gw: "I performed some verifiable miracle in front of you (flying, walking on water, raising the dead etc) and told you this was a power given to me by God would you not believe?"

If you follow evidence-based belief systems, such as the scientific method, then the concept of a 100% "verifiable miracle" becomes problematic.

You can have a 'verifiable experiment' with actions ('person steps onto clear water') and observations ,('person does not sink') that can be verified by different independent experimenters. That doesn't prove 100% that the event was a miracle though. In fact it is so far outside of the current well-established and thoroughly interlocking frameworks of evidence-based belief (science, etc.) that I and many others would search long and hard for other explanations before settling on the miraculous: that would include advanced or secret technologies: holograms, magnetic levitation, unknown advances in physics, or even outlandish theories such as alien tech.

In fact, if you follow Kurzweil et al's ideas on the technological singularity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

then I wouldn't be too surprised to be walking on water with the next 3-5 decades :-)

The spaghedeity has already proved his existance.

http://www.livevideo.com/video/33E09D3344384BD899775D8C1998D8B2/the-spaghedeity-spotted-over-d.aspx

There have been many such spottings.

http://www.venganza.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/from-the-archives.jpg

The above photo was provided by Pastafarian Eric. I will assume it’s legitimate unless someone proves otherwise (as per all matters of religion).

There have been many acedemic endorsements...

http://www.venganza.org/evidence/endorsements1/

Following on from Sams post.

If an event can be verified then it is no longer a miracle now is it, GW?

For example, the first time people observed a solar eclipse it must have appeared to be miraculous watching the sun being obscured in the middle of the day. However, we now know that it was the new moon's transition directly between sun and earth that caused the sun to temporarily disappear.

There can never be evidence for religion or it ceases to be religion.

By this I mean, when something is known it is no longer a matter of 'belief', it becomes a part of our fabric of quantifiable knowledge. Whereas religion is all about faith or belief; it is an explanation for ignorance.

I don't care what your name is, nobody walks on the water where I'm fishing!

Beautifully put, Fractelle.

I am in awe of your ability to encapsulate in a paragraph something that takes me an entire post to get across.

Have a great day.

Pericles

Thank you

I am honoured.