"Why won't God heal amputees?"

Quote from bsmeter:

You're not "hearing" me very well. ( Based on your responses, I suspect you're more of an Auditory than visual individual )

If your intellect isn't yet mature enough to grasp the fundamental contruct of a living Concious energy ( what do you think the Soul is ? but then again you have to belive in a soul first before you can pose the question of what it is ) , what makes you think the logic that follows from such an intellect will lead to the correct conclusions.

Let's forget the discussion on the construct of God for a minute.


I pose the following question:


What is the correct process of approaching a Problem so that the correct solution maybe derived?

Most people frame the problem to be solved within the framework of their past experience. Therefore the past prejudices become part of the framing the questions that lead to the wrong answers to the problem.

Past prejudices ------> impact the Question ----> applied to the Problem ----> Solution is adulterated by past prejudice ( hence incorrect solution )

When in fact, the correct approach to solving a problem would be to FIRST BE AWARE of your pre-existing prejudices, then CONCIOUSLY ELIMINATING these prejudices before posing the Question.

Therefore the correct process would be

Be aware of Past prejudices ----> Conciously ELIMINATE the prejudice ----> now frame the question ( free of impurity) -----> Apply to the Problem ---> Solution is much more pure.


At this stage I think you're still stuck in your mental angst of how others are blindly using faith to answer the question of Gods existence. This conflict in logic leads you to reframe all your Questions to be based on your contempt of those who belive in God blindly. ( you don't bother to differentiate between the different processes as they seem the same to you. When in fact they are not!! )

Therefore your angst and disdain that supposedly logical people ( herein you make the first mistake. Most people ARE NOT Logical!! ) should arrive to answering a question of huge magnitude using a process as trivial and primitive as "blind faith" adulterates how you frame the question and this will lead you to the incorrect answer every time.
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Speaking of not logical, how is it you expect to saunter in and point to the existence of dubious concepts like "living conscious energy," and then get offended when people don't quickly nod their heads in agreement?

Furthemore, how childish is it not to see the difference between "past prejudices" and "educated points of reference," i.e. if you try to convince me that animal telepathy is real, and I express the opinion that you're full of shit, you could always say "no man, you just have to let go of your past prejudices."

If what you are trying to communicate has value, you aren't doing the concept any favors by acting as if no evidence or explanation is required. Nor does it help to invalidate the atheist frame of reference with throwaway statements, instead of trying to craft an argument that actually responds to it. (I'm personally closer to deist than atheist by the way.)

You deserve to be smacked upside the head with a poopy diaper. No wonder you stomped off...
 
Quote from archimedes:
(I'm personally closer to deist than atheist by the way.)
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Oh!, how COULD you!

As far as animal telepathy, he could have argued that point more convincingly. Ii is a fact the cat next door has it. Do you know, EVERY time it gets close to the back porch, it mind controls the little flap in the door and it always opens. Hey maybe it is something to do with that magnetic mind supra force concept module effort. Who knows eh, who knows.
 
Quote from lkh:

God is imaginary.

In the following pages i will post 50 different pieces of evidence that God is imaginary and religion is nothing more than organized superstition. All i ask is that if you are a believer just read and think about what you believe. Does it really stand up to a logical examination?

Proof #1.


What would happen if we get down on our knees and pray to God in this way:

Dear God, almighty, all-powerful, all-loving creator of the universe, we pray to you to cure every case of cancer on this planet tonight. We pray in faith, knowing you will bless us as you describe in Matthew 7:7, Matthew 17:20, Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:24, John 14:12-14, Matthew 18:19 and James 5:15-16. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
We pray sincerely, knowing that when God answers this completely heartfelt, unselfish, non-materialistic prayer, it will glorify God and help millions of people in remarkable ways.
Will anything happen? No. And the fact that nothing happens proves to us that God is imaginary. Here's why: Jesus makes specific promises in the Bible about how prayer is supposed to work. Jesus says in many different places that he and God will answer your prayers. The fact that those promises are untrue tells us that God is imaginary.

