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From: Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: 25 Classic Books That Have Been Banned
Date: Thu, 29 May 2025 09:55:09 +0100
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On 27/05/2025 18:05, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>> [Miracles and laws of nature]
>> More assertions:
>> 1. Jesus had something to say about those who sought "signs and
>> wonders". And it wasn't very nice.
> 
> 1) How do you know such a person actually existed?
> 
> 2) How do you know that person, assuming he existed,
>     said anything about "signs and wonders"?
> 
> Don't point to the KJV - primary contemporaneous sources only.

I've read the book (mostly not KJV).  I don't know
what Paul thinks is "not nice" about "miracles",
but I do remember the Jesus character doing plenty
of miracles and specifically saying that the purpose
of this was to persuade people to accept his
religious teaching.

Reasonably, his treatment of medical conditions
up to "being dead several days" with miracles
also can be interpreted as motivated by sympathy
for sufferers, except that Jesus also says that
people suffered these medical conditions in the
first place so that he could do the miracles
on them.

As for atheism and laws of nature, I see those
as two separate things.  I see atheism as neither
a belief nor disbelief, but a choice of not
worshipping gods.  In this, a person shouldn't
have to decide whether for instance a mysterious
invisible entity exists, or whether the Roman
Emperor is a god (conventionally yes when dead)
but only whether to propitiate gods.  And if
a person is forced by other people to worship
a god, then, unwillingly, they are worshipping.
Clearly this is considered to have value,
otherwise what is the purpose of making them
do it?

If you want atheism to be a belief, then it
can be a belief that it isn't necessary to
worship gods.

Scientific knowledge mostly relies on presuming
that material substance behaves according to
consistent principles, which are called laws
of nature.  It is usually assumed that this is
intrinsic to the material substance and not
continually performed by God, although philsophers
have flirted with the contrary idea.  Amongst
problems of everything being miraculous are that
God then is morally responsible for everything
that happens, and that you are supposing that
God didn't and couldn't or wouldn't create
anything that would persist of its own accord,
which looks like hardly creating things at all.
But as I say, it's been talked of.

Religious miracles usually are understood as
a god causing matter to behave other than as by
the natural laws.  But this doesn't require
that matter doesn't contain and obey laws of
nature the rest of the time.  And while it
suggests that the god should be worshipped,
that remains a choice.  And what if several
competing gods offer miracles for your
consideration?  And some of them could be
faking it.  There are "magic" tricks with no
supernatural element.

Also, as Arthur C. Clarke revealed to us,
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."  So for instance,
some miracles could be performed with concealed
magnets.  Especially if someone doesn't know
that magnets exist.