It's The 15th Of December - The Miracle Countdown

[Ouroboros]

We're closing in on the challenge. As I was told, the challenge is not yet over.

 

My son is still in the same shape as he was before, and on Monday he'll go into the hospital for tests, because he just got a serious infection, caused by his condition.

 

Last month we had a Christian here that I gave a challenge to, and it was to pray for my son for a miracle, a healing, and this person told me that the 15th of December would be a nice X-mas present for the family. So today is the last day, and we're waiting to see if God can show his universe-creating-powers to heal a person and with that cause a whole family to believe.

 

It's up to him now (if he exists).

[Mythra]

Such an easy thing for creator of the universe. Easy as a human being tossing away a cigarrette butt.

 

And, we can safely assume that Ex-C would be decimated, seeing how so many of us have been following this for so long.

 

How could God possibly turn his face?

 

Unless he is something other than what is claimed.

 

Or nothing at all.

 

I would literally crawl on my hands and knees from my doorstep to yours, Hansolo - if it would do the trick.

 

Yet God won't toss away a cigarrette butt.

 

Makes you wonder.

[Ouroboros]

Yup.

 

I know with my passion, and with the background that I wanted to become a missionary when I was a Christian, this would really be a good deal. Just a little miracle, and he'll get a whole family, convinced and already with the right mind and courage to go anywhere possible to spread his message and his healing.

 

You know, one of my goals in life was to go into full time ministry, but I wanted to first raise my kids until such an age they wouldn't be too much of work. I feel responsibility at home, so I knew I had to help with the babies, and provide food and such, so my plan was to first get my finances in order and then I'd go full time.

 

But, well, wouldn't you know, God's plans was to totally eradicate all that. God's plan was to hurt my family instead. Probably because I was so frigging self-centered, arrogant and prideful to think that I wanted to spread God's gospel and take care of my family because I love them. So the message from God was pretty clear... he doesn't care... or what I realized was easier to accept, he doesn't have a mind to think or care with, because he doesn't exist.

 

Like you say, it's such a small token from God to heal someone. When the argument comes up that "God has a plan", then I think, "so it was his plan for the whole family to lose their faith and get very passionate about that Christians are delusional?" Yeah, thumbs up God, your plan is working great. Then of course the argument is "but you deny him because you have a free will". Well, didn't God know that already? So he hurt me and my family becasue he has a plan, but the plan is foiled because he also gave me a free will? Doesn't it mean that his plan was crap, or he didn't know the outcome?

[R. S. Martin]

We're closing in on the challenge. As I was told, the challenge is not yet over.

 

My son is still in the same shape as he was before, and on Monday he'll go into the hospital for tests, because he just got a serious infection, caused by his condition.

 

I'm pretty good at reading minds. And I think I can read yours quite accurately right now. If God is real then those tests won't be needed because in less than twelve hours (okay maybe just a bit over 12 since you're on the West Coast) your son will be good as new which means the infection caused by his condition will be healed as a consequence of the miracle promised by God's Special Servant. Ironically, this Special Servant of the Lord managed to get himself quaranteed from this site by his obnoxious behaviour toward a new and seeking member right after promising you that miracle.

 

Hans, I really want to see your son healed but I don't want you to turn into an obnoxious self-righteous bully for Christ like Chibby. Hans, I wish you hadn't set the stakes so high--maybe you could get the healing without having to go into full-time ministry or something--but since you did I guess I'll have to play along. Just so I know which way to send my thoughts. If you do become a Christian will you promise not to become such a self-righteous bully to the rest of us who still cannot convert because the plan of salvation makes no sense? (Or maybe you will be able to readjust the plan of salvation so it makes sense if you get this inside connection with god where he will actually heal you son. ) Because if you don't I am not sure that I want your son to be healed-- and THIS is why I said I wish you hadn't set the stakes so high. I WANT your son to be healed. I don't think it's fair that he should suffer just because his father won't promise not to become an obnoxious self-righteous bully. But maybe you love your son so much that you will promise not to become that kind of Christian (IF god materializes enough to heal your son).

