Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
whats wrong with that? but you know if you belittle people to get them to stop belittling people its not going to be effective, and after a while you would be the same as them.
take the high road
In what way do I belittle people or take the low road?
This is yet another example of ridiculing something that you don't understand, and denigrating a culture, custom, belief that is different from your own.
Sort of like when ignorant kids in school say things like "onga chonga wonga" when they hear someone speaking a different language.
and you bill yourself as an "intellectual" ?
I didn't ridicule anything, Tzaph. I simply answered a question truthfully. You are the one always inferring and taking offense and accusing those who disagree with you of personal attacks such as ridicule. Care to refute my answer by explaining the non-superstitious reason?
I didn't ridicule anything, Tzaph. I simply answered a question truthfully. You are the one always inferring and taking offense and accusing those who disagree with you of personal attacks such as ridicule. Care to refute my answer by explaining the non-superstitious reason?
The next time you get a serious infection Jeff, by all means JUST PRAY IT AWAY. Please Jeff, just pray for everything that sickens you and causes your body harm and don't take ANY medicine or modern medical advances for ANYTHING. Of course medicine has failures. Of course it is not perfect. Of course it can cause side effects, but you know what. It's better than useless praying any day of the week. I want you and all your Christian friends to RELY ONLY on prayer. Don't be a hypocrite. Reject all that man made medicine bull. By all means. Just do it Jeff. Just do it. Then you be just like those sick Christian parents who withhold MAN MADE medicine treatment to their children and then the children die. Thankfully we put those people in prison.
I will pray and still seek medical help. How about that? God isn't under obligation to cure me of every single ailment. His driving motivation is to see us win in the spiritual battle and grow spiritually. The physical body is going to die and wither away anyways so any physical healing is just a delay of the inevitable. But if a healing can achieve positive results in the spirit realm then God will often intervene.
But the limitations of human understanding is that we think if one person gets healed then God should do that for everyone. Factory assembly line mentality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Texan2008
T
If my predictions of Jeff are correct, he will quote some Bible verse about how you should avail yourself of medicine also. Jeff, I'm curious, how does one KNOW and have VERIFIABLE EVIDENCE that some god does the healing? Does he / she / it speak inside your heads in a voice that is different from your own letting you know that it intervened on your behalf? What exactly is the criteria which you use to say that YOUR BIBLE GOD does the healing?? Funny, I'm sure Muslims will claim Allah did their healing. Funny, I'm sure Native Americans will claim after praying to their gods for healing and IT HAPPENS, they will claim their gods are the reason. Funny, how the Vikings I'm sure prayed to their gods and healing happened, that surely must have been reason to KNOW that the Viking gods were real.
The evidence is the same as evidence for scientific claims. Cause and effect. Christians pray and then we see a healing event take place that defies the rules of natural law or modern medicine. Isn't that the same with science? You study people with high blood pressure. Most of them have heart attacks. Science claims that high blood pressure leads to heart disease. Is that proof beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Nope, there could be some unknown component that gave them the heart attack. But when you ask for verifable evidence, that seems to be what you are demanding. Well how can you verify that high blood pressure causes heart attacks, huh? No, I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God did the healing and not some other entity. It's possible that Christianity is a giant ruse created by a vastly superior ancient alien race. Some things I have to take on faith, but the weight of smaller evidences all tiip the scale heavily in support of the Bible and Christianity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Texan2008
Sometimes, healing happens we can't explain. The problem is believers like Jeff automatically come to the assumption then that some being called god, HAD to be the reason. They then take it one step further and SAY THAT THEIR god did the healing not some other one. It's always that person's god who does it. Must be lots of gods doing healing with this assumption. It's what religion did back in the day and does now. Back long ago, it was thought seizures were caused by evil spirits invading somebody. We now know irregular brain activity and other biological causes are at work.
Religion= My fairly tales are more believable and real than your fairy tales.
Demeaning our faith by calling it a fairy tale doesn't make it any less real.
I will pray and still seek medical help. How about that? God isn't under obligation to cure me of every single ailment. His driving motivation is to see us win in the spiritual battle and grow spiritually. The physical body is going to die and wither away anyways so any physical healing is just a delay of the inevitable. But if a healing can achieve positive results in the spirit realm then God will often intervene.
But the limitations of human understanding is that we think if one person gets healed then God should do that for everyone. Factory assembly line mentality.
I think the basic problem is that healing is so infrequent and so subtle and/or anecdotal that it can't be distinguished in any practical way from random happenstance. The same can be said about prayer generally.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
The evidence is the same as evidence for scientific claims. Cause and effect. Christians pray and then we see a healing event take place that defies the rules of natural law or modern medicine. Isn't that the same with science? You study people with high blood pressure. Most of them have heart attacks. Science claims that high blood pressure leads to heart disease. Is that proof beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Nope, there could be some unknown component that gave them the heart attack. But when you ask for verifable evidence, that seems to be what you are demanding. Well how can you verify that high blood pressure causes heart attacks, huh?
You're confusing association with cause. Science does not say high blood pressure "causes" heart disease, but that' it's associated with an increased probability of heart disease. So it never makes that claim that in any particular instance you can point to high blood pressure as THE SOLE cause of a heart attack. Indeed it associates multiple pathologies with higher heart attack incidence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
No, I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God did the healing and not some other entity. It's possible that Christianity is a giant ruse created by a vastly superior ancient alien race. Some things I have to take on faith, but the weight of smaller evidences all tiip the scale heavily in support of the Bible and Christianity.
