But anybody considering such a pray,
has no idea about praying.

On the other hand, some pray “against a virus”,
for the same reason others drink milk.

R.

One of the most revolutionary moments in my own faith was when I realized that the Bible was a work of literature and should be read as such – i.e. with attention to context and genre and symbolisms and culture, etc.

Sometimes I think that more personal acrimony against belief develops from those who were never exposed to a religion that taught the Bible as literature with an “emergent” celebratory message rather than a static, literal, and largely condemnatory one.

Many of my atheist friends (who come from families that were Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Jewish faiths) often don’t believe me when I tell them that the loonies on “Christian” tv gimme-money shows are nothing like the main line Protestant faiths that I grew up with. I attended Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and a few Unitarian and Episcopalian churches while growing up. There was never a hint of the radicalized fundamentalism we see today in the news media.

If I had never been exposed to the thinking that is characteristic of believers such as Mike C., I might tend to question how typical his views are among Christians. Well, they are pretty representative of what I saw among most of the Protestant denominations that I had a chance to encounter.

Although I eventually realized I was an atheist, it was in spite of, not because of, the positive experiences I had with those denominations. I just can’t be a hypocrite. I’m an atheist and want to be honest about it and not hide behind some religious facade.

We don’t need to get too much into it here, but I’d encourage you not to always equate “literal” with “honest/reasonable”. If the Bible was never meant to be read as a “literal” text in the first place, than that approach is actually rather unreasonable, and unfaithful to what God (or the authors) really intended in the first place.

But on the other hand, I’m not sure why you think my explanation of miracles is a “liberal” interpretation. I still believe that miracles are possible, that they do happen, and that most of the ones recorded in the Bible probably did happen too. I don’t know too many liberal Christians who believe any of that anymore. They’re usually more concerned to read them all as merely figurative stories that didn’t actually happen. My views would place me in the “fundy” camp according to most liberals.

Let me paraphrase the “both/and” answer, and lemme know if I get it wrong: Miracles can be both working ‘within’ the laws of nature and exceptions to the law.

Yep, you got it. That’s what I’m saying.

With the former, I’m still wondering how it can be called a miracle at all. Can anyone tell the difference between a normal event and a miracle, unless someone writing scripture describes it as a miracle?

Well, I think I said this before, but it seems to me that the miracle is often in the timing and the results. There may be a natural cause for the parting of the Red Sea, but the fact that that cause happened right when the Israelites needed it to still makes it a miracle in my book.

And with the latter, it still raises the question of why God would make laws that She will have to suspend (not whether she could, but whether She would).

I think it comes down to what I was saying in my comment about how miracles aren’t mere magic tricks, they are “Signs” – i.e. dramatic displays intended to communicate a deeper theological message. Think of it as a divine version of performance art.

In other words, God doesn’t have to suspend the laws She created, but does anyway in order to get our attention and communicate a message.

If our understanding of those laws is merely insufficient (as science, as you rightly noted, is constantly revising its laws to get a “best fit” with reality) then maybe all of the miracles fit into the former category, which brings me back to the first question.

Yeah, that’s a possibility too. I can’t say for sure that all of Jesus’ miracles don’t have some previously unknown natural explanation. But again, it wouldn’t bother me if they did. The fact that he could harness that natural power at will is still miracle enough for me.

Also, “intimately interconnected but not identical” as a descriptor for God still sounds like a Deity.

Yeah, I still believe in a Deity. Did I give the impression that I didn’t?

If those connections occur at a constant level, then they would basically be part of natural processes. If they occur irregularly, when God chooses, then I would see them as “interventions.” So in my view, God is either the same as nature (pantheism?) or is on some level separable from it. I mean, if God created the universe, doesn’t that mean the universe must be in some sense separate from God as an entity? Can God create Herself?

I do believe that God is still to some degree separable from Her creation. I don’t think She is just identical with the universe. (I admit that it’s a possibility, but for me at least, the problem of evil still prevents me from wanting to say that everything in the universe is just part of the divine.) In fact, to me one of the most amazing things about God is Her ability to create things not herself. That, to me, is a demonstration of Her infinitely self-giving love.

As for how God directs those “miraculous” events and makes those “interventions”, I suppose there are any number of possibilities. On a more mechanistic view of the universe, theologians have long supposed that God, as the first cause – the originator of the Big Bang – arranged everything at the moment of creation so that nature would unfold in such a way that all the necessary miracles would naturally arise at the proper moments. In other words, he foreknew that he’d need a parting of the Red Sea sometime around 1500 BC, so he adjusted a few particles of energy in the Big Bang that would put into motion the chain of natural causation that would eventually lead to the big wind or tsunami or earthquake or whatever it was that caused the seas to part.

However, on a less mechanistic, more quantum view of the natural world, I suppose it’s easy enough to locate God’s possible interventions in the midst of all the probabilities. If there are all kinds of that could possibly happen in nature with varying degrees of probability, maybe God brings about natural miracles simply by choosing to actualize one particular set of possibilities.

Frankly, I really don’t know. I just see the results in this world and say, “Hmmm, I wonder if there’s someone behind that, directing these events in some way? It sure seems like it sometimes.”

With the former, I’m still wondering how it can be called a miracle at all. Can anyone tell the difference between a normal event and a miracle, unless someone writing scripture describes it as a miracle?

And with the latter, it still raises the question of why God would make laws that She will have to suspend (not whether she could, but whether She would).

If our understanding of those laws is merely insufficient (as science, as you rightly noted, is constantly revising its laws to get a “best fit” with reality) then maybe all of the miracles fit into the former category, which brings me back to the first question.

Also, “intimately interconnected but not identical” as a descriptor for God still sounds like a Deity. If those connections occur at a constant level, then they would basically be part of natural processes. If they occur irregularly, when God chooses, then I would see them as “interventions.” So in my view, God is either the same as nature (pantheism?) or is on some level separable from it. I mean, if God created the universe, doesn’t that mean the universe must be in some sense separate from God as an entity? Can God create Herself?

Why doesn’t anyone pray for God to suspend or violate the Laws of Math?

Lots of my former calculus students prayed for God to suspend the Laws of Math. It never worked.