This Cyrus guy must have been pretty amazing if he was “promoting Christianity” in 550 BCE.
It’s a miracle!
You are talking about magic, I don’t believe God is Magic.
Not really, of course. Cyrus the Great is seen as having been a tool of God’s will, even though he was not a follower of the Hebrew God: he freed Israel from exile in Babylon, and facilitated the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Particularly during the 2016 election, and in Trump’s first term, some conservative Christians replied to criticisms of their support of a clearly sinful man by pointing to Cyrus as an example of God choosing a “flawed vessel” to enact his will, and thus drawing a comparison to Trump.
Interestingly, I haven’t seen much discussion/use of that parallel in Trump’s second term.
Then, once again, do you have evidence that supports the existence of the god you believe exists, but doesn’t support the existence of other gods?
It’s a generally universal belief among Christians that all of the stuff that happened in what they refer to as the Old Testament are retroactively part of Christian history.
Could you please define magic as you are using it? I don’t see any way of excluding God from magic unless you purposefully define magic to exclude religion (which is the common Christian position, but not a very logical one). I should add that while I don’t find “magic” a pejorative term, a lot of Christians do.
I’m pretty sure Christianity stole this idea from Dungeons & Dragons.
Christianity uses psionics?
Why not? The current administration has created its own army of orcs.
Why does anyone need proof of God? Why does it even matter?. I suspect that those who constantly challenge God are jealous because they want to control human behavior and thought. No human is perfect or even close to perfect. The model we follow of God is perfect. It lives in our subconscious and becomes part of our operating system. If a person works in a factory and believes in God, can that possibly hurt anyone? If he believes abortion is wrong, is that bad for society? I don’t believe a Godless society could survive very long.
Which “God”?
Also, since evidence (NOT PROOF) isn’t needed for your god, it isn’t needed to support any other god, right?
Well, I certainly don’t. What I needed was your definition of magic.
Only if he starts making other people live by the rules his personal God is suggesting. Is he planning to do that? Make other people live by his God’s rules?
If he is, then we know exactly who wants
And it ain’t the person challenging God. It’s… SURPRISE! the person who thinks his model of God is “perfect”.
To give a more serious answer, some people define magic as a natural force that exists in the universe and can be harnessed by anybody who studies how to use it. Or who has some innate trait that allows them to use it. So it doesn’t matter what your religious beliefs are when you’re using magic.
God is a separate thing. God can do the same things magic does but all a person can do is ask God to do these things; the person themselves is not doing it. And in order for God to do this thing, as a prerequisite God must exist.
So if you perform a miracle like healing a sick person you’re just channeling God’s power - and by extension proving that God exists. But if you heal a sick person through the use of magic (or psionics) God isn’t involved.
There’s a biblical passage that reflects this distinction. Elijah issued a challenge that he could set a sacrifice on fire through prayer and challenged some priests of Baal to try to do the same. They each prayed to their respective god and Elijah’s sacrifice burst into flames and the Baal’s priests did not. This proved, to the people who accepted the accuracy of this account, that Elijah’s God was real and Baal was not. If on the other hand, people had magic fireball spells or the power of pyrokinesis, this test would have been irrelevant.
And performing a miracle in the name of some other supernatural entity proves that that entity exists, right?
See, this is my difficulty with this definition. God isn’t magic because God is defined as distinct from magic. That seems tautological. And bringing religious beliefs into it is doing the same thing: God isn’t magic because in my belief system religious people don’t do magic.
Anyway, it’s not critical to the thread. I just wanted clarification on the point from the person who brought it up, but I don’t think I’m going to get it.
Yup. And to the exact same extent.
After all, I wasn’t there in the room when Elijah did the fire challenge. All I have to go on is a 2500 year old account that was written about three centuries after the event it was describing. I don’t consider that indisputable evidence.
As you note, there are plenty of other accounts relating the performance of miracles by other deities.
I think the test would be for somebody to demonstrate they can perform the same phenomena without invoking God.
Person A says that they will pray to God to set a bull on fire by praying to God and if the bull catches fire that’s proof of God. Person A then does this and the bull catches on fire. Person A says “There, proof that my God is real.”
Person B says they have pyrokinetic powers and they will set a bull on fire without invoking God. Person B then does this and their bull also catches on fire. Person B says “There, proof that you can get a bull to catch on fire without God being involved.”
It is bad for society if he forces that belief, based on his faith, on others, by working with like-minded individuals to make abortion illegal, despite a significant majority of people in the country wanting it to remain legal.
You (or anyone) are entitled to your faith, until exerting your faith becomes harmful to, or deprives the rights of, others.