Free will, amputees, and Fatima

[Dranu]

Gottle of Geer:

A real God would not leave 99.99999995 % of people in the lurch - & a good God would have mercy on those who are sick with incurable maladies.

He would (I assume you mean by ‘mercy’ give them a temporal revival, just to let them age and die of mortality like we all do anyway)? Can you see all ends? A claim such as this, as if it were fact, which relies on a causal chain you do not even see close to the end of, is somewhat rash, don’t you think? Even the wisest cannot see all ends. To claim a negation of the Good itself based on utility (which I assume is meassured by the very standard you deny?) is something I (thats just me, perhaps you see something I do not) would hesitate in doing.

I am only questioning, because although the theist has defended well against the ‘logical’ version of evil, there is still the ‘evidential’ version of evil.

Instead of wasting time on idiocies such as prayer, we should be taking steps to get what we want: prayer is a waste of breath & time & effort, of much less use than than a 12-step programme; they get something done, unlike prayer.

I do not understand why you are so spiteful to Christians (maybe just to him?). To say one who prays is ‘wasting time on idiocies’ is quite malicious don’t you think? Perhaps you mearly mean to say that they (such as myself) are ignorant rather than irrational?

 

[tonyrey]

But how can I say whether giving up your life is a good thing or a bad thing if I don’t know anything about the circumstances? People have done heroic acts in war. Is this what you are talking about?
I can’t figure out what the point is to this line of questioning.
Ok… Again, what is your point?

The point is that Jesus was not a deluded impostor or a legendary character but a saintly man whose teaching of love and forgiveness has deeply affected humanity…

“No animal is capale of premeditated atrocities because no animal is capable of premeditation at all. The fact that we have these big brains and the capablilities that go with them means that we also have the potential for complicated psychology and psuchological pathogies that could not afflict animals.”

Exactly. You are denying freedom and responsibility by attributing evil solely to bigger brains and pathological behaviour.

“What are you talking about? I never said that the problem of evil can’t be gotten around. I just said that it requires a more nuanced answer than “God did it.” I have faith in theologians to rationalize anything as supporting whatever it is their particular religion.”

You have still failed to refute my argument: If God is all-powerful how could He not allow evil? To do so would entail preventing us from exercising our freedom and shaping our own destiny.

“You can call me whatever you want.”

It is not a matter of name-calling but a definition based on your statement “I don’t know”.

“I don’t know why I am expected to answer for some author I never heard of.”

You are expected to justify your gratuitous statement that chance isn’t an explanation. If you don’t it is worthless.

Do you reject “They met by chance” an explanation? And what about fortuitous events in quantum mechanics?

“Morals can be studied like anything else. Either some moral prohibition really is good for people or it isn’t. If such truths exist we can try to know them. We don’t need to wait for such truths to be “revealed” to us in the theistic sense of the term.”

“Try” is the operative word! Why do you think there is so much evil in the world? Ignorance is the greatest factor. If you have a child don’t you try to teach it what is right and wrong? Would a loving Father leave His children totally in the dark, especially when they are heading for disaster?

(The question is how purposes originated in the first place. How did purposeful activity emerge from purposeless molecules?)
“I don’t know”.

An honest answer which reveals the inadequacy of materialism and NeoDarwinism.

“God as a loving father (and lots of other metaphors) predates Jesus in the OT for example. Personal perfection is pretty standard. isn’t it?”

You have admitted the uniqueness of forgiveness in the teaching of Jesus. Yahweh is hardly a forgiving God who asks us to forgive others!

(I’m glad you admit your scenarios wouldn’t sound likely. Not surprising because none of those proposed by sceptics has stood the test of time.)
“Yeah, but the point is that they don’t have to sound very plausible at all. They only need to sound more plausible than a man dieing (dying) and three days later rising from the dead and later ascending into Heaven.”

If your scenarios are based entirely on speculation they are far less plausible than eye-witness accounts of the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus and the subsequent history of the Apostolic Church throughout the world for over two thousand years. If all this is the result of superstition it is the most astounding event that has ever happened on this planet…

"The Jesus who is being crucified in Mark is a very despairing Jesus (why have you forsaken me, etc., while 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.” "
The fact that the Gospels differ in their accounts of the Passion and Death of Jesus is evidence they are authentic. If they agreed on every detail they would certainly be suspect. It is extremely unlikely that even the Messiah would not be tempted to despair when he was nailed to the Cross. That is not incompatible with his prayer that his executioners be forgiven, his message of hope to the dying men and his trust in the Father. If all this is fiction it is the most magnificent tale that has ever been told…

(Why should miracles be confined to Christians? Or even to religious people? I don’t believe atheists are excluded from divine love! They are obviously less likely to pray for a miracle but that doesn’t mean they or some one they love cannot be miraculously cured. That doesn’t mean I accept every claim but neither do I exclude the possibility of divine intervention. God would be a heartless monster if He totally ignored human suffering…)

“What do you think about the legend of Muhammed or the legend of the Buddha or Krishna or Joseph Smith?”

