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Author | Topic: The "science" of Miracles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Arkathon writes:
Self-contradiction. Predicting what science might uncover in the future is not scientific. Miracles are very scientific. It's just that our science is still quite backward to grasp how God's science does these things. It did take us a while to figure out miracles like lightning. Our ability to raise people from the dead is improving every day. But that's no reason to think we'll ever be able to flood whole planets with water that doesn't exist.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
If God uses science, then he's an alien with a more advanced technology than ours. That's the most plausible kind of god.
I'm still trying to figure out what Gods Science is.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phatt writes:
Welcomed by whom? The Flood was clearly, "not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency."
It should also be noted that miracles are always welcome events.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
New Cat's Eye writes:
The same time as you can say God exists: When you believe it.
When can you say a miracle has happened?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
New Cat's Eye writes:
Actually, that IS the point. You can say anything and believe anything but neither has any bearing on reality. The word "miracle" has no more to do with reality than the word "hobbit". There can be no "science of hobbits" or "science of Long John Silver" or "science of miracles" because they're all fiction.
Technically you could say it even if you didn't believe it. But this is beside the point.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
If something "breaks" natural law, we change our understanding of the natural law.
You can observe and test the evidence. If it breaks natural laws it's a miracle.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
If the observations don't fit our understanding, the first thing we question is the observations. Unless the observations can be verified, we have no business calling it a miracle.
And when we discover that the something can not be explained by what we have a complete understanding of we call it a miracle. Tangle writes:
I think people can observe water turning into wine. I don't think we can make the leap from an isolated observation to a scientific fact OR a "miracle".
Wine can not be turned into blood by speaking at it. Or do you think it can?
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
No, it would be called something we can't explain.
Oddly enough, the bleeding statues never get verification. But if they did, it would be called a miracle. Tangle writes:
What people can observe has nothing to do with whether it can happen or not. People see things happening all the time that didn't happen. That's why eyewitness evidence is so unreliable.
ringo writes:
No they can't - water does not turn into wine. I think people can observe water turning into wine.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
The important point is that if we know it's impossible, we also know it didn't happen - i.e. the observation must be wrong. Attempts to replicate the observation fail. That's not a miracle; it's a mistake.
The important point is that we know enough about basic science to know that these things are impossible; therefore miracle. Tangle writes:
But miracles are. That's why "therefore miracle" is a nonsense statement, like "therefore leprechaun". Nothing can validly lead to that conclusion.
"Observe" is not confined to casual witnesses evidence.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
That's clearly wrong. A lot of the events in the Bible that are labeled "miracles" are not impossible: crossing the Red Sea, healing the sick, feeding the multitude, etc.
It's the fact that the thing is impossible that makes it a miracle. Tangle writes:
If wine turned into blood in a reproducible and testable manner, it would not be a miracle. It would be a fact. It would be a process that we didn't understand before.
... transubstantiation is not a miracle - wine did not turn to blood. But if it ever did in a reproducible and testable manner it would be a miracle.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
So is turning on a flashlight. It's the supposition that's wrong.
They're all impossible in the way they're supposed to have been done. Tangle writes:
If it happens in a reproducible and testable manner, it isn't impossible.
ringo writes:
It would be an impossible fact. If wine turned into blood in a reproducible and testable manner, it would not be a miracle. It would be a fact. Tangle writes:
If it happens in a reproducible and testable manner, it isn't impossible. It would be an impossible process. You can't just declare that something is "impossible". If it happens, it's not impossible. Your definitions are just not adequate.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
That's the point I'm trying to make to Tangle. There are things that used to be labeled "impossible", such as turning on a flashlight, that are commonplace today. It was the declaration of "impossible" that was wrong. There are a lot of things we don't know for sure...including what is and is not possible. On the other hand, there are supposed miracles such as the Flood which are still impossible by everything we know and everything we ever hope to know. It's so unlikely that you'll ever be able to carry a worldwide flood around on your keychain that we can be pretty confident in calling it impossible. If it's that impossible, we can be pretty confident that it didn't happen. (It's also impossible for something that big to happen without leaving evidence, you it's impossible piled on top of impossible.)
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
A miracle is defined as inexplicable, not impossible.
That's the only definition of a miracle. If something is possible, it can't be a miracle.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
You can also apologize for misrepresenting the dictionary. Neither Merriam-Webster nor dictionary.com nor thefreedictionary.com uses the word "impossible". It also keeps the word in the dictionary for which I can only apologise. Everybody's dictionary includes the word "miracle", along with the words "fiction" and "fairy tale". You're just using it wrong.
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Tangle writes:
The dictionaries don't talk about "breaking the laws of physics" either. They describe miracles as seeming to be inexplicable by our current understanding of the laws of nature.
Breaking the laws of physics=impossible
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