Do you know whether or not actual miracles sometimes occur?

[Boojatta]

Poll question: Do you know whether or not actual miracles sometimes occur?

Actual miracles involve a suspension or violation of the laws of nature. (There is a difference between the laws of nature and human approximations of the laws of nature.)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Other

Yes, I know by personal experience. This was not one of the choices offered.

[mahina]

2. Make that two of us.

Please revise your poll if you can, because I know a miracle pulled my Grandmother back to life. The docs knew it too.

An angel sat at her bedside and pulled on her toe and told her, "Come on Toots, you've got work to do." Not a fluffy pink angel, but a urban, cigarrette smoking, angel in workers clothes.

You can call it whatever you want, but to us, and to her, and to the docs, it was a damn miracle.

And no, the docs said there wasn't anybody else there but them and her, and no smoking in the room of course. Not what she said.

I miss her so much, but we had her with us for another 30 years.

[Boojatta]

3. What's wrong with "None of the above"?

[Rageneau]

5. Ditto. A couple of them.

[FSogol]

4. My son hung his coat up today. Does that count? n/t

[edhopper]

6. A Boojatta post

that wasn't an inane poll. That would be a miracle!

[Random_Australian]

10. Fear.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=143682&mesg_id=143682

Actually, my first thought was to click back about six pages. I was confronted with "Was Albert Einstein a muslim (poll)" and "Was Jesus Christ a muslim?(poll)"

[TZ]

17. ....

If you "liked" those polls...you'll LOVE this one:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=7307694

[knitter4democracy]

14. Does Boojatta post anything but polls?

Polls with odd questions supposedly to get everyone thinking but just get everyone cranky?

[skepticscott]

7. A "miracle" as you define it

is a logical impossibility. If something was really a law of nature, it couldn't be violated. If it could, then it obviously wasn't a law, but only a flawed "human approximation" of one.

[Realityhack]

11. DING! n/t

[Boojatta]

12. Suppose that almost every day you eat exactly 3 almonds.

Would that not be a "law of almonds" for you unless you abide by it without any exceptions?

Suppose the exceptions are as follows:
On July 3rd, 2001, you ate 2 almonds.
On December 25th, 2004, you ate 6 almonds.
On October 1st, 2005, you ate 4 almonds.
On January 20th, 2007, you ate 2 almonds.

Then does the actual law of almonds have to either explicitly include the above exceptions or allow us to derive the above exceptions from some more compressed information?

If you don't decide in advance when the exceptions will occur or how many almonds you will eat on exceptional days, then is there simply no law of almonds for you? Yet, anyone who say you eat exactly three almonds day after day for months would probably be more impressed by the regularity than by the exceptions listed above.

[skepticscott]

15. WTF???

Whatever in the world you're talking about and whatever dim recesses of your reptilian brain you dredged it from, it has absolutely nothing to do with a law of nature. A law of nature is true all the time, everywhere, for everyone and everything, or it isn't the kind of law you posited. Laws of nature aren't based on the behavior of a single person and have never, ever involved nuts, legumes or tubers of any kind.

[TZ]

16. Heh

Bringing in LOGIC to this discussion is akin to bringing a knife to a gun fight...Sadly logic loses.....:rofl:

[Skittles]

33. LOL

I hear you turtlesue - you may as well bang your head against a wall :rofl:

[Boojatta]

19. "A law of nature is true all the time, everywhere, for everyone and everything"

How do you know that?

[Realityhack]

20. It's by deffinition. n/t

[Boojatta]

21. It's by definition of what? "Law"? "Nature"? The combination of words "law of nature"? n/t

[Realityhack]

23. No.

No I am not going to play your little word game.

Go back to your original post and provide full, complete, comprehensive definitions of the terms you use:

'laws of nature'
'human approximations of the laws of nature'

Then when you are finished explain how exactly there can be "a suspension or violation of the laws of nature".
- If you successfully complete this step... go back and fix your definition of 'laws of nature' so it makes some sort of reasonable sense and try again.

[skepticscott]

22. Silly me

I assumed you were defining "law of nature" in a sensible way. But since you made that term a pivotal part of your original post, let's hear your definition and why it makes sense in light of what you're arguing.

[Boojatta]

24. "A law of nature is true all the time, everywhere, for everyone and everything"

If you are right about that, then doesn't that imply that no law of nature is derived from probability considerations? For example, consider the tendency for containers of the same gas at different pressures to move toward equal pressure when they are connected to each other. Is there nothing lawful about that? What if experimenters record trillions of very brief experiments and discover that, during one or two brief time intervals, the pressures didn't move toward equal pressure?

[skepticscott]

25. If it was a tendency over time

then your hypothetical situation wouldn't violate the law, but even if it seemed to, it would only be violating your so-called "human approximation" of the law.

And since you (not surprisingly) ducked my question, I'll put it to you again: What is YOUR definition of a law of nature, in the context of your original post?

[Boojatta]

26. I don't have a definition of "law of nature."

However, if your definition is such that a law of nature is never violated, then I wonder how you can demonstrate that there is anything that is a law of nature.

[skepticscott]

27. Now I understand

Since you have no idea in your own mind what a law of nature is, your original statement: "Actual miracles involve a suspension or violation of the laws of nature." is just meaningless garbage. Thanks for clearing that up. Next time you feel the need to blow smoke, try a different forum.

[Boojatta]

29. Given that I have no definition, how do you conclude that I have no idea?

I would think that before one begins the process of writing a definition, one has an idea. Perhaps you generate definitions by generating random sequences of letters until you have something that passes grammar tests?

[skepticscott]

30. Out with it then

You were the one who used the term "law of nature" in YOUR original post. You either meant something by it, or you have no idea what you meant. Which is it? If the first, what did you mean by that term?

[Realityhack]

34. No answer for you either... bummer. n/t

[Random_Australian]

31. It is derived from laws. It happens probabilistically.

But yes, laws can be probabilistic.

However, that doesn't matter.

What does matter is the testing process. We go hypothesis>theory>law for a reason.

[Random_Australian]

32. It is derived from laws. It happens probabilistically.

But yes, laws can be probabilistic.

However, that doesn't matter.

What does matter is the testing process. We go hypothesis>theory>law for a reason.

[LiberalFighter]

8. How many "miracles" were there 2000 years ago and how many now?

[John Gauger]

13. None and none.

[Random_Australian]

9. Uh, why is there no other options but those two and asking you for reasons?

For instance, I believe we can cap the probability of supernatural things happening, to the point where they are necessarily unobservable.

That says nothing about whether or not they sometimes occur.

[SidDithers]

18. ...

http://www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com/

Sid

[moggie]

28. Does anyone know how to administer a Voight-Kampff test?

Just out of interest.

[Silent3]

35. Is this part of the test?

:)

[moggie]

38. Let me tell you about my mother...

:)

[Pale Blue Dot]

36. Here's a miracle:

In order for me to be here now, several nearly impossible things had to happen:

1. The universe had to be created in such a way that clumps of matter would form stars and planets;

2. In one solar system, a perfectly-sized planet had to be formed at a perfect distance from that star;

3. On that planet, clumps of atoms had to form together in exactly the right way in order to become self-replicating;

4. From then on, every single one of my ancestors, from bacterium right up to my father, had to survive long enough to reproduce;

5. My parents had to reproduce at exactly the right time so that out of millions of sperm, the sperm that was 1/2 me connected with the egg that was the other 1/2 me.

The odds of all of this happening are infinitesimal; yet it DID happen. And the greatest miracle of all? It all happened without a guiding hand.

THAT is a true miracle.

[AlinPA]

37. Seems there were lots of miracles back in biblical days.