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COLOS
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Not my place to police your posts, but here are the rules for posting copyrighted material.
I actually thought you came up with a well articulated, if misguided, argument until I googled some of the text. Very disappointing. Please, I’m not going to go back through the entire thread looking for links to sites that may have been copied from on a separate post.
Alrighty, enough of this from me. Take care, Gump.
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Hobble
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COLOS, Gump told everyone he was using that site for his arguments in the very first post, very first line. I don’t know how you missed it.
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Shredderbeam
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This I know.
Ah, well, the origin of life is something that only had to happen once. And even so, the logic you are using is the “God of the gaps” logic. Such logic is condemned by a few theologians, as they worry that “as science advances, and gaps shrink, God is left with having nothing to do and nowhere to hide”.
Well, from what I know, Man did not have too many natural predators in his early years. As he moved out of Africa, and took on a more, shall we say, human shape, by accident or design, he discovered fire and tools. These allowed much greater access to meat, something that had to be scavenged previously. By this time, there really wasn’t anything to stop us.
It’s God of the Gaps logic again.
Right, I acknowledge, like you do, that there is a possibility of such things being real. Until said possibility becomes a bit more substantial, however, I will continue as normal.
Ah, I see what you mean. That may have been a wording issue.
It is true that people will not die for something they know to be false, this is true, although they may die for something that they believe to be true.
I have not been able to find any information relating to the New Testament among the Dead Sea Scrolls sources I’ve searched. Could you provide a link to that?
Ah, I see.
I can assure you that I do have a fundamental grasp of the arguments presented, and they are valid: Why are amputees never healed?
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COLOS
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Hope you don’t mind if I weigh in on your post here. Just on this last part, as understanding the meaning of suffering is something that I find important.
Why would an amputee expect to be healed in this life? Though there are certainly miracles (I direct you to Fatima and Lourdes and the approved healings there), they are not normally found in the course of human existence.
From the Catholic perspective, the entire purpose of this existence is to purify our hearts that we may experience the Beautific Vision. Whatever suffering comes is to be viewed as our own personal cross, our own path, to be borne for this purpose. Suffering is integral to the Christian life.
There are certainly cases where said suffering is removed; however, due to the nature of human existence, this does not preclude future suffering.
The concept of redemptive suffering is a central theme in Catholic Christianity, and it is one of the concepts that helps to clarify Holy Scripture.
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Shredderbeam
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What intrigues me, however, is that there are alleged healings of cancer, cripples, and the like, but never anything concrete. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a well-documented amputee who took a trip to Fatima, and returned with all of their limbs. I can understand the redemptive suffering idea, as much as I don’t like it, but why are the miracle healings so hard to verify?
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COLOS
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They shouldn’t be, really.
Give me a moment to see what I can dig up for you, if you are interested. I recall a doctor who began studying the approved healings at Fatima and Lourdes and ended up converting to Catholicism during his investigation. Anecdotal evidence is hardly proof, however. Even if I provide information for you, it would still be in the form of links. It sounds as if you would need to see the actual medical records with your own eyes and speak with the doctors yourself, which is understandable.
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COLOS
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Here is one link: Priest cured of cancer
Judging by the story, I’m sure Father wouldn’t mind if you contacted him yourself and requested copies of his medical records and his doctor’s phone number.
I think the reality of healings is that people honestly don’t look very hard to see what and where they occur.
Keep in mind that healings are not the basis of Catholicism.
Judging by the story, I’m sure Father wouldn’t mind if you contacted him yourself and requested copies of his medical records and his doctor’s phone number.
I think the reality of healings is that people honestly don’t look very hard to see what and where they occur.
Keep in mind that healings are not the basis of Catholicism.
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oneGODoneCHURCH
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I can give no better answers than I have. You are still seeing No as not receiving an answer. There are things we need to do our own.
