Extraordinary claims....
April 17, 2002
Gregg Easterbrook writes at beliefnet about being upset at folks who discount every miracle in the Bible outright, rejecting hands down all the various magical and divine miracles that occur throughout it's pages.
He writes The dogma of this new anti-religion is that all reports of supernatural power must be fraudulent � not that there are doubts or questions (there surely are), but that belief must be phony. This attitude is itself an article of faith, as surely as it is an article of faith to believe that Jesus is God�s child.
From the tone of his article, he seems to be quite upset that anyone would claim hands down that Moses's staff didn't turn into a bigger snake than Pharaohs' sorcerer's did, or that the Red Sea wasn't parted, or that Jesus didn't walk on water. After all, honest skepticism would seem to indicate that it might at least have happened, right?
Carl Sagan wrote something to the effect that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. It's actually not that hard of an argument to grasp as the simpler version of "prove it" is regularly used to verify traffic accidents, medicine, house values and if little Suzzie beat the bejesus out of little Sam.
So too, in regards to miracles, "prove it" isn't a rejection of that something happened, but rather a way of saying "Haven't seen it happen before, show me how it could have taken place." It supposes that we live in an understandable world, where we can grasp the meanings, the reasons and the why's to things.
If someone walks on water it's going to take more than a few guys, 40 years removed and re-written over the course of 1900 or so years to attest to the veracity of the event. In light of the fact that today we know how easily people are mistaken or lie or fib to promote their causes, it's not wrong or bull headed to remain highly skeptical of the claim until its shown to be true.
So far, every miracle and magic that's been put to the test -- double blind, randomized and as free of bias as we know how to make it -- has failed to hold up. This includes speaking to the dead, levitation, cold fusion, UFO abductions and miraculously surviving a snake bite. While it's always possible that some new, super extraordinary event will come along to shake things up, so far that hasn't occurred. If it does, then you can claim "I told you so." Until then, it's not "anti-region" to ask for proof behind an extraordinary event. It's just common sense.
Posted by Jody at April 17, 2002 02:44 PM