Nonetheless, that’s what it’s turned into. Fundies keep harping on about how “the tomb is empty” and all those post-Resurrection appearances. If the Gospels had anything at all to do with faith, Jesus would be quietly Resurrected where noone could see him and ascend to heaven while everyone was asleep. When Thomas doubted Jesus’ resurrection, Peter would have told him “I haven’t seen, and yet I believe!”
The simple fact is that at one time, God saw fit to perform miracles, and he gained converts by doing so. Now he doesn’t. Your Jesus lacks the logical purity of Sabbati ben Levi, who didn’t do miracles at all because he felt that they only distracted from his message.
I regret having been so general! Please note that I do NOT adhere to “conspiricy theories!” Nor do I promote UL’s, send this warning to your address book, etc. ROFL!! I stated that I personnally have witnessed and talked to individuals who have recieved miraculous healings that are bona fide. Again note the use of before and after x-rays. Events that medical science has no explanation at all. The majority of this information is mentioned in church circles if at all primarily due to the extreme skepticism and absolute disacknowledgement of non-believers even with substantial evidence. Also note the earlier posts regarding God working quietly in today’s world. That’s why I view the current crop of televanglist’s with a very jaundiced eye. I don’t believe that God’s work was ever intended to be a stage show!
The comment I made regarding the media is merely a perception/observation on my part and based on my moderately “fundy” point of view (emphasis on the moderately). Shalom.
I forget the name of the author, but there is a book called Worlds in Chaos that lays the groundwork for explaining many of the major “miracles” in the OT. I have not read the book, but it is cited quite a bit in one of the chapters of God Is Red by Vine Deloria, Jr.
In God is Red, Mr. Deloria gives plausible, scientific explanations for many of the major miracles in the OT, including the parting of the Red Sea, manna falling from the sky, and others. It is interesting reading…
What substantial evidence would this be? Did god leave a signature on a healed colon? Unexplained healings are only evidence for God if you posit the existence of the very thing you’re trying to prove. If one does not assume that there is a God, than human diagnostic error and/or the possession of a powerful immune system are more plausible answers in nearly all cases. If one goes into the inquiry, however, believing that there is an all-powerful, benevolent, invisible man that has a track record of healing nice people wih nasty illnesses, than it would not be so outrageous to assume that a given healing was “His” work. (Damn that always bugged me, having to capitalize not only “God,” but “His” as well. That’s why I usually capitalize neither.) When the nws media fails to report these events as miracles, it is doing so because they would probably be wrong, from an objective point of view.
Well I for one agree with Ptahlis. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of mental acrobatics required to believe this stuff. I truly believe that the ammount of major miracles performed stopped happening, not becuase got decided to get secretive and personal (why woud he do that anyway, if he wants us all to come to him :rolleyes: )but history had started being recorded more substantially and rumors would have been easily debunked.
Someone else said gods work wasn’t a stage show. I don’t know, most of those major miricales would’ve put David Copperfield to shame . Even some of the minor one’s must have been pretty imppressive to make it into the bible, not to mention god wasn’t trying to keep it a secret.
Then there were these:
Fulfillment of a covenant he had made, whereas now, no such covenant has yet come due.
Well we are still waiting for him to return it’s been 2000 years.
The righteousness of the individual for whom the miracle is performed, and no one of that level of righteousness exists today
How do you define “level” of righteousness? And doesn’t righteousness mean “free from sin or following a divine code”. If so don’t fundies qualify, how about the pope?
Secondly, Moses’ people started worshipping other god’s the minute his back was turned. That doesn’t sound very righteous to me.
I seem to recall David not being the greatest person in the world either yet god worked miracles on his behalf.
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
See above. Besides, that’s a pretty blanket statement, and I belive there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary or at least people who seem to be act more jesus like than others.
Prevention of a gross desecration of his name
What about the Crusades, slavery, genocide ? Seems to me god doesn’t much care how his name is used.
Desire to spur people to repentance and/or righteousness, when today, such inducements are not necessary to bring about such an effect.
Au contraire, as people have gotten less superstitious it seems to me that such inducements are more neccesary now than then, especially when you consider the question of the OP.
Due to science we’ve now gotten to the point where people want tangible proof.
