"If miracles are seen as symbols, the questions about whether they really exceed the powers of nature will appear tired. Their verification demands simply that healings should be beyond our present power to analyse.... It does not demand that scientific reflection will never be able to explain or replicate them."

I may have misunderstood, but this article implies that miracles may not be real but that stories or the idea of miracles are an aid to promoting the idea of a higher being or something apart from the natural human condition.

There is also an implication or premise that no discussion shall thus be entered into because miracles are not only beyond our power to analyse or to verify via scientific means, but that it is unnecessary to do so.

As an atheist naturally, I would not exclude miracles as a subject for discussion or scrutiny?

For some, setting these sorts of ground rules simply opens the door to all sorts of potential charlatans. Cults (even anti-human ones) succeed because of premises like these, in the same way as one might seek hope or understanding via crystal ball readers, tarot card predictions and the like.

The fact is people will adopt the view which best suits their own pre-determined set of beliefs, including atheists who usually demand more science or evidence.

Miracles are an easy target - how does one prove an event was coincidental, or would have occurred in any case without intervention. The author believes these sorts of questions are not necessary.

Perhaps a belief in the possibility of miracles might in some cases fulfill a prophecy similar to a placebo-effect. It could be argued that the human brain is capable of manifesting many 'miracles' in this way which is heartening when it works, disappointing if it does not.

Either way, for the believer it will be God's will. Even as an atheist I can see that human beings seek comfort and explanations of the universe (or death) in various ways, some choosing a supernatural belief which incorporates the idea of miracles may bring hope and even relief.

In some way the sanctification of martyrs reminds me of the war in Iraq. We keep track of our casualties but do not give estimates of the numbers of Iraqis, both civilians and combatants killed.

From my reading of history Christians have martyred many more of non-Christian faiths than vice versa. Muslims and Jews massacred during the Crusades, massacres of pagan Indians, Gauls, Norse etc, who died for their faith. The Nazi Holocaust was an exercise largely by Christians and made acceptable by the centuries of hate for Jews promoted by Christianity.

I don't have an estimate of the numbers of those martyred by Christians, but I think the number would be much larger than the number of Christian martyrs.

Andrew.
I always find your articles so tightly written that at the end I want more. I love the idea of God causing a rent in our enclosed world. That is a lovely key to understanding so much. But I want to ask how God does that, how does he break into our enclosed world to create a new reality? Irenaeus emphasised that God works through the Word and the Spirit. We are also to know that the Spirit is never ex verbum. If we are to be Trinitarian without remainder, then God can only act through Word and Spirit. This seems to me to disallow any act of God directly with the material. If miracles are signs in the context of faith then that context is produced by Word and Spirit and that is surely the end point, that is the miracle, the new creation that rents the enclosed political, religious etc world. So I have a problem with the function of miracles as a sign of the context of faith. It seems to me to be an add-on without function.

The death of the martyrs is quite different and a neglected aspect of the faith in Protestantism. It is a powerful sign of the centrality of faith to life, a centrality without which we wither and die.

Peter Sellick

What has the history of the "martyrs", whether in recent or in ancient times, got to do with living with real humor, clarity and Wisdom in 2010?

Or the understanding of Saints and miracles?

It would be more than wonderful if there were LIVING Saints, Yogis and Mystics performing miracles all over the world on a regular basis.

And not just "catholic" ones.

Miracles which would be completely obvious to everyone in NOW time, and which would not need to be "verified" by a bunch of grumpy old men decades, and even centuries after the event.

Of course the process of "verification" OF MIRACLES is essentially a POLITICAL PROCESS designed to bolster the MYSTIFYING power of the power and control seeking church. Anything that deviates from the teachings of the pretentious worldly fortress of the "magisterium" would of course be dismissed as "heresy".

And quite frankly some (even many) of the "saints" canonized by the previous pope were unfit for human company by any informed definition of human sanity.

As indeed were some/many of the popes.

Google The Criminal History of the Papacy by Tony Bushby.

