Religion-not a debate about it's truth

I can see right now that you might find the metaphysics of mysticism less interesting than the metaphysics of magic. I believe that science and religion have come a long way in the concrete and the abstract. But I am not wise or foolish enough to believe any man knows the whole truth. I can believe in divinity without believing in an invisible human in the sky.

I might note that most of the medical professionals I have talked to tell me that seizures that cause cardiac arrest are kind of rare though that would not lead me to believe they are necessarily an act of God

Micheal, that wasn't a miracle bro. No law of physics were broken.

Nothing impossible happened, nothing paranormal or even mystical.

A sick person got better. Happens every day and it means nothing more than her body fought to survive and she was one of the lucky ones.

Sorry bro, that is the least inspiring example of a miracle I have ever heard. I'm really happy she got better, but there was nothing miraculous about it.

Oh.. well that's very different........ never mind

So do you what to tell me about the times you have witnessed evolution?

Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

Are you trying to say you doubt evolution?
i mean seriously why do we have so many different races if evolution didnt exist. why have different races evolved to cope with there enviroment. eskimos have brown fat which turns sugar directly into heat, ethiopians have a faster metobolic rate to turn poisons from the enviroment harmless. europeans have evolved to deal with alcohol better because that was how they killed the bacteria found in water.

but then on a human scale evolution is genarally slow so why dont you look at bacteria , fungi and viruses. havent you heard of all the super bugs now that have evolved to deal with antibiotics and anti septics. there are several funguses that have evolved in the ruins of chernobyl that are not only resistant to very high levels of radiation but actually use it as an energy source kinda like how plants use sunlight
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20070422222547data_trunc_sys.shtml
or how about the E. coli long-term evolution experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment
it is impossible to deny evolution exists

I never denied evolution exists only that any living creature has witnessed the entire process

Its impossible to witness the entire process as that means we would have had to be here before life began and still be here after all life has ended. but we still can witness the process in action

I will tell you what is impossible for me to believe. It is that some randomly evolved ape got a brain fart and scribed hundreds of scrolls while he was laughing his you know what off thinking this will control the masses

Many highly educated people have witnessed many good morals in many ancient writings

You know what I find amazing Micheal, and I don't think I can say this without at least sounding a tad insulting to you, so for that I am sorry.

I find it amazing that a few posts ago, you were adamant about Miracles you had experienced, you then post the most powerful one and two posts later you seemed to have completely abandoned it, or you didn't have one word to say to back up it's validity after myself and Rocky had posted.

Doesn't that bother you? That you have NOTHING but you're highly subjective interpretation as a reason to believe in something so unlikely as to be almost certainly untrue, and you appear to only believe in it for the lightest of reasons. As if not one person has ever said to you, upon hearing that story;

"ugh that isn't a miracle, sick people recover all the time and no laws of the universe were broken by any spiritual force"

If you will believe what happened to your relative was a miracle, without any evidence, or it seems logic I wonder what else you believe with the same slight evidence.

Noah's ark? Please. My 8 year old cousin could pick enough holes in that story to shut any Christian up about it.

There does seem to be a technical gap in the book of Genesis that cannot be explained by the laws of physics. I personally could not build a Tower of Babel, pyramid or a cell phone I would probably not say they were intrinsically good or evil. The brain of a piss-ant, or a flea, are not as large a challenge as a viruses ability to adapt to our attempts to control them. It would be as easy for me to say that the book of Genesis had no effect on humanity good or evil. The stigma was placed on a divine member of the trinity in the common-era. Every day doctors use the laws of physics to save lives, while men of war use the laws of physics to destroy. It seems that the laws of physics always was and always will be a part of good orderly direction.

My sister could never had passed her genes on if she had obeyed the law of the survival of the fittest because she was born with blue baby syndrome and as far as I know her heart never missed a beat after her corrective surgery until she was administered a dose of codeine right before her heart stopped because of a severe electrolyte imbalance

The only thing I can tell you is the doctors said they needed a miracle and they got one.

If you ever get a chance you should see
Something The Lord Made it is a biopic about the black cardiac pioneer Vivien Thomas and his complex and volatile partnership with white surgeon Alfred Blalock, the world famous "Blue Baby doctor" who pioneered modern heart surgery

"If you will believe what happened to your relative was a miracle, without any evidence, or it seems logic I wonder what else you believe with the same slight evidence."

