MojoHand; Good evening to you sir, I trust this finds you well and keeping well away from the fires and smoke.
If I may, I've got a question for you since it appears to me there's a category of folks that have been omitted.
Where or how do you or the author classify people who have had experiences in their lives that cannot be explained by science or logic?
We can call them "supernatural" or "miracles" or simply leave the experiences as unexplained - but where will we put those folks?
I'm cognizant that my experiences are not yours as yours are not my own and neither one of us can truly understand or perhaps even empathize with someone else whose life experience is vastly different from our own.
But supposing there are people out there who have had such things happen to them that cannot be explained - would it be acceptable for those individuals to believe in "something more" than we can see, feel, touch or explain with currently understood science?
Just curious is all sir.
As I age I'm increasingly leery of anyone who says, "these people" are "always that way" and this is why - if you know what I mean?
All the best to you in the remaining fleeting days of summer sir and good luck on your hunts this fall.
Dwayne
Dwayne,
That is a good question. Mojo's views maybe different then mine, but I'm happy to take a stab at it as well.
Let's presume for a moment that someone's had an experience like you describe, something in their favor, that no one else is able to verify, and the is unable to explain.
A skeptic would just admit, "I don't know". This may be the most honest position a person could take. There are many phenomenon in this world that I do not understand. That does not mean they are the result of supernatural intervention, it just means I don't know.
Now let's say the experience was so incredible, the individual believes it is reasonable to credit a supernatural origin for the event, how do you make the logical jump to "God/Jesus did it". In order to do that you must discard all other possible supernatural causes, everything from Leprechauns, witchcraft, voodoo, all the other gods that have ever been proposed, Russel's Tea Pot, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and all other forms of Magic. So even if you decide it is a supernatural act, you still have all your work ahead of your before you can credit for favored God.
In addition, "I don't know, therefore God", is the joining of a logical fallacy, and a largely discredited god concept. The fallacy is an "Argument from Ignorance", and the "God of the Gaps" theory. Once upon a time, the gaps were very large, but they've shrunk significantly since The Enlightenment.
Often, the types of events you describe are only perceived in the mind of the person who has the experience. Consequently they have no evidence they can offer to validate their experience. Now one of the basis tenants of skepticism, is that the evidence needs to be proportionate to the claim. If you claimed to own a 30.06, that's a pretty ordinary claim, so it would be reasonable to believe you on a minimum of evidence. However, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We've all seen how many people were duped for decades with the hoax pictures of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Since miracles are an extraordinary claim, the skeptic is probably asking what's more likely, that the laws of nature were suspended in this persons favor, or someone had a misperception?
If, however the evidence is extraordinary enough, you can change the mind of a skeptic, including this one.
You didn't use logic or reason to get into this opinion, I cannot use logic or reason to get you out of it.
You cannot over estimate the unimportance of nearly everything. John Maxwell