Any rational thinking human being with even just a trace of scientific understanding would have to see the use of martyrdom and so-called miracles as nothing more than just another religious marketing exercise to promote flagging church attendance numbers and to boost the coffers of the impoverished church of Rome,now struggling to live within the hundreds of billions of dollars of assets and revenues.
The wealthiest entity in the world has long since dismissed the tired, old and impossible-to-maintain charade of altruism as a source of much-needed credibility, developing instead a series of miracles to create the impression that there is some mystical being which is used, as in the case of Lourdes, just to name one of many, to generate a continuing income from religious bric-a-brac. Sadly, the same thing is likely to occur out here in this country if the Romans ever decide to finalise the Mary MacKillop “Make her a Saint” marketing campaign. What politican could ever miss an opportunity to be part of such a religious circus, even regardless of other personal religious predilections
In a realistic way in the 21st century, there is just one way to determine the intelligence or otherwise of people as they jump about worshipping a saint today, proclaiming a miracle here, an absolute miracle there, all under the illusion that there is any God of any colour, shape or mytical proportion able to change the world in any way for good. But, as any rational human being would know, the only definite result of the carefully generated miracles and martyrdoms is a continuance of a luxurious lifestyle for the real beneficiaries of such charlatan activities, the so-called celibate priests as they continue to prosper, as they have done since time immemorial, living off the fat of the land but contributing nothing of any value.

"If miracles are seen as symbols, the questions about whether they really exceed the powers of nature will appear tired. Their verification demands simply that healings should be beyond our present power to analyse or to replicate. It does not demand that scientific reflection will never be able to explain or replicate them."

Translation: It's OK to make stuff up.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster will be SO happy.

pelican,
I think you are right pointing out the gist of the article in your quote, although I think you misunderstood the author if you thought he wanted to convert you (or I misunderstood you). I at least read the article as an explanation of the contemporary position of the Church, which happens to coincide with my non-expert understanding (c.f. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2907#66763). It is not an argument to convince you to accept the Catholic position.

As to his concept of miracle, I certainly did not discern any “implication or premise that no discussion shall thus be entered into”. On the contrary, the Church is well known for its scrupulous investigation of whether the “miracle” - usually a “physical healing” that an atheist might explain through a yet unknown application of the patient’s strong will (enhanced or not, through his/her faith, concentrated or not on a particular candidate for sainthood) to the healing process - cannot be explained as some process known by contemporary medicine (it cannot “investigate” whether a future, yet unknown, process might explain it).

You are right - if that is what you were after - that there are Catholics, perhaps including some in the hierarchy, who still have a naive understanding of the difference between the realities that science on one hand, and metaphysics/theology on the other, are concerned with.

The distinction between a real medicament and a placebo is important only when evaluating the possible effects of the medicament, not a posteriori: if a pill, treatment, prayer etc., healed me (and the doctor confirmed that), I really do not care whether or not it could be described as a placebo. And conversely, if the pill, treatment or prayer failed, I might be disappointed, although in case of a religious person the prayer even in that case can have (psychologically ) positive side-effects. So in this sense I could even agree with your last paragraph.

Most of the other reactions to Andrew’s insightful (for those with enough background information) article are predictable, though again I am not sure what are Sells’ objections.

I have read about the wonderful work that Mary MacKillop attended to during her lifetime, and I would have thought that would have been enough to earn her the title of Saint!

However, I am somewhat skeptical about the Catholic Church's stipulation that she needs to be responsible for at least 2 'miracles' earned in her name.

As a nurse (and a now lapsed Catholic) I know that when people such as the Australian lady with terminal cancer, that was touted as being her second miracle, find out they are terminally ill they will do anything and pray to all and sundry to cure them.

How on earth did the Catholic hierarchy decide it was specifically Mary MacKillop who 'cured' this lady? I believe the lady had some personal item of the saint in her possession, and that this was proof she had cured the lady of her cancer? Didn't she also pray to the Big Boss as well?

I remain skeptical because I have seen atheists go into spontaneous remission of their cancer, that had also originally been labeled as incurable.

Why on earth would any so-called saint choose a middle aged woman, with lung cancer caused by her smoking, to cure, as opposed to the many terminally ill children in the world that have their whole lives ahead of them?

Sorry, but I just can't go along with this miracle thing at all.

