Does God Answer Prayer? A Better Perspective

23,000 children will starve to death today.

Another 23,000 tomorrow.
Another 23,000 the day after…. Another….

If God doesn’t listen to their prayers, what makes you think he will listen to yours?
HT: Pete Roode

109 comments:

AndrewG said...

Well, its their free will to be born in ... oh, no, um, its probably because they're going to become really evil in the... oh, no, not 23000 EVERY day... um, oh yeah, this'll work, HE MOVES IN MYSTERIOUS WAAAAAAYYYYSSSS (big reverb sound at the end)...

Anonymous said...

Thanks AndrewG! But wait, glib answers from Christians who refuse to actually think about this are probably coming to tell us the answer.

But then, they do not live in areas of the world where this suffering is taking place, nor have they suffered the loss of a child or more to famine.

Isn't God good? It's man's fault you see. God cannot change the world. It's entirely up to human beings.

Balderdash! Absolute rubbish!

Rob R said...

He sure will answer these prayers. John, the world is broken and from our perspective, this is just part of the big one.

YOUR KINGDOM COME YOUR WILL BE DONE...

God's kindgom has not yet arrived in full.

And this is part of our present tense effort to build the kingdom of God. Jesus implied that people would starve in matthew 25 because he would suffer with them and we will be judged if we had nothing to do with alleviating that suffering.

But it's not as if you have a solution John. 23,000 children will starve today, and there is nothing anyone can do for them. Nothing, according to materilism. If the world managed to mobilize and eliminate starving tomorrow, that does nothing for those that starve to death today. For you, evil like this that is not resolved now will never be resolved.

You offer us a puzzle about our solution. But your solution is a permanent problem without a promise. Embrace your despair for them as you sit well fed and comfortable in Angola because it is fitting for godlessness and we shall continue with these children to embrace hope, one that does not encourage passivity but says that we must be part of the solution if we will enjoy the resolution.

Manifesting Mini Me (MMM) said...

I'm not going to get discouraged or bullied emotionally - Jesus said there would always be the poor - yes, He did. Complain if you must, but He always told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We will always have the the chance to allow grace to conform us to charitable and generous outreach. It is both a blessing and an honor to work for God in helping to alleviate suffering wherever one may find it. It is guilt and manipulation that places an expectation upon ppl that is not within their scope to alleviate and cruelty that doesn't allow ppl to put a boundary on guilt and manipulation-- ppl assign blame and shame instead of forming a conviction of compassionate charity. There is a parable about a man who was sick, neglected and nothing good happening to him his entire life while on this earth--- I can't help every poor or sick person, but in this parable, this man receives comfort in heaven. I do what I can within my immediate community - and there is a great need here as well as in other countries. Jesus gave a role model of praying for the workers to go out- He doesn't hoard power, but shares the powerful work He does and it gives fullness to humanity to take it on. Instead of inciting bickering and guilty manipulation, may these posts serve as a source to inspire charitable outreach. Bless you all!

3M

AndrewG said...

Not true Rob, sorry. If humanity could recognise that our ONLY role here on this floating ball of rock that we evolved onto, is the survival of our species, then every death becomes an unnacceptable loss.

Unfortunately, most of the world is still sticking to nonsensical, divisive and ridiculous supernatural world views where 'it'll all be alright' in the end because Sky-Daddy will look after us.

Rob R said...

But then, they do not live in areas of the world where this suffering is taking place, nor have they suffered the loss of a child or more to famine.

That's a very dangerous presumptious statement John. I haven't but I share the same faith with several people who have suffered such losses. I know that my situation could very well be theirs and I'd still be doing this as they persist in their faith.

Isn't God good? It's man's fault you see. God cannot change the world. It's entirely up to human beings.

Balderdash! Absolute rubbish!


Balderdash? I thought that this was the secular humanistic hope as well. That people will solve this through technology and self giving? Hey you said it (ergardless of God's existence).

But the fact is, the need for humans to alleviate human suffering is a necessary part of the salvation that was preached. This is the context of redemption. In John's former shallow faith, it was all about God and man and repenting of personal sin. That's not the full gospel of Jesus Christ which is about reparation not just between God and man but between people who's brokenness extends between each other and the broken world, the context of redemption which functions to provide opportunities to do this on the deepest levels of human need.

Anonymous said...

Ahhhh, the future will right everything in the end, right Rob?

Four things: 1) Many of these people will end up in hell according to most Christians, maybe most all of them. I guess that solves everything right? But then you have another problem, that of explaining away their sufferings on earth as well as in hell.

2) If heaven is a reward for people who suffer on earth then the reward can never be used to justify the sufferings otherwise this ethic would justify a torturer who caused great pain to a person and then afterward rewarded them for their sufferings. The reward can never ethically justify any suffering.

3) You hold out a heavenly hope without much evidence for it here and now. You see, I'm looking at this present world and asking whether there is this future heavenly existence and from what I see tells me that such a world is a fantasy. Based on the assumption that God created us as reasonable people who value the evidence he has placed himself in a huge bind, for in using the intellectual gifts he gave us means concluding he does not exist. Is your God psychotic or something? giving us one thing (our minds) which leads us to conclude there isn't a heavenly existence with him?

4) You offer the Tu Quoque fallacy in response, which is an informal fallacy. Whether I am inconsistent on this issue is completely irrelevant to the argument I'm making. It's a separate one. I have dealt with my problem. I adjure you to deal with yours.

Evolution is red in tooth and claw. That best explains suffering, all of it. People starve because of natural forces which include the lack of response by human beings.

Now, whether you accept what I just said or not, deal exclusively with the problem at hand.

Where is your God?

Rob R said...

FYI Andrews response is to a post of mine that was deleated and reposted after editing immeadiately above.


And andrew, I don't know what you are saying isn't true. You suggest that if it about survival, then the atheistic humanist values the survival of every human. Okay. If what you say is right that doesn't change a thing I said. Whatever you do to prevent future losses, it doesn't help those who suffer and die literally today. You don't have a solution for them. Atheistic humanism is now and forever more too late.

But from an evolutionary point of view, that isn't even true since survival best enhanced when their is selection, meaning some people will die and not be allowed to pass on their genes.

AndrewG said...

John, I like to think humanity has survived for the last 50,000 years DESPITE of any gods, not because of them...

Its all a slow grind of history and progress to a greater enlightenment of our species. 500 years ago, John and I would have likely been killed for our point of view, two thousand years ago, here in Wales, its quite possible that cannibalism was still rife, 20,000 years ago, it was highly likely.

As science discovers more and more, less and less of the religions of the world will have any relevance to our development as a species - the same happened with the hundred of other religions pre-christianity/islam/hinduism/etc/etc.... The current crop of beliefs are just a bit more stubborn, having been ground in with violence and blood, during the dark ages. That was before the introduction of proper childhood education and free access to information though :)

AndrewG said...

...and Rob - atheism doesn't preach solutions to these problems, just that the answers aren't in invisible, impotent, imaginary friends.

Oh, and what about suffering that no-one can solve? Forget about the QUARTER OF A MILLION people who died overnight in the Indonesian tsunami? Oh wait, who invented tsunamis again? Heeeeyyy....

Double A said...

Where is your God?


...classic!! Great stance John! I think I'll become an atheist.


Not.

Rob R said...

Four things: 1) Many of these people will end up in hell according to most Christians, maybe most all of them. I guess that solves everything right? But then you have another problem, that of explaining away their sufferings on earth as well as in hell.

who? Children. Actually, that isn't true according to most Christians today. And if it was, I would still take issue with that on biblical grounds for three reasons. Jesus sights children as models for how we are to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus identifies with these suffering in Matt 25, and an age of moral innocence is indeed a biblical concept explicitely mentioned such as in deut 1:39

2) If heaven is a reward for people who suffer on earth then the reward can never be used to justify the sufferings otherwise this ethic would justify a torturer

It's a good thing I never suggested that heaven is a reward. Matthew 25 doesn't give the impression that it is.


for point number 3, John, the reasonability of the Christian hope as a whole is the topic of your whole blog. I disagree with you and I have been explaining my self up and down on your blog. Why convolute the topic here when it's been addressed many other places here from many different angles?

4) You offer the Tu Quoque fallacy in response, which is an informal fallacy. Whether I am inconsistent on this issue is completely irrelevant to the argument I'm making.

I agree that I have committed this fallacy and I have not committed it. I did answer your problem to the effect that this is the big one, this is an extension of the prayer that God IS answering in the affirmative for the whole world, but it's full solution has not fully arrived yet. And I did introduce the issue that this solution which you don't find satisfactory is a heck of a lot better than any partial solution that you can offer. Our solution after all entails your partial solution. We are given no comfort in standing idly by to the secular solution to the problem which is human effort now.

Now, whether you accept what I just said or not, deal exclusively with the problem at hand.

Well, I'm typing this as I read your response so I'm not gonna delete what I said especially since you continued to converse in that situation any way. But again, the answer of why God isn't answering these prayers now is because he already is answering the prayer with a yes, but that yes is the scope of the will not fully arrive until all evil is vanquished and the eschaton has been completed and the context for redemption has come to it's end.

John said...

Great post John! It shakes my faith everytime you do a post like this one. I'm still hanging on to what I believe though.

Take care buddy!

Joshua Jung said...

Is Rob R mental?

He just used the "oh, yeah? Well even though our God's solution is thousands of years late, your materialistic solution is late too so therefore God exists!" argument.

That, my friends, is the epitome of delusion.

Rob, why not use that brain of yours to help come up with viable solutions to the problem at hand instead of coming up with ridiculous arguments to defend a Deity who obviously doesn't give a shit?

I figured it out! Christians want to be just like Jesus. Jesus is doing nothing about starving people. Therefore, Christians will defend Him and do next to nothing too! Oh, they might pull the "I'll pray for you and you be on your way, my starving convertee!" trick.

That behavior makes me sick, I'm going to go donate to a charity and actually do something about this.

Joshua Jung said...

Done.

Right hand, here's what my left hand did. We didn't clasp together and pray to an invisible man in the sky, we typed out that amount and credit card number and clicked to send food to starving people.

Wait, Ray Comfort, if saying a "lie" makes me a "liar", does "giving" make me a "giver"? Does doing something "good" make me a "good person"? (thanks thunderf00t)

Joshua Jung said...

Houx, maybe your faith is shaken because it is placed in something unstable.

You should stop building your house on the sand.

John said...

Hi Joshua!

I acknowledge you position and I promise to weigh it carefully.

Peace

AndrewG said...

I think there are two problems with the arguments I've heard here - the first is that assertion that Atheism is somehow a belief system to be followed, and which gives solutions to problems. That's just plain wrong! Atheism just clears the way to ALLOWING us to come up with solutions to these problems. Effective, useful solutions that is.

The second is that this Materialism/Humanism lark is not going to work, so Christianity must be right... Eh? Who says humanism is the right one either? In my experience, most 'isms' will have problems, but with humanism at least, through scientific progress, education for all, and development of societies, it might pave the way for the introduction of AndrewGism, which I think is almost certainly the right one... :)

Rob R said...

Jung,

He just used the "oh, yeah? Well even though our God's solution is thousands of years late, your materialistic solution is late too so therefore God exists!" argument.

Oh, you think the topic is about being able to positively prove God exists? No, being able to answer John's specific problem works in that direction but does not get us all the way their.

I surely did not, and yet my picture is legitimate according to a solid philosophy of science like that of Thomas Kuhn.

My answer is that this is not that terrible of a conceptual problem as the solution is entailed in the entire scope of the Christian message which is precisely about God's rescue plan for the world which is salvation from even this problem.

This answer is better interpretation in confirmation of our beliefs are a part of the existence which we must explain. We believe that humans of worth and value. EVen if we claim not to subscribe to the proposition, we live it in our hopes, joys and fears. These beliefs entail that the world is not the way that it ougt to be. So the humanistic atheist answer is human effort alone, but it ultimately is inadequate to resolve the situations that we intuit should not be as they are. Christianity provides a more robust answer.

