Originally posted by FreakyKBH
From your perspective, when did critical thinking begin?
I don't mean it offensively, but at what point do we stop extending to historical figures the (seemingly) inherent intellectual curiosity for which we give ourselves credit?
What makes us think our perspective and analysis ought to carry more weight than those who have gone before us?
Put another ...[text shortened]... those who claim to have had the interactions with the God of the Bible were simply easily duped?
We are not cheapening the intellectual integrity of those that came before us by saying their accounts of the supernatural are not trust-worthy** There were a great many critical thinkers back in antiquity - and I trust them in many circles of inquiry - just not when it comes to the supernatural.
The difference we have in this day and age is the access to information, and the ability to document new events in numerous formats. If a miracle really does happen, there will likely be the means to record it on an unbiased medium (like video for example), and the means for those qualified to analyse (and possibly debunk) it.
In Bible-time history the only real way (for the majority whom I believe were not literate) of documenting that (if) something miraculous happened would have been to share one's supposed experience with another by word of mouth who may or may not write it down. In this information exchange there are two sources of error:
1 - the person recounting an event in that they may omit details, over-emphasise details, purposely or inadvertently introduce details that never actually happened.
2 - the listener in that they may disregard certain details, place unwarranted emphasis on details, "fill in the gaps" with additional details that might never have happened.
Also, acknowledging that the person in 2 might have passed on this information to another person 3 (introducing another 2 sources of error - indeed one can argue that with n people in the chain from the point of experience to the physical recording of the event there are 2(n-1) sources of error), the majority of people who are said to have experienced these miracles were unlikely to have been scientifically, philosophically, or logically trained and so I can say with a certain degree of confidence that they were easily duped (as per my footnote almost also was I once!)
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** Many of us would like to believe in the supernatural and the strength of this desire can be dependent on the circumstances - but testimony is inherently untrustworthy.
Reveal Hidden ContentI, as I'm sure you are well, aware don't keep my non-belief a secret - yet I could have been forgiven for wavering in my conviction when, as I still recall today, on the night my dad died 7 years ago I felt what seemed like a hand placed on my shoulder in some re-assuring sense. Weeks later I was able to rationalise this in that it was most likely a fiction created by myself in response to having lost someone so important (I wanted to think he hadn't gone forever, and so on...). Others without that analysis would probably take it as evidence that their father was saying good-bye for one last time.