Are you ready for a miracle?

It's been 19 days now since the tragic earthquake that hit the poor and ravaged country of Haiti. We've all been horrified by images of the wounded and watched as families buried their dead relatives. By now, the hope of finding anyone alive is pretty much next to none. Throughout the last two weeks even up to the 15th day, we've heard stories of miraculous survival as occasionally workers would pull someone alive from the rubble, defying the odds once again. But were these really miracles or could there be another explanation? That's what I've set out to learn.

Personally, I don't believe in miracles because miracles imply a cause and by most peoples definitions, a god who is behind the scenes controlling and manipulating situations and orchestrating events. While these things may seem comforting and reassuring, I take a simpler approach to life. Things happen because they happen. Whether we fully understand them or not is the question. Most of the time, careful observation guided by time tested scientific principles will yield the answer. Other times we simply do not know or we do not have the sufficient means to form a hypothesis. More data is needed. However, I believe that it's a mistake to explain the unknown by attributing it to a cosmic deity.

Interestingly, in the midst of the grief surrounding Haiti, I noticed an advertisement for an all weekend miracle event happening at a local church. I know many members of that church as I have fellowshipped with them in the past when I was a Christian. Many of them I call my friends. Since becoming an atheist, I've pretty much followed one guiding principle for myself which was that I would pretty avoid the topic of religion with my Christian friends. I believe that most people are pretty set in their beliefs and not much that can be said will ever change their mind. Besides, if belief in a god makes people happy then who am I to really interfere, right? I figured that I'd keep my beliefs to myself and as a general matter, I would not interfere. And I almost certainly would never go to their church. So, I didn't give the miracle services much thought. I remember thinking though that it seemed an insult that an evangelist was coming to do miracles here in Eugene while the Haitians were dying just a few thousand miles away. Besides, I've seen these miracle services before and nothing verifiable had ever happened. To me, I might start calling something a miracle when an amputee has had their limb grow back. I thought about going but by Friday evening, I had already dismissed the whole thing as a load of crap not worthy of my time or attention.

As Friday evening progressed, word on the streets (otherwise known as social networking) was that miracles had indeed happened, the most interesting one being that a person who evidently had one leg that was a bit longer than the other was healed by a miraculous lengthening of their leg. The evangelist had prayed for this person and the leg grew right there in front of people. Other people saw it. It really happened. This intrigued me and my curiosity was starting to grow. I decided by Saturday morning that I would go that night to see what all the hoopla was about.

Saturday evening came and by 6 pm the first miracle has already occurred. I was in church! I was at a pentecostal church, so already I could hear the loud roar of people who were praying in tongues. Musicians prepared and the atmosphere grew as people poured into the church. I'm not sure what the exact attendance was, but I estimate that it was easily 300 people. Probably more. As the worship service began, one of my Christian friends (we'll call him John) who is also an on staff pastor at the church saw me and came up to say hi and pat me on the back. He was surprised to see me and wondered why I was there. I told him that I had come to observe. And truly, that was pretty much my mode of operation (plan) for the evening.

The worship dragged on ad nauseum. Jesus Jesus Jesus. I remember tweeting about it and quipping “These people sure love Jesus. He's popular here!” I think the worship lasted well over an hour. But as one person in the Twitterverse reminded me, that's what pentecostal churches do! As the worship continued I snapped a few pictures with my iPhone. Even though I was at church, their music was very well done as the music always had been. I've never doubted about the Christian ability to rock. Finally it was over and we all sat down. The visiting evangelist was introduced. A shorter, older, jovial man, it was clear to me that he was at least entertaining and charismatic. A bible verse here, a funny story there, mixed together with a little prayer, another anecdote, and a joke or two for good measure. Before I knew it, 15 or 20 minutes more had passed by and now it was time for an offering! After that, some more preaching. By the end of the little sermon, I had already heard the watchmaker argument. The small evangelist even went on to call unbelievers dumb and stupid. Wow. It took going to church to be insulted! I recall thinking that for having been in church, it sure felt like I was in hell. The evening went downhill from there.

