Miracles, Athiests & Agnostics

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jaguar
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Jaguar said:
Atheists & Agnostics, what are your thoughts on proven miracles?
Click to expand...
Generally, an atheist or agnostic doesn’t believe there are miracles, or ones that have been proven. This is because in the light of reason, there are no good rational arguments for miracles, or no scientific evidence that miracles actually happen, and in relation to alleged miracles which happened in the past (i.e. recorded in some sacred scripture) they adopt the dictum of Hume in which he said ‘I am more inclined to believe that the testimony of even a large number of people (in a miracle) is false and due to delusion, than a miracle which broke the laws of nature actually occured.’ This is the principle of Occam’s razor; an alleged miracle can be explained in terms of rational explanations or causes rather than resorting to irrational, supernatural or unknown causes.

The only real way to convince a skeptic miracles do happen, would be for an actual miraculous event to occur which cannot be explained by the known laws of nature, most likely in a controlled scientific environment or experiment.
 
Mirdath said:
Truth is pretty good for that.

There have been many people sent to prison for something they didn’t do.Telling the truth didn’t help them much.

It’s not about convenience; quite simply, the fact that we are not omniscient and omnipotent does not in any way prove or even imply that there is anything possessing these qualities.
Click to expand...
No,you and me are not omniscient and omnipotent.God is.It is only when we practise the Spiritual Life on a regular basis and,in a sincere way,that we become more aware of the Presence of God.Too often,our prayers are offered in a selfish way.We want everything to be made easy.We don’t mind hard work if there is a pile of money at the end of it.That is pretty obvious from the number of charity organisations who struggle to get volunteers.
There is no money to be made from volunteer work.
Often,i get my prayers answered,but not in the way i meant it.
It might be a couple of years later before i realise things would not have been so good if i had received the response i had been looking for.
I can appreciate that,if you do not believe that a Creator exists,then it is impossible to believe that He has done any miracles.However,i am always curious about agnostics like the
workmate i mentioned in my previous post,who have such an open mind about subjects like Astrology.
 
The reason the miracles presented to me by Catholics don’t cause me to believe in their God is because they don’t compare with the obvious, undeniable truth I see around me and experience every day.

I look at the universe…WOW. That which is the cause of it is undeniably great, huge, powerful, awesome. Then Catholics trot out their miracles, and basically, I am not impressed. Whatever is responsible for putting a pretty picture inside a cave, or painting a picture on some guys cloak or making a statue cry, just isn’t as awesome as what I already know. It seems silly in comparison. The miracles seem like pathetic parlor tricks designed to make people ignore the true power of the Divine, and get caught up in minutia. Which, does sound like the sort of nonsense the Catholic devil would get up to.

I don’t find most of the so called miracles compelling, I think that many of them are an insult to the true power of “God”, and they speak more to the human instinct to be distracted by some small sparkly thing than to deal with reality and truth.
 
Greg27 said:
The only real way to convince a skeptic miracles do happen, would be for an actual miraculous event to occur which cannot be explained by the known laws of nature, most likely in a controlled scientific environment or experiment.
Click to expand...
It doesn’t suffice to show that something cannot be explained by the known laws of nature. All you’d do is to open a new field of research to broaden our understanding of the natural world and the shrink the gap even further.

Instead you have to show that an alleged miracle did in fact happen as described and that it cannot have a naturalistic explanation, i.e. that there are neither known nor unknown laws of nature to explain it. Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence, like theists are so fond of stating…
 
whatever said:
Find out who put olive oil on the statue. Either the teacher was pranking you or somebody was playing tricks on the teacher.
Click to expand...
LOL it wasn’t “Olive Oil”, which is tasty. This wasn’t slick in the way that any oil is slick. It also had the taste of a tear, i.e. salty. It was clear as tears are. Any time anyone in the class would be flippant with the teacher, the student would simply call her by her first name. We weren’t into pranks. Especially a prank which might inlcude desecrating a statue of Mary, (keep in mind we were religious and this would be considered a sin, and at the very least bad form.)
 
RedSoxFan said:
LOL it wasn’t “Olive Oil”, which is tasty. This wasn’t slick in the way that any oil is slick. It also had the taste of a tear, i.e. salty. It was clear as tears are. Any time anyone in the class would be flippant with the teacher, the student would simply call her by her first name. We weren’t into pranks. Especially a prank which might inlcude desecrating a statue of Mary, (keep in mind we were religious and this would be considered a sin, and at the very least bad form.)
Click to expand...
I’ve seen a crying statue of Mary before, at the site of the supposed apparitions at Conyers, Georgia. It rather dampened my fascination when a worker walked up to it and rubbed its forehead with a damp cloth to get it to weep.
 
Occam’s Razor supports the existence of the supernatural. The simplest logical explanation that fits all the facts is that nature operates normally under rules that some powerful being can bypass at will. All other explanations become extremely complicated when called upon to explain the facts of this life and the world around us.
 
strngrnrth said:
Occam’s Razor supports the existence of the supernatural. The simplest logical explanation that fits all the facts is that nature operates normally under rules that some powerful being can bypass at will. All other explanations become extremely complicated when called upon to explain the facts of this life and the world around us.
Click to expand...
Occam’s Razor doesn’t work that way. Ignoring the dubious proposition that the simplest logical explanation is that which defies logic, the Razor states that one should never add unnecessary variables to an experiment. God has yet to be shown to be a necessary variable.
 
Mirdath said:
Occam’s Razor doesn’t work that way. Ignoring the dubious proposition that the simplest logical explanation is that which defies logic, the Razor states that one should never add unnecessary variables to an experiment. God has yet to be shown to be a necessary variable.
Click to expand...
But there is nothing illogical about the existence of God.
 
Mirdath said:
I’ve seen a crying statue of Mary before, at the site of the supposed apparitions at Conyers, Georgia. It rather dampened my fascination when a worker walked up to it and rubbed its forehead with a damp cloth to get it to weep.
Click to expand...
Yeah that would be kind of a let down. I hope you got your money back. It is really something when you actually see the real thing. Weak immitations really don’t do it justice. Take my word for it (as much as you can)!
 
strngrnrth said:
OK. Is that thread already here, or do you want to start one?👍
Click to expand...
Right here 🙂
40.png
RedSoxFan:
It is really something when you actually see the real thing. Weak immitations really don’t do it justice. Take my word for it (as much as you can)!
Click to expand...
Oh, I have no doubt it is, I just don’t believe God made it happen 😉
 
Mirdath said:
Right here 🙂

Oh, I have no doubt it is, I just don’t believe God made it happen 😉
Click to expand...
Fair enough. Though my question becomes now what would make you start believing. I’m lucky in my own way, becuase I have always believed. St.Paul needed to get knocked off his *** to believe and have Christ appear to him. What would it take for you? Any of you on this forum?
 
whatever said:
I’m lucky in my own way, because I was never a believer. To believe in Christianity? Major brain trauma might do the trick.
Click to expand...
More’s the loss for you then, I suppose. But then, I suppose that…well, what I’m thinking of writing might garner me a reprimand.
 
RedSoxFan said:
St.Paul needed to get knocked off his *** to believe and have Christ appear to him. What would it take for you? Any of you on this forum?
Click to expand...
Probably about what it took St Thomas: direct revelation.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top