The "science" of Miracles

Do you believe that we someday..(could be millions of years) we will be able to understand GOD?

whats the harm in speculation? Logically, in my mind, if God exists He is the One who made the rules and laws, to begin with. He is not bound by anything except the logical reality of his existence.Of course, it would not make sense for Him to whimsically make and unmake or break laws at will....but the point is that He is not bound by any law or rule by definition. Thus, in answer to the question of whether God could make a rock so big that He couldn't lift it...the answer would be yes. He could and also that yes a moment later He could lift it should he so choose to redefine the parameters.

You like to base your definitions on things you can explain...whether today or next week. Miracles are based on things that cannot be explained...not now and not next week. Perhaps you believe that everything can be explained eventually.

I am just showing where your faith lies. You believe in science and human potential because its all you have chosen to believe in.
God, if God exists is special...not mundanely describable and definable as one might define Loki or Coyote or any other human-created god.
Miracles by definition are special. They are woo, basically. And just because you try and define woo as unwoolike does not make the definition fit your framework.You try too hard to disprove any possibility that the stories in the Bible are actually miraculous, whereas Tangle, though he does not believe any of it, at least holds to the definition within the story that is itself miraculous...whereby you try and discredit the whole story as naturally explainable.There is no science involved concerning the issue of miracles by definition. Human wisdom cannot nor ever will capture the solution for a miracle or of God.You can claim that there is no such thing, but I have said that there is.A belief can be a belief regardless of evidence---indeed--there can be no evidence or the belief would no longer be a belief but a fact.

Let me see if I understand your point of view:First, all that we have are stories. I have often asked jar to consider the motives and intent of the authors.Were the authors embellishing certain events as part of the story?OR...were the stories an accurate consensus of the observers present within the story at the time the story was recorded?People may well have had a different mental framework for declaring a miracle a miracle then vs now, but your Hudson Bridge argument brings the issue into the present moment.If an event such as this happened, the scientists could study it well beyond when the cows came home,but while you and Tangle say that such an event could be properly labeled as miraculous, Ringo seems to hold out that such an event would not now nor ever be regarded by him as miraculous since he chooses to refrain from committing to such a definite pronouncement....am I close?

From my experience, I could hardly conclude that such phenomena are living. I will agree that they exist, but beyond that, I have no clue. We are discussing things for which science has nothing to latch onto, apart from our probable delusions. (and I would argue that I was NOT delusional, though there is no way to prove it.)Would you not agree, however, that if a "created being" was not of the natural world there would be no way to study it?

We keep looking for some way to test and verify.... This also could (and should) apply to the concept of GOD. If you isolate the miracles and phenomena from GOD, they would appear to be eventually describable. Throwing the Big Guy into the equation means that science has a lot more work to do to explain Him.(or as jar may suggest, Her or It )

So you are saying that literally, everything will someday be explainable? You are saying that there will never be anything that we won't someday understand? Sounds like deification of human wisdom, again! When will you ever learn?

lemme google.... That sure seems like a rational approach to life.
Ringo seems to nearly incorporate faith in humanity as a religion, however. I highly doubt that we will eventually solve all of our problems nor will some of them even be possible to understand. Despite Tangles wishes, God will never go away, nor will organized religion, but hopefully we will become wiser as to what we expect (Him, Her It) to do for us and what our obligations are to our species as well as our responsibilities.

I suppose in a strict literal sense, everyone in the world is agnostic. There is no such thing as eventual guaranteed certainty. Concerning belief, I could be an agnostic theist. I am quite certain that I believe. I am nor can I ever be certain that I know.Add by edit: More correctly, I am currently not certain that I can know. Perhaps I cannot declare that I will never be certain. Edited by Phat, : upon further contemplation

So, in essence, you are saying "I can't explain it!" I wonder how I can explain it?Percy is saying that every conceivable test has been ran...except waiting until tomorrow...and no explanations are forthcoming. How long do you plan on wondering before you conclude anything? Your entire life? (Which would be a definite choice, by the way)

well, that's a definite choice. One option did not simply evaporate. Its just unexplainable at the moment.

Not to mention that it implies that God Himself favors some and not others. Which opens up another can of worms.

Good question. As a believer, I would of course prefer that I at least believe in something undetectable rather than non-existent. Some emphasize the source of a miracle (or unexplained event) while others focus on the content and/or effect of the event itself. More to the point, will we ever know? Perhaps ringo has a point in that a miracle need never be defined as such until and unless one believes that it should be. One would think that we should at one point get the opportunity. The standard creo answer is that we were left with an ancient book which explains it all. If that's all we have to work with, however, I don't blame some for concluding that the undetectable is in fact non-existent. Thus it logically follows that all miracles should have purpose. Would there hypothetically be such a thing as a random miracle?

However, if back then the known scientific law had not been discovered, the event would fit Percys definition.Could we thus agree that miracles are subjective by definition and tentative by definition?