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The point of the question and/or what I think is the more logical answer has to do with how people came to believe what they did thousands of years ago compared to the scrutiny, education and the ability to distinguish truth from fiction we are better able to establish today. The differences in these respects are profound. The advent of science among them. This is the single most logical reason miracles were believed so easily and readily once upon a time as compared to a more discerning modern day. Per the best reason and logic I can muster anyway, along with all the evidence along these lines we have to consider.
I don't believe that people are better able to distinguish truth from fiction today, nor do I believe that people are more discerning today - though people may be more skeptical today. Skepticism does not equal discernment.
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Originally Posted by LearnMe
Didn't have to be then or now either. A god who apparently wanted to make an appearance ala Jesus back then, could just as easily choose to make an appearance for every generation ever since. Wouldn't take but a few of those appearances during more modern times, and this entire "discussion" would cease to exist. We'd all be believers, and what would be wrong with that today any more or less than back in Jesus' day?
God could have done whatever He wanted, but I'm doubtful that "we'd all be believers". Even if we were, where would be the virtue in it? There's no faith there, and God values faith. The point of this whole exercise that we call life is to fit us for heaven. In order to attain heaven, we have to be perfected in virtue. Perfection only comes through suffering, or "fire". If everything were handed to us without any effort on our part, how could we grow and become fit for heaven?
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Originally Posted by LearnMe
Nothing, but again that's not the more logical or reasonable path of consideration that best explains why miracles happened way back then like nothing we're able to witness during more modern times.
Why? Simply because miracles are make-believe just like all the other fantasies we humans have conjured up in spades since "the good old days."
I don't agree with you that miracles happened "way more back then".
I don't believe that people are better able to distinguish truth from fiction today, nor do I believe that people are more discerning today - though people may be more skeptical today. Skepticism does not equal discernment.
God could have done whatever He wanted, but I'm doubtful that "we'd all be believers". Even if we were, where would be the virtue in it? There's no faith there, and God values faith. The point of this whole exercise that we call life is to fit us for heaven. In order to attain heaven, we have to be perfected in virtue. Perfection only comes through suffering, or "fire". If everything were handed to us without any effort on our part, how could we grow and become fit for heaven?
I don't agree with you that miracles happened "way more back then".
Yes. I know. I've just tried to better define where we think, feel and see things very differently, and offer the best reason and logic to that end that I can. Otherwise, I am more than well convinced you see what I can't, just as I see what you can't. Those differences are really not a function of facts, reason and logic, which is as usual when it comes to these beliefs in god, miracles and/or the supernatural.
Perhaps all the more good reason for me to sign off now, but I'll just add one more thing. As one who has read a lot of history, I really don't know how you can say that miracles were not far more commonly believed way back when as compared to today. One of my favorite examples is how people believed in witches not all that long ago. People who were murdered as a result of those sorts of beliefs. In the supernatural.
"Many of the 3,800 people were burned at the stake centuries ago. The effort is led by a group called The Witches of Scotland — dedicated to clearing the names of people convicted of witchcraft."
Read history, and there are countless examples of many hundreds of thousands of people who were similarly murdered as a result of the sorts of things we humans believed once upon a time, but no longer! You deny this fact as well? Please have mercy, and a very good week to you and yours if you will!
Perhaps all the more good reason for me to sign off now, but I'll just add one more thing. As one who has read a lot of history, I really don't know how you can say that miracles were not far more commonly believed way back when as compared to today. One of my favorite examples is how people believed in witches not all that long ago. People who were murdered as a result of those sorts of beliefs. In the supernatural.
"Many of the 3,800 people were burned at the stake centuries ago. The effort is led by a group called The Witches of Scotland — dedicated to clearing the names of people convicted of witchcraft."
Read history, and there are countless examples of many hundreds of thousands of people who were similarly murdered as a result of the sorts of things we humans believed once upon a time, but no longer! You deny this fact as well? Please have mercy, and a very good week to you and yours if you will!
I'm confused. Are you saying that there's no such thing as witches? These women would beg to differ.
I'm confused. Are you saying that there's no such thing as witches? These women would beg to differ.
