Miracles probably do happen (1 Viewer)

[Mithrae]

It'll take at least two posts, even with threadbare referencing (considerably more detail in the links to my Debating Christianity posts), but I'll try to summarize a huge topic here under four headings
- Consistency of miracles with known facts
- The breadth of evidence for miracles
- The depth of evidence for miracles
- The 'wow factor'; healed amputation

Consistency of miracles with known facts
My working definition of a miracle is
"A remarkable departure from the expected course of events, best explained by divine intervention"

Note, violation of 'physical law' is not a useful part of a definition, since it a) assumes the existence and adequacy of our understanding of physical law, and b) requires assumptions/knowledge about the mechanics of a purported miraculous event, which strings were pulled to get the job done. Definitions invoking the terms 'natural' or 'supernatural' are even worse, for similar reasons. Explaining an observed phenomenon means situating it within a broader, coherent theory evaluated under the metrics of scope (tying diverse observations together), specificity (detail and predictive capacity) and parsimony (simplicity, introduction of fewer assumptions).

The known facts, imo, exclude the traditional Christian notion of a deity desperate for everyone to worship him; there are no miracles which serve as clear proof for any god, let alone the god of a specific religion. Of course, searching in English I find mostly Christian miracle reports, but likely if I searched in Hindi I'd find mostly Hindu reports, Muslim reports in Arabic and so on. If there's a god, she evidently doesn't much care about us serving her; but we might speculate on a deity more interested in us helping one another, and perhaps occasionally lending a hand of her own. Miracles of the type found in the Christian gospels might genuinely occur somewhere in the world twenty times a day... yet still only one in a hundred people would even be well-acquainted (assuming an average person has 100 close friends/family) with a miracle recipient, let alone personally witnessing one. (100x20x365x80=58 million close miracle acquaintances in a lifetime.) That could be the world we live in, and I'll argue that it probably is.

The breadth of evidence for miracles
If miracle reports were little more than ignorance and superstition, then given any highly intelligent and educated subset of the population - particularly those trained in naturalist methods - we'd expect much lower rates of belief in those ignorant superstitions. That might vary by field, for example those highly educated in religious studies, but it'd seem a pretty fair expectation in general. Conversely, if a benevolent deity did sometimes intervene on humans' behalf, we'd expect a profession such as doctors/physicians to be considerably more likely than the general population to encounter those events in their patients.

It seems that the latter describes the world we live in, not the former: Doctors, at least in the USA, are about as likely to believe miracles occur as the general population (~73% doctors vs ~70-80% general population), but considerably more likely to claim that they have personally witnessed one (~55% vs ~35%).

https://worldhealth.net/news/science_or_miracle_holiday_season_survey
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-do-you-believe-in-miracles/
https://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=37037

When critically examined, most 'miracle' reports from average folk seem dubious at best, and we might reasonably infer that a significant fraction of doctors' observed 'miraculous' healings are also doubtful. Whether confirmation biases, limits to their individual knowledge or limits to our medical knowledge as a whole, misdiagnoses and misattribution are real possibilities. But even assuming that any individual medical expert had a 90% likelihood of reaching an untenable miracle conclusion, that would imply that from forty such reports there's only a 1.5% chance that they are all untenable (0.9^40); or put differently, based on the observations and conclusions of fifty medical experts we could infer a 99.5% likelihood that at least one genuine miracle had occurred (1-0.9^50), even under the fairly extreme assumption that those experts and our medical knowledge are only ten percent reliable in those cases. Assuming our medical knowledge was only one percent reliable, we'd need around five hundred doctors' observation of miraculous healing to be similarly confident that at least one was genuine... but if half of all American doctors have made such observations, that's five hundred thousand of them! The only way to escape the conclusion that genuinely miraculous healings do occur is to start with a prior dogmatic assumption that doctors are absolutely always wrong in reaching that conclusion, that miracles absolutely do not happen.