For example, in Matthew 7:7 Jesus says:

Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
In Matthew 17:20 Jesus says:
For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.
In Matthew 21:21:
I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
The message is reiterated Mark 11:24:
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
In John chapter 14, verses 12 through 14, Jesus tells all of us just how easy prayer can be:
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.
In Matthew 18:19 Jesus says it again:
Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
In James 5:15-16 the Bible says:
And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
In Mark 9:23:
All things are possible to him who believes.
In Luke 1:37:
For with God nothing will be impossible.
Nothing could be simpler or clearer than Jesus' promises about prayer in the Bible. Yet, when we pray to eliminate cancer, nothing happens.
And keep in mind that this is Jesus talking here. These are not the words of human beings. These are not the words of "inspired" human beings. These are supposedly the words of God himself, incarnated in a human body. Jesus is supposed to be a perfect, sinless being. And yet, it is obvious that Jesus is lying. What Jesus says is clearly incorrect.

Jesus is supposed to be God. God is supposed to be perfect.
When Jesus speaks, he should speak the truth.
Yet when we look at what Jesus says about prayer,
he is clearly lying.

If you would like additional proof, gather a million faithful believers together into a giant prayer circle. Have them all pray together in Jesus' name that God cures every case of cancer on the planet tomorrow. Pray sincerely, knowing that when God answers this completely heartfelt, unselfish, non-materialistic prayer, it will glorify God and help millions of people in remarkable ways. Now, we certainly have two or more people gathered together, and they have asked in Jesus' name, and we have not one but a million faithful believers who, by definition, have faith and believe. We have fulfilled every one of Jesus' requirements.

Will Jesus answer the prayer now? Of course not. Your prayer will go unanswered, in direct defiance to Jesus' promises in the Bible. In fact, if you pray for anything that is impossible, your prayer will always go unanswered. This happens because God is imaginary.

Understanding the Rationalizations
A favorite Christian rationalization for why God does not answer our prayer to eliminate cancer is because "it would take away free will." The logic: If you pray and God answers your prayer, then God would have revealed himself to you, and you would know that God exists. That would take away your free will to believe in him. Of course, if this is true, then by default all of Jesus' statements about prayer in the Bible are false. It means that God cannot answer any prayer. Also, why is a God who must remain hidden like this incarnating himself and writing the Bible?

If Jesus is God, and if God is perfect, why aren't all of Jesus's verses about prayer true? Was Jesus exagerating? Was he fibbing? If Jesus is perfect, why wouldn't he speak the truth? Why doesn't a prayer to cure cancer worldwide tomorrow work?

Believers have many different ways to explain why all these verses in the Bible do not work, even if you are praying sincerely, unselfishly and non-materialistically, and even if the answer to your prayer would help millions of people and glorify God in the process. They will say things like this:

"You need to understand what Jesus was saying in the context the first century civilization in which he was speaking..."
or:
"When Jesus talked about 'moving a mountain', he was speaking metaphorically. When someone says, 'it is raining cats and dogs,' no one takes him literally. Jesus was using a figure of speech rather than speaking literally..."
or:
God is not a thing. He is a being. He has a will. He has desires. He relates to people. He has personality traits. Prayer is a fancy word for talking to God. God, who knows everything, even before we say it, knows the difference between our thoughts and wishes, and when we are actually addressing him. He hears our prayers and responds. His responses are based on his personal decisions. We cannot predict how he will respond to our prayers... [ref]
The problem is, all of these rationalizations miss two important points:
God is supposed to be an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect being.

The statement, "Nothing will be impossible for you", along with the other Bible verses quoted above, are false. The fact is, lots of things are impossible for you.
If a perfect being is going to make statements about how prayer works in the Bible, then three things are certain: 1) He would speak clearly, 2) he would say what he means, and 3) he would speak the truth. That is what "being perfect" is all about. A perfect, all-knowing God would know that people would be reading the Bible 2,000 years later, and therefore he would not use first-century idioms (he would say what he means). He would know that normal people will be reading the Bible and interpreting it in normal ways, so he would speak in such a way as to avoid mis-interpretation (he would speak clearly). He would know that when you say, "Nothing will be impossible for you", that what it means is, "Nothing will be impossible for you" and he would make sure that the statement "Nothing will be impossible for you" is accurate (he would speak the truth). If God says it, it should be true -- otherwise he is not perfect.
Unfortunately, the fact is that thousands of things are impossible for you no matter how much you pray, and no one (including Jesus) has ever moved a mountain.

In order to see the truth, you need to accept the fact that all of the above verses are wrong. The fact is, God does not answer prayers. The reason why God does not answer your prayers is simple: God is imaginary.
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You do not understand Biblical Theology.
 
