# 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:** 4
**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, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/61 "2021-12-29T16:16:22Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > 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. Why would we think a wildly improbable occurrence (which happen all over the world every day) has anything to do with a divine being (which have never been shown to exist). Surely we’d exhaust all the natural explanations before plumping for the supernatural? And in any case, before we even get to wondering _how_ something happened the first thing to ask is “_did_ it actually happen?” and “miracles” are always long on anecdote and short on evidence. ---
**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 29, 2021, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/62 "2021-12-29T16:31:57Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > 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? Abiogenesis is still very poorly explained- glossed over, really. It’s a degree of spontaneous self-organization we have no contemporary examples of. ---
**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, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/63 "2021-12-29T19:18:45Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > What about events that don’t defy any laws of nature but are so wildly improbable as to suggest divine intervention? Those happen all the time. We just tend to not think of them that way unless it’s a pattern that seems meaningful. Let’s say I flip a coin 1,000 times and get 1,000 heads. Is that a miracle? Any other combination is just as likely. Every time the Powerball lottery is run, the odds of the combination that did come up are 1 in 292 million. That’s a very rare occurrence, but yet it happens twice a week and people don’t call that a miracle. ---
**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, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/64 "2021-12-29T21:33:15Z")
> [@Roger\_That](#): > > 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…” But the nature of the miracles was such that evidence **couldn’t** be gathered because nobody saw them coming. To use an unlikely-and-not-miracle analogy, suppose that one day you are golfing by yourself with no witnesses around and you hit a hole-in-one. How are you going to prove it? You didn’t expect that you’d hit one, and you had no reason to carry around a video camera with you recording everything 24/7. You could show a photo of the ball in the hole, but you couldn’t prove that you’d hit it there from 400 feet as opposed to 4 feet. ---
**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, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/65 "2021-12-29T21:40:10Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > To use an unlikely-and-not-miracle analogy, suppose that one day you are golfing by yourself with no witnesses around and you hit a hole-in-one. How are you going to prove it? You didn’t expect that you’d hit one, and you had no reason to carry around a video camera with you recording everything 24/7. You could show a photo of the ball in the hole, but you couldn’t prove that you’d hit it there from 400 feet as opposed to 4 feet. The difference is that many people every day hit a hole-in-one, but the call-a-random-number scenario is much, much more unlikely, and without a proof I would always discount such stories as delusions or lies. ---
**Author:** ![Mallard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Mallard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mallard)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2021, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/66 "2021-12-29T23:47:09Z")
Is living to the age of 119 “impossible” if you’ve had two serious bouts of cancer? If it happens is it a “miracle”? I guess we’ll know which on January 2/2022. ---
**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 30, 2021, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/67 "2021-12-30T00:03:36Z")
> [@Mallard](#): > > the age of 119 are you really 118? ---
**Author:** ![Mallard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Mallard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mallard)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2021, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/68 "2021-12-30T06:56:45Z")
No, I’m 120. She’s my younger sister. 🕶 ---
**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 30, 2021, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/69 "2021-12-30T12:57:52Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > you are golfing by yourself with no witnesses around and you hit a hole-in-one. As my 9-year-old brother said after hitting a hole-in-one on a par 3 course (his first time on a golf course), “Well, that’s what I was aiming for, wasn’t it?” ---
**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 30, 2021, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/70 "2021-12-30T13:29:56Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > But the nature of the miracles was such that evidence **couldn’t** be gathered because nobody saw them coming. > > To use an unlikely-and-not-miracle analogy, suppose that one day you are golfing by yourself with no witnesses around and you hit a hole-in-one. How are you going to prove it? You didn’t expect that you’d hit one, and you had no reason to carry around a video camera with you recording everything 24/7. You could show a photo of the ball in the hole, but you couldn’t prove that you’d hit it there from 400 feet as opposed to 4 feet. In that scenario, there’s nothing that violated the laws of physics. Now if you had claimed to have made a hole in zero, and that the ball disappeared off the tee and appeared in the hole without even being hit, Star Trek transporter style, then I would call it a miracle. IMHO the lack or presence of witnesses doesn’t really affect whether something qualifies as a miracle, it just makes one more or less likely to be believable. What makes the miracle is whether or not there were violations of the laws of physics. ---
**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 30, 2021, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/71 "2021-12-30T16:45:15Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > > > What about events that don’t defy any laws of nature but are so wildly improbable as to suggest divine intervention? > > Those happen all the time. We just tend to not think of them that way unless it’s a pattern that seems meaningful. Let’s say I flip a coin 1,000 times and get 1,000 heads. Is that a miracle? Any other combination is just as likely. 