Creation did not end on the day of rest, it began
How much more creation will you have to see before you believe in a Creator?

I've already clearly explained Micheal that what happened to your relative was not a divine intervention of any kind. It wasn't a miracle. The Doctors might have used that term because they'd reached the limits of their ability to help medically, but it doesn't change anything.

I believe in creators, but not in a "divine creator". I am a creator and so are you and the proof of that is everywhere around us, and indeed in these very words. I see no divine hand in the natural world, but that is not to say I am dead to it's wonder and beauty, or that I don't see value in spiritual experiences like meditation, bliss and transcendence.

I just don't attribute anything to a God. There just isn't any evidence, not a single shred.

The Roman Catholic Church allows for both a literal and allegorical interpretation of Genesis, so as to allow for the possibility of Creation by means of an evolutionary process over great spans of time, otherwise known as theistic evolution.
Deism
See also: Deism
Deism is belief in a God or first cause based on reason, rather than on faith or revelation. Most deists believe that God does not interfere with the world or create miracles. Some deists believe that a Divine Creator initiated a universe in which evolution occurred, by designing the system and the natural laws, although many deists believe that God also created life itself, before allowing it to be subject to evolution. They find it to be undignified and unwieldy for a deity to make constant adjustments rather than letting evolution elegantly adapt organisms to changing environments. Other deists take the stronger position that God ceased to exist after setting in motion the laws of the universe

As far as crop circles go they have been around longer than most would believe. Even before global warming was ever thought of. I read somewhere that the brain of an ant has ten thousand cells though I am not sure who counted them
Even if it were only the laws of the universe that evolved your poetic heart I would miss the myriad of cells that imprison your dear soul

""Life in this world," he said, "is, as it were, a sojourn in a cave. What can we know of reality? For all we
see of the true nature of existence is, shall we say, no more than bewildering and amusing shadows cast
upon the inner wall of the cave by the unseen blinding light of absolute truth, from which we may or may
not deduce some glimmer of veracity, and we as troglodyte seekers of wisdom can only lift our voices to
the unseen and say, humbly, `Go on, do Deformed Rabbit . . . it's my favorite.' "
- terry pratchett

Yes Micheal, I know about all those things.

If you are just going to quote wikipedia descriptions of theistic beliefs in place of actually defending and supporting your arguments, then perhaps this isn't the thread for you.

Live and let live and all that, but it's a cause for concern when adults allow themselves to believe in something so unlikely for reasons that can't even stand up to a Poetry website debate.

I don't think you've ever really looked at your beliefs Micheal, clearly.

'I don't think you've ever really looked at your beliefs Micheal, clearly."

In my world the truth must be discovered rather than invented
The book that has been printed more than any book in the world, or so I have been told, has been a major part of my life. When I researched my genealogy I found tombstones by cathedrals monasteries and churches with the names of my forefathers on them. I was named after a mythical creature although mythical and creature may not mean the same thing to me as it does to you. Though I was taught to accept knowledge on authority it became clear that religious authorities crucified God and placed a stigma on Love
I find it easier to see clearly why someone would rebel against authority rather than the laws that created life.
I first thought religion was the topic of discussion
not debate about its truth

but it was more like Wayne's world
Religion NOT!!!!!!!!!!

It's just me and you Mikey.

So do you accept that your relatives recovery might not have been as divinely miraculous as you initially thought? Or do you still think God singled her out for life.

A man was late for an important meeting and couldn't find a parking
space. As he frantically circled the block, he got so
desperate that he decided to pray. Looking up toward
heaven, he prayed, "Lord, take pity on me. If you find me
a parking space, I'll go to church every Sunday for the rest
of my life, and not only that, I'll give up drinking."
Miraculously, a parking space appeared. He looked up
again and said, "Never mind, Lord. I found one."
Isn't it true that sometimes, though we may pray in
the midst of a crisis, we really don't expect God to answer,
and then if he does answer, we find some other
explanation?

