Miracle Of Healed Vision Or A Hoax?

[trueagnostic]

Before I get absorbed into studies as my graduate program starts on wednsday I decided to make another post. If you will want to reply, make it brief because I cannot write long answers.

Basically my "search for truth" has not yeilded a definite answer, and in particular it did not force me to rule out God as a possibility for being the truth. Please bear with me, let me tell you about what I did these recent weeks.

First, I encountered quite a bit of supporting arguments during the last two weeks to believe Christianity is a myth. I read through portions of Dawkins books. Read a lot from God Delusion, Blind Watchmaker, Mount Improbable and a few others, in total 10 anti-religion and pro-evolution books. I agree with the author's logic and everything. At times I felt quite convinced by his arguments and caught myself on being critical minded about religious expriences of other people around me. In particular I went to a 3-day camp with my church youth and had a chance to listen to the "testimonies" of God in my "brothers and sisters" lives. Some talked about answered prayers and others were very genuingly happy for them, others shared trials and temptations they face, and others encouraged them (btw christian culture at least in my churh is a very nice place to be at, you get a lot of sinsere friends and (almost, to be fair) unconditionally loving atmosphere). I listened to this and thought to myself: "random chances, atheists have as many "answered prayers" and trials as you guys". Some even talked about supernatural experience of feeling satanic presense during the night -- feeling that evil force is in the room and you cannot move. I listened to that and while others (actually people of my age --20 and over!) nodded their heads and sympathetically said "amen" I thought "great, you had sleep paralysis".

On the other hand some stuff in Dawkins books were quite obviously his speculations, hypothesis and not very convincing arguments. Since those don't lead to disproving or proving any side of the issue of my search I won't bring examples, I would guess you experienced a feeling of being unconvinced by some of his writings too.

My primary reason for quite seriously considering Christianity for truth is my meeting with Christians today. I already mentioned the story of Jenya Polishuk before (for some reason noone directly commented on it) Let me remind her story.

As a young woman living in USSR (now Ukraine) she got a spine problem because of hard physical labor. First she couldn't walk so she used a wheelchair and eventually her disease progressed so that she had to lie on a bed. He knees were touching her chest, she had a big bump on her back, could only use lower part of her hands and she was bold on left side of her head as the hair fell out. For 4 years and 7 month she laid in a bed and was spoonfed. One day two christians stopped by to pray for her and a whole room of visitors came to see the prayer. As they prayed "the power came down on her" and she got up to her feet. In five or ten seconds she transformed from a handicap laying on a bed to a normal woman standing on her feet with legs and hands straight and fully functional. The witnesses had to close their ears because the noise from bones cracking was so loud. The hair grew later naturally, she got married and moved to US.

When I was small I read the story and wanted to see her. This week I called her up, made an appointment to see her on Saturday at 12, and today spent over 2 hours interviewing her and her husband at their apartment in Kent, WA.

Before I went I read a pertinent part from the book "How to think about weird things Critical thinking for a new age" that was recommended by the user chefranden (thanks, nice book) and wanted to ensure that I don't get carried away by the appeal of the testimony. When I came I saw a very boyant, cheerful and active woman, she's over 70 (born at 1934).I checked the story for verifiability -- asked if there were witnesses in the room. She said the room was full of people and although her memory was hazy because she was concentrated on her healing at the time, she remembers Maria Kushnir, her neighbor was one of the witnesses; she also said Maria should be alive and lives in the same village Buhariv in Rovno county of Ukraine. Another woman she named has already died. None of the medical documents have been preserved because she said, when the next day communists arrived to her house, they threatened to kill her if she decides to testify about her healing. Consequently medical records of her disease have been probably destroyed by communists.

I suggested to her and her husband an alternative explanation: perhaps some nerve was squeezed in her spine and it got released by her body during the prayer causing the transformation in her posture. Well, her husband objected, doctors told her later that at no way a released nerve could cause a bump on her back to disappear.. and why during prayer? Also she had been spoonfed for 4 years and after the healing was able to eat immediately. She wasn't able to turn from one side to another because of pain and laid in that position for over 4 years, which would have caused her legs to atrophy, and in 10 or so seconds she was able to stand and walk freely..

Alyways, you would say strange things happen. Why not say God may exist?

Next, I listened to the testimony of Jenya's husband today as well. I did not plan to hear that, but he told me and I was baffled again.

Please forgive me for using anecdotal evidence. I understand all problems and downsides of such evidence, but I think you can't discard easily a first person account, and that's what I am giving here. I told Mykola today about my doubts about "speaking in toungs" and how I never saw a christian speak in real foreign language that the speaker would not undestand (As an agnostic I play devils advocate all the time, bringing here pro-christian arguments, and anti-christian ones when talking to believers). Mykola told me that he himself had spoken foreign language during a prayer. Hre is the story in his words short:

"At one of the services I was praying in tongues when I felt the spirit fill me in a powerful way. It is agreement in church that you don't speak in tongues loudly if you don't have an interpretation of the message since noone else will understand. Suddenly I felt that I could not resist any more and started to speak out loud in the tongues and as I spoke I heard myself speak in German. I know few phrases in German like "good morning" and "how are you", and that's it, and here I was speaking whole sentences in the German language. The next service a woman and my distant relative came up to me and said that god touched her through that prayer. She said "Mykola if I had not known you and your family I would not have believed you didn't know German. God told me about my life through you". The woman was married to a German man and although she didn't speak German well she could understand it well. God spoke through my mouth in German to tell her about her sins and not to embarass her before others as noone else could understand German"

 

Thanks for reading. Like I said, if you want to write an answer, make it brief. I understand the objections about anecdotal evidence, but as you can see, these were first person experiences.

ps: guess what? I can already see that you will discount the validity of these claims. Honestly, what I want is rest. Most likely I will push away "god issue" for couple of years and will plunge into my masters studies. However ,unlike many of you, I live in a christian family and am dependent on parents for shelter since I am full time student and so am virtually obliged to go to church twice a week (imagine how much time that takes!). Whether I want it or not I am constantly reminded of the life question...

TA

[Ouroboros]

Interesting stuff TA,

 

Here's a thought I remember having a couple of years ago, while I was still a Christian.

 

Lets say there is a spirit world, and there are miracles happening. Lets say there is some supernatural things that can happen through prayer. Consider now that other religions have similar stories and events. Now, lets say that prayer--just as such--to whatever God, or super-begin you want to believe in, would be enough to cause these miracles. Based on this thinking, how can I use miracles as a proof that it must be Judeo-Christian Jesus-God that did the miracle, and not just a supernatural effect that we all could tap into? Maybe, just for the sake of argument, we could agree that the supernatural powers could be unleashed through generic prayers by a believer of any kind, and as such, it doesn't prove the Bible God for one second.

 

What do you think?

[florduh]

TA, if I had your experience I would question reality myself. You were as close as one can get without actually witnessing with your own eyes. Giving the credit to the Christian god is as reasonable as giving it to any of the other gods to whom miracles have been attributed. There is no doubt that some strange and inexplicable things do happen. Different cultures come up with different explanations.

 

I don't have the specifics at hand, but I am aware of true medical miracles. Incurable, debilitating diseases go into remission almost instantly. Blind people have inexplicably regained sight. Sometimes the healing triggered by religious ecstasy connected to one religion/god or another. Sometimes it is just spontaneous regardless of religious beliefs or lack thereof.

