AMAZING RECOVERY: A MIRACLE?

We live in such a modern age--computers and movies and iPhones, etc.--and yet many superstitions persist, apparently held over from Medieval times, before the rigorous logic and methods of science were widely known.

At times, we are not very different from primitive people.

One tribe in Africa, as I recall, believed that if a woman walked by a certain river on the night of the full moon, she would get pregnant. Those primitive tribesmen figured out the reason: The moon did it.

Now, of course, we modern people know better. We know she must have had a lover there, a vigorous young man who supplied the necessary ingredients.

But we don't always know better.

Today, I heard a story on NPR (my favorite news source) about a boy in Ferndale, Washington, who got a flesh-eating bacteria that seemed to be killing him.  

The boy underwent a dozen surgeries, and the doctors thought he was going to die.

Thousands of people around the world prayed for him, his mother prayed to the Pope, and the bacteria stopped. He didn't die and is alive today. A lot of people thought this was a miracle, that God intervened to save the boy.

Was it a miracle? Did God intervene? Is there anyway to know for sure? I don't understand why people jump to that conclusion. They don't understand it, therefore it has be God.

I think this is a good example of the post hoc fallacy, the idea that because one event follows another in time, the first one caused the second one.I forget to shave, then I stub my toe and fall. Did one thing cause the other? I walk outside and scratch myself, then a plane crashes in Nigeria. What power I must have.

Let's talk about causation. I forget to eat breakfast, then I get hungry. Did one thing cause the other? Yes. That is causation.

Why can't people tell the difference?

Here is a Wikipedia explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

Why do people believe in miracles? Are people that uncomfortable with not knowing? Are they unwilling or unable to live with an unsolved mystery?

Is everything we don't understand a miracle?

I was at a dinner party in Orange County some years ago, where a student in physics held up a candle and said of the flame, "This is not well understood."

Is the flame a miracle?

I don't understand why certain women I have known have fallen in love with me, or I with them. Is that a miracle? Sometimes it seems like it.

Once in a while, I have wonderful dreams and awake feeling inexplicably happy. Is that a miracle?

Sometimes, my car develops odd little problems, and those problems seem to fix themselves. Are those miracles?

I am so glad this boy survived. I think that is wonderful. Doctors don't understand the biological mechanism that saved him. They don't always understand everything that goes on in the human body.

But was it a miracle? Sweet Jesus. Why does anyone think that?

Maybe the moon did it.
  

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

THE FAT GURU

Many years ago, when I worked in Newport Beach, CA, which is a wealthy enclave by the sea, I knew a very handsome couple. He had silver white hair, and she was a striking blonde from Eastern Europe. He was an ad man, and when I first met them, I thought they were tres sophisticated and intelligent.

But one day a week, it might have been Sunday, they had a "guru" with an Indian name come over to their fancy condo with an ocean view and conduct sessions in meditation that involved travels in time and space.

She told me that they spent time on some planet in a galaxy far away. She named the planet, but I had never heard of it and assumed it was fictional. I never attended one of these sessions, so I don't know first-hand what they did there.

But I ran into their "guru" by accident one time in an Indian restaurant on Bristol Street in Costa Mesa. He was a fat middle-aged Jewish guy from NYC, wearing white clothing like an Indian guru. He had taken on some guru-like name that I can't recall, Yackywhackydoo or something. He seemed like the most hostile guy I had ever met, seething with anger underneath. Certainly not peaceful. A complete fake, I thought.

Now, my question is this: Why in the world would anybody spend their time like this?

Here is my answer, the Angle Theory of Bullshit: People love bullshit because it's simple and easy and it makes them feel good. They hate the truth because it's messy and complicated and makes them feel bad. Also, there is a question of control. You can't control the truth.

The fact is, in the universe we are surrounded by the Great Mystery. We don't know where we come from, where we are going, or why we are here. In my opinion, coping with that basic truth is a fundamental part of being human.

And in America, we are surrounded by bullshit, which comes in many forms: religious, spiritual, political, cultural, artistic, literary, philosophical, psychological.

My advice: Stay away from bullshit. It's a con and it keeps you from dealing with the truth. It keeps you from being human. It makes people ignorant and stupid.

Many people choose bullshit over the truth. But I think that's very sad.  
 

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle