Miracles

Tim Robbins

Just thought of this...

Say someone believes in God and believes he can do miracles, are they not contradicting themselves?

Say for example, someone in the Bible lives until they are 900 and they say there you go that's a miracle!

Firstly, that's not a miracle unless you believe it's impossible to live to 900.
So is that not contradiction number 1?

Secondly, if you believe God decided that a person should live to 900, but just because God makes a decision that hardly makes something a miracle. For example, God also decides that most people shouldn't live to 900 so if something is a miracle just because God decides it, isn't everything a miracle?

That's contradiction number 2.

So then what is a miracle? Is it something that God decides and that God doesn't usually decide, that we somehow like?

So does this mean it's when God pleases us rather than himself? So pleasing us is more important than his natural law?

Contradiction number 3.

Discuss...

Offalycool

I guess, the idea is that if God can show us how the rules (i.e. men live for an average amount of time for a natural death, cause and effect etc.) can be manipulated by him if he/she/it demonstrates unusual power. From this we infer that he must be responsible for the rules in the first place, therefore he/she/it is God. However, he/she/it cant do everything! God cannot make a stone too heavy for him/she/it to lift!

Tim Robbins

Offalycool wrote: »

I guess, the idea is that if God can show us how the rules (i.e. men live for an average amount of time for a natural death, cause and effect etc.) can be manipulated by him if he/she/it demonstrates unusual power.

Ok what you are saying here is that there is a base set of rules and then delta.

But there's problems with this. Maybe there's just a basic of rules that we have misunderstood and hence lead us to believe that there is a delta when this basic set of rules are not observed. Maybe we just misunderstood the basic set of rules?

Or, what if it's the other way around? The norm is when he's manipulating but when he backs off the miracles happen?

From this we infer that he must be responsible for the rules in the first place, therefore he/she/it is God.

Well I see no inference there.

Just because you can change rules doesn't mean you wrote them.

I like your point you make about the stone paradox. My point, is that miracles are actually another paradox or just something that are nonsensical.

Joe1919

I suppose its part of the human condition to be optimistic and hope for the best. There is a rational possible explanation for this. Man is a 'Goal directed animal' and often lives in the future. It is hope that often brings happiness, even if this hope is very very unlikely.

We see this with the amount of people who religiously buy their lotto tickets every week. They hope to beat the odds (8 million to 1) and win the jackpot (by some miracle). Similarly many people with problems and serious illnesses also hope to beat the odds; that maybe, by some miracle or mysterious act, their luck will change or they may get some more time to live.

Who can knock or criticize this? I suppose if I had a terminal illness, I would go and light a candle to God or to Buddha or to whoever else would offer some hope.

PS I don't believe in miracles (and lotto tickets) as such, but I do believe in hope.
I also believe that no-one is infallible (I'm a fallibilist) and I may be wrong.How can we be sure?