Miracle Of Healed Vision Or A Hoax?

[Neon Genesis]

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.

You're missing the point. The point is that if god healed people in the bible who weren't even Christians, let alone holy, then it proves your argument is wrong that god only heals holy Christians. Or are you saying that the bible lied?

 

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?

Prove that this is a miracle, and I don't want anymore of your biased, subjective and unproven stories of total strangers we don't even know yet you expect us to believe because you say so. I want REAL PHYSICAL PROOF.

 

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.

This is bullshit and it clearly shows you don't understand a damn thing about what other denominations think. First, define what a disagreement over "insignificant things" is. How do you define what is insignificant to disagree on and what isn't? How do you define what an "honest" reading of the New Testament is? Clearly you've never honestly read the bible. If you've read the bible honestly, you would realize that the bible is filled with many contradictions and immoral teachings and is hardly perfect or inerrant. The fact that you believe the bible is the inspired word of god clearly shows you have not honestly read the bible. Other fundamentalist Christians will disagree with you that disagreeing over "insignificant things" does not affect a person's fate.

 

For example, when I was a Christian I was a member of the Churches Of Christ. We believed that we were the one true church, and not only that, we believed that we were the same church as the church that was established on the day of Pentecost. We believed that it was a sin to worship god with musical instruments. If you think the method of worshiping god is something insignificant thing to disagree on, then we would have disagreed with you on that. We would have considered you to be a sinner because you weren't worshiping god correctly. We also believed that Christians who believed in speaking in tongues and laying of hands were sinners. We believed that the apostles in the NT had the power to pass down the gifts of the Holy Spirit to other Christians, but that the Christians they passed the power down to couldn't pass that power onto others. So, we believed that after the apostles died, so did the ability to speak in tongues. And if you believed in speaking of tongues, we would have thought you were hellbound. So, don't give me that bullshit about disagreeing over insignificant things doesn't matter to other churches. If you think it doesn't matter to other fundamentalist Christians, you clearly don't understand what other fundamentalists that disbelieve in speaking of tongues likely think of you.

 

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 all, the bible's forbidding of homosexuality is not as explicit as you make it out to be. If you think the bible is clear on its teaching of homosexuality, read this site: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_chri.htm DO NOT IGNORE THIS LINK. READ ALL OF THAT PAGE. Your proclamation that the church has lost its holiness because they don't agree with what you say is holy is a load of shit. You have not proven a single thing you claim is true is real to anyone thus far. If you haven't proved any of your claims, why should we believe that you know what counts as holy? If you think it is logical for god to kill people for something like lying, your god is evil and does not deserve worship. Stop trying to shift the blame for your own lack of evidence on other innocent people that are just trying to live their own lives! Why don't you follow what 1 Peter 4:15 says and mind your own goddamn business?

But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people’s matters.

Nobody is responsible for you being the laughing stock of atheists other than your own fucking self because you expect us to believe your ridiculous claims without evidence. It's nobody fault but your own, so stop blaming others for your own bullshit. If you would worship a god that would kill people just for lying, then you have no love and according to the bible, you are not a true Christian. 1 Corinthian 13 says

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

You claim to be a true Christian but you clearly do not have love. You envy those in political power so that you can enforce your beliefs on others and take away other people's rights, so you clearly do not have love. You parade yourself as being a true Christian and everyone who disagrees with you is going to hell, so you clearly do not have love. You have puffed yourself up for believing you are extremely holy and everyone else who doesn't agree with you is damned to hell, so you do not have love. You behave rudely to anyone not a Christian or who you don't consider to be a "true" Christian, so you do not have love. You think it is just for god to commit evil acts, thus you are thinking evil and you have no love. You've deluded yourself into rejecting proven scientific facts rather than rejoice in the truth about evolution, therefore you do not have love. The bible says we will know who Christians are by their love. According to 1 Corinthians 13, you have no love and are not a real Christian. Why don't you try to love before you claim to be a real Christian? You are nothing more than a modern day Pharisee and you have nothing.

 

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".

Give us one good reason why we should believe you are not a false prophet yourself.

 

 

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.

I honestly don't care whether Dawkins would worship your god or not. I respect him as a scientist, but that's Dawkin's opinion and his alone. Frankly, I think it is immoral to worship such an evil god that stands by while innocent children are starving just because he doesn't like the way people pray to him, or a god that would kill people for something like lying, or send non-believers to hell to be tortured forever. Would you follow Hitler if he threatened to send you to a concentration camp? If you wouldn't someone as immoral as Hitler, why would you follow a god that's even more immoral and disgusting than Hitler is? Frankly, if your god existed, I would rather go to hell than worship it and I think you're a coward for being willing to sell your soul to it.

