COMPREHENSIVE REFUTATION OF THE ALLEGED USEFULNESS OF MIRACLES

Christian teaching,

A miracle is when a natural law doesn’t work and some unknown law takes over. For example, natural law is that people dead for nearly three days stay dead. But if one of them returns to life that is a miracle and only God can do that. The law that God has the power to suspend natural law takes over. Jesus Christ returned from the dead.

Answer,

In science you don't just assume what is doing it. This is bringing God in. The argument has made up its mind beforehand that only God does miracles. God is sneaked in which shows neither respect for God or anybody taken in by such teaching. It is a red flag that such a big lie is the real foundation of acceptance of miracles and captures so many people.

To avoid being misled miracles need careful checking out anyway. This is needed even more when we see the red flag above.

For that reason you admit a miracle has happened this STILL does not prop up a religion that tries to say it is a sign.

Some worry that calling a miracle is an event against the laws of nature is bad if you assume nature cannot change but good if you say God can change his laws briefly. His going against nature does not imply it is something he has to struggle against for he made it in the first place. But if you are honest you will admit that you have no way to tell either way. You just have the brute fact matter that something has happened and you cannot say if it violates nature or not. If it is a violation then its a sign that God is not in charge.

Religion says it is nature for God to change nature. So if natural law is that dead men stay dead then he can change natural law briefly - ie make temporary natural laws - that there will be a corpse that will live. But that means there are no laws of nature. Or if you prefer, that a miracle is natural after all! A lot of the religious input is gaslighting and trying to create a confusing battleground of semantics.

As for the doctrine that a miracle is a sign from God marking out the true faith and considering how the word means wonder then miracles are done to show off. Their purpose is not to help anyone for the helping could be done without a miracle so miracles are immature and childish. Are we calling God immature and childish? Yes. It is horrendous to cure a sick child instantly of some terrible disease for the sake of it being a sign. People fear. That is why they harp on about how great this is. They are pressured by their fear to do that.

Now if the plague rages all over the world and the bodies of children pile up and you applaud Annie's cure as a sign from God of his loving presence it is you, not just God perhaps, making a sign of it. You validate your religious opinions with it. Given how selfish human nature can be and how nobody really can ask God for his input this is shameful.

As religion claims religion complements science, then by extension this is saying that miracles complement science. If you assume a miracle is an important message then should science then check it out even if it means neglecting the work needed to improve healthcare? As religion says God is the provider and Jesus said he clothes the birds so the answer is yes. Divine providence is a core teaching of Jesus who said that God looks after every hair on your head. So to say science should be looking at healthcare instead of that is failing to trust the God who has his own plan for healthcare. This highlights how science and religion cannot have the same attitude never mind complement each other.

Religion has no business manipulating science to give respectability to its miracle claims. It only uses it but does not truly respect it for it cannot. Miracle stories are directed chiefly at those who will not and perhaps cannot check them out.

Miracles necessarily ask for explanation (eg a God. Yet no two cults' Gods are alike but it could be anything really). The explanation will have nothing to do with science so they only cause disputes and confusion. They draw people away from science. That is indirect harm. And the harm can be more direct when science is called lying and evil and godless for refuting religion.

Science has been held back by religion. That is why science hasn’t done as much good as it could. Miracles cause grave harm this way. Miracles cannot be explained. But there are many strange events we can’t explain but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily miracles. It is a mess.

Catholic doctrine is, "We believe that we are obliged to believe in the Bible miracles and in the resurrection but miracles like Mary appearing at Lourdes and so on are optional for they are not biblical." This double-standard is anti-science for science cannot test the tomb of Jesus where he rose but can maybe test a communion wafer that is supposedly miraculously bleeding today. Yet the resurrection story matters and the wafer does not. You are still allowed to not care about the wafer.

Christians: “We prayed for Joan and she died. Then we couldn’t believe it. She came around again. This is a miracle. We were just about to put her in the grave.”

Christians: “We prayed for Joan and she died. We buried her. Years later we found that she came around in the coffin and scratched and screamed and nobody knew. She died terribly. This is a terrible tragedy.” Atheist: “So it was not a miracle? No. Sometimes people are buried alive.”

This is not about faith but what the believer wants to think and wants you to think. They should accept that if their Jesus would revive Joan then he could do it when she is in the coffin as well. And that maybe he did. The atheist will be accused of not respecting the Christian God by being skeptical. But where is the real disrespect?

Do not be fooled and do not be lied to.