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Of Miracles and Atheists
Please someone tell me this isn't what passes for deep theology that we mediocre types just can't bring ourselves to understand?
http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/of-miracles-and-atheists
A religious person and an atheist discussing miracles is like two people playing tennis on adjacent courts. This is because the religious believer and the atheist start with two very opposite basic assumptions. The atheist assumes that miracles can’t happen because well…miracles can’t happen. In other words, he believes that the natural order is closed. The laws are set. They can’t be altered. That’s that.
Well yeah, that's kind of the bedrock principle of scientific inquiry - that our universe operates by fixed natural laws. Our understanding of those laws is what's incomplete, and how awesome is it that we have a system that continually updates and fine-tunes our approximations? As opposed to, say, oh I don't know, a hierarchy that insists it possesses universal truth and because of that, cannot change upon receipt of new information? Damn, those closed-minded atheists!
I believe in miracles. However, I am critical of those believers who are too gullible and too ready to proclaim a miracle when there may be a perfectly natural explanation. In this attitude I am simply being a good Catholic.
Just when you thought you had an indestructible irony meter. "Lookit them stupid limited atheists, they can't leave room for miracles!" followed by "Lookit them gullible lesser believers, they think there are too many miracles!"
However, sometimes there are other occurrences which cannot be explained in any other way than a miracle. Here’s one: One night when I was a young child asleep in the back of the car my parents were on the way home from leading a youth group. They were traveling down a country lane only wide enough for one car. Steep banks rose up on either side. They crested a hill and saw another car speeding down the lane towards them. They knew as they went down into the next dip in the road the oncoming driver would not see them. There was nowhere to go to the right or the left and no room for the two cars to pass. My parents said later that in a split second what they feared was upon them. The other car was in front of them.
They braced for the head on collision. My mother said she could see the terrified face of the other driver. Then it was over. They looked out the back window of the car to see the tail lights of the other car receding into the distance. My parents were both very sane and spoke about this in a matter of fact way. The two cars went through each other, or time was suspended or one car (or both) de materialized.
They braced for the head on collision. My mother said she could see the terrified face of the other driver. Then it was over. They looked out the back window of the car to see the tail lights of the other car receding into the distance. My parents were both very sane and spoke about this in a matter of fact way. The two cars went through each other, or time was suspended or one car (or both) de materialized.
Well there you go, atheists! PROOF of a miracle! All you have to assume is that some unknown third party has relayed information correctly to this author, who then has remembered it perfectly through the years to tell to us.
Understand, though: HE isn't one of those believers who is "too quick" to assign a miraculous explanation when a mundane one will do. Such as, perhaps mom exaggerated just a bit when she told the story. Naw, couldn't be!
Deep theological thought here, folks. Enjoy.
15 replies
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Good grief. 
When I was a child, my parents and I were driving to a WW1 memorial on a mountain in France. I was in the backseat reading comic books, when our car was struck by a speed demon bank director who was trying to impress his mistress coming down, and we were knocked into the only parking spot on the entire road, inches away from the ravine. A few feet before or afterwards, and we would've been knocked right off the mountain and perished in a fiery crash. Bloody miracle, I say. Clearly god has a purpose for me.
I've no idea why I'm sharing this information, but still there it is.
