CONVERSATIONS IN THE PANTHEON - The Truth about God and Religion

Miracles: God's Work?

Thomas: Discussion on the existence of god cannot be complete without addressing the question of miracles. They are so much part of the Christian religion and western culture that they are taken for granted. God performs miracles and everyone knows that, just like everyone knows that two times two equals four. However, the Christian religion is not the only one founded on miracles. For example, the Quran, considered by believers to be the foundation of Islam, is held by them to be the greatest miracle of Allah working through Mohamed. And miracles are not strangers to Hinduism either. For example, On September 22, 1995, icons of the god Ganesha were reported to have drunk milk offered to them by their devotees. Divine manifestations and small miracles are believed to be commonplace in Indian religious life. What was extraordinary on this day was the fact that Hindus around the globe witnessed Ganesha's miracle. The Indian gods can manifest themselves in five forms: the supreme transcendental; controller of the universe; as avatars; inside the individual; and inside a consecrated icon (murti). A quarter century ago, the god inside Ganesha's murtis around the world decided to drink milk at the same time. It was a faith-enhancing miracle for Hindus everywhere.

Miracles are part of the churches' toolkit used to inspire faith in their founding gods. Some religions have created all-knowing, all-powerful and ever-present gods. However, despite such impeccable credentials, they have pretty bad track records.

Mary: There are times in life when we feel powerless and need help. A family member is gravely ill or has been in an accident and his/her life is at risk. It's at times like these that we turn to the gods for divine intervention: we pray, please God spare him/her. Some times the person recovers and sometimes not. Did God cause the person's recovery? But how do we know?

A person that's critically ill only has two possibilities: recovery or death. So, how do we know whether God has actually answered our prayers? We don't. Yet, if the person recovers, God gets the credit. And what does that tell us if he/she doesn't survive? To the faithful it means that the person was destined to die and there was nothing God could do about it. The person's recovery enhances faith whether or not God had anything to do with it. On the other hand, the person's death is accepted as fate. This puts the gods in a no-lose situation and so people continue to pray. And this is how faith creates more faith.

However, let's look at it analytically and examine all the possibilities: the person survives with god's intervention – that's salvation; the person survives without god's intervention – that's luck; the person dies with god's intervention – that's failure; the person dies without god's intervention – that's fate.

So, if the person survives we don't know whether it's luck or salvation. Similarly, if the person dies we don't know if it's fate or failure. This, of course, is the Epicurian Paradox looked at from a slightly different angle. The following example makes it more concrete. Three fishermen are in a boat in stormy weather and they all pray to be saved. When the boat capsizes two die and one survives. Was it salvation or luck for the survivor?

The survivor is fully convinced that it was salvation – the others died but I was saved. Clearly, it was God's work. The families of the dead persons believe it was luck – why would god not have saved all three?

Looked at from a perspective in which God is not present – that is, God does not exist –  one was lucky and the other two unlucky. Therefore, we come to the same conclusion as the families of the dead fishermen.

Thomas: Churches understand the Epicurian Paradox very well. But their objective is to stay in business, and to do that it has to maintain its client base. The only way to do it is for them to promote God. So they spin any situation to their own advantage. To the person who survived, the church tells him/her and his/her family that it was God's work and that it should be praised, and perhaps rewarded with a charitable donation to the church.

To the families of the dead persons, the church simply tells them that God works in mysterious ways; that it had other plans for them in heaven; that they're rejoicing in heaven in the almighty's presence; and that if they wanted to show their appreciation for their loved one's salvation in heaven a small donation to the church would go a long way.

The churches have thousands of years of experience. They have honed their responses to disasters and other events so well that they spin god's failures into successes every time. With an army of spin masters behind them, is it any wonder that people still believe?

Mathew: I know that not everything that the church claims to be a miracle is authentic, but how does one differentiate between church spin and real miracles?

Mary: A miracle is something that defies normal expectations. If someone would materialize from thin air, for example, something that we normally don't see happening, then it would be considered a miracle. Someone walking on water would also be considered a miracle because no one has been able to do it. In the bible, Jesus was reported to have walked on water, yet Christians believed the reports. Why? Because they were told that Jesus was the Son of God, and that to God anything is possible. God can create miracles. To believers, it's as simple as that. To a scientist, it's not so simple. On the assumption that the gods created the universe and its laws, like the law of gravity, which holds the universe together, even they cannot revoke those laws. Therefore, even the Son of God could not have walked on water. Those who fabricated the story duped the multitudes into believing it. So, Mathew, the short answer is that there are no miracles. What the churches call miracles are lies.

As no exceptions are allowed to the laws of nature, miracles are simply claims to create faith in something or someone. All it takes to create a miracle are people with good imaginations, good storytellers and a higher authority to vouch for them. In the biblical miracles, the higher authority was God. The founders of the christian church could create miracles because, at the time, people where unaware of the law of gravity and the other laws that govern the universe. Today, we understand those laws and can debunk all biblical miracles, as well as all the others that followed.

Religions never miss an opportunity to claim divine intervention for what happens even in modern times. On the other hand, when the gods didn't intervene to save millions of lives during the Holocaust, for example, they simply say that God is non-interventionist!