It's a God of the Gaps thing.
We fill gaps in our knowledge with god. Miracles are used to
explain things that we do not understand.
Lightning flashes across the sky, and we hear thunder. We imagine
gods doing battle in the sky.
A plane crashes. Hundreds of people are killed but there is a
single survivor. We proclaim in a miracle, forgetting that no
miracle happened for the hundreds who died.
We pray for rain during drought and thank god when rains finally
come. But we overlook the fact that rain would eventually come
anyway. We also overlook that the little rain received does nothing
to alleviate the drought.
As we learn more, as we grow in knowledge, miracles vanish because
we know there are no miracles.
Just mere hundreds of years ago, if a man claimed to be able to
walk on water, people who go, "he has mystical, magic powers" or
"the gods have given him powers."
A shaman could read the signs that rain was coming, and then do a
rain dance. His people would proclaim that their shaman is mighty
indeed, for his dance can bring rain.
When Pope John Paul II was shot in an assassination attempt, he
claimed that "a motherly hand which guided the bullet's path",
enabling the "dying Pope" to halt "at the threshold of death". The
motherly hand he referred to was the Lady of Fatima. For some
reason, the good lady decided not to guide the bullet to miss the
Pope completely. Nor did he seem to remember that he was attended
to by the best doctors in the world, who may possibly have had
something to do with his survival.
Now, we know better than to take such claims at face value.
Benny Hinn and other hucksters claim that God performs miracles
through him. Benny Hinn claims that many people have been
miraculously healed. Many people are taken in. It seems people will
believe anything just like people who believe in James Phang and
Sunshine Empire. But there have been many investigative reports
that show that Benny Hinn is a fraud. Those whom he claim to have
healed are not. And many who try to get on the stage are turned
away.
We see miracles everyday. Street magicians routinely turn water
into wine, levitate, or perform seemingly miraculous acts.
It's not that miracles don't happen anymore. It's just that now we
know better.