When I trouble in my life I try to remember to follow Christ example in the garden the night he was betrayed. He prayed that if it be Gods will to let this cup pass from him ( see he knew what was going to happen) but not his will but Gods be done. I try to pray in that fashion that what ever it is be it illness or whatever that Gods will be carried out in it I then ask for the strength to do his will for him to hold me up will I go through what ever it is. One last thing how can you know that the granting of even a small prayer ( God please let Mom not cook liver tonight for dinner) could no have a harmful effect. I don’t know what it could be but then I’m not God. Also a prayer to God over small trivial things is trying to use Him a a wish granter it its not going to work.
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Gump
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oneGODoneCHURCH
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No it not a God of the gaps. for even thing that we knew How they work It was God that is behind It for it to be there at all.
See I would think that every carnivorous animal would have been a natural predictor of man then just they are today. With the exception of course of those we have been able to domesticate. And being as the largest of the and fast of the meat eaters are in Africa.
not sure what you were going with on that. but if thing things are just because they are gets you through the night ok.
Then same goes for me, though you By being an atheist have dismissed there being a God. is that not opposite of what you just said?
But then we are talking about those that saw it first hand when we speak of the Apostles. So it was not just a belief they held It was what they lived through and saw first hand.
I will try and find one as I just saw this recently on a cable program. And not even sure of the station as was a channels surfing thing that caught my attention.
Why were they not healed before they became amputees? that would be my question. See the answers I posted to Gump on answering of prayer.
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COLOS
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No, it does not. Argument over.You just don’t quit, do you?
Fine. Here is a very simple experiment that will show you something very interesting about your faith.
Take a coin (or anything with sides, like a credit card or wallet) out of your pocket. Now pray sincerely to Ra:
Dear Ra, almighty sun god, I am going to flip this ordinary coin 50 times, and I am asking you to cause it to land heads-side-up all 50 times. In Ra’s name I pray, Amen.
Now flip the coin. Chances are that you won’t get past the fifth or sixth flip and the coin will land tails. What does this mean? Most people would look at this data and conclude that Ra is imaginary. We prayed to Ra, and Ra did nothing. We can prove that Ra is imaginary (at least in the sense of prayer-answering ability) by using statistical analysis. If we flip the coin thousands of times, praying to Ra each time, we will find that the coin lands heads or tails in exact correlation with the normal laws of probability. Ra has absolutely no effect on the coin no matter how much we pray. Even if we find a thousand of Ra’s most faithful believers and ask them to do the praying/flipping, the results will be the same. Therefore, as rational people, we conclude that Ra is imaginary. We look at Ra in the same way that we look at Leprechauns, Mermaids, Santa and so on. We know that people who believe in Ra are delusional.
Now I want you to try the experiment again, but this time I want you to pray to Jesus Christ instead of Ra. Pray sincerely to Jesus like this:
Dear Jesus, I know that you exist and I know that you hear and answer prayers as you promise in the Bible. I am going to flip this ordinary coin 50 times, and I am asking you to cause it to land heads-side-up all 50 times. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Now flip the coin. Once again, after the fifth or sixth flip, the coin will land tails. If we flip the coin thousands of times, praying to Jesus each time, we will find that the coin lands heads or tails in exact correlation with the normal laws of probability. It is not like there are two laws of probability – one for Christians who pray and the other for non-Christians. There is only one law of probability because prayers have zero effect. Jesus has no effect on our planet no matter how much we pray. We can prove that conclusively using statistical analysis.
If you believe in God, watch what is happening inside your mind right now. The data is absolutely identical in both experiments. With Ra you looked at the data rationally and concluded that Ra is imaginary. But with Jesus… something else will happen. In your mind, you are already coming up with a thousand rationalizations to explain why Jesus did not answer your prayers:
- It is not his will
- He doesn’t have time
- I didn’t pray the right way
- I am not worthy
- I do not have enough faith
- I cannot test the Lord like this
- It is not part of Jesus’ plan for me
- And on and on and on…
One rationalization that you may find yourself developing is particularly interesting. You may say to yourself: “Well, of course Jesus doesn’t answer me when I pray about a coin toss, because it is too trivial." Where did this rationalization come from? If you read what Jesus says about prayer in the Bible (see this proof), Jesus does not ever say, “don’t pray to me about coin tosses.” Jesus clearly says he will answer your prayers, and he puts no boundaries on what you may pray for. You invented this rationalization out of thin air.
