The HP Way

It infected about 28% of Americans and, of those, about 2.5% died. So there was no great culling effect. Compare that to some other viral diseases, like bird flu and ebola, where lethality is well above 50% and culling is a major mechanism.

Some contageous diseases hang around for millenia, both bacterial and virus, but some viruses appear and burn out in a few years. I wonder why. And why don't those same viruses circulate in pockets somewhere and infect later generations?

There is apparently lots of viral DNA in us. Perhaps we incorporate it when we are infected, and that gives us heritable immunity.

John

Maybe prayiing has nothing to do with it.

The "miracles" listed seems to have been financially advantageous to the churches where they took place, and not beyond the skills of an expert conjuror - someone in the Uri Geller class.

I'd like to see these, as well. Not only would John need to find a way to rationally and critically eliminate such things as lying, being duped, insufficient information, or nothing more complicated that simply being mistaken, etc., but it is also reasonable to ask John what his theory of "divine intervention" actually means. Ignorance isn't particularly remarkable and it is a more likely explanation.

So yes, this would be interesting to hear about if things are as certain as John would have us believe it is.

I suspect his "explainable only by assuming" is without merit.

Jon

If it got to 28% of Americans, then it is fairly clear why it died out - there were very easy targets left to infect.

In many cases, these viruses *do* circulate in pockets and cause outbreaks every now and again. Ebola is a good example, as are diseases like polio that had been almost eradicated throughout the world but turn up occasionally in particularly war-torn parts of Africa.

The little I have read about epidemiology is fascinating. There has been a lot of research done lately simulating results of biological weapon attacks on cities - it can be amazing what sorts of small changes can make a big difference to the result.

If a virus DNA gets into a sperm cell or egg cell (or one of their predecessors), then it is going to get inherited. I doubt if that would confer any immunity, however.

The flour used to prepare them was probably even more horribly adulterated than that normally used for bread-making at the time?

The most recent "scientific" examinations done on the hosts - back in

How do you get a rabbit out of an empty hat?

And BTW, the history of that trick explains a lot about the thinking involved.

If it could be proved a miracle, the organization which did it could collect $1 million+ (Randi Prize).

-- _____ _ _ |_ _| | | | | | | __ _ _ __ ___ | |__| | ___ _ __ ___ ___ _ __ | | / _` | '_ ` _ \\ | __ |/ _ \\| '_ ` _ \\ / _ \\ '__| _| |_ | (_| | | | | | | | | | | (_) | | | | | | __/ | |_____| \\__,_|_| |_| |_| |_| |_|\\___/|_| |_| |_|\\___|_| __ ____ / _| | _ \\ ___ | |_ | |_) | ___ _ __ __ _ / _ \\| _| | _ < / _ \\| '__/ _` | | (_) | | | |_) | (_) | | | (_| |_ \\___/|_| |____/ \\___/|_| \\__, (_) __/ | |___/

I'm reputed to eat (lousy) food (at times) and still give compliments about it. Just a matter of being polite.

That problem does not arise with honest miracles.

...

Well, yeah, what others do you know about, other than, say, God's, which you can find at

Not necessarily, if you can learn to make peace with your own internal panic mechanism.

You _ALWAYS_ get precisely what you need, which isn't necessarily what you think you want. Many people find this terribly annoying. ;-)

Yes, a couple of them, but they can't be documented, because it was more experiential than experimental. ;-) (Like, how do you measure the opening of a person's Root Chakra?)

Cheers! Rich

...

Maybe they dried out 275 years and 11 months ago.

Cheers! Rich

One problem is, real miracles can't happen on an ordinary human time scale, like magic tricks, because even God has the laws of physics to deal with. (Oh, yeah, BTW - news flash: God's not omnipotent _OR_ omniscient, but he only found that out quite recently.) He might want to move Heaven and Earth on your behalf, but that's a bunch of very massive crap, and the only force he has to work with is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

And, of course, Free Will. :-)

Cheers! Rich

I'm disinclined to believe it, and it gets written off as an uninvestigated fraud until someone does a scientific investigation with the sort of tools today's CSI labs can bring to bear - as well as a couple of surface analysis tools that don't show up on camera in the TV series, namely an electron microscope for doing elemental analysis by X-ray fluorescence, and three stage mass-spectrometer with a laser-ionisation source for identifying the molecular content of stuff blown off the specimen surface.

This is all micro-analysis - much less destructive (and more credible) than elderly cardinals chewing on the wafers.

As usual, you don't have a clue.

-- _____ _ _ |_ _| | | | | | | __ _ _ __ ___ | |__| | ___ _ __ ___ ___ _ __ | | / _` | '_ ` _ \\ | __ |/ _ \\| '_ ` _ \\ / _ \\ '__| _| |_ | (_| | | | | | | | | | | (_) | | | | | | __/ | |_____| \\__,_|_| |_| |_| |_| |_|\\___/|_| |_| |_|\\___|_| __ ____ / _| | _ \\ ___ | |_ | |_) | ___ _ __ __ _ / _ \\| _| | _ < / _ \\| '__/ _` | | (_) | | | |_) | (_) | | | (_| |_ \\___/|_| |____/ \\___/|_| \\__, (_) __/ | |___/

"John Fields" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

I wouldn't, but I don't trust those cardinals.

My brother, before he died a few months ago, used to perform honest miracles for a living: