Proof for Richard Dawkins?

[josh987654321]

Hi,

I was watching a debate on youtube between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox about his book “The God Delusion” when I noticed at 34:00 when he talks about ‘miracles’

youtube.com/watch?v=Domm1mvTEh0

Richard Dawkins say’s “The ordinary Church goer believes deeply in miracles and it’s largely miracles that persuade that person into the Church in the first place, If there are miracles they are to be judged by scientific means, if there was a virgin birth, if somebody was raised from the dead, these are strictly scientific claims, and they’d be difficult to verify, but as I’ve said in the book ‘The God Delusion’ if you could imagine hypothetically DNA evidence could be discovered, showing that Jesus never had a father, that Jesus was born of a virgin, than can you imagine any theologian saying “oh no, not relevant, seperate magistirea science has no bearing on this case” of course they wouldn’t, science has every bearing on this case.”

Some of our skeptical brothers and sisters basically say, if you could prove the virgin birth, it would be proof enough.

The thing is, there is a documentry I watched called “Signs from God” on the Fox Network that was aired in 1999 by Mike Willesee, which contains the Stigmata of a lady named Katya Rivas on film and a statue of Christ weaping tears and blood also on film, they also feature a Eucharistic miracle in argentina (flesh and blood grew on the bread like bacterial growth), the statue was also put under a CAT (CT) scan to find any mecognisms that would explain the bleeding and weeping in which they found none.

The other thing, is that the blood from this statue was put under scientific investigation (studied by several pathologists who are refferenced in the youtube link Science tests the Faith, who had no idea what they were studying to eliminate biases), in which it had no DNA profile, something which all DNA has, somethign which traces our mather and father, something which I believe would prove the virgin birth, they also did the same with the Eucharistic miracle in Argentina and it also had no DNA profile. You can watch it here on youtube - **Science Tests the Faith **- youtube.com/watch?v=-kuxEJXgGSI

For more information please go here youshallbelieve.com/ and read this short pdf. youshallbelieve.com/A-plea-to-humanity.pdf

What do you guys think?

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[Memaw]

Hi,

I was watching a debate on youtube between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox about his book “The God Delusion” when I noticed at 34:00 when he talks about ‘miracles’

youtube.com/watch?v=Domm1mvTEh0

Richard Dawkins say’s “The ordinary Church goer believes deeply in miracles and it’s largely miracles that persuade that person into the Church in the first place, If there are miracles they are to be judged by scientific means, if there was a virgin birth, if somebody was raised from the dead, these are strictly scientific claims, and they’d be difficult to verify, but as I’ve said in the book ‘The God Delusion’ if you could imagine hypothetically DNA evidence could be discovered, showing that Jesus never had a father, that Jesus was born of a virgin, than can you imagine any theologian saying “oh no, not relevant, seperate magistirea science has no bearing on this case” of course they wouldn’t, science has every bearing on this case.”

Some of our skeptical brothers and sisters basically say, if you could prove the virgin birth, it would be proof enough.

The thing is, there is a documentry I watched called “Signs from God” on the Fox Network that was aired in 1999 by Mike Willesee, which contains the Stigmata of a lady named Katya Rivas on film and a statue of Christ weaping tears and blood also on film, they also feature a Eucharistic miracle in argentina (flesh and blood grew on the bread like bacterial growth), the statue was also put under a CAT (CT) scan to find any mecognisms that would explain the bleeding and weeping in which they found none.

The other thing, is that the blood from this statue was put under scientific investigation (studied by several pathologists who are refferenced in the youtube link Science tests the Faith, who had no idea what they were studying to eliminate biases), in which it had no DNA profile, something which all DNA has, somethign which traces our mather and father, something which I believe would prove the virgin birth, they also did the same with the Eucharistic miracle in Argentina and it also had no DNA profile. You can watch it here on youtube - **Science Tests the Faith **- youtube.com/watch?v=-kuxEJXgGSI

For more information please go here youshallbelieve.com/ and read this short pdf. youshallbelieve.com/A-plea-to-humanity.pdf

What do you guys think?

Thank you for reading
Josh

Interesting, but I try to be present at the Miracle that takes place every day on the alter at Mass. God Bless, Memaw

 

[josh987654321]

Interesting, but I try to be present at the Miracle that takes place every day on the alter at Mass. God Bless, Memaw

Me too.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Richard Dawkins say’s “The ordinary Church goer believes deeply in miracles and it’s largely miracles that persuade that person into the Church in the first place, If there are miracles they are to be judged by scientific means, if there was a virgin birth, if somebody was raised from the dead, these are strictly scientific claims, and they’d be difficult to verify, but as I’ve said in the book ‘The God Delusion’ if you could imagine hypothetically DNA evidence could be discovered, showing that Jesus never had a father, that Jesus was born of a virgin, than can you imagine any theologian saying “oh no, not relevant, seperate magistirea science has no bearing on this case” of course they wouldn’t, science has every bearing on this case.”

Some of our skeptical brothers and sisters basically say, if you could prove the virgin birth, it would be proof enough…

Josh

Well, for one thing, Dawkins doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he says “… it’s largely miracles that persuade that person into the church in the first place…”

That’s a load of absolute drivel, in typical Dawkins fashion. God calls people into the Church, and it appears that so far He hasn’t seen fit to call in Richard Dawkins. I’m not surprised frankly.

People only start accepting the miracles of Christ, Marian apparitions, healing, demonic presences, etc. AFTER they enter the church.

I didn’t give a fig for New Testament miracles until l was well and truly into the (protestant) Church. I did however start having some spiritual experiences about a year later, and they’ve continued ever since. And I did have a sort of spiritual push to move towards the church, and again later to move towards the Catholic Church. But in neither case did it have anything to do with “miracles”, Biblical or “Catholic” (viz. Marian, levitation, bilocation, stigmata and all the rest).

Christ performed miracles, and the religious and secular rulers of the time put Him to death for doing so. The atheists live in a universe which came from nothing, adds up to nothing (sum zero energy universe - look it up on Google), yet contains incredible structure, complexity, beauty and terror, and can’t see the miraculous in THAT! I read today that even in a small torch, about 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 electrons comprise the current flow, and we still can’t pin down a concise description of electricity.

But as Christ said, “a man is as he thinks”. To be fair to Dawkins, I had the peculiar experience of having my father appear in my bedroom the night he died. I’ve said this many times before. **However I was an atheist at the time, and I did my best to ignore it. It didn’t fit my world view,and I didn’t WANT to believe it. ** But I’ve never been allowed to forget it.

Rest assured, Richard Dawkins could see a miracle right in front of his eyes, but he would simply try to explain it away by “scientific” means. He would not WANT to believe it, even if took place right in front of him.

Because “he is”, as Christ said, “as he thinks”.

 

[ericc]

Well, for one thing, Dawkins doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he says “… it’s largely miracles that persuade that person into the church in the first place…”

That’s a load of absolute drivel, in typical Dawkins fashion. God calls people into the Church, and it appears that so far He hasn’t seen fit to call in Richard Dawkins. I’m not surprised frankly.

People only start accepting the miracles of Christ, Marian apparitions, healing, demonic presences, etc. AFTER they enter the church.

I didn’t give a fig for New Testament miracles until l was well and truly into the (protestant) Church. I did however start having some spiritual experiences about a year later, and they’ve continued ever since. And I did have a sort of spiritual push to move towards the church, and again later to move towards the Catholic Church. But in neither case did it have anything to do with “miracles”, Biblical or “Catholic” (viz. Marian, levitation, bilocation, stigmata and all the rest).

Christ performed miracles, and the religious and secular rulers of the time put Him to death for doing so. The atheists live in a universe which came from nothing, adds up to nothing (sum zero energy universe - look it up on Google), yet contains incredible structure, complexity, beauty and terror, and can’t see the miraculous in THAT! I read today that even in a small torch, about 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 electrons comprise the current flow, and we still can’t pin down a concise description of electricity.

But as Christ said, “a man is as he thinks”. To be fair to Dawkins, I had the peculiar experience of having my father appear in my bedroom the night he died. I’ve said this many times before. **However I was an atheist at the time, and I did my best to ignore it. It didn’t fit my world view,and I didn’t WANT to believe it. ** But I’ve never been allowed to forget it.

Rest assured, Richard Dawkins could see a miracle right in front of his eyes, but he would simply try to explain it away by “scientific” means. He would not WANT to believe it, even if took place right in front of him.

Because “he is”, as Christ said, “as he thinks”.

When Dawkins can proof God with scientific methods, then we don’t need faith at all because we will be compelled to believe. If we are compelled to believe, then we have no free will. I can even see the argument that it is not “fair” if God were to demonstrate his powers too often or too apparent that freewill will not come into it. How can you be free if it is beyond doubt when you can see God in the microscope? In fact God can easily do that and proof all other religions false by coming into all his glory. But that wouldn’t be what he wants. He wants us to seek him, have faith in him of your own freewill.

 

[Gorgias]

Well, for one thing, Dawkins doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he says “… it’s largely miracles that persuade that person into the church in the first place…”

That’s a load of absolute drivel, in typical Dawkins fashion. God calls people into the Church, and it appears that so far He hasn’t seen fit to call in Richard Dawkins. I’m not surprised frankly.

People only start accepting the miracles of Christ, Marian apparitions, healing, demonic presences, etc. AFTER they enter the church.

Actually, I don’t think he’s talking about these sort of miracles, but rather, the dogmatic elements of the faith: the ‘miracle’ of the Virgin Birth, the ‘miracle’ of the Resurrection. If so, then he has a point – our faith is based on our belief of these Scripturally-attested events.

Christ performed miracles, and the religious and secular rulers of the time put Him to death for doing so.

Not really. Herod (and presumably, other secular leaders) were intensely interested in Christ’s miracles! It was the claim of being God that set the Hebrew leaders against Jesus, and incented them to advocate for his execution…

 

[Gorgias]

Richard Dawkins say’s "The ordinary Church goer believes deeply in miracles and it’s largely miracles that persuade that person into the Church in the first place, If there are miracles they are to be judged by scientific means, if there was a virgin birth, if somebody was raised from the dead, these are strictly scientific claims, and they’d be difficult to verify, but as I’ve said in the book ‘The God Delusion’ if you could imagine hypothetically DNA evidence could be discovered, showing that Jesus never had a father, that Jesus was born of a virgin

This reveals a particular interpretive stance: namely, that Jesus didn’t have a complete set of DNA. Since he was conceived in Mary’s womb, we would naturally expect His genetic makeup to contain elements of Mary’s DNA. However, His ‘Y’ chromosome could not have come from Mary, so we would expect that there would be some genetic component either physically introduced (or physically modified from Mary’s genes!) at His conception. The DNA claim doesn’t seem to hold water: if we had genetic material from Jesus, what hypothesis would we wish to test with it? There’s no legitimate hypothesis that can be proposed that would “prove the virgin birth.”

The other thing, is that the blood from this statue was put under scientific investigation (studied by several pathologists who are refferenced in the youtube link Science tests the Faith, who had no idea what they were studying to eliminate biases), in which it had no DNA profile, something which all DNA has, somethign which traces our mather and father, something which I believe would prove the virgin birth, they also did the same with the Eucharistic miracle in Argentina and it also had no DNA profile.

This doesn’t seem to hold up. If there’s no genetic material, then it’s not blood, right? It’s matter of some other substance. And, as I mentioned above, we would expect that there would be – at a minimum – some genetic material inherited from Mary.

 

[balto]

I’m not sure there is anything that really could be said to convince Dawkins about the reality of miracles. The issue is that he has a materialist/positivist understanding of reality that excludes God and miracles from the start, so trying to answer his scientific claims is already presupposing that materialism is true. You’re playing a game with the dice loaded against you. The first order of business is proving that materialism is false.

