Billions of people have HD video cameras in their pockets: why aren't we seeing lots of miracles on video?

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The literature of the ancient world is full of fantastic miracles. Not only in religious texts, but the foundational narratives of all civilizations contain references to many miraculous and wondrous events. Humans turning into animals, witches, spells, griffins, centaurs, resurrections, healings, angels, giants, trolls, magic, nymphs, and all manner of supernatural and magical creatures and events fill our ancient texts. In various religious traditions we have numerous accounts of miracles attributed to saints, Jesus, Mary, the 12 Imams, various avatars of Krishna, etc.

So…why did all of these fantastic things just…stop? There are billions of people walking around with HD video cameras in their pockets (phones). At any moment, anywhere in the world, there is a high probability that an event can be captured on video and uploaded to the internet within minutes. Not only do billions of people have cameras, but we have cameras orbiting our planet taking pictures of it continuously. Not only that, but there are security cameras all over the developed world.

This has revolutionized criminal justice, international relations, and the entire world economy. If miracles happened at all, it seems likely that at least some would be recorded in real time and uploaded to the internet, doesn’t it?

Imagine if Fatima happened today! If the same events happened today, our satellites could capture it, and the thousands of witnesses would have video from thousands of angles. People across the world would see the video and immediately convert to Catholicism. Imagine if just one person were able to speak “in tongues” on video and everyone in the world understood that person in their native languages simultaneously and miraculously.

So…where are these miracles? Why the total silence?
 
Well, the rise of HD pocket video cameras is only around ten years old or so. In the grand scheme of things that is not a long time. The time between the miracles at Lourdes and Fatima was around fifty years. Besides, miracles that happen in China, Africa and such places probably won’t have very many Iphones around it. Miracles aren’t just regulated to appearing in the U.S. or Europe with it’s tech savvy generation.
 
I think its also strange we have not seen lots of false prophets, the kind the bible says will be many, the kind that can ‘duplicate’ supernatural powers, like calling fire down from heaven, in order to fool people into believing they truly are a real prophet…where are all these false prophets and their supernatural acts?

I have to believe if ANYONE on the planet could literally cause fire to come down from the sky on command or anything similar, in front of large crowds of people, that would be all over the internet and spread like wildfire, but who knows, maybe all this will happen in the near future and there will be many within a short time frame.

Furthermore, even going back in history, I dont recall ever reading about anyone who did supernatural acts (only exception would be that monk that could fly), but he never claimed to be a prophet or was out to fool anyone, he credited God for his special ability.

One theory may be, these things do happen, but our technology (HD cameras and phones) just cannot ‘recognize’ them, is also possible. plus, it is possible not everyone is even capable of seeing these things either.
 
Cameras are good for capturing magic tricks. True miracles (at least the ones I’ve experienced) are situations on which God leaves His unmistakable signature. They’re usually not accompanied by dazzling visuals.
 
To be totally honest, if David Copperfield lived in biblical times, he would absolutely be seen as a miracle worker, a wizard, and yes a God by many.
 
Greater question is would you believe it???

Or chaulk it up to explainable???

youtu.be/MPT_tHPMOeI

Would you believe it a miracle or say we should wait a few dwcades to decode it??

youtu.be/4wQglesZdQo

Maybe they are caught, maybe the agnostic fellow above is right and it is all David Copperfield 🤷
 
1neophyte said:
Cameras are good for capturing magic tricks. True miracles (at least the ones I’ve experienced) are situations on which God leaves His unmistakable signature. They’re usually not accompanied by dazzling visuals.
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Right. Take, for example, the miracle that was approved as part of Fulton Sheen’s beatification process. A baby was stillborn and miraculously came to life 20 minutes later. I doubt the parents and hospital staff were whipping out their cell phones while waiting for a miracle just to satiate the curiosity of internet onlookers looking for signs from heaven.

Or the miracles from St. John Paul II for his beatification and canonization. They are also both healings. Not exactly the type of thing you capture in a 30 second YouTube video. But that doesn’t make them any less miraculous.
 
Maybe all the bells, whistles and fireworks thousands of years ago were due to whatever the ancients were smoking at that time. Maybe what they experienced was due to fasting for long periods, and overactive imaginations?
For me the true miracles are that there aren’t as many car accidents as there could be, that I make it home safely after going for a walk or a bike ride. For me the miracles are that people will actually pull together to help after a natural disaster or during some conflict and actually be humane enough to think of and help the “other”. Maybe the bells, whistles, and fire from the sky was from ancient aliens and they got bored with us after a while? 🙂 Be well.
 
