If there was a god who was involved in the lives of man, wouldn’t there be an astonishing number of unexplainable miraclous events happening every day? Events that would leave no room for anyone to doubt?
Yet so-called “miracles” are proven over and over to be the works of charlatans. There is, in fact, no evidence that even one supernatural event has ever happened, much less millions every day in answer to prayer.
Yet people still believe and think that miracles happen. It’s very strange.
What they say to be miracles are things like that:
- Get a new job.
- Get a girlfriend/boyfriend.
- Get married.
- Stop drinking.
- Stop smoking (this is really hard, but not at this point)
- Change of behavior.
…
It’s funny, but this is what they claim as miracles.
Daniel, you clearly aren’t reading the right newspapers. What do you call this, this and this, then? Our Lord is clearly making himself know through many wonderful miracles, even today.
God can be involved in the lives of men and women without there being any (physical) miracles at all, most seek guidance from God (through prayer) rather than asking him to move mountains.
Secondly God can even be involved directly in the world (i.e. not just in giving guidance) without it ‘looking like’ a miracle. Any physical event (me buying a chocolate bar/Krakatoa erupting) could have been brought about by God’s direct intervention. How would you know what to look for to make it a miracle?
Thirdly: what evidence can you give me to prove a miracle has never occurred? Its cloudy outside my window now – can you give me any evidence that proves God didn’t stick it there? Perhaps he heated the sea, blew the droplets over here and made the cloud.
For that matter perhaps he set up the laws of nature that would provide for evaporation, gravity, etc in order that he could bring about that cloud.
You need to read some David Hume: you can never prove that a miracle exists because the standard of proof is too high, but this is very different from saying it can never happen.
http://actsfourthirtyfour.blogspot.com/
Anketell
What Raphael said. Nowadays people have pretty low standards for miracles — basically, anything good that happens unexpectedly.
Ironically, what used to pass for “real” miracles are today viewed by society as lies, hallucinations, or the rantings of crackpots.
Anketell… we have to operate by Ockham’s Razor, that is, the natural laws are sufficient, so let’s not bring god into it.
The cases you cite are basically cases where the natural causes are sufficient. In theory god could have caused them, but in practise there’s no reason why he should. Easier to think of them as natural phenomena. If god wants us to believe, he’ll do something he can’t explain away. If we can explain it away, then, it can’t be god, no matter how far-fetched it is, because if it was him, he’d make it even more crazy so we couldn’t explain it.
So God can take over and make you buy a chocolate bar? So much for free will. You’re nothing more than a puppet for your god to manipulate whenever it wants. What a bleak outlook on life.
And of course you’ve misunderstood what Daniel wrote. He’s saying there’s no direct evidence that a supernatural-based miracle has occurred, but plenty of evidence of frauds, hoaxes, and natural events.
So you’re asking the wrong question. We don’t have to prove that God *didn’t* stick the cloud there — we already have evidence that shows how clouds form and move about, no gods needed. *You’re* the one who needs to provide evidence that God really did stick the cloud there.
Go back to philosophy class and learn a little more. Or is this all God’s fault for forcing you to post against your will?
But I have evidence that show how clouds form, no physics needed – God heats up the sea, blows the cloud, etc. Or we are all just brains in vats into which God zaps perceptions like that of a cloud, a blog, a screen, so on. Its very simple, much more simple than complicated laws of nature and a real world existing (incidentally William of Ockham was a top theologian).
Any evidence based on physical facts could reinforce any of these theses – no-God, God, God with many vat encased brains.
I, obviously, cannot prove to you that miracles do take place but you cannot prove to me that they do not. The evidence can point either way. And you don’t need to read Betrand Russell or Hilary Putnam for this, you can watch the matrix.
Oh and incidentally I don’t think you’ve got a free will with or without God, although it is rather offensive to call me a pupppet – you can’t even see the strings.
I do see them. You can’t prove I can’t.
“And you don’t need to read Betrand Russell or Hilary Putnam for this, you can watch the matrix.”
I’d rather read Bertrand Russell than watch “The Matrix” if I want a reasoned, rational discussion on religion and the existence of a supernatural deity. The bottom line is this: if you’re claiming that a “god” is the source of any activity on this planet, the burden lies with you to prove the existence of said “god.”
“I, obviously, cannot prove to you that miracles do take place but you cannot prove to me that they do not. The evidence can point either way.”
