Free will, amputees, and Fatima

[phantasm]

Where’s you faith?

Where it belongs, in the past.

 

[DebChris]

When Jesus was in Nazareth he was unable to perform miracles because the people of Nazareth lacked faith.
When a centurion said “I am not worthy,” Jesus healed his daughter. The centurion expressed belief in a power and authority greater than his own.
Does God will evil? Of course not. When John the Baptist asked if Jesus was the Messiah, the answer pointed to the lame who walked and the blind who could see. When the blind man asked to be healed “if you will it,” Jesus responded with “of course, I will it.”
Physical healing does occur. As mentioned earlier, the most spectacular healings tend to occur in poorer countries where the people are open and hungry for good news, where there is no access to the marvels of modern medicine, and where there is expectant faith.
It is true that there is suffering in this world. This suffering is experienced by those who believe as well as by those who choose not to believe. Prayer, whether for physical healing or something else, does not change the Creator of the Universe. Prayer changes the person who is willing to get down on his knees or stand with hand and heart lifted to God. Prayer is less about what might be received and more about being open to the gifts the Creator would give. This requires a certain amount of humility, of recognizing our dependence on God. The prayer may be nothing more than touching the cramped leg and crying “Lord.” Healings continue today whether or not they are documented…
As mentioned in my first post, while I may have never personally seen an injured limb regrown, I still believe in the possibility since I believe all things are possible. Jesus healed the sick, and the lame. His curse withered the fig tree.
As for the house that turned down, a person can find hope in the story of Job. Was not everything restored in the end.

 

[ready]

God answers the prayers of an amputee who prays for a limb back. The amputee just has to wait for his/her prayer to be answered. God will give him/her an entirely rejuvenated limb with the rest of his/her glorified body on the last day in heaven. Our glorified body will rejoin our soul in heaven on the last day when everybody’s body will be perfect. So God does answer the prayers of the amputee with healing. The amputee, like most of us, just has to wait a long while for certain prayers to be answered.

 

[Leela]

God answers the prayers of an amputee who prays for a limb back. The amputee just has to wait for his/her prayer to be answered. God will give him/her an entirely rejuvenated limb with the rest of his/her glorified body on the last day in heaven. Our glorified body will rejoin our soul in heaven on the last day when everybody’s body will be perfect. So God does answer the prayers of the amputee with healing. The amputee, like most of us, just has to wait a long while for certain prayers to be answered.

In other words, praying to God to have a limb grow back is just as useful as praying to a rock.

 

[wcknight]

I suspect that if some amputee were healed, the atheists would find some other thing that God can’t or hasn’t done. Rather than look at all the wonderous impossible things that God has accomplished they have to find something to hang their hat on, how sad.

Is that what they plan to say to the Almighty ???.. , I would have believed in you BUT you never healed an amputee, so that proves that you don’t exist or that proves that you didn’t care enough to definitively prove your existence.

What about sending His Son to die for you ? What about raising someone from the dead ? What about the hundreds or thousands of other miracles that various saints have done for you. BUT none of those were amputees, so none of that counts for anything. For someone who believes, no proof is necessary, for some one who does not, no proof is ever enough.

 

[ready]

In other words, praying to God to have a limb grow back is just as useful as praying to a rock.

No, Leela, there is a big difference. God hears you and anwers your prayers, even if he makes you wait and anwers only some of them on the last day. A rock neither can hear nor can answer our prayers.

 

[Leela]

No, Leela, there is a big difference. God hears you and anwers your prayers, even if he makes you wait and anwers only some of them on the last day. A rock neither can hear nor can answer our prayers.

I understand that you believe that, but there is no evidence that praying to God works any better than praying to a rock. I try to base my beliefs on evidence rather than faith.

 

[ready]

I understand that you believe that, but there is no evidence that praying to God works any better than praying to a rock. I try to base my beliefs on evidence rather than faith.

God is a fact. It is a fact that Jesus’ parents were historically registered in Bethlehem, where thay gave birth to Jesus, as prophesied - and Jesus really existed on earth at a given point in time and was not just some fanciful myth of a god who existed but in the minds of some and never was documented historically. It is also documented historically that at the time of Ceasar Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate and was crucified. It was witnessed by many people after his death at one time that Jesus appeared ressurected as only God could and as He had promised. It is a fact that documented miracles have happened when people have prayed to Jesus and saints for healings - and doctor’s or science has not been able to explain away the miracles. You can’t prove God empirically, but you sure can prove he existed and you can prove that praying to him works based on human testimonies. And witnesses are all we need to testify to truth when we are dealing with God, a trinity of persons who TRANSCENDS the realm of scienctific observation and mere its trial and error.

 

[wcknight]

I understand that you believe that, but there is no evidence that praying to God works any better than praying to a rock. I try to base my beliefs on evidence rather than faith.

BUT the thing is you are ignoring a ton of evidence. You just happen to have defined your proof or evidence to your own limited range. We have eyewitness accounts from the apostles and others. We have saints who have performed numerous miracles, and the folks who have been healed by them.

There are countless others who have expericenced God first hand. You personally have not, and only because you have closed your heart and mind to the possibility and probabilty that God exists and He is precisely as most folks claim Him to be.

IF one of your best friends told you a story that was not not normally believeable, but swore that it happened precisely as he told you, would you believe him/her ???

I’ve never had a miraculous event happen in my life. I’ve never witnessed a miracle or anything so unusual that someone would say it was supernatural. BUT I have had several very close friends or co-workers tell me about events that happened to them or to family members. Ask around these thing are a lot more common than you think.

Sure someone would say these folks are all delusional or are all lying. I would say it depends on the reliability of the sources. My sources have all been very reputable, and they are/were very dependable stable folks.

Not everyone who says they had an encounter with the supernatural or a miracle is a nutcase or a liar. There is a ton of evidence, you just choose not to believe it.

 

[Leela]

God is a fact. It is a fact that Jesus’ parents were historically registered in Bethlehem, where thay gave birth to Jesus, as prophesied - and Jesus really existed on earth at a given point in time and was not just some fanciful myth of a god who existed but in the minds of some and never was documented historically.

The Bible is the only source for these claims and the gospels don’t even agree with one another on the isssue. Mark, the earliest Gospel, doesn’t even know about any virgin birth, and the other two synoptics differ on the accounts of the whens and wheres and geneologies.

It is also documented historically that at the time of Ceasar Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate and was crucified.

I think that a teacher named Jesus probably existed and was crucified. I don’t see much reason to dount that, but I don’t think we have much evidence for saying anything more than that.

It was witnessed by many people after his death at one time that Jesus appeared ressurected as only God could and as He had promised. It is a fact that documented miracles have happened when people have prayed to Jesus and saints for healings - and doctor’s or science has not been able to explain away the miracles. You can’t prove God empirically, but you sure can prove he existed and you can prove that praying to him works based on human testimonies. And witnesses are all we need to testify to truth when we are dealing with God, a trinity of persons who TRANSCENDS the realm of scienctific observation and mere its trial and error.

The people telling the stories may very well have believed them. That
doesn’t necesarily mean that we should believe the people telling the
stories. We don’t know what sort of evidence their belief was based
on. If there were eye witnesses, do they even understand what they
were being told or what they were seeing?

Plus, we know for a fact that Christian scribes have taken it upon
them selves to ammend the texts based on the hundreds of variant
manuscripts that we have. We know for a fact that Christians made
stuff up, and who knows how far back it goes? Perhaps the most famous
story of all, the one about the woman caught in adultry, is thought to
have not been orginal to the gospel of John and added in later
manuscripts since it ios not included in the oldest manuscripts.

We also know that there are lots of other written accounts (gospels)
that did not make it into the Bible either because they were not
consistent with other gospels. Clearly people made stuff up or got it
wrong in some other way since these conflicting accounts can’t all be
true.

 

[Leela]

BUT the thing is you are ignoring a ton of evidence. You just happen to have defined your proof or evidence to your own limited range. We have eyewitness accounts from the apostles and others. We have saints who have performed numerous miracles, and the folks who have been healed by them.

