Do you believe in miracles?

[bascule]

Yes, I also had thoughts along those lines. What do you think how her knowledge of that church she gained from her vision could be explained? According to the article she described it in great detail to the pastor...

 

Umm, the story coming from CBN.com I doubt the trustworthiness of the account

 

But if someone who's been moping around going "Let me die" truly believes that someone has done something miraculous to them (even if they haven't), then they can make a dramatic recovery, simply through the power of positive thinking.

[john5746]

For the complete story click on the link above. What do you think about this?

 

Assuming this is true, what about all those people with similar conditions that die? Is it their fault? Anyone's fault?

 

Things happen that no one can explain. I guess they could be called miracles, but that doesn't mean they are caused by a supernatural, intelligent force.

 

If you win the lottery after dreaming about it, it seems like a miracle, but someone had to win. After winning, you would all of a sudden remember seeing the ticket and possibly the place you bought it in your 'dream'.

 

The odds are that someone will somehow defeat a terminal disease. All the details are after the fact, memories made to fit the explanation.

[Edtharan]

I believe in miracles because it's arrogant for us, as a species, to assume we are the highest beings and even though we can barely comprehend the universe we make accusations that we are the masters of it. (not directed at you ecoli)

I think that it is less arrogent to assume that we are an intelegent animal (compared to the creatures on our own planet anyway) that has evolved through natural processes (with no attribution to a superior being). In effect we are (in the grand picture of the universe) as insignificant speck living on an insignificant speck (the earth) orbiting an average star in an average galaxy which is one among billions and billions of galaxies in the universe.

 

But is it not also arrogance to assume that some higher being would "tinker" with the universe that they created just to cure someone of a desease. That we would be of any consiquence to a being that could cause miracle is supreme arrogance of the highest order (unles it is true, then it in its self would be a miracle of the highest order).

 

One posability of the "mirracle" that hasn't been discussed is the posability that the desease could have been misdiagnosed, and that it could have been a condition similar to ceribal palsy with similar simptoms, but that the body could correct for it. As the saying goes "To err is human."

 

Also a reverse placebo (noncebo iirc) may also account for the symptoms and the placebo (countering the noncebo effect) could account for remition of the desease.

 

Also we do not full understand the desease or the human body (and how these things could interact). Useing this lack of understanding as proof of a divine being (or of miracles) is arrogance on both fronts (religious as well as secular).

 

To assume that you can see a gap in our understanding and call that proof of a divine being is taking it upon your self to define that being (and therfore most certainly wrong). Isn't there a line in the bible that states "Thou shal not use the name of God in vain"? Is not seeing a gap in our understanding and stating that it is "God" (for wan't of a better term) using the name of God to prove your beliefs (and therefore a form of vainity).

[GreenDestiny]

AL, I understand what you are saying, but thinking this way everything is natural. Everything that exists, no matter what it is, must be natural then. And of course that makes sense, but still I think it might sometimes make sense as well to talk about unnatural or supernatural things, even if they would be natural as well in the strict sense.

 

----

 

Hm, I also had thoughts along similar lines about possible explanations, bascule & Edtharan. According to the second article she was at least able to walk with the aid of braces and a walker at the age of five. Maybe the bad condition she was in after those spasms had also psychological reasons. Maybe she could have stood up and walked at the point of time when the miracle occurred even without the 'miracle', but just didn't think it was possible. Of course we don't know... it's a strange case anyway.

[AL]

AL, I understand what you are saying, but thinking this way everything is natural. Everything that exists, no matter what it is, must be natural then. And of course that makes sense, but still I think it might sometimes make sense as well to talk about unnatural or supernatural things, even if they would be natural as well in the strict sense.

Yes, all that we know to exist and even those things we don't know to exist but may find out about in the future are all regarded as natural under this definition. The only distinction between natural and supernatural that I have ever heard is that the latter is said to defy the laws of nature. But once you are over the idea that a law of nature is some sort of immutable cosmological mandate rather than a powerful inductive description that can be subject to revision with new knowledge, this distinctinction is of no use, as you would not say that the planet Mercury is supernatural because its orbit violated predictions made by Newton's universal law of gravitation (which was revised by Einstein, subsequently accounting for this anomaly).

[GreenDestiny]

I just found something new concerning this issue. On Amazon.com I read some excerpts from books by Jack Deere. He talks about so-called "Gifts of the Holy Spirit" and how he, theologically denying them before, came to believe in them.