As Kuhn pointed out, even if a paradigm cannot solve all of it's anamolies, it cannot be replaced unless there is a better one. If he is wrong, as long as the paradigm is functional, I would argue that it should not be rejected unless it can be replaced. Atheistic humanism does not offer a better more functional paradigm for the human intuition that the world is not the way it ought to be. Thus from these considerations, Christianity is a more epistemically responsible way to deal with these intuitions. But of course, I don't think this problem is an anomoly and I've explained why.

it's not as if dealing with such intuitions was not a concern of atheists. Look at John's post on moral realism. Most people will strongly intuit that if atheism cannot cohere with a robust moral realism, then atheism is a waste of everyone's time and probably not true given it's failure to support this undeniable aspect of humanity, thus John as atheists should if they truely believe what they believe, should attempt to promote moral realism.

As for the rest of your post, it was nothing but irrational emotionalism and it did not take into account all that I had written.

Rob R said...

I think there are two problems with the arguments I've heard here - the first is that assertion that Atheism

Andrew, this is not my problem. We are not dealing with pure atheism, simply the claim that God does not exist be it nihilistic or not. I am countering secular humanism and I have made that explicit. As for your next point, I responded to it above in my response to Jung.

Joshua Jung said...

Rob,

Just because someone cannot imagine an alternative does not mean it is healthy or even justified to hold onto the current belief.

"As for the rest of your post, it was nothing but irrational emotionalism and it did not take into account all that I had written."

Of course I didn't. I don't take theists seriously any more. I took them seriously for 20+ years and now realize it is all crock.

As far as emotionalism goes... tell what about Christian theology is not based in emotion?

I mean, the atonement for example doesn't actually make any sense in any legal way. It doesn't make sense in any intellectual way. The entirety of its pull is emotional.

John 3:16 is one giant emotional appeal.

Wait a minute, doesn't this mean you just debunked Christianity - or at least John 3:16?

Your better paradigm is rationality (over emotionalism), correct? That means you can safely throw out John 3:16, according to Kuhn.

And dude, you aren't making any sense:

"So the humanistic atheist answer is human effort alone"

Ummm. Can you please tell me what other "effort" there is out there and how putting my human effort into pursuing it would make any difference?

I mean, isn't prayer human effort? Charity is human effort. Witnessing... human effort. Preaching... ummm... human effort. Building churches... yeah.... human effort. Heck, if you are right, then leaving Christianity altogether is the only way to prove that there is any other "effort" out there besides human!

I mean, seriously. If you've got a problem with human effort your are sort of undermining your entire human effort to change minds to your position.

It seems like you really don't have any faith in God and instead only have faith in human effort. If you did not believe in human effort and honestly believed that God is all-powerful and the ultimate Effort in the universe, you wouldn't be here.

Joshua Jung said...

Oh, and Rob, don't even bother pulling out a sophisticated form of the argument:

"It is God's effort working through me."

Because then I will simply respond with:

"Then how do you know God is there at all?"

Joshua Jung said...

Rob, my point, in short:

You claim to be countering secular humanism and argue that it is entirely human effort, yet you use human effort to point out that human effort isn't all we have.

lol... welcome aboard!

The only way you can refute the secular humanist argument - from your claim that it is based on human effort - is to show some effort that is not human.

Which means you can't speak or do in the process.

Good luck.

Rob R said...

Just because someone cannot imagine an alternative does not mean it is healthy or even justified to hold onto the current belief.

Indeed. And that Christianity is justified is part of the context in which I say it is the best picture. Atheistic Humanism needs greater justification to supplant it and I have explained here why it doesn't have greater justification. And justification here is the ability to deal with a problem. the ability to deal with just this one problem is not enough, but it is an significant part of a cumulative case.

Of course I didn't. I don't take theists seriously any more. I took them seriously for 20+ years and now realize it is all crock.

right, so ironically, you bother to respond to me, and even more ironically, with a response that can't clearly be taken seriously.

As far as emotionalism goes... tell what about Christian theology is not based in emotion?

I don't buy into emotionalism. Emotions are not enough. I don't buy into the idea that emotions have no epistemic value either. That emotionalism even exists testifies that emotions are part of our epistemic matrix. They have to be if we are for example going to be moral realists since emotions do serve as some guide to morality. Happiness for example serves as some guide to morality though it doesn't stand on it's own as John Loftus attempted. John even had another blog about the idea that there could be valid emotional reasons to reject Christianity. Cognitive dissonence after all is an emotional indicator of a belief that is somehow problematic. Your blog master here, did appeal to emotions for an atheists path to moral realism. Emotions are not enough just as logic isn't enough (which depends on skill of the person applying the logic and the truth of premises which can't be established logic). Experience is not enough as experience must be interpreted.

It's all a matter of integration of all of our epistemic resources for a fully human epistemology that considers everything and places trust in resources that cannot absolutely prove anything and should not be discounted just because they can be used in a wrong way such as emotionalism demonstrates with emotions. I trust my emotional resources, they don't stand alone, but I do not have reason not to trust careful usage of them.

I mean, seriously. If you've got a problem with human effort your are sort of undermining your entire human effort to change minds to your position.

I never implied there was a problem with human effort. The point is, human effort all by it's self cannot answer all of the desperate needs of humanity. Christianity provides a much better picture where all wrongs will be righted and human effort is not dismissed here but becomes more necessary as indicated in Matthew 25.

The only way you can refute the secular humanist argument - from your claim that it is based on human effort - is to show some effort that is not human.

i don't know that what i said would count as a refutation. I think it is more properly understood as a rebuttle. A refutation is to show that humanism is wrong. I only showed that it is incomplete compared to the Christian answer.

busterggi said...

Et's not forget that a few hundred miles south & some of these folks that starved would probably have been executed as witches by the good Chrisitans of Uganda.

Brad Haggard said...

John, are you going to theodicy now to bolster that silly survivor post? Stay on topic, please.

I think theodicy is an important question, but to frame it with your argument from survivior (AFS) doesn't work. How many children eat in a given day? Plus, do you know that number has been going down from about 40,000/day? This is not the same as a political debate.

Frame a serious question if you actually want a serious answer.

Gandolf said...

Very valid post John thanks once again.


Hi Joshua Jung could you please please stick around awhile here on DC and help us try breaking through "some" of the faithfully implanted ignorant supernatural thought that infests our planet earth like a cancer.My sincere condolences in genuine understanding of the almost god like extreme stamina and patience needed to try to obtain, when dealing with sad lost cookies like our good friend Rob R.Breaking through the chains of barbaric ignorance is no easy task,no Rome wasnt built in a day, but hell folks have been trying to talk sense into superstitious humans since idiots first started thinking lots of silly stupid shit like "yes gods really do happen to use lightning for punishment".

Gandolf said...

MMM -->"I'm not going to get discouraged or bullied emotionally - Jesus said there would always be the poor - yes, He did."

Hi MMM did you mean to say (its been said) Jesus said rah rah rah.

And please dont forget! possiblities of speaking simple straight up truth does (not always), simply equals emotional blackmail.Just a thought.

I understand addictions are often hard to face MMM.But without hearing Jesus say anything yourself sometimes its blind faith in believing what he actually did or didnt say as being totally true when you never actually heard it yourself.You rely on having faith in the total honesty and integrity of men of "faith groups".Which historically i suggest has often been proven time and time again being maybe not always such a rational wise move.After all even in the year 2009 do you not agree, its likely that many fruedsters are still working at the forefront of faith circles.Talkin Benny Hinn miracle types,Freeflow The Dollar types.Talk God and secretly f**k prostatute types etc etc etc.Its likely to be nothing new either,these beliefs naturally attract freud by their very nature of often being mostly all about faith.

The words you "read" that Jesus "supposedly" said, cannot be said to be proven fact at all,other than in the (fictional sense) of its factually written in the bible that he supposedly said such n such.

You use mere faith to believe that what you heard was said to be said,to simply back up that you should then (expect to see what you now actually see).


Have you simply fallen for a very very cunning freudulent plan?,such a cunning plan infact that any more cunning we could simply nail a tail on nicknaming it foxy.

MMM do you always simply match what you see,to what people suggest or have written down in books like bibles, and make your conclusion that way?.That wise?


I notice you made what you must considder is a totally fair? honest and just judgement of non believers arguement/questioning of supposedly being about "It is guilt and manipulation"

Thats fine MMM ,thats fine .Atheists can turn the other cheek sometimes too.But a little blood of many of abused kids could be "partly" on your hands too,if your judgement be infact misguided and wrong.

But all i ask! you is to please keep thinking about this stuff with honesty and without letting to much bias effect your thinking.

Yes "the bible says" god asks for prayer,but what use is that? if it dont work!, for so very many very often, who often pray with such (dire and humble need) and (utter sincerity).Yet still die or starve.

And such sure suggestion here that maybe non belief offers no better alternative,i suggest is lacking thought and any conclusive proof.

At present historically faith has always often been the "major force" in our world that often split and devided our populations into exclusive attitudes and groupings,naturally instilling a attitude of exclusive attitudes in the process.That cant have helped us humans learn to care so universally.

How has it been proven that non belief doesnt offer a better option?.Surely more inclusive attitude would be likely to work towards the adoption of ideas of more inclusive attitudes.Thus ushering in morals that would be more likely to obtain more general cooperation.

(note:in my opinion "non belief" has not yet been proven to honestly equal insane lunatic dictators like hitler or stalin).

Ignerant Phool said...

Rob R

You say God has a "rescue plan". Is this a plan that he came up with after he created life or before? Let's imagine that God created us with evil and suffering a part of our experience, does this automatically require that there be a reason God allows this? Or, is it a choice for him that he makes? Basically, is this a set up? Did he make things this way because he can also make a rescue plan for it? Or can he make the world as it is, and not have a rescue plan?

I know I can be a bit confusing at times, so I'll try this way. Lets pretend as you say that God has a rescue plan, is this plan a necessary effect from his creating the world in such a state? Or, could it not be necessary even if God made life as we experience it?

You see, this is what I do not understand when I hear about your God's "promise". Because it is very easy for anyone to say "yeah, everything will be alright in the after life." But is that a necessary outcome for everyone who've existed? Well, just thinking about it, this doesn't seem to be the case, as from your point of view you'd have to believe in Jesus, God, and the bible. This talk about a promise reminds me of the saying, "A promise is a comfort to a fool". Can this be applied here?

More in line with the topic of the post, looking at the picture is clear evidence God does not answer prayers. I've always thought believers especially in the civilized world are just spoiled brats who pray and ask God for petty things like wining a TV show, when people who are truly in need never gets there prayers answered. And people really believe he answering such requests. If that's not being delusional, I don't know what is.

Rob R said...

Andre,

You say God has a "rescue plan". Is this a plan that he came up with after he created life or before?

I suppose he had it before creation as a contingency in case his perfect creation abused free will.

To your other questions in that paragraph, God did not create or introduce evil into the world. God's creation was perfect and that entailed that our rebellion was not even certain to occur. Humanity was given free will and things very well may not have turned out the way that they had.

When God created us, it wasn't even true that we would sin. There was no reason for it to be true. It was only a possibility due to free will. And that is how God knew of it who perfectly knew it exactly as it was.

Because it is very easy for anyone to say "yeah, everything will be alright in the after life."

Because it is very easy for anyone to say "yeah, everything will be alright in the after life." But is that a necessary outcome for everyone who've existed? Well, just thinking about it, this doesn't seem to be the case, as from your point of view you'd have to believe in Jesus, God, and the bible.

All of us are responsible to respond to the grace of God that is available to us so all have a chance. And it seems to me that this is true beyond the scope of where the gospel has been preached. After all, as Paul said in acts 17, "[God] determined the times set for them and the exact places where [everyone] should live... so that [they] would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us."

More in line with the topic of the post, looking at the picture is clear evidence God does not answer prayers.

So it is clear to you. It is not clear to me. I have already stated why.

I've always thought believers especially in the civilized world are just spoiled brats who pray and ask God for petty things like wining a TV show, when people who are truly in need never gets there prayers answered.

