Miracles…

When Newcastle recovered from 4-0 down at half time to earn a 4-4 draw with Arsenal back in 2011, the media and fans alike described the result as miraculous. However, I strongly disagree with that labelling. The Oxford English Dictionary definition of a miracle is: ‘An extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency’. My problem is that something as simple as a football match can easily be explained. Without going into too much detail, we lost that match because our players lost their heads (one got sent off, one gave away a free kick and two conceded penalties). The second half implosion was as a result of the team being stupid, not because of some Godly intervention.

The reason I have decided to write about miracles is because of a recent documentary fronted by the legendary presenter Louis Theroux. As most people know, I’m a staunch atheist and do not believe in a God (for obvious reasons) so for a T.V. documentary to make me question these beliefs shows how powerful the show was. Like I said, the concept of miracles has always been absurd to me as everything that has ever happened in my life can be explained using logic and reason. Since watching episode 2 of Louis Theroux’s LA Stories titled ‘Edge of Life’, my opinion on whether miracles exist has become somewhat hazy.

SPOILER ALERT! DON’T READ ON IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE EPISODE YET AND ARE PLANNING ON WATCHING IT.

At the beginning of the documentary, Louis is in hospital with a 22 year old college athlete who is in a full coma following a drug overdose. Langston suffered severe brain injuries and doctors feared the worst. His unresponsive state and lack of brain activity meant that recovery seemed impossible. However, his family remained positive throughout even though in the unlikely event that Langston did wake up, he would face the rest of life as a vegetable. Their unwavering faith that he would wake up appeared crazy and illogical but I suppose if you’re in that desperate situation, you cling on to any lingering hope.

Viewers, like myself, get the biggest shock at the end when Louis revealed that an incredible 37 days after first falling into a coma, Langston woke up and began breathing on his own. Furthermore, he wasn’t a vegetable as the doctor’s had predicted. In fact, the athlete made a full recovery and was soon discharged from hospital. The next scene shows him returning to Cedars-Sinal Medical Center in L.A. to thank the doctors and nurses who helped him. It is so strange to see him go from being asleep in bed to being up walking and talking.

I still don’t believe in the traditional concept of God as there is too much evidence going against it (my disability being one) but miracles is a subject that I am truly on the fence with. Maybe I need to actually witness one in order to start believing.

Bye for now!