What, exactly, is a “miracle�?

[Zzyzx]

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What, exactly, is a “miracle�?

Many of these debates involve mention of “miracles�, and many decisions appear to be based upon “miracles�. So, it seems reasonable to ask exactly what constitutes a “miracle�.

[EduChris]

...the “miracles� were not reported / recorded until decades or generations after their reported occurrence (by people who cannot be shown to have been present)...Could they be similar to the legendary “feats� credited to other “gods�?

Stories of Jesus' miracles are found in all strands of the earliest traditions about Jesus. Before the gospels as we know them were compiled, oral traditions were circulating and other written sources (e.g., Q) were preserved. Jesus' miracle stories were well known during the lifetime of eyewitnesses. Philippians 2:6-11 seems to be a phrase from an early hymn that attributed divinity to Jesus. Had Jesus been just an ordinary man, it's difficult to imagine how such stories would have sprung so quickly.

[Goat]

...the “miracles� were not reported / recorded until decades or generations after their reported occurrence (by people who cannot be shown to have been present)...Could they be similar to the legendary “feats� credited to other “gods�?

Stories of Jesus' miracles are found in all strands of the earliest traditions about Jesus. Before the gospels as we know them were compiled, oral traditions were circulating and other written sources (e.g., Q) were preserved. Jesus' miracle stories were well known during the lifetime of eyewitnesses. Philippians 2:6-11 seems to be a phrase from an early hymn that attributed divinity to Jesus. Had Jesus been just an ordinary man, it's difficult to imagine how such stories would have sprung so quickly.

Rumors and myths develop very quickly, and just because there is a story out there doesn't mean the story happened. Look at all the elvis sightings, and the alien abduction stories out there now.. and the elvis sightings happened in the lifetime of the people who knew him too.

Evidence points to the writer of the Gospel of Mark was never near Jerusalem , since there is the problems with geography, and it appears both Matthew and Luke copied from Mark.

We have no writings from any of the alleged eye witnesses, just claims that they exist.

To me, just looking at how stories grow and get exaggerated in real life in the modern day, I can see how such stories spring to life so quickly.

And, the pattern we see in the stories is that the further away they are from the alleged event, the more detailed they get. This pattern is the pattern of the development of myth, not relaying of reality.

[I AM ALL I AM]

Jesus Father was in Him and He was in the Father. When the Father is in you then you are communicating with the Father within you and the Father communicates with you on the inside, in your mind and heart. When you are ONE with the Father in the same way Jesus is one with the Father you are not separate from the Father at all any more than Jesus was separate from the Father. It's a miracle or a mystery which is understood by those who abide in Him.

G'day Skyangel.

Well there's a convoluted discourse.

Referring to the "heart" in such a manner is poetic only. The heart pumps blood throughout the body.

"When you are ONE" with something, you are never separate from it, so there can be no "at all any more" as a qualifier of no longer being separate. Either you are "ONE" with that thing or you are not. Claims of being separated from 'God' is a tool of religion used to make people fearful and manipulate them into thinking that they are required to do something to 'bridge' this separation. Your discourse follows the same premise.

As to the "a miracle or a mystery" remark, from another book ...

[center]Forget mystery and accept love. There's no mystery about love. It comes from life.

Paul Muad’Dib

Dune Messiah

Frank Herbert[/center]

[Skyangel]

Skyangel wrote:

What people write is also usually what they are thinking. If you do not think the words first, you will not write them since you cannot write words if they are not on your mind in the first place. It is not necessary to be a mind reader to know what people are thinking when they write down their thoughts. All you need to do is to be able to read words.

I completely disagree. A particular author's motive and intent are often not displayed in his/her writings. The author may be attempting to deceive or be parading fiction as fact or be deluded himself. One must know the author and be able to relate his writings in context. This is difficult if not impossible with many unattributed ancient writings or those attributed to 'gods' or unknown authors.

That's an interesting view point. Maybe you would like to discuss it with me on http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 956#316956

If we relate it to the bible and understand the definition of the word miracle as "any amazing or wonderful occurrence "
and defining "wonderful" as "extraordinarily good or great"
Is a piece of writing that can be interpreted in so many different ways a wonderful occurrence (miracle) as in being an extraordinary piece of literature?
How many other pieces of literature cause so much controversy, confusion, debates, etc in this world? How many other pieces of literature can be interpreted in so many ways?
Regardless of whether we know who the authors of the 66 books of the bible were or not, in my opinion their literature is a work of genius which has survived the test of time and is still one of the best selling books of all time in the world.