 

First I read a part of "Surprised by the Power of the Spirit" (Amazon.com link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310211271).

 

He talks about how one day he had a telephone conversation with a renowned psychiatrist and Christian author (Dr. White) of whom he wanted to hold 4 lectures at his church. That person wanted to talk about healing though and convinced him that it still exists today. He then told him about two spectacular stories he had experienced:

 

[...] about a young child in Malaysia who was covered from head to toe in eczema. The eczema was raw in some places and oozing. The child was in such discomfort that he had kept his parents up for the past thirty-six hours. The child was behaving so wildly that they had to catch him in order to pray for him.

 

As soon as Dr. White and his wife, Lorrie, laid their hands on the child, he fell fast asleep. Within twenty minutes or so of their prayer, the oozing stopped and the redness began to fade. By the next morning the child's skin had returned to normal and was completely healed. Dr. White told me a second spectacular story of bone actually changing under his hands while he prayed for someone with a deformity.

"Surprised by the Power of the Spirit", p. 20

 

Well, the first story could probably be explained by psychological and medical means. I'm not so sure about the second story, but unfortunately he doesn't give any more details.

 

He then goes on about the lecture about healing Dr. White had held at his church and how some people were prayed on afterwards. One woman was there who had a specific problem: her desire for people's approval was actually controlling her life. To make it short, she was healed in a very dramatic scene where her head began to go up and down and she began wailing. In the end she was healed, with the author, Jack Derre, mentioning that she would normally never have done such an embarrassing thing in public. According to him all her problems existed because she had been possessed by a demon, that was taken away from her that day when she was later prayed on again in private.

 

Well, actually that story does not sound very convincing to me. The whole incident can probably be explained by psychological means.

 

However there are some more stories later in that book. He talks about John Wimber, who seems to be some kind of faith healer. He describes the first of Wimber's session that he witnessed. He began with healing people with back pain.

 

Quite a few people came down to the front of the church to be prayed for by teams of church members rather than by Wimber himself. After a few minutes he said, "There is a woman here who has severe back pain, but you haven't come forward yet. Come forward; I think the Lord will heal you right now."

 

[...] But no one came forward. [...] He said, "You went to the doctor several days ago, you have had this pain for years. Please come forward" [...] But no woman got up and came forward. [...] Then he looked up at the audience and said, "Your name is margaret" Then, with a grandfatherly smile, he added, "Now Margaret, you get up and come up here right now." About halfway down the center section, next to the aisle, Margaret got up and began to walk rather sheepishly toward the front. [...] But before Margaret made it down to the front of the church, a wave of skepticism and disgust came over me. I said to myself, What if he paid her to do this. What if she's Margaret on Thursday night here in Fort Worth, Texas, and then on Saturday night in some other city she is Mabel [...] At about the same time I had begun to doubt this whole process, the man sitting next to me, whom I had known for fifteen years and who was also in my church, exclaimed, "That's Margaret my sister-in-law!"

 

Mike Pinkston's sister-in-law, Margaret Pinkston, went down to the front of the church that evening after being called out specifically by John Wimber. And when several adults prayed for her, she was healed of a condition she had had for years. I knew that family, and I knew there was nothing fake about that healing.

"Surprised by the Power of the Spirit", pp. 35-37

 

He then goes on to talk about Paul Cain. He seems to be some kind of healer as well, apparently with some prophetic abilities.

 

Paul had just finished giving a wonderful message and was beginning to pray for the people in the audience. There were about 250 people there that morning. He asked the diabetics to stand. As he started to pray for the diabetics he looked at a gray [...] lady on his right. He stared at her for a moment, having never met her (or anyone else in the audience for that matter), and then he said, "You do not have diabetes; you have low blood sugar. The Lord heals you of that low blood sugar, now. I see a vision of you sitting in a yellow chair. You are saying, 'If I could just make it until the morning. If I could just make it until the morning' Your allergies torment you so badly that sometimes they keep you up awake all night. The Lord heals those allergies, now. That problem with the valve on your heart - it goes now in the name of Jesus. And so does that growth on your pancreas.

 

[...]

 

Paul continued looking at the woman and then he said, "The devil has scheduled you for a nervous breakdown" [...] [Her husband] knew that his wife was very close to a nervous breakdown. Paul said, "The Lord interrupts that plan now. You will not have the breakdown"

 

And then, just as suddenly as Paul had begun to speak over the woman, he stopped and said, "I think that is all the Lord wants me to do now." Then he sat down on the front row. [...] I had never seen anyone called out of an audience like that, unknown to the speaker, and then have four conditions in her body not only identified but pronounced healed.

