raised by unbelievers. To suggest either would be to slip into argument ad-hominem, which, while often rhetorically satisfying, is just unhelpful.

Depending on where one stands he will regard many things as “telling.” I regard your comment about when and why you suspend judgement to be “telling” as well, but no matter is settled by what a person finds telling because it is so subjective.

Nathan, ah well, it was worth a try. It was a Nathan who I had a very interesting conversation with about — among other things — Pentecostals and I thought that maybe, just maybe with your mention of them… etc. Nice to meet you anyway.