Reliance on Testimony to Miracles

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  • Humans acquire a vast amount of factual information through testimony, arguably more than they learn through experience.
  • The extensive reliance on testimony is remarkable given that one often cannot verify testimonial information.
  • What makes testimony distinct from storytelling is that it has an implicit or explicit assertion that the telling is true. The literary format and style of the Gospels is that of the ancient biography, a historiographic genre that was widely practiced in the ancient word. Thus, one can regard these accounts as a form of testimony.

A Natural History of Natural Philosophy (pp. 165-172)

A more plausible explanation is that young children are psychologically disposed to acquire knowledge through testimony and perception: the information received in this way is basic, in the sense that it is unreflective and not based on other beliefs. This leads them to the impression that they have always known these facts. Also, and perhaps more crucially, children do not make a distinction between knowledge acquired through testimony and knowledge acquired through direct experience.

…children treat testimony to scientific and religious beliefs in a similar way.

…children do not find religious testimony intrinsically more doubtful than scientific testimony.

The current empirical evidence indicates that testimony is a fundamental source of knowledge, similar to memory and perception (in line with antireductionism), but that children and adults are sensitive to cues for the reliability of informants (in line with reductionsim).

Books such as the recent Faith vs. Fact by Jerry Coyne rely on this to be the case [that testimony is a fundamental source of knowledge], while at the same time denying that such knowledge counts as knowledge. Sadly, some commenters here at TSZ believe that Coyne’s “way to knowledge” is “the only way to knowledge.” Taking Coyne’s word for it is hardly convincing.

595 thoughts on “Reliance on Testimony to Miracles”

  1. keiths,

    Yes, that’s quite right.

    The God of the Hebrew Bible is very much like the gods and goddesses worshiped by other ancient near eastern civilizations (Baal, Moloch, Asherah. He even has a proper name, which is spelled (in English letters) YHVH, the exact pronunciation of which has been forgotten.

    Fun fact 1: since pronunciation of the name was forbidden to all but the high priest, Jews formed the custom of saying the word “Adonai” — “the Lord” — whenever the YHVH appears in the text. The vowels for “Adonai” are written under the consonants for YHVH to remind us to say “Adonai” when we read YHVH. When you read the vowels as belonging to the consonants, you get “Jehovah”.

    Fun fact 2: “Elohim”, which is also translated as “God” in English, is not a proper name but means “the gods”. In Caannite religion the Elohim are the sons of El Elyon, the Most High God — one sees that name in the Hebrew Bible as well. Throughout the Hebrew Bible it is quite clear that the Israelites acknowledged the existence of other gods worshiped by other civilizations, but that YHVH was the god of the Israelites. They also thought he was more powerful than all the others gods worshiped by other civilizations.

    The God of the philosophers is a bizarre hybrid of the basically pagan god worshiped by the ancient Israelites and the Greek conception of eternal and necessary being — a conception that they developed precisely in critique of the gods as depicted by Greek myth and poetry. (This is, after all, why Plato forbids traditional Greek poets from being part of the Just City in Republic). Every major Christian, Jewish, and Islamic theologian is faced with the problem of reconciling the Hebrew Bible (and, for Christians, the Gospels) with Greco-Roman philosophy (and, beginning in the 17th-century, with science as well).

    And given how much was emotionally invested in making the attempt, it’s no surprise that Spinoza became the most hated man in Europe when he pointed out that it just can’t be done. And he was right.

  2. petrushka: Metaphor? Bring it on.

    No, I’m having far too much watching you guys wipe the floor with the literalists.

  4. I had to look that up. Found this:

    Pearoast (pee- row-st) noun. Spoonerised version of ‘repost.’ An attempt to make it sound like a cute and harmless activity , rather than irritating and shit.

    🙂

  6. Kantian Naturalist: I’m endlessly amused by how no one here is even interested in interpreting the Flood story as an allegory or metaphor.

    That’s how I take.

    Even back when I was an evangelical Christian, I took the flood story as obviously just a story — and, similarly, Adam and Eve, The Tower of Babel, Jonah, Job and probably a bunch of others.