That is hardly an adequate response to the points I have made. (And it overlooks my statement “That doesn’t mean I accept every claim!”)

 

[Dameedna]

So the question remains. If God almost overrides our free will by making the sun shoot around in the sky at Fatima, why not almost override our free will and regenerate a limb? Why do we have no credibly documented cases of such a thing happening?

And the answer will alway’s be : God did not make the sun Dance around the Sky. Fatima, is nonsense.

God is either the biggest(and cruelest) of all universal tricksters or he doesn’t intervene at all which means miracles can be explained naturally, or God doesn’t exist.

When you read about the so called Miracle of Fatima, you will find pretty quickly all you will hear is the same STORY over and over. You will actually see no evidence of it at all. No evidence of ANY of it. The number of people, the sky, the athiest converts. None. It is the regurgetation of a story, that people truly want to believe …a story, that is so powerful to some that their entire faith rests on it. These are not people that would research this topic with a great deal of integrity I suspect.

Find an individual, who does not have a motivation one way or the other to belive in it or not…find 100 of these individuals, and you will gain a semblance of truth.

It’s nonsense.

 

[wcknight]

You cite a case where the Vatican didn’t properly investigate a claimed miracle. That doesn’t mean that they routinely do a sloppy job. Normally they do a very diligent job, especially when investigating miracles that may lead to verifying the sanctity of someone being touted for sainthood.

In these cases, they do a great job in verifying true mirales, and there are many cases where they determine tat no miracle took place or determined that the event was a hoax. They get hundreds or thousands of claims and this one probably was not a high profile case for them.

There’s a reason why folks call these miracles, IF they happened all the time with 99.99999% of everyone asking for a miracle they would no longer be considered miracles. It’s extraordinary precisely because they are rare and unusual.

But even then, with a few special folks, miracles are fairly commonplace. Various saints are associated with many miracles. So many happen almost upon request that it seems they have a direct line to God. That’s the way it was with Jesus, and even with Him, He purposely choose when He wanted miracles to happen.

Folks that demanded miracles for proof or show, he left alone. Folks who showed great faith, he healed. God values humble and contrite hearts, folks who are arrogant and proud he ignores. It’s all a matter of attitude. Go to God with demands for proof and scientific evidence and He probably will ignore you. Ask for a sign with a sincere desire to find Him and He may give you the proof you wish for.

There was a long time when I wanted some proof or evidence that He really exists. My faith was almost gone. I was so afraid of dying that, I despartely wanted to know if there was really something afterwards. I looked into a lot of different things, other faiths, other ideas, read everything I could find on death and dying and anything remotely related. It became quite an obsession, and it almost got me killed in the process.

It was only after I reached rock bottom, that I returned back to where started. It was in reading about the lives of the various saints and their personal encounters with God, that I realized that what I had all along was correct. And little by little, folks that I knew personally related their own encounters with God. I no longer need the first hand experience that I once sought after so desparately.

I see it all around me now. Things that I took for granted, God shows me everyday, that He is there. The miracle that I was looking for is no longer needed. Now the only miracle that I want, is that my family and friends can discover the same faith that I lost and found again. I don’t need to see someone grow back a new arm or new leg. I just need to see God touch the lives of the ones I care about and show that he is there for them as He is for me.

 

[Leela]

You cite a case where the Vatican didn’t properly investigate a claimed miracle. That doesn’t mean that they routinely do a sloppy job. Normally they do a very diligent job, especially when investigating miracles that may lead to verifying the sanctity of someone being touted for sainthood.

In these cases, they do a great job in verifying true mirales, and there are many cases where they determine tat no miracle took place or determined that the event was a hoax. They get hundreds or thousands of claims and this one probably was not a high profile case for them.

You’ve got to be kidding me. Mother Teresa is the highest profile case imaginable in this generation. If a sloppy job was done with beatifying her, one can imagine how shoddy the investigations of miracles were in other cases and especially before science offered good explanations for anything.