Quote from lkh:

Proof #2 - Statistically analyze prayer
The fact is, God never answers any prayers. The entire idea that "God answers prayers" is an illusion created by human imagination.
How do we know that "answered prayers" are illusions? We simply perform scientific experiments. We ask a group of believers to pray for something and then we watch what happens. What we find, whenever we test the efficacy of prayer scientifically, is that prayer has zero effect. It does not matter who prays. It does not matter if we pray to God, Allah, Vishnu, Zeus, Ra or any other human god. It does not matter what we pray about. If we perform scientific, double-blind tests on prayer, and if the prayers involve something concrete and measurable (for example, healing people with cancer), we know that there is zero effect from prayer. Every single "answered prayer" is nothing more than a coincidence. Both scientific experiments and your everyday observations of the world show this to be the case every single time.
For example, this article says:

One of the most scientifically rigorous studies yet, published earlier this month, found that the prayers of a distant congregation did not reduce the major complications or death rate in patients hospitalized for heart treatments.
And:
A review of 17 past studies of ''distant healing," published in 2003 by a British researcher, found no significant effect for prayer or other healing methods.
This CNN article from March, 2006 discusses the fact that the same conclusion was reached in another study:

In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.
A peer-reviewed scientific study published in 2001 did indicate that prayer works. According to this article:
"On October 2, 2001, the New York Times reported that researchers at prestigious Columbia University Medical Center in New York had discovered something quite extraordinary. Using virtually foolproof scientific methods the researchers had demonstrated that infertile women who were prayed for by Christian prayer groups became pregnant twice as often as those who did not have people praying for them. The study was published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine. Even the researchers were shocked. The study's results could only be described as miraculous."
This study was later proven to be completely fraudulent. However, everyone who cut out the original article in the NYTimes and posted it on their refrigerators still has that article as "proof" that prayer works.
This article entitled A prayer before dying uncovers another case where a "scientific study" of prayer is unmasked as fraudulent.

It's not just prayer that is ineffective. Not even a hopeful attitude helps. According to this article:

A positive attitude does not improve the chances of surviving cancer and doctors who encourage patients to keep up hope may be burdening them, according to the results of research released Monday.
The dictionary defines the word "superstition" in this way:

An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome. [ref]
The belief in prayer is a superstition. When a prayer appears to be answered, it is a coincidence. Quite simply, prayer has absolutely no effect on the outcome of any event. The "power of prayer" is actually "the power of coincidence."
Prayer does not work because God is completely imaginary.

Understanding the Rationalizations
You can find many believers who will say, "The reason why scientific experiments fail to detect God is because God must remain hidden. He does not answer prayers if he knows that he will be detected."

In order to see the truth, you need to accept that this explanation is silly. If God must remain hidden, then he cannot answer any prayers. Any "answered prayer" would expose God.

The whole notion that "God" must remain "hidden" is a total cross-threading of religious doctrine. On the one hand, believers will say that "God wrote the Bible, God incarnated himself and died on the cross for us, and God answers millions of prayers on earth every day." Then in the next breath they will say, "God must remain hidden." God obviously cannot "remain hidden" and "incarnate himself." These two items are mutually exclusive. Therefore, the explanation that "God must remain hidden" is impossible. As soon as you accept how impossible it is, you can begin to see see that God is imaginary.

In order to see the truth, you need to accept the fact that the scientific evidence is accurate and irrefutable. We have scientifically proven that God does not answer any prayers on earth. Every single "answered prayer" is nothing more than a coincidence.

We can see reality by looking at a simple example. Imagine that the rate of remission for some particularly nasty type of cancer is 5%. That means that if 20 people get this type of cancer, it is almost always fatal. Only one in twenty of the people who get the disease will survive. Knowing this, you can see what happens if we actually analyze prayer:

20 believers contract the disease
All of them have read James 5:15, so all of them pray.
19 of them die
The one who lives proclaims, "I prayed to the Lord and the Lord answered my prayers! My disease is cured! It is a miracle! I KNEW God would answer my prayers!"
You never hear about the 19 who died. No one ever writes about them in a magazine. "Person prays, then dies" is not a great headline. And since they are dead, you will never hear from any of these people.
Therefore, if you don't look at all the facts around the "answered prayer," and you only hear about the one out of twenty prayers that succeed, it appears that prayer is successful.
The fact is, believers who pray die from this disease at exactly the same rate as people who do not.
We can see the reality of this situation simply by opening our eyes and looking at the data. But we do have to open our eyes -- We have to look at both the successes AND the failures of prayer to see the reality of our world. When we take a scientific approach and we do look at both sides, we see what is really happening. God does not answer any prayers because God is imaginary.
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Again, you do not understand the Biblical Christian Worldview.
 