    I notice fifthmonarchman saying that we should use our heads. I did. That’s why I concluded that these stories were fiction. I used my head and recognized the genre.

    A few years later, I used my head some more and dropped religion as a human construct.

  7. Kantian Naturalist: No, I’m having far too much watching you guys wipe the floor with the literalists.

    I’m less concerned with literalism than with people who think bronze age morality is a good model to follow. Even if they are not literalists. I will grant it is interesting to study one’s roots, but rather tragicomic to recreate ancient tribalisms.

  8. Neil Rickert: That’s how I take.

    Even back when I was an evangelical Christian, I took the flood story as obviously just a story — and, similarly, Adam and Eve, The Tower of Babel, Jonah, Job and probably a bunch of others.

    I notice fifthmonarchman saying that we should use our heads.I did.That’s why I concluded that these stories were fiction.I used my head and recognized the genre.

    A few years later, I used my head some more and dropped religion as a human construct.

    Don’t you know that God gave you a brain to shift the “burden of proof” to those trying to make sense of the text, note that no one has managed to “disprove” what never had enough evidence for it to be taken seriously in the first place, and then declare victory?

    See, mysterious things do happen.

    Glen Davidson

  10. Kantian Naturalist,

    I’m endlessly amused by how no one here is even interested in interpreting the Flood story as an allegory or metaphor.

    Up to ‘them’, I guess! I’m actually fascinated by denial-in-action, and the Flood is a particularly rich vein. It accords so little with how I would expect the world to look if it happened, I simply cannot get how people can blandly invent this or that miraculous get-out to deal with the inconvenient truths. They want to have their naturalistic cake and eat it. I spent several weeks pursuing this with Byers, and every physical impossibility was met with “yes, this could happen”. Continents burst apart by water, sediment out of nowhere, instant lithification in an aqueous environment from nothing but water pressure, subsea erosional facies and deserts, animals coming from and returning to their fossil roots, fine stratification, succession, stoichiometry, genetic bottlenecks, massively accelerated baraministic evolution, and so on and so on. All perfectly OK.

    But if people think it allegorical or metaphorical (of what, I’m not so sure), fine by me.

  11. fifthmonarchyman,

    I’m often amazed that Skeptics are stuck at the primary school level when it comes to these texts. That is exactly what I mean when I say you have rejected a straw-man

    So the flood story has to be interpreted in a way that rejects the literal meaning of the text because science has shown that story to be nonsensical.

    The resurrection story, though, that’s absolutely 100% true as written. There couldn’t possibly be a metaphor there.

  12. petrushka,

    I never understood the god of the old testament. When I asked about, I was assured that it was all fixed in the new testament, but I never saw that either. As I have said, my problem wasn’t so much with the miracles as it was moral revulsion. I spent most of my childhood thinking I must be the wrong species or something, trapped in bizarro world.

    You’ve already mentioned Abraham and Isaac, a story guaranteed to terrify every child who’s parents claim to love god. I would add the Jesus story as well. What kind of omnibenevolent deity requires blood sacrifice? It’s almost as if it were made up in a time where that was more common.

  13. GlenDavidson,

    Why not just kill Noah and his family in the flood, then resurrect them at the end?

    Because the Microsoft Certified Engineer test (aka “Have you tried rebooting?”) hadn’t been invented yet.

  15. I’m pretty sure most literalists do not really like to defend the flood, but feel compelled to defend the accuracy of biblical history lest the whole thing get pitched.

  16. petrushka,

    I’m pretty sure most literalists do not really like to defend the flood, but feel compelled to defend the accuracy of biblical history lest the whole thing get pitched.

    Yes, and it’s the same with Matthew’s made-up mass resurrection. It’s obviously fiction, but for believers to admit that calls the whole Bible into question as God’s Holy and Infallible Word.

    Those who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid see the Bible for what it is: a bunch of inaccurate and contradictory human books, thrown together by committee.

  17. Allan,

    I’m actually fascinated by denial-in-action, and the Flood is a particularly rich vein.

