On Miracles & Uri Gellor

David Hume famously defined a miracle as a violation of the laws of nature.   The impossibility of such things is obvious - whatever actually happens must be in accordance with the laws of nature for the laws of nature must serve as an explanation for why everything is the way it is.

Does this clear up any of the common "mysteries". 

Yuri Gellor is a well known magician - he can perform tricks and I believe admits that his spoon

bending is a trick. Anyway, what if it isn't? What if he can bend spoons simply by looking at 

them and thinking of them as bent. What then? Then there is a law of nature with which Yuri's

spoon bending is consistent. A higher law, as it were.

Similarly with Moses. Moses is reported to have thrown his staff onto the ground and had it

change into a snake which then proceeded to eat the snakes of the priests of Ra. One says "you

can't change wood into snakes." Well, as far as we know, but maybe someone can?

Science is the knowledge of generalizations - generally things are attracted to each other, that

is called gravity. Science is also the knowledge of exceptions - sometimes things aren't

attracted to each other, that's another force (magnetic forces can do this, for instance). So

what?

It is outside the scope of generalizing to say that something did not happen once. Any story

that begins "once upon a time" science can neither confirm nor deny by experimentation.

It can tell us "we can not repeat that by doing anything of the sort." But does this prove

that something did not happen or just that we don't know how to repeat it?

Many well known magicians have been debunked by hidden cameras - the tricks they play that

amount to small miracles impress everyone. But what about real magic?

What would real magic look like today?

In our world dominated by humans, magic very seldom takes the form of extracting water from

rocks or gathering manna from heaven - we gather our own manna and steal that of our

brothers.

No, in our world, magic takes the same for it always did - in the battle between good and evil.

God is not a parlor magician, neither is the Devil. If the Devil makes someone wealthy or

healthy, there is a reason. What that reason is simply not investigated by modern scientific

methods mostly because rational motivation simply is not causally oriented.

We don't help our sisters because we are compelled to by force, that wouldn't be helping them

at all. We do it because we want to. If we were compelled to help someone, we wouldn't say

that we were helping them at all, but that, as it were, whoever helped us to do it did it.

In my own case, miracles happen when I help someone -at all-. I'm not a particularly nice

person. So when I find myself helping someone and it working, I'm taken aback, impressed

so to speak.

Miracles then, are simply invisible to those without the eyes to see them. Those who scoff

say that there is no miracle at all, not seeing that their own breath is a great miracle. Who

can seriously ignore the infinite depth and mystery involved in the fact that we are breathing

and living? Lots of people, they're called the blind.