
English: 
We all know people,
especially Christians, who say they've had experienced miracles
or that they know people who have experienced major miracles.
And if you're an atheist like me,
your reaction is probably, you know, "I don't really think what happened is a miracle".
"I don't think God just swoop down and intervened in your life."
"There's probably a natural explanation at play."
Whenever people say they've experienced these miracles,
as tempting as it is to kind of debunk whatever they're saying right then and there,
it's probably not the most polite thing to do, especially when you're around friends.
But, since none of those people are probably watching this video, let's talk about why some of their miracles
may not actually be miraculous.
Our memories are very selective.
And things that may not seem like a big deal at one point,
we can make them into this life changing events well into the future.
And here's what I mean by that. And here's a true story.
When I was in college, there was this girl I really liked in my dorm.
And I was a little too scared to do anything about it.

Spanish: 
Todos conocemos personas,
especialmente cristianos, que dicen haber experimentado milagros
o que conocen personas que han vivido grandes milagros.
Y si eres ateo como yo,
tu reacción probablemente sea: "No creo que lo que pasó haya sido un milagro".
"No creo que Dios descendió e intervino en tu vida."
"Probablemente hay una explicación lógica en juego."
Cada vez que la gente dice que ha experimentado estos milagros,
por muy tentador que sea el desacreditar lo que están diciendo en ese momento,
tal vez no sea lo más correcto, especialmente si estás entre amigos.
Pero, ya que no es probable que alguno de ellos esté viendo este video, hablemos de por qué algunos de esos milagros
en realidad no sean tan milagrosos.
Nuestros recuerdos son muy selectivos.
Y cosas que no parecieron gran cosa en un momento dado,
podemos convertirlas en eventos trascendentales magnificados en el futuro.
Y a esto me refiero. Les contaré una historia real.
Cuando estaba en la universidad, había una chica en mi edificio que me gustaba mucho.
Me daba mucho miedo hacer algo al respecto.

English: 
And one day, we just kind of ran into each other at a bus stop
near where we lived.
And we started talking, and we hit it off,
and we basically ended up dating for two years.
And that was pretty incredible.
And what was amazing is that, you know, I had gone to medical school at the time,
and I had decided to quit.
And she was part of the reason that I decided to step away from med school; so I can spend some more time with her.
And it was during that time away from medical school that I started blogging, and writing about atheism.
And I had a chance to write a book about my beliefs.
That all these amazing things happened.
And I could probably trace back that whole chain of events
to meeting this girl outside the bus stop.
If I were a religious person, I could so easily say,
"God guided us to come together at that point". I could so easily say, "That was a miracle".
"What are the odds that, you know, we came together at that point
and all this stuff happened because of that?"
Well, the truth is, you know, if that hadn't happened,

Spanish: 
Un día nos encontramos en una parada de autobús
cerca de donde vivíamos.
Empezamos a hablar, nos caímos bien,
y terminamos saliendo durante dos años.
Fue realmente increíble.
Y lo más sorprendente es que yo asistía a la escuela de medicina en ese época,
y había decidido retirarme.
Ella era una de las razones que me impulsaba a dejar la medicina; quería pasar más tiempo con ella.
Y fue durante ese tiempo, alejado de la medicina, en que empecé a bloguear, y a escribir sobre ateísmo,
Y tuve la oportunidad de escribir un libro sobre mis creencias.
Sucedieron todas esas cosas increíbles.
Pude haber rememorado toda esa cadena de eventos
por la cual conocí a esa chica en la parada de autobús.
Si fuera religioso, fácilmente diría:
"Dios nos guio para juntarnos en ese momento". Y fácilmente diría: "Fue un milagro".
"¿Qué probabilidades hay de que nos hayamos juntado en ese momento
y todo sucediera gracias a eso?"
La verdad es que si no hubiera sucedido,

English: 
and let's say we didn't end up hitting it off,
well, something else would have happened.
My life would be totally different right now, and it's not like I would have
this experience to compare it to.
So, I don't think that's a fair comparison.
A lot of times, we can all
point out, I'm sure, turning points in our lives where,
you know, if something happened slightly differently,
your entire life would have gone in a different direction.
And just because it happened that way, doesn't mean that that turning point was a miracle; we just
attribute this amazing sense to that moment
and we think it's this big deal, and there must have been a reason it happened that way.
But, if it didn't happen that way, something else would have happened. So, it's not really as big of a deal as we make it out to be.
And a lot of people think that's a miracle.
It's not a miracle. It's just one of many branches along
the road of your life.
Other people's miracles can often sound pretty delusional.
You know, when you experience the miracle, it's like, "Oh, this is amazing! God want it to be this way".

