Miracles

"Miracle" is one of the most overused and misunderstood words among the religiously-minded. They constantly use the phrase to prop up their belief system (which apparently needs it from time to time).  It is commonly used as evidence of the effectiveness of prayers, attached after the fact to any event that has a positive outcome.

It is also used, to the point of nausea, by the media.  They are quick to pin the word onto any event, in order to pander to the religious majority and bolster their ratings. I also suspect that it is used as a tool of the conservative media-- Christian owners of televison networks and producers of programs-- to further the impression of the legitimacy of miracles and the efficacy of prayer. Television news programs, when covering a story about a medical condition or an airplane crash, are almost guaranteed to slip in the word miracle at some point in the program. The word has been so overused in the media that it has lost all meaning.

What is a miracle, in the religious sense?  It is an event that defies natural law. It is an event that cannot be explained by any natural means. A miracle happens when nature is taken outside of her natural course.  The miraculous is the impossible.

How can you determine if something is a miracle?  Ask the following question: Is there any way to explain the event using natural means? If so, then by definition it is not a miracle. Just because something is unlikely, and not fully understood, that does not mean that it is supernatural.

Unlikely things happen every day. But the improbable is not the impossible. If something is possible, then it cannot be a miracle.

A person who suddenly recovers from an illness has not experienced a miracle. Why? Because it is known that illness do go away by themselves.  Cancer has a certain known rate of spontaneous remission. Most people take traditional medicine, in addition to praying, but when they recover from the illness they invariably assign the cause of their cure soley to their prayers. For example, some parents, when in the hospital having a premature baby, pray that the birth will turn out all right. The doctor and hospital staff, trained and experienced in these situations, with millions of dollars worth of the latest medical technology at their disposal, work hard to make sure that the baby is safely delivered and survives.  Yet when everything turns out all right, the religious parents turn their backs on medical science and give the praise to their God and to their faith (and to themselves for praying), instead of where it really belongs. 

Consider that before the advent of current medical technology, a hundred years ago, you could pray until your lips fell off, and the likelihood of a premature baby's survival was next to zero. If you bore children in the 1700's or 1800's, the probability was that you would lose most of them before they reached maturity.  Why did God suddenly take interest in saving babies' lives (coincidentally at the same time that mankind was able to save them)?  How about this as an answer: a god has nothing to do with it!

A heart transplant, sometimes referred to as a "medical miracle", is not a miracle. It is a truly amazing achievement of human intelligence, and it is fully understood by those who perform it. It is not a mystery.  To call it a miracle is an insult to the pioneers of medicine who brought about this achievement.

What would be a real miracle?  If someone had a missing limb and then suddenly grew it back-- that would defy natural explanation.  If we have a documented case of a human subject who is dead, dead beyond normal recovery, dead for several days, being brought back to life-- that would be a miracle.  Walking on water and changing water into wine are also examples of things that would be miracles, if they ever really happened.

I for one would sincerely appreciate it if people refrained from using the word miracle to describe an event that is more logically explained through natural means.

Good things happen in life (and so do bad things), regardless if one prays or not.  The believer and the non-believer alike share equal risk in the world, and both have equal chances of good things happening to them. The world shows itself to be random, and that prayer has no influence on anything.

People still claim that prayer aids in healing, despite several important studies that show it does not.

"I don't think there's any doubt that people derive enormous comfort from religion, and they should continue to do that," said Dr. Richard Sloan, researcher at Columbia University in New York, who was one of several researchers working on a study that concluded that faith plays no role in healing. "What they shouldn't expect is that religious activity is going to promote their health."   The study also concluded that previous studies connecting prayer and healing were not valid, and also discourages doctors from suggesting prayer as an alternative to medical treatment.  "If physicians suggest, either directly or even implicitly, that faith and religious activity are associated with health," Sloan said, "then they indirectly suggest the opposite -- which is that the disease and illness are associated with insufficient faith and insufficient devotion."

Another form of populist miracle is when people claim to have seen Jesus or the Virgin Mary. Of course, if this were in fact true, that would constitute a miracle. But just because someone says something, must it be considered true? People have made claims for just about everything.  Should I believe someone who says they have seen Elvis at the supermarket? I do not automatically assume that they are lying. I think it is more likely that they're mistaken, or possibly they have experienced a mental aberration. Is there a chance that they really DID see Elvis?  Maybe, but it's a vanishingly small chance. Now what's more important is to attempt to substantiate the claim. They would have to substantiate the claim by proving that the body in the grave of Elvis Presley is not his. The burden of proof is on the people to establish that they saw Elvis, or Jesus, not on the skeptics to prove that they didn't. I cannot prove that they did not really see Elvis, or Jesus. But I don't have to. They have to prove that they did.

The exact same thing goes for all supernatural claims. I do not say that I know for a fact that it is impossible. I am able to be convinced, but the quality of the evidence must be very high and unambiguous. And the burden of proof is on the person making the claim to substantiate it-- not on me to disprove it. As it stands now, considering the amount of evidence in favor of miracles, and the counter-evidence of fakery and error, that the chances of miracles actually happening is virtually zero.

The Catholic Church makes claims of miracles.  There are many specific events for which it is claimed that miracles are taking place.  Statues that weep, or bleed, or centuries old blood that transforms from solid to liquid form and then back again, or miraculous images that appear on walls, floors, etc.   But other non-Catholic Christians do not accept the truth of these claims.  When was the last time you heard of a Protestant seeing the image of the Virgin Mary on the back of a road sign, or the face of Jesus on a tortilla?

 

Disasters

"When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it?" Amos 3:6

Let's move on to disasters. Disasters happen just as often in the U.S. as in countries that do not practice Christianity-- this country is not saved from them just because of the predominant belief system.

Some people claim that there are more disasters now than in the past, and that this indicates the Second Coming.  But is this the truth?  El Nino and La Nina make it appear that we have more water related disasters like floods and droughts, but those weather systems are long term patterns that man has known about for hundreds of years.  The reoccurrence of El Nino is blamed for the destruction of the ancient Central American civilizations such as the Maya.

Are there more disasters now?  Or are there more television shows about disasters now?  Think about that.  All these television shows feature the same film footage over and over again from the past thirty years, and this might give the appearance that there are more disasters now, especially to someone who would like to think so.

Think about this... many natural disasters are predictable.  Earthquakes are now somewhat predictable, moreso than in the past, (this science still needs time to perfect itself), and certainly severe storms that produce hurricanes and and tornadoes are predictable at least several days in advance; dangerous asteroid and comet impacts are predictable years in advance.  Here comes the question... if these are all acts of God, then how come we can predict them?  Should God's actions be predictable?  If we can predict them, and warn people, then people can prepare against the disaster or leave the area, thereby escaping God's wrath. The predictability of natural disasters is evidence that they are of no divine origin.

"Whatever the natural cause, sin is the true cause of all earthquakes."
    John Wesley (1703-1791)   English evangelist, founder of Methodism

John Wesley was clearly a fool.

Diseases are in the same category.  It used to be said that God sent plagues on man.  Why has He gotten out of the plague business?  He used to use diseases like polio, cholera, bubonic plague, typhoid, etc.  But Man has created cures and vaccines for these.  Some religions to this day do not allow their members to take vaccines or visit doctors,  I guess  so that God can have his way with them...

"Vaccination is a direct violation of the everlasting covenant that God made with Noah after the flood. Vaccination never saved human life. It does not prevent smallpox."
    "The Golden Age," Feb. 4, 1931 (Golden Age is a predecessor to "Awake" a Jehovah’s Witnesses publication)

"Thinking people would rather have smallpox than vaccination, because the latter sows seeds of syphilis, cancers, eczema, erysipelas, scrofula, consumption, even leprosy and many other loathsome affections. Hence the practice of vaccinations is a crime, an outrage, and a delusion."
    "Golden Age" (1/5/29, p. 502)

Most people are vaccinated.  But why would any Christian want to deprive God of His ability to smite them with some crippling disease?  Some people say that aids is a new plague on Man from God.  But then why does it strike innocent people, and helpless children?  And what happens when we find the cure for aids?  We will rob God of one more of his weapons.

Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant Reformation, thought that diseases were caused by "devils"--

"Idiots, the lame, the blind, the dumb, are men in whom the devils have established themselves: and all the physicians who heal these infirmities, as though they proceeded from natural causes, are ignorant blockheads."   Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Was he right?  No. Martin Luther was the ignorant blockhead.

God used to be in the famine business too.  But now, a humanistic country like the United States can airlift thousands of pounds of food to a starving nation and save many of them. (Many of these food suppliers are Christian groups... but one must ask: why are they deliberately thwarting God's will?)  But apparently we haven't quite forced God out of the famine business; due to our lack of effectiveness in distributing food, thousands of innocent children still die every single day of starvation.

This brings to my mind the Christian practice of praying before meals, thanking God for the food.  What these Christians are unwittingly doing is blaming God for the millions of starving children.  For if you thank God for the food on your table, you are claiming that God is responsible for making the food available. If God is therefore responsible for putting the food on your table, He must be responsible for withholding the food from someone else's table.  He either has everything to do with it, or nothing to do with it.  The next time you "say grace" before a meal, think about the small, thin, brown-skinned children in Africa who haven't eaten in a week, who are completely innocent of any crime, and remember that God is directly responsible for their condition, and can easily relieve all of their suffering.  Why doesn't He?  He puts food on your table.  He fed the Israelites by dropping manna from heaven, even though they were continually unfaithful to Him.  Remember to thank the Almighty for his callous, cruel treatment of the innocent children as you enjoy your steak. Or, maybe now you can realize that the events of the world are random, and that no evidence for god exists.

As Man's power to control the environment increases, the powers assigned to the gods decrease.

There was a controversy over the lightning rod between Benjamin Franklin and the Church. Franklin was considered heretical for his invention of the lightning rod, which prevented buildings from being destroyed by lightning strikes.

It seems that the Church thought that putting a lightning rod on your building, and saving it from destruction, was an attempt to thwart God's will. The Church forbade the use of the lightning rod on churches for decades after its invention... even though churches, because of their tall spires, were the tallest buildings in the towns and therefore the ones most frequently struck by lightning. These lightning strikes caused extensive damage, fires, total destruction and hundreds of deaths.  To be a bell ringer in the 18th Century was the most dangerous job in the world.  However, the only thing the priests did was to pray harder and consecrate their bells.  But the destruction and death continued, and the people said: "Why would God destroy his own consecrated, holy temples? Why would he kill his own servants? Or, why would he allow Satan to do so?"

As an aside, I have always thought that blaming the devil for these things was giving far too much power to him.  In the bible, the devil never used natural disasters-- only God did.  In fact, in the bible there is no record of the devil ever killing anyone! But there are millions of deaths brought about by the direct action of God. To kill people, God used flood, fire, famine, disease, earthquake, hailstones, animals, human warriors, etc.

In any case, when the first churches started using lightning rods about 20 years after Franklin invented them, all the lightning disasters stopped at once.  That is very interesting, and deserves some serious thought by any believer. Was God suddenly stripped of His power to destroy with lightning?  Or did He never have this power?  Or is there no god at all?

Every time that science discovers a way to prevent or alleviate natural disasters, or cure disease, God is robbed of another of His heavenly weapons.  What does this say about the real nature of these events, and about the supposed power of god?

Even now, tornadoes frequently destroy churches in the Bible Belt.  Why?  If God was going to destroy something, why not a Freethought Hall full of atheists? Or a Jewish temple?  Or a mosque full of Muslims?  Or a maximum security prison full of murderers?  What these events show is that natural disasters are just as likely to strike a good man as a bad man, and just as likely to strike the believer as the unbeliever.  It shows that natural disasters are completely random, without cause or reason.

"God is going to judge the entertainment industry."  The Rev. Pat Robertson, Founder of the 700 Club & Christian Coalition, uttered this ignorant statement regarding the fire that devastated Universal Studios.  Note that the good Reverend was strangely silent when fire destroyed his own radio station, WNTR  [4-24-96].   This is a classic example of how people see what they want to see, and ignore what does not fit their beliefs.

