OK- at this point I am literally halfway around the world from my beloved. I miss her awfully. When I have my arms around her I can find the still point in my universe, and feel whole. I am also a really caring fellow, who tries to do what good I can. I try not to do what I feel is evil. I try to help others, because I think that if we all tried to do that, it would be a better world.
None of this is inconsistent with my atheism, none of this posits a “spirit” which is supernatural, and if I ever use the term “miracle” it is strictly in the vernacular (actually I don’t use the term, except as applied to Beethoven).
It is easy to look at something you find special and say it has to be supernatural. The thing is, you have to remember that it is special in your terms only. Let’s say that a mouse has human type intellegence, for this argument. The mouse would find many things of its world special- the smells for instance. The mouse, however, would not even find coherence in Beethoven’s opus 111, because the rhythm of the mouse’s universe is so different from our rhythm. But I find the opus 111 sonata “miraculous.”
Of course it does, and so does the breadth of human striving and endeavor, and so does Beethoven who teaches us what it is to be human, and so does the glorious point in King Lear when Lear, naked in the tempest, driven in his old age into extremity beyond anything he had suffered in his royal life, kneels and prays, not for his own suffering, but for that of the the “poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are” that he had not been observant of in his power-
but the existence of all these things only makes us special within our own worldview: it doesn’t say a thing about some supernatural guy in the sky. If he doesn’t exist, I can still get my lessons from Shakespeare, or Darwin, who, discussing poverty, said: “if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin-,” or Huxley, or any of the myriad “secular humanists” that show us that good and empathy is inherent in us with no need for any supernatural agency. JDM
They do – that’s why we have nuclear physicists and particle accelerators. And unlike ministers or priests or religious leaders, the nuclear physicists have to produce verifiable and reproducible results.
Just because something is subjective doesn’t mean it isn’t verifiable and reproducable.
Besides, I don’t know who “we” is, but I personally don’t have a particle accelerator capable of producing quarks. I’ve got to take the word of those who do have such a device.
Not to question your sources, of course, but do you have a cite for these miraculous healings in the name of Jesus? Other than anecdotal evidence? What about spontaneous remission of disease in non-Christians?
I’m not sure who the first two are, but Oral Roberts? Isn’t he the one who cried on TV about how if he didn’t raise so many millions of dollars that God was going to “call him home?” This makes me wonder - a) what kind of greedy god do you worship and b) if he was lying, why would god let him go around working miracles, as you claim?
Citations? Independent verification of such events?
Such as… flooding the planet… killing the first born… the plagues… Soddom and Gomorrah… turning people into pillars of salt… parting seas… yep, small fry tricks for sure.
See above - subtlety isn’t his strongest attribute.
Sweeeet, I’m going to design a Miracle-o-Meter which will help Christians detect the fake miracles from the Honest-to-God, 100% Divine Miracles™!
Or is there a way to divine the difference? And if there is, what is it - also, does it work for all Christians or just some? Are there varying interpretations of which miracles are the “good” variety? If so, why, and how do you know you’ve got the right method?
Not everyone agrees with you on this. I sure don’t. Neither does Richard Packham. (Start reading at the paragraph that begins “Let me illustrate…”)
Sojourn26 wrote:
Sojourn26, you must have missed jmullaney’s patented Christianity Test ™! It’s very simple:
Give away all your worldly possessions
Temporarily sever contants with all friends/relatives
Live off the streets like a homeless man for at least six months (more if necessary)
You will discover that the Christian God exists
I shit you not. I may have some of the details a bit off, but jmullaney has argued that this test never fails, and that we’re all just a bunch of spoil-sports for not subjecting ourselves to it. I’m sure someone will come along and link to the relevant thread.