Miracles cannot happen
Sickness as an argument against God's existence


Before we can decide whether or not miracles can happen, we must first define what a miracle is. Basically, a miracle is an event that cannot be normally explained through the laws of nature. In the context of Christianity, miracles are the product and the work of God who created the natural laws as well as the universe.

However, vital to the discussion of whether or not miracles can occur is the issue of a person's presuppositions. Either way, the non-God, non-miraculous presupposition would not allow the skeptic to believe. This is especially ironic since many atheists consider the Christians to be the ones who lack objectivity. Since Christians do not have a presupposition that excludes the miraculous, we are able to look at the resurrection of Christ as recorded in the Bible, weigh the evidence, and make a choice to believe or not believe. , it would be basically illogical to state that miracles cannot occur. This is because in order to logically state that miracles cannot occur, a person must either know all things in the universe so that he can rightfully state miracles cannot occur, or he must have some logical proof why miracles cannot occur, or possess a sufficiently sophisticated knowledgebase to conclude the miraculous cannot occur, etc. Furthermore, it is not enough to state that there is no evidence for the miraculous since a person's experiential base is limited. It may very well be that miracles have occurred and this person is simply not aware of it. I see God as good...Although I don't understand what he does sometimes. But it does not change his nature. He is infinitely above me and permits things to happen. I DO take some things on faith. I can look at the Bible and see its textual reliability, its spiritual truth, its accuracy, its prophecy, its patterns, messages, and make an intelligent decision based on it. Some things within it, I must take on faith. That is perfectly rational. Suffice it to say, although there are those that would to the notion that there is no objective criteria for proving the validity of the Bible's claims.

Perhaps, but does that mean that it is not true? or that God is not knowable? Besides, it is historically and archaeologically accurate. That is validation. if God gives someone cancer, and they die from it, what was the purpose of that? Or can we write that one off as another example of, God works in mysterious ways? let me ask you, if there is a God and he encompasses the universe, is it possible that he would work in ways that are beyond us? Is that possible? If it is possible, then doesn't that mean that faith is necessary and logical at this point? why not? Hypothetical situations are a tool of theory and learning. Some would argue that possibilities don't create probabilities, or certainties however, But logic is still logic and God, if he made logic, can be found in it... Faith becomes logical when there is enough evidence to support it. Atheists reject a priori the miraculous. What can I provide that you would not, by necessity, interpret in humanistic naturalistic presuppositions? Your assumptions make it impossible for you to be objective and to accurate examine all the facts. You could claim the same of me however, but at least I do not rule out the miraculous.... therefore, I am open to it. You, however, are not. Which is more 'open' to truth then? All knowledge cannot be ascertained by logic or experiment. Still you say God cannot be good if he allows people to get sick with cancer because cancer is bad and God is supposed to be good. So... why is it that God is NOT supposed to make us sick or something? I mean, why not? Maybe he has a good reason. Maybe there is a good in it. Then again, maybe this is just what the world is like with sin in it. Besides, God doesn't owe me or you anything. Again you would still argue that God, who is our father, should not do bad things to us, such as give us cancer.

Oh.... Exodus 4:11 is a problem for you then. It says in there that God makes the eye blind, the ear deaf, etc.

“And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?”
 
Proof #3 - Watch the offering plate
Have you ever thought about the offering plate in church? If God is real, why do they have to pass it? If you read these verses in the Bible, you can see that God claims to be extremely powerful and willing to answer any prayer:

Matthew 7:7
Matthew 17:20
Matthew 21:21
Mark 11:24
John 14:12-14
Matthew 18:19
Mark 9:23
Luke 1:37
Now consider this: Why don't the ministers and deacons of the church gather together every Sunday morning and pray to Jesus for the money they need? Why doesn't Jesus answer their prayers? Why do churches have to beg for money from mere mortals when there is an immortal, all-powerful God who should provide anything they ask for? Here is what "God" is saying:
Pray to me for anything and I will hear and answer your prayers. I say it in dozens of places in the Bible, but I like the way I say it in Mark 11:24 the best: "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Anything you need -- money, love, happiness, you name it -- I am here to provide it for you.
Now, there is just one thing I need in return. I need your money. I need lots of your money. The Bible specifies that you tithe ten percent of your income to me, but think of that as a starting point. Feel free to give more!

