The purpose of miracles

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by water, Mar 9, 2005.

  1. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    The purpose of miracles



    Firstly, let's suppose that miracles can and do happen, or we cannot have this discussion.

    My question is:

    Why do miracles happen?


    Does God perform them to justify people's faith in Him?
    Or is this what some believe, so that they feel their faith is justified?


    Or are miracles a way of God helping His people?
    If so, why do they happen so rarely?


    If one simply asks for a miracle -- something that seems impossible to happen any way known to man -- what then? It usually doesn't happen. Why not?
     
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  3. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    The whole concept of 'miracles' is a patriarchal idea that Nature is mechancial--in a christian sense and that 'God' is able to violate that mechanical law by allowing 'miracles' to happen.
    Now, the church would sanction that, though it was reluctant to do so less there was lots of evidence it WAs from their 'God' etc, and not their 'Devil'!

    so their idea demonized the much more ancient magick of Earth religions. All that they NOw said was evil and from the Devil, because they associated Nature with the Devil, as he was thought to be 'Lord of the World'

    what i am saying therefore is that the idea of magick was apart and parcel of our pagan ancestors lives, and Indigenous people's lives. And it wasn't considered separate from Nature!

    Next question is, why doesn't effects from magick happen with conveyor belt efficiency, so as to satisfy science who wants results to prove its reality?

    all i can say is to that....thank the GODDESS it may NOT. for if it did the mechansitic-materialistic world of science would patent it and use it for their fukin war effort!
     
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  5. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    Because certain criteria have to be fulfilled for a miracle to happen?


    That would be possible if God -- whoever or whatever is "in charge of answering prayers" -- had no will of His own, had no criteria to judge pleas by, and would simply do whatever anyone would ask of Him. If this were so, then indeed, "miracles" were just another extension of the otherwise mechanicistic nature -- and there would be no difference between the miraculous and the non-miraculous anyway.
     
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  7. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    But i am saying that i do not believe that Nature is in ANY way mechanical to beGIN with. That just because scientists CAN utilize enegies from Nature in a seemingly mechanical way--ie., thy can predict that such and such will happen if they do such and such, and from there therfore assume that Nature is mechnaical and a device under their control. That to then presume that they are dealing with a machine is a fallacy. and a very dangerous one. for that mindset desacrilizes Nature by its very mindset treating it as a machine.

    There are many levels of subtlety to Nature, and other means of interelating with it. The one favoured by curent orthodox science is one of objectifying it
    as a machine. It even does that with humans too. W are machines to mechansitic science. A 'work-force'.
     
  8. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    I have never said or implied that you believe that nature is mechanical in any way.
     
  9. Jenyar Solar flair Valued Senior Member

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    We have this idea that miracles have to happen with great fanfare - lightning from the sky and angels on trumpets. Why?

    In his book, Miracles, CS Lewis proposes that miracles do not have to be supernatural events in the sense of being highly sensational and impressive. They are simply extranatural - God intervening - sometimes to help, sometimes to confirm faith, but always with something greater (and in our eyes, more simple or less impressive) in mind.

    When we catch an apple falling from a tree, we are simply interacting with nature, but from the perspective of the apple it is nothing less than supernatural intervention.

    Miracles are actually quite weak at generating faith. They often accompany simple faith, or happen in providence when no other means are available. When there is nobody else to catch the apple. But God put people on earth with purpose, and to be miracles to each other, not for an audience to watch Him. Most miracles are known to man, which is why miracles do not seem to happen often. Maybe you should rather say miracles do not happen as we expect them to very often.

    Because they do not happen to satisfy our purpose for them, they happen to satisfy God's purpose for us. We just often refuse to see something unless it serve our preconceptions; we feel so lost that help seems too little, too powerless, too late. But God seems to prefer simple things and words and people to instill faith and perform great things among those who don't even feel strong enough to lift themselves out of bed.

    The greatest miracle of all was crucified in shame and contempt on a cross, because He did not seem great and glorious enough to the people who expected him. What was greatness to God was foolishness to them.

    We underestimate the means that are available, and we underestimate what God can do with just five loaves of bread and two dead fish.
    John 6:26 Jesus answered, I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.

    1 Cor. 13... if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.​
     
    Last edited: Mar 9, 2005
  10. Medicine*Woman Jesus: Mythstory--Not History! Valued Senior Member

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    8,346
    water: The purpose of miracles

    Firstly, let's suppose that miracles can and do happen, or we cannot have this discussion.

    My question is:

    Why do miracles happen?

    Does God perform them to justify people's faith in Him?
    Or is this what some believe, so that they feel their faith is justified?

    Or are miracles a way of God helping His people?
    If so, why do they happen so rarely?

    If one simply asks for a miracle -- something that seems impossible to happen any way known to man -- what then? It usually doesn't happen. Why not?
    *************
    M*W: Miracles are relative to the individual's perception of the miracle. Miracles occur through that individual's power of positive thinking. That is the kingdom of god within.
     
  11. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    First of all, define "positive thinking". Is that 'to think positive, happy, cheerful thoughts'?

    Secondly, according to you, is it meaningless to wish for a miracle to happen for someone else?

    Thirdly, a person, who has been in a coma for a long time, suddenly awakes. Will you insist that it "occured through that individual's power of positive thinking"?

    A person lost in the woods prays for somoeone to come and rescue them. And it happens. This person thinks it is a miracle. For nobody knew that he went into that wood, and the ranger who found him was actually going on a bear hunt. There is no (direct) causal correspondence between the lost person's desire to be found, and the ranger finding him. Has this person been found due to "/his individual/ power of positive thinking"?
     
  12. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    9,199
    Water,

    Well no that doesn’t follow. What might be of value is to discuss why the concept of miracles appears important to some religions.

    They don’t. They are a silly idea. To date no one has been able to link an unexplained event to a supernatural source.

    A miracle would be an extraordinary event that would defy any natural explanation and hence would perhaps go a long way to prove that a god of some type exists. This is the reason miracle stories exist i.e. attempts to support theistic arguments, or in other words fantasy in support of fantasy.

    For example in the beginning of early Christian mythology there were no miracle stories. Such stories all appeared around 50CE, some 20 years after the death of the alleged Christian son god. According to the Q research peoples from ancient times saw cases of miracles as absolutely necessary to give credibility to new god claims; hence appropriate stories were created. These in turn fed into Mark some 30 years later as Christian mythology really began to take shape. The other gospels simply copied from Mark and propagated the same fictions. Note that the letters from Paul do not reference the miracle stories since those letters originated in Greece and in parallel and disconnected from the other Palestine/Syria myth making activities.
     
  13. Medicine*Woman Jesus: Mythstory--Not History! Valued Senior Member

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    8,346
    Jenyar: "When we catch an apple falling from a tree, we are simply interacting with nature, but from the perspective of the apple it is nothing less than supernatural intervention."
    *************
    M*W: This is amazing! How you can manage to anthropomorphize an apple having consciousness, and the ability to perceive supernatural intervention on its behalf, your observation should be submitted to a scientific journal for publication!

    Jenyar, seriously, you need help! Your delusions are getting out of hand. If you believe an apple can perceive the supernatural, you have really gone off the deep end. You don't have any pets, do you?
     
  14. Silas asimovbot Registered Senior Member

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    1,116
    If you can't see that that statement (along with many others of a similar nature you make around the forums) is exactly as sexist as you keep accusing others of being, then I'm afraid you are getting to be beyond help.

    Honestly, duendy, you have a lot to contribute, but this patriarchy thing is, seriously, getting really, really old. Give it a rest, for Godess's sake, mun.

    On miracles, I think the argument for them can stand whether they really happened or not - the sight (or hearing the tale) of the miracle simply attracts the attention of someone otherwise totally unaware of God, as a demonstration of God's power. After that, you get into the teaching of Jesus (or Muhammed or whoever) and don't really consider the miracles an important part of one's belief any more.

    I was raised a Catholic Christian so naturally I always accepted the miracles of the Old and New Testaments as a matter of natural faith. But even though I was raised Catholic, I always regarded any post-Biblical supposed miracles with the deepest scepticism (which most Catholics do not, I believe). Which is why I was never so keen on Saint worship as other Catholics are, since one man's stigmata are no different from another's "Jesus's face in a taco".
     
