A simple perspective on miracles

[kallipolis]

No, there are no miracles recorded - that would be everywhere if it ever happened, there are only assertions of miracles recorded. See the difference there?

There are very many recorded miracles, or miraculous cures as they are referred too in contemporary terminology. Here I refer to the twentieth century.

Most post recovery medical examination results of cured patients are referred too as inexplicable recoveries.

I appreciate that those who assert they have been healed of an illness as a result of a miraculous cure are relying upon their understandings of why they have been cured of their illness, and necessarily so because medical science cannot explain such recoveries.

What is not in doubt is that the previously ill person has been healed when their physicians gave them no hope that they would ever recover from their illness.

Furthermore medical examination of patients who have miraculously recovered from terminal illnesses often asserts that there is no logical explanation for the miracle recovery to full health.

 

[kallipolis]

There is no objective or scientific reality to miracles.

That's not to say that miracles don't have reality in terms of alterations of perception that impact reality or the function of grace transforming bad things into good consequences or in some other way.

We are agreed that miracles, or miraculous cures cannot be scientifically proven.

It is not perception that evidences the full recovery of a terminally ill patient, arising from their faith that God has healed them rather a recognition by medical examination that they are no longer ill and that there is no logical explanation for the patient's full recovery.

The question arises why are only a few healed, when many with profound faith in God are in need of being healed from their ailments.

 

[Dolmance]

There is a very real challenge for the closed mind of the dedicated disbeliever, in that many of the much more recent miracles are recorded, and testimonials are available for research purposes provided by those persons who have been healed as a result of a so called miraculous cure. (of God)

We need not refer back to the first century, rather reference those so called miracles that continue to occur in our own time.

We have our own version of Lourdes, here in Greece on the island of Tinos where the shrine dedicated to The Theotokos also evidences the testimonials of those persons who have been healed from their sicknesses.

This is a topic that requires the inquiring mind to take a neutral position, to enable the researcher to better understand the influence of faith on those persons seeking a cure that will deliver them from their illness.

You're doing yourself and your position a massive disservice here, Kalli. By asserting that those who won't bend over and take claims of the miraculous without evidence they regard as satisfactory as simply being "concerted in their disbelief," you are exhibiting the very worst of the religious mindset; that is the outright refusal to accept or even acknowledge that there are those for whom the apparent "evidence" of divine intervention, or even the existence of the divine, simply isn't up to muster.

What you claim here as "evidence" isn't, and wouldn't be accepted as such by anyone working in any legitimate scientific or even half way critical field. What you have are claims of records of apparent events, the records of which are curiously in absence when asked for to be examined by critical eyes, purported and promulgated by figures and institutions who have a very temporal (somewhat scurillous) ideological interest in promotoing the apparent occurence of the apparent events, and in interpreting them via the filter of a very particular ideology on the basis of which said figures and institutions maintain their power and authority.

When you actualy LOOK at the claims of purported "miracles" (particularly with regards to apparently "miraculous" healing or recovery from disease), one finds that either the stories fray and peter out to the point where they can be regarded as nothing other than rumour or myth making, or they refer to conditions that have a medical likelihood of receding on their own anyway. Just because there is, in some instances, no current certainty as to why or how they recede, doesn't mean you get to stick God in that particular gap and proclaim it miraculous (at least until you can provide direct, observable, assessable evidence of God's intervention, how he did it, why he doesn't do it for others etc). What you NEVER see are phenomena such as massively deformed individuals suddenly tranfiguring into fully composed human beings, the mentally disabled suddenly efflorescing into fully functional humanity, those with severed or amputated limbs growing new ones (to refer to a pertinent cliche) etc.

I'm sorry, but if you want to make a claim for miracles in these instances, and if you expect those of us who do not have a concerted ideological interest in interpreting these apparent events as such, you and those who share the position need to provide more. Getting uppity and spiteful when we demand such not only demonstrates the weakness of your position, but also, insofar as I'm concerned, demonstrates a lack of connection to any notion of divinity, save one that is composed of the meanest stirrings in humanity's collective tribal breast (which is certainly how Yahweh and his ilk often come off in the stories that contain them).