So just because a woman (or a man) says they're a witch...they are?
I've posted before about my crazy Aunt Millie. A fervent Catholic, by the way. Who believed that she had the power given to her by god to walk down the street and bestow whatever blessing you folks think it is to have holy water sprinkled on you or asked marked on your forehead. I'm not kidding. She did this on a regular basis. Do you think the local priest -- or for that matter, the Pope -- would have agreed that she had that power?
So just because a woman (or a man) says they're a witch...they are?
I've always understood a "witch" to be a person who practices witchcraft. If a person practices witchcraft, then they are a witch.
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Originally Posted by phetaroi
I've posted before about my crazy Aunt Millie. A fervent Catholic, by the way. Who believed that she had the power given to her by god to walk down the street and bestow whatever blessing you folks think it is to have holy water sprinkled on you or asked marked on your forehead. I'm not kidding. She did this on a regular basis. Do you think the local priest -- or for that matter, the Pope -- would have agreed that she had that power?
Why do you call her "crazy"? That's not very nice, especially for your own blood relative.
She sprinkled holy water on people? That's not a power. Anyone can do that - although I wouldn't advise doing it without the recipient's consent...
In the example of holy water, any efficaciousness exists in the water itself and is not contingent on the one using it. Holy water is different from common water in that it has been blessed by a Priest - and only a Priest can turn common water into holy water. However, once it becomes holy water, anyone can use it.
I've always understood a "witch" to be a person who practices witchcraft. If a person practices witchcraft, then they are a witch.
Why do you call her "crazy"? That's not very nice, especially for your own blood relative.
She sprinkled holy water on people? That's not a power. Anyone can do that - although I wouldn't advise doing it without the recipient's consent...
In the example of holy water, any efficaciousness exists in the water itself and is not contingent on the one using it. Holy water is different from common water in that it has been blessed by a Priest - and only a Priest can turn common water into holy water. However, once it becomes holy water, anyone can use it.
The definition of a witch is: "a woman thought to have magic powers, especially evil ones". Just because they believe they have that power doesn't mean they have that power.
Why do I call her crazy. Because she was. She drove my uncle to suicide by immolation, and then forced her young daughters to kiss the charred corpse in front of everyone at the funeral.
She didn't get her holy water from the church. She 'made it' herself.
The definition of a witch is: "a woman thought to have magic powers, especially evil ones". Just because they believe they have that power doesn't mean they have that power.
I agree with this, though I don't like that as a primary definition. What would we call someone who practices witchcraft, then?
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Originally Posted by phetaroi
She didn't get her holy water from the church. She 'made it' herself.
That is definitely problematic to say the least. Sounds like witchcraft, honestly.
The problem with using the definition you provided above as well as your proposal of a "wanna-be witch" is that they implicitly deny the reality of witchcraft. Whether or not there's actually "anything to it", witchcraft clearly exists as a "craft" - as something that is actually practiced.
Whether that person practicing witchcraft has any actual power or not, witchcraft is a spiritually (and sometimes physically) harmful practice and ought to be viewed and treated as such.
That argument jumps directly to "except for god" which -- ignoring that this (as well as "all things have a cause") is nothing but a claim to begin with -- does not establish why it's either an exception, or the only exception.
At best this argument, even granting all its premises, is a deist argument anyway. At worst, as I've suggested, it does not establish sentience at all.
Patterns exist all over the place in nature (ripples in sand, diurnal rhythms and things tied thereto, just to name two off the top of my head) and we do not have any reason to see those as anything but natural processes -- particularly when those processes are known and can be described and substantiated. Since we don't know everything that's knowable, some processes won't be known, at least not with certainty -- we may have only hypotheses. But given the vast number of processes that were once thought by conventional wisdom to be prompted by the gods (e.g., thunder and lightning) that have since acquired naturalistic explanations, the likelihood is that all phenomena we learn about will also turn out the same way. For this reason, deities continue to live in the ever-shrinking gaps in our knowledge.
Some of us are just predisposed by our tendency to agency inference and confirmation bias to see these as directed processes, but there's actually no good reason to assume that or suppose it to be true.
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