Spanish: 
digamos que no nos hubiéramos caído bien,
bueno, otra cosa hubiera pasado.
Mi vida sería totalmente diferente ahora, y yo no tendría
una experiencia con la cual compararla.
Así que, no creo que sea una comparación justa.
Muchas veces, todos podríamos
señalar, estoy seguro, puntos decisivos en nuestras vidas en los que,
si algo sucede de manera ligeramente diferente,
toda tu vida hubiera ido en otra dirección.
Y sólo porque sucedió de esa manera, no significa que ese punto decisivo fuera un milagro;
le atribuimos esa increíble sensación a ese momento
y creemos que es la gran cosa, y que debe haber una razón para que fuera así.
Pero si no hubiera sucedido así, alguna otra cosa hubiera sucedido. Así que, no es la gran cosa que pretendemos que es.
Mucha gente piensa que es un milagro.
No es un milagro. Es sólo uno de tantos ramales
en el camino de tu vida.
Los milagros de otros, a menudo nos suenan bastante delirantes.
Cuando eres tú quien experimenta el milagro, piensas: "¡Ah, es sorprendente! Dios quiere que sea así".

Spanish: 
Y a veces, cuando otros dicen haber experimentado un milagro, tú piensas:
"Sí, claro" - Qué locura -
Si eres religioso y sientes que Dios te habló, y te hizo tomar una decisión,
le agradeces a Dios; piensas que ha pasado algo maravilloso.
Y cuando algún conocido dice: "Dios me habló, me dijo que dejara mi trabajo, y
que iniciara una nueva carrera",
tú piensas mal de él, y piensas: "No creo que es lo que Dios quiere que hagas".
Luego llegas a casa y hablas mal de él con tu cónyuge.
De nuevo, cuando la gente te dice que Dios le curó una enfermedad,
te dan ganas de pedirle sus registros médicos para confirmarlo. Pero,
he oído a tantos cristianos decir:
"Mi cáncer entró en remisión."
Simplemente creen que es un milagro, y fin de la historia.
Repito, cuando nos sucede a nosotros,
y tienes esa inclinación a creer que puede ser un milagro,
es tan fácil creer que es algo sobrenatural.
A veces, cuando le ocurre a otras personas, aunque creas en milagros,
te vuelves escéptico, empiezas a preguntarte si Dios... Que...

English: 
Sometimes when other people say they've experienced a miracle, you're like,
"Oh, sure" - That's crazy -
You know, if you're religious, when you feel like God has spoken to you and told you to make a decision,
you thank God; you think this is an amazing thing that has happened.
And when someone you know says, you know, "God spoke to me and told me to quit my job and
start a brand new career",
you think badly of them, you're like "I don't think that's what God wants you to do".
And then you go home and talk trash about them with your spouse.
And again, when people tell you, you know, God cured their disease,
you kind of want to see their medical records to confirm that. But,
you know, I've heard so many Christians say, you know,
"I would... My cancer went into remission."
And they just think it's a miracle, and that's the end of the story.
So again, when it happens to us,
and if you have that notion of believing that this could be a miracle,
it's so easy to believe this is something supernatural.
Sometimes when it happens to other people, though, even if you believe in miracles,
you become skeptical, you start wondering whether God... That...

English: 
Really was God or whether there's a better explanation?
It's much harder to believe in miracles when they happen to somebody else
than when they happen to you.
It's interesting to me that Christians always seem to experience all the miracles.
You know, when we're talking about faith healing services, like Benny Hinn or Peter Popoff, those are all Christians.
When we talk about successful pastors, you know, Joel Osteen.
People like that, they get their own TV shows,
they get their own successful reality shows too, even if you're a mediocre pastor.
That even if Christians write best-selling books, it's not just those books, they get their entire sections at bookstores.
And everything that Snopes ever debunks, those are things your pastors told you about in church as miracles.
So, basically, all of these things you hear about as miracles
are things that somehow happened in conjunction with a Christian God.
You never hear, you know, a Hindu or a Muslim say,
"Let me tell you what God told me the other day".
You never hear them talk about the miracles that happened to them.

