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- Status
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CatsAndDogs
Guest
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Rico_S
Guest
I am older than I used to be…and you are wrong.Get older, and then tell me I’m wrong.
:shamrock2:
Of course if this is a phenomenon only experienced after 40…than I can’t speak from personal experience.
–Rico
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AveSantaMaria
Guest
*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *
St. Dominic was born in 1170 to a religious lord and lady, a family of holy people. He started schooling with his uncle a priest, at age 7, who made him memorize the Psalms, read and write in Latin as well as Spanish. He became familiar with the hymns and canticles of the Divine Liturgy and was received into the minor order of Lector. At 14, he went to the School of Palencia, where he continued ascetic practices he had become accustomed to during his many years with his uncle. He almost never ate meat with any of his meals and habitually slept on the floor. He frequently gave away his meals to the hungry and poor. He fasted for days on end and allowed no comforts or extravagances, the one exception being books, which he would purchase and annotate. During the famine caused by the war in the Iberian Peninsula, he sold all his possessions including his prized theology books to feed the hungry.
He developed a reputation among his classmates for sanctity, and his reputation spread to Martin de Bazan, bishop of Osma. He would weep profusely, especially when celebrating the holy sacrifice of the Mass. In 1195, at the age of 24, he was ordained to the Priesthood. At Osma, he lived a hidden life. He seldom ventured outside the cloister, enveloping himself in the twin veils of prayer and study. He matured in his practice of the interior life. catholicism.org/st-dominic.html
In 1203, venturing with Bishop Diego about a marriage for Prince Ferdinand, he saw great devastation being wrought by the Albigenses - they killed faithful Catholics, burned and pillaged their lands, then taken the children prisoner. Pope Innocent III had been trying to do something for three years about heresy in southern France and told Bishop Diego and Dominic to work in southern France. They realized ** that a small act performed through holy obedience is of far more value in the eyes of God than a great act performed without it **. After **12 months ** in the field, St. Dominic was discouraged that so little progress had been maid, despite even the addition of woman helpers. St. Dominic prayed along the lines of “Dear Blessed Mother! Can’t you help us to change all this?” Dominic became convicted that the Albigenses would be converted by the “Hail Mary”. On July 22, 1206 **about 19 years after he first started schooling with his uncle, about 11 years since being ordained a preist ** on the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalen, he witnessed his first miracle when three times a globe of white flame hovered for a moment over the valley then came to rest above the deserted Church of Saint Mary. (He witnessed it three times, three consecutive nights, because he did not believe it had not been a dream after he witnessed it the first time. He was asking for help to the Blessed Mother before this happened) - Saint Dominic: Preacher of the Rosary and Founder of the Dominican Order, Mary Fabyan Windeatt
*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. ***
The important thing here is that: many of the saints believed ** before ** they saw the supernatural power of God. I’ll give the example of St. Maximilian Maria, St. Dominic, and St. Therese of Liseux here. St. Maximilian Maria was born on January 8, 1894 (born as Raymond), and at the age of 10, which would most likely be 1904, his mother asked him, “What is going to become of you?” He took this to heart and from that moment changed. He began to spend long hours at their little altar of **Our Lady of Czestochowa **praying and weeping. When his mother inquired, he said, “I felt very sad and **went to the Blessed Virgin and asked Her what would become of me. After that, I asked Her again in church. Then the Blessed Virgin appeared to me, holding two crowns. One was white, and the other red.” The white crown represented purity, and the red one martyrdom. Our Lady then asked him which he would choose. “I choose them both,” he eagerly answered. The Queen of Heaven then smiled and disappeared. The only apparent instruction that Our Lady gave Raymond was that ** he be obedient and She would take care of everything else. ** catholicism.org/maximilian-kolbe.html
St. Dominic was born in 1170 to a religious lord and lady, a family of holy people. He started schooling with his uncle a priest, at age 7, who made him memorize the Psalms, read and write in Latin as well as Spanish. He became familiar with the hymns and canticles of the Divine Liturgy and was received into the minor order of Lector. At 14, he went to the School of Palencia, where he continued ascetic practices he had become accustomed to during his many years with his uncle. He almost never ate meat with any of his meals and habitually slept on the floor. He frequently gave away his meals to the hungry and poor. He fasted for days on end and allowed no comforts or extravagances, the one exception being books, which he would purchase and annotate. During the famine caused by the war in the Iberian Peninsula, he sold all his possessions including his prized theology books to feed the hungry.
