FoG,
Not free will? Oh my god (no offense)
A few questions:
is your god all-knowing?
is your god all- powerful?
do you say yes to both? Then any kind of free will we have is a sham.
God knew what “choices” adam and eve would make and all of the sinners after them too before he even made the universe. Hence HE chose to make sinners go to hell and people who sucked up to him go to heaven. The thought that a god would make me not just fallible but in your own portrayal prone to sin and then ask me not to sin, and make me face the possibility of eternal damnation if I didn’t think he was a cool cat for doing so, makes me sick. I couldn’t love that god and have any respect for myself. In fact I just plain couldn’t do it, it would be more like selfish ass-kissing “don’t send me to hell jesus, I think you’re great really” kind of thing. Eternity in Heaven worshiping that selfish oaf of a beast-creator would be akin to hell to me.
Sorry if I’m reiterating points others have made in this incredibly long thread, but I’ve been wanting to vent that for a while and most Christians just don’t know how to handle it.
I’m now going to attempt to respond to some of the “non-free will” issues the rest of you brought up.
Mr2001 said:
Okay, I get it now. He said what I was saying – that if I’m right and you’re wrong, the consequences are huge, but not vice versa. Therefore, logically, choose God. And it’s atheists and others who object to this wager. Am I correct?
None that I know of do. And no, it wouldn’t instantly mean I should convert, but it would sure make sense to check out what they teach and look into it! Ura-Maru said:
Well, you may be surprised that I wouldn’t say it exactly like that.
“He rewards faith and good works with heaven” – no, it’s just faith alone that He rewards with heaven. The good works have nothing to do with anyone getting to heaven.
As an example, I remember hearing about my mom’s eulogy for her mom back in 1987. She told everyone what they already knew, that this lady was well loved all her life and was sweet and kind and wonderful in many many ways. Then my mom said, “But … my mother did not go to heaven because she was a nice person. She did not go to heaven because she was well loved. She went to heaven for one reason … because she loved Jesus.”
“He rewards faith sans good works with heaven” – are you ready for this? I don’t agree here either! Now I’m sure you’re going ‘huh??’ Good works don’t get us to heaven, but they prove that we truly have faith! Does that make sense? It’s a tough concept that Christians wrestle with a lot. But what I’m getting at is ‘faith sans good works’ is not really a possibility! (Well, I guess it is ‘technically’, ie deathbed conversions and all, but in general it’s not).
“He rewards good works sans faith with hell” – but how long lasting are ‘good works’ if separated from Christ? You can help the poor and hungry in your neighborhood for decades on end, but if you can’t also offer them nourishment for their souls, have you really helped them in the long run? I know that sounds harsh, but it’s a harsh reality.
Regarding the logic of Christianity you said:
Oh yeah, I remember that little ole thread called C&L. How can I forget??
In the context of the point I was making, I’m not even asking you to believe the Bible is God’s Word or is more logical than other religions. I’m just asking you to agree that it does contain logical points of truth in it, and that it’s not crazy to quote from a book like that to make a logical point about something.
“May the Tao be with you”, “Use the Tao, Luke” … nah, doesn’t work for me ;). Thanks for the explanation.
Regarding healings, I said:
You responded:
I should have been more clear. I said “legitimate” healings. You asked if what we think of as “actual” healings are just “misunderstood science”. Now I realize I should’ve answered differently. What I’m saying is: it’s hard to misunderstand an actual (ie, not faked) case of blind eyes opening.
More dueling quotes. I said:
You responded:
If that is really true, then I am probably spending a lot of time typing these responses for nothing. I don’t expect to convince everyone God exists, but I hope to at least get some people to look at things from a new perspective and consider other possibilities. I am seriously considering stopping this in the next few days, just because it doesn’t seem to be accomplishing much. Don’t take this rant personally :). I appreciate your honesty.
Well, they certainly primarily operate in the spirit realm. They rarely manifest physically (although this does sometimes happen, just like angels occasionally manifest physically).
No kidding! The demon of alphabet soup. I go to bed thinking RAS, PPP, SLIP, TCP/IP, etc. Aarrrgghhh!!
I don’t recall where I used the word “cult” but I’m sure I did somewhere along the way. I can’t really respond without more specifics but I do get what you’re saying. Dr. Lao, I hope I answered part of your free will questions in the last post. However, you did make these additional observations I want to address:
Are you talking about Old Testament times? That’s what you seem to be saying from what I can tell. Please clarify if you meant something else.
