Is this a miracle?

Brains do some pretty weird stuff, and damaged brains no less. I am extremely sceptical on the subject of miracles, and my strong inclination is to say that God does not physically intervene in the world, save in Jesus and the Eucharist. I certainly have no reason to think that this particular case is miraculous.
 
My personal definition of miracle is rather informal. It was a miracle that the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004. It would take a miracle to win the lottery. It would be a miracle...
 
The miracle is that God created a universe where such recovery is possible, i.e. neural stem cells, or whatever they are.

I find 'divine intervention' a bit of a pointless term, anyway. It is saying that God doesn't always have control, only when he 'intervenes'. If God really did create the universe, right at the beginning, tick 0, t = 0, present day minus between 6000 and some number of billions of years, or whatever you want to call it, then he had control over whether or not these things are possible. So why would he need to 'divinely intervene' when all the divine intervention was done at day 0? Everything past that point occurs as a result of that divine intervention. Surely God knew exactly what would happen as a result of that, and act accordingly.

I guess that doesn't account for all those things that happened when Jesus walked the Earth, most notably the fact that he cheated death. Regardless, we shouldn't give up on scientific explanations for miraculous medical phenomenon, just because somebody wants to explain it away by the 'God did it' statement.

Yeah, I'm feeling particuarly deterministic today.
[/mindless theological rant]
 
MobBoss said:
*cough*...errr...how do you know?...I mean really. If the reason is undefined, then you dont know thats the case now do you?
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Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

In the absence of extraordinary proof I will assume that the extraordinary did not occur.

Burden of proof lies with the person making the extraordinary claim.
 
On the point that warpus brought up...

I am the reincarnation of Mahatma Ghandi. Its a miracle.

Now, lets say its your job to prove me wrong, not my job to prove me right.

A bit dumb, don't you think? God didn't give us brains so that we could sacrifice their use. So maybe we should use them. If it really is His creation, then how can his creation prove that he doesn't exist?

Us Christians should hold more faith in what God has done, instead of being afraid of what it might tell us. As soon as we claim that this person's recovery from brain damage was a result of 'divine intervention', suddenly researching that claim and alternative explanations becomes 'the devils work', because we are somehow doubting the power of God.

A scientific explanation does not diminish the power of God. It just tells us more about it, which I find much more fascinating and inspiring than the 'its a miracle' hypothesis.
 
MobBoss said:
How exactly do nerves regrow? I didn think they could. So, would this unexplainable medical phenomena qualify as a "miracle"?
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It's been known for a while that nerves can regenerate in select circumstances. If the axon is severed, the body can survive and resprout a new axon. If the myelin sheath is intact, the axon can follow the same path as the one that was severed to reconnect at the same site. (Notice the large amount of "ifs" involved.) Regeneration of nerves has been documented in cases of peripheral nerve and spinal cord injuries, although the recovery is rarely complete. This is the first time that recovery has been documented in the brain, although, again, it isn't complete.
 
warpus said:
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
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Again, I made no claim. Just asked a simple question. You say it isnt a miracle. Based on what? The absence of extraordinary proof? I would say the extraordinary proof is nerve regrowth in the brain where it has never been seen before.

In the absence of extraordinary proof I will assume that the extraordinary did not occur.
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I think it obvious that the extraordinary did occur in this instance....if this were not extraordinary it wouldnt be a hot news story.

Burden of proof lies with the person making the extraordinary claim.
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I would say the burden of proof lies with anyone making any claim. I.e. you claimed it wasnt a miracle....based on what proof?
 
Actually, there is a possibility that a random synapse managed to find its way to a rogue dendrite that was damaged, stimulating it to begin regrowth. We actually learn things and memorize them by creating dendrite connections to them in the memory section of our brain.
 
Perfection said:
Why yes it is!

Praise be to Asclepius!

:worship:
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lmao

(ten charac)
 
MobBoss said:
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/03/D8IKQCEO0.html



How exactly do nerves regrow?
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As long as a nerve cell lives it is able to grow now axons. That's what happened. Lucky guy, normally is goes awefully slow, in the wrong direction, or simply not at all.

I didn think they could.
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It has been weel-known - think of people who had e.g. a finger cut off, sewed back on, then a while later they regain control of it. That's the same process: the spinal nerves growing new axons into the finger (yes, all the way from the spinal cord!). Slow, though.
So, would this unexplainable medical phenomena qualify as a "miracle"?
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It is not unexplained, just extremely rare. Usually, with larger damages, the connecting tissue blocks the new axons.

And no, this is NOT a mircale based on your definition (I assume that you use a religion-based, God-did-it one).
 
MobBoss said:
I would say the burden of proof lies with anyone making any claim. I.e. you claimed it wasnt a miracle....based on what proof?
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It's impossible to prove a negative.

I am god. Prove me wrong.
 
ZiggyS said:
It's impossible to prove a negative.

I am god. Prove me wrong.
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NO, *I* am God, now you prove ME wrong :lol:



MobBoss: the simple fact is that making claims about unTESTABLE things is unSCIENTIFIC, thus the scientific tool 'proof' cannot be used.
 
FugitivSisyphus said:
My personal definition of miracle is rather informal. It was a miracle that the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004. It would take a miracle to win the lottery. It would be a miracle...
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for you "something happening that is against the odds" is a miracle? I can't find myself in that. In a lottery you know someone will win. Unlike this partial recovery where noone knew that someone would be so lucky that that would happen.

For me one of the elements that has to be present to be able to call something a miracle is that it cannot be explained sufficiently. Apples falling from the ground hitting Newton's chin on their way up would be one of those things, I suppose.
OTOH I'd consider the birth of my (future) child a miracle - even though it can be explained quiet easily.
 
No not a miarcle. Every event has a logical explanation
 
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