Book of Acts: Pure Fantasy

[DeistPaladin]

I haven't gotten any further than chapter 12 so I can't as of yet address the other verses but, I do believe I will find them to be the same, that is, that God was doing the work through Peter and the other disciples.
I will have other comments later, it could be Monday or Tuesday, I'm go out of town tomorrow.

I'll save you some time.

Your answers will be, "GodDidIt... GodDidIt... GodDidIt... GodDidIt..."

You've managed to miss the entire point of the OP and totally forgotten my question. Are you prepared to take ownership of all this woo, that is you really and honestly think that the universe really operates this way?

Followup question, since I think I can safely assume a "yes", is to explain your beliefs. There are, as I see it, two possibilities:

1. The overwhelming woo of Acts is still happening today but it's all really stealthy and happens under the radar somehow. Explain in detail. Government run Men in Black keeping it all under wraps? Satan's keeping it covered up to con atheists into Hell? Pure chance?

2. 2000 years ago was the age of woo. That was then, this is now. Now we live in a natural universe. Explain in detail. Is God taking a thousand year nap? Did Jesus sign a peace treaty with Satan? Has the dragon blood that once ran strong among sorcerers thinned out over the generations?

[Faith No More]

God just lost his mojo.

[Whateverist]

God just lost his mojo.

Myabe there is a little blue pill for God. So when the moment is right for a miracle, He'll be ready too.

[Angrboda]

2. 2000 years ago was the age of woo. That was then, this is now. Now we live in a natural universe. Explain in detail. Is God taking a thousand year nap? Did Jesus sign a peace treaty with Satan? Has the dragon blood that once ran strong among sorcerers thinned out over the generations?

Before, I challenged your argument on the basis that it was a weak demonstration based on inductive inference, which you explicitly denied, as follows:

It is weak induction at best, a sort of "No black swans" argument that because it impinges on your subjective sense of the credibility of the text you want to raise it to the level of an objective criticism. Please cite the law or rule which allows you to deduce - not infer, but deduce - that the absence of a class of events in the present implies a lack of events of that class in the past. (And no, there is no uniformitarianism which holds for all classes of events, even if you could demonstrate that it is a law.)

That wasn't my point, that if it's not happening today it could never have happened. My point was we live in a natural universe.

And here you are asserting it again. I welcome you to demonstrate, by some other method than inductive inference, that we live in a naturalistic universe. I was initially astounded by your claim, though now less so as I suspect you simply do not understand the term "induction". Get yourself over to Wikipedia or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or wherever and make yourself a five minute expert on inductive inference, and then come back here and demonstrate that we live in a naturalistic universe by some other method than inductive inference.

(ETA: The term "naturalistic universe" is not well defined, in my experience; I doubt our ideas of what this refers to differ in any substantial way, but I will request that you be explicit in your use of this term. Generally, what people mean by this is that the observable universe is described by the current consensus of scientific hypothesis about the world. Unfortunately, this definition has a tendency toward circularity, but more importantly for your argument, the scientific understanding of the world is one that rests on the back of inductive inference.)

[DeistPaladin]

(blah blah blah blah blah blah)

Sorry, is there a part of "agree to disagree" that you don't get.

[Angrboda]

You mean besides the part where I agree? So, in other words, you have no argument. What a shock.

[KichigaiNeko]

No shock that you don't understand apophenia..

[Phil]

As for the other stuff: Religious people used to say that the reason why miracles like those in the book of acts don't happen today is that (and there are several versions of this) the special anointing that Jesus put on the disciples was never passed down to later generations. The power of the miracle producing magic spell (as I would call it) ended with the disciples. Another version of this belief is that "those miracles aren't for us today" because the purpose for them was to get the glorious church of god started (kind of like a push start).

A more modern explanation is that the miracles died out when the church lost their first love so to speak. This belief assumes that Christianity didn't evolve at all. It was perfect (with a few flaws) in the time of Paul, then it went a bit haywire during the reign of the Catholics (note my sarcasm) and then it started it's way back to it's original state of near perfection after the reformation. To "Prove" this they claim that when the church rose in power it had some sort of inverse relationship with miracle producing power.

