On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:30:00 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> I think there is a basic presumption that there are no more material
> explanations for them. 

Yes, and that doesn't jive with Darren's comments (IIRC) that agreed with 
my statements that we don't know all there is to know.

> And I think such things are a joke myself anyway,
> since its a damn site more *miraculous* if say a volcano opened up in
> Las Vegas and began spewing ice, than the silly sort of miracles that
> involve, "God decided to perform a miracle, but was too lazy to do
> something that breaks the laws of physics, or contravenes reasonable
> expectations." One doesn't expect an ice volcano to pop up in the middle
> of a major city. Not even a Hollywood producer would try to pass that
> one off as making sense. But, its almost impossible to find any place on
> the planet that hasn't had a normal volcano on it, at some point.

Actually, there are quite a number of them - volcanoes form over hot 
spots that are in fixed locations on the planet (from what I've read, 
anyways, or learned from watching the Discovery channel) - so, for 
example, in the areas of the Sahara which haven't passed over a hot spot, 
no, there hasn't been a volcano there.  That's not to say there aren't 
parts of it that haven't seen volcanic activity (I've seen footage of 
some really interesting glass formations that pre-date human glassmaking 
by many thousands of years) caused by superheated sand in the Sahara.

> Same with most other things that believers would try to imply meant
> something. 

The thing is that people see what they want to see.  That's why you get 
people claiming to see the Virgin Mary on a cheese sandwich.

This is one of the faults I see with religion - people see what they want 
to, and then follow that by rejecting rational explanations.

> Just as no known case exists of someone having missing limbs
> spontaneously regrow from *any* sort of healing, so to one at least
> expects that real miracles would be of a quality that rises above
> natural phenomena and magic tricks.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

One of my favourite quotes of all time.

Jim

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