miracles do they happen??

Yes, there are some reports of spontaneous remissions. There is much about some cancers we do not know. By the way, not all supposed miracles are medical miracles. For instance, the parting of the Red Sea.

I get the feeling when miracles are mentioned certain individuals have been selected to receive preferential treatment. I then have to ask why they should receive it and others do not? If miracles are some type of selection process how do we know how to get selected, its all a bit bizarre to me.

Recoveries "being unexplainable by medical science". Oh heck yea. They can't explain most diagnosis anyway (except, perhaps, a severed arm - and then only if the victim beat the doctor over the head with it). So on the flip side - unexplained recoveries. I'd bet they happen all the time! So much we don't know...

It would only be the other criteria of your definition (documentation, witnessing, etc.) which would - I'd guess - make the whole event relatively rare.

Good thread.

This is all a miracle is? Bodily healing unexplained by current medical science? Well then, I suppose miracles happens all the time!

Miracles are really lame nowadays. What happened to a man turning a sea blood red with his wooden stick, frogs falling from the sky, or men walking on water and rising from the dead?

That is not what a miracle is. What you mean is that what are believed to be miracles are (as yet) unexplained natural events, and that there are no miracles.

The classic essay is, "Of Miracles" by David Hume who argues not that there are no miracles, but that we cannot know that there are because there must always be more reason to believe that an event is an unexplained natural event, than there can be reason to believe it is a miracle.

Here is the famous essay: Worth reading.

"Of Miracles" - David Hume

I thought an unexplained natural event was a miracle. There's a distinction? I suppose there's one from some religious/supernatural point-of-view, huh?

Of course there is. Miracles are violations of the laws of nature which are divine interventions. That you do not believe there are any such things doesn't mean that if they existed they would not be different from just unexplained events. I don't believe there are unicorns either, but I think that if there were any they would not just be horses. (Hume also distinguishes between the miraculous and the marvelous. Penicillin, when first discovered, was not miraculous, but it was marvelous).

Certainly highly unusual, rare and unexpected events occur.
The spontaneous remission of certain cancers is a well documented phenomena.
That does not mean they were "miracles" using the traditional religious notion of a miracle as a divine intervention contravening natural law.
Nature does not appear to be deterministic and some events have a very low probability of occuring but if they did occur (spontaneous combustion say) they still would not be miracles only extremely rare events.

I think the most common definition of a miracle is that which cannot be explained that causes awe and wonder. We use these words all the time and it depends on what one has personally experienced will determine how they regard such awesome and wonderful occurrences.

As far as raising the dead, parting of the seas, walking on water, it is quite impossible to determine exactly where those "stories" come from and why the were originated. One can assume an occurrence did happen in a persons life that was unexplained such as might be defined as a coincidence or deja vu occurrence. I feel they are only rare to the extent that we just don't notice them.

As these quite personal occurrences are related from one to the other over time they change, dependent on who is hearing them and what they have experienced personally and so on and so on. The ones that stay with us are those that have never occurred yet as far as anyone has personally observed.

There are minor miracles that happen in my life consistently and there is no way I can explain them to you that will satisfy you because of what you have experienced in your life. Like trying to remember what it was that we're to do that we cannot remember and instantly noticing a billboard the says "got milk"; then you remember. You can go looking for them, they just happen. That is the miraculous thing and with me, it happens all the time. Just like now, for instance. I have often mentioned I never think about what I am going to say, I just say what comes to my mind and often it surprises, even me, as to what I have written.

It is much easier to just say what comes to mind than it is to write it. If I could write as fast as I speak it would be different and more spontaneous, but I have to, to a degree, personally, think about what I am saying using and selecting words that will be understood by most. If I were saying, talking, relating using all the mannerisms involved in that, it would be much easier to communicate. So it goes with what is written and handed down and how each and every person regards them based on their own personal experience and is so passed on.

Let's take the story of Moses for instance and those etched stone tablets he brought down from Sinai supposedly written by the hand of god and where we get the "etched in stone" as to infer cannot be changed; the law; forever and anon and so forth. Now who personally witnessed this? One man and all else is speculation simply because it has never been personally witnessed again by any other man or person. Is that a miracle? Of course it isn't. Moses, considering the time he was gone could have written them himself and carved them himself and only said they were written by god. Could it be understood that he did that as an inspiration "from god"? I doubt it. If we were indeed created perfect, then why would god say such things to his perfect creation. Of course then it is written and translated we are imperfect, flawed and in sin. Then and only then would such an occurrence such as Moses had make sense. Then one must ask, how could a perfect god create an imperfect "anything"? Here we have our quagmire.

Here is another for instance. As many of you know about my personal situation for I have related some of this to you. Due to my previous health problems my ability to earn an income diminished gradually over a couple of years and I lost everything I owned because of that with the exception of what I could put in my automobile and carry with me. I could not even pay the note on that automobile and haven't in over two years; yet I still have it in spite of the threats I received.

I have not had the income and still don't to pay the insurance, inspection or renew the registration. Yet I still have the vehicle. Now the miracles that have occurred that have allowed that to happen are too numerous to mention, but I will try.

