Kevin's Watch

Well have you? As I see it there are two ways to define a miracle; firstly an occurence or event that runs contrary to the established laws of nature (eg I rise of my chair and float at a height of three feet above the ground for two hours) or secondly an event or occurence, the probability of which occuring is so small that it could reasonoably be regarded as impossible (eg a man jumps from a plane. His parachute fails to open and he plunges to the ground only to be hauled up two feet short by the cording which has become entangled in the roof girdirs of the skylight he has just smashed through on his way down).

Let's take Jesus's rising from the dead. Not a miricle by either of the above criteria; people are regularly wrongly pronounced dead even given todays medical knowhow on the subject and then come to hours or days later; how suprising should it be that some soldiers itching to get done by the Sabath should make a mistake some 2000 years ago. (nb I'm not attempting to insult anybody's faith here - Jesus's rising from the grave could have been a miracle - I'm just saying that in terms of definitions it would fail)

Ok let's say I win the lottery just when I need a shed load of money. Unlikely that it's going to be me (ie massively low probability) but it has to be someone ( virtual 100% certainty), so damn, damn lucky - yes, miracle - no.

If a miracle is going to be accepted as such it seems to me that it will need to have been witnessed by a number of people. I don't buy that thing where they say that a persons testimony can be accepted if it is more unlikely that the person would be lying than that the miracle they are describing occured - people make mistakes.

Now I don't know if there are any occurences on record where the laws of nature have been broken in front of a sufficient number of people so that the occurence of this kind of miracle can be verified as having happened with certainty - but certainly the second kind have (as you probably know the second example is a true story - I heard the guy giving a radio interview the following day). Again the 'possibility' of this kind of event, even in the face of the fantasic odds against it's happening has to mean that to believe it to be a miracle as opposed to just a highly unlikely occurence that just happened to happen, has to be a matter of faith. To me it's just an example of extreme luck - but (and here comes the crunch - I have been a recipient (in my view) of the same level of extreme luck. Heres how it happened.

22 Years ago I used to read a magazine called Omni - a science publiucation of sorts - and in one episode they mentioned that at the turn of the Millenium there would be a total Solar Eclipse in the west of England where I live. I waited for 10 years for that day to dawn and was devastated when on the morning of the event I woke to thick impenatrable cloud from one end of the horizon to the other. So dejected was I that it was all my new wife could do to persuade me to go out at all. I was eventually persuaded and so the choice had to be made which coast to travel to in order to at least see the lighting effects on the ground which were said to accompany the eclipse. We drew lots and headed for the north-coast.
I had heard that extremely rarely, in the event of a cloudy sky during a total eclipse, it had been observed that just prior to the eclipse the clouds would part and the sun would become visible during the event - but this was wishful thinking and just too much to hope for. We gathered with some hundred or so other people on the cliff edge under the heaviest sky you can imagine. Thick, wall to wall grey cloud obscured the entire sky as the time of totality grew ever closer. With bare minutes to go all of a sudden a cheer went up from the crowd. The impossible was actually happening before our eyes. The cloud grew thinner and thinner until - yes! - there was the sun with the moon near about over it's whole surface. By totality the sun was as free of cloud as a summers day and the entire event - the corona, the diamond ring - was displayed in all it's glory to the unbeliving group of people on that cliff top. With good reason is it called 'The greatest show on earth' - and that day it should never have happened. It didn't for the people who went to the south-coast instead of the north. It didn't for those who went furthur west or stayed to the east. But for us - for the very, very lucky few, who by chance picked the right spot, on the right day at the right time - the miracle happened.

Considering my history and apparent lack of fertility, everyday I consider the conception of my son a miracle.

Everything is a miracle. The chances of pretty much anything happening on a cosmic level are microscopic.

--A

Come now Av - you know the cold light of scientific reason has no place for the miraculous. Facts Sir, facts! Thats what we're dealing with here.

(Actually isn't there a paradox there. Surely for an event to 'happen' there has to be a time for it to happen in. How could the Big Bang occur unless time sprang into being a micro, micro second before the event just in order to give it a temporal theatre to 'happen' in - but this flies in the face of thoery that time and space were born together at the same instant. And of course if time did come into existence fractionally before the rest then it to would require a 'time' in which to be born in.......Oh dear!)

Avatar wrote:Everything is a miracle. The chances of pretty much anything happening on a cosmic level are microscopic.

--A

Nothing is a miracle. On a cosmic level the chances of pretty much everything happening are almost 100%. [I should create an Alt named Ratava just for use when folk present opportunities for responses like this.

Ok, either everything is miraculous, or nothing is. I haven't decided yet.

--A

Avatar wrote:Ok, either everything is miraculous, or nothing is. I haven't decided yet.

--A

This begs for some sort of response along the lines of "oh, a black-and-white thinker!" but I'm not awake enough yet this morning to do it justice.

I dunno...if there are such things as miracles, (and to quote old Pratchett, why are only good things considered miraculous? Surely bad things can be highly unlikely too?), then who is to say what is a miracle?

Life is a miracle...all life...from mine to that of a blade of grass. All chemical reactions, all...all everything really. The interpretation of sound waves. The taste of stuff. Anything you can think of.

So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth...

If there is no such thing as a miracle though, then nothing can be one.

--A

peter the barsteward wrote:or secondly an event or occurence, the probability of which occuring is so small that it could reasonoably be regarded as impossible (eg a man jumps from a plane. His parachute fails to open and he plunges to the ground only to be hauled up two feet short by the cording which has become entangled in the roof girdirs of the skylight he has just smashed through on his way down).

How come God gets the miracle credit for the girder catch but gets a free pass on being an asshole because he made the the chute not open?

peter the barsteward wrote:Let's take Jesus's rising from the dead. Not a miricle by either of the above criteria;

Nothing Jesus did was a miracle if he was the Son of God.
Because.......he's God.
He can do anything.

peter the barsteward wrote:Ok let's say I win the lottery just when I need a shed load of money. Unlikely that it's going to be me (ie massively low probability) but it has to be someone ( virtual 100% certainty), so damn, damn lucky - yes, miracle - no.

By what you say above there are no miracles.
Statistics and science kill miracles.
That's a good thing imo.

peter the barsteward wrote:I had heard that extremely rarely,

"rarely" means it happens. What's the "miracle" if it happens every once in a while.
"miracles" are just human's thinking they are more important than they really are.

Like I suggested above...bad stuff can be miracles too.

--A

High Lord Tolkien wrote:
How come God gets the miracle credit for the girder catch but gets a free pass on being an asshole because he made the the chute not open?

Heh...that reminds me of some comedian years ago [have I posted this before?] talking about winning sports folk always thanking God/Jesus, and wondering why none of the losing players ever said "We played great, we shoulda won, but then Jesus had to show up and go for their side."

Surely bad things can be highly unlikely too?), then who is to say what is a miracle?

If miracles can't be bad, that's the importance of perspective, and self-centeredness. I.e., those guys didn't destroy my city because god wanted to reward them, but because god hated me. Within the jewish tradition, god is mostly more concerned with punishing the jews when they go astray to make them do right, than with really extending favor to other people because the jews aren't working out (hey, that's a really simplified way of putting it, so don't take it too seriously).

Of course, I don't think that one would call something a miracle if nearly everyone thinks its horrible. In the context of my understanding of the jewish tradition, miracles aren't amazing things that satisfy the will of god, but when god does things that appear amazing to us as an omen, more or less, of his continued good will. The "great miracles" are things that show god is committed to carrying out the aspects of the covenant with his people that appear most favorable to us.

Nothing Jesus did was a miracle if he was the Son of God.
Because.......he's God.
He can do anything.

No, that's why it is a miracle. If you did something you weren't able to do, it wouldn't be a miracle, because you weren't able to do it, therefore you didn't do it.

That which accepts is not that which rejects. The one who can do anything can do anything, and that means not not being able to do something

Interesting interpretation...that it should be a sign or whatever. But that doesn't mean a bad thing can't be a miracle either, does it?

Vraith wrote:...talking about winning sports folk always thanking God/Jesus, and wondering why none of the losing players ever said "We played great, we shoulda won, but then Jesus had to show up and go for their side."

That's awesome. I have always wondered what the losers thought when both sides asked god for help.

--A

So if the fantasically improbable but not impossible is ruled out as a miricle, then I guess no miricle has ever happened. Somehow this makes the silly irrational part of me a bit sad. The world just seems a little....well....less.

There are plenty of freak occurences though

Pulp Fiction some interesting dialogue about Miracle vs Freak Occurrence. Can't find it now, but here's a snippet - Language warning

peter the barsteward wrote:Somehow this makes the silly irrational part of me a bit sad. The world just seems a little....well....less.

But it's not. Not less I mean. The whole world is pretty damn miraculous.

--A

StevieG wrote:There are plenty of freak occurences though

Pulp Fiction some interesting dialogue about Miracle vs Freak Occurrence. Can't find it now, but here's a snippet - Language warning

Yeah - I remember that one StevieG. I'd still love to know what was in the case. There was a speculation that it might have been a soul (God's, a human ?) and that it was tied up with the miricle/freak occurence of the bullets. Come to think of it Pulp Fiction was pretty much a miricle in it's own right

Av - I love you man; you could put a good spin on a bad egg!

(Little aside here - just thinking how it's a little strange how many dyed in the wool rationalist/materealists we have here on the Watch on a site dedicated to a series of books set in a world of Creators, Demons and Magic. Hmmmm?)

peter the barsteward wrote:
Av - I love you man; you could put a good spin on a bad egg!

(Little aside here - just thinking how it's a little strange how many dyed in the wool rationalist/materealists we have here on the Watch on a site dedicated to a series of books set in a world of Creators, Demons and Magic. Hmmmm?)

I'll go with Av, and maybe a bit further...I much prefer a universe where things amazing [if not literally miraculous] sometimes just happen, yet often/potentially happen because we MAKE them happen. [I mean sure, a place where Jesus rises [and/or raises someone] from the dead is pretty cool...but is it as cool as a place where we learn to conquer death ourselves? That's likely a POV thing.]

On the rationalist/materialist...likely that is due to a split [probably many splits, but I stick with one even divide] between those that think we just go with things and those who think it's our chance to celebrate and make meaning. We are the result of what happens to us vs. we are what we choose to create/make/do. [personally, I'm in the middle...we all have choices, but some have more than others and all have boundaries on choices, none of us unlimited options].

Somewhere, perhaps in the discussions of supernatural, someone...I think it was Z...phrased very well what I've pretty much always thought. Close to, if not exactly: "The material is more mystical than we know."

Is that the paradox of our world then - that even the possible is pretty near impossible; that the material boarders on the mystical? Perhaps the mystical is more necessary to us than we realise.

peter the barsteward wrote:Is that the paradox of our world then - that even the possible is pretty near impossible; that the material boarders on the mystical? Perhaps the mystical is more necessary to us than we realise.

It isn't more necessary for bare-bones literal survival. It is definitely necessary, perhaps the prime necessity, for living.