# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2021, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/41 "2021-12-28T17:45:54Z")
I don’t see why a miracle would be impossible. ---
**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, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/42 "2021-12-28T18:17:41Z")
Uh, by definition? ---
**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, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/43 "2021-12-28T22:07:51Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > I don’t see why a miracle would be impossible Can you give an example of a suitable miracle that lies in the realm of the “possible”? That might help us to understand where you are coming from. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2021, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/44 "2021-12-29T00:42:08Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > You are welcome to use it in that way of course but I’m not sure it is useful. Yes I believe the miracles I have been granted to see (or be let in on), are intentionally hidden from common sight on purpose. So no it will not be helpful at all (in the ‘proof of God’ category). It can also produce a very weird moment for the person who has been granted the vision to see it when that person realizes no one else could. I also think the above is the explanation of Luke 17:17-18, such a thing even apparently confused Jesus that only 1 of 10 healed actually returned to praise God. Are they big miracles that most everyone sees? IDK, I cant’ remember any that I have personally experienced. I have hints that they experienced part of it though forgot what they experienced like nothing ever happened. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2021, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/45 "2021-12-29T01:09:33Z")
Because there can be a difference between how people perceive things and what happened. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, they say. Miracles may need even less science or perhaps more faith to simply accept something as miraculous. Life is a miracle. Birth is a miracle. Many things improbable, or even commonplace can be called such. Miracle Whip? Meh. Mayonnaise tastes better to me, but it is right there in the moniker. Religious examples are not my forte guy. But even the Roman Emperor was said to have been surprised that the reputed Son of God died upon the cross after only six hours, according to one account I read. I certainly cannot say what happened then, but rising from the dead certainly seems miraculous. However, other explanations have been proffered. I have never personally seen anyone turn water into wine. But even I have turned wine into water, and that is a miracle to me as a medicine man. If miracles, whatever they are, happen at all than they may have been unlikely or improbable or open to interpretation or a result of pure faith - but if they were interpreted as having happened and one accepts this one accepts also they must have been possible. I don’t see how a definition necessarily excludes this. I think it would be inaccurate but not necessarily misleading. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2021, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/46 "2021-12-29T01:31:22Z")
But who am I to say what you should define as a miracle? ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2021, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/47 "2021-12-29T02:41:53Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Life is a miracle. Birth is a miracle. I think if you call such mundane things like life and birth a miracle, the word has lost any meaning. Both things just regularly happen on this planet. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2021, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/48 "2021-12-29T03:50:50Z")
It remains to be seen just how common life is in the universe. As a doctor and scientist, I consider life miraculous even if it may also be called mundane or commonplace. If life is not miraculous, what is? ---
**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 29, 2021, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/49 "2021-12-29T04:47:58Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I think if you call such mundane things like life and birth a miracle, the word has lost any meaning. Both things just regularly happen on this planet. It only happened once to _me_. ---
**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 29, 2021, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/50 "2021-12-29T04:50:40Z")
Many Christians have overused and watered-down the term “miracle” to the point where it has become meaningless. Some even claim that conception, pregnancy and childbirth is a “miracle,” as if we don’t know exactly how it works (sperm meet egg…) A miracle, by definition, should be something extraordinarily rare, unusual, and violating of physics or known laws of nature. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2021, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/51 "2021-12-29T07:29:37Z")
The rub is what is known. Although we know a lot, this does not mean future generations will think that we did. Until the microscope was invented 500 years ago, no one suspected the existence of tiny things. Until thirty years ago, no one suspected the oceans teemed with incredible numbers of viruses. We know little about viruses - not even a rough estimate of their number - not much about the five pounds of bacteria we carry in our guts, and nothing at all about unknown unknowns. If you believe in homeopathy, perhaps you believe in homeopathic wine? With the right definition, water can be turned into wine -because it is the same thing in the limit. If a miracle is an interpretation of a vision or an inexplicable cure of disability of scrofula, well doctors have long taken the credit when Nature provided the cure. We may understand childbirth pretty well, but it still seems miraculous to me when I see it. What I consider miraculous is up to me. The universe is pretty big, the amount of life known there is still highly circumscribed. ---
