New Batch of Henke Essays

What Henke Responded - up to "Henke2022aa" (with ab and ai looked up in advance, since referred to in previous) · Ah, Some New · Back to Philosophy · Beginning on Henke2022az? Nope. · Why Catalogue the Supernatural? Why Catalogue Fiction? · Henke(2022bi) Starts It Today! But I only get to Henke(2022bk) For Now. · New Batch of Henke Essays · Resuming at Henke(2022bL) after Interruption, up to 2022br. · Why Did I Bring Up Greek Myth? · Historicity of Certain Religious Stories, Notably Genesis

Here is their collective title:

My Replies to Lundahl (2022q) on September 23, 2022

Henke (2022fn): “Lundahl (2022q) is No Entertainer and He Fails to Take the Format and Content of this Debate Seriously”

The format was "essay" vs "essay" - and my definition of "essay" is not the Academic essay. See The Tatler and The Rambler.

Henke (2022fo): “I agree with Lundahl (2022q) that Donkeys and Snakes Cannot Biologically Talk. Yet, My Explanation of Numbers 22 is More Probable than the Supernatural Explanation Given in Lundahl (2022a, 2022k, 2022q)”*

Henke (2022fp): “Lundahl (2022q) has Never Met my Nieces and He has no Grounds to Comment on My Relationship with Them”

Mr. Henke brought up the nieces himself. My comment is about the kind of mentorship he tried to pretend to over me. Which I hope he's not trying with his nieces.

Henke (2022fq): “Mr. Lundahl Fails to Recognize What Reliable Sources of Information are. Young-Earth Creationists, especially Kent Hovind, are Unreliable. The References in Wikipedia Can be Useful. Otherwise, Wikipedia Must be Used with Caution”

Like lecturing me on what sources of information I can use, which is opposed to having a debate with me.

Henke (2022fr): “Still No Evidence of Miracles in Lundahl (2022q), But At Least He Now Recognizes that Miracles May Be ‘Contrary’ to Natural Laws”

Especially egregious as Mr. Henke shows himself unable to read English.

me

In order for miracles not to contradict the already known knowledge for natural law, it is sufficient if "the supernatural" can do them without violating natural laws, it is absolutely not necessary for God to be unable to undo them. You see, as long as you do not have as a fact that miracle so and so needed to go through the agencies normally described by natural law, and went through them in ways that broke these laws (which by now are part of our knowledge), you cannot validly argue against the veracity of the miraculous accounts from these miracles, if occurring, contradicting natural laws.

Henke

It's difficult to know exactly what Lundahl (2022q) is trying to say in the second paragraph. He needs to write better. ...

No, it is Mr. Henke who needs to read better. He's showing off his illiteracy. Not illiteracy in modern Academic essays, but illiteracy outside this and similar types.

As shown in Henke (2022aq), my long and peer-reviewed publication record demonstrates that I am proficient in both reading and writing in English.

It demonstrates that Mr. Henke is proficient in reading and writing a certain type of English. Any English falling outside that type, even if it is SBE or SAE, even if it follows all the finesse of English grammar, will be hard to read for a man who like Mr. Henke knows one type of texts, or at best a somewhat narrow range of types.

Mr. Lundahl’s frequently rambling texts, misspellings and poor referencing demonstrates that he is not.

Referencing isn't a writing skill. It is a service sometimes given by writers, but far from always. There are to record two misspellings according to Mr. Henke's view, "carreer" - not found in OED, I will arguably have to say carreere instead - and transsubstantiation, where I am using the etymological convention rather than "doubled consonants simplify next to other consonant" convention. The third item he complained about was a parallel word formation to an existing word, so a lack of knowing all the relevant words there are.

Now, rambling is a writing skill. The earliest newspapers that featured Essays in English were The Tatler and The Rambler.

Not being able to read rambling texts is a lack of reading skills.

Henke (2022fs): “More Discussions on the Phrase ‘Circular Reasoning’: Mr. Lundahl Gets Needlessly Sidetracked with Terminology”

However, if Mr. Lundahl is concerned that the description “circular reasoning” would not be a fallacy in the following circumstance: “BUT a "circle" with A explaining B, and B proving (or demonstrating with evidence) A is not a vicious circle.”, then at least his alternative “circular explanation” would also have the same problem.

