The Virgin Mary has been spotted in a California restaurant griddle, which has since been retired from use and turned into a shrine. No word yet from the Church about the authenticity of the sighting, though a local associate pastor confirms: “If God wants to do something like this, he can do it.”
Such is the stuff of modern miracles. No more walking on water or raising the dead. Or snuffing out swine flu.
I hate to be rude, but Heather this is about the 100th time you’ve posted on a similarly themed item. I think we all get the point, and I’m sure most of us agree with the point. Can we move on now?
Or Heather could concern herself with miracles which are actually approved by the Church, starting with the healing of an inoperable cancer which lead the Vatican, after 20 some-odd years of shelving the case, to proceed with the canonization of Bl. Jeanne Jugan, foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a religious order of more than 2,700 women who operate 202 homes for the aged poor around the world.
@steveT “I hate to be rude…”
I’m guessing that the word ‘hate’ slightly overstates the case.
I do not mind these posts, as long as you include photos of the item in question. That way we all can judge. Then you can have 100 comments saying “FAKE!” “I am just not sure, it could be real. It could be a hoax or maybe just a coincidence.” “How much will it sell for on E-bay?” LOL
Add the picture.
I found a Cheeto the other day that looks just like a dinosaur femur. I think that disproves the whole creationism theory once and for all.
I still like your posts Heather. I see a lot of critics with no hyperlinks in their handles.
Lame. There are actual miracles that occur all over the world. The people who think that the kinds of miracles you describe are actual miracles are few and far between.
There are actual miracles that occur all over the world.
Great, can we have some links?
Or is God internet shy?
Keep up the great work, Heather. It may seem tiresome and silly to believers, but only because it exposes the silliness of the actual content of some of their beliefs.
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/
Seriously believers, why won’t God heal amputees? Ever?
@No Guy in the Sky
You want pictures? Here is a version of the story with pictures. Enjoy:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30508304/?GT1-39001
Reading a couple of responses here indicates to me that SteveT is wrong: no, we don’t “all get the point”, do we Trent and Mike I?
Wow, that’s a remarkable likeness in the picture! Wonder what the weird blob on the right is supposed to be though…
I appreciate yet another demonstration of the irrationality of religious belief.
But if I might make a reference to a religious tradition, I wish Heather would stop being so concerned about speck in the eye of the believers, and start worrying more about the log in her own eye.
When will she acknowledge the total irrationality of the positions she’s arguing for re: same sex marriage? Hmmm?
Seriously believers, why won’t God heal amputees?
Oh! He is doing some other favors.
There has been reports that an amputee went into the Lourdes pool of miraculous water on a wheelchair, he didn’t heal but the wheelchair got brand new tyres.
Here’s something I would consider a miracle: a non-snarky, non-condescending post by Heather MacDonald about believers.
@Tom Piatak
lol 🙂
Here’s something I would consider a miracle: a non-circular, non-emotional defense of supernatural claims by Tom Piatak.
A-Bax:
I refer you to this: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/hitchens_hubris/
I do not believe because of contemporary miracles, but neither am I upset by ordinary people looking for evidence of the divine in their lives. I would also note that the Catholic Church recognizes only a tiny fraction of claimed miraculous occurrences, and the odds of the Church recognizing this event as miraculous are very close to zero. Only 68 out of the thousands of claimed healings at Lourdes are recognized as miraculous, for example, a number that excludes this one:
Tom Piakat: I’m not much of a Hitchens fan. (More of a Daniel Dennett man myself). And for what it’s worth, I’m on the side of those who dislike Hitchens’ over-the-top rhetoric, and agree with those who think he’s on shaky philosophical ground much of the time.
That being said, I find it curious that you cite the Catholic Church in your defense of miracles. The Church’s purported authority on these matters derives from….wait for it….an alleged miracle. (The miracle of the resurrection, without which, as St. Paul put it, “your faith is futile”). But hey, don’t take my word for it. Here’s the current Pope echoing Paul:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=14247
So, seems to me the veracity of Catholic doctrine depends on (this specific) alleged miracle.
Got any non-circular justification for belief in miracles?
Peace.
A-Bax: If you’re interested in a through examination of current New Testament scholarship on the historicity of the resurrection, I would commend to you N.T. Wright’s magnum opus, The Resurrection of the Son of God.
You are also mis characterizing Tom’s claim. He is not saying that he believes in this or that miracle simply because the Catholic Church says so, nor does the Church claim to authenticate miracles by a circular reference to its own authority (which does, as you rightly point out, ultimately rest on the claim of Jesus’ resurrection). Rather, the Church investigates claims of miracles on their own merits and weighs the evidence on the merits of the case at hand.
Mike I:
Yes, you are correct. And I was also pointing out that the Church has accepted very few events as miraculous, and very few (if any) of them are of the “I saw Mary in a griddle” variety that so excite reporters and some non-believers.
Miracles will be with us indefinately since they are a necessary ingredient of the saint-making business, which though the current Pope has downsized somewhat is still a staple of the Catholic show-and-tell. Such miracles usually take the form of spontaneous cancer remissions, unexpected coma awakenings, etc for which the doctors do not have an ironclad explanation. As long as someone was praying to the relevant candidate saint, it can pass muster.
The obvious problem is that such events are as likely to happen to atheists or Buddhists or anyone as they are to devout Catholics. Furthermore, medicine is not an exact science, and should someone happily recover it is deeply unlikely that invasive procedures will be undertaken to identify the actual causal chain. But to appropriate such events as “miracles” is both grossly misleading and a cynical manipulation of people’s credulity.
Most educated people know all of this, which is why over the next 50 years the demographic heart of the Catholic Church and its magic shows will move to sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty and under-development will keep many in the required state of superstitious ignorance to swallow this flim-flam.
John C:
I have been attending Mass my whole life, and I do not recall ever hearing a sermon describing the miracles atrributed to a saint. Nor does my wife recall ever hearing such a sermon. When canonized saints are discussed, the focus is on the good they did and how we can learn from them, not on miracles performed. Yes, we Catholics believe in petitionary prayer, but this is seen as an addition to medical care, not a substitute. (The Church is a big believer in medicine, which is why it runs all those hospitals and clinics). Anyone who thinks Catholicism is about “show-and-tell” and “magic shows” is, frankly, ignorant. And a medical cure is accepted as miraculous not when the “doctors do not have an ironclad explanation,” but when medical doctors conclude that the cure is medically inexplicable.
For the sort of things that are emphasized, I refer you to this piece I wrote about a teacher at my high school alma mater, a piece I mentioned here and that John Derbyshire was kind enough to mention at National Review: http://www.takimag.com/sniperstower/article/a_story_for_christmas/
Tom, that’s actually my point. The miracle business, though a requirement for canonisation, has come to be increasingly regarded with some embarrassment among educated Catholics and is most popular among the poor in Latin America and Africa. There’s a tremendous hypocrisy at work here: the hierarchy knows that the Mother of God does not manifest herself on tortilla grills or fence posts (which happened 200 yards from where I was staying a few years ago), and most are cluey enough to know that medical “miracles” are a result of statistical coincidence, yet the whole sham is allowed to continue for the purpose of manipulating the credulous.
And by the way: why doesn’t God heal amputees?
John C:
The purpose of canonization is not “manipulating the credulous.” I think this author has a pretty good explanation: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-catanoso19-2008jul19,0,3694371.story
I get the sense that there is some rhetorical sleight-of-hand here. The Church’s authority, by its own account, derives from the authority the resurrected Jesus gave to Peter before the ascension. This authority is then passed down from Peter to the next “officer of Peter”…all the way down to Benedict XVI.
So, any and all authority that the Church has in regards to any matter at all is derived from the alleged miracle of the resurrection. (Note that I’m not saying God’s authority derives from this, only the institutional Church’s.) Without that miracle, Jesus can’t confer anything to Peter, and the institutional Church is has no special role in the affairs of men. (All this is according to, among others, the current Pope, so if you disagree, you should take it up with him).
So, if by “authenticate miracles” you intend something authoritative, the justification is indeed circular.
What are the standards, then, that the Church uses for “merit” and “evidence” when evaluating miracles? You’ve said that it’s not on the circular reference to the resurrection, which, as we’ve seen, all authority of the Church rests (according to the Pope no less). It’s definitely not a scientific standard. So, what is it?
And do you not find it curious that God has never, ever seen fit to heal an amputee? What’s up with that? Why does God favor cancer patients so much? What does he have against amputees? What is it about that particular affliction that renders God’s ears deaf to supplication?