**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 29, 2021, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/52 "2021-12-29T08:04:29Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > A miracle, by definition, should be something extraordinarily rare, unusual, and violating of physics or known laws of nature. I think the “rare, unusual” part of your definition is often, wrongly, used as a standalone criteria for “miracles”. You rightly include an important _“and”_ in there. That something is rare or unusual should never be enough on its own. A perfect hand in bridge is not a miracle, remission from stage 4 cancer is not a miracle, winning the lottery two weeks in a row is not a miracle. There is no transgressing of the natural laws for any of those. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2021, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/53 "2021-12-29T11:19:23Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Many Christians have overused and watered-down the term “miracle” to the point where it has become meaningless. Some even claim that conception, pregnancy and childbirth is a “miracle,” as if we don’t know exactly how it works (sperm meet egg…) And then there are various intriguing claims about transubstantiation: sure, we’re told, it _seems_ like it’s still bread and wine; but, in a manner passing understanding, it’s now become the body and blood of Jesus — no, not in a symbolic or metaphorical sense, but in a _literal_ one. Yes, to all appearances it’s unchanged; but the miracle is that it _is_ changed — which you can’t tell from how it tastes or looks or whatever, regardless of whether we bring microscopes and chemical analysis into this. Often makes me wonder whether Jesus turned water into wine similarly: _sure, it looks and tastes like it’s still just water; to all appearances, it’s unchanged — but the miracle is, it’s now literally become wine!_ “This leper has been miraculously cured!” “No, he hasn’t.” “Look closer.” “I did; he’s still a leper.” “Ah, but the miracle is that he isn’t!” “He literally is.” “He literally _isn’t!_” (To all appearances, that’s still just a corpse; the miracle is, he‘s _literally come back to life!_) ---
**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 29, 2021, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/54 "2021-12-29T12:54:10Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > If life is not miraculous, what is? In my book it would be events that are thoroughly investigated and deemed to be most likely to be due to a one time violation of the laws of physics. Turning water into wine, for example, would involve the creation of new matter in violation of the law of conservation of mass / energy. Thorough investigation meaning things like making sure there was no slight of hand involved in switching out the water with wine, multiple thorough chemical analysis to make sure it is in fact wine, etc. Resurrection from the dead would involve a decrease in entropy by taking a dead body and rearranging the atoms to form functional living cells without having added energy or increased entropy somewhere else to account for the decrease in entropy. A thorough investigation would include making sure the body in question was in fact dead prior to the miracle, and that the process isn’t something we can explain, like reviving someone with CPR. ---
**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 29, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/55 "2021-12-29T15:12:20Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > A miracle, by definition, should be something extraordinarily rare, unusual, and violating of physics or known laws of nature. What about events that don’t defy any laws of nature but are so wildly improbable as to suggest divine intervention? ---
**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 29, 2021, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/56 "2021-12-29T15:15:01Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > events that don’t defy any laws of nature but are so wildly improbable as to suggest divine intervention Name some? ---
**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 29, 2021, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/57 "2021-12-29T15:15:29Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > What about events that don’t defy any laws of nature but are so wildly improbable as to suggest divine intervention? That could count. Pastor Kenneth Gaub, for instance, tells the anecdote of how, in the 1990s, a suicidal woman in Pennsylvania once called a pay phone in Dayton, Ohio…right as he was walking by that phone. She had seen Gaub preach on television before, and was right about to take her life, but in desperation thought, “I want Gaub to talk to me, he can help me” and at that moment a telephone number appeared in her head and it was THE phone that he was walking by at that specific moment. No violation of scientific laws, but virtually impossible to be coincidence. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2021, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/58 "2021-12-29T15:26:10Z")
And that was verified to have actually happened how? ---
**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 29, 2021, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/59 "2021-12-29T15:46:13Z")
Exactly. Every religious miracle I’ve ever heard of was witnessed by no one, recorded nowhere, and passionately attested to by people saying “I have zero evidence for this but trust me…” ---
**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 29, 2021, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/60 "2021-12-29T15:54:24Z")
> [@Roger\_That](#): > > Name some? I was having trouble coming up with a specific example, but I think @Velocity’s would work. > [@running\_coach](#): > > And that was verified to have actually happened how? For the purpose of this particular discussion, I don’t think it matters. You could think of it as a hypothetical example of “events that don’t defy any laws of nature but are so wildly improbable as to suggest divine intervention”—something that would count as a miracle if it actually happened exactly as described. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665.md?page=4)