# Ever seen a miracle or other supernatural thing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 11, 2010, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608 "2010-02-11T22:26:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/81 "2010-02-18T17:08:30Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > That sounds like a rule - and you said miracles aren’t bound by rules. 😕 It is **us** placing limits and rules on God, not a limitation of God. God gives us His power, which is totally unlimited, but how we get to use it is dependent on our faith on the power of God, so our current belief in what God can and is willing to do is blocking it. This is part of God’s plan, we have to learn that 1: God can do anything and 2: God wants to do it through us. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/82 "2010-02-18T17:15:05Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > What does the bolded part mean? Surely Christians look at God as the creator? Are you saying that God will only heal amputees when everyone (or a sufficient number of people) acknowledges God as the creator? God’s miracles usually really start happening for those who have left everything to follow Jesus. The number of those people are very small compared to the number of people who consider themselves Christian (I’m not saying that these people are not or are unsaved or God does not work through these people). But it is the ones that left everything to follow Jesus that generally needs miracles to do that work. So the people who God uses to heal and restore (create) is really small. These people have the actual hand of Jesus and the Creator/restorer’s hand, walking on earth and doing God’s will, not their own. At this time there is not a great number of people of this group who really take God as a creator acting within them, but just a healer acting within them. Till God gets them to believe that they are creators in Jesus, it will be healing. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/83 "2010-02-18T17:18:51Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > If miracles do not follow logic, by what method that does not involve logic do you deduce this? Then it is inaccurate to say that they do not follow logic, or any rules. “That which is a direct act by God must be good” is a rule. That miracles fulfil that premise requires logic. The very word “therefore” implies that there is a logical proceeding; A, therefore B. Without logic, A can be B, C, D, all, and none, all at once. Without logic, miracles can be both bad and good, saintly or terrible, or all, or none. Thinking more on it, I’d say that a rule that a miracle must be good. Though ‘good’ is not a term that can be logically defined. Also IMHO God will change/move heaven and earth, if needed, to make a miracle that appears ‘bad’ turn out for the ‘good’. So a miracle can be anything, following no rules, and God will conform reality so it is good. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/84 "2010-02-18T17:27:45Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > If miracles do not follow logic, by what method that does not involve logic do you deduce this? I believe God will perform some miracle on every person’s life, so every reality for every person would have them, though that person may not see it. It may be as simple as a non-believer person having a really hard time at work, he tells a believer, who , unknowing to the non-believer, is lead to pray, God answers his prayer and God does something that gets the non-believer out of that situation. What God will do can be anything, including miracles. The non-believer just takes it as good luck or whatever. Sometimes later, when that non-believer starts seeking and finding the Lord, the Lord will point out the times in their life where He directly intervened, which we took back then as being lucky. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/85 "2010-02-18T17:29:19Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Where did you find _these_? Actually from the context of how you were using the term ‘illusion’ ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/86 "2010-02-18T17:35:59Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes. > > I was dealt a pair of queens, flopped the set, and picked up the fourth queen on the turn. > > And then lost the huge pot that ensued to 8-Q straight flush, with the J coming on the river. > > Tell me that guy didn’t have to sell his soul and get Satan’s assistance for that. Just try to tell me. Tell me about it. The first time I ran into a straight flush ,I had kings full. The pair were aces.I went suddenly broke. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/87 "2010-02-18T18:12:51Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I’ve heard what may be a prophetic utterance that it doesn’t happen because people are looking at God as a healer, instead of the creator, so He is just healing. I do expect to see such things as limbs restored by our Creator God, done in the name of Jesus, in my life. By mere coincidence, I expect to see monkeys flying out of my butt in mine. In the name of Shango. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/88 "2010-02-18T18:51:10Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > It is **us** placing limits and rules on God, not a limitation of God. God gives us His power, which is totally unlimited, but how we get to use it is dependent on our faith on the power of God, so our current belief in what God can and is willing to do is blocking it. I didn’t see you respond to this earlier, so I’ll rephrase it for you: Is a belief that God can perform miracles to get us out of bad situations functioning as a block, to keep us from using our capacity of thought and logic to avoid getting into those bad situations in the first place? To take it further, is faith a man-made construct serving to block the power of God, which has been manifested in our capacity for intelligence and free will? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/89 "2010-02-18T19:20:20Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Actually from the context of how you were using the term ‘illusion’ Certainly not - and who are you to tell me what context _I_ am using “illusion” in? I’m certainly not using it terms of “stage magic”. If God is doing what you describe, he’s altering human perception of objective reality. (Or alternately there _isn’t_ an objective reality, in which case it’s perfectly alright and moral to dismember people at random with pickaxes since the events would only happen in our subjective experience and not our victims’.) The word for when this is caused by our own mind without outside interferences is “delusion” - your mind is showing you things that aren’t happening in objective reality. If these false perceptions are being implanted by an outside source, such as a God who is distorting your perception of reality, then it seems quite reasonably to call it an illusion - the term is used this way in the phrase “optical illusion”, where an image is arranged to manipulate your perception of it to see something that is not there. So. If two people are looking at the same thing and seeing different things, then clearly (at least) one of them is having their perceptions manipulated to create the illusion. (Unless there is no objective reality, in which case get out the pickaxes.) ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/90 "2010-02-18T21:56:41Z")
When was the last actual anecdotal event described in this thread? Too bad it devolved into a debate (after being moved from IMHO I believe), because I kind of enjoy reading such stuff, even as I keep the salt shaker close at hand. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/91 "2010-02-18T23:16:38Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Certainly not - and who are you to tell me what context _I_ am using “illusion” in? I’m certainly not using it terms of “stage magic”. > > If God is doing what you describe, he’s altering human perception of objective reality. (Or alternately there _isn’t_ an objective reality, in which case it’s perfectly alright I believe we can end this right here, reality is not objective, scriptural speaking, and in my experience as shown by God. Reality is either totally subjective or groups of realities overlapping, or a combo of both, I’m not sure which one, but I know that reality is not objective. There is a form of objective reality, but that is what God sees, we see a subset of it, which makes up our reality. Though God can allow one to see these other realities, and He had allowed me to. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/92 "2010-02-18T23:25:44Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I didn’t see you respond to this earlier, so I’ll rephrase it for you: Is a belief that God can perform miracles to get us out of bad situations functioning as a block, to keep us from using our capacity of thought and logic to avoid getting into those bad situations in the first place? Logic and the like is what man had to do when he left the path of God. This is what was meant when scriptures say (Gen 3:22x) ‘the man has now become like one of us’. Unfortunately our vision doesn’t see things for how they are, and our logic is always flawed and incorrect because of this lack of vision. We were never intended to make it on our own, but to be connected to God, with God’s wisdom and knowleage coming to us at the right moment, and us learning God’s ways, His thinking ect. So IMHO it is our logic that gets in the way of God teaching us His wisdom, not the other way around. Once someone starts using God’s wisdom, yes that will block man’s logic from effecting one, this is part of the armor of God that is described in Eph 6. > [@](#): > > To take it further, is faith a man-made construct serving to block the power of God, which has been manifested in our capacity for intelligence and free will? I think you may be saying is human logic what God really wants, as it man evolving though education and the like, to the level of God. My own experiences shows the direct opposite. Free will is our will independent of that of God’s will. The plan is us to surrender our free will back to God, and from that point on do God’s will in us at all times (even if we make a mistake). Why ‘reinvent the wheel’ when God gives wisdom to all that ask? ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/93 "2010-02-18T23:26:16Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I believe we can end this right here, reality is not objective, scriptural speaking, and in my experience as shown by God. Reality is either totally subjective or groups of realities overlapping, or a combo of both, I’m not sure which one, but I know that reality is not objective. > > There is a form of objective reality, but that is what God sees, we see a subset of it, which makes up our reality. Though God can allow one to see these other realities, and He had allowed me to. How does one become God’s pet? ETA: Of course, I am merely testing you as per my previous post I already established the fact that I _am_ God. Hint: I don’t care for apples. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/94 "2010-02-18T23:28:02Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I believe we can end this right here, reality is not objective, scriptural speaking, and in my experience as shown by God. Reality is either totally subjective or groups of realities overlapping, or a combo of both, I’m not sure which one, but I know that reality is not objective. > > There is a form of objective reality, but that is what God sees, we see a subset of it, which makes up our reality. Though God can allow one to see these other realities, and He had allowed me to. You can’t say “reality is not objective” and “there is a form of objective reality” in the same post. Well, not and expect to be taken seriously. What you are basically saying here is that _all of observable reality_ is an illusion. Which is actually a philosophically tenable position, despite the Matrix movie sequels being relatively weak. Which does mean that miracles are all illusions - if _everything_ is an illusion, then miracles are too, no? And killing people wantonly is also morally fine, since nobody is really hurt. Gotta love those unintended implications… ETA: and logic doesn’t rely on observable reality, so there you go… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/95 "2010-02-18T23:30:22Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Thinking more on it, I’d say that a rule that a miracle must be good. Though ‘good’ is not a term that can be logically defined. By that basis, it is reasonable to say that “good” could mean “evil”. And if you mean “good” cannot be logically defined across the board, not just in terms of miracles, then we can say that any thing which