  15. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    54,036
    Miracles happen, but what differentiates a miracle from the ordinary is that we didn't expect it to happen. Given that our knowledge is incomplete, one would expect the unexpected to happen once in a while. I don't believe it is driven by reason or personality, those concepts just don't apply on a universal existential scale. Many miracles are considered so because we ordinarily undervalue ourselves. Like when Spongebob and Patrick thought they were real men by virtue of their fake mustaches, and thus were able to tranverse the monster-filled chasm. They had the power all along, but just didn't believe in themselves.
     
  16. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    6,442
    Then start your own thread on this.

    I have specified the direction of this thread in the opening post. Contribute to the topic, or start your own thread about the issue you wish to have discussed.



    * * *

    Me-ta-phor. Unknown to you, isn't it?
     
  17. Leo Volont Registered Senior Member

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    1,509
    Dear Water,

    To understand Miracles, you need to understand the Saints. Apart from the Miracles attributed to the Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I can't think of a single instance of the Miraculous that simply came from God directly. Ordinarily Miracles come through Saints.

    I once studied a great number of Saints but I was never able to thoroughly systematize some narrow band of characteristics that they all held in common. And the miracles seemed to be limited only by the imagination of each particular Saint.

    The Catholic Church has had a relatively large number of first magnitude Saints, but the Sufis who source out of the old Zoroastrian Traditions have had a number, and the Yogic/Indus Traditions have had a number of Saints. Ascetic Tradition which emphasize righteousness and transcendence of the physical seem to have the greatest incidence of Sainthood. It does not seem that Saint ever arise from the General Population, or at least not without instantly attaching themselves to some Mystical/Spiritual Tradition. For instance, no fat drunk has ever become the Saint of miraculously creating barrels of beer and using his powers to miraculously make the clothes of the barmaids disappear.

    Oh, but we do have the Dark Side. It used to easier for those who would use Demons for their powers. Catholicism's foremost Seer and Visionary, Anne Catherine Emmerich, said that before the advent of Christ there were many more demons and the more neutral Earth Spirits about. The World was Polytheistic because the Earth Spirits were not entirely shy and their appearances encouraged the notion that there were Demigods. They came with a certain amount of Spiritual Powers. But with the advent of Christ most of these spirits simply decided to move on, and left for other Astral Worlds. This is what suddenly all at once seemed to let the air out of the Polytheistic Religions... the Priests were no longer getting any results with them. So nowadays it is theoretically possible to conjure the dark miracles -- curses and spells and such -- with the aid of Demons. But the problem I would anticipate there is that it would seem difficult to motivate a demon to be one's slave. Why on earth would a demon allow itself to be fixed to the beck and call of some human being. What possibly could a human being offer to a demon. I'm sure the Book on Witchcraft must address that problem, but I have never been curious enough to look it up.

    But this can make us wonder why God makes certain men into Saints. it may run in families. I know that many of the Catholic Saints had come from pious families that had been pious for generations. So in a sense it may be a step in Evolution.

    There is no one standard formula or perscription for becoming a Saint. Or even for achieving the Mystical Experience. I heard a few years back that the Zen Buddhists decided to have a World Conference to bring as many Students as possible to the Conscious State of Satori -- the name they have for the Ultimate Mystical Experience. It was by invitation only and just the most promising students from all around the World were invited. The Best Masters were brought in and only the most tried and true Disciplines were brought to bear. Nothing happened. the best we can say is that the Zen Masters were honest enough to admit that everything fizzled out. No one pretended to be 'Enlightened' simply to save face. They got integrity if nothing else, and that is a good thing. But it shows that you can't achieve Sainthood simply by pushing the right buttons in the right order.

    If I knew what it took I would do it. ... unless I would have to miss too much TV...
     
  18. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    ((((()))))))************))))))((((((((((((
     
  19. Silas asimovbot Registered Senior Member

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    It's not "ruffling my feathers", duendy, it's boring me. Every time you first respond to a topic, the word "Patriarchal" is guaranteed to be in the first sentence.