Spanish: 
¿Realmente fue Dios, o hay una mejor explicación?
Es más difícil creer en milagros cuando le suceden a otros
que cuando te suceden a ti.
Me parece interesante que los cristianos siempre parecen experimentar todos los milagros.
Si hablamos de sanación por la fe, como Benny Hinn o Peter Popoff, todos son cristianos.
Cuando hablamos de pastores exitosos, como Joel Osteen.
Gente así, que tiene sus propios programas de televisión,
y su propio reality en TV, aunque sean pastores mediocres.
Y cuando los cristianos escriben libros de venta exitosa, no son simples libros, tienen secciones enteras en las librerías.
Y todo lo que Snopes desacredita, son cosas que los pastores han descrito en la iglesia como milagros.
Básicamente, todo eso que escuchas sobre milagros
son cosas que de alguna manera sucedieron en conjunción con un Dios cristiano.
Nunca oyes a un hindú, o a un musulmán, decir:
"Déjame contarte lo que Dios me dijo el otro día".
Nunca les oyes hablar de milagros que les ocurrieron.

Spanish: 
Casi en su totalidad es un fenómeno cristiano, al menos en Estados Unidos.
Y, por cierto, los demás grupos religiosos
creen en Dios, creen en un poder divino,
pero no comercializan los milagros como hacen los cristianos.
El problema con los milagros es que cuando los cristianos lo repiten entre ellos,
todos creen que les sucede a ellos; es un ciclo perpetuo.
"Ah, le pasó a tal persona en la iglesia; le puede suceder a otro en la iglesia."
Y empiezan a creer que todo lo bueno que les pasa es una forma de milagro.
Es una palabra usada en exceso, pero en parte se debe
a que cobra vida propia en los círculos cristianos.
Los milagros nunca han sido comprobados.
Si se puede demostrar que un milagro o algo sobrenatural sucedió, créeme, James Randi te espera
para entregarte un cheque de un millón de dólares, si puedes probarlo.
Pero nadie ha reclamado el dinero.
Incluso, los supuestos milagros de la iglesia católica para convertir en santos a antiguos papas,

English: 
This is almost entirely a Christian phenomenon, at least in America.
And by the way, all of those other religious groups,
they believe in God, they believe in divine power,
but they don't market miracles like Christians do.
And the problem with miracles is that when Christians kind of repeat it to each other,
they all think it happens to them; it's this perpetuating cycle.
"Oh, it happened to this person at church; it might happen to other people at church."
And then people start thinking everything good that happens to them is some form of a miracle.
It's such an overused word, but it's partly that way
because it gets a life of its own in these Christian circles.
Miracles have never been proven.
If you can prove that a miracle or something supernatural happened, believe me, James Randi is waiting
with a million dollar check to give to you, if you can prove it.
But no one's ever claimed that money.
Even the Catholic church's supposed miracles to turn, you know, former popes into saints,

Spanish: 
no son milagros comprobados. Son casos médicos que tal vez aun no podemos explicar,
pero esas explicaciones lógicas probablemente están esperando a ser descubiertas.
Por lo tanto, los milagros no suceden.
Y muchas veces, cuando te informas bien sobre el caso, son desacreditados rápidamente.
Si los milagros existieran,
¿te imaginas cuántos de nuestros problemas se resolverían?
Se erradicarían las enfermedades; nuestros seres queridos nunca morirían.
Sería algo maravilloso que los milagros sucedieran de forma clara y consistente.
Pero no es así; porque lo que llamas milagro, o lo que no, es algo totalmente selectivo.
Y por desgracia, sólo suceden en nuestra mente. Simplemente le asignamos la palabra "milagro"
a cosas que no podemos creer que sucedieron.
Resulta que los milagros son raros, selectivos, subjetivos,
y no verificables.
Mucho de lo que acabo de decir,
de hecho, viene de un pastor
que se está cuestionando los milagros que le contó otro pastor.

