(July 9, 2013 at 9:18 am)Drich Wrote: Why do we assume that Miricals Have to be always grounded in the world of Magic/unknown?
There seem to be two ways in which people typically use the term "miracle." One is to describe something that was improbable (The 1980 US Olympic hockey team's victory over the Soviets is referred to as a miracle). The other is to describe something supernatural. Walking on water. Feeding thousands of people with a basket of fish and then collecting twelve baskets of scraps. Bringing a dead person back to life. Etc.
The former are grounded in the natural world, as they are simply a matter of probabilities. The latter are grounded in the world of magic or the unknown, as they seem to have no natural or rational explanation. I assume that it is the latter that is being referred to when talking about the requirements for sainthood.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
