What is a Miracle?

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paradox3 said:
It is possible, of course, that God chooses to intervene in some cases and not others.

However this makes God into a somewhat capricious character . . .
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Precisely. What incentive do we have to give worship and honour to a God who acts without an understandable motive or clear intention? Seems like a backslide to ancient notions of appeasing capricious deities.
 
Jae said:
His action or lack thereof is always motivated by love. ♡
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Which brings us back to the problem of why some get healed/saved and others don't. Two people fall off a building. One dies, one lives. Did God hate the one who died? Or just love them less? What if they are lovers? Is he punishing the one who lives by harming the one who dies? It just goes on and on.
 
Mendalla said:
Which brings us back to the problem of why some get healed/saved and others don't. Two people fall off a building. One dies, one lives. Did God hate the one who died? Or just love them less? What if they are lovers? Is he punishing the one who lives by harming the one who dies? It just goes on and on.
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God's thinking, I believe, is beyond my thinking. I won't try to fully understand the ways of God. This much I know, "Here is the message we have heard from ·Christ[L him] and now ·announce [proclaim; declare] to you: God is light [C referring to God’s truth and goodness], and in him there is no darkness[C referring to falsehood and evil] at all." - 1 John 1:5 (EXB).
 
Mendalla said:
Which brings us back to the problem of why some get healed/saved and others don't. Two people fall off a building. One dies, one lives. Did God hate the one who died? Or just love them less? What if they are lovers? Is he punishing the one who lives by harming the one who dies? It just goes on and on.
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And why would God prevent one horrific car accident and allow another? I cannot go along with a God who would allow such a thing to teach anyone anything.

This teaching business is sometimes offered up as an explanation for tragedy. I don't buy it.
 
I do remember one Christian who celebrated a miracle because he missed his flight, and the plane subsequently crashed. I wonder of the 175 victims of the crash celebrated a miracle.
 
Redbaron said:
I do remember one Christian who celebrated a miracle because he missed his flight, and the plane subsequently crashed. I wonder of the 175 victims of the crash celebrated a miracle.
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I can certainly seeing such a Christian feeling gratitude for his life and expressing thanks. But it is a fine line that is crossed when such a person starts to think the whole incident was engineered for his benefit.
 
Redbaron said:
I do remember one Christian who celebrated a miracle because he missed his flight, and the plane subsequently crashed. I wonder of the 175 victims of the crash celebrated a miracle.
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whatever you wonder is merely just accusation on your part, you have no clue what was in this person's heart
 
blackbelt1961 said:
whatever you wonder is merely just accusation on your part, you have no clue what was in this person's heart
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Yeah, actually he wrote about it in a magazine article at some length. No doubt what was in his heart. Thanks and praise and wonder at his own survival, but nary a word about the others who died. At the time (and even now) the attitude seemed rather selfish and smallish. It's nice that he avoided death, but no compassion whatsoever for the others.
 
Redbaron said:
Yeah, actually he wrote about it in a magazine article at some length. No doubt what was in his heart. Thanks and praise and wonder at his own survival, but nary a word about the others who died. At the time (and even now) the attitude seemed rather selfish and smallish. It's nice that he avoided death, but no compassion whatsoever for the others.
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post the article
 
Redbaron said:
Yeah, actually he wrote about it in a magazine article at some length. No doubt what was in his heart. Thanks and praise and wonder at his own survival, but nary a word about the others who died. At the time (and even now) the attitude seemed rather selfish and smallish. It's nice that he avoided death, but no compassion whatsoever for the others.
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What magazine? What issue?
 
Mendalla said:
Oddly, a pantheist deity is technically interventionist. In fact, they are intervening constantly. However, it is not the type of intervention we are talking about. Since a pantheist deity is the sum of the universe, everything that happens from the quantum level on up is "divine intervention" in a sense. However, it is not a response to prayer or faith or whatever, just the universe doing what the universe does (there are some who argue human will can affect change in the fundamental laws of existence, but no one has confirmed that rather far-out hypothesis). And that includes apparent "miracles" like the person who survives a supposedly unsurvivable fall or illness. As I commented earlier about the child falling, if we knew everything knowable about each so-called miracle and did the math, I'd bet we could explain them without resort to the supernatural.
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Yet are mortal more limited than that due to instances of secular grouping and gather bits? These scatter in heaven due to alternate thinking ... connection and social collectives ? Only in the greatest selection of stories!

Mani words are included in the desperate attempts ...
 
paradox3 said:
I can certainly seeing such a Christian feeling gratitude for his life and expressing thanks. But it is a fine line that is crossed when such a person starts to think the whole incident was engineered for his benefit.
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Or was it a curse of remaining on this side of what seems greatly infested with bigotry?

The dead suffered the great escape and thus no longer worry about secular bigotry and elimination of portions ...
 