 

 

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

Illuminating the Fatima "Miracle of the Sun"

I know it's been debunked, I was just pointing it out to TA as an example of a "miracle" that's been reported by somebody other than evangelical Christians.

[trueagnostic]

Wow! What a response I got

Let me clear some things out. First of all, I respect everyone's post, no matter how angry you may sound. I believe most of this is misunderstanding and inadequacy of electronic communication. If you had a chance to see me in person (I am male, 24, btw) and talk you wouldn't have a different oppinion of me.

 

Nobody is responsible for you being the laughing stock of atheists other than your own fucking self because you expect us to believe your ridiculous claims without evidence. It's nobody fault but your own, so stop blaming others for your own bullshit. If you would worship a god that would kill people just for lying, then you have no love and according to the bible, you are not a true Christian.

Frankly, I don't care if I am laughing stock or not, I am here to find truth and not to get respect or even convince anybody. NeonGenesis, you wrote whole paragraph to disqualify me as a true Christian, but that was not necessary as I never claimed to be a true Christian to start with. Perhaps I suggested that I know what true christianity means, but I never stated that I am a Christian myself. You say I have no love, and that is true. As an agnostic I am not even attempting to live a holly christian life that I alluded to, because I am not 100% convinced there is God. I defined holliness of a christian to say that not many people who call themselves Christians are actually christians. You call this No True Scottsman fallacy, but I say this is probably not far from reality.

 

Frankly, I think it is immoral to worship such an evil god that stands by while innocent children are starving just because he doesn't like the way people pray to him, or a god that would kill people for something like lying, or send non-believers to hell to be tortured forever. Would you follow Hitler if he threatened to send you to a concentration camp? If you wouldn't someone as immoral as Hitler, why would you follow a god that's even more immoral and disgusting than Hitler is? Frankly, if your god existed, I would rather go to hell than worship it and I think you're a coward for being willing to sell your soul to it.

 

I already said I understand and personally feel like sending unbelievers to hell is too much of a punishment. Now I will disagree on the last statemet you made. Frankly, if your god existed, I would rather go to hell than worship it and I think you're a coward for being willing to sell your soul to it. Call me a coward and any name you can come up with, but honestly and very honestly I would serve even evil God like Hitler IF he is REAL. If this makes you sick and you will deside to withdraw from conversation I understand, but I have a rational reasoning to support this claim. Acception of the reality of Christian God, however unfair, directly implies the reality of hell. And I want to ask you, all fellow people, to do an experiment. Try going to a dentist and ask him/her to drill your teeth without administering pain killer injection. As you experience the pain, imagine it does not stop ever, not in a minute or a day, but goes with the same intensity forever --this is your hell experiment. I guarantee you, in less than a minute you will discurd all objections to the unfairness, despotism, sadism and possible immorality of God and you will want just one thing to be saved from the pain. Instead of dentist, you can try to put a hot metal to your skin and that will give you a similar experience (warning, i'm not responsible if you carry out the experiment). There is a infinitely huge difference to oppose immoral Hitler and at worst get tortured and killed, or oppose maybe unfair God and be tormented for eternity. This probably answers the question from Amethyst, who also raised the question of fairness of God. Yes, maybe unfair, yes, maybe I don't really want to worship Him, but if hell exists, I think only completely irrational individual would want to go there. So, please, don't tell me "would you want to serve or worship unfair evil God?", because for a selfish person like me (who doesn't want to spend eternity with the pain you can experience here) that's not a deterrant. Perhaps if you state the question "Do you think a God who sais that he is love but is also apparantly evil may exist", that will be a more productive approach, because then it makes you wander whether indeed such god exists or is just a myth. If he is a myth, then there is no consequences, and no reason to worry. Do you see the distinction.

 

First of all, the bible's forbidding of homosexuality is not as explicit as you make it out to be. If you think the bible is clear on its teaching of homosexuality, read this site: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_chri.htm DO NOT IGNORE THIS LINK. READ ALL OF THAT PAGE.

 

I read through that page and found it trying to hide the obvious truth.

Here is an explicit forbidding of homosexuality: Romans 1:26-27

26. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

King James Version

Is it not clear that the words likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly describe and condemn homosexuality as we know it?

 

For example, when I was a Christian I was a member of the Churches Of Christ. We believed that we were the one true church, and not only that, we believed that we were the same church as the church that was established on the day of Pentecost. We believed that it was a sin to worship god with musical instruments. If you think the method of worshiping god is something insignificant thing to disagree on, then we would have disagreed with you on that. We would have considered you to be a sinner because you weren't worshiping god correctly.

Where in the NT it prohibits worship with musical instruments? Honest reading of NT would tell your church members this was not something to disagree about with other churches.