And, of course, there may be many other factors that influence G-d’s decision on such matters
What I gave were examples of reasons why, in certain past situations, G-d decided a supernatural response was appropriate. That does not mean that all of those reasons are applicable to all of those situations. It also does not mean that in all situations where one of those reasons seems to apply, he necessarily feels a supernatural response is appropriate. It means that one or more of them apply to each of those situations. For example (I’m not going to answer every possible case), yes, the Children of Israel (actually, only a few thousand of them) worshipped the Golden Calf, undermining their claim to extreme righteousness. However, the covenant G-d had made with Abraham stipulated that at that specific time, he perform miracles to have his descendants (through Isaac and Jacob) inherit the land of Canaan. With a little creative thinking, your other objections can be answered similarly.
And yes, there might be some situations that were not, in fact, covered by the few examples I gave in my post. I’m not G-d, and quite frankly, I don’t know all his reasons for doing things. Heck, I don’t even know my fellow man’s reasons for doing things most of the time; how could I be expected to fully understand or fully list G-d’s? I’m sorry if you and others don’t like the “Mysterious Ways” argument, but it’s certainly appropriate when talking about a being who is by definition intelligent beyond human comprehension.
Isn’t this a little like saying, “My argument makes no sense, but that’s precisely why it’s a good argument for the existence of a being which, by definition, cannot be understood”?
But that’s no different than saying an argument is correct because it uses logic. Don’t believe me? Trying proving that reason is a valid epistemology without begging the question.
No. The question it addresses is, “Assuming G-d exists, why would he do such things back then and not now?” While I can speculate as to the reasons, I certainly can’t tell you definitively what they are. Heck, this is even true with human beings. If money is stolen from my house, I can speculate that the thief might be too unskilled to work for the money he needs, or too lazy, or that he’s a kleptomaniac, or any number of possible reasons. I can’t for certain tell you what his motivation was. However, the fact remains that there was a thief, even if I can’t pinpoint why he stole. The same is even more true of G-d, whom we might speculate about why he does things, but we’ll never know for certain, and in addition to that uncertainty, his reasons might even be on a level that we can’t comprehend. However, being able to say that isn’t an argument for his existence. It is an argument that, given his existence, answers certain detailed questions about his actions.
If money is stolen from my house, I can speculate that the thief might be too unskilled to work for the money he needs, or too lazy, or that he’s a kleptomaniac, or any number of possible reasons. I can’t for certain tell you what his motivation was. However, the fact remains that there was a thief, even if I can’t pinpoint why he stole. The same is even more true of G-d, whom we might speculate about why he does things, but we’ll never know for certain, and in addition to that uncertainty, his reasons might even be on a level that we can’t comprehend. However, being able to say that isn’t an argument for his existence. It is an argument that, given his existence, answers certain detailed questions about his actions.
Twisting your analogy around a bit, let’s look at the following. (1) We know there’s a thief. (2) we have evidence of his existance (3) we have proof of his actions. You are able to determine the the existance of a thief. How? You have tangible evidence (or lack thereof) that being the missing items. You may not know the details of how he committed the crimes or his motivation but you know the thief exist because your stuff is missing.
In the OP, the assumption of god’s existence is resting on the proof of quantifiable actions he’s made. so we can posit the following (1) we do not know there is a god (2)we have no evidence of his existance (3) we have no actions for which to attribute to him. In this instance we have no tangible evidence of his existence. Why? The absence of miracles. Simarily we’re lacking a motivation, becuase we have no action for which to surmise one. With no actions to be attributed, and no motivation, there can be no suspect, i.e. god.
That’s not I how I read it. Here’s a quote from the OP that specifies the question that I thought he wanted answered:
Implying that the existence of G-d is pre-supposed.
However if you wish to interpret the question your way, I will answer you that the non-existence of G-d in my thief analogy would be someone saying, “If you can’t tell me why the theoretical person stole the money, then it must not be stolen, you must have misplaced it instead.” I make the “must” bold, because that’s the sort of thing you’re suggesting: “If you can’t tell me why G-d would not be working explicit miracles today when he supposedly did for people long ago, he must not exist.”
If you say deductive reason is valid, or inductive reason is valid, and you derive your belief through those, then your belief is valid.
But if you appeal to either of those, then you must allow faith (in your axioms, in your undefined terms, and in your implications for deduction; and in your experience for induction) to be valid as well. Faith underlies reason.
Ok I take your correction the the OP might have pressumed the existence of god, but I think that’s only because of the way he phrased (feel free to correct me if Im wrong PW)the question. (Im hesistant to say for sure because of the first sentence of the OP, he said he "wants to believe in a supreme God, not that he does) A better way of saying it is that assuming the bible’s accont are true, then the biblical figures had ample evidence of gods existence through miracles and his outright speaking to people. So why isn’t he doing those things now?
