The atheist on CARM are wrestles, they keep bring up old therads on miracles. I deiced to oblige. Most of the old threads are just gushing propaganda pieces where one atheist after declares that miracles don't happen. But confront them with the evidence and all they do is supptter incredulity or quibble.
There are sources that show empirical scientific evidence that suggest healing by God happens.
the following caveats have to be observed:
I. There will be an epistemological gap: verisimilitude is the standard!
In any question of knowledge or truth there will always be an epistemological gap. the empiricists fallacy or epistemological dilemma cannot be resolved with out and out empirical means. You have to have a gap it will always be. Given that we can have virtual certainty or verisimilitude.
Just as rational warrant is the thing in God arguments so verisimilitude is the thing in miracle evidence.
II. We can't obtain the actual sources.
you have to use the printed material we can get as a jumping off place to start seeking and researching. It should be enough, however, to make the point that you don't have room to argue for no evdience.
example: theoretically we one is able to by the original x-rays form Lourdes, but that system is not as good as it was. I haven't done much follow up. some of the sources that talk about are not scholarly sources. The scholarship is there. The documentation is there.
Having said that the rules laid out for miracle study for the committee to follow are strong.The Marian Library NewsletterMODERN MIRACLES HAVE STRICT RULES
BY DAVID VAN BIEMA
independent journalist with international reputation
The paradox of human miracle assessment is that the only way to discern whether a phenomenon is supernatural is by having trained rationalists testify that it outstrips their training. Since most wonders admitted by the modern church are medical cures, it consults with doctors. Di Ruberto has access to a pool of 60 - "We've got all the medical branches covered," says his colleague, Dr. Ennio Ensoli - and assigns each purported miracle to two specialists on the vanquished ailment.
They apply criteria established in the 1700s by Pope Benedict XIV: among them, that the disease was serious; that there was objective proof of its existence; that other treatments failed; and that the cure was rapid and lasting. Any one can be a stumbling block. Pain, explains Ensoli, means little: "Someone might say he feels bad, but how do you measure that?" Leukemia remissions are not considered until they have lasted a decade. A cure attributable to human effort, however prayed for, is insufficient. "Sometimes we have cases that you could call exceptional, but that's not enough." says Ensoli. "Exceptional doesn't mean inexplicable."
"Inexplicable," or inspiegabile, is the happy label that Di Ruberto, the doctors and several other clerics in the Vatican's "medical conference" give to a case if it survives their scrutiny. It then passes to a panel of theologians, who must determine whether the inexplicable resulted from prayer. If so, the miracle is usually approved by a caucus of Cardinals and the Pope.
Some find the process all too rigorous. Says Father Paolino Rossi, whose job, in effect, is lobbying for would-be saints from his own Capuchin order: "It's pretty disappointing when you work for years and years and then see the miracle get rejected." But others suggest it could be stricter still.
There is another major miracle-validating body in the Catholic world: the International Medical Committee for the shrine at Lourdes. Since miracles at Lourdes are all ascribed to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, it is not caught up in the saint-making process, which some believe the Pope has running overtime. Roger Pilon, the head of Lourdes' committee, notes that he and his colleagues have not approved a miracle since 1989, while the Vatican recommended 12 in 1994 alone. "Are we too severe?" he wonders out loud. "Are they really using the same criteria?"
No. 38 (New Series)
Summer, 1999
Since the apparitions at Lourdes in 1858, a procedure has gradually developed for verifying the cures and healings which occur there. Today, Lourdes is recognized as the Church's foremost center for investigating healings. There, medical personnel from all the world are invited to investigate the evidence for reported healings. Included among the medical examiners are those who allow and those who exclude the possibility of miraculous healings. The procedure also attempts to respects the dignity of the person who has been cured. John Paul II reminded the medical personnel of Lourdes that the verification of miraculous cures is Lourdes' "special responsibility and mission" (Nov. 17, 1988).
Marian Library (Ibid.)
