As long unexplained miracles happen, there will always be believers

[Milton Platt]

We are talking about doctors... not "most everyone".

At John Hopkins and the hospital the original OP (Baylor College of Medicine)stated 13, it would be large enough.

Okay, so 13 doctors stated that they did not understand how the person went into remission. You need to leave it at that. They don't know. If they discover a supernatural component operating and they publish a paper showing how that works, then that will be interesting. It would also be interesting to learn why the god in question needed help from doctors.

You are now changing from apples to oranges and therefore this is irrelevant. Again... we are taliking "doctors" not "simply having someone declare something a miracle".

No, I was pointing out that people use the word miracle very loosely, and just because someone calls something a miracle, that does not make it one. The issue I was trying to make you understand is that all sorts of ordinary events are called miracles these days. A doctor using the word miracle is not the equivalent of him saying a supernatural event occurred.


This doesn't have any logic. Remission after treatment? Are we talking lottery? All of these are strawman statement.s

You stated that the person was cured supernaturally. I was pointing out that the person also had medical treatment. How did you eliminate the effect of the treatment, and how did you eliminate the possibility of spontaneous remission? It does happen.

As to the reference to the lottery, winning one is a rare event for any specific person. Since you said a rare event is a miracle, I was simply asking if that rare event was a miracle. The same for spontaneous remission of tumors in lab rats. It is a rare occurrence, and I was asking since it is rare, do you then think it is a miracle performed by god? Is god spending his time healing lab rats? If so, then all the research done with them to test medicines and find cures to diseases was for nothing, because the experiments would all return bogus results.


If you want odds (as it seems like you are pulling every stop possible:

Just trying to get you to be specific instead of making broad statements that seem to not be grounded in anything but wishful thinking.
If you cannot clearly outline what a miraculous event is, then there is no way to be sure it was.......

One mathematician’s estimate of those impossible odds is “one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion.”³

So what??? How does this make either of the events concerning your friend or the pastor a miracle?

What are the Odds? - Y-Jesus.com

Could that be a miracle?

I don't know.......

Hearsay from an anonymous author who wrote down a story he heard that was repeated orally for decades before he recorded it? Not enough evidence here to know if the events even occurred, much less that they were miraculous.

You are the one saying you can tell a miracle from a rare but naturally occurring event. Can you demonstrate that you know (as opposed to just believing)??
You said that anything that was a rare occurrence was a miracle, and I was asking how rare something had to be to be considered a miracle so that it is possible to know the point at which one would know it might be a miracle instead of simply a rare occurrence. And past the point of where you think something can be a miracle, how do you separate naturally occurring but rare events from a rare event that is also a miracle?

LOL... And where in the Bible did it define "miracle"? Or is this your personal version?

My apologies. It is what I've been told by other Christians. I'm asking you for your definition of a miracle and you can't seem to clearly define it. I thought it would help to demonstrate what other Christians have stated to me were miracles. But if you don't think those events were miraculous, then I'm okay with that.........I'm not even a theist, but I would seriously consider that someone rising from the grave after three days of being dead might be a miraculous event, or in other words, something that defies one or more natural laws. I would have thought rising from the grave after being dead or living in the belly of a big fish would be something you considered miraculous. But you tell me.

Seems like it also included tax money, healings, recovery of sight and something as simple as knowing where to fish at. I don't know what this is in reference to. Sometimes the miraculous is so supernatural, it seems natural. So then you are saying that there is no way to tell the difference? That was my point all along.

A dream could be supernatural though you may think it is natural
Can you then also have a natural dream and think it is supernatural? If so,how do you know which is which?

Appreciate the discussion. The subject of miracles is interesting. Have asked many people how you know a miracle happened and not simply something rare that happened naturally. Nobody seems to know.

 

[Kenny]

I took the liberty to not answer some of the questions that are not applicable

Okay, so 13 doctors stated that they did not understand how the person went into remission. You need to leave it at that. They don't know. If they discover a supernatural component operating and they publish a paper showing how that works, then that will be interesting. It would also be interesting to learn why the god in question needed help from doctors.

I'm not sure if you heard the radio program... It isn't "why the god in question needed help from doctors" but rather why the doctors needed God. Doctors couldn't fix the problem

No, I was pointing out that people use the word miracle very loosely, and just because someone calls something a miracle, that does not make it one. The issue I was trying to make you understand is that all sorts of ordinary events are called miracles these days. A doctor using the word miracle is not the equivalent of him saying a supernatural event occurred.

And I was using the point that average "people" doesn't represent "doctors". If you want to think that the doctors are just flipping the word without understanding... I can't do anything about that.

You stated that the person was cured supernaturally. I was pointing out that the person also had medical treatment. How did you eliminate the effect of the treatment, and how did you eliminate the possibility of spontaneous remission? It does happen.

Again... not the subject matter. "Does happen" is one thing but "remission" has nothing to do with both cases.

Can you then also have a natural dream and think it is supernatural? If so,how do you know which is which?

Appreciate the discussion. The subject of miracles is interesting. Have asked many people how you know a miracle happened and not simply something rare that happened naturally. Nobody seems to know.

Here is a good example.

9 The next day as the three travelers were approaching the town, Peter went out on the balcony to pray. It was about noon.
10 Peter got hungry and started thinking about lunch. While lunch was being prepared, he fell into a trance.
11 He saw the skies open up. Something that looked like a huge blanket lowered by ropes at its four corners settled on the ground.
12Every kind of animal and reptile and bird you could think of was on it.
13Then a voice came: "Go to it, Peter - kill and eat."
14 Peter said, "Oh, no, Lord. I've never so much as tasted food that was not kosher."
15The voice came a second time: "If God says it's okay, it's okay."
16 This happened three times, and then the blanket was pulled back up into the skies.
17 As Peter, puzzled, sat there trying to figure out what it all meant, the men sent by Cornelius showed up at Simon's front door.
18They called in, asking if there was a Simon, also called Peter, staying there.
19 Peter, lost in thought, didn't hear them, so the Spirit whispered to him, "Three men are knocking at the door looking for you.
20 Get down there and go with them. Don't ask any questions. I sent them to get you."
21 Peter went down and said to the men, "I think I'm the man you're looking for. What's up?"

Could we say that you would know by the results?