Its MIRACLES- Not High Falootin First Cause Debate

[David Sklansky]

I'll be leaving you fellas for a while with these two thoughts regarding most religions.

All these arguments between believers and non believers about whether the universe had a creator are irrelvant. Because if the philosophers are right that it need not have a creater or first cause, it doesn't begin to prove that it DID not. And if the religious people are right that the universe must have a first cause it doesn't begin to prove that there is anything like the God they believe in.

On the other hand, the subject of whether miracles currently happen, IS important in deciding whether religious beliefs are true. My stance on religions is almost totally related to my stance on miracles. And religious people shouldn't try to wiggle out of it by saying that God won't give us obvious evidence to insure we have "faith". If that was true, why did he supposedly perform obvious miracles in the past? And why do Catholics, at least, require miracles for sainthood, exorcisms, or other reasons and often "investigate" (and usually deny) miracle status to what they see? These "investigations" are supposedly based on logic and maybe probability. But then why are there never clearcut miracles? Events that can not be explained away with probability, the Amazing Randi, or not yet fully understood medical anomalies. Something little like a Hannukah oil miracle for instance. Or a nun winning three lotteries in a week. If the only miracles are vague and indirect like BluffTHIS postulates, that don't violate known (I put that in for you, maurile) physical laws, then why wasn't that always the case? And why would the Church claim that there are still real miracles?

A few hundred years ago many of the merely day to day goings on seemed like a miracle. Like there was a God who had his hands on things all the time. The simple fact that the sun steadily gave off the right amount of heat, always rose and never fell into the Earth or flew away, provided enough apparent evidence for a person like me, who needs to see miracles to believe, to believe. But the workings of the sun are no longer something that we think a present day god has a hand in. Its not in the same category as a resurrection.

I'm not going to go into more detail on this subject. Plus I'm not very conversant with what recent events the Church or others have claimed to be miracles. I'll let you guys run with it. I just hope you might agree that it is THIS subject that most closely reflects the crux of the issue between believers or non believers. It is not First Cause, not whether there is meaning without God, nor whether atheists can be moral.

For most people, including me, it is the miracle debate, that most closely maps on to the religion debate. So go to it.