 

[Mithrae]

The depth of evidence for miracles
A broad numerical argument doesn't tell us anything about specific instances of miraculous healing. For that I'd turn to the Catholic shrine at Lourdes: The Lourdes Medical Bureau, consisting of all healthcare workers present in Lourdes at the time, may with a three-quarters majority vote refer a reported healing to the International Medical Committee of Lourdes (CMIL) for more extensive investigation. This committee of twenty to thirty international medical experts may eventually and with a two-thirds majority vote confirm that the reported healing was of a serious physical ailment (not psychological etc), with rapid and permanent healing (not a temporary remission) which could not be explained by contemporary medical science. They are not asked to pass judgement on the miraculous - that final step is left to the bishop of the patient's region. While many remarkable healings have been reported at the shrine over the decades, there have been seven since 1960 which have been exceptional enough to pass the extensive process for confirmation as miraculous. (Prior to 1960 the investigation/confirmation process seems to have been considerably less sceptical, along with medical science itself obviously being more limited.)

Year Name - Confirmed
1963 Vittorio Micheli - 1976
1965 Sister Luigia Traverso - 2012
1970 Serge Perrin - 1978
1976 Delizia Cirolli - 1989
1987 Jean-Pierre Bely - 1999
1989 Danilla Castelli - 2013
2008 Bernadette Moriau - 2018

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3854941/
https://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=881274

Again, even given such thorough investigation it's possible that even some of these seven could be compatible with or will one day be explained by our medical knowledge; critics have certainly offered up their own speculative suggestions for some of them. But again, without some prior commitment to the belief that miracles simply don't happen, the likelihood that these are all simply failures of our current medical understanding seems exceptionally low.

The 'wow factor'; healed amputation
A common sceptical claim is that god seems happy to heal the sniffles but never regrow a lost limb. Of course there are claims of healed amputations and more out there (google one by Smith Wigglesworth for an amusing example), but as always the problem is credibility. The most interesting case I've found is the alleged 'miracle of Calanda,' because of the challenge it presents not only to critics but also to Christians, particularly non-Catholics. The facts not in dispute are that in 17th century Spain a fellow named Miguel Juan Pelicer from Calanda travelled to Zaragosa, lived there for two years as an ostensibly one-legged beggar, then during a trip home claimed and was universally accepted as the recipient of miraculous healing.

The only question is whether his leg was actually amputated in the first place; and on that point, records of the investigation include the formal sworn testimonies of the surgeon (Juan de Estanga) who made the decision to amputate and continued care afterward, a surgeon who helped perform the amputation (Diego Millaruelo) and further confirmed Estanga's testimony, a worker (Juan Lorenzo Garcia) who buried the leg and a presbyter (Pascual del Cacho) who saw the amputated leg and further corroborated details.

https://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=33692

The challenge for Christians here is that this is obviously far better evidence than there is for the resurrection or any biblical tale; four named witnesses, under formal sworn testimony, less than three years after the amputation, with far less obvious motives for (or evidence of) embellishment or fraud. And yet it's still obviously far from certain that god or 'Our Lady of the Pillar' healed this man; it still could have been a conspiracy to promote a fake miracle... so where does that leave the more dubious biblical tales?

The challenge for critics is that it could have been a conspiracy to promote a fake miracle, but that too is obviously far from certain. Tired, worn-out one-liners about "no evidence" obviously don't work here. Critics, like believers, often seem inclined to adopt a simplistic binary attitude, yea or nay to things they choose to accept or dismiss, but that's more akin to dogmatism than scepticism. The challenge from Calanda (and Lourdes and the other evidence above) is that after initial investigation, rationally we ought to assign some guestimate of probability or confidence in a proposition such as "Pellicer's leg was miraculously regrown" or "This was a fake miracle conspiracy," however arbitrary that may be, because the alternatives are even more arbitrary acceptance or dismissal.

How likely do you think the speculative, explain-away-the-evidence conspiracy theory for the 'miracle of Calanda' is?

 

[Slavister]

My working definition of a miracle is
"A remarkable departure from the expected course of events

Happens ... over time... a lot

, best explained by divine intervention"

absence of better or known explanation does NOT suggest intervention of any kind, divine or not

 

[ttwtt78640]

Hmm…

My working definition of a miracle is
"A remarkable departure from the expected course of events, best explained by divine intervention"

using that definition, even natural disasters (often referred to as acts of god) would seem to qualify as miracles.

 

[TheParser]

Sure hope that you can find time to also comment on whether our deceased loved ones can and do communicate with us.

Thank you

 

[Slavister]

The challenge from Calanda (and Lourdes and the other evidence above) is that after initial investigation, rationally we ought to assign some guestimate of probability or confidence in a proposition such as "Pellicer's leg was miraculously regrown" or "This was a fake miracle conspiracy," however arbitrary that may be, because the alternatives are even more arbitrary acceptance or dismissal.

In 17th century, population of Earth was ~575 million people.

You'd think for every miracle in 17th century you'd have at least 15 nowadays - in other words, about a miracle about every 7 years.

In our day of easy videos, selfies, and what not, I'll wait for something contemporary where amputated legs grow on their own, before needing to go back for some proof about some miracle in 17th century.

Doctors, at least in the USA, are about as likely to believe miracles occur as the general population (~73% doctors vs ~70-80% general population), but considerably more likely to claim that they have personally witnessed one (~55% vs ~35%).

Good. How many doctors in the last 100 years reported an amputed leg grow on its own... (in a human)?

 

[Questerr]

For something to be “best explained by divine intervention”, you’d first have to objectively demonstrate the divine is real.

 

[ttwtt78640]

For something to be “best explained by divine intervention”, you’d first have to objectively demonstrate the divine is real.

That seems to be accomplished by simply invoking the “God works in mysterious ways” assertion.

 

[Quag]

Nothign has eve been shown to have been caused by the sueprnatural

 

[Questerr]

That seems to be accomplished by simply invoking the “God works in mysterious ways” assertion.

So Allah? Or Buddha? Odin?

 

[soylentgreen]

Incredible!!! he managed to get al that crap into two small posts. It's a ****ing miracle.

 

[Mr Person]

There is no evidence of the sort we rely on in the hard sciences and not even an attempt to suggest how a claimed miracle might occur in light of what we know. Calling that binary thinking is really just a way of side-stepping one of the known fatal problems with the position: that there really is no evidence and nothing consistent with known physics that could explain a claimed miracle.

That someone wrote down that a thing happened and that other people then wrote about it elsewhere is not what I'm talking about. And this argument about the supposed probability that miracles occur based on claims about when we might expect doctors to be more or less likely than the general public to believe in miracles...just... no. That's not how anything is proven in physics. And in any event, tons of people in the hard sciences compartmentalize: profession in one box, their "spiritual faith" in another. It makes no sense to me to try to establish an objective claim about reality ("miracles happen!") by speculating based on how one expects a doctor and the public to view miracles, then comparing that to what they said about their view in polls.

We know we don't have the entire picture of the physical universe. Here's the thing: although what we know is subject to new understanding in light of a complete understanding of physical law, that complete understanding of physical law won't contradict what is already proven. Gravitational lensing will not just vanish if we find out the reason for it isn't quite what we think it is, even if it ends up getting a different name. Light will still bend around mass/energy, the more of one the more of the other.

That we might not know some additional factors only amounts to a blind possibility, and a blind possibility is not a probability. So, sure, we can suppose a blind possibility that there is some larger physics encompassing ours which incomprehensibly allows an advanced species to work what we of limited understanding might now consider a miracle (the "why" is an entirely different question), but that's not a reason to think that there is any likelihood of it. Note I mentioned species, not "God." The reason is simple: we of limited understanding would necessarily lack the knowledge to be able to distinguish between the acts of a sufficiently advanced species and those of a God.

Not understanding how something happened is never a reason to suppose it happened for one particular reason (and that's assuming we are right that it did happen, rather than an error of perception/diagnosis, distortion as the story is passed on, etc).

(I could also note things like: isn't someone who already believes far more likely to ascribe an extremely unlikely recovery to a miracle than is someone whose approach is rational? If so, aren't the former far more likely to make a lot of noise reporting on this recovery than the latter, who are far more likely to think "phew, my body came through for me there. Really lucked out.")




At any rate, I skipped past the first hurdle. This is beliefs & skepticism, not theology, so the miracle proponent is likely to get stuck at the very first step they need: convincing someone who approaches reality rationally (ie, through objectively verifiable evidence and theories based on it) to accept something born of faith, which is inherently irrational (belief without evidence of even over contrary evidence).

How is that miracle surmounted here? Let's say I'm one of the former and you can't articulate mechanisms consistent with known physics/medicine for how a claimed miracle could occur. Why would you expect me to reach for the faith-based answer? Someone like that has fundamentally rejected the "if I don't know, therefore God" approach already and they're already comfortable with the fact that there are all sorts of things we don't know. Why would they carve out an exception for claimed miracles? (I'm not counting emotional situations, like their child is in the hospital gravely ill and they need a mental shield to avoid breaking under the strain).

