Do you believe the "miracles" you hear about are actually divinely influenced?

Question

If so, why is god so selective about who he grants these miracles to?

Answer 1

I do not believe in miracles for exactly the reason you stated, the selectivity of the whole thing. Why do thousands die in house fires every year,yet when one person gets out of a fire it's suddenly a "miracle" And I say this with actual experience as my guide,just recently my uncle got out of a tractor trailer crash that he quite frankly had no rational reason to survive,he is in serious condition but will survive and has no injuries that will disable him after recovery. And yet the truck he was driving has not one piece of it other than the engine block that is much bigger than a tire,they literally brought the truck to the yard in pieces in a pile. I have seen many accidents that were much less severe that left the driver in pieces,yet he has all his "parts and pieces" fully intact. It is a "miracle" I suppose,but experience teaches me that it's just blind luck.

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Answer 2

Check out the film "Leap of Faith" starring Steve Martin - it deals with these issues as they relate to so-called "faith healing." Very entertaining! Nobody seemed to mind that Martin ripped the plot from an ealier film, "Marjoe." The filmaker, Marjoe Gortner, was raised by Gypsies who held tent revivals in California. His dad would lead the revival while his uncle would pretend to be a handicapped person in the audience. Or the other way around, I forget who was what. Anyway, at the appropriate moment, his uncle would jump up and throw away his crutches, claiming to be cured. No one else knew they were staging the "miracle," except Marjoe, who went to film school and made an expose of the practice, launching his own career in the movies. He went on to play cynical preachers and snake-oil salesmen in some later westerns...

Answer 3

No. I think things do occur that science cannot currently explain, but that there is an explanation, I have no doubt. More often than not, I think, "real miracles" are going to turn out to be collective-hysteria, psychosomatic phenomenon etc. There are many cases out there of people believing things so strongly that they can manifest these in their flesh, like stigmata, for example, which is not exclusive to Christianity either. This just goes to show how strong belief can be. How much stronger won't an entire community of "true" believers be able to manifest things...

Answer 4

A lot of the time, the word miracle is overused, but if you look at stories overseas for example, they have less technology and are less developed and therefore are often closer to God because they have more time to spend with Him; there are often miracles which are genuinely supernatural. I would agree with the comment that the word miracle is overused, but they are definitely there and divinely influenced.

Answer 5

Miraculous sightings of Mary etc, if they are in any way genuine and I have no reason to believe they are... they could just as easily be caused by something demonic surely, how could a mere mortal tell a good supernatural entity from a devious evil one...You say it was dressed like Mary...oh well then it really must have been her.

Answer 6

It look like miracle because of our ignorance.
If we know the reason under it. It is just a cause and effect.

Answer 7

Miracles happen and so does fraud. Every day is a miracle I don't need a false one like a statue that cries.

Answer 8

I do not believe that. Whenever I see a news story on a plane crash or other disaster and someone says "God saved me" I have to wonder about the families of people who were killed. Do they think God doesn't love their loved one since he didn't save them? Its one of things that really turns me off from religion.

Answer 9

Most of the miracles that I hear about have to do with a person coming to Christ and their life being changed for the better over time as the become more like Him.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 29 Because whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.

I know that there are other miracles that God does like when He miraculously healed my Pastor's father when he was 19 years old and had a severe hernia that the doctors told him would require surgery that most likely would leave him sterile and unable to have children. He went to a healing service in a small church in a poor part of Philadelphia and a woman with the gift of healing saw him being carried in and said

"if that young man who claims that God has called him to be a preacher wants to be healed, let him demonstrate his faith by walking up here on his own."

They put him down and he painfully made his way up to the altar and the woman said "Satan loose this man! In Jesus' name!" and he sprang up and was totally healed and went on to get married and have a family including my Pastor http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Enduring_Truth/archives.asp

I don't know exactly what criteria God uses when He decides to perform a miracle. Jesus said that God would use miracles as signs to confirm the gospel message and I hear that some missionaries have reported things like miraculous healings on their trips.

Mark 16:15 And He said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to all creation. 16 He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that does not believe shall be condemned. 17 And these signs shall accompany those who have believed: In My name they shall cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; 18 they shall pick up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it shall by no means hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall be well." 19 So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. 20 And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.


Then there are counterfeits used by the evil one to get people to not believe in the true ones and to think that people who believe in God are either phonies or dupes.

2 Peter 2:1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

Answer 10

Miracles are nothing more than coincidental.