# Would it be inaccurate or misleading to define a "miracle" as an "impossibilty"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 26, 2021, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665 "2021-12-26T13:01:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2021, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/21 "2021-12-27T16:33:26Z")
C.S. Lewis reference again: in his book _Miracles_ he touched upon events that while not apparently supernatural appear to be extraordinarily well-timed. Lewis points out the term “providential” for those. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2021, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/22 "2021-12-27T16:45:35Z")
IMHO a good definition of miracle would be something that goes against known, observed principles of physics, medicine, etc. Giving one personal anecdote: as mentioned before here on the Dope, a friend of mine once fell about 30 feet directly onto concrete one day, around age twenty - from her home on the fourth floor - yet not only didn’t suffer the slightest injury _but didn’t even feel any pain whatsoever_ - she described the impact as “feeling like landing on a soft trampoline.” She credits this as a miracle from God. Her neighbors had witnessed her fall. I am no physicist or doctor, but I’m pretty sure that it’s impossible for an adult human to fall 30 feet onto concrete and not sustain at least _ **some** _ form of injury, external or internal. I’ve heard medical professionals tell of how some patients were severely injured even by falling just ten feet. Granted, 30 feet may not be high enough to truly convince - maybe falling from 100 feet would have been starker yet. But it certainly, physics-wise, falls into the “things that make you go hmmmmm” category. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2021, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/23 "2021-12-27T16:47:43Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > was looking very down, but also said cheer up today at 11:54 the sun will come out. I thanked hike and was hiking on and thought to myself that was a very weird time to indicate, not noon, or 11, but 11:54. (just a note the exact time I forget but it was some odd such number). I just thought it was a nice gesture and hiked on though the cold misty rain. When all of a sudden the clouds and mist/fog I was hiking through just blew away, and I was in the sun. I checked my phone and saw it was the exact time he said it would happen to the minute. I would not consider this a miracle at all. The Earth rotates very predictably, the Sun’s rising is very predictable, this guy may simply have checked some charts or website that gives the sunrise time that day at that longitude and latitude. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2021, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/24 "2021-12-27T16:55:23Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > The Earth rotates very predictably, the Sun’s rising is very predictable, Yes, but one would have to be pretty close to the pole for sunrise to be that late in the morning, and that’s not the Appalachians. It was clear to me from the story that the sun would be coming out from the clouds, not from the horizon. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2021, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/25 "2021-12-27T17:03:18Z")
Ah OK I see. ---
**Author:** ![Roger\_That](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roger_that/32/8505_2.png) [@Roger\_That](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_That)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2021, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/26 "2021-12-27T17:44:03Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > She credits this as a miracle from God. And I credit it as one fucking lucky lady. Unless there were no witnesses, in which case I’d call you one fucking gullible dude. Did she alert the press? Love to read up on this amazing incident. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2021, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/27 "2021-12-27T21:32:04Z")
> [@Roger\_That](#): > > And this is a miracle by you? Not in and of itself, but does go to the point that weather can change very rapidly seemingly on ‘command’ or ‘statement’ . ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2021, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/28 "2021-12-27T21:33:00Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > his guy may simply have checked some charts or website that gives the sunrise time that day at that longitude and latitude. They should then hire this guy as a weatherman. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Roger\_That](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roger_that/32/8505_2.png) [@Roger\_That](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_That)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2021, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/29 "2021-12-27T21:34:34Z")
Did you ever see the West Wing episode where a character goes outdoors, looks into the clear California sky and begs the rain to begin, and it does? I promise you if you go outside and scream upwards “Start raining!!” for long enough, it will. So what? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2021, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/30 "2021-12-27T21:59:44Z")
> [@Roger\_That](#): > > I promise you if you go outside and scream upwards “Start raining!!” for long enough, it will. > > So what? So this guy just hikes around while it is raining and stating random times to passing hikers of when it’s going to end, wow I feel lucky that I got the right one. 🤩 🤣 ---
**Author:** ![Roger\_That](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roger_that/32/8505_2.png) [@Roger\_That](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_That)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2021, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/31 "2021-12-27T23:15:54Z")
You raise a key question here, kanicbird, though I don’t know if you want to. Namely, why would God (I presume you trace your miracle to God) bother to send someone (an angel?) on the path to tell you it would rain at 11:54? To bolster your fading faith? To make you spend your days and nights preaching the gospel? If the latter, why be so indirect? I mean, He could just as well (and far less ambiguously) have had a snake speak those words to you, or a raccoon, or something–that would be a much clearer motivator for you, wouldn’t it? Of course, we can’t ever presume to understand His mysterious ways, I know. Jus’ sayin’… ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2021, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/32 "2021-12-28T00:11:07Z")
