Evidence of miracles.

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

As a very longtime student of the paranormal (see my profile if you like) and an experiencer myself, I can only say:

• Events occur all the time, across all religions and periods of history, that defy mundane explanation. When these events have been investigated to the full extent possible, scientists and medical professionals can only say "We have no explanation consistent with what we currently know."
  
  
• When such an event happens to you, it is not anecdotal evidence. It is direct experience.
  
  
• When your experiences closely mesh with those of thousands or even millions of other sane and credible people, there gradually accumulates a mountain of evidence that simply can't be ignored. Those who disallow such evidence do so not because it isn't compelling but because their commitment to philosophical naturalism forces them to do.
  
  
• Much of this evidence is, based on what we now know, inconsistent with the naturalistic paradigm and more consistent with a theistic (or at least "higher reality" paradigm).
  
  
• The evidence is just too all over the map, and cuts across too many belief systems and cultures, to make much of it from a Christian perspective. There are inexplicable miracles in the Christian context, of course, but there are plenty in the atheist and Hindu contexts. (Studies show that approximately 20% of atheists hold some pretty startling "woo-woo" beliefs.)

One of my favorite tales involves arch-skeptic Michael Shermer, with whom I've communicated. He and his wife experienced an almost classic After-Death Communication from her late grandfather that was very close to some I've experienced. He described it in Scientific American, Anomalous Events That Can Shake One’s Skepticism to the Core - Scientific American. I defy anyone to attach a mundane explanation to this event, especially when it's multiplied by hundreds of thousands of essentially identical ones.

Yet Shermer's article provoked howls of protest from his naturalistic atheist minions. Shermer was "a traitor to the cause" - which they obviously saw as the cause of atheism rather than truth. The suggested explanations were comical. To maintain his standing, however, Shermer was forced to backtrack and take the position "Well, of course it has a naturalistic explanation, even if we have no idea what it is."

Nothing in Shermer's account was outside the bounds of physical possibility. Rare and unlikely events happen, just not very often (by definition). When trying to establish a miracle, it is necessary to show that what happened was physically impossible, not just extremely unlikely.

 

[Mountainmike]

Those monitoring , then supporting these claims are many medical professors after decade(s) of investigation.

If you are anything like the scientist you claim, at least study the process.

The one opposing it is a sceptic magician in this case.
There is no way to verify what the magician said, but we do know ihe is good at illusions/ conning people.

The acid test: Which would you trust for cancer?

You support his view because he is sceptic not because he is a medic, or because he has any knowledge of the case.

There are plenty of books , papers. The claims hit newspapers. The latest just a couple of years ago.
Nobody can explain or discount them, so they disappear into noise quickly.

Par for the course, but by way of comparison All over the media :
The shroud was “debunked “ by the biggest failure in Rc dating in history, they tested a mediaeval repair, proven. Even fiddled they results to do that.
On all the media.

But you could hear a pin drop in media when careful PROPER science, by Rogers , Adler, heller, that showed the sample they took was not the same as the shroud , that the shroud was a real crucified man and much older. Hard to explain any other way,

As for spontaneous remission… you clearly haven’t studied this case.

I can see why you are all sceptics.
You won’t study evidence.

sad.

Yes, the documentation is poor and some of the reported data does seem contradictory, and it is also odd that such an apparently amazing recovery was given so little medical and media attention.

Spontaneous remission from such bone cancers of that kind is rare, but does happen, and given the throughput of seriously ill patients at Lourdes, it should not be so surprising that such a case was found there. AIUI, the overall rate of remissions, recoveries, and cures of Lourdes visitors is not exceptional.

IME Mike will only double-down when claims supporting his beliefs are questioned. Those producing evidence in support are impeccable, those raising questions are charlatans.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I gave books full of forensic reports , of practising legal forensics experts. Six miracles , Five continents , dozens of forensics labs involved. All of them saying the same.

You found one interview with one, ( who was at a low ebb at the time) which did not discredit his testimony in any way, he has a professional legal forensics chair to this day. How so if he is incompetent? The slides for tixtla were validated by others too.

You only have smoke and mirrors.

