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Any atheists have knowledge of something you might consider a legitimate miracle? Something that gives you even the slightest pause?
I spent years inquiring of the countless guest ministers and evangelists passing through, along with local circles of acquaintances for their favorite and best miracle stories. Without fail every single one was either lore, fabrication, gross exaggeration, or easily explained. Just wondered if anyone else had been more successful.
And by miracle, I generally mean something impossible by any known mechanism. You know, like anamputated arm grew back in front of a crowd, or a field of skeletons were raised from the dead, etc.
The closest I came, which is not very close, occurred when my stepson, who (despite being a confirmed atheist) had a weird interest in ghost hunting (since mercifully abated), caused us to end up at a ghost hunt with him as a graduation gift. We were part of a group of a dozen or so others in a dark building in the middle of the night when sane people are asleep.
My wife was given a pair of rods bent at a right angle to accommodate a wooden handle. You were supposed to hold these perfectly motionless and the spirit would move the rod to point at things to "respond" to questions. The rods would move VERY easily; it was hard NOT to move them. At any rate, I no longer recall the details, but my wife got some very specific answers to some very specific questions that no one but her would know the answers to.
The explanation of course is the "ideomotor effect", a well-documented phenomenon where subconsciously subtle involuntary motor movements express your thoughts, if you are attached to or using appropriately sensitive equipment -- in this case, the rods. If my wife was getting questions to which she alone knew the answers, the simplest explanation is that the answers were emanating from her, in spite of herself.
My wife is still somewhat disposed to see this as an unexplained phenomenon; my stepson and I are not. So it goes.
I did note that the diverse group of people present tended to superimpose their own beliefs on whatever happened. The Christians assumed god or angels were involved; spiritualists assumed it was dead people; and so forth. Since my world is not populated by spirits, I wondered briefly if telepathic aliens were having a grand old time gaming us from afar.
Any atheists have knowledge of something you might consider a legitimate miracle? Something that gives you even the slightest pause?
I spent years inquiring of the countless guest ministers and evangelists passing through, along with local circles of acquaintances for their favorite and best miracle stories. Without fail every single one was either lore, fabrication, gross exaggeration, or easily explained. Just wondered if anyone else had been more successful.
And by miracle, I generally mean something impossible by any known mechanism. You know, like anamputated arm grew back in front of a crowd, or a field of skeletons were raised from the dead, etc.
So they definition of a miracle is: "Something we can't explain"? That's a moving target.
Go back a thousand years. The nature of the sun and comets and lightning were mysteries. Disease was inexplicable. So were chemical reactions. How did the heart work? What did light do for plants, and how? What were tornadoes and earthquakes? Mysteries, the lot. Things that could not be explain by humans. Not because they were miracles. Because we (ie, humanity) hadn't figured out their natures and/or causes.
Even just 150 years ago, the nature of Earth's age was a conundrum. Geologists could see that it must be at least a billion years or so old, based on observations of geographical features and rates of change (erosion) as well as timespans necessary to accommodate observed biological diversity. But scientists specializing in heat conduction could calculate that were the Earth once a red-hot glob of molten rock (as it once essentially was), it would only have take a few tens of millions of years to cool to the point where the crust solidified to roughly its current thickness. Inexplicable... until radioactive decay was discovered, thereby providing the explanation for Earth's temperature.
Lightning, for example, is now well (but by no means completely) understood. Does our lack of comprehensive understanding of its nature make it a miracle? Was it more miraculous a thousand years ago, when it was almost completely unexplained? No. And no. The same is true for all the other gaps in our collective understanding that we've at least partially filled in over the ages.
And really, we don't live our lives by just dismissing things we can't explain. What happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight 370? The default assumption even before some pieces of wreckage were finally found, was that it crashed somewhere and we just couldn't find it. Other wild-eyed possibilities (It was stolen and landed somewhere! Aliens took it!) were ridiculous, but at least conceivable and not miraculous. When a person is found to have some novel affliction that does not comport with any known maladies, people generally don't assume some sort of malign miracle; they (medical scientists) roll of their sleeves and try and figure out this new phenomenon. Mysteries still abound.
The term 'miracle' is really just another variation on 'God of the gaps'.
So they definition of a miracle is: "Something we can't explain"? That's a moving target.