Provide a link to the articles you fail to even put into quotations in your post.
Take care, Gump.
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Shredderbeam
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Well, I would be interested in the information, but I largely agree - anecdotal evidence probably wouldn’t convert me.
Also, depending on what illnesses they had, the placebo effect may have been involved (obviously, this wouldn’t be the case if it were something concrete, such as an amputee regrowing their limb).
An interesting story, though I don’t know whether he wouldn’t have recovered had he not been a priest. I mean, it could very well be that God is real, Jesus was his Son, etc., but this was just a coincidence (I hate to bring up coincidences, but then there are probably plenty of priests who die of cancer, and aren’t healed).
I don’t see any places where God simply had to be behind it.
Life was tough, but not impossible. There were trees to hide in, and of course, we weren’t being watched constantly.
I believe that there is no God, yet I acknowledge that it is possible for him to exist. It would be downright silly of me to say for certain that he did not.
All we have are their writings, though. I cannot take what others say to be truth. They might be lying, or deluded, or something similar.
Cheers.
I honestly don’t know why they weren’t healed before.
However, the point I’m trying to make is that on occasion, some people are healed of their conditions, supposedly miraculously. There are cancer patients, cripples, blind people, etc. However, amputees are never healed.
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KingAlfred
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Athiesm is empty, sad, and potentially dangerous. If and when atheists adopt Social Darwinism, look out. Such thinking produced Hitler and his henchmen. Hitler even publicly stated, “I see no reason why Man should be any less cruel than Nature.”
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COLOS
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There certainly are many Priest who die of cancer. In fact, all Priests, and humans in general, die eventually. That simply speaks to the idea of redemptive suffering and the great possibility of meaning being given to physical death. Christians should really have no deep spiritual desire for a physical healing, rather healings of the heart and mind are by far preferencial. This apparently does not stop said healings from happening from time to time. Personally, I think physical healing is to be viewed as a sign of spiritual healing for a society that no longer acknowledges the spiritual dimension of the human being. In the arrogance of the modern age, we’ve lost something of our humanity.
Huh, pretty strange. So, in your opinion, no matter how amazing a person’s recovery is, it is simply by luck or happenstance. In my experience in the medical field, people do not recover from terminal cancer. I can’t recall personally having seen one person recover, honestly; however, not seeing one type of healing doesn’t remove the possibility of the other type.
If even just one of these unexplained recoveries is in fact a miraculous healing, that then places a rather large burden on you and others to reconsider your very existence…if it is even acknowledged. This is a hard thing for any being to accept, so it becomes imperative to dismiss one type of recovery simply for lack of a ready example of another type of recovery.
I’m guessing that even if we were to dig up an amputee that had his/her limb restored it would be dismissed as a unusual act of a person’s genes. Would it even make the news? I doubt it. Judging by the complete lack of coverage of some of the other simply amazing things that happen.
From the perspective of medical science, there are without a doubt unexplained recoveries in this life. The general rule is that terminal patients die. There are very few exeptions. These exeptions should be examined. For the religious, these things are an act of the Living God. For the irreligious, these things are curiousities that may or may not be explained in the future.
Ultimately, this is not a conversation about the reality of miraculous healings, though by any name such things clearly exist, so much as it is a conversation about the existence of God. Regardless of what I may or may not dig up, information wise, the athiest will readily dismiss all of it due to the underlying resistence to anything relating to God…because it is their belief that there is no such being.
Anywho, I’m not afraid to talk about amputees.
First website: Why won’t God heal amputees?
[Unfortunately, the above irreligious website takes a very, very protestant view of Holy Scripture.]
So let’s ask the question then. There isn’t any need to shy away from it. Are there any recorded restorations of amputees? If not, then why? If so, then where are they?
Also, are there any recorded healings of brown recluse spider bites? How about pancreatitis? Toothaches?
