Look with all the bombings and plane crashes and incest and rape and drugs and bad stuff - I still want to believe in a supreme God - it’s just so damn hard. Now here’s the thing - you never see any burning bushes — or the first born of every family dying — or the red sea parting — or anybody being reborn. It must have been a hell of a lot easier for somebody talking to a burning bush to believe. If manna’s raining from the sky - it’s a no brainer!
Sure miracles happen everyday I’m told - but never anything huge like a tower of fire or anything like that. My question is why doesn’t God just turn somebody into salt or heal all the sick in the world real quick or something - then everyone would have to believe. I know you’re supposed to have faith but isn’t faith a lot easier to have when there is fairly incredibly tangible evidence? I mean didn’t these people have it pretty easy when they saw these incredible things? They didn’t have to ponder and wonder, they just saw and then they believed. Why no easy miracles like this for today’s people?
But, Thomas still got to see it, didn’t he? All of Jesus’s disciples got to see him raise people from the dead, heal the blind, etc. All of Israel got to see the Red Sea part. So, the original poster’s question is, if God exists, why did he do all those flashy miracles back then, but not now? My explanation is that he never did any flashy miracles; that miracles have always been subtle things that the unbeliever could dismiss.
If manna’s raining from the sky - it’s a no brainer!
Good question, Peter!!! But if you read the story in its entirity you will find that a whole group of the Israelites rose up against Moses and God [see Numbers Chapter 11 regarding the manna] and complained bitterly the entire time they were in the wilderness IN SPITE OF THE MIRACLES that had been displayed before them. According to the Bible, Satan is the current prince of this earth until the return of Jesus and thus mankind will continually suffer disasters and calamities thru his influence.
Peter, I have witnessed miracles. I have seen people healed of disease, drug addiction, and broken lives mended. I have seen hard-core criminals who are now doing mighty works in God’s kingdom, [and yes, former men of God who also have fallen from grace as well]. In short, the miracles are there if you look for them and faith is mentioned as one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit by Paul. Its something that you can ask for. Remember “seek and ye shall find”? Shalom.
Two thousand years ago people had no means to dispute a miracle. They were told manna fell from the sky. That the sea split in two. That jesus healed the sick. They accepted it on faith for the most part. Who actually saw this falling manna? Nobody, but they accpeted that it happened because there was no way to dispute it. And today some still accept it for the same reason. It says it in the bible so it must be true.
Today we can not even round up enough evidence to convince 12 people that OJ killed his wife. Today we want pictures, DNA, some live video. The last "miracle that can recall was Fatima, and was the just a little early for the widespread use of homevideo.
I’d say there might have been some miracles, back in the day, but the were the original UL’s. beginning with a grain of truth and spiraling from one story teller to the next until they were of Biblical proportions
You see, back in those days, YHVH was a 'tribal God", ie he was the God of one group of tribes. There is almost no indication that He wanted converts from other tribes. Thus, the idea of “free will” did not come in, so he had no problem doing miracles to keep HIS People in line. But now if YHVH (or Jesus) does an open, showy miracle, it would deprive you of your right to free will. Thus, fewer, and less showy miracle, if any.
Type I miracles: Physical law is defied in a blatant and obvious manner.
Type II miracles: Something good happens unexpectedly or at long odds. No laws of nature are broken, though the event may seem statistically unlikely.
The Bible is full of type I miracles. Modern miracles are all type II. My explanation is that type I miracles arise by hearsay after the fact. The modern world has much better methods than the ancient of communicating and recording events, and stricter standards for those who claim to violate physical law because so much of our immediate world is a product of assuming those laws immutable. So it’s harder for a story of type I miracles to gain support and credibility.
Type II miracles are much more a matter of subjective impression, and often come from a mistaken idea of how statistical behaviors should be thought about (like ignoring negative results and focusing only on the “statistically unlikely” positive ones).
Bottom line: Modern miracle hunters will find children with cancer who have regressions, but no burning bushes.
Well, wait until every true believer gets called to heaven when the Rapture begins! Then all you heathens will have to fight it oout during a chaotic 1,000 year reign of terror! I’ll bet when people all vanish and the antichrist takes over you’ll have faith, huh? Huh? HUH?!?
Yer pal,
Satan
TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Three months, two weeks, four days, 1 hour, 8 minutes and 3 seconds.
4361 cigarettes not smoked, saving $545.24.
Life saved: 2 weeks, 1 day, 3 hours, 25 minutes.
