FofG (on page 2) said:
…5. It would take observing the life of a strong Christian.
…
For me personally, the ONETHING that I’ve ever seen in my life that convinced a skeptic of not only God’s existence but God’s LOVE for them … was # 5.
I have a friend who tells me that I am one of the most Christian people he knows… this is based (he says)on MY behaviors, helping others less fortunate than myself,and treating others in a Christian manner, things like that.
I am an Atheist.
He knows this. He is a former Youth Pastor, who lost his job (and a good portion of his faith) when his wife had an affair with another man, left him, and filed for divorce. His church in response fired him, as divorce is frowned upon. Now, HE didn’t file for the divorce, he still loved his wife.
Once, while the divorce was still in process, he was saying nightly prayers, via phone, with his kids. One of them said “…and God, please help Mommy and Daddy get back together again.” He said “Amen.” The next week he was charged with mental child abuse, as, since he was a Youth Pastor, he knows that ‘amen’ means ‘let it be so’. So he was ‘deliberately falsing raising his children’s expectations of a reconciliation.’ He spent 10 days in jail.
Sounds like God answered his prayers real well, doesn’t it?
Personal belief: All you need to know (and do) to get into Heaven: John 3:16. It’s all there.
Everything about that story of the former youth pastor seems fishy but plausable, right until it comes to a point which sounds absolutely insane:
I would definitely need a cite for this, as it screams “anti-God urban legend” so loudly, I had to turn my computer speakers down lest they blow up.
Yer pal,
Satan
[sub]I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Four months, one week, one day, 18 hours, 54 minutes and 25 seconds.
5231 cigarettes not smoked, saving $653.94.
Life saved: 2 weeks, 4 days, 3 hours, 55 minutes.[/sub]
"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
[sub]Thanks for the ringing endorsement, honey![/sub]
It was my void. I wasted years and years and years rejecting totally implausible ideas. As a recovering I[sup]2[/sup]R (Implausible Idea Rejector), I can say that I probably rejected six or seven implausible ideas before breakfast on my worst days. Recently, I was presented with the idea that Atheists could be morally upstanding and loving. The loss I would have suffered had I clung to my old ways is inestimable.
There are many many many epistemologies, my friend.
Regrettably or otherwise, it is my preferred means to communicate. I don’t like preaching to people, so I guess I figure that I can say what I feel, and if they don’t know what I mean, they’ll ask if they’re interested. If they’re not interested, I won’t have taken much of their time.
Huh! I had taken it to mean the void that Modian’s mother alleged was in him for having rejected his Christian heritage. And was a bit surprised to read Lib. being judgmental in matters faith-oriented…while he can and does post some pretty strong allegations in the politico-economic arena, he is not in my experience inclined to pass judgment on another’s religious beliefs or lack thereof. I’m pleased to see that he meant a “void” in himself!
Which just goes to prove Straight Dope Posting Rule #232: If you make a pithy remark, somebody is bound to get pithed off about it!
I would personally have no trouble believing in an account of a miracle with circumstantial evidence that stood up under reasonable skeptical scrutiny. But, like others, I find the accounts lacking in detail. In my experience, most “miracles” have been what have been called “Miracles of Convergence” where (IMHO) God’s providential hand brings about a less-than-probable confluence of events to positively affect someone’s life, health, etc. Was it a miracle that (hypothetical situation!) as the driver of a car hit by a tractor-trailer suffered probably-mortal injuries, the only doctor to live within 30 miles happened to be driving by and applied his medical expertise to save the driver’s life? That’s a “take it on faith” issue; I would; presumably a more skeptical person would not.
However, I do have one circumstantial datum to bring to the “miracle reports” tangent this thread has routed itself on. Sixteen years ago my wife and I had a subscription to Logos, which was a quality Christian magazine with a charismatic focus. Logos discontinued publication, and unexpired subscriptions, such as ours, were fulfilled by Charisma. Two issues into the subscription, an account totally misrepresented then Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York’s stand on a public issue with religious consequences. I was working for the state at the time and happened to be aware of the truth of the matter through an informational sheet sent out by the Governor’s office to state agencies, which I had read. I immediately wrote to the Governor’s Office, enclosing a copy of the article. He prepared a letter to Charisma correcting their misrepresentation, and I received a copy along with a thank-you note from one of his staff. Since this was something regarding which a press release had been prepared and sent out, their research was abysmal.
And for the deduction epistemology, it pays to reason from the general (Lib wouldn’t do that) to the particular (he must have meant a void in himself).
I’m not to happy with your analogy. It seems to imply a mindless distructive aspect to God. This is, in my opinon, antithetical to a loving God.