 

We also believed that Christians who believed in speaking in tongues and laying of hands were sinners. We believed that the apostles in the NT had the power to pass down the gifts of the Holy Spirit to other Christians, but that the Christians they passed the power down to couldn't pass that power onto others. So, we believed that after the apostles died, so did the ability to speak in tongues. And if you believed in speaking of tongues, we would have thought you were hellbound.

Where in the NT it sais only apostles had power to pass down the gifts of H S to other people. Honest reading of NT would tell you that was not the case. Therefore if your church believed that, that's fine because that's not a significant thing, but why disagree with others?

 

So, don't give me that bullshit about disagreeing over insignificant things doesn't matter to other churches. If you think it doesn't matter to other fundamentalist Christians, you clearly don't understand what other fundamentalists that disbelieve in speaking of tongues likely think of you.

Yes I am aware that fundamentalists disagree about those insignificant things. That technically doesn't make any of these churches a heresy.

 

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?

 

Appreciate the question, NeonGenesis. My answer will be smaller than your question, though. In Genesis 1 the greek word "yom" for day is used everywhere in the bible as a word meaning literal day of 24 hours. For every day of creation it explicitly sais that "there was a morning and there was and evening --day #", as if ephasasing that the days were regular days with mornings and evenigns as we know them (Days of geological times don't have a "morning" or an "evening") Secondly, the process of evolution implies death and survival of millions of animals and later people, and that's hardly the way God would use. At the end of every day Genesis account goes that "And God saw that everything that he created was very good" Imagine millions evolving, some of which were deadly mutated, suffering, dying organisms and God saying "everything is very good". Finally the acception of evolution is just one small step away from saying if everything evolved by itself because God used evolution, then there is no reason for God's existance, so he must have not existed at all. As you can see, proving for sure evolution alone is sufficient to dispose of belief in god.

 

Reading and writing posts takes a bulk of my time, and the school work is mounting. I would want to answer everyone's questions, but it's getting harder. Please understand, I am not here to prove something and don't feel I have to win in a dispute. If you prove my thinking wrong I will admit I was wrong.

Thanks,

TA

[trueagnostic]

Trueagnostic,

 

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.

 

Thanks for the post Jeff H,

I have most experience with Pentacostals as well and the teaching in most churches goes that other denominations like Baptists and Seventh Day adventists are essentially brothers and will get to heavens as well. Speaking in tongues is preffered but it's not a requirement to be saved. Pentacostals are evangelicals and so are Baptists, i believe Lutherans and others. If the churches disagree among themselves they don't call each other heresys. A heresy would be something like Jehova Witnesses or Mormons. Pure reading of NT will debunk both.

Thanks for the suggestion about speaking in tongues, I will research that.

[trueagnostic]

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...

That's perplexing that some council had to vote on things that can be inferred by any one honestly reading NT. A number of verses say that, one can look and study those verses here

http://www.globalserve.net/~bumblebee/ecclesia/divinity.htm

 

From the teaching of Jesus it is clear that both belief and good works are necessary and baptism is just an official sign of the beginning of christian life.

You are right that Trinity is a not a clear concept, it doesn't contradict NT though, whether you think Holly Spirit is a person or a spirit of God is not a sin to not be clear about.

[trueagnostic]

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.

 

Vigile, what you wrote is the core of the discussion here, what methods need to be applied to the search of truth. I will write my honest answer to the best of my ability and then will need to take a brake from this discussion here unless something pressing will require an answer.

 

Therefore you are saying atheists' position is not faith there is no God, but denial of his existance based on the lack of verifiable evidence. But how does an atheist feel about concept of God? I infer that an atheist is sure that there is no god and bases his/her conviction on the lack of verifiable data to prove god and on the presense of verifiable data to support god's non-existance.

 

If so, an atheist does not accept any evidence that is not verifiable, is that correct?

Suppose you say yes.

The evidences I have collected were all hearsay. Does that automatically make them invalid? Let's look at them again briefly, from most to least compelling. You are saying all of them can be debunked if I just apply critical thinking skills to them.

 

1. Claim:

Jenya Polishuk claims that she was healed from a bone disease that made her lie in a bed for over 4 years. Had a huge bump on her back, and her knees touched her chest making it hard to eat. In 10 seconds she was back on her feet after the prayer was made.

Is claim true?

She is christian, making it 99.9% true that she didn't lie. There were direct witnesses, one of which I have seen and another one also is alive and can be contacted. A bigger number of people can be contacted to verify she was ill all that time. Thousands of christians in the former soviet union are aware of the timing of the miracle.

Christian explanation:

Prayer was answered and the body was healed

Alternative explanation:

A nerve was squeezed causing the disease and was released during the prayer causing the healing.

