About miracles and timing...

There's a bit of "prove it was a miracle" going on at the moment, so I thought it might be helpful to say this:

Depending on how you define your terms, having a natural explanation for a phenomenon does not rule out its being a miracle. "The miracle of birth" is a common phrase, but we actually have a pretty good understanding of the whole process. Using "miraculous" to mean "naturally inexplicable" is not a helpful definition, it just encourages god-of-the-gaps arguments.

I think miracles should be thought of more along the lines of "providential act of God". They are distinguished from the other, every-day acts of God because we consciously and immediately attribute them to him - they're a big deal, so to speak. If someone prays for healing and is immediately healed (especially if its a simultaneous physical and spiritual/psychological healing), that's a miracle, regardless of whether it has a natural explanation. Daring atheists to explain it is not helpful.

Moreover, if someone comes to r/Christianity to share something they think is praiseworthy, that is not the time to try and convince them it actually isn't. If someone starts a thread saying "I'm getting married today!" or "God healed me of x!" or "wow, look at what God's done in my life!", that is not the time to have a debate about the relevance of marriage in modern culture, or whether it was healing or remission or luck, or to say "why doesn't God do that for other people if he exists?". We should all be unified in celebrating the good thing, and those of us that believe in an interventionist God should be united in praising and thanking God for the good thing. I don't understand why there is so much trying to take the good thing away. If you don't think it actually was a good thing, don't comment. If you need to, start a new thread asking why it was a good thing, because people have probably thought about it more than you give them credit for.

This goes for demanding proof that something happened too. If someone has made a self-post to share their joy with the Christian community, they're not karma-whoring and they're not hurting anyone. If they didn't provide proof, its just as likely - or more likely - that they didn't expect to be assaulted for it than that there is no proof. To me at least, it seems jaded to be unable to share joy without proof.

Miracles are worth being happy about, regardless of your beliefs, and tearing someone down from their joy because you think your understanding of the universe is more important than that joy is just cruel.

TL;DR Ceeeeee-le-brate good times, COME ON!