The "science" of Miracles

You could. In the context of evidence and knowledge being scientific, you cannot "know" that a miracle happened. Miracles are inexplicable, if you have evidence and knowledge then it's not a miracle. And if you witnessed the event but did not gather any record of the evidence, then you would be aware of the miracle occurring without having any evidence of it.Then you would know the miracle happened and be without evidence.

But that would be considered an unexplained natural phenomenon rather than a miracle. When can you say a miracle has happened? And so the answer to your question {Without evidence we wouldn't know a miracle had happened would we?} is that yes we could.

Technically you could say it even if you didn't believe it. But this is beside the point.

You've misunderstood.You can't scientifically know that a miracle occurred. If you can study it scientifically then its natural and if you can't then you don't know.But, you could witness a miracle and not have any scientific evidence for it.

Nope, you could just be wrong about the natural law.And if you can test it, then it's natural.

If that event happened and you tested it then that would mean that you weren't 100% certain that it couldn't happen. And the response should not be to declare a miracle but to evaluate our understanding of what is possible. How do you know? They could be happening in other worlds. How do you know? There could be things happening that you can't observe. An unobservable event could cause an observable consequence, then you'd know something happened even though you couldn't observe it. What I'm saying is that it could happen and someone could be aware of it even though they don't have scientific evidence.Also, if it can be tested it's not miraculous.

That phrasing makes more sense and is agreeable. "Must happen in" is a little strong for my taste but its not worth nitpicking. I know what you mean. Ever? Go there and see But yeah, from here we wouldn't know either way. But we can't just say they must happen here. The undetectable can exist while the non-existent cannot. Yeah, I'm not sure why there's disagreement and claims to the contrary. I'm not disagreeing with it

If it has happened then it wasn't impossible. Scientifically, you can never call anything a miracle; for if you can test and prove it then it is not miraculous and if you cannot then you can't call it anything. Okay, so my disagreement stemmed from this:

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Without evidence we wouldn't know a miracle had happened would we?

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There's two ambiguities there: evidence and knowledge. Either they're scientific or they're not. You can't have scientific knowledge of a miracle, because then you're in the realm of a natural phenomenon, so that's out.I'm saying that you could be aware of a miracle and not have any scientific evidence for it. I don't understand why that is disagreeable.In the above, where you witness wine changing to blood, you don't have scientific evidence and knowledge. Yet, you are still calling it a miracle. So there's an instance of you having unscientific knowledge of a miracle without scientific evidence, which goes against what I'm disagreeing with that without evidence you wouldn't know a miracle happened. So we know of these miracles without evidence, but we don't know if they actually happened or not.

From our point of view there is no difference. But that doesn't mean that there is nothing happening that we cannot detect.

What reasons does that book present?Edited by New Cat's Eye, : typo

Uh, I'd say you are the one going against the definition. Miracles are inexplicable and you're saying that we don't know it's a miracle until it is explained. But that makes it not a miracle. That is part of my position.A miracle is when when you experience something that defies natural laws. There's no requirement for you to have scientific evidence of it.You can't really know that a miracle has occurred - for if you can test it then it is following natural laws not defying them. If you think natural laws are being defied because of the results of your tests, then that means you need to rethink the natural laws.

You're also saying that they have to be impossible and also happen, which is contradictory. You can't. And if a natural law is defied then it wasn't a law. Which means you can't test and prove it. And if you could then it isn't miraculous. I'm saying it is impossible to know it was a miracle.The term "miracle" is a place holder.Look at the definitions - it's things that are "taken to be", or "held to be", or "ascribed to be" supernatural. Never are miracles concluded to be supernatural - that's impossible.

No, I would say that is a miracle. It just wouldn't be scientific. And I wouldn't know it. But I'd believe it.If, otoh, we could repeat it and test it scientifically, then I would conclude that we were studying some kind of natural phenomenon.

Sorry to just jump in, but I've been away. And you didn't reply to my last one. If you're talking about science then it doesn't come to that conclusion.It's methodological naturalism. The things that are explainable are natural. And the things that aren't are not supernatural.Thus, you cannot scientifically conclude that something is supernatural.Look, from wiki:

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In philosophy, naturalism is the "idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world."

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