This is a very old issue. Here is Spinoza, writing in the mid-late 1600’s
****
A miracle is an event of which the causes cannot be explained by the natural reason through a reference to ascertained workings of nature; but since miracles were wrought according to the understanding of the masses, who are wholly ignorant of the workings of nature, it is certain that the ancients took for a miracle whatever they could not explain by the method adopted by the unlearned in such cases, namely, an appeal to the memory, a recalling of something similar, which is ordinarily regarded without wonder; for most people think they sufficiently understand a thing when they have ceased to wonder at it. The ancients, then, and indeed most men up to the present day, had no other criterion for a miracle; hence we cannot doubt that many things are narrated in Scripture as miracles of which the causes could easily be explained by reference to ascertained workings of nature. . . .
We cannot gain knowledge of the existence and providence of God by means of miracles, but we can far better infer them from the fixed and immutable order of nature. By miracle, I here mean an event which surpasses, or is thought to surpass, human comprehension: for in so far as it is supposed to destroy or interrupt the order of nature or her laws, it not only can give us no knowledge of God, but, contrariwise, takes away that which we naturally have, and makes us doubt God and everything else. . .
Scripture nowhere states the doctrine openly, but it can readily be inferred from several passages. Firstly, that in which Moses commands (Deut 8) that a false prophet should be put to death, even though he work miracles; “If there arise a prophet among you, and gives thee a sign or wonder, and the sign or wonder come to pass, saying, Let us go after other gods . . . thou shalt not hearken unto the voice of that prophet; for the Lord your God proves you, and that prophet shall be put to death.” From this it clearly follows that miracles could be wrought even by false prophets; and that, unless men are honestly endowed with the true knowledge and love of God, they may be as easily led by miracles to follow false gods as to follow the true God; for these words are added: “For the Lord your God tempts you, that He may know whether you love Him with all your heart and with all your mind.”
Further, the Israelites from all their miracles, were unable to form a sound conception of God as their experience testified: for when they had persuaded themselves that Moses had departed from among them, they petitioned Aaron to give them visible gods; and the idea of God they had formed as the result of all their miracles was — a calf!
Nearly all the prophets found it very hard to reconcile the order of nature and human affairs with the conception they had formed of God’s providence, whereas philosophers who endeavor to understand things by clear conceptions of them, rather than by miracles, have always found the task extremely easy — at least, such of them as place true happiness solely in virtue and peace of mind, and who aim at obeying nature, rather than being obeyed by her. Such persons rest assured that God directs nature according to the requirements of universal laws, not according to the requirements of the particular laws of human nature, and that, therefore, God’s scheme comprehends, not only the human race, but the whole of nature.
Or Hume:
A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation….
The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), ‘That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish….’ When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.
In the foregoing reasoning we have supposed, that the testimony, upon which a miracle is founded, may possibly amount to an entire proof, and that the falsehood of that testimony would be a real prodigy: But it is easy to shew, that we have been a great deal too liberal in our concession, and that there never was a miraculous event established on so full an evidence.
I’ll take the “lesser miracle”, thank you.
Something isn’t a miracle just because we don’t know how it happened. Something’s a miracle only if it involves a violation or suspension of the nature of reality.
It follows that miracles don’t exist… but that’s one of those pesky little inconveniences that arise from applying reality to cherished religious beliefs, and can be easily remedied by ignoring logic and sanity.
A-Bax: “Seriously believers, why won’t God heal amputees?”
Oh, but He does! It’s just that He created humble salamanders, not bumptious humans, in His image.
No it doesn’t follow that miracles do not exist. Now it may in fact be true that they do not exist, but what for years you have been peddling on various blogs–that is, until you are banned– as a trivial proof that they don’t exist, amounts to nothing more substantive than the assertion: nyah, nyah, nyah, miracles do not exist.
I know some pesky little inconveniences in regards to my religious convictions. Your silly argument is not one of them.
heddle
amounts to nothing more substantive than the assertion: nyah, nyah, nyah, miracles do not exist.
Huh?
As opposed to “nyah, nyah, nyah, miracles DO exist” as an argument?
BTW, can you answer about the lack of miracles for amputees?
Kevembuangga #30,
You would have a valid complaint if I claimed I had a proof that miracles exist. Caledonian simply asserts that, based on the definition of a miracle (something that violates the natural laws) we can conclude that miracles don’t exist. It’s a fallacious argument.