"In the last one hundred years, over 6,500 individuals have reported cures to the Medical Bureau. Of these, at least 2,500 cases are considered truly remarkable, but they lack some requirement needed to allow them to advance to the next stage--witnesses, evidence, lack of agreement on the nature of the ailment. In the last twenty years, there have been reports of about twenty cases of extraordinary cures or healings, about one a year. Mr. B�ly's healing is the 66th cure occurring at Lourdes which has been officially recognized by ecclesiastical authorities. The recognition by church authorities has been a feature of Lourdes for a total of sixty- three years of its history."
just a few examples
Lourdes cures
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/stb06001.htm
Colonel Paul Pellegrin
3 October 1950
age 52; Toulon, France Post-operative fistula following a liver abscess in 1948. By the time of his pilgrimage in 1950, the condition had degenerated to an open wound that required multiple dressing changes each day, and showed no sign of healing. On emerging from his second bath in the waters, the wound had completely closed, and the condition never bothered him again. Recognized by the diocese of Fr�jus-Toulon, France on 8 December 1953.
Brother Schwager L�o
30 April 1952
age 28; Fribourg, Switzerland multiple sclerosis for five years; recognized by the diocese of Fribourg, Switzerland on 18 December 1960
Alice Couteault, born Alice Gourdon
15 May 1952
age 34; Bouille-Loretz, France multiple sclerosis for three years; recognized by the diocese of Poitiers, France on 16 July 1956
Marie Bigot
8 October 1953 and 10 October 1954
age 31 and 32; La Richardais, France arachnoiditis of posterior fossa (blindness, deafness, hemiplegia); recognized by the diocese of Rennes, France 15 August 1956
Ginette Nouvel, born Ginette Fabre
21 September 1954
age 26; Carmaux, France Budd-Chiari disease (supra-hepatic venous thrombosis); recognized by the diocese of Albi on 31 May 1963
Elisa Aloi, later Elisa Varcalli
5 June 1958
age 27; Patti, Italy tuberculous osteo-arthritis with fistulae at multiple sites in the right lower limb; recognized by the diocese of Messine, Italy on 26 May 1965
Juliette Tamburini
17 July 1959
age 22; Marseilles, France femoral osteoperiostitis with fistulae, epistaxis, for ten years; recognized by the diocese of Marseille, France on 11 May 1965
Vittorio Micheli
1 June 1963
age 23; Scurelle, Italy Sarcoma (cancer) of pelvis; tumor so large that his left thigh became loose from the socket, leaving his left leg limp and paralyzed. After taking the waters, he was free of pain, and could walk. By February 1964 the tumor was gone, the hip joint had recalcified, and he returned to a normal life. Recognized by the diocese of Trento, Italy on 26 May 1976.
Serge Perrin
1 May 1970
age 41; Lion D'Angers, France Recurrent right hemiplegia, with ocular lesions, due to bilateral carotid artery disorders. Symptoms, which included headache, impaired speech and vision, and partial right-side paralysis began without warning in February 1964. During the next six years he became wheelchair-confined, and nearly blind. While on pilgrimage to Lourdes in April 1970, his symptoms became worse, and he was near death on 30 April. Wheeled to the Basilica for the Ceremony the next morning, he felt a sudden warmth from head to toe, his vision returned, and he was able to walk unaided. First person cured during the Ceremony of the Anointing of the Sick. Recognized by the diocese of Angers, France on 17 June 1978.
Delizia Cirolli, later Delizia Costa
24 December 1976
age 12; Paterno, Italy Ewing's Sarcoma of right knee; recgonized by the diocese of Catania, Italy on 28 June 1989
Jean-Pierre B�ly
9 October 1987
age 51; French multiple sclerosis; recognized by the diocese of Angoul�me on 9 February 1999
all the official Lourdes miracles:
CARM
Diest says:
In all of these studies, what is ignored is all those who died and go unreported. All those who prayed just as hard, just as long, and died. The only cases that are reported on and remembered are those where something unexplainable (as yet to modern science) happened. There are NO miracles; only temporarily unexplained events.
Meta, this is one area where I think you and others are WAY off base, and create much harm in thinking that a god creates healing in some, while others don't have such fortune. To suggest that god hears the prayers of one person, and not another, is exremely bad for society. Should you, like others, contend he heard the prayer of the one who died, and allowed that to happen means that you can't change the will of god, anyway.
What you and other preayer believers think you are doing is changing God's will. I have discussed this topic for decades now. When all is said and done regrading prayer, the bible does not say prayer will be answered, but you must pray for God's WILL to be done, and to understand that. To believe some god will spare the life of someone because of a few choicely placed words is like believing a volcano god will stop a volcano just because some primitives held hands in a circle around the mountain.
