Should We Place Emphasis on the Miracles of Jesus?
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The question has been posed, “Should we place emphasis on the miracles of Jesus?” As a student who identifies as Atheist, who is taking a World Religion course for the fun of it and not to fulfill some required credit, I will attempt to answer this question to the best of my ability. The short answer is no; we should not place emphasis on the so-called miracles of Jesus Christ. Aside from the fact that I do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, the focus should be placed on his teachings and the character of this human being whose words and actions were the foundation for which a major world religion was built.
Let’s first explore the idea of so-called miracles. Most “miracles” that men of God or religious institutions show (or claim) are in an effort to exert their authority over ordinary people, either as a way to enforce the faith of believers or to encourage (or convert) non-believers to have faith. When nature performs magic and the religious community or leaders shroud it in divinity and label it a “miracle” is just ignorant. This is not to say that, as an Atheist, I negate that miracles exist; on the contrary—as a mother of four children I have experienced the miracle of life, I just do not consider it to be from divine intervention. There is a scientific explanation for how life was created inside me—it’s basic human biology, but it’s still wondrous and miraculous that life can be created from life. If blindness, paralysis, and other illnesses were cured instantly just by touch for example, and if these illnesses were really cured, then we would not be having this conversation/debate since everyone would be believers, and anyone who argued that its not real would be a complete idiot. It would be on the front page of every newspaper, on every TV channel and radio station. It would be fact that it is real as much as the Sun is real.
Furthermore, whichever religious group that managed to cure people like this would quite clearly be THE RELIGION, and all other religions would have a hard time defending their position as a true religion and would become redundant. However, its not on the front page of every newspaper in the world; Its not on every TV channel across the world; Its not on every radio channel across the world; Theres still many, many religions out there claiming to be the one true religion and path to salvation; Only devoted followers are streaming to these churches; Medical books have not been rewritten. So to say that miracles are happening in Churches without being able to substantiate such a claim with verifiable evidence is not going to get you anywhere. Lets say we have a documented case of praying for the blindness to go away and it goes away. For this to be a divine miracle and not a random event, it also should work elsewhere—another blind person, similar praying, and blindness cured. If the miracle worker cant replicate, and a hoax has been ruled out, its randomness.
Let’s also explore the supposed divinity of this man Jesus. We know nothing of his life other than that he has one of the most famous birth stories in human history and, based on stories told for centuries, that he was a Jewish carpenter, a preacher for a few years and was crucified. And yet, he is one of the most revered and worshiped icons in human history. But was he divine? And if so, what makes him divine? Why hasn’t anyone else possessed the same divine gifts since? Why was it Jesus, and only Jesus, who was given the ability to perform miracles, receive the word of God and be the Savior for humanity? Sure, in modern times, others have made very similar, if not exactly