I have dozens of forensics reports.
No contest. Discuss the forensics. In your professional opinion was it heart tissue?

I forgot, you don’t have a professional opionion!

In this Lourdes case I have 20 medical professors on my side who sit on the Lourdes medical commission. The cures later reviewed by others one I named.

The only sceptic nonsense about the cure is from a magician sceptic wacko, who was neither qualified nor involved !

Yet you believe the wacko!
No contest. I prefer science thanks.

Randi was the investigator, he didn't make any medical judgements, he left that to the medical experts assisting him. By all means criticise what he or they actually said or did, but your broad-brush dismissal is fallacious - hasty generalisation, poisoning the well, and so-on. It is quite legitimate to question and investigate exotic claims.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Those monitoring , then supporting these claims are many medical professors after decade(s) of investigation.

If you are anything like the scientist you claim, at least study the process.

The one opposing it is a sceptic magician in this case.
There is no way to verify what the magician said, but we do know ihe is good at illusions/ conning people.

The acid test: Which would you trust for cancer?

You support his view because he is sceptic not because he is a medic, or because he has any knowledge of the case.

There are plenty of books , papers. The claims hit newspapers. The latest just a couple of years ago.
Nobody can explain or discount them, so they disappear into noise quickly.

Par for the course, but by way of comparison All over the media :
The shroud was “debunked “ by the biggest failure in Rc dating in history, they tested a mediaeval repair, proven. Even fiddled they results to do that.
On all the media.

But you could hear a pin drop in media when careful PROPER science, by Rogers , Adler, heller, that showed the sample they took was not the same as the shroud , that the shroud was a real crucified man and much older. Hard to explain any other way,

As for spontaneous remission… you clearly haven’t studied this case.

I can see why you are all sceptics.
You won’t study evidence.

sad.

See my last post. The shroud is irrelevant to this case.

 

[The happy Objectivist]

Another thread had a curious title.

Independently REPEATABLE evidence of miracles. Which is a logical contradiction in the sense that by definition researchers cannot repeat the supernatural, otherwise it wouldn’t be supernatural.

So all that can be done is
1/ to identify evidence of the unexplained.
2/ to confirm it is inexplicable, by breaking a fundamental paradigm of science as it is known
( eg prophecy as a simple example because of time arrow, consciousness outside the brain )
3/ that there is no credible means of faking the evidence.
The only repeat possible is reassessment of evidence, not repeat the event.

But 1-3 deal only with defining something as supernatural, not a miracle which ascribes a cause.

Since God is not in the model of science , nor can science proclaim Him as a verdict, a limitation of science, not God.

So all we can do is is state
4/ it occurs in the theistic context
And
5/ the church adds other conditions too


Reality is there is a lot of such evidence.
Take miracle healings at Lourdes.
The lame walk, the blind see.

The process is massive to declare it so, from a large medical panel any qualified medic can join, most are not religious. They declare inexplicable , not just unexplained. ( Lourdes medical commission do that part )

The second declaration is by the church 4/ 5/ which is just as stringent. Many healings declared supernatural by medics, don’t pass the churches criteria as miracle. .

So what is left?
Take this. A pelvic cancer before cancers were in anyway curable had destroyed all the pelvic bone to a leg bone connected only by small amounts of soft tissue.

Journey to Lourdes healing waters.
Bone reappeared albeit a shorter leg. Pain disappeared. Cancer gone.

Appeared in serious medical journals.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6027009/pdf/10.1179_0024363913Z.00000000015.pdf

A medical doctor Heads up the commission for typically 10 years a time.
A couple have written books.

I was watching Dennis Prager in Fireside chat 174 and he made a stunning admission and I don't even think he realized it. He was responding to a guest and he said that "I'm just happy that Zebras urinate". He went on to say that until these things are explained that they are miracles and miracles imply the miraculous. If "supernatural" just means something that we can't yet explain then that's a pretty flimsy thing to stand on. There have been many things throughout history which have been deemed inexplicable such as lightning that do have explanations that are not supernatural.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I was watching Dennis Prager in Fireside chat 174

Condolences. Sorry you had to go through that...

and he made a stunning admission and I don't even think he realized it. He was responding to a guest and he said that "I'm just happy that Zebras urinate". He went on to say that until these things are explained that they are miracles and miracles imply the miraculous. If "supernatural" just means something that we can't yet explain then that's a pretty flimsy thing to stand on. There have been many things throughout history which have been deemed inexplicable such as lightning that do have explanations that are not supernatural.

