Christians. Could you be wrong?

[Mister Agenda]

Whateverist,
pride is an exaggerated (false) view of one's self.
The devil's downfall was pride.

It is not prideful to have absolute knowledge.
You have that about your own name.
Does that make you proud?

I am NOT from the generation brainwashed in relativism, as you might discern.
So, for me, up is never down, east is never west.

It's pride to think you can have absolute knowledge of something beyond human comprehension.

---

Are you saying that Allah wouldn't punish you for not having worshipped him? Besides which, ffor Islam/Allah you can plug in the name of any other of the thousands of gods worshipped over the millennia and the point will still stand. What gives you the right to claim your religion and/or pet god as The One True one and all others as false?

I'm saying that Islam is a false religion, I also gave you the reasons why.

Also Christianity is the only "religion" where it's God states:
John 14:12
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

Cool. So perform a miracle greater than anything Jesus is said to have done. That would be actual evidence supporting your claims.

---

You still don't get it, my point in quoting Jesus is that he's the only "religious" figure to state that the same miracles he preformed, his followers would be able to do.

No other religion makes that claim. Because they simply can't.

All religions make claims no other religion makes. Different religions are different, duh.

And the 'miracles' you believe in are no more real than the 'miracles' of the Hindu fakirs. Just parlor tricks and the power of suggestion.

---

As an atheist I am willing to admit that I could be wrong. God may exist. Your Bible may be 100% accurate. All I need is evidence.

Is there anything that could convince you that the God of the Bible may not exist?

How did it miss this thread?

If all you need is evidence, then simply A/S/K (Ask Seek Knock as outlined in Luke 11.) and God will provide it.

What would convince me God does not exist? If He told me He didn't.

You can believe anything if you try to believe hard enough. Whatever god you A/S/K will 'turn out to be real' if you apply the principle diligently enough.

Getting your customers to convince themselves to buy your product is a great marketing ploy if you can pull it off. But if your product was really so great, you'd just demonstrate it.

[Thackerie]

Of course one doesn't have faith in a placebo, the point is for them not to know it's a placebo, but are told it is a revolutionary procedure, That is what they have faith in.

As it was stated in the article I posted: a man is dying of cancer of the lymph nodes, has difficulty breathing, and is bedridden. He receives injections of a new anticancer drug called Krebiozen (a placebo). Within days the tumors shrink by half and he is eventually released from the hospital. After he finds out he was given a placebo, he dies days later.

Since you say faith has nothing to do with it, why don't you try explaining how this phenomena works?

Is this a real case, or are you just pulling it out of your butt?

When doing animal cancer studies, a group of rats will be given cancer. Some will be treated with an experimental drug, some will not (the control group).

Among the control group with cancer but not given any drug, a certain percentage of the rats will spontaneously have remissions. It happens. No faith required.

Who knows? Maybe their prayers were answered. A lot of christians worship a god that seems to be a rat bastard. There's no less evidence for this species of rodent having their own rat bastard god.

[Mister Agenda]

Earlier I posted an old video (recorded sometime in the 1950's) of a man doing exactly the same thing. In case you haven't seen it: When people would come up to the stage to be healed, he, having never met the person, could tell them what sickness they had, name, and address ect.

So miracle-working Christians can do things that a stage mentalist can do with trickery? Not very impressive. Especially when they've been caught at it before. There's a book somewhere that warns against being impressed by Christian charlatans.

This isn't done to showoff, it's done because divine healing is operated by faith (scientific studies using placebos show this). And gift of discernment makes it easier for the person to believe.

It's done so the show will be good enough that people will donate more.

Miracles are operated by faith and the fact that you claim to be an unbeliever ensures that you will never see the supernatural. was not Jesus himself unable to preform miracles in a certain city because the peoples unbelief was so great?

The city where they knew him before he got famous, perchance? The only place in the world where they knew what he was like before he started being taken for the messiah? What do you think it might say about a presidential candidate if they can't carry their home state?

Jesus isn't powerful enough to overcome simple skepticism, and neither are you, even with God on your side, is your position. That makes a lot more sense if the skeptics are the ones who are right.

If you're looking to see miracles, you will most likely not see them in developed 1st world countries but in some poor backwater 3rd world nations, where faith is a way of life (rich people tend to rely on money). Which also has the side effect of no one ever hearing about them.

You mean places where people have a tendency to take whatever they see and hear at face value? I bet they disappear as soon as a skeptic is close enough to see what's really going on too, especially if the skeptic has a video camera. I used to hear about them all the time: but it's like miracles hide when there's someone recording events, because word of mouth was all that was ever offered. You can say anything happened in Africa in a Pentecostal church in America and the Pentecostals will take your word for it as long as it sounds like what they want to believe.

[Huggy Bear]

Of course one doesn't have faith in a placebo, the point is for them not to know it's a placebo, but are told it is a revolutionary procedure, That is what they have faith in.

As it was stated in the article I posted: a man is dying of cancer of the lymph nodes, has difficulty breathing, and is bedridden. He receives injections of a new anticancer drug called Krebiozen (a placebo). Within days the tumors shrink by half and he is eventually released from the hospital. After he finds out he was given a placebo, he dies days later.

Since you say faith has nothing to do with it, why don't you try explaining how this phenomena works?

Is this a real case, or are you just pulling it out of your butt?

When doing animal cancer studies, a group of rats will be given cancer. Some will be treated with an experimental drug, some will not (the control group).

Among the control group with cancer but not given any drug, a certain percentage of the rats will spontaneously have remissions. It happens. No faith required.

I posted the link to the article about 4 times already...

Placebo Effect: A Cure in the Mind

free version
http://web.as.uky.edu/statistics/users/r...oStudy.pdf

Now if you'd be so kind as to post a link to yours.

[Undeceived]

The great thing about a relationship with Jesus, it's not based on fallible opinions. It's based on the Word of God and the Revelation of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:16
"The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children."

[Mister Agenda]

Thumpalumpacus clearly asserted that faith healing doesn't exist. I posted an article from the Scientific American which would disagree.

Do you know what medicine calls a drug that can't exceed the placebo effect? Ineffective.

The placebo effect is the what we call the situation when the treatment is ineffective, but the patient gets better because they have been deceived into believing it really works.

If you're comfortable saying that's what faith healing is...guess what? So am I.

[Tonus]

The great thing about a relationship with Jesus, it's not based on fallible opinions. It's based on the Word of God and the Revelation of the Holy Spirit.

Doesn't the second sentence contradict the first?

[Whateverist]

A lot of christians worship a god that seems to be a rat bastard.

I thought I was the only one left on the planet still regularly using that phrase. Always nice to realize we are not alone in the cosmos. Excellent point. The god of the OT certainly was a rat bastard if ever there was one.

[Esquilax]

Of course one doesn't have faith in a placebo, the point is for them not to know it's a placebo, but are told it is a revolutionary procedure, That is what they have faith in.

But that's the equivocation you're making, as "faith" in the faith healing sense of the word, is not at all similar to the very reasonable expectation, based on evidence, that things doctors give you are meant to cure you.

What you're doing is the same thing theists do when they say "well, atheists have faith too!"

As it was stated in the article I posted: a man is dying of cancer of the lymph nodes, has difficulty breathing, and is bedridden. He receives injections of a new anticancer drug called Krebiozen (a placebo). Within days the tumors shrink by half and he is eventually released from the hospital. After he finds out he was given a placebo, he dies days later.

I'd personally be interested in seeing a citation on that, if you have one.

Since you say faith has nothing to do with it, why don't you try explaining how this phenomena works?

It's a psychological effect; the fact that psychology influences physiology to some degree is no great secret, but it's not the faith that's doing anything, it's myriad biological processes being altered by the patient's brain state.

The great thing about a relationship with Jesus, it's not based on fallible opinions. It's based on the Word of God and the Revelation of the Holy Spirit.

... Which is a claim like any other, that nobody has been able to even begin to demonstrate. Merely assuming it to be true because you want it to be, doesn't make it so.

[JesusHChrist]

The great thing about a relationship with Jesus, it's not based on fallible opinions. It's based on the Word of God and the Revelation of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:16
"The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children."

The bible appears to be nothing more than the word of Man, not God. Can you show otherwise? Man = fallible. The Bible has known errors. Sounds man-made bud.

Revelation is worthless as an epistemic basis as Mormons, Hindus, Muslims and many others, receive conflicting revelations. The theist has no method to determine what is true and what isn't.