is considered “good” could well mean “evil” - or it could mean pretty much anything. A thing that cannot be logically defined says nothing about that which has it as a quality, because it can equally mean that it is _not_ that. > [@](#): > > Also IMHO God will change/move heaven and earth, if needed, to make a miracle that appears ‘bad’ turn out for the ‘good’. So a miracle can be anything, following no rules, and God will conform reality so it is good. But if “good” cannot be logically defined, and God is considered to be motivated by, and take actions to cause, “good”, then we cannot say that God is not motivated by or takes actions to cause evil. By saying that “good” cannot be logically defined, we then must take any sentence including “good”, and substitute any and every other word into it, because there is no reason not to. Likewise, if God performs actions which follow no rules, then God can (and we should assume that) God performs evil, because there are no rules, including God’s, that inhibit that. > [@](#): > > I believe God will perform some miracle on every person’s life, so every reality for every person would have them, Logic; I believe this is so, ergo the thing resulting from this must be so. > [@](#): > > though that person may not see it. Logic (massively simplified, obviously); that what is applied to a person is applied to a person. > [@](#): > > It may be as simple as a non-believer person having a really hard time at work, he tells a believer, who , unknowing to the non-believer, is lead to pray, Logic; Cause and effect. > [@](#): > > God answers his prayer Logic; God has attributes which result in action. > [@](#): > > and God does something that gets the non-believer out of that situation. Logic; God follows the rules that he is believed to follow. > [@](#): > > What God will do can be anything, including miracles. Logic; God has many options, therefore one of those options is a thing he can do. > [@](#): > > The non-believer just takes it as good luck or whatever. Logic; the non-believer infers from occurences. You cannot use any logic at all. You can’t make _any_ arguments which rely on logic at any point in your deductions. Here you’ve used several, and i’ve only pointed out a few. You cannot say that something is beyond logic, and yet use logic to justify and explain it; your arguments here hugely rely upon it. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/96 "2010-02-18T23:50:26Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > You cannot use any logic at all. You can’t make _any_ arguments which rely on logic at any point in your deductions. Here you’ve used several, and i’ve only pointed out a few. You cannot say that something is beyond logic, and yet use logic to justify and explain it; your arguments here hugely rely upon it. Because that is what you seem to want, so I am trying to structure my post in that way. Don’t have too muck time here, but good and evil are opposites IMHO, so no good thing can be evil, though defining good and evil is not logically possible besides saying anything that God does is good, anything that God does not do it evil. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/97 "2010-02-18T23:54:35Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Don’t have too muck time here, but good and evil are opposites IMHO, so no good thing can be evil, though defining good and evil is not logically possible besides saying anything that God does is good, anything that God does not do it evil. You’re not the first person to define “good” this way. But you should be aware that it _is_ a redefinition of the word, and so you should be careful to remember that when you use the word, others will probably interpret it differently (to mean things like “having positive, beneficial, or constructive effect”), and when others use the word, they probably _don’t_ mean “goddidit”. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/98 "2010-02-19T00:02:43Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > You’re not the first person to define “good” this way. > > But you should be aware that it _is_ a redefinition of the word, and so you should be careful to remember that when you use the word, others will probably interpret it differently (to mean things like “having positive, beneficial, or constructive effect”), and when others use the word, they probably _don’t_ mean “goddidit”. Actually man reinterpreted it, The Word of God (was with God in the beginning), states only God is good. But yes I understand your point. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/99 "2010-02-19T00:08:30Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Actually man reinterpreted it, The Word of God (was with God in the beginning), states only God is good. > > But yes I understand your point. I take it you’ve got an original first edition of the Bible you refer to? Where might we obtain a copy? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608/100 "2010-02-19T00:08:45Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Because that is what you seem to want, so I am trying to structure my post in that way. In all honesty, if you have a way to argue those points without using logic, i’d very much want to know. Considerable amounts of my own personal beliefs are based on logic being pretty important, so if you have a way to “bypass” logic, i’d be sincerely interested. I doubt that you can convince me, which may well be what’s giving you that impression, but I do apologise for taking your arguments at all lightly. If you can make the arguments without logic, I very much want to hear them. > [@](#): > > Don’t have too muck time here, but good and evil are opposites IMHO, so no good thing can be evil, though defining good and evil is not logically possible besides saying anything that God does is good, anything that God does not do it evil. But the concept of opposites requires logic. That one thing cannot be what it is not requires logic. Without logic, black is white, round is square. Without logic good and evil are the same thing; to say that they are opposites, that nothing that is good can be evil, is an argument that rests on logic. And if they do not need to follow logic, then if God does good then he does evil, or at least there is no reason to assume doing one means not doing the other also. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-seen-a-miracle-or-other-supernatural-thing/528608.md?page=6)