Challenge from a Skeptic re: Miracles

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

I come from an entertainment-oriented family (no, none of us is exactly famous), and I learned some magic as a kid myself, and I know the difference.
I have also studied biology and read a great deal about medical news and diagnostic criteria as well as other medical topics. I have studied physics, linguistics, a little anthro, some psych – learning theory and abnormal – and a lot about history and mythology. I was raised as a militant atheist in the strict sense of both words. I had numerous experiences as a child that were in some cases verified by others, which were definitely outside what the current laws of science allow. I struggled for years with my curiosity about the supernatural v. my atheistic upbringing, the materialistic culture around me, and my desire to be scientific in a society constructed atop a teetering false dichotomy between the supernatural and science. I became deeply immersed in the occult several times, then ran in horror and terror of what I’d experienced there into the cold arms of atheism, only to be drawn back by repeated supernatural experiences.
Offering money to anyone who can “produce” a miracle on demand in a “controlled setting” as if that had any bearing on the real possibility of miracles is exactly like offering money to anyone who conceives quadruplets on cue in controlled conditions and proves to the satisfaction of the one who would have to pony up the cash that it wasn’t a result of fertility drugs or any sort of trick, and saying the lack of such results proves there have never been any quads.
When a body part regrows the skeptics scream for video proof it was ever missing, for a DVD of the regrowth itself, for a polygraph for all involved, and if these are not available because most people don’t spend all their lives filming themselves and many healings happen while the person sleeps, and because video cameras have only recently become available and many people still don’t have them, they try to make it sound as if thousands of witnesses were “trying to trick” some self-described skeptic somewhere.
I guess some people won’t believe even if they see someone rise from the dead.

So, when did the miracle of your conversion take place? I am very interested in your story.

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

A dear priest friend of ours, some years ago was at a healing service of Fr. DiOrio’s. There was a man sitting next to him in the isle in a wheel chair with a missing leg, but Fr. wasn’t paying much attention to him though. As the evening progressed, and the healing service was under way, healings were taking place, he happened to notice something moving out of the cornor of his eye. He looked to see what was happening, well it was just what you asked about.

The man sitting beside him in the wheel chair, with the missing leg - he grew another leg.

God bless you!

OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD!!! Praise be to the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit!!!

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

Yes, that is absurd. I never said any of that.

Your unwillingness to accept spontaneous remission of cancer is truly baffling.

People with cancer often get better. Without treatment. Not as often as when they receive treatment, and that is why they recommend treatment.

The extraneous things that people do when they get better don’t do anything at all to affect how likely they are to go into remission.

Yes, I know people who have died of cancer. (Many were splashed with holy water.) I never said he received chemo.

I don’t claim to know everything. You came onto the CAF to attack our belief in miracles, and then proceeded to tell us that you know that people who have been cured are frauds and liars…whom you have much experience in dealing with…for some reason I cannot fathom…but that is inconsequential.
I am asking who these people are who have gone intoremission from lung cancer or pancreatic cancer, or liver cancer who neither went through any medical treatment nor prayed (or had anyone praying for them for a cure).
You have yet to answer that question. I think that would definitely be grabbed at by the media in today’s world just to prove that Christianity doesn’t work. But I have heard none of it. Granted, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there, as I don’t watch much tv. So, I am sincerely asking you for the documentation of such things.

 

[catholic1seeks]

You’re welcome. :tiphat:

I am and I’m not. I’m not a scientist or a doctor. But I spent four years in university studying human behaviour. My job is to convince people they want to do what I want them to do, and I do magic as a hobby.

I study with, work for, and learn from liars. I am constantly bombarded with people who are very good at fooling people.

Scientists usually deal with subjects that aren’t trying to mess them up. People don’t usually go to doctors trying to fool them. (Sometimes they do, but not usually.) Neither of them are especially trained in dealing with frauds.

If someone has said that the only explanation for something is a supernatural one, then they probably haven’t looked at it closely enough.