Not the least. Here are three situations:

i

A proves B, B proves A, neither is proven by any third.

ij

A explains B, B explains A, neither is explained by any third.

iij

A explains B, and is either obvious or explained by a third. B proves A, and is either obvious or proven by a third (other than the one explaining A).

I call situation i circular proof. I call situation ij circular explanation. Both are fallacies. They are also different fallacies.

I call situation iij a totally non-fallacious explanation, a totally non-fallacious proof and the situation most commonly mislabelled by unbelievers as "circular reasoning" (a fallacy which per se doesn't exist) when debating with believers. You see, formal logic is rarely the strength of either atheists or agnostic freethinkers.

Mr. Henke shows off his incapacity for logic as well as for reading English.

Henke (2022ft): “Another Unsatisfactory Reply in Lundahl (2022q)”

Before Mr. Lundahl can claim that there is “historical evidence” of miracles, he’s got to demonstrate that miracles are even possible under strictly controlled present-day conditions (Henke 2022b and Henke 2022co).

The actual sentence quoted did not claim there was historical evidence, it claimed that any historical evidence presented should adhere to same standards of evidence as other unusual events of the past.

Henke (2022fu): “Mr. Lundahl Finally Openly Admits in Lundahl (2022q) that God Will Break the Laws of Nature”

Finally! Despite the total lack of evidence that the Book of Revelation contains any valid prophecies about a new Heaven, a new Earth or anything else, Mr. Lundahl has finally openly admitted that God could break the causes (laws) of nature if he wants to. However, God’s breaking of natural causes hypothetically does need not to be limited to scrapping the entire system to make a new Heaven and Earth as described in Revelation 21:1. That is, if God exists, he could also temporarily and locally break the causes (laws) to perform a miracle.

Mr. Henke builds a lot of his case against the probability of miracles on the idea that they would break natural law. My point is, God is perfectly capable of doing miracles without breaking any actual natural laws.

Henke (2022fv): “Natural Laws Exist, but No Evidence of God Being Involved”

Here, Lundahl (2022i) seems to be claiming without any evidence whatsoever that God would not break any “law of movement” when he does anything supernatural during a pool game.

The point is, there is no pool game and there is no God involved in the analogy. Mr. Henke fails to distinguish what is being represented in an analogy from what is representing it. The point is, a man, simply by taking up a queue, could make a result other than the one that the scientist was predicting from watching pool balls being moved by the waves of the steamship.

Will he realise the mistake in the next one?

Henke (2022fw): “More on C.S. Lewis’ Pool Table Analogy”

C.S. Lewis attached other important meanings to the pool game analogy that Lundahl (2022q) does not mention here. The reader can refer to our essays cited above for those discussions.

If so, Mr. Henke did not directly admit it. Nor does his reference give the pages for looking up the pool table analogy. He's giving the unwary reader the impression he is better familiar with the pool table analogy than I am. Not the case.

Henke (2022fx): “Speculating on Christ’s Hair”

What if Jesus had short hair? What if he was bald? Then why would his hair need to be under the influence of gravity? What would keep his disciples from recognizing him?

My point would still stand for the Oriental loose garments.

Interestingly, after Jesus’ supposed Resurrection, a number of disciples did have problems recognizing Jesus (John 20:15; John 21:4; Luke 24:13-35). Rather than trying to explain why a number of disciples had difficulty recognizing Jesus, perhaps we should recognize that these stories are probably works of fiction (e.g., Carrier 2014, pp. 387-509).

The disciples of Emmaus were not of the closest circle.

No real reason to take them for fiction, especially as fiction doesn't tend to be simply weird. So, in fact a reason against taking them for fiction. Obfuscated obviously for atheists and similar freethinkers who tend to make no distinction between the weird and the marvellous and the miraculous.

We could then possibly determine how and why they really originated.

I have been giving at least tentatively a reason why appeal to natural lawS should not lower the probability of miracle accounts being perfectly factual.

Mr. Henke has consistently refused to even tentatively meet my challenge on how the accounts could have arisen by fraud or misunderstanding. Fiction - which is distinct from these - is not an option.

