Miracles. Are they provable?

A miracle could be defined as different things but lets approach it from the most common perspective.

A miracle is something that defies logic and explanation.

I am interested in whether or not people have been privy to miracles that are not coincidental but are nothing other than obvious miracles. It may turn out that all miracles are created by our minds like most of what we call reality. Regardless, in this reality if evidence exists, looking at it is useful to learning.

Many doctors have gone on record saying that something miraculous has happened to a patient, not something that simply defied the odds but rather something that defied all logic concerning some recoveries.

Individuals personal experiences also count for something if the individual can be trusted not to elaborate on events to make it seem as though there was a miracle, when chance was the only factor.

An alcoholic sobering up might be a true miracle considering who that alcoholic is. Just an example of how miracles can vary amongst individuals. The question I have is would the brain scans of the alcoholic/sober individual differ enough to qualify as tangible evidence of a miracle.

Tumors disappearing, HIV disappearing, anything like this may be documented evidence of miracles. There's no reason that the idea shouldn't be entertained since we can look closely at documented medical reports.

If by miracle we only mean something that we can't explain, sure, things we can't explain happen all the time. If you mean that God intervened, then no, because we can't prove it wasn't a fortuitous alignment of the stars either.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
If by miracle we only mean something that we can't explain, sure, things we can't explain happen all the time. If you mean that God intervened, then no, because we can't prove it wasn't a fortuitous alignment of the stars either.

If I see a mountain floating through the air, how would I know that's the handiwork of a Truly Divine and Infinite Being, and not some advanced ETs playin' with our heads?

I'd assume they were some kind of advanced technological display, to be honest. After all, the Aztecs (my ancestors) initially thought the Spanish galleons were mountians floating on the water.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
I'd assume they were some kind of advanced technological display, to be honest. After all, the Aztecs (my ancestors) initially thought the Spanish galleons were mountians floating on the water.

If we can prove a miracle happened, it would be subject to scientific analysis... and therefore not much of a miracle, because it would have a natural cause.

Any miracle-esque thing I witness will be accompanied immediately with shock/disbelief closely followed by a feeling that there is some scientific explanation for it. Even if the science behind it is beyond my ken.

Divine intervention will never be my assumption.

Originally posted by King Kandy
If we can prove a miracle happened, it would be subject to scientific analysis... and therefore not much of a miracle, because it would have a natural cause.

Originally posted by The MISTER
That seems contradictory. If we can prove that a miracle happened then the proof is that after scientific analysis the phenomenon is still unexplainable/illogical. It must be proven to be inconsistent with all known natural occurrences. Ice that wouldn't melt when placed in fire would be miraculous for example. That's an extreme example but I'm only interested in extreme occurrences as anything that is not extreme would be exactly what you're talking about. I have to assume that people have not been privy to anything that they think qualifies as a miracle based on the responses that I'm getting. That's OK as far as I'm concerned as it shines some light on how few people have experienced things that they consider miracles.

For instance, atoms were believed to be indivisible, uniform particles; when cathode rays were discovered, they were thus unexplainable and illogical to the scientists who used them. But once the electron was discovered, this unexplainable phenomena became an explainable phenomena with a scientific cause. If we'd said instead that cathode rays were a miracle, we never would have discovered the electron.

Originally posted by The MISTER
That seems contradictory. If we can prove that a miracle happened then the proof is that after scientific analysis the phenomenon is still unexplainable/illogical. It must be proven to be inconsistent with all known natural occurrences. Ice that wouldn't melt when placed in fire would be miraculous for example. That's an extreme example but I'm only interested in extreme occurrences as anything that is not extreme would be exactly what you're talking about. I have to assume that people have not been privy to anything that they think qualifies as a miracle based on the responses that I'm getting. That's OK as far as I'm concerned as it shines some light on how few people have experienced things that they consider miracles.

If we couldn't explain the ice that didn't melt we'd just have proof that there was something in the world we couldn't presently explain. It is miraculous, in the idiom of English, but not necessarily a miracle (which would be something that cannot ever be explained). The act of proving that a phenomenon about the universe is unexplainable would itself be a miracle!

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
Any miracle-esque thing I witness will be accompanied immediately with shock/disbelief closely followed by a feeling that there is some scientific explanation for it. Even if the science behind it is beyond my ken.

Divine intervention will never be my assumption.

Do you think that line of thinking might be a bit biased or close-minded on your part? Divine Intervention will never be a possibility? Why automatically write something off? I always try to consider all angles.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Do you think that line of thinking might be a bit biased or close-minded on your part? Divine Intervention will never be a possibility? Why automatically write something off? I always try to consider all angles.

Originally posted by King Kandy
You can't really show that any unexplained event can only be explained by god, so it doesn't really seem like a useful avenue of study.

I never said "only". Intervention wouldn't be my first assumption, but I also wouldn't necessarily discount it.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Do you think that line of thinking might be a bit biased or close-minded on your part? Divine Intervention will never be a possibility? Why automatically write something off? I always try to consider all angles.

This raises interesting questions about what would qualify as positive evidence of God. Douglas Adams once pointed out that traditional Christian dogma in relation to faith would make such evidence, evidence that God doesn't exist. But assuming that God would leave proof I wonder if we would be able to distinguish it from other potential causes. It would have to be something that isn't simply unexplainable but could only have been left by God. I can't think of anything that fits those requirements.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
I never said "only". Intervention wouldn't be my first assumption, but I also wouldn't necessarily discount it.

For science to be chosen as the explanation, we only need to develop an explanation.

For god to be chosen as the explanation, we need to be unable to develop a scientific explanation. But since you can't prove that an explanation won't be found in the future, you can't logically ever meet that criteria.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Do you think that line of thinking might be a bit biased or close-minded on your part? Divine Intervention will never be a possibility? Why automatically write something off? I always try to consider all angles.

... mainly because I'll have no choice. (G)od(s) isn't/aren't something you say: "No, don't believe you" to.

Originally posted by King Kandy
But why would you include it in your list of options when it's an option that never could be logically chosen?

For science to be chosen as the explanation, we only need to develop an explanation.

For god to be chosen as the explanation, we need to be unable to develop a scientific explanation. But since you can't prove that an explanation won't be found in the future, you can't logically ever meet that criteria.

Because logic doesn't explain everything. For all its wonderful uses, logic can be limiting. In murder cases, the how can often be logically explained but not the why. If a gunman slaughters an entire office full of workers, the "how" can be logically explained with ballistics and so on, but the "why" is much more elusive and sometimes is never fully explained. Of course, that doesn't always mean God is the reason, but it also means logic or "common sense" doesn't apply to everything.

What if you're driving down the highway and see something totally unnatural, freakish and out-of-this world? You see a bear flying by flapping its arms. Do you tell yourself its a hologram, an elaborate hoax, a hallucination? It can't be a hallucination if others in the car saw it too, or if it was captured on video tape. You can only "rationalize" it so much before you start running out of explanations.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Because logic doesn't explain everything. For all its wonderful uses, logic can be limiting. In murder cases, the how can often be logically explained but not the why. If a gunman slaughters an entire office full of workers, the "how" can be logically explained with ballistics and so on, but the "why" is much more elusive and sometimes is never fully explained. Of course, that doesn't always mean God is the reason, but it also means logic or "common sense" doesn't apply to everything.

What if you're driving down the highway and see something totally unnatural, freakish and out-of-this world? You see a bear flying by flapping its arms. Do you tell yourself its a hologram, an elaborate hoax, a hallucination? It can't be a hallucination if others in the car saw it too, or if it was captured on video tape. You can only "rationalize" it so much before you start running out of explanations.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Because logic doesn't explain everything. For all its wonderful uses, logic can be limiting. In murder cases, the how can often be logically explained but not the why. If a gunman slaughters an entire office full of workers, the "how" can be logically explained with ballistics and so on, but the "why" is much more elusive and sometimes is never fully explained. Of course, that doesn't always mean God is the reason, but it also means logic or "common sense" doesn't apply to everything.

I'd argue that your example represents a strength of logic. It can't explain the actions of the man because we lack the information needed to draw logical conclusions. It's perfectly reasonable to arrive at the knowledge that we just don't know why something happened. Speculating when we don't know anything is only of practical value in that it can end up pointing you toward new evidence.