Did some googling but the only story I can find is about an Indonesian who missed a flight that crashed and it mentions nothing about him crediting a miracle. He was stuck in traffic and lost several friends who made it in time. The description of his reaction is definitely not celebratory. Given that Indonesia is majority Muslim he likely wasn't even Christian.

That said, I also vaguely recall the story that Red mentions so I'll keep an eye out in case I come across it again.
 
Mendalla said:
Which brings us back to the problem of why some get healed/saved and others don't. Two people fall off a building. One dies, one lives. Did God hate the one who died? Or just love them less? What if they are lovers? Is he punishing the one who lives by harming the one who dies? It just goes on and on.
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Does death always have to be seen as a punishment? Even for the very young and healthy?
It certainly leaves us mourning our dead loved ones while we are still alive but the hope for Christians and other faiths is that there is hope beyond death and for athiests dead is dead. Either way death stops our mortal lives. God weeps along with the suffering. Weve never understood our worldly lives to go on foreve even as we continue to bring new life into the world
.....yet we are constantly caught off guard with disbelief lamenting the circumstances of those who die who we feel didnt deserve it.
If we are serious.....stop.having children if we fear disease..Stop building trains, planes and automobiles until they are perfect and continuing to teach people how to operate our flawed creations. The ego is ours....not Gods IMO. We participate .....God saves us by giving us the ability to eventually cope with any outcome or to think it through.
Waiting for a "miracle" may prolong our life but like lazarus we will still die.....
Where did we get the idea that its Gods Duty to prolong everyones life?
 
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Waterfall said:
Does death always have to be seen as a punishment? Even for the very young and healthy?
It certainly leaves us mourning our dead loved ones while we are still alive but the hope for Christians and other faiths is that there is hope beyond death and for athiests dead is dead. Either way death stops our mortal lives. God weeps along with the suffering. Weve never understood our worldly lives to go on foreve even as we continue to bring new life into the world
.....yet we are constantly caught off guard with disbelief lamenting the circumstances of those who die who we feel didnt deserve it.
If we are serious.....stop.having children if we fear disease..Stop building trains, planes and automobiles until they are perfect and continuing to teach people how to operate our flawed creations. The ego is ours....not Gods IMO. We participate .....God saves us by giving us the ability to eventually cope with any outcome or to think it through.
Waiting for a "miracle" may prolong our life but like lazarus we will still die.....
Where did we get the idea that its Gods Duty to prolong everyones life?
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I had a thought a little down the same line - for those who believe in an afterlife, and it being a better place than here - the most loving thing God can do at times is to bring someone to be with God in heaven. O would love to be with God in heaven right now myself, though I believe God has a little more work here on Earth to do first.
 
The idea we are debating (I think) is whether God chooses to prolong some lives and not others. If God has this power, it does not necessarily mean punishment is involved if God lets someone die.

The whole issue of God being omnipotent is problematic for me and it can be debated without any reference to punishment.

The flip side of "why does God end some lives?" is "why does God prolong others?"

Sometimes it seems like a blessing when a life ends without any suffering at the end.
 
Jae said:
I had a thought a little down the same line - for those who believe in an afterlife, and it being a better place than here - the most loving thing God can do at times is to bring someone to be with God in heaven. O would love to be with God in heaven right now myself, though I believe God has a little more work here on Earth to do first.
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You know, this is what bugs more about belief in the afterlife than anything - for so many people it devalues this life and this world (and I'm not saying that's you, @Jae, but what you say here fits well with that reasoning). It treats existence as a prologue, not the real story. We should be living the novel that is our life and working to make our story, and those around us, good ones that have a happy ending. Anyone whose story ends unhappily and prematurely should be a source of sorrow, not minimized by saying "they're in a better place". Where's our incentive to change the world and our lives if it is just a bad prequel?
 
Some 'loving church lady' visited my just widowed daughter. When she left my three year old grandson was weeping on the back step. She told him he shouldn't be crying, he should be happy. God loved his daddy so much that he took him to live in Heaven with him and Jesus. The kid replied that he had no right to do that because he wanted his dad right here!
 
Mendalla said:
You know, this is what bugs more about belief in the afterlife than anything - for so many people it devalues this life and this world (and I'm not saying that's you, @Jae, but what you say here fits well with that reasoning). It treats existence as a prologue, not the real story. We should be living the novel that is our life and working to make our story, and those around us, good ones that have a happy ending. Anyone whose story ends unhappily and prematurely should be a source of sorrow, not minimized by saying "they're in a better place". Where's our incentive to change the world and our lives if it is just a bad prequel?
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Heard a sermon about this many moons ago. Rev Sylvia Dunstan (writer of several hymns in VU) argued that this life on earth is part of eternal life and needs to be treated as such. Jesus has come that we might have eternal life now and forever, she said.

I don't specifically recall abundant life being mentioned but it might have been.
 
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