Henke (2022fy): “Lundahl (2022q) Further Misunderstands Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation and Makes Up More Stories”

Mr. Lundahl needs to read my reference Orear (1967) and learn some physics.

Mr. Henke's reference seems to be a book labelled Fundamental Physics. Fundamental seems close to starting point at explanation level, and precisely therefore very far from starting point on the proving or evidencing or demonstrating level.

If God made an exception, that would mean so much less "universality" for the law, but would not change its meaning for all masses on which it has any bearing.

To be clear, that masses usually behave like this is a fairly probable conclusion from observations (especially if Moon landing is genuine, etc, since otherwise Aristotelic gravity could hold).

Henke (2022fz): “Natural Laws as Effective Descriptions of Reality”

To the title: is Mr. Henke thinking so magically as to pretend that laws written down on a paper and descriptions given in words have any effect on reality?

Yet, they see Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation and other laws of physics not only being effective explanations on Earth, but also working in distant galaxies within our Universe.

That could be eisegesis. Movements that in reality are made by angels or by God are on my view misinterpreted as being done exclusively by

But supposing that cosmology were true (taking it as starting point of the argument, not granting it per se outside the following) - then there would be a lack of explanation why galaxies could still keep together. That precise understanding of the universe is how non-Geocentric YEC are arguing against the universe being billions of years.

If God does not violate any laws of physics when he does miracles as you groundlessly claim, why couldn’t a physicist hypothetically develop equations to explain miracles?

For the exact same reason that he cannot even hypothetically develop equations for explaining the next letter in Mr. Henke's writing. It depends on grammar and what Mr. Henke is thinking, not on the physical conditions of Mr. Henke's keyboard or fingers. Indeed, any physical explanation involving keyboards or fingers would be likely to be the explanation of a breakdown in the communications.

Henke (2022ga): “Certainly, Nature and Human Behavior are Not Fully Predictable”

What I was saying is that with Jesus around, supposedly his companions could never know when a miracle might interrupt the natural status quo.

The only status quo they would be dealing with is the one of habits. Miracles would be like other surprises - things that break the habitual.

However, nature and human activities are often too complex to fully predict. There are too many variables.

Natural and human events are simply not predictable. Some are very predictably there as to their kind, like spring or like Pharisees sneering at Our Lord with faked problems submitted (I'm taking the routine they were experiencing), but that doesn't predict where you will see the next flower or what the next problem of a Pharisee would be or when a Pharisee would break the routine by asking for a miracle.

You can’t use F=ma to describe a miracle, but the equation works fine for a rocket launch.

F=ma does not tell you whether a rocket will have been launched from Göbekli Tepe by Nimrod or from Cape Canaveral by President Kennedy. It only describes one of the factors involved in the rocket launch and at that one overridden by other factors. Precisely as when it is overridden miraculously too.

Henke (2022gb): “Healing Miracles, if They Occur, Would Unavoidably Violate Natural Law”

yes, natural laws describe natural processes and, hypothetically, it would be the processes that the laws describe that would be directly broken

My point is, counteracting and bypassing are not breaking. I can break a fall of sth that I catch, that doesn't break the natural process of fall other than by interrupting it with equal naturality. My mind only controls the things the body can perform within the limit of the calories disposable. I can break the fall of a pen, I could not break the fall of a car.

The point is, a natural process does not cease to work the way it does, as to its type, just because an individual instance of it is interrupted due to another factor. For this to be true, it absolutely doesn't matter if the factor interrupting it is natural or supernatural.

Because the electromagnetic repulsion of electrons on Earth is stronger than the force of gravity, we can’t sink into the center of the Earth (see Henke 2022fy).

Yes, and that electromagnetic repulsion is another factor than gravity, which is governed by a mode that can be described as Newton's equation.

To be exact, gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces, which include: gravity, the weak force, the electromagnetic force, and the strong nuclear force. Gravity is about 10⁴⁰ times weaker than the electromagnetic force.

Given the existence of God as precondition for either, both would be infinitely weaker than the will of God.