It seems like the materialist supposes that there are certain laws of physics that cannot be violated in any way. But look at it this way: there’s a law in genetics called Mendel’s “law of segregation” which says that during meiotic cell division (i.e. the process which produces sperm/eggs) will result in cells that each contain half of the genetic makeup of a typical human cell, each one having one of the two pairs of the 23 pairs of chromosomes. It’s called a “law” but, due to errors during cell division or DNA replication, it can be violated in which case you have cells that have the potential for giving rise to embryos with genetic defects. But that’s okay that it’s violated because the violation is really explained by chemical laws. But those laws can be violated, but again it’s okay because the physical laws capture those violations.

Do we just stop at the physical laws being “brute facts”? Why are there distinctions between the laws? If a distinction exists, then there is a higher level of law that unifies these distinctions. Eventually you get to a single “law” which would essentially be the nature of God. Maybe Dawkins would say that this law is impersonal, but there are arguments as to why it must be personal having to do with omniscience and omnibenevolence. I guess from Dawkin’s POV if we’re going to live in a dark universe, it’s better to be in the dark with a something rather than a someone. But none of this has anything to do with science; this is a metaphysical argument. There’s really no reason to say that, since a proposed miracle is incompatible with a certain law of physics, it didn’t happen, or it’s really intelligible through this law and not really a miracle. Again, that presupposes materialism so you should try to disprove materialism instead of arguing over science.

 

[Kaega]

if you could imagine hypothetically DNA evidence could be discovered, showing that Jesus never had a father, that Jesus was born of a virgin

Ooh yes, it’s so usual for our genetics to check whether the patient had both parents or was born by a virgin, the methods are so many and so tested, they recognize 99.999% of people who only had one human parent, it should be no problem whatsoever, especially given the abundance of DNA samples from Jesus and his parents.
He’s saying nonsense. Shame on him.

 

[balto]

If there are miracles they are to be judged by scientific means, if there was a virgin birth, if somebody was raised from the dead, these are strictly scientific claims, and they’d be difficult to verify, but as I’ve said in the book ‘The God Delusion’ if you could imagine hypothetically DNA evidence could be discovered, showing that Jesus never had a father, that Jesus was born of a virgin, than can you imagine any theologian saying “oh no, not relevant, seperate magistirea science has no bearing on this case” of course they wouldn’t, science has every bearing on this case."

This illustrates the point I was trying to make in my last post. Let’s say that there is DNA evidence from Christ that suggests He was born of a virgin. Do you think that Dawkins is suddenly going to turn around and say “oh I guess all those Christians were right all along. I’m converting to Catholicism!” He would argue that we’re either interpreting the data wrong or there’s something else going on that we don’t understand yet but will eventually understand through scientific research. It couldn’t possibly be a miracle because he’s decided a priori that God does not exist and miracles are impossible. You would have to convince him that materialism is unfounded and there’s no amount of scientific findings that will ever convince him of that because science does not investigate metaphysical claims in either direction.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Actually, I don’t think he’s talking about these sort of miracles, but rather, the dogmatic elements of the faith: the ‘miracle’ of the Virgin Birth, the ‘miracle’ of the Resurrection. If so, then he has a point – our faith is based on our belief of these Scripturally-attested events.

Not to put too fine a point on this, I disagree that our belief is “based” on these Scriptually attested events. For sure, these make up the content of faith (in part,) but they aren’t the “grounds for” belief, which most of us would take the phrase “based on” to mean.

Catholics may “believe in” those events but I would not say they believe BECAUSE of those dogmatic elements or Scripturally-attested events - the exception being the Resurrection, which does function as a reason for believing the Gospels. I am not convinced the Virgin Birth, changing water to wine, multiplying loaves and fish, walking on water, etc., operate in the same way, although, I suppose, such a claim could be made.

 

[polytropos]

Actually, I don’t think he’s talking about these sort of miracles, but rather, the dogmatic elements of the faith: the ‘miracle’ of the Virgin Birth, the ‘miracle’ of the Resurrection. If so, then he has a point – our faith is based on our belief of these Scripturally-attested events.