Go back a thousand years. The nature of the sun and comets and lightning were mysteries. Disease was inexplicable. So were chemical reactions. How did the heart work? What did light do for plants, and how? What were tornadoes and earthquakes? Mysteries, the lot. Things that could not be explain by humans. Not because they were miracles. Because we (ie, humanity) hadn't figured out their natures and/or causes.
Even just 150 years ago, the nature of Earth's age was a conundrum. Geologists could see that it must be at least a billion years or so old, based on observations of geographical features and rates of change (erosion) as well as timespans necessary to accommodate observed biological diversity. But scientists specializing in heat conduction could calculate that were the Earth once a red-hot glob of molten rock (as it once essentially was), it would only have take a few tens of millions of years to cool to the point where the crust solidified to roughly its current thickness. Inexplicable... until radioactive decay was discovered, thereby providing the explanation for Earth's temperature.
Lightning, for example, is now well (but by no means completely) understood. Does our lack of comprehensive understanding of its nature make it a miracle? Was it more miraculous a thousand years ago, when it was almost completely unexplained? No. And no. The same is true for all the other gaps in our collective understanding that we've at least partially filled in over the ages.
And really, we don't live our lives by just dismissing things we can't explain. What happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight 370? The default assumption even before some pieces of wreckage were finally found, was that it crashed somewhere and we just couldn't find it. Other wild-eyed possibilities (It was stolen and landed somewhere! Aliens took it!) were ridiculous, but at least conceivable and not miraculous. When a person is found to have some novel affliction that does not comport with any known maladies, people generally don't assume some sort of malign miracle; they (medical scientists) roll of their sleeves and try and figure out this new phenomenon. Mysteries still abound.
The term 'miracle' is really just another variation on 'God of the gaps'.
Yes, I was suggesting hedging away from Gaps claims by the specific wording "something impossible by any known mechanism", instead of saying "something unlikely, therefore god". I rather expected most atheists to intrinsically understand that the gaps argument is already summarily dismissed. I thought we were all pretty dialed into the fact that as science advances, shadow recede. Perhaps I was still leaving too much room for very significant advances, the kinds that might allow for a leg to grow instantly, or skeletons to be 3D printed back to life, based on remnant DNA contained therein. Still a diatribe, with examples, of "God of the Gaps", to demonstrate many people have enough imagination apart from theism to fill those gaps, what was I was hoping to avoid.
The closest I came, which is not very close, occurred when my stepson, who (despite being a confirmed atheist) had a weird interest in ghost hunting (since mercifully abated), caused us to end up at a ghost hunt with him as a graduation gift. We were part of a group of a dozen or so others in a dark building in the middle of the night when sane people are asleep.
My wife was given a pair of rods bent at a right angle to accommodate a wooden handle. You were supposed to hold these perfectly motionless and the spirit would move the rod to point at things to "respond" to questions. The rods would move VERY easily; it was hard NOT to move them. At any rate, I no longer recall the details, but my wife got some very specific answers to some very specific questions that no one but her would know the answers to.
The explanation of course is the "ideomotor effect", a well-documented phenomenon where subconsciously subtle involuntary motor movements express your thoughts, if you are attached to or using appropriately sensitive equipment -- in this case, the rods. If my wife was getting questions to which she alone knew the answers, the simplest explanation is that the answers were emanating from her, in spite of herself.
My wife is still somewhat disposed to see this as an unexplained phenomenon; my stepson and I are not. So it goes.
I did note that the diverse group of people present tended to superimpose their own beliefs on whatever happened. The Christians assumed god or angels were involved; spiritualists assumed it was dead people; and so forth. Since my world is not populated by spirits, I wondered briefly if telepathic aliens were having a grand old time gaming us from afar.
I did not know the term "ideomotor effect", thanks for that! Those aliens are devious pranksters.
I was checking in on the latest images for the JWT last night and when I see how much is contained within each shot, how small a slice of a 360 deg sphere each shot contains, and the lack of granularity each tiny spot represents, it's just hard for me to believe anyone can see all of that (and hopefully having a modicum of comprehension) and still think some even larger lifeforce/intelligence, is at play. And further that we are so important that we are the the focus. The ego....
I'd like to go on one of those ghost hunter shows, but debunking isn't what makes money.