Healing, if it naturally occurs, can take days, weeks, months or even longer. However, if we see the process occur in a manner of seconds, it’s possible that an unknown advanced technology is responsible, but, in my opinion, I think that a miracle would be even more likely. A miracle is not a natural process, but an act from a supernatural being or process interrupting and overriding the natural process.

Yup.

A miraculous healing is not an act of nature, but something that overrides, interrupts, replaces,

... either of two natural processes : medical healing or further deterioration. Each of which would otherwise interrupt or replace the other, as well as overriding it.

and blatantly contradicts or violates the natural process.

No.

There’s a big difference between a natural process that takes a lot of time to repair damage in a body and something that instantaneously does it in a manner of seconds.

Indeed, that's why miraculous healings in Lourdes have to be instantaneous in order to be approved as miraculous.

But the difference is not in the one respecting and the other disrespecting the natural progression of the disease. BOTH are defeating the disease.

Miracles are usually given by God when there is no natural process of healing available to defeat a disease. Marc 5:25-27

And a woman who was under an issue of blood twelve years, And had suffered many things from many physicians; and had spent all that she had, and was nothing the better, but rather worse, When she had heard of Jesus, came in the crowd behind him, and touched his garment.

Whether or not a modern doctor could have made her well within twelve years or not, the doctors back then couldn't. Or, more sinister option, wouldn't.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, if something is “contrary” to a law that means that it opposes the law. Here are some synonyms for “contrary” according to Oxford Languages: opposite, contradictory, clashing, conflicting, antithetical, incompatible, and irreconcilable. So, Mr. Lundahl, what’s the real difference between a miracle being “contrary” to natural law and violating the natural law? A miracle being contrary to natural law certainly is not simply “adding to” or supplementing natural processes as you indicated in Lundahl (2022a) and your other essays.

Here is what I had stated:

An example somewhat more serious than the Pool Game Analogy : there are natural laws that describe what our immune system can do against Hansen's disease, and an instantaneous healing through our immune system is contrary to these laws.

It is not contrary to these laws if God heals instantaneously. It would be contrary to these laws if the immune system healed instantaneously. As it is the immune system and not God who is bound to procedures described by these laws.

Again, nature is certainly controlled by processes that are conveniently described with natural laws. Nevertheless, Mr. Lundahl has yet to demonstrate that supernatural beings with wills even exist.

Physical objects are certainly partly controlled by such processes. But they are also controlled by freewilled agents.

This shows there is nothing to exclude they are also controlled by freewilled agents that do not have bodies. Bodies in and of themselves are not free wills, so whenever a man does something willingly at some point the human body is controlled by something that is not a body.

As discussed in Henke (2022x), neurologist Harris (2010, pp. 102-112) denies that human free will exists.

In practise, that position is untenable. No one could live while considering his willed actions as reflexes of physical and chemical processes.

If it were true, it would furthermore be unknowable (see C. S. Lewis Miracles, chapter 3).

Therefore it cannot be treated as a known fact.

Even if he is wrong and I am capable of acting under my own discretion, my actions are always limited by the laws of chemistry and physics. When I’m standing on my front yard, I can choose to walk to either the left or the right, but I can’t flap my arms and go up.

That is because the human spirit is tied to a human body. Nevertheless, the free will of man is imposing results beyond what blind natural processes could impose.

Furthermore, as I have explained many times before, the individual making claims about the existence of God, angels, demons or other supernatural beings, and not the skeptics, has the burden of evidence here.

A discussion of what God implies in the case of a miracle is distinct from a claim that God exists and did a miracle.

Mr. Henke maliciously keeps shortcircuiting this discussion of implications by referring to this being a claim, and equally maliciously makes his own unilateral discussion of implications the prerequisite of discussing the claim.

He follows one set of rules and asks me to follow another set of rules. He pretends to be the master, and to have me for - bad - disciple. I am insisting, this should be a discussion between equals, socially, none talking down to the other. And either he behaves very differently to his nieces or I feel very sorry for them.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Our Lady of Mercy
24.IX.2022

* I missed answering this one. More probable or rather sole possible - in his world view. But he's shortcircuiting both the discussion of world views and the discussion of historic evidence relevant for chosing such.