    Indeed. From the old thread:

    Rich:

    I seem to recall a chat with Heddle along the lines of “pre-flood, did Water not refract light to make rainbows?” Theists I’d like your views!

    keiths:

    I remember asking a fundagelical that question, probably at UD. His answer was that refraction was there all along, but it Just So Happened that no one was ever in the right place at the right time to see a rainbow until after the Flood.

    I pointed out that God, supposedly omnipresent, would have seen every pre-Flood rainbow, rendering post-Flood rainbows useless as a mnemonic device. I forget what the fundagelical’s response was, or whether he just ran away like they so often do.

  18. petrushka: I’m pretty sure most literalists do not really like to defend the flood, but feel compelled to defend the accuracy of biblical history lest the whole thing get pitched.

    Sure, that’s part of why I poke theists about the so-called truth of the NT and the general impression that god has turned into a better deity in the NT than the genocidal lord in the OT. I always assume I’m not talking to a crazy fundie until proven otherwise; I always assume they don’t take the talking snake literally, or a literal Tower of Babel, either. But if you don’t believe in the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, if you don’t believe in an unforgiving god who barred its own angels from heaven, a jealous god who would happily condemn all of its creatures to the flood, then what do we need a blood sacrifice for? We don’t need god to send one of its children to be tortured on a cross to save us!

    If you don’t believe in it all from Genesis forward, the whole project of redemption makes no sense. It requires two thousand years of rationalization and cherry picking to keep the whole thing from being pitched out as a bizarre blood-thirsty fantasy.

  19. GlenDavidson,

    Why not just kill Noah and his family in the flood, then resurrect them at the end?

    You have to work in Mysterious Ways. They could equally survive in the belly of a whale.

    But either way, who’d look after the animals? You haven’t thought it through …

  20. hotshoe,

    But if you don’t believe in the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, if you don’t believe in an unforgiving god who barred its own angels from heaven, a jealous god who would happily condemn all of its creatures to the flood, then what do we need a blood sacrifice for? We don’t need god to send one of its children to be tortured on a cross to save us!

    Which leads to spectacles like the comparatively sane Christians at BioLogos twisting themselves into pretzels to justify the historicity of Adam and Eve.

  21. Are there any Christians reading this who can do a better job than Mung and fifthmonarchyman of defending Matthew’s mass resurrection story?

  22. keiths:
    Are there any Christians reading this who can do a better job than Mung and fifthmonarchyman of defending Matthew’s mass resurrection story?

    Is it time yet for the obligatory, “Why do you hate God” question?

  25. petrushka: Is it time yet for the obligatory, “Why do you hate God” question?

    Yeah as long as we get to add this:

    A Must-Read Book for Both Christians and Atheists.

    “I’m referring to Randal Rauser’s book, Is the Atheist My Neighbor? If you haven’t read it yet, you should. But don’t take my word for it. (I’m biased as a contributor to one small part of the book.) Instead, read this recent review which appeared in the “Progressive Christian” channel here on Patheos.”

    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfundamentalistchristians/2015/07/are-atheists-just-rebelling-against-god/
    “We’re all familiar with the atheist caricature: that rude and crude purveyor of mockery and disdain for everything religious. We’ve encountered him in “God’s Not Dead,” we regularly see him (or more rarely, her) being pilloried on conservative Christian blogs, and there’s a whole cottage industry of Christian apologetics books that are intent on serving the righteous smackdown to atheists. In the words of theologian Randal Rauser, “These days within the Christian community, especially within North America, the atheist has assumed the mantle of the despised and distrusted social pariah on the margins.”

    I might actually buy this book, since that fucking “you hate god, secretly believe in him and just want to sin” trope is so incredibly stupid and tiresome to see time and again.

  26. I might actually buy this book, since that fucking “you hate god, secretly believe in him and just want to sin” trope is so incredibly stupid and tiresome to see time and again.

    I know, I hate God for not ridding the world of that stupid claim.

    Glen Davidson

  27. Rumraket: Let me guess: A god is using his supernatural and divine omnipotent will to keep the flooding local?

    I guess that is one way it could happen.