[Skyangel]

Rumors and myths develop very quickly, and just because there is a story out there doesn't mean the story happened. Look at all the elvis sightings, and the alien abduction stories out there now.. and the elvis sightings happened in the lifetime of the people who knew him too.

Anyone who went to an Elvis rock concert while he was alive had an "Elvis sighting" since they obviously saw him.

It would be a miracle if they did not see him while they were at his concert.

If you see Elvis today on an old movie, are you having an "Elvis sighting"? Are you seeing a "ghost" or "vision" of a man who is dead?
The "visions" just get more and more technical these days.

Electromagnetic waves can be transmitted through the air from one place to another without wires.
There is always the possibility that any "visions" of the mind are caused by the mind " tuning in" to these electromagnetic waves which create pictures on our TV screens and computer screens. Why not also in our minds? Our brains are full of electrical activity.

[Flail]

Skyangel wrote:

What people write is also usually what they are thinking. If you do not think the words first, you will not write them since you cannot write words if they are not on your mind in the first place. It is not necessary to be a mind reader to know what people are thinking when they write down their thoughts. All you need to do is to be able to read words.

I completely disagree. A particular author's motive and intent are often not displayed in his/her writings. The author may be attempting to deceive or be parading fiction as fact or be deluded himself. One must know the author and be able to relate his writings in context. This is difficult if not impossible with many unattributed ancient writings or those attributed to 'gods' or unknown authors.

That's an interesting view point. Maybe you would like to discuss it with me on http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 956#316956

If we relate it to the bible and understand the definition of the word miracle as "any amazing or wonderful occurrence "
and defining "wonderful" as "extraordinarily good or great"
Is a piece of writing that can be interpreted in so many different ways a wonderful occurrence (miracle) as in being an extraordinary piece of literature?
How many other pieces of literature cause so much controversy, confusion, debates, etc in this world? How many other pieces of literature can be interpreted in so many ways?
Regardless of whether we know who the authors of the 66 books of the bible were or not, in my opinion their literature is a work of genius which has survived the test of time and is still one of the best selling books of all time in the world.

The Bible contains some well crafted passages, but as a literary work it pales in comparison to many others, The Aeneid, The Iliad,The Odessey,Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, Paradise Regained, Dante's Inferno, Joyce's Ulyssess to name just a few. The Bible is not controversial in and of itself but has been made so by centuries of indoctrinated, tortured interpretation and application.

[Skyangel]

Jesus Father was in Him and He was in the Father. When the Father is in you then you are communicating with the Father within you and the Father communicates with you on the inside, in your mind and heart. When you are ONE with the Father in the same way Jesus is one with the Father you are not separate from the Father at all any more than Jesus was separate from the Father. It's a miracle or a mystery which is understood by those who abide in Him.

G'day Skyangel.

Well there's a convoluted discourse.

Referring to the "heart" in such a manner is poetic only. The heart pumps blood throughout the body.

I am glad you understand the poetic meaning of the heart. I verify you are correct with that interpretation. That is exactly what I meant.

"When you are ONE" with something, you are never separate from it, so there can be no "at all any more" as a qualifier of no longer being separate. Either you are "ONE" with that thing or you are not. Claims of being separated from 'God' is a tool of religion used to make people fearful and manipulate them into thinking that they are required to do something to 'bridge' this separation. Your discourse follows the same premise.

Please do not take phrases out of context and misrepresent them. I said "you are not separate from the Father at all any more than Jesus was separate from the Father"
I did not place a full stop at the end of "at all any more" therefore you were incorrect in the way you interpreted my words. I was making a comparison to the way Jesus was ONE with the Father being IN Him and vice versa. It is a poetic way of expressing unity since no Father can be literally inside his son or vice versa.
In a poetic sense you can be ONE in mind and spirit with any other person yet in a literal physical sense be quite separate from them.
Claims of being "separate from God" is also a poetic expression conveying not being of the same mind, not being in unity but being at enmity or in conflict with another person or even with yourself in your own mind. We have the expression being in two minds about something. That does not mean we have two brains in us but merely means we are having difficulty making up our minds so our mind remains stable and sound instead of wavering between two options, being unreliable and unsound.
What do people do to "bridge" conflict in their own minds? How do people get rid of conflict and uncertainty within themselves when there is "war" of "two minds" going on inside themselves?

