What's in a miracle?

miracle - noun

1. A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is considered to be divine.

2. A highly improbable or extraordinary event.

Have you ever heard a story of a tragedy in which there were many deaths and only one survivor?  We've all heard of a story where this occurs: a plane crash, a natural disaster, a mass murder and so on.  We hear and read the story on the news with the headline "Miracle Survivor of (insert disaster here)".  Religious groups claim that the person who survived must've been given a divine miracle, because who could survive such a circumstance?  I used to receive stories about such events when I went to church in my youth.  I was amazed along with everyone else that God was on the lone survivor's side.  Since people love a good human interest story, we eat it right up.  Yet, when you dig a little deeper into the actual "miracle" claim, it really isn't a miracle at all.

Let's do a little thought experiment.  If a plane with 250 people (crew and passengers) loses part of a wing and is about to crash (for example) then we know that the probability of survival will be very low.  You can look up statistics of almost any large plane crash on Google and the death rate is 100% (no survivors). A single survivor or even a couple of survivors is quite close to 100% death rate.  This is NOT the definition a divine miracle.  A divine miracle should obtain the complete opposite result of what the statistical probability predicts.  Being lucky is not a miracle. In this example, a divine miracle would be something that would cause everyone or almost everyone to survive the crash.  There has been no recorded case (to my knowledge) of this ever occurring. (To clarify: Captain Sully saved all those peoples' lives on his flight on his own merit. He controlled the plane's descent without help from a deity.)

Think about this the next time you hear a story of a "miracle" survivor.  It can be explained by probabilities of which we have a vast knowledge.  No god needed to explain what should be obvious but sometimes you got to dig a little deeper.  Luck really does explain miracle survivors.