Why do you believe the Biblical accounts of miracles?

Great Debates
61

[QUOTE=tim314]
I think this is still missing my point. I’m not trying to have the “miracles are physically impossible” debate. (It’s not a bad debate, but I think it’s been had on this board many times before.) My point is that it seems to me that even people who believe in God, and who believe that God can and does work miracles, still would normally require a significant amount of evidence to believe a miracle has occurred – except when that miracle is described in the Bible.

Thus, my question:
How much evidence would it take to convince you I’d witnessed a miracle last week? Do the Bible authors provide comparable evidence for their claims, and if not, why do you believe them?

So far, the only answer I’m getting seems to be that you have to personally experience some sort of miraculous revelation that convinces you of the veracity of every word of the Bible. But I wonder if this is really true for every Christian? If so, you’d think there’d be no such subject as Christian apolegetics, since no one’s belief is actually based on reasoning or evidence.
[/QUOTE]

You aren’t watching enough TV.

There are a large number of sects within the broad “Christian” label who believe in ongoing miraculous events. They require minimal evidence beyond personal testimony; often not even that. It’s plenty good enough for anyone within the group to announce that a miracle has occurred.

Some of the leaders in these sects seem to be obvious charlatans, in it for the money. I must say that the vast majority of the believers themselves truly believe. Generally these miracles fall within the category of healing, but not necessarily so. They might be things like production of “manna” during a service; a sudden increase in a bank account, and so on.

If you were to come to one of these believers with a report of a miracle, they would be very likely to believe you as long as you attributed the miracle to an Almighty that was reasonably in line with their concept of God. They would not typically demand any other proof, even if the rest of their decisions in day to day life were made based on rational cause-effect principles.

62

[QUOTE=kanicbird]
So just because you are incapable of understanding the valid and true proof you are faulting the one who proved it? Have you understood every proof of every scientific fact - or do you accept on ‘faith’ some of them, which you depend on the credibility of the source?

[/QUOTE]

Damn right I do. I get to review things since I have proven expertise in the area. If someone off the street doesn’t get it that’s one thing, but if a reviewer doesn’t that’s another. It is the responsibility of the writer to make the text readable, and he can’t blame the expert reader for not getting it.

Now, for the umpteenth time, scientific facts don’t have proofs. And not everything that people think is true actually is. However, everything I have checked out is okay, and I know the process for verifying scientific discoveries, so I can usually figure out the right level of conditional acceptance that if appropriate for the item. No matter who wrote a paper, unless it is very obvious I don’t believe it until it has been both peer reviewed and reproduced. Linus Pauling had a lot of credibility, but his vitamin C fixation was still hooey.

63

Having spent a lot of time recently standing around debating some bible pounders (and some reasonable people as well), I believe the simple answer is “yes”. The central idea seems to be that Biblical Miracles require less proof simply because the bible IS the word of God; faith (and the Holy Spirit) guide the believer in to knowing that the Bible is the word of God and how to interpret it, thus the Bible simply doesn’t require proof because of faith. Kanicbird seems to be dancing around this argument, but I think that kanic is either A) so deeply involved in faith that he doesn’t realize he’s not getting back to your question or B) intentionally making a sort of circular argument as part of his point.

As to the second part of your question, I think Chief Pedant summed up a good arugment: namely there ARE people who accept the idea of miracles happening on a routine basis. For those Xians that don’t go through their daily lives thinking God is still routinely performing miracles, they are either in the camp above “God said it, so… there it is” or they tend to believe in a lot of metaphorical interpretation.

64

Faith is used as an excuse to believe in something that is absolutely batshit-insane otherwise. Why is it that “faith” gets absolutely no respect outside the realm of religion? No scientist bases theories on “faith” and could you imagine a pharmaceutical company producing a drug whose results were based on the “faith” that they’d work?

Basically, faith is a delusion people allow themselves to believe is reasonable in order to deceive themselves, instead of looking at the facts of the hard science at hand and believing that instead.

65

[QUOTE=BrandonR]
Why is it that “faith” gets absolutely no respect outside the realm of religion?
[/QUOTE]
Wha? You’ve never heard of someone having faith in a leader, or a doctor, or a spouse, or a system, or…?

Or are you using your own, strawman definition of “faith”?

66

Ahh but you see, that faith isn’t just the blind faith that religion is based on. You have faith in a doctor that has a reliable track record and you could at least see their past accomplishments (if even a degree on a wall) and compare that to what they’re presumably going to do in the future.

Reasonable people don’t blindly believe in something there is no reasoning or evidence of, so why is religion any different?

I think you’re getting caught up on semantics. “Faith” used in the religious manner is a lot different than the “faith” we have everyday. I have “faith” in gravity based on the fact that everyday when I wake up, I’m still located on the bed and I’m constantly being pulled down towards earth, but that faith is a lot different than believing in a imaginary, mystical person in the sky.

67

[QUOTE=BrandonR]
could you imagine a pharmaceutical company producing a drug whose results were based on the “faith” that they’d work?
[/QUOTE]
Well, it’s good enough for the president of Gambia.

68

[QUOTE=enigm4tic]
The central idea seems to be that Biblical Miracles require less proof simply because the bible IS the word of God; faith (and the Holy Spirit) guide the believer in to knowing that the Bible is the word of God and how to interpret it, thus the Bible simply doesn’t require proof because of faith. Kanicbird seems to be dancing around this argument,
[/QUOTE]

Didn’t know that I was dancing. It’s just something that is hard to explain unless you understand already. Part of Christianity is using the Word of God, the Word coming alive in your life, and yes guided by the Holy Spirit, you can feel the power behind it and know it is of God and correct. I admit that you can’t prove it scientifically, I feel that just shows how inadequate our science really is, and how little we can actually perceive of creation.

So I beleive in the biblical miracles because I can see the power of the living God in them. I’m trying to express that it’s more then a blind faith, though I’m sure many of you will disagree.

69

When it comes to believing in something, you’ve gots yer blind faith(which includes feelings and emotion) and you’ve gots yer external evidence-nothing more and nothing less. kanicbird, you say that you have more than blind faith. Are you claiming to have external evidence that can be presented to us?

70

I’d like to know the same, kanicbird. What you “feel” really is just blind faith and if you’re talking about a “feeling” you get, that’s not real evidence or anything other than a powerful brain simulation you have running.

71

Do you really not realize that almost all the people with whom you’re debating know Chrisitianity inside-and-out? Frankly, as far as I can tell, they know it better than you do. Which doesn’t make them right and you wrong. But condescension simply cannot be justified.

If a Mormon says to you, “I prayed to the Lord to tell me whether this is true and he said ‘yes’,” would you consider this proof that Mormanism is true? (They consider it proof.) If the President of the United States prayed to God to tell him whether America should invade Iraq and the President honestly believed that God had put the feeling in his heart that it should, does this prove that God authorized the Iraqi invasion?

72

[QUOTE=kanicbird]
Didn’t know that I was dancing. It’s just something that is hard to explain unless you understand already. Part of Christianity is using the Word of God, the Word coming alive in your life, and yes guided by the Holy Spirit, you can feel the power behind it and know it is of God and correct. I admit that you can’t prove it scientifically, I feel that just shows how inadequate our science really is, and how little we can actually perceive of creation.

So I believe in the biblical miracles because I can see the power of the living God in them. I’m trying to express that it’s more then a blind faith, though I’m sure many of you will disagree.
[/QUOTE]

you’ve sort of dug yourself a hole here, IMO.

If you had stopped with the first paragraph, you would have expressed the point I expected that you were trying to get across in the first place, but trying to say you have more than “blind faith” (something I have no problem with other people having, whether or not I agree with them) DOES indeed imply you have something more than what I thought you were expressing, the simple idea of faith from faith: you accept what is given to you because it is given, which I can respect as a reiligious idea if nothing else. Implying that you have more insight beyond the idea of a “Holy Spirit” means you have some sort of further evidence. To be fair, if you stick to the religious idea of a Holy Spirit filling you, I can’t quarrel since you have an evident faith. To imply any more than that seems to be a fool’s errand to me (unless you can indeed prove more than merely the idea of “I have faith”)

73

[QUOTE=kanicbird]
Didn’t know that I was dancing. It’s just something that is hard to explain unless you understand already. Part of Christianity is using the Word of God, the Word coming alive in your life, and yes guided by the Holy Spirit, you can feel the power behind it and know it is of God and correct. I admit that you can’t prove it scientifically, I feel that just shows how inadequate our science really is, and how little we can actually perceive of creation.