    My money would be on an inundation of water into a canyon or river valley that was surrounded by higher ground perhaps what is now the black sea or more likely the shallows of the Persian gulf.

    These sorts of catastrophic floods are relatively common in the geological record No “supernatural” power necessary. That is not to say that I rule out the supernatural in any particular case.

    My understanding of this event is based on the text so I’m not under any particular constraint as to how it might or might not have happened

    peace

  28. The flooding of the Blacks sea could be a remembrance. I suspect the rising of the oceans after the last ice age covered a bunch of coastal settlements and possibly some major human structures.

    At the moment, this is idle speculation, occasionally punctuated by claims of dramatic finds. But nothing supernatural.

  29. Patrick: So the flood story has to be interpreted in a way that rejects the literal meaning of the text because science has shown that story to be nonsensical.

    No mine is the literal meaning of the text. You guys seem to hold to the picture book version.

    No one in the ancient middle east would have understood the story the way you all seem to.

    To read Globe or “third planet from the sun” when the text says “‘erets” is exactly the opposite of holding to the literal meaning of the text.

    peace

  31. fifthmonarchyman,

    My understanding of this event is based on the text…

    No, it isn’t. The text is unambiguous. The Flood was global:

    The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”

    And:

    So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

    And:

    I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

    And:

    Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.

    And:

    The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

    Does your pastor know that you deny the truth of the Bible in favor of what science tells us? (Good for you, by the way. Keep thinking along those lines.)

  32. Kantian Naturalist: I’m endlessly amused by how no one here is even interested in interpreting the Flood story as an allegory or metaphor.

    Actually I believe the story is typological. It’s part of the repeating pattern of covenant followed by rebellion followed by exile that forms the backbone of scripture.

    Typology is like allegory or metaphor but often factually true at the same time. The cool thing about Typology is that the archetype can be used as guide rail to help us understand the “literal” meaning of the type.

    peace

  33. No KeithS, you’ve got a childish Sunday School version. Try some sophisticated theology(c) from those who have read more than you.

  34. hotshoe_,

    . . .what do we need a blood sacrifice for?

    Why would an omnipotent, omnibenevolent god want a blood sacrifice in any case? I’m nowhere near omnibenevolent, and I find that cruel and barbaric.

    It’s a good thing their god doesn’t exist, otherwise we’d have to kill it.

  35. keiths: Does your pastor know that you deny the truth of the Bible in favor of what science tells us?

    Now you make me laugh.

    Even after you have been corrected apparently you still see a globe rotating in space when the text says “‘erets” /land.

    My interpretation is the older one. What you call the “truth of the Bible” is mostly a response to early modern science from the days of Columbus.

    I find it amazing that both the YEC and the skeptic are fighting over an interpretation that did not even exist till medieval times.

    I have listened to countless sermons on the flood and have never heard this “‘erets” equals globe view expressed from the fundamentalist pulpits I’m familiar with. This sounds like something you might get in a King James only congregation. More likely you saw it a picture book when you were little.

    I know lots of folks who hold to a global flood for various reasons I myself am agnostic on the issue but I know of no one who would make it a condition of fellowship.

    talk about a straw man

    peace

  37. Richardthughes: Why? It clearly didn’t happen.

    That is probably the main difference between me and you. I’m always open to new evidence should it present itself.

    I have seen to many things that I was totally sure of be proven to be incorrect when some new data came in.

    peace

  39. Richardthughes: Then you’re agnostic on all things, including God.

    That is not true. There are somethings that I can’t be agnostic about. That I exist and that there is a world outside my mind for example.

    My belief in God is like my belief in those things

    peace

  41. Richardthughes: What’s the criteria for your dogmatic ‘other things’?

    You are going to have to be a little more specific. I don’t recall ever using the phrase “other things”.

    peace

  42. 1. “I’m always open to new evidence should it present itself.

    I have seen to many things that I was totally sure of be proven to be incorrect when some new data came in.”