As to the "a miracle or a mystery" remark, from another book ...

[center]Forget mystery and accept love. There's no mystery about love. It comes from life.

Paul Muad’Dib

Dune Messiah

Frank Herbert[/center]

Please explain what is not mysterious or miraculous about love?

Love itself is something that is not totally understood by many people. Look at how many think they are madly "in love" with each other and think they cannot live without each other yet after they get married that "love" turns to hate and they get divorced. What happened to the love they vowed to have for better of for worse? The "worse" got too hard to handle? Can you solve the "mystery" of love and why it disappears from those who were once madly "in love"?

Love can create miracles as in the miracle of reproduction or the miracle of turning an enemy into a friend and healing relationships. On the other hand love can also create the worst conflicts in the experience of mankind and can cause people to murder other people out of jealousy. Love has two extremes. It can be extremely kind or extremely cruel, yet both extremes of love are still part of love.

[I AM ALL I AM]

G'day Skyangel.

There is a reason that there is the term "poetic license". Words can take on different meanings for the individual self-expression of the poet. Spelling of a word can be altered to give forth a rhyme, etc, etc.

To utilise such in a debate is pointless as it is asking for others to firstly work out what meaning that you are intending for the words that you use, and secondly asking them to accept your interpretation as something other than personal opinion.

You are entitled to opine whatever you choose to, though as this is a debate forum, such opinions are meant to be supported with "logic/evidence", which yet again you have not done.

The full sentence that you used, "When you are ONE with the Father in the same way Jesus is one with the Father you are not separate from the Father at all any more than Jesus was separate from the Father.", gives the connotation that there is at some point a separation that is present. If this is not what you intended then it might be worthwhile rephrasing what you have posted.

Oh, and by the way, how is it that you consider the mind and brain to be the same thing ?

A miracle is considered as an event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be 'supernatural' in origin or an act of 'God'. As everyone has the capacity to love, then it can hardly be "miraculous". Are you using "poetic license" in your description of love ?

[Skyangel]

G'day Skyangel.

There is a reason that there is the term "poetic license". Words can take on different meanings for the individual self-expression of the poet. Spelling of a word can be altered to give forth a rhyme, etc, etc.

To utilise such in a debate is pointless as it is asking for others to firstly work out what meaning that you are intending for the words that you use, and secondly asking them to accept your interpretation as something other than personal opinion.

You are entitled to opine whatever you choose to, though as this is a debate forum, such opinions are meant to be supported with "logic/evidence", which yet again you have not done.

The full sentence that you used, "When you are ONE with the Father in the same way Jesus is one with the Father you are not separate from the Father at all any more than Jesus was separate from the Father.", gives the connotation that there is at some point a separation that is present. If this is not what you intended then it might be worthwhile rephrasing what you have posted.

Oh, and by the way, how is it that you consider the mind and brain to be the same thing ?

A miracle is considered as an event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be 'supernatural' in origin or an act of 'God'. As everyone has the capacity to love, then it can hardly be "miraculous". Are you using "poetic license" in your description of love ?

I understand the term "poetic license" and its connotations. I have no problem with what you said about it. I agree with that much.


The reason I utilize "poetic license" in a debate is to make the point that the bible is a "poetic" book and to understand it we need to work out what it is saying otherwise any debates about it are as pointless as debating about whether "Pull up your socks" means to literally pull them up or has a deeper metaphoric meaning.
When a statement has both meanings then why argue about which meaning is true and which meaning is false? Wise people understand both meanings and when you understand that much, it is irrelevant what people think about the truth or deception of the statement. A statement can appear false on outward appearances and still be true in the essence of the message it is conveying in a parable or metaphor or poetic sense. Once people understand that, they tend to view things differently than just on outward appearances alone.


Anyones opinions/beliefs/interpretations of a poetic story are supported with the "logic/evidence", of their own explanations of why they think and believe what they do about it and why they interpret it the way they do. No person can give you tangible evidence of something that is intangible. When it comes to interpreting metaphors/idioms, how do you prove to a person that 'pull up your socks" means "do a better job" or "try harder" ? Do you believe it means what I say? If so why do you believe me? If not, why not?

The full sentence that I used, "When you are ONE with the Father in the same way Jesus is one with the Father you are not separate from the Father at all any more than Jesus was separate from the Father.", does give the connotation that there is at some point a separation that is present. I am glad to see you are aware of that much. It is exactly what is intended since when we are in "two minds" about something, it implies our mind is separated from itself as it were and we are not thinking clearly or cant make up our minds about something but there is a conflict going on in the mind as if the mind was fighting against itself. When the " two minds" are in unity and agreement, there is no such inner conflict.


I do not consider the mind and brain to be the same thing. When I sometimes place them together as mind/brain. I am trying to convey I am talking about the logical mind or physical brain and its " logical thinking ability" as opposed to the "heart" and its "emotional thinking ability". Some people think with their "hearts" and others think with their "brains". This the best way I can describe the difference between the "two minds" which tend to conflict with each other inside us at times. Science tends to define it as the right and left brain with two different ways of thinking. http://www.funderstanding.com/content/r ... left-brain
I prefer to separate them into "brain" referring to logic , objectivity and the ability to analyze things by "disecting" it into parts vs the "heart" referring to intuition and its ability to look at the whole picture rather than just parts of things. I find it less confusing than trying to remember which part of the brain we are talking about and so I don't confuse people with the logic and intuition of the "right and left brains"
Conflict comes when the parts of the logic do not add up to the intuition of the whole. When they "add up" there is no more conflict but you end up with a sound and stable mind. You know what you believe and why you believe it and it makes perfect sense to you and adds up no matter how much you question yourself. No "blind faith" needed.

A miracle is considered as an event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be 'supernatural' in origin or an act of 'God'. As everyone has the capacity to love, then it can hardly be "miraculous". Are you using "poetic license" in your description of love ?

Yes I am. I am using the same poetic license in the definition of love as the bible uses. "God is love". He who lives in love, lives in God and God lives in Him.
An "act of God" is also an "act of Love" when you equate God with Love. In that sense any natural disaster which is considered an "act of God" is also an "act of Love", as illogical as that sounds. Many people in the bible stories considered natural disasters, earthquakes, floods etc, as the "wrath of God" against the evil in the world which in a way is the Love and goodness of God getting rid of the "evil" and causing a disaster in the process.
When you can understand that love sometimes causes people to do things which can appear cruel as in punishing others for wrongdoing to teach them to do right. Then the logic of love appearing to be hate can make sense when you see the bigger picture instead of separating love and hate as two opposite extremes of a straight line. Go to the " middle" of the imaginary line and they join together in the middle.

Love is invisible yet it exists inside people just like God is invisible yet exists inside people even if we cannot prove it, we can still know love. That makes people the essence of Love as well as the essence of God in this world. If you know love exists and you equate God to love then you know God also exists as the Love/hate within you. To know that for a certainty is the miracle of understanding and knowing God.

Love is very passionate and that passion can cause people to create new people in their own image and it can also cause them to destroy the very people they created.

Some people have killed their own children because they could not control their own passions or emotions and allowed those emotions to rule them instead of ruling their own emotions. A stable sound mind allows its logic to overrule its emotions when necessary but at the same time also does not quench its own intuition. We need to be balanced in our heart and mind to be stable.

[The Nice Centurion]

When you understand the word miracle in the bible has been interpreted from other languages then it makes sense to check the meanings of the word in the original languages.

The English meaning we attribute to the word miracle is not always the same as the original meaning of the word which was used.

I gather from the way most people use the word today that when they are referring to "miracles" or "challenging" Christians to do "miracles" they are talking about a supernatural event which cannot be explained by any natural means.

However, some "miracles" in the bible can be explained by natural means in the same way any magic trick can be explained by natural means. Others keep people wondering if they are tricks or not.

A metaphoric story can describe a "miracle" like a mustard seed growing into a tree and convey the message that a miracle is something is naturally impossible for anyone to do.

However, when you compare it to magic tricks and illusions, things like flying through the air or walking on water are also impossible in reality but are still possible to create in an illusion of reality.

The things that people considered miracles in bible stories can be reproduced in magic illusions by any good illusionist today.

If we go back to the 12th century Latin meaning from which our English word is derived. a miracle is simply something that causes you to wonder at it or stand in awe of it.

Exactly!
We today in theological debates about miracles, do assume todays official definition of the word, while in middle ages, ancient and biblical times it meant something else.

Same with The Resurrection. Coming back from death for sure back then was meant from on the fact of clinical death.
For they didnt evaluate brain waves back then, and therefore knew not about brain death.

Kind of makes you think! Doesnt it?