Do Miracles Exist? - Is the physically impossible possible?

[Dell]

Does a miracle have to be considered unexplainable just because it had a supernatural origin? If a miracle is explainable does it cease to be a miracle? Is every act of God constituted to be a miracle?

Example: Jesus turned water to wine, should not it be physically explainable?

Example: God created man from clay and the woman from a rib, should not God be able to explain to you how it was achieved?

 

[Deidre]

I think the definition of miracle isn't exclusive to divinity. So, an event can happen that is surprising or hard to believe, but can be explainable through a scientific answer. Maybe a medical breakthrough would be considered a ''miracle.''

 

[oldbadger]

Does a miracle have to be considered unexplainable just because it had a supernatural origin? If a miracle is explainable does it cease to be a miracle? Is every act of God constituted to be a miracle?

Example: Jesus turned water to wine, should not it be physically explainable?

Example: God created man from clay and the woman from a rib, should not God be able to explain to you how it was achieved?

Miracles might exist.
In a nutshell, I was very very ill last autumn (fluid on lungs and suspected cancer) and went to a healer. Two days later a non-plussed specialist found that I was clear of any illness.
Days after that another illness cleared up as well..... my knees became pain-free for the first time in over 40 years and soon afterwards I found that I could do knee-bends etc without pain. They are still working fine.
And my IBS cleared up since the time of that healing.

I don't know what's going on with all this, but I can only think of that one healing session.

 

[Mindmaster]

Does a miracle have to be considered unexplainable just because it had a supernatural origin? If a miracle is explainable does it cease to be a miracle? Is every act of God constituted to be a miracle?

Example: Jesus turned water to wine, should not it be physically explainable?

Example: God created man from clay and the woman from a rib, should not God be able to explain to you how it was achieved?

I think the term supernatural is a misnomer most of the time. If you are somehow aided by unseen forces are they not parts of nature as well?

Situations that seem too fantastic are probably metaphorical in origin in the first place. The better question is why do you seem to feel everything needs to be physically explainable? It seems such a condition would set arbitrary conditions on what is acceptable information. This is a belief system -- basically being dogmatic about being anti-dogmatic. In short, it's a bit of hypocrisy and self-inflicted deception defined by intense skepticism. Are the parts of us like "will", "thought", or "emotion" real? We evidence these through our shared experiences... This is the proof of so-called miracles, but also the proof of other spiritual doings. If you speak to god X and so do I and we both receive what we could interpret as a response there probably is a god X. Whether that god X is a part of ourselves or not is another conversation, but largely irrelevant.

 

[George-ananda]

Example: Jesus turned water to wine, should not it be physically explainable?

I'm not sure I understand your example there. A 'miracle' in that case is something not explainable inside our 'normal' understanding of reality. Water becoming wine is not understandable in our 'normal' understanding of reality.

And to answer the thread title, 'Do Miracles Exist? - Is the physically impossible possible?'; Yes I think such things do occur.

 

[whirlingmerc]

Does a miracle have to be considered unexplainable just because it had a supernatural origin? If a miracle is explainable does it cease to be a miracle? Is every act of God constituted to be a miracle?

Example: Jesus turned water to wine, should not it be physically explainable?

Example: God created man from clay and the woman from a rib, should not God be able to explain to you how it was achieved?

Providences are possible
Miracles are only possible with God - still possible in that sense

 

[Twilight Hue]

Does a miracle have to be considered unexplainable just because it had a supernatural origin? If a miracle is explainable does it cease to be a miracle? Is every act of God constituted to be a miracle?

Example: Jesus turned water to wine, should not it be physically explainable?

Example: God created man from clay and the woman from a rib, should not God be able to explain to you how it was achieved?

If something happened , there's always going to be an answer/explanation for it.

There has never been a single occurrence of something ever happening that was impossible.

 

[Polymath257]

Well, a miracle is supposed to be something that happens in violation of physical law. But physical laws are *descriptive*, not proscriptive. If we see something that goes against our *current understanding* of the physical laws, that simply means we have to modify our understanding and figure out the more general law that we previously missed.

What that ultimately means is that a miracle is technically impossible: There is *some* description of what happened, some pattern to the occurrence, and that pattern *is* a physical law.

Now, there *are* occurrences that are very rare and some will designate these rare events as miraculous. Spontaneous healing is one class of events that happens and that we don't *currently* understand. But our current lack of understanding of complicated systems like the human body does NOT mean that the physical laws were violated when someone spontaneously gets better from a disease process.

 

[shunyadragon]

Does a miracle have to be considered unexplainable just because it had a supernatural origin? If a miracle is explainable does it cease to be a miracle? Is every act of God constituted to be a miracle?

Example: Jesus turned water to wine, should not it be physically explainable?

Example: God created man from clay and the woman from a rib, should not God be able to explain to you how it was achieved?