So I beleive in the biblical miracles because I can see the power of the living God in them. I’m trying to express that it’s more then a blind faith, though I’m sure many of you will disagree.
[/QUOTE]

There are two key themes to this sort of approach, both common with people of faith:

  1. I have been given personal assurance by the Big Guy. This is sufficient to give me absolute confidence precisely because it came from the Big Guy. It brings to mind the old, beautiful hymn lines…
    “I serve a Risen Saviour, He’s in the world today; I know that He is living, whatever man may say.
    I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer, and just the time I need Him, He’s always near.
    He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me, and talks with along life’s narrow way.
    He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart! You ask me how I know he lives…He lives within my heart.” (emphasis mine)

  2. The second theme is that science is smaller than God, and therefore dismissable. It is not necessary to indulge oneself in any reason-based thought process, because God is larger than creation, and man’s mind is punier than God. If the Bible says the world is flat, the world is flat. No matter that confused men use their inadequate reason to come to the conclusion it is round.

Neither of these approaches holds any satisfaction for those outside a given Faith. Neither is proof of any kind. Neither is separable from any other delusional state for onlookers.

It is, in the end, a **totally ** blind faith, selected blindly from the set of all possible other (and contradictory) faiths.

74

[QUOTE=kanicbird]
Didn’t know that I was dancing. It’s just something that is hard to explain unless you understand already. Part of Christianity is using the Word of God, the Word coming alive in your life, and yes guided by the Holy Spirit, you can feel the power behind it and know it is of God and correct. I admit that you can’t prove it scientifically, I feel that just shows how inadequate our science really is, and how little we can actually perceive of creation.

So I beleive in the biblical miracles because I can see the power of the living God in them. I’m trying to express that it’s more then a blind faith, though I’m sure many of you will disagree.
[/QUOTE]

No matter how you express it (or believe it) you are not believing in God but the person who wrote, or said it was the word of God. Your own desire makes it seem true to you because that is what you need to help you in your life. Your feelings or belief that it is a Holy Spirit guiding you is not proof.

I could say the Holy Spirit led me to belive that the Bible is not God’s word and you would say it was of Satan but that would not make it so.

You seem to Give Satan more power than God!
Monavis

75

[QUOTE=kanicbird]
Didn’t know that I was dancing. It’s just something that is hard to explain unless you understand already. Part of Christianity is using the Word of God, the Word coming alive in your life, and yes guided by the Holy Spirit, you can feel the power behind it and know it is of God and correct. I admit that you can’t prove it scientifically, I feel that just shows how inadequate our science really is, and how little we can actually perceive of creation.

So I believe in the biblical miracles because I can see the power of the living God in them. I’m trying to express that it’s more then a blind faith, though I’m sure many of you will disagree.
[/QUOTE]

I’d like to add my 2 cents with the difference that I believe in the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

I’ve felt that same presence when reading the Bible, the Book of Mormon, How can I Help, by Ram Dass, The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard, other great books, or in other activities such as , observing the wonders of nature, a conversation with someone, or being in a group that is reaching out to God.

Over the years my beliefs have changed quite a bit and yet I still believe it is the Holy Spirit guiding me years ago when I became a Christian and now when I choose to no longer call myself a Christian. To some that may seem contradictory but it really isn’t.

When the Holy Spirit speaks to us it is still mixed with our own emotions, preconceived notions, wants needs and desires. We may have rare moments of great clarity but in most cases it isn’t easy to discern the urgings of the Holy Spirit from our own thoughts and emotions. We learn how by doing and sometimes being correct and sometimes being mistaken. This is a process that lasts a lifetime. {maybe several, but thats another thread}

For example, when I converted to Christianity I had a powerful personal experience that I believe was beginning of my awareness of the Holy Spirit. I happened to be around good people of a certain denomination and so I naturally gravitated toward them. In retrospect and IMHO I interpreted a simple message “It is good to seek the truth within” into “I was led to this church so it must be right” It took me years to understand that.

The Holy Spirit isn’t in the Bible it is in you. When you feel the power of the spirit moving within when you are reading the Bible it isn’t because the Bible is true. The Bible is a book, period. The Holy Spirit can use anything to teach us and guide us if we want to be taught. It isn’t dependent on any particular so called Holy book, or any particular religion or even any religious iconic figure. It is only a matter of the state of our hearts and minds as we are willing to surrender our preconceived notions, our worldly attachments and our fears.

It’s easy for a powerful emotional experience to be mistaken for the Holy Spirit. It’s also easy to associate a real encounter with the Holy Spirit with the details of our surroundings. What people we’re around, what book we’re reading, what church we’re in. That association isn’t correct. Those details don’t matter in the essence of spirit and our spiritual growth.

Don’t you think people from other religions reading other books have the same powerful experience you have? How would you explain that? I’ve had that experience and at one time I thought the Book of Mormon was the inspired word of God. Now I believe the Holy Spirit is the only real living word of God and books are books.

I do believe the subjective personal experience is indeed legitimate evidence but only for the individual. It is the responsibility of each person to discern and interpret the meaning of those experiences and how that affects our future choices. It is unwise to assume we make those interpretations flawlessly. We don’t. We go forward acting on what we think is correct and true and it is indeed an act of faith. We can also have faith that acting on what we believe to be true and continuing to seek the truth {which is often different from our preconceived notions} new experiences will come and the Holy Spirit will continue to guide us. It;s pretty safe to assume there is much much more to learn and understand.

76

A main question I’d have then, is the Holy Spirit an intrinsically Christian thing to you? If not, then I’d have to point you’re using an intrinsically Christian idea to explain non-Christian beliefs, which, well yes, does seem contradictory. That said, I think it’s perfectly reasonable of you to feel a guiding force when reading these books, and again, this is again exactly what kanic seemed to be trying to prove in his first paragraph.

That seems to be a fine line to tread… what if we are mistaken, will God punish us for believing we are being led by the Holy Spirit when we aren’t? In the example above, if Satan knows how to duplicate the presence of the Holy Spirit, isn’t it arguable that we can NEVER trust the feeling of the Holy Spirit, and ergo, the Bible?

77

[QUOTE=enigm4tic]
A main question I’d have then, is the Holy Spirit an intrinsically Christian thing to you? If not, then I’d have to point you’re using an intrinsically Christian idea to explain non-Christian beliefs, which, well yes, does seem contradictory. That said, I think it’s perfectly reasonable of you to feel a guiding force when reading these books, and again, this is again exactly what kanic seemed to be trying to prove in his first paragraph.

That seems to be a fine line to tread… what if we are mistaken, will God punish us for believing we are being led by the Holy Spirit when we aren’t? In the example above, if Satan knows how to duplicate the presence of the Holy Spirit, isn’t it arguable that we can NEVER trust the feeling of the Holy Spirit, and ergo, the Bible?
[/QUOTE]

I think it is more important that you follow ‘you’re’ understanding versus blindly following someone else’s understanding. Always being able to question and “grow” is what becomes important.

This might even mean growing to understand the “Holy Bible” for what it is.. a collection of mans thoughts, decided to be holy by man… it’s not that there aren’t some nuggets of goodness in there, its that it can’t (or atleast shouldnt be) construed as “Gods Final Word on all things”.

78

[QUOTE=kanicbird]
Actually it can be and it is how I see it. There is one true God, and one head enemy - Satan. Satan is responsible for all false religions. So they are 2 sides of the same coin - nothing is contradictory.
[/quote]

So, Satan’s like the Bogeyman, right? Do you look under your bed and in your closet for him before you go to sleep at night? I mean you say he’s “real” right? So he could be there.

Happen to have his e-mail addy? I’d like to ask the old-bean a few questions. Starting with his opinion of PCs VS Apples. Like you say, it’s a matter of credibility, thus what better source?

Thanks in advance.

79

kanicbird, do you have a definition of “faith=proof” that consists of something more than “Only my faith=proof”?

80

[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
kanicbird, do you have a definition of “faith=proof” that consists of something more than “Only my faith=proof”?
[/QUOTE]

Just a scripture passage to that effect.

Absolutely not.

[QUOTE=enigm4tic]
this is again exactly what kanic seemed to be trying to prove in his first paragraph.

[/QUOTE]
Well I would have put it try to explain in my first paragraph.
**
cosmosdan** I agree that the Holy Spirit can guide one’s readings no matter what the book, and sometimes hard to hear over our own thought and for that matter demonic influence.

Yes, Demonic influence

I do hear you, in some respects the Bible is just a book by itself. I truly beleive it was designed to be experiences with the of the Holy Spirit’s help for it to become more then a book.

I do appreciate your post.

[QUOTE=monavis]
You seem to Give Satan more power than God!
[/QUOTE]

Satan has no power of himself, nor do we. All power is from God alone. That said, God authorized others to use His power - Including Satan.

[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]

Neither of these approaches holds any satisfaction for those outside a given Faith. Neither is proof of any kind. Neither is separable from any other delusional state for onlookers.

It is, in the end, a totally blind faith, selected blindly from the set of all possible other (and contradictory) faiths.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, I do understand what you say, and expected statements like you made, and at one time I would have done the same. I now think/feel/accept/whatever that there is so much more.