"Why won't God heal amputees?"

[lkh]

Quote from jefferis:

It is apparent that you have come to a conclusion and will use logic to bolster your conclusion, but it is not apparent that you have used "all available history." Your question about Paul shows a complete lack of understanding of the history of the reasons and methods and purposes of even the letters. You brought up a canard that is one of the common straw man arguments. But it is evident that you haven't done a thorough study of the history of the text itself. It seems you may not even understand parts of the text itself in its historical and cultural context. So you may dismiss what you do not understand thinking you have somehow gotten to the real substance of the matter.

Many people saw Jesus' love and compassion for the poor and the outcasts and still rejected him and his example. Even if God were to appear to you in the flesh, it would be no guarantee that you would believe.

I know exactly who Paul was. He was an opportunist who saw a chance to hyjack christianity so he concocted a story about meeting Jesus and then spent the rest of his life changing christianity to his ideas.


http://www.comparative-religion.com/articles/pauline_conspiracy/pauline_conspiracy7.phpCHAPTER SEVEN

James



The general opinion of theologians and interpreters is that the author of this letter is unknown. The fact that many may assume it was written by James, the Apostle and Jesus' brother, is pure conjecture. Of the three James' who have been considered as authors, the most generally accepted was, as noted, James the Lord's brother.

The author, however, remains anonymous as do the readers to whom the letter was sent. There is no formal dedication, nor is it addressed to anyone other than, "...the twelve tribes in the dispersion." (The Interpreter's Bible; Volume 12: Page 3)

James, in the text we have today, is the work of a Christian author, whose training was Hellenistic but whose religious background was Hebrew. (The Interpreter's Bible; Volume 12: Page 5)

One thing is certain, that in every respect, this letter denounces that which Paul was teaching about the Law and about faith. It is extraordinary that we know from Paul's letters that circumcision is an argument against which he fought constantly. His stand was that Gentile believers should not be forced to this custom in order to join the 'church.'

As far as my evidence goes. All i ask is you keep reading and thinking about it as i lay it out. Who knows even someone like you might have that little crack of questioning open into a flood of questions. It happened to me. I was once like you. I was a bible thumping baptist until i set about trying to prove a global flood happened. That led me here because a questioning mind is the enemy of faith.

 

[lkh]

Proof #48 - Compare prayer to a lucky horseshoe

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]
We have all seen plenty of superstitions. There are the superstitions that a rabbit's foot or a four-leaf clover bring good luck. There are the superstitions that breaking a mirror or seeing a black cat bring bad luck. And we all know that these superstitions are silly. A rabbit's foot or a broken mirror has no good or bad influence on the course of events. This is obvious to any intelligent person.
So let's imagine the following situation. Let's say that you have cancer. You are lying in the hospital after a round of chemo and you feel terrible. A person pops into your room with a bright smile on his face and a horseshoe in his hand. He says to you, "This is an amazing and lucky horseshoe. If you touch this horseshoe, it will cure your cancer. But I need to charge you $100 to touch it."

Would you pay the man $100?

Of course not. We all know that touching the horseshoe will have zero effect on cancer. The belief in lucky horseshoes is pure superstition.

It is also very easy to scientifically prove that the horseshoe has no effect on cancer (or anything else). The way we would do it is simple: we would take 1,000 cancer patients and split them randomly into two groups of 500. We would let 500 of the cancer patients touch the lucky horseshoe and we would leave the other 500 alone in a double-blind way. Then we would look at cancer remission rates between the two groups. What we would find is zero benefit from the horseshoe. We would see no statistical difference between the remission rates in the two groups of 500 patients.

Prayer

Now let us imagine another situation. You have cancer, you have just finished a round of chemo and you feel terrible. This time, a person pops into your room with a bright smile on his face and a bible in his hand. He says to you, "There is a being named God who is the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving creator of the universe. I am his representative on earth. If you will allow me to pray to God on your behalf, God will cure your cancer."

You agree to the prayer, and the man prays over you for 10 minutes. He invokes all the healing powers of God, beseeching him, reciting verses of scripture and so forth. Afterwards, as he is getting ready to leave, the man says, "Oh, and by the way, God says that you should tithe 10% of your income to the church. Would you consider making a tax-deductible donation today?"

The question is: Is there any difference between the two men? Will the prayer have any effect greater than the horseshoe?

The answer is: No. The belief in prayer is just as superstitious as the belief in lucky horseshoes.

The fascinating thing is that we can prove that prayer has no effect in exactly the same way that we can prove that horseshoes have no effect. We take 1,000 cancer patients. We pray over 500 of them and we leave the other 500 alone. Then we look at cancer remission rates between the two groups. What we find is that prayers have zero benefit. We would see no statistical difference between the remission rates in the two groups of 500 patients.

In other words, we can prove that the belief in prayer is pure superstition. The belief in the power of prayer is no different from the belief in the power of lucky horseshoes.

These experiments have been performed many times, and they always return the same results. Click here for one of the most recent experiments:

Prayers don't help heart surgery patients; Some fare worse when prayed for
Quite simply, prayer has absolutely no effect on the outcome of any event. The "power of prayer" is actually "the power of coincidence." Belief in prayer is pure superstition.

Prayer has absolutely no effect in every scientific experiment we perform because God is imaginary.

 

[jefferis]

Quote from hcour:

As an atheist, I do not believe in nothing.

You believe there is no God. Since you are not omniscient and since you cannot prove that God does not exist, you accept it on faith. You believe there is no God. It is an article of faith.

If you were to approach this problem from an empirical standpoint, you cannot devise a test to test your theorem; especially since the proposed nature of God is not material but extra dimensional. For God to have created a relativistic universe where time and space are bounded dimensions, God would be beyond our causal, Newtonian universe, and the laws of creation would be subject to Him, not the other way around. Even if God were existing in a 5th or 6th dimension posited by Einstein, we have no measurements by which we can encompass those realities or subject them to exhaustive examination. So we cannot know all the facts.

So, rather than believing there is no God, a more rational approach would be agnosticism. Since you do not "know" there is no God, and cannot know that since you are not omniscient, then agnosticism is a more reasoned approach.

 

[jefferis]

Quote from lkh:

I know exactly who Paul was. He was an opportunist who saw a chance to hyjack christianity so he concocted a story about meeting Jesus and then spent the rest of his life changing christianity to his ideas.
... I was a bible thumping baptist until i set about trying to prove a global flood happened. That led me here because a questioning mind is the enemy of faith.

Well lkh, perhaps your problem was you tried to prove something without understanding the historical context. James Cameron, of Titanic fame, has led a team that has uncovered evidence of a massive flood that struck the Black Sea area suddenly when the barrier between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea was catastrophically breached. Whole towns are left under water at the old shoreline. If you found problems with the narrow literalistic approach to the scriptures and that shook your belief system, that was probably a good thing.

The problem you uncovered is perspectival. The authors of the ancient texts wrote about the Sun rising in the East. Scientifically, that isn't exactly true, but from our perspective, it is. Poetically, it talks about God causing the sun to rise and the people actually believed that the sun rode across the sky daily. So we can fault the ancients for their lack of scientific understanding, or recognize that their lack of scientific perspective didn't necessarily negate their whole message - if God did actually create all things and cause the sun to be in its place. Likewise, for Noah, if he indeed evaded a massive, and to his eyes, world wide flood, it doesn't mean that his experience was wrong, but that his perspective was limited.

What is interesting is that the cultural memory of a massive flood is almost universal, even in places like Tibet, which has no surrounding water anywhere nearby.
http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/floods.htm#Tibet
http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/floods.htm

The point is that without allowing for the culture and the context, what you proved in error, you proved by making faulty assumptions about the nature of the text. If you treat the scriptures like a scientific document instead of as a perspectival account of God's dealings with humanity, you will find multiple problems. But then you are arguing apples against oranges. The scriptures are not the exact how, but the Who and the Why.

James and Paul were in fights, it is true, but the book of James is a corrective to the misinterpretation of Paul, one with which Paul would agree. You cannot just say you believe and do whatever you want. Paul even says that:
"What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!" Romans 6:15.
"And why not say (as some people slander us by saying that we say), "Let us do evil so that good may come"? Their condemnation is deserved!" Romans 3:8.

 

[stu]

jefferis may I ask ...

because you cannot devise "a test to test a theorem" that Fairies do not exist, especially since the proposed nature of Fairies is not material but extra dimensional are you agnostic about Fairies. Are you agnostic also about the Faires that have more attributes than God is said to have.

 

[jefferis]

Quote from stu:

jefferis may I ask ...

because you cannot devise "a test to test a theorem" that Fairies do not exist, especially since the proposed nature of Fairies is not material but extra dimensional are you agnostic about Fairies. Are you agnostic also about the Faires that have more attributes than God is said to have.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy... Shakespeare, Hamlet, I, v, 191-192.

'Tis a better course of logic to argue from the major to the minor than the other way around. The First Cause or the Unmoved Mover is the better starting point than a fallacious reductio ad absurdum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_undistributed_middle

 

[stu]

Quote from jefferis:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy... Shakespeare, Hamlet, I, v, 191-192.

'Tis a better course of logic to argue from the major to the minor than the other way around. The First Cause or the Unmoved Mover is the better starting point than a fallacious reductio ad absurdum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_undistributed_middle

...would that be a yes or a no or a don't know?

 

[jefferis]

Quote from stu:

...would that be a yes or a no or a don't know?

Thou hast laid a snare to trap the hare, but will have none of it.

Have you stopped beating your wife?

 

[lkh]

Quote from jefferis:

Well lkh, perhaps your problem was you tried to prove something without understanding the historical context. James Cameron, of Titanic fame, has led a team that has uncovered evidence of a massive flood that struck the Black Sea area suddenly when the barrier between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea was catastrophically breached. Whole towns are left under water at the old shoreline. If you found problems with the narrow literalistic approach to the scriptures and that shook your belief system, that was probably a good thing.

The bible clearly says that the flood killed every living thing on earth. A local flood around the black sea would not have done that. Are you selectively picking verses to make things "fit" your bias?

If you stick around maybe i will deal with the flood in my next series. I have not decided what to do next. I am leaning toward debunking the messiah prophecy farce but if you want to debate the flood i could start there.

 

[jefferis]

Quote from lkh:

The bible clearly says that the flood killed every living thing on earth. A local flood around the black sea would not have done that. Are you selectively picking verses to make things "fit" your bias?
.

It also has the sun moon and stars created after the plants in Gen 1. If you treat the text as an exhaustive scientific treatise, you are going to find the problem of cultural perspective and historical knowledge.