Thanks Slappy, your contribution to the discourse is much appreciated. By all means, continue posting worthless one-line comments and filling up threads with other's quotations in the process. God forbid you should have something intelligent to say, or indeed anything related to the shape or direction of the topic at all.
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"Why won't God heal amputees?"
- Thread starter lkh
- Start date
Thanks Slappy, your contribution to the discourse is much appreciated. By all means, continue posting worthless one-line comments and filling up threads with other's quotations in the process. God forbid you should have something intelligent to say, or indeed anything related to the shape or direction of the topic at all.
Quote from archimedes:
Thanks Slappy, your contribution to the discourse is much appreciated. By all means, continue posting worthless one-line comments and filling up threads with other's quotations in the process. God forbid you should have something intelligent to say, or indeed anything related to the shape or direction of the topic at all.
Thank you. I believe I'll take you up on your advice.
Your pagan rant which I referred to was only missing the most important finishing line, which of course is the following :
"therefore, I can do anything I want without any consequences".
I do hope you are pleased that I have added to ( or shall we say completed) the discussion.
^smackdown^
Hey archie, take some time out from veronica or whatever you're doing and read the following exchange I had with one of your idealogical brethern. It might be instructive. Sorry I don't feel like writing anything original today, but it is a sat you know.
Quote from traderNik:
Yeah, it's always hilarious to listen to the ID'ers (didn't you know that's how they've rebranded themselves?) talk about how unlikely it is that life evolved from a biological soup. Ah, I see... so you feel it's more likely that a supernatural being waved a magic wand and POOF!!!! - a human being was walking around. Or, as the local troll put it recently
"Magistrates (were) materialized out of pure potentiality"
(Of course he later recanted this statement, but you get the picture).
Anyhow, seneca... if you're actually new around here, you'll soon learn that it does no good whatsoever to try to engage creationists in a dialectical process. Their beliefs are informed by faith, and when that is the case, nothing, even death, will shake the true believer. Our beliefs are informed by the process of asking questions and seeking knowledge -when knowledge is immanent, no proofs are necessary.
************now here is where my response begins to little nikki.*****************
You want to talk about hilarity? How about the dedicated scientists who proved that we were entering a new ice age in the 1970's. Then, a generation later, they are absolutely convinced that we are entering a global meltdown, all based on the strictest scientific evidence, mind you. Next, they will be saying.....well you get the idea. Of course anybody who does not fall for their ideas is...just...not ....a...sophisticate.
Maybe when Hitler's scientists were doing there scientific experiments on children, you know, amputating limbs to see what types of changes would result, they were gathering just the type of valuable information that enables you to feel so self satisfied.
How's the dialectical process so far?
And then the great, or so called great scientist carl sagan figured out how to deal with a perplexing problem that has stymied all of science for eons. What is that problem, you ask? Why, the fact that scientists have no plausible idea whatsoever about how or why the big bang took place. But, you see, this creates a monumental problem called the law of the first cause. Something had to cause the big bang and scientists don't have any satisfactory explanations. In fact, thier explanations don't even rise to the level of being called unsatisfactory. They are just plain idiotic. (By the way, have you ever heard the phrase...let their be light?) So, the esteemed scientist sagan realized what a corner he and his fellow non-believers were in and....viola, he simply makes the universe a deity. Yes, an always existant, eternal thing without beginning and without end. This is why he Capitalizes the word cosmos. It is his deity. Guess he is one of the fundies afterall.
Of course you athiests are absolutely certain that everything does not produce after it's own kind, and therefore you do not have to worry about your sin resulting in death. Your sin, obviously, will evolve into life and you can therefore engage in the darkest of depravity, blissfully, forever. Gee, I'd like to have some apples in a few years in my back yard. Guess I'll plant an orange tree ....it just may evolve into an apple tree.
Now, like Brando said, why don't you use all your talents and all your abilities to try and engage me in the dialectical process. Please start with the really important things, you know, like my spelling. It will give you that really satisfying community college feeling that you have accomplished something.
Please feel free to visit that great sinkhole of wisdom known as the daily kos for some excellent scientific insight.
cheers
Quote from traderNik:
Yeah, it's always hilarious to listen to the ID'ers (didn't you know that's how they've rebranded themselves?) talk about how unlikely it is that life evolved from a biological soup. Ah, I see... so you feel it's more likely that a supernatural being waved a magic wand and POOF!!!! - a human being was walking around. Or, as the local troll put it recently
"Magistrates (were) materialized out of pure potentiality"
(Of course he later recanted this statement, but you get the picture).
Anyhow, seneca... if you're actually new around here, you'll soon learn that it does no good whatsoever to try to engage creationists in a dialectical process. Their beliefs are informed by faith, and when that is the case, nothing, even death, will shake the true believer. Our beliefs are informed by the process of asking questions and seeking knowledge -when knowledge is immanent, no proofs are necessary.
************now here is where my response begins to little nikki.*****************
You want to talk about hilarity? How about the dedicated scientists who proved that we were entering a new ice age in the 1970's. Then, a generation later, they are absolutely convinced that we are entering a global meltdown, all based on the strictest scientific evidence, mind you. Next, they will be saying.....well you get the idea. Of course anybody who does not fall for their ideas is...just...not ....a...sophisticate.
Maybe when Hitler's scientists were doing there scientific experiments on children, you know, amputating limbs to see what types of changes would result, they were gathering just the type of valuable information that enables you to feel so self satisfied.
How's the dialectical process so far?
And then the great, or so called great scientist carl sagan figured out how to deal with a perplexing problem that has stymied all of science for eons. What is that problem, you ask? Why, the fact that scientists have no plausible idea whatsoever about how or why the big bang took place. But, you see, this creates a monumental problem called the law of the first cause. Something had to cause the big bang and scientists don't have any satisfactory explanations. In fact, thier explanations don't even rise to the level of being called unsatisfactory. They are just plain idiotic. (By the way, have you ever heard the phrase...let their be light?) So, the esteemed scientist sagan realized what a corner he and his fellow non-believers were in and....viola, he simply makes the universe a deity. Yes, an always existant, eternal thing without beginning and without end. This is why he Capitalizes the word cosmos. It is his deity. Guess he is one of the fundies afterall.
Of course you athiests are absolutely certain that everything does not produce after it's own kind, and therefore you do not have to worry about your sin resulting in death. Your sin, obviously, will evolve into life and you can therefore engage in the darkest of depravity, blissfully, forever. Gee, I'd like to have some apples in a few years in my back yard. Guess I'll plant an orange tree ....it just may evolve into an apple tree.
Now, like Brando said, why don't you use all your talents and all your abilities to try and engage me in the dialectical process. Please start with the really important things, you know, like my spelling. It will give you that really satisfying community college feeling that you have accomplished something.
Please feel free to visit that great sinkhole of wisdom known as the daily kos for some excellent scientific insight.
cheers
Quote from fhl:
Thank you. I believe I'll take you up on your advice.
Your pagan rant which I referred to was only missing the most important finishing line, which of course is the following :
"therefore, I can do anything I want without any consequences".
I do hope you are pleased that I have added to ( or shall we say completed) the discussion.
^smackdown^
So I'm a pagan eh? By which definition?
* One who follows a religion of European, North African, West Asian or Pre-Columban American origin and who is not Christian, Muslim nor Jewish, or who does not worship the God of Abraham.
* Professing no religion; heathen.
If it is the second definition, then I suppose all agnostics are pagans too, in which case you accidentally classify me correctly (as an agnostic). I suppose Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were pagans also, since their deism was insufficiently creed-specific.
Who said they could do anything they want without consequences? Such a belief is patently stupid. In the universe I exist in at least, all choices have consequences, many of them disastrous.
But surely you can't be so dumb as to assume a fellow human being would reject the reality of physical consequence. The results of jumping off a building and flapping one's arms are too obvious.
So, it seems likely you are speaking in a moral sense. By putting words in my mouth as a response to my post (no consequences and all that), you demonstrate your provincial, self-righteous, pigheaded belief that, somehow, questioning the veracity of popular religion equates to moral lawlessness.
Your demonstrated assumption that all pagans (using the 2nd definition) are lawless moral relativists is amusing, and reflects your extreme combination of arrogance and ignorance.
I dare say, sir, that I am more moral than you in thought, word and deed. I have clearly thought on this subject matter more than you have, and taken greater pains to present a coherent point of view; that is, unless you are actually consistent and reasonable off-board, and it is your odd habit of masquerading as an ET buffoon by making witless assumptions with no merit whatsoever. Chances are that, when it comes to daily life, similar patterns of rigor and sloppiness apply on our comparative parts. There is a reason why overtly religious businessmen have the reputation they do.
