While the attempt to formalize the miraculous through analytical philosophy is intellectually ambitious, it ultimately relies on circular reasoning where the conclusion is hidden within the "background assumptions." It serves less as an objective proof and more as a sophisticated confirmation bias for the already faithful.
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LIVE CALL IN-SHOW: Miracles Prove ChristianityAjouté :
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[music] >> [music] >> What's going on everybody? Mike is gone.
Well, he's not really gone, but we're going to say he's gone. And that means there's only one rule. What's that one rule, Caleb?
It means that we're not talking about Islam today.
>> Is that Is that the rule?
>> No. Sorry, that one hit too hard.
>> Technically. Technically, no. I mean, it can still come up, I guess.
Unfortunately.
>> A joke.
>> Um, the one rule is there are no rules.
>> Oh, of course.
>> So, that's what's going on.
>> All right, guys. So, today we got our call-in stream. A little impromptu one outside of our normal scheduled call-in stream. And I got my friend Caleb here.
I've been pushing the argument for miracles lately. And if you like the way I've been going about arguing this, you definitely got to check out my boy Caleb here. He's writing a book. Um, just really quickly introduce yourself, Caleb. Give like a Yeah, thanks. Second summary.
>> Yeah, of course. So, longtime friend of Fan, of course, I've been on IP's channel before. Same same basic argument that we're making here. So, I'm working on a multi- volume book set on miracles.
Uh, contemporary miracles, especially trying to get stuff that has really good medical documentation is where I'm trying to specialize in. Um, if you want to check out some of my stuff, I've been on lots of other shows like Caption Christianity, Trinity Radio, uh, Myth Vision, other stuff like that. But if you want to see some of my writings because I'm primarily an author and unfortunately not a not a video editor, a content creator, um check out my recently opened Substack or or my academia page as well where I have really in-depth analyses on particular miracle claims. So um looking forward to today's call and I appreciate that and Mike were able to have me on.
>> Yeah, man. So okay, what's the overall claim we're kind we're kind of defending today? It's it maybe a set of claims.
miracles happen and these are miracles most likely happen and they are strong evidence for Christianity. Is that a fair way to >> There are >> popularize this >> there. Yeah, there are events that happen within a religious context.
>> Oh my gosh, Caleb's lagging. Shayan has entered the chat already, man.
>> And this is you. You were lagging for a sec.
>> Oh, I'm sorry. Is that better?
>> Yeah. Yeah. So, so start over.
>> Yeah. So, there are phenomena that happens on occasion um that is naturally inexplicable in which the best inference that can be made is a supernatural causal explanation based off of the context and the features of the phenomenon and then we can infer from that um within the context and within other considerations that the Christian theism specifically is the best explanation for that.
>> Awesome. Cool. Um, did you want to go over some slides or do you want to give some preliminaries on these or do you want to just kind of take callers right away and then >> I think we can I know we already have some callers lined up so I don't want to keep them waiting too long. So I'm >> Yeah, you want to just bring up the callers and we can bring up cases and as a like an >> do them as they come up or with other stuff. Yeah, I know this >> Well, we first the first guy we got um I've seen him with a YouTube channel already.
>> Um so yeah, Stephen >> Oh no, he's hot. I can't say stuff like that. The Muslims will think I'm gay.
So, you know that you know that Spongebob reference where Squidward's looking looking at Squilliam and he goes, "Oh, no. He's hot." That's what's happening here. That's all.
>> What's up, Stephen? [laughter] >> Hey, Ben. It's nice to nice to meet you finally. I' I've talked to Caleb here and there. Me and Caleb are best friends, actually. So, >> no. Okay, dude. I'm gonna kick this guy off. No, Caleb and I are best friends.
>> I don't know, man.
>> Okay, Jeremy. Well, in fairness, Dererick and I are friends and Dan's also friends with Derek and Dererick Dererick is friends with Stephen and that's how we kind of got to >> We just have a love triangle happening.
>> Yeah, basically. Yeah. And it's funny because I think Stephen's made response videos to some of your stuff then and and then so I was hoping the beef could start, but uh >> Yeah, it's there there's no way I the only way you're going to really beef with me is if you're a jerk to me. So >> there you go.
>> No, there won't be won't be any beef here. I'm uh I try to be very uh good faith for the most part. Unless you're Unless you're Jay Dyer. Sorry, I have to say.
>> Unless you deserve it.
>> Yeah, unless you deserve it. But uh No, no, no. I'm looking forward to discussion. It's nice nice to meet you, Than. I've been watching your stuff for a while. Even before when you were on uh Exploring Reality, so it was cool to see you and you and Mike kind of team up. Um >> so yeah, I mean I've been watching your stuff for a while.
>> Cool, man.
>> So Stephen does a lot on the resurrection. I know that's like his particular thing. So he's from what my conversations he can correct me if I'm wrong this he's open to miracles. He's not like a hardened naturalist. He's a agnostic a skeptical agnostic as I hear.
Um but uh but he he is skeptical of the resurrection and uh some of the inferences that come from that. So maybe that'd be a good place that we could sort of start unless you'd like to take a different direction. Stephen.
>> Yeah. No thank I mean thanks for the introduction. So just yeah just a little bit of background on me. So I was a Christian up until about 26 27. Um, so for the past eight years, I've considered myself an agnostic. I've um, yeah, I'm not really interested in the debate regarding atheism, regarding whether or not atheism is a lack of belief or not. So, I just prefer to categorize myself as an agnostic. I'm not a naturalist. I'm not a physicist.
So, I'm not, you know, closed off a priori to miracles or the supernatural.
Um, so I'm I'm open to miracles. I think that there's and I know Caleb mentioned the resurrection. We don't we don't need to turn this into a resurrection debate, but I think that there's better evidence for modern miracles um or miracles that are, you know, a little bit closer to us than than the resurrection is. I think there's better evidence for some of those. Um but at the same time, I feel reluctant to give them a label of miracles. Um so I, you know, wherever you guys want to take this is is good with me. I'm just there there's a lot of different phenomena and events that um you know that I've surveyed that I don't know what the explanation is.
Again, I'm not trying to throw a naturalistic label on it, but I just don't know what to do with my worldview because I'm not a naturalist, >> but I'm not a theist, so I really don't know what to infer from those. I'm smiling because what you're saying is what every single person that I've talked to that eventually ended up becoming a Christian because of the argument of a miracle says.
[laughter] >> Caleb, am I am I wrong? Like >> I don't I mean I think I know what I think I know some of the people you have in mind and maybe that that's accurate.
But I mean Stephen was a a former Christian apologist. I know he was a he's actually >> I didn't know that about you.
>> No. Yeah. I said you should watch his interview on on Derek's uh channel. It's actually really good. I think you're still a big fan of the contingency argument, right, Stephen? Not to go down that route, but just like >> Yeah, you're you're relatively well right on some of that literature.
>> Yeah. I just when I when I was a Christian apologist myself, I mean, I was never when I was a Christian, I wasn't like on YouTube that much. Uh well, at all really, but I had a blog that I would write. Um and uh yeah, the contingency argument for me was like my go-to philosophical argument for God. I thought it was the strongest. And and to this day, I still think it's a very strong argument. I mean, obviously, I don't necessarily view it as sound, as I did before, but I do think it's a strong argument that needs to be dealt with by the skeptic community or by atheists.
Um, but uh yeah, so I mean, I I was Christian up until 27 and I believed in miracles up until that point. Um, and it's just nowadays, again, as I said, there's lots of occurrences, lots of events that I would just be a little bit reluctant to give the label miracle because I think there's still a lot of obscurity and ambiguity with regards to them. And I think >> I think that the argument from from miracles kind of pushes and pulls with the argument from divine hiddenness. And I'm very convinced by the argument from divine hiddenenness. So I think that's kind of what what stops me from from affirming those, you know, putting the label miracles on on types of events like that.
>> So can let me ask a little clarifying question here because we could be operating like I and this is going to be a good clarifying question so that way we don't actually end up talking past each other.
>> Sure.
>> Um because this is going to be a fundamentally like epistemological question. Um, so when you say you're you're you're worried about giving the label of miracle to any of these events, I can understand it in a few different ways. One is going to be in the ontological sense >> and another could be in the like rival hypothesis comparison sense, right? So like for instance um when you say I I don't want to give it a label of miracle are you saying it's because like there's conceptual issues that you have with the concept or is it because you think like the probability that this is a miracle is not higher than the probability of it not being a miracle.
>> Yeah I think good question. I think probability wise um I think just epistemically there's it's not clear enough for me to say oh yeah this is a miracle from God. I mean, I I might go as far as saying, you know, this looks like it it probabilistically has a good chance of being something supernatural or having a supernatural cause or a catalyst, but as far as being a, you know, miracle from the divine, from God, I just I feel like there's too much obscurity, too much ambiguity even even in some of the best documented cases.
Um, you know, just just to take a quick example, um, you know, like the miracle at Zetune, that's something that I've always been fascinated with. Not always, like over the past couple years, I've been really fascinated with it. Um, and I think that's one of those where skeptics have a difficult a difficult time trying to give a naturalistic explanation. And I have yet to hear a sufficient and persuasive uh skeptical naturalistic explanation for it. At the same time, like to me, it seems like there's something going on there. There very well might be something that's supernatural, but to me it's still obscure enough that I don't know. I don't know what's going on. like it doesn't seem clear to me that that's a miracle from God. Um even though the sightings are of the Virgin Mary, I don't even know if that is the Virgin Mary, right? I I just don't know what it is. I don't know what label to put on it, but miracle to me just doesn't seem to be an inference that I can make. I >> think a lot of this too is about like how much divine psychologizing do we do, right? And you've said the divine hiddenness, which is interesting in terms of like what models do we have and what would you expect under those models. So I I am sympathetic a little bit to say the idea okay you know the Zune apparitions which for the audience who doesn't know there was a series of very large-scale Marian apparitions that happened in the late 1960s early 1970s in Zitune Egypt on top of a church seen by hundreds of thousands of people and the apparition never talked never said hello guys I'm the Virgin Mary you know convert to to Christianity or whatever so obviously that would be even better but I feel like for almost any miracle that we can conceive of you could think of even better evidence that we don't have right and it's like the fact that you can do that with almost anything isn't isn't that much. So, I guess I would say like yes, there are some ambiguities to where like I can't explain every aspect of why didn't she speak or why did God heal this person and not this other person, right? Those are those are fair criticisms or not criticisms questions to ask, but I feel like those are less difficult to answer than why did this happen at all. You know, it's like I can come up with some kind of not super implausible in my mind explanation for maybe why God providentially would want to do something in this way, but I feel like coming up with an explanation on the other side where it's not that terms of like why naturalistically or supernaturalistically this happened without that would be a lot more difficult.
>> So, you know, so it's like the problem of evil is why does God allow all these horrendous evils if if he's all good?
But the problem of miracles is why are these unexpected good things that like shouldn't physically be possible happening? you know, it's kind of the the for me I think that there are some theodysies that while they're not perfect, like you can kind of sort of make sense of it, those to me are more comprehensive than like even just beginning to speculate in terms of like this part data we have in some of these miracle cases so far I can see. So I guess there's like an imbalance in terms of the evidential quality. So, um, and also, by the way, Stephen, I don't want to like dog pile here, and I want Caleb to kind of be like the star of the show today. Um, so I I'm just trying to diagnose things right now still. Um, so here here's here's an interesting thing because you are right that, you know, problem of evil and divine hiddenenness are actually going to play a factor into how we assess miracle claims, right? Um >> so in in instances like this and tell me if you agree or disagree. Um I think like a good um a good way to go approach this topic is basically by just conditionalizing on different things. So we can look at a particular miracle claim and go okay so here's this miracle claim. How likely is this if our in our background knowledge we have a theodyssey that actually like helps dissolve the problem of divine hiddenness and suffering?
>> Right.
>> Cuz right I think you would agree if we have a good theodysy that does that then the priors are going to be higher for a miracle.
>> Sure.
>> But if we don't have that we can conditionalize on that and then kind of you get the point. Does that make sense?
I think that's going to be the most helpful way because otherwise what ends up happening is we c they talk about a miracle and then we end up kind of like going back and forth about arguing hit about hiddenness and suffering when that's not really the main topic.
>> Yeah.
>> And that's an approach that kind of helps us table those things in a fair way. I don't know what you think on that Caleb even. Um, but >> no, I think I think you're you're steering the conversation in a good direction and I didn't I didn't, you know, mean to bring up the problem of divine hiddenenness, so we can start discussing, you know, yeah, let's we can keep it on on miracles, but I just I think it's >> it's quite pertinent to the issue. Um, and it, you're right. I mean, it it affects our priors and it affects our background knowledge. Um, and you know, I think one of the other things that affects my personal background knowledge is obviously my experience. And unfortunately, even when I was a Christian, I I guess I was unfortunate to not really experience too many things that I would have considered um miraculous. You know, I I attended so I attended a non-denominational church and uh it's a pretty big church in my city.
Um, and they used to have yearly healing conferences. So you would have uh you know this very well-known pastor who was like a a healing pastor come and he would do these conferences once a year and you would have people come in droves and and be prayed over and you know you would have testimonies afterwards and it would be things like you know I had pain in my back and now I no longer have pain in my back. Um, but there was just nothing that really pushed me to say like, you know, wow, that was >> that the only label I can give that is something that was miraculous. And just in in my day-to-day life, you know, um, my wife is still Christian, her family's Christian. I'm surrounded by Christians and yet there's nothing there's no testimony that they've ever provided.
Um, and my mom's still Christian and, you know, she'll tell me things that she considers miraculous, but to me, it just doesn't warrant that um, warrant that label. And so it, you know, I think part of it is just that I've never experienced anything that um to me is the mark of the divine. And so that definitely affects my priors because had I experienced something like that maybe um I would be more comfortable in making that inference. You know, just to give a some quick anecdotal examples. I used to uh I used to work with an atheist and he was an atheist when I was a Christian and despite the fact that he was like a nichian uh atheist uh like Neilistic but he even recounted something that he experienced and because he was an atheist he didn't put the label miracle on it but he experienced something very strange near a Jewish synagogue and he was kind of like me. He was like I don't know what to make of it but it was incredibly strange. I don't even remember all the details, but I just remember, you know, my eyes were wide when he was recounting his experience, but again, he experienced something like that. I never have. I've just only ever heard stories. And so, um, you know, I I I feel unfortunate in that sense because, and I don't want to take this back to divine hiddenness, but it's like had I experienced something like that, >> I think my priors would be completely different, you know. And I and I'm very sympathetic to a lot of that, Stephen, which is ironic because, you know, as much as we we look into this stuff, like there are I won't get too specific here just for the details, but like Finn and I both know people who are like um Catholics or Eastern Orthodox or particular sex that we are not in terms of denominationally. And I do I would be long if I said there wasn't a sense of cognitance except >> people don't know my denomination.
So you that's true. I'm not I'm not or whatever whatever it falls under. Yeah, that's right.
>> We know you're Muslim, fan. We know you're Muslim. [laughter] >> Alhamdulillah.
>> Actually, there's actually this is the proof. Scientology.
>> Yeah, he didn't tell me. He was Scientology actually is the correct answer. But >> I saw he had a poster of Tom Cruz. I wondered why that was. But anyway, so like you'll have these like really interesting miracle plans where you have like eucharistic hosts turning into like allegedly heart tissue or like the Virgin Mary appearing and telling people like consecrate Russia to my immaculate heart and I'm like what am I supposed to do with that as like an evangelical?
Yeah. So like and all they're like and so all these Catholic friends that I have are like well like obvious dude like obviously the Virgin Mary is appearing in Zitune like how could you not this was anything else you'd be like come on dude but like I get it like there's some it's like oh but there's so much stuff in this religion like this particular sect like I just don't I I'm not comfortable with so what point do you like take it on where you say this is authoritative this is God has spoken so shut up about your other denominational or issues you have philosophically and just take it on on that authority versus well I feel like I have to get these stuff worked out before I accept the miracle. And so I'm very sympathetic in that in that same boat as you are. But again, I think that it we just have to set I think it's important that we set criteria beforehand so that we don't move the goalpost. Just say, okay, >> yeah, >> this is what we would look for in like a miracle. So like with the healing cure for example, which is what I specialize in and I think fan to some extent too. I think that's the best kind of examples you have because the documentation tends to be better and the methods are more clear. Like when it comes to, you know, how would we investigate lights on top of a Egyptian temple or a church that kind of look humanoid like I mean it's what you know it's kind of hard to >> there's ways to do that kind of stuff but it's like >> yeah but it's a bit more >> YouTube stream for the purposes of the stream conver like it's just we're not going to get into math. No, no, I get it. But like but [laughter] I was gonna say but when it comes to healings like we already have non-controversial ways of saying X person had this disease and then now they don't have this is on this date >> and like that would be accepted in any court of law. It's not very difficult to do that. We're not making any new methods here to accommodate that. So I think when we get to that you have something like the Lambertini criteria which is what the Catholic Church has been using past like 300 years which is like you have an illness that's progressive. It's getting worse. It's organic. It's not psychological. um it's very serious and then it heals instantaneously, completely permanently and without like medication. Like all of those stuff together, you could say, well, maybe there's one disease that has a few of those qualities, but like all those in tandem, it's really hard. And then you have the combination of that where the instantaneous period was interreligious context where they were praying or a saint appeared to them or they went to some pilgrimage site or whatever. It's really hard for me to not make that inference where it's like if this is some weird natural law where this just happened to go to mission, it's really convenient that the only documented example of this going to mission is when they were like being prayed for or something, you know. So, I think if we I think those to me seem like reasonable criteria and if you can find examples that follow those, which I think there are some, then that would be where you'd sort of make that inference.
Did you would you agree with that, Stephen, or do you think that any of those are >> Yeah. No, and I and again I I think this is where I become disillusioned with the skeptic community because they will handwave those away like oh you know their spontaneous remission and just uh you know we haven't talked about this Caleb but after reading your article um I did send it to some individuals who I wanted to get their opinion on it uh your article did uh what is it did did God >> did God heal NBTs? Yeah. Which for those watching is on academia if you want to check it out.
>> Yeah great article. Um, and you know, I had a skeptic friend of mine who just handwaved it away and tried to come up with a very convoluted ad hoc rationalization and I just I wasn't persuaded by that. Um, but it just seems like skeptics try to do that because they a lot of them have a commitment to naturalism which I don't have. So I you know there are again like the case that you surveyed in that article and other cases um you know I I'm not averse to saying possibly something supernatural is going on here for me it's just again I don't know that I have enough information to still make the inference that this is clearly unambiguously from God. And I guess you know maybe the pertinent question is if you believe miracles are from God I mean what is what is their end right? Are they a form of divine communication? Um >> because I think that's the important question and that's the part that gets me because if if if you're going to affirm that >> miracles like that are a form of divine communication. I would say that they're >> they're still obscure. They're not they're not 100% clear. Um, you know, we could talk about the probabilities and and what probability would make it clear, right? But to me, they're just not there's still there's still ambiguity. There's still obscurity. So, I kind of for me it's like if miracles are divine communication from God, then they're not sufficient communication in my opinion. And and I have a whole video on my channel called Why Can't God Communicate Clearly? And it's more geared towards the Bible, but I think it applies here, right? I think if if God is performing these miracles, despite the fact that some of them are very compelling, they're few and far between and it's not clear what the divine message is. And so again, for me, it's if they are divine communication, they're not the best. And if they're not divine communication, then I really don't I don't know what to do with them, right? I just don't know what to do with the miracle.
>> That's a that's a great Sorry, do you mind if I take the stand fast? And >> no, no, go ahead. Go ahead. No, that's a great question and I and I struggle with this as well as I kind of had to allude to earlier, right, where there's a lot of stuff because it's easy. Well, it may not be easy, but if you're someone who's not a a priority naturalist and you're open to that to say, yeah, maybe there's some weird supernatural entities out there. But when you start getting to, okay, but it's making vindication claims, it's saying this is the theology you have to hold to or like that hell exists or something like that. Okay, well now suddenly the stakes are a lot higher and we might want to be very careful with what we're we're accepting here. Um, so I would I would think and I'm still working my way through this because of the stuff I talked about earlier, but I think that you could broadly categorize there as being I would call it a rejuvenation miracle and a vindication miracle. So yeah, rejuvenation I think is what most of them are. And again, Fi might disagree with me on on this analysis, but I don't think he would, which is where God is is basically doing a miracle of mercy in order to help people who may already be believers, but to inspire their faith.
Because you know people will check off that they're Christian or but they've been nominal or something like that.
They [clears throat] might have crisises of faith as we all do. So in the case that you're talking about with Col right most virtually everyone in that area was Catholic. So it's not like they're being convinced of something that they didn't already believe is true in the first place. But to have that reinvigoration of the miracle or to have someone who's been sick for 10 years with a disease and they have their prayers answered that obviously transforms their life and the life of their loved ones who are aware of it. So I think those kinds of miracles you could say the messaging is not super clear and God might be doing it just because he wants relationship with that person and it strengthens their faith. So I think that one's a bit a bit uh less there. But I think that a vindication miracle would be a miracle that happens in a context that is mostly hostile or at least not already predisposed to it. So again, like in the Bible, in the New Testament, when Jesus's ministry or the apostles ministry, when you're you're going out to basically a mission field and you're converting people and you're teaching things and you're speaking authoritatively and you're using miracles to say, "Hey guys, I'm speaking God's message here." I think that's a much more specific kind of miracle. And I don't think those are as common, but I do think that's the kind you see in the Bible. Um the prophets and stuff like that where they're doing basically any religion being founded. Even Joseph Smith, as much as I think he's a con artist and don't think it was a miracle, like in principle, that would be what he was doing where it's this new idea that we have to sell the people and this is what's meant to be convincing. So that that's the way that I see it. So for something like Zun where this happens in a country where most of the people are Muslim, but they have Muslims have high view of Mary, right? Like okay, maybe it was meant to be like a peaceful like, hey, Egypt, Israel stopped fighting.
This happened right after the war. Let's have unity between cops and Muslims.
That could be a rejuvenation miracle. I think that's plausible. That's why the Virgin Mary may not have been like, "Hey guys, convert to Christianity." If that had happened, maybe they actually would have thought it was a fraud and they would have persecuted Christians even harder. I don't know. Um, so I think that with the first kind, you wouldn't necessarily expect there to be this clear communication of here's the message that I'm signaling off of. Um, I think with the vindication ones, you would, but I would say that with the biblical examples, you do have that where it's like Jesus or Paul or Peter speaking very authoritatively when they do this, right? Like even when Jesus forgives sins of the paralyzed guy in Mark 2 and he says, you know, I forgive you of your sins. The Pharisees are horrified by this and say he's becoming blasphemy. And then he has the guy get up and walk to kind of make a point. So that's how I would see it. But I don't know if you agree with that or >> No, no. I I I agree with that dichotomy.
The only thing I'm going to I'm going to argue is that like uh miracles of mercy still function as a miracle as miracles of vindication as well. I would argue.
Um just so far >> they're not mutually exclusive. That's true.
>> Right. Yeah. They're not mutually exclusive. So like a miracle of mercy can be also just function as a vindication of like the religious message in the context that the miracle operates within. If >> what are you what are you classifying as miracles of mercy thing?
>> Um the what the say I'm just using a different word than >> rejuvenation. Rejuvenation >> people who already are like believing in the doctrine and they're not like converting out of it because they are but maybe they're more invigorated with their faith or something.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And I think um I don't want to remark too much about biblical miracles because I view those with a much lower much much lower than >> we're just we're just conditionalizing on it.
>> Yeah. No, no, no. You're fine. But uh you know I think I think the the proportion of historical Christian miracles is in my view proportional to like the evidence for Christianity itself, biblical Christianity. By that I mean I don't view I don't view Christianity as very likely as very likely true but I view it as much more likely than let's say Islam or Mormonism or other religions. In the same vein, I think a lot of the historical like the the case for historical miracles that you can make, there's miracles from other religions, but again, Christianity, the the the Christian miracles are in proportion a little bit better and have better evidence than Muslim miracles and uh um you know, again, Mormon miracles and what have you. But go ahead. What what Islamic miracles have you heard of that actually have like that one actually would be constituted as a miracle, right? Rather than like look at this verse, it says something special. How can that happen?
>> Like the Quranic or the hadithic ones.
>> Yeah. Or or like other attempts are like look you recite the Quran and the cows love it. Like this is like this is stuff I hear. So like if you actually have a case that you think >> Yeah. I know great question with regards to like history. I know that there's supposed miracles of of Islamic saints and I've looked into a little bit of them, but they're they're usually written hundreds to yeah, hundreds of years later. So, I'm not impressed by them, but the claims are there. But I mean, I So, I've had Muslim friends, and in fact, I used to have a Muslim coworker who converted from Christianity to Islam. Don't ask me why. I always like I was always like, >> it might be because his his um his wife is Muslim, but I don't know. Uh, I always found that rather strange. I was like, if you're gonna why, you know, might as well just have stayed in Christianity because I I don't view >> Yeah. I One of my one of my friends at my gym is an atheist, like a hardcore atheist, but he's he's a friend.
