Many religious adherents subscribe to miracles. It seems that miracle-like occurrences no longer suggest divine intervention; for instance advanced alien races may possess technologies beyond our knowledge of physics or computer technologies we can't imagine. But from a practical perspective, it seems that claims of alien abduction or simulated reality have a lot in common with religious thinking. For instance, if aliens were to visit earth, it seems like some Christians might claim that they are angel-like beings who may have been responsible for resurrecting Jesus. So, in a way, are claims of alien abduction or simulated/AI realities displaced 'miracle'?
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1Edited to stave off closure. Feel free to roll back.– J DCommented Sep 29 at 11:33
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1You voted to close your own question? :D Why?– J DCommented Sep 30 at 14:54
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2 Answers
Yes and no.
Yes because both miracles, which are generally held concomitantly with belief in the divine and the afterlife, suggest there are forces, intelligence, and realms beyond our physical universe. Thus presumably, some common set of philosophical principles underlie all religious and religious-adjacent thinking. In the philosophy of religion (IEP), ideas of Transcendence and Ultimate Reality are often studied, and alien abductions, the simulation hypothesis, and miracles have something in common; they suggest there's more to reality than naive realism admits.
No from the perspective of a metaphysical analysis, because miracles, for instance, require belief in metaphysical principles that require the supernatural. Neither extraterrestrial life nor the belief that our physical universe is simulated do. In fact, many physicalists and scientists now maintain that given the size of the universe, it's rather probable aliens exist. Resistance to belief in alien abduction stems from the lack of explanatory physics and the size of the phenomenon which seem much more likely a function of psychological principles.
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***Resistance to belief in alien abduction - resistance? Sorry, rational people don't have to believe anything. You can claim whatever you want, without a proof it's just words. If you tell you were abducted by aliens I readily believe that you THINK so (although even that can be doubted if you let's say got paid for this story). But that's all what is to believe here - the fact that you believe you were abducted. It's the basic difference between information and facts– GroovyCommented Sep 30 at 9:27
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also "seeing miracles" doesn't require any beliefs. Around 1% of population of the world has schizophrenia. If you hallucinate you see things embedded in our culture, stories you heard, then your brain produces images. For example many mental patients in USSR had religiously painted delusions being totally non-religious people as in USSR atheism was mainstream. But stories about imps, baba Yaga, angels etc were still deep in Russian culture. So sick people very often "saw" these entities in acute forms of disease.– GroovyCommented Sep 30 at 9:51
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@Groovy that's what J D meant, he was saying "we don't have the physics to explain how aliens could get to Earth to abduct people, so an explanation for alien abduction reports is probably psychological."– user40843Commented Sep 30 at 10:40
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@Groovy Belief is defined a little more widely in philosophy, and includes, for instance, visual representations. If you wake up and see your bedroom, unless you have reason to question you are not actually in your bedroom, it's a belief. plato.stanford.edu/entries/belief– J DCommented Sep 30 at 14:57
Our delusions come from our own brain. If 500 years ago you get stories about angels since childhood, you see religiously affected delusions.
If you go to a movie theater and watch films about aliens, you will hallucinate about aliens. The experience we get in our society shapes our visions and dreams.
You can still "see miracles" if deeply embedded into religious environment and not too much to a sci-fi one. So no - they didn't displaced miracles directly, but hallucinations in the age of science take a more scientific form, which is just natural.
