(November 3, 2012 at 10:44 pm)pocaracas Wrote: Super-natural observations, however, are shared by a few select individuals who, at present, are not taken seriously, are they?.... but, for some reason that eludes me, those super-natural observations from people of long ago are taken seriously.
Can anyone explain why that is?

Most supernatural events are not taken seriously by Christians, only those that are Biblical. We know a great deal about why other cultures had supernatural events (often brought on by altered states of consciousness), those in the Bible are a little more consistent.

Personally though, I do know people who have had physical healing through the power of prayer - something readily dismissed by critics. There are others that I've been told about from first-hand accounts, but I'm inherently a sceptic at heart and don't trust things told to me by others, so I really only believe the people I know and trust who were themselves healed. I can see why you would dismiss stories told to you as well (I do the same, regardless of whether they're actually true or not). Your view might change if you ever know someone personally who is healed through prayer. This isn't an attack on medicine, I'm not a scientologist after all!

(November 4, 2012 at 1:41 am)Daniel Wrote: Most supernatural events are not taken seriously by Christians, only those that are Biblical. We know a great deal about why other cultures had supernatural events (often brought on by altered states of consciousness), those in the Bible are a little more consistent.

Consistent with what? Certainly not reality.

Quote:Personally though, I do know people who have had physical healing through the power of prayer - something readily dismissed by critics. There are others that I've been told about from first-hand accounts, but I'm inherently a sceptic at heart and don't trust things told to me by others, so I really only believe the people I know and trust who were themselves healed. I can see why you would dismiss stories told to you as well (I do the same, regardless of whether they're actually true or not). Your view might change if you ever know someone personally who is healed through prayer. This isn't an attack on medicine, I'm not a scientologist after all!

Please quote names and circumstances for these first hand accounts of divine healing of which you speak. I ask this because on a (now defunct) Australian christian forum I visited, the admin claimed to have caused a mans arm to regrow.

When pressed by the resident atheists to produce evidence for this( the christians merely accepted him at his word) he was naturally unable to deliver.

(November 4, 2012 at 2:21 am)Zen Badger Wrote: Please quote names and circumstances for these first hand accounts of divine healing of which you speak. I ask this because on a (now defunct) Australian christian forum I visited, the admin claimed to have caused a mans arm to regrow.

When pressed by the resident atheists to produce evidence for this( the christians merely accepted him at his word) he was naturally unable to deliver.

I just said I wouldn't expect you to accept healing accounts that aren't of people who you know personally. No their arms didn't "re-grow" the closet anyone I know had to that was a physical healing for a physical condition which they had had for about 15-20 years. As it is someone I know personally, I believe them. Should I ever experience healing myself - first hand - I would have no reason to lie about it to my friends, no would I have any reason to make up a story like that. But I wouldn't bother telling people who don't know me personally, because I wouldn't expect them to believe it in the first place.

15-20 years?

God certainly took his sweet time sorting that one out.

No more to add on the consistency of miracles in the bible?

(November 4, 2012 at 2:38 am)Zen Badger Wrote: 15-20 years?

God certainly took his sweet time sorting that one out.

That particular person went to a healing retreat and came back healed. I noticed the difference, so did everyone else they knew. Are you going to believe what I just told you? Not a chance - and I don't expect you to. Just like I don't believe charismatics who tell me they can talk "in tongues". I'm just explaining to you that I have seen proof what I believe.

And what was his affliction?

Still no comment on miracles in the bible?

My wife was asthmatic, then she wen to a healing retreat, aka, doctor, who performed acupuncture on her.... she still says she's asthmatic, but hasn't had any sort of attack for over 15 years.
There's an actual physical malady that got "cured" in a non-orthodox manner which worked.

Many physical maladies can be cured by the power of wishful thinking, the power of positive thinking, the power of laughter. Is that proof of god's existence? I don't think so.
Prayer can boost one of these powers and, through the well known placebo effect, heal someone.... Of course, no arms were ever regrown in this manner, no kidneys, no livers, no legs, no lungs.... at most, you get some cancer remissing against the odds... Odds are a funny thing. there's a statistics theorem that states that for a large enough population, you can approximate any distribution to a gaussian. A gaussian looks like this:

The center μ is the average, or the most expected outcome of this distribution.
Then, you have the tails... these go to zero on infinity. Anything more than 3σ away from μ is considered highly unlikely.... it's only 0.2% of the population. 0.2%, almost nothing, right? When normal doctors provide you with a diagnosis, they rely on this 3σ: most ~99.8% of patients have outcome X. That doesn't mean that the remaining 0.2% are god's domain. It just means doctors can't explain it, because it's not the norm.
Transistors in your computer work on some rather unlikely events, like quantum mechanic's tunneling effect. It has a well defined probability, although unlikely, but works every single time, because it relies on many many electrons being present (you know Avogadro's number, right? ~10^24), and only the few unlikely ones actually getting past the gate.

