(May 31, 2013 at 3:56 pm)Baalzebutt Wrote:

(May 31, 2013 at 3:04 pm)Consilius Wrote: Mothers survive cancer…teenagers get off drugs…kidnapped children are recovered.
While these can be explained away without saying "God did this", sometimes we have to realize that there is an ultimate good that works through nature and through the people in our lives.

Oh, and by the way, how dare you take away the work of those that helped the mother survive cancer, the will of the teenager to get off drugs, and the stunning dedication and work of those that recovered the kidnapped child and hand it off to your non-existent god.

Why does it pain you so to give credit where credit is due?

"…there is an ulimate good that works through nature AND THROUGH THE PEOPLE IN OUR LIVES." Everybody deserves credit for what they do. At the same time, the skill of these people, the morals of these people, and the availability of these people when we need them cannot be attributed solely to themselves.
The good in ourselves is a reflection of what God has made us to be, and at the same time is entirely ours because we made the decision to reach our maximum potential in any aspect. God picks up form there and is instrumental in providing the resources, the other people, and the opportunity to become who we are.

Evidence?

(May 31, 2013 at 4:07 pm)Consilius Wrote: "…there is an ulimate good that works through nature AND THROUGH THE PEOPLE IN OUR LIVES." Everybody deserves credit for what they do. At the same time, the skill of these people, the morals of these people, and the availability of these people when we need them cannot be attributed solely to themselves.
The good in ourselves is a reflection of what God has made us to be, and at the same time is entirely ours because we made the decision to reach our maximum potential in any aspect. God picks up form there and is instrumental in providing the resources, the other people, and the opportunity to become who we are.

I call bullshit. MAJOR bullshit.

(May 31, 2013 at 3:04 pm)Consilius Wrote: Mothers survive cancer…teenagers get off drugs…kidnapped children are recovered.
While these can be explained away without saying "God did this",

Miracles sure have slipped a long way from what they used to be.

Seas used to part, men survived 3 days in a fish, virgin girls used to give birth, the sun stopped for 3 hours, holy people came out of their graves and walked around Jerusalem, women turned into salt, etc, etc.

Now a miracle is someone surviving cancer (with the help of modern medical science of course), someone getting off drugs, law enforcement recovering a kidnap victim...

I'm not impressed.

(May 31, 2013 at 4:01 pm)Consilius Wrote: There is no need to separate religion and science, because science is simply finding out more about the world God created and the way it works. It is a false division.

Wrong. Which god? - Your god?!

Science has to stay neutral towards all political affiliations and all religious beliefs to determine truth behind unknowns. And not to determine what god made - that is simply a private conclusion which wouldnt withstand the scruteny of a laboretory because it is a unproven assertion.

Quote:Religion has nothing to defend in front of science, because science is just a testimony to religion.

Wrong. Religious people can only interpret it as such, but it doesnt withstand the scruteny of a scientific laboretory!

Quote:Science investigates the laws functioning on the universe as instituted by God.

Again a nonsence assertion which cannot be proven. Personal beliefs do not substetute a reason to redirekt the process of finding answeres with the scientific method.

Quote:Fundamentalist belief that the world is 10000 years old, yes, is harmful to science, because it pins the Bible against observable fact. The Bible is merely a creation which has a part in the created universe.

This is simply your personal oppinion and not the way scientific inquiery is generaly conducted.

If you do not understand why scientific inquirey has to be undertaken neutral and has no room for further assertions which cannot be backed up with facts - then there is no point in debating with you - because you are a fundermentalist yourself.

Quote:“A miracle is an act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.”

Ambrose Bierce

(May 31, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Simon Moon Wrote:

(May 31, 2013 at 3:04 pm)Consilius Wrote: Mothers survive cancer…teenagers get off drugs…kidnapped children are recovered.
While these can be explained away without saying "God did this",

Miracles sure have slipped a long way from what they used to be.

Seas used to part, men survived 3 days in a fish, virgin girls used to give birth, the sun stopped for 3 hours, holy people came out of their graves and walked around Jerusalem, women turned into salt, etc, etc.

Now a miracle is someone surviving cancer (with the help of modern medical science of course), someone getting off drugs, law enforcement recovering a kidnap victim...

I'm not impressed.

