Lessons from Obscure Miracles
Religion claims that miracles have happened. Miracles are magical events such as
cancers just vanishing. They are considered to be evidence for the existence of
God for only God can do them. A miracle is what is not naturally possible. It
is a supernatural occurrence. It is paranormal.
If God exists then why are the best verified miracles the most obscure ones? I
don't mean they are well verified. There is never enough evidence for a miracle
to justify taking it seriously.
Among Christians, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is put forward as the best
verified and most believable miracle of all time. And that in spite of the fact
that even the gospels don't clearly eliminate any chance that Jesus was not put
in the tomb. So there is no evidence that the body was in the tomb and went
missing because it rose. These people exaggerate the quality of the evidence.
They lie outright that the gospels make it undeniable that Jesus was buried!
Jesus stated that visions and miracles can deceive and yet his big event was a
disappointment - a few people seeing visions of him after his death and he
expects the visions to be taken as proof that he rose from the dead! The
resurrection of Jesus should be the best miracle in history and it certainly
claimed to be the most important - or the one you have to know of if you know of
no others. And yet for lesser miracles such as the levitations of St Joseph of
Cupertino and the stigmata of the non-saint Domenica Lazzari and the psychic
powers of Leonora Piper there is better evidence. See the scholarly books:
The After Death Experience, Ian Wilson, Corgi, London, 1987
The Bleeding Mind, Ian Wilson, Paladin, London, 1991
The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism, Herbert Thurston SJ, H Regnery Co, Chicago,
1952
The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is really bad and useless at least in
comparison.
We can question the veracity of or doubt the obscure miracles despite the
evidence for them because it makes no sense that a God would do them and fail to
shout the message over the whole world. They disprove God if they are really
supernatural. They disprove God if they cannot be explained by reference to our
current knowledge of natural law. Why? Because if we don't know if something
really is a miracle or not or caused by unknown natural laws then it follows
there is no real evidence for a miracle-worker God. You may as well assume there
is no God.