So you are saying that miracles that have accompanied the saints are lies? People that “in” to God would consider such a thing blasphemous, and would not do such a thing!**

 

[catholic1seeks]

***Miracles still occur. People make pilgrimiges to this one church in Mexico where a “miracle of the cross” took place. Supposively, the sand where this one cross was found…(just part of the story)…is suppose to heal the one in need.

I don’t expect Bob and Penny Lord to lie! Anyone heard of them? On EWTN? It was on their show.***

 

[Nullasalus]

Believers pray for miraculous cures, but these cures probably would happen anyway. So, why don’t believers ever pray that a limb might grow back?? There are many, many amputees that would love to be “made whole” again. Why don’t we ever hear about prayers for a miraculous cure in this fashion?

In other words: believers don’t pray that a limb might grow back because we know it’s IMPOSSIBLE. Yet when someone is healed from, let’s say, cancer, it may appear miraculous, yet there’s probably a natural explanation for that.

Any rebuttals to this skeptic’s challenge?

There’s a few problems here, in my view. The question is often given as ‘Why does God hate amputees?’ On the grounds that God is credited for a variety of miracle healings, but amputees are never cured.

1. First off, it’s not true that human amputees are never cured or that such things are impossible. We have regenerative abilities in the womb, and for a time after birth (I forget the exact age range, forgive me) fingertips/toes are able to grow back as well. You can call this natural* as opposed to miraculous, but it’s worth pointing out.

We’ve also had people whose limbs were severed, but then re-attached and healed. If there was a low, or no expectancy of the re-attachment working, would this count as a miracle? I’m going to guess the skeptic would argue ‘no, a natural cause is still more reasonable’.

What we’re talking about, then, are more mature humans not regrowing/reattaching their limbs miraculously.

1. But we’ve had reports of limbs growing back as well. The miracle of Calanda, Jesus reattaching the ear of a slave during his arrest, etc. Again, we can see the objection: Not recent enough, not certain enough. So it’s not ‘Why doesn’t God heal amputees?’ or even ‘Why doesn’t God heal mature amputees?’ but ‘Why doesn’t God regrow the limbs of mature amputees with enough frequency/documentation?’
2. But what’s the proper frequency? I don’t think even the devoutly religious would argue that every instance of a claimed miraculous healing is truly necessarily miraculous. And ‘miracle healings’ are rare enough as is. So here alone, we’re actually at an impasse - miracles of any kind are by their nature rare and exceptional. But we not only want a miracle, but a specific type of miracle (regrowing a limb), under specific conditions (independently verifiable by trusted parties both before and after the healing), and quite possibly multiple (because a single report isn’t enough - again, Calanda).
3. But would even getting this be enough to prove a miracle? Frankly, no. Because we already know regeneration exists in the animal kingdom (salamanders, etc) and within humans (in the womb, limited degree out of the womb, etc). And we’re now working on technologies to allow the regrowth of limbs, with some claimed success in fingertips as is. A skeptic could just as easily turn around and say, ‘This was no miracle. At most it’s a mystery. It’s not a miracle when some lizards regrow their tails, after all. This could be entirely natural and explicable without recourse to God in the same way.’ Again, we’re highlighting that limb regrowth isn’t ‘impossible’ at all. What’s being called impossible is miraculous limb regrowth at most.

For me, what the topic highlights is that the line between ‘miracle’ and ‘nature’ is blurry even for believers, not to mention skeptics. And I don’t think any person ever prays for an out and out miracle: A person with cancer prays that they’re cured. Whether it’s naturally (through a new medication) or miraculously (the cancer simply vanishes) does not and should not matter to them. The same goes for amputees: They don’t pray for God to fashion a limb for them ex nihilo. If their limb can be re-attached, if a treatment can be given to grant them use of their limb again, etc, they’ll be satisfied. The only utility of an inexplicable or miraculous healing is in its testimony. “There are forces at work in the world beyond what we can immediately explain.”

