The "science" of Miracles

Well, they're not miraculous. They're called miraculous because the caller can't explain them. Some blindness can be cured. Some lizards can regenerate their tails and some tissue can be grown in the lab; who's to say that limbs won't be regrown in the future? That's the point; a million imaginary tales are no better than one. Nonsense. There are lots of things that we haven't explained yet. Indeed, there may be an explanation that causes a paradigm shift but that's the exact opposite of what you're claiming. I haven't said any such thing. I've said that it's impossible to be sure that something is impossible. It's interesting that you've refused to engage the miracles that are actually described in the Bible, the ones that can be explained by modern science. They show that your premise is false. They do not support your claim that miracles require breaking natural laws.

Yes, you keep adding new qualifiers. Your definition of "miracle' doesn't fit the usage of the word, so you keep trying to prop it up with new patches.Only a creationist thinks that human limbs are special. The events in the Bible do not require a shaman - they're all attributed directly to God. And "spontaneously" is just circular. I'm not saying it's a matter of definition. I'm saying your definition is factually wrong.

On the contrary, many of the "miracles" that we're discussing are ordinary. Many things that were called "miraculous" in the past are considered ordinary today. The important point is that somebody thinks it's impossible, not that it is.

Pull-ease. Wikipedia says:

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A miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws.[2] Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being (a deity), magic, a miracle worker, a saint or a religious leader.

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You're own Oxford dictionary quote uses the word "attributed" for fuck's sake. Your dictionary.com quote uses the word "ascribed" instead. Obviously it is. Read your own quotes.

I believe in science and human potential because it's all we can count on. Miracles are believed to be special by people who believe in the "supernatural", often because they don't understand the natural. Do you believe a flashlight is miraculous? Do you think the Bible authors would have believed a flashlight was miraculous? Certainly, a belief can be wrong.

That's exactly the point. I didn't. Nobody did. It didn't happen. You made it up. It doesn't count as a "miracle". What we know is that people who think they see something "breaking the laws of nature" are mistaken. Maybe they just don't understand the laws of nature or maybe their observation was careless. What they thought they saw, didn't happen.

That's what I'm saying. Science doesn't label things as "impossible" or "against the laws of nature".

No, we're discussing reports of miracles. In the present, somebody did see something that they call miraculous. For past reports, like the Bible, we have to question whether the reports themselves are authentic or whether they are just made up like your hypothetical flying bridge.If somebody reported a flying bridge, we would investigate it scientifically, just like we investigate UFOs. And we would either conclude that the witnesses didn't see what they thought they saw or that something happened that we can't explain yet. No we have not. Healing the sick is ordinary - it's happened to every one of us. Jesus' face on a piece of toast is ordinary. We can explain those "miracles" scientifically.

As I said before, you're the only one who doesn't seem to understand. The rest of us seem to be on the same page. Nothing is a miracle unless you believe in miracles. That's why we have to define miracles in terms of belief: A miracle is something that somebody believes has supernatural causes. Whether or not it is "possible" is irrelevant.

There's no such thing as "not explicable by natural or scientific laws". It may be currently not explicable, like a flashlight to an illiterate Pacific islander, but we can not predict what might be explicable tomorrow. The first topic of discussion would be, "Did it really happen? Was the observation accurate?" We have that discussion about UFOs all the time.

No. I'm saying that nobody can predict what will be explainable. I've answered the same question to you many times. When will YOU ever learn?

"Rest of us" = All of us that aren't arguing with me about the definition of "miracle". That includes even you now, doesn't it? An event is called a "miracle" by people who believe there is no natural explanation. Whether they attribute it to a specific supernatural cause or not, "can't be explained by natural causes" implies supernatural causes, doesn't it?

That's exactly why we can't claim that something is inexplicable.

I can keep correcting you as often as you insist on being wrong about that. I believe that humanity, human knowledge, etc. is all we can count on. We certainly can not count on your God because He has His own agenda and His own whims. If we want something done, we gotta do it ourselves.

No. The only one of those who has disagreed with me about the definition of "miracle" is you - and you were just misreading your own references. It's a paraphrase. What's the proper notation for indicating a paraphrase? And yet in the very next line yo say:

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What I would say and have said is that a miracle is not explicable by natural or scientific laws...

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Silly me, I thought that "can't be explained by natural causes" and "not explicable by natural or scientific laws" meant the same thing. It's made up. Why do you have to make up examples? Why can't you refer to the examples that are actually called "miracles"?Your example is easily explained by natural causes: You made it up.