Prayer

[Catholic_Lady]

Ok, but in this case he was angry about me believing in it.

You can believe in whatever you like.  But if you or anyone else starts waving such "miracles" around as evidence then you have to face the consequence.

I also noticed that you deftly avoided answering my question about other people's "miracles."

What question? Sorry I'm on my phone so it's hard to go back and forth looking for posts.

[Minimalist]

Okay - just for you.

And do you also believe that Emperor Vespasian cured blindness as Tacitus reported?  Or is your belief in the absurd strictly limited to what you have been force fed since birth?

I suspect that had you been born in Mecca you'd be just as fervent about mohammed flying to heaven on a horse.

It was post #132.

[Asmodee]

There was no fucking "miracle of the sun". The whole damn thing is fucking babyish superstitious bullshit for fuck's sake.

Sorry but this is what pisses me off about this shit.

Yeah, I got into this conversation a couple of months or so ago and didn't want to bother looking it all up again.  The miracle hinges on 3 girls (kind of like the Salem witch trials).  As I recall the mother of one said the daughter was full of shit, at the very least.

This story actually reminds me of one I saw on what I could stomach of a program about the "best" evidence for alien visitation to the planet.  Like Fatima, it was long ago and not scientifically or physically recorded.  It also involved "lights in the sky" and was also corroborated only by "eyewitness accounts".  That was the point where I could stand the show no more.  But hey, if you're Catholic, lights in the sky at Fatima, that's the shit the proves it all!

[Faith No More]

I personally cannot relate to feeling angry about someone believing something i don't, so I guess there's not much else to say here.

Beliefs lead to actions. We're all allowed to vote, so yes, it's going to anger me that people believe in unsupported nonsense.

I mean, what about climate change? Should those of us that recognize it not be pissed off at those that don't believe in it?

[Catholic_Lady]

Okay - just for you.

And do you also believe that Emperor Vespasian cured blindness as Tacitus reported?  Or is your belief in the absurd strictly limited to what you have been force fed since birth?

I suspect that had you been born in Mecca you'd be just as fervent about mohammed flying to heaven on a horse.

It was post #132.

I have never heard of him, or of that story. So I have no idea, but probably not.

---

I personally cannot relate to feeling angry about someone believing something i don't, so I guess there's not much else to say here.

Beliefs lead to actions.  We're all allowed to vote, so yes, it's going to anger me that people believe in unsupported nonsense.

I mean, what about climate change?  Should those of us that recognize it not be pissed off at those that don't believe in it?

I can't fathom what kind of action me believing in the sun miracle would take that would cause someone to be angry before any action was even taken.

---

As for climate change, I honestly don't care if someone believes in climate change or not. So long as they still recognize the importance of taking care of the environment regardless, and do their part accordingly.

[Drich]

Forgive My ignorance... Who are to identify need as death? Why is Heaven the only goal? What of those like you who remain after we have gone? Who says this life is unimportant? In what book chapter or verse does it say that life is unimportant? that anything we are given is unimportant??? Who's is saying that we can fuck up anything once we have the atonement Christ offers?

Seems to me you assume too much. Maybe you should ask some more basic questions.

---

Hit a nerve did I?

Not at all I was just uninformed/ignorant to the answers of those questions. Seemingly so to are you but are blissfully unaware.

  Christianity is, at its core, a method of getting into Heaven.

 Uh, no.
Jesus is the only method to Heaven. Christianity sells what it thinks is a way to Christ.

That is the ultimate goal of being a Christian, THE single, most important thing one can hope for.

Then what?
So, no because anything that comes after "then what" becomes a greater goal. Because the goal is Heaven Plus.... That Plus is call a relationship. That is the greatest goal. Heaven is simply the convention or exhibitor's hall where the convention takes place.

I suppose those like me who remain after you're gone will spend a week or so just basking in the glory of ignorance taken, and then get to work fixing all the shit "good Christians" have fucked up over the years.

 Like in the height of power for China, North Korea or Russia? (Places where Christianity has been abolished for a time?)

