A simple perspective on miracles

[Kulindahr]

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 no results showing the existence of quarks, there are only assertions of such results.
See the difference there?

 

[Kulindahr]

PUH-LEEEZE. The only people who are completely unable to be neural about miracles are people like you who define themselves by religion.

No -- also people like you, who are completely unable to be neutral about miracles because you assume that can't happen and so deny any evidence of them.

All the rest of us require evidence when someone screams magic. I'm very sorry for you that you set the bar so low for yourself then claimed everyone else is being unreasonable, but then, that's kind of what the religious always do. WE don't need the open mind - YOU do. You will never consider anything that conflicts with your magic no matter how obvious, because your religion trumps your reason.

Such is life.

You're the only one talking about magic.

And you don't have an open mind, or you wouldn't dismiss all evidence for miracles out of hand.

 

[Kulindahr]

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).

This is your faith position. In actuality, there are individuals with conditions never expected to improve who do -- and not gradually, but all at once. And there are instances of people with conditions doctors expect to improve, who suddenly, inexplicably, are completely healthy. On top of that, there are also instances of the mentally ill suddenly being whole.

But people don't report these because scientists will just find ways to explain them away, so there's no point. But I've witnessed some -- not that you'll believe that; as Kalli said, miracles, to the unbeliever, are always just a misinterpretation of the facts.

 

[Kulindahr]

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

No -- only when you have logic can you observe miracles.
People didn't report miracles because they had no clue how nature works, or expected it to be illogical; they reported them because they expected things to be logical, but things weren't.

Without logic, there are no miracles, because anything can happen anyway, so nothing is any different than anything else.

 

[Kulindahr]

Someone recovering from illness despite the odds is an uplifting thing, but what would you actually say to someone who told you their water turned to wine. Honestly.

I'd ask if the Son of God was personally present at the time in such a way that anyone who happened to walk in would say they met a real person.

I read through the link you provided about the eucharistic miracle of Lanciano. Couple of things I noticed:

The scientific investigation into the material is described as being "with absolute and unquestionable scientific precision". Now, I am as confident in the efficiency of the scientific process as can be reasonably assumed, and the reason for that is the process of independent verification and peer review, a process by which a particular experiments' claimed findings are attempted to be reproduced and verified. Nearly every aspect of the experiment is questioned and scrutinized, and only after it has been through the peer review ringer will the data be accepted as fact. That being said, there is no scientific experiment that is "unquestionable" or "absolute". In science, everything is questioned.

I only mention the above objection because of the extreme amount of flaunting they have done to show that this "miracle" has been scientifically investigated and validates the religious claim (it actually doesn't, but I'll get to that in a second). I find this to be an element of some hypocrisy as it is common to condemn the scientific methods and investigation when results do not concur with religious teachings and belief. Even you yourself, Mikey, have time and time again made it known the limitations of science when attempting to investigate your religious beliefs. So, why then, is the scientific findings presented in this "miracle" of such value that it was felt to make sure all know how rigorous and accurate the "absolute and unquestionable scientific precision" was? There may be some bias going on here.

Now, here are the conclusions of the investigation as presented in the article:



The first thing I notice in reading through the conclusions of the study is this: there is no finding in this study that states "the flesh and blood were shown to have once existed as bread and wine". The very thing with which they were attempting to verify they did not conclude. All that was concluded was that they were in possession of flesh and blood. The only "evidence" to show that they were transformed from bread and wine is the claim made by the priest some 1300 years ago. No further evidence beyond that is shown to verify that the miracle actually occurred at all.

Working in the medical field, I can get a general idea about how most of the conclusions were made...blood typing and all is rudimentary to the point of being trivial, but I am unsure about how they went about dating the samples they were studying to determine their age in order to reach the conclusion that "he preservation of the Flesh and of the Blood, which were left in their natural state for twelve centuries and exposed to the action of atmospheric and biological agents, remains an extraordinary phenomenon.". How do they know it is 12 centuries old? What evidence shows it was "left in their natural state"? These are things that must be verified in order to demonstrate the claims. Yet again, the extraordinary parts of this miracle claim are the things not actually scientifically backed up.

