Extraordinary claims, as Sagan said, require extraordinary evidence. Do you seriously think we need to provide rebuttals to a vague list of anecdotes?

Perhaps there is a positive reply we can give to this.
Rather than have to account for why these things happened (after all, she'd need to convince us that these things did actually happen) we could have a crack at accounting for why so many people believe these things happened.

I'm not an expert in psychology but I think that the following observation might be helpful.
Our perception is somewhat governed by our mind.
Sure, we see the same thing as everyone else - we more or less have the same image coming through the same type of eye but there is also a lot that our mind does in interpreting this image before it becomes belief.

Our mind determines on what concepts we apply
We are familiar with the concept cat, how to use it in language, how to apply it to the image of a cat. We see a cat and our mind recognises the image as a cat.
I don't think that we were born with this ability.
We slowly learned it, develloped our cognitive abilities, first learning how to apply the concept and then getting better at it to the point where we can recognise a cat even if we only see it for a split second.

This shows that what we 'see' will depend a lot on what we already believe. What we already believe will determine which parts of the image we focus on, e.g. I could look at an electrical problem for hours with no luck, but a practiced electrician could glance at the same problem and instantly see where it lies as they are practiced in recognising the clues and intuitive know exactly where to look for them.

Another point is that from time to time our mind mis-applies concepts. Sometimes we will mis-apply a concept to an image, see an object in the dark as something it's not, briefly mistake someone for a look a-like... more often than not our mind corrects itself after a couple of seconds when it has had a second look, but there's also the potential for mistakes where it doesn't, so we don't even realise we've mis-perceived.

Lastly, when we see something, we automatically infer things from it that will depend on our existing pre-conceptions.
E.g. if we briefly see a cat flash by then we automatically infer that it was running, even though we didn't specifically make out the motion, we just saw 'cat' + 'speed' = 'must be running'.

So putting these points together:
1) Our mind determines on what concepts we apply.
2) What we 'see' will depend a lot on what we already believe.
3) From time to time our mind mis-applies concepts.
4) We automatically infer things from it that will depend on our existing pre-conceptions.

So there are already reasons why these miracles can be mis-perceived, that people imprint their own beliefs on a normal situation and see a miracle come out of it. Add that observations on things that religious folk will often say, that you have to start with faith and believe and then you see for yourself...
I.e. Change your beliefs where your mind interprets miracles in natural events.

Thoughts?

Penn and Teller are the best!

Neurology is a great field. You should check it out. The human brain is a terribly fragile thing in some ways. You fuck with one chemical and you get some pretty crazy behaviors. Kate, I'm guessing you've noticed that you act a little crazy sometimes over the course of a month as part of your normal cycle, right? That's just minor variances in chemicals that normally vary in humans. When you start screwing around with chemicals that aren't supposed to vary, bad things happen.

I'm not aware of a single documented, scientifically verified case.

Not in any supernatural sense. Sometimes things happen that are statistically extremely unlikely, but they turn out to be good. Sometimes we say they are miracles, but we mean it only to say that they are extremely unlikely.

Not that I don't believe you, but are you aware of how fallible human perception is? I know you believe you have seen things like this, or that your friends have, but the simple fact remains. There has never been a single scientifically verified miracle.

I've seen a man levitate a foot off the ground, but I don't believe in levitation. I know the man was creating an illusion. Even so, I know what I saw. It looked just like he was levitating. The senses are fallible. Miracles are either hoaxes or mistaken perception or confirmation bias.

http://www.bible.ca/tongues-popoff-39-17Mhz.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Faith-Healers-James-Randi/dp/customer-reviews/0879755350

First of all, I was a Christian for 9 years and i never saw anyone healed of anything. And as for the "spirit realm". people just mad that up because they needed a place for their imaginary gods to reside. Besides,is there any real evidence for a spirit realm?

Your question would be more appropriate if it asked what the opinion of an atheist is on the spiritual realm. There are many views on the subject of spiritual realms among atheists. The Theravada Buddhism philosophy speaks of a spiritual realm, in which beings called devas and brahmas dwell. I'd say there are other notions of the spiritual realm among atheistic philosophies, though I am confessedly ignorant on the matter. The physicalism philosophy holds there is nothing above, outside, or underneath, nature because nature is all that exists.

From my studies of supernaturalist notions, I have tentatively arrived at the physicalist position. I see no need to introduce demons, angels, spirits, souls, devas, brahmas, or anything else supernatural into my mental-model of reality. The stories of demonic possession are almost always found to originate among religious families, begging the question of why it is not the unfaithful that more frequently experience such possession, and the stories are almost certaintly fables as they ring to the ears not as original experiences but as retelling of the story of Jesus casting our demons in the presence of the doubting Thomas, the "skeptical father" we're always told of. Whatever small percentage of the stories may actually possess a grain of truth, there will almost certainly be found a plausible explanation from a physicalist perspective of the mind. Such begs the question, why add unnecessary entities in your mental-model of reality?

As for healings, I've never seen a deaf or blind child healed through prayer or healing touches. The only effective prayers seem to be the desires of the doctors, scientists, and engineers and the only effective healing touches were by the hands of those doctors, scientists, and engineers. We see those individuals affecting their own miracles all the time along the halls of the hospitals, but where in those hospitals do we find the superstitious grovelers and touchers?

To say that you have witnessed (a) certain miracle(s), is an extremely misleading statement as this could mean that your best friend who you have known since childhood was cured of lifelong deafness, or it could mean that you saw someone deliver a touching anecdote on The 700 Club.

Personally, I have witnessed "god given miracles".  I watched a documentary some years ago about faith healers that focused on Benny Hinn Ministeries.  They followed up on several of the people that he "healed" at one of his shows.  The ones that I remember are as follows:

A child with a severe mental and physical handicap, the name of which eludes me.  He died several months later.

A deaf woman who could miraculously hear.  Her doctor told the filmmakers that she only had 20% hearing loss and that it "comes and goes".

A man with severe lower back problems.  He threw down his crutches, walked, jumped and crouched to the ground.  This one was placebo effect as several days later, he was confined to a wheelchair, possibly permanently.

A woman with cancer.  Her cancer actually DID go away several weeks later.  Her doctors said it was "very rare and unpredictable" form of cancer that sometimes inexplicably goes into remission.  Hardly a miracle.

Just a note to everyone who may read this, just because someone says they witnessed a miracle and just because they MAY believe what they say, doesn't make it so. 

I suppose if you could show me exactly how to find the spirit realm, I'd be happy to provide commentary.  Until then, you're just making stuff up. (or echoing stuff other people made up)

By that account, I am too for the spirit realm in that case.  Tho lately I wish I was a bit more in that realm ;p

Been a long couple of weeks.  Now, where did I leave that last spirit I had a hold of ... ;p

Hit and runs have a 0% conversion rate around here it seems.  Who gets the free blender for the simmo deconversion?