MIRACLE AND THE IDEA THAT EVIL IS NOT A THING

 
You can formulate the idea that evil is the mere absence of good as the idea that evil is the absence of order. Good is proper order and organisation. Evil is disorder. Miracles change order in our thinking and in the laws of nature. It follows then that miracles are evil. If miracles are evil then we lose the only real reason to believe in religion or God. We can't say miracles are signs that God exists for only he can perform them. Miracles are either compatible with natural law or they are not. In other words, some natural illusion could make a statue seem to cry tears of blood. It might be inexplicable but natural. But if its a magical event then the blood is coming out of nowhere and it is supernatural. Many say, even religionists, that if miracles are against the laws of nature then they are ridiculous and impossible and the reports that they happened are wrong. So to keep believing they deny that they are against natural law. They have to believe that miracles are not a break in order. If they are right then miracles are not intrinsically evil.  

Their view tells us a few things about the religionists.

No matter how good the evidence is that a violation of nature has happened the religionists will reject the evidence or they will ignore it which is the same thing. Christianity believes that the miracles reported of witches in the Middle Ages didn't happen because they violated nature and were absurd. If miracles are contradictions of nature and that means they are impossible, it follows that believers are only accepting miracles that are not a contradiction of nature and ignoring the ones that claim to be contradictions. If many miracle reports describe a contradiction, how can ones that don't be trusted? How can you say that the evidence for a miracle that is not a contradiction may be accepted but if the miracle is a contradiction then it must be rejected? That is merely admitting that evidence is only receiving lip service and the evidence isn't the reason the miracle is accepted as real at all. Miracles then would be guilty of producing and encouraging deceit.

There are so many miracles reported in the world - most of which are spiritualistic in tone. Some of them seem to be saying a violation has happened. People who believe that miracles are a violation of nature experience miracles as evidence or confirmation that their understanding is right. It is only a few philosophers and theologians who deny that miracles are a violation. In popular spirituality, miracles are thought of as a kind of magic or almost as magic. If a miracle happens and is a sign, it only confirms beliefs the recipients already have and the main relevant belief is that the miracle is a contradiction of nature like the magic.

If God does not do miracles that violate nature, then it follows that if he does do miracles they happen for sound reasons and because of that they do not violate nature. For example, it is a violation of the law to preserve life to kill a man at random but to kill him in self-defence is not a violation of the law. It is down to the reasons. It follows that if a miracle was accepted as genuine and it never happened at all then religion is putting forward evidence that a violation of nature has happened. False miracles and claimed violations of nature amount to the same thing. There is no way a Christian can prove all the miracles reported in the Bible. There are too many miracle claims in the world to investigate them all. Religion cannot claim that miracles are not violations of nature for there is evidence that it is wrong. There can be evidence in favour of false miracles. Religion is merely picking out the miracles and proposing these for belief as long as they suit religion's aims and schemes.

It has no business claiming to be rational and properly investigative.

Correct Christian belief says that miracles that violate nature are impossible for God is in control. If miracles are impossible if they are violations of nature, then the believers are agreeing with sceptics who say that miracles that are violations of nature didn't happen no matter how much evidence there is for them. They are agreeing with the sceptics that natural law is fixed and immoveable and cannot alter - though this is the major criticism most miracle believers make against the sceptics. If the believers really believe, they believe that if for example a prophet predicted God would part a river and a strange wind took place that blew a gap in the water that this would count as a miracle. God did not use nature to restore Jesus to life after three days dead. That was a contradiction of nature. They cannot accept the resurrection as a non-contradiction of nature. Some sceptics would say that the scenario with the prophet fails to be compatible with nature. They would say that God still violated nature though he used it to make the miracle. They would say that a transsexual uses nature to change gender but this is still a violation of nature. They would say that just because nature was used does not mean that nature wasn't violated. Also nature might only SEEM to have been used. Just because it looks like the wind had natural causes that doesn't mean that it did. Strange coincidences do happen but we don't think of most of them as miracles so why should we think of a few coincidences in a religious context that happen even more rarely than non-religious coincidences as miracles or as religiously significant? So the notion that nature wasn't violated is outnumbered by three possibilities.

Conclusion: A miracle must be believed to be a contradiction of order and therefore evil. Without miracle being a sign from God, we have no reason to take the God concept seriously or to insult sufferers by looking upon their suffering as the mere absence of evil and non-existent for God must be blamed.