Do you want to go down the whole list? Perhaps only if examples are provided of each type of healing, great or small, will you believe. …and perhaps not.
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Hobble
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Hitler wasn’t an athiest.Athiesm is empty, sad, and potentially dangerous. If and when atheists adopt Social Darwinism, look out. Such thinking produced Hitler and his henchmen. Hitler even publicly stated, “I see no reason why Man should be any less cruel than Nature.”
Most of what you said was closed minded assumptions, not really based on any truth.
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Hobble
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Shredderbeam
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“X is comforting” does not imply “X is true”.Athiesm is empty, sad, and potentially dangerous. If and when atheists adopt Social Darwinism, look out. Such thinking produced Hitler and his henchmen. Hitler even publicly stated, “I see no reason why Man should be any less cruel than Nature.”
My point is only that we cannot assume that an unlikely reversal in the cancer’s progression is due to God.
Well, given the enormous body of evidence supporting the continuous operation of natural laws, and the fairly sketchy evidence regarding their irregularity, unless an alleged miracle has such a body of proof that its non-happening would be more miraculous than its happening, you would have to assume the natural explanation. It is simply bad logic to attribute a healing to God once such a healing reaches a certain point of improbability. It may seem miraculous, sure, but consider the number of people who do not experience such a healing. The doctor who witnesses such a stroke of luck has simply “won the lottery”.
If God is indeed behind these healings, why would he skip over the amputees? To me, that is evidence that there is no miracle involved, that it is simply a stroke of luck, or an achievement of a great doctor. Could a stroke of luck regrow a limb? No. Could God regrow a limb? Yes.
Very probably, it would be ignored by a large amount of people - however, given proper corroboration of the story, you have my word that I would take it completely seriously, even going to such inconvenient extents as to question my own existence.
Right - it’s a general rule that terminal patients die! But there can be non-divine exceptions to a rule, can there not?
Yes, that would be the position of the dogmatic atheist. Happily, I do not subscribe to any form of dogma - unless rationalism is considered a dogma.
I’ve done a quick bit of research, and I haven’t been able to find anything relating to amputees regrowing their limbs overnight.
However, the reason I harp on so much about amputees in particular is because an amputee simply cannot grow their limbs back. Sufferers of cancer, diabetes, influenza, and the like are in principle capable of having a full and spontaneous recovery - so miracle stories about such things are tainted, at least to me. A case of an amputee regrowing their limb overnight, though, would literally have no other explanation other than divine intervention (for now, I will leave benevolent aliens/government conspiracy theories aside).
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RebeccaJ
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As GK Chesterton said: “If there were no God, there would be no atheists.”
I am a former atheist, who decided to experiment and see if I could “find God”. I had no intention of converting, but 3 years or so after the beginning of my experiment, I was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church.
As to your points, as a former atheist I already know that you have all the answers you are looking for, the ones that reinforce your non-belief. Science does not prove or disprove God, neither does science remove God, as He is immovable.
I do not hold to the idea that science and faith are at opposition. As an atheist, I did. Now, I see that science compliments my faith and my faith compliments science. It is a broader view (IMHO).
In other words, you limit your view, and make an underlying, broad, assumption that you, little old you, are able to know enough to dismiss the existence of God.
And certainly, God bless.
Rebecca
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oneGODoneCHURCH
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I see no where that God is not. I find God behind every breath that I take every tree that grows. I see no way of not seeing him there.
No life is tough today in the beginning it would have been near impossible.
At least you are open to possibility.
Deluded I guess that it could be possible thought highly unlikely. given that people deemed insane in those days did not find themselves in situations to do much writing normal. Also we had already agreed that people do not let themselves be killed defending what they know to be a lie. So that leaves us with they were either telling the truth or the were insane. And finding 12 people that share the same delusion at the same time about someone other than their self would be i would think very highly improbable.
I have know answer for that as I have never even thought to pray for someone to grow a limb back. I have prayed for people that were facing the possibility of amputation. Why God has not to my knowledge ever restore the limb of an amputee I could not even guess.
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