By Stanley Seshie

We have all heard of the claims of Spiritualists making objects appear
from, and disappear into nothingness from the ancient, and even in our
present world at traditional festivals and some cinema halls. For
instance, coins, toffees suddenly appearing behind someones's ear, egg
from a man's anus, live rabbits from an empty hat, changing a walking
stick into snake, water into wine, food falling from sky, and so on.
Others include human beings or snakes vomiting money. These and many
more claims. There are people claiming to have witness them. They call
such "events" miracle, which certainly means a believed God answering
the prayer petitions of man.

Yet, whilst Nature is probably self-sufficient, it is certainly
lawful. One of the fundamental laws telling us how Nature behaves is
the conservation law of Matter. An elucidation of this law should
reveal the crux of the claims of "events" called miracle. The
conservation law of Matter states that, Matter is neither created nor
destroyed. This means in the interactions of Matter, it can only be
transformed from one form to another. Yes, but more importantly, the
transformation does not produce anything that is already not part of
the transformed substances. Whatever that is produced is just a
rearrangement of the already present substances. Read that again. Do
your best to extract its meaning as few examples from the everyday
world would helps to drum it home for appreciation, if not
understanding of its pervasiveness and inviolability.

We all eat. Every food is prepared from its ingredients. When you
begin with the ingredients of preparing a particular food, say banku,
you end up producing so in whatever quantities that the ingredients
can. You cannot set out to prepare jollof rice, therefore mixing all
the ingredients on the fire and then end up having fufu or kenkey
because you were praying to the believed Creator of the ingredients
sold on the market. This is impossible. Note, the substances or
ingredients themselves dictate the impossiblity.

As a result, the fervent prayer of the Cook is intrinsically
irrelevant to what the food will be finally. Faith in prayer cannot
change that. The believed God cannot either. Again, the substances or
ingredients themselves dictate the impossibility. Do you really
believe that the Cook who sets out to prepare okro soup with its
ingredients on fire can start praying to a supposedly believed God and
the prepared food would become groundnut soup instead of okro soup?

Let us look at another dramatic example. An uncontrollable blazing
fire engulfed an entire house, institutions, markets, student halls,
hostel, dormitories and offices. Everything caught up in the inferno
reduces to ashses. Yes, into ashes. The ashes are the transformed
forms of all materials present in that house, markets, office, and
hostels. None of the materials disappeared into nothingness. They are
there but in a different form. With the entire emotional trauma of
wailing and intense angush, which these inferno scenarios evoke in us
in terms of destructions of human lives and properties, nevertheless
there is no violation of the conservation law of Matter as everything
reduces into ashes. If these kitchen and inferno examples are clear to
you about the inviolability of the conservation of Matter, then
examine the "events" called miracles in the light of this law and
deduce whether the claims are true or false as well as factual or
wishful thinking.

The claimed transformations; changing walking stick into snake,
changing water into wine, rabbits from empty hat, food "raining" from
sky, coins and toffees appearing suddenly from someones's ear, human
beings or snakes vomiting money all certainly through prayer to a
believed God involves and are about Matter. Since and once it is about
Matter, nothing that is not part of the substance can never come out
of the substance. So says Nature through the conservation law.

Therefore, all these claims called miracle are in principle and in
practice impossible as the claim of starting with jollof rice
ingredients on the fire and ending up preparing banku because of faith
in prayer to a believed God. In that regard, the witnesses in our
modern world were explicitly deceived, or implicitly tricked into
believing so or simply promoters of superstition as typical of the
ancient child. The substratum that seemingly give credence to these
"events" called miracle are the masquerading deceptions and tricks
taken as laws of Nature to the amazement of, and then as manifestation
and justification of the observer's (believer's) faith. Yet,faith
never dictates to Nature.

Email: seshiehanku@gmail.com

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