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From what I've seen on this forum so far, basically any coincidence that worked in your favor is a miracle, and any time you had an accident but didn't die it is a miracle. When a plane crashes and everybody is killed save for a baby it is a miracle (nevermind all those dead people). When you find a husband or a home it is a miracle.

Here is the dictionary definition:
"an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause."

or

"A miracle, derived from the old Latin word miraculum meaning "something wonderful", is a striking interposition of divine intervention by a God in the universe by which the ordinary course and operation of Nature is overruled, suspended, or modified."

Aren't you cheapening the meaning of the term miracle if finding a penny in the street counts as a miracle?

2007-07-23 22:34:14 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture Religion & Spirituality

14 answers

I'm an atheist and i view the universe and our species as a miracle in spite of overwhelming odds we are here and we are the most evolved species on this earth capable of reaching the stars don't you find this as "something wonderful"

2007-07-23 22:42:19 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1 2

The love of God has miracle-working power. The spiritual seeker need to understand the nature of miracles. A miracle is not a violation of the laws of nature. Any such idea is self-contradictory, for the laws of nature are simply descriptions of the way in which reality acts and operates. In a very real sense, there can be nothing supernatural, for natural law operates in the spiritual world as well as in the world of physic, chemistry, and biology. But we must realize that above the four levels recognized by science, the material, the biological, and psychological, and the sociological there is a fifth level of reality, namely, the spiritual. This is the level on which super human power and wisdom operate. In this sense, to be truly inspired and guided by God is a veritable miracle. To be freed from emotional depression and discouragement by the inflow of faith and the baptism of God's love and courage is a miracle.

2007-07-24 02:49:05 · answer #2 · answered by flannelpajamas1 4 · 0 1

I would count a miracle as something out of the ordinary.

for instance a while ago there was a child that fell down a pipe in such a position that he should have died immediately, it took the rescuers about 2 days to reach him, and he came out alive, that could be considered a miracle.

A friend of mine suffered a head injury that should have killed him, he was in a coma for a while (sorry i forget how long) and the doctors said he was lucky to have survived and that he would most likely be mentally impaired. He now lives a normal life and recently had a child (with his wife)

Those are things that I could believe fall into the "miracle" category.

not rubbish like "ohh i found a penny" or "oh i live in a house"

2007-07-24 00:21:11 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1 1

No, here is an example of a miracle as we see it.

I had a church friend that went to the hospital because of stomach problems, it was determined that the connection between the stomach and the upper intestine was blocked. It was not obstructed by something, it was blocked on its own. They performed four surgeries on him in a matter of a couple of weeks and in the mean time they fed him with an IV and drained his stomach with a tube.

Finally the doctors said there was nothing they could do, so they prescribed hospice care and sent him home to die.

While he was in the hospital, we went to pray for him and after they sent him home we went to pray for him there.

After he had been home about ten days, he shows up in church looking better but still very weak. I asked him if he and his wife would like to go out to eat after church. He said he could not eat solid foods yet, so I told him that when he felt like he could eat we would take him and his wife out to eat.

A month later after church he comes up to me and said 'are you ready to take us out to eat. We did, and it was a joyous celebration.

That is what I call a miracle. Man had come to the point that there was nothing they could do for this man, but enough prayer and patience healed him.

grace2u

2007-07-23 22:51:21 · answer #4 · answered by Theophilus 6 · 1 3

Miracle is an act of God. No humans can do it. Spiritual Masters too do not perform it, since their spiritual energy is lost

2007-07-23 22:43:22 · answer #5 · answered by Muthu S 7 · 1 2

I'm sure the "evidence" you will be given by believers is not the kind of evidence accepted by the scientific community.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.
— Albert Einstein

Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.
— Robert G. Ingersoll

Saints fly only in the eyes of their disciples.
— Hindu proverb

Miracles happen to those who believe in them. Otherwise why does not the Virgin Mary appear to Lamaists, Mohammedans, or Hindus who have never heard of her.
— Bernard Berenson (1865-1959)

Ye shall have miracles, aye, sound ones too,
Seen, heard, attested, everything but true.
— Thomas Moore, (1779-1852)

A miracle is an event described by those to whom it was told by people who did not see it.
— Elbert Hubbard (1909)

When any one tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle.
— David Hume, (1711-1776)

God, once imagined to be an omnipresent force throughout the whole world of nature and man. has been increasingly tending to seem omniabsent. Everywhere, intelligent and educated people rely more and more on purely secular and scientific techniques for the solution of their problems. As science advances, belief in divine miracles and the efficacy of prayer becomes fainter and fainter.
— Corliss Lamont, (1902-1995)

Miracles arise from our ignorance of nature, not from nature itself.
— Michel Eyquen Montaigne (1533-1592)

Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination.
— Edward Abbey

Any attempt at understanding humanity must include an explanation of the hold that supernatural belief continues to have on most of the human race.
— Vic Stenger, Particle physicist; Physics and Psychics (1990) p. 91

Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: "Great God, grant that twice two be not four."
— Ivan Turgenev, (1818-1883)

Anyone who seeks for the true causes of miracles, and strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being, and not to gaze at them like a fool, is set down and denounced as an impious heretic.
— Baruch Spinoza, (1632-1677

Changing a rod into a serpent and the serpent back into a rod may be clever magic, but how does such a demonstration prove that Moses spoke to God? If the only thing necessary to prove the truth of an extraordinary claim were to demonstrate an ability to bewilder, there would be no more mysteries to solve.
If a person claims that he can bring the dead back to life, and in proof of that power pulls a rabbit out of a hat, that is hardly a demonstration of the truth of his claim; it is merely an example of his ability in the art of deception. If he claims that he can fly without wings and without the use of mechanical help of any kind, and in proof of his ability pulls another rabbit out of another hat, that is not proof of his ability to fly, but of his ability to lie, and he will without much hesitation be condemned as a faker. The demonstration of one thing has absolutely no bearing in proving the truth of the other, when there is no relationship between them.
— Joseph Lewis, (1889-1968)

A tendency to drastically underestimate the frequency of coincidence is a prime characteristic of innumerates, who generally accord great significance to correspondences of all sorts while attributing too little significance to quite conclusive but less flashy statistical evidence.
— John Allen Paulos, mathematics professor, in "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences"

All superstition is much the same whether it be that of astrology, dreams, omen, retributive judgment, or the like, in all of which the deluded believers observe events which are fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their failure, though it be much more common.
— Francis Bacon

“We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a this year's fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years.”
~ Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899

2007-07-23 22:49:24 · answer #6 · answered by HawaiianBrian 5 · 5 1

It's only cheapening if you assume that God has a finite amount of miracles. You are trying to apply a finite and narrow concept to a force that is infinite.

2007-07-23 22:42:58 · answer #7 · answered by ∞ sky3000 ∞ 5 · 1 3

what if that penny was to save a life or get you the exact change on a bus to get you a multi million dollar job when you are dirt poor while i agree the term is thrown around alot what about those things that realy do change someones life and i belive that anything that changes one's path 180 degrees and puts them in a positive direction is a miraculous. each person that we allow to enter our life is a miracle because they change our prospective monumentaly wether we realize it or not.

2007-07-23 22:39:51 · answer #8 · answered by KarmicFacilitator2000 3 · 0 4

event far beyond a common persons mind !

2007-07-23 22:49:14 · answer #9 · answered by slaveof12gods 5 · 3 0

If Unpope becomes a Pope , its a miracle !! :-)

2007-07-23 22:48:39 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 4 0

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