I saw mention the typing of the blood was concluded to be the same as the type on the famed shroud of turin. To truly confirm the same source, a DNA test would be warranted. Hell, a DNA test on the eucharistic miracle blood alone would prove very interesting. Paternal DNA would be something extraordinary to see, wouldn't it, as it would be the DNA of god himself...or, if god has no DNA, would show something entirely different. You would at least have mitochondrial DNA, which comes exclusively from the mother...it sure would be something to be able to map the genome of the Virgin Mary. I saw nothing about any such experiments being done. Instead, what I see is that a study in the 70s was carried out on a piece of flesh and blood that verified it to be flesh and blood and that was it. Where is the rest of the studies? This goes back to my criticism of them describing the science as "with absolute and unquestionable scientific precision", because further testing, such as DNA mapping, should be done...I understand that these tests were not available during the initial study, but they are now. The problem with the science in this case is that they got the results they were wanting...ie, it's real flesh and blood...and then they stopped investigating. Science never reaches a conclusion, science only gathers more and more evidence. When you come to a conclusion, that is the point when you stop thinking. The investigation into this "miracle" requires much more investigation than what has been presented, and is certainly not satisfactory in validating the claim that bread and wine miraculously turned into flesh and blood.

I noticed all this as well. When you've got something in hand that supposedly is, represents, or proves a miracle, you should investigate the heck out of it. That should certainly be done in the case of miraculous claims that seem capricious, because the miracles in the Bible all have purpose and meaning. From a doctrinal standpoint, I'd want to know what those were -- was there a widespread doubt or denial of the Real Presence? for example.

 

[Telstra]

What's your evidence? Have you roped Jesus into a lab and demanded He repeat those events?

Yes, he never talk back.

 

[Kulindahr]

To me, these debates are pointless. They are examples of one side just not "getting" the other side, almost as if they are speaking different languages.

I think the most common event described as a miracle in our times is spontaneous remission. These are the cases where a person has been diagnosed with untreatable terminal cancer or leukaemia but after some time they find that the disease has disappeared and there is no explanation by medical science. Recently, Mary MacKillop was recognised to be a saint by the Catholic Church, a procedure that requires at least two miracles attributed to prayers for intercession by the saint. Both of the miracles were examples of spontaneous remission.

Now medical science that has studied spontaneous remission has recently started to notice that many of those who are cured experienced a feverish infection not long before their cancer disappeared. Speculation is that the infection somehow resets the immune system and makes it fight off the cancer. Ian Gawler, a famous Australian meditation teacher who believed that his meditation techniques had cured his own terminal bone cancer, contracted tuberculosis when travelling to some Asian countries in search of meditation teachings and it is now thought that it was his immune systems reaction to TB that cured his cancer.

I don't know about Rome, but for the eastern church to verify a miracle, it has to be directly and immediately connected to an act of grace. So a spontaneous remission that happened at the moment of the reception of the Eucharist, or at the moment of petitioning God for healing, or the moment of anointing with oil for healing, would count, but the same remission while sleeping or sitting by the fire or even singing a hymn wouldn't be recognized as a miracle.

They would also not care that there was a scientific explanation, because it's the connection with that act of grace that is the measure of the event.

 

[Kulindahr]

Let's say the individual suffering from a terminal disease recovered then claimed that they'd been saved by Great Cthulhu, Lovecraftian God of the Deep, and that it was their business to spread His word, to prepare mankind for His awakening. Would you accept his claims at face value then? Or do we accept said claims only when they accord with certain individuals particular ideological biases?

Cthuhu is from an avowed work of fiction, so I wouldn't give that any credence at all.

Now, if it were Aten, ancient Egyptian sun god, I'd be intrigued.

 

[FirmaFan]

I don't know about Rome, but for the eastern church to verify a miracle, it has to be directly and immediately connected to an act of grace. So a spontaneous remission that happened at the moment of the reception of the Eucharist, or at the moment of petitioning God for healing, or the moment of anointing with oil for healing, would count, but the same remission while sleeping or sitting by the fire or even singing a hymn wouldn't be recognized as a miracle.

They would also not care that there was a scientific explanation, because it's the connection with that act of grace that is the measure of the event.

Correlation does not equal causation.