Have you or anyone you know ever experienced a miracle or other supernatural phenomenon? For the purposes of this thread let’s define that as something that appeared to violate natural laws as we understand them and could not be explained as a prank, impaired perception, special effect, or other everyday thing. In other words, not merely a very unlikely occurence, or a magic trick, or something seen while hallucinating.
No.
I’ve already mentioned this somewhere else around here so I’ll summarize: I saw books fly off a bookshelf, in order. I was the only person in the room and was about six feet from the bookshelf. This happened on two shelves–first one, then the other.
Posted before so just short version.
Drew 180 amps out of a panel that was being feed only 50.
Smashed my finger under an freight elevator gate dead weight, lost fingernail no pain or other problems.
Little girl in swimming pool for extended period of time and lived with only possable learning disiabilities.
Yes, short list, protected from 20F degree weather in high winds w/o shelter from the wind w/ inadequate cloths for about 16 hours with a divine orb of light around me (felt continuously cool even in hot rooms for 7 days after, like the cold was spread out over the next week). Instant miraculous healing of back pain through prayer, instant healing of ADHD through spiritual warfare prayer, an angel became visible and protected me against someone who intended to harm me, a person and dog that left no footprints in the snow, all alone in Haiti a gang came up to me, threatened me, grabbed me and started dragging me into a structure, I knew I was protected by God at the time, I felt no fear, just interest in what He was going to do, then all of a sudden their hands came off me, and they tried but could not grape me anymore, I turned around, and although they were all around me, there was a opening between them at the same time, which I walked right through and away.
You’re lucky The Grapist wasn’t there, or you would have been in trouble.
Moving collection of witnessing stories from IMHO to Great Debates.
Just once. During college, at the end of a semester when I was in the middle of the mad dash to finish all the assignments and studying that I’d been putting off for so long. At about 3 AM one night, I suddenly felt very weak, and even a little light headed. I was momentarily concerned, but then I realized that, in a hyperactive, Ritalin-induced work-frenzy, I had forgotten to eat anything in the past 36 hours. Unfortunately, I had no food in the dorm room and only $1.15 on my person.
So I go down to the vending machine, unhappy that I’ll be able to afford nothing but a candy bar. Then the miracle occurs: one of my dimes keeps crediting me 10 cents and then dropping down to the coin return. Hallelujah! It works exactly enough times for me to be able to afford a Snickers bar, some Doritos, and a Gatorade, which is precisely what I would have purchased if I’d had all the money I needed.
Maybe this is the sort of thing that’s more impressive when you’re batty from lack of food and sleep, but at the time it was really damn mind-blowing.
(To answer the OP seriously: no, I’ve never witnessed a miracle.)
Summoned a demon once. Big mistake. Eventually I was able to banish it back to the Void, but not until after several earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires and mall shootings which, all told, killed about half a million people worldwide. My bad.
That said, “supernatural” events don’t exist. Any event perceived as “supernatural” is generally a case of selective bias or hyperactive imagination (such as the story I just told) or is merely a gross misunderstanding of how the laws of nature actually work.
I hold to the position expressed by David Hume:
*"A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation…
The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), ‘That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish…’ When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion."*
It is always a greater miracle to have the laws of science arbitrarily and capriciously suspended than it is that the observer (even me) be wrong. Therefore one must always reject testimony that bears witness to a miracle, even if the testimony is my own senses.
Note that neither Hume nor any of us cannot prove a miracle did not happen; only (by this argument) that it cannot be reasonably known to happen. However the non-repeatability of your typical miracles under any sort of controlled conditions certainly suggests they do not happen at all.
And for the record (and advice to posters in this thread) a low-probability event is not a miracle. It’s not a miracle the Saints won the Superbowl, or that a baby fell under a moving train and escaped unharmed, or that a guy got rescued in Haiti after many days…etc etc.
A miracle is a violation of natural law, and since Hume’s time we have come a long way in figuring out some of those laws. But the principle is the same. The only addendum I can think to add to his essay, which is well worth reading in toto, is that where a miracle is repeatable under controlled conditions, it’s more likely we had the natural law wrong than it is that natural laws have been capriciously suspended.
I guess you took them all. None left for the rest of us.
Dunno about grapes, but this is bananas.
I have witnessed my dogs barking at nothing at all, suggesting either a supernatural presence or canine idiocy.
How wonderful to you - I’m sure all of the people who god left to die, be raped, freeze to death and suffer for lifetimes appreciate how ‘blessed’ you are. These kinds of fairy tales insult those who have suffered or watched loved ones suffer at the hands of bad luck or bad people.
Funny. The only one insulting there was you.
Nah. Anyone expecting people to take these stories seriously is seriously insulting the intelligence of all humans.
People see improbable or unexplainable stuff all the time.
How about we ask if anyone has ever seen an event they can objectively demonstrate was caused by a god or other supernatural agent. Let’s see how many responses we get then.
No, I’ve never seen a “miracle,” or anything “supernatural,” and neither has anyone else.
Well then Smart Person, let’s see you explain this manifestation of Jesus.
or better yet, this.
Betcha can’t explain just one.
I guess this is mostly for Kanicbird but can apply to others, as well.
What comes to my mind first is: Was there anyone else there that can corroborate your story or vision or whatever? Was it just you that saw this? Why are you so often alone in such predicaments?
I would think that in the case described by Kanicbird (again, for example, but could apply to others) if I were in a gang and setting about to do someone harm in all sorts of ways, that if somehow all of our collective hands just slipped off someone, and we found that none among us could grasp that person, I would think that mighty significant. I might even be tempted to say this was a miracle myself and go on to proselytize about it…about the time when I and the rest of the gang tried to hurt someone but could not. And I would also try to follow this miraculous person. It seems odd to me that there are never any stories like that, at least none that I hear.