Miracles from Heaven

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Here is an article about the movie Miracles from Heaven written by a Harvard professor saying that such miracle cures could be real.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/03/29/harvard-medical-school-professor-says-miracles-from-heaven-and-other-remarkable-cures-could-be-real/

*************

When I went to see “Miracles from Heaven,” I saw more laughter, crying and applause than I’ve ever seen in a movie theater. Clearly, this new movie — the real-life story of a young girl, suffering from an incurable illness, who was inexplicably healed after a nearly fatal accident — touches a chord, at least in the theater in Boston where I saw it.

To doctors, events like the story that this girl’s mother (played in the film by Jennifer Garner) recounted in her memoir are impossible to explain. Scientists call them “spontaneous remission” or “placebo responses.”

I do not believe that we can think ourselves into health.  But I do believe that principles of mind and spirit exist that we have not even begun to scientifically map in the West, and that we should be doing so.

I have listened to more than 100 of these remarkably cured individuals, despite the fact that in medical school, I was taught that reports of spontaneous remission are rare, “anecdotes” and “flukes” from which nothing can be learned.

That assumption appears to be wrong.  In my studies of more than 100 people with medical evidence for recovery from incurable illness, the similarity in their paths suggests to me identifiable mental and spiritual principles associated with their recoveries.

I disagree with one common viewpoint that the movie espouses. At the very beginning, it defines a “miracle” as a contradiction of natural law.

I believe that miracles only contradict what we know of nature at this point in time. Modern physics is, for example, way ahead of traditional science, and its implications have not been fully incorporated into its perspectives and methods yet. So I believe that miracles actually are consistent with mental and spiritual laws that we are only beginning to study.

**************

Not bad.  Some people are beginning to get there already.

It will happen more and more as we go along....and 'miracles' will be seen as part of natural life (nothing supernatural).  Only point is that what would be considered 'natural' at that time will be much broader than how it is defined by 'microscopic' minded people today.   

Evolution of Science!

Cheers.

Sriram

[Shaker]

Some people will believe anything.

[SqueakyVoice]

Sri,

So in your arrogant opinion, science should "evolve" from a sceptical system of evidence and peer-reviewed papers, to a gullible system of anecdotes and movies..?

Woo peddlars everywhere will be delighted.

[Sriram]

Some people will believe anything.

Ha Ha!  You guys really need to keep consoling yourselves with some such scorn every single time.  So insecure!!!  Wishing it will all just go away by just repeatedly saying so!   

Grow up Shaker.   

[Shaker]

Ha Ha!  You guys really need to keep consoling yourselves with some such scorn every single time.  So insecure!!!  Wishing it will all just go away by just repeatedly saying so!

Sounds exactly like you with natural selection and the woo you want to inject into it to fit your batty beliefs.

[Shaker]

Sri,

So in your arrogant opinion, science should "evolve" from a sceptical system of evidence and peer-reviewed papers, to a gullible system of anecdotes and movies..?

Woo peddlars everywhere will be delighted.

The forum's woo peddler-in-chief clearly is delighted.

[Leonard James]

It is quite unbelievable that people actually take seriously a Hollywood film made for entertainment ... and with an eye on the box office returns that any 'wishful thinking and happy ending' type saga commands.

For goodness sake grow up, Sriram.

[Rhiannon]

Don't get me wrong, I love a happy ending, but this sounds like an atrocious way to spend an evening.

[Sriram]

Its a real life case....and a professor has written about other similar cases.....or you people don't want to notice?!

Its just a movie! No stress! 

[Shaker]

Its a real life claim or allegation of a case

[Leonard James]

Its a real life case....and a professor has written about other similar cases.....or you people don't want to notice?!

Its just a movie! No stress! 

Spontaneous healing occurs. No miracle. Live with it.

[Maeght]

Hi everyone,

Here is an article about the movie Miracles from Heaven written by a Harvard professor saying that such miracle cures could be real.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/03/29/harvard-medical-school-professor-says-miracles-from-heaven-and-other-remarkable-cures-could-be-real/

*************

When I went to see “Miracles from Heaven,” I saw more laughter, crying and applause than I’ve ever seen in a movie theater. Clearly, this new movie — the real-life story of a young girl, suffering from an incurable illness, who was inexplicably healed after a nearly fatal accident — touches a chord, at least in the theater in Boston where I saw it.

To doctors, events like the story that this girl’s mother (played in the film by Jennifer Garner) recounted in her memoir are impossible to explain. Scientists call them “spontaneous remission” or “placebo responses.”

I do not believe that we can think ourselves into health.  But I do believe that principles of mind and spirit exist that we have not even begun to scientifically map in the West, and that we should be doing so.

I have listened to more than 100 of these remarkably cured individuals, despite the fact that in medical school, I was taught that reports of spontaneous remission are rare, “anecdotes” and “flukes” from which nothing can be learned.

That assumption appears to be wrong.  In my studies of more than 100 people with medical evidence for recovery from incurable illness, the similarity in their paths suggests to me identifiable mental and spiritual principles associated with their recoveries.

I disagree with one common viewpoint that the movie espouses. At the very beginning, it defines a “miracle” as a contradiction of natural law.

I believe that miracles only contradict what we know of nature at this point in time. Modern physics is, for example, way ahead of traditional science, and its implications have not been fully incorporated into its perspectives and methods yet. So I believe that miracles actually are consistent with mental and spiritual laws that we are only beginning to study.

**************

Not bad.  Some people are beginning to get there already.

It will happen more and more as we go along....and 'miracles' will be seen as part of natural life (nothing supernatural).  Only point is that what would be considered 'natural' at that time will be much broader than how it is defined by 'microscopic' minded people today.   

Evolution of Science!

Cheers.

Sriram

How is that evolution of science? Scientists investigate phenomena all the time using the scientific method. If you want them to move away from using the scientific method to just accepting stuff without measurable evidence then it isn't science but is something else.

[Bubbles]

Sometimes people think it's ok to move away from being objective, but imagine if science did just accept things, and it didn't support their worldview.

People still wouldn't like it.

Much better to have a method that doesn't involve cultural assumptions.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Hi everyone,

Here is an article about the movie Miracles from Heaven written by a Harvard professor saying that such miracle cures could be real.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/03/29/harvard-medical-school-professor-says-miracles-from-heaven-and-other-remarkable-cures-could-be-real/

*************

When I went to see “Miracles from Heaven,” I saw more laughter, crying and applause than I’ve ever seen in a movie theater

Whaaattt? Haven't these people seen the Imax 3D version of Dawkins' ''Root of all Evil?''

[Stranger]

Whaaattt? Haven't these people seen the Imax 3D version of Dawkins' ''Root of all Evil?''

You really should see someone about your Dawkins obsession. It can't be healthy.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You really should see someone about your Dawkins obsession. It can't be healthy.

I have an obsession about all antitheist comedians.

[Maeght]

Sometimes people think it's ok to move away from being objective, but imagine if science did just accept things, and it didn't support their worldview.

People still wouldn't like it.

Much better to have a method that doesn't involve cultural assumptions.

Nicely put Rose.

[Sriram]

Spontaneous healing occurs. No miracle. Live with it.

You are again talking of miracles....when the author has specifically stated that 'miracles' could be due to natural laws (ones we don't know of yet).  Which is what I have been saying too. Do you get it?! 

[ProfessorDavey]

Spontaneous healing occurs. No miracle. Live with it.

I was listening to the Radio 4 programme 'Beyond belief' the other day and it was focusing on places where visions of the virgin Mary have been claimed and potential miraculous healing, particularly at Lourdes.

One of the contributors came out with the most astonishing statement. Effectively when they were discussion the need to ensure that a claimed miracle did not have a scientific or clinical explanation, she said that there shouldn't be all this focus on assessing the science, because as science moves on and more is understood it becomes less likely that something cannot be explained by science and that leaves less space for miracles.

Effectively she was saying that we must have miracles and we need to put our fingers in our ears and shout 'I'm not listening, I'm not listening' to any rational scientific explanation to a phenomenon.

Astonishing, and deeply depressing and dangerous.

The other aspect of the discussion was on the psychological effect on believers of being at Lourdes - now I don't doubt this for believers, but of course all sorts of us feel better if our phycological outlook is improved, and that can be due to anything from listening to music, to seeing friends and family or talking to a trained counsellor. The claim was that this psychological boost was also somehow a miracle and somehow specifically religious, while the reality is that it is well understood clinically, is common place and does not rely one iota on religion.

The whole programme really came across as clutching at straws.

There was some interesting discussion of the highly politicised elements of miracle recognition by the RCC.