There are countless others who have expericenced God first hand. You personally have not, and only because you have closed your heart and mind to the possibility and probabilty that God exists and He is precisely as most folks claim Him to be.

IF one of your best friends told you a story that was not not normally believeable, but swore that it happened precisely as he told you, would you believe him/her ???

I’ve never had a miraculous event happen in my life. I’ve never witnessed a miracle or anything so unusual that someone would say it was supernatural. BUT I have had several very close friends or co-workers tell me about events that happened to them or to family members. Ask around these thing are a lot more common than you think.

Sure someone would say these folks are all delusional or are all lying. I would say it depends on the reliability of the sources. My sources have all been very reputable, and they are/were very dependable stable folks.

Not everyone who says they had an encounter with the supernatural or a miracle is a nutcase or a liar. There is a ton of evidence, you just choose not to believe it.

There is only tons of evidence depending on the sort of evidence that you are willing to accpet as compelling. Lots of people attested to miracles, what do they have to gain from making such stories up? You see that “what do they have to gain from making it up?” argument a lot when people believe stories about other people’s encounters with
UFOs, bigfoot, etc. Who knows? Some people clearly just want to have a story to tell or be part of the story, and some people have other reasons that we just don’t know about. Not being able to fathom why people 2000 years ago would make up, add to, or exaggerate a story and having no way to find out doesn’t mean that they didn’t do so and doesn’t make the story any more believeable for me. We know that people do make up, exaggerate, and add to stories, and that seems to me to be a far more plausible explanation than believing that the events described really did happen. I’m not suggesting that such stories get made up out of whole cloth. It just that we know how such legends grow and may later have little resemblence to the facts and no specific single author to point to as having invented the tale.

One argument I’ve heard for the veracity of the gospels is the depiction of Jesus as despairing in death. If someone were to make up the story, wouldn’t we see a Jesus dieing with valor?

Well Jesus who is being crucified in Mark is a very despairing Jesus indeed (why have you forsaken me?), but the Jesus in Luke is completely in control–“Father forgive them, they know not what they do,” “Truly today you will be with me in Paradise,” and, most importantly, not “Why have you forsaken me,” but “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” These are two very different Jesuses. By some reasoning we should reject the account in the gospel of Luke in favor of that of the gospel of Mark. But if you do that, then you have to admit that at least parts of the gospels are probably made up, and the parts that we are most likely to doubt are the ones that are least consistent with our personal experience based on such reasoning. So I doubt stories of people being rasied from the dead
or being born of virgins because that is not something that is possible in my experience. In order to believe such claims, I would need much more substantial evidence to change my mind than I would need to be convinced of some claim that is more consistent with my experience.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to be believable. I don’t think the alternative to “lunatic, liar, or lord” is just someone or a specific group of people conspiring to invent a tale. Stories like this evolve, which is why they so often contain inconsistencies and don’t read like stories written by a single author with a single vision. The Old Testament has lots of examples. Unless you are already a believer in the resurrection, there are lots of scenarios that seem more plausible than a dead man who is
really God coming back to life after three days.

And that is the real question the problem for historians when presented with the available evidence: is there some other explanation that is more likely than that these events really happened in history? No matter how implausible it may seem for a given explanation of, say, an empty tomb, assuming we are to believe that Jesus was actually burried a tomb, that explanation only has to stand up to the plausibility of a human being rising from the dead.

 

[wcknight]

Just seems to me, that believing that everyone is a liar or is delusional, is tougher to believe than some or most are telling the truth.

You have got to be a real hard core cynic, when there is absolutely no one who tells you anything, is believable. I happen to believe there are honest folks in the world who are neither liars and are not delusional. Judging from the moral character of the folks who I’ve heard these things from, I happen to believe them when they tell me that these things really happened.

You are a true dyed-in-the-wool doubting Thomas. That’s okay, because Thomas did eventually come to believe, when he saw for himself.

And judging from the character of the upright lives that various saints have led, I also happen to believe their stories about various revelations. Not everyone is looking to tell a tale to get attention, or to make folks marvel at how lucky they are. Of couse many of the folks who made such claims neither achived fame nor attention, at least not the type of attention that folks crave after.