Understand this: a belief in God does not give one the right to presume moral superiority. Nor do expressions of agnosticism, or atheism for that matter, give one the right to condemn the expresser as immoral. There is no demonstrable connection between one's metaphysical stance and one's personal moral code. Got that Slappy? If anything there is a negative correlation in contrast to what you imply, as far as it goes that those who are religious often feel more constrained by threat of punishment, and less by exhortations of logic or virtue.
p.s. ^smackdown^ requested, ^smackdown^ received. The notion that you have "completed" the discussion also gave me a good laugh. It takes an extraordinary helping of insufferable boorishness to suggest such a thing.
Quote from palmbeachdude:
Hey archie, take some time out from veronica or whatever you're doing and read the following exchange I had with one of your idealogical brethern. It might be instructive. Sorry I don't feel like writing anything original today, but it is a sat you know.
Veronica? Huh? Oh, Archie comics reference, I get it. Took me a second, as the last time I read an Archie comic I was eleven years old or so.
My ideological brethren? How do you know who my ideological brethren are? Based on your post, you seem to assume I am an atheist, which I am not, and you make reference to the Daily Kos, which is even more mind-boggling in its utter and absolute lack of connection to anything on this thread whatsoever.
Keep flinging poop and beating the stuffing out of those strawmen. You seem to be having a good time.
To lighten the mood a bit, a public service message from the Church of Latter Day Saints (via South Park):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9yTs0wtemvU
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9yTs0wtemvU
Proof #9 - Understand ambiguity
Let's imagine that you have cancer and that you are a believer. You pray to God for a cure, you undergo surgery and chemotherapy, and the cancer does in fact go into remission.
What cured you? Was it the chemotherapy, or was it God?
In other words, is there any way to know whether God is playing a role or not when we pray?
The problem is that, in this imagined case, there is ambiguity. The Christian believes that God answered the prayer, but it could also be a simple coincidence.
All scientific evidence clearly indicates that it is, in fact, a coincidence. Whenever we do a scientific experiment on the efficacy of prayer, the data shows no effect from prayer (see this proof). Scientific evidence indicates that "answered prayers" really are coincidences every single time.
So how do we figure this out? Is God answering prayers as Christians believe, or is it coincidence as science indicates?
The way to answer that question is to remove the ambiguity. We make it impossible for the "answered prayer" to be a coincidence, and then we see what happens.
The way to remove the ambiguity is to say a prayer that cannot be answered by coincidence. For example, instead of praying that God cures one person's cancer, pray that God eliminates all cancer tomorrow. There is only one way for that to happen. God would have to exist, and God would have to reach down from heaven and explicitly work a miracle on earth.
What we find whenever we perform an unambiguous experiment like this is that God never answers unambiguous prayers. Jesus promises in many places in the Bible that he will answer prayers -- even impossible prayers. But what you find whenever you put Jesus to the test is that Jesus is making a false promise.
What we find is that God never answers impossible prayers - even if the prayers are incredibly worthy. For example:
Pray to God to levitate a car and hold it floating in the air for ten minutes. It will not happen, even if you are praying to levitate the car because a drunk driver has run over a college freshman and she is currently pinned under one of the wheels.
Pray to God to let you fly through the air like Superman. It will not happen, even if you are praying to fly like superman so that you can rise up to a tenth story window and save two children from their burning apartment.
Pray to God to fill your basement with $100 million in small unmarked bills. It will not happen, even if you plan to donate the $100 million that God gives you to a worthy and deserving charity.
Pray to God to restore the amputated limbs of a deserving, penitent believer. It will not happen, no matter how sincere you are in your prayer.
None of these prayers will ever be answered. We know that with certainty. If they were answered, we would see people flying thought the air like Superman on the evening news. We would see amputated limbs regenerating all the time. Every Christian charity would be fully funded and there would not be 10 million children starving to death every year. [ref]
These unambiguous prayers are how we know, for sure, that God/Jesus are not actually answering prayers. The scientific evidence is correct. "Answered prayers" are nothing more than simple coincidences every single time. The whole idea of "God answering prayers" is a complete illusion because God is imaginary.
Let's imagine that you have cancer and that you are a believer. You pray to God for a cure, you undergo surgery and chemotherapy, and the cancer does in fact go into remission.
What cured you? Was it the chemotherapy, or was it God?
In other words, is there any way to know whether God is playing a role or not when we pray?
The problem is that, in this imagined case, there is ambiguity. The Christian believes that God answered the prayer, but it could also be a simple coincidence.
All scientific evidence clearly indicates that it is, in fact, a coincidence. Whenever we do a scientific experiment on the efficacy of prayer, the data shows no effect from prayer (see this proof). Scientific evidence indicates that "answered prayers" really are coincidences every single time.
So how do we figure this out? Is God answering prayers as Christians believe, or is it coincidence as science indicates?
The way to answer that question is to remove the ambiguity. We make it impossible for the "answered prayer" to be a coincidence, and then we see what happens.
The way to remove the ambiguity is to say a prayer that cannot be answered by coincidence. For example, instead of praying that God cures one person's cancer, pray that God eliminates all cancer tomorrow. There is only one way for that to happen. God would have to exist, and God would have to reach down from heaven and explicitly work a miracle on earth.
What we find whenever we perform an unambiguous experiment like this is that God never answers unambiguous prayers. Jesus promises in many places in the Bible that he will answer prayers -- even impossible prayers. But what you find whenever you put Jesus to the test is that Jesus is making a false promise.
What we find is that God never answers impossible prayers - even if the prayers are incredibly worthy. For example:
Pray to God to levitate a car and hold it floating in the air for ten minutes. It will not happen, even if you are praying to levitate the car because a drunk driver has run over a college freshman and she is currently pinned under one of the wheels.
Pray to God to let you fly through the air like Superman. It will not happen, even if you are praying to fly like superman so that you can rise up to a tenth story window and save two children from their burning apartment.
Pray to God to fill your basement with $100 million in small unmarked bills. It will not happen, even if you plan to donate the $100 million that God gives you to a worthy and deserving charity.
Pray to God to restore the amputated limbs of a deserving, penitent believer. It will not happen, no matter how sincere you are in your prayer.
None of these prayers will ever be answered. We know that with certainty. If they were answered, we would see people flying thought the air like Superman on the evening news. We would see amputated limbs regenerating all the time. Every Christian charity would be fully funded and there would not be 10 million children starving to death every year. [ref]
These unambiguous prayers are how we know, for sure, that God/Jesus are not actually answering prayers. The scientific evidence is correct. "Answered prayers" are nothing more than simple coincidences every single time. The whole idea of "God answering prayers" is a complete illusion because God is imaginary.
Proof #10 - Look at historical gods
The belief in "god" seems to be ubiquitous through the ages.
We know, for example, that the ancient Egyptians believed in their gods so fervently that they built massive structures like the Great Pyramid -- still today one of the largest and most enduring human constructions ever created. Despite that fervor, however, we know with complete certainty today that the Egyptian gods were imaginary. We don't build pyramids anymore and we do not mummify our leaders.
More recently we know that tens of millions of Romans worshiped Zeus and his friends, and to them they built magnificent temples. The ruins of these temples are popular tourist attractions even today. Yet we know with complete certainty that these gods were imaginary because no one worships Zeus any more.
Much more recently, we know that the Aztec civilization believed in their gods so intensely that they constructed huge temples and pyramids. In addition, Aztecs were so zealous that they were sacrificing hundreds of human beings to their gods as recently as the 16th century. Despite the intensity, however, we know today that these gods were completely imaginary. The Aztecs were insane to be murdering people for their gods. Killing a person has no effect on rainfall or anything else. We all know that.
Today's "God" is just as imaginary as were these historical gods. The "God" and the "Jesus" that Christians worship today are actually amalgams formed out of ancient pagan gods. The idea of a "virgin birth", "burial in a rock tomb", "resurrection after 3 days" and "eating of body and drinking of blood" had nothing to do with Jesus. All of the rituals in Christianity are completely man-made. Christianity is a snow ball that rolled over a dozen pagan religions. As the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals in order to be more palatable to converts. The process is described succinctly and accurately in the book "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown. The book offers these two accounts of the acretion process:
"The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints. Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus became the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus. And virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual - the miter, the altar, the doxology, and communion, the act of "God-eating" - were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions."
"Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras - called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on December 25, died was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday or Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity's weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans."
Articles like this( http://altreligion.about.com/library/weekly/aa052902a.htm)and this( http://www.2think.org/hundredsheep/bible/library/myth.shtml) can help you learn more.
Obviously these pagan believers, from whom Christianity derived its myths, worshipped gods that were imaginary. And thus our "God" today is just an extension of these imaginary forerunners. All human gods are imaginary.
The belief in "god" seems to be ubiquitous through the ages.
We know, for example, that the ancient Egyptians believed in their gods so fervently that they built massive structures like the Great Pyramid -- still today one of the largest and most enduring human constructions ever created. Despite that fervor, however, we know with complete certainty today that the Egyptian gods were imaginary. We don't build pyramids anymore and we do not mummify our leaders.
More recently we know that tens of millions of Romans worshiped Zeus and his friends, and to them they built magnificent temples. The ruins of these temples are popular tourist attractions even today. Yet we know with complete certainty that these gods were imaginary because no one worships Zeus any more.