English: 
those aren't proven miracles. Those are medical issues that maybe we can't explain yet,
but the natural explanations are probably waiting right there to be figured out.
So, miracles don't actually happen.
And a lot of times when you get enough information about them, they're debunked pretty quickly.
If miracles were real,
can you imagine how many of our problems would be solved?
I mean, diseases would be eradicated; all of our loved ones would never die.
I mean, it would be pretty incredible if miracles happened on a clear consistent basis.
But they don't; because it's totally selective what you call a miracle, and what you don't.
And unfortunately, they just kind of happen in our own minds. We just assign the word "miracle"
to things that we just can't believe happened.
It turns out miracles are rare, selective, subjective,
and unverifiable.
So, pretty much all of what I just told you,
I actually got from a pastor
who is actually questioning the miracles that another pastor told him about.

English: 
And he was the one who said, "Let me try to explain away these other pastor's miracles".
And one of the reasons he gave for why he didn't think miracles were necessarily real,
was because they didn't happen to him, and he said,
"That might be because I'm a bad Christian".
And I'm reading this and I'm just, "I feel bad for the guy". It's like, no.
"You're so close; you're like 90% of the way there for explaining why miracles don't happen to anybody".
"You're so close to nailing it. "
And then he backed up because he's like, "I'm still a Christian;
I still think miracles could happen,
but if I were to try to explain them away, these are some of the reasons
I would give for why miracles don't actually happen".
He's so close I just wished he would take that final step and just admit, "No, it's a man-made idea".
I wish I could just say to this pastor, you know, "No, you're not experiencing miracles,
because no one experiences miracles. They're a man-made idea".
"Just kind of get over it." I know that's not an easy thing to say,
but all these things that happened to these other Christians that you know,

Spanish: 
Y fue él quien dijo: "Déjame tratar de explicar los milagros de este otro pastor".
Y una de las razones por la que no creía que los milagros eran necesariamente verdaderos,
es que nunca le sucedieron a él, y pensó:
"Tal vez se deba a que soy un mal cristiano".
Yo estoy leyendo esto y pienso: "Me siento mal por este hombre". Pienso: "No".
"Estás tan cerca; llevas recorrido como un 90% de explicar por qué los milagros no le suceden a nadie".
"Estás tan cerca de lograrlo."
Entonces, se echó atrás porque dijo: "Sigo siendo cristiano;
sigo creyendo que los milagros suceden,
pero si tratara de explicarlos, estas son algunas de las razones
que daría para explicar por qué los milagros no suceden".
Él estaba tan cerca, que deseé que diera el paso final y admitiera: "No, es algo fabricado por el hombre".
Ojalá pudiera decirle a este pastor: "No, no estás experimentando milagros,
porque nadie puede. Es una idea fabricada por el hombre".
"Sólo supéralo." Sé que no es fácil decirlo,
pero las cosas que le sucedieron a los otros cristianos que conoces,

Spanish: 
no son verdaderos milagros. Es una manera de
darles sentido en tu mente porque no puedes creer que algo tan increíble te pasara.
Pero adivina qué: a todos nos suceden cosas asombrosas.
Y cosas horribles le suceden a cualquiera.
Eso no significa que le agradas a Dios, o no; o que Él quiere concederte un milagro.
Tal vez con el tiempo este pastor dé ese paso final; el último, el más difícil,
y admita que los milagros no existen.
Pero por ahora,
tiene todas las razones en su mente para entender por qué esos milagros en realidad no suceden.
Que está muy cerca de llegar, pero,
es muy difícil renunciar a esa creencia cuando en el fondo de tu corazón
sigues creyendo en la magia.
Mi nombre es Hemant Mehta, y escribo en FriendlyAtheist.com
Por favor, deja tus comentarios más abajo, y los revisaremos.

English: 
they're not really miracles. They're just a way of
making sense of them in your head because you just can't believe something that amazing would happen to you.
But guess what, amazing things happen to everybody.
And really horrible things happen to everybody.
And it doesn't mean God likes you, or doesn't like you, or wants to bestow a miracle upon you.
So, maybe eventually this pastor will just take that final step, that last step, that toughest step,
and just admit miracles aren't real.
But for now,
he has all the reasons in his head for understanding why those miracles aren't really happening.
That he's so close to get in there but,
you know, it's really hard to give up that belief when deep down in your heart
you still believe in magic.
My name is Hemant Mehta, and I write at FriendlyAtheist.com
Please, leave your comments below and we will check them out.