What the skeptic is asking for, then, is mind-bogglingly narrow. Not just a claimed miracle, but a claimed miracle of a very specific type, investigated thoroughly enough and happening frequently enough to stave off questions of whether it is in fact happening, with the stipulation that it can’t have a ‘natural’ explanation. But since you can appeal to ‘unknown natural’ as a skeptic, what they’re asking for IS impossible.

• (And just because something is ‘natural’ does not mean ‘not in the debt of God’. Remember the Problem of Evil claims: If God exists, He permits evil, and is responsible for it. But that holds insofar as God is responsible for good as well. So even natural healings, technological advances, etc are one more thing for theists to give thanks to God about.)

 

[reluctant_saint]

There’s a few problems here, in my view. The question is often given as ‘Why does God hate amputees?’ On the grounds that God is credited for a variety of miracle healings, but amputees are never cured.

1. First off, it’s not true that human amputees are never cured or that such things are impossible. We have regenerative abilities in the womb, and for a time after birth (I forget the exact age range, forgive me) fingertips/toes are able to grow back as well. You can call this natural* as opposed to miraculous, but it’s worth pointing out.

We’ve also had people whose limbs were severed, but then re-attached and healed. If there was a low, or no expectancy of the re-attachment working, would this count as a miracle? I’m going to guess the skeptic would argue ‘no, a natural cause is still more reasonable’.

What we’re talking about, then, are more mature humans not regrowing/reattaching their limbs miraculously.

1. But we’ve had reports of limbs growing back as well. The miracle of Calanda, Jesus reattaching the ear of a slave during his arrest, etc. Again, we can see the objection: Not recent enough, not certain enough. So it’s not ‘Why doesn’t God heal amputees?’ or even ‘Why doesn’t God heal mature amputees?’ but ‘Why doesn’t God regrow the limbs of mature amputees with enough frequency/documentation?’
2. But what’s the proper frequency? I don’t think even the devoutly religious would argue that every instance of a claimed miraculous healing is truly necessarily miraculous. And ‘miracle healings’ are rare enough as is. So here alone, we’re actually at an impasse - miracles of any kind are by their nature rare and exceptional. But we not only want a miracle, but a specific type of miracle (regrowing a limb), under specific conditions (independently verifiable by trusted parties both before and after the healing), and quite possibly multiple (because a single report isn’t enough - again, Calanda).
3. But would even getting this be enough to prove a miracle? Frankly, no. Because we already know regeneration exists in the animal kingdom (salamanders, etc) and within humans (in the womb, limited degree out of the womb, etc). And we’re now working on technologies to allow the regrowth of limbs, with some claimed success in fingertips as is. A skeptic could just as easily turn around and say, ‘This was no miracle. At most it’s a mystery. It’s not a miracle when some lizards regrow their tails, after all. This could be entirely natural and explicable without recourse to God in the same way.’ Again, we’re highlighting that limb regrowth isn’t ‘impossible’ at all. What’s being called impossible is miraculous limb regrowth at most.

For me, what the topic highlights is that the line between ‘miracle’ and ‘nature’ is blurry even for believers, not to mention skeptics. And I don’t think any person ever prays for an out and out miracle: A person with cancer prays that they’re cured. Whether it’s naturally (through a new medication) or miraculously (the cancer simply vanishes) does not and should not matter to them. The same goes for amputees: They don’t pray for God to fashion a limb for them ex nihilo. If their limb can be re-attached, if a treatment can be given to grant them use of their limb again, etc, they’ll be satisfied. The only utility of an inexplicable or miraculous healing is in its testimony. “There are forces at work in the world beyond what we can immediately explain.”

