quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
...it's really not that important.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
I’ve seen this sentiment quite a lot amongst theists: they dismiss miracles surprisingly casually, and I suspect this is because they feel their beliefs are discredited or devalued by them.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
...it's really not that important.

---

I’ve seen this sentiment quite a lot amongst theists: they dismiss miracles surprisingly casually, and I suspect this is because they feel their beliefs are discredited or devalued by them. Miracles are very important because, if true, they disprove our scientific way of viewing reality, and, if false, they bring very serious doubt on other religious beliefs and claims. I guess the safe thing for theists is to distance themselves from them and play them down.

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quote:

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Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.”

So they nominated two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. Then they prayed, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs.” Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.

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quote:

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Jules: Man, I just been sitting here thinking.
Vincent: About what?
Jules: About the miracle we just witnessed.
Vincent: The miracle you witnessed. I witnessed a freak occurrence.
Jules: What is a miracle, Vincent?
Vincent: An act of God.
Jules: And what's an act of God?
Vincent: When God makes the impossible possible. But this morning, I don't think it qualifies.
Jules: Hey, Vincent, don't you see? That shit don't matter. You're judging this shit the wrong way. I mean, it could be that God stopped the bullets, or He changed Coke to Pepsi, He found my fucking car keys. You don't judge shit like this based on merit. Now, whether or not what we experienced was an "according to Hoyle" miracle is insignificant. What is significant is that I felt the touch of God. God got involved.
Vincent: But why?
Jules: Well, that's what's fucking with me. I don't know why, but I can't go back to sleep.

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quote:

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Hell yeah.
Genuine miracles are powerful strong sings that X religion's truth claims are on the money. I'd expect to see 'em trumpeted with substantial evidence.

If they're not, well, why not?

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quote:

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Originally posted by pimple:
I mean to the extent that they are accepted as "official" by the authority investigating them.

I start with the premise that most modern theologians of note are not totally irrational, and that different sections of the church will afford different weightings to rationality in matters of discernment.

But could someone please lay out the basic process of examination with regard to miracles now in their own community?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
...it's really not that important.

---

I’ve seen this sentiment quite a lot amongst theists: they dismiss miracles surprisingly casually, and I suspect this is because they feel their beliefs are discredited or devalued by them. Miracles are very important because, if true, they disprove our scientific way of viewing reality, and, if false, they bring very serious doubt on other religious beliefs and claims. I guess the safe thing for theists is to distance themselves from them and play them down.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
Hell yeah.
Genuine miracles are powerful strong sings that X religion's truth claims are on the money. I'd expect to see 'em trumpeted with substantial evidence.

If they're not, well, why not?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
To the author of Acts a miracle wasn't necessarily an act of supernatural intervention, but an instance where God acted in the world.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by HCH:
A minor bit of curiosity: Is it assumed that all contemporary miracles must involve healing?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Yorick:
I’ve seen this sentiment quite a lot amongst theists: they dismiss miracles surprisingly casually, and I suspect this is because they feel their beliefs are discredited or devalued by them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Yorick:
Miracles are very important because, if true, they disprove our scientific way of viewing reality, and, if false, they bring very serious doubt on other religious beliefs and claims.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Yorick:
I guess the safe thing for theists is to distance themselves from them and play them down.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
I've highlighted the miracle in there, in case you missed it. To the author of Acts a miracle wasn't necessarily an act of supernatural intervention, but an instance where God acted in the world.

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quote:

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Summa Theologiae Ia q105 a8
[A] thing is called a miracle by comparison with the power of nature which it surpasses. So the more the power of nature is surpassed, the greater the miracle. Now the power of nature is surpassed in three ways:

Firstly, in the substance of the deed, for instance, if two bodies occupy the same place, or if the sun goes backwards; or if a human body is glorified: such things nature is absolutely unable to do; and these hold the highest rank among miracles.

Secondly, a thing surpasses the power of nature, not in the deed, but in that wherein it is done; as the raising of the dead, and giving sight to the blind, and the like; for nature can give life, but not to the dead; and such hold the second rank in miracles.

Thirdly, a thing surpasses nature's power in the measure and order in which it is done; as when a man is cured of a fever suddenly, without treatment or the usual process of nature; or as when the air is suddenly condensed into rain, by Divine power without a natural cause, as occurred at the prayers of Samuel and Elias; and these hold the lowest place in miracles.

Moreover, each of these kinds has various degrees, according to the different ways in which the power of nature is surpassed.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
And I'm not just saying this because Jesus says so (though he DOES say so, quite a bit, when he's rebuking the gaping fools who wanted to see him produce more and ever more of them). ... In short, if you want to make new Christians, doing miracles is NOT the way to go. As Jesus told us.

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
... Of course working public miracles is a preeminent way of making new disciples. Faking miracles is however a very good way of losing them, in the long run. And working miracles is not sufficient to convert everybody, even if they are massive in scale, as already Moses found out with Pharaoh...

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Enoch:
I seem to remember nine lepers who didn't even come back to say thank you.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Enoch:
I seem to remember nine lepers who didn't even come back to say thank you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I also like Boogie's story about the goose. Things like that have happened a lot to me, and have varied in their numinous aspect. At their peak, they seem to collapse normal reality into something non-dual, or whatever term one might use, ('one-pointed').

Is this God? I don't know. But it seems to transcend the fragments of life, and shows something whole, and present.

But obviously, such experiences are had by many people, including non-Christians, and probably non-theists. So it goes.

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quote:

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Originally posted by pimple:
All my life - much of it Christian - I have met believers who countered natural explanations for supernatural events with "well of course - you don't think that's ever been taken literally by Christians, do you? We're not stupid, you know!"

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quote:

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The scientific commission must determine by accepted scientific criteria that there is no natural explanation for the alleged miracle. While miracles could be of any type, those almost exclusively proposed for Causes are medical. These must be well-documented, both as regards the disease and the treatment, and as regard the healing and its persistence.

While the scientific commission rules that the cure is without natural explanation, the theological commission must rule whether the cure was a miracle in the strict sense, that is, by its nature can only be attributed to God. To avoid any question of remission due to unknown natural causation, or even unrecognized therapeutic causation, theologians prefer cures of diseases judged beyond hope by medicine, and which occur more or less instantaneously. The disappearance of a malignancy from one moment to another, or the instantaneous regeneration of diseased, even destroyed, tissue excludes natural processes, all of which take time. Such cases also exclude the operation of the angelic nature. While the enemy could provoke a disease by his oppression and simulate a cure by withdrawing his action, the cure could not be instantaneous, even one day to the next. Much less can he regenerate tissue from nothing. These are, therefore, the preferred kinds of cases since they unequivocally point to a divine cause.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by pimple:
Lamb Chopped for the muted Lutheran enthusiasm (for miracles, not for JC!) !

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Thanks for the clarification. "Muted Lutheran enthusiasm"--that about sums it up, yeah.
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Poor Jesus, so clueless about what attracts converts. All that time He wasted working miracles... If he had just done what we do now, He would have attracted disciples at the same astonishing rate we see everywhere in the West among the churches.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
I seem to remember nine lepers who didn't even come back to say thank you.

---

Poor Jesus, so clueless about what attracts converts. All that time He wasted working miracles... If he had just done what we do now, He would have attracted disciples at the same astonishing rate we see everywhere in the West among the churches.