I think you’re right; miracles are integral to faith. But I don’t think “it’s largely miracles that persuade that person into the Church in the first place.” I did not return to Roman Catholicism because someone argued me into believing that the resurrection occurred or that Jesus was born from a virgin.

I think there is some oddness when it comes to the idea of verifying miracles with science. There is a disconnect from the theistic idea of miracles, which are direct actions by God on the world, and so do not have physical explanations. I don’t know if there are things to scientifically verify. I don’t expect, for instance, the Wedding at Cana to be vindicated by a discovery that sometimes water morphs into wine by a quantum fluctuation. I don’t expect that we are going to find an “original sin gene” that demonstrates the fall. When scientists comment on religion they often act as though theists believe miracles could be given a naturalistic explanation. (Some theists, I think, might propagate this attitude.)

In the case of the virgin birth and genetics, it seems like there are multiple consistent interpretations, none of which are forced on us by revelation. Maybe Jesus had just Mary’s DNA. Maybe he has Mary’s and Joseph’s. Maybe he had neither.

 

[Memaw]

I think you’re right; miracles are integral to faith. But I don’t think “it’s largely miracles that persuade that person into the Church in the first place.” I did not return to Roman Catholicism because someone argued me into believing that the resurrection occurred or that Jesus was born from a virgin.

I think there is some oddness when it comes to the idea of verifying miracles with science. There is a disconnect from the theistic idea of miracles, which are direct actions by God on the world, and so do not have physical explanations. I don’t know if there are things to scientifically verify. I don’t expect, for instance, the Wedding at Cana to be vindicated by a discovery that sometimes water morphs into wine by a quantum fluctuation. I don’t expect that we are going to find an “original sin gene” that demonstrates the fall. When scientists comment on religion they often act as though theists believe miracles could be given a naturalistic explanation. (Some theists, I think, might propagate this attitude.)

In the case of the virgin birth and genetics, it seems like there are multiple consistent interpretations, none of which are forced on us by revelation. Maybe Jesus had just Mary’s DNA. Maybe he has Mary’s and Joseph’s. Maybe he had neither.

Pray tell me, how could HE have Joseph’s DNA??? The Church has always taught that HE got his humanity from Mary. Don’t you trust God and His Church??God Bless, Memaw

 

[Peter_Plato]

This illustrates the point I was trying to make in my last post. Let’s say that there is DNA evidence from Christ that suggests He was born of a virgin. Do you think that Dawkins is suddenly going to turn around and say “oh I guess all those Christians were right all along. I’m converting to Catholicism!” He would argue that we’re either interpreting the data wrong or there’s something else going on that we don’t understand yet but will eventually understand through scientific research. It couldn’t possibly be a miracle because he’s decided a priori that God does not exist and miracles are impossible. You would have to convince him that materialism is unfounded and there’s no amount of scientific findings that will ever convince him of that because science does not investigate metaphysical claims in either direction.

From my reading of him, Dawkins would not claim miracles are impossible, just very, very highly improbable. He argues, in fact, that miracles are more probable than the existence of God, so they should not be used, because of this, as evidence for something even less probable - God. He argues that in order to bring miracles about, God would require features that are far less likely than the miracles themselves,

His problem is the mechanistic view of the universe that grounds his thinking. The complexity and improbability of any “physical” effect is the very feature that compels him to require a more complex and more unlikely physical cause. Miracles, for him, are simply bizarrely improbable events that were brought about by highly improbable quantum events, that is all. Any supernatural inference is ruled out as a matter of his dogmatic materialism and Occam’s Razor, since an explanation for God, once he is invoked, would require a more outlandish appeal to far more improbable “causes” (those which caused God) than the miracles themselves.