The bible has it's own built in defense of this.

He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.

According to this (which was written well before Acts), the reason for the absence of miracles is due to a lack of faith by Christians.

[Godscreated]

I haven't gotten any further than chapter 12 so I can't as of yet address the other verses but, I do believe I will find them to be the same, that is, that God was doing the work through Peter and the other disciples.
I will have other comments later, it could be Monday or Tuesday, I'm go out of town tomorrow.

I'll save you some time.

Your answers will be, "GodDidIt... GodDidIt... GodDidIt... GodDidIt..."

You've managed to miss the entire point of the OP and totally forgotten my question. Are you prepared to take ownership of all this woo, that is you really and honestly think that the universe really operates this way?

Followup question, since I think I can safely assume a "yes", is to explain your beliefs. There are, as I see it, two possibilities:

1. The overwhelming woo of Acts is still happening today but it's all really stealthy and happens under the radar somehow. Explain in detail. Government run Men in Black keeping it all under wraps? Satan's keeping it covered up to con atheists into Hell? Pure chance?

2. 2000 years ago was the age of woo. That was then, this is now. Now we live in a natural universe. Explain in detail. Is God taking a thousand year nap? Did Jesus sign a peace treaty with Satan? Has the dragon blood that once ran strong among sorcerers thinned out over the generations?

So it's not scripture that you want to argue, it's your idea that you have never nor will ever believe in any miracles because we live in a natural world. I agree we live in a natural world and in this natural world God reaches in and miracles become part of reality. I can not recall Paul ever being used of God for miracles such as healing the sick or raising the dead and ect. he was however used to bring salvation to many people and that's the greatest miracle of all. Miracles still happen today people who do not believe dismiss them as something we can not explain, well do we not describe a miracle as something that is not explainable, if we could explain a miracle it would not be a miracle now would it. Jesus need not sign a treaty with Satan, Jesus has complete power over him. Are you trying to say that 2000 years ago the universe was not natural, you think things in the universe have some how changed from mysterious to natural. You're trying to give Satan to much credit, there's much he has no control over, there's much he can not do. You sound like some Christians I know who think that Satan cause's all there problems, when all the need to do is take a look at there selves.

[KichigaiNeko]

So it's not scripture that you want to argue, it's your idea that you have never nor will ever believe in any miracles because we live in a natural world.

There is no evidence of miracles G-C

Unless of course you count your hard labour in furniture making a miracle??

I agree we live in a natural world and in this natural world God reaches in and miracles become part of reality.

That statement is nothing more than what one would tell a 2 year old child to calm their fears G-C....

I can not recall Paul ever being used of God for miracles such as healing the sick or raising the dead and ect. he was however used to bring salvation to many people and that's the greatest miracle of all.

And this "salvation" is in the form of?? Like GW Bush invading Iraq and Afghanistan??

Miracles still happen today people who do not believe dismiss them as something we can not explain, well do we not describe a miracle as something that is not explainable, if we could explain a miracle it would not be a miracle now would it.

Such as?? Your health being "miraculously cured" thanks to the use of scientifc application of antibiotics??

Jesus need not sign a treaty with Satan, Jesus has complete power over him.

How convenient since the characters in question never existed

Are you trying to say that 2000 years ago the universe was not natural, you think things in the universe have some how changed from mysterious to natural.

No, that is not how I read it G-C... it would seem to me that YOU are the guilty party on that score.

You're trying to give Satan to much credit, there's much he has no control over, there's much he can not do.

As far as I understand it G-C YOU are the one with the whole satan complex. Without this satan YOUR god and god-boy are nothing.

You sound like some Christians I know who think that Satan cause's all there problems, when all the need to do is take a look at there selves.

And this is what YOU need to do G-C.....


By the way ...How is the furniture construction going?