 

[...]

 

The woman whom Paul pronounced healed that day is named Linda Tidwell. I have had several conversations with Linda and her husband Jim since that September day in 1988.

 

Here is what happened in the aftermath of Paul's ministry to her. She went to her doctor that week and was tested. Her low blood sugar was now normal, and her allergies had left immediately. (They had been just as severe as Paul had said.) A heart murmur that she had since her childhood was healed, and the problem with her pancreas was gone. Her depression and her [...] condition also left, and over the next few months she lost thirty-five pounds of weight that had been brought on by worry and anxiety. Every medical condition mentioned by Paul had been both accurate and healed.

 

A year later she told me that one thing Paul had said didn'r ring true to her. He had said, "I see you sitting in a yellow chair." She puzzled for a long time afterwards. It didn't make sense to her because they didn't have a yellow chair. Then she remembered that before they had moved to Fort Worth, she had painted her rocking chair, which was yellow, black. After awhile, she had forgotten that it used to be yellow. Paul had actually seen a vision of her prior to their moving to Fort Worth, when her allergies were at their worst. Since that time Linda has visited a number of churches in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, giving her testimony about the wonderful healing God had done for her.

"Surprised by the Power of the Spirit", pp. 39-41

 

What do you think about these stories? What explanations could there be for them? Actually so far I have been rather skeptical about those faith healers. For me they look like charlatans. Those stories presented in the parts of the book sound quite astonishing though...

 

You can find an excerpt from the book on the Amazon.com link mentioned above. With the "search inside the book" option you can also find all the other parts I mentioned in this posting. I have only quoted the most relevant parts here.

 

I read some parts from another book by Jack Deere - "The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy" - but I will talk about that in another posting.

[swansont]

Keep in mind that the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence" All of this is very prone to the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. (happened after, therefore was caused by). Correlation is not the same as causality.

[GreenDestiny]

Now about the book "The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy", also by Jack Deere.

(Amazon.com link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0830733892/)

 

Apparently there are persons who call themselves 'prophets' and who are supposedly able to know things about other people the haven't met before and are allegedly even able to foretell their future.

 

The author of the book, Jack Deere, tells that he didn't believe in this himself at first. He then went to see such a person and try him out. As a result he became convinced of modern prophecy.

 

He met that person at a church called Kansas City Fellowship and his name was Mike Bickle.

 

I will only quote some parts relating to what the prophet said. The story is told with a lot more detail in the book.

 

While telling this story, Deere even mentions cold reading, by the way. He says that because he knew about these tricks he hardened his face like stone and didn't give him any clue about him whatsoever.

 

Then he spoke.

"Oh, I didn't expect to see you here this morning."

[...] "What do you mean? I don't even know you," I said.

"Well, I know you. It was eight nights ago. I had a dream. I woke up at three in the morning. I thought it was important so I wrote it down. You were in the dream. Would you like me to tell you what the Lord showed me about you?"

"Yes," is what I said. What I thought was, Try me. Take your best shot. I'm not going to be deceived. I have been warned about you prophets.I should mention that I was in a completely different tradition of Christianity than this fellow, and he really did not know me.

 

[...]

 

Then he spoke, and revealed everything.

 

"You have a prayer," he said in a soft southern accent, "but it's more than a prayer. It's one of the major dreams of your heart." Then he told me that prayer I had prayed that very morning in the hotel. And he was right. It was the dream of my heart.

"God said to tell you this dream is from him and you will get what you are asking for."

I could tell you what the prayer was and still is, but telling it now would be, at the very least, immodest, and worse, perhaps self-serving. At the time it was the biggest thing I could think to ask for. And here, like Daniel, is this prophet telling me my dream and that it will come true.

 

My granite face did not crack, not even slightly.

 

[...]

 

Next subject.

"You had a father who dropped the ball on you," he said.

[...]

My father had dropped the ball on me, on all of us. [He goes on to talk about his father's suicide when he was still a boy. He left his mother with four kids.]

[...]

"The Lord is going to make up the loss of your father to you. He will send you new fathers. You won't learn from just one man. You will have the father you need for each new stage in your life."

[...]

 

Next subject.

"When you were young, the Lord gave you athletic ability, but he allowed you to be frustrated in the use of it. This was so you would put all your effort into cultivating the intellect. You've done that, but it hasn't brought you what you expected, and you're heartsick."

