Eh, there are two types of miracles though. There are "personal" miracles which are convincing for the person experiencing it, like a vision, or a sudden improvement in health, or whatever.
Then there are public miracles, which are those that are seen by many people. Most of the Catholic Church "saint" miracles are... not seen by that many people, at least not in the sense that Jesus crucifixion and subsequent appearances were. Many of the middle-ages miracles are also what I'd call circumstantial evidence.
I have to admit, even though I'm a Christian, the one miracle that seems to be hardest to believe is the virgin birth... it's an outrageous claim with not a lot of witnesses. Basically all we have is a couple Gospel writers interviewing Mary.
I mean, most of Jesus' miracles are also not seen by that many people. In the case of the resurrection, we can observe very similar instances connected to Mary up to modern times. A famous example is that of La Vang (Vietnam.)
Many people sought refuge in the rainforest of La Vang in Quảng Trị Province, Vietnam, and many became very ill. While hiding in the jungle, the community gathered every night at the foot of a tree to pray the rosary. One night, an apparition surprised them. In the branches of the tree a lady appeared, wearing the traditional Vietnamese áo dài dress and holding a child in her arms, with two angels beside her. The people present interpreted the vision as the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus Christ. They said that Our Lady comforted them and told them to boil leaves from the trees for medicine to cure the illness.
As for medieval miracles lacking witnesses, that's - an incredibly broad claim. Many had only a few (though important) witnesses. There are hundreds of accounts of children being resurrected before their mothers, etc. Joan of Arc shared divine revelations with the French court, allowing them to retrieve a well-described sword from a place Joan had never been.
On the other hand, there are ones witnessed by large groups. See for instance St. Anthony of Padua:
The story of Anthony "preaching to the fish" originated in Rimini, where he had gone to preach. When heretics there treated him with contempt, Anthony was said to have gone to the shoreline, where he began to preach at the water's edge until a great crowd of fish was seen gathered before him. The people of the town flocked to see this marvelous thing, after which Anthony charged them with the fact that the fish were more receptive to his message than the heretics of the church, at which point the people were moved to listen to his message.
Overall, both of your 'miracle types' are observed well into the modern era. It would require more research than I'm willing to invest to verify, but I reckon all of Jesus' miracles were recreated by some Saint or other in equally believable circumstances, and with as much (or more) of a weight of evidence.
I'd say my usual thing about truth being essentially subjective outside of STEM fields, but more importantly you're accusing me of believing something I actually don't. Do you think I, as a Protestant, accept Catholic doctrine? Why? (if there's a Catholic there I'd like to hear their take on them tbh)
there are plenty of major miracles after Jesus, it's just you choose to ignore them. This is convenient for your narrative, but not for the truth - and any healthy faith should be more rigorous in its thought and application than to reject for the sake of rejection and narrative preservation.
Your denomination is the reason you choose to ignore later miracles. This is convenient for a Protestant narrative, but not for the truth - and any healthy faith should be more rigorous in its thought and application.
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The claim that everything is subjective is pointless grandstanding, to be honest. It sounds good, it grabs attention, and it justifies less than rigorous practices. It is a device for protecting an unstable argument.
It is, of course, theoretically correct. Practically, it is misleading, obfuscating, intellectually dishonest, etc. There is ALWAYS a method for comparing sources/approaches and coming to conclusions, and 'it's subjective ergo I could be right ergo my argument is as sound as any other' is not (a good) one.
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Topic: Railgun and Spirituality Discussion (Read 660281 times)