> [@Roger\_That](#): > > You raise a key question here, kanicbird, though I don’t know if you want to. Namely, why would God (I presume you trace your miracle to God) bother to send someone (an angel?) on the path to tell you it would rain at 11:54? It was not so much a miracle to me (as there was nothing to indicate that this person/ ?angel? actually altered the weather), but as I take it, it was God letting me know that I am being watched over, encouraged and protected. It was also a mark of approval of my thru hike of the AT (one of many). And yes God could have chose another method, but it was that God chose a method at all that matters to me. And yes God could have chosen something less ambiguous than what He did here (and He has on other occasions), I would say it was to build my faith that God can and does work through people, and just because I don’t see the angels or talking animals, does not mean that I am not being provided for. To me a lot of what I would consider actual miracles happen every day and most of the time go totally unnoticed. I mean they are not dismissed as a coincidence (as some have dismisses my happening as one), but just appear normal life, nothing remarkable happening at all. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2021, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/33 "2021-12-28T08:08:14Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > To me a lot of what I would consider actual miracles happen every day and most of the time go totally unnoticed. I mean they are not dismissed as a coincidence (as some have dismisses my happening as one), but just appear normal life, nothing remarkable happening at all. So a world without gods and miracles would look exactly like it does anyway? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2021, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/34 "2021-12-28T12:57:30Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > So a world without gods and miracles would look exactly like it does anyway? I would say the world looks and works like it does today because of the abundance of miracles. Sort of like going to Disneyland, we rarely see what happens behind the scenes to make to all work for us, but without it the park would just fall apart. And because of the miracles we just assume life would be the same without them. ---
**Author:** ![Roger\_That](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roger_that/32/8505_2.png) [@Roger\_That](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_That)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2021, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/35 "2021-12-28T13:05:37Z")
An inexplicable thing happened to me today: I had tucked my favorite ballcap into my shorts last week, and put it on and off my head several times on my walk through the northern section of my development, and when I was returning home, suddenly it wasn’t there. I figured I dropped it, and retraced my steps twice through the northern section I had walked through, and didn’t find it. Since then I’ve retraced my steps on bike and on foot, and still no ballcap. I concluded someone had picked it up in the five minutes I’d been missing it, and decided to claim it. Easy come, easy go, I guess. Yesterday, though, I found it in the bathroom in the southern swimming pool in my development, that I definitely had not been walking anywhere near when I lost it. It’s impossible to state that it was definitely mine–one grey ballcap tends to look like any other–but I decided that 1) it was, and 2) finding it in the southern bathroom was a miracle. God was sending me a message, possibly related to starting this thread. Or I would have decided 2) had I been religious. As it is, I just decided “that was weird.” ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2021, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/36 "2021-12-28T15:22:19Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I would say the world looks and works like it does today because of the abundance of miracles I think that would require an extremely loose definition of “miracle” where it is indistinguishable from coincidence, chance and the known, empirically proven workings of the world. You are welcome to use it in that way of course but I’m not sure it is useful. By such a definition it is a miracle that I’m communicating this message to you right now. ---
**Author:** ![Roger\_That](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roger_that/32/8505_2.png) [@Roger\_That](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_That)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2021, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/37 "2021-12-28T15:37:52Z")
It almost seems as if kanicbird defines “miracle” as the opposite of an impossibility: if it happens, it’s a miracle. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2021, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/38 "2021-12-28T15:54:34Z")
Belief in God still leaves wide-open questions of whether, how, and how often God directly intervenes in the world. At one extreme you have the watchmaker God of the Deists, who set everything in motion at the beginning but has been entirely hands-off since then. At the other extreme you have a God who micromanages every last detail and is responsible for everything that happens. Somewhere in between is a God who sometimes steps in to directly intervene or to give little tweaks behind the scenes. I don’t want to speak for him, but @kanicbird’s point of view may be to define miracles as these direct interventions by God. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2021, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/39 "2021-12-28T16:08:44Z")
Speaking purely to the religious aspect, which does not address what an atheist would call the same event, I believe that miracles, both in scripture and recorded in modern times, are those events which evoke wonder and gratitude (the root of the word means “wonderful”, not “impossible” or “supernatural”) They are not _necessarily_ impossible at all. They may be, in fact, explained by the non-religious in other terms, without negating their miraculous qualities – wonder, awe, gratitude to God. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2021, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/40 "2021-12-28T16:21:07Z")
I notice a lot of people do use miracle in this sense. Things like the “miracle of birth” or the miracle of another sunrise, the miracle of love, etc. On the other hand, it certainly seems like the things in the Bible that are referred to as miracles are exactly the sort of things that we would call supernatural and that violate the laws of physics. Changing water into wine, walking on water, resurrecting the dead, multiplying the loaves and fish, etc. Even 2,000 years ago, people knew that those weren’t the sorts of things one could expect to see in the ordinary course of events, despite them not having a formal concept of the laws of physics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665.md?page=3)