>> And he's like, "Hey, man. I disagree with everything you stand for, but I still hope you win."
>> The Muslims say, >> "Yeah." Yeah. Absolutely. And so, but you know, he would relay just the typical anecdotal types of of, you know, these aren't historical miracles, but you know, he would relay the typical anecdotal types of miraculous claims like, oh, my wife prayed and then this happened or, you know, this, you know, this happened in our life and this event transpired. And so, you know, that's just another for me despite the fact that the historical case for miracles is is, you know, in degree, it's better for Christianity. I don't see that there's a difference in kind necessarily. And I think if you view these types of miracles as some type of communication for God, this is again why I view it as insufficient because most people don't know about these miracles. A lot of people don't know about date too and a lot of people don't know about the the amputee who who was healed in the 16th century um or who you know possibly was healed. Most people encounter miracles in their every or claims of miracles in their everyday lives. And again, this is why I'm telling you, you know, in my life, I haven't experienced anything like that, but I have tons of Christian friends who relay Christian miracles.
I've had Muslim co-workers who have relayed their supposed Muslim um or their Islamic miracles. Uh, I even had a co-orker who was like all newagy and she did tarot card reading and she was into astrology and she would relay some stuff to me that was just again I don't know what to do with that. I'm not claiming that you're that you're deceived or that you're a liar, but she would tell me stories that I was I it was just very I was incredulous. It was very difficult for me to believe them. Um, and then again, I had that atheist coworker who experienced something possibly supernatural near a Jewish synagogue. So again, for me, if if miracles are a divine a form of divine communication, I just don't view them as sufficient. Um I I don't know what to do with them, you know?
>> Yeah. I think there's I think there's a a misstep here because Caleb and I are saying it's a vindication rather than like a message, right? So, for instance, um I if Caleb is like, imagine you and Caleb meet up at a coffee shop and you don't know each other and Caleb goes up to you and goes, "Hey, Stephen, did you know that like I'm this president of this company or something like that, right?"
>> And then you're like, "Well, why would I ever believe that?" But then I come along and I go up to Caleb and I go, "Oh my gosh, you're the president of this company."
>> Yeah. I'm not saying anything to you as a message, but what I just did vindicated his claim. Right. Right.
>> So, there's a difference between like an actual message and then a vindication of a message.
>> Sure.
>> And so, if a community is like um proclaiming a particular message and then within that comm within that religious community in the context of the message that they're delivering, a miracle happens. Yeah. God is vindicating that message, but not he he's not directly communicating that message in by himself.
>> Um, and then you said something else that's interesting, which is like the miracles that Caleb and I bring up, nobody really hears about them.
>> And in one sense that's true, but in another sense it's not because people are like we're we're sitting here and we're going to get a couple thousand views.
>> We're trying to do that. We're trying to make ground on that. Yeah. And so and so this this this like po and this is structurally similar to even stuff that happens with the problem of evil and and um divine hiddenenness which I think it commits a fallacy called like the protological fallacy which is >> um on a broad scale it's like judging states of affairs based off of the way things are >> rather than the the way things can be and are trending too or something like that, right? Mhm.
>> Um, and so like a a lot of the concerns that you're pointing to seem to me to be underdeterminate um as like qualifications for thinking that these miracles are not going to be um most likely like from God if that makes sense.
>> I packed a lot in a short frame there.
So I I just I'm curious to see what you think.
>> And yeah, and you can respond to this even just as much as I love this conversation. I know we have other people in the in the um >> yeah, this is really fun. We should like we should schedule.
>> I think Steve and I are working on trying to get a stream together at some point later this month. So that'll be we can definitely go more on that in that one. Um but yeah, go ahead and see if you want to answer. I just want to make sure people who are waiting in line are not going to drop off because we did that.
>> Yeah. No, so in line with the whole vindication thing. So yeah, fair enough.
Point point received on that. I guess I would just kind of pivot back to my point regarding I think that the miracle claims the historical miracle claims for Christianity are better in degree, but they're not necessarily different.
They're they're different in degree, but they're not necessarily different in kind. And so for me, again, there's just there's just too much ambiguity, too much obscurity. And you know, based on what you what you said then, like, you know, yes, we're talking about these miracles, but we're the type of people who were interested in apologetics and we're the type of people who were looking for stuff like this. I guarantee you if I went and asked a hundred of I don't even know if I have a hundred close Christian friends, but let's say I went and asked, you know, 20 of my closest Christian friends, have you heard about this miracle, this miracle, this miracle, this miracle? I guarantee you 99% of them or 95% of them would say, I've never heard of that. Right?
Um, and those are those are Christians.
And I just think um I just think a lot of these things are obscure. They're they're too ambiguous again for me to just make any clear inference here. Even as a vindication, I I will admit that they they add vindication. They increase the credence for Christianity. Um, but just not to any type of threshold that makes me comfortable or persuaded to make any inference that God is is behind them, that God is behind them as opposed to maybe just something supernatural or something that I don't know the explanation of.
>> Yeah. No, that's fair. Um, yeah, we should definitely like the three of us schedule a time where we can chat where we don't have people in the queue because this is a really fun conversation.
>> No. Yeah. I don't want to hog the mic. I know there's there's it looks like there's at least what, six? No. five other people on.
>> Yeah, we got a lot of >> We were worried that no one was going to show up at this time, but clearly that wasn't the case. So, that's problem.
It's I think you all could almost be like brothers or like cousins or something. You all kind of look similar, too. So, I think you're all like >> No, you look you look like you lift, Stephen. Do you lift?
>> I do. Yeah.
>> Heck yeah, brother. Heck yeah.
>> I'm not I don't think I'm as jacked as you then, but uh but I appreciate I appreciate you noticing that I can lift.
[laughter] >> No, you you guys are free to to to jump to the next caller again. Like it was it was really nice to meet you then because I've been watching your stuff for a while and of course I told you me and Caleb were best friends. So >> no if you want I mean I'm not I don't want to obviously just like I don't know fan if you want me to like give him your email or something like that. I know you don't want to just be giving personal information. I like >> Oh no my my my my inspiring philosophy email is public. Just than inspiring philosophy.com.
>> Okay. Yeah. No and I I don't mind giving my email or even my number to people that people I know trust. So I trust you Caleb and I don't mind you giving my stuff. I trust you through transitive property, but I'm sure you already [laughter] know. I'm sure you already know we're dealing with >> Make sure that the the guys don't get >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. I don't think they'll they care too much about my In fact, they probably cheer on my material, those dogs.
>> Just make something against Islam and then they'll they'll come after you.
>> Yeah, exactly. [laughter] >> Any atheist online can make fun of the Bible. You have to have real balls to have to go after the Quran. That's that's what shows you.
>> Hey, that's true. That's not a wasp's nest I want to poke right now. So, No, I get it. I get it. Yeah, man. No, we should definitely schedule time to like talk some more. Uh the three of us because also people like I like you. So, >> I appreciate it.
>> But the thing that people are going to want to see is people getting not they want they're going to want to watch some clash and I just don't want to do that with you. Yeah, we need to make a thumbnail that says like heated debate and then like edit it to where you just we're all just [laughter] >> edit it so we're talking edit it so that then says you look like you don't lift Stephen [laughter] >> thanks so much talking >> thanks so much man nice meeting you bro >> yeah we'll see you guys thanks for your time >> all right let's do some super chats real quick and then we'll get to our next guest um who would win in a fight Joshua or David >> that's a good I want to say probably Joshua. I think that Well, gosh, I don't know. Didn't David like kill all the Philistines and they bring a back of like a bag of their foreskins? That's pretty epic. That's pretty metal. I probably >> I think I think it's David. I think it's David.
>> Yeah.
>> Woof woof bark bark and howl with your puppies.
>> Rough.
>> You know the story behind this, Kayla?
>> I do not actually. I have no idea. One time I was like maybe the first two months I'm I'm with Mike here at Inspiring Philosophy and um Mike um Mike Mike opened up the stream and he was like man we need like a fun intro to like say that we say every single time like a little catchphrase and he was trying to think of it and like I just had diarrhea of the mouth and I said bark with me if you're my puppies.
>> Oh my god that's so stupid.
>> It stuck ever since.
Randy with five spiring philosophy memberships. Dude, you are on a roll.
You are a gigachad. I will let Mike know that you gained five aura points from this.
Um, Mike is gone. No, please Lord. No.
Darn. We lost one. RIP Mike. Guess Than is taking over. Congrats on the promotion. Sorry I had to come at the expense of >> Mike's not actually gone. I thought that was just a joke. But >> I think I I I think Mike's just busy. I don't know what he's doing right now.
probably taking a nap.
Another five memberships. Thank you. Um, he's lagging. It's Allah's power. You see?
>> There you go.
>> Um, but if the rule is there are there is no rule, then the options aren't limited.
Therefore, even a universe can come into existence in your bubble with no rule.
>> Oh, this is the reference to the Richard Carrier. Richard. Yeah. No, I get it.
That that's funny. I >> All right, let's get to the next caller.
How do I hide this again? All right, the next guy is Paul, actually. Uh, he just had a follow.
>> What's up, Paul? How are you doing?
>> I'm good. How are you?
>> Living a dream, my man. So, >> what's your problem with miracles?
Paul's a cool Paul's a cool cat. He comes in when Mike's gone and we can talk about bays. So, >> nice. Um, >> yeah, I've been math nerd. You math nerds over here.
>> What' you say?
>> Said you all are just a bunch of math nerds over here talking about your favorite factorials and all that stuff.
>> Said factorials. [laughter] >> Um, I also just in advance my connection might not be great. So if it gets bad, just you could just boot me. I might not even know. Um, >> no worries.
>> But uh, all right. Anyway, so my problem with miracles is that I don't necessarily think that they I just don't think that they prove Christianity is true. I think that you have to do too much work to get from this miracle is a miracle, this event is a miracle, and then you have to claim that it's a Christian miracle, and Christianity also has to be true in order for that to to all follow. So, I don't think that there's just any reason to believe that any given particular miracle uh a is true and b proves Christianity is true.
>> Well, would you at least say that like it could prove that like or I say I say prove here and not >> Yeah, we're using the word prove really.
>> Yes. Not proven in the absolute logical sense, right?
>> Scientific proof like that. Do you think you could make a reasonable inference from a miracle that like theism is true for example?
>> You could. Yeah. that theism is true.
You could, but I think that it would be >> um I mean there's no not necessarily any reason for me to believe that if you're going to assign some sort of supernatural explanation to a miracle that it couldn't be um something else for example um simulation hypothesis or uh >> yeah so >> an unknown deed. So, how is how is a how is a simulate? So, okay, let's put let's put these hypotheses on the table. You have generic theism. You said an unknown deity. Is this going to be like a theistic deity or just Okay.
>> Oh, so you have theism, theism, and simulation hypothesis.
>> Of those three hypotheses, which ones actually yield a prediction of miracles um more so than the other?
Um I I don't necessarily see why theism would yield a high prediction of miracles more than than um >> Well, okay. Would you agree with this basic inference line? Like if God exists, he he's going to take the best kinds of actions.
>> Um yes, I agree with that. But I think even that when you go into the particulars of it, for example, Christianity, that's not really a very it's not a helpful thing to say because, you know, if you look at, for example, um I know Nick, Fearless Truth subscribes to um divine command theory. So, you know, when God is killing uh, you know, children, the firstborn sons of people in in um, Exodus, that's a good thing that he did that. So, saying that, well, God always acts what is good doesn't >> Sure.
>> I I'm going to I'm going to stop us right there because you're you're talking to me, >> not Nick, right? And so, the problem is like we have to conditionalize on our models of God and all this other stuff, right? So, >> okay, >> fair point. uh one is I'm going to take a different reading of some of these things and we can dispute those things, right? But when I I'm starting at a very base fundamental level and I'm saying, hey, there's a basic generic inference line that I think you really can't deny from perfect being theism to God's going to take the best kinds of actions. And then the the next question you have to ask is what are the best kinds of actions, right? And that's just going to be conditional on a particular axiology or like a value theory, right?