 

The interesting things to me are, why did a supposedly merciful God let the woman suffer so long, and (it's almost cliché) why hasn't he ever re-grown a limb for an amputee? That would be documentable and convert a lot of people to worship the god responsible for the miracle.

 

Keep looking, keep an open mind, and I shall strive to do the same. Good luck with your grad school.

[florduh]

Interesting stuff TA,

 

Here's a thought I remember having a couple of years ago, while I was still a Christian.

 

Lets say there is a spirit world, and there are miracles happening. Lets say there is some supernatural things that can happen through prayer. Consider now that other religions have similar stories and events. Now, lets say that prayer--just as such--to whatever God, or super-begin you want to believe in, would be enough to cause these miracles. Based on this thinking, how can I use miracles as a proof that it must be Judeo-Christian Jesus-God that did the miracle, and not just a supernatural effect that we all could tap into? Maybe, just for the sake of argument, we could agree that the supernatural powers could be unleashed through generic prayers by a believer of any kind, and as such, it doesn't prove the Bible God for one second.

 

What do you think?

 

You weren't asking me, but I think your premise doesn't even need a supernatural force. Belief itself could trigger natural mind-body phenomena. Hypnosis is indicative of that, as well as traditional psychotherapy.

[Ouroboros]

You weren't asking me, but I think your premise doesn't even need a supernatural force. Belief itself could trigger natural mind-body phenomena. Hypnosis is indicative of that, as well as traditional psychotherapy.

Yes I know, but if you put that aside, and if you're a person who believe in supernatural powers, if it was true that supernatural things did happen, how can a person be sure that it is a God who makes those supernatural events to happen, or if there possibly could be a total different system of supernatural forces, all of them together, working in the favor of a believer of any kind? Do you understand my angle here? I'm not arguing about the religious/supernatural vs atheist/natural explanation here, but if you think of arguing within the framework of a believer. What makes a Christian miracle a proof of God, while a Hindu miracle wouldn't prove Shiva? Or a new age guy praying to mother nature and get some "results", they would prove his belief to be true. So if the supernatural did exist, it seems like the multiple venues to get miracles would be an indicator that which God or belief is true, but just that belief itself would be the tool for the effects. *damn, the dogs bark again, for the 10th time... can't think... I'll try to explain tomorrow when things calm down around here... later...*

[florduh]

Got you, Han. Just saying you would need some other reason to believe in the supernatural, because natural causes can explain the phenomenon.

 

Go pet the dogs.

[Ouroboros]

Got you, Han. Just saying you would need some other reason to believe in the supernatural, because natural causes can explain the phenomenon.

 

Go pet the dogs.

They calmed down for a couple of minutes... one of my sons came home, that's why they were barking so much.

 

But yes, of course there are more natural explanations. My argument was something I thought of a few years back, while still being Christian. As a Christian, "how can I be sure the miracle is from God, and not caused by some other unknown supernatural force?" It's a bit like regular superstition, like when the guy in front of the TV, watching his favorite team playing in football, and he's wearing the same "lucky shirt" he has been wearing at every game the last 10 years. And he strongly believe that the shirt makes a different for the outcome. So basically, even if supernatural events were happening, maybe it's Loke, from the old norse belief, who play tricks on people for his own enjoyment? Who could tell the difference? Or there could even be highly technological aliens too, who made the lady's back straighten out in Russia, and everyone (wrongly) thought it was God.

[Neon Genesis]

\What makes a Christian miracle a proof of God, while a Hindu miracle wouldn't prove Shiva? Or a new age guy praying to mother nature and get some "results", they would prove his belief to be true. So if the supernatural did exist, it seems like the multiple venues to get miracles would be an indicator that which God or belief is true, but just that belief itself would be the tool for the effects. *damn, the dogs bark again, for the 10th time... can't think... I'll try to explain tomorrow when things calm down around here... later...*

I think I understand what you mean. Presuming the supernatural exists, how do we know that this miracle wasn't caused by Satan to tempt Christians into believing in the wrong denomination? So, you can believe the miracles are real but if the miracles are caused by Satan, you'll risk eternal damnation by believing in them, or if you don't believe in the miracles, you'll still risk eternal damnation by not believing in them. Besides which, even if we accept that this is a miracle from god, this still doesn't answer the problem of evil and suffering. Why does god heal this woman but doesn't heal the starving children in middle eastern countries or regrow the limbs of an amputee? If this is a miracle from god, but god allows countless numbers of other people to suffer, many who are good Christians themselves, then the only thing this proves is that god is truly evil and does not deserve worship. And if these people who claim to have been healed are true Christians trueagnostic, then why don't you ask them to handle snakes or drink poison to prove it, like it says in Mark 16:17-18

These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues;

 

18they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

For people who are supposedly true Christians, they sure love to cherry pick which signs they'll believe in but I don't see any of them willing to drink poison to prove god exists.

[florduh]

I like the concept of Satan performing miracles. The scenario could be someone prays to a Christian god and Satan answers. The Christian attributes the miracle to the Christian god, but Satan has cleverly deflected that person's faith away from the true god, Allah.

 

Sweet.

[Ouroboros]

I think I understand what you mean. Presuming the supernatural exists, how do we know that this miracle wasn't caused by Satan to tempt Christians into believing in the wrong denomination?

You got it.

 

The possibilities are endless. Who to say it wasn't another rouge angel? Maybe a Satan-wannabe. I mean, God really doesn't have much control over his domain... he let Satan play his own game... oh, yeah, he planned it... but then, how do we know God isn't planning another surprise? Another Satan? Or maybe he created another planet with aliens, and they're sending an armada of battleships to Earth, as we speak? There's no limitation to religious imagination.

[Ouroboros]

I like the concept of Satan performing miracles. The scenario could be someone prays to a Christian god and Satan answers. The Christian attributes the miracle to the Christian god, but Satan has cleverly deflected that person's faith away from the true god, Allah.

Yup. How can we really know?

 

My argument wasn't really about Satan, but it's a good point both of you made. I was just thinking in more general terms, like, lets imaging for a second that we telekinetic and psychic powers did exist. X-Men here we come (X-Chmen?). And without knowing it, we could influence nature in one way or the other. But only if the person got the right "openness" in his brain (or whatever). So when this guy (who is more open) pray to Santa Claus or Zeus, he see miracles, because his psychic powers make it happen, but he still thinks is Santa Claus or Zeus doing the miracles. In this situation, if it was true, it really doesn't matter who we pray to, as long as it opens up the psychic channels. In the end it gives the same result as the Satan argument, who are we to say "it must be MY God who did the miracle" since there are alternative explanations?

[trueagnostic]

think I understand what you mean. Presuming the supernatural exists, how do we know that this miracle wasn't caused by Satan to tempt Christians into believing in the wrong denomination? So, you can believe the miracles are real but if the miracles are caused by Satan, you'll risk eternal damnation by believing in them, or if you don't believe in the miracles, you'll still risk eternal damnation by not believing in them.