What the skeptic is asking for, then, is mind-bogglingly narrow. Not just a claimed miracle, but a claimed miracle of a very specific type, investigated thoroughly enough and happening frequently enough to stave off questions of whether it is in fact happening, with the stipulation that it can’t have a ‘natural’ explanation. But since you can appeal to ‘unknown natural’ as a skeptic, what they’re asking for IS impossible.

• (And just because something is ‘natural’ does not mean ‘not in the debt of God’. Remember the Problem of Evil claims: If God exists, He permits evil, and is responsible for it. But that holds insofar as God is responsible for good as well. So even natural healings, technological advances, etc are one more thing for theists to give thanks to God about.)

Amen to that. You just saved me from writing the next reply I was planning on. Well said.

 

[Pani_Rose]

Man restored to health by becoming Catholic - at that very moment in time :extrahappy:
gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2008/07/man-healed-by-becoming-catholic.html

 

[Awful_Things]

I have two thoughts on this question:

1. There is something metaphoric in many of the cures we do see. Blindness is cured in the Bible and stands as a metaphor for our eyes of faith. Deafness is aluded to in Scripture as a metaphor for not “hearing” God’s word. The paralyzed man is given the power to walk as a metaphor for our walk with God. Tumors disappearing metaphorically represent the removal of sin from within us. So, it isn’t that God is ignoring amputees, but that he is chosing cures that have a metaphoric application to our spiritual journey, so as we contemplate them, we might gain insight into our spiritual imperfections.
2. Curing an amputee is too much of a sign. To suddenly see an arm pop out of someone’s side would be similar to having God’s face appear in the sky. It would be basically undeniable (though some atheists would surely rise to the challenge). God perhaps wants to give us signs, but signs that are not so conclusive that we aren’t left with the spiritual struggle that leads to spiritual maturity. If I hear of a blind man being cured, it encourages my search for God, but because of the “iffiness” of it, I am driven to look more deeply in other places - to search other things, such as the historicity of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Granted, the problem here is that God has done “great signs” (a dancing sun), but generally, his signs are those that intrigue us, but do not rob us of the spiritual hard work we must do to most fully come to him.

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

God always meets us where we are and does for us what is in our best interest. However, we do not always know what is in our best interest. The best and most enormeous miracles are done within our hearts and the hearts of those praying for the miracles. He does, indeed, heal our bodies many times. But, once again, He knows what is in our best interest. He can see the future, and His healing our bodies might not be what is in our best interest. Sometimes He just says “No”. We must trust Him. He knows us better than we know ourselves.
For instance:
If I was very close to Him, and I got cancer, I and others would pray for my healing of course. But God, in His infinite Wisdom, might know that at sometime in the future, I would turn from Him and risk losing eternal life, and maybe influence others to do the same. Because He knows this about me, He might take me home at that time. It would be what is best for my eternal soul.

 

[Lion_of_Narnia]

… I’m not a scientist or a doctor. But I spent four years in university studying human behaviour. My job is to convince people they want to do what I want them to do, and I do magic as a hobby.

I study with, work for, and learn from liars. I am constantly bombarded with people who are very good at fooling people.

Scientists usually deal with subjects that aren’t trying to mess them up. People don’t usually go to doctors trying to fool them. (Sometimes they do, but not usually.) Neither of them are especially trained in dealing with frauds.

If someone has said that the only explanation for something is a supernatural one, then they probably haven’t looked at it closely enough.

So you admit you do not have medical or biological expertise. You admit you do not have the background to critique the medical examinations of Padre Pio. You admit you DO come from a background where you deal with liars and frauds day in and day out–but you don’t seem to admit how that can color one’s perception.

 

[Sideline]

So you admit you do not have medical or biological expertise. You admit you do not have the background to critique the medical examinations of Padre Pio. You admit you DO come from a background where you deal with liars and frauds day in and day out–but you don’t seem to admit how that can color one’s perception.

I’m an editor. It’s not quite as nefarious as people seem to think.

If you spend a lot of time with people presenting their points of view, you are spending a lot of time around liars. It’s a natural side effect of tying present a position.