From what I've read of Christians who live under the most brutal conditions where they are persectuted, tortured, denied their livelyhood and so on with no attempt at retribution on their part, where all they have to do is denounce Christ to live peacably with their neighbors and governement, they would not agree with you that God does not prayer.

AndrewG said...

Hang on Rob, omnipitent, omnipresent? God would have known in advance that we would defintitely sin wouldn't he (though he could have made it otherwise if he REALLY wanted)?

And what about the 'who invented tsunamis' question - wasn't us was it?

I also cannot think of a single stretch of the imagination which would lead me to conclude that the human body is a 'perfect creation' either...

Jonathan said...

"Does God Answer Prayer? A Better Perspective"

@Rob R & Manifesting Mini Me (MMM)

Can you provide any information that God answered a prayer? It needs to be recent, not found in the bible, and has been verified. It cannot be based on hearsay evidence.

What scientific research has been done on prayer can you provide any studies?

Thanks!

Free Will

Where in Genesis does it say Adam / Eve have free will, in fact where does it say anywhere in the bible directly say we have free will? Does God say, "Adam / Eve you have Free Will"?

Historically I get the notion of free will came after the Israelis came into contact with the Greeks and the Hellenization of Jerusalem. the idea of free will and the fall was a Lutheran description. So the notion of free will is it a much later interpretation of the events in Genesis?

Christian prosecution

Since I assume these counties have no protections for the general population (civil right laws) can you prove that Christians are more proscuted than the norm compared to average citizen of that country.

(what countries are we talking about anyway?)

In this article I found it seems that Christians go after other Christians.

INDIA Churches agree to end 'sheep stealing'
http://www.ucanews.com/2009/12/14/churches-agree-to-end-sheep-stealing/.

Side Note: Christians have never persecuted anyone?


thanks!

Rob R said...

post 1 of 3


Andrew,

what does omnipotence and omnipresence have to do with God knowing how our future free acts would turn out? Omnipotence as defined by many of the scholars who have worked on the concept as the ability to do what is logically possible. If it isn't logically possible to know future free acts, then it says nothing against God's power to say that he can't know them. And it is logically if God's perfect knowledge cannot be altered. And if God's perfect knowledge of what will happen cannot be altered (since he'd be wrong, hence the knowledge would not have been perfect), then a future free act cannot be known as what will happen since the unalterability is inconsistent with the possibility of the other choice being made.

God's omnipresence doesn't imply this either unless you presume an eternalist theory of time (there is no difference between past present and future as they all simultaneously exist) which I believe to be incompatible with our experience and unbiblical.

Of course I believe that God is omniscient and I believe a view articulated by Greg Boyd gets at this best. God knows the truth about our future, but what is propositionally true about our future free acts is that we might choose one thing and we might choose another. Propositions that fit that description are contradictory to propositions that describe what will or will not happen, thus if the conjoined might is true, the statement of what will or will not happen must be false until the unresolved potential of the free choice has been resolved.

And what about the 'who invented tsunamis' question - wasn't us was it?

The broken system in which either these events would happen, or in which we would find our selves in lethal situations (because it is also conceivable that they could happen but we could be prepared for them) is part of the brokenness of the world that is part of our context of redemption, a context that is obviously unnecessary without our rebellion. Our souls are very close and intertwined with our bodies and that is as God intended it. So if we rebelled but there was no physical counterpart to our spiritual brokenness, there would be much less of a reason to look at our rebellious situation and conclude that it needs repairs. Our broken world matches our broken souls. I don't believe that there is a specific divine purpose behind every tragedy and to think that they are grievously meaningless and tragic is I believe a correct conclusion. It matches the meaninglessness and tragedy of our rebellion. And it provides the context of our redemption where we can recognize not only our need for help from God, but our desperate need for each other.

I also cannot think of a single stretch of the imagination which would lead me to conclude that the human body is a 'perfect creation' either...

Well that is a subjective judgment if you are referring to even the conceivable potential of the human body to always be as we know it in youth without illness and defect. But of course, as human bodies go, they are part of the broken creation.

Rob R said...

post 2 of 3 or 4


Jonathan,



Can you provide any information that God answered a prayer?

According to your standards which I reject, I have experienced healing from sickness immediately in the light of prayer at least twice in my life. Of course it could have been coincidence, it could have been the placebo effect, but I have no reason to conclude that from my world view, so I won't. I also recall that the one time in fifth grade, I was a perpetually poor student. My sister prayed for me and the one time she did, I recieved a student of the week honor. I found out that she had prayed for me after the fact. Again, could be coincidence. But I have no reason to conclude that.

and has been verified. It cannot be based on hearsay evidence.

I can be an ornery man. So I'm going to share with you something in spite what you told me. The problem is that you can't do better with what I'm going to tell you with your own standards you set. A brother and sister from my church went on a mission trip to South America. They were on the street with some of the church people and they saw a boy get plowed down by a car. The boys chest was collapsed, so the church people and brother and sister laid hands on and prayed for him and they saw him restored before his eyes. You ask about verification, there were two of them from my church. They could both be lying, but for that matter, I could be making all this up as well, so there's little point in even asking me. They could've had a mass hallucination, which I find quite improbable. Either way, you don't even have heresy to make such judgements. All you can fall back on to deny this sort of thing is your world view.

But the risk that they are lying or there is some other explanation for this is real. I accept it. But virtually all supposed knowledge entails such risk and there is no objective way to determine what level of risk is reasonable. Of course, our whole situation of a broken world was brought on because we humans did not trust God. It should not surprise us that part of the path of redemption involves trust.

What scientific research has been done on prayer can you provide any studies?

I've heard of scientific studies that have shown differing results, and supposedly, the better ones do not support the power of prayer. The thing is, if God has reason not to participate in the study, it won't show the results, or it won't show the results that were tested for. I've heard of one described here by another member where three churches were asked to pray for hospital patients. There knew they were prayed for, a group that didn't, and there was a group that didn't know. The group that knew they were prayed for actually faired the worst and the group that didn't did no better than the other. Besides the fact that this was a process which in a sense demanded something that Jesus said would not necessarily get results, demanding a sign from God, there are also other factors, such as the fact that the churches where asked to pray for something specific for strangers who had no clear relationship with the church or interest in God. It's not clear that the church members praying had a deep interest in their souls and in discipling these patients and it isn't clear that they lived lives that honored God. All of this is relevant, I don't know that any one thing is a determining factor. I understand from your perspective, you might want to say it's simple, it either does or it doesn't work and it didn't. But then you aren't dealing with the Christian perspective, from whence we can honestly say that it is complicated.

Rob R said...

post 3 of 4

Where in Genesis does it say Adam / Eve have free will, in fact where does it say anywhere in the bible directly say we have free will?

Where in Genesis do we find the intent to explicitely describe the complete psychological description of humanity? None of the rest of scripture qualifies either. For that matter, we are never even given But it is implied here and there. We libertarian free will theists believe that options do imply free will. Moral choices imply free will and the narrative shows that the first couple were instructed not to eat the tree. If the expectation was authentic, then it stands to reason that not eating from the tree was possible. If it was truly and thoroughly possible even though the tree was eaten from, then libertarian free will is true since all you need is the absolute possibility of more than one option (I say absolutely possible because there are different levels of possibility). A compatabilist may be able to interpret so many of these kinds of scriptures differently, but I think the libertarian interpretation is better for reasons that would make this long post far much longer. I will only say that I suspect that one verse that a compatabilist cannot interpret adequately is 1st Corinthians 10:13 which says that when we are tempted, God is faithful to always makes a way out from that temptation. The problem is that if Christians can sin but theological determinism is true, then it is not true that God truely made a way out. Of course one can sight scriptures that say that Christians can't sin and I would say that those are motivational to get us to change our ways of looking at ourselves that can enable us to actually stop sinning. I would furthermore point out that there are scriptures where Christians are told to stop sinning. Of course it can also all be interpreted in a contradictory manner, but if we don't have to, why would we? And why should the most problematic interpretation be the one that we should go with. It seems the least problematic one would be the wisest one.

Historically I get the notion of free will came after the Israelis came into contact with the Greeks and the Hellenization of Jerusalem.

I would not deny that hellenization was advantageous for deeper more analytic thought on scripture and it's implications. Of course some baggage that the church still struggles with came along with it, but it nevertheless was also helpful.

the idea of free will and the fall was a Lutheran description.

Luther took some steps forward and some backward, but this is not one of them that I know of, not that I have a knowledge of all things Lutheran. Free will goes back to most if not all of the early church fathers prior to Augustine who was the first major proponent of theological determinism.

Since I assume these counties have no protections for the general population (civil right laws) can you prove that Christians are more proscuted than the norm compared to average citizen of that country.

Christian persecution is well documented. But I'm not prepared to argue for it any more than I am the holocaust. Governments murdered people just for being Jews, so why should it be a surprise that they'd do so to Christians. You can check it out yourself and go to persecution.com. Also that news article even attested to the outbreaks of violence against Christians in India. This is not something made up and our government knows of it well. Richard Wurmbrand testified before Congress showing the scars on his body from torture. But you can see far more in pictures and so on from the website above.

Rob R said...

post 4 of 4



(what countries are we talking about anyway?)

China, North Korea, India, and almost any Islamic nation.

In this article I found it seems that Christians go after other Christians.

"sheep stealing" getting Christians to go to a different denominational church hardly qualifies as persecution.

Christians have never persecuted anyone?

Sure. Christian is a superficial title that anyone can claim regardless of whether they follow Jesus or not even if they perform some amazing deeds.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' (Matt 7:21-23)

Russ said...

Rob,
If Christians had something special, it would be observable. Yes, I know you will apologize away why Christians should not be observably beneficially affected by the intervention of their deity, for which I will agree with you. Christians have nothing special about them.

You make the point yourself by continually trotting out the story of the man and woman on mission in South America. It's all you have and it lacks merit for many reasons, including the fact that you change the details every time you tell it.

You've told many distinct variations of that story here on DC. Since your memory for the details is so vague, we have every reason to think that you just made it up. It's the perfect miracle story, right? Unverifiable. Secret witnesses known only to you and whose identities and capacities to evaluate what might have been witnessed must remain secret.

You say you can be an ornery man. Ornery may be an appropriate descriptor for you, but so might credulous, gullible, unreliable, and dubious.

Even if one were an eyewitness to an event which could be recounted in one of the ways you've done here at DC, it is still far more likely that those witnessing the event were mistaken about what they saw. Couple that with the hero-worship they know they will receive as they share this miraculous tale for which they cannot possibly be held to account by a thinking individual, and you have ideal circumstances for concocting a miracle.

I laugh when I think that you claim that this god thing you worship performs miracles, but in order to goad your god thing to pop off one of these miracles, you need to hike off to another continent, immerse yourself within a community of poorly educated people. Only then does your dubious deity feel up to handing out a "miracle."

Rob R, maybe you could tell us what the town was where this miracle happened. Tell us the church and the people who witnessed the event. Tell us the name of the boy. You won't do it, even though you claim they were from your church.

There's no reason at all to believe you or the silly tale of miracle healing. Miracles are not interruptions in the natural order of things by some supernatural thing like your version of a god. Miracles are all-natural misreadings of the world by those afflicted by ignorance, gullibility, willful deceit, or combinations thereof.

Rob R said...

If Christians had something special, it would be observable.

Well, yes, this is absolutely true. What I described is observable. I described something that someone observed. You mean it has to be repeatably observable, and I reject that insistance and I embrace the epistemic risk entailed which is still a long way of from irrational incredulity. Christianity is observable on so many other grounds besides the miraculous. It's CHRISTianity, not miraculanity, and we have observed positive changes and in individual lives due to a Christian or religious framework. If skeptics disagree, that is because they are interpreting the world according to their biases.

You make the point yourself by continually trotting out the story of the man and woman on mission in South America. It's all you have

It's what I personally know of. I don't think that these stories are so uncommon in the church. I'm going to continue to talk about it if I'm asked about it.

including the fact that you change the details every time you tell it.