Instead of people living a right life, not over eating, not over drinking, exercising, working, studying, doing what it takes, those who believe in prayer think a thrid party (God) will bail them out. This is not right, Meta, and you should know it. It is illogical, and unfair for a god to do this. It suggests a petty God; a wanton God, an egotistical God to believe in prayer.
He's got it reduced to doubt and earning God's favor. Notice he doesn't counter anything. He doesn't deal with the evidence I give nor does he deal with anything else. He doesn't have any evidence of his own. He's merely a wet blanket, "you can't trust, God, God wont help us." You have to earn God's favor but there's no favor to earn.
My father was dead then he was alive again. So these people tell I can't believe in something I've already seen work several times.
teagabsalad
OK...so a handful of ill people out of the six billion people on this planet got better possibly in ways we cannot explain. This is simply nothing more than a "God of Gaps" argument.
Misdiagnosis and false positives are more than enough to explain these "miracles".
the name of the thread, they can't handle the evidence. this is merely an assumption not in evidence. Its' also obvouisly wrong to think that the cases are in material sighted. It's obviously going to be a tip of the iceberg. Then he continues with a counter miracle.
I started to suffer from stomach pains after I ate cheese (or other fatty foods). I went to my doctor who ran some tests and his initial thoughts were that I probably had a stomach infection of some description. Rather than giving me antibiotics straight away he made me keep a track of my diet for 2 weeks to better identify what was going on.has he proved something here? I happen to know that his mother is a Christian and probably prayed for him. So all he's telling us is that he can doubt and rationalize.
10 days or so into this I had an episode where the pain was so bad that I couldn't sleep and was in agony for around 12 hours before it subsided. I returned to my doctor he sent me straight to hospital to have a scan as he now felt (based on what I had eaten that day) that I could have issues with my Gall Bladder. The scan didn't show anything unusual - no Gall Stones, no obvious swelling.
I was then put on to a very low fat diet to see if this helped with the problem - it appear to. This pointed the finger at my Gall Bladder based on the dietary changes and blood test results. Another series of scans sometime later revealed that I did in fact have gall stones but very small ones that shouldn't be causing me a problem.
After consulting a specialist it was decided that I should have my gall bladder removed. The day before my operation I had another scan - no Gall stones!? How did that happen?
Since then I have been fine, no episodes, no pain and I can eat cheese again. Both my doctor and the specialist were confused and surprised by this and could not really offer an explanation as to what happened?
Was it a miracle? Was it just a complex condition that wasn't properly understood by the doctors and that my immune system was able to deal with once I had removed as much fat as possible from my diet?
Bust Nak
I see you have dropped the scientific tag and is using empircal instead.this is scientific data.
here's what the alled scientist says:
Originally Posted by Mat Hunt
experimental? Well EMperical has a lot more to it than that. Its' really philosophy and scinece stole the term and trucked the concept to fit it's own method. so really it's a gimmick used by reductionism to lose phenomena.which is all you are doing here.
Originally Posted by Hez
If you apply that sort of logic then you will shut down all scinece. The only way scinece can make a conclusion is through extrapolating form data. If everything we make an assumption that extrapolations are merely argumemt from ignorance then we can't ever make any extrapolations so we can't use empirical methods n scinece anymore.these guys are not doing this in a vacuum. they have scientific knowledge of diseases and hit rates for cures and so forth. They are using this stuff not in a pool of ignorance but in conjugation with medical scinece.
Are you familiar with what a false dichotomy is?
"Science hasn't got an explanation for this, therefore the supernatural does"
Are you familiar with what an argument from personal incredulity is?
again with your logic you can't do science. how would you prove smoking causes cancer without someone using your thing here?
"The theologian personally didn't know how the event could have occured, he therefore deemed it a miracle"
Besides all that, I'm wondering:
Can you define the supernatural without invoking a negative ontology?
Oh, and no; invoking a supernatural entity to answer the question (i.e., god) won't help you.
Yes.You have no concept of what supernatural means. Your are arguing in a circle because you assert that can't appeal to God because God can't be the answer before you even examine the argument.
read this:
http://www.doxa.ws/meta_crock/Supernature.html
Now Hunt is quibbling about the meaning of the term "empirical." what they are not doing is analyzing the evidence or presenting counter evidence.
Technically it isn't atheists vs theists, it people who happen to be either discussing a topic.
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