I think I covered that in the snippet you took out. These miracles were probably no easier to identify for those people than it is for us with mothers who survive cancer.
If you lived in BC: (a) you could attribute the miracle to demons due to the lack of science to explain it (b) just forget about it, considering that the world only had polytheistic priests who would tell you that the gods lived in idols and ate bread.
When Israel was a nomadic tribe in the desert, it wasn't exactly easy to believe that there was a single invisible god who was everywhere and then found a nation based of that belief. It was a pioneering concept. So these people needed very strong proof of who this God was to be convinced to keep incredibly specific commandments meant to preserve perfect monotheistic faith. Besides, crossing rivers didn't stop them from rebelling against Moses.
Miracles systematically decreased in splendor from crossing rivers to shaking vipers of your hand (St. Paul). When monotheism became more popular, it was a lot easier to join the Christians or the Jews. The problem became became actually believing whether or not the Judeo-Christian god did it. It was easy to believe in a god then.
Then, miracles become harder to prove and harder to attribute to a deity at all.
God doesn't make it easy on anybody. The problem with believing in him went from being the odd one out to trying to figure out which god did it to trying to figure out if a god did it at all. God does his part, and he requires being met halfway so he can carry you to where you need to go.

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(May 31, 2013 at 4:30 pm)The Germans are coming Wrote:

(May 31, 2013 at 4:01 pm)Consilius Wrote: There is no need to separate religion and science, because science is simply finding out more about the world God created and the way it works. It is a false division.

Wrong. Which god? - Your god?!

Science has to stay neutral towards all political affiliations and all religious beliefs to determine truth behind unknowns.
And not to determine what god made - that is simply a private conclusion which wouldnt withstand the scruteny of a laboretory because it is a unproven assertion.

Quote:Religion has nothing to defend in front of science, because science is just a testimony to religion.

Wrong. Religious people can only interpret it as such, but it doesnt withstand the scruteny of a scientific laboretory!

Quote:Science investigates the laws functioning on the universe as instituted by God.

Again a nonsence assertion which cannot be proven. Personal beliefs do not substetute a reason to redirekt the process of finding answeres with the scientific method.

Quote:Fundamentalist belief that the world is 10000 years old, yes, is harmful to science, because it pins the Bible against observable fact. The Bible is merely a creation which has a part in the created universe.

This is simply your personal oppinion and not the way scientific inquiery is generaly conducted.

If you do not understand why scientific inquirey has to be undertaken neutral and has no room for further assertions which cannot be backed up with facts - then there is no point in debating with you - because you are a fundermentalist yourself.

If anything in the Bible turns out not to be true, it can only then be taken as a metaphor or a misunderstanding from the people who wrote it before modern science existed.
I should also say that universe made without God is also an unproven assertion that is under heavy debate. I'm not going to enter into that debate with you.
And, by the way, if you view of a *fundamentalist is a Christian, then that's exactly what I am.

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(May 31, 2013 at 4:24 pm)Baalzebutt Wrote:

(May 31, 2013 at 4:07 pm)Consilius Wrote: "…there is an ulimate good that works through nature AND THROUGH THE PEOPLE IN OUR LIVES." Everybody deserves credit for what they do. At the same time, the skill of these people, the morals of these people, and the availability of these people when we need them cannot be attributed solely to themselves.
The good in ourselves is a reflection of what God has made us to be, and at the same time is entirely ours because we made the decision to reach our maximum potential in any aspect. God picks up form there and is instrumental in providing the resources, the other people, and the opportunity to become who we are.

I call bullshit. MAJOR bullshit.

The detective who finds the kidnapped child could have been born in a Third World country. He could never have had access to formal education. He could have had his moral corrupted by a pair of drunken parents, f they had not killed him before he reached puberty. This detective could have been incompetent and not know how to do his job well. This detective could have been on a corruption case in D.C. while the kidnapping occurred in West Virginia.
Nobody does it alone.

Consilius, don't ignore my post. It's very easy to say how much good there is when you use examples of success stories. Not so easy with stories of failure, i.e. a mother actually dying of cancer.

(May 31, 2013 at 4:11 pm)Faith No More Wrote: Evidence?

Life. The fact that we even can TELL between good and evil, let alone that we can actually experience it in our lives, points to an ultimate, unchanging good. That is evidence.
But that we trust in this ultimate good to take us where we need to go, that is trust, or faith. It is not rooted in lives that have already been lived, but is more along the lives of an educated guess formed from past experiences.

Miracles don't exist. There's just things explained and things unexplained.