Ye olde miracle of the gaps. Prager ain't too bright.

 

[Ivan Hlavanda]

The evidence of God's miracles is all around us. Just pause for a moment and look at the nature, the world, the universe. Life is a miracle. Everything around us works like clock-work. The sun and the rain God sends, that gives growth to food on our field that already have all the nutrients in ground.
Look how the animal Kingdom works, look at the trees that give vital oxygen, the rivers that flow fresh water and all there wonderful resources that are readily available for our life.

You too are a miracle, a wonderful miracle, made just from dust of the Earth. Your body is a marvellous mechanism, your eye alone is made of 6 million particles, and all the bones, muscles, cells. You for example have 50 different proteins that active blood clotting when you get a cut into your skin. The body is so complex, no way it has evolved like this, it must have been created by the Creator. Not to mention the ability to think, and to feel...all these things can be only explained by a loving God.

Not to mention the miracle of the cross, where God died for the sinners. That is love eternal, beyond our understanding.

 

[The happy Objectivist]

Condolences. Sorry you had to go through that...

Actually I rather enjoyed it because he was sitting down with Craig Biddle and it is a rare thing to see an Objectivist and a theist sitting down for a cordial discussion.

Ye olde miracle of the gaps. Prager ain't too bright.

Yeah, I never realized how dim a bulb he really is. He made a number of startling admissions during the episode. I don't understand why he has such a big audience.

 

[Mountainmike]

Straw man. Study what I said.
There is a difference between unexplained and inexplicable.

I was watching Dennis Prager in Fireside chat 174 and he made a stunning admission and I don't even think he realized it. He was responding to a guest and he said that "I'm just happy that Zebras urinate". He went on to say that until these things are explained that they are miracles and miracles imply the miraculous. If "supernatural" just means something that we can't yet explain then that's a pretty flimsy thing to stand on. There have been many things throughout history which have been deemed inexplicable such as lightning that do have explanations that are not supernatural.

 

[Mountainmike]

Randi was the investigator, he didn't make any medical judgements, he left that to the medical experts assisting him. By all means criticise what he or they actually said or did, but your broad-brush dismissal is fallacious - hasty generalisation, poisoning the well, and so-on. It is quite legitimate to question and investigate exotic claims.

It’s a legitimate question.

That’s why 20 medical professors most of them sceptic asked it.
Study the structure of the Lourdes medical commission.
The case prepared by many others.

Randi wasn’t involved.
Others have since reviewed the cases in literature came to the same conclusion.

You are prepared to read Randi, but not the actual investigation?

As a later custodian of the medical process in more recent times , theilleur refers this case confirming he has studied the X-rays and he is satisfied.

So the magician stands alone, as an apriori sceptic, not scientist, preferring sceptic noise.

My comment on the shroud is in direct rebuttal to an argument you made about media. These cases are all over it, but the shroud also proves that popular media print any sceptic nonsense but generally stay silent on scientific rebuttal of the nonsense. Aka bias.

Its interesting that In some cases , the staunchest advocates for miracles were sceptic journalists determined to debunk them . Take Almeida the journalist from o seculo and many others went to Fatima to mock and debunk the prophesied miracle , but ended up producing some of the definitive testimony of the dancing of the sun. Which included sceptic science professors too! There are at least 200 contemporary eye witness testimonies even from , some even tens of km away not expecting it. So not mass hypnosis.

As for media on Fatima it’s worth studying.
The prophesied “ unknown light” that would precede “ a worse war in the reign of Pius Xi “ ( yet to be pope at the time of the prophecy ) was reported in jan 38 all over the media of the western world. A red glow over most of the northern hemisphere , so strong that fire engines were sent to none existent fires. It was hindsight rationalisation that called it an Aurora, despite being red, far too strong, far too far south, and far too ubiquitous without the “ curtain “ effect. That’s the problem with science. It can only conclude from out of the model it has. It happened Just as the annexation of Austria started - the effective start of WWII.
Hard to discount. It clearly happened. But only once. It happened in the context of the prophecy. Hard to explain.
Just as the Fatima event ( which led to the above prophesy) was clearly extraordinary , scientifically inexplicable , happening at the time and place prophesied.