He developed a reputation among his classmates for sanctity, and his reputation spread to Martin de Bazan, bishop of Osma. He would weep profusely, especially when celebrating the holy sacrifice of the Mass. In 1195, at the age of 24, he was ordained to the Priesthood. At Osma, he lived a hidden life. He seldom ventured outside the cloister, enveloping himself in the twin veils of prayer and study. He matured in his practice of the interior life. catholicism.org/st-dominic.html
In 1203, venturing with Bishop Diego about a marriage for Prince Ferdinand, he saw great devastation being wrought by the Albigenses - they killed faithful Catholics, burned and pillaged their lands, then taken the children prisoner. Pope Innocent III had been trying to do something for three years about heresy in southern France and told Bishop Diego and Dominic to work in southern France. They realized ** that a small act performed through holy obedience is of far more value in the eyes of God than a great act performed without it **. After **12 months ** in the field, St. Dominic was discouraged that so little progress had been maid, despite even the addition of woman helpers. St. Dominic prayed along the lines of “Dear Blessed Mother! Can’t you help us to change all this?” Dominic became convicted that the Albigenses would be converted by the “Hail Mary”. On July 22, 1206 **about 19 years after he first started schooling with his uncle, about 11 years since being ordained a preist ** on the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalen, he witnessed his first miracle when three times a globe of white flame hovered for a moment over the valley then came to rest above the deserted Church of Saint Mary. (He witnessed it three times, three consecutive nights, because he did not believe it had not been a dream after he witnessed it the first time. He was asking for help to the Blessed Mother before this happened) - Saint Dominic: Preacher of the Rosary and Founder of the Dominican Order, Mary Fabyan Windeatt
*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. ***
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AveSantaMaria
Guest
*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *
In 1214, St. Dominic "withdrew into a forest near Toulouse for nothing but to pray and do penance for three days and nights. He prayed especially hard to Our Lady to enlighten him as to what to do in order to bring the heretics to her Divine Son. It was then that the **Queen of Heaven, evidently seeing the time to be right, appeared with three angels to St. Dominic. Gently, our sweet Mother said to him: “Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?”
“Oh, my Lady,” answered St. Dominic, “you know far better than I do because next to your Son Jesus Christ you have always been the chief instrument of our salvation.” Then did Our Lady instruct him: “I want you to know that, in this warfare, the battering ram has always been the angelic Psalter, which is the foundation of the New Testament. Therefore if you wish to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter.”
Our Lady next explained how the Rosary was to be prayed, thus giving us-- through St. Dominic-- the Rosary as we know it today. The 150 Hail Marys were to be divided by Our Fathers into groupings of 10. As each decade was said, one of the 15 principal mysteries of the life of Jesus and Mary was to be the subject of meditation. ** This meditation is the heart of the prayer. Our Lady was explicit about this when she later said to the Blessed Alan de Rouche: “When people say 150 Angelic Salutations this prayer is very helpful to them and is a very pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me even more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death and passion of Jesus Christ – for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.”