I heard something very interesting awhile ago, (I think on this forum) but I can’t remember who said it. It went along the lines of, since we live in a “modern” society (modern medicine, new innovations in agriculture, etc.) God is willing to say, “If you want to take care of yourselves, I’ll let you.” We don’t really need miracles (at least, not as much as other countries) because we have learned how to do a lot of things on our own.

Another possibility is that miracles are happening, but we attribute them instead to the advances we’ve made.
 
Thom18 said:
I heard something very interesting awhile ago, (I think on this forum) but I can’t remember who said it. It went along the lines of, since we live in a “modern” society (modern medicine, new innovations in agriculture, etc.) God is willing to say, “If you want to take care of yourselves, I’ll let you.” We don’t really need miracles (at least, not as much as other countries) because we have learned how to do a lot of things on our own.
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That may sound “true,” but I’ve found that God has taken care of me even when I’ve been under the illusion that I was taking care of myself. Modern medicine would be useless without the help of the self-repairing nature of the human body that God designed and sustains. New innovations in agriculture would not be possible if the sun ceased to exist, and God wills its existence at every moment. We have to be careful not to project our own fickle and passive aggressive tendencies onto God, because that is not who He is.
 
Also, I take pics and vids of fun and coolness all the time.

BUT some of the best things I have done I didn’t think about pics until after.

So putting miraculous awe in a similar sense to the awe of fun and joy… the biggest times of awe usually lack photo.
 
Things captured digitally aren’t necessarily believable: see Photoshop and similar software.
 
I have wondered the same the same thing about the recent rise in exorcisms. This recording equipment is pretty cheap nowadays. How come we don’t see videos of people levitating?
 
PumpkinCookie said:
The literature of the ancient world is full of fantastic miracles. Not only in religious texts, but the foundational narratives of all civilizations contain references to many miraculous and wondrous events. Humans turning into animals, witches, spells, griffins, centaurs, resurrections, healings, angels, giants, trolls, magic, nymphs, and all manner of supernatural and magical creatures and events fill our ancient texts. In various religious traditions we have numerous accounts of miracles attributed to saints, Jesus, Mary, the 12 Imams, various avatars of Krishna, etc.

So…why did all of these fantastic things just…stop? There are billions of people walking around with HD video cameras in their pockets (phones). At any moment, anywhere in the world, there is a high probability that an event can be captured on video and uploaded to the internet within minutes. Not only do billions of people have cameras, but we have cameras orbiting our planet taking pictures of it continuously. Not only that, but there are security cameras all over the developed world.

This has revolutionized criminal justice, international relations, and the entire world economy. If miracles happened at all, it seems likely that at least some would be recorded in real time and uploaded to the internet, doesn’t it?

Imagine if Fatima happened today! If the same events happened today, our satellites could capture it, and the thousands of witnesses would have video from thousands of angles. People across the world would see the video and immediately convert to Catholicism. Imagine if just one person were able to speak “in tongues” on video and everyone in the world understood that person in their native languages simultaneously and miraculously.

So…where are these miracles? Why the total silence?
Click to expand...
My friend,
A few points to consider. Firstly, many of the things you mentioned (spells, witches, giants, Krishna, and the like) are both not true miracles, and cannot be historically authenticated. Simply because something is recorded in an ancient document does not make it historical. Ancient cultures frequently devised myths to explain natural events. On the other hand, the books of the New Testament which record the miracles of Jesus of Nazareth, including His Resurrection from the dead, can be shown with a scientific precision to be historically accurate. For this, I encourage you to check out the books I recommend in my signature, perhaps especially Laying the Foundations. Furthermore, after the time of Christ, and in fact throughout Church history, there have been numerous miracles which can be proven by historical analysis to be true. Here is a list of such historically certain miracles provided in the Catholic Encyclopedia article on miracles -
Now we are not obliged to accept every miracle alleged as such. The evidence of testimony is our warrant, and for miracles of church history we have testimony of the most complete kind. If it should happen that, after careful investigation, a supposed miracle should turn out to be no miracle at all, a distinct service to truthwould be rendered. Throughout the course of church history there are miracles so well authenticated that their truth cannot be denied.
  • Thus St. Clement of Rome and St. Ignatius of Antioch speak of the miracles wrought in their time.
  • Origen says he has seen examples of demons expelled, many cures effected, and prophecies fulfilled (Against Celsus I, II, III, VII).
  • Irenaeus taunts the magic-workers of his day that “they cannot give sight to the blind nor hearing to the deaf, nor put to flight demons; and they are so far from raising the dead as Our Lord did, and the Apostles, by prayer, and as is most frequently done among the brethren, that they even think it impossible” (Against Heresies II).
  • St. Athanasius writes the life of St. Anthony from what he himself saw and heard from one who had long been in attendance on the saint.
  • St. Justin in his second apology to the Roman Senate appeals to miracles wrought in Rome and well attested.
  • Tertullian challenges the heathen magistrates to work the miracles which the Christians perform (Apol., xxiii);
  • St. Paulinus, in the life of St. Ambrose, narrates what he has seen.
  • St. Augustine gives a long list of extraordinary miracles wrought before his own eyes, mentions names and particulars, describes them as well known, and says they happened within two years before he published the written account (City of God XXI.8; Retract., I, xiii).
  • St. Jerome wrote a book to confute Vigilantius and prove that relics should be venerated, by citing miracles wrought through them.
  • Theodoret published the life of St. Simon Stylites while the saint was living, and thousands were alive who had been eyewitnesses of what had happened.
  • St. Victor, Bishop of Vita, wrote the history of the African confessors whose tongues had been cut out by command of Hunneric, and who yet retained the power of speech, and challenges the reader to go to Reparatus, one of them then living at the palace of the Emperor Zeno.
  • From his own experience Sulpicius Severus wrote the life of St. Martin of Tours.
  • St. Gregory the Great writes to St. Augustine of Canterbury not to be elated by the many miracles God was pleased to work through his hands for the conversion of the people of Britain.
    Keep in mind that all of history if founded on evidence of testimony. We do not need smartphone recordings to know that George Washington was the first president, that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, or that Napoleon was the warring head of France. These are facts, facts we know from testimony. In the same way and with the same certainty, we know that the miracles of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, as well as those listed above and others
 
throughout the past two millennia in the Catholic Church, are historical realities. The same cannot be said of any other alleged miracles recorded in ancient documents.
Also, and more importantly for the present discussion, to suggest that there is utter “silence” in modern times is grossly misleading. Today, in the Catholic Church, we have numerous scientifically proven miracles, ranging from Lourdes cures to Eucharistic miracles to the incorrupt bodies of saints. And the startling reality is that all such scientifically investigated and authenticated miracles take place within the Catholic Church and confirm the truth of its teaching. Please do me the favor of reading the following-
pamphlets.org.au/docs/cts/australia/html/acts1518.html
catholicpamphlets.net/pamphlets/THE%20MIRACLES%20AT%20LOURDES.pdf
catholic.com/blog/tim-staples/miracles-and-evangelism
ewtn.com/johnpaul2/cause/process.asp
Also, this website contains valuable information -
therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/a3.html
I also recommend this page, which does not address miracles right away, but as you read you will come to them-
therealpresence.org/archives/Church_Dogma/Church_Dogma_026.htm
For detailed information on the miracles of Lourdes, which have been absolutely proven by science to be entirely beyond the powers of nature (and keep in mind that any doctor, whether he is an atheist, agnostic, Jew, Buddhist, or what have you, may serve on the medical committee that authenticates the cures at Lourdes. Bias is not something which can prevail with these cures), I very highly recommend reading the book The Miracle of Lourdes by non-Catholic author Ruth Cranston. You could also check out The Healing Fire of Christ by Fr. Paul Glynn.
Here are links if you would like to purchase these books-
amazon.com/Miracle-Lourdes-Ruth-Cranston/dp/0385241879
ignatius.com/Products/HFC-P/the-healing-fire-of-christ.aspx
The bottom line of my discussion here is that we do not need video recordings of miracles when we have scientifically proven miracles abounding to this very day, which you can read about and even witness for yourself at the shrine in Lourdes, France. So to answer the question at the conclusion of you post, “where are these miracles?,” they are within the Catholic Church, abundant and absolutely scientifically proven to be true, therefore showing the whole world, or at least all those who care to look, that the Catholic Faith is true.
Also, keep in mind that if God performed miracles as often as the sun comes up, we might find it difficult to distinguish them from merely natural events.
May God bless you.
 
Do you trust a camera more than people? Perhaps you should go to where the miracles are happening.
 
I have always wondered the same thing. When I was a child, I asked my parents why angels didn’t appear to people now, and where were the miraculous signs from Heaven that occurred during Biblical times. It would be interesting if such things happened now. I do believe it would strengthen the faith of many, and even win converts to Christianity.
 
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