The "science" of Miracles

We have to talk of them hypothetically I think. Absolutely they are! I'm always loath to worry over much about definitions, generally if we have to get deeply into them they'll be used disingenuously to wriggle around the material point. But the simple words you used in your last post would satisfy all but the most semantically challenged and the charlatans that knows they've lost the argument but can't stop arguing. Both are imaginary but both would be easily recognised if they showed up ;-)

Not by definition, by reality. We have no evidence that proves a miracle or even gets close to it. Or are actually miracles eg Faith Right! Most bible bashers would put them in the 'proved' category, but yes. Yes It's where *stories* of miracles belong. If it was ever the case that miracles became evidenced enough to be be accepted as miraculous, they would then fit into the category marked miracle. (And I'd fall down dead of shock and embarrassment.) Yes. Very, except for this last which is messing with my head.This god thing would be an entity that could and did intervene with our natural laws. We would call this thing supernatural simply because he can fiddle with nature in ways that contravene natural laws - hence supernatural. We would call this miraculous.Now then, in a step towards my opponents, who's to say that this god thing is not natural? Maybe this entity is from another galaxy far, far away where such powers are routine and our knowledge is so primitive and parochial that we automatically grasp the word miracle to apply to them. But they say that there's nothing miraculous about them. 'We're all like this back home.'But, you know, if it walks like a duck etc.As far as these discussions are concerned I think we need to include god in the miracle somewhere to diferentiate it from mere physics that we don't yet understand like dark matter. That's why I normally introduce a sharman of some sort - turning the wine into blood, moving bridges and cherubs and the like. That is what we really call miraculous - someone from an ancient myth turning up, claiming to be the god of the myth - directly or indirectly - and performing such tricks.

My position is that it is forced to. There are no other explanations and the evidence of an intervention by some sort of all powerful being is overwhelming. Science concludes that goddidit. Or something indistinguishable from a god. That's a contradiction or at best a non-sequitur. Again, science follows the evidence wherever it leads. Wherever it leads..... Science doesn't concern itself with philosophy. It's only interest is in studying what is observable and determining cause and effect - understanding what is happening. If a direct line can be drawn between a cause and an effect there is no avoiding the conclusion. When the magisteria overlap, they can be studied.A priest turning wine into blood by speaking at it is not just unexplained - it's inexpliccale by all that is known. Science doesn't just walk away and say 'I can't explain that, I can see that it's non-natural, but as the supernatural isn't part of my domain I'm going back to study barnacles'. The equivalent of putting your hands over your ears and going lalalallalalala.If such things actually happened there's no future in tackling it with semantics.

Couple of incidental ideas:1. Effects with miracles are localalised. A single bridge moves, not the cars and houses next to it, wine in the chalice changes, not all wine, a single person is cured not the crowd around etc. General laws haven't changed, exceptions within them have.2. It seems likely that no motive force will be detected when a bridge flies away - why should it, it's a miracle?

Miracles can include the entirity of creation and anything beyond, below or above - of course.But the ones we're talking of at the moment - wine, bridges, mountains are localised.

It's very obviously not a definition and was never intended to be.We were talking about three examples of miracles, all of which had purely local effects. The fact that the effects were local is significant as the effects were not universal, all of gravity has not changed, all wine has not changed - they're all targeted suspensions of natural laws. The shaman spoke, there followed a suspension of a natural law - the definition of a miracle (whether you like it or not.)

Yes they do. If the didn't, they wouldn't be miraculous now would they? Yes it does, IF long dead people are brought back to life instantly by command, limbs regrow on demand etc etc. I can create a million imaginary miracles - how many do you need before they're enough? But in any case you're wrong - it would only take a single miracle to throw the whole of science out of joint. It's the black swan, the rabbit in the Cambrian. You say that miracles are impossible - or whatever semantics you need - I therefore just need one. It's noticable that you have refused to engage with these miracles. The conclusion is that they show that your position is invalid. Of course they do, the events occurred on demand by someone claiming miraculous talents. Seas parting, dead rising, water to wine, floods forming etc etc etc.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

You're tying yourself in semantic knots for no good purpose.We've gone past this and not making any progress because you're too stubborn to accept the simple idea that we do know stuff. We know that a human limb can not spontaneously regrow on the command of a shaman.Please note the qualifiers - human, command of a shaman, spontaneously - they're important. We KNOW beyond doubt that this can't happen. It it did it wouldn't just be unexplained; it would be inexpliccable. There is no scenario where this is possible and you know it. It's the definition of a miracle.It's unscientific to shrug your shoulders and say that it's a matter of definition and philosophy. It's not, it's a matter of forming conclusion from evidence, regardless of how much you might not like it.

I add them because you keep trying to make a miracle ordinary - which is not the situation we're discussing. A lizard growing back a limb is ordinary, a human doing it would be extraordinary but within the bounds of what might be possible. A human doing it instantly on the command of a shaman (or a god) would be miraculous. Only someone struggling with words would say that the spontaneous regrowth of a human limb on the order of a shaman was not miraculous. You've got nowhere to go with this except to say that miracles aren't possible. Shaman, Jesus, Saint, Priest, god himself, whatever... Spontaneous, as opposed to something growing back over 10 years - you know, something you'd attempt to make mundane by changing the scenario.Just wondering, do you have anything but semantics to bring to this discussion?

You must smoke some weird stuff. When did you see a bridge fly? Wine turn to blood? Yes, but now we know stuff and the stuff we know is enough to tell us beyond all doubt that wine can't turn to blood by someone talking at it and bridges don't up sticks and fly away. And, of course, you know this. No. The important point is that it breaks those laws of nature that we fully undersand. You're being irrational and unscientific by ignoring both science and evidence.

Well we both know that miracles don't happen, so we're left discussing hypotheticals. If you can't discuss hypotheticals there's nowhere to go. The thing is, we'd both know a miracle, it would look like a flying bridge. You're talking about the ordinary again. We've already ruled all that crap out.

Yes we have. Many times. That'll be because they're not miracles....But we're just going round in circles. I'm out for a while.

^^^ yup

Well it fulfills the colloquial use of the word 'miracle' but nothing else. Many thousands every year. But they're not miracles are they? They're simply improbable natural events.