Well, there you have it. THE LORD is a big fan of amputation; regeneration----eh, not so much.
ahem. post #28
Salamanders can regrow limbs. Since both they and we are vertebrates, I think that should be sufficiently close for “Wizard Mode” to regrow human limbs, don’t you think?
Paul live for Jesus, and the signs accompanied them as God worked through Him.
Or it sounds like God means exactly what He says.
Tweaking cells and molecules here and there is as much a violation of physical laws as creating something (i.e., a limb) from nothing.
Saul wasn’t exactly living for Jesus when he experienced the Damascus Road conversion. He was actively persecuting Jesus’ followers. If God can speak to and touch Saul, why can’t He speak to and touch others who may not be living for Him?
And I’m not denying that God could do that, too. But if your character doesn’t have fingers on page 83, and then does have fingers on page 95, you’re going to look like a sloppy novelist who sucks at continuity. At least unless you can provide a plausible reason for how they got there.
Whatever kind of novel God’s writing, it’s not the kind where anything can happen at any time without regard for reason, rules, or consistency.
Personally, I just don’t think God is omnipotent. But then again, I’m not a Christian either.
True story… I WAS there!
There was a physics major in our physics department. Most of us were straight out of high school into the program. This guy was 5 to 10 year older. Wisdom does NOT come automatically with age.
Seemed to do respectable with the material. Also seemed very nice.
But the more you got to know him the odder he seemed.
You eventually realized he was a religious fundamentalist.
I learned that halloween was one EVIL holiday, no matter HOW you celebrated it.
He believed in faith healing.
He even SWORE to us (and you know who) that he had actually SEEN a limb regrown at a revival !
So, there is at least one of em that both believes it happens AND has seen it.
I also recall he was falsely accused of rape (or something close), which I don’t believe he did if I’d have to bet.
Interesting times indeed…
Then there was the guy who practiced “kung foo” moves in slow motion in the department lounge and the incident with the nitrogen tri iodide…
He does, and He does it in different ways, Jesus Himself came to many people while He walked the world as man. How and when He chooses to awaken us is up to Him.
Except you’d have to tack on a few codicils:
If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. (except nobody else will be able to see it)
Ask, and it will be given you. (unless you ask for a limb back, or for anything that can be physically documented)
Nothing will be impossible to you. (excepting of course, those things that are physically impossible)
If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. (again, sorry about the limb thing, no can do.)
God’s commitment to continuity and consistency is commendable in theory. But insofar as it’s keeping him from healing my diabetes, or regrowing someone else’s missing limbs: fuck Him.
The god you describe would not do any miracles, ever - in fact, it would be very careful to not only never intervene, but to also ensure that the ‘materialist’ explanation for everything actually happened. So this approach isn’t going to help your average believer.
Of course, the Christain God has supposedly Mary Sue’d himself into the story (and I’m not talking about Jesus), which removes the continuity problem. Reason, rules, and consistency would be explicitly covered by the explanation “Goddidit”. (So, consistency is still no excuse.)
***"…All of the people contacted were true believers who claimed to have significantly improved since attending a healing crusade…" ***
This is the sort of story that makes it clear there was not a divine intervention. If an omnipotent healer were at work, you wouldn’t see someone “significantly improved” as if the healing were some sort of adjuvant therapy or improved drug with fewer side effects. You’d see…healing. Restoration to permanent normalcy.
And in fact, as pointed out, that’s the beauty of using amputees as a standard. It’s no more miraculous to restore a limb than it is to miraculously restore hearing. But it’s a lot harder to fake. And it’s a lot harder for the healee not to be faked out.
That the amputee problem does not dissuade believers constantly amazes me.
And while we are at it: it can’t be a story from 40 years ago, or somewhere in Uganda. It should be one of our guys who got his leg blown off in Iraq and has some verifiable medical history. And it should happen with the frequency of any other healing.
How do you square this with your earlier assertion?
Either G-d delivers miracles (be it healing or conversion) at G-d’s discretion and at G-d’s discrection alone, or G-d delivers miracles as a reward for perfect faith and devotion. Which is it?
And it still doesn’t address Skald’s original question: Why doesn’t G-d restore amputated limbs? So far, you’ve suggested that G-d simply chooses not to, or that G-d does so, but rigs it in such a way that no one knows. But both of these beg the question why (not)?
No, it’s not a violation of physical laws. It happens all the time in the natural world. Organisms build new cells from proteins, which were themselves extracted from the foods they eat. Stars fuse hydrogen into helium, and helium into carbon. A caterpillar pupates, its tissues liquefy, and the resulting goo reorganizes into a moth.
Regrowing a limb doesn’t require making something from nothing. It requires reorganization of tissue. If there’s a G-d, and G-d created the process that turns a parsely worm (as my Grandmother called it) into a Monarch butterfly, why hasn’t G-d ever (verifiably) seen fit to instigate the same transformation upon the stump where once there was an arm or leg?
Then why wouldn’t God/Jesus choose to heal someone who doesn’t “live for Him” as you suggested? I wonder if you can understand just how you’re coming across, and how flawed and contradictory your posts sound.
Here you’re completely agreeing with KidScruffy. He’s just saying that if God made healing happen at a molecular level, he has to make those molecules do something they wouldn’t be doing according to natural laws. This is true whether you’re talking about healing cancer or regrowing a leg.
I recommend using Google’s translation services (read: I’m not going to translate all this): Milagro de Calanda. It’s a double amputee healed.
The Novena de la Gracia (Nine days of Grace), celebrated every year from Match 3rd to 12th, commemorates a miracle from St Francis Xavier, who restored the usage of his arm to a blacksmith who’d lost it (he hadn’t lost the arm, “only” the ability to use it after a serious wound, but still it was beyond the ability of the time’s medics to heal it and therefore it was reckoned a miracle) after the man prayed for 9 days asking for this grace.
I have a lot less problems believing the second than the first, but both are recognized as miracles by the RCC.