Do you believe in magic?

[spongebob]

This poll is to determine just how many Christians here, anyway, believe in magic.

[narsil]

not to sound elitist, like those people that travel the world always do, but... you really gotta get out of our country and our culture if you want your belief on this challenged. I treated them with much more incredulity before I went into the Middle East and South America, I don't know that it proves anything, but if you've only ever experienced a 1st world culture and society and you are willing to believe that should give you light into all truths, then I don't hold it against anyone when they don't believe in miracles, of course you wouldn't, you have very little evidence to the contrary.

but I would like to point out, that according to Meredeth Grey (from Grey's Anatomy), Miracles happen all the time, and I'm mean how can you argue about a bit of philosophy from a night time hit TV drama. it must be true

and for my last point, I think science is inadequate for this question really. let's say that something odd happens, science can quickly fit that into the unexplainable natural causes category, I mean science by definition takes in any observed data and wraps a theory and category tag around it. so if you saw it happen, it's not a miracle anymore. perhaps that's an unfair accusation, but it just seems to be the case.

[spongebob]

not to sound elitist, like those people that travel the world always do, but... you really gotta get out of our country and our culture if you want your belief on this challenged. I treated them with much more incredulity before I went into the Middle East and South America, I don't know that it proves anything, but if you've only ever experienced a 1st world culture and society and you are willing to believe that should give you light into all truths, then I don't hold it against anyone when they don't believe in miracles, of course you wouldn't, you have very little evidence to the contrary.

I'm curious as to why "Miracles" would exist more in a primative or 3rd world culture or nation. Could it be that the inhabitants don't understand nature and thus draw magical conclusions about nature based on a spiritual belief system? This would be consistent with pre-industrialized 1st world nations.

and for my last point, I think science is inadequate for this question really. let's say that something odd happens, science can quickly fit that into the unexplainable natural causes category, I mean science by definition takes in any observed data and wraps a theory and category tag around it. so if you saw it happen, it's not a miracle anymore. perhaps that's an unfair accusation, but it just seems to be the case.

Here we go again...I wish we could get an agreed upon definition of "science". Here's what science is:

A method of examining the natural universe and testing hypothesis.

So, by that definition, if something odd happens, say a man dies of a wasting disease. Science can investigate his death and rule out many causes. When more people die with the very same symptoms, science can then begin to find out what they have in common. Is it spirits or microscopic organisms? No evidence for spirits, but lots for micro organisms. Must be the mircobes. Mystery solved. Can you name a single phenomenon that has not been shown to have a natural cause?

bigfoot?
Aliens?
Loch Ness?

Anything better?