Quote from Randomhero1982 OP:

The Miracles Within Christianity

Here's one I'd be interested in people's opinions and thoughts on. Would Christianity (or any of the other major religions for that matter) have flourished without the purported miracles that were meant to have taken place...

For example, would Christianity have been believable if Jesus had never performed any wondrous acts that defied the laws of nature, but had simply been a preacher who did natural good deeds such as helping the poor and I'll for example...

Aposteriori Unum: "I don't think he actually did perform any miracles, nor has anyone ever..."

As AU also put it, I can understand your question. However, I also believe there never has been, never is, and never shall be any miracles. If anything occurs that seems miraculous, it is simply due to the fact that we do not understand what has happened. However, we could figure it out. Perhaps not on the morrow, or the next week, or the next year, but eventually, we could figure it out.

Religious Logic for Miracles:
I, [insert name], am incapable of understanding how [insert phenomena] could have happened. Thus [chosen deity] must have performed a miracle.

That is how I view any person recounting a "miracle."

Even I have to admit that I have seen some occurrences, that at the time of witnessing it, that I could not understand and seemed miraculous. However, as I mull it over in my mind, I can usually figure out how it happened (or a possibility), and how it fooled me into thinking it was miraculous.

Here is a comment I made on another forum board, and later got excommunicated (banished):
We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled, the ears tricked. How can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time? The human brain runs first–class simulation software. However, it suffers a much greater fallacy from the GIGO principle than do modern computers. The same applies to ALL religions.

I have only one problem with miracles in any religious text. ANYONE can write anything as having been a miracle.

As for whether any religion could have flourished without miracles. The possibility exists. As AU put it, they would have been more philosophical such Taoism and Confucianism, even Yin and Yang. I tend to believe that philosophical beliefs hold more truth than do faith-based beliefs. After all, Taoism and Confucianism still exist. They may not flourish as well as the Absolutist religions, but they still have practioners.

Also as ZeffD put it, any of the modern-day illusionists put into the past, especially during the time of Jesus, could have been viewed as being a very convincing Jesus. Anyone remember David Copperfield's (at least I think it was him) making the Statue of Liberty disappear? What about James Randi? I can remember watching his illusionist shows when I was a kid. The one thing I truly loved about him was that he actually told you he was going to fool you with illusions before doing them. And he still does at some of the talks he gives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcPuRaSEq1I

Watch the first two minutes. That is how illusionists can seem to perform miracles. They know people are going to make "assumptions" and do at least half the work for them.

For example, I feel the turning water into wine trick performed by Jesus was nothing more than the trickery of swapping out casks of water for casks of wine. An illusionist's trick. And when I have suggested this to Absolutists, you would not believe the ostracization I received.

Another example: The feeding of 5000 from 7 fish and 2 loaves (or was it 2 fish and 7 loaves?). Simple. They had many more fishes and loaves hidden behind the rock upon which Jesus sat.

Here is a personal miracle. I was once working on putting tin sheets on an out-building I was constructing. In southeastern North Carolina, there is a phenomena we call "popcorn thunder." This is a small thunderstorm that can brew up, seemingly from nowhere, in just an hour or two, especially in the late afternoon. One of these popcorn thunder storms brewed directly overhead. The sun was at such an angle, that it was never covered by cloud. Thus, all I saw was sunshine. Next thing I knew, there was a bright flash, then I awoke in the hospital. I had been struck by lightning while on a tin roof. It was a "miracle" that I survived. My wife thought I had been killed because she watched it happen, just happening to look out the kitchen window. How did I survive? Simple. Although the lightning bolt hit me in the right shoulder, my left hand was on the sheet of tin. Thus, the bolt went from my right shoulder, through my left arm, into the tin sheet. The doctors even told me if it had not been for that alignment, I may very well have been killed. However, from a point of ignorance, it could have been seen as a "miracle." I could even hear an Absolutist preacher saying, "God must have decided to save you at the last instant." :P

I also have to agree that it is the acquirement of knowledge that has caused the downfall of anything actually being a miracle. Simply look at the curves of "gaining knowledge" versus "occurrences of miracles." I would also agree this is the reason why people are leaving the Absolutist religions. It is also due to the fact that virtually anyone can investigate the claims made by these Absolutist religions through the WWW. They can also find the truth behind their false claims of how their religion is growing. I cannot even put a number on the times I have read how these Absolutists are always saying how their numbers are growing.

Example: "We have grown by gaining 3 million new followers this past year." But they neglect to include how they have also lost 7 million followers that same year.

As I have always taught my daughters (while they were alive), "You have to take everything with a huge grain of salt. Trust nothing. Investigate it for yourself and come to your own conclusion." Whenever they asked me a question, I would simply point them in the direction to find the answer for themselves (twin daughters).

I think I have spewed enough...

rmfr

There is nothing at all that Jesus did that modern con men can not do. He did nothing at all that had not come before him.. When God and Jesus begin growing limbs on amputees, that will be the time to pay attention.

Not only are no actual "miracles" cited in the bible that can not be performed by the lowest of magicians and con men today but there is no good evidence for the existence of Jesus or anyone at all actually doing miracles/.