 

Whew! this is heavy stuff. And I always manage to see the heaviest most serious side of everything that's even half serious.

[Ouroboros]

I'm pretty good at reading minds. And I think I can read yours quite accurately right now. If God is real then those tests won't be needed because in less than twelve hours (okay maybe just a bit over 12 since you're on the West Coast) your son will be good as new which means the infection caused by his condition will be healed as a consequence of the miracle promised by God's Special Servant. Ironically, this Special Servant of the Lord managed to get himself quaranteed from this site by his obnoxious behaviour toward a new and seeking member right after promising you that miracle.

Since I kind of was thinking that most of the members knew my son's situation I didn't spell it out so you would know the details. His condition is that he's parapledgic because of a spine severed and damaged in three places. He has only one kidney, only half of his intenstines, part of his pancreas removed, part of his liver removed and many other things on top of that. The infection is a result of these conditions. The healing he needs and Chibiq promised was that my son would walk again. But instead, this infection came last week.

 

Hans, I really want to see your son healed but I don't want you to turn into an obnoxious self-righteous bully for Christ like Chibby. Hans, I wish you hadn't set the stakes so high--maybe you could get the healing without having to go into full-time ministry or something--

It's very simple. Not even with medical technology or knowledge today can they heal my son. If my son would walk again, there are probably hundreds of medical professionals that also would convert rather instantly. My son had 24 surgeries in 2 months in the year 96-97, over X-mas. It's about 11 years ago now when he was in and out of the OR every second day.

 

If he gets healed, it is truly a miracle. The healing I asked Chibiq for was not the infection, but several clusters of spinal cord nerves, healed intestines, internal scar tissue removed and much more... Regarding the infection, my son has fought more infections than you and I have had in our lifetime together. That's nothing.

 

So, no, my part of the deal is not too high, because if this can happen, then I know for certainty something more is out there than just this world. We've been waiting for this for 11 years, and there's been so many hard core believers praying for him over that time, but so far... nothing.

 

but since you did I guess I'll have to play along. Just so I know which way to send my thoughts. If you do become a Christian will you promise not to become such a self-righteous bully to the rest of us who still cannot convert because the plan of salvation makes no sense? (Or maybe you will be able to readjust the plan of salvation so it makes sense if you get this inside connection with god where he will actually heal you son. ) Because if you don't I am not sure that I want your son to be healed-- and THIS is why I said I wish you hadn't set the stakes so high. I WANT your son to be healed. I don't think it's fair that he should suffer just because his father won't promise not to become an obnoxious self-righteous bully. But maybe you love your son so much that you will promise not to become that kind of Christian (IF god materializes enough to heal your son).

If it happens, I will spend half of my time understand when and how God heals and I would go out and spread the healing the same way. Because I am certain there are millions of hurt and sick people that would be convinced if they truly got healed and not just some trickery. I know how they do all those "healing" and "miracle" meetings, and there's nothing to it. What I'm talking about is to have the real dead. And a miracle can only be used to convince the receiver, not the observers.

 

I think it's important to understand the difference. If I go to some magic show and someone gets "healed", it wouldn't convince me. But if I'm sick, or if someone I know very well and I know the medical history off and details, and if I know that what they have is definitely not curable with natural medicine or even by pure chance, and they get healed, then it's quite clear something happened. Put it this way. My son has a medical archive that fills a garage (no, seriously, it does). There were specialist taken in from several parts of this country to do surgery on my son. Since I know my son's situation to the full extent, I know it can't just be done currently (but I think it will in the future), and I know what he has doesn't heal by itself. Usually when a spinal injury does heal itself, it shows within a year to two years after the accident, but here we're talking about 11 years.

 

Whew! this is heavy stuff. And I always manage to see the heaviest most serious side of everything that's even half serious.

It is very serious. This is very similar to the "why can't God heal amputees" website. For someone to get "healed" from a common cold or from toe fungus isn't a miracle. It's not bigger than losing your TV remote and ask the pet rock for guidance and then you find the remote and you think the pet rock had something to do with it, but this healing is more like "make the sun go backwards on the sky" level of event.

