What Are Miracles...

[Consilius]

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.

No, it isn't. Actually, most of the time, these people DO die from cancer.
But that people die from cancer is actually further evidence of the work of God in the lives of those who survive cancer. Mercy comes when it is unexpected. If everybody survived cancer, you would be just as impressed as you are when you cross the street NOT getting hit by an airplane.
Obviously, it's more than that. People who die from cancer are much more than casualties used in getting compliments. The thing is that no one lives forever, and God knows when it's time for someone to figure it out for themselves. But the time of a death is part of God's foreknowledge, and is approved by him because it is at the absolute best time possible, for reasons he knows and others discover later in life.
As for the people who dead mothers leave behind, it is a time to make a decision. Tragedy has brought many families closer together. It has also ripped them apart. People become better Christians when parents die. They also become atheists. In tragedy, all you know and believe is put on the line and you are given a choice. Tragedies form great characters from weak ones, and they also break strong ones. And what it does is give you a wake-up call about life and force you to find direction.

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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.

Do you know what a "Laconic Phrase" is?

During the pelopenisian wars, the city state of Athens invaded the lands of Sparta and attempted to conquere the city of Sparta itself.
The Athenians sent a messenger to the spartans with a message that said:

If you do not surrender we will enslave the entire population, burn down your city and destroy your culture

The Spartans sent back a messenger with the reply:

IF

Arguments based on "IF`s" or "IF not`s" are nothing but weird daydreams kept alive against the opposition of critical thinking with nothing else but a total ignorance of reality.

Facts matter - IF`s dont.

I should also say that universe made without God is also an unproven assertion that is under heavy debate.

I have never denied that. It is you who insists that god created the universe - without putting forward any evidence.

I'm not going to enter into that debate with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDd-GXkMrJs

And, by the way, if you view of a *fundamentalist is a Christian, then that's exactly what I am.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgpytjlW5wU

Let me clarify that the Bible itself is entirely true.
But the science it presents is merely a belief of the time. God didn't have the Bible written to prophesy the coming of Velcro.
Any scientific statement in the Bible is subject to scrutiny, and the disproval of any of it is irrelevant to Christian belief.
Nobody is a Christian because they're afraid of falling off the Earth.