Damn, now that song is going through my head. Who was that? Butch says it was Wild Cherry, but don’t hold me to it. Anyway, my friend Eric sent me a link to Michael Shermer’s site, to a page titled Miracle on Probability Street. He wrote it in 2004 but I thought I’d share it with you because it’s very good information.
We’ve all experienced a highly improbable event in our lives. Probably many, in fact. Some of us more than others, some more seemingly improbable than others. There is such a thing as the Law of Large Numbers that explains these coincidences and “miracles”.
The Law of Large Numbers simply stated (sans math): with a large enough sample many odd coincidences are likely to happen.
Coincidence: an occasion when two or more similar things happen at the same time, especially in a way that is unlikely and surprising.
Miracle: an unusual and mysterious event that is thought to have been caused by a god, or any very surprising and unexpected event.
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On a side note, I was disappointed with Dictionary.com’s listing on these words so I thought I’d go to the Cambridge Dictionary. The definition above is from the Dictionary of British English. Out of curiosity, I looked up the word miracle in the Cambridge Dictionary of American English:
Miracle: an unusual and mysterious event that is thought to have been caused by God, or any surprising and unexpected event.
A very subtle but telling difference! I think I’ll be using the British version from now on. Read the rest of this entry »
Cyril of Alexandria was born around 376CE and rose to power as the Pope of Alexandria during the peak of the Roman Empire’s rule there. He is credited with leading the charge against Nestorius in the First Council of Ephesus, where the divinity and caricature of Jesus Christ were debated. The Roman Catholic church eventually bestowed sainthood upon him, counting him among the ‘Church Fathers’ and ‘Doctors of the Church’, and also titling him as a Pillar of Faith and Seal of all the Fathers.