Because even though I created the universe and everything in it, and even though I will give you everything you ask for in prayer, I can't give a cent to any church, ever. When they pass the offering plate at church, be sure to give generously!

This, of course, is ridiculous.
The reason why they pass the offering plate at church is because God is imaginary.
 
Proof #4 - Think about science

Notice what happens when anyone is "miraculously cured". A person is sick, the person prays (or a prayer circle prays for the person) and the person is cured. A religious person looks at it and says, "God performed a miracle because of prayer!" That is the end of it.

A scientist looks at it in a very different way. A scientist looks at it and says, "Prayer had nothing to do with it - there is a natural cause for what we see here. If we understand the natural cause, then we can heal many more people suffering from the same condition."

In other words, it is only by assuming that God is imaginary that science can proceed.

You can see a direct example of science at work in this article:

Fleming had so much going on in his lab that it was often in a jumble. This disorder proved very fortunate. In 1928, he was straightening up a pile of Petri dishes where he had been growing bacteria, but which had been piled in the sink. He opened each one and examined it before tossing it into the cleaning solution. One made him stop and say, "That's funny."
Some mold was growing on one of the dishes... not too unusual, but all around the mold, the staph bacteria had been killed... very unusual. He took a sample of the mold. He found that it was from the penicillium family, later specified as Penicillium notatum. Fleming presented his findings in 1929, but they raised little interest. He published a report on penicillin and its potential uses in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology.

Fleming worked with the mold for some time, but refining and growing it was a difficult process better suited to a chemist. The work was taken over by a team of chemists and mold specialists, but was cut short when several of them died or relocated.

In 1935, Australian Howard Florey was appointed professor of pathology at Oxford University where he headed up a laboratory. This was a daunting task in an economically depressed time, and seeking funding for the researchers and work he hoped to do took much of his time. One researcher he hired soon after his arrival was Ernst Chain. Chain was paid to do cancer research, and work that spilled over into Florey's own interest and work on lysozyme. Chain became quite enthusiastic about the search for antibacterial chemicals. In looking back at old articles written about lysozyme, including those by Fleming in the 1920s, he happened across Fleming's paper on penicillin. "I had come across this paper early in 1938 and on reading it I immediately became interested," he wrote.

The Oxford team, as Florey's researchers have become known, began experimenting with the penicillin mold. They took it one step further than Fleming did: they did not just try it topically or in a petri dish, but injected it in live mice. With controlled experimentation, they found it cured mice with bacterial infections. They went on to try it on a few human subjects and saw amazing results. By now it was 1941, and England was at war. As Fleming first foresaw, the wartime need for an antibacterial was great, but resources were tight and penicillin still very experimental. Florey had connections at the Rockefeller Foundation in the United States, however, and it funded further research.

Did Fleming or Floring say, as a religious person would, "The death of this bacteria is a miracle! God has reached down and killed it!" Of course not. Instead, they completely ignored "God". They determined what was actually happening through experimentation and then made useful medicines from the mold. They took a rational approach rather than a religious approach and we all benefit from penicillin and its many derivatives today.
All of science works in this way. Only by assuming that God is imaginary and prayer is meaningless can science proceed.

The reason why scientists must assume that God is imaginary in order for the scientific method to work is because God is imaginary.
 
Quote from lkh:

but I like the way I say it in Mark 11:24 the best: "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Anything you need -- money, love, happiness, you name it -- I am here to provide it for you.
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If one prays without faith he will not receive.
If one prays outside of the will of God he will not receive.
If one prays and regards sin within his heart he will not receive.

God is not a cosmic genie.
All prayer is subject to God's sovereignty.
 
Quote from lkh:



In other words, it is only by assuming that God is imaginary that science can proceed.

The reason why scientists must assume that God is imaginary in order for the scientific method to work is because God is imaginary.
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Before we can decide whether or not miracles can happen, we must first define what a miracle is. Basically, a miracle is an event that cannot be normally explained through the laws of nature. In the context of Christianity, miracles are the product and the work of God who created the natural laws as well as the universe.

It would be basically illogical to state that miracles cannot occur. This is because in order to logically state that miracles cannot occur, a person must either know all things in the universe so that he can rightfully state miracles cannot occur, or he must have some logical proof why miracles cannot occur, or possess a sufficiently sophisticated knowledgebase to conclude the miraculous cannot occur, etc. Furthermore, it is not enough to state that there is no evidence for the miraculous since a person's experiential base is limited. It may very well be that miracles have occurred and this person is simply not aware of it.
 
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