BTW, 10% conversion rate is pretty good in my book. (Never mind the additional issue that the nine Jews left, and the one Samaritan came back. That would be more a statement about the prior religious convictions of the Jews...)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
You are beginning to sound like John Wimber. If you argue that the primary purpose of Jesus working miracles, notably healing, was to make converts among the witnesses to them, it is but one step to see working contemporary healing miracles to produce converts as an evangelistic and eschatological imperative. Which ends up with the kind of nonsense exhibited by Todd Bentley, Cwmbran, Bill Johnson and so on.

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quote:

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Originally posted by An die Freude:
My point is that healing often seems to be about restoring more than just physical ability. It also often seems to be about more than gathering peoples' attention (somehow that doesn't seem like Christ's big problem).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eutychus:
You are beginning to sound like John Wimber. If you argue that the primary purpose of Jesus working miracles, notably healing, was to make converts among the witnesses to them, it is but one step to see working contemporary healing miracles to produce converts as an evangelistic and eschatological imperative. Which ends up with the kind of nonsense exhibited by Todd Bentley, Cwmbran, Bill Johnson and so on.

---

I don't even know these people, and I cannot be bothered googling them. As mentioned by me above, fake miracles are on of the best ways of losing disciples, in the long run. But if you actually can work miracles, in particular healing miracles, then what on earth could be the reason not do so?! It is almost a moral imperative to heal the sick miraculously, if you can. (The only thing that stops it from being one is that the expression "working miracles" is false. It's not that we have miraculous power ourselves, after all.) That you will also gather disciples that way is part of human nature, which looks out for itself and seeks evidence.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
There have been many attempts to verify miracles. As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, the modern (largely charismatic) movements are focussed on what they call 'healing'. Before I mention those, it should be noted that most religions have 'miracle' cultures and claim basically the same stuff that some Christians claim as miraculous (healing, speaking in tongues, miraculous statues, and on and on). Once the modern charismatic movements really kicked into high gear in the USA skeptics appeared immediately to test such claims. The best starting place is still probably Nolan's _Doctor in Search of a Miracle_. He was pretty thorough (though modern investigations into supernatural healing are generally more stringent) and found no evidence that any genuine healing took place. There have been others, a recent socialigical approach is taken by Jörg Stolz ( here). After a while, most medical investigators abandoned the search for miracles—for reasons that should be obvious.

K.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
69 : 200,000,000

That IS miraculous. Less than spontaneous remission I'd have thought, what two, three in a million looks significantly low.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
69 : 200,000,000

That IS miraculous. Less than spontaneous remission I'd have thought, what two, three in a million looks significantly low.

---

...

To get the total number of healings you have to add to the 69 the many "spontaneous remissions" that just happened to coincide with the appeal to God and get written off by skeptics as "natural."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by itsarumdo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
There have been many attempts to verify miracles. As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, the modern (largely charismatic) movements are focussed on what they call 'healing'. Before I mention those, it should be noted that most religions have 'miracle' cultures and claim basically the same stuff that some Christians claim as miraculous (healing, speaking in tongues, miraculous statues, and on and on). Once the modern charismatic movements really kicked into high gear in the USA skeptics appeared immediately to test such claims. The best starting place is still probably Nolan's _Doctor in Search of a Miracle_. He was pretty thorough (though modern investigations into supernatural healing are generally more stringent) and found no evidence that any genuine healing took place. There have been others, a recent socialigical approach is taken by Jörg Stolz ( here). After a while, most medical investigators abandoned the search for miracles—for reasons that should be obvious.

K.

---

I can't speak for the specific cases he investigated. But frankly, ulcers healing, deaf hearing, etc... If it's such a clever but nevertheless contrived and "trick" combination of "social inputs" that produces such effects, the explaining of them so they can be comfortably categorised and then packaged and dismissed is kinda missing the point. Because I don't see this being applied in medicine, despite this "we know how this was done" type of explanation being given. Nope. The paper referenced (Jörg) explains as if the explanation makes these just everyday happenings that everybody who knows anything knows just happen all the time. It's comfortable, reassuring, and we now can go back home and know that the world is exactly as predictable as we thought it was before we read this paper. All scientific laws are obeyed, it's a placebo. Pat on back.

When I see similar types of hearings as he describes being produced as routine in medicine by means of inducing the placebo effect he uses as explanation, then I will be more inclined to take notice of his academic erudition. At the moment, that ain't the case.

In summary, the paper, published academically so as to give some degree of respectability, is no more than sleight of hand. Maybe honestly written by an author who really believes his own conclusions. But nevertheless, sleight of hand, with some important aspects skated over in an act of arm waving. Reminds me of URL=http://star.psy.ohio-state.edu/coglab/Miracle.html]this cartoon[/URL].

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
I resign myself to your role as bluebottle of the Ship.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
If you've got a miracle, mate, prove it. And I mean prove it. I mean get a university scientific department on board and get it funded. Get it authenticated, get it proven. The fact is that you cannot. Your claims are utterly impotent and morally flaccid. Don't try to play the science card and then ignore its presence when played in another hand. You cannot have it and not have it. Your continue to insist that pigs can fly. Prove it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:
hosting/

quote:

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Originally posted by Komensky:
I resign myself to your role as bluebottle of the Ship.

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Kindly do so in Hell or keep your thoughts to yourself.

/hosting

---

Apologies.

K.
 

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Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Bugger. THAT God is evanescently (blink and you'll miss it) capricious (at best). Like once a year at the pool of Siloam.

And K. We gots to find a way to embrace the unembracable. Help me!
 

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Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
What is proof?

I had severe back pain, wore a back brace. At a healing conference a little old lady friend prayed and I was healed right then of the structural problem that had caused the pain. I kept laughing in amazed grateful delight.

I really did consider taking a few days off without pay, buying a flight to the city where a doctor had Xrays of the problem, paying for a hotel, renting a car, paying for an office visit and new Xrays to officially verify the healing. I didn't because no skeptic would believe me. They'd say the doc was falsifying records to scheme with me for some reason, or had gotten my records mixed up with someone elses. And if the records were irrefutable about change they'd say the healing was just natural and spontaneous and not a miracle.

The proof people seem to demand is a doctor of their choice makes careful examination before the miracle healing and then makes a follow-up examination afterwards. I.e. they want a miracle on demand for a pre-determined problem at a designated time.

Doesn't work that way. Not only is it unpredictable who if anyone God will heal on any day, but also we all have multiple problems, a full exam and analysis of every problem in any one person's body - from decayed teeth with fillings to near sightedness to athlete's foot and everything in between, would be expensive and "not medically necessary" so it's not going to happen.

I went to the healing conference because an M.D. said I had pneumonia and needed bed rest but my job had no sick leave, I was in serious danger of losing my job. Instead of healing pneumonia and saving my job God healed my back pain. I lost my job.

Later I found another job. And in years since the healing I have been skiing and mountain hiking and horse riding - things I couldn't do with the back pain. When doing an activity I couldn't do before because of the pain, I still sometimes laugh in amazed grateful delight.

Some of you will insist I'm making up this whole story. You'll demand "proof." [Shrug] Your demands are not my concern because whether or not you believe me, I am still enjoying my healing from previous severe back pain. (And fussing at God about why so much need and so few miracles, but that's a different issue.)
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
I don't think you are making it up at all.

I just very much doubt that God did it. How would he choose who to heal and who to leave in pain?

My friend had a similar spontaneous healing - no prayer involved.

If God heals due to prayer, why are we looking at the most terrible photos of people who can't even touch their loved ones as they die (ebola) I can't imagine how much fervent prayer there has been about that situation.

If God heals - then he's the meanest God possible, leaving 1000s to die completely alone and in terrible pain and choosing to heal a few at 'healing' services.
 

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Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
I thanked God for His provision for you Belle Ringer.

As for Lourdes, two miracles a hundred years old, assuming that they and the other 67, one every 2 or 3 years and millions, are 110% true despite the utterly inadequate testimonies, if they are in proportion to faith then we have none.
 

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Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
I was in agony of stress induced sciatica with pronounced scoliosis at a church festival in Ireland. Outside an American chiropractor - and I regard such as placebo merchants at best - saw me walking like a crab, massaged me vigorously with his elbow and clawed his way in to my joints.

Gone.

I wept with relief.

It came back of course. But I know that it will go. It's manageable. Like my blood pressure and sugar. Until the neuraesthenia in my right ring finger turns out not to be RSI but MS It'll go for good then!

God's provision is wonderful in and for every circumstance. Like my friend's radiance as he is eaten alive by bone cancer as I will see again today.

[ 03. December 2014, 09:42: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
 

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Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
That's wonderful, BelleRinger

And interestingly, it took some effort on your part to go specifically for help from God - you went to meet him and ask despite many reasons why you should not have done so.
 

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Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boogie:
I don't think you are making it up at all.

I just very much doubt that God did it. How would he choose who to heal and who to leave in pain?

My friend had a similar spontaneous healing - no prayer involved.

If God heals due to prayer, why are we looking at the most terrible photos of people who can't even touch their loved ones as they die (ebola) I can't imagine how much fervent prayer there has been about that situation.

If God heals - then he's the meanest God possible, leaving 1000s to die completely alone and in terrible pain and choosing to heal a few at 'healing' services.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
My local shaman claims to be able to help bad backs, migraines, cancer, and she will also have a crack at your sick pets as well.

Well, she might be bull-shitting, of course, but supposing she can actually do some of this - is this an act of God?

It might be, or it might be placebo, or some other kind of natural healing, which she is able to harness.

This is what I mean by constraints - there are none apparently. Healing just seems to go on all over the place, whether prayed for or not. Is it all from God? It could be, and it could also not be.

---

Healing happens in many ways. God mostly prefers to work through the world God made and through the people and animals God made. (Including working through non-Christians, of course!)

Most people heal "naturally" from vastly most dis-ease. Cut your finger, it heals. Catch a virus or bacteria most of them heal. Break a bone, vastly most of them heal. Healing is far from rare!

Some see God's hand in all of it, starting with designing this amazing thing we call a living body that continually self repairs instead of just wearing away like a stone.

Others deny God has anything to do with any of it. That's why 69 "no medically possible explanation, even spontaneous healing is not possible in this instance" miracles matter.
 

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Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Well, my point is that denying that God has a hand in healing, and asserting it, are both ill-founded. I mean, there is no way of knowing either position, as far as I can see. How could I have the information to say that God is not present? Or that he is present?

Of course, you can hope for either one, or sincerely believe either one, and so on.
 

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Posted by pimple (# 10635) on :
 
If a devout Catholic doctor (of medicine) reads an account of a miracle used to confirm beatification or sainthood, and receives, inexplicably, an inspirational insight into the way the disease might work - and be cured or controlled by "normal" - though new - medical interventions, what should he do?

If, more disturbingly, he should come to believe that the disease might actually have been healed through the intervention of conventional medicine prior to the prayers addressed to the putative saint, what should he do?

Fewer healing miracles are now accepted as proof of saintly intercession. But once a saint is made, is it, so to speak, an infallible done deal? Is the requirement that no normal intervention can possibly work, or that none has yet been discovered? The former sounds fatalistic at best, and arrogant at worst.
 

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Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, my point is that denying that God has a hand in healing, and asserting it, are both ill-founded. I mean, there is no way of knowing either position, as far as I can see. How could I have the information to say that God is not present? Or that he is present?

Of course, you can hope for either one, or sincerely believe either one, and so on.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by pimple:
If, more disturbingly, he should come to believe that the disease might actually have been healed through the intervention of conventional medicine prior to the prayers addressed to the putative saint, what should he do?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by pimple:
Fewer healing miracles are now accepted as proof of saintly intercession. But once a saint is made, is it, so to speak, an infallible done deal? Is the requirement that no normal intervention can possibly work, or that none has yet been discovered? The former sounds fatalistic at best, and arrogant at worst.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Martin60:
They're counter productive Belle Ringer. They matter negatively in many, many ways. Perpetuating a vast edifice of patriarchy being the essence.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Komensky:
Here are the ground rules for discussing the supernatural as I have experienced them in UK and US charismania.

1. If someone claims a miracle, vision, picture, tongue, etc. to be from God it must be accepted as such (there are some extremely narrow parameters under which they might be questioned)...

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
[...] In short, if you want to make new Christians, doing miracles is NOT the way to go. As Jesus told us.

---

Missed this on first pass, but as thread's been bumped, I'll field it now.

You make a perfectly good point about miracles creating fairweather Christians, but neither the Bible nor tradition is clear cut. Miracles are frequently portrayed as signs of God's power in early church hagiography, and the gospels/Acts. Testimonies from sincere and committed Christians routinely cite miracles as the catalyst in coming to faith in Jesus the Christ.

If modern Christians were able to follow the path of the apostles, and produce spectacular miracles on demand, would it not aid the Christian message? If any believer could routinely regenerate lost limbs, cure paralysis, and resurrect guests of the morgue, would it not give Christianity something of a PR boost?
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
It would be a freaking nightmare.

Look, spectacular miracles are an aid (a dubious one, but still) when you are working in a largely untouched mission field and you need a) credibility and b) buzz. The buzz is pretty self-explanatory. The credibility I'm referring to is not the straightforward "you did this and so I believe." Rather it's the "hey, looks like your god can take my god, maybe" power stuff that is sometimes necessary to get a foothold in a culture that is monolithic and has a very entrenched religious power structure. In other words, it gets your foot in the door--of the culture as a whole, not the door of individual people's hearts and lives. So Peter, Paul, Philip, etc. and various saints who were the first missionaries to untouched cultures--yeah. It could be a real help to them, particularly in times when word of mouth was your only publicity.

But note that even in those cases miracle workers saw far more cases where miracles DIDN'T happen than where they did. Paul, for instance, gets beat up quite a bit, has to leave Trophimus behind sick during his travels, and recommends wine to Timothy because of his frequent illnesses. He appears to find nothing unusual in a state of affairs where God did the occasional miracle through him yet normally refrained. Jesus, too, normally used a boat for his lake travels, and refrained from healing every sick person lying by the pool of Bethesda--as near as we can tell, he showed up, healed one guy, and slipped away.

What does this say to me? It says that those who are looking for miracles as a shortcut to avoid suffering or trouble are misguided. Miracles appear to have a different purpose (see the whole "signs" discussion in a zillion places on the Ship.) As ordinary people, we tend to think God should apply miracles to the worst pain and suffering cases, and we get indignant if he doesn't follow that seemingly obvious priority. Which means we have a lot of indignation to deal with, because he never did hand miracles out that way, even when he walked the earth as a man.

You mention Christians who cite miracles as the catalyst for their faith. Well, without them here to question, I can only guess, but I suspect they are giving you the short version of how they came to faith. After all, there are very few people in Western cultures with absolutely NO exposure to Christianity whatsoever--I was probably one of those with the least, and even I will tell you that there were occasional contacts (a Narnia book, my embarrassed mother's attempt to explain what Good Friday was) that doubtless had some influence, little though I realized it at the time. If someone is privileged to witness a miracle, that will naturally take center stage in their retelling of how they came to faith--and yet if you probed, I suspect you'd find small contacts preceding the miracle, probably for years.