I never made the positive version of the argument, even though you see to attribute it to me. So your comment is nonsense.
And yes, I can answer the question from a Christian, theological perspective. The miracles were not willy-nilly parlor tricks, but were isolated events, each of which played an important role in God’s redemptive plan. God’s redemptive plan is now finished. My own personal expectation is that we will see no miracles until the end of history.
Heddle:
1) I appreciate the honesty. But, is it not the case that the veracity of Christian theology is derived primarily from the miracle of the resurrection? That the miracle of the resurrection is a necessary (if not sufficient) condition for the truth of Christian Theology? If so, you’ve got a big circularity problem on your hands (at least as far as a Christian Theological account of miracles goes.)
2) Can we conclude from your own personal expectation that you disbelieve those who claim miracles have occurred after God’s redemptive plan was finished? (I take it you mean the resurrection/ascension, but perhaps you have a later date in mind). If so, are you aware that you disagree with the Vatican, which has “authenticated” a miraculous occurrence which took place as recently as 1987 in Lourdes?
http://archive.student.bmj.com/issues/02/02/life/33.php
So, did God’s redemptive plan reach completion between 1987 – 2009, or are you in disagreement with the Vatican?
A-Bax,
(Apologies in advance if the formatting fails–this blog needs a “preview comment” feature–it may be the last blog without one.)
Yes of course, regarding the Resurrection that is spot-on. We are to be pitied if it is not so. But I don’t see the circularity problem. Maybe you could elaborate.
Yes I respectfully disbelieve them, such as that is possible. I tend to be cessationist, believing that supernatural intrusions ended with the apostolic age. Of course, I could be wrong–the only thing I know for sure is that I haven’t witnessed a miracle.
Well, as a hardcore Calvinist and a former RCC, I am under several Trent anathemas, so I’m not too concerned about disagreeing with the Vatican. Though like many Reformed, I believe I have much more in common with Catholicism than with liberal Protestantism.
Just to clarify, the Catholic position is that the faithful are not required to believe in any miracles after the death of the last Apostle (St. John). When the Vatican “authenticates” a miracle, all they are saying is that there is a reasonable likelihood that it was miraculous, and that furthermore nothing which contradicts the faith was implied/revealed in the event, but nobody is required to believe them.
Circularity problem: Perhaps this is more of an issue with convincing a skeptic to take the idea of miracles seriously than it is with a “theory” of miracles itself, but here goes.
The starting point is a healthy skepticism towards the claim that event X, however unusual or unlikely, is the result of a (god-ordained) miracle. There are strong, fairly compelling reasons to simply assume that X is not the result of a miracle (a la Spinoza and Hume above, as well as commonsensical reasons). However, says the believer, I give you theory/theology T, which describes a context in which the idea that “X is a miracle” more likely (or, at least, less implausible).
Curious about this proffered context, the skeptic takes a closer look at T with an eye toward if, and how, it increases the plausibility of the belief that “X is a miracle”. Upon examination, it turns out that T itself rests on the claim that Y is a miracle.
But wait, our skeptic thinks, wasn’t T offered as a kind of general context for taking miracles (as a whole) seriously? That is, isn’t T supposed to be (in the context of evaluating the claim that some given event could be miraculous) a salve against the fairly devastating “baseline” case against miracles? All the “weight”, as it were, of T rests on the truth of Y-as-miracle. So, the reason a skeptic should take seriously the possibility of X-as-miracle boils down to the claim (logically prior to T) of the truth that Y-is-a-miracle.
Thus, in this specific context, T does no real work, and can be dismissed. “X is a miracle” is backed, at bottom, merely by the raw assertion that “Y is a miracle”. So, if I’m skeptical about miracles to begin with, invoking T does nothing to address this skepticism.
steveT, Tom Piatak,
Seeing the Virgin Mary in a griddle really is pathetic.
Are we not supposed to comment on pathetic behavior when the behavior has religious motivations while still commenting on pathetic behavior when it does not have religious motivations? Or are we not supposed to comment on pathetic behavior at all?
I assert that criticism of beliefs and customs serves a very healthy and necessary function for a society. I deplore the demands that we be oh so nice and respectful of all manner of beliefs and practices. This feminization of modern conversations where we aren’t supposed to hurt anyone’s feelings damages the body politic and strangles anyone who can’t set the standards as for what is hurtful and mean.