 

And it's important to know that in my challenge, it only includes me in the deal. If my son gets healed, it's only I that promise to convert, but I know my family would too since they know my sons situation. I would not demand or ask anyone here or anyone I know to do the same thing. But I would try to spread the same kind of goodness to everyone else and then it there would be less deniability for the existence of said god.

 

But I hope you understand I don't think it's very likely any of this will happen. Sure, I wish it could, but I don't live in dreamland anymore. And that's why the challenge is for the Christians to believe and pray and overcome any obstacles, like me and my family's doubts.

[R. S. Martin]

Hans, thank you for explaining. I am touched by the story. I think it should be published in Guideposts because it shows how one man and his family learned to cope with an impossible situation. I guess they wouldn't take it because the Praying Believers and Unanswered Prayer discredits their god.

 

It has occurred to me to send them my story with the emphasis on overcoming incredible odds just to see whether the positive thinking and problem solution or god is more important to their philosophy. I could even write the story with no reference to religion or lack thereof but they might still throw god into the closing sentence. I've seen stories where religion was not mentioned until the last sentence. Looks awfully suspicious.They accommodate various religions but would they accommodate no religion? Yet stories like yours should be told.

[Ouroboros]

That's why I'm here Ruby.

 

I participate in helping people who struggle with faith like here, but I have realized it's not my place to de-convert people actively. I take them on as they come, but "when the disciple is ready, the teacher will be there", i.e. I think people can't understand until they are at a position where they can listen and understand. For instance, I don't go to any Christian forums or any other forum at all to discuss these things, because this website is a place where people like you and me or those who doubt gravitate towards. Here we can talk about it, and things can be understood. On a religious website, they are too blinded by their opinions to even hear the first sentence.

[Grandpa Harley]

TBH, if Han's son (wasn't that a boy band?) gets healed before Midnight hits the international date line (here there is 1 hour and 40 mins of 15 Dec left) I'll join the ministry. The catastrophic injuries that Han Jr sustained would mean an unequivocal miracle. Hell, another three feet of bowel or a repaired spleen would be enough to get me to be a believer, but the whole shooting match? Now that would be like completely replacing the Golden Gate Bridge without stopping traffic in one day, and not one car ending up in the bay or delayed. I would become the Reverend Grandpa Harley in a moment, but I'd be expecting ChibiQ to be praying for a whole RAFT of people I dealt with in my days working as Head of EU IT for a EL/PL loss adjusters...

[Mythra]

I'll toss a coin to see if I become a disciple of Hansolo or Grandpa Harley.

 

I think I might need training before going out on my own.

[Mythra]

WAIT A MINUTE!

 

I could go be a bell ringer for the Salvation Army!

 

Okay. That's my pledge.

 

Right time of year for it, too.

[Grandpa Harley]

I have helped out with the Sally Ann. It was great. Not one asked me about God, just set me on brewing tea. For an evangelist group, when the excrement makes contact with the rotary air circulatory device, they don't care who believes what, just that you either need help, or you can do something useful to help those that need help.

 

They're one of the few Religious groups I am prepared to forgive mild homophobia in... bit like having an eccentric but essentially good hearted uncle who will always cheerfully lend a hand, even though he doesn't approve of you... if you enter hell on as willingly as those chaps, I'm prepared to cut a little slack about their opinions when the hell has passed.

[GraphicsGuy]

I really wish it would happen, Han. I really do.

 

I'm typing this and crying because I hope so hard that it happens.

 

But I weep because I don't believe it will.

 

But I wish it would.

[Grandpa Harley]

I'll toss a coin to see if I become a disciple of Hansolo or Grandpa Harley.

 

I think I might need training before going out on my own.

I could see my outreach ministry being essentially Jesuit in nature. The outfits are cooler, and they tend to be allowed more latitude in dealing with other faiths...

[Mythra]

I really wish it would happen, Han. I really do.I'm typing this and crying because I hope so hard that it happens.But I weep because I don't believe it will.But I wish it would.

 

Fuck.

 

Now I'm crying.

 

Fuck.

 

goddamn god

[GraphicsGuy]

Fuck.

 

Now I'm crying.

 

*sniff* Glad I'm not the only pansy in the bunch...lol

[Ouroboros]

You guys are really great!

 

Sometimes when I talk about these things I feel that I might come out and sound like very factual and unemotional about it all, and that it might sound like I'm trying to throw all the worst things to just load it up, and that actually makes it harder to talk about it. Some years ago I couldn't talk much about it because I would get too sad and emotional, but now when I can handle it, I feel I sound detached. Well, hopefully you all can see through that and know that I care much for my son and I'm not using my son's situation just to get a large club and hit hard-headed Christians with, but rather, this is the issue that will be the hardest stumbling block for my family to ever go back. Even if I did believe there is a God of some kind, I would have a very difficult time to think that God would be the same as the Christian one. I think Christian God is very false and confused and have nothing to give or educate us about.

[R. S. Martin]

Midnight on the dot here. Uh, my clock is two minutes fast and the exC clock on my computer is twenty minutes behind real time but okay now it's midnight. Dec. 15, 2007 has ended in Eastern Time.

[white_raven23]

Maybe Alaska Time? It's only 8:09PM here.... Just under 4 hours.

 

[sojourner]

I dont know how you do it HanSolo, how you arent bitter and angry but instead you really are patient, kind and it blows my mind how people say things like 'you just needed faith' and crap like that and you respond the way you do. You show more fruit in your life than most of us that claim to be christians and in the face of great trials that most of us couldnt imagine.

 

I am so sad that you didnt get your miracle, I too am in tears. I really hoped that you would. But truthfully what these folks that say those things cant see is that you ARE a miracle!

 

Sojourner

[SWIM]

I definitely have this thread bookmarked. First thing I will read tomorrow. Hans, I think you have a lot of strength and courage. As a father I cannot even begin to imagine this happening to one of mine, I'd be psycho (like I'm not already..)

 

You handle it really well, with dignity and honor, and I respect you for that.

[R. S. Martin]

You guys are really great!

 

Sometimes when I talk about these things I feel that I might come out and sound like very factual and unemotional about it all, and that it might sound like I'm trying to throw all the worst things to just load it up, and that actually makes it harder to talk about it. Some years ago I couldn't talk much about it because I would get too sad and emotional, but now when I can handle it, I feel I sound detached. Well, hopefully you all can see through that and know that I care much for my son and I'm not using my son's situation just to get a large club and hit hard-headed Christians with, but rather, this is the issue that will be the hardest stumbling block for my family to ever go back. Even if I did believe there is a God of some kind, I would have a very difficult time to think that God would be the same as the Christian one. I think Christian God is very false and confused and have nothing to give or educate us about.

 

Hans, the one thing that has come through to me loud and clear is how much you love your son, how very much your son means to you. He's the only one in your family you ever talk about so that sometimes I think he's all you've got. But you have mentioned a wife and I think you've mentioned other kids. I understand you've become a very strong family through this. I am not sure what happened. I think you said there was a car accident of some kind. And by the injuries he's living with it seems a wonder he's alive. So anyway, if it was a car accident, other items that tend to take huge emotional tolls are who was driving and whose fault was the accident. I sure hope all of this doesn't come down to one of the parents because how much can one person handle. But whatever, you seem to be doing an awful good job at handling whatever is on your plate.

 

Once upon a time I heard about a God who wasn't there.

 

Before that, I heard sermons about how only religious people can handle difficult stuff because of our own selves we couldn't do it. I went so far as to claim I did my own transition on my own. I said that to Christians. I was desperate for answers they weren't giving me. I hoped against hope that this would shock them to really think and give up their closely hoarded store of answers. All it got me was a few restrained but shocked suggestions that I really did not do it all on my own. I knew then not to waste any more time on them.

 

When they said I could ask questions, apparently they didn't mean real questions--the kind that would challenge the central tenets of the faith itself. Sounds very similar to when they say "Prayer changes things." It only works so long as it is applied only to stuff that would happen anyway and not to any real changes like amputations or other lost body parts or organs.

 

God/prayer didn't stop Katrina. Prayer/god didn't stop the terrorists. God refuses--absolutely and totally and completely and [what else could I put in here]--to just stop the war and famine and all other horrible things that are happening right now in this world to sentient beings. Not even the devil (if he existed) could demonstate such complete disinterest. And we're supposed to believe God exists???

 

Hans, I know you love your son. I'm glad you share the story. The tenacity of the human spirit to persevere in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds is overwhelming. Keep knocking the xians over the head with it if you feel so inclined. Maybe it will knock sense into someone's head. Have you anyway to update Chibby on the outcome of his prayer vigil?

 

Maybe you don't want to, given his board status and all. I just like to see them defeated and I like to see them admit it.

[Grandpa Harley]

Well... I believe that the 15th of December has now peeled off the planet completely, and it's 3AM (just gone) of the 17th December 2007.

 

I need to know if I'm going to have to break it to my family that I'm becoming a man of God or not...

[Kelli]

Hans, I can't imagine how difficult this must be for you. Thankfully all of my children are healthy. I have no idea how I would handle it if I had to deal with what you face. My heart goes out to you. I wish it were really possible for a god to perform miracles like this.

 

Hugs,

 

~Kel

[SWIM]

Hans, I can't imagine how difficult this must be for you. Thankfully all of my children are healthy. I have no idea how I would handle it if I had to deal with what you face. My heart goes out to you. I wish it were really possible for a god to perform miracles like this.

 

Hugs,

 

~Kel

 

Well, the deadline's came and past without so much as a question from the xtians "how's your son", that speaks VOLUMES on how much faith they have that the "miracle" happened.

 

Sorry Hans, had the healing happened, I'd be right there with you celebrating. I know your hopes are not dashed though, you never expected this to work, nor did I, but it was a good test of faith for the xtians.

 

Especially one troll here that put the proverbial foot-in-mouth....

 

Kelli! Cool sig! Nice to see snow for a change, been a while since I saw any.

[Ouroboros]

Thanks guys.

 

My son is still sleeping, so I will report as soon as he's awake.

 

 

Ruby,

 

Yes, I have 5 kids, and I love them all equally. The accident happened 11 years ago, my wife and brother in law (who was driving) were supposed to drive up to Washinton State with my kids but on the way there had been a situation with two trucks. And the road was blocked with a large steel coil. Well, there's so many details to the story and it would take an aweful long time to write it all down, but in short, I was not in the car, I was home working - or actually sleeping. My wife and brother in law took the kids in the van to go to Washinton state to visit family on my wife's side. They wanted to do a little stop a MacDonalds, but they missed the off-ramp in the dark (God could have done a very small miracle here to prevent the following events - if he had just made them aware of the off-ramp in time, nothing of this would have happened). They continue on the road, and they see the trucks on the right side, and move to the left lane, where the coil is. And in the dark and it was raining, you can't see this roll of stell, and the truck drivers who had been there for 10-15 minutes didn't start any flares or any warning signs at all. So my famiily smashed into the roll in full speed and pretty much the impact and the injuries from the seat belt caused all the problems. They say the safest place is in the middle seat in the back. So of some freak statistics ignorance, they mean that you are less likely to die in that seat, but you will be crippled for life. This is where he was. My other kids got injured too, but not as much. My two other sons had broken spines too, and one of them had to have it fused, the other one a body cast. My oldest daughter got into a mental shock that lasted for months. She would only scream, and not say a word. Only my youngest one could go home the same day. But my wife also were severely hurt, and the brother in law got a few small injuries. The safest place is in the drivers seat. When you see "5 star safety" rating, it means in the driver seat, not in the passanger seat or the back seats, they are about "zero star rating" most of the time. Just so you know. It's better now though, and our accident and following lawsuits that lasted until this year have been part of forcing the car industry to put in a three-point belt in the back-middle seat.