Can a sports team's success be attributed to miracles?

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The discussion revolves around personal experiences and beliefs regarding supernatural events and divine intervention. Participants share anecdotes, such as a childhood experience with a psychic healer during dental procedures that resulted in no pain, leading to questions about the nature of miracles. Some argue that what might seem miraculous can often be explained by natural processes, such as the painless loss of baby teeth. Others reflect on instances where they felt a supernatural presence or intervention, like narrowly avoiding accidents. The conversation touches on the definition of miracles, suggesting they are events that defy natural laws and are often attributed to divine action. However, there is skepticism about the existence of miracles, with some asserting that many occurrences deemed miraculous can be explained by limited understanding of nature. The dialogue highlights a mix of personal belief, anecdotal evidence, and philosophical musings on the nature of miracles and divine influence in everyday life.
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Have you ever experienced what seemed supernatural, or believe divine intervention possible?
 
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Never myself, and 'no, I won't...until something happens to convince me otherwise.'
 
Absolutely. On rare occasions throughout my life, there have been girls who actually liked me. :P
 
My mother once took me to a "psychic healer" as a kid. I had my two front teeth extracted on two separate sessions. I was nervous before the operation thinking that it was going to be painful. During this experience I was conscious and not in a sort of meditative, hypnotic or trance state and never felt any pain whatsoever. Another thing I remember is he burned this piece of paper in a glass candle with I believe is a latin prayer written in it. Perhaps to remove any pain or discomfort.

Can somebody burst my bubble and explain why there was no pain :wink:
 
Your mum fed you heroine for breakfast? :P
 
Heh, no. I must be 6 or 7 at the time
 
The_Professional said:
My mother once took me to a "psychic healer" as a kid. I had my two front teeth extracted on two separate sessions. I was nervous before the operation thinking that it was going to be painful. During this experience I was conscious and not in a sort of meditative, hypnotic or trance state and never felt any pain whatsoever. Another thing I remember is he burned this piece of paper in a glass candle with I believe is a latin prayer written in it. Perhaps to remove any pain or discomfort.

Can somebody burst my bubble and explain why there was no pain :wink:

Um, because when your baby teeth are ready to fall out, it doesn't hurt, psychic healer or not?

I've never believed in miracles. People tend to notice when a good thing happens at a good time and credit it as a miracle, but they don't tend to notice when a bad thing happens at a bad time and decide they are cursed.
 
Moonbear said:
Um, because when your baby teeth are ready to fall out, it doesn't hurt, psychic healer or not?

I've never believed in miracles. People tend to notice when a good thing happens at a good time and credit it as a miracle, but they don't tend to notice when a bad thing happens at a bad time and decide they are cursed.

It could be. It was securely intact though. And he used his thumb in an outward motion to take it out
 
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I never so much as felt any of my baby teeth come out, most of which I pulled out myself. Oh, and I don't believe in miracles. It would be a terribly flawed creation that required such a thing.
 
  • #10
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=13&articleID=00094511-E068-10FA-89FB83414B7F0000

It's common sense, but check out the link anyway.
 
  • #11
My mum told me that one time in Gib when I was about 3 or 4, I escaped my aunt's hand and ran across a busy street, and just as this car was about to hit me, it looked like I was pulled back so I didnt get hit, but no-one was there to pull me back.

Most confusing.
 
  • #12
Maybe it was the same thing that gave Maradona his goal at the Quarter-finals of the Mexico City World Cup in '86 against you-know-who...
 
  • #13
My wife was a passenger in a car traveling down a dark road with a friend. They came to a train track and my wife saw flashing car tail-lights up ahead. Her friend didn't see them, so she continued driving toward the track. My wife realized that the lights weren't flashing, they were being broken by the passing sides of a train and she yelled for her friend to stop the car. They stopped in time, the train passed and there was no car up ahead, nor do either of them remember there having been one in front of them before they reached the tracks and her friend never did see them. The track did not have warning lights, just a stationary x shaped sign.

By the way, this is how many people are killed by trains, not by the train hitting them, but by running into the darkened side of the moving train.
 
  • #14
Derek Fisher 0.4 - that was miraculous.
 
  • #15
loseyourname said:
I never so much as felt any of my baby teeth come out, most of which I pulled out myself.

I remember doing that as well, it usually involves tying my teeth to the door and closing it but it surely hurt A LOT :biggrin:
 
  • #16
I'd define a miracle as a positive result that had a low probability of happening, or happened due to unknown logical reasons. Definition: An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God. Either definition makes miracles exist in a technical sense.

I've never experienced anything that appeared to be a divine or supernatural intervention.
 
  • #17
i believe in miracles. i have always believed things i want to believe in; not because i encountered a miracle before. miracles merely represent hopes. not many like to hope; maybe afraid that it will never turn up the way they want it to be. but sometimes when one has done all he can; he must understand that he can only hope.
 
  • #18
You are asking Do you believe in miracles? According to the dictionary a miracle is
An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God: “Miracles are spontaneous, they cannot be summoned, but come of themselves” (Katherine Anne Porter).
By definition, a miracle circumvents the "laws of nature" and thus is the act of a supernatural being. Many religious organizations have devoted considerable efforts to documenting the presence of miracles as evidence that a supernatural being exists.

Miracles can occur by another way besides the intervention of a supernatural being. Miracles depend on our understanding of the laws of nature. If our understanding is limited, most things are miraculous. Our fictional literature is full of stories of time travelers showing the marvels of modern technology to people whose understanding of the laws of nature are limited. Thus, to a person from a thousand years ago, rather mundane technologies of today would seem like a miracle.

Miracles, however, become unmiraculous when they become commonplace, even though we may not understand how or why they occur. For example, most people take the miracle of our brain and bodies for granted, even though we do not understand that miracle completely. Likewise, I doubt that most of us understand how a television works but few of us would consider a television miraculous these days. Thus, part of the definition of a miracle is that must be rare. If loaves fell from heaven every few day, it would no longer be miraculous.

The miracle of nonreversible injuries or diseases, I don't believe in. Can a person grow a new arm or finger? That would miraculous.
 
  • #19
Derek Fisher 0.4 - that was miraculous.

Their performance against detroit...anything but.
 
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