This makes sense, but why hell? According to you (I think, correct me if I’m wrong), being in God’s presence, in heaven, is the best of all possible situations. Anything less than this would be a significant punishment. Why does God need a special torture chamber to deal with the souls that don’t make the cut as being worthy to be in his presence? The whole heaven/hell and God/devil thing seems like a false dichotomy (I learned that from Libertarian, I hope I’m using it correctly). Just because there is a best of all possible worlds (e.g. heaven) for people in God’s good ledger doesn’t mean there has to be a worst of all possible worlds for those who aren’t. And, if I understand Christen philosophy correctly, the devil isn’t a mirror image of God (just like God only evil). He is something completely different. So I guess I don’t buy the whole hell as the ‘other place’ for souls to go. Anything less than heaven could be that ‘other place’.
This also makes some sense, if in fact we really did deserve the punishment, but I’m not convinced of this. I mean, what did I do? Are talking about orignal sin? I don’t understand how babies just born can be sinful. Or are you talking about the sins we all commit? How could God save us from sins we haven’t even commited yet? Alternatively, if you are talking about man’s inherent sinful nature, I have to cite the previous cases presented here of how God shouldn’t have created inherently sinful creatures. If he did, he is stacking the deck in his favor. It doesn’t mean much to save humanity after the fact, if he knew we were going to fall in the first place. I say if we all must sin, there is no free will. I mean since there have been several billion people on Earth and all of them have sinned, it doesn’t say much for the non-sinning alternative as being a choice.
Well, coincidences happen; even in a Godless world they are inevitable, so they can’t be used as evidence to prove this isn’t a Godless world. As for there being non spiritual explanations for spiritual events, that’s not going to good enough for me. I need a spiritual event that can’t be explained using physical laws. This isn’t to say that all spiritual events must pass this test. God may work in coincidences and happenstance some of the time, but if it turns out this is the only way he works I couldn’t except those as evidence. Another criterion that I didn’t emphasize was that it must be repeatable. At another place and time someone should be able to duplicate the miraculous/spiritual event. I feel a bit like I’m whittling here. Eventually there won’t be any wood left. That’s also a possiblity. It may not be possible to produce evidence of God’s existance to my satisfaction. If that is the case the question will always remain a mystery for me.
I hope I will too. I hate to think I am prejusticed to an atheist viewpoint. That being said, the fact that I entertain the possiblity of his involvememt doesn’t mean I can accept that possiblity as evidence. Good evidence is a possiblity but not all possiblities make for good evidence. I disagree with your analysis of a complete skeptic’s reaction to this situation. A skeptic looks, initially, at all possiblities as being equally unlikely. He then begins to seperate the more unlikely from the less unlikely. He tries to avoid assumptions and prejustices in all matters. Libertarian et al. (I can feel it coming) can debate whether this possible, I just saying it is the goal. I realize there are always some asumptions made in any type of inquiry. But you should never assume any conclusion to be true or false prior to investigation.
As I am sure there are but I’m willing to bet there are as many stories about not have enough money, trusting in God, and the necessary funds not coming through. This is something we could test. If it always happens the way you describe and never the way I describe, this would consitute evidence. However, I suspect that you only hear about the stories where God (apparently) comes through and don’t hear about the ones where he doesn’t. If that is the case your anectdotal accounts would not constitute evidence.
That’s why we have multiple tests. Like I said before God might work using apparently lucky breaks. However, this type of luck must happen more often than chance to show divine intervention. If God can’t do better than chance than he isn’t much of a God ;). On the other hand, if God always (or a statisticly unlikely number of times) comes through with a lucky break, it is hard to deny that something is going on.
As I said above, that may be the case. This is sort of faith for the scientific. Its not possible to know everything using science, but we’d like to be really sure about the stuff we know and less sure about the stuff we don’t, than the other way around. And if we are wrong about the stuff we know, there is at least a method for correcting it.
The effect needn’t be dramatic, but it must be real and verifiable.
I might do that (but before I do, I think I need a definition of godly). I’d like to echo here what others have said before, this isn’t evidence either. Skeptics can have life changing moments in which they become believers, and believers can have life changing moments when they become skeptics. If it was a one-way street we might be on to something, but unforuately it isn’t.
I’m sorry that you don’t believe the story. It DID happen, and NOT to a friend of a friend of a friend, but to a VERY good friend of mine. I have no idea how I could prove it to you. I could give you his phone number, and have you ask him yourself, but you’d probably think it was a set-up.
And it’s Not an Anti-god urban myth. It’s a Divorce can be Hell true story.
Greetings all! I don’t have time for much of a post but I would like to make two brief comments:
GLWasteful: just FYI, my three links weren’t intended to be an exhaustivelist of every miracle story of the past three decades. I had some time this morning, I recalled that Charisma was one of the sources I’d heard such stories from, and I thought I would post a few links to give you at least some of what you were looking for.
I’m sure there are other resources on the web, but I haven’t had time to research them yet. If I get a chance I will try to post additional articles.
By the way, you are right, I’m sorry for assuming you would not be open minded to this stuff.
Dr. Lao - loved your response! I hope to continue our discussion later this weekend.
So you’ve got evidence of miracles, but all the sources just happen to be from magazines with a religious bent and sloppy reporting practices? Howzabout you come up with a miracle from an unbiased news source that names a specific event that we can actually check on?
Forgive me if someone has already made this point (I may have missed it in all the marathon posts), but this argument can be turned around very easily, and I think that this is the crux of this discussion.
If you approach life assuming that a god is actively working on earth, you will see that god actively working on earth. If you approach life assuming that there are no gods, you’ll never see them.
(As I re-read this post, I see that it leaves out the agnostic and probably a few dozen other viewpoints. For the sake of the argument, I’m going to focus on only two options. Those of you who fall in between, I would love to read your take on my thoughts.)
If the lack of a god would make you feel “a void”, then you need a god. Then you will have a personal relationship with that god, you’ll see miracles performed by that god, etc.
If you don’t (as I do not) feel empty without a god, you don’t need one. All of your personal relationships with be earthly, there will be fortunate and unfortunate coincidences, etc.
FoG, your original post asked what it would take for me to believe. This answer is nothing. I tried to believe and I can’t. Please understand that I do not feel empty or like I’m missing something. Also, please understand that when you see a miracle, I do not and I never will. When you see people’s lives turn around because of faith, I see a strengthening of character. All of the evidence for the existence of your god that you can collect, I can refute. You approach life with an active god, I approach life without gods.
If I have mis-represented your viewpoint, I apologize. I have tried to see your side through your posts, and that is how I interpret it. If you take some time to reflect on the opposite side, you may come to understand (but still disagree with) my viewpoint.
As I have said, I wish you well in your faith. I’m glad it makes you happy. It doesn’t work for me and it never will.
I recently saw a special on tornadoes. They had a segment on this church that was hammered by a tornado, yet the 75 people in it weren’t killed. Some of the teenage girls in it (teenage girls seem to be a major source of miracles) claim to have talked to God, and to have seen angels fighting demons that were trying to tear down the walls. Of course, a ‘Miracle’. So why did the customers of the strip joint down the street survive also when the storm hit there?
There is nothing worse than referring to surviving a storm as a case of ‘God was with us.’ Talk about uncaring to the people who had loved ones die…
Consarn it, Poly! Just when I get a good head of steam up to be really pissed at the arrogance and simplicity of Christians, you come along to dispel it. At this rate, I’ll never get good and steamy.
I had no idea of the research that Charisma might or might not do, I just think that a Christian publication is going to have a certain point to make, and will work exclusively toward making it. IOW, a strong bias. It was interesting to discover that our own Polycarp, for whom I have a great deal of respect, feels the same way. As does slythe, who I also respect, although not for his Christian faith. So, FriendofGod, do you have any other sources? Again, they don’t have to be available online. Hell, I already told you that I’ll read She Said ‘Yes’, so a trip to the library is in my future no matter what. As long as you can let me know the title and date, I imagine that I can find an issue. Keep in mind that you are the one who said that these instances happen all of the time, I wouldn’t think that it would be so difficult to find documentation. Also, did you read the link that I posted? I really think you should. Y’know, in case you want to use Almolonga as an example in the future.
Actually, Lucky, the miracles in question have allegedly taken place in Mexico and the Pacific Rim. Unless, that is, FriendofGod wants to continue to claim Almolonga as a site. If so, add Guatemala to the list.
However, to be fair, he did say that there were other sources reporting other miracles, so maybe there will be something in Europe after all. We shall see.
I guess I just don’t understand why people would look for the Living among the dead.
[… if not interested, stop reading here …]
A miracle is something that happens in someone’s heart. I hear some atheists say that they would believe in God if He were to appear in the sky and make a lot of clapping noises or something. Sorry, but I don’t buy it. Forgive my skepticism, but if you don’t want to believe in God, you can explain away any sort of seemingly miraculous occurrence. Like Poly said, what’s the difference? How can you tell whether something was a miracle? Analogous to the god of the gaps is the science of the gaps. Some people, otherwise quite intelligent, believe that reason is not only a valid epistemology, but the only valid one. They are the ones who say, “There simply must be a reasonable explanation.”
(You can’t imagine how hard that would have been for me to say before some of my discussions with Spiritus. It is he whom I credit with teaching me the validity of all epistemologies…)
I believe that if you are searching for God, you will find Him in the most mundane things. And I believe that if you are not, you won’t see him in even the most spectacular miracle.
