**Devils advocate**

Since miracles contradict science they cannot be true.

Miracles resulted in place of a real, scientific explanation for events that occured at a time when the audience could find no other rational cause. They are exaggerated recounts of events, the stuff myths and legends are made up of.

ok then, by your definition...

since science can't explain a thought, thoughts don't exist...and we just act at random....SURE, whatever...almost sounds believable LOL

aaaaah but a miracle can allso be a sincetifc event that happens when sinctists say it is not suposed to be so

Science states that any civilization whose science is sufficiently advanced over our own will be able to do things that seem like "Magic" to us.

Since God has existed forever and we have not is it such a hard stretch of the imagination that God can produce miracles, which to us appear like magic?

Even our own scientific minds admit that possibility.

Do you think the blind man given sight when he had been blind from birth questioned the gift or the "science" behind it?

Just some food for thought.

Raymond

Lighting: can you go a bit deeper?

Shards: so God does advance science?

Well lets say that someone is badly injorid in a car wreck. This person is brot to the hostible and put on life suport becouse the victiom is in a colma.

The docters say that the person will be able to heal (regrenate) his injories and eventuley come out of the colma but it will probly take some months and maby even a few years.

Well lets say this persons friends and family get together and pray for the persons recovery, And then for no understandable reason the person wakes up , gets up and leaves his bed.

This sort of thing is not souposed to be able to happen full and total spontanos regenration by all sinetifc and medacle standers is imposible but yet it happend anney ways.

The doctors new that the person would eventuly heal and regain consciousness and it happend excalty the way the new t would (the since part)

But what defies both logic and explanation it the fact that it happend in a matter of houres insted of months or years. That there in is the miracle.

Another thing to note is that man cannot leard anneything that God dose not want us to know just yet. So there for the veary excenstenc and our knowldges on medical since is allso a mirecal

I'm not sure that is a proper question, from God's point of view, Khisanthax. I think perhaps we put far too much emphasis on the physical world we live in, which to God is a temporary existence at best.

The word likens our time here as similar to our existence in the womb at birth. A far different existence waited us upon birth into the world outside the womb.

This physical existence is like that. So how important is our science to God, given that.

I can show you where he perhaps retarded that science for the sake of His plans at the tower of Babel for instance. Did He help us to create wonderful scientific "miracles' to aid us in this life? I don't know perhaps at certain points in time perhaps not. If He did I think it was to further along His plans for us more than anything else.

We have been given the freedom to do what we can with what we have and to do less I think is to not live within God's will. Having said that so much of what we can do brings more evil than good. But then I believe the contrast between this life and the life to come is one of the lessons we are here to learn.

Consider that God lives in the "Spirit Realm" that is a universe composed of Spirit much like our world is composed of matter. Consider also that matter at its smallest view are vibrations at a certain frequency.

Is it a stretch to consider that Spirit might be composed of much higher frequencies that cannot be seen by us much like we can't hear the frequencies of sound that a dog can?

So to me this physical world and its science is just a very poor reflection of the Spiritual Kingdom where laws and rules of existence differ so greatly as to not be even comprehensible to our senses and experiences.

How important then is our science in the long haul other than to show us the "wrong" way to do a thing.

Miracles are real and God is a God who is a lawgiver and keeps his laws. We just don't understand the laws of the Spiritual Kingdom when they impinge on our physical world.

Hope that answers your question.

Raymond

Khis,

Mans' truth or GOD, The Fathers', truth?

Khisanthax wrote: › **Devils advocate** Since miracles contradict science they cannot be true.

You haven't stated at all why this is the case. What is it about miracles and science that contradict each other?

Christians believe the world started miraculously. But miracles lie outside of science, which by definition deals with the natural, the repeatable, that which is governed by law. So miracles are the exact opposite. Science is obviously true because what it deals with is true, so since it is contradictory to miracles, miracles must not be true.

Khisanthax wrote: › Christians believe the world started miraculously. But miracles lie outside of science, which by definition deals with the natural, the repeatable, that which is governed by law. So miracles are the exact opposite. Science is obviously true because what it deals with is true, so since it is contradictory to miracles, miracles must not be true.

Lots of assumptions.
Hmmm... I'm still not seeing an explicit contradiction, since the view that "miracles lie outside science" in no way implies that miracles are the exact opposite of science and in no way implies a contradiction. Let me set up the problem and you can respond.

I'll start at by looking at what miracle is and then what look at what science is. The definition of miracle that I like best was given by John Frame as "unusual events in which God reveals himself with remarkable vividness." This covers almost everything that could be considered a miracle from Jesus resurrection to the birth of a child to Jesus walking on water. So the first thing to notice is that there is nothing in this definition that implies that miracles lie outside of science. The problem comes in when we hear of miracles - like Jesus walking on water - that seem to violate some "natural law."

Science, roughly, could be called the study of these "natural laws." We are constantly learning about them. This means there are things we don't know and that as we learn more, we may find that things we thought we knew were actually wrong. You are quite right that miracles often lie outside of science - that is, like you said, miracles aren't repeatable and therefore incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to make scientific theories about them. This, of course, doesn't mean that miracles can't happen, it just means that science isn't equipped to handle them.

So, I don't see what the problem is since even using the most strict definition of miracles science isn't equipped to study miracles. Also, since science doesn't dictate what must happen but studies and adapts to what does happen, it can't mean that miracles can't happen. In reality, all science can say about them is "No comment."

