Extraordinary Claims Hogwash, Remix
Our conceptions of what makes for an extraordinary event have changed in each subsequent century/generation with the advancement of science. It has repeatedly forced believers to change their views on the matter. In the ancient world they knew axe heads don't float, that women were not turned into pillars or salt, or that donkey's can't talk. But to the pre-scientific ancients most every event was in some sense an extraordinary one, from the birth of a child, to the rising of the sun, the rainfall, to a bountiful crop. Extraordinary events occurred for them almost daily. They couldn't understand how these events could take place within nature's laws. Since they could not explain them they concluded some deity did them. Then one by one these events were explained naturally by science and consequently one by one they were taken out of the realm of the extraordinary and placed into the category of the ordinary course of events.
Since a world where extraordinary events took place daily, a woman turning into a pillar of salt for slighting a deity was technically speaking, on the boards. And while as human beings they might show some sort of skepticism about a donkey that talked, all they had was testimony in a world where a person's word was as good as the truth. This testimony was in most cases all that was needed to establish an extraordinary event in a world occupied by deities.
The whole discussion about what makes for an extraordinary event is caused by the advancement of science.
Why can't Christian believers just own up the the fact that a necessary condition for an extraordinary event is one that cannot be explained within the natural world? And then realizing science is our only tool for knowing whether an extraordinary event took place just admit agnosticism about these events?...or tell us a different method for distinguishing between these sorts of claims coming from people who hold to mutually exclusive religious viewpoints? I'm all ears on this if they want to try. Typically at this point they will disparage science. Let them try this too, but neither option seems reasonable to me at all, and one more reason I think believers are deluded.
Since a world where extraordinary events took place daily, a woman turning into a pillar of salt for slighting a deity was technically speaking, on the boards. And while as human beings they might show some sort of skepticism about a donkey that talked, all they had was testimony in a world where a person's word was as good as the truth. This testimony was in most cases all that was needed to establish an extraordinary event in a world occupied by deities.
The whole discussion about what makes for an extraordinary event is caused by the advancement of science.
Why can't Christian believers just own up the the fact that a necessary condition for an extraordinary event is one that cannot be explained within the natural world? And then realizing science is our only tool for knowing whether an extraordinary event took place just admit agnosticism about these events?...or tell us a different method for distinguishing between these sorts of claims coming from people who hold to mutually exclusive religious viewpoints? I'm all ears on this if they want to try. Typically at this point they will disparage science. Let them try this too, but neither option seems reasonable to me at all, and one more reason I think believers are deluded.