Now, getting back to the question of a PR boost for modern Western Christianity--God forbid. Have you ever been in a church where the whole congregation (bar maybe 1%) are spiritual babies? I have. Dear Lord, I have. And really, I ought not to be calling them spiritual babies at all, since 9 out of 10 of them didn't stick. They came for the friendship, or for the food, or because they were bored and there was nothing else to do in St. Louis on a Sunday (that they could access, anyway). TOTAL FREAKING DISASTER. We had quarrels and fights and outright immorality. We had people behaving like toddlers on caffeine. And we did NOT have the manpower to disciple all these people, since there were like, two mature Christians among the lot? and we were run off our feet. Finally we begged another congregation to lend us some of their old people so we could get some stability before the whole boat capsized.

And that, my dear Byron, is what the churches would look like if modern Western Christians started routinely doing spectacular miracles.



 

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Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
To take a different example, Wolfgang Pauli postulated the existence of neutrinos simply as a mechanism to avoid the apparent violation of energy conservation in beta decays. There was exactly zero positive evidence for such a particle. All the experiment was saying is that energy was apparently not being conserved.

---

This is a total tangent - but why is "energy doesn't appear to be conserved" notevidence of a particle? It seems that Pauli considered it to be so. ("Wolfie, there's no evidence for such thing as neutrinos, you're crazy!" "No I'm not and yes there is, look at this energy deficit right here! See? Evidence!")
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 
I'll say this, Lamb Chopped, not only was that hilarious, it's one of the best justifications for infrequent miracles that I've seen!

As Christendom's done, and many Christians say that we're back in a mission situation, surely now would be time for limbs to sprout and morgues to empty? Just a few, on primetime, with impeccable medical documentation.
 

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Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Dave W.:
This is a total tangent - but why is "energy doesn't appear to be conserved" notevidence of a particle? It seems that Pauli considered it to be so. ("Wolfie, there's no evidence for such thing as neutrinos, you're crazy!" "No I'm not and yes there is, look at this energy deficit right here! See? Evidence!")

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dave W.:
This is a total tangent - but why is "energy doesn't appear to be conserved" notevidence of a particle? It seems that Pauli considered it to be so. ("Wolfie, there's no evidence for such thing as neutrinos, you're crazy!" "No I'm not and yes there is, look at this energy deficit right here! See? Evidence!")

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Why would an energy deficit be evidence for anything but an energy deficit? It is only if you assert that there cannot be an energy deficit, that an apparent energy deficit must be evidence for something else. But this assertion is not based on the experimental data itself. Indeed, the most natural interpretation of an energy deficit is simply that there is an energy deficit, and consequently that energy conservation has been experimentally falsified. I could alternatively hypothesise that the missing energy is used by the wood fairies to cool their kool-aid. Based on just this observation alone, that would be just as licit as Pauli going on about some mysterious "neutrino". (Actually, he confusingly called it a "neutron"; and the characterisation is not quite fair, since IIRC they actually had scatter data which did more to suggest an unobserved particle - but my point is one of principle here, not of the somewhat messier reality...)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Not until at least the same tests are done on the same equipment.

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Originally posted by Byron:
I'll say this, Lamb Chopped, not only was that hilarious, it's one of the best justifications for infrequent miracles that I've seen!

As Christendom's done, and many Christians say that we're back in a mission situation, surely now would be time for limbs to sprout and morgues to empty? Just a few, on primetime, with impeccable medical documentation.

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Glad you liked it. It's a lot more fun to look back on than it was to live it. I developed a huge sympathy for Paul etc. having to cope with the likes of the Corinthian church.

As for the mission situation, well, they're right, but what they aren't adding is that this is a post-Christian mission situation. We aren't starting from virgin paganism, if you get my drift. We're starting rather with a culture that was once married (or at least engaged) to Christianity, and is now divorced--with all the attendant baggage. That's going to make everything harder, particularly because Christianity has any number of real sins of our own, and we can't and shouldn't deny that. The ruin of the previous relationship was to a large extent of our own making. Mission 2.0 is going to have to acknowledge that honestly as it starts over. And I can't see how miracles, however well documented, are going to help that process. Far more likely to become a distraction and a snare, as we see already with all the freak miracle-a-minute televangelists out there now. Why should Christianity--real Christianity--do anything that creates a greater likeness between us and them? We catch enough crap already for our own sins without catching it for theirs.
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
[...] Those who believe miracles don't happen will continue to not believe no matter what medical records they are offered. Those who do believe don't rely on (often non-existant anyway) medical records for that decision. The emotionally determined decision pre-determines the attitude toward "objective proof." [...]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dave W.:
I appreciate that you're trying to appeal to a principle, but I don't think you've established it here; by your standards, why would scattering data be evidence for anything but scattering data? What makes it (or other observations) so much stronger as evidence for a particle than an apparent violation of conservation of energy?

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"Scattering" is probably the wrong word (because it has a more specific meaning), "kink in the particle tracks" is what I was trying to say. And yes, that kink as such is just evidence of a kinkiness . But if I observes two effects (1. energy loss, and 2. kink in the particle track) and can explain that with one hypothesis (a neutrino was emitted, carrying away energy, and pushing the other particle off its path) then that is stronger than if I my hypothesis just explains one observation (energy loss).

quote:

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Originally posted by Dave W.:
(As for your analogies - I rather doubt that anyone would have thought "as-yet unidentified particle particle carrying away energy" and "wood fairies" would really be considered equally valid explanations of the violation, even absent other data; or that the weight given to the principle of energy conservation can be considered somehow analogous my bank's non-existent reliance on my personal accounting skills.)

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These are frankly annoying misreadings. It was obviously intentional to consider "wood fairies" rather than say an "unknown force field" - namely in order to achieve the greatest possible distance between Pauli's hypothesis and the alternative one. And the point of that was to stress that is not the single experiment we are looking at which makes one hypothesis appear so much more reasonable than the other. Because that one experiment in fact can be explained equally by both. The reason why Pauli's hypothesis had mileage in the physics community are rather all those other experiments and theories of physics that make an unknown particle seem more probable than wood fairies. In Bayesian terms, it is not the likelihood that makes the difference here, but the prior. And this is important. The idea that an experiment shows (or falsifies) something is too simplistic. Without the background, the prior, that has been built up previously science gets nowhere. In consequence, it is near impossible for any one experiment to demonstrate that energy is not conserved. No matter what the data appears to say. Because that runs into a rock solid prior saying that energy in fact is conserved. A lot of theory and experiment has to start to point into the direction of a break before that prior will get overwhelmed by new evidence.

Furthermore, the point of my bank analogy obviously was not to equate the probabilities for you overdrawing your account to that of a break in energy conservation occurring. They are obviously not equal, that was not the point, and anyhow, that's not how analogies work (analogies work by similar structure and relationship, not by equal content). Once more the point was to illustrate the "Bayesian" approach science actually takes in practice. Only if energy conservation is pre-established as an (almost) "sine qua non", a super-strong prior, then the observation of an energy deficit suggests something unobserved. Because the most parsimonious solution of simply accepting that there is an energy deficit is then not available. Only if your bank believes super-strongly that you would never let your account go into the red, then your account actually being in the red becomes evidence for a hacker attack. Because the straightforward explanation that you have overspend is forbidden by this prior assumption. That a real world bank is unlikely to make such an assumptions is neither here nor there, I was simply couching the same scenario in everyday (more understandable) terms. The point was that the Sherlock Holmes principle is being applied there: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Well, the trouble with your miracle-rushed-to-the-lab example is that if you DO find a mechanism of some sort, it is by that very fact no longer a miracle, but rather it's a case of God working through an obscure natural law; which is perfectly fine by me, I've got nothing against that (particularly if they can replicate it on me when I'm ill!) but it's not a miracle.

On the other hand, if you get your alleged miracle tested six ways from Sunday and it's clearly real but you still can't account for it, well, you might just have the real thing there (a real miracle). Still, it's lovely for the person it helped, but it's no good to anybody else, is it?

Which is kind of a perverse way of saying "Wouldn't you rather find an interesting replicable useful fluke than an abso-honest-to-God-lute miracle?"

Me, I think I'd prefer the fluke. Because self-interest.
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 


Just what I've said before: "miracle" is all a question of definition.

I've a minor medical fluke of my own: accident sliced open my left hand, severed the median nerve, lost sensation & movement in index finger. Got sewn up by an E.R. sawbones who didn't reattach the nerve. Somehow the axons leaped the gap, reinnervated the finger, and sensation/function are at 95%.

I'm sure I could trumpet this as a (rather pathetic) miracle. I suspect something more prosaic like the nerve ends slipping together, or the axons using the scar as a bridge. Either way, it happened, praise be, doubt I'll offer to give any televangelists the finger.
 

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Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on :
 
Most parts of the medical community have long given up on this notion. Christians often believe there is some kind of 'dialogue' between faith and science. In truth, there is no meaningful dialogue, science rejects (for good reason) the hocus pocus claims of magic that (admittedly only some) Christians continue to claim. Trying to stick to the OP, whenever there have been genuine scientific enquiries, no miracles have been proven (otherwise everyone would believe, at least, in supernatural healing and possibly even God). A reasonably good example of what happens when a doctor follows a Christian 'healing ministry' (of Kathryn Kuhlman) is Nolan, Healing: a Doctor in Search of Miracle. Not only was no one really getting healed, but she was actually harming people in both the short and long term. Nolan argues that, in at least one case, she exacerbated the death of one of her victims.

One of the main reasons I ran for my life away from Charismania is that so many Christians continue to delude their congregations with 'healing' lies. It is this fundamental kind of dishonesty that I find so upsetting.

K.
 

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Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dave W.:
I appreciate that you're trying to appeal to a principle, but I don't think you've established it here; by your standards, why would scattering data be evidence for anything but scattering data? What makes it (or other observations) so much stronger as evidence for a particle than an apparent violation of conservation of energy?

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"Scattering" is probably the wrong word (because it has a more specific meaning), "kink in the particle tracks" is what I was trying to say. And yes, that kink as such is just evidence of a kinkiness . But if I observes two effects (1. energy loss, and 2. kink in the particle track) and can explain that with one hypothesis (a neutrino was emitted, carrying away energy, and pushing the other particle off its path) then that is stronger than if I my hypothesis just explains one observation (energy loss).

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quote:

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dave W.:
(As for your analogies - I rather doubt that anyone would have thought "as-yet unidentified particle particle carrying away energy" and "wood fairies" would really be considered equally valid explanations of the violation, even absent other data; or that the weight given to the principle of energy conservation can be considered somehow analogous my bank's non-existent reliance on my personal accounting skills.)

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These are frankly annoying misreadings.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:


Either way, it happened, praise be, doubt I'll offer to give any televangelists the finger.

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I saw what you did there.

 

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Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:

quote:

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Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
[...] Those who believe miracles don't happen will continue to not believe no matter what medical records they are offered. Those who do believe don't rely on (often non-existant anyway) medical records for that decision. The emotionally determined decision pre-determines the attitude toward "objective proof." [...]

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There's a third category who, with compelling evidence, would approach an unexplained event with an open mind.

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1. The USA actually landed people on the moon, it was not fake footage shot by Stanley Kubrick.
2. The twin towers were taken down by terrorists crashing airplanes into them, it was not a coordinated set of explosions of bombs planted by unknown (possibly US) agents in the buildings.
3. Miraculous healings occur occasionally at Lourdes, it is neither the RCC faking medical evidence through a corrupted medical commission nor (at least in all cases) "natural" healing by currently inexplicable means.
4. The assassination of JFK was largely the action of a single person, it was not a covert operation led by some (likely US) secret services or the like.

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
[...] I also think that we have a good enough grasp of the underlying biology to be very dubious about paradigm-altering modifications of basic physiology. [...]

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Originally posted by Byron:
Except we so haven't. Medical paradigms shift on a regular basis. As noted upthread, doctors were so convinced that bacteria couldn't cause stomach ulcers that, for over a decade, they ignored evidence and maimed thousands upon thousands. The psychosomatic effect has produced dramatic physical changes. Placebos heal. We don't understand half this stuff, and the half we do understand, we don't understand well. "Miracle" is a theological construct, not an explanation.

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Medical paradigms may still be quite changeable. Though you are cherry-picking, and you know it. But basic physiology is more a matter of biochemistry and physics than "medicine". Life may or may not be more than the operation of a "biochemical machine". But it certainly normally operates within the boundaries set by a mechanistic analysis of its biochemical processes. To claim that a large volume of diseased tissue can disappear, and healthy, structured, functional tissue reappear, within seconds, minutes or depending on size even hours - that is like pointing at your car and claiming that it can fly to the moon. There is no paradigm shift available that will make that happen, or at least none we are even remotely aware of. Yes, one can build a space rocket, but that is just a different thing entirely.

(Re-)generation of cells depend on complicated biochemical cascades. You cannot just run them at ten times the speed. And even if you could, you would have to explain where you are getting the energy to do so, and how the surrounding tissue avoids being cooked in the processes...

(I should also note that it is far from clear that placebo has medically significant impact, but for pain and nausea. And there the possibility of "brain control effects" appears straightforward.)
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 
I haven't made any claims whatsoever about specific cases. If, say, a person spontaneously regenerates a limb, or eliminates a cancer, then any scientist worth a damn will seek an explanation. Writing it off as a "miracle" potentially denies the possibility of a cure to millions. Not only is it obscurantism, it's callous.
 

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Posted by pimple (# 10635) on :
 
I am willing, but you may have to wait a bit. I just wrote about a thousand words and then hit the delete button by mistake. I would try cutting and pasting but I don'tr know how you do it on Windows 8
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 
Amazingly, we can regenerate the ends of our digits, a phenomenon discovered by accident in the 70s when a girl's injury was left untreated. It's apparently due to stem cells in the nailbed. Given the genetic variation in humans, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of someone doing it with an entire limb: last thing I'd do in that happy circumstance would be to file it under "miracle" and use it to bump someone along to sainthood.
 

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Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :
 
An acquaintance of mine from several pilgrimages ago experienced a miraculous healing (spontaneous regeneration of a traumatically severed spinal cord) to which she connected a post-accident invocation of an obscure young woman martyr of the Nazi period (she confesses that she was hysterical as they strapped her on to the body board and flew her into Hamburg from Kiel). She is in her 14th year of functioning since and has undergone batteries of examinations, scans, MRIs etc, partly because this happens in about one of 10,000 cases and the doctors are desperately curious as to what transpired for, obviously, this could lead to healing or improvement for people in terrible situations. However, it is partly for The Cause - apparently some local ecclesiastical and other politics are a factor and I don't know very much about it- as the promotor believes that this would justify the beatification.