And to that question, your statement:
“If you can’t tell me why G-d would not be working explicit miracles today when he supposedly did for people long ago, he must not exist.”
Is pretty much what Im saying.
/ hijack - Also I think this invalidates the free will argument that ive seen posited here on the board, as god tended to be pretty heavy handed in his intervention on behalf of the children of Israel.
Maybe I’m reading you wrong, but I don’t think you understand what I’m trying to say. The big Old Testament miracles were not performed for the sake of performing miracles. There were specific purposes – setting the Israelites apart, freeing them from slavery, ensuring Jesus’ royal lineage, etc. – that had little or nothing to do with gaining converts.
Now, regarding the miracles that occurred during the span of time from Incarnation to Crucifixion to Resurrection… if Jesus’ sole reason for performing miracles was to gain converts, he did a piss-poor job of it, up to and including the time he got himself stapled to the tree. They were almost always done in secret, with instructions to keep it quiet. That is not exactly the modus operandi of a being who’s performing miracles to ensure the greatest number of converts, is it? No.
So one has to look at other reasons. Truth be told, I think you’d find very few Christians who believe solely on the basis of some big miracle or another. Mostly it’s a personal encounter with the risen Christ that has brought about the conversion, whatever the circumstances. And those are the “miracles” that the gospels put forth. Very few of them are big, showy miracles like parting the Red Sea. They were miracles of healing, with inward changes being manifested in outward signs.
No, I think you’ve entirely missed the point of my post. Jesus appeared to people after his resurrection. Paul himself pointed to this as proof of Christianity. If the post-resurrection appearances weren’t intended as proof, why did they take place, and why did Paul construe them as evidence?
Why doesn’t God at least give us some indication of which religion is true? Why not make trees sprout magical Bibles which anyone can read, regardless of what language they speak?
Again, it seems obvious to me what’s going on. God doesn’t exist, and the stories of old miracles are false, and that’s why we don’t have miracles anymore. But when theists try to explain all that away, they make transparently fallacious arguments. For example, it has been claimed that God doesn’t do big, flashy miracles, because if he did, then people still wouldn’t believe. After all, look at Thomas.
Now, anyone can see that this is just a false dichotomy. Obviously you don’t have to get everyone to believe in order to make an improvement over the current situation. Fundies keep telling me that obviously Jesus was resurrected, or else the disciples wouldn’t have had such a sudden turnaround in their beliefs, from denying Christ to dying for their faith. Think about it: fundies themselves point to the story of Thomas as a case in which Jesus was able to miraculously produce a 92% successful conversion rate- and that jumped to 100% once Thomas saw his wounds. But if you ask why Jesus doesn’t keep walking around today, oh, in that case, look at Thomas- obviously a 2000AD post-resurrection wouldn’t convert everybody, so why bother? Anyway, blessed are those who believe but have not seen. What kind of argument is that? Fundies believe that Thomas would have gone to hell if he hadn’t seen Jesus’ wounds, and then turn around and tell us that we don’t get to see Jesus’ wounds because then, in the off chance that we believe in something for which there is no evidence, we’ll be even cooler in God’s sight.
Do people buy cars on the basis of this sort of logic? “I’d like to look at the gas mileage info before I close the deal.” “Whoah! Remember now- blessed are those who buy and have not researched.” “Huh?” “And don’t forget- if you don’t buy this VW, a team of elite German engineers will torture you for eternity.”
But Ben, equating what “fundies” say with God’s reasoning for doing what he does is a false analogy. A “fundie” can say anything s/he wants, but that doesn’t make it so. They do not speak for God, or even for most Christians.
The post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus were akin to the personal encounters Christians of today have with the risen Christ. They were physical in nature because Jesus had yet to ascend into heaven. A physical, face-to-face encounter with Jesus, post-Ascension, would mean that the Judgment Day is upon us. He will not bodily return until the end of time.
Well, Christians believe that he has. An Incarnation is a fairly strong argument for having the “true” religion. If God himself appears in the flesh to preach your religion, it’s a pretty safe bet that’s the one.
. Even some of the minor one’s must have been pretty imppressive to make it into the bible, not to mention god wasn’t trying to keep it a secret.
? Seems to me god doesn’t much care how his name is used.