Of what does the meditation consist? How is it done? It is simply a deep consideration of each mystery, a matter of looking through the mind’s eye and with loving faith on the scene (the scene of the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, etc.) and contemplating the virtues practiced and the lessons given. (For a deeper understanding of the devotion, see The Secret of the Rosary by St. Louis Marie (St. Louis de Montfort)) and Hail, Full of Grace, by Mother Mary Loyola. Thereafter St. Dominic would spend the balance of his life preaching the Rosary, with tremendous results. He also founded the Confraternity of the Rosary. catholicism.org/rosary-history.html Pope Pius XI staed that “The Rosary of Mary is the principle and foundation on which the very Order of Saint Dominic rests for making perfect the life of its members and obtaining the salvation of others.” catholic-ages.com/prayers/rosary_dominic.asp
So 1214, is about 34 years since birth, 19 years since priesthood, 27 years since first schooling with his uncle. St. Dominic seems to have followed Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary first with his whole body, mind, and soul, had the apparitions later.
St. Therese of Liseux’s saw Mary at the age of 4. When Therese saw her sisters praying to a statue of** Mary in her room, Therese also prayed. She saw Mary smile at her and she was cured. ** catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=105
I just ask sometimes: what does faithful mean? According to answers.com the first meaning is, adhering firmly and devotely, as to a person, cause, or idea; loyal. So if I had a friend and called her faithful, I wouldn’t call her faithful because she had warm feelings towards me. I would call her faithful because she stuck to me through thick and thin, as did Job or the prophets. Say I have a friend and she only sticks with me when I guarantee 100% that at the end of the day, I will give her great rewards like a political appointment or a million dollars. Is she more faithful if she sticks with me without actually seeing the money, or is she more faithful if she only is my friend if I show her the million dollars and keep showing it to her repeatedly every few months or even every few years or every few decades - otherwise, she drops me like a hot potato. Does she love me? Or, if she is a husband or wife, does she love me if she has to be reassured that I am wealthy every few months, years, or decades otherwise she will drop me? I’m not saying that I am not a doubting AveSantaMaria. In fact, I may doubt more than you. Sometimes I say the Rosary and say, I will say this even if I do not always believe that God is good or that God loves me, I will just say to best of my ability anyways, even without fervor. Saying the Rosary (the entire Rosary, as many as I can - sometimes seven) often seems to restore my fervor, but I am still a horrible doubter/disbeliever myself. Yet, I am young in saying the Rosary. I don’t think it has been two months that I started saying the Rosary on a daily basis, not yet three weeks that I have started saying all 4 mysteries at least on an almost daily basis, and I can testify that it has greatly improved my spiritual life. Perhaps, after a year, it will make my doubts less frequent and help me to follow Christ more.
*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *
In 1214, St. Dominic "withdrew into a forest near Toulouse for nothing but to pray and do penance for three days and nights. He prayed especially hard to Our Lady to enlighten him as to what to do in order to bring the heretics to her Divine Son. It was then that the **Queen of Heaven, evidently seeing the time to be right, appeared with three angels to St. Dominic. Gently, our sweet Mother said to him: “Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?”
“Oh, my Lady,” answered St. Dominic, “you know far better than I do because next to your Son Jesus Christ you have always been the chief instrument of our salvation.” Then did Our Lady instruct him: “I want you to know that, in this warfare, the battering ram has always been the angelic Psalter, which is the foundation of the New Testament. Therefore if you wish to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter.”
Our Lady next explained how the Rosary was to be prayed, thus giving us-- through St. Dominic-- the Rosary as we know it today. The 150 Hail Marys were to be divided by Our Fathers into groupings of 10. As each decade was said, one of the 15 principal mysteries of the life of Jesus and Mary was to be the subject of meditation. ** This meditation is the heart of the prayer. Our Lady was explicit about this when she later said to the Blessed Alan de Rouche: “When people say 150 Angelic Salutations this prayer is very helpful to them and is a very pleasing tribute to me. But they will do better still and will please me even more if they say these salutations while meditating on the life, death and passion of Jesus Christ – for this meditation is the soul of this prayer.”
