So, for most unexplained events, science would be dismissive of any that
cannot be repeated, but religion would not necessarily do so, although some
religious “miracles” are repeated.
2. Third Party Observation
This is the most critical factor. Science says that anyone, anywhere, using
the same apparatus and in the same conditions should be able to duplicate
the experimental results. Sadly, this is now a major problem in the
international scientific community and the results are pretty appalling.
Perhaps this is due to the “publish-or-perish” mentality at many academic
institutions, or the link between grant money and publication success. But
science needs to clean up its act in a major way.
Still, the scientific principle is sound, and it is still the ideal in the discipline
(if not in recent practice). Remember the hubbub about cold fusion years
ago? The results were duplicated at the original laboratory, but in very few
others. Repeated trials under more rigorous conditions resulted in a steady
stream of unfavorable results, and most academics abandoned the pursuit.
But now, it is being re-examined again in some quarters. If you are
American, some of your tax dollars are going into research in this field.
But with religious miracles, there has never been a case of replication by
third parties, except perhaps with the Hindu milk drinking statues and of
course with the huge number of weeping statues and paintings, mostly in
the Catholic faith. These claims are just too numerous to go over in any
detail, and are happening all the time. Here is a recent one, but there could
be a good explanation in terms of the statue’s construction at least for the
statues’ initial “weeping”. The explanation for weeping by paintings is not so
straight forward, and weeping over protracted periods of time, say every
P a g e | 282