 

[Ganoderma]

I believe that you have confused me with another poster. My university life was spent in London, and Bologna.

Yap, excuse me. I confused you with Kulindahr.
You wrote:

For the non believer a miracle is simply a misinterpretation of the facts.

Would you mind to tell me something more about your education at both universities?

Besides that, I was wondering which teacher on any of these universities (which ones, do they have a website?) has learned you that the above definition of a 'fact', as used within the phrame of the above quote, is correct, and has anything to do with science, as teached on one of these, or both universities.

Thanks in advance for a reply.

 

[Ganoderma]

For the non believer a miracle is simply a misinterpretation of the facts.

For the believer the classic definition of a miracle was made by Thomas Aquinas who defined it as "something which is beyond the order of created nature" and, therefore, pertains only to divine actions (or supernatural phenomena) "since God alone is not a created being, he also is the only one who can work miracles by his own power."Thus according to the Thomist definition miracles are extraordinary events which are restricted to very specific circumstances. They do not require any interference with the "laws of nature"; for they are, as Thomas Aquinas says, beyond (praetor), not against (contra) created nature.

hi Kallipolis,

How about the miracles of pastafarians (the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster)? Do they also have miracles, and what's their opinion about miracles?

By the way, do you consider pastafarians as 'believers' or as 'non-believers'?

Thanks in advance for a reply.

 

[kallipolis]

Yap, excuse me. I confused you with Kulindahr.
You wrote:Would you mind to tell me something more about your education at both universities?

Besides that, I was wondering which teacher on any of these universities (which ones, do they have a website?) has learned you that the above definition of a 'fact', as used within the phrame of the above quote, is correct, and has anything to do with science, as teached on one of these, or both universities.

Thanks in advance for a reply.

I am well aware what a fact constitutes.

I avoid discussing my private, and professional life.

 

[kallipolis]

You're doing yourself and your position a massive disservice here, Kalli. By asserting that those who won't bend over and take claims of the miraculous without evidence they regard as satisfactory as simply being "concerted in their disbelief," you are exhibiting the very worst of the religious mindset; that is the outright refusal to accept or even acknowledge that there are those for whom the apparent "evidence" of divine intervention, or even the existence of the divine, simply isn't up to muster.

What you claim here as "evidence" isn't, and wouldn't be accepted as such by anyone working in any legitimate scientific or even half way critical field. What you have are claims of records of apparent events, the records of which are curiously in absence when asked for to be examined by critical eyes, purported and promulgated by figures and institutions who have a very temporal (somewhat scurillous) ideological interest in promotoing the apparent occurence of the apparent events, and in interpreting them via the filter of a very particular ideology on the basis of which said figures and institutions maintain their power and authority.

When you actualy LOOK at the claims of purported "miracles" (particularly with regards to apparently "miraculous" healing or recovery from disease), one finds that either the stories fray and peter out to the point where they can be regarded as nothing other than rumour or myth making, or they refer to conditions that have a medical likelihood of receding on their own anyway. Just because there is, in some instances, no current certainty as to why or how they recede, doesn't mean you get to stick God in that particular gap and proclaim it miraculous (at least until you can provide direct, observable, assessable evidence of God's intervention, how he did it, why he doesn't do it for others etc). What you NEVER see are phenomena such as massively deformed individuals suddenly tranfiguring into fully composed human beings, the mentally disabled suddenly efflorescing into fully functional humanity, those with severed or amputated limbs growing new ones (to refer to a pertinent cliche) etc.

I'm sorry, but if you want to make a claim for miracles in these instances, and if you expect those of us who do not have a concerted ideological interest in interpreting these apparent events as such, you and those who share the position need to provide more. Getting uppity and spiteful when we demand such not only demonstrates the weakness of your position, but also, insofar as I'm concerned, demonstrates a lack of connection to any notion of divinity, save one that is composed of the meanest stirrings in humanity's collective tribal breast (which is certainly how Yahweh and his ilk often come off in the stories that contain them).

Duly noted.

 

[TX-Beau]

Wee need to start a drinking game wherein everyone takes a shot every time Kallipolis "notes" something. It'd be better than beer pong.

 

[kallipolis]

Wee need to start a drinking game wherein everyone takes a shot every time Kallipolis "notes" something. It'd be better than beer pong.

I always reply to courteous, and creative contributions with my thoughts.

You will also have noted that I have a very thick skin.

 

[FirmaFan]

We are agreed that miracles, or miraculous cures cannot be scientifically proven.

So, then, what reason do we have for believing a miracle has even occurred?

It is not perception that evidences the full recovery of a terminally ill patient, arising from their faith that God has healed them rather a recognition by medical examination that they are no longer ill and that there is no logical explanation for the patient's full recovery.

"No logical explanation" does not automatically mean a miracle has occurred. This is simply an argument from ignorance, or personal incredulity. You are stating that your reason for believing such events are miracles performed by your particular god is that you do not have an explanation. It is basically stating, when observing something you would deem miraculous, "I can't explain this event, therefore...MIRACLE!". By saying you can't explain it, and then, in the same sentence, using "miracle" to explain it, you are essentially contradicting yourself. It also does nothing to further motivate you to investigate and discover the true explanation for it. Let's say, for example, a cancer patient fully recovers from a terminal diagnosis. You say "miracle". What if, instead, a genetic mutation in that person produced an enzyme that destroyed the cancer cells, which could then be synthesized and used to treat hundreds of other cancer patients? By explaining an unknown with "miracle", you immediately eliminate any further motivation for investigation by essentially fooling yourself into believing you already have the answer.

The question arises why are only a few healed, when many with profound faith in God are in need of being healed from their ailments.

A very simple explanation is that no god is actually there to hear their prayers, and the few that got better did so by some natural, but yet unknown, means. It is okay to admit that something is unknown, but you seem determined to ascribe some explanation to it, and seem keen to injecting your subjective personal beliefs into that explanation. I am sure more than a few of those who have healed in such a way as to have you label it as "miracle" are not subscribers to your beliefs.

If a sick person suddenly getting better is a "miracle", what is it when the healthy athletic teenager dies suddenly from a fatal heart attack (which has a far greater instance of confirmed occurrence than miracle healing)?

 

[kallipolis]

So, then, what reason do we have for believing a miracle has even occurred?

There is no reason that will satisfy you.

A compulsive empirical proof for the efficacy of prayer that leads to the miraculous healing of a terminally ill person, such as we have in the sciences can never be attained.

 

[TX-Beau]

There is no reason that will satisfy you.

There is no fancy that you will question.

c'est la vie

 

[palbert]

Your posts indicate that you are a non-believer, presuming to speak on behalf of the believer.

Yep. They're vocal enough that one can do so confidently.

Logic is always a debatable passage in time.

Logic is all we have. Without logic there would be miracles.

 

[kallipolis]

Logic is all we have. Without logic there would be miracles.

With logic and a willingness to learn, we can attempt to discern why miracles occur.

 

[kallipolis]

Miracles, those that aren't blatent lies, fabrications, imagaination, political propaganda and spun out of greed, are possibly unexplained happenings attributed to the sky fairy, until they are explained.

Thus, the ever-increasing rarity of miracles has increased their prices to heaven-help-us heights.

Wow! More impartial reasoning.

 

[TX-Beau]

With logic and a willingness to learn, we can attempt to discern why miracles occur.

With logic and a willingness to discern, we can attempt to learn why people just assume miracles occur.

Tag you're it.

 

[Dolmance]

Before we even begin assessing or even considering the "why" of miracles, we must first establish satisfactorily that they even DO occur, what the term "miracle" means, by what standards such a definition might be applied, which simply has not been done, in any sphere, and certainly not here.

 

[TX-Beau]

But there are so many people who saw them, well not me, but my brother's friend's cousin's uncle once had a bunion that miraculously got cured one morning after the Holy Virgin appeared on his waffles!!

Now the discerning and logical mind would want to know if the Virgin appearing on your breakfast is a cure for just bunions or all foot related aliments.

Praise Jesus!

 

[zoltanspawn]

I'm comfortable with the idea that some statistically rare number of people have experienced great fortune for no apparent reason and it's worth marvelling over.

 

[TX-Beau]

That depends on what you're talking about. If it's someone recovering when the Doctors say they won't that's one thing, if it's turning water into wine that is quite another.