I don't believe that anyone would have a better reason to want to doubt I owe God more than most
In the cases where I have sensed my loved ones were ready I have fought with my conscience to let go and when they go to their peace I must admit it is me I feel sorry for

In every case that I have dealt with bereavement I have understood the process better while my heart was breaking, I was losing my mind, and it was even hard to find peace in my soul

A few months before my mother passed away I had a precognition of my mother being removed from a life support. I woke up terrified but I assured myself that I should not give the dream a second thought because I believed it was not possible my mother would be on a life support because she had a living will that I thought would even prevent a resuscitation. The doctor was more confident she would recover than any of the caregivers gave my sister after she had to be sedated to the point the doctors thought she was brain dead. It was only after the doctors all agreed death was absolutely imminent and unavoidable did we allow my mother's wishes to be carried out and she was removed from life support

Would you agree that these right to life and right to death laws may even get confusing from a secular point of view?

At times it used to annoy me when the woman that put my sister on the prayer line would even pray that Jesus would find her a parking space and I was sure if Jesus was busy finding parking spaces He was not worried about a kid across town getting run over, but thinking that way gives me no peace now

Declaring a miracle rarely offends people who have the theological virtues of faith hope and charity
I somehow believe that Faith as a theological virtue is over both of our heads and I need to play the role of the devils advocate, to satisfy your curiosity about my secular thoughts
In other words if I believe God is the cause of theological virtues. I cannot claim that God refuses to create or intervene in matters of human development so I see doubt, despair, and hate as a vice.I think we do not have tho review the value of any faith. I have observed the failure of wishing someone good luck in a crisis at least as many times as the offering of a half-hearted prayer

Every time we as onlookers would proclaim our hope the caregivers could not seem to hide their doubt that my sister was lucky. The way they were acting I was expecting them to ask for an organ donation as if to say it won't be long before she won't need them.

Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible"

Can you explain why the people that fear giving hope have no problem with wishing good luck as if it were a magical spell of favorable fortune?

In the prayer group I have attended we call that stinking
thinking

Can you prove you exist?

If this debate has proven anything it is certainly that one cannot believe a miracle occurred if one had already drawn a conclusion in one's mind that miracles are not possible at all.

I think Albert Einstein would say I tink you had a brain fart what does that prove?

Here are a few more Einstien quotes

# "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."
# "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
# "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
# "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."

Lord knows I am not a scientist, where do you stink my inspiration comes from?

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles/

I'm not sure I have the skill to tell the story of my favorite miracle to the point anyone could even imagine how hopeless things seemed

I am sure if you had only witnessed a millionth of natural recoveries you would not think Divine Design is a Canadian interior design show produced by Fusion Television which airs on W Network in Canada and HGTV in the United States. ...

I know you will pardon the pun dear poet, but I found your link illuminating

Iit may be enlightening that this is wiki conclusion to wayne's link

"Hamer responded that the existence of such a gene would not be incompatible with the existence of a personal God: "Religious believers can point to the existence of God genes as one more sign of the creator's ingenuity a clever way to help humans acknowledge and embrace a divine presence"

I think tink was a typo written in response to my reaction to his fishy remark
In the prayer group I have attended we call that stinking
thinking

Can you prove you exist?

Cogito ergo sum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Cogito, ergo sum"(Usually translated in English as: "I think, therefore I am", but can be less ambiguously translated as "I am thinking, therefore I exist" or "I am thinking, on the account of being"), sometimes misquoted as Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum (English: "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am"),[1] is a philosophical statement in Latin used by Ren© Descartes, which became a foundational element of Western philosophy. The simple meaning of the phrase is that if someone is wondering whether or not he exists, that is in and of itself proof that he does exist (because, at the very least, there is an "I" who is doing the thinking).[2]

Descartes's original statement was "Je pense donc je suis," from his Discourse on Method (1637). He wrote it in French, not in Latin, thus reaching a wider audience in his country than that of scholars. He uses the Latin "

I agree wayne did seem to be supporting the substance of my own thoughts on reflecting theological virtues by accepting the Holy Spirit

I Am that I Am is a common English translation of the response God used in the Bible when Moses asked for His name (Exodus 3:14). It is one of the most famous verses in the Torah. Hayah means "existed" or "was" in Hebrew;.

"It is interesting that the idea did not originate with Descartes, though it is usually credited to him. Some twelve hundred years before Descartes, Augustine in his City of God (11.26) wrote:

Without any delusive representation of images and phantasms, I am most certain that I am, and that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths, I am not afraid of the arguments of the Academicians, who say, "What if you are deceived?" For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token I am.