The sermon was over, the music played softly. Now it was time for sinners and backsliders to turn their lives over to Jesus. An elder came over to me (was I THAT obvious?) He declared that he knew that God had been working on my heart and did I want to come forward? I said “Nooo, I don't think so” He said, “Are you sure?” and I replied, “I'm pretty positive.” Already I was feeling the pressure. After those that had come forward had been prayed for, it was time for the miracles to begin. People were already up front ready to be prayed for and again, the music was playing softly in the background as the evangelist started to pray for people. Now let me state for the record that people who say that they've been healed from pain or people who fall backwards after being waved at or breathed on does not impress me. I can't verify those miracles scientifically (I'll have to explain all of that in a future blog.) But suffice it to say, I wasn't seeing anything that I would say was blowing my skirt up. During that time, I discreetly (as possible) held my iPhone up to capture some video off of the projection screen. John came over and asked me to stop. Something about “his ministry” were the reasons given and he asked (I'm not sure why) if I was cool with that. I said no, but that I would respect their wishes.

One woman that was there (who happens to be a friend) was there to be prayed for regarding her back pain. She had hurt herself lifting something at work and wanted her pain taken away. I can relate to that, I've had some pretty nasty back pain before too. The evangelist had her sit down.  He held up her legs and looked at them momentarily and then declared that her problem was that one leg was shorter than the other.  Hmm, where have I heard this one before? Twice in two nights? A miracle indeed. "That's funny" I thought to myself.  I remembered hearing that her pain was due to her lifting accident at work. Whatever. So here comes the good part. The evangelist had the audacity to call me out from the crowd as an unbeliever! At first I declined. I said, “You don't want to do this.” But he pressed the issue thus making me an unwilling participant in his little magic show. Remember, I had specifically stated that I was there just to observe. This was a card well played by the preacher because my hand was forced. I either don't go up (and look like a fool) or I go up (and look like a fool.) Either way, I'm a fool.

He asks me to come up so that I could witness first-hand the miracle about to be performed. The miracle is performed “by God” he emphasized. Not him. He shows me the legs and says “Do you see how one leg is shorter than the other?” My skeptical self replied, “That's because of the way that she's sitting in the chair.” He dismissed my observation saying, “She's sitting just fine.” I didn't argue with him and told him to go ahead and perform his miracle. He prayed for her while holding her legs by the heels gently swinging them as the leg was supposedly growing. I was concentrating on her leg because I figured that if it really was going to happen, then surely I'd be able to see the leg stretch as it grew. I'm guessing that most other people were focused on her heels because that would in fact be the easiest way to tell (as a base for comparison) if the leg was actually growing and lining up with the other. But for me, I watched hard looking for the leg to stretch and I saw... nothing! Then it was all over. The miracle was done and everybody had seen it. It was right there on the big projection screen. Her legs are lined up. She's healed! He asked me if I had seen it and I told him that I saw nothing. He said, “Well then, you must be blind.”

Example of the leg miracle

So I didn't see the miracle and somehow, it was my fault. How very insulting indeed. I could have left at that point. But I returned to my seat knowing full well that everybody was looking at me. And I knew that they would talk about me after I was gone. And they did. After it was all over, I walked out the back. I was patted on the back twice and thanked for coming. John messaged me later that evening asking if he could take me to lunch. I said yes, proposing some coffee the next weekend (that's now.) So far, John hasn't replied any further.

Before the service had ended, I did some quick Internet research using my handy dandy phone (the technology gods are so cool!) It took me less than a minute to read up on the “leg lengthening miracle” and how this is a common parlor trick that's been done for a least a century. In fact, on the first episode of the TV show, we'll demonstrate exactly how this miracle is performed. It's actually pretty easy. It's just a magic trick. In fact, some people knowledgeable about these kinds of illusions and misdirections commented to me that they were surprised that someone was still using this old trick.

Further research on the Intertubes turned up a wealth of information about the subject. In fact, one of the things that makes this particular miracle less credible is the fact that a lot of people are doing it. Video after video has been posted online showing this phenomenon. But do a search for videos of amputees having their limbs grow back, and you'll find none. If in fact these are miracles, God would seem to have a certain predisposition towards leg lengthening.

So I'm unconvinced. I think that everybody that night at church was having their leg pulled by this evangelist. Well almost everybody. In part two of this blog (this one is getting too long), I'll pick up on a few subjects that are important. Most of all, how do we define a miracle and how do we scientifically and objectively measure it? Can we reproduce the leg lengthening miracle in a controlled setting? Would the church be willing to post the video of that night online so that it can be studied and analyzed? I'll also talk about faith and how that factors into the equation as evidently the amount of faith that a person has is proportional to the miracle received. Incidentally, another acquaintance of mine who happens to be legally blind had been prayed for by the evangelist the previous night. He's still blind.