The only detail I'm not sure about that I reported was whether it was south America or Central.

And when I meet the young man or lady again, I will personally get more of the details locked down. but that opportunity is a bit rare since they no longer attend my church. But I have every intention of doing so. But I know you don't care. Your worldview already tells you everything you want to know about it because it is not purely observation driven. But no one's is. Everything that disagrees with your world view is false. But I just have no reason to agree with that world view. It certainly isn't implied by science!

Unverifiable. Secret witnesses known only to you

Many of the people who have participated at the Barb Wire, the blog where I am a rare contributor knows of the people of whom I speak and are also capable of speaking to the boy and girl about it.

and whose identities and capacities to evaluate what might have been witnessed must remain secret.

It wouldn't matter if I named them or not. You aren't coming here to talk to these people and I'm not giving out names randomly on the internet unless they give me permission.

You can think that either they or I am lying if you want, but that is your insulation against data that does not fit your paradigm.

ut so might credulous, gullible, unreliable, and dubious.

And these are all judged by you on the basis of your world view, not on any real knowledge of the quality of character of the people I speak of. That is your faith. Credulity is believing any story from anyone. And that doesn't leave you personally with a whole lot of evidence to embrace this story, but other people do know people of character with such stories and it's only by the insulation of your world view that you would suggest that we in general just never see these sorts of things.

Furthermore, I realize that there is a higher epistemic risk in trusting these sorts of stories when there aren't as many people involved, there isn't physical evidence but you have the word of two people and what you know of them otherwise strongly suggests that they are honest people of integrity. But again, there is no objective standard for what level of epistemic risk is reasonable. Some have tried to make the standards of science count, but that is illogical since science can't validate itself nor it's assumptions.

Rob R said...

post 2 of 2


Even if one were an eyewitness to an event which could be recounted in one of the ways you've done here at DC, it is still far more likely that those witnessing the event were mistaken about what they saw.

again, by the standards of your world view and epistemology to make that a blanket statement.

Couple that with the hero-worship they know they will receive

This is you unscientific and unprovable statement. I know them personally and I reject your psychological assessment of their motives. It's not impossible. I just don't see it as likely.

but in order to goad your god thing to pop off one of these miracles, you need to hike off to another continent, immerse yourself within a community of poorly educated people.

It makes a lot of sense if you understand Christianity... which you don't.

God loves the poor and he loves those who sacrifice for the poor. God also does not honor the demands of those who demand a supernatural sign and much of our scientific attempts qualify as that. It doesn't mean that it is impossible to have scientific verification of a miricle, but it does mean that it may be difficult.

Rob R, maybe you could tell us what the town was where this miracle happened.

Do you really care? I will find out. This is a story that circulated in my church but I will speak to them personally for you when an opportunity arises.

There's no reason at all to believe you or the silly tale of miracle healing.

You don't have much of a reason beyond what I gave you. I accept the reasonableness of your skepticism. but your skepticism cannot be universal. You don't know me or of my character. But I know them and theirs. Go ahead and disbelieve, but know that it is your personal experience.

Miracles are not interruptions in the natural order of things by some supernatural thing like your version of a god.

That may be true. Many Christians reject that nature/supernature distinction but they believe that events happen that are out of the ordinary. We humans create unheard of unprecedented events that just do not happen in nature via science and technology, yet they are perfectly consistant with nature. So why shouldn't God operate at a far deeper level of manipulation in ways that that look to be contradictions of the laws of nature that are in fact not clearly true to begin with (if you are familier with the history of science, specifically physics and how the most basic truths have been rewritten and to this day cannot be fully true as they are in contradiction.)

Gandolf said...

Russ -->"If Christians had something special, it would be observable."

Russ i agree and havent all things humans have discovered, generally needed some decent verifiable observable evidence turn up at some stage sooner or later.We generally dont hang onto absolutely all our ideas forever and forever.Most ideas lacking any decent verifiable observable evidence,get put aside long before a couple of thousand years have passed.

And ones that dont might have more to do with ignorance and emotion

Rob R -->"Credulity is believing any story from anyone."

What.You are kidding us right?.Its more like stupidity isnt it?.Whether your gods exist or not.Humans still do need to have boundarys,we cannot even exist/survive by this idea of "believing any story from anyone".We need to have a line we draw in the sand somewhere, and that line is made in time over observations of evidence.

We humans need to do this to stop us from letting the "radom", turn into "total chaos".Its the inteligent thing to do.

You do it your self Rob all the time everyday for many other things in life.You use scientific method to decipher what the evidence is maybe suggesting,as to whats possibly worth believing and doing.More "verified" evidence "available" one way or the other suggests whats more likely.

Which is why we dont see many folks these days still searching for pots of gold, hidden at the end of rainbows.We humans dont really need the added "total chaos" of illogic ignorant faithful rainbow hunters do we.That wont be helpful will it?.

Rob R -->"That may be true. Many Christians reject that nature/supernature distinction but they believe that events happen that are out of the ordinary."

Yes i agree they reject the distiction all right,but lack the decent verified evidence to prove good reason for the rejection.Gambling on the supernatural,has yet to be proven as worthwhile for humanity, specially in the longterm.

AndrewG said...

Rob, just close your eyes, imagine yourself in North Africa, sipping sweet tea in a market stall, chatting to your good friends about religion, and what is absolutely the truth. Guess what - you'd be a Muslim.

Imagine yourself now in India, with the family, enjoying your evening meal of flatbreads and spiced meats, discussing the days events, and what the gods have in store for you - you'd be a Hindu...

How is it so difficult for the you to see that religion is simply an invention of humans, usually indoctrinated into the child from the earliest years depending on where you live, thats why there are so many, they are always changing, and none of them are ever right, or explain anything about the world as it is in reality.

Its bizarre...

Manifesting Mini Me (MMM) said...

I had previously written a comment (way back when) that Jesus said that there would always be poverty - there would always be wars.

Then Gandolf wrote, "But without hearing Jesus say anything yourself sometimes its blind faith in believing what he actually did or didnt say as being totally true when you never actually heard it yourself"

Y'know, you're right Gandolf - we really don't have any more wars or any more poverty --- this picture on this post must be representative of one those mythical ideologies you guys always accuse Christians of perpetrating. Jesus was a liar - there is no more war or no more poverty guys! Don't believe Jesus!!!!

As Always,
3M :-)

Gandolf said...

MMM -->"Y'know, you're right Gandolf - we really don't have any more wars or any more poverty "


No my point was.Fraudster bible writers could write what ever they wanted in the bible and the fathful gullible christian gamblers would simply believe it.

Fraudsters bible writers could write something like .."and low and behold there will be witch hunters on earth" ....And christians would say ...oh look we see witch hunters on earth and expected to see witch hunters on earth ...Because Jebus said so! ..its written in the bible ..Tweedle dee ho hum ...everythings fine.

Somebody can write .."expect to be hated" ..Fathful folk find themselves disliked,and so think fuck that bible writers a real genius!

Bathing in such faithful bliss they forget to think, hold on! maybe ignorant nasty thoughtless bigoted faithful folks full of pride ..Are not really so very likely to be liked are they.

Meaning they miss the fact that many so called prophecy's,are not really prophecy's at all...That christians would be disliked,was simply always obvious even right from the beginning...Things that are so very obvious!, dont take any prophecy

So the faith leaders didnt really need to explain the reasons for the gods not doing anything about answering prayers about war or starvation or anything...They just wrote what they want people to faithfully believe ..and the faithful fathfully do so!

Jonathan said...

Hi Rob R

Thanks for your response I appreciate the details you have provided.

Re: 5th grade, sister and illness.
If you make the claim that prayer works shouldn’t you also provide some evidence to support the fact?
If I had made the claim of being abducted by aliens you would want some evidence. Even if we were the best the best of friends you would still require heavy proof that I was actually abducted. Wouldn’t you expect some proof for such a claim?


Being ornery

You also may be omitting possibility the whole car accident could be a fraud. Set up to gain extra donations by the overly naïve foreigners.

I am confused of this “world view” you pepper in your arguments. If something works it would only be natural to repeat it. I don’t think this is some sort of “world view” but only a tactic to belittle my original question. If the injured and sick went to churches for care instead of hospitals you would have a point.
In my “world view” if you were injured I would automatically call 911 and not attempt to “pray” for a healing even if you demanded it. Because in my “world view” praying for your healing instead of calling 911 would have me arrested.


In addition: I don’t think the world is broken there are things that can be approved, but this concept of a broken world eludes me.


I heard scientific studies

I am quite sure people have prayed for people they knew but the outcome wasn’t one they wanted.

Kara Neumann case
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara_Neumann_case

If the bible makes some claim that prayer works, it should also be able to handle the scrutiny of being verified. I don’t see a difference of whether there was a study or wasn’t in verifying whether prayer actually works. I don’t accept the notion that it is challenging God to perform some intervention.

But then again praying to God to change the outcome is a challenge to God to intervene because you don’t like the possible outcome. Because the event may have been ordained by God in the first place.

If a group of people where healed by a specific church with specific inflictions that were documented it would be prudent to investigate the matter. Have there been scams were people claimed to have illness but suddenly cured by a specific religious leader, sure. Wouldn’t you want a system to verify such claims?

Free Will
Thanks for your response but I study these topics in for order to give a better response.

Christian persecution

The example nations are not shinnying examples of civil liberties. Should a Christian receive more protection than what is considered normal in that nation? Do you thing some people feel the encroachment of a foreign religion is just anther form of western imperialism? China, India and Islamic nations have at one time been colonies of Europe do you think some of them have a bitter attitude toward the west?

Wouldn’t it be justified to support a group like amnesty international? Shouldn’t all the citizens have their rights protected Christian or other wise?

sheep steeling not a problem ?

14 Evangelicals & Catholics Together ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZPkNA9qotU

In “one” of the videos in this series one of the guests was concerned that South America didn’t turn into another Belfast. Many of the South American nations still have the scars of past conflicts that are quite visible. In these same nations the misuse of the military to deal with civil problems was common. Adding to this the tension between Protestants and Catholics it might get out of hand?


Evangelicals and Catholics Together
http://www.leaderu.com/ect/ectmenu.html

Christian is a superficial title

I can understand you don’t wish to be associated with all Christians. On the other hand I think it’s also hard just to dissociate yourself with Christians in the past either. It’s hard to tell who a Christian is if everyone is disavowing everyone else.


Thanks for the Response, hope you had a great x-mass.

Manifesting Mini Me (MMM) said...

Gandolf, you wrote, "
Meaning they miss the fact that many so called prophecy's,are not really prophecy's at all...That christians would be disliked,was simply always obvious even right from the beginning...Things that are so very obvious!, dont take any prophecy"

The prophetic words of Christ acknowledge the truth of both light and dark. Reality confirms the truth of both the divinely inspired and also the truth of darkness that people perpetuate.

You do not have to acknowledge God, Gandolf - His grace allows you the liberty to deny His existence. But then who will be your 'god'? Jesus spoke of those who belonged to another 'father'.

I do not have a problem with people preferring a way different than mine. So many people fight hard to maintain the status quo and foundation of perishing. They can have it.

Russ said...

Rob R: What I described is observable.

No, it is not observable. Hidden from critical review is not part of the meaning of 'observable.' That Rob R swallows this tale hook, line and sinker does not mean it was observable; it means only that you accept it uncritically.

You said,

You mean it has to be repeatably observable, and I reject that insistance and I embrace the epistemic risk entailed which is still a long way of from irrational incredulity.

Saying that you reject the need for repeatable outcomes tells us that everything you claim for your version of Christianity can safely be rejected by any thinking person because you willfully accept those claims you wish to be true while you reject the religious claims of others. You are the evidence of your own unreliability. You reject Joseph Smith's Golden Plate and Angel Moroni miracle tale. You similarly reject the tales told by Muslims and Hindus. You reject the Eastern Orthodox weeping statues - and rightfully so since every time one has been examined it has been shown to be a hoax. You reject Roman Catholic limbo and purgatory. But, because you wish for miracles to happen in the context of your version of Christianity you uncritically accept claims that cannot be validated.