Hi George
I did not feel Andrew's intention was conversion. In fact he did not set out to denigrate or label non-believers and non-Christians as lacking in morals or inherently evil as some religious writers are prone.

Theological language is lost on me because I have never been exposed to it either as a layman or in academia. But I manage to get the gist. :)

In fact the placebo-effect is real.

Having experienced cancer in those close to me, I worry some believe cancer can always be cured by positive thinking and one might be seen as a failure when things do not improve. That failure is probably felt more internally than any wider public perceptions of failure. The public in the main feel nothing but compassion. Or a believer might perceive that God has deserted them.

There was an implication that the old arguments about evidence are tired and not relevant to the debate. That is what I meant by "no discussion shall be entered into".

While the Church may enter into complex investigation about validity of bestowing Sainthood, once approval is signed off by the Vatican my feelings reading this article was that it was a fait accompli. ie. no need for the "tired" old arguments.

There is much of the psychological in belief, whether it lies in religious faith or power of positive thinking. Cures and remarkable recoveries are random from my experience and the survivors come from wide ranging backgrounds as Suzie proposes above.

The brain is a part of the human body and it controls all bodily functions, movements, the senses through electrical nerve impulses or via release of chemicals throughout our bodies. There is no doubt we humans do not know all there is to know about the power of the mind.

To be continued...

continued...

It is oft quoted that "there are no atheists in the trenches". I could believe that to be true, even an atheist might call out to "God if you are there please save us" but this is not evidence that God exist, but more that we reach out to seek help from wherever it might come. Perhaps this is one way the human brain deals with 'hope' in the same way that chemicals are released that dull pain in serious accidents or the impetus for adrenalin being released in reaction to outside stimuli.

It is all interesting stuff and there is much to learn.

If Christ has not risen from the dead the Christian faith is useless. Resurrection from the dead defies what we see naturally. Funny enough even most hardened atheist still have some puppet tell people at their funeral that they have gone to a better place. Many agnostics and atheist actually understand this more than theologians who teach and believe in a benign faith. Useless faith often uses pseudo science to justify its belief. Our universities are full of this crap. None more so than evolution and its false outcomes like gw.

Miracles will not change corrupted hearts as Jesus told the man suffering in hell. Many believers and non believers have experienced miracles in their lives. It does not necessarily change a persons belief or lifestyle.

The Catholic church play so many unbiblical games when it comes to cannonizing saints. The bible declares all believers as saints (from the weakest to the strongest). Unfortunately the Catholic church like to think that they can play God rather than serve HIm.

Dear runner,

One does not cannonize saints unless they have the right calibre for the cannon.

I look forward to the day when articles like this are only accepted by specialist publications.

Here is "Spheres", which advertises itself as "Australia's Favourite Spiritual Magazine", and is enjoyed by people who believe in the "spirit realm".

http://www.spiritguide.com.au/

Discussions that flow within the highly self-identified readership of such magazines are conducted in a spirit (sorry!) of mutual understanding and common scholarship.

But venture into the mainstream, and put those views out in the open as it were, and it is almost impossible for an outsider not to mock the assumptions behind the words and thoughts that are expressed.

Which is terribly impolite.

We all look at the world in slightly different ways, and I completely understand and accept that some people feel the need to find "answers", rather than simply accept the idea that there are always going to be questions.

Articles in "Spheres" are very reminiscent of Andrew Hamilton's, who talks of "revolutionary miracles", and the way they "open a gap in the canopy that we build over our world".

Contributors to "Spheres" talk the same language. "[These] spirit children are still with me, they are my guides who... help me to link with the Spirit world."

I expect the same kind of other-worldly, open-mouthed wonder to also appear in the pages of periodicals dedicated to UFO sightings.

http://www.ufomag.com/

The symptoms are for all practical purposes identical.

It's just that for some reason, some quirk of history perhaps, the act of writing in hushed tones about Christian martyrs, and Christian miracles that are virtually indistinguishable from UFO sightings or spirit guides, has more "cred" with publishers.

For the moment, at least.

But I still can't take these "miracles" seriously, even though I know that many do.

In exactly the same way as spiritualists believe in talking to ghosts, and ufologists believe in alien abductions.

