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> If we suddenly saw religious style miracles occur in plain sight with no other possible explanation, the idea of a miracle would become a scientific concept t
by CharlesColeman 7y ago
> If we suddenly saw religious style miracles occur in plain sight with no other possible explanation, the idea of a miracle would become a scientific concept that we'd try and study.
I disagree. Even if miracles happened and were observed, I think they'd likely still be outside the realm of scientific study and would therefore remain unscientific concepts. Science is built around the assumptions that mechanistic and predictable processes are being studied, but an actual religious miracle would be preformed by an transcendent agent who is likely aware of all attempts to predict its actions and can react to and influence those predictions, breaking the assumptions. The only secular discipline that could really study them would probably be history.
However, if you replace miracles with Harry Potter-style magic, I think your point stands.
- CM30 7y agoHmm, good point. I guess miracles if they happened would be an interesting kind of beast, since they obviously wouldn't follow any sort of standard logic. That might definitely make them difficult to study, especially compared to other, more logical (but non existent) possibilities like the undead or Harry Potter style magic. But I guess scientists would still accept they're a thing that exists if they did provably happen, even if there was no logical framework for explaining or studying it.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago> But I guess scientists would still accept they're a thing that exists if they did provably happen, even if there was no logical framework for explaining or studying it. I think they could, but not as scientists wearing their science-hats. They'd only be able to accept the miracles as individuals with personal experience or as people who trust the historical record.