If this is what you mean, let me briefly comment. I will confess that I don’t fully grasp how it worked in O.T. times as well as I should. I can only tell you what I do understand: in O.T. times, believers looked forward to the coming Messiah in the same way we look back in history to Him. I believe there are some O.T. people who experienced the same thing Christians today do – a relationship with God that reverses the tendency toward sin. Christ’s sacrifice spans time: past, present, and future.
But you know what? In reality, it’s a moot point. We’re here today, and the real issue is that we can choose to serve God today.
Regarding free will after salvation, again, I addressed this in the earlier post but here’s one specific thing you said I wanted to respond to:
No. It’s one of the most common misunderstandings though. In fact, there’s an entire chapter of the Bible dedicated to explaining this very point! Romans Chapter 6. No one has the ‘right’ to sin. A Christian is someone who is changed at salvation and no longer sees sin as something they get to do, but rather as something they want to get rid of in their lives!
So no, Christianity isn’t the world’s greatest free license to sin as much as you want and “be forgiven”. Christians do sin and can be forgiven, but the direction of their life is to get away from sin and move toward Godliness.
In Christianity, forgiveness is like this: you are aiming for a goal and you fall down and fail. God forgives you and says, “Now get back up, you can do it!” The false image some people have would be a person who chooses to fall down their whole life and doesn’t even aim for the goal, yet expects God to forgive them each time.
Re: miracles and skepticism:
Well, don’t assume that I immediately believe it each and every time. There are times that I have been skeptical of things I’ve heard and seen. Christians can exaggerate and I’ve seen it happen. I do observe carefully and don’t just take everything at face value.
No, that’s not what I intend at all. It’s not necessarily that they had a wrong attitude at all (although that is one of the possibilities). Let me quote you again and I’ll respond some more:
Well, I wouldn’t say “something wrong with the person”, but I would say “something’s being missed on this end.” In other words, as they say, if you and God are not close, guess who moved? It’s not God. The problem is on our end.
And it could be a myriad of things. I’m not suggesting the person necessarily has a bad attitude at all. They could have a great attitude. But my point is, there is something not being understood on our end. God is never the guilty party because, well, you know, He’s God! Perfection and all that.
For example, someone might seek God and have great motives and say they aren’t getting any feedback. It could simply be a misunderstanding on what they should expect.
I ask questions like I do as a troubleshooter. I mentioned to someone earlier I’m studying for MCSE certification, and that involved a lot of troublehsooting! In some ways, you can apply the same general principles to spiritual things. Ask questions to find out what’s wrong, and fix the problem.
Re: Pascal’s wager:
Well I didn’t really try to prove Christianity, just to point out that the consequences of not believing in it are huge if it turns out to be correct! And yes, you could invent a religion like that … but has anyone? Is there such a religion out there? Does it have millions of converts around the world? Not one that I know of. Again, correct me if I’m wrong. Falcon said:
It’s not about pressuring you to come back, it’s about loving you as a person, period.
I will email you tomorrow night Falcon.
And finally, lambda said:
I guess you’ve missed my earlier posts answering this question lambda. I’ve actually answered this several times in this course of this thread, but I’ll do it again.
No, I’m not even attempting to convince people God exists on this thread. That is not my goal. I asked the question firstly to find out why atheists believe the way they do. Secondly, I want to give people something to think about. That’s it. That’s my big lofty goal. If I’ve given you guys something to think about then I’ve accomplished my goal.
this is in many ways the definition of human in a christian religious context.
the christian religion and many other religious sects have the same basic philosophy; “you can do whatever you want if it does not hurt anyone else”.
examples are:
the commandments(not lie, not murder…)
the justice system(you go to jail if you…)
your conscience…
lets talk about your conscience.
your conscience is basically what is referred to as “free will”, that is if you are faced with a decision that is morally conflicting, you do what your conscience tells you. in all respects you are making the right decision if you do what your conscience tells you to do, if you act against it you are doing the wrong thing.
the places heaven and hell exist because you have formed those places in your head, how you see them is how you belive in them. if you see heaven as a place where angels walk the clouds and god sitting in a throne viewing the earth, then that is your heaven. if you see hell as a place of fire where lava pours over the tormented souls of sin, that is your hell.
but basically you have a free will about that too. i for example belive heaven to be a place i want to be in, it has all the facilities i consider fit my needs. hell on the other hand is a place where i dont want to be in. it is a place where everything i regret comes back to me and torments me. and because i dont want to be there i avoid doing anything that i might regret, if i unintentionally do i try to atone for what it have done to peace my conscience.