A few years ago, she wrote to me that she does not mind the repeated tests because she recalls quite well her few days of paralysis and wants to be helpful and gets to travel around Germany, France, and the Netherlands to neurological faculties. Shipmates may or may not find comfort in that she continues to be a difficult person and the family is still trying to deal with her subsequent elopement with her little sister's fiancé. Christmas breakfast is still a bit frosty.
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 
Augustine, it's extremely unlikely that she severed the cord: the vast majority of spinal injuries are contusions, and some recovery is the rule, not the exception. If she only experienced a few days of paralysis, her cord probably wasn't that badly damaged, and once the swelling went down, the signals could get through again.

The human CNS may well spontaneously regenerate: it fits with people who recovery sensation and function years after injury. It may be possible to trigger or accelerate it with exercise. Patrick Rummerfield's had a remarkable recovery (documented with the most advanced MRIs) which took him 14 years. At his point of injury, he's only got some 10-20% of his cord left.

This is why I get irritated with the concept of miraculous healing: it distracts from knowledge that can be studied and replicated to help others. In cases where it is studied, like this, the extent of the healing can be exaggerated for theological effect.
 

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Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Aye, it's a plotline in Downton Abbey.
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 
LOL, yes, "spinal shock" that magically avoids any secondary damage. I don't even want to think about they dealt with bowel & bladder in the 1920s ...
 

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Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :
 
Byron--- all I know is what I was told and the word severed was used. I discussed this instance with a prominent neurophysiologist who told me that she knew of two similar cases. Having no knowledge in the field, and not having seen any of the documentation, I can offer no more.
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 
I'm sure the word "severed" was used, doctors are way too cavalier about it. Since the dura's so tough, it's hard to sever a spinal cord. The usual cause is a knife or a bullet.

If she recoverd sensation and movement within days, it's impossible for regeneration to be the cause. Nerve regeneration is slow: axons grow about as fast as hair. As I said upthread, I've experienced nerve regeneration in my hand. It didn't kick in for months after injury, and can take years. The one documented case of spinal cord regeneration in a human, the recent British/Polish OEC transplant, likewise took several years, combined with vigoros PT.

What we have is clearly a minor spinal injury, exaggerated, via misleading terms from her docs, into a "miracle." Hospitals see such "miracles" on a daily basis. The category invites such inaccuracy.
 

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Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 
If it were easy to dismiss the problem as a known medical thing or a doctor's mistake, I doubt neurologists all over would be studying this person.

[Crossposted with Byron]

[ 26. December 2014, 15:45: Message edited by: Gwai ]
 

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Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :
 
I would be interested in hearing Byron and my neurophysiologist contact discuss this. I would be outing her to recite her considerable qualifications but she is very well known in her field and when I once mentioned her as having shown me how to use an electron microscope, there were impressed audible intakes of breath among the two professors present. If she knows of two other such cases, I would take it to the bank. However, my ignorance of such matters is quite spectacular and I can only recount the experience and knowledge of others.
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 
Augustine, here's a Cliff Notes on SCI, by Dr. Wise Young, oracle on the spinal cord, currently busy taking regenerative therapies through clinical trial.

As he notes, over 60% of spinal injuries are incomplete, and with PT, over 90% of incompletes can recover walking. If this woman recovered within days, she was incomplete in the extreme. Little more than the stingers athletes get. It'd be a miracle if she didn't walk again!

I don't know why so many physicians are spending time on this. It's not uncommon. Perhaps they took the "severed" diagnosis literally. It would be a miracle if a transected spinal cord fused and regenerated within days, so much of one that it's unlikely anything could be learned from it. There's much likelier explanations.

[ 26. December 2014, 16:11: Message edited by: Byron ]
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 
To add to the above, it's possible that the woman suffered a severe spinal injury, making her cord appear to be severed on the emergency room MRI. (Kennedy Krieger has one of the few machines capable of high-res images). Due to the speed of her recovery, it almost certainly wasn't regeneration, but the CNS is plastic. It's possible that she has a rare ability to reorganise the surviving cord. A fast track version of Rummerfield, or what they do at Project Walk. That would of course be worth studying.

Chalking it up to a "miracle" distracts from what may be a fascinating and replicable natural process.
 

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Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
To add to the above, it's possible that the woman suffered a severe spinal injury, making her cord appear to be severed on the emergency room MRI. (Kennedy Krieger has one of the few machines capable of high-res images). Due to the speed of her recovery, it almost certainly wasn't regeneration, but the CNS is plastic. It's possible that she has a rare ability to reorganise the surviving cord. A fast track version of Rummerfield, or what they do at Project Walk. That would of course be worth studying.

Chalking it up to a "miracle" distracts from what may be a fascinating and replicable natural process.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
I haven't made any claims whatsoever about specific cases. If, say, a person spontaneously regenerates a limb, or eliminates a cancer, then any scientist worth a damn will seek an explanation. Writing it off as a "miracle" potentially denies the possibility of a cure to millions. Not only is it obscurantism, it's callous.

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Originally posted by mdijon:
Byron, I'm a doctor. I hesitate to leap in with a definite diagnosis or any element of certainty interpreting this lay account through an internet board. Not so with you. Why is that?

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Originally posted by IngoB:
[...] Biological tissue just does not have the functional capacity for such rapid generation, indeed, it doesn't even have the energy and material content to do this. There are good reasons why a human pregnancy takes nine months, not nine minutes. When physics and biochemistry suggest that something is impossible, it does no good to go on about unexplained biology. Without the physical basis, no biology.

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Originally posted by Byron:
I offered some possibilities. Which would you go for?

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quote:

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Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
I offered some possibilities. Which would you go for?

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I'm not sure without a bit more clinical data and quite a lot of background reading to be honest. I wondered where you got your confidence in the subject of spinal regeneration from?

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Originally posted by Byron:
The available data.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
What are we even disagreeing about?... If the issue's my tone...

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Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't think you have any basis for the confidence with which you make statements about likely MRI scan appearances, the nature of spinal cord injury, the prevailing culture among doctors, treatments that may or may not work etc.

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Originally posted by Byron:
I expressed the most "confidence" in the utter improbability of a severed spinal cord fusing and regenerating within days. As an MD you presumably agree with this.

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Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't see which bit of my post you are replying to or engaging with.

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You said we don't have enough to go on to be dismissive: we do have the claim that a severed spinal cord spontaneously reconnected and regenerated within days. This flies in the face of everything we know about biology to the extent that it's basically magic. Unless you've some reason to find it credible, it's likelier that some docs made a mistake.

Physicians, heal thyselves?
 

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Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
I think you are boiling things down into very simplistic alternatives. I find it remarkable that you can be so confident in a series of explanations that you find it likely a medical team is wasting their time, I suspect they have something interesting they want to look at which isn't so simply explained. That doesn't mean I accept an equally simplistic miraculous explanation.

That's hardly the only example of your hyper-confidence. I cited quite a few above. How do you know so much about the topic?
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 
If think we've been at crossed purposes here.

If you're suggesting that, instead of a severed cord, the woman experienced remarkable and swift return from a severe contusion injury, I agree that it could provide crucial info. In fact, I raised that possibility above!

That's the problem with "miracles": the concept casts far more heat than light.
 

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Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
If you're suggesting that, instead of a severed cord, the woman experienced remarkable and swift return from a severe contusion injury...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:

quote:

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Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't see which bit of my post you are replying to or engaging with.

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You said we don't have enough to go on to be dismissive: we do have the claim that a severed spinal cord spontaneously reconnected and regenerated within days. This flies in the face of everything we know about biology to the extent that it's basically magic. Unless you've some reason to find it credible, it's likelier that some docs made a mistake.