What's more, Rob R, should it not be the case that, this tale being your miracle exemplar, you would want to commit some of the detail associated with it to memory? But, here it is, this miracle happens and you forget the continent it happened on; you can't tell us the town or the church, or the other people involved. It's clear that you were not impressed. Why not honestly admit that the story was so unmoving, so uncompelling that you couldn't even be bothered to remember anything about it? Holding it out as miracle and then telling readers that you have forgotten it, to be quite frank, makes you seem stupid. It makes you seem to be part of a fraud, an intentional fraud to prop up your version of Christianity.

Do you not understand that when you say "Christianity is observable on so many other grounds besides the miraculous," you are making the case for repeatable results for Christianity. Apparently, as you see it, add a dash of Christianity and you get some improved outcome of some sort. Maybe with the pinch of Christian pixey dust a person will be less of a boozer, maybe they will rape children less often, or kill fewer children as witches. Perhaps, a dollop of Christianity will make a person more caring, loving or generous. Yet, though it's not true, you seem to want to claim that if the Christianity is removed that the affect will disappear.

Fundamentalist Christians have the highest alcoholism rate of any religious identity in the US, including atheists. Roman Catholic clergy rape seemingly at will and those who are doing the raping are condoning it by not protecting the victims. I guess it's just part of their version of Christianity. Pentecostalist Christians in Africa frequently kill their own children as witches, hundreds every year. And, observably, Christians are not more caring, loving or generous.

If you want to make a case for people being benefitted by supportive social groups, I will stand in agreement, but you reject almost all other Christianities as the preferred social group.

Rob R, you embrace no epistemic risk whatsoever. No doubt you have never researched the claims of all the Christianties you actively reject, and by not having done so you eliminate any challenge to your faith. You ostentatiously wave "epistemic risk" in people's faces while you hypocritically avoid exposure to such risk.

Rob R said...

post 1 of 4


Russ, perhaps tomorrow


AndrewG,

I'm well aware that tend to have the religious affiliation that is predominant of the region of one's upbringing is most likely to be their religion. This really doesn't imply anything. If one were raised in a predominantly atheist country, (If such a country exists though supposedly some European countries are very close if not at that point), then atheism should have the same doubt cast upon it as well. The only thing consistant with this line of thinking is absolute skepticism of anything and everything even beyond atheism, which is usually a bullet that most atheists don't bite.

Supposedly, one might conclude that this is a reason for starting out as an agnostic, and that is what John Loftus does. But in this post modern age, we have found the idea that one can start from a truely neutral perspective to be highly dubious modernistic myth. Even John Loftus like so many atheists I run into evaluates these matters according to the biases of his old Christian understanding as the best one. I find this similar attitude from your catholic atheists. If atheists can't agree on what is the best view of that which they reject (hence they'd disagree on some important reasons as to why what they reject ultimately fails), their goes their alleged foundation of objective neutrality. We can reason from where we are at and that very well may entail some significant changes as well as less significant ones (as we see with many Chrisians including myself) and it may result in a complete rejection of one's original religious perspective. But neither is not gauranteed. Nevertheless, that, in combination of how we live is all that we have to evaluate these things (provided the term reason is used more broadly beyond pure logic which in and of itself cannot tell us anything about the world).

The plurality of religions doesn't tell us that it is all man made and it isn't simply as if they couldn't all be right to some limited extent since religions don't just contradict each other on important matters but they also agree on many important matters as well. Even Christians agree with many atheists on some grounds such as moral realism. Ultimately, the observation that there is much agreement or disagreement doesn't tell us anything about who is right and who is wrong outside of getting into the specifics and delving into another topic that is no less controversial which is epistemology, something that too many atheists naively assume is completely answered by the nature of science. And that is very far from the truth as it is also illogical since science cannot validate itself on it's own terms.

It's also doesn't necessarily reflect badly on any religion that there is always change. Change is perfectly is exactly implied by the idea that our knowledge can progress, and our adherence to tradition is in fact necessary to progress since progress without tradition is progress that never establishes anything and is merely a perpetual shifting load of disconnected novelty.

As to whether they never explain anything about the world, I can't imagine any assesment of religion that fails to understand that religions are essentially parts of world views which precisely exist to explain the world.

Rob R said...

post 2 of 4



Greeting Jonathan,


If you make the claim that prayer works shouldn’t you also provide some evidence to support the fact?
If I had made the claim of being abducted by aliens you would want some evidence. Even if we were the best the best of friends you would still require heavy proof that I was actually abducted. Wouldn’t you expect some proof for such a claim?


If we were the best of friends, I would make a judgement on the basis of your character though I might have reservations. But I would not rule out the possibility that what you are saying. While I may have nothing but your word to go on, I would have less reservations if such a thing was not unheard of according to virtuous people of significant standing in the community, and with tales of the supernatural or miraculous, we do have such people telling these stories that is rare but far from unheard of.

Do I expect you personally to believe what I, some anonymous person from the internet says that is so out of the ordinary. I suppose I don't expect that. But if these happen regardless of whether you experience them or not, neither can you insist that they don't when people do in fact claim that they do and very well may experience them and then insist that they should share your skepticism. Ultimately, these are not the grounds on which most of us can evaluate relgious claims as a whole and I don't nor do I expect you to. But the insistence that Christianity is false because these things never happen is shaky ground that itself cannot be substantiated.

You also may be omitting possibility the whole car accident could be a fraud. Set up to gain extra donations by the overly naïve foreigners.

Okay, it's possible. I accept the risk that I could be wrong. All virtually all knowledge entails this risk. In other words, virtually all knowledge requires varying degrees of faith. But as far as I know, it's extremely ad hoc considering a request for money never came with the story.

I am confused of this “world view” you pepper in your arguments.

World views determine what sorts of things we may believe to be true. If you are a materialist, you are a priori committed to a materialistic interpretation of the event which is that it was a lie by the people I know or a fraud or a hallucination or whatever. You are not open to the possibility of a miraculous event.

If something works it would only be natural to repeat it.

Many events that even science recognizes are not repeatable. Barring Jurasic Park style tricks, it will never again be repeated that dinosaurs roam the earth. And yet these sorts of things are repeatable as these stories are not uncommon. But we cannot decide when these things will happen. Special acts of God are beyond our ability to manipulate. To doubt these on that basis though is an epistemic bias which I do not share. It just means that the epistemic risk cannot be reduced as much as it could for events that are manipulatable for us.

If the injured and sick went to churches for care instead of hospitals you would have a point.

I reread what I said and what you said to which I was responding. I don't know what point it is that you think I lack.

In my “world view” if you were injured I would automatically call 911 and not attempt to “pray” for a healing even if you demanded it. Because in my “world view” praying for your healing instead of calling 911 would have me arrested.

Of course world views overlap and my world view says the same thing. But further, as has been described since the opening post without my disagreement, God does not answer any prayer even by Christians and it's just irresponsible to avoid utilizing the resources we have to take care of injuries, and it is also unfaithful when access to these resources is part of the grace of God.

Rob R said...

In addition: I don’t think the world is broken there are things that can be approved, but this concept of a broken world eludes me.

You can say that but you asked me to explain something in terms of my perspective. In that light, it isn't immeadiately relevant that you don't think the world is broken.

But that the world is not right, that it isn't the way it should be is a conclusion that anyone can come to whether especially from the point of view of those 23,000 children who starve to death every year of which was the opening issue of this blog topic.

If the bible makes some claim that prayer works, it should also be able to handle the scrutiny of being verified.

Sure. The problem is that you don't agree with scripture on the nature of that verification. If you are an unbeliever, Jesus explicitely said not to expect verification. And this certainly doesn't qualify as blind faith as the belief is in the context of an already reasoned world view.

I don’t see a difference of whether there was a study or wasn’t in verifying whether prayer actually works. I don’t accept the notion that it is challenging God to perform some intervention.

Well, I honestly absolutely do not know why you don't see why prayer in the context of a scientific study doesn't qualify as testing God. Science is all about testing. Scripture doesn't give us gaurantees on testing God in just any context.

But then again praying to God to change the outcome is a challenge to God to intervene because you don’t like the possible outcome.

Testing God is about not trusting God. Requesting God to change something is not necessarily performed in such a context and we are not instructed to make it a faith changing event.

If a group of people where healed by a specific church with specific inflictions that were documented it would be prudent to investigate the matter.

Sure it would be prudent. And yet such investigations still involve subjective interpretations. So when someone is healed of cancer of what is supposed to be a cancer, the atheist is already prepared to say that this is simply a biologically possible improbable event that just happened in this instance because improbably events do happen, just rarely.

The example nations are not shinnying examples of civil liberties. Should a Christian receive more protection than what is considered normal in that nation?

They shouldn't be persecuted just because they are Christians. That is what is precisely what is happening. There is no issue about wanting better rights. I don't know that this is relevent to the original reason that I brought up the subject. The point was that Christians live in a terrible world which is sometimes worse because they are Christian. The world of Christianity is a world where not all prayers are answered affirmatively. It's not news to us and we have reason to expect them not to always be answered affirmatively. We could be without consistency with scriptures that say that God will answer prayers affirmatively or there may be reasonable exceptions and conditions that aren't accounted for, conditions that may be implied in the context in which we find these scriptures (such as being a committed disciple, not just some person who takes the identity of "Christian," and a disciple who prays with God's plans and intentions in mind).

Rob R said...

post 4 of 4


Do you thing some people feel the encroachment of a foreign religion is just anther form of western imperialism?

yes, they do feel that way and that is amongst the reasons for persecution, and it doesn't justify them trampling over the rights of Christians and ruining and murdering them just to keep out the alleged encrouchment. It also implies that there is normativity that religions ought to be regionally indigenous, a view that I object if I am to take my Christian beliefs seriously which entails the great commision and that God's plan of choosing a people starting with Abraham is for the benefit of the world to begin with.

China, India and Islamic nations have at one time been colonies of Europe do you think some of them have a bitter attitude toward the west?

yes and they do great evil in that bitterness and mistakenly associate that imperialism with the Christian faith that was held often inconsistently by the Europeans.

sheep steeling not a problem ?

I didn't say that. It's just not to be compared to the grievous persecution that takes place.

It’s hard to tell who a Christian is if everyone is disavowing everyone else.

It is at the general level and needs to be dealt with in the details. And that is a matter that requires care. And it's not that all the disavowing itself is consistant with Christianity as so many differences amongst Christians are not central and do not make the difference between following Jesus and the failure to do so. But when it's a matter of Christians using their faith as an excuse to do horrid things, don't be surprised that some of us are very bold and confident to say that that is not what Jesus and the disciples taught and our message cannot be judged because of them.

Thanks for the Response, hope you had a great x-mass.

God bless and I am.

Gandolf said...

MMM -->" His grace allows you the liberty to deny His existence. "

Ohh i see.I offer you valid reasons why prophecy's could quite likely be little more than earlier humans stating the obvious..Which you cannot disprove..But still you would rather simply judge it as im just somebody wanting to deny god.Im simply just the denying type.A simple liar working for some supposed satan or something

I can tell your god obviously never whispered in your ear, that i actually have! thought a extra whole lot about all this stuff over and over the years.Approaching it from both angles,from faith angle! yet noticing absolutely no evidence of god or any available help through prayer etc.

Then from the angle of free thought, and noticing (very possible reasons) human might have had naturalistic reasons for faith of gods.Noticing folks who suppoedly are supposed to have the (presence of gods holy spirit),can somehow visually be seen to be extra selfish and thoughtless folks! who dont really care if their faith is even actually hurting many others.No! these folks dreams of salvation is all that matters.

Why maybe you even think im just a naughty immoral denying type,who`s right into theft and murder and sex orgys or something.Maybe you think i just left the cult i was born into,simply because i denied their wonderful godly rightousness too.

I cant have been the deep thinking free thinking type can i?, who saw right through the nastiness and danger, right?