Bless.

Different faiths and beliefs for all of us; that is why I respect every person's faith and/or religion; unless it hurts or kills another.

My viewpoint from personal experiences...St.Anthony assists me and others to find every item temporarily misplaced stolen or lost [including my son's stolen wallet from his school].I prayed to St Anthony and Mary Mackillop as he was distraught and sentimental over the wallet given to him by a revered person he loves].

32 boys had their lockers and P.E. Change Rooms robbed across an oval last winter. Most of the boys had money, wallets, items of value in some of their bags taken by 17yr olds not attending the school. After they were spotted by my son and his friends on the oval. The police were called. Usual comment "there is no way your students' belongings will be recovered. Do not hold high hopes".

I informed my son that his wallet would be returned. His expression was that of sarcasm and cynicism [initially]. I also mentioned to my son that he would be required to carry out some more kind deeds as soon as the wallet was returned via St Anthony and Mary Mackillop's assistance. He nodded, grinned and agreed.

The next day a lady from a nearby shopping centre turned up at the school to return my son's wallet to the front office. Son arrived home shouting "guess what? You'll never believe what happened?". :Yes? Tell me" I asked, already knowing.

Q: why were the other 2-32 other classmates wallets not returned or found over the past 10 months?

Or perhaps the cynics could say "There was perhaps only one honest and kindhearted person in the shopping centre that week who returned a 15yr old's wallet". My response is that it is far too co-incidental.

My faith and experience for myself is the power of prayer.

pelican,
I agree with most of what you wrote: Faith is first of all a state of mind, in distinction to its underlying belief system, which has, or ought to have, a rational structure. There is no “evidence” for faith (only psychological explanation, if you disregard what one usually calls the spiritual, other-worldly, dimension of human experience, and what obviously does not make sense to an atheist). And there is also no “evidence” for the basic tenets (axioms) of a belief system: you accept them as formal axioms (as we now understand e.g. the axioms of geometry - including Euclidean - and as presumably an honest atheist would understand the basic tenets of a religious belief system) or as “necessary truths” (as Euclidean axioms were understood before the arrival of non-Euclidean geometry, and as most believers would understand the basic tenets of their religious system). In my opinion, it is the failure to make this distinction that calls for reactions like those of runner and Pericles.

>>a believer might perceive that God has deserted them<<
The emphasis here must be on “might”: My wife died of cancer some 40 years ago and I could witness how her faith helped her accept her fate (God’s will). Certainly no feelings of being deserted, but preparation for “the other life”. And today in Haiti they claim that the churches - or what is left of them - are even more attended than before the earthquake: people thanking God for having saved their lives and at the same time seeking “fortitude to bear the loss of their beloved ones”. You might claim that these are rather simple, people, but as far as the psychological level is concerned, this is irrelevant and only indicates that for a believer his/her faith puts him/her in a win-win situation even during such personal tragedies. Admittedly, not for everybody, there are those who react as you put it. (ctd.)

(ctd.)
Canonization means that the Church officially proclaims somebody “saved, redeemed” or “in heaven”; Catholics believe that many people have been saved and also that there are those who have been condemned (“in hell” i.e. deprived of “eternal life”). However, there is nobody - not even Judas or Hitler - whom the Church would have “officially proclaimed” as being “in hell” i.e. deprived of “eternal life”. This has something to do with a belief in God being more of a loving, forgiving, father than a strict, punishing judge, albeit a belief that the Church too often acted against.

The need for a “miracle” - i.e. a personal healing that the medical profession cannot (yet) explain, and that the healed associates with the candidate for sainthood - is only one necessary, certainly not sufficient or even most important prerequisite for canonization. In my opinion it is there mainly for reasons of tradition (remember, this is a two millennia old institution that is proud of its age) dating back to times when nobody could have had a clear distinction between science and religion, psychological and spiritual. The candidate for canonization must be seen as a priori worthy, before considering any “miracles”: nobody would investigate a healing claim at the intercession of the late Hitler. Also, as far as I know, nobody has yet offered a, say, laboratory discovery that science cannot explain in support of a canonization: the human, psychological (thus subjective), factor seems to be always there.

