# Do Modern Miracles Happen to Athiests? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 5, 2004, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-modern-miracles-happen-to-athiests/243637 "2004-05-05T14:15:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-modern-miracles-happen-to-athiests/243637/21 "2004-05-05T20:46:13Z")
> [@Rashak Mani](#): > > Only remembering “incredible coincidences” and wierd events is called Selective Memory. You think about your mom all the time… but that time you thought about her and she rang you is the one that impresses and sticks to the memory. > > Check this and other stuff in the [Skeptics Dictionary](http://skepdic.com/) > > ``` > As for Atheists who beleive in or experience supernatural events, also known as unexplainable event, check my [Atheism and Supernatural are naturally exclusive thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=229117) > > ``` I swear before all that is holy, I was sitting here, reading this post, which made me think about my Mom, when I heard the little _beep_beep\* that indicates someone has come into my offices. I thought it was Maria, who had left just a little earlier, but instead it was large sweaty man with a bicycle! This has never happened before. What are the odds of that? Now, had it been my mother and a bicycle I’d have fallen off my chair. As it was I was merely quizzical. Turns out he works next door and had the doors confused. ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-modern-miracles-happen-to-athiests/243637/22 "2004-05-05T21:33:03Z")
I have the most amazing luck. It works even when I do incredibly stupid things. Now matter what horrible, evil thing happens, something good normally happens soon that either fixes or makes up for that evil thing. I could probably jump off a bridge and I would land in just the right way or a boat with a really soft top would go under right at that moment. I try not to push it though. 😃 When I was religious, I attributed it to God really, really liking me. Now I’m agnostic and God either still really likes me or I am just a lucky person. ---
**Author:** ![Starguard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Starguard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starguard)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-modern-miracles-happen-to-athiests/243637/23 "2004-05-05T22:56:21Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > I was listening to Matty in the Morning (108 FM, Boston) recently, and heard an interview with a guy who detailed how prayer was responsible for allowing his wife to become pregnant after all the fertility doctors had given up. He repeatedly referred to this as a “miracle”, said the doctors called it a “miracle”, and said it would not have happened without his strong faith and the will of God. Are you sure its his :eek: Instead of it being a miracle, it might be the result of that cute little surfer boy down the street :dubious: 😃 ---
**Author:** ![dhsapiens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@dhsapiens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dhsapiens)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2004, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-modern-miracles-happen-to-athiests/243637/24 "2004-05-08T20:31:29Z")
Sir Francis Galton, the father of modern statistics, once asked himself almost this same question. Actually, what he asked himself was whether or not people for whom others prayed with unusual frequently, such as the king and queen (“to the King’s health!”), actually had better health than the average joes for whom people prayed an average amount. The obvious answer was that the royal family did not enjoy significantly better health. In fact, they had a cruddy gene for hemophilia that spread nastily throughout the reaches of royalty as a consequence of too many first cousin marriages. As George H. Smith (and another reader) point out, it would take very few bona fide miracles; i.e., talking bushes and the like, to convince all the atheists of the world to change their minds. Is is the lack of convincing miracles that keeps us out of the religion game. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2004, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-modern-miracles-happen-to-athiests/243637/25 "2004-05-09T03:29:44Z")
> [@Starguard](#): > > Are you sure its his :eek: > > Instead of it being a miracle, it might be the result of that cute little surfer boy down the street :dubious: 😃 God works in mysterious ways! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-modern-miracles-happen-to-athiests/243637.md?page=1)