Thread: God

  1. #721
    Blank
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Posts
    1,034
    Assuming you mean "someone who believes god does not exist...", I would think the person (today) would conclude they dont know the cause of his recovery. There are many things that were inexplainable hundreds of years ago and were attributed to supernatural phenomena, but can be explained today. There is no reason to believe that sometime in the future there wont be an explanation. But just because something is inexplainable doesnt mean someone should assume god had something to do with it.
    Suppose you had cancer one day and
    the next day was cured. If your explanation is that god cured
    you, then you would be laughed to scorn by the medical community. But now if they found some protein in your blood stream and that was the cure, does this make the miracle any less?

    Then god also causes tornadoes, earthquakes, flood, etc that kill millions of innocent people every year... there goes the idea that god is benevolent.
    But by admiting this world is not perfect then there must
    be some way to leave it.

  2. #722
    Christian
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Posts
    612
    First you have to establish that manna did actually fall from the sky. Then you have to establish that it fell six days a week and not on the sabbath, neither of which have been establish as actually occuring. That story could have just been a metaphor for how god provides for his children.
    Well lets see the ate the stuff so I'm sure it was manna.

    >What?
    You see you can't convince people that they have been wandering in the desert for 40 years and had eaten manna that had falling from the sky 6 days a week. Your only claim against this is that Moses did not write the 5 books or that people inserting the information it.
    I shall call egypt the harmless dragon

    -Isaiah 30.7

  3. #723
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Posts
    552
    >Suppose you had cancer one day and
    the next day was cured. If your explanation is that god cured
    you, then you would be laughed to scorn by the medical community. But now if they found some protein in your blood stream and that was the cure, does this make the miracle any less?

    Do you mean that I am to assume god put it there to cure me? Again, why go through ambiguous methods like that when he can just reach in and pull out the cancer? And yes it does make it less of a miracle. There is no reason to believe that the protein was put there by god.

    >But by admiting this world is not perfect then there must
    be some way to leave it.

    What?
    C Code. C Code Run. Run Code Run... Please!

    "Love is like a blackhole, you fall into it... then you get ripped apart"

  4. #724
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Posts
    552
    >Your only claim against this is that Moses did not write the 5 books or that people inserting the information it.

    Yeah... and?
    C Code. C Code Run. Run Code Run... Please!

    "Love is like a blackhole, you fall into it... then you get ripped apart"

  5. #725
    The Earth is not flat. Clyde's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Posts
    1,403
    "Suppose you had cancer one day and
    the next day was cured. If your explanation is that god cured
    you, then you would be laughed to scorn by the medical community. But now if they found some protein in your blood stream and that was the cure, does this make the miracle any less?"

    Yes that's exactly what it means, there are NO SUCH THING as miracles, there are unexplained phenomena:

    Several prostitutes in Cairo by all accounts SHOULD have HIV; for a long time people did not know why they didn't have HIV (they keep sleeping with HIV infected clients), miracle?

    A man with inoperable cancer given only a few weeks to live, completely loses his cancer, miracle?

    Thats exactly the kind of scenario that gets interpreted as a miracle: "We can't see the answer, therefore it must be God".

    Its no different to "We can't see what causes the weather, therefore it must be God, we can't see what causes comets therefore it must be God", etc. etc.

    Its bogus reasoning, an unexplained event does not make God logical, look at the lessons we have learned from the past: Supernatural explanations are always replaced by deterministic explanations.

    The prostitutes are not getting HIV because they lack a critical receptor on the T-cells, needed for HIV to bind. Miracle? No mutation. What caused the mutation? The same thing that causes all mutations; errors during the replication process. Are we to believe that the mutation was just in the right place to stop aids by chance? YES we are, statistically its not unreasonable given the number of people who are in HIV infected populations for some to have this particular mutation, there are no doubt plenty more who have the same mutation but whom never find out because they are never exposed to HIV.

    The cancer patient developed a severe viral infection, the subsequent up-regulation of the immune system had the bi-product of destroying the cancerous cells (incidently this looks to be a promising line of research in cancer therapy).

    We now know that the weather is not God, its a chaotic system with its roots in fluid dynamics with a bit of chemistry mixed in.

    Meteors, are not gestures from God they are fragments of rock and ice hurtling through the galaxy who's formation is well understood.

    All of those examples were labelled as miracles, merely because they were not understood.

    The unknown was not evidence for God then, and its not evidence for God now.
    Last edited by Clyde; 12-20-2002 at 12:04 PM.

  6. #726
    Cheesy Poofs! PJYelton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Boulder
    Posts
    1,728
    Well lets see the ate the stuff so I'm sure it was manna.