Objections to the alternative explanation

Woman was treated for years in best hospitals of Soviet Union, doctors couldn't stop the disease. A released nerve cannot make a bump on the back disappear in 10 seconds. Complete recovery is unlikely if it was the nerve.

Conclusion:

If God exists, the Chiristian explanation is perfect, if God does not exist, there is no good explanation.

2. Claim

Mykola Kosyuga claims he spoke in German while he doesn't speak German during the prayer

Is claim true?

The man is Christian, which makes it 99.9% that he didn't lie.

Christian Explanation:

A miracle of speaking in foreign language happened

Alternative explanation:

It seemed to the man he spoke in German, when he spoke gibberish. The woman hearing him speaking gibberish sounding like German interpreted it somehow in the way that she thought.

Objections to such explanation:

The woman knew German well and would have understood whether it was gibberish or indeed german.

Conclusion:

If God exists, Christian explanation is perfect, if God doesn't, alternative explanation is hard to believe.

 

 

3. Claim:

Miracle of Healed Vision described here

It was discussed extensively here and one thing is clear to me, the guy didn't see clearly farther than 1-2 feet and in two weeks after receiving revelation about healing could see perfectly to this day. No medical condition or theory proposed here explains the facts. I know this thread is large (larger than I ever expected) but if you want to object again, bring the new objections not mentioned here (Checkmate, I responded to post #45 in post #102, and you can read the response in post #113)

 

There were several other mirale claims I mentioned, but these are enough to ponder on.

Applying critical skills to the three miracle claims does not debunk them. At best, alternative explanations are plausible, but still very unlikely. Which brings me to conclusion. Even though this is all hearsay, it does not mean that the hearsay was false. You cannot disprove these claims, I cannot completely prove these claims. What's important is not to discard them because they are not strictly verifiable, but to keep them in mind and search further.

 

I am not an atheist because I blindly accept all hearsay. I analyze these stories deeply and by looking at how unlikely the alternative explanations are, I cannot in good consciousness reject Christian explanations. Instead I am fascinated but how easily people accept those unlikely explanations instead of considering the alternative Christian ones.

As for trying to test christianity emperically, it is hard or maybe impossible to put God into a controllable experiment. Concealed sin, lack of faith and inner motives are not measurable quantities, but they all have direct effect on whether prayer is answered or not.

Even in the realm of science (to borrow your words) not everything is tested reliably. People familiar with programming know of how difficult to do concurrency debugging. Multiple threads running in the program may cause most unpredictable conditions that may show up once maybe in a million times. Therefore, a program may compute one consistent value virtually all the time, (making the programmer believe it is correct) but then act up weirdly only once in a while. That may be the case with God. It seems like he doesn't exist, and no christian evidence seems to support it. The few real miracles that may be valid go simply unnoticed or disregarded. It is my decision not to disregard anything, but to honestly research and maybe make my conclusion some day.

 

Thanks for reading this, this is where I stand as of now. I am sorry if someone was trying to deconvert me quickly and I wasn't willing. I think I gave my reasons both here and in the previous posts. Pehaps if I grew up in your circumstances and environment I would not be where I am, but I also think if you had my life experience and christian exposure you would think similar to how I do.

TA

[Amethyst]

You're missing the point, TA.

 

You claim to be "true Agnostic" and yet you automatically accept anything Christians say, and you are basically sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "la la la I can't hear you" to anyone else.

 

I was Agnostic before I was Atheist. Agnostics do not do that. The whole point of being Agnostic is to say "I don't know," not to say "the Christians MUST be right because they have all these claims of miracles and their explainations, not the debunkers', must be correct because I really really want the Christians to be correct so I can live forever and everyone else can be tortured forever." That is what you are doing. You are saying "I know the Truth and that Truth is the Christian Truth and nobody else's." That is Christianity, not Agnosticism.

 

Yes, I am calling you out. You are not Agnostic. You are Christian.

 

You asked in another post if some of us would follow Hitler. I would rather die than follow such evil beings, personally. That was a huge reason for my deconversion, to stand up to the heinous evil that is the Christian hell doctrine.

[Vigile]

Therefore you are saying atheists' position is not faith there is no God, but denial of his existance based on the lack of verifiable evidence. But how does an atheist feel about concept of God? I infer that an atheist is sure that there is no god and bases his/her conviction on the lack of verifiable data to prove god and on the presense of verifiable data to support god's non-existance.

 

An atheist isn't "sure" there is no god. An atheist just has not been shown any good reason to believe there is a god. This is an important distinction.

 

The evidences I have collected were all hearsay. Does that automatically make them invalid?

