Nor are the one-way-valve arguments (first you must believe, and THEN you’ll understand why you should believe, but until you do believe you can’t understand why you should believe) anything but a laughable bit of nonsense. Such things are the hallmarks of mountebankery.
I’m going to take my opinions out and just quote scripture:
Hebrews 11:1-6
1 Now faith is the [a]substance of things hoped for, the [b]evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.
3 By faith we understand that the [c]worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
Faith at the Dawn of History
4 By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.
5 By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. 6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
The problem here is how much do we have to know about the natural order of the Universe to be able to attribute an unexpected discontinuity is because of super-natural interference … rather than the operation of a natural process that we didn’t know existed?
To understand the teeny basic point that I’m making, think about whether guidance by a mind–any mind of any kind–can be detected in a natural process. Let’s say genetic engineering. Can this be detected? Yes, of course it can. Can it be hidden so well that it can’t be detected? Yes, of course it can. Does this have anything to do with whether the guiding mind is supernatural? No, of course it doesn’t.
If that doesn’t help, see @dga471’s excellent post above.
Dont know if this a good idea or something related to this topic, once again could we detect this spesific God Guidance on common raven genetic DNA?
Raven is not “Genus Corvus”. The raven in the story is one particular species in the genus Corvus, to whit Corvus corax. Note that the raven buries nothing, just scratches the ground a bit. That’s really not a complicated behavior. It doesn’t involve tools, just feet, and there is no funeral indicated. Now “raven” is just a name for a large bird in the genus, while smaller ones are generally called crows. It has no phylogenetic meaning. As far as I know, no raven has been found to use tools, though several species of crows have. I doubt there is any way to detect God Guidance, and I doubt the ability to scratch on the ground is specifically encoded in a raven’s DNA anyway. There are particular behaviors that have a genetic basis, but I don’t think that’s one of them.
Added: Ravens have been known to use tools in experiments with captive birds, but not, as far as I know, in the wild.
Cool review. Tool use is more widespread in ravens than I knew. Of course, in this zombie thread, the raven isn’t using a tool, and Corvus corax is a species Mohammed is unlikely to have been familiar with.