"Elizabeth and God" -- an atheist ponders

Great Debates
101

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On the chance you’re still reading, let me explain or suggest something. In this particular thread, the OP (original post) was a challenge from an atheist for Christians to explain their beliefs in light of some current events. That would suggest that, at least for this thread, the burden of explaination should be placed upon the believers. That is, if you want to contribute something, try to put it in terms that atheists would recognize as reasonable.

Atheists don’t belive God exists, so most of your comments aren’t going to explain anything. Likewise, atheists don’t generally recognize the Bible as an authoritative scripture, so reading it (and I have) doesn’t add anything either.

Saying these things are foolishness makes me wonder why you’re even posting here. Somewhere else in GD, there’s a thread where folks are discussing the Catholic dogma of Communion. To me, this is truly foolisness, so you won’t see me posting there - but I do admit to lurking, because I might learn something.

Your should feel free to open up your own thread, or join in another one where maybe you can put the atheists on the defensive. You might be more comfortable there.

Speaking for myself, even though I don’t agree with other’s views, and a real possibility exists that things can get nasty, I still gain insight and knowledge from the debate. That’s why we’re here.

102

First, my friend, I think you need to get down on your knees and apologize to the Lord God of Hosts for judging your fellow Christians as non-believers. If you’d read with any kind of discernment, you’d have seen quite a number of us speaking honestly of our faith in God and even giving examples of where He miraculously saved lives (like I did).

Second, the forum is called “Great Debates” for a reason – because it’s where people share their understanding, or lack of it, on the major issues of the day and of all time. That means back and forth communication – I ask, you answer; you ask, I answer. You said, “I am not coming to this “Debate” to talk about frivolous stuff, I am here to tell you what I know.” The point is that it is a discussion, where questions get answered to the best of the ability of the answerer. It’s not “Great Sermonettes.” And what makes the Bible “work” for a Christian is the Holy Spirit interpreting it in his or her heart – Romans 12:1-2 has no meaning for somebody who has no sense of what it means to be transformed by God’s spirit working within you. You need to “always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (I Peter 3:15), and it helps if that’s not just a quick Bible quote as a stand-alone response, but rather a statement of what it means to you as someone who believes it, and why it has that meaning for you.

Finally, consider how Jesus said that we were to show people that He was the Truth –

Not that you can quote the Bible well, or stand steadfast for the right doctrine, or live a moral life – that you show His love in what you do.

Try it; it works.

103

I think the weird thing in this case is that most people formed their idea that finding Elizabeth alive would be a miracle on the assumption that, like most kidnappings of children without ransom calls, the kidnapper intended to kill their vicitim. We now know that Emmanuel was not such a kidnapper: he wanted a wife, not a passing victim, and he apparently was happy to walk around with her in public, which is pretty silly. So it was, from the beggining, far more likely that Elizabeth would turn up at some point than most kidnap victims (who are murdered). That seems to imply that, if people were praying for Elizabeth’s safe return, most of the important events that assured that she would be likely to return happened BEFORE they ever started offering their prayers: before Elizabeth was even taken in the first place.

That is, people’s estimation of how amazing Elizabeth’s return was (and thus, their willingness to assume that God was involved) was based on limited information: simply the very low likihood of kidnap victims being returned alive. However, now we have new, more specific information about the situation. The question is, before deciding that this was a miracle, did people revise their judgements in light of the new information? Or, perhaps they didn’t recieve the new information until after they decided it was a miracle: upon recieving the new information, will they now be likely to revise their opinion of it being a miracle?

My guess is, no: not unless the possibility of a bad outcome is clearly and demonstrably found to HAVE BEEN very very low indeed.

I think we can think of this in at least two ways to think about this situation. One is that there is a very strong anchoring effect with judgements of possibility, and people’s judgements on God’s interventions, as with many other things, are skewed to give and defend a precedence to the first set of facts and beliefs, even when better info comes to light.

The other is that perhaps people think that God can respond outside of our time: either in litterally rewriting history after the fact as people prayed (turning Mitchell from the rape-n-kill motive on which people based their judgement of Elizabeth’s chances to his strange, and much less deadly, marriage plot) or even intervening to alter the situation BEFORE it even happened (say, by making it be Mitchell, and not some other serial killer, kipnap her), KNOWING that people would later pray for her safe return once it did happen.

104

“You cannot petition the Lord with prayer.”-Jim Morrison

105

You know, after reading the other Elizabeth Smart GD thread and some of the news articles, there is one thing about this thread that I’m very proud of this board for – something that never got brought up in the discussion here. And I’m not saying what it is, for fear of raising a red herring in the discussion, but I’m sure Monty knows what it is!

106

Ok, you’ve got me: what is it? Playing the harp?