Whilst on a theme of Fatima, the extraordinary is everywhere: the so called doves of bombarral that accompanied the procession to Lisbon from Fatima , were seemingly all the press wrote about for weeks. It was all over Portuguese secular media as an oddity. Then forgotten. Now if you ask about it, sceptics say it was all pious imagination. The sceptics should read their own journalists.

The world is full of extraordinary things in media. Quietly forgotten.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

It’s a legitimate question.

That’s why 20 medical professors most of them sceptic asked it.
Study the structure of the Lourdes medical commission.
The case prepared by many others.

Randi wasn’t involved.
Others have since reviewed the cases in literature came to the same conclusion.

You are prepared to read Randi, but not the actual investigation?

I read the information provided. Randi was the leading paranormal investigator of his time, and always made a point of bringing in experts in the relevant field where required.

I spent several enlightening years on his foundation's forums, where we arranged investigations of paranormal claims from individuals wanting the 1 million dollar prize Randi offered for verifiable paranormal demonstrations.

As a later custodian of the medical process in more recent times , theilleur refers this case confirming he has studied the X-rays and he is satisfied.

So the magician stands alone, as an apriori sceptic, not scientist, preferring sceptic noise.

Again the blanket dismissal - did you read his report and the opinions of the experts involved? which parts of it can you refute with evidence?

The point is simple and basic - while there are significant areas of doubt that remain unresolved, the veracity of the claim is (obviously) not beyond reasonable doubt.

E.T.A. If you haven't seen the classic test of dowsers in Australia, it's well worth watching:

 

[Irkle Berserkle]

Nothing in Shermer's account was outside the bounds of physical possibility. Rare and unlikely events happen, just not very often (by definition). When trying to establish a miracle, it is necessary to show that what happened was physically impossible, not just extremely unlikely.

Unfortunately, you don't get to define what is and isn't a miracle. Just as atheists typically do with the term "evidence," you have simply chosen a narrow definition that eliminates any and all miracles. You have ruled out the evidence your philosophical naturalism can't handle by defining it away. There is no rule that a miracle must be "physically impossible."

This is the game we saw played with Shermer's After-Death Communication, even by Shermer himself: "I have no plausible explanation as to how that could have happened, but I know it wasn't an After-Death Communication because, hey, my commitment to philosophical naturalism won't allow After-Death Communications regardless of what the evidence suggests." This is hardly critical thinking.

I invite those who aren't familiar with it to read Shermer's account in Scientific American, which I linked above. I myself have experienced three very similar incidents - one far more complex than Shermer's - all in connection with the death of a relative or friend. Literally hundreds of thousands of these accounts have been documented - not just reported on internet forums but documented by serious researchers of the phenomenon. The salient point is that, like Shermer's, these incidents uniformly happen in connection with, and proximity to, death. The inference to the best explanation is not "Weird coincidences happen all the time. They're meaningless."

There is a vast body of well-documented testimonial evidence. Like much evidence on which science relies, it isn't falsifiable. But go ahead: Insist it isn't evidence at all. Insist it's all meaningless coincidence, with a fair percentage of delusion and hoaxes. Define away miracles as events that must be physically impossible. Insist every event will eventually be seen to have a naturalistic explanation, even if we can't imagine what it might be. All this means nothing to me because I ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

The approach you exemplify is necessary to preserve the crumbling facade of philosophical naturalism. It isn't scientific. It isn't critical thinking. It isn't following the evidence where it leads. It's choosing to live in an intellectual straitjacket in order to preserve an a priori philosophical commitment, something the rest of us simply decline to do.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I missed this:

So the magician stands alone, as an apriori sceptic, not scientist, preferring sceptic noise.

You call him a sceptic as if that's a criticism. If you were the scientist you claim to be you'd know that scientists are a-priori sceptics - that's why hypotheses must be tested and all theories are provisional

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Unfortunately, you don't get to define what is and isn't a miracle. Just as atheists typically do with the term "evidence," you have simply chosen a narrow definition that eliminates any and all miracles. You have ruled out the evidence your philosophical naturalism can't handle by defining it away. There is no rule that a miracle must be "physically impossible."

You don't get to define what is or isn't a miracle either. But I haven't defined anything - I was just using a common and useful definition. If a miracle is physically possible, i.e. consistent with the laws of physics as we understand them, then what makes it 'miraculous' rather than simply unusual?

This is the game we saw played with Shermer's After-Death Communication, even by Shermer himself: "I have no plausible explanation as to how that could have happened, but I know it wasn't an After-Death Communication because, hey, my commitment to philosophical naturalism won't allow After-Death Communications regardless of what the evidence suggests." This is hardly critical thinking.

Shermer is skeptical - "Critical thinking is the basic tenet of the skeptical approach."

BTW, attributing made-up quotes to someone is dishonest misrepresentation. Using made-up quotes to knock down someone's argument is called straw-manning and is both fallacious and dishonest.

 

[Astrid]

I think so: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=people+recovering+their+sight

Who didnt see that coming

 

[Astrid]

As a very longtime student of the paranormal (see my profile if you like) and an experiencer myself, I can only say:

• Events occur all the time, across all religions and periods of history, that defy mundane explanation. When these events have been investigated to the full extent possible, scientists and medical professionals can only say "We have no explanation consistent with what we currently know."
  
  
• When such an event happens to you, it is not anecdotal evidence. It is direct experience.
  
  
• When your experiences closely mesh with those of thousands or even millions of other sane and credible people, there gradually accumulates a mountain of evidence that simply can't be ignored. Those who disallow such evidence do so not because it isn't compelling but because their commitment to philosophical naturalism forces them to do.
  
  
• Much of this evidence is, based on what we now know, inconsistent with the naturalistic paradigm and more consistent with a theistic (or at least "higher reality" paradigm).
  
  
• The evidence is just too all over the map, and cuts across too many belief systems and cultures, to make much of it from a Christian perspective. There are inexplicable miracles in the Christian context, of course, but there are plenty in the atheist and Hindu contexts. (Studies show that approximately 20% of atheists hold some pretty startling "woo-woo" beliefs.)

One of my favorite tales involves arch-skeptic Michael Shermer, with whom I've communicated. He and his wife experienced an almost classic After-Death Communication from her late grandfather that was very close to some I've experienced. He described it in Scientific American, Anomalous Events That Can Shake One’s Skepticism to the Core - Scientific American. I defy anyone to attach a mundane explanation to this event, especially when it's multiplied by hundreds of thousands of essentially identical ones.

Yet Shermer's article provoked howls of protest from his naturalistic atheist minions. Shermer was "a traitor to the cause" - which they obviously saw as the cause of atheism rather than truth. The suggested explanations were comical. To maintain his standing, however, Shermer was forced to backtrack and take the position "Well, of course it has a naturalistic explanation, even if we have no idea what it is."

" howls" "minion" " traitor to the cause"
Honestly, people in America!

 

[Astrid]

See my last post. The shroud is irrelevant to this case.

Its useful for spreading a discussion so wide that
it disintegrates.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... Literally hundreds of thousands of these accounts have been documented - not just reported on internet forums but documented by serious researchers of the phenomenon. The salient point is that, like Shermer's, these incidents uniformly happen in connection with, and proximity to, death.

That they 'happen in connection with, and proximity to, death' is not surprising. Anyone who's experienced the death of a loved one knows how emotionally destabilising it is, and emotionally unstable people are very susceptible to and have difficulty compensating for cognitive biases, particularly, in this context, memory biases, including apophenic biases (especially, ironically, Shermer's 'agenticity'), and availability heuristic biases, not to mention distraction, misperception, and good-old confirmation and expectation biases.

There is a vast body of well-documented testimonial evidence. Like much evidence on which science relies, it isn't falsifiable. But go ahead: Insist it isn't evidence at all. Insist it's all meaningless coincidence, with a fair percentage of delusion and hoaxes.