Physicians, heal thyselves?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
'Cause, Lamb Chopped, it's not my personal opinion: the claimed miracle flies in the face of everything we know about biology. Being "confident" that all is not as is claimed is, I think, a lot less weird than believing in what amounts to magic on the basis of anonymous hearsay.

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quote:

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Augustine noted that the woman's primary motive was to big up her saint of choice.

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Originally posted by Byron:
Being "confident" that all is not as is claimed is, I think, a lot less weird than believing in what amounts to magic on the basis of anonymous hearsay.

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Originally posted by Byron:
If it happened, it clearly isn't impossible, and we'd need to revise what we think we know about biochemistry and physics. Are you suggesting that we shouldn't revise our theories in light of this speedy regeneration? If not, then what?

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
But you are assuming without any sort of evidence at all that a) the doctors involved are using the word inaccurately, b) the expert cited by Augustine is also acting in a manner which is either misleading or incompetent in the extreme, and c) that you, having no acquaintance with the case bar what you've read on the Ship, have the correct answer.

This is highly improbable.

Why not simply reserve judgment?

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• a severed cord spontaneously reconnected
• the cord spontaneously regenerated to the extent that sensation and function are normal
• this happened within days

quote:

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Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
Byron, jumping to a conclusion, wrote:

quote:

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Augustine noted that the woman's primary motive was to big up her saint of choice.

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While I might not have been crystalline in my expression, I did ascribe this to her. I really don't know if that was her motive-- I do know that she cooperated both with the doctors and with the promoter of the cause-- I suspect that her medical collaboration has been more time-consuming and troublesome to her, so if we must ascribe an objective motivation, that's the side where it would rest. Which was the primary, and which the secondary, or if they were prioritized at all, is something which I do not know.

Since this thread began, I have been in touch with her bestie, who tells me that she is still doing tests and is off to Augsburg for something or the other related next month, but is mainly occupied with her own graduate exams.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mdijon:
What LC put to you was something a bit different though, and the same thing that I was putting to you - not just confidence in the non-miraculous nature of the event, but confidence in a great many imaginings of your own that fill in every detail in the case. You don't seem to be able to engage with this point - I tried very hard!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
If you're suggesting that the phenomena not be investigated thoroughly, and theories revised in light of it, how is this not obscurantism?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Eliab:
[...] The difference between you is a philosophical one, not a practical one about what science can and can't reasonably be expected to do.

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Agreed, nice summary.

As it happens, I do allow for the possibility of, for want of a better term, "magical" healing. Rummerfield's case is, frankly, pretty damn close.

I doubt this case is it, though. It has every red flag going:-

• spectacular healing claim
• mechanism of action defies all known biological possibilities
• no available documentation
• anonymity and secrecy
• appeal to (anonymous) authority figure

quote:

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Originally posted by mdijon:
What LC put to you was something a bit different though, and the same thing that I was putting to you - not just confidence in the non-miraculous nature of the event, but confidence in a great many imaginings of your own that fill in every detail in the case. You don't seem to be able to engage with this point - I tried very hard!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
As an MD, given the available knowledge, I'm surprised that you don't have similar confidence in alternative explanations. Given the reported symptoms, are you claiming that a contusion and misdiagnosis isn't likelier, by far, than reconnection and regeneration?

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quote:

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I doubt this case is it, though. It has every red flag going:-
spectacular healing claim
mechanism of action defies all known biological possibilities
no available documentation
anonymity and secrecy
appeal to (anonymous) authority figure
In short, there's no way to fact check it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Another Cheshire miracle in other words. A claim that erodes faith. And serves purely earthly power.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Another Cheshire miracle in other words. A claim that erodes faith. And serves purely earthly power.

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If I had any idea what this meant, I might respond to it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
the issue isn't whether you have confidence in me

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
In your professional opinion, are the odds even? That's the only way we can reasonably be agnostic.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
God doesn't play peak-a-boo.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mdijon:
[...] A priori spontaneous recovery of spinal function is quite unusual. [...]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
If not, with much evidence in one hand, and zero in the other, not only can we reasonably say that alternative diagnoses are more likely, we must say this. I'm amazed that you dispute it

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
even if you believe a miracle happened.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Byron:
Aren't miracles, by definition, outside the laws of probability?

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quote:

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Originally posted by mdijon:
[...] I don't view it as a miracle vs alternatives dichotomy. You misread. [...]

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Originally posted by Byron:
If so, my position's that when one diagnosis contradicts a ton of data and common sense

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Originally posted by mdijon:
[...] My point was that you have a lot of false confidence in your knowledge of various technical aspects of this case. [...]

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I don't consider it a "technical aspect of the case" to say that a spinal cord fusing and regenerating within days is less likely than possible alternatives such as contusion and misdiagnosis (if the doctor even misdiagnosed: many use "severed" figuratively), which can and do produce identical symptoms, without overturning the materia medica.

If I'm overconfident, I'm overconfident, it's simply not germane to the issue of miracles and probability. I think we've spent more than enough time on this tangent.
 

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Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

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Originally posted by Byron:
I don't consider it a "technical aspect of the case" to say that a spinal cord fusing and regenerating within days is less likely than possible alternatives such as contusion and misdiagnosis

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Originally posted by mdijon:
And you know that wasn't one of the technical aspects I was referring to.

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Well you listed several.

What point are you trying to make here? That I'm not an expert on spinal trauma? Guilty as charged, never claimed to be. I made the case that alternative diagnoses are more likely than speedy reconnection and regeneration. That's it. If you disagree, great, rebut.

This is not personal. Let's remember that and get back to the topic.
 

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Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

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Originally posted by Byron:
What point are you trying to make here?

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Originally posted by mdijon:
My point was that you have a lot of false confidence in your knowledge of various technical aspects of this case. Strip that away and all we are left with is a "common sense" view that miracles don't happen...
By all means declare you don't believe in miracles, just don't pretend that you have any specialist knowledge that gives you any helpful insight to support that view.

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Originally posted by Byron:
That I'm not an expert on spinal trauma? Guilty as charged, never claimed to be.

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Originally posted by Byron:
This is not personal. Let's remember that and get back to the topic.

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Sure. I think the topic is simply you saying you think miracles don't happen. I more-or-less agree, they probably don't, although I wouldn't rule out that they happen very rarely. But I don't think that technical knowledge of the details of neurons, MRIs or such (even if one genuinely knows rather than just pretends to know) is of any relevance in that judgement.
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 
I seek to make the best case possible, as ever. MRIs can be misleading, doctors are frequently too pessimistic (such as ICU docs telling people they'll "never walk again" when they haven't a clue), and the one case of spinal regeneration on record took radical surgery and years of vigorous physio.

As for my position on miracles, I disagree with the concept more than the substance. Extraordinary healing, "impossible" according to current medical dogma, can and does happen. Thankfully medical dogma shifts, although it can take way too long (as will be attested by all those folks maimed by stomach surgery 'cause it was "impossible" for bacteria to cause ulcers).

I dislike the concept of "miracles" 'cause it's a salve for therapeutic nihilism, and can distract from investigating and replicating the mechanism of action in cases of extraordinary healing. That's my position, and I welcome challenges, so long as they're impersonal.
 

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Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :
 

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Originally posted by Byron:
Augustine, I'm not saying that the secrecy mightn't be justified. Secrecy often is. What I am saying is that, until there's details available, it's reasonable to be skeptical.

*snip*

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Originally posted by Martin60:

Better off spent on the NHS.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Amen Boogie. Nearly. It would still be better spent on true charity.