I'm pretty sure there will be boobies out at the party and I can't wait!

Hey retard, 'religion' is just an excuse for power hungry people use to justify their own brand of self righteousness. Take away religion that does not remove self righteousness from the population, they simply call it by a different name. Here in this culture you all call it 'Morality." In eastern cultures you identify it as totalitarianism.

As for where it says anything we are given is unimportant, I made no claim of the Bible saying shit. 

But you did.. You claimed that life to the believer is unimportant. We only have the bible to source, therefore you claim must be rooted in and vetted by the bible.

But when you consider the temporary vs the eternal, one seems irrelevant compared to the other.  If my teenage daughter comes home with a "temporary tattoo", that is unimportant.  If she comes home with a "tattoo", I have to kill someone.  Use some common sense.  I'm an atheist.  I probably don't get my beliefs from an ancient book written by goat herders who wiped their asses with their bare hands and then thought rinsing them in a mud puddle was good enough.

Again book chapter and verse?
How does it sit right in your mind to make a claim that you know is not true. yet use said claim, to justify your beliefs against that very text that does not support what you claim it does?

As for who says we can fuck up anything once we have atonement, maybe you're in one of those "once saved, always saved" bullshit religions.  I don't know.  But I'm pretty sure that if, after you're saved, you start raping dogs and killing babies you and Hitler aren't going to carpool to Heaven at the end of days.  And if you are in one of those once saved, always saved religions, relax, dude!  You got this!  Go out and get yourself a raging case of the herpes.  Hitler's warming up the car for you right now, I'm sure.  You're covered, so stop sweating the little shit like obeying God's will and whatnot.

What makes you think, that salvation has anything to do with this life? That we can even be 'saved' in this life?

---

So you would condemn all of Christianity because one branch acts in a way you would deem foolish?

I am not condemning anyone.

then why can't you accept what i had to say as being a valid response?

[Minimalist]

I have never heard of him, or of that story. So I have no idea, but probably not.

Easily remedied.

81. In the course of the months which Vespasian spent at Alexandria, waiting for the regular season of summer winds when the sea could be relied upon, (1) many miracles occurred. These seemed to be indications that Vespasian enjoyed heaven's blessing and that the gods showed a certain leaning towards him. Among the lower classes at Alexandria was a blind man whom everybody knew as such. One day this fellow threw himself at Vespasian's feet, imploring him with groans to heal his blindness. He had been told to make this request by Serapis, the favourite god of a nation much addicted to strange beliefs. He asked that it might please the emperor to anoint his cheeks and eyeballs with the water of his mouth. A second petitioner, who suffered from a withered hand, pleaded his case too, also on the advice of Serapis: would Caesar tread upon him with the imperial foot? At first Vespasian laughed at them and refused. When the two insisted, he hesitated. At one moment he was alarmed by the thought that he would be accused of vanity if he failed. At the next, the urgent appeals of the two victims and the flatteries of his entourage made him sanguine of success. Finally he asked the doctors for an opinion whether blindness and atrophy of this sort were curable by human means. The doctors were eloquent on the various possibilities. The blind man's vision was not completely destroyed, and if certain impediments were removed his sight would return. The other victim's limb had been dislocated, but could be put right by correct treatment. Perhaps this was the will of the gods, they added; perhaps the emperor had been chosen to perform a miracle. Anyhow, if a cure were effected, the credit would go to the ruler; if it failed, the poor wretches would have to bear the ridicule. So Vespasian felt that his destiny gave him the key to every door and that nothing now defied belief. With a smiling expression and surrounded by an expectant crowd of bystanders, he did what was asked. Instantly the cripple recovered the use of his hand and the light of day dawned again upon his blind companion. Both these incidents are still vouched for by eye-witnesses, though there is now nothing to be gained by lying.

P. Cornelius Tacitus, The Histories

And I'm damn near positive you won't buy it!

[Drich]

[quote='Drich' pid='1464212' dateline='1481059119']
I know this was not meant for me and sorry CL if I am over stepping.

