A MIRACLE IS LESS CONVINCING WHEN IT CANNOT BE TESTED IN AN EXPERIMENT

A miracle means that which is scientifically impossible. In other words, science will reject it not because it is false but because it cannot test it in the lab or get it repeated. If a miracle asks for belief and faith and science refuses it then in that sense science is anti-miracle and miracle is anti-science. People point out that if holy books report miracles then the miracles are not scientific errors. If the Bible God said the sun was made of fairy dust that would be a scientific error. They say that Jesus rising from the dead is not a scientific error but a miracle. But why are they not using “If the Bible God said the sun was made of fairy dust that would be a miracle. The sun is there too long for us to confirm exactly what was turned into it, to make it, now so the Bible God was there so he is the one who knows”. That shows they are playing with rules. They are applying them ideologically and inconsistently.

We find then that somebody could make a scientific error and it can be called a miracle.  Only the author knows if that is what happened.  To say the Bible avoids scientific errors presumes it has today's knowledge of science.  It is stupid.

Scientific proof for the resurrection of Jesus is not possible. Jesus would need to die and rise again in a lab under strict conditions in order for science to say there is such proof. Scientific proof depends on an effect being repeatable.

Suppose the resurrection of Jesus was a historical event. Then it follows then that when you say the law of nature is that people do not come back from the dead you have to say there have been at least one exception Jesus. So all miraculous statements are in opposition to science which needs reality to be able to work out what is out there and what is happening for a scientist cannot talk that way. Jesus weakens the strength of the claim that people do not come back from the dead.  
 
Critics say that miracles are unrepeatable events and are very improbable. They say that the evidence for repeatable events like winter coming at the end of every year in Europe is better than any evidence for miracles. So they conclude that miracles are not believable even if they do happen. It is wrong to say that the evidence for the repeatable is always better for the unrepeatable for we have evidence that the unrepeatable happened. They won’t give belief in miracles a chance and just reject them outright without considering them.

BELIEVERS READ THE UNREPEATIBILITY INTO THE MIRACLE EVENT

Religion is conscious that science bases itself on the constant repetition of events.  It thinks by taking a sceptical approach to enough miracles it will not be a threat to the validity of science. 

It is not science then for religion to concentrate only on miracle reports that match its doctrine and which it can construe as supporting it.

It is not science to use a sceptical approach at first but only to avoid being accused of credulity.  The scepticism is really just cosmetic.

It is not science to call the unexplained the inexplicable or vice versa.  If no explanation for something works it only means the explanations don't work.  It does not call for a miracle.

Religion to protect repeatibility has been known to say a person can be a fallen messenger.  If x does to many wonders the religion will find a reason for saying it was fewer than that and the person started faking at some point and from then on.

Just because a miracle is not repeatable in our experience or mine does not mean it is not repeatable.  What if there are billions of worlds science does not know of with their own Lourdes where Mary appears all the time?  Who says we have to know of the repetitions?  Just because I think Mary at Lourdes in 1858 was a once-off and no threat to science in terms of repeating all the time does not mean I am right?  What if Mary is appearing there all the time but nobody is tuning in to see her?

We must remember that we don't mean miracle repetition to denote that everybody who goes to a particular healing stream to get a instant cure.  We count miracle cures at any stream as part of the repetition.  Similar events will do - it does not have to be the miracle we know of repeating all the time like a loop.

Some argue that miracles are not constantly repeating events and there is zero predictability so science does leave room for them.  You can believe in them or not and still be fully in line with science which is about the constantly repeated.

This is wrong.

So we know then that miracles must be eliminated from the realm of scientific understanding.

 
COMMENT: Evidence is based on the idea of repeatable. If unrepeatable events like miracles happen you cannot be sure of anything evidence says. Thus if you want to believe in the value of evidence you are only weakening that idea by taking on the notion of miracles. It is more reasonable to hold that miracles shouldn’t be believed in. The repeatable is more important than any miracle or unrepeatable supernatural event. It happens more. So the evidence is naturally going to be better for the repeatable. This is not dogmatically refusing to give miracles a chance. It is simply doing what we have to do.
 
Miracles blaspheme human intelligence. The religion of miracle is also the religion of bigotry, intolerance, unfairness and deceit. The best miracles can do is give people a “holiness” and piety that reposes on self-deceit and self-inflicted blindness.
 
Antony Flew argued that miracles are uncommon and unrepeatable events. Christians agree with that. Flew said that even if miracles are possible they are not believable because you can't for example prove that Jesus rose from the dead by making him repeat it. He is saying that the evidence for the general and the repeatable will always be necessarily better than the evidence for the particular and unrepeatable. Christians deny this. The Christians are saying in effect that something you can scientifically test in the lab and repeat is not as convincing as human testimony to miracles or the sight of a very sick person who was miraculously healed and is now the picture of health. We have only human testimony to the resurrection of Jesus and it is extreme fundamentalism to argue that such testimony is better than any experiments we can do.

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