First when I say I lost everything, I mean my address where I lived, my cell phone, my telephone and all I had was just enough money to get me from one place to the other. There was no way anyone could contact me. None. I just disappeared. The only way anyone would know where I was if I told them personally using other telephones and such. I never was "on the lam" as it were. Never were my friends in jeopardy who have helped me along the way, for when I left their presence they never knew where I was going or who I was going to see. In many cases neither did I. I just followed my nose, as it were. I still had the ability to provide some income and sell when I absolutely needed to, but that was rare because my continual failing health prevented it. That was enough to keep gas in my vehicle and keep me on the road. I became virtually LOST. Ha! The miracle of that is I was never worried about it. Something would and does always "come up" and present itself that would help me.

I never did anything to alter the appearance of my vehicle. Nothing. It was then as it is today; with an expired inspection sticker and registration sticker and a faulty tail light that would take close to $200.00 to repair for I now have to buy the whole assembly from a new car dealer and I don't have that money. I just don't drive at night, nor do I have reason to.

Whenever that occasion occurs when it is possible for anyone who might stop me for these infractions something always occurs the prevents them of doing so, that is out of my control; yet I notice every single one of them every time and it just makes me LOL to the point now I just don't worry about it. Are they just coincidences? I think not in that they are too numerous for that. Something is in play here far beyond any explanation of it. Am I grateful and thankful for that? You bet. Do I try and explain it? No more than I am doing now. I just flow with it and just let what ever will happen.......happen, period. And in that I find an extraordinary "peace of mind". Now that is hard to explain for no one I know has that but me. Perhaps there are those who truly have peace of mind; I have yet to meet them, is all. And I have personally met literally thousands and thousands of people one on one in my life time.

My daughter wants me to write a book and if I did and relate all the experiences that have occurred in my life, if most would believe it it would indeed be a best seller. No doubt. I tell her, thanks to this new global way of communicating, I am doing that now and it is free as it should be. I have no desire to profit from it, as most do. Yet to do so would indeed solve all my problems. But my problems are what others perceive me to have; for me alone.............I have none. If one were to occur, it will come to me what I must do........then and when or if it does occur. And in that I find an enormous amount of comfort. For that is how it is now with me. It just comes to me and it always will. If I could just explain that in such a way in which others could hear me and believe it themselves, this would be a truly amazing and awesome world we would find ourselves in. It would be absolutely wonder-filled for us all. No doubt about it.

I am only using my vehicle as an example of these "minor miracles" because it is the only thing in my life that can be considered "illegal". These miracles happen all the time in other aspects of my life consistently and constantly. I never know when, how or what they will be. As I said I just let it happen and I am content with what will be will be and leave it at that. Ha! If you only knew how comfortable...that.....is, you would too.:a-ok:

William

Well, at least (as Hume argues) we could not know, or even justifiably believe, that they were miracles, because some other explanation must always be more probable than the miracle explanation. And, "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence." (David Hume).

THAT is, IMO, the critical question. Of the hundreds of thousands of petitioners at Lourdes, there have been, I believe, two verified miracles in three decades. I've studied "miracles" for some time, but I can't find any common denominators that give a clue as to "who" will be a recipient or "why".

If medical science could discover the answers to these questions, could find the common denominators, just imagine the possibilities! There has to be an explanation of some kind, some where, but what???

I guess we just have to keep on examining verifiable "miracles" until someone finally discovers a common denominator?

rebecca

If there are miracles, then there is no naturalistic explanation of them. If they exist, then they are supernatural interventions by God. So why would you believe there must be some explanation of why a miracle occurs in one instance, and not in another?

By miracle I dont just mean medical miracles, any miracle that defy' s the known laws of science should also be considered

When or where is there any evidence of something happening that defies the "laws of science"?

I'm skeptical of the statement let alone the meaning of the statement.

xris hit on something that offends me about miracle talk. His question is absolutely and utterly relevant but completely dismissed or ignored.

I want to punch the people who say their prayers get answered while there are children starving. If god pays attention to those who petition while those who are left without for what ever reason then by that very thing god is in no way a god. The reasoning is irrelevant.

I wouldn't actually punch anyone but they just can not see how absurd their statement is and how much of a punch in the face it is to those who are suffering.

It is good news that Anthony is doing well.

I find this an interesting topic...

If in the definition of miracle, there is a reference to the "acting outside the laws of nature", there needs to be a further extension. If something is observed to occur outside the laws of nature we need to determine if this event is a new law of nature or an extension of an existing one. A miracle, would therefore need an element of discontinuous.

This is the interesting part for me. It is similar to people who see a UFO an immediately think of aliens tourists. It is unidentified, or as you have said in this case an unexplained event. All that is acheived by ruling out natural phenomena is proving that it is not one of those natural phenomena that the event was challenged against.

The important issue, it seems to me, is how we can any good reason to believe that some event "defys" the known (or unknown) laws of science.

Of the millions of people seeking healing at Lourdes only about sixteen have been accepted as irrefutable instantaneous miracles.

We should give the Catholic Church credit for not simple accepting any claim as a miracle, they do an extremely thorough investigation before proclaiming a miracle event, medical or elsewise.

There have been claims of people levitating, and this type of thing, if it really happens, would defy that law of gravity

Laws of coincidence come into play for many supposed miracles. The world miracle infers intervention by a supreme being, now can any one tell me why this guy will help you stop police from booking you for having no lights but not help a child from being raped:perplexed: