Are the miracles of Jesus unbelievable? Michael Shermer vs Luuk Vandeweghe

Atheist sceptic Michael Shermer debates Chrisitan apologist Luuk Vandeweghe on whether the miracles of Jesus recorded in the gospels can be treated as historically reliable.

The debate was moderated by Justin Brierley of the Unbelievable? show and recorded live at the North West Miracles Conference in Sequim, WA.

[PremierUnbelievable]

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[benjaminandersson]

I find Michael Shermer to be an extremely pleasant and good guy. He is willing to talk to people on both sides of the aisles and keeps a pretty darn good balance between scepticism and open-mindedness. Not many guys are able to do it as good as he does it. Kudos Michael!

[merrybolton]

A plane crash . One person walks away unhurt a miracle But not for the rest ????

[rebanx]

“Once beliefs are formed, the brain begins to look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which adds an emotional boost of further  in the beliefs and thereby accelerates the process of reinforcing them, and round and round the process goes in a positive feedback loop of belief...M. Shermer - Why People Believe

[johnmichalski]

Luuk's argument rests almost entirely on the idea that "these people REALLY believed in this." But this has no bearing at all on whether or not the beliefs are based on something that is true. It's an immediate and complete fail as a logical argument.

[doctorwebman]

Why are Christians incapable of realizing they use circular reasoning every time they refer to the Bible as evidence for Jesus's miracles?

[NomadOutOfAfrica]

Luuke doesn't argue. He gives a sermon. Devoid of evidence and hard to listen to.

[barryjones]

Were Jesus' miracles believable?

His family didn't think so:

21 When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, "He has lost His senses." (Mk. 3:21 NAU)

5 For not even His brothers were believing in Him (Jn. 7:5 NAU)

If even his own family didn't find his miracles very credible, I could hardly be unreasonable to infer that Jesus was nothing more than a first-century Benny Hinn. Apparently, his ability to convince thousands of people that he did a miracle, implies audience gullibility before it implies the miracles were genuinely supernatural.

[AndJusticeForMe]

As Dan Barker has stated, “Christians should get their act together first before they try to convince atheists.”

[forevercurious]

Luuk and Michael did clearly presented their arguments. The moderator, Justin, was fair and directed the conversation in the right direction. Great job everyone!

[dennisheffy]

If the evidence for miracles was convincing, these debates would not be happening.

[johnlinden]

SHERMER IS RIGHT ! SCIENCE, LOGIC, REASON
AND CRITICAL THINKING
CHALLENGING THE CLAIMS, BELIEFS AND SUPERSTITIONS THAT
SO MANY OF WE HUMANS
ACCEPT WITHOUT
QUESTION !

[agnosticatheist]

Miracles are a true and real phenomenon!


Miracles are when religious people take a coincidence as a hit while ignoring the overwhelming misses. Backing up their "miracle" claims with arguments from ignorance fallacies. "I don't know how something could have occurred, therefore, I invoke my particular brand of an imaginary friend as an answer."


This is miracles at work...

[annebk]

I am fascinated by how many assertions Luuk makes without any reference to evidence.

[merlepatterson]

I'm in Sequim Wa. and didn't even know this event took place until Michael mentioned it today on his YouTube Skeptic channel.

[Actuary]

It’s disingenuous to assume those who don’t accept the miracle claims believe the NT authors or early Christians were intentionally lying or misleading. Sophomoric at best.

Gospel authors never claim to be eyewitnesses, and scholarly consensus is the books were anonymously written, with the names we know the as attached at a later date. This is not a debate, no evidence is being presented, simply an appeal to emotion.

[GavTatu]

i think the channel name covers it quite unbelievable.

[Roedygr]

There is only one source for Jesus. The gospel writers copied each other with embellishment. Paul wrote about his hallucinations.

[warrennz]

Ummm one little problem with Vandeweghe saying what Peter saw Jesus do... he never MET Jesus. No one who wrote about Jesus met the guy, it's all hearsay!

[petyrkowalski]

It amazes me how and why people are impressed by unverifiable anecdotes, claims, myths and legends from a 2000 year old compendium of bronze age middle eastern fairy tales.