I rather like Stu's post about miracles being a one-time thing yet God does do healings also.

He's rather like a person picking and deciding things.

Miracles like the Miracle at Calenda could be a one time token like someone presenting their credentials while the healings are him granting specific requests after people meet the qualifications for an audience.

I don't believe in bigfoot but until such time as the patterson video is shown to be a hoax, I can't really claim that bigfoot does not exist to a person who presents the patterson video as evidence of bigfoots existence.

I can say I don't believe the evidence but I can't pretend the evidence does not exist. If I am to claim the evidence is false then the responsibility lies on me to prove that it is false. So while I can tell the bigfoot believers that I disbelieve....I can't credibly tell them bigfoot does not exist.

I know a young woman with breast cancer so advanced that nobody believes she is going to live. Now she took a trip to Lourdes and should her cancer go into remission many will call it a miracle. Now I might call the remission a gift from God but it is certianly no miracle.

Walking on water is a miracle because such actions defies the laws of physics. Curing the centurion's child is not a miracle but simply the benevolence of God. There is a difference. The truth is very few miracles are ever prayed for....in fact I can't remember actually seeing anyone actually pray for a miracle.

It's archived at the Vatican and it literally has no supporting evidence. It's not like the Vatican has ever been a source of scientific honesty, wasn't it the Vatican that had a major problem when some guy named Galileo Galilel who had the audacity to suggested planet earth wasn't the center of the solar system/universe? He was put on trial in 1633 for heresy for something we now know as indisputable scientific fact. That's 7 years from the only example you could that in recorded human history, at the height of the Catholic Church's awesomeness.. I did some research because I love owning people so and assimilating new knowledge.. Apparently some very essential evidence was lost because the sole monk holding this information died in WW2 (wtf?, he was the only person in possession of this, and was conveniently killed in WW2), but 4 copies were made around 189 years after the original event took place. So we don't even have an original document of an event that has next to no supporting evidence, which happened to take place when the Catholic church was in its prime of political dominance and is known to engage in questionable if not down right murderous acts.

If you believe this, I've got some awesome ocean front property in Arizona for a KILLER price, I'm sure you'd be interested!

Then you are saying believers who claim healing miracles are most often mistaken.

You should also jump in the Rick Parry thread about God giving the miracle of rain if one prays. That wont happen since God doesn't intervene with miracles of rain if miracles are a one time shot because he already did the rain one in the flood. It will rain when it rains.

Hey your argument is with believers who think there are healing miracles. I look forward to you telling them they are wrong when they post in RGT. Which they do form time to time.

Not stated as absolute fact you couldn't. However you would be perfectly justified in saying that based on examination of evidence (and lack of more compelling evidence) it is unlikely.

I am more than happy to explain to believers that a miracle is an event which defies the laws of physics. It is the impossible being done. If an event is consistent with the laws of physics then it is not a miracle. It still might be the product of devine benevolence....but it is not a miracle.

First, I don't understand this. You don't believe the story, so why are you asking that I explain why I don't believe the story? We all agree that it's made up, right?

Second, I've never heard of this until this thread. But from what has been posted in this thread already, it seem much more likely to be fiction than fact. People see him with 2 legs, then supposedly he loses one and it gets buried without anyone supporting this, then he's seen with 2 legs again. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I'm going to go ahead and believe what everyone else in this thread, including yourself, has declared themselves to believe.

Ill tell you what they'll say. They will say a healing miracle from God defies the laws of physics and our universe.

+1 Very nice!

Your example makes my point. If this observation turns out to be true, physicists won't just tack on a law that says neutrionos can exceed light speed. They will have to come up with something that are almost positive explains why, before they call it a law.

On the other hand your original point could be rewritten to say "if something happened many thousands of times, scientists would assume that it had a scientific explanation rather than it being a miracle". Its just your assertion that they would call it a law, just dangling out there, that is off base.

Not true. When Sir Isaac Newton developed the laws of gravity, everyone just excepted it as a law of physics without any underlying explaination at all. The explaination of what gravity actually is didn't come until Einstien...some 220 years later(250 years if you count the graviton as the correct explaination....but really there is no need to split hairs over a measly 30 years)

In mathematics Galelio made this observation. Take a equalateral triangle now add a side of equivalent length...now you have a sqaure. Add another side of equivalent length...now you have a pentagram. Continue this process ad infinitum and you have a circle....or a shape with an infinite number of sides. Now imagine rays projecting from the the center of the circle thru each of one of the infinite sides.

Draw a larger circle around the original one (you remember the one with the rays projecting out). Well since there are an infinite number of rays projecting out of each of the infinite sides of the original circle their should then be enough rays to project thru each of the infinite sides of the larger circle(which encompasses the smaller one). But if you drew this out you would see there is not....that the larger circle had gaps(and sides) were no rays passed.

Everyone simply accepted that infinity was something that could not be understood and just had to be accepted until Cantor came along.

Everyone except that infinity

I'd tell them there is no evidence to support the assertion that an event happened which defied the laws of physics. Now I could say that about a stage IV cancer going into remission but I could not say that about say the sun dancing in the sky(like at the miracle at fatima).

Every good sales pitch needs a miracle to appear in it somewhere.

New miracle Oxy-Clean.
Miracle Shine and Wax for cars, caravans and motor homes, one wipe and it's like new.
Miracle stain remover.
Have the hems on your trousers come undone? Well don't worry any more 'cos there is new miracle invisible Hem-a-Fix from Ronco.

Another word for miracle is magic.

Gem Magic - convert your tired out wardrobe of clothing with new Gem Magic.
Button Magic - fed up of sewing buttons on and struggling with it. Well now there is Button Magic, from you've guessed it, Ronco.

But wait a minute, order Button Magic before 10 p.m. this evening and we will throw in a second Button Magic absolutely free.

Or as it says in the Bible, but wait a minute join up today and you will go to heaven. Because buy one get one free wouldn't work so well for the bible.

But why won't God heal amputees?

Could be because He already met his quota and since that was a few hundred years ago it gives people(in their mind) a valid excuse to simply pretend it didn't happen.

Sorry. I lost track. Do you believe that the Miracle of Calanda actually happened?

1. I do not accept your assertion that God has not healed amputees.

2. I do not accept the assertion that God cannot heal amputees.

3. It is not an important concern.

Once you lose a limb, Jesus says that it has "perished."

A man is still a man, without a leg or arm.

4. There are animals in the animal kingdom that can regenerate limbs.

We are not one of them.

5. Jesus is not physically here. If he were, he could make whole a lame man, no problem.

I think that many amputees would disagree with you.

If you are a child for 13 years without an arm, and a whole man for 500,000 years afterward, would you consider the time you were maimed to be significant?

Would it be considered rude of me to point out that the 13 years without an arm would be real, and the 500,000 years afterward is a theory (or a hypothesis)?

LOL!!! So now God does piece work? And he's met his quota!?! ("Take an eon off, Big Guy, you've done enough.")

That is too funny. You religious guys slay me!

No, he does not. Which makes this whole line from him very odd.

Waiting for a good explanation.