Questions tagged [miracles]
A miracle is an event attributed to a supernatural agent even if there is a naturalistic explanation for the event.
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What should a rational person accept as a miracle?
I was reading through this collection of short essays from theologians, scientists and thinkers each responding to the question "Does the Universe have a purpose?" which was suggested to me in a ...
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Is watching an amputated limb regrow proof of the supernatural?
A typical challenge skeptics present when confronted with claims of alleged miracles is "why won't God Heal amputees?". But, would that do the job? Consider the following thought experiment: ...
user48437
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What is a miracle, and why should it influence our metaphysical beliefs?
There's a question on this site regarding what a rational person should accept as a miracle, but the question and its answers seem to take the definition and categorization (as well as consequence) of ...
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Are miracles compatible with our belief in empirical predictions?
I read the SEP entry on miracles a while ago and plan to take a shot at Hume's Of Miracles soon.
Before I get started - I cannot understand how miracles even make sense. Here's my thinking so far:
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user6917
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Can a zero prior probability for some theories be justified?
Let us assume the case of psychics and call the hypothesis of a “psychic explanation” H. Bayesian theory tells you to never assign a prior of zero. This is because if P(H) = 0, then no amount of ...
user62907
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Why do we need repetitive demonstration to accept miracles happening?
From the highest upvoted answer on Is any aspect of the supernatural testable? What level of proof is possible for the supernatural?:
However, you are probably wasting your time on the various ...
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Should religiously significant coincidences be seen as miracles?
It seems that in most of philosophical history, the attention of the word miracle has referred to a direct violation of a law of nature.
It would, however, be naive to not notice how religious ...
user62907
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God's paradoxes and their implications [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Is the definition of God consistent?
As many of you, I've come across a few paradoxes of all sorts, from logic to math, linguistics and so forth. Some of such involve God or, ...
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Does Alvin Plantinga's solution to the problem of divine action entail a total denial of the applicability of Newtonian physics to the world?
Alvin Plantinga offers at least two major solutions to the problem of divine action; that physical laws of the Newtonian sort are (often implicitly) qualified to apply only to causally closed systems, ...
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What is the point of prayer for theological rationalists?
Of course, there are psychological aspects, you can unify a community or concentrate on your life goals. I feel like Christians try to do something like that when they say that prayer should be a ...
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Is getting 100 Heads in a row from a fair coin a miracle or not?
Suppose a man continues to toss a coin until he gets 100 heads in a row. Suppose the outcomes of all tosses from the 9999901th toss to the 10 millionth toss are all heads and 100 heads in a row didn't ...
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Is the idea of the word of God a means to understand human nature, and prayer?
The idea may sound stupidly ridiculous, but I wonder, can the word of God (Christ?) be read as an allegory on how it is that prayer works. If you see John 1:1-3 it says:
In the beginning was the ...
user28117
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Does quantum mechanics make miracles merely coincidences?
Part of the reason events like Moses parting the Red Sea or a person tunneling through a wall is considered miraculous is because this is considered a violation of a law of nature.
But doesn’t the ...
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Can we assign probabilities to God and is the argument from improbability from Dawkins valid?
Dawkins essentially argues that if one observes some event that seems to be designed because it seems very improbable to have occurred, positing God as a hypothesis doesn't make sense, since God is ...
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How does the success of science offer an objection to religious miracles?
I see today many newspaper columnists etc. say that atheism is a faith as much as any religious one. But surely (I say to myself) the success of science makes any religious claim about a supposed ...
user6917