Miracles in Christianity

[KiwiNFLFan]

I have been involved with Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christianity at different points in my life. I left the Catholic church a few months ago, but at times I feel nagging feelings that I'm going to go to hell for leaving.

 

One thing that keeps coming back to me are the stories of miracles in Catholic (and Orthodox) Christianity. For someone to be declared a saint in the Catholic church, there must be two miracles attributed to that saint's intercession that cannot be explained by science.

 

One sort of miracle that really gets to me is Eucharistic miracles. The Catholic church (along with the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches) teaches that the bread and wine at the Eucharist truly become the body and blood of Christ. Throughout history there have been numerous instances where a consecrated piece of Eucharistic bread has started to bleed, and at least two incidents where the bread has transformed into flesh (and in one the wine transformed into blood). These last two instances have been tested and shown to be real human flesh (one was tested by an atheist who wasn't told about the miracle, as described here). 

 

How would you answer this? This is one of the strongest pieces of evidence nagging at me to return to the Catholic church (despite the problems with the Christian faith such as there being no evidence for the Exodus and differences in Jesus' birth accounts and genealogies between Matthew and Luke).

[♦ Fuego ♦]

One of our members here is an amateur magician, so may have a better response, but I have seen things I was sure could not be illusion or trickery and yet were. And historically, such illusions have been used by multiple religions to bolster "faith" (or sucker in the gullible). I even experienced things that were not illusion by another human (such as power coursing through my body up and down like a Slinky spring toy that is stretched out and twanged), that seemed to give proof that the god I was worshiping was real, and yet now I know that this god isn't real and I'm left wondering about the experiences. I know that I can induce some of those things via my mindset and emotional state. I know for a fact that most of the Bible is non-historical and that its god is not real, so when apparent miracles are presented, I don't start with doubt, but with confidence that the miracles are either over-stated naturally occurring things, or a trick of some kind. Occasionally, we can't explain things easily, but that doesn't equate to the god of the bible being real. Muslims will describe the scent of roses at the death of faithful believers. Does that mean that Allah is really god? No.

 

[★ Citsonga ★]

Christianity doesn't have a monopoly on miracle claims. Other religions tout miracles, too. Does that prove that those religions are true?

 

[florduh]

Fake miracles performed under myriad belief labels are debunked every day. 

 

The first order of business is to determine, if possible, that the reports are in fact true. If there is actual evidence of a miraculous occurrence, then let the experts in deception find and expose the methods involved. So many "mysteries" have been explained, our first reaction should not be, "Wow, that's amazing" but rather, "How did they pull that off" or perhaps what psychological factors were involved with the incident.

[LogicalFallacy]

Hindu "Milk Miracle" where statues of Gods drank milk. Has happened multiple times in recent history on mass scale.

 

Has a scientific explanation - think they could convince true believers (TM) of that?

 

http://www.milkmiracle.com/

 

http://www.imsc.res.in/~jayaram/Articles/milkb.html (Explanation)

 

Conclusion: People believe shit all the time.

 

PS Welcome to a fellow Kiwi. Whereabouts in NZ are you? (Not exact location, just general area) I'm on the NI East Coast

[hereticzero]

I say the testing is false. No community allows anything human to be consumed. I call BS on the 'study'. I have also seen priests using slight of hand to turn water into wine. So-called miracles are BS. Turning water into wine instead of healing the sick, growing back arms and legs, curing the feeble minded, those are miracles. Show me a real miracle.