 

[wcknight]

Sounds like you have researched all the possible senarios of how all these stories can be false, have you bothered to consider how all or most of these stories may be true ?

UFOs BTW happen to be one of my favorite topics because, I have seen one. SO first hand, for me, I know positively absolutely, they are out there.

So let’s compare the UFO phenomenon with religion, as far as disbelief goes. For folks who have not seen UFOs, they are pure bunk. Folks making up stories as you say. Yet thousands of witnesses say they have seen them, many folks with decent credentials, pilots, cops, etc. Yes there are some drunks, nutcases and hoaxes, but there are a bunch of reliable eye-witnesses,

BUT there are no real space crafts or aliens captured dead or alive, at least none on public display that are verifiable as authentic outer space creatures or vehicles.

For you they don’t exist but for me, I am as certain as the PC and text that you see on your screen. You don’t know me but let’s assume that you do, and I come to you and tell you about my experience. I am not a drinker, and I am a rational person and as far as you can tell I have always been honest with you in the past (at least assuming that has always been your experience with me.)

DO you now assume that my story to you is a complete fabrication, that I must have been delusional or does this now change your opinion about UFOs ??

 

[ready]

CORRECTION TO LAST POST:

Leela,

I’ll say a prayer to St. Jude for you. He’s the patron saint of the impossible. You seem like your a person impossible to convince of certain facts. Look up Josephus and Eusibius, ancient historians…then tell me the bible is our only source of information on Christ. Look up the life of St. Padre Pio and tell me if he got his stigmata and other supernatural gifts like bilocation and the supernatural reading of men’s hearts in the confessional from his true relationship with the same crucified Lord or through something as dead as a rock. Do you believe he could achieve the same SANCTITY through giving his allegience to the devil through a rock? He practiced the sanctity of the Master, Jesus; that is why his life is a testimony of the supernatural power and existence of God. Though you are not open to God’s existence, the Trinitarian God of self-sacrificial love for us on a cross for the forgiveness of our sins, you must allow yourself to be. Otherwise you’ll never be able to have the light of Christ enter your soul. A very sad and dangerous fate for you.

 

[wcknight]

A lot of folks would argue that the fact the gospels are inconsistent shows that the stories are true. IF they were identical, some may think that they were copies of each other.

I think one of the gospels is from one of the apostles as told to them by Mary, and another is from another apostle. People can witness the same event and each will have a different impression of what happened. Plus quotes may have been put in or left out depending on which ones, someone happens to remember.

I would say there is a lot of extraordinary evidence out there. Evidence of Eucharistic miracles, miraculous healings, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Compared to the evidence at some murder trials, I think you have more than enough evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt. Folks have been convicted on a whole lot less proof. The quality of the witnesses have certainly been much more credible. I would take the word of a few dozen saints long before I would of any murder trial witness, no matter who distinguished or reputable.

 

[ready]

A lot of folks would argue that the fact the gospels are inconsistent shows that the stories are true. IF they were identical, some may think that they were copies of each other.

I think one of the gospels is from one of the apostles as told to them by Mary, and another is from another apostle. People can witness the same event and each will have a different impression of what happened. Plus quotes may have been put in or left out depending on which ones, someone happens to remember.

I would say there is a lot of extraordinary evidence out there. Evidence of Eucharistic miracles, miraculous healings, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Compared to the evidence at some murder trials, I think you have more than enough evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt. Folks have been convicted on a whole lot less proof. The quality of the witnesses have certainly been much more credible. I would take the word of a few dozen saints long before I would of any murder trial witness, no matter who distinguished or reputable.

I agree with you. And I’d like to say that I really hate it when people can not accept the probity of the saints and the apostles and the authority of the Church on things which apply to God. They expect science to be the authority on God??? Let science be the authority in the realm of the natural sciences - but for heaven’s sake let the Church be the authority in her own domain too!