Oh, it's evidence all right, but it's evidence of subjective experiences, which is the weakest evidence for objective events. The fact that there are many similar accounts means there is a lot of weak evidence, and a lot of weak evidence doesn't add up to strong evidence when we know that alternative possible explanations are in the frame; i.e. everyone is susceptible to the same kind of cognitive biases, and particularly so with the emotional impact in connection with and proximity to death.

A particularly serious problem with anecdotal evidence is that it changes over time. It is typically confabulated, elaborated, exaggerated, and modified over time, particularly with repeated recall and retelling, so that it becomes more definite, more interesting, and more in line with the expectations and beliefs of those involved.

Here are some articles that describe and explain the problem:
Why I’m Skeptical of Eyewitnesses
The ‘Mandela Effect’ and How Your Mind is Playing Tricks on You
How Much of Your Memory is True?
Memory Distortion & Invention
False Autobiographical Memories
Seven Sins of Memory
The Memory Doctor
How accurate are Memories of 9/11?
Memory is Unreliable - and it could be worse

The approach you exemplify is necessary to preserve the crumbling facade of philosophical naturalism. It isn't scientific. It isn't critical thinking. It isn't following the evidence where it leads. It's choosing to live in an intellectual straitjacket in order to preserve an a priori philosophical commitment, something the rest of us simply decline to do.

Not really. Science is methodological naturalism, not philosophical naturalism. Rational scepticism is the default approach both in science and critical thinking. Evidence must be assessed for quality, explanations questioned, and alternatives considered.

If, as you claim, you're not living in an intellectual straitjacket in order to preserve an a priori philosophical commitment, I would be interested in your considered opinion of the material on anecdotal evidence I provided, and how it is relevant to the reports we've been discussing.

 

[Mink61]

I see that the OP does not see it odd that as recording methods have improved that the number of miracles have gone down. So much so that he has to refer to a very out of date article that cannot be confirmed today. The pattern of miracles in their response to technology indicates that they do not exist.

Just because recording methods have improved does not necessarily mean that the number of miracles has decreased.

The fact that Christians aren't doing miracles every day is evidence that they do not exist. John 14:12

How do you know that miracles don't happen every day? Miracles can occur to groups of people, OR they can occur to ONE individual personally. There's no "official" definition of a miracle that states in order for something to be a miracle it must be "officially" recorded as one.

It's so thorough, all original records have been lost and the existing ones contradict themselves!

If miracles really exist, it would be easy to find an example that wasn't 60 years old and didn't have so many loose ends.

People report their own stories of miracles every day on the internet. There are many prayer sites in which people Thank God for a medical cure...for the restoration of a marriage...for a financial blessing...for a job...a house...a car. Miracles aren't only limited to medical cures.

How many people claim to be "healed" at Lourdes each year?

How many "verified miracles" of such healing has The Church declared there?

Between 1859 and 2015, about 7,000 cures have been documented at Lourdes.
The church has "vigorously investigated and validated" about 70 of them. One reasons is because, as Michael stated, that the church tests the miracle, six ways to Sunday. And the process can take decades to do. Although the Church takes these 'declarations' very seriously, they don't simply say, "Well, if *you* say it's a miracle Mr. John Doe, we'll take your word for it!" And yes, the Church has debunked quite a number of so-called 'miracles' as proposed by others. The events simply may not rise to the stringent standards that the Church imposes.

Miracle Hunter: Lourdes - List of Approved Miracles

 

[NxNW]

Randi isn’t a medic.

But he was an expert on scams and misinformation, and he found evidence of such here.

Many medics came to a different conclusion in a tightly controlled investigation.

It clearly wasn't tightly controlled when the existing records are full of contradictions and omissions, as pointed out by other medics.

Tell me. If you get cancer will you go to a qualified medic or an apriori sceptic magician. Tell us which do you trust in oncology?

I'd go to a competent medic, not one of the incompetents on this commission.

If you were scientists maybe just one of you would read the books on the process. But no. You prefer magicians!

My degree is in science. Why don't you read the criticisms by medics who reviewed your materials? Are you afraid of what you might find?