To summarise he is criticising the approach to hagiography that is by default skeptical of the miraculous. That gives the benefit of the doubt to the materialist ideology of the day over and above the testimony of the hagiographers.

However he sums it up best himself in the final part of the post:

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But this really is beside the point. The debate over the worth of the traditional hagiography should not be reduced to an argument over different categories of authority. For the Bible is not just a book of stories whose veracity we are not permitted to question; it is a record of God's action among men and as man, a record of events that really occurred - and it speaks of marvels. We either live in a world in which these sort of things happen, or we do not.

If we believe that we live in such a world, the hagiographies no longer appear ridiculous. If we do not, the Resurrection itself appears ridiculous. The idea that we can save the reputation of the Church by conceding every allowable criticism to the skeptics, and that this will prevent them from crossing the uncrossable line of doubting Revelation itself - is like the idea that a man is less likely to fall off a cliff if he dance as close as possible to its precipice, rather than build his home and live his life miles away.

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Post edited at 9:23 am on July 2, 2009 by osmoticdespair

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Κύριε ἐλέησον

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Perhaps you ought to make this more accessible. I may have something to say if I had a general idea of the position of hagiography, what such a position has to do with the debate over the miraculous and at which point materialist ideology intersects. If you want to encourage discussion, provide context. I hope you do because I have an interest in topics in the philosophy of religion.

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Once again Dan Mitsui has posted something with which I concur wholeheartedly.

To summarise he is criticising the approach to hagiography that is by default skeptical of the miraculous. That gives the benefit of the doubt to the materialist ideology of the day over and above the testimony of the hagiographers.

However he sums it up best himself in the final part of the post:

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But this really is beside the point. The debate over the worth of the traditional hagiography should not be reduced to an argument over different categories of authority. For the Bible is not just a book of stories whose veracity we are not permitted to question; it is a record of God's action among men and as man, a record of events that really occurred - and it speaks of marvels. We either live in a world in which these sort of things happen, or we do not.

If we believe that we live in such a world, the hagiographies no longer appear ridiculous. If we do not, the Resurrection itself appears ridiculous. The idea that we can save the reputation of the Church by conceding every allowable criticism to the skeptics, and that this will prevent them from crossing the uncrossable line of doubting Revelation itself - is like the idea that a man is less likely to fall off a cliff if he dance as close as possible to its precipice, rather than build his home and live his life miles away.

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Nothing new here, David Hume demonstrated that skepticism is the default position to miracles in the 18th century: "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish."

I totally agree: either we live in a world where miracles happen all the time, completely arbitrary and unpredictable like virgin births, burning bushes, sun standing still on the sky, genocide becoming moral all of a sudden or people coming to live after being clinically dead for several days, or we don't. Science has unequivocally shown that we do not.

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"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

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For there is no evidence that St. Denis did not carry his head, or that St. Barbara was not imprisoned in a tower, or that St. Catherine did not destroy the wheel of her torture, or that St. Medard was not sheltered from the rain by an eagle, or that St. Cuthbert was not reverenced by otters after a night of penance in the cold sea. There is no evidence that St. Eustace did not witness the apparition of the Crucified Christ between the antlers of a stag, or that St. Hubert did not witness the same, or that the two men are really one (for who says that God cannot work a similar miracle twice?). There is no evidence that a giant of monstrous appearance did not ferry the Christ Child across the river, or that St. Genevieve's candle was not snuffed by a demon - for giants and demons are real, and still exist today.

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Now lets cut back to some of the text you quoted:

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But this really is beside the point. The debate over the worth of the traditional hagiography should not be reduced to an argument over different categories of authority. For the Bible is not just a book of stories whose veracity we are not permitted to question; it is a record of God's action among men and as man, a record of events that really occurred - and it speaks of marvels. We either live in a world in which these sort of things happen, or we do not.

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...according to the Golden Legend:

The body of St. Denis raised himself up, and bare his head between his arms, as the angel led him two leagues from the place, which is said the hill of the martyrs, unto the place where he now resteth, by his election, and by the purveyance of God.

Modern hagiographies are unanimous in rejecting the story of St. Denis carrying his own head for two leagues.

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Given what we know about how the world works, let's ask ourselves what would be more likely:

1) This guy really did rise up from the dead and walk around, head in hand, in violation of all the evidence we have about the nature of decapitations.

OR.

2) Any explanation a first grader could come up with, using nothing but some blank paper and her Hello Kitty stationary set.  

Post edited at 7:26 am on July 4, 2009 by Effigy

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Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Truthiness.
Today's forecast: 70% Chance of Science.

That is exactly the point being made, just from the other side than you two are on.

