Can magic be caused by thoughts?

[Cirdan_XII]

Your understanding of time-gaps is, frankly, childish. People didn’t call the steam engine magic because they were already being schooled in the developments leading up to it.

Take a man from an even less advanced period however (Middle Ages especially) and place them here? They would think the world was about to end.

That’s why I brought up the example of the aboriginals. Maybe when the first white man came they thought he was a deity of some sort because of all the advanced technology he had, but that illusion did not last for very long. Humans can and do catch up very quickly.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

Can you replicate Jesus? I didn’t think so. Thanks for proving my point.

No, you’re the one whose still not getting it.

Jesus can replicate Jesus, but yet it is still a miracle he is working. The replication does not make a technology out of a miracle. Even if he cured 10 000 lepers every day for a year, it would still be a miracle (or series of miracles) and not a new technology. And neither does unrepeatability make a miracle out of technology.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

I do see a lot of atheism in Christianity.

Consider though what most Christians pray for when they do encounter problems. Like say, an accident where someone looses a limb. Do we all stand in faith and expect God to grow a new one to replace it when we pray? I don’t know about you guys, but my faith falls a little bit short to expect that to happen!

Usually when we pray, we ask for the moon but expect much much less. We are happy if all we receive is the grace to cope with the situation, not for the miracle to change the circumstances completely. Often we call it a miracle if the person gets a good artificial limb, and the proper physical therapy to learn how to reclaim most of their life back from before the accident.

In essence, this kind of prayer doesn’t change the circumstances, it changes us.

But if you say, God doesn’t really work any miracles and God doesn’t really answer any prayers, and you’d better just pray for things that are going to happen anyway, where does that leave God? Isn’t this backdoor Atheism?

 

[Tobias65]

But if you say, God doesn’t really work any miracles and God doesn’t really answer any prayers, and you’d better just pray for things that are going to happen anyway, where does that leave God? Isn’t this backdoor Atheism?

Probably.

I suffer from a lack of faith. I don’t think I’m alone in this though. I don’t know how much we can rely upon God to do for us, nor how to say a prayer of faith that causes cut off limbs to grow back. My nephew for example was scheduled for surgery yesterday, and two hours before it was supposed to start they canceled it because his stomach started working normally again. Was it just coincidence? Or that fact that hundreds of Christians were praying for him?

He claims it was a miracle from God.

Personally I didn’t even pray, because I know that “the prayer of faith will heal the sick.” In this I side with Yoda: “Do or do not do, there is no try.” I don’t care to pray and simply try to exercise the faith to believe in a miracle. I intend to either do it in complete faith, or not do it at all.