I share your doubt that Christianity is a ruse created by aliens, FWIW. I think it's a ruse created by humans, often willfully suspending disbelief in their own ruse. That's FAR more likely than aliens AND far more likely an explanation than your mythos of choice being true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Demeaning our faith by calling it a fairy tale doesn't make it any less real.
No, it merely expresses an opinion. Inherently, if I don't believe the things you believe, then I have a difference of opinion with you about what justifies your beliefs (or not). While IRL I would be very unlikely to characterize your embrace of literalist Biblical interpretation as a "fairy tale", you would probably know that's the alternative to what you assert. I wouldn't have to say it.
Demeaning our faith by calling it a fairy tale doesn't make it any less real.
And yet I've heard Christians demean faiths such as Hinduism in exactly the same way.
Heck, I've heard Christians demean Mormonism exactly the same way.
And I'll give you a perfect example. My former secretary -- a born again Christian -- once went on a rant against Mormonism. Part of it revolved around, "Well, if there was such a thing as the Golden Plates, show them to us. Otherwise it's just a fairy tale." To which I responded, "Well, if there was such a thing as the tablets of the Ten Commandments, show them to us." And of course, the standard answer was forthcoming: "Well that's different!"
I will pray and still seek medical help. How about that? God isn't under obligation to cure me of every single ailment. His driving motivation is to see us win in the spiritual battle and grow spiritually. The physical body is going to die and wither away anyways so any physical healing is just a delay of the inevitable. But if a healing can achieve positive results in the spirit realm then God will often intervene.
But the limitations of human understanding is that we think if one person gets healed then God should do that for everyone. Factory assembly line mentality.
The evidence is the same as evidence for scientific claims. Cause and effect. Christians pray and then we see a healing event take place that defies the rules of natural law or modern medicine. Isn't that the same with science? You study people with high blood pressure. Most of them have heart attacks. Science claims that high blood pressure leads to heart disease. Is that proof beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Nope, there could be some unknown component that gave them the heart attack. But when you ask for verifable evidence, that seems to be what you are demanding. Well how can you verify that high blood pressure causes heart attacks, huh? No, I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God did the healing and not some other entity. It's possible that Christianity is a giant ruse created by a vastly superior ancient alien race. Some things I have to take on faith, but the weight of smaller evidences all tiip the scale heavily in support of the Bible and Christianity.
Demeaning our faith by calling it a fairy tale doesn't make it any less real.
Jeff, you seriously did not address the bulk of my argument and points. The idea that other people with different god ideas get healing also by praying. You also did not clearly give me evidence HOW you determine whether YOUR GOD does the healing except your belief that it does the healing. You don't seem to understand that there needs to be some method outside of personal claims and experience to determine whether or not claims or beliefs or true. You have failed the "outsider test for faith." You also tacitly admit that there are possibly "unknown" components to heart attacks at which I agree. The difference between you and me is that I keep them labeled "unknown" if that is indeed what has to happen. The words "I don't know" are powerful words indeed to me because they are a sign of intellectual honesty. You however, like many believers in gods and the supernatural realm, take these "unknowns" and transfer them to the god belief and supernatural realm.
Last edited by Texan2008; 11-20-2017 at 08:54 AM..
I will pray and still seek medical help. How about that? God isn't under obligation to cure me of every single ailment. His driving motivation is to see us win in the spiritual battle and grow spiritually. The physical body is going to die and wither away anyways so any physical healing is just a delay of the inevitable. But if a healing can achieve positive results in the spirit realm then God will often intervene.
But the limitations of human understanding is that we think if one person gets healed then God should do that for everyone. Factory assembly line mentality.
The evidence is the same as evidence for scientific claims. Cause and effect. Christians pray and then we see a healing event take place that defies the rules of natural law or modern medicine. Isn't that the same with science? You study people with high blood pressure. Most of them have heart attacks. Science claims that high blood pressure leads to heart disease. Is that proof beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Nope, there could be some unknown component that gave them the heart attack. But when you ask for verifable evidence, that seems to be what you are demanding. Well how can you verify that high blood pressure causes heart attacks, huh? No, I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God did the healing and not some other entity. It's possible that Christianity is a giant ruse created by a vastly superior ancient alien race. Some things I have to take on faith, but the weight of smaller evidences all tiip the scale heavily in support of the Bible and Christianity.
Demeaning our faith by calling it a fairy tale doesn't make it any less real.
This is still taking advantage of human curing and giving God the credit.
Objecting to deprecating terms such as "fairy tale" does not make the god -claims any more real.
It is the same old story - ignoring the way the evidence points and relying on Faith, propped up with anything you can find.
...p.s I noticed also some good ol' strawman misrepresentation of medical claims to try to prove it "Wrong". Not that this would make God -cures any more probable. And of course there was a study done that produced toe conclusion that prayer did not work. One might question or contest that, but the fact is that any evidence we have makes the "Christians pray and then we see a healing event take place that defies the rules of natural law or modern medicine" claim no more than a claim.
And this goes back to topic - why is it necessary to try to save these claims with anything - and I say - that you can find? If it isn't a security blanket, why can you not accept that, without Faith, none of the case for God stands up?
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 11-20-2017 at 09:27 AM..
Still looks like a superstitious concern over what might offend God. Not buying it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