So, Sojourn26, I bet you feel like a real :wally now for not realizing just how simple it is to test Jesus’ claims. :rolleyes:
jmullaney graced us with:
Contrary to popular belief, repeatability is not the cornerstone of science; interpersonal subjective experience is. You don’t need to accelerate particles yourself. You simply need to be able to look at the results of those who have done so and determine whether the experiment was conducted correctly, and whether the conclusions drawn from the evidence are valid. Certain miracles can be evaluated the same way: if someone claims that his arm miraculously regrew because of a faith healer, we can see:
Did this actually happen?
Is it right to give credit to the faith healer, and not some other source?
To the best of my knowledge, no miracle has yet occured which has passed both tests to the satisfaction of objective experts and scholars worldwide. Particle physicists of all nationalities, religions, races, ages, and backgrounds have verified the detection of quarks. But when it comes to miracles, Christian miracles seem to convince only Christians, Hindu miracles convince only Hindus, UFO abduction reports convince only UFO nuts, etc.
True, but it doesn’t do much for my confidence when a dozen different religious leaders can read the same passage from the Bible and interpret it a dozen different ways (or more).
Nobody is stopping you from devoting yourself to studying nuclear physics, verifying the theories and conclusions along each step, and seeing if they really work or not. Just because something is not easy to prove independently doesn’t mean it can’t be proven independently.
(Every scientist dreams of the day when s/he discovers something that contradicts an established principle, because it means fame, fortune, and a Nobel Peace Prize. Every religious leader dreads the day when s/he discovers something that contradicts established doctrine, because it means doubt, ostrization, and expulsion from the Church. It’s pretty obvious which group is more likely to reveal and correct the flaws in its teachings…)
If you want to, I doubt you do, there are a couple good books you can read, about Oral Roberts’ life. I guess you can argue that the authors of these books are liars. It’s up to you. I have two books about the life of Kathryn Kulhman, not autobiographies (hmm, well maybe one of them is). Miracles happened, unless you count these authors as also liars, or distorters, or imaginitive. I’m asking this respectfully, how can you say with any authority that miracles didn’t happen through these people? Is it because you have never witnessed one, so you KNOW they never happened?
God uses men to do His stuff. If God only used perfect men in His work, He wouldn’t be able to do anything. King David, who by the way is a Historical figure as well as recorded in the Bible, had a man killed so he could have that man’s wife. Yet God called him “A man after my own heart”.
Moses killed a man and had to flee Egypt. But had there been a greater man of God prior to Jesus? Look at the mighty things God did through Moses.
Read about Samson. He was a mess most of his life, Yet God never removed the gifts He had given to Samson.
Paul was a Christian killer before his conversion, Peter denied he knew Christ. You can bet that there were men in those days who laughed at the thought of God using them.
All that doesn’t mean anything to someone who doesn’t believe it anyway, that’s for sure. But…
The same goes for today. There is NO perfect man. It says in the Book of Romans that the gifts and callings of God are without repentence, or irrevocable. There’s no way that anyone is good enough on his own merit to be used by God. Not even the Pope. God uses a man who He has made clean by the Blood of Jesus. God looks at a man’s heart, somewhere we can’t see.
There are a bunch of good books you can read about Muhammad, Krishna, Buddha, Appolonius of Tyana, Honi the Circle Drawer, and a few hundred medieval Catholic Saints. Do you believe all of their miracles?
Do you believe that Johnny and Luther Tsoo can make themselves impervious to gunfire, and can craft magic bullets that make ten bullet holes when shot? Their followers do. I guess they’re all just liars, exaggeraters, or whatever. Keep in mind, that the members of the Army of God risked their lives day in and day out based upon their belief in the divinity of the Tsoo twins. Hundreds of them have testified to having witnessed these events personally. Now that I think about it, maybe you’re so gullible that you do believe in these miracles. Either way, not a worldview I’d care to share!
The reasons I highly doubt (not know) that miracles have not happened is because the evidence would be greater. Imagine somebody tells you that in 1965, aliens landed in Philadelphia. They emerged from their spaceships, walked among the people, were witnessed and photographed by many, and then left after a couple of hours. There are books available if you’re interested.
Do you believe him? I sure hope not! Why not? Because had something this spectacular actually happened, we would have all heard about it a long time ago. It would be common knowledge, not a fringe belief. It would be in U.S. history textbooks right next to the moon landing.
But, I’m willing to be open-minded. Randy, please pick one miracle performed by any of these charla^P^P^P^P miracle workers that you’d be willing to hang your hat on as totally 100% legit. Post it with all relevant details and evidence that you can find. We’ll then have a big group evaluation on the SDMB. Remember, it must satisfy two conditions:
Actually miraculous. In violation of physical/natural law. Not just something that we don’t understand or that is unlikely.
Really good evidence, enough to convince rational people that natural law has been violated.
As for the rest of your post, think how impressed you’d be if a Muslim just posted a bunch of stories and anecdotes from the Qur’an. Not very. You conveniently ignored everybody’s arguments, and are now prepared to slink away because you can’t logically defend your position, and you know it.
P.S. I close with a post originally sent to errancy@infidels.org, a mailing list dedicated to discussing the issue of Biblical errancy:
Nick Tattersall wrote:
Suppose I told you that under normal conditions, my father once ran two hundred metres in only four seconds, using his special powers. Would you believe me? How about if I produced eyewitnesses who say they saw him do it?
I wouldn’t consider you unreasonable for doubting the eyewitnesses until scientists and racing-officials saw my father repeatably do such a run under controlled conditions, and recorded on film. In fact, I think most reasonable people would take that position. The possibility of error, collusion, etc just cannot be ignored when we address something that defies the laws of nature, even if we have eyewitnesses. For a miracle or extraordinary event of this magnitude to be accepted, the evidence must be watertight.
Now suppose that, instead, I produced no eyewitnesses but told you that the eyewitnesses and my father are all dead. My father did the run many years ago, and all we have are the consistent signed and sworn testimonies of the eyewitnesses, who wrote their accounts at least thirty years after the event. Is that any good?
I don’t think so. Many reasonable people would still stand unpersuaded by such testimony. It is entirely reasonable to consider collusion, error and embellishment over time to be more likely than the hypothesis that a law of nature was broken. If laws of nature really are occasionally broken, that seems to happen only rarely. Collusion, error and embellishment happen all the time. What we really need is a controlled scientific investigation into the phenomenon.
Now suppose that the documents I produced were not perfectly consistent. Suppose that actually they differed on key points. Some of them suggested my father ran two hundred metres in five seconds, while some say he did it in three seconds. Some say he did his run after his day’s work, while others say he did it beforehand. Furthermore, it turns out to be the case that the documents are not signed or sworn anywhere. In fact, instead of them definitely being written by eyewitnesses, it seems remarkably difficult to determine who wrote them and when, as they are all anonymous. Experts who examine the documents have to rely exclusively on linguistic evidence to form a best-guess about where they came from. The experts differ on the matter of when they were written, and by whom, but there do exist at least some reasons to doubt that eyewitnesses or people close to my father actually wrote them after all, and not a great deal of reason to think eyewitnesses did it. Everyone is agreed that they were written at least a few decades after the event is supposed to have occurred.
What would you say to a person who expected you to consider such evidence to be compelling evidence for the supernatural? Wouldn’t you consider it an insult to your intelligence?
How is it that the historical evidence for the central claims of Christianity should be any more convincing for reasonable and open-minded atheists and agnostics than the evidence for my father’s miraculous run? Isn’t it the case that there is not the slightest reason to think the evidence for either should be effective when presented to reasonable and open-minded nonbelievers?
Well, let me ask you this: the test that you stated, have YOU ever tried it? Have you severed all connections w/ family and friends, had nothing to your name and lived on the streets for months? If so, did you find God? Because I can assure you, I have been in this situation, I had no friends, lost my family, had nothing to my name and was on the streets for months on end, and I did not find God. All I realized was that I need to build myself up from the pitiful situation I was in. So unless you have tried it yourself, maybe you should refrain from advising such a course of action til you proved it yourself.
Errr… I got the feeling that Opus was being very tongue-in-cheek with his “it’s so simple to test Jesus” post to which you replied. I think you might need to hand over your Sarcasm-o-Meter for some fine tuning.
Acutally, I postulate 6 weeks. Compare the economic cost versus building a particle accelerator and you’ll see it is a good deal.
Uh huh. I’m supposed to look at the swirling lines from a bubble chamber and just take the scientist’s word for it that their evidence isn’t fake. And I don’t have a problem with that.
Perhaps. OTOH, a scientist who covers up the results of an experiment or ignores unorthodox results doesn’t do too badly for himself either, and doesn’t risk losing funding or contracts or grad students, etc. A Christian who dicovers what is right risks hellfire if they don’t teach revealed doctrine, all else be damned. So, it does cut both ways. Plenty of Christians have willingly gone to their deaths for telling you what I’m telling you.
Been there, done that. Do you really think I’d recommend to someone something I hadn’t tried first myself? I can hardly give your answers based upon my experience, nor can I validate your possible claim to have run my experiment (which Opus1 didn’t really present very well).
Let me state it again for the record:
Subject should be a basically good person.
Sell your possessions, and give away all your money.
Leave family and friends (In other words, couch surfing isn’t valid)
Without undoing steps 2 or 3, continue for seven weeks.
(I had to put a time limit on there to satify the rest of the dopers, but I expect it is long enough.)
If you feel you did this, I’d greatly appreciate it if, in the interests of science, you were to share you results. You can always e-mail me at j_mullaney@hotmail.com and I would certaintly keep your answers confidential.
sojourn26
I tried to explain the reason up there, I obviously didn’t do a good job of it. Most of us don’t NEED God until something bad happens. Believe me, God is ready for us at anytime but it seems WE would rather talk about how ridiculous the idea of a god is, than go looking for Him. God resists the proud.
It’s like when family members fight about small things, refuse to talk to each other, blame each other, and then when a tragedy happens, it brings them together and their hearts are softened toward each other.
[QUOTE] Originally posted by Opus1
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Opus1
I’ve only listed Christian miracles because the OP asked why doesn’t God do miracles, and I assumed he meant the real God. If you are saying that I have a responsibility or an obligation to include any other god than who I believe is God, then you and I will have to disagree.
Anyway, I did say “all miracles are not from God”, so I did acknowledge other miracles happen. If I was George Bush’s son, would I care about what Al Gore is doing?
**
That’s what Christians have been asking themselves for a long time.
**
God did lot’s of miracles in front of the Pharoah of Egypt and the Egyptians. When one of the disciples cut off the ear of one of the arresting guards the night previous to His execution, Jesus healed his ear on the spot. I know, I know, you don’t believe that.
**
Slink away? Please give me time to answer before you accuse me of that. I really don’t think I am trying to “defend my position” so much as just trying to say what I believe is the truth.
I said up there that God isn’t a big Showman. So as far as documented proof, I myself, don’t have any. Sometimes I wish I did. I’ve experienced it, and I’ve seen it, and my loved ones too. It’s been recorded in lot’s of books, but none that someone who needed notarized documentation would believe.
Okay, you are obviously quite gullible. You believe that natural laws are violated routinely, and that some of these aren’t even from Yahweh, your God of choice. Let me repeat the questions that you’ve never answered:
How do you tell which miracles are from Yahweh and which aren’t?
Why are miracles evidence of Yahweh’s existence, but not of Zeus’ or Allah’s existence?
What is the most impressive miracle that you’ve seen/ heard of, such that you would be willing to debate it here on the SDMB?
Here’s a passage from the Moabite Stone, discovered in 1868:
I am Mesha, son of Chemosh…, king of Moab, the Dibonite. My father was king over Moab thirty years and I became king after my father. And I made this sanctuary for Chemosh at Qrchh, [a sanctuary] of salvation; FOR HE SAVED ME FROM ALL THE KING AND LET ME SEE MY DESIRE UPON MY ADVERSARIES. Omri, king of Israel, he oppressed Moab many days, FOR CHEMOSH WAS ANGRY WITH HIS LAND. And his son succeeded him and he too said, “I will oppress Moab.” In my days he spoke [thus], and I saw my desire upon him and upon his house, when Israel perished utterly forever. And Omri had taken possession of the land of Medeba and [Israel] dwelt in it his days and half the days of his son, forty years; BUT CHEMOSH DWELT IN IT IN MY DAYS. And I built Baal-Meon and made it in the reservoir, and I built Qaryaten. And the men of Gad had long dwelt in the land of Ataroth, and the king of Israel had built Ataroth for himself. But I fought against the town and took it and I slew all the people of the town, A SPECTACLE FOR CHEMOSH and Moab. And I brought back from there the altar-hearth of David and I dragged it before Chemosh at Qeriyoth. And I settled there the men of Sharon and the men of Mchrt. AND CHEMOSH SAID TO ME, “GO, TAKE NEBO AGAINST ISRAEL.” And I went by night and fought against it from the break of dawn till noon; and I took it and slew all: seven thousand men, boys, women, and [girls] and female slaves, FOR I HAD CONSECRATED IT TO ASHTAR-CHEMOSH. And I took from there the vessels of Yahweh AND DRAGGED THEM BEFORE CHEMOSH. And the king of Israel had built Jahaz and he dwelt in it while fighting against me. BUT CHEMOSH DROVE HIM OUT BEFORE ME. And I took from Moab two hundred men, all of them leaders, and led them up against Jahaz and took it to annex it to Dibon. I built Qrchh, the walls of the parks and the walls of the mound; and I built its gates and I built its towers; and I built the king’s house; and I made both the reservoirs for water inside the town. And there was no cistern inside the town of Qrchh, so I said to all the people, “Make yourselves each one a cistern in his house.” And I had ditches dug for Qrchh by prisoners of Israel. I built Aroer and I made the road by the Arnon. I built Beth-bamoth, for it was destroyed; I built Bezer, for it was in ruins, with fifty men of Dibon, for all Dibon is under my authority. And I reigned [over] hundreds of towns which I had annexed to the country. And I built… Medeba and Beth-Diblathen and Beth-Baal-Meon, and I led up there the breeders of the sheep of the land. And as for Hauronen, there dwelt in it… CHEMOSH SAID TO ME, “GO DOWN, FIGHT AGAINST HAURONEN.” And I went down… [and there dwelt] in it Chemosh in my days… (D. Winton Thomas, Documents From Old Testament Times, Harper & Row, pp. 196-197, emphasis added).
I’m sure you don’t believe that Ashtar-Chemosh was telling Mesha to conquer the Israelites. But you do believe that Yahweh was telling Cyrus to conquer the Babylonians? Why?
(My two other Islamic miracle links appear to be down)
Do you believe those? Are they impressive at all? I hope not. I’m equally unimpressed with the Christian miracles you’ve posited.
This all goes back to my main point, which is that a miracle requires extraordinary evidence, not just some ramblings in a 2500 year old book, or some third-hand testimony. So give me some extraordinary evidence, or admit that it is rational for people to reject the existence of miracles.
Geez. That was 3000 years ago. No one has any idea if any of that junk in the Old Testement is true. Get over it already.
Um. When your language’s alphabet is composed of up and down squiggles, it isn’t a miracle when they appear in nature. Heck, half the time the wrinkles in my poop spell “Allah” – no offense.
This is akin to another religion that venerates a figure made up of a distinct pattern of oval – the same pattern which forms quite randomly where ever you have a golden rectangle undergoing certain external pressures – such as a window pane. Equally as hokey.
If you want the evidence, go and get it yourself. I’ve told you how. Don’t demand others do your research for you.