Henke 2022bu

The Supernatural Might be Real, but Lundahl (2022L) Fails to Provide Any Evidence of It

Kevin R. Henke

September 15, 2022

In Henke (2022b), I said the following:

“In his second essay, Lundahl (2022b) complains that when I rank a supernatural event as ‘highly unlikely’, I’m taking my worldview ‘as a test of historic facthood.’ Actually, I’m ranking supernatural events as highly unlikely because I see absolutely no evidence of the supernatural. I think that it’s far more probable that someone just made up the supernatural story and that enough gullible people believed it, so that it was recorded for future generations. Recently, I saw TV “prophets” frequently making demonstrably false prophecies about covid disappearing in March 2020 and false claims of miraculous healings and other miracles. In recent history, Joseph Smith Jr. made numerous well-documented false prophecies. Ancient people also made up numerous far-fetched stories about gods and goddesses that few people now believe and no one should believe. I have seen no evidence that magic existed in the past any more than it does in the present. I don’t see any evidence to believe any of these present and past miraculous stories, including Genesis 3. So, Mr. Lundahl, I challenge you to refute my worldview by giving me the evidence of the Talking Snake that I’ve been asking for. In contrast, we have plenty of artifacts and videos of WWII and even a few WWII veterans are still alive. My dad experienced that war. WWII deserves a high ranking based on the evidence, the Talking Snake does not. Theology and political and personal desires have no role in judging the validity of history.” [my emphasis]

Lundahl (2022L) makes the following comments on the bolded section of the above quotation from Henke (2022b):

“After this, Henke directly goes to what at least he considers as bad evidence of the supernatural, as if this automatically meant there were never good evidence for the supernatural, while generalising this into a non sequitur and very hazy model for how supernatural events could be made up and believed.”

Again, I’m not saying that there cannot be good evidence of the supernatural. I just haven’t seen it. Where is it Mr. Lundahl?

In the above bolded section of Henke (2022b) and elsewhere in my essay, I certainly do discuss modern and specific examples of fake miracles among TV “prophets” and Joseph Smith Jr. in the Mormon church. Unfortunately, this type of fraud is very common and is not part of any “hazy model” as Lundahl (2022L) believes. I am arguing that just as TV prophets and Joseph Smith Jr. have succeeded in deceiving large numbers of people, it’s also very possible that the gullible people in Biblical times were deceived by Biblical “prophets.” What I’m saying here is that we know that people lie, we know that people misinterpret events, and we know that people commonly believe lies and misinterpretations, and beliefs in those lies and misinterpretations can spread among more and more people over time. Lies, misinterpretations and gullibility are unfortunate parts of reality that have been seen time and time again in all kinds of situations that range from TV “faith healers” to the Mormon Church and Scientology, from the Trump Presidency to urban myths and office gossip. In contrast, we don’t know of any legitimate miracles. Not one! This is NOT to say that miracles are impossible. This is NOT to say that miracles do not occur. As I’ve already said in Henke (2022b; 2022au), and Lundahl (2022L) continues to fail to comprehend this concept, miracles cannot be demonstrated from past events. As I argued with the dead cat and ex nihilo solar system proposals in Henke (2022b), miracles must be demonstrated under current and strict conditions. So, Mr. Lundahl needs to present such evidence of miracles. He has not done so. No one has. Because of the total lack of evidence of the supernatural, when we hear about a miraculous claim, even if millions or even a billion people believe it, it is highly probable that it is a lie or misinterpretation, and not a miracle. Those are the probabilities based on the available records and from what we know about natural law. Thus, our first response to any miraculous claim must be skepticism. Skepticism of miracles and the preference for natural explanations are the rational default positions based on the known record and probabilities. Supporters of the miraculous claim then have the burden of evidence to demonstrate that their event is the long-awaited exception. They must demonstrate that this is not just another lie or misinterpretation in an endless list of lies, misinterpretations and thousands of years of baseless claims, but that they finally have evidence of a real miracle. If no one can demonstrate that the mysterious claim is actually a miracle, then we must continue to recognize that in all probability the claim is not a miracle until the appropriate evidence comes forward. If they demonstrate that a miracle has occurred with good evidence, then our worldview permanently changes and naturalism loses. If that happens, I will gladly admit it. Lundahl (2022L) should realize this investigative approach. He does not. In contrast, he just wants us to accept whatever his Bible and Church claim.