If God uses tornadoes, then how come he is limited to a small geographical region?  Why must tornadoes occur in flat, arid regions?  How come the Tornado Belt just happens to coincide with the Bible Belt, the most religious region on earth?  How come we don't hear about tornadoes in New York, that den of sin?  Or in Oregon?  Or in Sweden?  Is God limited to using tornadoes only where the physical conditions permit them? Or is a better explanation the fact that tornadoes are purely natural occurrences that only happen under certain conditions generated in a specific region, and that god is a myth?

The religious have claimed that the End Times are coming... they have claimed this over and over for the last two thousand years.  Jesus himself said that there were men standing there listening to him who would still be alive when he came back.  But that did not happen. When we approached the year 2000, people panicked and thought the world was ending... it came and went.  Now, like always, they say they have re-calculated the end, and now it will be 2001.  When that comes and goes, then it will be some other date, I am sure.

And there are many natural disasters-- hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, earthquakes, mudslides, droughts, floods, famines, disease, airplane crashes, etc.   Need I go on?  What happens when these bad things occur?  People pray to God for assistance. Don't they think that He already knows what's going on? And if people survive these catastrophes, they thank God that He protected them.  They think that their prayers did good... even though believers and nonbelievers stood the same chance of surviving or dying.

But people never blame God for these acts of extreme violence. A plane crashes in a field, and even though 99 people died, people will still say: "Thank God two survived!" Maybe they should have said: "Thank you for killing only 99!" People forget that if their God is all-powerful and all-knowing as they believe, He knew that the plane crash was going to happen, had the power to prevent it, and failed to do so. You might go so far as to say that He created the conditions under which the plane crashed, and therefore He crashed the plane Himself deliberately. In either case it's the same: He had the power to prevent it (presumably without effort). One might avoid these moral and logical difficulties by considering the more rational conclusion that the plane crash was simply an accident based upon mechanical failure or weather conditions, and that the reason that God did not prevent the accident is because no such being exists.

If this world, looking as random as it does, has a God in it, then what would it look like in my scenario where there is no god?  Would it look even more random?  Is it possible that the world could look more random?  How could you tell the difference between a world where random natural disasters and occasional fortunate events occur from one in which God carelessly plays with peoples lives-- handing out tragedies to good people, and occasionally rewarding bad people with good fortune? Is there any difference?

Why, as an atheist, should I enjoy a better life than millions of devout believers?  Why should I live comfortably, in my own home, with my healthy wife and children, with plenty of food, stability, all of our needs met, no major difficulties-- when there are millions of pious believers who are starving and can't keep a roof over their heads? Why should I be rewarded for my disbelief, and for writing all of these atheistic essays?  Just one more thing to think about.

The Pointlessness of Prayer

Prayer simply does not work. Thousands of prayers every day are uttered in vain up into the cold and empty sky. The old adage "God helps those who help themselves" does NOT appear in the bible. It was said by Ben Franklin, in Poor Richard's Almanac. Contrary to the popular modern interpretation (that God will give assistance to those who put forth an effort for themselves) Franklin meant that unless you do it yourself, it's not going to get done. He also stated the same concept in another adage: "In this world, men are not saved by faith, but by the lack of it". The second axiom says approximately the same thing as the first-- that if you believe that a supernatural power is watching over you, then you will not take care of yourself.  Robert G. Ingersoll said that "Hands that help are better than lips that pray."  He also wrote: "It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good, and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring."

Nowadays, people use the adage "God helps those who help themselves" as an excuse to explain why God doesn't intervene more often on people's behalf. It's used as an excuse to absolve God of the blame for millions of human tragedies. But as I have shown, that was not it's original meaning.

If the adage "God helps those who help themselves" is used in the way modern Christians use it, then what about those who are helpless?  I guess they're just out of luck.

Christians say that "God answers all prayers, but sometimes the answer is no".  Or else they will say: "God answers prayers three ways; yes, no and wait." But these excuses as to why God does not answer prayer are contradictory to scripture. John 16:23 has Jesus saying "I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name."  In Matthew 21:22, Jesus tells his followers: "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."  And Mark 11:24 says the same. Matthew 7:7 continues the bribery by attributing this unfulfillable statement to Jesus: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you", and so does Luke in 11:9. How does this compare to reality?

Matthew 18:19 goes further by saying: "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven." Can anything be more absurdly false than this? Honest Christians know these verses are false. How many times have people come together in prayer, for the safety of a child who has fallen down a well, or for the life of a public figure who has been shot, or the victim of an accident, only to have the subject of their prayers die anyway? Prayer simply does not work.

As an aside, why should the Christian bother praying for the victim of accident or the terminally ill? Why pray for the child who has been struck by a car? If the Christian was really filled with love, then they would pray not for life, but for death-- so that the victim could leave this temporary, earthly life and move on to the paradise of heaven. The Christian would especially pray for the deaths of the children and babies, for they have not had the opportunity to sin, and therefore an early death would assure them a spot in heaven (unless you are one of those Christians who believe that unbaptized babies are sent to hell). In any case, how could prayer change any of this, if it is the Will of God?

It is said that God has a Divine Plan, and that he knows all things from the beginning of time until the end. If this is so, and if the letters of Paul to the Romans and Ephesians are true (claiming that the lives of Christians are ruled by Predestination), then it is not possible for humans to change the events in their lives by praying-- the Divine Plan is unchangeable. Say that you pray for your mother to survive an illness. If she dies, then you will readily admit that it was God's Will. If she lives, then you confidently claim that God answered your prayers. But this is faulty logic on the part of believers-- it must be one way or the other. Praying is begging.

Some Christians interpret failed prayer as an indication that there is something wrong with themselves-- their level of faith, their behavior, their inner thoughts. They think they need to "pray harder". This is the victims blaming themselves. True believers don't consider the possibility that they might be praying to the cold, uncaring clouds and the deaf winds.

Most Christians make themselves forget all those failed prayers, and try to focus on those few rare moments when it seemed like their prayers were actually answered. But if they would stop and think for a moment, they would realized that good things happen anyway, all the time. Good things happen to me, an atheist, and I don't pray. In respect to good and bad happenings, there is no difference between the lives of believers and nonbelievers. Life is random, and praying is talking to yourself.

There is something seriously wrong with praying. Think of the arrogance and conceit involved... that the order of the universe should be changed because you want it to be! Be honest. You know that prayer doesn't work. You know you are fooling yourself with magical conceit.

No one would dare to pray to be carried to New York. No one would pray to have a house painted, or a suit made. If you want to go to New York, you get a ticket. If you want your house painted, you call a house painter. If you want to have a suit made, you go to someone who knows how to make it. Anyone who would pray to God to go to New York, or to paint his house, or to make him a suit, would be called a fool, or insane. So why shouldn't we consider people who pray for other things as foolish or insane? If human beings could get what they wanted by praying for it, would there be so many people who are poor, sick, miserable and wretched?

Nature is a blind, random force that rides over humanity the same way as it rides over rocks. It feels nothing, even though the believers try to endow it with pity and call it a god. But it crushes tender children in the same way that it crushes mountains. Nature cannot pity, cannot spare, cannot turn aside, because it is powerless to do so. To pray is useless and foolish.

When people are caught in an earthquake, they pray to God for him to cease the violence and spare them, but he does not. When a mudslide buried a schoolhouse full of children, they prayed within for air, for life, but God sent none. When an airplane plunges to earth, the passengers, in their last minutes of life, pray for God's hand to reach down and suspend the plane, but no help comes. When people are trapped in a burning building, their prayers rise up with the black smoke, and are just as useless in preserving their lives. When parents pray for the life of their sick child, they might as well re-direct their breath toward comforting the child, instead of begging in vain to the ceiling.

There are many true believers who, instead of empowering themselves towards fulfilling their own needs, abandon their own efforts in favor of illusory divine assistance.  Does this arise from a profound lack of self-esteem, and perceived unworthiness and powerlessness?  Christianity continuously promotes this idea of the "powerlessness of Man in the face of God", convincing people to admit to themselves that they are able to do nothing on their own. Religion denigrates the use of reason, and the concepts of self-reliance and personal responsibility.
 

See also:
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