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ad hoc contra-miraculous position and magic

This based on the same wonderful conversation with my friend J___:

He initially proposed that the alleged miracle at Fatima could be explained by natural laws that we don't know.

My initial reply was that this is ad hoc.  Another point would be that appealing in an ad hoc manner to hidden natural laws to defeat rather compelling claims regarding miracles, can after a point, amount to belief in magic.  Or rather, one who is quite ready to postulate unknown natural powers to explain apparent miracles lacks a principled basis for rejecting magic.

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