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Giving a lot of very sick people a sense of a broad supporting Christian community and allowing many dying people to draw closer to God in a particularly memorable and special way in a prayerful and friendly atmosphere is not true charity?

Watch it, Martin. In your zeal, you are becoming plain nasty.
 

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Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
then I'm in exalted company.
 

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Posted by pimple (# 10635) on :
 
Why does it matter to the believer, if miracles are not a sine qua non to belief or conversion? Does the believer feel that God is being challenged, and they want to support him (not that they think he needs it, of course).

Why does it matter to the sceptic? One reason repeated here is that a belief in miracles makes the believer and/or the believing community less eager to seek the advance of medical science.

Both these answers are incomplete, simplistic, and don't do justice to the vigorous answers here.

I'm impressed by how few

ad hominem remarks we've had. I've been on the receiving end of some in the past. "Do you seriously believe that you know better than the people who were there on the spot two thousand years ago?" Well yes, actually, I do.

The issue of speed and spontaneity is a vexed
one. Do you remember when "spontaneous combustion" was given as an explanation for the apparent "lightning strikes" which left its victims as a pile of fine ash, with only the extremities of one or two limbs remaining unscathed?

It was shown to be the result of a simple accident - a fall or a heart attack - near to a source of heat (a fire or an oven). It was not the burning that caused the death. That came afterwards, and was very slow. The other necessary condition for the final outcome was a limited amount of oxygen, which usually ran out before the limbs were totally consumed. Not a bolt from heaven then.

But it's too easy to rubbish the miracle business (and it is a business, which doesn't make it necessarily evil) I have myself seen severely disabled people setting off for Lourdes on a luxury "jumbulance", accompanied by well-qualified nurses and priests who, by and large, are expert at fielding unrealistic expectations by the people with the most difficult problems. They go there singing and laughing, and usually come back the same way, though very tired. They think it worth it if a million catholics pray (and it's usually unspecific, holding the plight of all sick people in their hearts) and one or two are healed as a result.

That the cause and effect thing might be regarded by sceptics as spurious or delusional is neither here nor there, as far as I can see.
The whole busload benefit, as do their congregations at home, from these expressions of joyful solidarity and hope.

So there!
 

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Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :
 
Positive psychological effects shouldn't be downplayed, and can, via placebo, improve conditions.

My concerns are pragmatic above all else: is the hope of miracles used to distract from the grunt work of advancing medicine? Conservative physicians who fulminate at researchers for "raising false hope" (i.e., proving them wrong) are curiously relaxed about the possibility of miracles. Hope, it seems, is only bad when it can be proven.

How about the miracle industry funnel a chunk of its profits into translational research, to overcome the clinical trial bottleneck, and get discoveries from bench to bedside. Course, that'd be the ultimate case of running yourself outa business!
 

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Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Yeah, the hundred billion paid to get a hundred miracles (OOM) - a billion a miracle - would get far more that way.

Spurious claims at the heart of a colossal power aggrandizing patriarchy also distract from the grunt work of kindness and justice.
 

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Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

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Originally posted by Byron:
Conservative physicians who fulminate at researchers for "raising false hope" (i.e., proving them wrong) are curiously relaxed about the possibility of miracles.

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Originally posted by mdijon:
Oh sure there are plenty of doctors who have made various comments for various vested reasons (including the possible motive in some instances that the reporting in the media may in fact be over the top and mislead patient groups into thinking cures are around the corner when they aren't).

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However, it was the idea of a particular conservative identity that was against research but pro-miracles that I was surprised about. Most doctors I know are rather cynical about miracles and I've not detected a sub-group with greater credulity who happen to be extra-dismissive about research.

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Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't think rapturous talk of miracles among medics is at all common. I still don't see any evidence that the few who indulge in that are particularly down on medical research.

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I'm also not sure it is the job of a doctor to give a particular line in talking to the media to encourage the flow of funding or to provide hope to a community. I think honest reflection is what is required, which will provide varying degrees of hope and encouragement to donors.

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Originally posted by Byron:
At the least, doctors shouldn't be deterring clinical trials with talk of "false hope."

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Originally posted by mdijon:

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Originally posted by Byron:
At the least, doctors shouldn't be deterring clinical trials with talk of "false hope."

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Well that's quite an extreme position.

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I was arguing for realism not pessimism. Yes, one needs tools, but going on air to convince people to fund x might, if it was effective, divert funding from y which looks like a better bet.

Fortunately most of the time individual doctors don't really influence funding decisions and so they can be honest with a clean conscience.

But money isn't endless and so some people need to decide where to spend it and that should be based on a sober assessment, not a perceived need to give hope.

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Originally posted by mdijon:

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Originally posted by Byron:
At the least, doctors shouldn't be deterring clinical trials with talk of "false hope."

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Well that's quite an extreme position. I was arguing for realism not pessimism. Yes, one needs tools, but going on air to convince people to fund x might, if it was effective, divert funding from y which looks like a better bet.

Fortunately most of the time individual doctors don't really influence funding decisions and so they can be honest with a clean conscience.

But money isn't endless and so some people need to decide where to spend it and that should be based on a sober assessment, not a perceived need to give hope.

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Originally posted by Byron:
Really? I'd have thought it was an extremely moderate position. My personal position on this is extreme: I believe that, if a doctor has a reasonable and good faith belief that an experimental procedure may work, informed consent should indemnify them. I recognize that society at large doesn't, as yet, agree with me, so I take a moderate position.

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Originally posted by Byron:
Declaring a potential cure or treatment to be "false hope" isn't a sober assessment, it's prejudiced, in the strict sense of prejudging the evidence.

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Originally posted by pimple:
You appear to rely on your undoubted expertise in medicine to validate some expertise in "what all/some/most doctors think/do. That is, what you think al/most doctors should do, they do.

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Originally posted by mdijon:

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Originally posted by pimple:
You appear to rely on your undoubted expertise in medicine to validate some expertise in "what all/some/most doctors think/do. That is, what you think al/most doctors should do, they do.

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I hope I'm not claiming that. In the paragraph you quote I am talking mostly about what should be said/done and what power individual doctors actually have rather than stating what everyone does in fact do, and certainly not claiming I know what everyone thinks.

Although having said that I have spent quite a lot of time in clinical trials and in persuading doctors and patients to take part in them.

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Originally posted by Philip Charles:
Weird, irrational, unscientific things happen. One poster described them as magic. If there is a Godly effect, the the magic is part of the miracle; if no Godly effect then it is just magic.
Take the Resurrection as an example. The Gospel accounts make it clear that the risen Christ had a massive Godly effect on his followers, Mary and the gardener. The disciples in the locked room. The road to Emmaus. The followers' relationship with Jesus played a vital role in their post resurrection experiences.
What if one of the thieves rose again instead? The effect on his friends would have been very different from those of Jesus' followers. Jesus' rising from the dead makes possible the massive change that took place in his followers - this is the core of the miracle of the Resurrection.
There can be miracles without the magic. The story of the goose early in this tread is one example. Another is how my wife who is in this case illogical, unscientific, irrational but still sticks by me despite her education. A kind of reverse Hosea.
To me much of this thread has been a discussion about magic rather than miracles, but nonetheless an interesting topic to many. However, I prefer to debug some of my software.

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Take the Resurrection as an example. The Gospel accounts make it clear that the risen Christ had a massive Godly effect on his followers, Mary and the gardener. The disciples in the locked room. The road to Emmaus. The followers' relationship with Jesus played a vital role in their post resurrection experiences.

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This is really interesting. Could you expand a bit on the "massive change" the resurrection provoked in Jesus' followers?

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