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RE: Pope John Paul II and the trouble with miracles
July 9, 2013 at 12:33 pm
(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."
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RE: Pope John Paul II and the trouble with miracles
July 9, 2013 at 2:22 pm
(July 9, 2013 at 1:15 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Both Russian goalies looked as if they would have had a hard time stopping a beach ball that day.
God works in strange and mysterious ways!
"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
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RE: Pope John Paul II and the trouble with miracles
July 9, 2013 at 11:41 pm
(July 9, 2013 at 9:18 am)Drich Wrote: I contend that a mirical is not defined on our ablity to comperhend what has happened, but that it is the will and action of God that made it happen. Either through a normal process or a 'magical' one.
Already the term "m i r a c l e" has been defined for you in a previous post as being ascribed to a supernatural cause so saying "through a normal process" is meaningless, it must then follow it must be a "magical" one. But explanations that claim magic or the supernatural are almost always made by the uneducated or by those trying to manipulate. Why is that? The short answers:
The uneducated - The laws of probability are so little understood by the masses that anything perceived to be remotely infrequent is immediately attributed to the hand of God. Many of the events that do happen we have no statistical information on but just because we have no empirical data doesn’t mean it is miraculous.
The manipulators - The Catholic church, for example, claims that John Paul II has performed two miracles in spite of evidence to the contrary. The church underpins its otherwordly claims so it can continue to bilk millions of the faithful.
Lack of education and greed are the roots of miraculous claims.
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“I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's." - Mark Twain in Eruption
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