 

He could not have given a more accurate synopsis of the past thirty-eight years.

 

[He goes on about how he was born with athletic ability and had a keen interest in sports as a kid, but when his father died he couldn't proceed with it, because there was no one to take him to practices and he had other things to do in the household. In high school he went back into sports again, but had an ankle injury. He gave up on athletics. After a 'wild' phase of recklessness he found Jesus and began studying. He then tried to find his identity in being smart, especially theologically smart (he became professor of Old Testament exegesis and Semitic languages), but as a result of that he wound up heartsick. He says that he was heartsick, but hid it from everyone. He continued to stare at the 'prophet'.]

 

"All of that frustration was necessary to fulfill that God has on your life."

 

So there was a purpose behind the heartsickness. It was the mercy of God inviting me to travel a new road. [...] He sent me heartsickness to warn me of the danger of building my identity on such shaky foundations as athletics and academics.

 

[...]

Next subject.

"You're in a conflict right now, and you think there are only three people on your side. The Lord says to tell you that there are five more on your side."

 

I was in a conflict and I did think only three people stood by me. Besides me, the only one in the room who knew about this was Leesa [His wife]. There was no way the prophet could have known about the conflict. Yet he did. How did he know this? How did he know any of these things?

 

I was astounded. He was a real prophet.

 

[...]

 

Next subject.

The future. The prophet left the topic of my past and went on to my future. These predictions, I think, were meant for me to ponder, not publish. Since these words were exclusively about the future, they, of course, could not be verified. But because he had gotten four key facts about my past correct and given them a meaningful interpretation, I believed his predictions.

 

I should have fallen on my knees like the psalmist, crying out to the nations to give glory to God, but I couldn't. My facade of indifference remained intact. [...] That way, when it was all over, I would know it was all God, and that I had not influenced any of it.

 

Now the prophet was finished with me.

[...] The prophet had told me the secrets of my heart. The secret prayer of my ministry. The pain of my childhood. The secret frustration of my adolescene. The secret heartsickness of my adulthood. The secret conflict of my present life. With each secret came a promise that gave me freedom from the past and hope for the future. The prophet was real. I wanted to shout for joy to the Lord, but I didn't know how. Instead, I simply said, "Thanks."

 

[...]

 

Next he shifted his attention to my wife. He was just as accurate and meaningful with her Leesa put up no shield. She did not need one. It took only a few sentences before tears streamed down her face and sobs revealed the transparent honesty by which she lived. His soft southern voice continued calmly right through her tears, healing and promising. But that is Leesa's story to tell, not mine.

 

When we were walking out of the room, Mike asked me,

"Was anything of that meaningful to you?"

"All of it was right on the money. Couldn't have been more correct," I said.

"You've got to be kidding. I was watching your face the whole time. I was sure you thought it was all just a bunch of bull!"

"I had been warned."

"Oh, now I understand."

"The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy", pp. 15-25

 

 

This is all only from the first chapter of the book. I haven't read anything from the rest so far. But what do you think about this story?

 

Actually it sounds a bit cracy... modern prophets? It even sounds strange from a theological point of view. Didn't the old prophets reveal general things about the future? Or are prophets that tell people personal things about their lives and show them new ways for the future also mentioned anywhere in the Bible? But admittedly, I'm not Christian. According to Deere God spoke to him through the prophet.

 

How could one explain all the things that this guy told Deere about his life?

[GreenDestiny]

Keep in mind that the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence" All of this is very prone to the post hoc, ergo propter hoc[/i'] fallacy. (happened after, therefore was caused by). Correlation is not the same as causality.

 

Yes, of course I also know that all these stories are only anecdotes. But when I read stories like that I always find myself asking "how can that be?"... and then I don't find rest until I come up with a good explanation for it.

[SilentQ]

The concept of the supernatural makes no sense to me: how can you have something outside nature? If you find something which violates the laws of nature as you understand them, then you need to rethink your laws. Everything that happens is a part of nature by definition.

[tejaswini]

I think the human body is truly an amazing thing and when humans make amazing recoveries or other amazing accomplishments more is owed to the immense power of evolution by natural selection to facilitate the mechanisms for such occurances than it is anything metaphysical.