You can be a fool and suggest that im just the denying type MMM,no real skin off my nose! besides im pretty thick skinned these days anyway...But the blood of kids in Africa will continue to get spilled ! and shed over idiotic promotion of faith,because people like yourself continue to promote the ignorance of superstitious faith here on planet earth will survive and keep hurting very many.New abusive cults will form each year and every year.

MMM --->"I do not have a problem with people preferring a way different than mine. So many people fight hard to maintain the status quo and foundation of perishing. "

Well sadly im sorry cannot say the same and keep a good concience...For i personally know the damage superstitious faith does to so very many others!...Ive never been the type to stand by quietly (only ever concerned with myself) and my own gambling habits of happiness ...No ! how things happen to effect others matters a whole lot to me too also! ...I also have (children) who will need to live on afterwards here on this earth after me when im dead and gone, and they will likely have children themselves.And so on.

Im not a selfish thoughtless prick, who dont care if faith is going to be the biggest influence in continuing causing war and much bloodshed! and all manner of nastiness (like it always has done right down through the ages in our passed history).

MMM your false judgment is like water off a ducks back,it washes right on over me...Because its completely false! and whats more just the fact you simply make that false judgement...Helps me see even more! how deluded you have become...Your decisions are not done by good reason... I see even more that you dont care if your faith is mere gambling,because a gambler never cares if his gambling happens to effect any others...Suggesting your words often spoken of commpassion etc, is quite likely to really be much more selfcentred on you gaining your salvation lottery prize....Even your simplistic reply which is obviously lacking in decent logic and good reasoning, suggests to me for starters its far more likely obviously (no supernatural holy spirit can actually be helping you).If he/she/it was standing beside you and helping,surely your answer whould show he/she/its presence of great omnipotent inteligence....And i would be left quite speechless in amazement.

MMM i only take issue of folks different belief,if it happens its badly effecting us all.But i take issue (with the faith) itself,not the folk sadly suffering the faith adiction.

Lauregon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gandolf said...

MMM --->"I do not have a problem with people preferring a way different than mine"

Honestly?

Murders fine?,Theft?,Violence?Hatered?, Racism?

All things about folks prefered differnt ways of seeing things (beliefs)

Why/what is it that some folks think faith supposedly deserves any extra special different treatment/respect

Lauregon said...

I deleted a previous post in order to make corrections in my text.

I wrote (with corrections):

"Would any of you who are fathers give your son a stone when he asks for bread? Or, would you give him a snake when he asks for a fish? As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, will your father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?" Matthew 7:9-11

This passage at least implies otherwise, but we know that children do indeed ask for "bread" and receive stones, not bread. Rob R would have us believe that the asked for bread will certainly arrive, albeit sometime in the future, but starving children need bread in the here and now. When the bread asked for doesn't arrive in the here and now---or even tomorrow or next week or next month---believers are faced with having to explain or rationalize why it didn't arrive, and they will contrive an answer just as Rob R has done with his delayed gratification response: it will arrive someday. But an arrival "someday" of the thing prayed for today isn't what's implied (if not specifically promised) in this passage. Prayers of petition are frequently if not usually about the here and now. Sometimes prayers actually do appear to be answered, but most often things prayed for do not appear, and God is nearly always absolved of the failure to answer the prayer. If a friend, neighbor, or relative were to be as capricious in delivering what the Bible implies and/or outright says God will provide in response to prayer, the friend, neighbor, or relative would soon be considered and dismissed as unreliable and untrustworthy, but in the case of "God," "God" nearly always is absolved by believers, but few among us would be so generous in absolving those here on earth in our midst who don't deliver what they promise.

Lauregon said...

Three M wrote:

I do not have a problem with people preferring a way different than mine. So many people fight hard to maintain the status quo and foundation of perishing. They can have it.

You say you don't have a problem with people preferring a way different than yours and yet here you are, laboring away trying to convince non-believers through an assumption of secret-password knowledge and condescendingly-stated trump-card assertions that your way is the unimpeachably one and only correct one.

Lauregon said...

From UnleavenedMInistries.org:

God Multiplied My Gas

Aaron Lim

The Lord worked a glorious miracle in my life today and moved me to share it with everyone for His glory.

My mother complained to me this morning that I never fill the gas in our family car, although I use it. I try to be a good steward of the Lord's money and let Him guide me where He wants to use it for the needs of His children, so I often drive on an empty tank by faith because the Lord keeps the car running even without fuel. Once while driving, I commanded the gas in it to be multiplied in Jesus' name and the Lord instantly filled almost a third of the tank as I watched the fuel indicator rise miraculously.

So today I told my mother that the Lord will multiply the gas in it, and she scoffed and said "no such thing" will happen. I told her I have seen it with my own eyes and she doesn't believe in God, but later the Lord put in my heart to be weak to the weak because although He has given me grace to be able to drive without gas, the rest of my family doesn't have faith to do so. I didn't have much money and don't have any stored up, so I drove the car to the gas station and asked the Lord to multiply the gas and fill the empty tank with whatever money I have left. It usually takes 60 to 70 Malaysian ringgit to fill our SUV. I counted what I had and it was only 44.00 Malaysian ringgit. So I laid hands on the car and commanded it to be filled in Jesus' name, then I gave the money to the cashier. As I was filling the car with gas, the pump suddenly stopped and refused to fill it any more. Guess what happened? The pump hadn't even filled $44 of gas but the tank was filled to the hilt! Glory to God! The tank was so full, when I tried to squeeze a few more cents of gas into it since I had already paid for it, it overflowed and spilled down the side of the car! LOL, I even had to pray the car wouldn't explode like in the movies because of the spilled fuel. :o)

Praise be to God! Why worry about the coming tribulation when we have so great a God who makes water gush out of a rock, multiplies fishes and loaves, fills fishing nets to the point of breaking, and overflows our cars with gas while the world worries about high gas prices?

When I got home, I told my mother how God had really multiplied the fuel, and she was speechless especially since she is not yet a Christian.

Please share this with the brethren. I feel the Lord has put in my heart that this will be an encouragement to some of His children who are anxious about things to come.

God bless you. :o)

AndrewG said...

Rob,

The problem you seem to have is assuming that atheism is a belief, a doctrine, or something which has to be proven, or questioned. It isn't the DEFAULT position is that there are no supernatural 'gods', or that religion is a constructed entity (as opposed to inherent tp humanity), or that prayer doesn't work.

I will continue to use that as a basis for my reality. Its not for me to 'back up' my perspective with anything. I have no need to. Show otherwise with any scrap of anything resembling decent evidence, and I will readdress those assumptions happily. Thats the thing with skepticism, we are perfectly happy to change our way of thinking.

You are correct about religion being an attempt to make sense of the world though. Its even obvious to atheists that that is what it was created for. Fortunately, we are sufficiently progressed as a species now to not have to rely on it for understanding the world, we have science and evidence for that now...

I am impressed with your tenacity and doggedness though, you should be commended for it, and I doff my virtual cap to you. All the very best wishes for the new year mate...

Chuck said...

Rob,

I am with AndrewG on this.

Also why do you omit illness from your biblical worldview and choose modern medicine when sick instead of the direction in James and anoitment with oil by elders? Is anointment the first line of therapy? When do you choose later lines? Thanks.

Manifesting Mini Me (MMM) said...

Hi Laurel, Hi Gandolf! You guys have quite a personality attached to me ---"laboring away", (I thought we were mutual in our enjoyment of writing here - I love this site!), "condescending" (how about "confessional") and of course, the perrenial, "judgemental".

Of all the writers here, you two are my favorites so I am absolutely crushed, demoralized and despondent!!!!! :-(

I feel so hated,
3M

Gandolf said...

MMM-->"I feel so hated,3M"

That learn you! for swallowing copious amounts of that Jesus Juice.

You`re hallucinating :)

Gandolf said...

MMM --->"so I am absolutely crushed, demoralized and despondent!!!!! :-( "

Ohhh harden up!, what a bloody soft cock

We havent even started calling you a witch! pouring acid down your throat for some heavenly healing

Rob R said...

Russ,


No, it is not observable. Hidden from critical review is not part of the meaning of 'observable.' That Rob R swallows this tale hook, line and sinker does not mean it was observable; it means only that you accept it uncritically.

The normal linguistic use of "observable" is on my side.
The SCIENTIFIC use of "observable" is on my side or there'd be no need to discuss repeatability and scrutiny after listing observability as part of the scientific method as it would be redundant.

Saying that you reject the need for repeatable outcomes tells us that everything you claim for your version of Christianity can safely be rejected by any thinking person because you willfully accept those claims you wish to be true while you reject the religious claims of others.

Saying that I reject the need for repeatable outcomes makes me a human and allows me to have knowledge at all. Russ, rejecting the need for repeatable outcomes as a necessity for knowledge allows us to believe that science can even lead to knowledge at all since science is founded on assumptions for which repeatability doesn't even make sense.

You reject Joseph Smith's Golden Plate and Angel Moroni miracle tale.

Of course I do. I do the same thing that you do. I evaluate things according to how they'd work within my broader epistemic framework. the difference is I am more aware of my filters and their subjectivity and you are under the illusion of neutral objectivity. But I'm no expert in Mormonism and truthfully, what little I know of it leaves me little worries about it. For example, while orthodox Christianity has it's historical controversies, there are nevertheless responsible historians at the highest learning institutions who have developed historical views that demonstrate the strength of Christianity. Mormonism claims some things out of the blue such as with Native Americans.

I don't know Joseph Smith personally and can't judge his character, but the theology and other claims that I've heard of doesn't line up. I have also heard some Mormons excuse these sorts of things in the name of faith which I find to be a shallow view of faith and more adequately fitting to the characature of faith that atheists use. And this is what little I know that comes to mind. I'm not an expert on Mormonism nor have I been given worry to be so. You can raise an issue about the consistency with which I judge things epistemically and the fact is, my framework is (and always has been as consistently promoted here by me) involved with more considerations.

With the brother and sister I spoke of, what they say makes sense within my framework and I have no need to reject it because of objections that arise from your framework which I don't accept. And if they are false, it is little skin off my back as I don't depend upon just their story alone for my world view but it is only an example of a part that is not central (as Jesus explained, miracle working is not the hallmark and guarantee of identity with his followers). The reason I bring it up is that it demonstrates that our beliefs don't come without observability even though some of these claims require more trust.

Rob R said...

post 2 of 4


You similarly reject the tales told by Muslims and Hindus.

I accept both where we agree and I reject both on theological differences worked out on theological grounds which is part of my epistemic matrix. There is more I can say about both but here I will restrict myself to a couple of observations. The muslims leave God more inscrutable where Christianity has more explanation to offer. Islam is also deterministic which is a reprehensible view. And there is nothing greater in our immeadiate experience than personhood and the impersonalistic views of God as we see in Hinduism miss this. As for the personalistic views of God found in other branches of Hinduism such as with Bahkti yoga and the emphasis on a loving God I find a common feature, one of many others that displays the grace of God at work in their culture and yet this aspect falls short in it's idolatry which is an affront to God who already has bearers of his image.

You reject the Eastern Orthodox weeping statues - and rightfully so since every time one has been examined it has been shown to be a hoax.

I neither reject nor accept them. I don't know what it means that they have been demonstrated to be hoaxes considering many atheists accept just about any naturalistic explanation as debunking and even if they are not from God, it doesn't mean that it they aren't supernatural occurrences.

You reject Roman Catholic limbo and purgatory.

I doubt that there is a purgatory with my view of grace, but I'm not 100 percent sure that there isn't one. It's not a hard and fast difference between catholics and protestants since C.S. Lewis insisted on it and Wesley thought it was possible.

What's more, Rob R, should it not be the case that, this tale being your miracle exemplar, you would want to commit some of the detail associated with it to memory? But, here it is, this miracle happens and you forget the continent it happened on;

good grief Russ, have I not already said I would address this? It's not my story, i will speak to those to whom it belongs and I will nail some details down. I may see the brother towards the end of January.