 

Invalid and utterly useless in uncovering truth. If you accept these stories why do you reject other's claims to the paranormal? That is of course unless you really do happen to believe in ghosts, alien abductions, voodoo, tarot, the Islamic faith, the Mormon faith, and on and on and on infinity.

 

I didn't bother to reread the useless claims you repeated here. You are still getting stuck down in the details and failing to understand the big picture of what we are telling you for whatever reason.

 

I am not an atheist because I blindly accept all hearsay. I analyze these stories deeply and by looking at how unlikely the alternative explanations are,

 

And what objective criteria do you have that allows you to so wisely determine how likely or unlikely these claims have of being true? This is your problem, you have zero understanding of scientific method and instead are attempting to apply what appears to you to be common sense. Unfortunately what you consider to be common sense here is deeply flawed and subjective.

 

It is my decision not to disregard anything, but to honestly research and maybe make my conclusion some day.

 

I realize this is your position. It's an absolutely impossible position to take on. You should really familiarize yourself with Occam's razor.

 

Also, rather than evaluating each and every claim, you would do yourself a world of good to study why weird claims happen to exist in the first place. I suggest reading the book with a similar title by Thomas Gilovich. I realize you think you are being intellectually honest by examining each and every claim. Really you are not. You are just being intellectually mislead.

 

I am sorry if someone was trying to deconvert me quickly and I wasn't willing

 

No one is trying to deconvert you. What we are trying to do is show you where your thinking has been flawed.

[Taphophilia]

There isn't any scientific evidence to back it up, but I do know someone who corrected their bad vision with eye exercises, such as clock rotation, to the point they didn't need glasses any longer. It makes the tiny muscles that hold your lens stronger and helps you to focus better. Glasses do make the make those tiny muscles weaker, as they don't need to work in order for you to focus. The corrective lenses do the focusing for you.

 

Obviously, as he said, he wasn't wearing his glasses and was giving them a work out. If he couldn't read the odometer, he was far-sighted. My mother was extremely near sighted, so much so she was legally blind without her glasses. There would be no way for her to drive a car without them. (She had lasik to restore her vision.) My mother would have to take off her glasses to read or see things close up because she was near sighted. That doesn't seem to be his case.

 

He obviously needed glasses for close up, not distance, meaning he was far sighted. If he were near-sighted, it would not have worked.

[Amethyst]

There isn't any scientific evidence to back it up, but I do know someone who corrected their bad vision with eye exercises, such as clock rotation, to the point they didn't need glasses any longer. It makes the tiny muscles that hold your lens stronger and helps you to focus better. Glasses do make the make those tiny muscles weaker, as they don't need to work in order for you to focus. The corrective lenses do the focusing for you.

 

Yeah, this has been documented by other people. I think it can work for some, but not all. Needless to say, there's no superstition involved, just exercising your eye muscles.

[florduh]

"I am sorry if someone was trying to deconvert me quickly and I wasn't willing"

You asked us to debunk the story and we did.

[Neon Genesis]

Frankly, I don't care if I am laughing stock or not, I am here to find truth and not to get respect or even convince anybody. NeonGenesis, you wrote whole paragraph to disqualify me as a true Christian, but that was not necessary as I never claimed to be a true Christian to start with. Perhaps I suggested that I know what true christianity means, but I never stated that I am a Christian myself. You say I have no love, and that is true. As an agnostic I am not even attempting to live a holly christian life that I alluded to, because I am not 100% convinced there is God. I defined holliness of a christian to say that not many people who call themselves Christians are actually christians. You call this No True Scottsman fallacy, but I say this is probably not far from reality.

This makes no sense at all. If you weren't a Christian, why are you blindly accepting the supernatural claims of Christians? You yourself have said that the claims of Christians must be 99.99% true because Christians never lie, which is a bullshit lie in itself and I already debunked this lie about Christians never lying in the last page of the thread, which you ignored. If Christians never lie, how do you explain Christians like Mike Guglielmucc, http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?showtopic=25671, Todd Bentley? http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/sto...ae-73a9eef11934 And no, you cannot use the No True Scottsman argument because that is circular logic and is it intellectually dishonest.

 

I already said I understand and personally feel like sending unbelievers to hell is too much of a punishment. Now I will disagree on the last statemet you made. Frankly, if your god existed, I would rather go to hell than worship it and I think you're a coward for being willing to sell your soul to it. Call me a coward and any name you can come up with, but honestly and very honestly I would serve even evil God like Hitler IF he is REAL. If this makes you sick and you will deside to withdraw from conversation I understand, but I have a rational reasoning to support this claim. Acception of the reality of Christian God, however unfair, directly implies the reality of hell.

