I'm sure this has been kicked around here before...

Has anyone had any experiences with Miracles (or as my Atheist friends & relatives call them: spontaneous, unexplained niceties) happening in their lives? Or, if not you, in the lives of people close to you?

This could be anything that seemed extraordinary, unexplained, or a supernatural event. If you can explain it...it's NOT a miracle!

What, if anything do you attribute them to, and why?

I have a few to share...but would like some perspective of how this is gonna proceed first!

(May 31, 2013 at 2:27 pm)ronedee Wrote: Has anyone had any experiences with Miracles (or as my Atheist friends & relatives call them: spontaneous, unexplained niceties) happening in their lives? Or, if not you, in the lives of people close to you?

Yeah, I shit gold bricks, piss caviar and cum champagne!!

Quote:This could be anything that seemed extraordinary, unexplained, or a supernatural event. If you can explain it...it's NOT a miracle!

I am really looking forward to drippy and minimalist replying to this.

Quote:What, if anything do you attribute them to, and why?

Absolutly nothing!

There is not a single recorded miracle which can be proven to be a miracle

Quote:I have a few to share...but would like some perspective of how this is gonna proceed first!

Non of what you can share will be convincing, because you cannot prove they really happened!

All miracle stories I've read seem to come down to nothing more than wishful thinking, confirmation bias, mass delusion or post hoc rationalization.

Why is it that no miracles, ever, involve certain categories of things, e.g., Down Syndrome cure or regrowing a missing limb? Why the selectivity?

I suppose you might want to start by defining just what a "miracle" is.

This won't proceed well - The Prophecy of JHC.

(May 31, 2013 at 2:39 pm)The Germans are coming Wrote: Yeah, I shit gold bricks,

Tywin Lannister... we meet again!

Mothers survive cancer…teenagers get off drugs…kidnapped children are recovered.
While these can be explained away without saying "God did this", sometimes we have to realize that there is an ultimate good that works through nature and through the people in our lives.
If people DID walk across water, we would have no choice but to believe. In the past, people believed in demons and dark magic and could attribute miracles to ghost powers. Also, there weren't as many Christians around at the time, making the conversion process harder.
We, on the other hand, surrounded by ministers in a society where the laws of physics are set, would have no choice but to break down and cry out our sins. Believing would require nothing on our part except having seen or heard about the miracle event, and God would be forcefully intimidating us into believing in him.
In the smaller miracles we see in our lives, God meets us halfway. We are given equal opportunity to believe that there is a God working for us, or that these things happened by chance. And that's why we need faith…God can't carry us all the way.

(May 31, 2013 at 2:39 pm)The Germans are coming Wrote: Yeah, I shit gold bricks, piss caviar and cum champagne!!?

You sound very self-sufficient!

(May 31, 2013 at 2:39 pm)The Germans are coming Wrote: None of what you can share will be convincing, because you cannot prove they really happened!

So, I'll lie?

Hmmmmm....I thought people would at least be curious.

(May 31, 2013 at 2:27 pm)ronedee Wrote: I'm sure this has been kicked around here before...

Has anyone had any experiences with Miracles (or as my Atheist friends & relatives call them: spontaneous, unexplained niceties) happening in their lives? Or, if not you, in the lives of people close to you?

This could be anything that seemed extraordinary, unexplained, or a supernatural event. If you can explain it...it's NOT a miracle!

What, if anything do you attribute them to, and why?

I have a few to share...but would like some perspective of how this is gonna proceed first!

Sorry - but the word "miracle" has too many definitions to answer your question in the manner you want.

I can use the word "miracle" in this sentence - If I live to see my youngest son actually clean out, wash, and wax his car - it will be a miracle.

Obviously - if it does happen - the "miracle" will have been performed by a human.

Today - humans perform LOTS of "miracles". WE have cured cancer for some - eliminated some diseases - established government to take the place of religious nonsense - and men have actually traveled to - and walked on the moon - as well as having sent other satellites around the solar system. We have modes of transportation that do not require feeding an animal - and even have ways of communicating with people 10,000 miles away from us almost instantaneously.

All of the above and many more of the things in our daily lives - refrigeration - canning - cooking - housing - construction - and lots of others would have been looked on as miracles to people only a few hundred years ago.