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Κύριε ἐλέησον

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Effigy, Moridin, well - you two feel the same about the resurrection as you do about the miracles in hagiography. Moridin references Hume, while Effigy just takes the assumptions of the dominant ideology unreflexively. The point stands though, if I were to say "the miracles of hagiography are just literary convention" or explain them away in some other manner, that would not make the resurrection more convincing for you.

That is exactly the point being made, just from the other side than you two are on.

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I for one think it is admirable for a Christian who once believed that virgin births can occur in humans or who thought that you can suddenly come alive after being clinically dead for three days to admit that these positions are rationally and scientifically untenable.

Not so admirable to simply assert that it is all true and say it was magic. Like that explains something.

http://magicanimation.com/misc/SidneyHarris_MiracleWeb.jpg

Also not that the rejection of miracles is not an assumption of science, but a derived and well-supported conclusion.

1. If miracles can occur, it is not the case that science works.
2. It is the case that science works.
3. Therefore, it is not the case that miracles can occur.

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"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

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Also not that the rejection of miracles is not an assumption of science, but a derived and well-supported conclusion.

1. If miracles can occur, it is not the case that science works.
2. It is the case that science works.
3. Therefore, it is not the case that miracles can occur.

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Quote: from Moridin at 5:14 pm on July 4, 2009

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 Also not that the rejection of miracles is not an assumption of science, but a derived and well-supported conclusion.  

 1. If miracles can occur, it is not the case that science works.  
 2. It is the case that science works.  
 3. Therefore, it is not the case that miracles can occur.

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Nonsense. Miraculous occurances are by their very nature exceptional things that in no sense have an effect on the day to day predictability of events according to empirical principles.

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But they do. If god can stop the suns movement across the sky any time he pleases or transform water into wine at any given point of his choosing, what does it mean to say that the earth orbits the sun, or that wine is different from water?

If god can change the settings of your scientific instrument or change the facts of reality at any point without your knowledge if he so chooses, we cannot have any reliance upon your experimental results whatsoever and science would be void.

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"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

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Quote: from osmoticdespair at 7:15 pm on July 4, 2009

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Quote: from Moridin at 5:14 pm on July 4, 2009

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  Also not that the rejection of miracles is not an assumption of science, but a derived and well-supported conclusion.

  1. If miracles can occur, it is not the case that science works.
  2. It is the case that science works.
  3. Therefore, it is not the case that miracles can occur.

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Nonsense. Miraculous occurances are by their very nature exceptional things that in no sense have an effect on the day to day predictability of events according to empirical principles.

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But they do. If god can stop the suns movement across the sky any time he pleases or transform water into wine at any given point of his choosing, what does it mean to say that the earth orbits the sun, or that wine is different from water?  

If god can change the settings of your scientific instrument or change the facts of reality at any point without your knowledge if he so chooses, we cannot have any reliance upon your experimental results whatsoever and science would be void.

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Just because God can do those things doesn't mean that all predictability is gone. The sun still does rise every morning, even if God could and has stopped it on some rare miraculous occasion. God could even stop it without disrupting the overall pattern of things so great is his power (which is not to say he necessarily would).

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Κύριε ἐλέησον

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The sun still does rise every morning, even if God could and has stopped it on some rare miraculous occasion.

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It is not only fundamentally impossible claims that should be disbelieved by default: a highly improbable story, such as that of a man winning the jackpot on the national lottery 20 times over, requires a great deal of support to be plausible.

If miracles are few and far between we should be cautious about accepting them in explanations or in legend. Or are we to believe that Sir Galahad really did heal the Fisher King and find the Holy Grail simply because there is no absolute evidence to the contrary?

edit: I can empathise, after a fashion, with your frustration with Christians who laugh heartily at the apparent absurdity of such stories and of other religious traditions, and treat the miracles of the Bible as an embarrassing necessity not to be mentioned in polite company. However, blithely accepting every mediaeval fairy tale you come across seems likely to sever you from reality altogether and leave you floating up into the blue skies of insanity. And I'm sure we'd all miss you.

Post edited at 11:15 am on July 4, 2009 by SpM

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Quote: from osmoticdespair at 5:24 pm on July 4, 2009

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The sun still does rise every morning, even if God could and has stopped it on some rare miraculous occasion.

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If your position is that miracles are an exceptionally rare occurrence then why are you not almost as sceptical as we are?

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It is not only fundamentally impossible claims that should be disbelieved by default: a highly improbable story, such as that of a man winning the jackpot on the national lottery 20 times over, requires a great deal of support to be plausible.

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As for the evidence of devotion, if you hold that Christianity is true then you hold that the vast majority of human belief is misguided and evidence of nothing but gullibility.

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They certainly haven't been too prevalent since the Age of Enlightenment dawned.

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As for the evidence of devotion, if you hold that Christianity is true then you hold that the vast majority of human belief is misguided and evidence of nothing but gullibility.

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