1000 heads in a row, though, would be “special” and “meaningful” in a way that most other sequences of coin flips would not. If my calculations are correct, you could flip 1000 coins once per second, and you would expect a result of all 1000 heads about once every 10^{291} centuries. That’s way more than just winning-the-lottery unlikely. I would suspect some sort of trickery (like, that you had perfected the skill of flipping a coin so that it always came up heads) before I would believe that it happened purely by chance. But for that to happen naturally, without any trickery, is so unlikely as to be “statistically impossible” even though it doesn’t break any laws of physics. And I think many people would be comfortable with a definition of “miracle” that included, not just events that break the laws of physics, but at least some events that are statistically impossible in this way. ---
**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 30, 2021, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/72 "2021-12-30T16:53:54Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > 1000 heads in a row, though, would be “special” and “meaningful” in a way that most other sequences of coin flips would not. Why is it any more meaningful or special than any other sequence? > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > And I think many people would be comfortable with a definition of “miracle” that included, not just events that break the laws of physics, but at least some events that are statistically impossible in this way. It’s like how winning the lottery might be a “miracle” to the person who won, but to everyone else who bought a losing ticket it’s just Saturday night. If you prefer that type of definition of a miracle, that’s fine, but I don’t see how it’s useful to lump in such events with purported events that violate the laws of physics. ---
**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 30, 2021, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/73 "2021-12-30T16:58:37Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > It’s like how winning the lottery might be a “miracle” to the person who won, but to everyone else who bought a losing ticket it’s just Saturday night. No, it’s not like that. I’m talking about things that are so unlikely that they’d never happen, to anyone, in the history of the universe. ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2021, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/74 "2021-12-30T17:14:10Z")
So I guess the conclusion to be drawn is that not only does god play dice with the universe, he cheats. ---
**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 30, 2021, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/75 "2021-12-30T17:40:31Z")
My conclusion is that it’s only a miracle if God cheats. God can play dice all day, and it doesn’t matter what numbers come up. It’s only when something impossible happens that it’s a miracle. Flip a quarter a thousand or a million or googol times in a row, and get all heads, or all tails, or HTHTHT with the pattern repeating, and it doesn’t matter. Not a miracle. Flip a quarter, and a silver dollar turns up, then it’s a miracle. Roll a billion red six sided dice, and it doesn’t matter what numbers between 1 and 6 come up, or in what order. If a green dice comes up, or a single dice comes up with a 0 or a 7, or a d20 instead of a d6 somehow appears, then it a miracle. Same with a deck of cards. Shuffle the cards and pull a red Jack of Diamonds at the top every single time after a trillion shuffles - not a miracle. Pull a Blue Daimyo of Cherries, or a Green Conquistador of Feathers, then it’s a miracle. ETA: Those are the sorts of things that would be necessary, though certainly not sufficient. There would also have to be evidence that there wasn’t any slight of hand involved. ---
**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 30, 2021, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/76 "2021-12-30T17:45:25Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > Roll a billion red six sided dice, and it doesn’t matter what numbers between 1 and 6 come up, in what order. If a green dice comes up, or a single die comes up with a 0 or a 7, or a d20 instead of a d6 somehow appears, then it a miracle. Same with a deck of cards. Shuffle the cards and pull a red Jack of Diamonds at the top every single time after a trillion shuffles - not a miracle. Pull a Blue Daimyo of Cherries, or a Green Conquistador of Feathers, then it’s a miracle. > > ETA: Those are the sorts of things that would be necessary, though certainly not sufficient. There would also have to be evidence that there wasn’t any **slight** of hand involved. - Sounds like an episode of _Penn And Teller Fool Us._ 😉 And it’s sleight. ---
**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 30, 2021, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/77 "2021-12-30T17:48:45Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Sounds like an episode of _Penn And Teller Fool Us._ > 😉 > And it’s sleight. You got me on my spelling 😄. My point is that in order to even qualify as a miracle, at least in my book, it would have to be something that would ordinarily be considered impossible. That doesn’t mean that it was a miracle. It could turn out to be sleight of hand, or something else altogether. Those things can be investigated. There’s no point, however, in investigating a mundane event, no matter how unlikely it might be statistically, because it wouldn’t qualify as a miracle due to being a mundane event. ETA: IMHO, the biblical miracles like walking on water, multiplying the loaves, and resurrecting the dead, would qualify by this standard. Whether or not they stand up to investigation is a different story, but they at least qualify as miraculous based on their nature. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2021, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/78 "2021-12-30T19:56:34Z")
First, ISTM that you can allow for a figurative, “literary” usage of the word , to signify “something that fills me with awe and wonder in a way mere mundane events don’t”. Or you could have another figurative, “literary” usage that refers to something so damn unlikely you can’t really explain it and wouldn’t expect to come out that way if repeated a million times. But we’d have to recognize it’s just that, a figure of speech. Now, to the notion of a “proper” miracle – I agree that in the case of something that _if it **were** to happen_ would violate known physical laws or our expectations thereof to the point of being _presumed_ impossible, then that _could_ be fairly called miraculous by those so inclined. I would encourage people who so want to continue looking for a real-world explanation, but meanwhile would not begrudge the believer. Mythical or legenday miracles, we can properly apply to the specific setting thereof. A miracle happens _in the story_, and there’s probably a point to be made about it, but it functions as part of the story (Biblical literalist often fail to understand that trying to “prove” some of the miraculous events actually detracts from the bigger point being made). ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2021, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/79 "2021-12-30T20:12:11Z")
Actually I was agreeing with you. I think miracle is one of those words that doesn’t really mean anything in the “real” world. It either means that something is unlikely but fortunate, or it means god did it. Since god is another of those things that doesn’t exist in the “real” world, it leaves the former as the only useful meaning of the word. ---
**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 30, 2021, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665/80 "2021-12-30T20:47:37Z")
The Miracle Mets (1969 world’s champions) resent the term, almost to a man. “We were a goddamned good ballclub, and we accomplished what we set out to accomplish.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-it-be-inaccurate-or-misleading-to-define-a-miracle-as-an-impossibilty/956665.md?page=5)