Prayer

[Asmodee]

I'm not getting into all of this.  The post is way too long,.

says a cherry picker. Maybe break it up into a couple days if it is all too overwhelming.

Jesus fucking Christ, are you going to accuse me of something every time I respond?  Do you even know what "cherry picking" is?  It's not the same as "cutting parts out for brevity".

we shall see...

Wonderful!  Let's start off simply assuming I'm probably a liar.

I try and assume nothing but test everything. Many who make your claim fail to follow through. my comment was to see if you were one of many.

Maybe it does not make sense because you are looking for something I did not say.


Only if you were looking for a stock response. What I refuted was the idea that miracles were in an over abundance. Point in fact only prophets could perform a miracle, and only a handful ever existed. What I also refuted was your assessment that miracles were currently rare, not by saying the opposite and contributing to the ying yang argument you were looking for, but rather turn into your statement and embracing what you said, thereby leveling out your claim by examining the process that you identify a miracle.

To that I will respond with quotes.

I claimed miracles WERE NOT rare in the Bible.  That is what I said, explicitly.  You explicitly stated that miracles WERE rare in the Bible, the exact opposite of what I said.

Oh, glob...
Yes, Rare in that God only worked through certain people call prophets. There were only a hand full of prophets ever, get it? do you see how they were rare in the Old Testament?
Now put a pin in that as we will come back to it.

I ask why the ARE rare now.  You respond that the are NOT rare now, again the EXACT OPPOSITE of what I said, then go on to state they happen with the "same frequency".
I said miracles were not rare in the Bible, you said they were.  I said miracles were rare today, you said they were not.  Then you said that they happened with the same frequency then and now, making miracles both rare and not rare, itself a miracle.

They are not more rare now, (as you claim than they were in the OT) as they do occur about as much as they did. I would even say because God is not limited to dealing with Just prophets anymore they are now more frequent, although the maybe just swept under the rug.

If you can't at least admit when you misspoke then why bother having this conversation?  I have no interest in arguing with another theist jackass whose only concern is "winning" the argument.  If you are here to teach, have something worth teaching.  If you are here to learn, be open to learning.  If you are here to argue, I don't have time for you.

perhaps you simply misunderstood the intent of the message.

Perhaps you have a problem looking at what was said and saying, "I see your point.  I did, in fact, say exactly the opposite of everything you said and, looking at it from your point of view, yes, it would seem to be contradictory and combative, but in the interest of intellectual honesty, that was not how I meant it."  I could respect that.  And that IS how it came off.  I made an observation, you said the opposite, I made a second observation, you again said the opposite.  It DID have the appearance that I suggested.  Perhaps I did misunderstand the "intent" of the message, which is really damned easy to just point out instead of arguing that what you said isn't what you said, but rather that it isn't what you meant.

And you are mistaken about God working only through prophets.  Sodom and Gomorrah, the great flood, the plagues of Egypt and the resurrection of Jesus were all him.  He did warn people, who may be considered prophets, but he did not work these miracles "through" anyone.  I would like to point out that I honestly cannot remember if you are the person I was talking to who expressed that the Old Testament was not literal, just a collection of stories, before you accuse me of something new.

You are also mistaken in thinking you have any clue how common miracles were in Biblical times.  At best it is an incomplete record with about 400 years of silence between Old and New Testaments.  And obviously some of the stories of the Old Testament are not "reality", but mere stories.

But back to my original point, if miracles are more common today, or even equally as common, then God is a shitload less powerful today than he was then.  I don't know what qualifies as a "miracle" to you today, but I've certainly heard no claims of the Earth opening up and swallowing nonbelievers, cities being destroyed by fire and brimstone, instantaneous healing of external, obvious afflictions, people transforming into pillars of salt, the Sun standing still in the sky, fiery chariots swooping down to pick people up and take them to Heaven or the dead rising from their graves alive and well.  Of course, that's par for the course these days.  Today, that which is considered to be "miraculous" seems to be light shows and parlor tricks, a faint shadow of the "miracles" of the past.