Of what does the meditation consist? How is it done? It is simply a deep consideration of each mystery, a matter of looking through the mind’s eye and with loving faith on the scene (the scene of the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, etc.) and contemplating the virtues practiced and the lessons given. (For a deeper understanding of the devotion, see The Secret of the Rosary by St. Louis Marie (St. Louis de Montfort)) and Hail, Full of Grace, by Mother Mary Loyola. Thereafter St. Dominic would spend the balance of his life preaching the Rosary, with tremendous results. He also founded the Confraternity of the Rosary. catholicism.org/rosary-history.html Pope Pius XI staed that “The Rosary of Mary is the principle and foundation on which the very Order of Saint Dominic rests for making perfect the life of its members and obtaining the salvation of others.” catholic-ages.com/prayers/rosary_dominic.asp
So 1214, is about 34 years since birth, 19 years since priesthood, 27 years since first schooling with his uncle. St. Dominic seems to have followed Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary first with his whole body, mind, and soul, had the apparitions later.
St. Therese of Liseux’s saw Mary at the age of 4. When Therese saw her sisters praying to a statue of** Mary in her room, Therese also prayed. She saw Mary smile at her and she was cured. ** catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=105
I just ask sometimes: what does faithful mean? According to answers.com the first meaning is, adhering firmly and devotely, as to a person, cause, or idea; loyal. So if I had a friend and called her faithful, I wouldn’t call her faithful because she had warm feelings towards me. I would call her faithful because she stuck to me through thick and thin, as did Job or the prophets. Say I have a friend and she only sticks with me when I guarantee 100% that at the end of the day, I will give her great rewards like a political appointment or a million dollars. Is she more faithful if she sticks with me without actually seeing the money, or is she more faithful if she only is my friend if I show her the million dollars and keep showing it to her repeatedly every few months or even every few years or every few decades - otherwise, she drops me like a hot potato. Does she love me? Or, if she is a husband or wife, does she love me if she has to be reassured that I am wealthy every few months, years, or decades otherwise she will drop me? I’m not saying that I am not a doubting AveSantaMaria. In fact, I may doubt more than you. Sometimes I say the Rosary and say, I will say this even if I do not always believe that God is good or that God loves me, I will just say to best of my ability anyways, even without fervor. Saying the Rosary (the entire Rosary, as many as I can - sometimes seven) often seems to restore my fervor, but I am still a horrible doubter/disbeliever myself. Yet, I am young in saying the Rosary. I don’t think it has been two months that I started saying the Rosary on a daily basis, not yet three weeks that I have started saying all 4 mysteries at least on an almost daily basis, and I can testify that it has greatly improved my spiritual life. Perhaps, after a year, it will make my doubts less frequent and help me to follow Christ more.
*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *
A
AveSantaMaria
Guest
*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *
Note: You wanted a miracle or a sign or an apparition. I was about to go to bed, and I realized that I had a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary in my room that offers a **visible glimpse of our Mother **at the moment of death. if you want an apparition at your death, St. Bridget passes on a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
*The Blessed Virgin Mary grants seven graces to the souls who honor her daily by meditating on her tears and dolors (sorrows). The Hail Mary is prayed seven times, once after each meditation. This devotion was passed on by St. Bridget.
HERE ARE THE SEVEN GRACES
Copies of this devotional card are avilable from: OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY LIBRARY. www.olrl.org
*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *
Note: You wanted a miracle or a sign or an apparition. I was about to go to bed, and I realized that I had a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary in my room that offers a **visible glimpse of our Mother **at the moment of death. if you want an apparition at your death, St. Bridget passes on a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
*The Blessed Virgin Mary grants seven graces to the souls who honor her daily by meditating on her tears and dolors (sorrows). The Hail Mary is prayed seven times, once after each meditation. This devotion was passed on by St. Bridget.
HERE ARE THE SEVEN GRACES
- I will grant peace to their families.
- They will be enlightened about the divine mysteries.
- I will console them in their pains and I will accompany them in their work.
- I will give them as much as they ask for as long as it does not oppose the adorable will of my divine Son or the sanctification of their souls.
- I will defend them in their spiritual battles with the infernal enemy and I will protect them at every instant of their lives.