The problem with religious people is they are UNWILLING to admit that in fact - there are no things that happen that do not have a natural explanation now - it is just that we may not yet have the explanation.
And over the centuries - Lots of things that were once called miracles are things that people have better ways of doing today. (Fire was once a miracle - we have other ways of cooking today)

In the absence of proof of the existence of a god - and COMPLETE absence of the existence of a god as defined by religion(Because they are all impossible to exist) - making up stories about what a god does - did - or can do - is worthless. A god can do as much as James Bond - and Harry Potter - because they are equivalent - fictional characters.

Xtianity has had 2000 years - often with complete control of the major population of the planet - often with almost unlimited funds - and using the very best techniques they could REQUIRE their people to use - have found not a single piece of evidence of the existence of a god - except those of human origin. And yet - every day - more and more things in the book that was ONCE considered to be the COMPLETE AND INERRANT word of that god - are found not to be true. Xtianity killed people for saying that the earth orbited the sun - yet it does.

Sorry - but the problem is that - with all of the FAILURES of religion - and the inability to show any act works (Prayer has never been proven to have any statistical significance) - it is more correct to assume that if something happens for which we have NO explanation NOW _ there will be one later.

(May 31, 2013 at 3:04 pm)Consilius Wrote: Believing would require nothing on our part except having seen or heard about the miracle event, and God would be forcefully intimidating us into believing in him.

Really??

Showing himself to us would be forcefully intimidating us to believe but threatening us with eternal damnation while providing not a scrap of evidence of his existence is not forceful intimidation?

I think your logic screw needs a bit of tightening, my dear.

(May 31, 2013 at 3:04 pm)Consilius Wrote: Mothers survive cancer…teenagers get off drugs…kidnapped children are recovered.
While these can be explained away without saying "God did this", sometimes we have to realize that there is an ultimate good that works through nature and through the people in our lives.
If people DID walk across water, we would have no choice but to believe. In the past, people believed in demons and dark magic and could attribute miracles to ghost powers. Also, there weren't as many Christians around at the time, making the conversion process harder.
We, on the other hand, surrounded by ministers in a society where the laws of physics are set, would have no choice but to break down and cry out our sins. Believing would require nothing on our part except having seen or heard about the miracle event, and God would be forcefully intimidating us into believing in him.
In the smaller miracles we see in our lives, God meets us halfway. We are given equal opportunity to believe that there is a God working for us, or that these things happened by chance. And that's why we need faith…God can't carry us all the way.

Nicely put!

I have a very good friend who has a small ministry helping mostly AA people...we were out at a sandwich shop having lunch, and he was evangelizing the waitress who was on tough times! "Mike" was telling her the many miracles he's experienced through his ministry...

The young waitress suddenly got very excited and said: "sir you must tell everyone about these miracles! Aren't you amazed when you see all these things happen?"

Mike just smiled, and said: "this is everyday stuff for those who love the Lord!"

(May 31, 2013 at 3:04 pm)Consilius Wrote: Mothers survive cancer…teenagers get off drugs…kidnapped children are recovered.
While these can be explained away without saying "God did this",

Because they have perfectly natural explanations.

Quote:sometimes we have to realize that there is an ultimate good that works through nature and through the people in our lives.

Nah, shit just happens, some of it good, some of bad but most somewhere in the middle.

Quote:If people DID walk across water, we would have no choice but to believe. In the past, people believed in demons and dark magic and could attribute miracles to ghost powers. Also, there weren't as many Christians around at the time, making the conversion process harder.
We, on the other hand, surrounded by ministers in a society where the laws of physics are set, would have no choice but to break down and cry out our sins.

I have seen people "walk on water" they were magicians.
If you see something that seems impossible, do not just believe but look for the trick.

Quote:Believing would require nothing on our part except having seen or heard about the miracle event

I think you are being naive here, if I heard about something happening that seemed impossible I would want it properly studied.
I would not start singing praises to god and bending at the knee.

Quote:In the smaller miracles we see in our lives, God meets us halfway. We are given equal opportunity to believe that there is a God working for us, or that these things happened by chance. And that's why we need faith…God can't carry us all the way.

There are no miracles.
There have never been miracles.
Until someone comes up with verifiable evidence to the contrary that will remain my position.