You must be kidding, right? In this kind of logic, I can say that I’m pretty sure that the clouds are made by Apollo, when he rises in the sky bringing the sun, that heat the ocean.
Or I can say that that everything that happens in the ocean is controlled by Poseidon.
I can say that the earthquakes are made by the hammer of Thor.
Thunders are made by Zeus.
Ad infinitum, ad nauseum
This doesn’t help at all. Or do you think I should start to venerate Zeus? Or Apollo? Or Thor? Or all of them? We should start a rebellion against the machines, don’t you think?
How can you know that Chayanov can’t see the strings? Are you sure? I say that I can’t prove it to you, but I can see the strings, it’s a miracle made by Loki. Do you believe me?
@askin: I’m sort of hoping that you’re posting that link as a joke and not using that as evidence but assuming the worst case scenario so here goes … what would actually point to an all powerful god would be if coincidences didn’t happen not that they do. “Strange” things are likely to happen and if they didn’t then that really would be news.
@ askin
There is no god. He’s not there. It doesn’t matter how much you want him to exist and perform miracles. And that link, I almost laughed out loud when I read the excerpt. Allow me to explain why that is not a miracle. Everyone has birthday parties, and bazillions of people forget to buy presents. The vast majority of them, simply go to the party and apologize for not bringing a present. So, of all the people who forgot to buy a present, this one poor guy just happens to see a package fall out of a truck. (after which I presumed he gave it to his faince and she absolutely LUUUUUUUVED it!) What are the odds. Unlikely? Yes, but not impossible. Packages fall out of trucks every day and people see them. I’m sure many may of these package could prove useful to the people who see them fall out. were they to keep them. No miracle here, just coincidence.
Moreover, this guy forgets to buy a package. So god STEALS a pakcage from some other completely innocent person and gives it to him. Wow, what a guy. At least he’s not destroying whole races of people or flooding the earth.
What you percieve as miracles, are actually coincidences and accidents. In fact, our lives are just a series of coincedences and accidents. That doesn’t mean our lives our meaningless, it just means that we can’t rely on a god to deliver us.
“But I have evidence that show how clouds form, no physics needed – God heats up the sea, blows the cloud, etc. Or we are all just brains in vats into which God zaps perceptions like that of a cloud, a blog, a screen, so on. Its very simple, much more simple than complicated laws of nature and a real world existing (incidentally William of Ockham was a top theologian).”
The model in which god causes things to happen in a more simple way than, in your example, evaporation, is in fact more complex, because it must posit an all-powerful being which isn’t needed in the other model. Nothing is more complex than a god, and so any system which uses god is automatically more complex than any other explanation. Only in cases where there truly is no other explanation can an action be assigned to god, and these cases have never occurred.
I removed askin’s comment because I considered it spam.
“When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of of circumstances, they say that’s a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events — the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broke just there — that must also be a miracle. Just because it’s not nice doesn’t mean it’s not miraculous.”
Brutha: “But you found water. Water in the desert.”
Om: “Nothing miraculous about that. There’s a rainy season near the coast. Flash floods. Wadis. Dried-up river beds. You get aquifers.”
Brutha: “Sounds like a miracle to me. Just because you can explain it doesn’t mean it’s not still a miracle.”
“Humans! They lived in a world where the grass continued to be green and the sun rose eveery day and flowers regularly turned into fruit, and what impressed them? Weeping statues. And wine made out of water! A mere quantum-mechanistic tunnel effect, that’d happen anyway if you were prepared to wait zillions of years. As if the turning of sunlight into wine, by means of vines and grapes and time and enzymes, wasn’t a thousand times more impressive and happened all the time…”
All from the works of Terry Pratchett.
@wazza:
Saved me a lot of effort by posting those quotes, thanks.
Many “miracles” are so utterly horrid that one cannot imagine the Byzantine worldview required to contemplate them and come up with a benevolent entity in charge of all this.
@anketell:
Defaut position: No god. All events surrounding us may be explained through natural causes and statistics.
You must prove the intervention of a divine being. You can’t. End of story.
Your brains-in-vats metaphor, by the way, leaves even less room for free will than the idea of an omnipotent god who must perform an act of will in order for us to simply exist.
I can’t see any strings because there are none. The great Puppet Master is nonexistent.