this has troubled me for some time now. and it’s come up in the recent neurologic post, so here goes.
matt 17:20 states that if you truly have faith in god, you can move a mountain.
do you believe this is true? why or why not? and please, no debates (yet) or prosyletizing. i wanna hear what you believe, and an “I don’t know” will do quite nicely.
then, once we have our groundwork laid, begin!
jb
My interpretation: A nice little parable, metaphorically speaking about the powers of faith.
Fundamentalist interpretation: I have no idea how they’d come up with a literal working of this one, but rest assured they did figure it out.
Yer pal,
Satan
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Three months, three weeks, four days, 12 hours, 31 minutes and 53 seconds.
4660 cigarettes not smoked, saving $582.61.
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"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
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You might want to join the thread that is already talking about this here
Of course, you are misquoting it a tad. It says if you have faith even the size of a mustard seen you will be able to move mountains, and nothing will be impossible to you.
Yes, this is true. Although when I had faith I don’t think it ever grew bigger than a handful of atoms, I performed a few minor miracles. I witnessed other believers doing the same. Of course, as it says in the letter to the Ephesians (circa 2:8?) not everyone has the same powers, and you should not judge a person’s faith on their abilities, nor brag.
{{{{{DAVID B.}}}}} {{{{{GAUDERE}}}}}
Quick, come see! Look!
There’s a man who has witnessed miracles, yet has decided not to believe. This was what I said! Just like the people who had eaten the loaves and fishes! You see!? There’s your proof!
I am surprised there are not more like me.
Jesus himself said there are four types of people who hear his teachings:
I am type 3. Oddly, the majority of people are type 1, but think they are type 4. And they never stop to think that they might be wrong. But the devil has had 2000 years to figure out a way to warp every teaching of the Bible, even the Ten Commandments themselves. I gotta give him props.
I would like to propose type 5: those who hear the word of God, accept it, assimilate the portions they wish, discard what they wish, re-evaluate their metaphysic and move on.
That’s basically a 1.
Whether those words are deemed divine or mundane is the perspective of the listener. Whether those who judge the reaction as reverent or dismissing is the perspective of judge.
Why does it concern you? This doesn’t even have to do with miracles. A man can move a mountain one stone at a time. A man who has faith, has that kind of commitment.
Of course if we want to get technical, the verse says that all you have to do is speak to the mountain to make it move… but of course if you’re going to be moving it stone by stone, you’re going to have to have someone to talk to during the long years.
Lib, he does believe God exists, he just does not have the faith to continue following what he considers Jesus’ teachings. I do not think he doubts the actual existence of God or the validity of the miracles he witnessed, nor does he appear to doubt that God is good and one can achieve eternal life and heaven by following Jesus’ words. This is a separate issue from David and I’s tendency to think that most people, if faced with a genuine divine no-foolin’ objectively validated miracle, would believe in the existence of God. If I witnessed a divine miracle, I might believe in God, but whether I would choose to follow Him is a separate thing; perhaps the divinity I witnessed proof of appeared evil or something.
Define ‘mountain’
Ted zapped me with the “one stone at a time” comment.
Of course if you have enough faith you can move mountains. How much faith does it take? Enough to move the mountain, of course! 
(Adapted from a Lazarus Long quote)
Some other stray thoughts: The mustard seed, presumably having no free will, is obliged to follow God’s law. It will therefore do precisely what he wants it to do, i.e., grow into a mustard bush. Or, perhaps, nourish one of those sparrows he observed falling.
It’s not whether I want the mountain to move that matters, in this case; it’s whether God does. Because if I have that kind of faith, I’m reliant on Him for everything, including direction as to whether or not to tell the mountain to move.
Does this sufficiently obfuscate the parable? Gaudere, Joel, any observations to add?
Yeah. It seems Ted is equating faith with having a lot of spare time.
If you equate free will with sin, but freedom one would still have. I would say it is a better freedom, being free from sin. It is not like God requires you to be rolling a rock up a hill all day or anything. You’ve done what needed to be done. Eat, drink, and be merry!
You may have kind of a point, but God doesn’t really direct all your activities (or perhaps he does and you just can’t tell the difference? Perish the thought!). If you pridefully expect to move a mountain, then you probably will not succeed as pride runs counter to faith. I would suggest a believer let their first miracle be an accident and work on it from there.
Joel, there is an old story from India of a monk who sat by a riverbank near a ferry practicing meditation for many, many years, and after great spiritual exertions learned how to walk on water. Elated, he ran and told his fellow monks, “Come and see! I can now cross the river by walking on the water.” One of them turned to him sadly and said, “But for a penny you could have ridden across on the ferry, and spent those years on something that truly matters.”
Yeah – mine certainly was. Of course, it was nothing that Gaudere or anybody else would consider miraculous.
Not really. I’m equating faith with commitment to a task. Specifically a task given by God. Faith is moving that mountain, metaphorical or otherwise, stone by stone with the gifts that god has already given you.
I find it to be a much greater and more profound miracle that a man would spend his whole life moving that mountain for God with the two hands that he was given, than I would any kind of spontaneous atomic relocation.
I’d say don’t strive for miracles. If such a thing happens, great, more power to you. But in the mean time use the gifts that God has given you.
I’ve seen one too many a congregation pray for a miracle that the poor might find shelter or that a sick child might be healed, instead of actually opening their own homes to the said poor, and taking those sick children to see a doctor.
Ted, how can you distinguish the gifts God has given you, versus the gifts you have earned through loyalty to the devil?