[Sriram]

How is that evolution of science? Scientists investigate phenomena all the time using the scientific method. If you want them to move away from using the scientific method to just accepting stuff without measurable evidence then it isn't science but is something else.

You are fixated on what you understand as the Scientific Method. No need to be dogmatic about it. Science can review the SM itself and expand its scope.  That is the evolution of Science.  You keep saying it is something else. No....it will not be something else. It will be a New Science.

Like everything else in life ......Science will also evolve and change...regardless of dogmatic and fixated people  trying to hold it back.

[Sriram]

I was listening to the Radio 4 programme 'Beyond belief' the other day and it was focusing on places where visions of the virgin Mary have been claimed and potential miraculous healing, particularly at Lourdes.

One of the contributors came out with the most astonishing statement. Effectively when they were discussion the need to ensure that a claimed miracle did not have a scientific or clinical explanation, she said that there shouldn't be all this focus on assessing the science, because as science moves on and more is understood it becomes less likely that something cannot be explained by science and that leaves less space for miracles.

Effectively she was saying that we must have miracles and we need to put our fingers in our ears and shout 'I'm not listening, I'm not listening' to any rational scientific explanation to a phenomenon.

Astonishing, and deeply depressing and dangerous.

The other aspect of the discussion was on the psychological effect on believers of being at Lourdes - now I don't doubt this for believers, but of course all sorts of us feel better if our phycological outlook is improved, and that can be due to anything from listening to music, to seeing friends and family or talking to a trained counsellor. The claim was that this psychological boost was also somehow a miracle and somehow specifically religious, while the reality is that it is well understood clinically, is common place and does not rely one iota on religion.

The whole programme really came across as clutching at straws.

There was some interesting discussion of the highly politicised elements of miracle recognition by the RCC.

It is inevitable. How long do you think Science can be hijacked by materialists and atheists?

Also, as I have said many times before ...Science  is not equal to Physics.  Physics is an exact science but it is only a subset of Science.

Many sciences can exist that are NOT exact sciences. People should get used to it.

[Gordon]

You are again talking of miracles....when the author has specifically stated that 'miracles' could be due to natural laws (ones we don't know of yet).  Which is what I have been saying too. Do you get it?!

Yep - so if these 'miracles' are due to natural laws then they aren't 'miracles': they are just unexplained natural events, assuming of course that these events did actually occur and the risks of mistakes or lies in any anecdotal accounts have been excluded - if so, then we are still assuming naturalism: aren't we?

[Sriram]

Yep - so if these 'miracles' are due to natural laws then they aren't 'miracles': they are just unexplained natural events, assuming of course that these events did actually occur and the risks of mistakes or lies in any anecdotal accounts have been excluded - if so, then we are still assuming naturalism: aren't we.a

Yes....

except that what is 'natural' needs to be expanded to include many more phenomena than what we today consider as natural. That's the point. 

This is where the evolution of science comes in.

[Leonard James]

You are again talking of miracles....when the author has specifically stated that 'miracles' could be due to natural laws (ones we don't know of yet).  Which is what I have been saying too. Do you get it?!

Yes, completely. Medical science will one day find the natural explanations for all these cases of spontaneous healing. So using the word 'miracle' to explain them is misleading and silly.

[ProfessorDavey]

It is inevitable. How long do you think Science can be hijacked by materialists and atheists?

Also, as I have said many times before ...Science  is not equal to Physics.  Physics is an exact science but it is only a subset of Science.

Many sciences can exist that are NOT exact sciences. People should get used to it.

Science isn't highjacked by anyone - it is an objective approach which extends our knowledge. The rest of your post makes no sense.

Of course there are other branches of science than physics, although they follow the understanding of the world provided by physics. But all sciences follow scientific principles of investigation and derivation of evidence and data - that's why they are called science.

The point I was making was that effectively this contributor to the radio programme was arguing that we should resist enhancing our understanding and knowledge through science because to do so threatens our ability to claim something as a miracle in a classic god of the gaps fashion. As the gaps become smaller the space for us to claim something as a miracle diminishes. That is, to my mind, a thoroughly good thing. And while we retain imperfect knowledge (which I guess we always will) when something happens that we don't understand, we should accept our lack of understanding and strive to try to find the answers. To simply apply goddidit as a default excuse for a lack of understanding.