Descartes was concerned about how the nonmaterial could interact with the material and how the "extended" substance of body could house the "unextended" spirit called soul. Re resolved the problem of the incompatibility of the two entities by his dualism; that is to say, by giving the problem a name"

If there is one thing that dogmatic creationist and evolutionist could probably agree on is man gave names to all of the animals

To finish another cliche, in an unorthodox way, that may bore you. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck,and walks like a duck it is probably not a chicken

One of my personal favorite answer was given by a member of The Club. Paste Chicken or the Egg in the Search Forums click on the locked one scroll three post down were sibyllene
says

"Abby, I'm pretty sure nicko is right. The orgasm definitely evolved first"
.

What about the rooster?

At least we know something was laid

Micheal can never answer that chicken and egg question, cause he doesn't understand evolution.

Clearly the egg game first, and it was an egg produced by two chicken like birds, perhaps one of them was a bit weird compared to other chicken like birds of the time.

For whatever reason, the babies who were more like modern day chickens had an increased survival rate, perhaps because these new breeds could lay eggs faster or had increased resistance to the cold etc etc. They went on to make more special birds, even more like modern day chickens and the old birds of their parents generation, they died out cause they weren't viable anymore or split off into another branch of the species, like turkeys perhaps.

It's the same with human evolution and the reason why we still have apes and chimps running around.

Point is, it's clearly the egg, it's a no brainer.

What is pork butt if you don't live in America?
And how much is a quart?
Confused of Scotland

The yoke may be on the eggers who refuse to buy into the chicken came before the offspring theory

An evolutionist may speculate that an eye evolved from a more sensitive light skin area

The genetic code is less random because intelligent design is clearly passed from the surviving species that did not become extinct by randomly evolving eyes in their butts

It is clearly more important to know where one is going than where one has been

I don't know if one can focus on what we call something to structure a soulless debate on weather a chicken is more like a mythical creature than an ape created in the image and likeness of a supreme being

The bipedal apes were probably viable because thier parents stood for what they felt was important.

If our ancestors conceived no brainers, then could one make the case that chickens are no butters?

A tappered butt gives an Aerodynamic bird the illusion of intelligent design, yet is the design not already in the egg of a bird?

Bacon and eggs were a natural selection for our parents because man does not live by bread alone

The yolk seems to depend on more than what the bird consumes

Food for thought

I find it hard to believe cave men were as concerned what to call a pheasant
if they did they missed the point while they domesticated the wild

I have been told that I am wired different
I could spend the whole day pondering whether the domestic birds have developed
Love
purpose and focus in life
spiritual faith and experience
community
ethics and morals
explanations about the world and humanity

If you saw the man walking around with a parakeet as I did I am sure you would wonder how strange bonds have evolved randomly

Two parents
Four grand parents
Eight great grand parents
Sixteen great great grand parents
Thirty two great great great grand parents
Notice the number doubles every generation.
Now let's say on average a generation is 20 years
Let's take a finite number of years say 6000
Let's say 6000years =300 generations
1st=1
2nd=2
3rd=4
4th=8
5th=16
6th=32
7th=64
8th=128
9th=256
10th=512
11th=1024
12th=2048
13th=4096
14th=8192
15th=16384
16th=32768
17th=65536
18th=131072
19th=262144
20th=524288

As quickly as you can find the variable that would decrease the number of ancestors in a regressed genealogy chart
No one has ever found a point to stating the variables. yet variables are what make creatures diverse in our universe

You can't deny relationships bro
Birds of a feather flock together. Death and rebirth has its purpose in all of creation.
See you in the chicken I mean The Club

As I have said I am a creative evolutionist or an evolving creationist that believes Genesis is full of metaphors. I am currently meditating on passages from the work of C S Lewis which includes paragraphs from "Is Theology Poetry?"

Selective breeding demonstrates how intelligent design effect variables exemplified by variables. Years of grooming may have produced a scottish terrier
evlolution and creation is ongoing
http://ldolphin.org/cslevol.html

I believe, as many do, that the process of natural selection is so slow that the fowl we call chickens
will bravely survive as long as we have the desire to consume them. Many catholics feel the same way about consuming the essence of Divinity

Emily that's Susan Boyle From "Britain's Got Talent ...

