What criteria would need to be satisfied in order for you to describe an event as miraculous?

Since I don’t believe in miracles, I am content to use “miraculous” to describe things that are impressive, highly enjoyable, or apparently unlikely. I use it only to describe nice things, but since you’ve asked this question I’m going to start using it as a synonym for “catastrophic”.

I’d definitely have to be very drunk for a kick off.

”Since I don’t believe in miracles, I am content to use “miraculous” to describe things that are impressive, highly enjoyable, or apparently unlikely.”

This works for me.

I think your reasoning is quite sound. Your definition fits mine. So I do believe in miracles, because there are a whole slew of events in everyone’s lifetime that defy rational explanation. The curse of religion has almost certainly been inflicted on us due to our need for an explanation for what we don’t understand.

It would be unexpected and inexplicable. I’ve always assumed that miracles would be beneficial or at least neutral and so something unexpected and inexplicable and nasty wouldn’t qualify as a miracle.

I tend toward a literal definition of “miracle”.

After a lifetime of “I found a parking spot – it’s a miracle from God!” and “The baby’s green poop doesn’t mean she’s dying! Thank you Jesus!” I need a little more.

The “mom lifting a car off her child” thing isn’t a miracle. It’s a proven anatomical response to stress. Someone going into remission from cancer isn’t a miracle. Someone regrowing an amputated limb to full function would be.

Anything that doesn’t follow the laws of science as we know it. And even then, a “miracle” could be a scientific fact we have yet to discover.

I do not believe in miracles, and use other words to describe things like cancer suddenly going into complete remission. That happens routinely enough that it certainly is not miraculous. We even have a good idea of the mechanisms within the body that may be at play.

If I were to see a large mountain detach itself from the ground and float off into space, I’d class that as inexplicable, but as Arthur C. Clarke noted, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Maybe aliens were having a good laugh at my expense. Maybe I was just hallucinating. Maybe it was done with trickery. Nope, not necessarily a miracle.

I am willing to make one exception, however. It I wake up tomorrow and discover that overnight a wire transfer of One Billion Dollars came in, and the money is really mine to spend, I will call that a miracle! I may prefer to hold onto healthy skepticism, but I can be bought.

There are way too many things or events I can call miraculous. Look above you any given day and see hundreds if not thousands of gallons of water flying overhead. Sure, science can explain how it happens but no man can do it, if man could control the process we would never have droughts or floods, would we? I start tossing bread and soon there are sever dozens of sea gulls in the air, wheeling and flying about and never have I seen a collision. I am sure if you took that many RF planes and put them in the air, even under the control of computers there would be accidents. There are events that happened in my life that would not have happened the way they happened and the time they happened which was the best time for the event to happen that I may benefit, I call that miraculous. It happens too much to be chance or a hiccup. Often it was something I prayed on, so I know it was God. When I wasn’t walking with God, those wished never showed up, even if ill timed, and certainly never at the right time.