I appreciate your comments Neon Genesis, they show out-of-the-box, insightful thinking. I once had a long period of depressive thinking that perhaps if God exists he may be playing a game with us by having Christians work hard for "salvation" and supporting their strivings with occasional miracles; however in the end he will send Christians to hell and the rest of people (unbelievers) will enjoy heavens or simply cease to exist. I know how silly this sounds, but again there is no way you can disprove such hypothesis. Another words there is a myriad ways to explain miracles even if they could be proved (in case with Jenya, I wish she had some X-rays to really make the case substantive) in a way that makes believing in Jesus unrewarding. However from my personal research on miracles and readings I found interesting trend that gives basis to believing true miracles happen to Christians only.

a) The persons involved in miracles or are praying for a miracle are Christians.

They are not just christians but extremely holly Christians. Being a "good christian" is not sufficient. I had an American boss who was christian but flirted (almost sexually harassed) his russian coworker. He's a worship leader in his church and you would have to see how deeply he worshiped! That would make him a good christian for most people around him in church, but obviously he wasn't holly by the new testament standards.

What I mean is a person supposedly has to be holly completely and confess all sins before asking for a healing. Jenya Polishuk was "healed" during the prayer of Dmitry Berezyuk -- the guy who is still alive (I know his physical address in Ukraine) Besides Jenya's healing he was involved in a host of other miracles and later one guy (Viktor Kotovsky)took an interview with him (here is a link in russian http://www.evangelie.ru/forum/t24249.html) . The interview is large, abounding with interesting cases of supernatural, and that's the reading that I already alluded to that makes me work hard investigating before I ever leave christianity for good. I haven't translated it yet, but here is an excerpt that illustrates the importance of "holliness" for a miracle to take place. Dmitry sais:

 

"Once I have been to a service and I see a man and a woman come in into the worship house. The Lord spoke to me "These people have agreed in their badroom not to have any more children. For this I struck her with insanity, if they repent, I will heal her". After the service I walk out and the husband of that woman catches up with me and sais "Brother, we have a need." I said I know your need, and if you take your words back, which you had said in your badroom, when you agreed with your wife about that sin, and if you repent, God will heal your wife right away. He looks at me. "Wife, so what do we do? There is nowhere else to go, everything's clear! Let's repent?" They repented, prayed and God healed her immediately, and they had been to Kiev, Lutsk, and everywhere else."

 

I brought this up for purely illustrative reasons -- to show the emphasis on "no sin tolerated" nature of christian miracles. Of course if I had an opportunity now, I'd go see Dmitry Berezyuk immediately, would locate the couple in question and ask for their story. In total, my own investigation of miracles indicate that true christian belief is always a prerequisite. Sure, I admit that I haven't looked deep into other religions. First of I don't have connections anywhere else and don't have a base of knowledge about miracles happening in other religions. I would appreciate if someone can give me a case of a similarly impressive miracle candidates that I have discribed in christian religion. I would be happy to investigate those cases as well. For example, if there was a buddhist woman, who had a condition that Jenya had and during some buddhist ritual she was healed in 10 seconds, that would give me a cause to instantly embrace broader concept of God, or just as well discard god at all. It's natural to assume that all religions have the same occurance of miracles, but my (limited, and partially skewed to Christianity I admit) experience sais differently.

 

And if these people who claim to have been healed are true Christians trueagnostic, then why don't you ask them to handle snakes or drink poison to prove it, like it says in Mark 16:17-18

This question can be answered by Christian dogma argument. Jesus refused to convert rocks into bread when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, meaning that God doesn't like to miracles "on demand". I'm sure Christians would say, it's only when they unknownly have drank something poisonous than their "privilages" would occur (citing Daniel's friends to be safe, who also said "if it would be God's will" to save them ) The same goes for amputee argument, as you can see.

 

ps. Today I made a phone call to Grigoriy Zinchenko in New York. This is the story where a boy of 13 spoke German while praying, and Grigoriy, who had lived in Germany could understand German, while the boy supposedly never new it. I brought this example before and the main explanation was that Grigoriy just interpreted boy's babbling as German. So I called him and we talked briefly:

--Grigoriy I read your book in which you say a boy who never spoke German spoke it to you in a prayer, how did it happen?

-- Yest that's true, his name was Peter, he was 13, and he was speaking in tongues and then said in german "Why do you carry a glory in your pocket?"

-- Is that all he said?

-- No he spoke several sentences to me in German, and at the end he said "Serve me, you are needed by me, you are needed by me" in russian. I was indignant and said how did you know I have something in my pocket? It's not "glory" like you say, it's a communist party ticket! Everybody in the room looked at me and said."Grigory, this was not Peter speaking, he doesn't speak German, this is God calling you to serve him." This is how I converted"

 

Still subjective, I know. It's been decades since that happened. But curious. Too add also, yesterday after Mykola, Jenya's husband told about how God used him in speaking German to the lady who knew it, his wife Jenya also told about herself. She said a doctor got poisoned by some drugs and was in a hospital in the same room with her. In the morning the doctor asked:

--Jenya, do you know foreign languages?

--I know Ukrainian and a little bit of Russian but nothing else?

--And can you pray at night while your asleep?

-- If God uses me I can, did I?

--Yes, you prayed at night when you were asleep in a foreign language. And everything you said about my life was true.

Of course I asked Jenya, what foreign language she referred to, but she said she didn't ask that doctor. "Maybe latin, since doctors understand that." I didn't mentioned this yesterday as it has obvious flaws, however for now I can say I talked personally to 3 people who say they either spoke in foreign language they didn't know (Mykola and Jenya) or understood it while the speaker didn't (Grigory Zinchenko).

Yesterday there was more interesting stuff. Jenya told that once she was healed she was in a danger from communists who wanted to kill her for posing a threat as potential evidence to Christianity. They prayed with a circle of friends and a prophet said her to move to a place in far Russia (city of Frunze) giving an exact physical address. When she arrived there, she didn't know who the owners were, she simply knocked and asked to come in. The people there let her in and asked if she was christian. "We prayed and god told us through a prophet that He is sending a refugee we had to let in, and here you came."

When you speak to such people you somehow start allowing more chances for God's existance.

I am not believing still. I guess, I would if I saw a miracle now. Let's say if these people prayed and revealed through prophecy my secret thoughts (beyond the level of guessing) like Dmitri supposedly did with the couple who decided not to have kids. Or if the old Mykola would pray to me in English which he doesn't know instead of (very elaborate and equally meaningless) tongues. Another words I need to experience real miracle by myself to believe. My family calls me stubborn. I think I am honest.

[Neon Genesis]

I appreciate your comments Neon Genesis, they show out-of-the-box, insightful thinking. I once had a long period of depressive thinking that perhaps if God exists he may be playing a game with us by having Christians work hard for "salvation" and supporting their strivings with occasional miracles; however in the end he will send Christians to hell and the rest of people (unbelievers) will enjoy heavens or simply cease to exist. I know how silly this sounds, but again there is no way you can disprove such hypothesis. Another words there is a myriad ways to explain miracles even if they could be proved (in case with Jenya, I wish she had some X-rays to really make the case substantive) in a way that makes believing in Jesus unrewarding. However from my personal research on miracles and readings I found interesting trend that gives basis to believing true miracles happen to Christians only.

a) The persons involved in miracles or are praying for a miracle are Christians.

They are not just christians but extremely holly Christians. Being a "good christian" is not sufficient. I had an American boss who was christian but flirted (almost sexually harassed) his russian coworker. He's a worship leader in his church and you would have to see how deeply he worshiped! That would make him a good christian for most people around him in church, but obviously he wasn't holly by the new testament standards.

What I mean is a person supposedly has to be holly completely and confess all sins before asking for a healing. Jenya Polishuk was "healed" during the prayer of Dmitry Berezyuk -- the guy who is still alive (I know his physical address in Ukraine) Besides Jenya's healing he was involved in a host of other miracles and later one guy (Viktor Kotovsky)took an interview with him (here is a link in russian

You're still not answering my question. My question was How do you know that these miracles aren't sent by Satan in order to lead Christians into temptation? I don't know where you're getting your claims that you have to be holy in order to be healed, but it's clearly not biblical. The bible itself says that there is none not righteous, no not one, and whoever claims they are without sin is a liar. Since you claim you have to be an extremely holy Christian to be healed, then since no one is extremely holy according to the bible, then none of those miracles can be true. And if you have to be an extremely holy Christian to be healed by god, then you're proving that your god is the most evil being in existence, since god won't heal innocent children of Muslim families tarving to death in middle Eastern countries just because they aren't Christians. I thought the bible said that god is not a respecter of persons and does not show partiality? If god does not show partiality, why does god only heal the people who kiss his ass? And if Christians are the only ones who can give reliable testimonies of miracles because only extremely holy Christians can be saved, what about Christians like Mike Guglielmucci who lied about having his cancer healed by god? http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?showtopic=25671 What about Christians like Todd Bentley who claim to be able to heal Christians but he sexually abused minors, had an affair with a female staffer, and also got addicted to drugs? http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/sto...ae-73a9eef11934 And no, you can't claim that these people are not "true" Christians because that's a No True Scottmans fallacy.

 

This question can be answered by Christian dogma argument. Jesus refused to convert rocks into bread when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, meaning that God doesn't like to miracles "on demand". I'm sure Christians would say, it's only when they unknownly have drank something poisonous than their "privilages" would occur (citing Daniel's friends to be safe, who also said "if it would be God's will" to save them ) The same goes for amputee argument, as you can see.

That makes no sense. Jesus proved he had resurrected to Doubting Thomas when he asked him to prove it. He also proved he had resurrected to 500 people according to Paul. He showed miracles to the apostles even though they doubted him constantly and he showed a miracle to Peter when he started doubting Jesus when he walked on water. Where are the testimonies of those 500 believers? Jesus even proved he was the messiah to Paul, even though Paul murdered Christians and hated Jesus. So, where's my road to Damascus experience? I'm a Doubting Thomas too, so if god does not show partiality and is not a respecter of persons as the bible claims, then it should give me some evidence too, otherwise the bible lied.

[trueagnostic]

My school has now started and the whirlpool of class work is sucking me into studying(, which is great). I hoped to answer the questions yesterday and instead of 30 minutes spent over an hour, trying to organize my thoughts into coherent answer. I through it all away, unfinished and will write something new now. But if you want to see my draft, i am putting it here as my answer shouldn't be very different.

 

You're still not answering my question. My question was How do you know that these miracles aren't sent by Satan in order to lead Christians into temptation? I don't know where you're getting your claims that you have to be holy in order to be healed, but it's clearly not biblical. The bible itself says that there is none not righteous, no not one, and whoever claims they are without sin is a liar. Since you claim you have to be an extremely holy Christian to be healed, then since no one is extremely holy according to the bible, then none of those miracles can be true.

So, how can miracles I looked at and generally have in mind can be from God and not from Satan trying to lead Christians away? I guess I tried to answer the question, but did not answer it concretely. Basically, my hypothesis, based on the investigated cases of miracles and the number of ones I read about is the following. Christian God may exist because in the cases of apparantly occured miracles the subjects involved proffessed Christian faith as close to literal interpretation of New Testament as possible and tried to get close to God by attempting to be as holly as possible. Another words I conjecture that real God may exist if real miracles happen to (or around) real christians. Terms "real miracle" and "real christians" need explanations. First, I don't claim to have seen a "real" miracle yet; that would require extraordinary evidence -- videos and lots of paperwork I guess. However the cases I have looked at come pretty close to be put in a category of real miracles because of the significant evidence that is provided. In case of Jenya -- witnesses (both neighbors and doctors) who saw her slowly becoming a handicap and lying in a bed for over 4 years and then seeing her spring up to feet in seconds.. So real miracle here are those that are quite possibly real. Next, definition of "real Christians" are those who honestly try to be holly. You pointed out that there are no holly christians and that's true. I know i used phrase "those are extremely holly christians", but what I realy meant is not that they never commit sin, but that they are very sensitive to the sin and if cannot avoid it, they repent as soon as their consciousness tells them they sinned. In that sense they are "extremely holly" not in literal but in figurative sense. It is heart that God is concerned with. The "sinful nature" of people may be preventing Christians live completely holly lives, but by being sensitive to sin they are holly in their intentions and though they slip occasionally and sin, because they don't do it intentionally God counts them as holly. (This is well known Christian dogma "If we confess our sins, He being rightous and true will forgive us and will cleanse us from every sin" 1 John 1:9. Again I am getting this from the testimonial I reffered to and from the church preachings. The point is: God won't heal a Christian person if that person has some consealed or unrepented sin. Pretty much every story in that testimony has this moral -- God does not heal Christians because they often hide something or don't want to leave sin. So, an opened and repented heart seems to be a prerequisite to receive a miracle from God. In Acts there is a story where a guy (don't know his name in English --something like Anany) brought some money for the church and said that's all he had, while he actually lied and kept some for himself. He was struck in place and died not because he kept money, but because he lied. Conclusion: Christian God demands 100% of openness before him. As soon as Christian person sinserely repents, the way for the miracle should in theory be open.

Going back to the conjecture real God may exist if real miracles happen to (or around) real christians.

[Vigile]

TA, you have in no way shape or form proven that real miracles exist in the first place. Getting bogged down in what miracles might mean is a red herring until you prove they exist.

 

If even one miracle ever took place, why are there no papers submitted for academic peer review offering up their claims?

 

Claims to miracles happen every day in churches around the world. Thus, if this phenomena really exists outside of speculation and inuendo in the millions of occurances that have been claimed, why have they completely escaped notice by those qualified to analyze them?

 

You really need to brush up on your critical thinking skills and introduce yourself to an understanding of logical fallacies as you are really vulnerable to poor reasoning as indicated by your responses in this thread:

 

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/

 

http://skepdic.com/refuge//ctlessons/lesson5.html

[trueagnostic]

I'm writing this next day, hopefully this will make more sense.

You're still not answering my question. My question was How do you know that these miracles aren't sent by Satan in order to lead Christians into temptation?

 

This is not an easy question. If God exists and so does Satan, real miracles can and probably happen. Suppose it is possible to register a miracle, analyze it and come to a valid conclusion that this is indeed a miracle. The very unlikely case would be an amputated limb regrown during prayer and event fixed by video cameras, and number of impartial witnesses. Now the question becomes is it Christian God who did the miracle? Is it Satan trying to lead Christians into temptation, or maybe it is not God and not Satan, but a third deity? Before answering the question, the immediate implecation is that atheism is not true. And that's already is huge. I know now that there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people like Dawkins and many people on Excristian who are just sinserely sure that there is no god. Given a real miracle those people should at least convert to agnostics Before I attempt to answer the initial question I want to ask, suppose I relax the requirement for the miracle. Just because such extreme miracle as regrowing amputated limb was never reported, does that mean one cannot believe god exists because of other less impressive miracles? An example would be a foreign language tongue speaking miracle. Suppose you (I mean anybody) are the only one in your family who knows some distinct foreign language. Let's say your spouse/parent/sibling get converted into Christianity and the next time they pray they speak in the foreign language perfectly and say things about you that only you know. Wouldn't that make you a believer? Although unlikely this may not be impossible, given the personal testimonies that I gathered.

Let's say I am a believer because of some irrefutable miracle, how to know it's not Satan who performed the miracle?

My personal opinion (and I'll try to defend it ) is to compare the faith of people involved into the miracle to the new testament faith purely. If the people were sticking closely to the new testament teaching then it is a miracle from god. If the person who performed miracle was living a non-christian life or preaches something anti-gospel then it's from satan. (Note that right now I am talking as if we already knew that there is God and Satan.) I think so because the cases of apparent miracles that I looked at or read about involved people who believe pure gospel faith. I guess in America these would be something close to Evangelical christians or as they are known fundamentalists. The logic is as follows. New Testament clearly sais that miracles should happen in the lives of Christians. New testament puts a high bar for the standard of who is a real christian. At the very least this is a person who does not compromise with his/her fleshly desires. Not holly in literal sense as no human can stay holly all the time, but never rationalizing sin because of being a human. Honest to the core with his/her intentions, humble and quick to repent. The testamonies of Chrisitians who experienced miracles I have talked to or read about were such Christians.

When looking from such perspective many things are explainable. God is holly and he only renders miracles to those who try to be holly. Many american churches trying to get more people emraced secular things -- some commend homosexuality, some allow sex before marriage, some preach evolution, and the list goes on. Instead of being popular many american churches became the laughing stock of atheists as the churches are virtually spiritually dead and devoid of supernatural.

According to the NT, there should be gifts of discerning the spirit so for real Christians the question of whether a given miracle was from Satan or from God would be solved by sensing the spirit. Here I am going into the realm of spiritual things, which (if they exist) I have no practice with, but which theretically are available for Christians in their armory. Again everything I say aligns perfectly with the testimony of Dmitry Berezyuk I have cited many times, and that testimony aligns perfectly with the NT. Given that there is some substantial evidence to the testimony I have reasons to believe that those miracles occured, which gives me reason to look at the faith and life of Dmitry. And because his faith and life correspond to NT exactly I have some reasons to believe that the God of New Testament is indeed real.

But what if there was some buddhist or let's say Jehovah Witness guy who was doing same miracles with equally substantial evidence? First of I have never read about a single miracle let alone with substantial evidence from other religions than Evangelical Christianity. People say I didn't look well. Perhaps, but I don't even know where to look, I tried google search, that doesn't yield results. Second, if proven miracle happened in that religion then (besides knowing atheism is false) it may be that Satan performed the miracle.

I can anticipate the arguments against my advocating Evangelical faith as the truth and not other religion where the miracles may happen. Why is it that Christianity is not false and the other religion true. The number of researched miracles that happened to Christians and not to other religions speak against other religions. But maybe I am partial to christianity and look at christian sourses only? Maybe, but like I said I don't know of resourses of other religions and don't have time to reasearch them. Finally, the big question right now is not how to know if a miracle is from God or Satan, but do we know they happen at all? My guess is that Christianity is true and miracles possibly are happening there. If I can be convinced of this, at least I can narrow down my search to search among denominations of Chrisitianity from Atheism- Christianity one.

 

I feel this later post wasn't very clear either, but thanks for reading.

I did not answer the question of why God being impartial does not heal Muslim children or why He doesn't prove himself to Doubting Thomasses when they even ask him directly to do so. These are questions that pushed me on the path of doubt and why I considered atheism -- it explains these questions perfectly! So, being honest, I have no answer to the questions myself. Perhaps, (and that's my fear) because God can look at the hearts of people, he can see the motives and deep feelings with which we ask him. I know this sounds rediculous to complete unbelievers, but when I ask God to prove himself to me, I sometimes cannot help a feeling of bitterness that creeps inside because if he exists he subjected me to a torment of soul to look for God instead of enjoying my life. God if he exists may want me to humble myself completely and address him without negative feelings. I am sure, there are many people on Exchristian who have experienced something similar and can identify.

I think that's it for now. Let me tell you of a small miracle investigation project that I am to do.

I read in a Christian newspaper of a testimony of two now Christian people who used to experience direct intervention from Satan in the past. Elena (mother) and Edik (son) live in Kiev and in 2003 noticed that things in their house started moving from one place to another. Hats, chairs, bags and other things would dispappear from their normal places and appear in other rooms. Later, these disappearings started to happen in front of their eyes. They called in orthodox priests (Christians but not evangelicals, more like catholics) and they sprinkled their house with "holly water". When it was time to pay for the service money disappeared in front of their eyes. For one and a half years the family experienced disappearing of things. A telephone, connected to the jack would disappear and after a long seeking, would be found dug in side the wheat bag. A mother comes into the room and there is a decorative candle on the table, never known to be in the house. The son was sent to a monastery for a week but that didn't help. He went to see his granny and when she asked him to go to the attick to get something he found a room with furniture and with all icons he used to have in the monastery. For 1.5 years the family went to a number of orthodox churches, invited priests to come to their apartment but nothing wouls stop appearing and disappearing of things. Finally Elena's sister referred her and her son to an Evangelical church in kiev. As soon as they repented and believed all disappearings stopped.

The story is interesting in two ways. First, this is not a hallucination effect of seeing or not seeing things -- things physically moved from place to place, and completely new ones appeared in the apartment. Second, the fact that only Evangelical church (and not even Christian denomination of Orthodox one) cured the problem supports the guess that faith that closely corresponds to NT is the real faith.

I got the phone numbers from Kiev phone book directory and if I'm lucky I will talk to the people involved.

TA

[Vigile]

TA, you are not hearing a thing I am saying to you. What you claim to be miracles have not been proven to be miracles in the first place. There are huge problems with the claims you are relying on. Those problems can be resolved if you just apply critical thinking skills to them.

 

You are making extraordinary claims and are providing no extraordinary evidence to back them up.

 

The anecdotal evidence you offer up is utterly worthless. It wouldn't stand up in a court of law, much less a scientific study.

 

You are also taking a strawman approach to the position of atheism. Atheists don't have faith that there is no god, they simply reject the extraordinary claim that there is one based on the fact that not one single iota of verifiable evidence has ever been offered up in defense of that claim.

 

If you have verifiable evidence that proves my statement wrong, then please present it. Hearsay, which you offer as evidence does not qualify.

 

Compare this with what we do know about the world. The Theory of Evolution has vast amounts of verifiable evidence in its favor. There are literally millions of fossils that show evidence of change over time. Moreover, scientists can further verify the Theory by accurately predicting which types of fossils they will find in various levels of strata and time and again they have been proven right. When they make a claim they submit it for peer review and their peers attempt to debunk the claim. If the claim proves itself out it is accepted unless and until it can be debunked.

 

None of this occurs in the realm of religion. It doesn't occur because there is no evidence to submit for peer review in the first place. Religion does not get to take the position of special pleading here. It is not special. It is just another one of the myriad of claims mankind tends to be fond of making.

 

Take the case of drug research. Drug testing is done with control groups. Very precise statistical measurment is used to determine the outcome of the study. For example, when testing a drug on cancer patients, one or two successes would never prove the eficacy of the drug being tested since those one or two would be considered outlyers representitive of the fact that sometimes cancer goes into remission with or without drugs. In order to be proven effective the study would need to show results that do not occur by statistical chance.

 

You, OTH, are using extremely poor criteria for determining what is true.

[Neon Genesis]

The point is: God won't heal a Christian person if that person has some consealed or unrepented sin. Pretty much every story in that testimony has this moral -- God does not heal Christians because they often hide something or don't want to leave sin. So, an opened and repented heart seems to be a prerequisite to receive a miracle from God. In Acts there is a story where a guy (don't know his name in English --something like Anany) brought some money for the church and said that's all he had, while he actually lied and kept some for himself. He was struck in place and died not because he kept money, but because he lied. Conclusion: Christian God demands 100% of openness before him. As soon as Christian person sinserely repents, the way for the miracle should in theory be open.

Going back to the conjecture real God may exist if real miracles happen to (or around) real christians.[/size]

I don't know where you get this idea that god doesn't heal people if they have a concealed or unrepentive sin, but it's clearly not from the bible. Have you ever actually read the bible or are you just quoting whatever your preacher tells you to believe? Maybe you should try actually reading the bible yourself before you read up on atheism, if you haven't yet. After all, they say that reading the bible is the quickest way to deconvert. If god doesn't heal Christians because they have a concealed or unrepentive sins, what about the story in the bible where Jesus heals the ear of the Roman soldier that Peter cut off? That soldier wasn't even a Christian and he was going to arrest Jesus, yet Jesus healed him anyway. What about Paul and the road to Damascus? Jesus gave Paul a miracle even though he was a Jew and murdered Christians. Why did god give Paul a miracle if only "extremely holy" Christians can get miracles?

 

Before I attempt to answer the initial question I want to ask, suppose I relax the requirement for the miracle. Just because such extreme miracle as regrowing amputated limb was never reported, does that mean one cannot believe god exists because of other less impressive miracles? An example would be a foreign language tongue speaking miracle. Suppose you (I mean anybody) are the only one in your family who knows some distinct foreign language. Let's say your spouse/parent/sibling get converted into Christianity and the next time they pray they speak in the foreign language perfectly and say things about you that only you know. Wouldn't that make you a believer?

I'll be frank that the only thing that would make me a believer at this point is if Jesus would appear before me right now and show me the scars in his hand, just like he did with Doubting Thomas. Just because somebody knows something that only they would know doesn't mean god exists. Some people have stronger intuition than others. One of my friends came out out of the closet to his mother recently. She said she already figured out that he was gay even though he had never let on to her that he was. That doesn't mean that it's a miracle from god that she knew it ahead of time, it only proves the "power" of female intuition.

 

My personal opinion (and I'll try to defend it ) is to compare the faith of people involved into the miracle to the new testament faith purely. If the people were sticking closely to the new testament teaching then it is a miracle from god.

How do you know which Christians are sticking closely to the NT teachings? All fundamentalist Christians claim to be sticking closely to the NT teachings, but if any of them were, why is it that even fundamentalist Christians can't agree with each other about what is a sin and what isn't a sin? They all claim to be the "true" Christians and everyone else is false. There are over 33,000+ demonstrations of Christianity in existence. What makes you think that out of those 33,000+ denoms you know which ones are the "true" Christians? What makes your beliefs correct over all the others?

 

When looking from such perspective many things are explainable. God is holly and he only renders miracles to those who try to be holly. Many american churches trying to get more people emraced secular things -- some commend homosexuality, some allow sex before marriage, some preach evolution, and the list goes on. Instead of being popular many american churches became the laughing stock of atheists as the churches are virtually spiritually dead and devoid of supernatural.

What do liberal Christians have to do with anything we're discussing? How is what they preach in their churches in any way make fundamentalist Christians the laughing stock of atheists? I'll be frank that I respect liberal Christians a lot more than I do any homophobic anti-secular, anti-science fundies. The only ones who are responsible for making fundies look like laughing stocks are the fundies themselves who are so arrogant that they've deluded themselves into thinking they're god's special favorites because they think speaking in gibberish is a "miracle." If you don't want to look like a laughing stock, then why don't you give us some actual peer reviewed physical evidence already? Not subjective unproven personal experiences from total strangers that doesn't prove anything.

 

First of I have never read about a single miracle let alone with substantial evidence from other religions than Evangelical Christianity. People say I didn't look well. Perhaps, but I don't even know where to look, I tried google search, that doesn't yield result

Can you explain this, then? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_miracle_of_the_sun

 

God if he exists may want me to humble myself completely and address him without negative feelings.

So, in other words, you're saying god doesn't heal the starving children of Muslim families in middle Eastern countries because god doesn't want his wittle feelings to get hurt when people pray to him? Once again, you're only proving that your god is evil at worse, an immature spoiled brat at best.

[.god]

I'm writing this next day, hopefully this will make more sense.

 

 

 

hey TA,

 

I think your line of thinking falls prey to numerous logical fallacies.

I'm no expert on the types and definitions of logical fallacies but there are a few books including "How to think about weird things" that covers them.

 

The thing is, it seems the majority of your contacts are within the Christian community, so it may be like you're inside of a bubble. Meanwhile, other religious folks you don't know personally may be in their own little bubbles... JW's, Mormons, Alien abductees, Scientologists, Catholics, a variety of Buddhist sects. Like you, they are surrounded by like-minded people in their immediate social circles, and so from their point of view they may hear many first-person stories of personal miracles reinforcing their belief system while believing that all other beliefs have a curious lack of miraculous tales - simply because they have no exposure to those other people.

 

The point is, just because you can't see into these groups, doesn't mean miraculous events do not occur for them. And a google search will no doubt not turn up much except for Christian miracle anecdotes, with the vast majority of the English speakers being christian and all, and the majority of indexed English language websites originating from the States where there are so many Christians to begin with. You might try googling for your chosen religion in addition to the word "forum" to find a lot more miracle stories, but unless you start conducting searches in Arabic, Chinese, Spanish or Hindi, you're unlikely to turn up a lot regarding miracles in non-English speaking countries.

 

I know there is a huge repository of Mormon stories of miracles, speaking in tongues, guidance from god, burning bosoms, magic underwear, and more at www.exmormon.org

 

And the "holy" Christian argument just sounds like a variation of the No True Scotsman/Christian fallacy.

 

Here's an excerpt of some of the fallacies the book I mentioned goes over:

http://skeptically.org/logicalthreads/id2.html

 

 

The overall problem I see with your approach is that you could just as easily track down and locate alien abductees, chiropractors, chi masters, devout Catholics, and so on and find and speak with ones who have had miraculous experiences. They will provide as much evidence as you have given here, complete with a history of similar stories in their field/belief system, and following your methodology I would have to start believing in that belief. So where does it all end?

 

If people can tell you things about you that you think no one else can know, then I better start believing in those psychics who claim to be speaking to my dead relatives right?

[Neon Genesis]

I have another question about evolution for you, TA. Why is the theory of evolution incompatible with Christianity? Fundamentalists perceive evolution as a threat to their religion yet many Christians out there accept evolution as a scientific fact and it doesn't effect their belief in god at all. And why is it only the fundamentalists who complain the most about evolution? It seems like you rarely, if ever, see the Jews complaining about evolution. You'd think they'd also be raising a bigger stink about it seeing as how they believe in Genesis, too if it was really such a problem with Genesis. I used to be a fundamentalist young earth creationist when I was a Christian myself. The people at church would always rant about the evils of evolution and how accepting Genesis as an allegory is a horrible sin to do yet they would never explain why evolution was a sin. Fundies are so ridiculously paranoid about evolution being a threat to their religion, but speaking as a former fundamentalist, I can tell you from personal experience that the theory of evolution had nothing at all to do with my deconversion whatsoever. In fact, I didn't accept evolution as a fact until after I deconverted and learned more about it. From reading the testimonies posted here by other former Christians here, I rarely if ever see the theory of evolution being mentioned as a reason for deconverting. Most of the time it seems like people have deconverted either from contradictions in the bible, immoral teachings in the scriptures, and the lack of evidence of the existence of god. If the theory of evolution was such a threat to your beliefs, why is it that the theory of evolution doesn't play a larger role in our deconversion experiences? Why is it that so many other Christians can accept evolution as a fact and still believe in god and Jesus just fine? Why is it that fundies can't at least accept theistic evolution? Why is accepting evolution as a fact a sin?

[trueagnostic]

I don't know where you get this idea that god doesn't heal people if they have a concealed or unrepentive sin, but it's clearly not from the bible. Have you ever actually read the bible or are you just quoting whatever your preacher tells you to believe? If god doesn't heal Christians because they have a concealed or unrepentive sins, what about the story in the bible where Jesus heals the ear of the Roman soldier that Peter cut off? That soldier wasn't even a Christian and he was going to arrest Jesus, yet Jesus healed him anyway. What about Paul and the road to Damascus? Jesus gave Paul a miracle even though he was a Jew and murdered Christians. Why did god give Paul a miracle if only "extremely holy" Christians can get miracles?

I thought you would figure out that what I was saying about being "holly" applies only to christians. As most of healings and miracles are requested by Christians (or maybe exchristians) who are familiar with the holly nature of God, I wanted to say why miracles may not be happening in churches today. I know that Jesus himself healed people and would then say "go and don't sin again", which indicates that they were sinners at the time of healing. Both Roman soldier and Paul were unbelievers, because they sinserely (not sure about soldier, but sure for Paul) did not believe Jesus was God. When Jesus was doing miracles people too had no way of knowing he was holly God, and Jesus performed miracles anyway. But when we are talking about today's times, after gospels have been written, christians have no excuse to approach God in a not worthy state of heart --which is repentance, humbleness and sinserety.

 

 

I'll be frank that the only thing that would make me a believer at this point is if Jesus would appear before me right now and show me the scars in his hand, just like he did with Doubting Thomas. Just because somebody knows something that only they would know doesn't mean god exists. Some people have stronger intuition than others. One of my friends came out out of the closet to his mother recently. She said she already figured out that he was gay even though he had never let on to her that he was. That doesn't mean that it's a miracle from god that she knew it ahead of time, it only proves the "power" of female intuition.

Did you miss part of the condition I included, which was the person telling (known to you only) things about you ALSO speaks these things perfectly in a distinct foreign language that you know and you know that person doesn't know? I understand, it may be that you don't speak such foreign language, but I made the argument to show that there possibly exists a miracle that can make an atheist an agnostic if not an instant believer. To turn the question towards me, would I be a gullible and intellectually dishonest person if I would believe in god because say, my grandma that knows only 5 words in English would one day pray in perfect English in my presence and the presence of witnesses and tell everything about my life? Perhaps someone from Flat Earth Society sais he willl believe the Earth is sphere iff he can have a rod stuck through the Earth so that he can touch one end on one continent and the other end on another continent, and then he would believe. While that will be a valid proof that the Earth is sphere and it may be theoretically possible, is it really necessary? There are other methods to test Earth for being spherical that are just as valid.

 

 

How do you know which Christians are sticking closely to the NT teachings? All fundamentalist Christians claim to be sticking closely to the NT teachings, but if any of them were, why is it that even fundamentalist Christians can't agree with each other about what is a sin and what isn't a sin? They all claim to be the "true" Christians and everyone else is false. There are over 33,000+ demonstrations of Christianity in existence. What makes you think that out of those 33,000+ denoms you know which ones are the "true" Christians? What makes your beliefs correct over all the others?

 

I don't think that is a very difficult question. Honest reading of New Testament will reveal what Christian denominations are true and which are not. Divinity of Jesus, salvation through Him only, belief in afterlife, and staying away from things that are not in the Bible will suffice. The number of denomination is not a problem, Christians disagree on insignificant things that don't affect whether a person gets saved or goes to hell (which is what matters the most). Therefore Baptist, Charismatic, Pentacostal, 7th Day Adventists, I believe Lutherans, Methodists, and similar Protestants get the main things correctly. That Baptists don't regognize speaking in tongues is not a sin, but shorcoming of their faith, for example. But when Catholics put Virgin Mary as a gatekeeper to Jesus (which is not in gospels) it makes their faith almost a heresy. Jehova Witnesses totally deny Jesus's divinity, mormons, masons, and other religions have very significant deviations from the NT teaching.

I guess, it doesn't matter too much where you stand on details, but the main thing is whether God is real to you or a religion.

 

What do liberal Christians have to do with anything we're discussing? How is what they preach in their churches in any way make fundamentalist Christians the laughing stock of atheists?

Suppose NT is true. Book of Acts describes a church where miracles occured daily. The holliness in the church was such, that outsiders "were afraid to join them". Anany and Saphira died in place just because they lied about how much they donated (and they were not required to donate at all). Today the church lost it's holliness. Preachers even in fundamentalist churches preach that God is kind and forgiving and it is basically ok to sin as long as you repent. Secular churches go beyond that and embrace things NT forbids explicitely like homosexuality for example. It is logical that if God is so holly that he would basically kill (I know it sounds evil ) people for lying, he would withdraw his miraculous presence in the churches. Withough God's obvious presense that was present in the first church, the contemporary church has become the laughing stock of unbelievers. People rightfully say, "if you believe something, why don't you back it up with evidence". If this sounds like I am preaching, I'm not, just speculating why there might be so few miracle reports based on the assumption NT is true.

 

 

First of I have never read about a single miracle let alone with substantial evidence from other religions than Evangelical Christianity. People say I didn't look well. Perhaps, but I don't even know where to look, I tried google search, that doesn't yield result

Can you explain this, then? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_miracle_of_the_sun

That's the first substantial evidence I have found, and I am not afraid to say it is impressive. 40,000 people have witnessed something that science cannot explain, plus there were prophesies attached. What can I say? This was a physical phenomenon in nature that perhaps has natural explanation still unknown, but there is no denying it occured. The fact that there were prophesies attached could be a lucky coincidence. (Compare this with possible "foreign language tongue speaking" miracle that have reportedly happened in Evangelical Christianity)If I were an atheist, I would be satisfied with this reasoning alone. As someone seriously considering Evangelical Christianity, I look if it can explain this and it easily does. "There will be false prophets" Jesus sais who will give "signs in heavens". And I am not really believing this, but trying to see how different sides -- atheism, catholisism or christianity address the "Miracle of the Sun"

God if he exists may want me to humble myself completely and address him without negative feelings

So, in other words, you're saying god doesn't heal the starving children of Muslim families in middle Eastern countries because god doesn't want his wittle feelings to get hurt when people pray to him? Once again, you're only proving that your god is evil at worse, an immature spoiled brat at best.

 

Honestly, I have huge problems with the fairness of Christian God. It seems our human nature is more loving and forgiving then that of Holly God. But here is what I am thinking. Even if God is unfair, evil, and maybe partial, BUT real, it is still worth worshipping and believing in such God. I think it is Dawkins in his "God Delusion" after describing how "evil" and reprehensible Old Testament God is adds something like "If I for a second believed in such God, I would be the first to enter the church and the last to leave the churh every day of the week", but he adds that he doesn't believe God exists, so he doesn't serve that god. New Testament actually supports this idea that god is not as fair as we think he is. In the parable about a master who assigned his servants money to make more money, there is an ending in which a servant that did nothing to make money multiply sais the following to the master (the master represents God). "I knew that you are cruel and you reap where you didn't sow and so I hid the money, take them back" The Master (the master represents God) answers "You knew that I was cruel and I reap where I didn't sow, there for you should have worked to make money for me".

As you see, for me the issue is not so much "why a loving god allows evil in the world to innocent people"? For me it is if God exists than even if he is not fair and loving as we are accustomed to think of him I will still serve him because He is God and there are consequences.

 

 

Thanks, I have no time now, but I will address the question of evolution soon.

Vigile raised important questions and I will try to answer them as well.

[Amethyst]

Actually Neon Genesis, the Miracle of the Sun has been debunked.

Illuminating the Fatima "Miracle of the Sun"

 

TA, as for your problems with unfairness, ask yourself this and think about it really long and hard: Do you honestly and truly want to worship a being out of fear because he will supposedly send you to be tortured forever in an infinite loop of fire and brimstone if you do not? And why would a being who sends people to be tortured people for infinity be worthy of worship? And how can you call yourself human for wanting to worship such a tyrant? A being who has supposedly sent billions of people to be tortured for infinity simply for not believing in him, regardless of how ethical and moral they were in life? Not just one or two, or dozens, but billions? Please, I beg you, to think about that. Long and hard. A being who does that is NOT an entity of love, kindness, or justice. He is NOT worth your time and money.

 

Fear is a very powerful motivator. But just think. If the hell doctrine is actually true, you are worshipping the most demented, crazed, insane being in the entire universe. And it's never actually been proven to be true.

 

Also think about this long and hard: Just because you want something to be true, or fear it to be true, does not make it true.

 

You need proof for it to be true. 2,000 year-old books and hearsay are NOT proof. If hearsay is not enough evidence in a court of law, then it should not be enough evidence to base a major life decision on.

[Guest]

Honest reading of New Testament will reveal what Christian denominations are true and which are not. Divinity of Jesus, salvation through Him only, belief in afterlife, and staying away from things that are not in the Bible will suffice.

 

Are you so sure about all that?

 

The divinity of jesus was voted on at the council of Nicea in 325 C.E. Apparently the bible did not spell it out so plainly before then.

 

We are told in some spots of the bible that all we need is baptisim and in others we have to believe and do good works too.

 

And an honest reading of the NT will reveal that the trinity is not taught in it, so any "true" denomination will reject the trinity, as per your thinking...

[Jeff H]

Trueagnostic,

 

I don't have time to do a big long response to what you've said, but let me say two quick things:

 

1. When you say that an honest interpretation of the Bible shows who are true Christians - pretty much any of these 33,000 denominations will say that exact thing. They all believe that they have the "right interpretation," and to be honest, many of them make a very convincing case of basing their beliefs on the Bible. The problem is that the Bible has so many contradictory and semi-contradictory verses in it, that you can essentially use it to prove anything you want. Americans way back before the Civil War used the Bible to justify slavery - and nobody went and pointed out, "Hey, you're taking this out of context!" Slavery was defeated from an ethical standpoint, not from a theological standpoint.

 

The most experience I have with Christianity is with Pentecostals, and they certainly have many verses that they use to prove their whole "speaking in tongues" and "baptism of the Spirit" stuff. Then other denominations come along, tell them they're crazy, and offer up a completely different interpretation of the exact same verses to show that speaking in tongues no longer exists in the world today. If you want more info on that, look up "cessationism". In my opinion, the Bible is absolutely unclear on this matter.

 

2. If you want info on strange occurrences very similar to things that happen to "Spirit-filled" individuals, look up "Kundalini". Look for some of the crazy effects that it can have on people - many very similar to things that Pentecostals and charismatics attribute to the Holy Spirit. Of course, if you're looking up Kundalini, you will get websites that claim they are caused by demons - but either way, you've got identical effects from two completely different belief systems.

[Checkmate]

I wasn't going to chime in on this subject, but a few things are annoying the fuck out of me and so I have no choice but to "sound off."

 

1) Why is this thread in the Rants section? No ranting going on (until NOW). Might I suggest it be moved over to the General Religious Discussions section?

 

2) Maybe I missed it, but has trueagnostic (TA) conceded to the overwhelming evidence/consensus that the alleged "miracle of sight" is a HOAX? I don't think s/he has come anywhere near to confessing, "You guys are right. This is just bullshit!" [Kudos to .god for post #45, btw. Great explanation concerning eyesight.]

 

3) I smell a fucking rat! You, TA, posed an "innocent" question, as if you wanted us to debunk some bullshit that YOU claimed to be on the fence about. And yet not only have you NOT confessed that the explanations are valid, YOU are still attempting to defend the "miracle" position! Even going to the extent of dredging up the farce of speaking in tongues!?! What? Are you going to pull out every Christian red herring for us to debunk BEFORE you're convinced that common sense should prevail? For an "agnostic" you're sure going out of your way to BELIEVE all the hype.

 

4) Religious people, ESPECIALLY charismatic Christians, INVENT "spiritual" crap ALL THE TIME. They must. Since "God" isn't doing anything they have to invent things and pretend that they are miracles and what-not. They must do this to validate their belief, otherwise they're just a group of deluded nitwits playing make-believe. This is why "God" isn't into "showy" miracles any more. (Like regrowing limbs or making the dead rise.) And why he only engages in dubious "healings" of eye sight or back pain. Things that can't be validated nor disproven. So much easier to fake by the believers, who then claim that "God is great and our faith has been proven!"

 

Lookie here, if YOU want to believe crap and nonsense, then go right ahead. Can't stop you and I won't even try. But don't waste everyone else's time asking questions WHEN YOUR MIND IS OBVIOUSLY ALREADY MADE UP CONCERNING THE ANSWER!!

 

Sheesh.

 

P.S. - Mimi momo mizo la, li la mirono ri monos! [The interpretation? "Not only can I speak in tongues, but I can write in them too!" ]