Illuminati

"Why isn't there any transitional fossil to confirm the event of "passage from water to land""
the reason for that is that any animal evolving to leave the ocean would still have hung around close to the ocean. and the coast line does not have any of the pre-requisites that fossils need to form. but look at the mudskipper fish. that is obviously a fish that has decided to take its chances in evolving to the land. or how about even the other way around. x-rays of dophins show traces of vestigial hind limbs.

"If evolution is an ongoing, infinite change in the genetic material why cant we witness, on dally bases the many emerging new species?" every species is an emerging new species but our lifetime is way to short to see any real changes. evolution dosnt take years, it takes tens of thousands or even millions of years for any major changes to be noticable. the only things in which we can see any noticable changes in our lifetime is bacteria and viruses. read this link about the long term evolution experiment in e-coli
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

"Why isn't there any species in the
rainforest trying to make tools, talk? Did evolution stop for a special reason?" firslt most animals do have a very simple form of language. it is why birds sing, and bees can communicate to other bees where to find food. and secondly there are species of monkeys that do use very simple tools, like when they use a stick to go ant fishing. and thirdly evolution hasnt stopped. it just might seem that way from our perspective because our perspective is so short

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you ...Supreme Being?

Though our time is indeed short there is in most, higher beings, a desire to unite with creatures of above or equal rank. In human beings social intercourse is necessary for the purpose of reproduction. Randomly evolved creatures usually possess a drive to live some call the survival instinct. The bipedal apes known as humans may have began in the mind of an ape that decided with its own limited intelligence to stand on its hind limbs to free its forelimbs for carrying food. Then as the ape began to get more comfortable in the upright position it may have spent more time on its hind limbs than the other primates. Monkey see monkey do? I was humiliated when someone pointed to my habits and said Mikey see Mikey do, yet humility is a virtue. Maybe after the revolutionary trend of many generations of apes ,walking on hind limbs, the spine began to adapt, and this adaptation was passed to the offspring.
Therefore it is soothing for me that a non-alien intelligence may have played roles in our design. Kevin is correct when he says I have questions about evolution. Which came first intelligence or design?

Ahh, Kevo, another religion topic? I like that you have a nice brain, and that you use it. And I think it's right to be able to point out the weaknesses of religion and the strengths of science, where they are applicable. But it really does make me sad how scornfully you look down on all aspects of a religious existence. I'm really really not the most "churchy" person ever, but I do think you're missing out if you think the only real truths come from the laboratory.

Sibby, come on you've read some of my poems...I hope.

I am not denying the importance of spiritual experience or emotional depths, rapture and awe etc. I just know you can have all those things without them being attached to an unlikely belief in a Diety.

You know Britt, I'm amazed that people still deny evolution, or I suppose more accurately still choose to accept creationism as a working theory, over evolution.

We all understand and accept I hope, that the attributes of parents are very often passed on to their offspring, and if one or more parents had very odd or exceptional attributes (say jet black hair in a country full of blondes, or someone who was 10ft tall in a country full of little people) and those attributes were favourable to survival and breeding chances, I'm sure you can all imagine how over the course of several hundred generations, a country of blonde little people might become brown/blacked hair tall people.

I know there is still alot of unknowns about evolution, because the start of it and the gradual progression into what we call Homo Sapiens happened such a long time ago the course it's so easy to plot.

Still it's alot more likely to me than a theory of creation that abregates every known law of science we had struggled so many years to lay down.

"Sibby, come on you've read some of my poems...I hope."

Yeah I have, friend : D. Which is why a lot of the arguments in this thread confuse me....

I believe in God and evolution! Though "believe in" is kind of used differently in those two things.

Brittness - according to things like genetics studies/ study of the fossil record, the idea is not that we came from monkeys. Rather, the apes and monkeys that exist now all evolved from a common primate ancestor. That stage no longer exists because it's branched off to become these different species. You won't see things like chimps still changing into humans, because those two branches have gone their separate ways. Chimps are still evolving, as are humans, but very very very slowly. How we ended up here and they ended up as they are was the result of little fluctuations and mutations in the genetic code, and also shaped by environmental things. It could be random, it could be acting out some great cosmic intention, who knows? As far as "why" that happens genetically, I couldn't tell ya, you'd have to ask someone specialized. Personally, I see lots of awesomeness and miracle in the idea of evolution. (Not miraculous in the 'stemming from nothing' sense, Kevo, just in the really really cool that that happened because it seems so unlikely sense.)

