Well, FriendofGod, others have already shown you what’s wrong with your examples of what you consider God’s Guiding Hand, but you will continue to believe. And that’s all right, so long as you don’t attempt to use your examples to convince or convert others. Because some of those others will see your FOAF stories, or Joint Effect (thanks, Lib) logical fallacies for what they are. And that might cause you to think about what you’re doing, and we certainly don’t want that happening.
Well, I suppose I should thank you for pointing out what should and shouldn’t matter in my life. But I don’t think I’ll do that anytime soon. See, I don’t see anything that would make me suddenly throw over my own intelligence and pledge fealty to the particular version of God that you worship. Also, I recall someone mentioning that Jews were God’s chosen people. Which stands in direct opposition to what you said, i.e. Only those who are Christian are acceptable to God. I am simply curious, so, again: Did your God change his mind? Or will he be allowing an exception in the case of Jews? Oh, and it really does matter to me whether or not I get a satisfactory answer. Again, I’ll thank you not to decide what is and is not important to me.
And I’m not going to say a thing. . .
This would be the same Charisma that Poly shot down, right? And since you seem to have a hard time accepting that Christian publications might play a little fast and loose with the truth, then yeah, I suppose we have reached a stalemate. And until you accept that those publications are fallible, well, we’re just gonna stay here.
Actually, I have enough going on in my life that I don’t feel the need to go to a Charismatic church. Hell, I don’t go to Mass with my wife and daughter, and I get something from them. Also, as Cthulhu is my witness, I will read that book. I apologize that I’ve not thus far done so.
FriendofGod, could you send that friend of yours over to my house? I can’t find my 1991 issue of Playboy with the Von Breeschooten twins in it.
More seriously, just what is it about a Playboy magazine that you feel would cause it to have an “oppressive spirit?” Was there a Norman Mailer story in that issue?
More seriously still, FoG, there are six billion people in the world, to whom hundreds or thousands of events happen each and every day. Something that is a one-in-a-million shot will happen 6,000 times hundreds or thousands of times every day.
By which I mean to illustrate only that, even if your friend had a “feeling” which panned out in this case, it’s still nothing more than an interesting coincidence. The only statistical certainty is that statistically unlikely things will happen. All the time. I recommend you read the book Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos, and try not to be so quick to see the hand of God in every little anomaly.
Just as an aside to the other debates we’re having, I happened to run across the following article on the web tonite. I just thought you guys would like to see the “other side of the story” as it were. Some of you provided links a while back (either on this thread or another one) that pointed out discrepancies in the Cassie Bernall story. Some of the things pointed out were very legitimate and could very well have happened. However, there’s two sides to every story and here’s the other side:
I just created a new post. I have enjoyed this debate, but as someone recently said, it doesn’t seem to be accomplishing much anymore. I hope I gave some of you some things to ponder at the very least.
That is a possible explanation, but I think we need to apply Occum’s razor to it. Let’s say we have this Christian and atheist. The Christian asks God for things he wants and the atheist doesn’t. The Christen and atheist get what they ask for at about the same rate. From an observer’s perspective God and chance do about as well as one another. You could argue that God has a plan for the Christen that depends on giving and withholding in a way similar to chance, or you can assume that the praying has no effect whatsoever. Occum would insist you remove the God part of the equation, since he has no observable effect he can be done away with (so to speak) in this set of circumstances. I don’t know if the above is true, but your explanation of how God answers prayers show that it is quite likely.
You misunderstood me, let me clearify. I meant that it would be easy to find something to justify a feeling of an oppressive spirit after some claimed feeling one, whether they actually did or not. It doesn’t make any difference the cause of the feeling, or whether there was a feeling at all. But since you brought up the possiblity she could have faked it I’ll say this: making up a story or altering the details to make it sound mysteryous does have it’s motavations. She probably recieved a lot of attention and smiles accompanying the story. Everybody likes to feel they belong to a group. Since you said she was new perhaps had feelings of low self esteem from her earlier less than holy action, fitting in is probably very important to her. Just a thought, could be wrong.
Well I get spooked in dark attics and especially ones in strange houses. If she felt the feeling at a particular spot, that would be an unlikely event and something to be investigated. However, this is a type of detail that could change afterwards. I mean, if the location of the feeling was so definte, then why did it take so long for them to find the offensive material?
