The power of Christ...

[Vicki Q]

It's quite tragic, really.

Many people want to believe in magic, they want their irrevocable problems to be fixable and fixed.  And religion makes all kinds of outrageous promises.

It's painful to go through that.  It's hard enough to have problems to begin with.  To then be given false hope and slowly have it dawn on you that you've been sold a pup, and often be told its your fault in some way when their promises don't come true, is abusive.

Here's the killer question. There seems to be a story here, which has been dealt with badly by the church. Perhaps they made promises they should never have made. Perhaps they failed to provide proper ordinary human support.

I don't have a theory as to why one is helped, one is not. It's much the same question as the problem of evil. Why we have to go through this world to get to the next. Maybe it's something to do with free will, or our response to suffering.

If one could understand evil, if one could find a framework within which it made sense, it would no longer be the radical, anti-creation, anti-God force it actually is. Evil derives much of its power from not being understood.

When I said that God usually uses unremarkable means to advance His Kingdom, I'm including ordinary people doing ordinary things like just being a good friend.

[FrustratedFool]

Thing is, the church and the bible promise all manner of things to the believer: answered prayers, spiritual gifts, miracles, angels, inner peace, prophesy, love between believers, etc.

Nothing happens. Life is the same for the believer as the unbeliever. The promises fail.

Appeal to mystery isn't adequate and just prolongs the cognitive dissonance or religious abuse.

[Anomalocaris]

It's quite tragic, really.

Many people want to believe in magic, they want their irrevocable problems to be fixable and fixed.  And religion makes all kinds of outrageous promises.

It's painful to go through that.  It's hard enough to have problems to begin with.  To then be given false hope and slowly have it dawn on you that you've been sold a pup, and often be told its your fault in some way when their promises don't come true, is abusive.

Here's the killer question. There seems to be a story here, which has been dealt with badly by the church. Perhaps they made promises they should never have made. Perhaps they failed to provide proper ordinary human support.

I don't have a theory as to why one is helped, one is not. It's much the same question as the problem of evil. Why we have to go through this world to get to the next. Maybe it's something to do with free will, or our response to suffering.

If one could understand evil, if one could find a framework within which it made sense, it would no longer be the radical, anti-creation, anti-God force it actually is. Evil derives much of its power from not being understood.

When I said that God usually uses unremarkable means to advance His Kingdom, I'm including ordinary people doing ordinary things like just being a good friend.

You do have a theory, you just can’t admit to yourself much less others about having one because such an admission, whether to yourself or any others, is tantamount to an admission that you’ve quite possibly been a self-deceiving idiot and moral coward who also undertook to aggressively deceive others in order to better maintain your own self deception, and that a really honest person would have given that possibility at least equal billing to your elaborate but borrowed self-deception when communicating with others.

The theory is there is no help, there is only chance and very superficial appearance of help  resulting from unrelated contingent circumstances that dovetails fatally with cognitive defects of those who craving to discern help.   There is no help because the made up agent that is claimed to provide the help does not exist.

[h4ym4n]

That whole confirmation bias, yeah? Where believers see significance because they're only counting the hits and justifying the misses. You never lose with the thumb on the scale that way!

We seem to have moved on from God acting within nature, than from outside it, which is a good thing because so many corpses of straw men were strewn around the discussion that it was starting to look like an agricultural version of the Somme.

The key thing Jesus did with all that cross stuff is inaugurate the Kingdom of God. At some point, there will be no pain, no death, no delivery drivers lobbing parcels over the fence, no experimental jazz.
Unexpected signs are events where things that will be normal in this new world are starting to happen now. The new creation breaking through. Not radical abnormailities within the old creation, but normal service being resumed from the new.

Even allowing for confirmation bias, it's been my experience that prayer actually works. Not all the time (even Paul had fails 2 Cor 12:6-10), but more than enough to tie up my scepticism.

You sound like a bonafide Jesus nut job. Congratulations 


What’s your fantasy of what your afterlife will be like.

[Vicki Q]

Thing is, the church and the bible promise all manner of things to the believer: answered prayers, spiritual gifts, miracles, angels, inner peace, prophesy, love between believers, etc.

Nothing happens.  Life is the same for the believer as the unbeliever.  The promises fail.

Appeal to mystery isn't adequate and just prolongs the cognitive dissonance or religious abuse.

I mean, that's the really weird thing. Stuff does happen. That quote from William Temple “When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don't, they don't.” has been the experience of many Xians, which is why it's still flourishing.

Apart from externals like the (earlier mentioned) back pain of my close relative vanishing overnight, some utterly bizarre timing stuff that happened to another close relative, Lourdes, The Cross and the Switchblade, people I've met with healing gifts, bla, bla...I've also personally experienced some very strange things. Real answers to prayer. I remember at the end of one lengthy, painful, off-the-wall episode thinking that if I ever felt tempted to stop being a Xian, just to go over the events and the feeling would go away.

No doubt the replies will come in that I am deluded/seeing patterns when none exist/lying/misreading things/anything. Those options are open to the rest of you. They are not open to me.

[FrustratedFool]

They never happened to me, and I never saw them happen for anyone else.

[HappySkeptic]

I mean, that's the really weird thing. Stuff does happen. That quote from William Temple “When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don't, they don't.” has been the experience of many Xians, which is why it's still flourishing.

(snip)

If you look for coincidences, then you will see them.  That is the way the brain works.

Now, that doesn't mean that introspection can't lead to better actions and therefore better consequences.  Being part of a community (as churches are) can also lead to reciprocal actions that are beneficial.
 
These are available to believers and atheists.

[brewer]

@Vicki Q, you can believe what you want to believe, no skin off my back.

However, you should understand by now that none here (except maybe another christian entity) are going to validate your beliefs no matter what testimony you put forward or how long you persist.

If you're here in an attempt at conversion you're wasting time, at least with me.

[Bucky Ball]

Thing is, the church and the bible promise all manner of things to the believer: answered prayers, spiritual gifts, miracles, angels, inner peace, prophesy, love between believers, etc.

Nothing happens.  Life is the same for the believer as the unbeliever.  The promises fail.

Appeal to mystery isn't adequate and just prolongs the cognitive dissonance or religious abuse.

I mean, that's the really weird thing. Stuff does happen. That quote from William Temple “When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don't, they don't.” has been the experience of many Xians, which is why it's still flourishing.

Apart from externals like the (earlier mentioned) back pain of my close relative vanishing overnight, some utterly bizarre timing stuff that happened to another close relative, Lourdes, The Cross and the Switchblade, people I've met with healing gifts, bla, bla...I've also personally experienced some very strange things. Real answers to prayer. I remember at the end of one lengthy, painful, off-the-wall episode thinking that if I ever felt tempted to stop being a Xian, just to go over the events and the feeling would go away.

No doubt the replies will come in that I am deluded/seeing patterns when none exist/lying/misreading things/anything. Those options are open to the rest of you. They are not open to me.

The fact is, you are deluded. 
How many sets of Christian parents havse stood at the bedside of their dying young children, and wondered why your Jebus promised to answer prayrers 
asked in his name, and yet watched their children die, even though Jebus promised he would answer them. 
They (other options) may not be open to you, but it's only due to your personal ignorance and delusion.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

He doesn't seem to be able to create good followers.

It's that whole apple/talking snake thing. When you intentionally make sinners what else could god expect?

The Christian God is an idiot, so it's the best He can do. Should have sublet the job to Ishtar.