Huh? How does that follow? We have good evidence for a lot of things. Do I not have free will with regard to believing that the earth is round? And since the real question is what you do rather than what you believe, then isn’t it a little irrelevant whether I have free will about believing in miracles? After all, even the demons in hell believe in miracles.
You know, back when atheists could actually get onto the LBMB, I asked people there why we needed faith. If it’s so important to believe in a historical fact, why not make it the most well-attested historical fact ever? The answer: “It would violate our free will to see Jesus in the flesh, but it didn’t violate the free will of the apostles to see Jesus in the flesh, and all this is so simple and logical, Ben, that I find it very frustrating that you just don’t get it.”
Belief must be based on Faith, not Miracles. Sorry, Ben, but I can’t explain it much better than that.
Note that the post JC miracles were rarely done to convert.
Well of course you can’t explain it much better than that; it would be like trying to explain why the sun is blue, since it simply isn’t the case. I, for example, believe that there’s a box of tissues next to the computer because I can plainly see it, not because I have faith that someone was good enough to leave one there. Miracles are like that tissue box in plain site: they offer reasonably conclusive, easily understood proof of the existence of a higher power (or a box of tissues, depending). The longstanding complete absence of verifiable miracles (type 1 miracles, to use APB’s phrase) begs the obvious question posed in this very thread. The standard Judeo-Christian response has been the same response it has for nearly every theoretical crisis: “That’s the way it is because that’s how God wants it, and, by the by, God works in mysterious ways (,stupid).” Often, this is supplemented by some strained, only vaguely logical details (see Daniel’s valiant efforts above).
The reality of the situation is that the Western religions are forced to say that miracles would be non-conducive to faith because, whether that’s true or not, they have no miracles to work with. If there were everyday miracles, does anyone really belive that Western religions would still claim them to be irrelevant to faith?
There are two ways that Dan’s line could be correct, however:
God is a vengeful (sp?), dictatorial God, who puts us here on earth to see who will take a 4000 year old, mistranslated, archaic set of scrolls originating from an obscure nomadic tribe at face value. Those who don’t believe await some unknown penalty in the afterlife. Even if this happens to be literal truth, that’s still one fucked up God you got there.
Dan was merely pointing out that there’s no sense in looking for or hoping to see any meaningful proof of God’s existence, since you simply won’t find it. If you really want to believe, you’re going to have to go it alone (or, in other words, take it on faith). That’s really not so bad, and it’s certainy better than number one, but it’s a damned odd rallying cry for one to have when trying to convince someone of the truth or justice of your cause (“Save yourself! Give your life to God, because of all this evidence we don’t have!”)
Now, possible answers to the OP:
There is no Judeo-Christian God; stories of miracles and prophets had been severely distorted by generations of oral tradition before ever being committed to paper. From a strictly logical standpoint, this is the most likely answer.
There is a J-C God, but the stories of his early miracles were distorted, as in #1 above, and didn’t actually take place. PROBLEM: if there were no miracles to begin with, why would people believe in the first place?
There is a J-C type God who performed the miracles that the bible records, but he is not “all-loving,” and so stopped caring about human salvation.
There is a J-C type God, but he is not all powerful, and has somehow lost the power to perform miracles.
God is simply not terribly interested in us.
3, 4, and 5 are essentially meaningless because, if there were a J-C type God, he would be so completely incomprehensible to mortals that guessing about the particular nature of his existence is pointless. Still, that’s no reason to believe that the existence of God is any more likely (why put stock in a being for which there is no proof and who is completey incomprehensible to our understanding?)
There is a J-C God, but the stories of his early miracles were distorted, as in #1 above, and didn’t actually take place. PROBLEM: if there were no miracles to begin with, why would people believe in the first place?
Keep in mind that the Jewish leaders and the Romans did everything in their power to quench the witness of the early Chrisian movement. Why would anyone, especially those who had everything (including their lives to lose) and absolutely nothing to gain, continue to spread the word that an itinerent rabbi from an obscure village was the resurrected Son of God? Unless something happened to them personnally! A life-changing experience perhaps! The mere fact that Christianity exists today, that until recently the annual calendar was based on what was assumed to the be the year of Jesus’ birth, is nothing short of a miracle in and of itself.