 

[Leela]

I agree with you. And I’d like to say that I really hate it when people can not accept the probity of the saints and the apostles and the authority of the Church on things which apply to God. They expect science to be the authority on God??? Let science be the authority in the realm of the natural sciences - but for heaven’s sake let the Church be the authority in her own domain too!

Which church should I believe? Should I listen to the Catholics or the Mormons or the Muslims or the Hindus or the Quakers or the Buddhists or the …? Pretty much every religion has it’s fulfilled prophecies and miracles. How do we decide which is the true story?

It would be one thing if they were all saying the same thing, but they don,t, and they pretty much all teach that every other religion is false. That can’t all be true, but they can all be false.

 

[DebChris]

Each of the gospels was written for a specific audience. That is the basic reason for variations in the gospels. Does anybody see the same event exactly the same as somebody else? Do we not place emphasis in different spots in the stories we tell based on who we are telling the story to? These stories were passed by word of mouth before being put on paper.
Why would men hiding from the Romans continue to tell a story they do not believe themselves?

 

[Leela]

Just seems to me, that believing that everyone is a liar or is delusional, is tougher to believe than some or most are telling the truth.[/quotes]

That’s not at all what I am saying. I think people generally tell the truth and I generally believe the stories they tell me. The issue is about what we do when someone tells us something that contradicts your view of how things are and how things work. When we are
faced with a claim that is fairly consistent with what we usually experience or what we already believe to be true, we don’t require much evidence in order to believe it. The more a claim contradicts our ordinary experience, the more evidence we desire and the higher the standard of what is to be admitted as evidence.

If you were told that an Indian guru had learned to levitate while meditating, you would probably want a lot more evidence than you would if you were told by a neighbor that some kids opened a lemonade stand around the corner. If a neighbor said that to me, I’d believe her without question. But being told by the most reliable modern day eye-witness I could think of would probably not even be enough in the case of the guru. I probably wouldn’t believe it if I saw it myself. I bet you would suspect that it was some sort of trick, and certainly two thousand year old accounts of such a feat witnessed and passed down orally (by people who were pre-scientific and didn’t have good explanations for pretty much anything) and later written down and copied from copies and translated and copied again
and lost and found and copied and translated again would be completely unconvincing to you. Or maybe not. For some reason, when such accounts of miracles are set within this context they seem to become more compelling to people than modern day reports of miracles like those attested to by millions of people personally witnessing the “living
god” Sai Baba in Southern India. I can’t understand why.

 

[Leela]

Sounds like you have researched all the possible senarios of how all these stories can be false, have you bothered to consider how all or most of these stories may be true ?

UFOs BTW happen to be one of my favorite topics because, I have seen one. SO first hand, for me, I know positively absolutely, they are out there.

So let’s compare the UFO phenomenon with religion, as far as disbelief goes. For folks who have not seen UFOs, they are pure bunk. Folks making up stories as you say. Yet thousands of witnesses say they have seen them, many folks with decent credentials, pilots, cops, etc. Yes there are some drunks, nutcases and hoaxes, but there are a bunch of reliable eye-witnesses,

BUT there are no real space crafts or aliens captured dead or alive, at least none on public display that are verifiable as authentic outer space creatures or vehicles.

For you they don’t exist but for me, I am as certain as the PC and text that you see on your screen. You don’t know me but let’s assume that you do, and I come to you and tell you about my experience. I am not a drinker, and I am a rational person and as far as you can tell I have always been honest with you in the past (at least assuming that has always been your experience with me.)

DO you now assume that my story to you is a complete fabrication, that I must have been delusional or does this now change your opinion about UFOs ??

Though it is possible that you are just making this up to make a point, I don’t doubt that you believe that you saw a UFO. Since a UFO is just an unidentified flying object, I am convinced that you saw something and could not identify whatever you saw. I do doubt that what you saw had anything to do with space aliens. While I think that it is likely that we are not alone in the universe, we are likely to be separated by a lot of space which would mean that we probably wouldn’t run into to any aliens even if they exist. Since I attach such a small probability of running into aliens, I would need something more that someone’s claim that they saw a UFO to convince me that aliens are really out there and visiting us. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And what is asserted without justification can be dismissed without justification.