Miracles and causation
Miracles are events like magic. Religion says God does
them. God makes all things out of nothing so he can do them. Making things out
of nothing is a miracle.
Religion says, "A miracle is not an event without a
cause." But why does miracle feel the need to act like it is? For example,
imagine a religious statue is bleeding. A natural cause would be that somebody
put blood on it. If the blood comes out of nowhere what then? It looks like the
blood has no cause. Religion then says that God is the cause. But that is not
the impression given by the miracle. It acts like something claiming to have no
cause.
The religionist merely assumes that miracles have a cause
- God. They have nothing to say to the person who says, "It is an event that
presents itself as having no cause. How do you prove it has a cause? Even if
there is a God, maybe it has nothing to do with him?" You could take miracles as
evidence that our view that nothing happens without a cause is wrong. It makes
us question our reason and if our faculties are working properly. It makes us
dump commonsense.
If miracles violate and repudiate our commonsense, then
it follows that it is not unbiased to disbelieve in them. We would have no
choice.
Miracles, if they happen, are evidence that there is no
cause. But let us pretend that they are neither evidence for it or against it.
In other words, we cannot tell if a miracle shows it has no cause or that it has
a cause. Then it follows that if we believe we are saying there is no evidence
that cause and effect are true. We become sceptics for the sake of believing in
the miracle. No miracle is worth that.
Religion is extremist if it gets us to believe in
something that shows there is no causation or even if it leaves us unsure if
causation is a fact or not. If it is wrong to think miracles have a supernatural
cause, it is still encouraging us to believe in events that threaten our entire
faith in reason and causation.
God is said to have created all things - he caused
nothing to become something. Religion says nothing does not have the power to
become something for there is nothing there. Causing means that something that
exists causes something else. If nothing causes something that is
unintelligible. It does not make sense. There is nothing there. There is no
cause there. So how does bringing God in help? They say then that nothing does
have the power to become something if God works on it! But if nothing can have
the power to become something that it can do that if there is a God or not!
Creation then is contradictory. Perhaps the universe is made of God and did not
come from nothing? God did not make anything from himself. That would be
transformation not creation. So the Church says God created all things from
nothing. Creation by God from nothing tells us that God is able to make nothing
cause something. That is nonsense. The absurdity of creation means that miracles
are absurd if they must come from a creator.
The believers agree that nothing cannot become something which means that if the
universe came from nothing then it popped into existence uncaused for nothing
then must have the power to become something after all. If there is a God, this
had nothing to do with him.
Correlation and causation are two separate things. That is why correlation
cannot prove causation. So if Annie gets pregnant after years of trying after
drinking some concoction that does not mean the concoction caused the pregnancy.
Miracles are nothing unless they are invitations to prayer more than anything
else. But the effectiveness of prayer is based on the superficial lazy notion
that if something is asked for in prayer and one gets it then the prayer worked!
The person who prays arrogantly claims to be sure that the prayer worked! The
humble person of prayer is not what she seems to be! Miracles if they are signs
from God are clearly encouraging the superstition of confusing correlation and
causation.
If miracles happen in the Catholic Church, the Catholics assume that God is
trying to tell people that this is the only religion guided by him to teach the
truth. If others teach the truth they get the truth from the Church or by luck.
But they are not authorised by God. In fact, it would ultimately mean that only
the Catholics have authority from God to determine how he is to be worshipped
and what doctrines honour him and express the truth. So miracles can be
understood as ultimately about advocating Catholic prayer. In other words, they
encourage the Catholic opposition to the principle that correlation is not
causation. The Church upholds the principle except when it suits it.
God's need to send signs is one cause of the miracle. But this need is assumed.
God needing signs does not by itself show that miracles are signs. Miracles
happening in the Catholic Church only, do not prove that God is trying to tell
us something. To say they do is to confuse correlation and causation.
Miracles are magic of the worst sort.