Do you not understand that when you say "Christianity is observable on so many other grounds besides the miraculous," you are making the case for repeatable results for Christianity.

I never said that repetability isn't important even in religion. It's just not everything to responsible epistemology nor can it be if the virtually uncontroversial failure of positivism or hard scientism means anything (that is to those who make analytic logic their business).

Fundamentalist Christians have the highest alcoholism rate of any religious identity in the US

Oh. evidently, being a fundamentalist doesn't make one a consistant follower of Jesus. Good thing I'd never claim that sort of thing. As for the rest of your paragraph, the same consideration follows

Rob R said...

post 3 of 4


Rob R, you embrace no epistemic risk whatsoever.

Russ, I am the one who defines the term epistemic risk. No one has ever defined what that means before and if I am wrong and they have, then it is a coincidence and it still has no bearing on how it is used in these discussions as I am the one who introduced the term. And their are only two ways to fail to embrace epistemic risk. 1, be a real and thorough skeptic (which excludes your atheists who believe they have knowledge of the world such as evolution, non-existence of God, materialism, etc.) or be oblivious that you hold beliefs that have degrees of unprovability (which includes the same group of atheists and surely others), hence the risk that they could be wrong.

No doubt you have never researched the claims of all the Christianties you actively reject

So what if I can't humanly research every significant and insignificant difference? I do what I can and sometimes my learning leads me to change my views.

and by not having done so you eliminate any challenge to your faith.

This is more of you pretending to know things that you don't, and not only have I looked into views within Christianity that I don't agree with, (some of which have caused me great difficulty and have lead to a great deal of research), but I'm also hear at a skeptics website reading a skeptics attempts to debunk Christianity in addition to the book of his that I read.

Rob R said...

post 4 of 4



AndrewG, I don't understand your last post. Did you mean to ask a rhetorical question of "Isn't it the default position?" instead of "It isn't the DEFAULT position." If it isn't the default position, then you most certainly do need to eplain how you got thist position that isn't to be our starting place.

Thats the thing with skepticism, we are perfectly happy to change our way of thinking.

Which isn't true if you aren't open to questioning your own standards for what constitutes reasonable standards of knowledge. Of course I also doubt you're a real skeptic anyhow but mainly just a religious one. Skepticism is rarely ever consistently applied across the board to absolutely all beliefs, but of course, most skeptics are oblivious to many of those beliefs that wouldn't stand the most consistant skepticism such as hard scientism nor the belief in a world that is external to the mind. But if you are looking for me to prove it all, sorry, go read another thread where it's been addressed. I'm willing to go on tangents, but if you don't stick closer to the topic, I have little interest in approaches to discussions which makes every single specific topic turn into the ultimate "prove your entire view is right or my entire view is wrong". It just isn't fruitful and I reserve the right not to go down every and any rabbit trail especially when they must boil down to the most general questions. Why post specific topics at all? If you asked me before I wrote more than ten pages in this comment section alone in a relatively short time, I might've been more willing to oblige.

I am impressed with your tenacity and doggedness though, you should be commended for it, and I doff my virtual cap to you.

Well, I apologize if any suggestion of limits here tarnishes your image of me, but I'll mention that I hope you realize that as much as I have written, it's a fact that these issues are more complicated and involve many more considerations and nuances that can make these posts long and can be a reason that it just can't all come out in just these short discussions as there is more here than meets the eye especially on the side of faith. The variety and breadth on which John Loftus himself posts coming from the other side attests to this as well.

All the very best wishes for the new year mate...

best wishes to you as well.











Chuck,

Also why do you omit illness from your biblical worldview and choose modern medicine when sick instead of the direction in James and anoitment with oil by elders? Is anointment the first line of therapy? When do you choose later lines? Thanks.

I don't take James' statement as an absolute. I don't feel it is necessary to get annointed for every cold I have. We do anoint the sick in our church and we also expect that God can work through medicine. Again, scripture presents God working through normal processes.

Chuck said...

Rob

Can you please define "normal processes" and offer the illustrations of which you speak?

Also, is anointment your preferred first line of therapy? Based on the system of truth you have presented thus far it would seem inconsistent for you to choose a non-biblical medical therapy first line when a biblical option might minimize epistemic risk. How do you maintain the integrity of your worldview when a scientific material solution is superior to a biblical one (e.g. the medical model Vs. anoitnment)?

Lauregon said...

3M wrote: I am absolutely crushed, demoralized and despondent!!!!! :-(

I feel so hated,


Have a nice hot cup of tea.

Gandolf said...

Laurel said --> "3M wrote: I am absolutely crushed, demoralized and despondent!!!!! :-(

I feel so hated,

Have a nice hot cup of tea."

Yeah good idea Laurel....Have a cuppa tea MMM ...Just leave out! that holy water this time though.

Its obviously not so good for the health unless you really enjoy hallucinating.

Rob R said...

Can you please define "normal processes" and offer the illustrations of which you speak?

there are several different kinds of references that come to mind. God sends rain on the good and the evil. All good gifts come from God. and so on. God takes credit for drought, something that needs no "violation" of nature (which in my opinion has been superceded by superior ways of looking at miracles). Judgement from God comes in the form of invading armies. In all of these, some of them obviously from God due to the context of prophetic prediction, or they are implicitely from God. It would not surprise me if there are better examples.


Also, is anointment your preferred first line of therapy?

I have never been annointed for sickness and I don't know that I would seek it unless my illness was very severe. And taking scripture as a whole, it isn't made an absolute. Luke was a doctor, we don't here that he gave that up. Paul instructs Timothy to drink wine for a stomach ache.

Rob R said...

post 2,


Based on the system of truth you have presented thus far it would seem inconsistent for you to choose a non-biblical medical therapy first line when a biblical option might minimize epistemic risk.

Following Jesus is not about the epistemic issue. In the past I have explained that there was a difference between epistemic faith and religious faith. They are not the same though they are related. The thing is, I don't need this for my own personal faith and once it becomes necessary, I have put myself in a place where Jesus said I ought not be. I don't reserve belief on account of expecting God to act in miraculous ways.

If I want to reduce epistemic risk, I'll do the sorts of things that I have been doing. I'll study the things such as bible scholars and philosophers write such as N. T. Wright. But more importantly, strengthening my faith is about living, following the teachings of Jesus and expecting to see the power of God on his terms in lives changed and broken made whole.

How do you maintain the integrity of your worldview when a scientific material solution is superior to a biblical one (e.g. the medical model Vs. anoitnment)?

Chuck, my old man is a Doctor you know. Doctors in general, particularly family physicians tend to be more religious than average. To answer you question more directly, it's just a false dichotomy to insist that there is only this one way to deal with the brokenness in the world as it relates to the body. And most of us Christians don't seek it because of some of the concerns that John Loftus has brought up some where or another, that when God doesn't heal in a miraculous way when requested, some people see this as a reason to doubt or a reason to feel guilty about not having enough faith. But add that to the fact that miracles where deemphasized by Jesus himself as a reason for faith noting that those who insist upon it will not receive it and that some of those who perform miracles will be amongst those rejected by God. Jesus performed miracles not so people would no longer get sick or die. He performed them to show that for the faithful, the future was coming when these things would no longer be a part of our existence and he was the one to usher in that future. But that future has not fully arived yet and we still live in the context of redemption where illness and death point us towards and reminds us of our spiritual poverty and gives us opportunities to not just call out to God and rely on him but also to rely on each other or have compassion on each other. Salvation isn't just between you and God. It must also extend between humans and a world of suffering is where that can be worked out in the deepest ways through sacrificial love and servant hood.

If miracles were the heart and soul of the gospel, we wouldn't emphasize the death on the cross. It wouldn't have as much importance as the resurrection. But it is no less important that God's solution wasn't to snap his fingures and make it all better, though his works served to show that he was sovereign to do so. It was necessary for God to suffer with us. There lies a far deeper intimacy than a mere snap of the fingers and it's that intimacy that is to be restored.

Jonathan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jonathan said...

I find with this topic to be problematic because the question is already answering itself. It stands to reason that a non-believer would complain about God non-intervention as an example of God’s non-existence.

There are thousands of dying children
God doesn’t intervene
Therefore God doesn’t exist.

I “think” this is “begging the question.”

I personally wouldn’t use the argument “if there is God why is there so much hunger in the world”. I would not go to a theist and ask this question. If a particular area has high instances of drought I would ask a biologist, climatologist, or whatever “ist” and find out the “natural” events that would cause a drought. Asking a theist why a particular area is hit with droughts more than other is a scientific question not a religious one. Droughts have no “moral” considerations unless you want to make them up.

Towards Rob R

First I would like to thank you for the length of your replies.

Regrettably you’re going to have to show data to prove that prayer actually works. No data, no proof, and then no argument.

I would think some “Christian” organization would have an ongoing peer reviewed study regarding the success rate of prayer. How successful would have your argument would have been if you could actually produce such a paper?

In all of writing you haven’t produced any evidence, facts, or data that one could look up. It seems you are doing everything to avoid showing some actually proof. The three examples you offer all fall in the “are you serous” department.

I apologize for going off on tangents but can you provide any verifiable proof that prayer works?


Again No data, no proof, and then no argument.

Chuck said...

Rob

How do you account for people like me that have come to a reasoned conclusion that compassion for others does not need to be neccesitated by a theory of salvific grace? How do you maintain your worldview while respecting my counter perspective?

Additionally I find your need to use the plural pronoun when sharing your unique worldview presumptive and offensive. You presume that compassion is achieved through adherence to your religiously derived heuristic and seem to imply that it is a necessary predicate for right minded behavior. I find that presumption dubious. How do you affirm a confident voice rooted in plural estimation based on a singular experience? How can you do this without maintaining a superior mind set (relative to those, like me, who reject the predicate for compassion found in salvific grac)?

Rob R said...

post 1 of 3


Jonathan,

I “think” this is “begging the question.”

It is, but it's not begging the question that you think it does. given the paragraph that followed, I'm not sure you understand what it is to beg the question as what you provided wasn't an interaction with a problem posed for theists. If one is probing the veracity of theism with regard to internal consistency, why shouldn't the deal with the issues on the theists terms thus probing its internal coherence.

The question of the topic wasn't just why people starve. The question is why doesn't God answer the prayers of the starving. Still, the answer is similar and highlights a premise usually used in the problem of evil that occasionally is taken for granted, that a good God always eliminates evil. But the problem with this is that it's not clear that this premise is true as a good God may have reasons for allowing evil and a good God may very well be in the process of eliminating evil anyway but not immediately in an instant. But John Loftus does make the question more challenging by adding in the prayer issue and using scripture (which I believe was pointed out elsewhere as his post above is part of a series) that said that God would answer the prayers of believers affirmatively. The answer I have provided parallels one of the objections to the problem of evil. God has reason not to answer these prayers immediately though his whole plan is essentially an answer to the problem in general. The prayer to end hunger is entailed in this prayer that we are instructed to pray: "Come Lord Jesus, Come" and until then, these tragic events are part of the context for redemption. The reason for not answering the prayer affirmatively in the immediate situation is because the immediate situation is part of their salvation and ours, that we are to love our neighbors as our selves and we are to be instrumental in answering this prayer. Part of the prayer of the disciple is to take responsibility and play our part in that. That people starve is because people are not taking their responsibility and are making the mistake of passive praying, prayer that will not be guaranteed. God's plan from the beginning of scripture is to work through humanity in the redemption of humanity (the pinnacle of which is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus though the complete resolution will not occur til he returns). And this is all a blanket statement that the prayers of even those who are starving is that of faithful disciples. These are often of people in war torn areas where there is much rebellion from God. And that's not the total reason and that's not to blame those who are starving, but it is to point out that the solutions that God provides are not being put into full practice.

Rob R said...

post 2 of 3



Regrettably you’re going to have to show data to prove that prayer actually works. No data, no proof, and then no argument.