Referring to ancient reports of miracles and ancient scripture is a bad route to discuss what are miracles and do they in reality exist. The ancient writings of all cultures of the world are loaded with many miracles and miraculous creatures. Believers that persist in claiming these ancient reports are real are on shaky grounds, and they mostly attempt to justify the miraculous in their religious traditions only as Divine miracles face contradictions of unbelievable proportions.

I view the miraculous in the Divine perspective of the Baha'i Faith. The appearance of miracles are from the human perspective in the times they are claimed to occur. There is no such thing as miracles nor the supernatural, all things are natural.

The word following miracle in the dictionary is mirage.

 

[Cacotopia]

People say birth is a miracle even though it happens multiple times daily.

 

[Thief]

Does a miracle have to be considered unexplainable just because it had a supernatural origin? If a miracle is explainable does it cease to be a miracle? Is every act of God constituted to be a miracle?

Example: Jesus turned water to wine, should not it be physically explainable?

Example: God created man from clay and the woman from a rib, should not God be able to explain to you how it was achieved?

thank you so much for this thread.....may it pull forever.....

I do believe....
if we have the reservation.....that ability to say 'no'
creation soon follows

and I am not the only one to express this notion

I also heard it in a song by Madonna
......'creation comes when you learn to say 'no'....

physically explainable?
as if the physical was in the lead?

how about spiritually explainable?
as if the will of spirit can control the physical

 

[shunyadragon]

thank you so much for this thread.....may it pull forever.....

I do believe....
if we have the reservation.....that ability to say 'no'
creation soon follows.

OK, you believe . . .

and I am not the only one to express this notion

I also heard it in a song by Madonna
......'creation comes when you learn to say 'no'....

Not meaningful.

physically explainable?
as if the physical was in the lead?

By the objective verifiable evidence yes.

how about spiritually explainable?
as if the will of spirit can control the physical

Possibly, but purely natural physical explanations have adequate explanations.

 

[Stevicus]

I remember they said the 1969 Mets were a miracle.

 

[Thief]

and if ever I see someone walk on water....
I would not let him out of my sight

 

[Polymath257]

People say birth is a miracle even though it happens multiple times daily.

And not at all a violation of the physical laws.

 

[shunyadragon]

I remember they said the 1969 Mets were a miracle.

They gave up their balsa wood baseball bats for real ones,

 

[Dell]

I think the term supernatural is a misnomer most of the time. If you are somehow aided by unseen forces are they not parts of nature as well?

Situations that seem too fantastic are probably metaphorical in origin in the first place. The better question is why do you seem to feel everything needs to be physically explainable? It seems such a condition would set arbitrary conditions on what is acceptable information. This is a belief system -- basically being dogmatic about being anti-dogmatic. In short, it's a bit of hypocrisy and self-inflicted deception defined by intense skepticism. Are the parts of us like "will", "thought", or "emotion" real? We evidence these through our shared experiences... This is the proof of so-called miracles, but also the proof of other spiritual doings. If you speak to god X and so do I and we both receive what we could interpret as a response there probably is a god X. Whether that god X is a part of ourselves or not is another conversation, but largely irrelevant.

Yea..., good try..., but the bottom line of our "will", "thought", and "emotion" is connected to our brain. There is mechanics to all this that our conscience psychology tends to reject and call it spirit instead. I dont get your Hypocrisy accusation.. can u elaborate? Every thing that happens in the physical universe has some mechanics behind it. Like life itself, each neurological body has a functioning micro biological layer, molecular layar, and then a quantum layer under that... how all that works into a self aware consciousness is amazing but most certainly reasonably describable when understood.

 

[Dell]

I remember they said the 1969 Mets were a miracle.

Yea like the Saints winning the super bowl... all those demons in hell must have had to shovel snow off their driveways that day...

 

[Mindmaster]

Yea..., good try..., but the bottom line of our "will", "thought", and "emotion" is connected to our brain. There is mechanics to all this that our conscience psychology tends to reject and call it spirit instead. I dont get your Hypocrisy accusation.. can u elaborate? Every thing that happens in the physical universe has some mechanics behind it. Like life itself, each neurological body has a functioning micro biological layer, molecular layar, and then a quantum layer under that... how all that works into a self aware consciousness is amazing but most certainly reasonably describable when understood.

You're mistaking the car for the driver. It makes no sense for the molecules in our bodies to organize and move. They'd be perfectly fine if they didn't.

 

[Dell]

You're mistaking the car for the driver. It makes no sense for the molecules in our bodies to organize and move. They'd be perfectly fine if they didn't.

DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a molecule composed of two chains which coil around each other to form a double helix carrying the genetic instructions used in the growth, development, functioning and reproduction of all known living organisms and many viruses. DNA and ribonucleic acid are nucleic acids; alongside proteins, lipids and complex carbohydrates, nucleic acids are one of the four major types of macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life.