 

[Leela]

The point is that Jesus was not a deluded impostor or a legendary character but a saintly man whose teaching of love and forgiveness has deeply affected humanity…

This is no doubt that the story of Jesus (whether or not any of it is true) has deeply affected humanity.

“No animal is capale of premeditated atrocities because no animal is capable of premeditation at all. The fact that we have these big brains and the capablilities that go with them means that we also have the potential for complicated psychology and psuchological pathogies that could not afflict animals.”

Exactly. You are denying freedom and responsibility by attributing evil solely to bigger brains and pathological behaviour.

People are free to choose their actions to some extent and are responsible for their choices.

“What are you talking about? I never said that the problem of evil can’t be gotten around. I just said that it requires a more nuanced answer than “God did it.” I have faith in theologians to rationalize anything as supporting whatever it is their particular religion.”

You have still failed to refute my argument: If God is all-powerful how could He not allow evil? To do so would entail preventing us from exercising our freedom and shaping our own destiny.

I have no interest in refuting your argument. If it workd for you, fine with me. If my disbelief in God were due to the problem of evil, we would need to discuss it, but it isn’t, so we don’t. I have no interest in whether a god who I think is imaginary could or could not/ should or should not prevent evil.

“You can call me whatever you want.”

It is not a matter of name-calling but a definition based on your statement “I don’t know”.

An agnostic is one who claims that it is impossible to know whether or not God exists. Whether I am an agnostic or not, I still can say that I don’t believe that they do. It may be impossible to know for sure, but I sure doubt it. Personally, I don’t think we should have a label for someone who does not believe in God any more than we shojudl have one for someone who does not believe in astrology or is not a racist.

“I don’t know why I am expected to answer for some author I never heard of.”

You are expected to justify your gratuitous statement that chance isn’t an explanation. If you don’t it is worthless.

Are you saying that chance is an explantion for something? If you are not, then I can’t see why I need to argue that c hance is not an explanation for anything.

Do you reject “They met by chance” an explanation? And what about fortuitous events in quantum mechanics?

Chance is a useful concept, but it doesn’t explain anything, it just says what we don’t know. Probability is useful for quantifying such uncertainty and finding patterns in uncertainty, but saying that something happened becuaes it is random would be nonsense. Saying something is random is to that that we can’t predict specific outcomes, but we can predit the aggregate behavior out of many occurences.

(The question is how purposes originated in the first place. How did purposeful activity emerge from purposeless molecules?)
“I don’t know”.

An honest answer which reveals the inadequacy of materialism and NeoDarwinism.

Yes, it is better to say that you don’t know than to claim to know things that you actually don’t know. But isn’t that what faith is about? When you don’t have good reasons to believe something, do you think that it is good to believe it anyway?

(I’m glad you admit your scenarios wouldn’t sound likely. Not surprising because none of those proposed by sceptics has stood the test of time.)
“Yeah, but the point is that they don’t have to sound very plausible at all. They only need to sound more plausible than a man dieing (dying) and three days later rising from the dead and later ascending into Heaven.”

If your scenarios are based entirely on speculation they are far less plausible than eye-witness accounts of the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus and the subsequent history of the Apostolic Church throughout the world for over two thousand years. If all this is the result of superstition it is the most astounding event that has ever happened on this planet…

Here are some eye-witness accounts of Leprachaun sitings in Mobile:
youtube.com/watch?v=nda_OSWeyn8

Do you believe these or do you think that there may be other more plausible explanations for these eye-witnesses?

"The Jesus who is being crucified in Mark is a very despairing Jesus (why have you forsaken me, etc., while 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.” "
The fact that the Gospels differ in their accounts of the Passion and Death of Jesus is evidence they are authentic. If they agreed on every detail they would certainly be suspect.

These seem like important “details” to me. I’m suprised that such inconsistencies actually convince you that the accounts are reliable. Are either of these accounts of what Jesus said true?

“What do you think about the legend of Muhammed or the legend of the Buddha or Krishna or Joseph Smith?”

That is hardly an adequate response to the points I have made. (And it overlooks my statement “That doesn’t mean I accept every claim!”)

I don’t know what points you made. What I am trying to get to is your “why would they make it up?” argument. You know that people make stuff up and you already think that people made up much of the legends of Muhammed, the Buddha, Krishna, and Joeseph Smith, among others, right?

 

[Jean_Anthony]

This thread has gone way off topic–so it is closed. Please take any side discussion you wish to carry on to new or existing threads in the appropriate forums. Thank you all.