Many of the those that Jesus healed during His earthly ministry were instructed to go and tell no one. God operates on a quiet personnal scale. He is not showy (quite unlike a lot of the more flambouyant [LOL, is there spell checker on this thing?] television preachers) or grandstanding. You can investigate any of the major denominations today and find Type I miracles having occurred within the church body. I have heard and seen first-hand accounts of documented medical miracles [i.e.,before and after x-rays] that will never be brought to public light for 2 reasons. 1) God moves quietly and 2) the liberal media today shys away from anything dealing with God’s handiwork like the plague. Shalom
I disagree with the premise of the thread title: “Burning Bush makes faith REAL easy”. In fact, I think such “miracles” can make faith REAL tough, especially if you don’t already believe. Take David, for instance. Would you not positively exhaust every physical explanation for the burning bush, eventually assigning it to some physical phenomenon (magnified light, practical joke, etc., etc., and as a last resort, some as yet unknown physical property)?
Miracles have very little staying power. The mirale believer has a “what-have-you-done-lately” mindset. “Okay, that was cool with the loaves and fishes, but now show us something really cool.”
To oversimplify, the circumstances of those times made G-d decide that an obvious supernatural event (i.e., Biblical-style miracle) was the appropriate response to them, whereas, in later generations, G-d feels (and felt) that his purpose would be better served by working through nature rather than beyond it.
To be more specific, the difference might have been one or more of the following factors:
[ul][li]Fulfillment of a covenant he had made, whereas now, no such covenant has yet come due.[/li][li]The righteousness of the individual for whom the miracle is performed, and no one of that level of righteousness exists today[/li][li]The righteousness of the individual who requested the miracle (i.e., a great man might request a favor on another’s behalf), and no one of that level of righteousness exists today[/li][li]Prevention of a gross desecration of his name[/li][li]Desire to spur people to repentance and/or righteousness, when today, such inducements are not necessary to bring about such an effect.[/li][li]And, of course, there may be many other factors that influence G-d’s decision on such matters.[/ul][/li]
I should also point out that in Jewish history (from the Orthodox perspective), the decline of the supernatural was not a sudden thing, but rather, a gradual decrease. The greatest, most public and most obvious ones occurred in the times of Moses and Joshua, during the period of the Judges and Kings, most miracles were done privately, or for small groups of people, and many of G-d’s favors, rather than occurring in an overtly supernatural manner, happened in a natural way instead, and following the destruction of the first Temple, even prophecy dwindled to nothing.
You know, it’s a minor miracle in itself that Satan has pursued the spiritual journey he has, rather than becoming a Fundy. Seeing him do that is downright scary! :eek:
The above applies to damn near any religious/spiritual movement you care to name, from Islam, to Mormonism (is that a real word?) to the Branch Davidians, to Scientologists, to Heaven’s Gaters. Following a spiritual belief despite worldly persecution or hardship is hardly monopolized by any particular sect.
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It sure is short of a miracle. Way short considering that the people who use it are all westerners. Other calendars exist out there, including the Jewish and Chinese calendars. Ours is more dominant in the international world because the West has the economic and military muscle. Even so, others still use their own calendars and always have.
Ah! Conspiracy theories. The liberal media has been devoted to pseudo-scientific schlock masquerading as journalism in shows like “Sightings,” and network specials about Noah’s Ark and weeping statues. The Fox network should have as their motto “Television for the Overly Credulous,” or “We Pander to the Irrational!” I have seen “medical miracles” trotted out on these shows plenty of times. The media doesn’t shy away from stories about miracles. In fact, what it shies away from is critically examining such stories. Throw some real skeptics into the shows to take on the True Believers and maybe it would go a long way toward dispelling some of the ridiculous claims put forth.
The reason you don’t see miracles given a daily hearing in the more serious media outlets is not because there is a great conspiracy against God, but because there aren’t any miraculous events that stand up to scrutiny. Sure, there are witness accounts, but that’s not exactly credible evidence. Bring us a statue that really *does[/] weep blood, or come heal a broken arm with the power of prayer for us to see. You bring evidence of your miracles, and you’ll have lots of folks interested. It would be the ratings coup of the century for someone to televise an actual, substantiated miracle. While it may please you to believe the Illuminati or whatever is keeping all these media types from indulging in their normal appetite for incredible bragging rights and gobs of cash, I prefer the simpler explanation that there are no miracles that make the grade.
The Resurrection wasn’t a miracle to convert people. It was the culminating act in the salvation story, which is why you won’t see any big miracles nowadays. “It is finished.” The biblical miracles were more about ensuring that Israel’s history unfolded in such a way that the Incarnation could happen. Had little to do with any desire to convert on God’s part.
