I have opened a thread in Great Debates about faith healing, specifically wondering why God does not restore a common complication of unmanaged diabetes: amputed limbs. Lest the faithful fable and the faithful waver and miss that discussion, I am linking to it here.
Chortle.
I don’t think chortling is allowed in Great Debates, so there it is. But I’ll check out the GD thread just to try and spot an apologist performing a mental triple salchow.
For failing to note the limitations & inconsistencies in his worldview, I nominate kanicbird for Official Moron of the SDMB.
People are fucked up. It’s a wonder we survived this long.
Kanicbird -
I’ve always wanted to know. Did god agree that genocides were ok, that things like the Holocaust were alright, because those people didn’t pray enough? When people were being slaughtered in Rwanda, was it because they were secretly terrible people and weren’t praying enough?
And when children get raped and murdered, which unfortunately happens far too often, is it because they’re not pure inside and don’t know how to pray to god to make it stop? Or because they don’t pray enough?
Allow me.
Good = Isn’t God wonderful?
Bad = We can’t understand God.
Seconded. Can we send him a hat?
We breed like rabbits. It’s our strength and our tragic weakness.
Skald, glad your BIL has come to his senses and is getting the care he needs.
Obviously, if you don’t believe in one particular version of the Big Boomy Skyvoice - which in this case looks remarkably like a guy who’s mother spun one hell of a story about how she got knocked up and was a strikingly charismatic egomaniac - then you deserve to die. Because God wants to love you, but since God is all-knowing and all-powerful, God can’t love you if you don’t believe in some fucking retarded book which has been retold and re-translated over and over again throughout thousands of years.
There is no god nor anything beyond science and logic and nature, but if the Christian god were real, he’d be a major asshole.
What colossal arrogance! How can you attribute the healing to having sought the lord? According to you, all things happen according to god’s will, yet for some reason, miraculous cures happen more often to people who seek the lord. How is this not believing that man can change the will of god through faith and prayer? God’s will seems to ebb and flow, according to how much devotion he feels from his flock. What a weak, irresolute being you have chosen to place your faith in.
Right. Now. If someone is sick. Let’s say they have… oh, I dunno. Disease X. Disease X will kill them in about a week. Ninety nine point nine percent chance. Or they can go to the doctor and get a course of antibiotics and be fine in a week.
Or they can pray for a miracle that might or might not happen, dependent on, not themselves, but the Lord.
Of course, there’s also the one in a thousand chance of survival without the Lord’s blessing.
From your perspective, what should they do?
Once again, I’m still trying to see your perspective on this. It really is a bit foreign to me.
The Sage of Baltimore, H.L. Mencken (possibly the smartest man who ever lived) came up with the best definition of God.
“The Creator - a comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.”
Kanicbird may call me a junkie if he wishes, but, in the matter of putting the brakes on my own “racecar brain” I have more faith in the efficacy of (dextro)amphetamine than in the holy trinity.
At any rate, do Pentecostals take communion? Perhaps a tablet of metformin could be blessed in place of a wafer?
nm
No worries. You had me going there for a while, though.
Preach it. I’ve been a non-smoker for seven years, courtesy a (then) five-year old.
kanicbird when “God” starts curing amputees, get back to us.
This all reminds me of a story,
There was this guy with cancer. A doctor came by to help our faithful hero, who answered, “I have faith in God.” Then a surgeon came by, and our faithful hero answered the same way. Next an oncologist, and again our hero answered: “No, thanks, I have faith in God.” Finally our hero died and appeared before God. “I had faith - why didn’t you save me?!” God said, “I sent you a doctor. I sent you a surgeon. I sent you a oncologist. What the fuck more did you want dipshit?!?!”
CMC +fnord!
Oh and congrats on becoming the new poster-idiot for what this board is fighting.
Kanicbird, while posting on the Dope yesterday, I had a seizure. When I finally came to, I was in my sister’s room, napping in her bed, and wondering why none of MY stuff was in there. (We switched rooms last year). I was frantically searching through her closet and drawers, making a mess, when I remembered it.
I have no memory of turning off the computer, going upstairs, and laying down. THAT’S what epilepsy does to you. I had a monster headache-although not the severe ones I usually get, where I can’t even move my head even one inch, without intense pain-and my tongue was all bit up. Later, when my mother got home, she pointed out to me that I had a bit lump on my forehead, where I must have somehow fallen forward, or bumped into the wall or something on my way upstairs. And that’s taking my meds!
If you believe in God, and that God created the earth, then why are there so many cures to be found here, that can be used to create medicine, that so many people learn to do so? Why don’t you believe God is working through others? If I didn’t take my meds, I WOULD MOST LIKELY BE DEAD, YOU FUCKSTICK?!
God did not spare His own Son, which would be genocide as Jesus was the only man who is also God. God allows man to have his way, but even in that He provides a way.
Neither, it is man’s way that causes this, not God’s.
This opens up some fascinating (and ridiculous) avenues for argument, but mostly, it makes God sound like a really terrific guy.