 

[Mr Person]

Nothign has eve been shown to have been caused by the sueprnatural

And if something was unquestionably verified that we could not explain in known physics, we would have no reason to say that God did it rather than a sufficiently advanced alien species whose technology has the appearance of magic in light of our relative ignorance.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

It'll take at least two posts, even with threadbare referencing (considerably more detail in the links to my Debating Christianity posts), but I'll try to summarize a huge topic here under four headings
- Consistency of miracles with known facts
- The breadth of evidence for miracles
- The depth of evidence for miracles
- The 'wow factor'; healed amputation

Consistency of miracles with known facts
My working definition of a miracle is
"A remarkable departure from the expected course of events, best explained by divine intervention"

You lost me at "best explained by divine intervention" (and you are going to continue to lose me at that point.

However, that does not mean that I am willing to TOTALLY rule out "divine intervention" - just that I'm not prepared to bet the ranch on it.

 

[Mithrae]

absence of better or known explanation does NOT suggest intervention of any kind, divine or not

If someone claiming to be in contact with aliens beamed a message out to space asking for a kilogram of gold and *poof* a kilo of gold appeared on the spot, if trickery etc. were ruled out then provisionally the best explanation, by far, would be that aliens responded to the request. That's the most parsimonious explanation, since no new/arbitrary entities have been introduced into the explanation; and if there were numerous similar occurrences in various times and places, it would also be an explanation with considerable scope. That's two of the three metrics by which (as far as I can tell) explanatory theories should be evaluated; what it lacks is detail or specificity, the mechanics of how it happened. The potential for better explanations to come along (and hence provisional falsification) in light of further investigation is certainly there, but blithely pretending that it isn't an explanation and isn't the best current explanation would obviously be incorrect.

I didn't want to clutter up the first posts, so only hinted at it in the OP, but one of the best discussions I've ever had was on this topic of epistemology, explanation and falsification. Here's a post toward the end of that discussion where I summarized some of the views I formed, in case anyone is interested.

An Argument against the Argument against Miracles - Page 8 - Debating Christianity and Religion

debatingchristianity.com

 

[Gordy327]

There is no objective evidence verifying "miracles," as caused by a supernatural or divine source. What we call "miracles" is nothing more than an emotional (appealing) and/or ignorant response to an unlikely fortuitous event. But that's just a matter of probability.

 

[AmNat]

The known facts, imo, exclude the traditional Christian notion of a deity desperate for everyone to worship him; there are no miracles which serve as clear proof for any god, let alone the god of a specific religion. Of course, searching in English I find mostly Christian miracle reports, but likely if I searched in Hindi I'd find mostly Hindu reports, Muslim reports in Arabic and so on.

You are making quite an assumption about the "depth" (to use your terminology) of evidence for miracles associated with different religions. The reason why the miracles you mention are known to us is not that they occurred in English speaking countries (most did not), but because they are sufficiently credible that people bothered to translate information regarding them.

The challenge for Christians here is that this is obviously far better evidence than there is for the resurrection or any biblical tale; four named witnesses, under formal sworn testimony, less than three years after the amputation, with far less obvious motives for (or evidence of) embellishment or fraud. And yet it's still obviously far from certain that god or 'Our Lady of the Pillar' healed this man; it still could have been a conspiracy to promote a fake miracle... so where does that leave the more dubious biblical tales?

There were eleven named witnesses to the Resurrection, ten of whom were put to death for their testimony and one of whom was exiled to a remote island. And that's leaving aside the extent to which Pelicer's healing (or the other miracles in your OP) serve as evidence for it.

 

[Slavister]

If someone claiming to be in contact with aliens beamed a message out to space asking for a kilogram of gold and *poof* a kilo of gold appeared on the spot, if trickery etc. were ruled out then provisionally the best explanation, by far, would be that aliens responded to the request. That's the most parsimonious explanation, since no new/arbitrary entities have been introduced into the explanation...

Good one.

If someone claiming to be in contact with aliens beamed a message out to space asking for a kilogram of gold and *poof* a kilo of gold appeared on the spot, the most likely explanation would be trickery indeed, as it can pretty much almost never be truly ruled out. Heck, we have magicians doing similar tricks all over globe 100 times each and every a day.

 

[Rumpel]

Lourdes?
Was it a miracle?

 

[Drowning Man]

Unlikely things happen all the time. The lottery winner does win. The guy survives cancer that the doctors thought would kill him. The woman is hit by lightning and lives to talk about it. A fish jumps into the fishing boat on its own. Etc.

A miracle requires a God or set of gods performing some kind of magic. I haven't seen any evidence of that...much less the God or set of gods to be able to perform that miracle.

 

[Mithrae]

In 17th century, population of Earth was ~575 million people.

You'd think for every miracle in 17th century you'd have at least 15 nowadays - in other words, about a miracle about every 7 years.

In our day of easy videos, selfies, and what not, I'll wait for something contemporary where amputated legs grow on their own, before needing to go back for some proof about some miracle in 17th century.



Good. How many doctors in the last 100 years reported an amputed leg grow on its own... (in a human)?

How likely do you think that the speculative, explain-away-the-evidence conspiracy theory of the 'miracle of Calanda' is? That the witnesses and investigators conspired with Pellicer to promote a fraudulent miracle?

I mean, that's obviously possible, no denying that. One of the doctors who testified belonged to the inquisition, and nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition to be an infallible fount of truth. But is it certain, or anywhere close to certain? Without asserting that these were false witness reports, that his leg was never amputated, the only other viable conclusion is that a miracle occurred.

Put it this way: If instead of a healed amputation after years of devotion at the shrine, Pelicer had been struck by 'fire from heaven' (ie, a meteor) after years of blasphemy. An unlikely but non-zero possibility. How confidently would you conclude that the various witness testimonies were false in that case? 80%? 50/50? Seems to me the same must apply to the miraculous healing... unless you have first presumed that miracles have zero possibility of occuring.

 

[Logicman]

Miracles are documented.

This is an exhaustive, comprehensive, two-book work with modern-day miracles detailed. It's on Amazon. You might want to read the reviews.

Amazon.com

 

[Gordy327]

Miracles are documented.

No, they're just claimed.

This is an exhaustive, comprehensive, two-book work with modern-day miracles detailed. It's on Amazon. You might want to read the reviews.

Is verification of so called miracles established according to the scientific method?

 

[Slartibartfast]

I've personally seen miracles (or at least what I believe are miracles) happen.

One example is meeting my wife. I prayed about her for years and I believe God granted me a sense of anticipation years ahead (which also pissed me off, but I am not always a patient person, that's on me). When it was time to meet her, I knew the day (Jan 15th) a couple of months ahead of time and the exact method.

When it happened, it went mostly according to plan (I was told she would be a blond, but she had died her hair red, so I passed her over at first). I remember when I told her she was blond, I was really nervous and thought she would be creeped out, but she was actually impressed when I told her how I knew.

Within 12 hours she told me she would either marry me or be completely heart broken. Our first date also lasted about 26 hours.

Also in various times in my life, whenever I was broke (sometimes my fault, sometimes life happened) money would just come to help me reset.

I have also seen people get healed from physical ailments, in at least one case, it was a genetic issue.

 

[Slavister]

How likely do you think that the speculative, explain-away-the-evidence conspiracy theory of the 'miracle of Calanda' is? That the witnesses and investigators conspired with Pellicer to promote a fraudulent miracle?

I mean, that's obviously possible, no denying that. One of the doctors who testified belonged to the inquisition, and nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition to be an infallible fount of truth. But is it certain, or anywhere close to certain? Without asserting that these were false witness reports, that his leg was never amputated, the only other viable conclusion is that a miracle occurred.

Put it this way: If instead of a healed amputation after years of devotion at the shrine, Pelicer had been struck by 'fire from heaven' (ie, a meteor) after years of blasphemy. An unlikely but non-zero possibility. How confidently would you conclude that the various witness testimonies were false in that case? 80%? 50/50? Seems to me the same must apply to the miraculous healing... unless you have first presumed that miracles have zero possibility of occuring.

Let's pretend that happened. An amputated leg is regrown. Back then, Earth had about 575 million people. Should not we have seen some spontaneous regrowth of limbs in the last 100 years with billions of people on the planet?

And even if not, what's the probability that what happened had anything to do with a God and not some alien or God of some other religion or a miracle that is just a miracle of Universe and has nothing to do with any man-made-invention-called-God.