I don't mind hearing an opposing point of view.
[/quote] we shall see...

I think that may be true of some of the more "colorful" religions, but not Catholicism.  It's a dry, boring, ritualistic religion without any spontaneity whatsoever, its every service a tedious ritual, scripted hundreds of years ago, much of it in Latin.

I've spent some time studying it... I've got the gist of it.

 Actually they were. remember the bible represents about a 3000 year span and about an 1/8th of the bible's content deals directly with miracles.

there not, I would say they happen in about the same frequency, it now we just call them by different names. "Unexplain medical phenoma or mis diagnosis." (as to why somone wakes up after being pronounced 'brain dead.')
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/01/...36958.html
http://www.westernjournalism.com/man-tho...-12-years/

You realize that you just said exactly the opposite of what I said and it makes no more sense the way you said it.

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

if your beliefs are true than it did the way I said it.  I said miracles were NOT rare, but now they are.  You just said miracles WERE rare, but now they're not.

 No I said they were rare and rarer still because they are relabeled.

So you refuted both parts of what I said and ended up canceling out your own argument.

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.

Then i tied it all together by stating that only prophets of old could perform mircles, but now we all have access to God, in a sense making us all prophets to one degree or another. meaning we all have the same type of direct access to God as the prophets did. Which includes personal miracles, BUT if we like you make the mistake of misidentifying them then 'we' will never see them.

 AND THEN you went on to say they happened with the same frequency, that frequency being both very rare and extremely common, apparently.

Yes!!! As Miracles are rarer still for the skeptic who reclassifies miracles as per the articles I left links to, and more common for those who have sought God.

God has kept the ratio the same, our perception is what has changed!!!

Aside from that, "miracles" of today are petty shadows of the things mentioned in the Bible.

IDK have you seen either?

 A person WHO WAS RECEIVING TREATMENT unexpectedly gets better vs walking on water.  The word "miracle", which used to mean "somethings miraculous", now means "something good for which you cannot find a viable and definitive alternative explanation".  It went from, "Wow!  God is POWERFUL!" to "Yeah, that was probably God."  That doesn't bother you at all?

You ask a man who was once diagnosed with AIDS?
Again no, because I can see a strong concerted effort to silence miracles as "mysteries of science."

And aside from THAT, the Bible clearly spells out in multiple places that the true believers are supposed to be able to perform ACTUAL miracles.  YOU can walk on water, move mountains, heal the sick, survive poison with no ill effects, etc.  Jesus himself said you could do all those things.  Peter actually did it for a short time until his faith wavered.

And there are those who can. Not as a parlor trick, but as need demands, which again gets explained away, as optical illusions, Hard work, Unexplained medical phenomena, tolerance to toxicity ect.

People simply choose not to believe and create an alternative narrative.

Or people simply choose to believe and create an alternative narrative.  Miracles as described in the Bible would be a damned site harder to explain away than, "My wart went away!  It's a miracle!"

Or it may just be easier to try and explain away why my AIDS went away, or My 98% chance I had non-Hodgkins lymphoma just went away, after prayer..

This is a revolving door sport it works both ways.

beggs the question (the logical fallacy) You wrongfully assume there is no purpose today.

Bullshit.  I made no such assumption or claim.  That is actually a red herring.  I clearly said that miracles in the Bible ALWAYS had a clear and obvious purpose, "miracles" today do not have such a clear and obvious purpose.

 If you disagree then name ONE miracle from the Bible where the purpose of the miracle was not clear

water to wine. What was the purpose there? to get people smashed at a wedding?
Lazarus from the dead... You do know he died again right? what was the purpose of the resurrection? to keep his sisters from being sad? what about casting legion out into the heard of pigs??? Does God rally hate pork chops more than demons? If you remember Legion was under the impression that Christ was just going to outright send them to Hell.. He asks for mercy via the pigs.