But from there we have an inroad to saying that in some way shape or form God's going to interact with the created world and miracles are going to be what of I can make a type I can make a type token distinction here and say here's a general category of things that God will do interactions with the world um and a token of that type is going to be miracles right so like I have a pathway a logical pathway that's going to take me to this >> um and then that's all they really need because disism, right, dism is a hypothesis that tells you that God is not going to interact with with the created world, right? Like that that's kind of like the whole entire point of dism and then with the simulation hypothesis, right? Well, that that's a very opaque theory, right? Like that in of itself doesn't tell me what to expect about anything, >> right? Like if I just have a simulation of some world and that's it.
>> Well, that doesn't tell you anything about that world is going to look like, what's going to happen in that world, what I want to do in that world, etc., etc., right? And so, like, the bare minimum claim I'm making here at the end of the day is that theism actually has the explanatory resources >> to generate an expectation for miracle claims such that the probability of a miracle happening conditional on theism is just way higher than theism. and simulation hypothesis.
>> And your your reasoning for that is because God according to you, God would do miracles.
>> Well, you could even say that God Sorry, then to to join in.
>> No, no, you're good. You're good.
>> I don't think you even have to say strongly like God absolutely would. I think you could say that it's plausible that he would, right? Like you could almost think of it in a world to say, okay, well, if God creates a world where there's no miracles at all, people might divine hiddenness would be a bigger problem. There'd be a bigger problem with religious confusion. People might feel like their prayers are never answered. They can never communicate, have that relationship with God. And presumably, God wants to have that relationship with people, right? On the other hand, if there was a world where there was just constantly miracles, you wouldn't really be able to do science, it might make it harder for us to be able to do things to help each other because, you know, an angel would always help the orphans instead of us having to do it or whatever. So, I think having a world where sometimes, you know, you generally don't have miracles, but occasionally you do is kind of what you would sort of expect in that. Um, I'm not saying that that's like entailed with theism, but I don't think it's like highly unlikely. It seems like that's plausible. Um, whereas it it doesn't seem to me like the other models would really predict anything like that at all. Like if you're talking about simulation models, then I would sort of expect if there's going to be sort of glitches in the matrix, right, that you're going to have weird stuff happening with just arbitrarily like you'd have like a unicorn just pop into existence in the old time square, right?
But the fact with most of these miracle claims is they happen within a really specific religious context where like at the moment of prayer or at the moment of them visiting a shrine or something like that is when it happens. So I don't think that the religious like context is at is at all predicted under the naturalistic models or under like the simulation models like that's sort of like a unique element that I think only really makes sense under the the theistic model. Would you be inclined to agree with that?
Well, I mean, under naturalistic models, most likely, and I'm obviously, I'm sure you've heard before, the the counterpoint to that is that the reason that these quote unquote miracles are happening at shrines and and after prayer and in churches and things like that are because they're expected to happen. So, I know F is a big fan of the miracle of Fatima. Um I don't I'm not necessarily um particularly convinced by that miracle because I think that you have you know this group of of thousands of people. Yeah. But there's massive expectations. There's people staring at the sun you know causing could cause anything that you know um contagion.
There's >> multiple naturalistic explanations for why something like that might happen.
Not to mention the fact that there was no um catastrophic result of the sun moving. There was no astronomical like reports, whatever you want to call it.
>> Right. The sun literally move in the solar system. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. Exactly. And so saying that not >> Oh, go ahead.
>> I'm sorry to cut you. Yeah. And we I mean I'm not Fatima is not my I I'm pretty well read in it. It's not that's not one that I necessarily would be my go-to. But it seems to me like I'm not sure when we're talking about criteria here like I feel like either way this is going to be a win tells you lose, right?
Like a catch 22 because if on the one hand if it happens with expectation where it's predicted beforehand to say on like there's an example that F and I both talked about of um Marlene Klep, right? Who had had cerebal palsy for many years. She was born prematurely and had loss of neur neurological issues.
And she had a vision that said on this day, I think it was like March 29, 1981, at you at this time you will be healed and she was right. So you could say, well, that just creates psychological predisposition that's going to do that.
On the other hand, if it happens without any context, without any prayer, without any kind of expectation, at that point it seems arbitrary and there's no like message tied to it. There's no um theological significance. So I feel like it's like what are we expect? Are we saying that it we shouldn't expect it to be predicted ahead of time or are we saying that we should you see what I'm saying? I think either way >> I see what you're saying but I think that it also depends on a case by case basis. So I think that >> using the whole expected outcome situation with the Fatima miracle. I think it's a little bit different than the case that you're describing in which case I would say that that is far more convincing. However, I mean I haven't researched that case but I'd like to because that that is certainly a far more convincing thing if it happened. I don't think that it disproves it based on expectations because just expectations aren't going to cure blindness.
>> Okay. Well, I'm glad you mentioned that and I think we had a Do you want to bring up the Can we go over one with you real fast, Paul? Like just as an example since you brought up like >> Absolutely.
>> Cool. Because I know we had slides we're going to go over beforehand and we just jumped into because people call but >> yeah, >> I think we want to look for things that are like truly organic diseases to where even if we're granting that there's psychological predisposition, it wouldn't like explain away the physical changes in the body, right? Like obviously placebo effect can do some things. It can't make a tumor go away or make a bone heal or something like that, right? There's obviously some limitations with it physiologically. So do you want to do you have that thing?
>> Yeah, my computer is just being really slow right now. I don't know what what's happening >> in the in the meantime. I mean, I also just to point out that again, I I still I mean, I get what Fen was saying about why um you might be more inclined to believe that if the miracles are true, if you take that for uh as a given that the miracles are true, >> that um if you're assigning a na a sorry, a supernatural explanation, then it being theistic is the most um likely, I guess. But I I don't I still don't necessarily think that's true. And even if it is true, the extent to which >> I don't I just don't know how you're going to deny this cuz remember when you're trying to when you're trying to see what data point or observation you're making, right? So you can just without even labeling it a miracle. By the way, Caleb is the one that you wanted to go to the case report of instantaneous resolution.
>> Maryland.
>> Okay. Um hold on. I'm just gonna hopefully this will work. you can go ahead and answer his his making.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so because remember we don't even have to label it a miracle. We can just look like we can look at the case that we're about to go over, right? And we just have to ask like a simple question which is, >> right? Hey, you have this observation, these things happened, right? And here's one hypothesis.
>> God exists and he intervened. Here's another hypothesis.
Deism and he intervened. another hypothesis, some sort of naturalistic explanation that's super specified, whatever. You get the point, right? And the question you have to ask is what are the odds of these this particular situation happening if this hypothesis is true. So you go what are the odds of this situation if God exists? What are the odds of this situation if theism is true? What are the odds of this situation if X and Y and you get the point is true?
>> And and I I just think it's undeniably true that theism has the explanatory resources to predict for something like this, right? Because like I said, theism built into that hypothesis is the idea that go that this god does not intervene with the world. So you actually have a reason to expect that this wouldn't happen on the hypothesis of disism, right? Um where and then the the simulation theory is just underspecified, right? Like could it possibly happen on it? Sure. But we have no reason to think that like this is a thing that would um there's no reason to expect it, right? It's neither expected nor unexpected on the simulation hypothesis, >> but that doesn't make it untrue.
Right? But this is just a probability, right? Like here's an analogy. Here's an like here's an analogy really quickly.
Right? Imagine imagine um imagine that I have some pizza missing, right? I had pizza last night >> and um I'm excited. It's lunchtime. I go to my refrigerator and it's gone. Okay. And so I'm going to ask the question, well, why is my pizza gone? And my hypotheses are going to be that my wife took it. one of my kids took it and that aliens took it, right?
>> And say I know that my wife loves chicken buffalo chicken pizza. My kid and I know that my kids hate spicy stuff, right? Um it's much more likely that my wife is going to be the one that takes the pizza because it was a spicy pizza. My kids probably didn't take it, right? Because they don't like spicy stuff. And then the alien hypothesis is like, why would I ever think that aliens would take this? Right.
>> Right.
>> So, right, >> the most obvious thing would be it's my wife.
>> But then imagine my wife goes, "Well, yeah, but the fact that it makes the most sense that like I would take it doesn't make it true." I'd be like, "Well, yeah, no duh. I'm just saying like the most likely explanation given the evidence is that you took it."
>> Right.
>> Okay.
>> That's all that's being said here. I get what you're saying and I get that you're saying so I guess maybe my response of well that doesn't make it untrue isn't isn't re necessarily reasonable counterargument but I don't think I also don't think that the prior probability of Christianity being true is as high as you are assigning it.
I think that if you you have to assume that theism is true.
>> Well no >> yeah we're conditionalizing on theism.
We conditionalize all the time. So there's nothing bad.
>> But you're saying you're in other words, are you saying you're saying that you're assuming that the miracle is true or that theism is true? And if those things are true is what you're saying.
>> Nope. No.
>> Nope. No.
>> Maybe I'm misunderstanding.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm saying here is a specific state of affairs, right? Like we'll go over this miracle case, >> right?
>> Um and we're not going to label the miracle. All right. We're just going to say, >> hey, we have this diagnosis at this time. Here's the medical evidence, blah blah blah blah. this lady was prayed for, then she got healed of something instantaneously of something that you can't really get healed for from in a religious context, yada yada yada.
Right.
>> Right.
>> Um, you don't have to say anything beyond that, right? And I can go, okay, here's one hypothesis. God exists, right?
>> And it's just that's a hypothesis. It's if God exists, this makes sense. If, right, >> dism doesn't make you get the point. The same structure. Now you brought up prior probabilities but that's a different question than the question of the likelihoods right the likelihood is what is the probability of this event >> given the hypothesis in our background knowledge and so you can you can have a low prior for Christianity but I'm not talking about the posterior probability right now I'm talking about the likelihood ratio so >> um that that's the main point there that's all >> okay I mean That's fair. Uh, okay.
Instead of here, I won't respond. I'll just let >> and we'll try to wrap this up because I know that we have again not this is a great conversation and but I know that we have other people just like Stephen we had to end it early because the people in the queue just speak rush we'll go get your thoughts on it and then maybe uh moving on and maybe future. Okay, cool. So, just I won't I'm not going to read off this entire thing.
Um, this is a published study by the way. It's published in like an alternative medicine journal. So if you're curious a couple years back uh you can just Google this. It's on science direct case report of instantaneous resolution juvenile method of generation blindness after proximal intercessory prayer. It's a bit of a mouthful but basically this is a woman who's not named in the paper but her name is Marilyn Ford. Um back in the early 60s she had uh vision problems in one eye which then quickly went to the other eye. She was diagnosed with juvenile macular degeneration. Normally macular degeneration is only something that you see in older people, but juvenile, hence the name, is a genetic component that typically comes when you're much later. I believe she was in her like I was like in her 20s or 30s when she she got this. Um or I think it was like early 20s actually. But anyway, so this became a problem. The doctors observed a stock in her eye, which you can see the degradation of the macula, which is essential for sight. So she quickly got Yeah, there you go. some of her records there. She basically became legally blind. This is her admission into the Arkansas Institute for the Blind. So, she had eyesight of about 20 over 400, which uh legal blindness is 20 over 200 or worse. She she's about twice as bad as what you would have to be legally to get that. And that's corrected. So, even with that, glasses weren't going to help in that case. So, she has this in the 1960s for the whole decade. Um she has to learn how to walk with a cane, a sight cane like a Hoover cane. Um she has to learn to read Braille. She'd have this thing where she'd have to, you know, feel the letters and do that stuff like that. And um her latest observation I believe was in 1971.
There we go. Yeah. When she was admitted into the school for line, they still measured that she had uh her vision was about 20 over 400. So mind you, this is 1960 to 1971. We have a full 11 years.
No improvement recorded. And this is a disease that normally degradation of the eye. There's certain cell without getting too technical. There are certain cells in the eye that just don't regenerate like the rest of our body does. So, normally eye damage is pretty much irreversible, at least in genetic cases like this one. So, she's been blind for 11 years. Um, admitted to the Arkansas Hospital blind, all that stuff.
She's officially disabled. If you want to go to the next one, um, fan. Uh, there we go. So, in August of 1972, and there's one element here that's not mentioned in the paper, but that I know from other interviews that she's given and from other people have said, they went to a faith healing conference that night uh of a faith healer called Kathern Coleman, who was very famous in the 1970s, and nothing happened in particular. So, she went there hoping to be cured. Nothing particular happened like that. They're on their way back and when they get home, you know, obviously she's distraught and her husband's like, "Well, you know, honey, we can we can just try praying one more time." Um, and her husband's a pastor. So, I don't know how many times they had prayed before this, but this was one where they had done it. So, he gets down before they go to bed and they pray with her that God would restore her sight. And at that moment, um, when she opened her eyes, she could see again for the first time in 12 years essentially. See his face.
She got a newspaper that was brought to her and she he's like, "You can see."
She's like, "Yeah." And he rolls it up and she reads the small font down that perfectly fine. Um, another thing that's not mentioned in this study, but that she did mention elsewhere is that a few days after this happened, she had called her doctor. She went and got her eyes examined and her eyesight was uh restored, but the actual like physical aspects of it hadn't been changed and her doctor was repounded how this could be possible if like the degeneration that was there, but her eyesight was normal. Another test after this happened, then I don't know if you have that slide. Um, yeah, there you go. So I believe this is 1974 is when we have the next available records because the one a few days after this we don't have but 1974 it was measured that her eyesight was now at 20 over 100 in each eye and that's uncorrected. Um with correction it was 20 over 40 which is essentially almost normal just slightly um slightly worse than average. Um so she went from 20 over 400 uh uncorrected to 20 over 100 uncorrected which is a 400% increase.
That's remarkable. And mind you, she hadn't gotten any better in 10 years.
Uh, and she also like this is not something that normally would just reverse itself like that. So, in looking at this case, do we have any other slides on this then? Um, >> um, this is I just copy and pasted this from a talk I gave. So, >> okay, that's fine. So, the point is say without getting too technical medical details there and you're welcome to look this case up for yourself if you want.
Um, to say that this is the only exa example on record that I'm aware of.
Well, I have to caveat that other there's no other example that that I was able to find or that the people in the study also claim as well that of the juvenile macro degeneration of this kind just reversing like at this stage um without like some kind of surgical correction or something like that. And mind you, she had been this happened in the 70s. They they followed up with her.
This study was published I think in like 2019. So uh 40 years later they retested her eyes and the only thing that was abnormal is that she had just cataracts from aging but that was considered unrelated to her previous disease and that was easily treatable. So her eyes were essentially like perfectly normal for someone her age at that point. No no no signs of the disease returning and there's no other case of this going away like this except for I do know of one or two other ones where juvenile macro degeneration went away but it was also in a prayer context. So it was another context where they also were prayed for.
I don't know of a secular example I should say where it just happened to go into remission because there's not really a mechanism there that could like do this theoretically. So that kind of case you have it seems like it's a clearly a progressive disease. It seems like this isn't something that's purely psychological because when they did examine her eye later on and the in the examinations a few years later there was an objective change to the structure where the degradation was no longer there. Um, and they've done studies on like placebo effects with drugs on on this disease and it's usually minimal if at all in terms of like improvement and it's like subjective improvement.
Nothing that's like this scale of of improvement. So, I don't think psychological explanations really work.
I I don't think remission is very likely because of the history of it. Just we don't really have any good mechanisms or even examples of how this could even like theoretically happen. So, that to me seems like you could infer to say, okay, well, here's this objective change that happened that's physically hard to explain. didn't happen right when she was prayed for and they were asking God to do something that only God really can do. So, it seems like you can make a causal inference to say maybe the entity they were praying to that they were asking to answer a prayer, if a prayer prayer is answered and it's not easily answerable outside of divine intervention, maybe that's the inference we make is divine intervention.
>> Okay. Yeah. No, that's that's very fair.
And I think that, you know, I I I think I will concede um that if you do take um I can't word it as eloquently as Stan can, but um if you take um you know these inferences and and you're assuming that um for examp like you're taking the explanations what rewind the video about 10 minutes to listen to what Dan said. I'll concede that point. Um but um I think that maybe the only other kind of way that I might look at this um and it's a little bit more black and white, but I think that for this in for this case that you brought up, for example, um I think maybe the only other way to look at it from a counter perspective is that um I would look at it from a naturalist view. And I would say that if you, you know, I'm not denying that these events happened likely as described. Um, but if you take, and I'm curious because this is probably a common argument and and I would like to hear your uh answer to this, but if you have millions over the course of decades, if not centuries, of um attempted prayer healings and just healings in general, um people trying to, you know, call on God to heal them. millions of of attempts and one or two of them happen that are documented and then you say, "Oh, look, God's God answered my prayers." I think it's high much more likely. I mean, if you look at, you know, Murphy's law, for example, given an infinite amount of time um and a non-zero probability of something occurring, um it will h it will happen might happen, it will happen. So, obviously, this is a much smaller this is not an infinite amount of time. Um, but if it is a non-zero probability that this woman, for example, will could be healed, even if it's 0.1%. Um, if you look at it from a naturalist perspective, there's a 0% chance that it's God. And so, it's not crazy to h that would happen. Um, given the context and given >> when you say 0% chance, you're saying that that's the pri like unless you think that like God is like literally like contradictory, I'm not sure that we would have the priors at zero. I know what you're saying like given naturalism, but um >> yeah. Yeah. given that right. Exactly.
>> Yeah. I I would just say too because I know I know we want to move on to other people too and I really that's a good question by the way. Um I would say that just in general in the field of medicine this is not typically how we operate. Um if you know anything about I don't know if you've heard of pharmaccovigilance before it's a field of medicine that looks at like adverse reactions. So you know when you have like a drug and you have a sample of like a thousand patients who take it and two of them get a rash from it like immediately afterwards and it's really severe. Um, you wouldn't normally say, well, look, everyone else who took the drug was fine and so it can't possibly the case that this drug like is what caused them to have a rash. Um, you could say, well, no, look, people have different biologies and genetics, all that stuff like that. So, you can have when you have the list of of like side effects for a drug, right? Like it's unlikely to happen, but because it was recorded, they have to say that there's a potential causal relationship, right?
So, obviously, I understand when you have like a sample, you have to say that for a drug to be effective, it has to work for like most people in that sample. I'm not saying one-off's like you can establish that it always works, right? So the claim is not that prayer always works every time like it's some kind of drug or mechanism. I'm not looking for FDA approval here, but to say that like on occasion you can say yes, some someone has an adverse side effect to a drug that most people don't have. You can still say if the if the evidence is good enough, yeah, the drug could have caused them to have that adverse effect in this case for these reasons and maybe not for the rest of the people. And in the same way, I think you can say yes, in this case the prayer happened to have this effect because God obviously is an agent. he's not like bound by mechanisms as if he's required to answer every prayer that's given to him, right? If he has freedom to choose, you'd expect it to be a little bit less consistent. So, I guess with that, I just don't see the the the statistics thing as being it's not irrelevant, but like certainly if an amputee got a leg back, you wouldn't just say, well, given the amount of amputees and like given the amount of of genetic mutations, you're bound to get at least one who just happens to grow a leg back like that. Like I don't think most people would find that very convincing. Of course, but I think that's where it kind of like I said earlier comes on a case to case basis like the Fatima might have a different criteria for sure um believing is true compared to a medical miracle or something like that. But anyway, yeah. No, I don't want to uh take up too much for you guys. I don't know you. One thing I one thing I one thing I would just want to add in really quick too, Paul, is like I'm sympathetic to the idea that you have other reasons for thinking the prior probability of Christianity is low, right? like you probably look at the Bible and we need to talk about the war text and all this other stuff. you probably look at suffering and hiddenenness and we have to have convers um and so that that's where I'm going to give the um the same idea to that to you that I gave to the previous guy which was like hey in these contexts where we're talking about a very specific topic I think it's only fair to conditionalize on both sets of priors right where so one set of priors where it's like your scenario and one set of priors where it's like hey um we'll remove some of our own conclusions and say theism um and we have like a useful theodyssey and maybe let's just say like we have a way of reading the Old Testament that um dissolves some of these worries or whatever you want to say, right? Like I think that's the best way to go about this. It's I just call it the running the numbers twice technique. Um >> if that makes sense. Like I think that's the way to go about things so that way you can actually reasonably argue about >> what the evidential force is of these particular cases um on both accounts. Um there's nothing wrong with what you're doing. I really want like I I want to I don't want you to feel invalidated in in that like you that is the rational thing for you to do is you have these previous commits per uh commitments you have this background beliefs background knowledge um you and I disagree on those sets of beliefs and background knowledge and we can dispute those but you're doing the rational thing by conditionalizing on those. So there's nothing wrong with what you're doing there. It's more of just >> yeah, >> the what do you do in these scenarios kind of thing. And I think that's the best way to go about it.
>> Yeah. Fair. Yeah, that's fair. And that's why I think that >> Yeah. Yeah. And I, like I said before, Stan's explanation of the of that conditionalizing. Um, and I was, you know, I am willing to concede that point because that is a really good point.
>> Um, >> I appreciate it, man.
>> But, uh, yeah, of course. But, uh, >> this is why I love talking to skeptics.
Oh my gosh, bro. You got like >> cleanser. Mike Mike just drags me into this da scene and it's like just a big chest thumping thing. But in and then the skeptics it's like you might you can make a good point. I'm going to be like yeah I'll have to think about that and I can make a good point. Like yeah have to think about that. It's it's so >> how do three how do three equal one?
>> Therapy. This is therapy to me. Paul, [laughter] >> I'm glad I could uh be of some help. But uh anyway, all right. I'll let you guys go. Thank you so much for the conversation that uh I have a lot to think about and I'm definitely going to read that book. Caleb, is it out or are you dropping it?
>> H that's a [laughter] great question. I don't >> I've been yelling at Caleb for years.
>> I know it's been it's been in the works since 21. So, you know, we'll we'll see what happen. But look, I now have a Substack. I have a Substack now and I have an academia. So, if you want a pal if you want a preview, check some of that stuff out.
But Paul, between Caleb and I, we have books that we are writing but haven't been able to publish because we're so busy that I think you would interest you in a bunch of different areas. I have a theodysy that >> I have a theodysy, it's called the cosmic story theodysy that I think you would find very interesting because it's probably not unlike it's probably unlike anything you've heard before.
>> Um Okay.
>> And I have a book uh that I'm writing on Old Testament like difficult to deal with stuff in general. Um, okay. So, >> and hey, Paul, if you want to hit me up on Facebook Messenger or even email me, it's you can find in the academia like I'm more than happy to send you draft chapters of the book if you want to see some of them just to give you an idea.
So, >> yeah, I think I definitely will do that.
I definitely I started lightly researching um beesian I guess what would you call that? [clears throat] Logic. Um, >> just based off of >> Okay. Yeah.
>> Go check out um we have our inspiring philosophy academy page. Um, we did a stream intro to Beijian epistemology stuff. Uh, okay.
>> You can go check that out. Um, but also we're gonna be we have I'm I'm currently working with a few of like the world's leading scholars in probability theory and epistemology and we're actually building a course that we'll be putting out for you.
>> Yeah.
>> Oh, that's awesome. Okay. All right.
I'll check that out.
>> Bartman's courses that he always sells on >> Bartman the the profit of base. Richard Kerry has courses, too, that he charges people a lot of money for.
>> Oh my goodness. Okay, >> I'm sure he does. I'm sure he does.
>> I'll catch you later, Paul. Thanks for stopping by.
>> All right, man. Yeah. Thanks again.
Peace, guys.
>> See you, Paul. Thanks.
>> All right.
>> Hey, you need like a cut off probably like 3:15 my time, so 2:15 your time, just so you know.
>> Cool. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't think we'd go past two hours anyway. So, >> it's good. I know. I'm glad we have a lot of people waiting. I just feel >> we got people waiting. We got super chats. I'll say this because I see people I saw some people talking about the book in the chat too. Um guys, if you want the sooner, okay, let's put it this way. If you want my books to come out, like I want to I'll finish my Cosmic Story, the Odyssey book first, most likely. Here's the dream scenario.
A rich millionaire is like, "Man, I got like some money I need to get rid of."
And then goes up to Mike and goes, "How much would it cost?" Like how much money would you lose if Mike if Than just didn't do content for two months? Mike tells that millionaire that number and goes, "Here's the donation. Let Than finished the book." That's the dream scenario.
>> $50, right? Something like that.
>> Yeah. Be a little higher than that.
[laughter] >> All right, let's do some super chats and we'll bring up the next guest.
>> Cool. Um, if I accept miracles but also think the think other evidence like historical issues point in the other direction, what should I make of that?
>> Does he mean historical issues with like the >> probably the gospel knowing Koopa like Yeah. New Testament.
>> I think I've talked to him before. Yeah.