    You see you can't convince people that they have been wandering in the desert for 40 years and had eaten manna that had falling from the sky 6 days a week. Your only claim against this is that Moses did not write the 5 books or that people inserting the information it.
    Sentaku, when will you understand that anything written in the bible is NOT proof? Hell, only a few weeks ago you were telling us that you believed in the Hermatica which says explicitly that Moses wrote the first five chapters of the bible based off stories and Egytian myth! And now you are trying to use what he has written as proof of god?

    Answer this question:
    Many many religions have books that show miracles and wonders that THEIR god did, yet you do not believe them. Why not? Egytian writings speak of miracles performed by their gods, such as the God Ra blocking out the sun, yet you don't believe this either, why not??? And simply because people believe the bible now but don't beileve in Egyptian gods now is NOT an answer.

    Until you answer this question satisfactorily, your using what the bible says as proof means less than nothing.
    Last edited by PJYelton; 12-20-2002 at 10:03 AM.

  7. #727
    Blank
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Posts
    1,034
    Answer this question:
    Many many religions have books that show miracles and wonders that THEIR god did, yet you do not believe them. Why not? Egytian writings speak of miracles performed by their gods, such as the God Ra blocking out the sun, yet you don't believe this either, why not??? And simply because people believe the bible now but don't beileve in Egyptian gods now is NOT an answer.

    Until you answer this question satisfactorily, your using what the bible says as proof means less than nothing.
    Blocking the sun isn't really a miracule.
    Only christianity has a large line of miracules for 2000 years, not
    just in the bible, spanning different cultures. I havn't read the Koran but I think the god in that book is pictured passive.

  8. #728
    Cheesy Poofs! PJYelton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Boulder
    Posts
    1,728
    How is blocking out the sun not considered a miracle? What is your definition of miracle?

    Also, I'm not sure what you mean by christian miracles happening in other cultures and outside of the bible. Can you give examples that are obviously christian and not just general miracles?

    Last, the point I was trying to make is that MANY religions and cultures new and old have books/myths/parables/stories whatever that speak of great things happening outside of scientific explanation, so to say that you have prooved something simply because the Bible says so is irrational since there is no proof that it is the truth while others are not (except for Sentaku's "jumping on the bandwagon" theory that it must be true because people still believe it in great numbers). I can just as easily say that Eqyptian writings of the Sun god Ra blocking out the sun is proof that Ra exists.

    Anyways, Sentaku my question in my last post still stands and awaiting your answer.

  9. #729
    Blank
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Posts
    1,034
    How is blocking out the sun not considered a miracle? What is your definition of miracle?
    They probably observed what was known as an ellipse.
    Context of when the ellipse occured could make it considered
    a miracle but with no other information it is not.

    Last, the point I was trying to make is that MANY religions and cultures new and old have books/myths/parables/stories whatever that speak of great things happening outside of scientific explanation, so to say that you have prooved something simply because the Bible says so is irrational since there is no proof that it is the truth while others are not (except for Sentaku's "jumping on the bandwagon" theory that it must be true because people still believe it in great numbers). I can just as easily say that Eqyptian writings of the Sun god Ra blocking out the sun is proof that Ra exists.
    There is much information written about saints etc.
    Some of it could be due to natural causes but I doubt so.

  10. #730
    The Earth is not flat. Clyde's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Posts
    1,403
    "There is much information written about saints etc.
    Some of it could be due to natural causes but I doubt so."

    Based on.... what exactly?

    Everytime science investigates paranormal/supernatural claims, real answers are found.

  11. #731
    Cheesy Poofs! PJYelton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Boulder
    Posts
    1,728
    They probably observed what was known as an ellipse.
    Context of when the ellipse occured could make it considered
    a miracle but with no other information it is not.
    I completely agree that it almost certainly was an eclipse. My point is that simply because it says so in a book or writing does not make it true. If the egyptian writing said the blocking of the sun happened during a full moon (an impossibility for an eclipse) would this proove Ra existed? If the egyptian writings spoke of the god Ra granting a pharoah power to part the Nile River to allow people to cross, what would you think then? Would this be proof of the god Ra as well?
    There is much information written about saints etc.
    Some of it could be due to natural causes but I doubt so.
    No offense, but I really don't know what you meant by this and what it has to do with what you quoted of me. Was this in response to my question on christian miracles happening outside of christianity and the bible? Could you please elaborate?

  12. #732
    Blank
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Posts
    1,034
    I completely agree that it almost certainly was an eclipse. My point is that simply because it says so in a book or writing does not make it true. If the egyptian writing said the blocking of the sun happened during a full moon (an impossibility for an eclipse) would this proove Ra existed? If the egyptian writings spoke of the god Ra granting a pharoah power to part the Nile River to allow people to cross, what would you think then? Would this be proof of the god Ra as well?
    But that doesn't mean it isn't evidence. It's not proof though.

    No offense, but I really don't know what you meant by this and what it has to do with what you quoted of me. Was this in response to my question on christian miracles happening outside of christianity and the bible? Could you please elaborate?
    There is a large collection of written miracles in christianity.
    This will give you more information on miracles.
    http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10338a.htm

  13. #733
    The Earth is not flat. Clyde's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Posts
    1,403
    "There is a large collection of written miracles in christianity"

    You do realise there are supernatural events claimed in virtually every religious faith, and that they are no different in nature to any other supernatural or paranormal claim.

    Its all bogus, there are no miracles, determinism rules the universe.

    How do you rationalise, science continually disproving "miraculous" events? If miracles really do exist in nature why is it that they are not documented in scientific publications? Why is it you only believe in the miracles of YOUR religion and not those of other religions.

    How can it be that you do not take into account the power that FAITH or WANTING TO SEE SOMETHING, has on what people percieve.

    Catholoic miracles like, pagan miracles, ancient greek miracles, psychic abilities, Geller's spoon bending antics, etc. etc. are all bogus.

    Read this it should be illuminating:

    http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...ier/kooks.html

    Some notable quotes from the above link (which is well worth reading):

    The fact that pagan miracle working is not much heard of today is in large part due to the more effective Christian propaganda during the Empire and, of course, a thousand years of censorship afterward
    The official story was that a snake-god with a human head was born as an incarnation of Asclepius, and Alexander was his keeper and intermediary. With this arrangement Alexander gave oracles, offered intercessory prayers, and even began his own mystery religion. Lucian tells us the inside story. Glycon was in fact a trained snake with a puppet head, and all the miracles surrounding him were either tall tales or the ingenious tricks of Alexander himself. But what might we think had there been no Lucian to tell us this?
    The final lesson from the case of Alexander and Peregrinus is that Lucian's skeptical debunking never persuaded any believers, showing that even the rare skeptic, no matter how convincing his arguments and evidence, could have no practical effect on the credulous believers. The vast majority would never read or hear anything he wrote, and most of those who did would dismiss it. Indeed, believers were hostile to critical thought and would shout the skeptics down and drive off even suspected doubters in their midst, as actually happened in the case of Alexander: before every ceremony, the congregation would cry "Away with the Epicureans! Away with the Christians!" (and all other atheists: 38) since these two groups had a reputation for trying to debunk popular religion (this hostility could even come to slander and violence: 25). In effect, this was like clamping their hands over their ears and humming, deliberately refusing even to hear reasonable arguments, much less to consider their force.

  14. #734
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    6,331
    I don't know much about religion because i myself am not a really religous person. I have in fact, however, never truely believed in god. No offense if hes up there tho, i mean i don't wanna end up kissing his ass because i never believed.

    This thread, the debate of miracles and they're factuality, reminds me of a episode of the simpsons. When the students found those "angel" remains and home had it in his garage selling admission and glow sticks lol.

    See everyone jumped to it as a sign of this or that, but behind the hoo-ha was a scam for the opening of a mall!

    In another episode, i believe it was the simpsons, homer(?) had a sweat stain on his shirt that looked like jesus(maybe it was elvis), but you see my point?

  15. #735
    Blank
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Posts
    1,034
    There is a large collection of written miracles in christianity"

    You do realise there are supernatural events claimed in virtually every religious faith, and that they are no different in nature to any other supernatural or paranormal claim.

    Its all bogus, there are no miracles, determinism rules the universe.
    I didn't say that god couldn't work wonders for people
    belonging to other religions.

    How do you rationalise, science continually disproving "miraculous" events? If miracles really do exist in nature why is it that they are not documented in scientific publications? Why is it you only believe in the miracles of YOUR religion and not those of other religions.
    "See with your eyes, hear with your ears, and understand
    with your heart." Science trys to understand with their
    eyes.

    Catholoic miracles like, pagan miracles, ancient greek miracles, psychic abilities, Geller's spoon bending antics, etc. etc. are all bogus.

    Read this it should be illuminating:

    http://www.infidels.org/library/mod...rier/kooks.html

    Some notable quotes from the above link (which is well worth reading):
    I suggest you read original sources. Otherwise it's totally biased.

Popular pages Recent additions subscribe to a feed

Similar Threads

  1. what race is god?
    By Leeman_s in forum A Brief History of Cprogramming.com
    Replies: 11
    Last Post: 02-22-2004, 05:38 PM
  2. God II
    By Leeman_s in forum A Brief History of Cprogramming.com
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 01-09-2003, 01:42 AM
  3. GOD and religion
    By Unregistered in forum A Brief History of Cprogramming.com
    Replies: 19
    Last Post: 10-14-2001, 05:13 PM
  4. Foundations
    By mithrandir in forum A Brief History of Cprogramming.com
    Replies: 18
    Last Post: 10-05-2001, 02:18 PM