Sorry, I got on a roll there, haha...

Sib, you are still my intellectual and spiritual love.
Britt, we have the same common ancestors as bacteria and bananas as well. We came from soup and time. Supposedly. Evolution has only ever been observed within the same species, not between. And the process is, indeed, miraculously random and spontaneous...but guided.
Kevin, believe in miracles. They are what people are discovering and science is confirming every day.

No abby, there is no such thing. Miracles are what people call events they don't have the information to understand.

But please do share some miracles that science is discovering dear, I'd love to hear about those.

this is one definition of a miracle.

"1. an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause".

Do you really know about miracles?

Michael has already sort of admitted his personal miracle with his relative might actually have just been something perfectly normal and everyday. Miraculous to him of course, but that is a personal subjective interpretation and it doesn't relate to the reality of the situation, which is always rather mundane, or at the very most just unknown science and not some abregation of natural law.

Idiom Definitions for 'Familiarity breeds contempt'

This means that the more you know something or someone, the more you start to find faults and dislike things about it or them
More recently I have developed less contempt for science and religion. If you believe there has not been an attempt to reconcile the differences in church and science then I would have to believe you are not well informed. If one closely examines the selective breeding one may observe a vast difference in breeds of domestic animals. In a thread such as this is it difficult to see that humans are very diverse in selecting what they believe?

God can not be perfectly explained in words. god must be experienced in order to understand him,
because words are humans way of explaining things
but humans can never fully word something that is felt
it just must be experienced for one to understand

"Miracles are what people call events they don't have the information to understand."

In that case, science and religion wouldn't exist without miracles. Nothing would.

Here is a miracle: We will never know anything for sure. The seeming miracles that we can quash with science research only unveil more miracles, more marvellous gaps in our knowledge. Life, the existence of things, consciousness, selfless love, the fact that our human systematic thinking of the world is reliant on its very immutable and impenetrable laws...these are all miracles- being updated over time by us, but ongoing miracles nonetheless. To refer to your initial post, I think that is how a person's search for truth often leads them to God.
Here is another reason to believe in miracles- I think they make life more fun. Sure, they provide mystery and enchantment and a thirst for knowledge, however imperfect. But there's also the effect of watching a circus, being beguiled by the tricks and awestruck by the talent, understanding the difficulties, wanting to learn, and appreciating the performance from a distance.

That sounds lovely Abby, but you didn't offer even one thing that could be called a miracle by the definition I posted from a dictionary.

What you are talking about is ace and charming, but it's not really anything to do with miracles.

"1. an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause".

Do you really know about miracles?

Michael has already sort of admitted his personal miracle with his relative might actually have just been something perfectly normal and everyday. Miraculous to him of course, but that is a personal subjective interpretation and it doesn't relate to the reality of the situation, which is always rather mundane, or at the very most just unknown science and not some abregation of natural law."

Perfectly natural can be seen as an oxymoron to the myriads that believe, as I do, that evolution and creation is ongoing. Science is a continuing effort to discover and increase human knowledge and understanding through disciplined research. There have been objects that seem to fly that have not been indentified due to a lack of knowledge

Philosophy is a systematic discipline that has attempted to explain existence through cause and effect. A miracle is a poetic term in the sense that in order to ascribe to miracles by your definition one must also ascribe to supernatural cause.

I believe from the accounts when people saw the Wright brothers trying to build a machine to do only what is perfectly natural to birds the people that were not laughing may have thought of committing them to an institution. It seems the Wright brothers were committed to success
Were they committed by an unnatural or natural desire to ascend?

A big bang that has no good orderly direction may be more destructive than creative

Yo Kevin. Please refer to paragraph 2, lines 1 ("Here is a miracle...") and 3 from my post. There are at least five miracles listed there that we "don't have the information to understand" (yet). Sorry you missed them.

I missed them abby, cause they aren't miracles sweetie.

Things we don't know about, or new discoveries of science aren't miracles...there are no abregations of natural laws..just more stuff to learn.

There is a marked difference.

I think we're getting lost in the the definition of the word.

For me a miracle is something that is either paranormal or divine and effects reality is a way that isn't natural, like moses parting the red sea, for instance. Staring in a petree dish (did I spell that right?) and discovering a new type of bacteria isn't a miracle cause nothing unatural has occured.

Epic win.