Well, I mean that's that's actually a really good question too. I mean again it depends on what the miracles vindicating and I I don't think you have to hold to inherency. You can think that the Bible is not inherent and yet think that Jesus rose from the dead or something. So I don't think it's logically an issue um necessarily. I would also say that the historical issues you might have might be bolstered by the miracles where if you have issues believing in some things. If you have really good reason to think Christianity is true or that the miracles happen, maybe you should reconsider sort of your your doubts about the particular thing because history is obviously a lot harder, right? It's hard. It's like there's a lot of stuff we don't know and there's a lot of I'm sure fan can give you a whole lecture about the the flaws of of New Testament scholarship. Dude, I've had I've had four New Testament scholars, mind you, in private phone calls so far that are not friendly to Christianity concede to my position.
>> Yeah. Where just the the methods are just I'm not saying that it's like a useless endeavor, but they are so speculative and there's so much we just are guessing at. So I it's not that history is not important, but I don't think that like it's hard for me to think that like a historical issue is going to be a defeater for something that's like a blatant miracle because I feel like the evidence we have for those is just a lot more cut and dry than the historical suffering. I I'll say this too cuz like I don't know what he means by historical issues but if if all we mean by historical issues is something like um he cuz he knows I'm a maximalist. Right. So maybe he just thinks >> yeah historical remorage model is not true and all we really have is like the classical minimal facts. Right.
>> Right. Well, if you're convinced of the miracle claims, right, that and then you go to the historical data and you have this really skeptical model of the gospel still and you just have the bare minimal facts. Well, if the prior probability of the resurrection is super high because you already believe in the miracle claims when you go to the history, at the end of the day, it's not really going to be a big deal. Does that make sense? Like >> so I like I actually think you can come to belief in the resurrection of Jesus independent of the historical data. Um like I think you can get rid of the gospels. Well, I don't want to say get rid of them because they're going to be like our primary sources in terms of just the origins of the belief. So like that qualify like don't hold on them too strongly in terms of like reliable.
>> Yeah, exactly. Like you could theoretically think they're completely mythic and they just have semblances of history. But like if all the other evidence that we look at for Christianity is really strong and you think like before you get to that his particular question about the the gospels, right? If you think the priors are high, then it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. You you you get what I'm trying to say?
>> Yeah.
>> Um it's going to be trivial.
Okay. You're all fairly quiet, but Than is significantly louder. Oh, I saw this earlier. Um, but I think I fixed it on chat. Let me know if that that is not fixed. Thank you though.
Um, where's IP? Why is he running?
>> That's funny.
>> That's funny, man. Thank you for the five memberships.
Um, hey Than, you're doing amazing work and making a difference. I am sorry for the hard areas. I'm praying for you and would love to talk sometime. A >> there's a lot of fan hate going on lately and I don't know why. So this >> I don't see >> I actually I actually don't know. I actually don't know. Some people say I'm boring.
>> Oh, that that is true, but it's like in a in a lovable way. So >> I am I I look I'm not as entertaining as most of the other people right now.
>> We need like an Andrew Wilson. Just someone who's just going to be absolutely Look, I'm not like that man. I'm a >> teddy bear.
>> I am. I am.
Um, KJV Kuran coming [laughter] soon.
>> I buy it.
>> Bark Bark, it's all fan now. That's right. Um, how would you all address the sort of neoposianism where God's an eternal deterministic generator of reality so miracles can occur nonspersonally? Um, if I'm understanding this correctly, right, the miracles are still going to be unexpected because if everything is just kind of deterministic, um, this this seems structurally similar to like the unknown natural law hypothesis and the problems with that, right? Which is basically like if there's a deterministic system that outputs these miracles, then the question is, well, why can't we replicate them?
like if it's some deterministic system, we should be able to find a way to replicate them and we haven't. And that's going to be really strong evidence against the miracle the the deterministic hypothesis. And I would just add in one more thing which would be like there's a disparity um of these miracles happening in religious contexts. And the problem is somebody might go well that's that's the point. It's a deterministic part of it. You can replicate it through. But it's like, no, you can't because it's not like I can sm say some magic words and then like this happens, right? Like it it just doesn't fit very well. Do you have any >> Yeah, you're going to posit that the deterministic pantheistic universe also like has a religious predisposition which is also kind of weird if you're talking about a non-personal deity like that at that point it just seems like it's indistinguishable from the the other things in the hypothesis.
>> All right. Um, uh, we'll do one more here and then we'll get to the next guest. Um, sorry this is a little off topic, but what are your guys' thoughts on Matthew Bates's work on the gospel and faith as allegiance in the New Testament? Um, it's been a while since I've read that work of his, but I agree with him. Like I think faith properly defined is not just like blind as the new atheist would have you say, right? Um, believing what you know ain't so or whatever that guy, Peter, uh, Pete, what what's the guy's name? Do you remember that philosopher's name?
>> I'm sorry. Who said what?
>> Believing what you know is faith. Yeah, there there you go.
>> Yeah.
>> I think faith is a believing loyalty in the promises of God.
>> Um so like allegiance is a good word. Um another analogy I like to draw is like faltty, right? So if you think like medieval knights, um when when the knight's getting kned, the queen goes like pledge your faily to me, right?
It's this undying unwavering allegiance to the queen. Um, and that encapsulates the same sort of posture that God is asking of us when we are told to have faith. Do you have any thoughts on that, Caleb?
>> No, I think that's really beautifully said though.
>> Okay, next caller.
Hegel, you back from the dead. It's a miracle.
>> Looks like our >> How's it going, brother? How you doing?
Hello be. Hello Calip. How are you doing?
>> I'm doing good. Thanks for asking.
Hegel.
>> Yeah. So basically I'm not very well read. So it's also a learning experience for me and I like not even read a lot of epistemology. Um like I started reading about epistemology in 2026.
Uh and I was like making an argument why miracles can't happen. And I have to uh go through the old books like I have to go through like [ __ ] or Russell because I have read it in old times and I I was thinking that I can make an argument that miracles cannot happen like period because I'm like proposing a system where induction is something that if induction is true miracles can't happen.
Induction is true and therefore miracles can't happen. But like I have not um read a lot of about like I have read you but the thing with you with you David Hume is like when he argues that miracles can't happen in the same book like uh he argues that induction is not reliable. So it's a funny thing that >> right it's true. Yeah. So, so it's the like a funny thing because uh you are denying induction and you are also saying like miracles can't happen like that's a contradictory thing and I was thinking that if I can prove that induction is true then the chance of makers happening is very low or like makers can't happen in any shape or form if induction is true. Well, then that's a lot stronger than I was say that's a lot stronger than I think Hume, as I understand him, is saying that even if miracles happen, we can't know it. Like, you wouldn't be justified in believing one. But, you know, he's not going to say like I can prove that it didn't happen, but like you ought not believe in it rationally.
>> Um, so if you're saying that we can logically that they >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm disagreeing with Y. Um uh and the thing with you and Russell or even led Wikenstein um like philosopher who deny induction and who are skeptical of induct inductive reasoning um they they actually propose pretty good arguments against induction like the problem of induction or leinstein argument in philosophical in investigation against induction or Russell argument against induction the famous example of the Can these are good examples or counter arguments but I think like we can make a point that um induction is something pragmatic and scientist and other people who work in scientific field believe in induction for a pragmatic goal to achieve u to have utility in sciences.
>> Yeah. And I think that this is I mean so that would be definitely a different approach. I think most people when we talk about this are going to be very like naturalistic like very pro-scient like scientific realist almost. And so I think the argument that I would generally make is to say that well look if you think that science is successful and you can make inferences based off of the scientific method then we can apply the same general standards in that case.
Um, if your if your question is more about like the general ontology of inference, then yeah, that's going to be sort of a more difficult thing to to go about because I think that's like a quite a radical view that's like very unintuitive to most people. Um, but yeah, I think the success of science really the progress of science really requires us to be able to make new discoveries even when it contradicts our background information at least initially. So, um I don't know. I don't know if F if you have any thoughts on on more of the inductive aspect behind it, but again like I I guess I just don't really see where >> Guys, what do you think about Sorry, cutting you off Caleb.
>> No, no, you're good. You're good. Good guys.
>> So, what do you think about like presupposing induction? Because it works or like as a pragmatic goal. So, in like epistemology, we sometimes presuppose something like we presuppose laws of logic orality.
>> Yeah. But we don't have we can actually prove it like we can't prove laws of logic or causality. We just assume it's true a presupposition true. So what do you think guys like can we presuppose induction because it has a utility and pragmatic reasons.
>> Well sure and I think that that's that's kind of like a properly basic belief though isn't it? Like you're right that we can't you can establish correlation.
You can't establish ultimate causation.
But I can't establish that I'm talking to you and that I'm not in a matrix or that that you have a mind, right? But like I even though I I grant that it's useful, I don't think that that means it's not true. It's just sort of a seeming that I have that I think you know and I I as in like almost everyone has. Um where it's like you don't really always have to be able to prove something. Um sometimes you can have really strong seemings that are justified to believe because you don't have a good defeater for them. And so induction would be one of the most fundamental one of those. So I guess I could just say like if you mean like I can't absolutely with 100% certainty know that it's true. Fine. But that's that's trivally true because that's that would be true of the vast majority of things. But um because it seems obvious to me, I don't have a good reason to think that it's not true. I I'm warranted to believe that it's in fact the case.
>> Yeah. Um real quick, cuz like No, no, you're good, bro. Um, I have a really I mean there's a bunch of ways this interacts, but I'm gonna keep it short and sweet to the point here and hopefully you can just appreciate for the sake of it being YouTube stream, right? Um, I'm going to keep it here.
>> Um, my solution to all of this is twofold. Um, I'm I'm what you would probably just call >> a near Yeah. a near radical fallibilist.
So there are only certain things that I that I think I can know with 100% certainty and those are just going to be the things that I have direct acquaintance with. Right? So I exist and there's certain logical truths that I apprehend. Right? I think I have direct acquaintance with those things. Um and from there I don't really have certainty about anything else. Right? But I can I have credences on a sliding scale. Um, and then that goes into a secondary question because epistemologists are going to debate what is knowledge is what's it justified true belief blah blah blah. And my approach to that whole thing is to go I don't care.
[laughter] I don't care how you define knowledge. I don't care if you think I have it or not. Right? Um, all I really care about at the end of the day is is the probability of this thing being true higher than the other thing being true.
Do you know I'm going to proportion my beliefs to the evidence? Right.
>> Yeah.
>> So then like >> yeah sorry cutting you off but no you're good.
>> So then I have not read u Beijian astronomy and that like I have math book my math book uh it discusses bijian astronomology but not in a great extent but yeah but I was watching a video about you in planet Peterson and there the guy who >> yeah I already reached out to that philosopher. They made a few mistakes.
um they made the same mistakes Pelogia made when they were responding to that critique. So if you want to understand a little bit of the mistakes that were happening there, I would go to Lydia Mcgru's channel. um her and I I think there's nine videos out right now where we're talking about the mistakes people have made when they critique >> Sutan like uh Stanford encyclopedia philosophy has a section on miracles and basically you can categorize this into like you make an an inductive argument like induction is true and miracles can't happen and you even can make an uh argument like uh like in the uh in the article of Stanford encyclopedia philosophy on miracles section They were making an amian argument like according to >> that's Tim Tim Mcgru is the one who wrote it. He's a he's one of my mentors.
>> He's the husband of Lydia Mcru too but they're both friends at >> so >> yeah they're basically second sets of parents to me at this point. So even if you like use basian epistemology it's not necessarily that you can have a conclusion like thank Christophus you can have a conclusion from atheism like you can use basium to prove atheism or make us can't happen in a probabilistic sense.
>> Oh yeah I mean so um I let's put it this way um and hopefully this doesn't come out the wrong way. think I think that's an objection that's born out of being uninformed on the literature when it comes to Beijian epistemology cuz because here's the other thing. Um, here's if if this was a if this was a good objection to Beijian epistemology, well, it's also a really good objection to classical approaches to knowledge, right? So, for instance, um, you can use deductive arguments to prove Socrates is not a man.
>> I mean, it's that Socrates is a human, >> right? But you can also use the deductive argument to try to prove that Socrates is a woman, [laughter] >> right? Like just because you can in principle try to do something by using a particular tool and people can use the tool in different ways to get to different conclusions doesn't mean that the tool in of itself is bad. It just means that some people suck at using the tool. And I'm going to argue that the people that disagree with me are the ones that suck at using the tool.
[laughter] I'm not going to go that far.
Like Paul Draper is a is an agnostic philosopher whom I really respect and he uses bays as an apparatus to um talk about these things but he comes to different conclusions than I do. Um if you know who Paul Draper is do you know who he is Hegel?
