Have you ever had a religious or supernatural experience?

[Diabolical Materialism]

And confusing anecdotes with facts remains the fatal flaw of the superstitious.

The odds are decidedly not in your favor. Craig Keener’s estimate of 100 million miracles in the last hundred years is such a large number that the odds of all of them being false or naturally explainable is roughly equivalent to the odds that George Washington was not a historical person.

How the f##k would you even calculate that. I'm calling BS

[Diabolical Materialism]

Craig Keener is a lunatic, and citing him as a source is proof-in-itself that you are not serious about discussing this subject.

Keener is a pretty competent writer. I think it is a decidedly serious problem that, unless we presume odds of miracles are at precisely zero percent, it is highly unlikely that all miraculous claims are false.

“Miracles always relate to the faith. That is why a belief in miracles is not a vacation from reason, a little holiday from the tedious demands of rational responsibility. Not only is it reasonable to believe that miracles can and do happen, it is unreasonable to think they cannot and do not occur.” - Ralph McInerny

“Claims for the occurrence of miraculous events will have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. There can be no general theory to cover the character of unique events, but the refusal to contemplate the possibility of revelatory disclosures of an unprecedented kind would be an unacceptable limitation, imposed arbitrarily on the horizons of religious thought.” - John Polkinghorne

I have never encountered any evidence that would make me presume else wise.

[Diabolical Materialism]

I have never encountered any evidence that would make me presume else wise

And so you take all accounts of miracles when someone tells you of them as false, as you require your own first person experience to admit not even the actuality of something, but even the potentiality of it?

Are you being deliberately obtuse or is this a genuine lack of intelligence? My disbelief in miracles is not grounded in the fact that none have happened to me or that I've never personally borne witness to one, but rather that I have never seen any hard data or academic evidence that isn't based on quackery or psuedoscholarly bullsh**t.

If this is as academically robust as you seem to think it is, then I'd be highly curious to know how Keener arrived at this number and why you are inclined to believe it. The foundation of your argument in this thread seems to be an outright fallacy and straight up and down third grader logic. That because a lot of people claim that a miracle happened to them that ergo some of them must be telling the truth. That's based entirely in conjecture and no actual empirical facts and you know it.

Adding five or six names of theologians and academics to your posts isn't particularly impressive. Great, Craig Keener thinks this, Ethel Lipsh**tz thinks that. But why? It doesn't seem like even you, the one quoting these supposed experts, has engaged all that deeply with their statements on the matter. You seem to have read just enough to know their broader claim, and that an impressive academic sounding person is the one making it.

[Diabolical Materialism]

Oh I see. So you believe that prayer works as a remedy in certain cases, but these results can't be reproduced in a scientific setting because that would be "testing God." What an airtight system of logic you've constructed.

It seems to me that is the position taken by the respected doctor you made a meme of.

No, I don’t think that prayer works as a pill. I do think that it can, in limited circumstances, cause spontaneous remissions, as I have heard both doctors and patients have said such on multiple occasions.

What exactly is the doctor's position outside of a vague belief in the already vague concept of miracles? What exactly does he say about their utility and prevalence?  Or did you, once again, find someone prestigious who on face agrees with you and regurgitate a soundbite?

[Diabolical Materialism]

What exactly is the doctor's position outside of a vague belief in the already vague concept of miracles? What exactly does he say about their utility and prevalence?  Or did you, once again, find someone prestigious who on face agrees with you and regurgitate a soundbite?

This sort of attack is unwarranted and remains so. In response to asking for evidential sources, after providing several, you have now accused me of... presenting testimony that agrees with what I said? If that is the charge, I plead guilty.

And, it is important to note that Dule, after falsely claiming that several of the people I cited actually disproved what I said, has still not responded to the point made when citing them or their research.

You haven't provided evidence is the thing. You've barely even provided a testimony. If you are going to use this doctor's belief in miracles then you need to be prepared to explain their reasoning behind it and why it matters. Else wise you're basing your belief in the legitimacy on the doctor's title and prestige alone, and worse yet you are expecting us to do the same.