    I'm bored by it because I do not find it a particularly useful way of looking at the issues of religion or culture. As I'd hoped I'd made clear from the way I said it, I did not assume you were being sexist, I read sexism in what you wrote and then told you so. The "mechanistic" view of the world is attributed by you to the Patriarchy, (assuming you mean the scientific viewpoint) is in fact due to an unbiased rational view taken from the evidence we find. It is not slanted one way or another, and there's no particular reason to suggest that some women do not share that mechanistic view, or that many men are attracted to the (supposedly feminine) mystical, and always have been. And you'll have to forgive me but I can't in my mind separate "The Fathers" from the fact that fathers are, by and large male - making it the blaming of all our troubles (as you see it) on the men of yore, by and large just for their being men.
     
  20. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    Silas, i am not really that concerned if you find me boring or not. And you seeem to chop and change. one minute accusing me of being 'sexist' which you put in bold emphasis and then you say you didn't mean that and then you do.....sweet shick make yer mind up

    i could also say i am bored. bored with constant literalization of myth. COULD. but i dont. i have the common courtesy not to do that. challenge yes.

    if i bore you, so, dont read me. dont try and pretend also its mere boredom. obviously it rattles your boat otherwise you'd just yawn and ignore...right?

    you mention that women too are part of the mechnaistic trip. well of course they are. the wohle institutional set up is...PATRIARCHAL. and like i said its not just women affected, but men too. you our reminding me of men being into spirituality etc is besides the point. i have already explained--if you would listen
    you then go back to calling me sexiist cause you caught understand how it cannot but be so as patriarchay means 'rule of the fathers'....well it is an ATTITUDE. i use the term not just to include maechansitic-materialistic science and monotheistic religion, but ANY belief system that psychologically divides 'spirit' from 'matter..This will include then patriarchal paganism, and Eastern beliefs that claim Nature is 'Maya'.....!

    it is all a particularly type of masculine attitude towards Nature which it is fearful of. in patriarchal myth it sees Nature as femininbe. and even in the writings of scientific pioneers such as Francis Bacon references are made to Nature that are inescapably feminine...including 'rape' and so on

    But listen if I have to suffer literalization, and posts that try and debate about it becoming taboo and ignored, then YOU suffer my wanting to draw attantion to the patriarchy. if bored. go away
     
  21. Silas asimovbot Registered Senior Member

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    When did I chop and change? I said,
    I put the word "assume" in bold so you would understand. You accused me of assuming you were sexist, and I was telling you that no, I did not assume you were being sexist, I say you're sexist from what little of your stuff I manage to read - in this case, "The mechanistic view is patriarchal".

    Now you deny your being sexist, and then write, "it is all a particularly type of masculine attitude towards Nature which it is fearful of." Now, I've read a number of statements like that from you and I'm gradually getting more and more offended by them. Forgive me, but I am a male myself, and I am starting to get slighted that you are making assumptions about what I think about Nature and the Universe based entirely upon my masculinity - which I could not help in the first place if I tried! That, to me, is the meaning of sexist. You ascribe a characteristic of mind to some outward characteristic of body which cannot be changed, and everyone who shares that characteristic is eventually going to start to get offended.

    I have given you the "common courtesy" of telling you that I find your relentless single-minded viewpoint boring in the knowlege that there's a lot more for you to contribute and the hope that you will start to demonstrate it. That's my idea of common courtesy. In other words, I bother to tell you I'm bored because I'm interested in what you have to say.
     
  22. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    oh dear, now you are bored because you are interested in what i say? you a mixed up one aren't you?

    You also say you are offended - cause i say mechanization of Nature is a patriarchal oppression - be cause you are 'MALE.
    I.e you claim to be both bored and interested in what i say, but IF the latter dont flippin LISTEN to what i say.... which is -i repeat-that the patriarchal attitude is not a man-thang, but a patriarchal thang, thoufgh of course males' anatomy and potential drift off into soley left-brain thinking is partly the problem of course.
    But men got persecuted by the rabid patriarchal persecuters--for being heretics, just like womens did.

    The fact you are offended--regarding my argument is good. it means its gettin to ya
     
  23. Silas asimovbot Registered Senior Member

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    The fact that you had no real answer to any of my points, seems to mean that I'm getting to you!

    Pax.

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