(August 27, 2023 at 11:09 am)Vicki Q Wrote: Your analysis would be excellent on the classic understanding of miracle as an intervention from God from outside the natural world, but not with what I outlined. This is why I (in company of Borg, Wright and others) avoid the term 'miracle'.
You might be in company of Borg, but not Jesus. He had other ideas about miracles.
(August 27, 2023 at 11:09 am)Vicki Q Wrote: God acts from within the natural order. Mostly you don't notice His action, occasionally you do. There is no natural/supernatural distinction. There are very surprising things that happen, things that signpost God, that imply a power at work. But these are nature aligning itself with God's purposes, pointing us to God, not magic tricks.
And that is deism. You are much closer to being an atheist.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