Um no I'm not know him butt only know like few people I only few people I know you um the guy who is like your coworker >> in inspired philosophy academic >> I know the guy who wrote the article in SAP and I know one from internet encyclopedia philosophy and the guy who appeared on planet circle I only know these people >> okay yeah Paul Draper is probably like I would say the world's leading non-theistic philosopher out there right now. Um, and just to like put this into perspective, like he is he has a paper coming out in November and in that paper he's arguing for a low prior probability of the resurrection. And Caleb, you were there >> for this, right? Like >> Draper, the world's leading philosopher in that's non-theistic who uses basis and apparatus like I helped him improve his argument for that paper. So, it's like there's a there's there's so much nuance and there's so much things there's there's so many things to appreciate when it comes to these things. Um, I would definitely go check out our uh introduction on inspiring philosophy academy >> to Beijian Epismology.
>> Watch your video. Yeah, I watched >> we're going to do a lot more on that too.
>> Appreciate and I do want to just Hey, I appreciate you being so respectful. We do have a lot of people in the Q&A.
We're trying not to go over >> We're going to get back on.
>> I hate to cut you off. We have other people but hey really appreciate you being respectful and feel free to >> Sure. But can I make a >> I can make one one last point if you want. Yeah.
>> Yeah. So I would say like a miracle doesn't prove um like a type of like a god because in like eastern part there are religions who believe in supernatural like Buddhism or like any type of um rel religion in eastern part who doesn't believe in god but still they believe in miracles supernatural stuff. So I don't know how you can make an argument that uh makers is uh more rational in a theistic model where there are atheistic models.
>> Mhm.
>> Not [clears throat] necessarily atheistic but a model where there's no words still there are miracles and supernatural limits. Okay. By >> no you're good. And just very very short version of that it depends on what models you're predicting and what we'd have to get into what the models anticipate but that would be a whole another conversation. So you're right but I I appreciate it. He go hey thanks for calling in. I'm sure we'll talk this conversation again sometime soon.
>> Have a good >> [ __ ] >> All right, let's um there's some super chats we got to get to, but I'll save those for the end. I'm just going to try to power us through.
>> I'm going to try these to under 10 minutes if we can for person just because I don't know how many more we have left. But >> there's a guy named Prophet Hume that I want to try to get to.
>> Funny.
want to talk about.
>> I want to get to the people that have been here for a while and then hopefully >> I want people have been here for a while just to be respectful of their time.
>> All right. Absolut can hear us.
>> I'm Am I audible?
>> Yes, you are.
>> Good. Yep.
>> Yeah. Nice to meet you both. Nice to meet you, Caleb. And nice to meet you, Shake Tan. Mohamad Muhammad Zatan.
>> Yeah. So, [laughter] >> are you a Muslim?
>> Yes.
>> No. No. No. I'm not a Muslim. I mean I I was a Muslim. I was a Muslim but I'm not.
>> Yeah. So I am.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean primarily because of the basian Islamic dialogue I would say.
So credit.
>> Oh I remember you. Okay. Cool. Cool.
Cool. Okay.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So I mean as you know I am a theist. So I mean you might not remember but I am a generic theist. You can say I'm a I I prefer perfect being theism over other theistic models.
>> Mhm.
>> And uh so I have two questions related to the stream. Um so I think the miracle modern miracle cases um does increase the probability of theism in general and perfect being theism in specific.
>> Um [clears throat] but I am not sure that uh it increases the probability of Christianity over other religions. So I have two points related to that. So uh I feel like uh so these modern miracle cases have been u like you Caleb started working and then there is Kina's work Dr. Kina's work on it right so it appears that the sampling of these miracle cases the allegedly miracle cases have been solely focused on Christian cont in the Christian context like the uh whatever the alleged miracles that have happened. So for me to say so what do you think about it? So for me to say that uh a miracle the these kinds of miracles are evidence of Christianity over other religions. Let's just say I don't know uh Hinduism, Buddhism or whatever. uh you have to have some kind of representative samples of alleged miracles from different religions and then you find that oh Christian miracles are found to be non-explainable naturalistically and they are in the religious context and whereas the other religion either uh are explained naturally or it appears that they are creating some kind of um let's just say non moral uh fruits let's just say uh in in the sense that non-moral consequences, immoral consequences and they might have a satanic origin or something like that.
So first point is that and I can say the second point you can respond to both of them and since you have a lot of people you would like to finish it up.
>> Yeah. Um I I'll I'll make a really quick point on this and then Caleb you can say something if you want to >> for the disparity of like observed like basically it sounds like you're pointing to like a selection bias effect, right?
We have all these Christian miracles.
>> Now so here has been my consistent challenge. Um, one if because I have been scouring I have been scouring for non-Christian miracles that actually like match the qualitative force, meet the same criteria, the Lamberti criteria, all this other stuff. Um, and so basically like I'm I've been scouring I've been scouring for Islamic ones, Hindu ones, all this other stuff. And most of the time what ends up happening is I hear miracle claims but more often than not they're hundreds of years and hundreds of miles distanced from the alleged original event. So for example like somebody will say 200 years later that a pl that a miracle happened um 300 miles away and they'll say something like olive oil dripped from the statue's eyes. Right? And for me, I'm like, okay, I have no re like I have no reason to even like take this seriously because there's no sources.
All we have is one source and this one source is so distant. And you get the point, right? And so I've been scouring because the Christian miracles that Caleb and I have accumulated, you have immediate proclamations in a religious context. We have medical documentation before and after. You you get the point, right?
>> And so we we we have a disparity Um, but I don't know that it is truly out of a selection bias. Mainly just because it it's either going to be the case that people are just not reporting those miracles in the in these other religions, which I would find really difficult to believe. Um, >> or it's the case that miracles of the same quality and testimony of the same quality is just not arising in these other religious contexts.
>> And that's a good point. And I just would say too, I think the fact that there is a selection bias because western Christianity happens in a world where there's typically better do just you know medical documentation stuff like that then you might get some more rural places in India or >> the Congo or whatever. So that's true.
But I would also say that if he if this is a different kind of theism under a different model where it's some other religion or general theism God is not bound by our sampling model like if he really wanted to he could provide a really really good case that like was able to overcome that outside of you know documentation whatever. So I I don't see it as being like foregone. And I don't think you like within Christianity, especially within Catholicism, but recently within Pentecostalism too, you have this whole system to where it has to go through an entire review of like doctors who have like a panel that has to investigate it and they have to approve it and has to get and this like entire like system of like appeals appealing courts and all that stuff like that. You really don't have that in the other religion because it's not as organized um in most other cases. Um so that's that's one thing.
But like I do know of like Sai Sai Baba's alleged miracles. I know of like rainbow bodies and Buddhism and you get some really there. I don't I don't think that there's nothing there. I think that a lot of people really did see something weird. But I'm just hesitant because normally there these aren't happening where there's really good controls >> or anything like that. Um and that that's kind of what I'd be worried like if you have something like Zyun, right, which is an Egyptian marriage apparition that happened literally hundreds of thousands if not a million people saw.
It's like I don't know anything like that that big scale in another religion to my knowledge. Um, so that I'm not saying that it's impossible that you couldn't ever do that. Nothing would convince me. But I think you have to look at that evidentially. Um, and one one other thing I would say too is I think that the the prevalence of Christianity religion is some evidence that it's true. It doesn't it doesn't defi definitively make it true, but like um you know there was a miracle that happened in some random African tribe to like two people and this was meant to be a vindication miracle that was like this is the true religion. It'd be weird that God would just like not at all make this like apparent and like it would only be in this religion. Same with any religion that's died out like the ancient Greek religions, ancient Roman ones. I guess God just stopped caring. I guess just stopped caring after the year, you know, 500 AD or whatever. Um, so like you'd expect I think you'd expect that Christian miracles or the Christian story associated with those miracles would continue to spread across the world and across all cultures. And I think that's really what you do see um within Christianity, especially right now with Pentecostalism in like Africa and Asia. It's a huge huge expansion.
Um, so you get a lot of that in Islam too. I grant that in Mormonism. So it's not like Christian is the only religion that's growing globally, but it is a pretty small sect. I I I don't think Hinduism really falls into that. I don't think Buddhism does, Judaism doesn't. So you could I think with that criteria, you could narrow it down to a handful of religions compared to the thousands that have existed in human history in terms of like cultural appeal and inclusivity.
If you think God is inclusive and wants like all tribes and tongues to know him, which I I would I think perfect be being theism would be consistent with that.
Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.
Uh but I have a little bit of reservations. Can I say one more point?
>> Yeah. Counterpoint related to that.
Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> So I mean I don't know what your um sectarian allegiances are. I mean uh I don't want to like question or question it or anything just that like I mean you might do would you say that like let's just say ukaristic miracles >> or like miracles of like some Christian saints like would [clears throat] give credence to uh a sect of Christianity that holds ukarists uh or the sect of Christianity that takes saints are alive.
I mean would you say that or would you say that it is just a generic uh increasing >> so so let's let's put it this way for now because this is a question Caleb and I we literally talked about this last week I think where we're trying to model this out >> um right >> so >> it's a great question though I wonder this I asked the same question sometimes I was out >> yeah yeah so [laughter] so this is something that Caleb and I are still modeling out um for the purposes of this stream I'll say this Right? That is an in-house question, right? [laughter] That is an in-house question, not a is Christianity true question. So at bare minimum, right? Like when you're asking that question, you're already presupposing that these miracles are like evidence for Christianity simplicity or me like what people would call mere Christianity, right? Um >> I would say it's like a conditional statement like if Christianity were true would you say this thing like like that.
>> Yeah. Exactly.
>> And and just to just to see just to see whether uh the criteria is consistent in that sense.
>> So yeah for like for using miracles for Christianity over above other religions rather than just perfect being theism.
So h I I I would like to just say one more thing and just uh I mean you have if we can make if we can make it quick anyway then I'm sorry Absol I like you man but we we got to try to get through people.
>> Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Nice to meet you.
>> So um oh you are allowing me to say one more thing. Okay. I I'll just I'll just say that last time I was discussing with I mean I was in the live stream related to anomastic congruence discussing about congruence and and uh like I I got to know about Lydia and I I watched all the videos of B skeptics and resurrection.
It was like uh you would say a firepower. Uh I mean Lydia is like a beast. I mean it was a very good case.
Yeah.
>> I mean I am still looking into it. Uh I would say and um um uh so just one last thing um so this is related to the previous question related to like neopenosian uh view of determinism and stuff like that. So do you think like uh a kind of psychophysical law uh so let's just say let's just assume I mean I'm a dualist so there is downward causation and then some mind can interact with matter and stuff like that. So do you think that there is some kind whether it can be explained with some kind of psychophysical law where like under certain conditions of like certain material condition and certain intentions like these prayer context or religious context give rise to these healings. So, so I'm open to these paranormal phenomena where like people get so I'm not saying they happen necessarily but it's just that they get some kind of information about future or they they are able to do something and there is paran parasychology community is like still debating about it but if we allow for that possibility then these kinds of explanation might also be involved and you will have to compete it with Christianity over like some kind of anomalous uh psychology basic that real quick just just so I think that the parasychology analogy is interesting. I don't think that it's really that convincing because I just even if I grant that there are some studies that show that there's like a slight statistical um significance between people like you know it' be like guessing numbers and chance predicts that they'll get one out of 50 and they end up getting like five out of 50 right where it's like statistically significant but it's still not like they got 50 out of it's not like perfect. So I think that in in my reading of the parasychology literature, which I've read a decent amount, I've never seen like healings that fulfill something like the Lamberti criteria where it's that dramatic and that intense in terms of like, you know, complete instantaneous healings from years of disability, whatever it is. Um, so I think that the religious exclusivism aspect favors the theistic uh one. I also say that you also have context where people are seeing like Jesus appeared to them and healed them or Mary appeared to them and healed them or saints appeared to them and healed them.
And so it's like then you're gonna have to say well there's some psychology thing where they're projecting this person onto it and that but I think that that becomes a bit more ad hoc and it seems like if you have that direct inference then it's like you can make to say no it's like a personal agent who's who's he which is what the patient thinks. So that's just how >> the the the last thing I'll just add in re really quickly is I actually don't see that the psychophysical law hypothesis is going to be mutually exclusive to the Christian hypothesis because um for instance maybe it's just the case like because psychophysical law hypothesis is not going to explain everything because one of the data points is going to be the disparity between Christian miracles the quality of them the frequency of them relative to non-Christian miracles right and so if you input if you conditionalize on psychophysical laws that disparity doesn't get made sense of. But say you input the psychophysical laws in conjunction with Christianity. Well, now all of a sudden everything makes sense, >> right?