Yes, I was suggesting hedging away from Gaps claims by the specific wording "something impossible by any known mechanism", instead of saying "something unlikely, therefore god". I rather expected most atheists to intrinsically understand that the gaps argument is already summarily dismissed. I thought we were all pretty dialed into the fact that as science advances, shadow recede. Perhaps I was still leaving too much room for very significant advances, the kinds that might allow for a leg to grow instantly, or skeletons to be 3D printed back to life, based on remnant DNA contained therein. Still a diatribe, with examples, of "God of the Gaps", to demonstrate many people have enough imagination apart from theism to fill those gaps, what was I was hoping to avoid.
The term 'impossible by any known mechanism' still allows for human ignorance. I gave an example: that of the age of the Earth (as indicated by the condition of the surface of the planet) in light of the known mechanism of heat conductivity in dissipating the heat of the once-molten planet. There was a mechanism - unknown to humans - that allowed for the 'miraculous' age of the Earth - to be understood. It was radioactivity, which was discovered in 1896. Within a few years, geologists understood that ongoing radioactive decay in the crust and mantle provided a continuous source of heat, thereby explaining how the Earth could be so old yet simultaneously retain so much heat. Squaring these two apparently-conflicting understandings wasn't 'impossible'. Rather, we (humanity) were simply ignorant.
So what's impossible? Faster-than-light travel by any object with mass, apparently. But I would suggest that the word apparently does some heavy-lifting there. Slime molds are mysterious. They aren't animals. They have no brains or any type of central nervous system at all. Yet they exhibit behaviors found only otherwise in things with brains; they seem to learn, for example. Impossible? Apparently. That word, again. It's fine to allow for assumptions regarding impossibilities, but to then extrapolate those assumptions to declare that contrary observations are miraculous is logical malpractice.
To consider an observed phenomenon and to declare that because it was thought to be impossible it is therefore a miracle manifest is itself to assume an unwarranted degree of understanding.
The term 'impossible by any known mechanism' still allows for human ignorance. I gave an example: that of the age of the Earth (as indicated by the condition of the surface of the planet) in light of the known mechanism of heat conductivity in dissipating the heat of the once-molten planet. There was a mechanism - unknown to humans - that allowed for the 'miraculous' age of the Earth - to be understood. It was radioactivity, which was discovered in 1896. Within a few years, geologists understood that ongoing radioactive decay in the crust and mantle provided a continuous source of heat, thereby explaining how the Earth could be so old yet simultaneously retain so much heat. Squaring these two apparently-conflicting understandings wasn't 'impossible'. Rather, we (humanity) were simply ignorant.
Well just about everything is on a scale that isn't absolute like binary logic. I don't understand your need to convince readers that human knowledge is gaining, pretty standard awareness, I'd expect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unsettomati
So what's impossible? Faster-than-light travel by any object with mass, apparently. But I would suggest that the word apparently does some heavy-lifting there. Slime molds are mysterious. They aren't animals. They have no brains or any type of central nervous system at all. Yet they exhibit behaviors found only otherwise in things with brains; they seem to learn, for example. Impossible? Apparently. That word, again. It's fine to allow for assumptions regarding impossibilities, but to then extrapolate those assumptions to declare that contrary observations are miraculous is logical malpractice.
To consider an observed phenomenon and to declare that because it was thought to be impossible it is therefore a miracle manifest is itself to assume an unwarranted degree of understanding.
I agree, but feel free to restate the obvious a 3rd time.
Which is why we should also be able to conditionally agree that when I use this dictionary definition:
Quote:
An effect in nature not attributable to any of the recognized operations of nature nor to the act of man, but indicative of superhuman power, and serving as a sign or witness thereof; a wonderful work, manifesting a power superior to the ordinary forces of nature.
The "recognized operations of nature" and "ordinary forces of nature" are subject to a fluid and growing knowledge.
IF you are okay with that, can we get back to the intent of the OP?
And by miracle, I generally mean something impossible by any known mechanism.
By this standard I have witnessed miracles, such as some past and present Senators, Presidents, Governors and clueless/feckless sons and daughters of wealthy or famous people being admitted to Ivy League schools such as Yale, etc.
Any atheists have knowledge of something you might consider a legitimate miracle? Something that gives you even the slightest pause?
Yes. Donald Trump. He's the most despicable person on the planet. He has the unhealthiest diet on the planet. He's one of the richest people on the planet. He' never been sick a day in his life. He has no active disease. He was felled by Coronavirus and has no residual effects we can observe. He's as healthy as a horse. He rose to the highest office in the land. He'll likely live to be 120. He's proof positive there is no god. Or look at it this way: he's proof positive God rewards the bad and punishes the good.
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