    2. ” There are somethings that I can’t be agnostic about. That I exist and that there is a world outside my mind for example.

    My belief in God is like my belief in those things”

    So “New Evidence” could not shake your God belief?

  43. Richardthughes: So “New Evidence” could not shake your God belief?

    Right, God is the ground of my being if there is no God there could be no me by definition.

    A possible equivalent for the atheist would be the universe

    Could new evidence shake your belief in the universe?

    peace

  44. “Right, God is the ground of my being if there is no God there could be no me by definition”

    You’ve confused “definition” with “conjecture”.

    I directly observe the universe and my account is corroborated through dialogue without conjecture in all my interactions. I can directly interact with the universe. etc etc.

  45. Richardthughes: I directly observe the universe and my account is corroborated through dialogue without conjecture in all my interactions. I can directly interact with the universe. etc etc.

    Ditto for me and God

    peace

  46. fifthmonarchyman: Ditto for me and God

    Wrong. You and I for example, do not share through dialogue a common experience of God.

    What is your interaction with God like right now?

  47. fifth,

    Let me get this straight. When the Bible says…

    So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”

    …you think it means:

    So the Lord said, “I won’t wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created — just some of them — and I won’t wipe from the face of the earth the animals, the birds, and the creatures that move along the ground — for I regret that I have made them, but not enough to actually wipe them out. I’ll just kill some of them locally to get it out of my system.”

    And when the Bible says…

    So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

    …what it really means, according to you, is:

    So God said to Noah, “The earth is filled with violence because of all people, so I’ll just put an end to some of them in this vicinity and that should solve the problem.”

    And when God said…

    I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

    …he really meant:

    I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Wait, scratch that. Not all life under the heavens — just some life under the heavens. And not every creature that has the breath of life in it. Just the ones in Noah’s vicinity.

    And when he said this…

    Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.

    …he didn’t really mean “every living creature I have made”. He just meant “some of the living creatures I have made, the ones you can find around here.”

    You’re twisting the words of the Bible well beyond their breaking point, fifth. Why not just admit that the Bible got it wrong? It’s full of ridiculous stories like this.

  48. Richardthughes: Wrong. You and I for example, do not share through dialogue a common experience of God.

    O think we do for the most part. It’s just that you don’t think there is a mind behind that common experience. This really is about the problem of other minds after all.

    There really in no way to prove that there are any other minds in the universe if you choose to believe that you alone are conscious.

    I can’t convince you that a given person you meet is not a mindless zombie or a Animatron even though you have the same phyiscal experience that I do when you are in her presence. That is pretty much how it is with God on most days. We have the same experience of the divine you just claim that you chose to believe differently about it .

    peace

  50. keiths: When the Bible says…

    Actually that is not what the Bible says it’s what a particular English translation of the Bible says. In fact you seem to be reading something well beyond even that translation. It’s like you are seeing the word gay in an 19th century novel and thinking it obviously means homosexual.

    You’re twisting the words of the Bible well beyond their breaking point, fifth.

    Keith, you have yet to demonstrate even a rudimentary understanding of what is being said in the flood story. I would be more likely to listen your criticism if you could demonstrate a minimum knowelege by summarizing some of the overall themes of the Pentateuch.

    Can you explain why the Land was so important in this story? “Why did God say I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made”
    instead of simply
    “I will kill every living creature I have made.”?
    Can you explain the parallels between the Garden the Promised Land and the Tabernacle?
    Can you explain why Noah built an ark and not a boat?
    Can you explain why there were 7 pairs of the clean animals?

    If you are willing to have a go at these basic questions perhaps we can discuss your exegesis of the text.

    I’m not really sure why you care though you don’t believe any of this any way. This is yet more evidence that your atheism is really just a rejection of what you think is the Christian God. I mean I don’t get upset if your understanding of the birth of Hercules.

    My present understanding of the flood is a perfectly orthodox one that takes the text seriously. It’s held by lots of Christians that also believe in the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture. We know this view is not a response to modern science because it was around before the rise of modern science.

    I’m not sure what else I can say about it.

    Peace

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