It’s true that I’m not a doctor, but you don’t need to be to realize that they didn’t do a good job.

One doctor, for instance, claims that he was not able to connect his fingers through the hands, but he was sure that it would be possible.

How could he be sure if he couldn’t do it? His test is evidence to the contrary.

If you read the information you find most of the evidence that would point to his being a fraud was merely ignored.

 

[Lion_of_Narnia]

I’m an editor. It’s not quite as nefarious as people seem to think.

If you spend a lot of time with people presenting their points of view, you are spending a lot of time around liars. It’s a natural side effect of tying present a position.

Response: I dont think you realize how harshly Church investigators treated Padre Pio in this life–you will not find any more critical, skeptical, more cynical people than they. Most of them are priests–utterly aware of the depravity of human nature and the capacity for lying and deceit (The “Father Brown” syndrome)

It’s true that I’m not a doctor, but you don’t need to be to realize that they didn’t do a good job.

One doctor, for instance, claims that he was not able to connect his fingers through the hands, but he was sure that it would be possible.

Response: so, you wish that doctor was have violated a human body for what end?–to demonstrate that he could?

How could he be sure if he couldn’t do it? His test is evidence to the contrary.

If you read the information you find most of the evidence that would point to his being a fraud was merely ignored.

Response: Any person who cuts himself day after day (or treats himself with sulphuric acid as one “skeptic” proposed" is going to leave scars–the older one gets, the more pervasive and prominent the scarring.

Absent.

 

[Sideline]

Response: I dont think you realize how harshly Church investigators treated Padre Pio in this life–you will not find any more critical, skeptical, more cynical people than they. Most of them are priests–utterly aware of the depravity of human nature and the capacity for lying and deceit (The “Father Brown” syndrome)

Yes I am, actually.

I also know that they wouldn’t have had the same tools for investigation that we have. (X-rays for instance). I also know that being sceptical doesn’t mean that you are very good at analyzing the mistakes in other people’s research.

Response: so, you wish that doctor was have violated a human body for what end?–to demonstrate that he could?

No, I wish that the doctor had not made speculations that he was unable to provide evidence of. Actually, the evidence he found had disagreed with the conclusion that he drew from it.

There were, even at the time, much better methods for determining whether the abrasions on both sides met in the middle. He chose a poor method for determining this, and then drew erroneous conclusions when he was unable to test it.

It is interesting to note that Padre Pio had undergone two surgeries without use of anaesthetic. He was able to self-anaesthetize when it suited his purpose, but not able to when it came to testing his claims.

Response: Any person who cuts himself day after day (or treats himself with sulphuric acid as one “skeptic” proposed" is going to leave scars–the older one gets, the more pervasive and prominent the scarring.

Absent.

Finally, we come to something which, if true, provides some evidence to his claim. Unfortunately, all I can find is anecdotal evidence to support this.

You would think… since this is the lynch pin of the argument… that there would be some pictures floating around of these perfectly smooth hands. Pictures abound of his hands with the stigmata, but it appears to be impossible to find a picture of him without it.

Why hasn’t somebody snapped a picture of those pristine hands to silence sceptics like myself?

It was carbolic acid, by the way.

 

[HelenaMT]

Why hasn’t somebody snapped a picture of those pristine hands to silence sceptics like myself?

I doubt God truly wants to silence the skeptics, or He would. The more interesting question to me is why He doesn’t. Obviously, your answer is He doesn’t exist, but to believers it is worth trying to understand.

If God constantly violated His own laws in such dramatic ways as amputees regrowing legs or bright fiery writing in the sky proclaiming his wishes, what would have been the point in establishing them? If we lived in a universe where we couldn’t count on any consistent physical laws, and each individual could call on God to fix this or that, the world would function like a D&D fantasy world. Maybe cool, but obviously not what God had in mind.

It seems that God wants us to learn and grow in His creation on our own, helping us through our spiritual lives and occasionally through low key miracles(ie unlikely cures, remarkable luck, great psychological changes in a person) that bring affirmation to the person experiencing it and those close around him/her, but do nothing for the stubborn skeptic.

God as we know Him obviously doesn’t* need* our belief. It’s obviously not part of His plan to force Himself on unbelievers through obvious and frequent violations of His own laws of nature.

It makes it difficult for us believers to answer people like you to your satisfaction, but that’s always been the nature of faith. If you are expecting to be convinced beyond a doubt with a skeptic’s mindset, you are just wasting your time.

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

I’m an editor. It’s not quite as nefarious as people seem to think.

If you spend a lot of time with people presenting their points of view, you are spending a lot of time around liars. It’s a natural side effect of tying present a position.

It’s true that I’m not a doctor, but you don’t need to be to realize that they didn’t do a good job.

One doctor, for instance, claims that he was not able to connect his fingers through the hands, but he was sure that it would be possible.

How could he be sure if he couldn’t do it? His test is evidence to the contrary.

If you read the information you find most of the evidence that would point to his being a fraud was merely ignored.

That has about as much to do with this conversation as the price of tea in China for those who live in southern Louisiana.

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

Yes I am, actually.

I also know that they wouldn’t have had the same tools for investigation that we have. (X-rays for instance). I also know that being sceptical doesn’t mean that you are very good at analyzing the mistakes in other people’s research.

No, I wish that the doctor had not made speculations that he was unable to provide evidence of. Actually, the evidence he found had disagreed with the conclusion that he drew from it.

There were, even at the time, much better methods for determining whether the abrasions on both sides met in the middle. He chose a poor method for determining this, and then drew erroneous conclusions when he was unable to test it.

It is interesting to note that Padre Pio had undergone two surgeries without use of anaesthetic. He was able to self-anaesthetize when it suited his purpose, but not able to when it came to testing his claims.

Finally, we come to something which, if true, provides some evidence to his claim. Unfortunately, all I can find is anecdotal evidence to support this.

You would think… since this is the lynch pin of the argument… that there would be some pictures floating around of these perfectly smooth hands. Pictures abound of his hands with the stigmata, but it appears to be impossible to find a picture of him without it.

Why hasn’t somebody snapped a picture of those pristine hands to silence sceptics like myself?

It was carbolic acid, by the way.

The wounds were bleeding all of the time…so you would not have been able to see the wounds through the blood. There were so many tests and critics testing Padre Pio that I don’t think anything was left undone. And it was the 1960’s, not that long ago.
for those who don’t want to believe, no evidence is enough to change their minds. For those with Faith, evidence is obviously abundant.

 

[PRmerger]

People with cancer often get better. Without treatment. Not as often as when they receive treatment, and that is why they recommend treatment.

Sideline, who are these people? What evidence can you provide that they received no treatment, never prayed nor had anyone praying for them?

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

Sideline, who are these people? What evidence can you provide that they received no treatment, never prayed nor had anyone praying for them?

The same question I asked…right before Sideline got into the battle of Padre Pio and the stigmata. I would dearly love an answer though. I don’t think one will be provided, though. For how could a person possibly prove that prayer wasn’t offered up to God on the person’s behalf? but still I would love an answer.

 

[yesukristus]

An atheist would have (and one did) have a simpler answer to the above question: God can’t make limbs grow back, cause God doesn’t exist.
But I agree with HelenaMT- God wouldn’t do anything that makes it impossible for anyone to not believe in Him (at least not until the second coming). Such a thing would rob us of our free will to accept or deny Him, and simply is not biblical. Now I don’t remember the exact verses, but Jesus said throughout the gospels that there would be those destined to be save and those who may not be so easily saved (i’m trying to not go against church teachings here ) Now u may argue that growing back a limb would not necessarily constitute impossibility to disbelieve, but it would be for many Christians, and that would take away our free will to believe or not.