Much more recently, we know that the Aztec civilization believed in their gods so intensely that they constructed huge temples and pyramids. In addition, Aztecs were so zealous that they were sacrificing hundreds of human beings to their gods as recently as the 16th century. Despite the intensity, however, we know today that these gods were completely imaginary. The Aztecs were insane to be murdering people for their gods. Killing a person has no effect on rainfall or anything else. We all know that.
Today's "God" is just as imaginary as were these historical gods. The "God" and the "Jesus" that Christians worship today are actually amalgams formed out of ancient pagan gods. The idea of a "virgin birth", "burial in a rock tomb", "resurrection after 3 days" and "eating of body and drinking of blood" had nothing to do with Jesus. All of the rituals in Christianity are completely man-made. Christianity is a snow ball that rolled over a dozen pagan religions. As the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals in order to be more palatable to converts. The process is described succinctly and accurately in the book "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown. The book offers these two accounts of the acretion process:
"The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints. Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus became the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus. And virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual - the miter, the altar, the doxology, and communion, the act of "God-eating" - were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions."
"Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras - called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on December 25, died was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday or Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity's weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans."
Articles like this( http://altreligion.about.com/library/weekly/aa052902a.htm)and this( http://www.2think.org/hundredsheep/bible/library/myth.shtml) can help you learn more.
Obviously these pagan believers, from whom Christianity derived its myths, worshipped gods that were imaginary. And thus our "God" today is just an extension of these imaginary forerunners. All human gods are imaginary.
Quote from lkh:
"Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God mithras - called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on December 25, died was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday or osiris, Adonis, and dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Obviously these pagan believers, from whom Christianity derived its myths, worshipped gods that were imaginary. And thus our "God" today is just an extension of these imaginary forerunners. All human gods are imaginary.
You post a lot of " out of context" information quite liberally.
All the little gods you mention including mithras are demonic manifestations of satan.
Is your knowledge limited to what you can dredge up from the internet and do a cut and paste here, or do you actually know the rituals that are involved with worshipping each of these so-called gods?
Most of them involve SNAKES! ( or "Dragons") and human blood sacrifice! I wonder why?! ( The concept of Dragons http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/tbr/tbr051.htm )
You mentioned Krishna? well he's a 3 dimensional manifestation of Vishnu ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krishna) and he describes himself this way: "I am Yama, the lord of death. I am all-devouring death, the great destroyer of the worlds, and I have come here to destroy all people." Vishnus bed is made of snakes. ( http://www.webonautics.com/ethnicindia/festivals/nagapanchami.html notice the three branched candelabrum "menorah" )
You have to bear in mind that there are only 2 sources of super-natural powers. one is derived from God Himself, and the other in limited form from satan given to satan by God. ( example would be Job 1:1, 2:1-10 http://divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/lectionary/BPentecost/bProper22.htm )
The BIG difference between the pagan religions you mention and monotheistic religions is that the rituals of pagan religions are extremely secretive and the knowledge available to a handful of individuals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mithras , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_religion ) whereas the rituals of the monotheistic religions are available to everyone. Why is that?
Now even I will state that there are some logical similitudes between pagan rituals and monotheistic religions. Jesus was sent to save humanity, but the very nature of his death was a blood sacrifice. However the nature of the ritual needs to be put in the correct context. Christ died to save the rest of humanity from damnation, where as the human blood sacrifice in the mystery religions is geared towards the damnation of humanity. Nevertheless, Ritualism is rampant in all religions, and that is a big turn off to the logical mind. The Cross is very similar to the Tau ( http://altreligion.about.com/library/glossary/symbols/bldefstaucross.htm )
But notice that most ancient representations of the Tau, T is usually represented with a serpent.
<a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/8144/taucl2.png" border="0" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" /></a>
as compared to the holy cross
<a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/2356/romancrossow5.png" border="0" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" /></a>
My logical conclusion is, Yes there is a all powerful and all pervasive supreme creature ( God?). The more we learn about the universe and our existence, even more questions arise. The probability of "life" originating from a primordial soup of basic elements is almost non-existent. My thought experiments also lead me to conclude the very elements that construct this Supreme being were used to construct the realities we perceive, and is also why His presence is all pervasive. And my logical perception leads me to conclude that this supreme creature also has a "dark"quality ( other wise why would He allow satan to run around causing trouble? why would he put non-believers in hell? etc). But in finality, His Goodness overcomes by many magnitudes His darkness.