 

I mean' date=' the placebo effect is certainly proof that mental predisposition towards healing greatly affects the outcome and that the brain possesses some sort of centralized marshalling ability for eliciting almost subconscious, involuntary control over the rest of the body's subsystems, at least to a certain extent.[/quote']

we owe to the immense power of evolution because we donot see such thinks happening all the time. how can she be cured of a disease that has no cure at all and almost fatal, i mean if her body could heal all by itself then why the hell didn't that happen before she saw the vision.we donot have answers for all these. so we have to believe in something called the supreme power.

and also the effect of placebo is not so certain all the time.

[tejaswini]

The concept of the supernatural makes no sense to me: how can you have something outside nature? If you find something which violates the laws of nature as you understand them, then you need to rethink your laws. Everything that happens is a part of nature by definition.

hello, i'm not a great religious supporter or something , i donot have the answer for ur question but talking about everything that happens cannot be a part of nature by definition. what about things like the bermuda triangle, it dosen't go according to the laws, does it . do u have any answer as to why the magnetic laws are disobeyed in that particular region.research keeps going on of course to give the theory a scientific basis, but we donot have a substantial answer.

bottom line:

everything around is so vast and everything seems to be perfect. so it is just that we want to attribute the success or what ever to someone more better than us in all respects . probably we donot have faith in our potential.

[swansont]

we owe to the immense power of evolution because we donot see such thinks happening all the time. how can she be cured of a disease that has no cure at all and almost fatal' date=' i mean if her body could heal all by itself then why the hell didn't that happen before she saw the vision.we donot have answers for all these. so we have to believe in something called the supreme power.

and also the effect of placebo is not so certain all the time.[/quote']

 

Argument from incredulity; your conclusion is not based on neither science nor reason. Thus is the power of religion.

[tejaswini]

if u had read my post clearly u would have realised that i was only trying to tell why we believe in super power as from my point of view. my conclusion may have been neither been science or reason but that is what i think.

[chilehed]

It seems to me that in order to definitively conclude that miracles are impossible one must first prove that all causes are observable (which is another way to say "the scientific method can explain every real event").

 

Given that one cannot prove that all causes are observable, I am unwilling to reject out of hand the possibility of real miracles.

 

The question then becomes "what evidence is there that miracles have occured?" Certainly in a given case the safe attitude is to refrain from concluding that a miracle occurred unless every possible natural cause is positively eliminated; this would protect you from being taken in by charlatans. But at the same time one must guard against the opposite assumption: that no amount of evidence is sufficient to support a conclusion that a miracle occured.

[Edtharan]

It seems to me that in order to definitively conclude that miracles are impossible one must first prove that all causes are observable (which is another way to say "the scientific method can explain every real event").

 

Given that one cannot prove that all causes are observable, I am unwilling to reject out of hand the possibility of real miracles.

Actually it is better science to state that miracles do not exist and then try to disprove that. This is the weaker position as a single proof of a miracle is enough to disprove the position. If we take the position that miracles do exist than any disproof can be dismissed as saying "that instance was not a miracle but others might be".

 

Science takes the weaker position becaue if the weaker position can not be disproved then it must be the corect (or near to it) answer.

 

Like Sherlock Holmes said (IIRC):

Once you have eliminated everything that is imposable, then what you are left with, no mater how unlikely, must be the truth.

[chilehed]

Actually it is better science to state that miracles do not exist and then try to disprove that...

As I said, "Certainly in a given case the safe attitude is to refrain from concluding that a miracle occurred unless every possible natural cause is positively eliminated; this would protect you from being taken in by charlatans..."

 

Note also that my objection was to the statement "miracles are impossible", not to the statement "miracles do not occur". They are not identical statements.

[metalove]

I think that everytime we hear about some "great" miracle the word "GOD" seems to worm its way into the middle of it. This immediately takes away any credence the article may have had (subjectively speaking of course). I have often wondered what came first, the amazing story, or someone's new found connection with "DOG?" I have had amazing experiences in my life that can not be explained by our latest science, and I did not have to be "Born Again."

[SmallIsPower]

Much of this is based on the power of positive thinking/prayer. When someone is worried, the adrenals kick in with a fight or flight responce, which evolved to shut everything else down in a life threatening situation. Also, HIV binds to a receptor which is often covered by theVIPetitide, which is related to self love, enough selflove and HIV has no home.

 

There are amazing concidences, I've heard that in order to get life, you'd need a petitide of 32 bases the odds against it are 20^32 to 1, for a bird to get a functioning wing, you'd need many simulatious mutations. If one is missing, you'll just get a nonfunctioning organ. It's hard to explain by Natural Selection, is it just a miracle? I can't answer that.