Have you ever had anything that could be termed miraculous happen to you?
I've had quite a number of them. In fact, my questioning of life, reality, and everything is due in a large part to the colossally weird things that happen to me often.
Couple examples. I've won the "shouldn't be alive, by astronomical odds" award several times.
The one that springs to mind first is an incident that occurred when I was in the military involving a defective grenade. The EOD officer who investigated said that I shouldn't be alive and the odds were about a billion to one against.
That's more or less the same thing that I was told repeatedly after an auto accident that happened in Germany, involving an out-of-control vehicle going between two high voltage pad mounted transformers without touching them, even though there was maybe an inch to spare.
Less than a week ago, a series of events and circumstances converged into what I can only describe as one of the most profound things that's ever happened to me.
I cannot accept that random happenstance and coincidence is responsible.
I don't believe in God but I do believe in meaning in the universe.
There is something going on here.
What about you? Anything weird strange to such a degree that it could be termed miraculous?
The odds of anything occurring in retrospect are exactly 1:1. Given all the factors, there was no other outcome that was possible. The odds are determined supposing none of those factors would have come into play. We tend to over think dumb luck and downplay prior preparation.
I’m with you on this. There’s something going on here and it can not be explained in ordinary terms.
Every second of conscious awareness is a profound miracle.
Every now and then, I have pre-cognitive experiences. And they have saved my life on more than one occasion.
I am reluctant to accept magical explanations for numerous similar situations that I've experienced. I have thought a lot about this, and I think I have a reasonable explanation.
We are not limited to five senses as is typically believed, but those other senses aren't psychic abilities. Your sense of touch alone discerns hot from cold, hard from soft, rough from smooth, etc. That's more than one sense. You also feel hunger, fatigue, pain, and many other sensations that are beyond the capacity of the five basic senses. That's enough to preface my hypothesis.
My thought is that the human brain is constantly flooded with sensory input that it filters into conscious and subconscious awareness. If it didn't the information would overwhelm us. A lot of that data, maybe the majority of it, goes unnoticed 99% of the time, but in situations of danger you act on that information without ever realizing you had it.
I've experienced a lot of weird coincidences in my life.
But the things that boggle my mind are what I consider mathematical weirdness.
Things that seem to be completely opposite of logic, but have been proven time and time again.
If you put 100 strangers in a room, 2 of them might share a birthday.
If you fill a room with 100 members of the same family, it's 20 x's likely that some will share a birthday.
It should be just as random, but it's not.
Money + being Decisive.
If you wait to make a smart money move after figuring out all of the pros and cons, you're certain to come out on top. -Multiply this by 20 tries, and you may fail half of the time.
If you make an impulsive decision, and stick to your guns, you might lose. Multiply this by 20 tries and you're more likely to be better off than the person who delayed or pivoted on their decision. "Fortune favors the brave".
etc.
Who has a family of 100 people? lol
@greyeyed123 Amish
@greyeyed123 Everyone. Everyone in the living world has at least 100 relatives (counding cousins, 2nd cousins, 3rd, 4th, 5th etc, great aunts, uncles, living and dead) everyone has 100 people they are related to; or ancestors. Fun Fact: People who are deceased still had birthdays.
Do they all need to literally be in one room? No smartass, it's a hypothetical.
@MuzikDan It's a useless hypothetical. Yes, technically all humans are related if you go back far enough. Yes, you have 7 billion "relatives", and you can count all other living things also if you really want to (genetically). Not everyone has 100 living relatives by the definition most people would consider "relatives". If both your parents were only children, you have no aunts nor uncles, and no cousins. But even counting hypothetical aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents, and great grandparents, you are no where NEAR the ballpark of 100 people.
Also, my mother came from a huge family while my father came from a medium family, and all my great grandparents, great aunts and uncles, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and brothers and sisters do not add up to 50. They just don't. And NO ONE has my birthday. And my maternal grandmother kept track of all birthdays and anniversaries, and made sure we knew them also. Only one overlapped, and it was with an in-law.
It's just that your claim that related people are more likely to share birthdays seems spurious. I would be curious to know where you got this information. (P.S. You cannot use a hypothetical as evidence of something strange and fascinating in reality.)
@greyeyed123 That's weird that you also had a family member who shared a birthday with someone else in your family. Cool story.
@MuzikDan Good grief.
Yes, many, including ones that can't be explained by any natural laws I'm aware of. Ironically, they were part of my journey away from religion and my belief in an omnipotent god.
what's going on is just blind luck. have you been buying lottery tickets?
i've survived 2 serious cancers so far, car accidents & a motorcycle accident. i guess i could consider myself lucky. still buying lottery tickets.
First define 'miraculous' without resorting to biblical kind of meaning, then look back at those things you claim to be miraculous and dissect them using reasoning, logic, etc.
geez, that sounds like...mental strain.
@callmedubious I suppose to some it would be BUT to those who are adept at using Logic and Reasoning it would be a simple as almost anything else, would it not?
@Triphid ,
my problem is that logic & reasoning don't work very well in an illogical world,
@callmedubious They actually do in my world WHICH , if I'm not in error, is the same world as everyone else on this planet lives, i.e. Planet Earth.
I think it's a miracle (well, against the odds) that I've lived to 64 looking back on what a fool I am. I'm grateful (in a secular way, of course) for how things turned out. James Taylor, an accomplished musician, articulated it beautifully in this song:
it's good that you can understand james. i have a problem with his kind of mumbling syntax.
I guess he's not everyone's cup of tea.