George wrote:

"In my opinion it is there mainly for reasons of tradition (remember, this is a two millennia old institution that is proud of its age) dating back to times when nobody could have had a clear distinction between science and religion, psychological and spiritual."

Dear George,

Possibly the words, "science and religion, psychological and spiritual" or their equivalents had not been invented, but I'm sure the different attitudes existed.

I think some human started to wonder as his or her fellows cowered at fear from the vengeance of the lightning of the gods. This human could have wondered why the sight of the lightning was followed some time later by thunder. Could it be that the light traveled faster than sound?"

The wondering human could have existed millennia ago, and later humans could have invented the tools to put numbers on the speeds.

Dear David f,

I am not sure what you mean by “different attitudes”: Surely we can differentiate now what in medieval thinking could count as some precursor of scientific thinking, and what was and remains just theology or even superstition. Today one of the criterions of what is science and what theology/religion is to ask whether an atheist considers the question as principally meaningful, worth of investigation or speculation (e.g. speculations about a multiverse belong to science, those about the Trinity do not, also for these reasons). The exception would be metaphysical speculations that might be meaningful also to some atheist philosophers.

During the Middle Ages there were no atheists to ask, everybody believed in the Christian, or at least Abrahamic, God who was indeed also the “God of gaps”: after all their knowledge of what we now call science was almost nothing but a huge gap. So everything that could not be explained by their very limited perception of what was natural, in agreement with everyday experience, was seen as a miracle, a supernatural intervention in the running of the world. Since there were so many “miracles”, so a special miracle was also needed as “evidence” of somebody’s sainthood.

Laplace’s reply “je n'ai pas eu besoin de cette hypotheses” to Napoleon became famous exactly because Napoleon (and those who thought this was a valid argument for atheism) did not have a clear distinction between what was science and what theology. As you know, today it would not occur to even the most pious student of Analytical Mechanics to ask for such a hypothesis.

I am not a historian of science but I am not sure whether the medieval man associated a concept like speed (of propagation) with light or sound.

Dear George,

http://library.thinkquest.org/C005705/English/sound/history.htm

About 500 A.D. the Roman philosopher Anicius Manilius Severinus Boethius specifically compared the conduction of sound through the air to the waves produced by dropping a pebble into calm water.

The following is an account of a scientific experiment before the invention of Christianity:

From http://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/eratosthenes.html

Eratosthenes' Experiment

Eratosthenes calculated Earth's circumference circa 240 BC, based on the assumption that the Earth is spherical and that the Sun is so far away that its rays can be taken as parallel.

The basis of the experiment is the fact that on the summer solstice, local noon, the sun rays are just overhead on the Tropic of Cancer.
Eratosthenes' Experiment

Eratosthenes knew that on the summer solstice at local noon on the Tropic of Cancer, the Sun appears at the zenith, directly overhead - though Syene was actually slightly north of the tropic. He also knew, from using a vertical stick and measuring the cast shadow, that in his hometown of Alexandria, the angle of elevation of the Sun would be 83° or 7° south of the zenith at the same time. Assuming that Alexandria was due north of Syene - Alexandria is in fact on a more westerly longitude - he concluded, using geometry of parallel lines, that the distance from Alexandria to Syene must be 7/360 of the total circumference of the Earth. The distance between the cities was known from caravan travellings to be about 5,000 stadia. He established a final value of 700 stadia per degree, which implies a circumference of 252,000 stadia. The exact size of the stadion he used is no longer known (the common Attic stadion was about 185 m), but it is generally believed that Eratosthenes' value corresponds to between 39,690 km and 46,620 km. The circumference of the Earth around the poles is now measured at around 40,008 km. Eratosthenes result is not bad at all.

Barring catastrophe I expect that science will continue when Christianity is only of interest to antiquarians.

Dear George,

Most medieval Christians were superstitious and ignorant. "The Dark Ages" dated from 380 to the 17th and 18th centuries. On 27 February 380 Theodosius declared "Catholic Christianity" the only legitimate imperial religion. "The Closing of the Western Mind" by Freeman tells how the spirit of enquiry that existed in the classical world was criminalised at that point. In 384 Theodosius prohibited haruspicy, the inspection of the entrails of sacrificed animals, on pain of death, and unlike earlier anti-pagan prohibitions, he made non-enforcement of the law, by Magistrates, into a crime itself. Priscillian was the first person in the history of Christianity to be executed for heresy in 385.

