What Exactly Does the Holy Spirit Do?

[Drich]

Lol, you're kinder than I am Nope, you believe that his prayer worked to help his wife.....I don't believe that he actually -has- a wife.  

I have had my doubts about Drich also but I try to answer him in a serious manner just in case he really does have  a formally  drug addicted wife. Also, there might be some lurkers who are on the fence about religion who might need an alternate answer to Drich's story.

Drich,  your wife has been clean for 10 years and you dealt with her issues for 2-3 years but you stated that your dad stopped talking to you 15 years ago because of your wife's dependency. Also, didnt your dad stop talking to you when he kicked you out of the house? I thought that happened in high school?

lol, which time?
He has kicked me out for forgetting 'Father's Day.'
that lasted a week (the angel visit got us back together)

Then he avoided me for a month when He thought I got AIDS from 'being gay.' (He didn't like the fact that I was a inner city youth camp counsellor)

When I left the house on my own for the last time he went almost a year (Because I was paying for his morage, and a bunch of my sister's stuff.)

Then when He went off the rails of his crazy train with my wife's addiction that was 04 (we were married in march 03) I just started speaking with him about 2 1/2 or 3 years ago. (It took him that long to admit he was in the wrong.) The night I told him Trich at a Drug problem I asked him not to tell anyone, I get home the next day and all of my friends and family were at my house for an intervention (For me, she was away at a rehab.) They were trying to get me to goto a rehab.. Only problem? I wasn't on drugs, never tried the stuff. I didn't even drink.

 When I refused to go and tried to make everyone leave he called the cops and tried to have me baker acted, he Said I was going to kill myself... At no point was I ever wanting to end my life. I wanted to end his, but I was good life sucked at the time but was making my way through it. I told him because I wanted someone to talk to. (Trich didn't want my friends to know, I had to twist her arm to tell my dad..) When I asked him why he was doing all of this he said "I need the support of my friends and family, it's a pretty hard thing to process to find out your son and daughter in law are herion users..." Then he would perdiocially come by to tell me she is hooking to support her habbit, that she approached him, my uncle and other members of my family.. along with people he and I knew but she had never met, plus she was hanging out in ceedy street corners. (When she was either at work with me or at home with me.) Just all sorts of nasty vile hatful things about her and about me till I had enough and sent him home with a black eye and a busted lip, and told him not to ever come back. I sent word back after a year or so that if he could admit to his lies and the BS he was putting us through, I would forgive him. It took him another 7 years..

Even recently He wanted to borrow my old truck to put it in a car show, so I let him. Then He assumed he could drive it to work the following week. I told him he couldn't. He lost his mind then. call me all sorts of names and we went another month before his pride would allow him to apologize.

Repenting is new to him, but he is learning. Maybe if he had another 100 years he might even find himself to be a Christian.

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I see this all the time with religious arguments, "affirming the consequent". Maybe I need to add it to my website.

I prayed to God to feel better
God can make me feel better
I felt better
Therefor, God exists and listened to my prayer

Nope. You're using logic backwards. What this misses is that there any number of other reasons why you might feel better, or whatever the consequence is. Including, and this is the big one, believing your assumed causation is really happening, in cases where the placebo effect could be sufficient.

For something unrelated to placebo, like say getting a cheque for lots of money after praying for money, then you need to consider other possible causations. Maybe it was an error. Maybe the person felt generous. Maybe you did something to deserve it. And so on. To just jump to the causation you want it to be is the fallacy.

Of course, for those utterly uninterested in honesty or logic, you can just say "well God was responsible for whatever other causation there was". Unfalsifiable, and useless. It also strangely limits god's powers to influencing people's free will and getting them to do what he wants. I thought he wasn't supposed to do that.

I'm not bragging, I just do not know how to compile all of this data in one place with out it sounding like someone bragging. Got to see the gates of Hell, Got to speak with an Angel, he told me what to expect/future, Was diagnosised with AIDS, (Not to mention cancer scare and a burst appendix) then it all went away, Had a drug addicted wife, it all went away, Was given 25K to start a business by someone I had never really met before. (I did work for his company but never met him) Grew the business from one man to 15. from working out of her dad's shop to having my own Air conditioned factory/warehouse in less than 4 years, Made my first million by the time I was 35, (and spent it) Recently patented 3 different innovations, (one of which I own, the other two were a 'collabration'/My work and idea someone elses resources.) working on a 4th. We sell our product internationally and all over the US. Oh, and hopfully (lord willing) this time next week we will have open a used car lot. all on a 4th-ish grade education. Plus a dozen other things I could list, but it would just be bragging at that point. and who know the hundreds of things I have forgotten.. All of which happened Through the Holy Spirit. By all accounts guys like me should be digging ditches or pan handleing.

I know for me the temptation is great to look back and see all that the Lord as given me and say "Look what I did." But in the end, like with this car lot deal (an my next 'big idea') It won't happen unless some really big obsticals are move out of our way. I know without a doubt these obsticals are well above and beyond my scope. That there is nothing I can do to move them, so if they are moved then It was not I but God who did. How can I say this? Because I know everything I have done is all I can do and I have fallen far short. At this point forward it would take an act of God. I know for most of you, you would try and dismiss it as a coincidence, but to live your whole life an a series on non stop 'coincidences' that has made you/given you far more than you could have EVER acheaved on your own is not a coincidence.