The "science" of Miracles

The word appeared in your definition too. It may be "ascribed" or "deemed" in some definitions but it isn't hard to find.Edited by ringo, : Fixed quote.

No, we do not know that. I've already referred you to the miracles in the Bible. Healing the sick does not require breaking any physical laws. And Jesus' face appearing to appear on a taco doesn't require breaking any physical laws.

I don't refuse to recognize the concept any more than I refuse to accept the concept of fiction. I do refuse to acknowledge that fiction is true. I also reject Tangle's definition of a "true" miracle because it doesn't even fit the miracles in the Bible.

Healing the sick in the Bible IS a miracle but it doesn't necessarily require breaking physical laws - e.g. curing blindness by putting mud (salve) on the eyes. There is a fine line between what is attributed to a miraculous cause and what is not. The fact is that the miracles in the Bible do not necessarily require breaking any natural laws.

Like jar, I don't see any way that we could recognize a "true" miracle if there was one. Our approach to everything should be, "Hmm, I wonder how that flashlight works...." I'm not willing to consider the re-definition of what a miracle is and always has been.Hypothetically, if there was a God or other supernatural presence, I don't know if it could "break" the physical laws that it supposedly created. It makes no more sense to discuss that hypothetical than it does to discuss how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.If we're going to discuss miracles - particularly the science of miracles - we don't need to go off into fantasy la-la land with hypothetical definitions of miracles. Let's stick to the ones that we have.Edited by ringo, : Spolling.

No, I'm assuming that the answer will always be, "There's no reason to think we'll never find a natural explanation." I wouldn't say that. I'd say that the events described are the perception of the authors. They thought physical laws had been broken. They attributed the cause to the supernatural. Ian Fleming thought James Bond was the good guy and Goldfinger was the bad guy. That doesn't make it so.

As I've said, if there was a hypothetical God, I don't know if it could hypothetically break its own hypothetical laws. You can't sum that many hypotheticals and get anything resembling sense.All we know is that some people believe God has broken His own laws. As far as I'm concerned, that belief has no value.

That's what I'm saying. Why would you speculate one way or the other? You can make up arbitrary rules like, "God can break His own laws," or "God can't break his own laws," but what's the point of that?Believers can make up any plot point they choose to support thier beliefs. What has that got to do with the science of miracles?

The harm is in things like creationism. If you fixate on your speculations and convince yourself that they're the "word of God", science and education go out the window. It could be another Dark Age. That's a copout. You only use it when it's convenient. At other times you feel yourself free to claim that "we choose" Hell and God can't do anything about it.

How is it a speculation to say I don't see how we can speculate? As I've pointed out, Tangle's definition doesn't work. It doesn't even fit the miracles in the Bible. I'm not talking to Tangle; I'm talking to the people who have sense enough to see that. Of course they can. How can you know ahead of time whether or not we can ever understand something?

Flood.

So they're localised unless they're not? Another fine definition brought to you by Tangle.

Whether the effects were local or not is irrelevant. The fact is that "miracles" do NOT require a suspension of natural laws, local or universal, temporary or permanent. Healing the sick does NOT require suspension of natural law.You're making the same mistake that creationists make - fixating on one or two examples that support your position and ignoring the ones that don't. In your case it's even worse because your "examples" are entirely fictional. The examples in the Bible of what people actually call "miracles", do not support your position.

You and Tangle are missing an important part of the definition: that "miracles" are attributed to supernatural causes. When somebody calls something a "miracle", it's because he can't explain it according to natural laws, not because nobody can or ever will be able.Miracles are subjective, not objective. There can not be a consensus that something was a miracle. That would not be how miracles are actually defined, so no. You might as well ask me to consider "for the sake of discussion" that leprechauns are eighty feet long and swim around Loch Ness.

Not "cannot be explained" - "HAVE not been explained". They're coming out with an explanation of flashlights next week. How can you possibly know what will be explained in the future?