you have to realize that as a human you are imperfect, as per the religious definition you life by, god chooses us imperfect humans to act and preach his will. the trouble is; WE DO IT OUR WAY!
which basically means we created god in our image, we wrote the bible, we interpeted the commandments, we did it all… we may be wrong, and we may be right. it all depends on who is viewing the subject. there is no right or wrong about it, someone is always wrong about it and someone is always right about it.
basically it does not matter, what matter is that we have the choice of having a clear conscience or not. if we do not, we know so and suffer for it(we being our own tormentors, suffering in our own hell as satan himself). if we have a clear conscience we enjoy the fruits of it in our heaven.
i hope i have gotten my point across successfully…
Yeah, I know that it wasn’t directed toward me, but c’mon, FoG, what about the Jews? Y’know, “God’s chosen people”, and all like that? Did your God change his mind? Or will he be making concessions? And if he’ll be making concessions for the Jews, why not others?
Y’know, it probably would have been far easier, and taken up less space to refer me to your “Liberal, Godless Media” diatribe. I will say again: If these miracles that you have spoken of really happened, then it would have been at least mentioned by a major news outlet. They have not, so I am forced to think that they were the work of a very good PR person. Who, to get the word out, only sent press releases to media outlets that would print it verbatim, without bothering to look into the claims being made. Damnit, Sam, if you’ve got some real live honest-to-goodness proof, then submit it. Simple as that.
I dunno, I’ve certainly read and heard about it. And you are aware, are you not, that China is also gleefully persecuting, Buddhists, Hindus, hell, pretty much everybody?
The very same article was reprinted in a number of Christian publications. However, it did not appear anywhere else. An article in Spanish, which, to my less-than-fluent eye, looked like the same article appeared in a number of publications. I would like to think that if these miracles that you’re on about were so prevalent, that more than one person would have noticed and reported on them, and that it would have been noticed by other media outlets.
Also, Sparky, read what I said in my post. At no point in time did I say that you were “desperately trying to shift the discussion”. I simply pointed out your attempts to point the conversation toward the (alleged) bias of secular publications. Again, if these miracles are so widespread, then I guarantee you that they would have been reported somewhere besides Charisma. A magazine that was caught twisting the facts to fit their outlook by Poly. And I remember all too well that you said various sources had reported on said miracles. What are those sources? Yes, I may find the articles to be ridiculous, but why don’t you let me know what the publications are, so that I can check them out myself?
That “good works” thing is a fun debate for Christians, but the bottom line is that we just use different names for the same concept, Friend. I think one of the most lucid explanations is the following long post, from a poster named Wolseley on a Christian board I visit:
(I apologize for the length, but I wanted to post it verbatim, and not to link to it.)
A couple of additional apposite quotes: “Faith without works is dead” and Jesus’s parable of the two sons (not the prodigal, the other one: “Which one did the will of his Father?”
I find it very unproductive to discuss the question of sin here; a call to repentance of sin is not what will motivate the average Straight Dope poster. Bluntly, I feel you are digging a pit for yourself with your posts’ focus on sin.
If I were called to discuss the doctrine of original sin, I’d say that, insofar as it means anything at all, whatever may have been the case in the past, we are born into a world of people who are largely focused with their own selves. There are obvious exceptions among non-Christians as well as the call to be focused on God that Christians are supposed to obey. (Far too many, IMHO, are most interested in their own salvation, and not on Him. But that’s an entire other debate.)
Given that, each child, as he grows, comes to focus on his own needs and desires, and not on God. (A baby, helpless, is naturally solely concerned with his own welfare; this is not sinful any more than my inability to command mountains to move is.) In short, by your paradigm, he enters into a sinful world and becomes sinful. By my own, he is failing to put God at the focus of his life.
Where I am going with this is that God’s grace takes you, just as you are (cue George Beverly Shea and backup choir here), and accepts you as his beloved child and his chosen instrument for what he wants you to do in your life.
I do understand your point, and I believe most of the other people following this thread will grasp it: from the point of view that one’s soul is in the balance, other concerns become less than supreme. However, “Which of you, having a son, when he asks for bread, would give him a scorpion?” I would ask, “Which of you would give him a Bible and not bread?” Have you done anything for him if, when he was hungry, all you did was witness to him? True love feeds both body and soul.