Not that I can not find a deeper theological point, your question was to point out a non clear cut meanings to miracles.

and obvious.  Staff into a snake, show that God was more powerful.  Water from the rock, give drink to a thirsty people.  Water into wine, provide for a wedding.  Walk on water, get to a boat.  Fishes and loaves, feed the hungry.  Ten plagues, show God's power.  40 days and nights of rain, kill the infidels.  EVERY SINGLE TIME there was a clear, obvious reason.  I never said there was no "reason" behind miracles today, just that the "miracles" I always here about not only almost always have a very mundane explanation (I literally had someone believe that seeing a particular license plate qualified as a miracle), but there is NEVER a "clear and obvious" reason for the miracle.

The point I am making with my examples in contrast to your list is that Christ/God can take trivial liberties with miracles that his servants could not.

Remember Moses not being allowed into the promise land because the last time he produced water from a rock Moses struck it has he had before, and God to him to simply command it out of the rock.

God when dealing directly with us can make or take liberties (do seemingly things without a clear cut reason/that we might come to understand later) that prophets or examples you used.

When in fact the purpose is the same, but on an indivisual level, and not for the masses or crowds. God didn't change here. we did or rather our ablity to have a direct relationship with him did. Before in the OT and even in the days when Christ was alive, the Holy Spirit worked though prophets to assure the crowds that the man claiming to be a servant of God was indeed who he said he was... Today we all have access to this very same God on a personal level. Miracles on this level is the 'personal proof' some of us need to ensure we are indeed working for the very same God.

Now there is some mental gymnastics there, and you're continuing with the red herring.  You're replacing "clear and obvious purpose" with "purpose", the two very much NOT being the same.  You are defining "purpose" as being "God's reason for doing it".  That is clearly not the way I was using the word.  I'm not talking about God's reasoning here.  I'm talking about the miracles of the Bible not being just random weird shit happening.

actually I am still speaking to the broader point of miracles and how they work in general.

You seem to be of the mindset A or B with miracles and I'm trying to get you to step back and acknowledge the whole alphabet as being connected.

 Whatever needs to happen for an indivisual to be assured. In short it depends on the heart or person God is directly working with.

Well that was a non-answer.

_Or you could have been humble enough to simply say: "Drich I do not understand what you mean. If there is a deeper meaning then I am lost. Could you please explain?" Then I'd be like sure!!

What this means is, the miracles we experience are directly correlated to how much doubt we have in our heart, or rather how much convincing we will need for is to shift from faith to belief! Like Thomas needed to put his hands in the wounds of Christ so that he could know it was Him who was resurrected. Again Christ did not shunn Him rather presented himself to Him because in His heart that is what Thomas needed.

That said do not look for palor tricks God knows what you need, and all you need do is be humble enough to A/S/K for it.

 what is a big thing? Can you name one thing in science that is "undisproovable?" so than why the double standard?

No, I can't.  And neither can you.  If it can't be tested, or "disproved", then it's not scientific.  So there is no double standard.  There is just the false equivalency you are trying to weave between science and mysticism.

Assuming God is "undisproovable" is the double standard smart guy. How arrogant are you, that you assume that all believe God or at least our idea of Him is indeed unfalsifiable? That God hasn't put in a method of falsifiablity?

Nothing has.. Look at the plagues.. For everything God had moses do on a large scale Pharaoh's wizards was able to conjurors on a smaller one.. all except the Passover of the 10th plague.
For those who do not want to believe God always leaves an out for their minds.[/qoute]

You have taken answering without answering to an art form.

"Drich you lost me again, can you back up and explain what you mean???"
Sure:

 The plagues were a "big thing".  An entire nation was inexplicably vexed.

WHICH AGAIN Were Explained away by the Pharraoh's "wise men."
One of the few things the movie 'Bat-Moses" (The recent movie where Batman played Moses) Got right was the attempt to explain way the plagues. Why else do you think Pharaoh remained so obstinate? His 'scientists' gave him the illusion of plausibility, something to believe other than the truth that THE Almighty God was opposing Him, and was going to crush him to make a larger point.

The Same thing Happened to Jesus and the Pharisees, even after many of them literally witnessed miracles He performed for themselves!! Or did you think they willfully lied and killed the Son of God on a cross?

No in their mind despite all the things Jesus did they were killing a false prophet in their minds, because their version of god and God did not jive!

 An ingrown toenail being healed, not a big thing.

Again, who are you to say what is big and what is not? To the right person this toenail may have been a thorn in the flesh that kept them from an active life.

 

Cancer, something which you can't see and we don't fully understand, going away during treatment even though the doctors don't "think" it will, not a big thing.  Obviously the doctors don't "know" it won't go away or they wouldn't be doing the damned treatment.

Again, it depends on the person. I chronicled about a year and 1/2 of cancer tests and diagnosis here, that were not a big deal even though I had two doctors loosing their minds scarring my wife and anyone who would listen into thinking I had maybe a year left. They seemed disappointed that I was not taking things more seriously. I did everything asked of me, but I did not freek out or cry when I was told there was a 98% chance of Non hodgkins lymphoma, over and over.

Don't get me wrong not having cancer, very big deal and very grateful I don't have it. Being cured of AIDS again very big deal glad i do not have to deal with that. But at the same time.. the bigger deal the things that I know that God had a hand in are the 'small things' you'd dismiss, but the plagued and tormented me all my life.

Again it all depends on the person and what where their heart is.

Thank you for those...um...specifics?

Your welcome.

Stop, dude.  You don't know shit about logical fallacies.  If you did you wouldn't be taking a simple, generic example of one possible modern miracle as an absolute claim that God made a specific statue cry somewhere.  It was an EXAMPLE of something I have heard claimed as a possible miracle, not a CLAIM on my part and, thus, NOT a logical fallacy.

Now who is the one drawing conclusions?  See my soul from there, do you?  My entire life?  Besides, I really haven't a clue what you're saying here.

I gathered, and really don't care.

[quote=you] A statue crying, not so much. So if miracles are not just weird things that happen which can't be explained empirically, again, why did God change?

Again, beggs the question, who said God did?

So it would seem you need a little straightening out, let's start with the defination of begs the question:
Begs the question is a term that comes from formal logic. It's a translation of the Latin phrase petitio principii, and it's used to mean that someone has made a conclusion based on a premise that lacks support.

Did you see it??? Yeah, you are made a premise that lacks support.

What premise?
crying statue is a miracle, weird things unexplained things are also considered miracles, and or God has changed.

There are subdivisions in scripture which miraculous things are classified. Signs, wonders, miracles.

Everything you mentioned is either considered a sign or wonder. Crying statue= wonder. Gift of the Holy Spirit, tongues, Wisdom, Phophesy= Sign. God reaching out personally to interact with you how ever 'small' =Miracle.

Can you see how wrongly assuming or assigning all sign and wonders as miracles and/or comparing signs or wonders to miracles would put you in a position to come to an unsupported conclusion?

Maybe ask a few more questions before you go in for the kill, it might save you some face next time. (maybe, just maybe, things can sometimes go alittle deeper than what you think they do.)

[Minimalist]

Crying statue= wonder.

Crying statue = horseshit.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scienc...90530.html

THE ONLY weeping madonna officially accepted by the Roman Catholic Church has been exposed as a fake by an Italian scientist who used the logic of Mr Spock, the deductive reasoning of Sherlock Holmes and a knowledge of capillary attraction.

You're so easily conned, dripshit.

[Asmodee]

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

I don't mind hearing an opposing point of view.

we shall see...

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

You realize that you just said exactly the opposite of what I said and it makes no more sense the way you said it.

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

So you refuted both parts of what I said and ended up canceling out your own argument.

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.

First, the big one (I know it's more than one, but it's a general theme rather than a single question).  Miracles were obviously not rare in the Bible.

 Actually they were. remember the bible represents about a 3000 year span and about an 1/8th of the bible's content deals directly with miracles.

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.

Why are they so rare now?

there not, I would say they happen in about the same frequency, it now we just call them by different names. "Unexplain medical phenoma or mis diagnosis." (as to why somone wakes up after being pronounced 'brain dead.')

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.

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.