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> So, so that's just like another way to look at things. I'm not saying I believe this psychophysical law hypothesis, but I'm saying it's like it wouldn't be mutually exclusive. If anything, it might just help make sense of more data depending on how you cash things out.
>> So, I mean point is that background knowledge would rule out most of the anomalous psychological explanations.
And you are saying that like why only Christian miracles in psychophysical law? So that would give us credence for Christianity over others if I'm right.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for discussing.
>> Yeah.
>> Catch you later, brother.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
Let's try to go through this fast.
>> This is good.
>> Lea, >> can you hear us? Uh, it says Elia.
>> Elia. Okay.
>> Yeah. Elia. Yeah. So, I just real quick I have a question.
>> Okay.
>> Did the creator Yah as in hallelujah in the Torah in the Tanakh, the power of Abraham, Isaac, and the Israelites through his prophets. Did he ever once say these words, Christ to rise from the dead on the third day?
Okay. Well, that's not what we're talking about today.
>> I don't feel like dealing with that right now.
>> Yeah. Um, >> but we got CJ here, man. This is the guy I'm excited about. What's up, my man?
>> What's good? It's good to be back.
[laughter] >> Yeah. All right. We're not We're not starting fights with Muslims and Hebrew >> Israelites. Israelites. Yeah. [laughter] Look, if this was earlier in the stream and I didn't have the motivation to come and get you next, um, I would I would I would I would have fought a little bit, but >> thank you, fan.
>> It's good to be here.
>> Nice to see you.
>> It's good to see you.
>> Yeah, I've got a few questions I'm going to go through real quick. So, the h I think the first one you guys you guys have answered some of these to some extent throughout the stream and I think I've slowly been feeling my confidence in the argument go up a little bit more like uh my confidence in the fine-tuning argument where I just can't see a very good response to it. But, um I was wondering about like anomalies, the idea of anomalies in science, right? And if you get enough cases, right, like you're going to get some anomalies. And I was wondering if a naturalist might suggest that on naturalism it is probable that there would be some anomalies that would happen here and there that might happen in religious contexts uh that we might then be able to group up into this group of what seems like a lot of miracles occurring. Um >> yeah, I guess that's my first >> Yeah. I mean, I would say yes, but I think that you had to get more specific because I I think the Lamborghini criter actually I have it I'll go over this in the book, but you know, it's not we're not just saying it's inexplicable, therefore, and it have a religious context, therefore it's a miracle, right? I think it depends on like what what we mean by explicable. So, like I give an example, a real life case, I think it's from 2007 of a guy in New York City who fell off of a he was cleaning a window. you know those big things they used to clear the skyscrapers and he falls off and and crashes and survives which is incredible you that he would survive hundreds and hundreds of feet onto concrete but of course he had to have surgery he had to have rehabilitation and had a very a lot of medical intervention so we don't know why he survived it seems very unlikely that he would have but you know he also got better through medicine and re it's not like completely counter to how we understand natural laws right whereas if you imagine had he like splatted on the ground and then someone prayed for him and then the got sucked back up and then bones back together. We wouldn't just say, "Well, anomalies happen. That's weird." No, you would say that's like so counterveailing to natural laws that you wouldn't like >> be rational and just proposing it's just some weird natural law we don't understand yet. But in the first case, you could. So, it depends on like how how unlaw.
So, that's what I think Lambertini criteria are are meant for. It's not just this is weird, we don't understand it. It's that this doesn't resemble anything of how medicine even like is supposed to work. So I think you have to get really specific on what the anomaly entails and that's how I would say it.
So um yeah there of course there's plenty of anomalies in medicine all the time but it really depends on like how how contrary to our models is that is that anomaly. So that's I think something I would generically say.
>> Um CJ, this is something worth considering too. Um did you watch the stream I did? Well actually Caleb was there too. Uh we did it on capturing Christianity talking about miracles.
No, I haven't I haven't watched that yet. No.
>> Okay. So, there's a really important point that Trent and I were trying to get across there. Um, we weren't able to unpack it all the way, but the basic idea is like you have to you have to be you have to be consistent with the amount of specificity you're talking about, right? So, what I'm talking about is you know do you know what a type token distinction is?
>> Yes.
>> Okay. Okay. So, let's say anomalies is the type, right?
>> Mhm. um any specific we'll just say like every specific alleged miracle instance would just be a token of the type anomaly then right >> um and so it'd be fine to say something like naturalism you know under naturalism you might expect some anomalies for XYZ reasons right >> but then the problem is once you specify on the token instance you're going to you're going to have a problem um because Christianity is going to predict for those token instanc is way more than the naturalistic account with.
>> Yeah.
>> Do you get what I'm trying to get across there in terms >> it's still more plausible on Christianity because Christianity can actually have more um >> not just explanatory scope but explanatory power.
>> Yeah. And so there there's more to say there. Um but just for the instance of for the sake of time I'm not uh I think the general vibe of what I'm trying to get across I think you're you're receiving it. So >> yeah. Yeah.
>> And then I had uh just a couple more really fast ones. Um >> Okay.
>> One of them being uh thoughts on Tibetan rainbow bodies.
>> Check out Lydia Mcgru's video on this.
>> Okay.
>> So, I'm open to to that a bit more. Uh CJ, I don't really know what to make of them, but I do agree with some of the criticisms that I don't think it's like open to controlled conditions. And I know that when Dale Alson asked to go over and talk to some of the people, they told him that it's an esoteric secret and that they don't don't reveal this with outsiders. So that makes me a bit nervous. I also just said that a lot of the bodies are preserved in these like monasteries, but I don't think they let people like scientifically investigate them. Like I'd love to see that if they were open to like see what the bodies are and anything weird with that, but they're generally not allowing people to even like look into it. So to me, that's a bit suspicious. And usually when the body shrinks or disappears under like a cloth and it looks smaller.
So I think there's some like kind of trickery maybe going on there, but it's hard to say. So, I think there's just not enough there we have to really be confident in in an explanation there.
I'd like to see more more rigorous sort of controls there.
>> That makes sense. And then last one, um Than uh and Caleb, um what are your thoughts on even Ian Stevenson's work on reincarnation?
>> It's been a minute since I've read that.
Actually, it's funny you say that because >> I forgot that even existed.
>> Than and I have a friend named Daniel who who looked into this more than I have. He does a lot of the eastern stuff, but from what I remember, I think it's interesting. But I think that there's a lot of criterological issues I have with it where um he's finding like birtharks on people and they vaguely remember dying in a way when they were like, you know, these are like usually younger kids too have these past life memories. So I think reincarnation has a lot of weird metaphysical entailments that I don't think make much sense. And I'm not sure that that um and you know in some of his cases it's not a perfect match where it's like the person died uh the person died while the person was like the other person was like a toddler. So, it's not like a perfect like they died and they were born. So, you have to do a lot of weird overlapping stuff and like why did they forget about it when they're adult?
>> Um, and just quick anecdote here.
>> I remember I was at a different job a few years ago outside of a of a school and there was a people were waiting around and there was a little girl who was doing like cartwheels and and some adult was, you know, like, "Oh, that's so impressive. How long have you been doing that for?" And she's like, "I've been learning about this for uh she thought like 10 years." And this is like a four-year-old kid maybe. And he's like, "10 years? Wow. How how like how are you that old?" And so she like he the questions they were asking were implying and you could tell the kid was kind of like making up as they go. So I do wonder if that happens in this context in America.
>> I wonder that too. Yeah.
>> If you lived in a culture where this was like encouraged and people knew about like past lives like what's your past life that you'd get a lot of people who would sort of think like that and reconstruct like that. So I'm just a little bit skeptical.
>> Daniel is that Daniel apologetics you were talking about or >> No. I don't want I don't want to do this full name here, but I'm sure I could I could uh I could have him pick you up. I He's a cool guy.
>> Yeah. CJ, are we friends on Facebook?
>> Um I'll friend you. Yeah, I'm friends with I haven't friended you yet.
>> Yeah, friend me and then I'll see if I can link you up with my my my buddy um Daniel.
>> Uh I haven't thought about re that reincarnation topic enough recently. So it's like that knowledge is back here somewhere, but it's I can't pull it out to give you a meaningful answer.
>> Muslim apologetics is just about politics.
>> Yeah, >> we see >> the proof.
>> I'm literally becoming more [ __ ] as a result of this. It's >> all right.
>> That's hilarious.
>> All right. Thanks so much, CJ.
Appreciate it.
>> Talk to you soon. Thanks.
>> All right, Caleb. Uh, everybody else that's in the queue, uh, sorry, but we're we're gonna go through the last super chats here.
>> We can hold on. We can I don't mind. We can go like another Do you have to I can >> No, I because I I have to get going soon, too.
>> Okay. Well, if any of y'all want to just hit me up on >> Hey, we'll just bring you back on. We'll just bring you back on, Caleb.
>> Just another time. Okay.
>> Wait, my my headphone died. I can't hear you talking.
>> Well, if you all just want to contact, you can do email or Facebook Messenger, whatever. I'll if you have any questions, I'm more than happy to talk to you about it. So, >> oh my goodness. Well done.
[snorts] Talk real quick.
>> Talking.
>> There we go. Okay. I just have you playing through my speaker. Yeah, because I got to get going. We have super chats. Um, but people like like this topic, Caleb, so I'll just bring you back.
>> Nice. Okay. I appreciate that. So, okay, >> you can you can sandwich me in between all the responses to Muhammad Hab.
>> Oh my goodness, man. That's part of the reason I have to go. I'm getting yelled at to do something. Um, Dr. Carrier, clearly the bubble of nothing with zero properties healed the subject's eyesight.
If anybody has watched Spongebob, I'm thinking about the dirty bubble. That episode.
>> I get it. Yeah.
>> Follow Paul. Bark Bark. Um, thoughts on the probability of non-Christian theism given miracles. Um, we kind of answered this earlier, but like >> Yeah, we discussed >> I have a hard time making sense of how you're going to make Yeah, you get the point. Um, finish your book, brother. Hey.
>> Hey. I'm trying. We're trying.
>> Guys, literally just bother Mike. Just tell Mike like, "Hey, how much if you guys really want it done sooner rather than later, like tell Mike like how much money do you do do we does inspiring philosophy need for th to be able to take like two months off of content and we can see if we can fund raise or something?" Randy Bales with another gig Chad gifting of a membership.
All right. Um, have you ever heard of the 2005 story of a girl who escaped the forced marriage in Ethiopia and was supposedly guarded by lions where she was found? reported by BBC. I have not heard that.
>> I have not. That's interesting though. I need to look that up. Is it Is it implying that she like never actually got out from >> Yeah, I'm not sure. Um John, if you're listening though, email it to me.
Inspiring inspiring philosophy.com.
Um thank you for the super chats. Israel is a miracle. Attack daily but survives.
I I wouldn't classify this as a miracle.
Um I understand the rhetorical purposes that you have there. Um, but I think we got to be careful too because we don't want to call some things like these miracles. Um, I don't think they fit neatly into that category. So, Caleb, any last thoughts before we close out?
>> No, I think this is good. I'm glad we had a lot of good callers. Um, you got to meet Steve and some other ones who were great. So, uh, >> yeah, we should definitely set up like a even just a private chat with Stephen.
>> Yeah, I think that'd be great. Yeah.
Yeah, I appreciate. So, yeah, really great questions honestly from a lot of people. Um, as you said, I think that talking to the skeptics is a lot more intense.
>> Yeah. Well, yeah. The thing is with like especially with Stephen, like he's giving a lot of his personal story when we're talking and like >> I'm not going to be a dick and be like, >> "Screw your feelings, Stephen. Here's the like I don't want to do that, man."
Um, >> well, hey, I will send you I I will send you his uh he was on Derek's channel a couple months ago with he just g with the whole stream. He just gave his like anti- testimony basically. So I uh I can if you just I recommend watching that before you talk to him again where he just basically just lays down sort of what did it but uh so we don't have to make this whole thing about Stephen but just yeah and I'm glad you were able to brag on it a little bit there but yeah so yeah everyone obviously thanks for joining in um check out obviously fans and inspiring Michael inspiring philosophy >> inspiring Michael yeah that's what it's being called now yeah's getting fired actually he didn't tell you that yet uh and uh yeah you can hit me up on Substack um just started that academia has some papers that I've written on it.
Um, or just email me and the email is on the academia page if you're interested.
So, hope to be on soon, but I appreciate you having me on, Dan.
>> Cool. Thank you everybody for listening.
Until next time.
>> Appreciate you guys.
>> You made it to the end of this video, which means this message matters to you.
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