One question though, How are miracles not repeatable? Just because man can't or hasn't figured out how to repeat them does not make them inherantly unrepeatable. I figure The Father and The Son could repeat them any time they choose and we'd still be dumbfounded as to how they do them, at least until we're caught up to heaven then I figure these mysteries will be explained to us and they will seem so simple.

quote....So, I don't see what the problem is since even using the most strict definition of miracles science isn't equipped to study miracles. Also, since science doesn't dictate what must happen but studies and adapts to what does happen, it can't mean that miracles can't happen. In reality, all science can say about them is "No comment."

yes exactly " no comment" or insufficant evidence.
It has no scientific value if it cant be tested, measured over and over again. ( why Evo is fact by the way) Since no natural phenomenon has been observed that violate the natural laws that guides it. It is assumed that supernatural and other metaphysical phenomenon does not exist.
If the bible claims that Jesus walked on water, we only have written claims ( and we know from other books how history makes all sorts of claims that are false like, the earth is held up by giant Turtles, or the burned witch in Spain was responsible for the bad weather)
To make such an extra ordinary claim, we need extraordinary evidence, because naturally people are going to be skeptical if every observation so far has indicated that its impossible to walk on water ( as people make claims like this all the time), because we have no way of testing the claim EXCEPT trying to walk on water yourself, and understanding the characterists of water that make it NATURALLY impossible ( as opposed to SUPERNATURAL) to do so.
To walk on water requires a whole spectrum of Natural laws to be broken, from electron shells to Gravity and so forth.
With Astronomy we see 16 billion years in to the past , no broken Laws observed..Geology we see everything that can be explained useing natural law.
When we smash atoms, make nukes and PC's or study quantum physics, we know that these particals behave mathmatically because we can predict outcomes that would be impossible if particals did not follow Law.
In other words every where you look in the universe, Natural Law is Law, and cannot be broken,
If Jesus walked on water, it would contradict a number of Laws that naturalists naturally find hard to beleive...
i

Templar wrote: › One question though, How are miracles not repeatable? Just because man can't or hasn't figured out how to repeat them does not make them inherantly unrepeatable. I figure The Father and The Son could repeat them any time they choose and we'd still be dumbfounded as to how they do them, at least until we're caught up to heaven then I figure these mysteries will be explained to us and they will seem so simple.

I'm talking about repeatable by man. Under my initial definition of miracle, the birth of a child could be considered a miracle. This happens all the time, however, so it is repeatable and can be studied. Because of this, we are able to come of with explanations about how this happens.

Let's now pretend that Jesus walking on water wasn't an isolated event, but happens every once in a while. If it happens enough times, people will eventually come up with some wacky explanation for how it could happen. The more times that people walking on water is observed, the better explanations we should be able to make.

But since many miracles don't repeat themselves, science is not really equipped to even talk about them. It says, "I'd love to explain that, but you've got to give me something to work with." I mean, science is great in many respects, but it can't do everything.

Trying to ask science to explain miracles is like a game of chess where just before you realize your opponent is going to make a move to put you into check mate, you say "Stop, I need to make a call." You call up your friend Gary Kasparov and say, "Gary, I need your help to win this game!" and Gary answers, "Sorry, there's not much I can do." You reply, "But you aren't supposed to lose ever!" To which he says, "Yes, most people think I'm the best thing since sliced bread when it comes to chess, but that doesn't mean I can win every game." You finally see what he is saying, "I think I see what you are saying. Even though in most normal situations against most normal players, you will never lose. But the situation I wanted to put you in was extreme and so you really couldn't deal with it. I mean, techinically, you could have played the rest of the game for me, but you wouldn't have faired any better than anybody else. I was thinking of you as some sort of chess god, but even as great as you are, I have to remember that you are only human."

reusablehuman wrote: › yes exactly " no comment" or insufficant evidence. It has no scientific value if it cant be tested, measured over and over again. ( why Evo is fact by the way) Since no natural phenomenon has been observed that violate the natural laws that guides it. It is assumed that supernatural and other metaphysical phenomenon does not exist.

Not exactly. "No comment" doesn't imply that we assume that they don't exist. As I said above, it just means that science isn't equipped to talk about it. I mean, when you read the newspapers and see police officers say "No comment" to the question, "Was the murder weapon a frozen ham?" that doesn't mean that the murder weapon wasn't a frozen ham, it just means that the officer isn't in any position to tell you if it was or wasn't.

Quote: › If the bible claims that Jesus walked on water, we only have written claims ( and we know from other books how history makes all sorts of claims that are false like, the earth is held up by giant Turtles, or the burned witch in Spain was responsible for the bad weather) To make such an extra ordinary claim, we need extraordinary evidence, because naturally people are going to be skeptical if every observation so far has indicated that its impossible to walk on water ( as people make claims like this all the time), because we have no way of testing the claim EXCEPT trying to walk on water yourself, and understanding the characterists of water that make it NATURALLY impossible ( as opposed to SUPERNATURAL) to do so.

This is kind of off topic since it doesn't deal with whether miracles and science are compatible. Determining the veracity of the claims of miracles in the Bible would be an interesting topic elsewhere, though.

Quote: › To walk on water requires a whole spectrum of Natural laws to be broken, from electron shells to Gravity and so forth. With Astronomy we see 16 billion years in to the past , no broken Laws observed..Geology we see everything that can be explained useing natural law. When we smash atoms, make nukes and PC's or study quantum physics, we know that these particals behave mathmatically because we can predict outcomes that would be impossible if particals did not follow Law. In other words every where you look in the universe, Natural Law is Law, and cannot be broken, If Jesus walked on water, it would contradict a number of Laws that naturalists naturally find hard to beleive... i

Science is basically our explanations of natural laws. Our explanations, because we are human and finite, are always up for revision and are never considered permanent. So it doesn't require "a whole spectrum of Natural laws to be broken," but rather "some observations to not be in agreement with our explanations of natural laws." This is not a problem, though, since the history of science is filled with examples of observations not being in agreement with our explanations. And many times, these observations are ignored and the explanations are kept.