I had to laugh at Five comments about this, even though they are at your expense, FoG. He does bring up and interesting point. Can we bring your friend over somewhere and have her pray over some boxes, one will have a Hustler (might as well give her a magazine that oozes nastiness to nearly everyone) magazine and the rest have Bibles. See if she does better than chance at picking the right one(or wrong one, depending on how you look at it). Are you curious as to how she’ll do?
You didn’t really make me angry, I was just frustrated because you made assumtions about how I think. I’m guilty of the same thing (including a few posts back where I assumed that you viewed claims of people not hearing God more harshly than claims that they did hear him, sorry about that). As far as your little things you see a God revealing himself that I don’t see, the only reason you see them is your belief. They reinforce that belief when seen from a believer’s context. Seen from my context, they have little effect. You can understand my disbelief more by reading some of James Randi’s books. Here’s something from his website about Dr. Andrew Weil who believed that Uri Geller could really bend spoons. Randi is demonstating that he can match Geller move for move:
This is a bit off topic I know, but I’m trying to illustrate a point. When you hold a belief it can be so powerful that you see everything in that context, and everything reinforces that belief. I view religious belief in a similar way to Uri Geller and people who claim supernatural powers, they all have there unquestioned supporters. The main difference beween Geller and religion is that Geller is intentionally deceptive. Randi was able to demonstrate the mundanity of Geller’s tricks to Weil his world crashed down upon him. When Gaudere kept her records, the mundanity of her belief’s became clear. If you did the same with your evidence, I’m sure the mudanity would make itself apparent. Well not completely sure ;), just mostly. I don’t think this will necessary cause you to abandon your belief completely, just cause you to reevaluate them.
To get me to believe in God you would need something akin to Randi’s demonstration in reverse. Show me something only God could do. Or you could draw up some statistics like I suggested, maybe they do show a “God effect.” If I do become a believer, I have no doubt I will see God in the same places as you do. I may even scratch my head at non-believers who don’t see it.
I confess I think I’ll miss discussing this stuff with you most of all. You are one of the more reasonable people on this board who actually likes to engage in a polite discussion and debate. I don’t have a whole lot more to add to the discussion, since we seem to be going round and round. I hope you get a chance to read my ‘bowing out’ post, it is an appeal from a slightly different angle.
I don’t know that there’s any point in making any more specific comments, but I do think I’ll make one more about my friend’s story from the other night.
Maybe so. But the fact is, she did find something. And how easy would it be? Again they looked all over the attic and found absolutely nothing. It was only after the guy remembered there was an area above the insulation that they found what was causing the oppression.
She knows I love and accept her regardless of all that stuff. Heck, I loved and accepted her while she was in the midst of it! She has tremendous self esteem. She mostly brings stuff up to ask me questions about it since it’s new to her. She’s like a sponge, trying to learn as much as she can about her new relationship with God. To be honest,
it’s quite inspiring to me and is causing me to appreciate my own walk with Christ even more!
Again, because it was overhead. That’s the last place you’d think to look. They looked close to “the spot”, and then, just for good measure, checked throughout the attic. Again, it was only when the guy remembered there was an area overhead that they checked there. Right above the spot was the magazine. And no, there was nothing obvious in the room to point to it at all.
In summary Dr. Lao – there’s not an explanation for this. You can choose to simply not belive me or my friend, but I tend to think you won’t do that. If what she said is true, there is nothing “obvious” that can explain it away. Now, I doubt that will “prove” God to you in any way. But I sincerely hope it makes you think, and consider the possibility that there are supernatural forces in active operation in the world.
Forgive me, but if you are looking for a genie or a magician, a man of your great intellect will be sorely disappointed.
“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” — Jesus
Rather than look for something only God could do, I recommend you look for something only God could be.
Lib, I don’t think that he is lookig for a genie or magician. just someone who supposedly created a world in six days, flooded an entire world, parted the Red Sea, created living beings from dirt, turned another living being into salt, etc., etc., ad nauseum. Miracles would be a nice proof of your god’s existance, and not the so-called everyday occurances commonly used such as the sun rising, a flower blooming, and such.
If David Copperfield spent 6 months advertising a show, and in that advert he boasted about sawing a woman in half and making an elephant disappear, then only did card tricks, his fan base would dry up so fast the next month he couldn’t get a booking at a school auditorium.
You’ve got a whole book advertising the miracles of your god, and I want to see what he has to offer. “I can do such-and-such so respect me! Prove it? I would, but you’re not worth it!” is something that I started dismissing in grade school, and I’m not about to take it up now.