However, the dominance of Christianity was only in the western world.

Islam produced a powerful civilization that made great scientific and technical advances. Chemistry, navigation, astronomy and other sciences still use the the Arabic words such as alembic (a type of flask), Deneb (a star), apogee (a high point in orbit). Islamic universities had Buddhist, Jewish and Christian scholars while Christian universities were restricted to Christians. There was a great flowering of knowledge. They took many things from other cultures and developed many things themselves.

In mathematics their influence was considerable. Computer programming would be impossible without the concept of the algorithm. It gets its name from Muhammed ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi who developed it around 825. The sine theorem of spherical trigonometry, sine tables accurate to 8 places, studies of cubic and quartic equations, reform of the calendar (unfortunately later replaced by a lunar calendar}, developments in non-Euclidean geometry and iterative methods to solve equations.

In the fourteenth century Islamic clergy prevailed, and Islam entered their own Dark Ages in which much of that world still languishes.

As the earth turns there is light and darkness in different areas. Analogously as humans free themselves from the spirit of authoritarian religion (Note: I don’t denigrate all religion.) they become free to question and learn. Unfortunately Protestant fundamentalism is gaining ground in my country, the US, at this time, and the country may be marching backwards into a new Dark Age.

Thanks George.

Atheists don't necessarily deny the spiritual, however that might be defined. There are many things we don't understand and experiences for which we cannot provide explanations. The difference probably is that the atheist waits for the explanation to manifest, usually through natural scientific progress, while the religious person bases their view on faith.

There are many ways to experience spirituality (perhaps in some way they are all manifested from within) whether it be a connection with the earth, as in many Indigenous communities, or with the natural environment around us. We can all appreciate those same experiences whether they emanate from "God" or natural processes, or part of what just is.

For some miracles must be an important part of their faith. If it gives hope, or provides answers, then those who seek to be strengthened by those views, will no doubt receive that release or comfort at a time of great need.

I understand what you mean about comfort. My mother who also died from cancer got great comfort from reading books about Buddhism, meditation, death and dying although she was not a Buddhist, but raised initially as a devout Catholic.

Dear David f,
I concede that Boethius measured the speed of sound. Nevertheless, I still maintain that medieval man could not have had a clear distinction as to what - from the forces, etc. THEY considered as existing, real - could be investigated by science (hence seen as existing, real also by CONTEMPORARY atheists) and what not. Nevertheless, thank you for an excursion into some history of science.

>>the dominance of Christianity was only in the western world<<
Exactly, so my remarks about the traditional understanding of “miracle” were restricted only to the western world, in particular its medieval period.

As for the rest, I can only repeat what I wrote in http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9292#153841.

pelican,
Yes, there are atheist who “believe in God” by identifying God with Nature (pantheists), and those who speak of spirituality (see e.g. Ursula Goodenough, The Sacred Depths of Nature, OUP 2000) or mystical experience as just a product of the physical. (A study of spirituality that is more open-minded, admitting also the existence of Something affecting our mind that is not reducible to the biological, is e.g. David Hay, Something There: The Biology of the Human Spirit, Templeton 2006.)

For these reasons some Buddhists can be classified as atheist (from our, western, point of view), some not, although even the latter do not have the concept of a personal God in the Abrahamic sense.

I agree that there are many ways to experience spirituality, some associated with this or that religiosity, some not. Certainly no mystical or spiritual experience can serve as a “proof” for the existence of a Source of this experience that is beyond the physical. Nevertheless, it can reinforce the subject’s pre-existing faith, religiosity.

I can understand your mother - having been raised as a devout Catholic - finding solace in reading books that looked at the process of dying (eventually in hope for an existence at a higher level) from a non-Christian perspective. I myself have seen my Christian faith uplifted by reading e.g. (the translations of) Lao Tse or Chuang Tzu, though this is not exactly what the Church recommends.