Echo

Well I think the phenomenon known as stigmata *is* proven to exist, since there are numerous documented cases of individuals who experience inexplicable bleeding from the palms or wrists that seem to correspond with Jesus' wounds. A similiar phenomenon has been known to occur among victims of severe physical abuse in childhood, as well as victims of post-traumatic stress disorder.

What isn't *proven* by any stretch of the imagination is that these phenomena are "supernatural" or require one to postulate divine intervention as a cause. When one considers the nonreligious parallels that can be found in the psychiatric literature, I find it especially unlikely that any "miracles" are going on here.

Half-Life

Or, they could've been nailed through the palms and had ropes tied around their wrists, but that's another story.

Asha'man

Common sense, really.

If I tell you that I had dinner yesterday with my friend Bob, you are perfectly willing to accept that statement at face value. You have no reason to distrust it. An ordinary claim can usually be accepted with little to no proof at all.

If I tell you that I had dinner yesterday with my friend Jack, who you know has been dead for 10 years, you are going to look at me funny. Since you know that dead people don’t usually eat dinner with friends long after they are dead, you are going to ask for clarification and evidence. Either your knowledge is incorrect, or my claim will be found to be untrue.

And what if I tell you I had dinner with you last night, but you know you were home alone? Clearly, either I am wrong or you are insane. I’ll bet that you are going to take extreme measures to verify that you are not insane.

A miracle is, by definition, an extraordinary claim. Typhon did an excellent job of explaining the extraordinary proof that is required to substantiate that claim, so I won’t repeat it. No, I take that back, I will repeat it, because it is so important.

First: You have to provide more than an anecdote to prove a miracle, you need solid evidence that something unusual has happened. Solid evidence, to me, is strong enough that a fair jury would convict a murderer based on it, without long deliberation or questions of conscience. You have presented nothing but a story of an unusual corpse, but would you bet your life on that story being perfectly accurate?

Second: You have to show that there is no possible natural explanation, and that only supernatural forces could have achieved the result that was seen. This is more than just saying that we don’t understand, because many natural forces are not understood yet. You have to show that well-understood natural law has clearly been violated, and that no other natural law is responsible.

Bodies normally decay, except that we know of dozens of ways to preserve them. Lead happens to be a well-known anti-microbial agent, and I strongly suspect that your saint was buried in a lead coffin. After death, the body dries out, and this tends to shorten muscles and tendons. This shortening clearly explains fingers being lifted. As for the number of fingers lifted, that seems meaningless. Any combination of fingers could be interpreted as having special meaning. So what exactly is this miracle again?

Asha'man

A good question. Assuming that you had rock-solid proof of any miracle, what would that mean to me personally?

Well, it clearly wouldn’t make me believe in God, at least not your God. A miracle would be proof of the supernatural, nothing more. There is no particular reason not to believe that Loki (Norse god of trickery and mischief) is responsible for all miracles everywhere. You might just as easily speculate that ghosts are responsible for miracles, but the existence of ghosts in no way proves the Christian Bible to be correct. (In fact, ghosts might disprove Christianity altogether, since they are thought to be dead souls that are nether in heaven nor hell.)

But your second question is back to the standard of proof. A good source is an absolute requirement for proving a miracle, but is not sufficient by itself. The entire basis of scientific proof is the show me concept. A scientific paper is not proof of anything. However, a scientific paper contains instructions to reproduce the results. Anyone who distrusts the paper is free to verify it for himself. The story is not the evidence, but the ability to see the results first hand provides the required level of proof. Once enough people have verified a claim, it becomes accepted. However, at any time, the re-verification of the claim is still possible, so nothing must be taken purely on faith.

sighhswolf

Half-Life,
I refer you to the post in RR&P on parables.
This may explain why I made the comment above.
I have never seen a miracle....I have never seen anything that I would consider to be supernatural.
I have seen many things I could not explain at the time, but my first thought was not to define those things in a supernatural way, only to say that My knowledge was limited and that limited knowledge could not provide me with a plausible
conclusion or explanation without further study.
Just because an event is outside of your personal
knowledge or experience, does not mean that it is
outside of reality.
Wolf

Wyrdsmyth

sighhswolf wrote: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Half-Life,

Are you able to distinguish between me claiming I once visited Germany and me claiming I once visited the Andromeda Galaxy?

[ April 13, 2002: Message edited by: Wyrdsmyth ]</p>

freemonkey

As beachbum has already mentioned: There is scripture about not breaking any of the bones of JC.
Please refer to the <a href="http://www.scoi.com/handanat.htm" target="_blank">drawings here</a>, you'll see that the human hand is filled with bones. Unless miraculous, non-bone-breaking nails were used, bones would have been broken.

[ April 13, 2002: Message edited by: freemonkey ]</p>

Autonemesis

How do you know what the 1 finger in the air means? The three fingers? How do you know it means anything? Who divined the meaning? What if the witnesses had been drinking? Why did they open the coffin? Were they expecting a miracle?

So there's a big difference between you and me: I take nothing at someone's word. Unless prior experience gives me reason to believe someone is credible, I will ask questions and make an investigation of the claims (assuming I am interested enough to make the effort). Even then... extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, even if it was Dr. Hawking making the claim.

You, on the other hand, appear to swallow this miracle story whole, never thinking to question whether there is a natural explanation for anything the witness reported.

The reason why a claim to have witnessed a miracle is extraordinary is because it upsets many basic assumptions we make about the world, without which it makes little sense to try and investigate and understand anything. If miracles occur, then events are not really understandable in terms of cause and effect. That pretty much destroys the most basic tenet of science: that the world is intelligible through investigation and experimentation. If that is not so, then all we do is so much smoke and heat, but no light.

Matt

From: <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/joe_nickell/miracles.html" target="_blank">Examining Miracle Claims</a>

DarkDruid

I'm hardly an ancient historian, but this does not seem too plausable. If the wrists are going to be tied, then there is no need for a nail It's sort of like paperclipping two peices of paper together and then stapling it. There's just no need to do it.