Jackalope

*snort* My stepdancing teacher's mother actually did smuggle her whole supply of poiteen into the US that way when she moved here. She said the jars were full of holy water. And if you drank enough of the stuff, you might indeed see God.

However, I'm not aware of any miracle cure at Lourdes that was adequately documented. First, the sufferer needs to have medical documentation that they have a particular condition. Then they need to be gone over by the doctors again after the "cure" happens for it to even get close to convincing. And that leaves out the little snag that many conditions spontaneously remit by themselves (autoimmune diseases are notorious for this...however, that doesn't mean that remission is permanent).

Amie

I am going to try to find a documented one...

what do you guys think of those crying statues? was is that about?

I believe in angels too

back to miracles...

[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: Amie ]</p>

lunachick

I used to live in Jerusalem. You'd think there'd be miracles there, huh?

Nope.

Amie

Yep. The miracle of the holy fire happens every year there. I want to witness something like that...

Infinity Lover

Well it would have to defy all logical explainations (I would have to be completely incapable of explaining how it may NOT have been God at work), and there would have to be some clear sign involved undoubtedly pointing towards Jesus indeed being "the Christ".

But even THEN chances are it wouldn't lead me to believe he and his message were correctly portrayed in the Bible...

...and how could I be sure it wasn't some other force trying to coax me into...erm...

...next question please? <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: Infinity Lover ]</p>

lunachick

The miracle of the Holy Fire? Are you talking about the fire of many moons ago in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Polar Bear:

"What sort of phenomenon would you have to experience firsthand in order to be convinced that it was (1) a miracle and (2) an act of the Christian God of the Bible?"

This is a hard one. To conclude that some supernatural being caused some situation to obtain (thereby satisfying (1)) goes wrong for some very deep methodological reasons. It's really not clear what makes something natural or supernatural, especially because when something is observed to happen, it tends to take on a very natural character and would thereby stop being a miracle. Hume's argument against miracles is also relevant; compare the number of times we've observed miracles to the number of times we've observed hoax, lies, error, misremembering, misdescription, natural phenomenon of which we were heretofore-ignorant, etc., and then you can evaluate every specific case and decide which one is more likely. In short, it would require quite a bit for me to suppose something was a genuine miracle, because there seem always to be better explanations in all the possible situations of which I can think.

As for (2), this is even harder. A phenomenon that could only be explained by a god with all of those properties is hard to imagine. One could never observe a situation that obviously could only have been brought about by an omnipotent being, for example, unless the situation were "every logically possible situation obtains at once," which is impossible. The same goes for pretty much all of God's characteristics; one could just as easily explain the phenomenon with a lesser god (or no god at all), so "God" as an explanation multiplies entities unnecessarily.

Oxymoron

They were faked. Case closed.

I like Indian Food. So what?

What miracles? Where? My wife is pregnant. Is that a miracle? It happens millions of times every year, sounds pretty commonplace to me.

Thousands died on 9/11. Was that a miracle? I mean, I'm pretty sure the survivors reckoned it was (for themselves, that is). I'm pretty sure that Al-Qaida reckoned it was a miracle, too.

Healing at Lourdes? Nope, nothing statistically significant going on there. Or anywhere else, really, apart from the (not to be underestimated) power of the placebo.

Biblical miracles? Schizophrenic hallucinations more like; stories distorted by word-of-mouth; or just plain manipulative lies.

Crying statues? Don't make me laugh. Now if God rearranged the constellations...

Vorkosigan

I don't believe such a phenomenon is possible. This whole concept was <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000089&p=" target="_blank">discussed at length</a> back in February. I put up this little query for Andrew, who runs the Challenging Atheism board (do a google for it.)

"Sorry, Andrew, but you've run up against one of the most pperplexing problems theists face when advocating miracle claims.

Let's imagine that little Jane is accidently beheaded in an accident at the Daytona 500. Thousands of horrified witnesses see head and body fly apart. Video cameras are running as the blood drains from her mutilated body.

Suddenly her mother runs out onto the track and prays loudly to Jesus. The head rights itself, floats over to the body, re-attaches itself, and Jane sits up, none the worse for wear and...er...tear.

Now, what have we witnessed? Have we witnessed

a) an actual miracle by Jesus

b) an actual miracle by some other deity, like Odin, Ngai or Shiva, intervening for the Eff of It.

c) a random miracle caused by non-theistic supernatural intervention, like by Buddhist chants channeled through a Buddhist in the crowd

d) the outcome of the psychic power of the crowd, [or of a person] focused through the talisman of Jesus' name, and thus not even remotely theistic at all.

e) aliens intervening with superior technology, and thus not even a violation of naturalism.

You can see the problem. It is impossible to rule out other roots for your miracle, and thus, impossible to even conclude that it is theistic in nature, let alone one from your god."

The same problem applies even to the constellation-rearrangement example. It might be some god, or some unknown psychic power, or some pantheistic thing, or aliens with a playful sense of humor and serious technology. There's no way to know for sure. You could get me to buy the extranatural, but no extranatural event could ever be proof for a particular supernatural entity.

As we got further into it, I brought up an old argument from Collins and Pinch:

"I agree with you that no evidence of miracles will ever be accepted by atheists, not because they are pigheaded, but because it is a logical impossibility. For consider the following sequence....

1) The head re-attachment was actually caused by a telekinetic in the crowd.

but even more

2) There was no accident. Someone in the crowd simply reached out with their ESP and created the illusion of one.

but further...

3) There was no crowd and no race. The entire event was created in the minds of the TV viewers by someone with ESP.

until finally...

4) There are no viewers, no TV, no crowd, no psychic powers. The universe is just a dream in your mind."

Once you exit naturalism, the next stop is Solipsism. There's no stop in between. Suppose you see a miracle. How do you know someone with ESP hasn't tampered with your mind?

Vorkosigan

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

Oxymoron

...then I'd at least sit up and be remotely intrigued

Vorkosigan:
Great post! I liked Arthur C Clarke's idea that we would not be able to distinguish a sufficiently technically advanced civilisation from a God. My 'constellation' remark was merely meant to imply that most theist miracles are pretty banal and localised, I think it would take something f**king big to impress me.

But hey, God is omnipotent, so that shouldn't be so hard