- I will visibly help them at the moment of their death, they will see the face of their Mother.
- I have obtained (This Grace) from my divine Son, that those who propagate this devotion to my tears and dolors will be taken directly from this earthly life to eternal happiness since all of their sins will be forgiven and my Son and I will be their eternal consolation and joy.
- The prophecy of Simeon. (St. Luke II, 34, 35)
- The flight into Egypt. (St. Matthew II, 13-14)
- The loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple. (St. Luke II, 43-45)
- The meeting of Jesus and Mary on the Way of the Cross.
- The Crucifixion.
- The taking down of the Body of Jesus from the Cross.
- The burial of Jesus.
Copies of this devotional card are avilable from: OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY LIBRARY. www.olrl.org
*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *
C
CatsAndDogs
Guest
As I said, get older and then tell me that I’m wrong.
If you ain’t over forty, and married, you shouldn’t even be able to vote. But, that’s just my opinion! <chuckle!>
:shamrock2:
K
Kuzushi
Guest
If by demonstrated effectiveness you mean the vast array of real world wisdom assembled in the Catholic Church I agree. However, that does not mean prayer in and of itself does anything. If one goes forward believing strongly that God is on his side and is helping him, and he succeeds is it God or that persons strong belief that helped him? I submit that he could obtain the same benefits by attending a good positive thinking seminar.
The Bible says Jesus’s critics also accused him of using the devil to do good works, but he went into the house divided against itself cannot stand argument. Some fringe people may say it is the work of the devil just like those “Christians” who demonstrate at the funerals of soldiers concerning homosexual issues think they are doing God’s work. If the person whose arm grew back testified that he prayed and this is the result I am sure that the majority of clear thinking people would indeed be impressed and would attribute the act to God. If the case was definitively proven I certainly would.
You are basically creating your own doctrine by making an assumption that God has established a “miracle hierarchy.” God either does miracles or he does not.
The “miracles” where someone says I used to have pain and now I don’t are very nebulous. As I have said, ANY intervention by the creator of the universe in the lives of humans must, by definition, be a miracle. My argument is that there always seems to be a lack of APPARENT miracles. Why would that be? The counter-normal-mechanics-type miracles you mentioned should occur just as frequently as those miracles that are not apparent.
I think it is Dawkins who stated quite clearly that if evidence of the existence of God emerged he would be a fool to ignore it. In my experience most atheist are not so much anti-God as they are pro-truth.
Well as a married 48 year old cop I am well within your parameters. I know what you mean though, as I have trouble trusting anyone under 25.
Good posts Cats & Dogs. I like your arguements. It is good to see you are thinking
K
Kuzushi
Guest
Good question. I must make clear that I have tremendous respect for the scholarly and intellectual work of the people of the Catholic Church over the ages. Men like Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas et. al. were far smarter and more clever than I. The church does not just rubber stamp the Fatima “miracles,” but rather they are intensely investigated and scrutinized. All I can do is reiterate that during the course of all this time there certainly should have been an apparent miracle such as the re-growth of a limb. For this to happen the physical law that mater is neither created nor destroyed would probably have to be suspended.
Yep, me too.
- I half-joke with my Catholic friends that I am not all that impressed with the lives of saints who have experienced the certain supernatural power of God. I can only imagine that if I were to experience such an event, that my life would not even closely resemble what it is today…and even I, doubting Rico, would live a life worthy of sainthood?
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CatsAndDogs
Guest
It’s not the “positive thinking” that makes prayer effective. It is having God’s principles as your basis of action that make one courageous, and capable of seeing that whatever happens is what should happen, and is for the best.
Prayer is always answered, and always answered as best it can be answered. We just have to be open to deeply accepting that answer and finding the wisdom in it.
:shamrock2:
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CatsAndDogs
Guest
God is not a machine, nor a “law” of nature with a “normal” distribution of effect across some “domain”.
God is persons, and persons do as they wish, having free will.
He gets to pick and choose what happens for His reasons.
There is a reason that God presents miracles as He does, and I have no idea what that reasoning is, but you might want to meditate on why it is that what you would expect to happen doesn’t seem to happen. That prayerful meditation could be quite fruitful!
:shamrock2:
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CatsAndDogs
Guest
If evidence of God emerged which Dawkins would accept then it wouldn’t be God who had provided the evidence, because Dawkins doesn’t accept the only evidence which God DOES, constantly, offer.
Atheists like to think, and like others to think, that they are pro-truth and not anti-God, but they are merely pro-myopically scientistic materialist.
They aren’t interested in truth, but only “what works”. Those are not the same thing.
They are engineers with an agenda, not seekers after “good”.
:shamrock2:
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CatsAndDogs
Guest
Heh he he he… yeah, I’m only a couple of years ahead of you, going on 12, it seems.
I do like dealing with the wacky things that people toss out here which are obviously, and not so obviously, simply misunderstandings of various statements of the Church, and informing those making them of the facts, but sometimes I get sucked into people wanting me to convince them that what I’m saying is true.
I don’t do “convincing”! I do “informing”, as best as I’m informed, myself. When I’m wrong about something the Church says I’m RAPIDLY smacked down and dragged in for a good “re-education”, as it were.
:shamrock2:
J
JMJ_coder
Guest
Interesting observation. I wonder if this ideal stems from the misplaced ideal of many that humans should be more machine-like (hence machines and computers are always better at doing human things than humans) and thus a perfect being like God should be perfectly machine-like.
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CatsAndDogs
Guest
The “scientistic materialist” worldview (religion) is that “We are borg!”.
Perfect predictability is the sought after “heaven”, and that heaven MUST, of course, be “made” by people ON EARTH, in the material realm (as no other realm truly exists).
“Personhood” is nothing more than the “most complex deterministic machine” in action, to them. It’s another form of the old puritan/gnostic heresy.
We have no “free will”. Our apparent free will is just an illusion of extreme complexity. Persons aren’t special. They are just complex and “us”. But only those with “gnosis” will be capable of manipulating all other persons, via maximally effective minimally coercive “machinations”, to follow the dictates of the “illumined”.
The goal is stable predictable control of free will. This will never happen, of course, but it gives evil something to do so that it doesn’t notice it’s damnation in utter despair.
:shamrock2:
N
ncgolf
Guest
There is a book about Mother Theressa and the letters she wrote that discuss the spiritual dryness she endured. She had serious doubts about things … even at times questioning the existance of God. Yet look at the life she led.
I find the word control in your question a telling point. Control meaning you really want to determine your fate. If you really want control … let go of it …
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Rico_S
Guest
Kuzushi:
I am going to push a little harder here, b/c your posts generally reflect my thinking.
I agree that I believe the Church generally does scrutinize these events and does not rubber stamp them. The Church has said the miracle at Fatima is authentic. So…is this enough for you? Do you believe the the miracle of the dancing sun took place, and that God personally intervened in our world and suspended the laws of physics? If so, why the need for the clearly verifiable modern miracle of the regrowth of a limb?
–Rico
K
Kuzushi
Guest
There are many highly moral atheists. The principles and morality of Christianity are not unique.
K
Kuzushi
Guest
Again, God always gets the benefit of the doubt. When a prayer as meager as getting an extra unexpected dollar or two occurs Christians “thank the lord, praise his name,” but when their prayer is answered negatively, or usually ignored, they say “well he did not want me to have this.” Let’s be honest, most prayer “answers” fall into the category of the status quo remaining. Regardless of what occurs you will ALWAYS say the prayer was answered.
The Bible is full of promises and hope. Don’t you think it is time to use a more critical eye and wonder what is really going on? Over all these years and all the millions of Christians shouldn’t there be several cases of lost limbs or eyes being replaced?
K
Kuzushi
Guest
The truth “works” for me, and from reading Dawkins I think it would work for him too. It is EVIDENCE and logic that shows what is true.
- Status