Regarding the Tao, your takeoff on the Star Wars metaphor did not sit well with me. This is a serious belief held by thoughtful people. C.S. Lewis illustrated the sensibleness of Christianity to intelligent people in one of his books by quoting passages from the Tao Te-Ching. I believe it was The Abolition of Man. Both the Lewis and the quotations from the Tao are worth your reading – and I presume you will not find Lewis as teaching heresy or false religion!
Finally, I made a point to wade through bjOrn’s fractured syntax, and it was worth the read. He has a very valid point about personal images and not the reality behind them being what we’re discussing. Do, please, give it a read.
Aaagh! Sorry; I read that post, which I thought spoke to the issues FoG has been raising quite well, and did not check it for detailed agreement with me.
I think God is quite happy with what Phil and Peta, Gaudere, and a number of other folks I know who don’t believe in him are doing to make the world a better place to live. In that, I disagree with Wolseley.
You may notice Wolseley is a Catholic, and a fairly devout and learned one. I suspect this is not going to be a critical problem for FoG but may be slightly offsetting.
I am curious as to everyone’s response to this quote from earlier in this page. It might have gotten missed in the zillions of posts I was making in a row, but I didn’t want it to get lost. While it doesn’t “prove” anything, I am curious how an atheist would try to explain these things away, or if they would try to explain it away. Again, for those of you hung up on this, I’m not trying to “prove Christianity”, just trying to raise your eyebrows and cause you to take a second look. (PS Dr Lao I did see your brief comment on this but I’d love to hear more).
I have a brand new story from today to tell in my next post, so stay tuned.
Just today I heard a story from my new believer friend I’ve mentioned several times on this board. She’s the one who came to Christ just a few months ago and, without prompting or being told it was “the right thing to do”, stopped living with her boyfriend, started attending church and reading the Bible, and started a healthy walk with Christ. I almost didn’t think to share this story because, again, it’s not exactly unusual to see God do this kind of thing. But it suddenly occurred to me that you guys never hear about this stuff!
Let me issue my disclaimer again: I’m not trying in any way, shape, or form to “prove” God to any of you. It wouldn’t work if I was because all you have to do is say “I don’t believe you!” I guess what I’m curious about is what your reaction is to such a story. Is it just a coincidence? If this kind of thing happens all the time, are the all coincidences? Anyway, here’s the story:
My friend told me today that she was at her fiance’s house (she has started a new, healthy dating relationship with a Godly man and they are getting married in a few months!) She had just heard a teaching at her church about the value of praying over every room in your house for God’s blessing and anointing.
She prayed over every house in the room and everything seemed to go smoothly until she reached the attic. As soon as she walked in the attic, she felt an oppressive spirit come over her. What’s comical is she’s not used to this stuff and it freaked her out! She kept going through the attic and the rest of the attic was totally fine. There was just one spot near the entrance that she felt an incredible spiritual oppression.
She brought her fiance’ up and asked if he knew if anything occult oriented or something was in the attic. As far as he knew, there wasn’t anything. They looked through boxes near the door and found nothing objectionable.
Then her finance’ thought of something. He pulled away the insulation from the ceiling and said there was a place up here that his son years ago used to store stuff. He pulled away the insulation and the boards and they looked inside. And inside was a 1979 issue of Playboy magazine.
To make a long story short they grabbed the magazine, put it in the fireplace, and she completed praying a blessing over the house, including the attic. But the point is - obviously she had no clue it was there, but God did and was trying to alert her to the danger.
Now, is this the “evidence” that some of you are looking for (particularly you Dr. Lao)? I would wager that you could hear dozens upon dozens of stories like this, and even believe they were all true, and it would not change your minds. Which begs the question: are any of you truly open to the possibility of God, or are you all passionately determined to not believe in Him no matter what is shown to you?
I’ll be the first to point out the obvious–perhaps they didn’t tithe because they were in financial trouble. I would hope that if it came down to giving 10% to the church or paying the heat bill, God would understand.
Someone will come along and provide the name of this fallacy, I’m sure.
Again, maybe they were able to tithe because they weren’t in constant financial trouble. I would also say that those who pay enough attention to their income to give exactly 10% of it to the church are probably better about handling their finances than others.
How do you explain me, then? I have never tithed, nor has anyone in my family. We have never had any problems with money. In fact, my med school friends are always impressed at how well I live on our meager stipend. (My answer–don’t waste money on things you don’t want.)
Then there’s a friend of mine who is probably the strongest Christian I know. She tithes meticulously. She is always–and I mean always–having problems with money.
