Your experience is consistent with the faithful’s expectation.
Lady, you have been younger
Well, you saved the best for last. I don’t think some of the mentioned religions would have satisfied you.
My guess is you’ve heard it, but didn’t pay attention. Or, it might just by that you’ve never been in a state of mortal sin, in that case God might have chosen to let you go about your life since providence didn’t need to interfere extraordinarily (hence noticeably) to save or safeguard you.
You’re probably from the US. Trust me on this, in Europe we’ve had long standing atheistic materialism with roots in communism. So, claiming full-blown atheism isn’t uncommon at all - rather fashionable actually…
What do you think of the Fátima apparitions? (You haven’t applied your method of skepticism for us to see…) Just because God hasn’t spoken to you directly doesn’t mean He hasn’t supplied contemporary proof for you to verify. (And we obviate the fact that the sacraments are efficacious channels of grace, so through the sacraments you’d likely receive sensible graces. But that would imply a conversion that could only come from grace, so you’d have to start by using your own reason to ascertain what you could expect from converting in order to access the sacraments. It’s safe to say, so far, you haven’t looked into the catholic faith…Would you be willing to watch an assorted video or read an assorted text of my choice?)
Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Whether it is a virtue, or not is a matter of opinion.
demons are “preternatural” not “supernatural”. They too are part of God’s creation, although preceding “natural” creation - and being of another nature entirely.
In this case it isn’t faith @Pattylt because there are more than enough contemporary descriptions and eye witnesses that are entirely credible. Demonic activity can be accompanied by signs that violate the laws of physics and nature. There are also rules that apply to these cases, so you can verify -as one more piece of proof and evidence- that what’s stated in the Gospels is verified empirically. Although, that’s not the sort of proof one should prefer to seek. (it’s a macabre accessory, not everyone appreciates it but for some it has been an important tool of conversion and proof.)
Understanding can lead towards faith. You can verify through understanding the correctness of many articles of the faith - through reflection and critique. At one point you start entering a relationship with God, we are not assured everyone is called, but if seeking sincerely you should find. This might be preferable to a deathbed conversion.
It could be interesting to contrast your skepticism on some applied cases of miracles. It could be an interesting start.
No. In @(name removed by moderator) case I’d suspect she’s had enough psychical evidence of God’s providence. Hence it’s not a claim but an assertion, and the interior motions of the Holy Spirit follow their own methodology (especially locutions) so they can be verified through a complex set of causalities. (The same way they can be distinguished from psychosomatic symptoms that human sciences have in their inventory, and are verifiable - thus the “except in your own mind” is both misleading and provocative, since that would put away not only with mystical theology, but also with psychiatry, mental health, an all branches of psychology, including sports psychology.)
2+2=4
that’s what you say. which doesn’t make your statement true.
that’s your conclusion. and plenty of more qualified people (scientist who examined miracles included) think otherwise.
Faith is more than just 1 versicle taken out of the wider context. Stop quoting Hebrews if you can’t but butcher it. Haven’t seen you argue in terms of catechism…!!
NO. You speak of LAWS. “Law of gravity”, “Joule’s law”, and so forth…If you can’t get that much right take it easy from acting like a scientist.
You needed a masseuse.Thinker_Doer:
Believe it or not but I was there last week. Honestly.
I’d put my back out putting a suitcase in the car. And after we’d been to Lourdes…it got worse.
But that’s hardly a scientific experiment!
Not enough information. If they are symbols that we would normally recognise then we need to know what base you are using to count.Thinker_Doer:
2+2=4
I know when I have met my match.
At this point in my life, I am unable to travel to verify Fatima. I would have to experience it for myself. Otherwise I am just taking others word for it. While I don’t think they are all lying, I also know that some people do lie, some convince themselves they saw something when they may not have and some people mistranslated what they see into what they wish to see. So, I’m left with …I have to see it, but I can’t travel so I leave it in the category of…it’s interesting!
Since you ask, I’d have to take concrete cases for analyses. Fair play would demand someone propose a concrete well documented case. (There’s the case of gurus like Sai-Baba and others who claim to perform miracles, but those miracles fall into the category that can be demonic. Not the kind of miracle that has a unique and unmistakable signature of God the Father, the same of the the Torah. )
I must have read over 50 books on the subject and the counters don’t hold up. The counters are just venomous whilst the apologetic defense is extremely intricate and complex. (Going by reason and methodical critique there is quite an endeavor, since the burden of proof is placed on the proponent.)
It’s an historical event, there’s no going back in time. But this one is contemporary, well documented, and there has to be a number of eyewitness that make something credible.
Then, it’d be left to see if the miracle in question is conductive with the prerogatives that are exclusive to God.
Book of Judith.
Taking from Blaise Pascal:“If there were a 50% 50% chance on the existence of God, the surest bet would be on Him.”
We are alive. The universe exists.
You are welcome @PattyIt
What mode of knowing could generate this definition?
The experimental one.
We do accept that the scriptures are inspired based on faith. We can’t epistemologically reason our way to determine whether something written thousands of years ago was divinely inspired. I agree that we need common ground, so-called “preambles of faith” that are based on evidence we can access with reason and observation. The metaphysical existence of God, the historical evidence of the church and the bible, and the empirical investigation of miracles today may provide some common ground.
It depends on what you accept as discovery. There are rational arguments for the subsistence and indissolubility of the soul in the philosophy of mind, but this is not going to provide direct empirical observation of something that is immaterial, although we are intimately familiar with the material effects at every moment.
I do not disagree with that. But that does not answer what I asked. Humans only have our five senses to use as the (name removed by moderator)ut where we receive information. Theoretically it is possible to directly implant information onto our brain, but that would require “monkeying” with our thought processes, which would disallow our freedom of will.
This is a huge “bite” to chew upon. All the so-called philosophical arguments for God’s existence are filled with errors, and even if they would be good, they would only establish a faceless, deistic first cause, not the personal God of Christianity.
Oh, if it would be a 50-50 outcome, I would concede defeat.
I don’t know how inspiration “works” but I agree it could not have violated free will. So it could have been like a providential guidance, which looked (if we could look at it) to all appearances as a normal psychological process. Inspiration may not have been “miraculous” in the sense that it was empirically observable. For example at every Catholic Mass we believe that a supernatural event takes place, namely transubstantiation, but this is not a miracle in the strict empirical sense.
We disagree obviously; but it at least establishes a common ground of reasoning for us to engage something. And isn’t deism a step closer to theism?
Yes — mostly, or at least partially — but how do you explain the church? What caused it to begin? Since you put your money on the negative (no surprise there) for miracles I’m presuming you explain it away, but it’s still worth examining how you do that. Everyone is different and a unique thinker although we may align into broad categories or schools of thought.
Correct me if I’m wrong but that is typically the outcome from experiments on prayer? [See the STEP project.]