I'm an atheist, I have been a christian (Church of the Brethren), a wiccan, a shamanist, an agnostic (twice), and a practitioner of my own cobbled together belief. During all this time I witnessed what I believed to be miracles, they were proof to me that my beliefs were valid, however now that I look back upon them I realize that what was a miracle to me was nothing more than a natural occurance that I chose not to critically asses and define a cause for.
By it's very nature, faith is belief in something without proof. I will grant you that in my exploration of what faith is, I've had people give me alternate definitions, but by and large this is what faith is to most people, and it is the basis of religious belief. Religion without faith becomes empirical, and if it becomes empirical then it becomes the venue of science. Since no religion is the valid venue of science then religion must be predicated on faith.
Since religion is predicated on faith, and since faith is the belief of something without proof, then those who are religious accept the idea that some things can exist without any empirical trace and without any relationship to reality (defining reality to be that which is of the physical world covered by scientific inquiry). If this is the case, then it's silly to say that the application of faith as a means of belief is not applicable to other beliefs or as a method of explaining other phenoma.
If faith is accepted as a valid explanation of other phenomena, then since it is a catchall (anything can be believed in via faith, it has no checking mechanism to prevent such- children have faith in santa clause, christians have faith in god, wiccans have faith in magic, and victims of nigerian scams have faith in their nigerian princes), it represents an explanation off-cutting 'I don't know' as a statement for any event an individual cannot explain via material means.
If an individual cannot explain a phenomena, and if an individual accepts faith as a valid explanatory model, then that individual has nothing preventing them from applying faith as an explanation of a phenomena. If that phenomena happens to have beneficial properties for the individual, then that unexplained, beneficial phenomena can then be viewed as a miracle. ie: "It's a miracle that my dog Flufferbottom found his way home! Angels must have been guiding him."
If faith is used as an argument for belief in miracles, then further inquiry into that phenomena will be cut off since an explanation is already found that sufficiently answers the methodology of the phenomena to the individual. This precludes the potential for a rational or empirical answer to explain the phenomena and instead attributes supernatural status to it.
Ergo, what an individual terms to be a miracle, is quite readily the product of inadequate rational inquiry into a subject because you cannot discount the potential of unknown answers (in previous example, fluffy may know the town from being walked regularly, and driven about in a car, or animals may be able to navigate via landmarks such as angle and position of mountains, ergo fluffy could find his way home via explanations other than angels). However if faith is used as an explanation to headoff the potential for simply not knowing something, then you cut short the investigation for rational/empirical answers. Given this, the use of miracles to explain one's religion belief is flawed, because the idea of miracles is based upon the same flawed logic as used to explain religion.
By it's very nature, faith is belief in something without proof. I will grant you that in my exploration of what faith is, I've had people give me alternate definitions, but by and large this is what faith is to most people, and it is the basis of religious belief. Religion without faith becomes empirical, and if it becomes empirical then it becomes the venue of science. Since no religion is the valid venue of science then religion must be predicated on faith.
Since religion is predicated on faith, and since faith is the belief of something without proof, then those who are religious accept the idea that some things can exist without any empirical trace and without any relationship to reality (defining reality to be that which is of the physical world covered by scientific inquiry). If this is the case, then it's silly to say that the application of faith as a means of belief is not applicable to other beliefs or as a method of explaining other phenoma.
If faith is accepted as a valid explanation of other phenomena, then since it is a catchall (anything can be believed in via faith, it has no checking mechanism to prevent such- children have faith in santa clause, christians have faith in god, wiccans have faith in magic, and victims of nigerian scams have faith in their nigerian princes), it represents an explanation off-cutting 'I don't know' as a statement for any event an individual cannot explain via material means.
If an individual cannot explain a phenomena, and if an individual accepts faith as a valid explanatory model, then that individual has nothing preventing them from applying faith as an explanation of a phenomena. If that phenomena happens to have beneficial properties for the individual, then that unexplained, beneficial phenomena can then be viewed as a miracle. ie: "It's a miracle that my dog Flufferbottom found his way home! Angels must have been guiding him."
If faith is used as an argument for belief in miracles, then further inquiry into that phenomena will be cut off since an explanation is already found that sufficiently answers the methodology of the phenomena to the individual. This precludes the potential for a rational or empirical answer to explain the phenomena and instead attributes supernatural status to it.
Ergo, what an individual terms to be a miracle, is quite readily the product of inadequate rational inquiry into a subject because you cannot discount the potential of unknown answers (in previous example, fluffy may know the town from being walked regularly, and driven about in a car, or animals may be able to navigate via landmarks such as angle and position of mountains, ergo fluffy could find his way home via explanations other than angels). However if faith is used as an explanation to headoff the potential for simply not knowing something, then you cut short the investigation for rational/empirical answers. Given this, the use of miracles to explain one's religion belief is flawed, because the idea of miracles is based upon the same flawed logic as used to explain religion.
