How One May View Miracles

It has been a while since I have visited an atheist’s blog I used to stop by more frequently, but today I decided to venture over to see what was new at Atheist Revolution. Today’s post is entitled ‘How Miracles Work’.

The author references the incident in Florida of the tractor-trailer which rear-ended a school bus carrying 21 children, where Frances M. Schee, age 13, was tragically killed.

The author (atheist) states: ‘Evidently, this is how miracles work. An innocent child dies and others survive.’

The Christian (Jim Yancey) states: ‘This was a tragedy, but it's also a miracle…We're lucky one person got out of there alive.’

So, How One May View Miracles seems to be the old half-full/half-empty glass of water thought. It is comparative in our nature to believe it was indeed a miracle of God, because ‘We're lucky one person got out of there alive,’ but seemingly just as easy to discount it as a miracle of God because ‘An innocent child dies and others survive.’

The author does ask a valid question, ‘What do you think the parents of the dead 13-year-old girl thought when they read your quote in the local paper, Superintendent?’ But only the parents themselves can answer that.

Now, according to the article and Atheist Revolution, the superintendent’s quotes were, ‘This was a tragedy, but it's also a miracle’ and ‘We're lucky one person got out of there alive.’

I don’t know the parents of Frances M. Schee personally, but I fail to see how they would have a problem with what Jim Yancey said. It was indeed a tragedy for the loss of Frances M. Schee, yet clearly a miracle that the other children were rescued.

I would also question the use of the quote ‘But not to save the sweet, innocent, 13-year-old little girl who died. God must have put her near the flames for a reason just like he made the truck driver use his cell phone at the perfect moment’ assumingly credited to James Horton by the writer of The Stubborn Curmudgeon. I searched, but could not find such a quote or reference to ‘(CITRA, Fla.) TSC Newswire’ where the quote apparently is sited from. Possibly the writer of the blog is making a point, and it is not actually the words of James Horton.

To discount the rescue to dwell on the loss seems overly trying to make a point that doesn’t hold water. I’ll return to my thought: It is comparative in our nature to believe it was indeed a miracle of God, because ‘We're lucky one person got out of there alive,’ but seemingly just as easy to discount it as a miracle of God because ‘An innocent child dies and others survive.’

It is quite normal for the spiritual to see the miracle and the natural to discount it.