Now, for something else on the tail of the distribution: there are people who are born naturally HIV resistant... wouldn't it be great if we could harness this ability and spread it for all? People are working on it.... and they don't assume "goddidit".

(November 4, 2012 at 5:49 am)pocaracas Wrote: Many physical maladies can be cured by the power of wishful thinking, the power of positive thinking, the power of laughter. Is that proof of god's existence? I don't think so.
Prayer can boost one of these powers and, through the well known placebo effect, heal someone.... Of course, no arms were ever regrown in this manner, no kidneys, no livers, no legs, no lungs.... at most, you get some cancer remissing against the odds... Odds are a funny thing. there's a statistics theorem that states that for a large enough population, you can approximate any distribution to a gaussian. A gaussian looks like this:

The center μ is the average, or the most expected outcome of this distribution.
Then, you have the tails... these go to zero on infinity. Anything more than 3σ away from μ is considered highly unlikely.... it's only 0.2% of the population. 0.2%, almost nothing, right? When normal doctors provide you with a diagnosis, they rely on this 3σ: most ~99.8% of patients have outcome X. That doesn't mean that the remaining 0.2% are god's domain. It just means doctors can't explain it, because it's not the norm.
Transistors in your computer work on some rather unlikely events, like quantum mechanic's tunneling effect. It has a well defined probability, although unlikely, but works every single time, because it relies on many many electrons being present (you know Avogadro's number, right? ~10^24), and only the few unlikely ones actually getting past the gate.

While it is good to look at everything sceptically, you can't map specific things to probability. Olivia Lambert for instance died earlier this year. I never met the little girl, some of my friends were involved with the family - prayed with the family, throughout their battle. By the way, the family didn't just "rely on prayer" as you cynics probably think, they travelled overseas to seek experimental treatment. So if you want to say that prayer doesn't work, why not say that medicine doesn't work either?

Those who preach a prosperity gospel - all good things happen to those who believe - are in err (see Acts 9:16).

(November 4, 2012 at 2:21 am)Zen Badger Wrote:

(November 4, 2012 at 1:41 am)Daniel Wrote: Most supernatural events are not taken seriously by Christians, only those that are Biblical. We know a great deal about why other cultures had supernatural events (often brought on by altered states of consciousness), those in the Bible are a little more consistent.

Consistent with what? Certainly not reality.

Not even with each other.

(November 4, 2012 at 7:40 am)Daniel Wrote:

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(November 4, 2012 at 5:49 am)pocaracas Wrote: Many physical maladies can be cured by the power of wishful thinking, the power of positive thinking, the power of laughter. Is that proof of god's existence? I don't think so.
Prayer can boost one of these powers and, through the well known placebo effect, heal someone.... Of course, no arms were ever regrown in this manner, no kidneys, no livers, no legs, no lungs.... at most, you get some cancer remissing against the odds... Odds are a funny thing. there's a statistics theorem that states that for a large enough population, you can approximate any distribution to a gaussian. A gaussian looks like this:

The center μ is the average, or the most expected outcome of this distribution.
Then, you have the tails... these go to zero on infinity. Anything more than 3σ away from μ is considered highly unlikely.... it's only 0.2% of the population. 0.2%, almost nothing, right? When normal doctors provide you with a diagnosis, they rely on this 3σ: most ~99.8% of patients have outcome X. That doesn't mean that the remaining 0.2% are god's domain. It just means doctors can't explain it, because it's not the norm.
Transistors in your computer work on some rather unlikely events, like quantum mechanic's tunneling effect. It has a well defined probability, although unlikely, but works every single time, because it relies on many many electrons being present (you know Avogadro's number, right? ~10^24), and only the few unlikely ones actually getting past the gate.

---

While it is good to look at everything sceptically, you can't map specific things to probability. Olivia Lambert for instance died earlier this year. I never met the little girl, some of my friends were involved with the family - prayed with the family, throughout their battle. By the way, the family didn't just "rely on prayer" as you cynics probably think, they travelled overseas to seek experimental treatment. So if you want to say that prayer doesn't work, why not say that medicine doesn't work either?

Those who preach a prosperity gospel - all good things happen to those who believe - are in err (see Acts 9:16).

Medicine is not magic.
Present day medicine is far from perfect and far from understanding everything that happens in our bodies.
You can't expect it to solve every health problem that every human beings have.

All I want you to understand is that there are things that medicine doesn't understand, but you shouldn't expect a magical entity to be the main cause when things turn out well and medicine fails to understand the natural cause.