Help me refute my fathers "miracle" expeirence.
Posted on: November 22, 2009 - 4:48pm
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Help me refute my fathers "miracle" expeirence.
He claims that as he was driving through Texas at night, it began to rain severely. He then praid to God and suddenly the clouds began to depart over him and within twenty minutes the sky was clear.
Can anybody explain what happened?
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The wind was already taking the clouds away. Whether he prayed or not, it was going to stop raining.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Pretty much, the weather changed.
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Send him HERE and then ask him to explain why he believes 'god did it'
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The clouds "divided" over him as he claims.
It's too bad your father was praying for dry weather and not world peace or an end to human suffering, huh. Tell him I said thanks for nothing.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
Then his own expectations tainted his memory of the event. Or he didn't look to see that the cloud groups were at different altitudes, and were moving in different directions before he prayed.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
It's hard to respond to this sort of thing. I mean, how many people could consider themselves to be under the "parted clouds"? A million or so? I wonder if any of them prayed for the rain to keep going so their yards would grow better. Was your dad directly under the clouds? How would he possibly know that?
Obviously, it's started and stopped raining many times before in the history of the world. Generally speaking, when it rains, some of the people driving want it to stop raining. Some of them pray. The rain is going to stop at some point so just by the law of averages, some people are going to pray within a few minutes of it stopping.
Why is 20 minutes significant? Couldn't God get around to doing it right then? Why didn't he make a formation of clouds that said, "This One's For You, OutofNowhere's Dad? What if it had been 30 minutes? An hour? Ten minutes? How long a window do you give God before the rain just stopped on its own and it wasn't a miracle anymore?
By the way, you should know that none of these questions or comments are going to do any good. Anyone who believes God changes the weather for his ride home is delusional beyond help.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Humans are hardwired to see patterns. Unfortunatly, we're also hardwired to be selfish. So when something happens like that, we think it happend just for us. If the light stays green while we go through, it stayed that way just for us etc....
We're also subsubtiable to confirmation bias. That is we ignore when it doesn't happen, but only remember when it does.
This happens to me a lot.
clouds dividing... not a subject i know alot about but I can make a few guesses I supose
if it was raining heavily it is highly unlikely (if not impossible) this is because "rain clouds" form at simalar altitudes so two differant currents of air will not affect it, atleast not the the extent that they would divide break up maybe but nor divide and be clear in 20 minutes (im assuming there is no "special " weather events happening).
when it does it is easily visable that they are not the same cloud and almost certainly not "rain clouds" as "rain clouds" form at simalar altitudes. Without knowing weather patternn in texas I really cannot say... but the chances from what I can guess at is basically none...
A much simplar and far more likely explaination is it was simply clearing up... clouds disapate after all. weather this whould happen and appear like it was dividing is another matter witch i really would have no clue about. but I supose if it was raining harder where he was and around him was raining softer but even so whatever gap that may cause would be undone by the wind closing the gap or atleast not making it divide... making it unlikely that it would divide and be clear in 20 minutes
All i can say is highly unlikely atleast how I am imagening it
I really don't know much about the weather in america. I study the atmosphere and other related fields at unversity but we focus exclusivly on south african stuff at my level. we get very specific types of weather events here, traveling line thunder storms and cold front rain... and well I have never seen what you discribe but that may just be because of the differance in countries. But to my knowledge no it would not happen.
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Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Am I the only one who finds it amusing that the supreme overlord of the universe is altering reality for this guy and the best thing he can think to ask for is good weather to drive in? That's kind of zen I guess, but it seems like a real waste.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
Decamp to the deep south and spend his days praying over stray cyclones...
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Does it not rain much in that part of Texas?
I lived most of my first 32 years or so within sight of the ocean (I now live in a mountainous area that lies a couple of thousand kilometers from any ocean), and I've seen all kinds of crazy rain - everything from microbursts to hurricanes. Nothing about rain surprises me anymore.
If your father has not experienced much rain, then any encounter he has with it might be very vivid - so much so that he assigns supernatural characteristics to it.
Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.
Why Believe?
Well I live in central texas and it rains all the damn time.
I've met some people from Arizona though that are so excited about rain that they go outside and dance in it. Crazy.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
Yeah, I can explain it. Post hoc. Fin.
He prayed, and then the rain stopped. It's happened to me lots of times. Of course, I don't pray, but I'll want it to stop raining or start snowing, and it'll happen less than an hour later.
People also often pray for their sick loved ones to get better. And guess what? They usually get better! People also pray to get out of debt. And...*drumroll*, sometimes, they get out of debt! Omg, it's a miracle!
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare