Photocrat

Do any Hindus actually believe this one? Yeah, I even saw a video of it on the news some time ago, but it's making the rounds again...

<a href="http://www.newfrontier.com/asheville/hindu-milk-miracle.htm" target="_blank">http://www.newfrontier.com/asheville/hindu-milk-miracle.htm</a>

Sheesh. We always called it 'capillary action' and I certainly would've added a bit about the formation of hydrates to the list of explanations :] But if that doesn't convince anyone, perhaps thristystone coasters will --

<a href="http://shop.store.yahoo.com/giftwarehouse1/noname1.html" target="_blank">http://shop.store.yahoo.com/giftwarehouse1/noname1.html</a>

I guess that Hindus can have as many gods as they want. Suppose they'll start worshipping my coasters, next? ;] Don't take my word for it; buy a coaster if you want to experiment.

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> &lt;- Bowing to the absurd, I guess? :]

jess

I think that was just smilie abuse...

I remember that one--- miracles are tuff stuff. In Catholic school, I was taught that a miracle could be a natural event with good timing--- if, for example, someone had asked the gods to prove their existance by making a statue drink milk, and then theconditions we right for the stone to drink it, then one could argue...

I said could...

Of course, that is a more 'likely' miracle than the one of the Christian getting her teeth fixed without surgery, and then finding out her dentist had 'faked' it and had put her under (without her knowledge or permission ) to do the surgery--- and she still says it was a miracle!

&lt;shudder&gt;

Maybe we should have our own discussion here about miracles and the supernatural, since lil's isn't going anywhere. But we need to define miracle/supernatural event first.

any takers?

Photocrat

Well, the notion of a miracle is an "act of God" -- BUT, how do you prove it was God who did it? Now then, I've had several very nice coincidences which I wouldn't mind attributing to God, but I can't really prove anything by them. That's the rub.

Now then, from what we know of God, it would seem that He can suspend the natural laws if He wants to. Therefore, anything which seems to break the natural laws may be caused by Him.

But you're still going to saddle me with proof :] Personally, I like to link the visions at Lourdes [e.g. they testify that such a God exists, but give us no direct evidence] to the miracles [man, something strange is going on here--but what?] to make my case.

I mean, I don't give "I saw Mary and she told me to dig a well for some reason" nonsense the time of day, when there's nothing but some french girl's say-so behind it. But once doctors start seeing wierd things, which cannot be attributed to the waters directly, going on there, but which make some sort of theological sense, I'm somewhat more inclined to believe them.

Of course, I might still be accused by the more insightful of a form of the anthropomorphic fallacy. OTOH, I could say that to anyone who assumes that other minds exist; something we not, strictly speaking, have empirical evidence for... At that point, rather than making more assumptions, I become skeptical of skepticism itself--are these new doubts really something insightful, or more likely vapid? For such a class of things, I find unrestrained skepticism unwarranted and deal with the 'other minds' problem that way :]

Lastly, I seem to have been run off that other thread of Lil's by someone, since I was told that Lourdes was offtopic there... *shrug* I only bring that up, because it's *really* offtopic over here [unless Christianity is no longer Abrahamic? :] Perhaps we should take this elsewhere; though I frankly don't care where we talk about it. I figure the moderators, like you, can discuss whatever they want wherever they feel it's reasonable to :]

I was planning a series of posts which would bring it up, though... *shrug* I guess I should buckle down and write the first salvo... It should be on Moral Foundations & Principles, though it will undoubtably branch off from there [the salvo after that will have little to do with MF&P... :]

jess

I can't see any reason we can't touch on abramic religions to compare and contrast them with non-A ones--- as long as it is understood evangelical posts will be moved. Bring up Lourdes and milk drinking Hindu statues in the same breath moves it into this board's territory...

however, miracles and supernatural events ought to be on the science and skepticsim board...

We can go there to discuss--- but we can use this board to flesh out a non religion specific question to start with...

Or I can just move this post.

Thoughts?

jess

Topic has been moved to the science and skeptism board...

<a href="http://ii-f.ws/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=000576" target="_blank">here</a>