How is refusing to worship an evil god ignoring the reality of god? Just because I wouldn't worship the fundamentalist god doesn't mean I won't acknowledge his existence, but if there's one thing that's clearly immoral, it's selling your soul to a god that would murder people just for lying or torture people for not believing in it when it's god's job to prove its existence to us if it wants us to believe in it so badly. I'll take my chances siding with Satan. Besides, if the god of fundamentalism is true, all I'll need is an iron chariot since according to Judges 1:19 god loses to iron chariots.

Now the LORD was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had (P)iron chariots.

 

And I want to ask you, all fellow people, to do an experiment. Try going to a dentist and ask him/her to drill your teeth without administering pain killer injection. As you experience the pain, imagine it does not stop ever, not in a minute or a day, but goes with the same intensity forever --this is your hell experiment. I guarantee you, in less than a minute you will discurd all objections to the unfairness, despotism, sadism and possible immorality of God and you will want just one thing to be saved from the pain. Instead of dentist, you can try to put a hot metal to your skin and that will give you a similar experience (warning, i'm not responsible if you carry out the experiment). There is a infinitely huge difference to oppose immoral Hitler and at worst get tortured and killed, or oppose maybe unfair God and be tormented for eternity. This probably answers the question from Amethyst, who also raised the question of fairness of God. Yes, maybe unfair, yes, maybe I don't really want to worship Him, but if hell exists, I think only completely irrational individual would want to go there. So, please, don't tell me "would you want to serve or worship unfair evil God?", because for a selfish person like me (who doesn't want to spend eternity with the pain you can experience here) that's not a deterrant. Perhaps if you state the question "Do you think a God who sais that he is love but is also apparantly evil may exist", that will be a more productive approach, because then it makes you wander whether indeed such god exists or is just a myth. If he is a myth, then there is no consequences, and no reason to worry. Do you see the distinction.

Your analogies make no sense at all and I cannot comprehend a word you're saying. Please clarify your meaning so I can actually make sense of it. I think a more accurate analogy of hell is that god is like a kidnapper who points a gun at your head and tells you that you can choose to do what he says or dies, but he's not responsible if you die because it was your choice to follow him or not. Now replace the kidnapper with god and the gun with hell and the argument is the same. Why should the kidnapper be punished for his actions yet god gets left off the hook for the same logic?

[Neon Genesis]

Is it not clear that the words likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly describe and condemn homosexuality as we know it?

No, its not clear, because it says the women and men abanoned what is the natural use of the body for indecent acts, but it doesn't explain what the natural use is nor does it explain what the indecent acts are. Christians just presume that it's talking about homosexuality because of their biased bigotry. Here's an alternative translation from The Message of Romans 1:27

Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn't know how to be human either—women didn't know how to be women, men didn't know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.

See, now it isn't so clear that this is about homosexuality and it seems to be more about having sex without love than about homosexuality between consenting adults. Christians just assume that because the church leaders say it's about homosexuality, then it must be about homosexuality. And if the bible explicitly forbid homosexuality, why are there no instances in the bible of people being punished solely for having gay sex between consenting adults? And Christians love to quote Romans 1:27 to damn gays but they always conveniently ignore Romans 2:1-2 says

Those people are on a dark spiral downward. But if you think that leaves you on the high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn't so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you've done.

 

Where in the NT it prohibits worship with musical instruments? Honest reading of NT would tell your church members this was not something to disagree about with other churches.

Ephesians 5:18-19

And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord

Even ignoring the issue of musical instruments, you have not explained what counts as a a disagreement over "insignificant things." What counts as insignificant? Why can't Chrisitans agree on the method of salvation if the NT is clear, for example? Is baptism necessary for salvation or is it just an outward sign of accepting Christ? Do you have to be baptized or just say the sinner's prayer? Can you be saved if you're sprinkled with water or do you have to be baptized in submersion? Should children be baptized or do they get a magical free pass to heaven? Why can't Christians agree on something as important as salvation if the NT is clear on its teachings?

[Neon Genesis]

Where in the NT it sais only apostles had power to pass down the gifts of H S to other people. Honest reading of NT would tell you that was not the case. Therefore if your church believed that, that's fine because that's not a significant thing, but why disagree with others?

Acts 8:14-16

Now when (U)the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them (V)Peter and John, 15who came down and prayed for them (W)that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For He had (X)not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been (Y)baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Also, consider this verse in 1 Corinthians 14:22-23

So then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but (AI)prophecy is for a sign, not to unbelievers but to those who believe.

 

23Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that (AJ)you are mad?

Here the bible clearly says that the tongues are a sign for unbelievers, not for people who already believe it, so doesn't this verse alone disprove your claim that god sends miracles only to holy Christians?

 

Appreciate the question, NeonGenesis. My answer will be smaller than your question, though. In Genesis 1 the greek word "yom" for day is used everywhere in the bible as a word meaning literal day of 24 hours. For every day of creation it explicitly sais that "there was a morning and there was and evening --day #", as if ephasasing that the days were regular days with mornings and evenigns as we know them (Days of geological times don't have a "morning" or an "evening")

Your facts are incorrect. First of all, Genesis was origianally written in Hebrew, not Greek. Second, the word yom can also mean a lifetime, an age, a reign, or a year, not just a literal day. Even the bible says in 2 Peter 3:8

But do not let this one fact escape your notice, (U)beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and (V)a thousand years like one day.

Also see, Titus 1:13-14

This testimony is true. For this reason (AR)reprove them (AS)severely so that they may be (AT)sound in the faith, 14not paying attention to Jewish (AU)myths and (AV)commandments of men who (AW)turn away from the truth.

If the Genesis creation account was supposed to be taken literally, then how do you explain how god could create light before creating the sun? It says god created light first in Genesis 1:3 but how could he if he didn't create the sun until Genesis 1:16? Even St. Augustine in the fourth century didn't believe Genesis should be read literally and this was before evolution ever came along, so obviously this debate is not something evolution started, contrary to the claims of fundies. Why does the creation account in Genesis chapter 2 completely contradict the creation account in chapter 1? Where did Cain's wife come from? And if the bible is supposed to be an authority on science, then why isn't the Earth flat even though the bible says it is? Why aren't bats birds and why don't bugs have six legs? The Skeptics Annotated Bible is your friend: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html As Galileo once said, "the bible teaches men how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."

Secondly, the process of evolution implies death and survival of millions of animals and later people, and that's hardly the way God would use. At the end of every day Genesis account goes that "And God saw that everything that he created was very good" Imagine millions evolving, some of which were deadly mutated, suffering, dying organisms and God saying "everything is very good". Finally the acception of evolution is just one small step away from saying if everything evolved by itself because God used evolution, then there is no reason for God's existance, so he must have not existed at all. As you can see, proving for sure evolution alone is sufficient to dispose of belief in god.

So, let me get this straight? It's perfectly ok for god to murder liars, to not heal people unless they're holy Christians, and to torture people in hell for not believing in it, but it's wrong for animals that don't even have souls to behave in the way god created them to behave? And I love how Christians always rant about how evil evolution is, but they have no problems practicing Social Darwinism themselves in politics: http://atheism.about.com/od/liberationathe...--Darwinism.htm

[trueagnostic]

I read your replies and appreciate them as always.

I told before I need to take a long break from the discussion as my school requires it and I am going to do it now. It is not a secret that for me the topic of God is intellectually and more importantly emotionally demanding; it is time to put energy into the immediate grad work instead.

I think I had enough opportunity to express myself so far, you know how I feel about existance of God, miracles, hell, and Christianity in general. Spirituality still bothers me quite a lot, but I would say somewhat less than before I posted the thread. It was a privilage for me to read your opinions about these things.

 

Let me first give credit to the creators and supporters of this site.

Exchristian allowed me for the first time in my life to let out my inner-most thought about God. I was able to reason about Christianity with other logical thinking people in a way never experienced by me before. I could discuss freely sacred things like speaking in tongues, prophesies, paranormal activities in the church, miracles and the rest. Speaking with most Christians can be frustrating because they cite bible as arguments and as an explanation of my doubts when I am doubting the bible in the first place. Speaking with people on Excristian about religion is for the most part intellectually rewarding because logic is used as means of discussion. These are just few amazing experiences I got from my participation on Exchristian and there were some others just as amazing. So thanks!

 

Of course it is people who participated. I cannot recall each of you, but these users are on the top of my mind whom I want to recognize.

NeonGenesis,

Appreciate the discussion. Your knowledge of the Bible is impressive however everything needs to be taken in the context of the whole book or even Bible. It's not that I don't have arguments to respond to your last posts but I don't have time and don't see a point in arguing about many tangential things. You have the point however in saying that there is much disagreement among Christian denominations about important things like salvation, maybe I wasn't quite right on that. As for evolution even if it can not be outward rejected by scriptures, doesn't it intuitively go against the biblical teachings especially those of NT? That's one good reason to not accept it for Christians.

 

Vigile,

Your automatic rejection of anything not scientifically provable is a bit harsh approach to take as for me. I researched Occam's Razor, and now understand that you advocate the simplest explanation possible over more complex. The problem for me is those accounts I personally collected don't have a simple explanation at all, so the OR principle is hard to apply. Anyways, I respect your hard-science approach and the iron logic you use. I didn't have chance to visit LDS church still, but I certainly intend to, thanks for the idea.

 

Hans Solo, Jeff H,

It was interesting to discuss "speaking in tongues" with you guys. Your first hand experience with the phenomenon was valuable for me.

 

chefranden,

appreciate your personal story, that was an impressive account of how much one can do for god. The testamony I reffered to multiple times that I would still have to translate can be interesting to you, if I post it some day, take a look. I also purchased the "how to think about weird things" book you recommended from amazon -- good read.

 

Amethyst,

no, I'm not a Christian, I'm agnostic. I still wonder if there is God. I told before that I play "devil's advocate" for both sides depending who I talk to. I present best arguments for christianity here to see if they hold. If you are calling me out I invite you to Seattle (write me email) I can bring you to my church, you can even meet the guy whom i interviewed about miracle of vision healing.. and everything else, He definitely can attest I came to him as an agnostic (actually, he's afraid I am an atheist). No hard feelings, thanks for the site.

 

.god,

Last but at no way least thanks to you. I enjoyed reading your posts, you are a prolific, articulate and intelligent writer, I wish I could express myself so well. You were very friendly and polite in your posts, which was a nice evidence to me that atheists are not necessarily mad and aggressive, but can be good, happy people. I imagine you are just as beautiful in character as you look on that picture. Best of wishes.

 

On this note I call the serious discussion (by me) of topic of miracles completed on this thread.

respecfully,

TA

 

ps: I wanted to ask one more question but decided to open a new thread. I again put it into "Rants and Replies", I thought that was the right place.

it should be a small topic and I ask your honest opinion

[Neon Genesis]

NeonGenesis,

Appreciate the discussion. Your knowledge of the Bible is impressive however everything needs to be taken in the context of the whole book or even Bible. It's not that I don't have arguments to respond to your last posts but I don't have time and don't see a point in arguing about many tangential things. You have the point however in saying that there is much disagreement among Christian denominations about important things like salvation, maybe I wasn't quite right on that. As for evolution even if it can not be outward rejected by scriptures, doesn't it intuitively go against the biblical teachings especially those of NT? That's one good reason to not accept it for Christians.

Why is it that the only time people accuse others of "taking the bible out of context" is when they're quoting a verse that goes against their beliefs? You almost never hear defenders of the bible say you're taking it out of context when it's a verse in support of their argument. Don't you think that's a little bit too convenient? You yourself admit that Christians can't even agree with each other on important issues like salvation. If even Christians can't agree with each other over something as important as salvation, how do you know who's taking what out of context since they all claim to be "true" Christians? Your argument that evolution should not be accepted because it goes against scriptural teachings makes no sense as evolution is not a philosophy or a belief. It is a fact of life. Even Charles Darwin was against Social Darwinism, contrary to the claims of fundies. To me, saying that evolution isn't a fact because it somehow goes against NT teachings is like saying we should deny the fact that pregnant women can have natural miscarriages just because it goes against conservative Christian beliefs about abortion. If you have the free time and want to learn more about evolution, might I suggest visiting talkorigins.org Also, if you ever have the time and want to learn more about liberal Christianity, I recommend reading the book American Fascists: The Christian Right And The War On America by Chris Hedges. And there's this very good and informative video on youtube by the liberal Christian Bishop John Shelby Spong that I personally found interesting:

Thank you for the comments and I enjoyed this debate and good luck with your school.

[Ouroboros]

I told before I need to take a long break from the discussion as my school requires it and I am going to do it now. It is not a secret that for me the topic of God is intellectually and more importantly emotionally demanding; it is time to put energy into the immediate grad work instead.

...

I know the feeling.

[Vigile]

Your automatic rejection of anything not scientifically provable is a bit harsh approach to take as for me. I researched Occam's Razor, and now understand that you advocate the simplest explanation possible over more complex. The problem for me is those accounts I personally collected don't have a simple explanation at all, so the OR principle is hard to apply. Anyways, I respect your hard-science approach and the iron logic you use. I didn't have chance to visit LDS church still, but I certainly intend to, thanks for the idea.

 

Well, you have certainly simplified my position for me.

 

I tend to believe that you give great credence to xian claims giving them the benefit of the doubt while discounting reason as a valid approach to finding truth. This is typical of xians.

 

Until you are willing to be intellectually honest we are just wasting our time trying to reason with you.

[trueagnostic]

Yes, A-n

that's how much I've been thinking about these things.

Thank god for people who made universities, that's a place to escape.

And sometimes even that doesn't help.

So you look for things that don't exist.

And realize you are back where you started.

Than you go buy a bunch of junk food and eat it.

Just to go next day and run it off.

At least that's better than doing pot. lol

Don't get you head into any of this stuff.

There is enough stuff to load your head with lol

There is a way forward,

It's different for everyone

I may discover mine someday too lol