How are we to explain these "miracles?"

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KWCrazy

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On the night of March 1, 1950, all 15 members of the West End Baptist Church choir were delayed for various reasons as they readied to leave for practice. Before practice the pastor, turned on the heat to warm the church and departed. Instead, it filled with gas and exploded. Not a single choir member was harmed in the explosion.

As unbelievable as this story is, it did happen. Even though a Nebraska church exploded one evening in 1950 just five minutes after choir practice had been scheduled to begin, not one of the fifteen people who should have been present was injured because none had yet arrived when the building collapsed:
Choir practice at the West Side Baptist Church in Beatrice, Nebraska, always began at 7:20 on Wednesday evening. At 7:25 p.m. on Wednesday, March 1, 1950, an explosion demolished the church. The blast forced a nearby radio station off the air and shattered windows in surrounding homes.

But every one of the choir's fifteen members escaped injury, saved by a fortuitous coincidence: All were late for practice that night. Considering the sanctified site of the explosion, it was not surprising that some attributed the near miss to divine intervention.

source = Snopes.com

In 1985, a devout atheist named Howard Storm was vacationing in France when he suddenly became ill and collapsed. While in the hospital, Howard had a strange and frightening out of body near-death experience that took him into the depths of hell. The experience brought him to the brink of insanity, but he soon recovered and realized that he needed to change his religious views. A decade later, Howard is a Methodist minister.
source

Delia Knox walks again after being paralyzed for 22 years.
It was on 27 August 2010, over 22 years after the accident, in The Bay of the Holy Spirit Revival church in Alabama that her situation was instantly and radically changed. She watched while two parents brought their baby up to the front of the church for healing. She found that her fear of disappointment for her own healing was replaced with compassion for the child. Shortly afterwards, evangelist Nathan Morris called her forward and prayed for her. After a few minutes she began to experience feeling in her legs. The prayer persisted and after several more minutes she was able to stand with assistance from others and take uncoordinated steps.

Over the next few days she was able to build up some strength in her legs and gradually learn to use them again. A week later she walked again in the same church, but with much less assistance and with improved coordination. After several weeks her coordination and strength was sufficient for her to walk unassisted...


These are just a few modern miracles which are confirmed to have actually happened.
 

quatona

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On the night of March 1, 1950, all 15 members of the West End Baptist Church choir were delayed for various reasons as they readied to leave for practice. Before practice the pastor, turned on the heat to warm the church and departed. Instead, it filled with gas and exploded. Not a single choir member was harmed in the explosion.

I´m wondering why god - instead of taking care that every single member was delayed for some reason - didn´t simply take care that the heating worked correctly (and/or the pastor handled it correctly). That way he would also have saved the church, btw.
Plus: all of 15 people delayed for 5 minutes? The chance for that is not so very low.

 
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Lord Emsworth

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The incident with the choir members reminds me of the Bürgerbräukeller assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on November 8, 1939.

Unknown to Elser, Hitler initially cancelled his speech at the Bürgerbräukeller to devote his attention to planning the imminent war with France, but changed his mind and attended after all. As fog was forecast, possibly preventing him from flying back to Berlin the next the morning, Hitler decided to return to Berlin the same night by his private train. With the departure from Munich's main station set for 9.30 pm, the start time of the reunion was brought forward half an hour to 8 pm and Hitler cut his speech from the normal two hours to one hour duration.[13]

Hitler ended his address to the 3000 strong audience of the party faithful at 9.07 pm, 13 minutes before Elser's bomb exploded at 9.20 pm. By that time Hitler and his entourage had left the Bürgerbräukeller. The bomb brought down part of the ceiling and roof, and caused the gallery and an external wall to collapse, leaving a mountain of rubble. About 120 people were still in the hall at the time. Seven were killed. Another sixty-three were injured, sixteen seriously, with one dying later.[13]

Hitler did not learn of this attempt on his life until later that night on a stop in Nuremberg. When told of the bombing by Joseph Goebbels Hitler responded, 'A man has to be lucky.' A little later Hitler had a different spin, saying, 'Now I am completely at peace! My leaving the Burgerbrau earlier than usual is proof to me that Providence wants me to reach my goal.'[14]​
Johann Georg Elser - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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lesliedellow

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On the night of March 1, 1950, all 15 members of the West End Baptist Church choir were delayed for various reasons as they readied to leave for practice. Before practice the pastor, turned on the heat to warm the church and departed. Instead, it filled with gas and exploded. Not a single choir member was harmed in the explosion.

As unbelievable as this story is, it did happen. Even though a Nebraska church exploded one evening in 1950 just five minutes after choir practice had been scheduled to begin, not one of the fifteen people who should have been present was injured because none had yet arrived when the building collapsed:
Choir practice at the West Side Baptist Church in Beatrice, Nebraska, always began at 7:20 on Wednesday evening. At 7:25 p.m. on Wednesday, March 1, 1950, an explosion demolished the church. The blast forced a nearby radio station off the air and shattered windows in surrounding homes.

But every one of the choir's fifteen members escaped injury, saved by a fortuitous coincidence: All were late for practice that night. Considering the sanctified site of the explosion, it was not surprising that some attributed the near miss to divine intervention.

source = Snopes.com

In 1985, a devout atheist named Howard Storm was vacationing in France when he suddenly became ill and collapsed. While in the hospital, Howard had a strange and frightening out of body near-death experience that took him into the depths of hell. The experience brought him to the brink of insanity, but he soon recovered and realized that he needed to change his religious views. A decade later, Howard is a Methodist minister.
source

Delia Knox walks again after being paralyzed for 22 years.
It was on 27 August 2010, over 22 years after the accident, in The Bay of the Holy Spirit Revival church in Alabama that her situation was instantly and radically changed. She watched while two parents brought their baby up to the front of the church for healing. She found that her fear of disappointment for her own healing was replaced with compassion for the child. Shortly afterwards, evangelist Nathan Morris called her forward and prayed for her. After a few minutes she began to experience feeling in her legs. The prayer persisted and after several more minutes she was able to stand with assistance from others and take uncoordinated steps.

Over the next few days she was able to build up some strength in her legs and gradually learn to use them again. A week later she walked again in the same church, but with much less assistance and with improved coordination. After several weeks her coordination and strength was sufficient for her to walk unassisted...


These are just a few modern miracles which are confirmed to have actually happened.

In my book a miracle is something. Inexplicable, except in terms of divine intervention. It may or may not be the case that divine intervention was present in the cases which you cite, but they are certainly not inexplicable by any other means.
 
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JohnSerew

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I think to answer your questions, there are explenations.

First of all, all over this planet, a lot of houses, buildings etc catch on fire for multiple different reasons all the time. The odds that only a view of them would have no people in them because of delays are not that bad considering the large numbers. To quote Sam Harris: It would be strange if it had never happened. In fact, today I saw on facebook that the house of a group of people, at least one of which is in the band 'reflections' caught on fire. Most of them were not there but one of their roommates died tragically. I mean, so many people die in fires all the time. Those who oddly enough don't take casualties even though they should are very likely to make it into the media.

The out of body, near death experiences have been explained for a long time now. They can tell you exactly which hormone is released right before death and they can even recreate that exact feeling in laboratories. The fact that someone becomes christian after that is not that weird.

First of all, depending on the accuracy of that specific description of the story, it seems really unlikely that someone who is paralized can walk again. But then again, it really depends on why she wasn't able to walk. If it was permanent neural damage, I wouldn't believe this story at all. If it was partially due to extreme injuries and pain, the human mind could be stronger than expected.

Again, it really depends on her case and the story didn't elaborate on that, so for a scientific answer to be given, we need more data.
 
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KWCrazy

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An explosion kills four girls in a Birmingham church, in 1963.
How do you explain that? Was God taking a nap that day?

Evil exists in the world.
Evil men reject God and separate themselves from Him. Evil people do evil things. God WILL intervene in time, casting the evil people into Hell. Until then He offers salvation for those who will accept it.
 
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HitchSlap

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Evil exists in the world.
Evil men reject God and separate themselves from Him. Evil people do evil things. God WILL intervene in time, casting the evil people into Hell. Until then He offers salvation for those who will accept it.[/COLOR]

That doesn't seem very "just" or moral. Oh well, he's your god.
 
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KWCrazy

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The odds that only a view of them would have no people in them because of delays are not that bad considering the large numbers.
The odds of 15 out of 15 people being late on the same day are huge. If everyone in the church were late at once per year and the choir met two nights per week, the odds would be 1 in 104^15. That's one chance in 81,939,401,515,943,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Each year 475,000 buildings burn to the ground. At that rate the probability is one in 172,504,003,191,459,000,000,000,000,000,000 years.

No, the odds aren't bad at all.

The out of body, near death experiences have been explained for a long time now.
No they haven't. They can duplicate certain chemical reactions in the brain, such as the vision of light or feelings of euphoria. They can even generate hallucinations by emulating neurotransmitters like dopamine and seratonin. They can't recreate the individual spiritual significance of the events. They can't account for the things seen by patients which could not possibly have been seen from their vantage point, or for things heard well out of earshot of the patient. It's wishful thinking to say that all the questions have been answered, and foolishness to believe that the spiritual awakening that many report is all due to a dream.
First of all, depending on the accuracy of that specific description of the story, it seems really unlikely that someone who is paralized can walk again.
Absolutely. And yet, it happens; not just with conversion reactions, either.

"Thousands of pilgrims have left their crutches and canes at the shrine (Lourdes). Thousands more have been cured of such fatal diseases as advanced stages of cancer. Hundreds of thousands of cures have been claimed by men and women who immersed themselves in the cold spring waters of the shrine, but the Lourdes Medical Bureau has established certain criteria that must be met before it will certify a cure as an example of miraculous faith healing:

The affliction must be a serious disease. If it is not classified as incurable, it must be diagnosed as extremely difficult to cure.
There must be no improvement in the patient's condition prior to the visit to the Lourdes shrine.
Medication that may have been used must have been judged ineffective.
The cure must be totally complete.
The cure must be unquestionably definitive and free of all doubt."

source

Most claims of miracles are readily dismissed, but there are still many which are medically unexplainable.
 
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quatona

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The odds of 15 out of 15 people being late on the same day are huge. If everyone in the church were late at once per year and the choir met two nights per week, the odds would be 1 in 104^15. That's one chance in 81,939,401,515,943,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Each year 475,000 buildings burn to the ground. At that rate the probability is one in 172,504,003,191,459,000,000,000,000,000,000 years.

No, the odds aren't bad at all.

Well, I have been to meetings of groups about this size where everyone was being late. More than once. Must have been miracles, considering the low chance you´ve calculated. So even without the location having burned down, it´s safe to conclude that God exists. :D
 
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JohnSerew

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The odds of 15 out of 15 people being late on the same ..... Most claims of miracles are readily dismissed, but there are still many which are medically unexplainable.

Your assumptions are very bad approximations. You assume that every time someone is late, the reason is random and different. but if the weather is horrible(snow, ice on the road) the chance that everybody is late becomes a lot bigger. Same goes for maybe a faulty invitation to the choir. Just to give a view examples. Also, you haven't taken all of the different churches throughout the country into account and you are highly overestimating the ability of people to be in time.

They have given people complete out of body experiences. And it has never been scientifically confirmed that people 'knew' things that they couldn't see or sense if they didn't rise out of their bodies. But I did forget to mention it is not all about chemicals.
Just google near death experiences explained. There is a lot of good articles on that.(Can't post links yet).

When they are medically unexplained, it doesn't mean they can never be explained. It just means, they can't do it with the information they had then. If you go back way further into history, they couldn't explain a lot of thinks about people who, to them, magically recovered from incurable situations. Now we understand it better and better. Also, most of the miracles you linked originated between 1950 and 1980. Our medical understanding has grown to an incredible extent since only the past years let alone since 1980.
 
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KWCrazy

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Just so I'm clear, unlikely events are called unlikely events because their occurrence is so rare, it's considered a supernatural miracle?
No, it's called a miracle when God intervenes and overrides the laws of probability and natural law. The sheer unlikliness of the event indicates divine intervention, but no, such an event is not precluded by natural law the way turning water into win is.
 
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KWCrazy

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Well, I have been to meetings of groups about this size where everyone was being late. More than once. Must have been miracles, considering the low chance you´ve calculated. So even without the location having burned down, it´s safe to conclude that God exists. :D
It depends on the meeting. Monday morning sales meetings are notorious for tardiness. Without knowing the exact frequency each and every person was late plotting the precise probability is unknowable, but given even if the figures are off by 20% it's still a high number. There was no indication in the story that any of the people involved were prone to tardiness.
 
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KWCrazy

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Your assumptions are very bad approximations. You assume that every time someone is late, the reason is random and different. but if the weather is horrible(snow, ice on the road) the chance that everybody is late becomes a lot bigger. Same goes for maybe a faulty invitation to the choir.
Since none of the above happened, your "what if's" are meaningless. Read the link. No such factors were involved. Each member had an individual circumstance. "But because of such matters as a soiled dress, a catnap, an unfinished letter, a geometry problem and a stalled car, all of the members of the choir were late - something which had never occurred before."
And it has never been scientifically confirmed that people 'knew' things that they couldn't see or sense if they didn't rise out of their bodies.
Don't be ridiculous. You can't scientifically validate or invalidate what a person claims they saw, you can only ascertain whether the things they reported seeing are true. In many cases the patient DID see and hear things he could not possibly have known.
If you go back way further into history, they couldn't explain a lot of thinks about people who, to them, magically recovered from incurable situations.
We still can't.
We understood what a terminal disease was in 1950 as we did in 1980.
Jesus healed through faith, and many believe their faith has healed them as well. Is it 100% repeatable with absolute certainty? No, but if you spend your life searching for natural proof of supernatural happenings you'll do nothing but grow older.
 
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