Unfortunately Thomistic metaphysics and the ad absurdum inconsistency of his position have never been seriously entertained by Dawkins as a means of saving him from the vicious circularity of his position.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Pray tell me, how could HE have Joseph’s DNA??? The Church has always taught that HE got his humanity from Mary. Don’t you trust God and His Church??God Bless, Memaw

This would be Polytropos’ point. It is precisely because we would not invoke natural physical causation to explain the Virgin Birth that is the reason we could not rule out Joseph’s DNA being part of Jesus’. Obviously, God didn’t use natural reproductive means to “knit together” Jesus in Mary’s womb, so including some “yarn” from Joseph wouldn’t be any more problematic for him than just using Mary’s.

I am sure Polytropos was not attempting to impugn Church teaching, he was merely making a point regarding the limits of what can be concluded by human reason from observing the natural order.

 

[balto]

From my reading of him, Dawkins would not claim miracles are impossible, just very, very highly improbable. He argues, in fact, that miracles are more probable than the existence of God, so they should not be used, because of this, as evidence for something even less probable - God. He argues that in order to bring miracles about, God would require features that are far less likely than the miracles themselves,

His problem is the mechanistic view of the universe that grounds his thinking. The complexity and improbability of any “physical” effect is the very feature that compels him to require a more complex and more unlikely physical cause. Miracles, for him, are simply bizarrely improbable events that were brought about by highly improbable quantum events, that is all. Any supernatural inference is ruled out as a matter of his dogmatic materialism and Occam’s Razor, since an explanation for God, once he is invoked, would require a more outlandish appeal to far more improbable “causes” (those which caused God) than the miracles themselves.

Unfortunately Thomistic metaphysics and the ad absurdum inconsistency of his position have never been seriously entertained by Dawkins as a means of saving him from the vicious circularity of his position.

Yeah, I think that you are right about this. I know that before I started seriously studying the philosophy behind many of the Church’s teaching I did not know that God was supposed to be absolutely simple. Too many people associate God with massive or infinite amounts of complexity which isn’t accurate in the Thomistic way of thinking because it leads to thinking ad absurdum.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Yeah, I think that you are right about this. I know that before I started seriously studying the philosophy behind many of the Church’s teaching I did not know that God was supposed to be absolutely simple. Too many people associate God with massive or infinite amounts of complexity which isn’t accurate in the Thomistic way of thinking because it leads to thinking ad absurdum.

How Something simple can produce something complex as the universe is would be the question that needs answering but will never be answered.

At the moment of Abiogenesis (the emergence of the first living cell on earth) simple chemicals were united in a complex weave of vital elements with the sudden potential to eat, breathe, move, reproduce, and evolve. All of these elements had to come together at the same moment or life would have died in its infancy. That is a grand miracle that Dawkins has yet to acknowledge. So why would he acknowledge any miracles of even lesser import?

 

[Peter_Plato]

To answer the thread question…

It appears that there is no proof for Richard Dawkins and it turns out that he is a delusion.

youtu.be/7b3EP4pB_3E

 

[polytropos]

Pray tell me, how could HE have Joseph’s DNA??? The Church has always taught that HE got his humanity from Mary. Don’t you trust God and His Church??God Bless, Memaw

Well, males have an X chromosome and a Y chromosome. Females have two X chromosomes. God is omniscient and omnipotent and, if he wanted, could have created Jesus as being the genetic son of Joseph even if Joseph would not play a part in his conception. I am not wed to the interpretation. I don’t think it’s true. I don’t see it as inherently problematic, though.

This goes back to my point about looking for and expecting a scientific explanation for miracles. Why do we do this? I don’t see a need to take Christ’s reception of humanity from Mary as Christ’s genetic identity with Mary.

EDIT: I realize Peter Plato hit my point exactly.

 

[Aloysium]

To answer the thread question…

It appears that there is no proof for Richard Dawkins and it turns out that he is a delusion.

youtu.be/7b3EP4pB_3E

I liked the part that criticized Dawkins believers’ use of “the Dawkins of the gaps” to explain the existence of the The God Delusion when reason holds it to be the result of random misprints that happened as the original Latin alphabet became the poems of Richard Lear that later mutated into the book.