As a wise man once said, “The God I believe in isn’t short of cash, mister.”
m3, your post seems pretty all-conclusive so I don’t really have any response. I’m sorry you feel so strongly about God the way you do and I hope you’ll be open to Him revealing Himself to you in a different way someday.
bj0rn, interesting post on the conscience! It’s a great subject to throw into the debate. I was following you pretty clearly until this point:
You seem to be saying that there’s not an absolute truth in the matter, that everything’s a matter of our own personal conscience, and as long as we obey that we’ll be okay (please correct me if I’m wrong).
While it sounds good I’m afraid there’s a hole or two in the argument. For example, what if I have a clear conscience about killing people? Or committing adultery? Sincerely, what if I think it’s totally okay to sleep with anyone’s wife I want to, or blow anyone away I feel like? Will I ‘enjoy the fruits of it in my heaven’? Just something to think about. GLWasteful commented on this quote of mine:
Your response:
C’mon, GLWasteful, what about you? You know what, you don’t have to have any clue how God feel about the Jews. You also don’t have to have any clue how God feels about people who’ve never heard the gospel, or who believe in other religions. All you have to know about is how God relates to you.
I bring this up because I constantly see these side stepping issues raised by people. Whether you get a satisfactory answer to your question or not, how does it affect you personally? Not a whit! (Unless you are Jewish, in which case I’m wrong!) I know you probably won’t like this comment I’m making, but I get tired of seeing the real issue avoided over and over.
As for the question you raised … what about the Jews? They are “God’s chosen people” but they are also just people and they have to get saved too. The Bible in the N.T. in particular makes this plain dozens of times.
Well we’re at a stalemate then because I say differently. As for “proof”, as I said before: study Charisma articles on the web from the past few years, look for ‘Church Around the World’ news bulletins, Forerunner newspaper (80s), People of Destiny Mag (80s), etc. The best way to see it of all – go to a church that believes in this stuff for several months. I won’t hold my breath (but I guess you might surprise me since you said you’d read ‘She Said Yes’). Polycarp, thanks for posting that Wolseley post! It was interesting, although I too didn’t agree with every word it made some good points.
Well, I’m primarily responding to questions being raised. And this is not intended to be a “call to repentance from sin” in any way shape or form. It’s a discussion about sin and it’s effect, for sure. As for me “digging a pit”, tell me why you feel this way Poly. I’m merely trying to explain one aspect of human existence that explains our need for Christ.
I said:
You responded:
I agree completely. Both are extremely important. If you leave either one out, you’re in trouble.
I’m sorry Polycarp, but it was not intended to make fun of Taoism (or whatever it’s called). I just saw Star Wars mentioned and couldn’t resist spoofing one of my all time favorite movies! It was intended to be a silly Star Wars comment, not any kind of put down of Taoism. Sorry you took it that way.
FoG, I was still thinking about free will and sin, but since you asked I’ll give you my impression of your examples.
I think you might be jumping to conclusions here. Assuming that the methodology was sound and data was accurate, I can think of a more likely explanation. People who are poor with money or simply don’t earn much money often struggle with the basic needs of living. Any expenditure that is not directly related to survival. These people rarely are able to save enough to lift themselves out of poverty. Therefore they can’t afford to tithe and always have finacial trouble. People who earn a decent wage and save well can afford to tithe consistantly. Based on the information you gave, I think this to be the most likely situation. Essentially, no tithing doesn’t cause a poor financial situation, a poor financial situation causes no tithing. I would need more information to come to another conclusion. Specificlly, how did your friend differentiate between those who were in trouble financially habitually and those who only had occasional trouble?
If my reasoning isn’t to your liking, I can also fall back on personal experience. My family (my parents and brothers, I’m 21 and unmarried and I still consider them to be my family) has never belonged to a church and never tithed a cent to my knowledge. We, however, have never had a major financial crises. I credit my father’s and mother’s frugalness, careful planning, and hard work for putting our family on solid financial ground. We are quite well off now, thanks to them.
As for your personal examples they are interesting, but not conclusive of anything by themselves. I think I’d to know exactly how God did this,
before I can comment on it further. Your second example is more intriguing.
If you could show more examples of people who were in good financial standing until they stopped tithing, then everything went to hell (so to speak ;)), and/or people who were and bad financial standing before they started tithing, and everything turned around for them when they started. Better than that even, if you could show that people who tithe in cycles have financial ups and downs that match those cycles.
I thought you’d be interested in this one! I know you have more to say, but I saw your first post and I want to go ahead and respond.
First, regarding both your and DoctorJ’s statements, I should have clarified two points:
This is one area where I’ve seen things work differently between believers and nonbelievers. I think there are many biblical financial principles that benefit nonbelievers, but apparently tithing is something that only applies to belivers. This makes sense because a nonbeliever owns their own money. For a believer, all of our money belongs to God, and tithing is a portion of that money that literally belongs to God. The curse comes from essentially stealing the money from God and keeping it for yourself. But if you’re not a believer, the money is actually all yours and doesn’t belong to God.
Regarding DoctorJ’s story about his Christian friend, I should have also clarified that if tithing is the only financial principle you follow, you can still find yourself in trouble. What I’ve usually seen as a pattern is someone beings tithing purely on faith and one of the first blessings God pours out is teaching them practical money issues: savings accounts, being debt-free, not being an impulsive buyer, etc.
As for your commentary of the ‘tithing analysis’ my friend did years ago, keep reading …
You said:
I can’t think of any specific ones that stand out in my mind, but I can tell you generally that over the past 20 years I have seen countless believers who were struggling financially on a regular basis, and felt that this was justification to not tithe.
Actually, they eventually realized it wasn’t justification and was, in fact, the root of the problem, but didn’t have the faith to break out. It was a very real struggle for several people over the years. Those that finally broke free and began tithing on pure faith (one person I recall had to, in fact, choose between tithing and paying a bill) began seeing their financial house restored to good order. It was the first step, but God always backed them up one way or another. I have personally never seen an exception.
One example that is coming to mind, come to think of it, is one of my two former roommates from Atlanta (not the ex-gay guy, the other one). While we were roomies he never tithed and struggled mightily with it. He would start and stop. He would try tithing a little and receive a little of God’s blessing, but then would get scared and stop. I felt sympathy for him… he was like Peter, trying to walk on the water but then starting to sink!
Just in the past month, the guy phoned me and we had a good chat. He told me he has finally gotten the tithing thing down and is seeing the rewards of God in his life. God is truly very generous to those who obey this sometimes hard principle. Again, one of the first blessings is showing you other financial principles that will help keep your financial house in order.
So I’m afraid the cause’n’effect example you gave earlier doesn’t work in this situation, at least as far as what I’ve seen over the years. It’s not that those who are well off tithe and those who aren’t dont. It’s that those who tithe regardless of their financial situation see the beginnings of God’s financial blessings.
Regarding “God dropping a wad of cash in my lap”, basically my mom received a large sum of money. She and her brother sold a business that their family had owned for decades. She decided that rather than waiting until she was gone to pass on some of it to me and my brother, she would go ahead and do it now. She gave my brother and I an equally large sum of money!
I was blown away and didn’t know why God was trusting me with this much cash! After my church got a rather large tithe ;), I gave an extra donation to our building fund, and then let the rest sit in a savings account while I prayed about what to do. Less than 3 months later, I had to buy a new car (my old one, which I’d had since 1994, finally conked out). I was able to find a car that I could pay cash for and just have enough left over to still have a decent savings account. I truly belive God was honoring my obedience in the debt issue over the years!
Okay that’s all for now … anxiously awaiting your next post Dr. L!
D’oh! I thought my first post was so long that I needed a second, it however pales in size to FoG’s mammoth multi-part post. Oh, well…I swear it looked big when I was writting it.
On to example two:
I would venture that it stands out in your mind because of the seemingly mysterous way it occurred. A query: Did you witness all the events as they transpired? As in did she tell you she was short of money, then told you how much she was short by, then you saw the first check come for exactly that amount, she rejects it then you saw the second check come. I doubt that you did. It is more likely that you heard about the event after everything already happened. Am I right? Things often seem more mysteryous when one person witnesses them then tries to relay them to others. And if it did happen exactly as she described, think of all the stories about how no mysteryous circumstances occurred you didn’t hear about.
It is like a consumer product of some kind. Often the comment departments at corporations recieve comments from consumers that are 90% negative. They don’t assume that 90% of the purchusers are dissatisfied. The people who are satisfied don’t make calls the the manufactuer because they don’t notice that the product works. They expect it to work and it does, so they forget about it. People notice the product when it fails to work, so they call to complain.
When people need God to come through for them, and he doesn’t, they don’t notice it. When they need him and he does seem to come through, they store it away as a hit, but they forget about the misses. An accurate record of hits and misses will show whether I’m right or you’re right. If the hits and misses work out to be the same as chance would dictate, then I’m right. If the hits occur with an unexplanable (other than the people had faith in God) frequency, then you are right. Unfortunatly, insufficient evidence is available to make a conclusion. Example 3 follows under this as well. Sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don’t. If you see the things that go your way as God’s work and ignore the things that don’t God seems more plausible. I mean you aren’t say, FoG that when you ask God to do something for you he always gives you exactly what you want, are you?
Your last example, the woman, the oppresive spirit, and the playboy. First off, she was moving around a strange house and she goes into the attic. Don’t you think a sense of foreboding is natural? Second, I could probably come to your house claim to feel this spirit and find something to justify it. Last, you are hearing this second hand, who knows how the story changed as the man and woman discussed it among themselves or with others. I’m not saying they are lying on purpose, but memories have a tendency to drift with time, especially memories of unusual events.
Probably
To be honest, FoG this got me kind of angry. Your “evidence” of second hand stories wouldn’t be allowed in court, and you want my faith to rest on them? And then you accuse me of being closed minded for not accepting them? I know how stories mutate and change over time;people remember things wrong, chronology is mismatched, and then people reenforce those mistakes by talking with others who interpret them the same way. Eye witnesses are the most unreliable evidence at a trial, because they have gaps in their memory and they talk to the police about it. Facts are much more solid. I gave you some examples of how God could be proven to me in this and the last post through the use of facts. That is the evidence I am talking about.
Well, since we’ve opened up the floor to anecdotal evidence, here’s mine:
When I was young I was very interested in religion, magic, omens and rituals. In an attempt to make such predictions and influences on the future more reliable, I watched carefully for happenings that could be “omens” and actions of my own that might be somehow responsible for my good or bad luck later (like karma). So if I saw a bluejay and had a bad day a couple times, I would assume bluejays might be bad luck and start keeping track of sighting of bluejays v. bad days. I kept careful count of good and bad omens and good and bad karma acts of my own–elaborate tally-marks for months or years–but you know…the more I paid attention, the less accurate the omens/karma seemed to become as predictors. I kept close tabs on any “forebodings” of the future, so I would know if I had an accurate prediction, but my careful monitoring only showed to me that I had dozens of false alarms for every one that was true. I tried ritual, offerings to the tree spirits (I was young ) and while a few coincidences at first gave me hope that I was actually influencing the future, when I seriously attempted to track the results, I realized any correlation was no more than happenstance. Yet another budding mystic falls before the scientific method.
I think I was unusual in my fervent desire to “figure out” these things that I wanted very much to believe in, and in my careful monitoring of events. But you know, even though I don’t believe in that stuff, I think the desire to have some way to mystically influence the future is very strong in most of us. I still pick up heads-up pennies (and only heads-up; the tails-up ones are bad luck, doncha know) and I still want my good deeds to somehow bring me good luck–even though all the evidence says it’s bunk. When I went to Lincoln Park to give blood a couple weekends ago, I was concerned that my extremely sick cat would die while I was gone. “Oh, well, that just wouldn’t be fair–I shouldn’t have horrible things happen when I am trying to do something good. In fact, she should get better since I am doing good things!” I thought, although I knew my giving blood had nothing to do with the health of my cat. But I really, really want life to be fair, to be rewarded when I do good things, although all the evidence of my life tells me things don’t work that way. But in fact, when I got back, my cat was not dead, and was a little better. Now, if I believed in karma, I would see that as proof–but I honestly think it was no more than happenstance. Similarly, I believe that FoG, had his sick cat recovered a little after he gave a tithe to the church, he would attribute it to his tithing. We so want to have some way to make sure our life turns out all right. But if you genuinely want to prove that an action can influence unrelated future events, you need a solid scientific study, not anecdotes. If I had never tried so hard to use statistics and careful records to determine the validity of omens and “feelings” as predictors, I would likely have never figured out at such a young age that they simply didn’t work–I would have remembered the times they did work, and forgotten the times they didn’t. I was extremely disappointed when the evidence showed that omens, psychic powers, karma, ritual and praise of spirits didn’t work…but I couldn’t deny the hard facts once I seriously and methodically gathered them.
Yes, you are right, she shared the story in our Sunday School class the week after it happened. But read on …
Actually, in the context I’ve lived in for over 20 years, believe it or not, this is incorrect. Christians are very vocal when it appears that God isn’t answering their prayers! We’ve had entire Bible studies on nothing but this entire subject. Solid, born-again Christians aren’t always happy with God. Sometimes our prayers seem to be “hitting the ceiling” as we call it, and if we don’t know why immediately some of us get ticked off at God!
I should point out that those who are mad at God usually know it’s a losing battle, that they have a bad attitude, and need to chill out. To answer your question, no God does not “always gives you exactly what you want”. As they say, God always answers prayer, but His answer could be “Yes, No, or Wait a While”.
Sometimes it’s not always apparent why. But I have this to say as well … I have heard dozens of testimonies of how God used trials and tribulations in Christian’s lives to strengthen their faith and character in ways that would not be possible otherwise. I myself can point to times like that in my life.
Here’s one possibility right off the bat: suppose someone is the rare exception who doesn’t raise the funds to go on that missions trip. It is fully, entirely possible that God didn’t want them to go on it! This is God’s way of “shutting the door” as it were.
I am recalling a few examples of this type of thing but they are fuzzy. But the pattern is similar: doubt, frustration with God, calming down, praying and trying to hear God, finally hearing God, walking in rest. And then, usually, I’ve seen very obvious reasons why God didn’t seem to come through for the person. In fact, God wasn’t “letting the person down”, He just had different plans.
Why? But even if it was, she told me that she walked around the attic and felt nothing. When she went to the one particular spot, that’s when she felt the oppressive spirit.
But you are, I assume, talking about just “saying” you feel something as opposed to actually feeling something. If you are trying to make something happen, sure you can twist just about anything. But this is a wide-eyed, new in the Lord woman who’s not trying to convince anyone. She didn’t even know I was sharing this on this board. She sure was not trying to convince me cuz I’ve heard dozens of things like this and she knew it. She actually told me because it was the first time she has encountered something like this! It’s all new to her and quite exciting!
This is a story she just told me today about something that just happened last night.
Well, I’m sorry for making you angry. I didn’t intend to and now that I re-read what I said, I can see how you took it that way.
I guess it’s frustrating for someone like me to realize that even though God reveals Himself in dozens upon dozens of little ways like this, if you really want to you can find some kind of explanation that satisfies you if you don’t want to believe in God (“you” in the corporate sense). I don’t expect you to take what I’m saying as clear-cut evidence that God exists, but I would hope that it would at least cause you to take a second glance and consider the possibility that He might exist.
I guess what I’d say is this. Every point I’ve made has been given a counter-point to explain it away, one way or another. From your worldview perspective, I suppose each of them might be possible. Is there any part of you that’s willing to consider the possibility that my explanation might actually be correct?
I think it’s likely that the kid left some trace of his covert activities in that one particular spot that tipped the woman off. Maybe he had some graffiti on the wall? A half-eaten bag of potato chips? I’m not trying to be crude, but given the nature of the hidden magazine, maybe the woman was tipped off by some mysterious stains on the floor or a pile of discarded Kleenex.
So basically, if god answers your prayer, he’s answered your prayer. If he doesn’t answer it, he’s answered it. Something is something and nothing is something. No matter what happens: Hallelujah! Proof!
Is there any part of you that’s willing to consider the possibility that your explanation might actually be wrong?
The examples you’ve given are convincing- if you already believe in god, that is. If you already believe, personal anecdotes and such offer reinforcement of an already-established belief. Such “evidence” is not strong enough to sway a nonbeliever, unless said nonbeliever has extremely poor critical thinking skills.
It’s also a bit insulting to accuse all nonbelievers of “not wanting to” believe in god. In your worldview, I’m sure anyone who doesn’t accept the gospel is being selfish and stubborn, and possibly deluded by Satan. The truth is, though certainly a few atheists would really prefer that god is nonexistant, many atheists would love to believe in god. Many have searched for god. Many (myself included) were Christians in the past.
No, most atheists cannot bring themselves to believe because we value the search for truth, and we value honesty. It’s dishonest to believe in something just because you want it to be so or because you want to get to heaven or avoid hell.
FoG, I am willing to accept any real evidence(NOT stories out of a Christian magazine, NOT "My friend told me about…"stories) that point towards or against the existance of your god or anyone else’s version of a god. But you seem to say that any evidence against your god is false, and that anything under the sun is evidence for it.
If I make a conclusion about anything, then only accept that evidence which supports my conclusion, I am wrong.
NOT spiritually guided.
NOT a follower of the TRUTH*.
) and while a few coincidences at first gave me hope that I was actually influencing the future, when I seriously attempted to track the results, I realized any correlation was no more than happenstance. Yet another budding mystic falls before the scientific method. 