I have without a doubt provided data. The data is precisely that this is a story that has been told to my church of these two young people and it is the few details that I have offered. The problem isn't a lack of data. The problem is the standard of data. I would admit that it isn't scientific and I'd be quick to warn not to equivocate that this means it contradicts science but only that as the evidence has been provided, it does not satisfy rigorous scientific standards. And that is less of a problem than you think as you have the greater problem if you should suggest that all beliefs must be scientifically verifiable which is itself a contradiction as there are no scientific tests that can verify the scientific method and the assumptions of science. Science represents a means by which the risk that some belief may be wrong is minimized (the risk that something is wrong is what I call epistemic risk). But it cannot minimize that risk absolutely and it is not the only way to minimize such risks nor is there any objective standard as to how much the risk must be reduced before it is reasonable. These standards cannot help but be subjective and dependent upon prior belief systems.

i want you to understand that I know exactly where I am at and I am aware of the nature of my support, but now it is you who are making the unsupported faith claim. You insist that unless what I say matches your standards, I am not justified in what I claim. Where is your proof?

I admit that as I have stated it, there is more risk that I could be wrong than if I could provide more data (which by the way, I intend to do and will post what I find on my website, though it still will not qualify as scientifically rigorous but will just be better detail). But the thing is, it's not my chief concern to be able to prove on your standards. I don't reject the question, I reject the standards. But if we should expect that God answers prayers in amazing ways, any Christian who is a part of the community can find examples where the answer is clearly yes.

I admit thought that I don't really expect you to believe this, but the fact is I can answer your question affirmatively on prayers that have been recently answered recently an clearly. The atheist just can't insist to the Christian that these things don't happen when we hear these strories that confirm there beliefs and they especially cannot insist that we can't believe it when some of us are the ones who have experienced such things. That it doesn't meet the most rigorous standards of proof is another issue and is not conclusive in and of itself.

I would think some “Christian” organization would have an ongoing peer reviewed study regarding the success rate of prayer.

If I described the scientific study here, it was from Russ, IIRC, who said the study was funded by the theistically positive John Templeton foundation foundation that did not get the result. One of the issues here may have been that there was a specific expectation as to how the prayers should be responded to and I'm not convinced that even the three typical responses of no, yes and wait really covers the ground. The question is how responses to prayers fit into the narratives of peoples lives and how they themselves follow through in faith along with the prayer. How a response of prayer fits into one's life isn't necessarily going to qualify in terms of nice neat quantifiable data points to be graphed in a statistical analysis.

Rob R said...

post 3


Chuck

How do you account for people like me that have come to a reasoned conclusion that compassion for others does not need to be neccesitated by a theory of salvific grace? How do you maintain your worldview while respecting my counter perspective?

Chuck, I wouldn't account for what I don't believe. I know we've had similar discussions on this before and I haven't changed one iota on this. That compassion is necessary to faithfulness to Jesus' teachings doesn't mean that I think that this view is necessary for compassion. However, I will say that the compassion that my view fosters is a more wholistic compassion that notes that the problem with starving people isn't just that they are starving because humans can't be reduced to a GI tract. Humans have souls that need healing and we have communities that need healing, we have a world that needs healing (including our earthly eco-system
) and we have a relationship with God that needs healing and these broken areas of our humanity are all deeply interconnected. Starvation is a symptom and again, it is part of the context for redemption. The symptoms screams at us our desperate need for healing.

Ross said...

In an article in Time magazine, Rick Warren said that whenever he prays, he always asks himself whether he might be part of the answer to his own prayer. In other words, is there something I can personally do to meet the need I'm praying for? God works through people, and not just Christians.

I don't mention this to blow my own trumpet, but I recently signed up as UNHCR donor to support its work in refugee camps in Sudan.

At a personal level, there's things I've been praying for for years, but so far with no answer, but my faith is robust enough to grapple with this.

Chuck said...

Rob

I enjoy the dialogue but dispute your answer. Do you think that my compassion or concern for people exists because I see them as a GI tract? Does the Christian concern for eschatology abstract the immediate pain? My experience indicates it does.

Chuck said...

Rob

I enjoy the dialogue but dispute your answer. Do you think that my compassion or concern for people exists because I see them as a GI tract? Does the Christian concern for eschatology abstract the immediate pain? My experience indicates it does.

Chuck said...

rob

what do you mean that science can't verify itself? isn't this just a tactic to poison the well of evidence based verification? do you not trust the predictive probabilities of randomly sampled data?

Jonathan said...

@Rob R Greetings


About begging the question.


If prayer actually worked the world would be a much different place than it is today and this discussion would be moot.

To be honest I don’t understand what you are tying to say in the first paragraph of your reply. I would ask some questions but it will distract from the basic one, where is your proof that miracles occur?

Where is your proof?

I thought insurance deals with risk not science.


You had spent parading around the issue rather than providing data that supports your claim. I am quite sure you posses abilities far better than I to verify claims. You have standards too. Since living in a 1st world nation and viewing various types of television detective stores, I think the phrase is “Just the facts”. It’s not my standards they are standards that we both inherited. There are other things too we inherited and not just entertainment media. Various events in our lives require the same sets of data, date, time, local, event, and conclusion. Claiming that I have created some new set of standards for data evaluation is nice compliment, but it’s also bogus.

Reading prior comments you have posted this same story before. I am guessing you have been in discussions like this before as well. It seems odd that you would trot around the same old tired story which you have claimed may have happened in Central America and not South America. Regardless the data you provided was incredible weak. You seem to have extensive knowledge in this area, but simple information like specific country, county, state, local, date, name of church, all seems to elude you. You seem to write around the subject than offering any examples to support the subject.

Quite honestly I would think you would have a virtual library of examples of Gods interventions. They would be listed by date, time, nation, state, location, the nature of the problem, and the outcome. This can be done on a simple spreadsheet or worse a word document. I would think some Christian agency would have such information.

The problem is the only ones that seem to prove prayer works are Benny Hinn, Todd Bentley, and Peter Popoff but I am quite sure I have missed some.

Category Faith healers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Faith_healers

Rob R said...

post 1 of 2


Chuck, I apologize that what I said may have been more or less presumptive about you, but I wasn't actually thinking about you in particular but a secular approach in general to the need for compassion. It's not as though humanists can't want the psychological well being of others, but it's not some terrible misfortune that one doesn't achieve self actualization. In the Christian view, the spiritual and relational needs are not second to the physical needs. Furthermore, when I call approaches to compassion from a secular angle half measures, that's not to say that what is accomplished can't be good in and of itself but only that more is needed.

Regarding science, it cannot vindicate itself as there is no hypothesis about how science teaches us truth for which experiments can be designed and research can be published. The nature of science, what it implies for knowledge, truth, and reality is not worked out by the rules of science but is a matter of epistemology, metaphysics and more specifically the philosophy of science itself. And of course science involves many assumptions that cannot be scientifically proven such as the idea that the universe works logically, uniformitarianism, that it is of a reality external to the mind. Even something that is as taken for granted as cause and effect is an interpretation of the world that actually is not scientifically assumed. This all highlights that science cannot provide a complete world view. It is part of a world view and it is part of my world view. It is apart of assessing truth and yet cannot assess all truths we believe in. It involves an attempt to decrease the epistemic risk, but this is where I make a fuss, is that just because epistemic risk can't be reduced on the grounds of science doesn't mean that what is believed is not believed for other rational reasons found within the broader world view.

I do put a lot of trust in science, but I'm just not going to put all my eggs in that basket. It's just too small of a basket for everything that humans need as well as what we can reasonably have. I don't need these claims I'm making about these specific answers to prayer that have been brought up, but from a broader world view that I believe is strong from it's general coherence and utilization of more epistemic resources than modernism can employ.

Rob R said...

post 2 of 2


Jonathan, what a world looks like in which prayer works is itself contested.

You seem to want to simplify the discussion and insist that there is only one dispute between us, whether or not the belief that prayers and God's responses to them are reasonable beliefs. And you insist that to flesh this out, we have to do certain things. Well, I'm just not going to agree with you on those certain things. They aren't beyond criticism. When you say "prove," I'm well within reason to question what it is that you are taking for granted when you make the demand.

It’s not my standards they are standards that we both inherited.

Clearly we don't have the same standards when i say that the story of these these two people is enough support to believe it. At the same time, I accept that it isn't enough for you to support it because we do not share the same framework for accepting claims if you insist that all truth claims must be verifiable on scientific grounds where I merely insist that the truth claim must cohere with a broader framework, a world view including a view of how humans obtain knowledge which involves word of mouth such as this story.

Claiming that I have created some new set of standards for data evaluation is nice compliment, but it’s also bogus.

I don't claim that. I think your outlook is representative of modernism but you cannot afford to ignore that this outlook has been severely criticized in these post modern times.

It seems odd that you would trot around the same old tired story

It happened to people of whom I am personally acquainted. It makes perfect sense that I should bring this up. Do I need a new miracle of the week to share? I just don't get why I should retreat from this just because I brought it up before.

which you have claimed may have happened in Central America and not South America.

This isn't a problem as I explained to Russ. The people of whom I spoke are real and I can get the details from them. I don't know why you'd want to make a big deal about an issue that I am feasibly able to correct. But timing is an issue. I believe I may have a chance to speak with the brother towards the end of January. Course I don't have regular access to them. They left our church for theological reasons (reasons which were actually weakened through the event I described amongst others if I understand correctly).

Regardless the data you provided was incredible weak.

If I was making this up, I certainly wouldn't put a time frame on it. I could very well tell you "yeah, I spoke to them last night, and they said the country was this, the city was that, the church was such and such". I live in the real world as is where this story comes from and it's not from my imagination where I could easily nail all these simple things down.

Quite honestly I would think you would have a virtual library of examples of Gods interventions.

Actually, this is a story that I heard casually, not by pursuit in the context of my church community. i don't make it a point to pursue stories about the miraculous because I don't think that they represent the best we have to offer the world. And that is consistently what Jesus promoted as he spurned those who sought only the miracles or worse, demanded signs. I think there is definitely a benefit in probing these stories, but there's a lot of ground to be covered beyond this in terms of theology, philosophy and apologetics and miracles in general are not at the foundation of our beliefs accept the resurrection of Jesus. I know significantly more about that though I am always learning more and that is where I intend to put my energies.

Manifesting Mini Me (MMM) said...

Laurel, Gandolf: In response to this (sorry to have been so negligent): "Have a nice hot cup of tea."

Yeah good idea Laurel....Have a cuppa tea MMM ...Just leave out! that holy water this time though."

I would take you up on your recommendations but my tongue is still stuck in my cheek from my last comment so I can't really take any acid (as Gandolf recommended) or tea right now.

Trying to keep it short here, but it wasn't God Who commanded people to keep food or love from one another - we can be inspired to help in a lot of ways to alleviate all sorts of starvation in all areas of the world - whether it's being starved for food or for love.

Just a little postscript here, but tea is a little too tame for me ---but thx for the helpful suggestion anyway, Laurel! I can feel the love comin' my way! :-)

3M

Chuck said...

Rob,

Why do you think that a secular humanist worldview would presume that spiritual (e.g. consciousness, awareness, mindfulness) and relational needs are second to physical needs?

I can understand your desire to find a personal path towards what is truthful for you but, do you see the hazard in claiming a universal truth without some sort of observable standard available to all those you submit to your universal truth? The epistemic risk you look to minimize seems conflated when subjective experience becomes the standard by which the world is judged. How do you argue for your world-view without appealing to some sort of external standard that can be examined by a non-participatory agent to ensure its common good-will?

I recognize your hard-work in looking to make true what matters to you but still fail to see how it works to help bring coherence to reality.

If you weren't making absolute claims on reality that included my experience (without providing a standard of evidence that I could examine with my own tests to its veracity) then I would be more accepting of your experience but, your argument amounts to nothing more than, "believe me, I know."

Okay, why?

Joshua Jung said...

At a personal level, there's things I've been praying for for years, but so far with no answer, but my faith is robust enough to grapple with this.

What's the difference between faith and stubbornness?

If there is no verifiable connection between the results and the method and you still stick with the method, that is just rank stupidity. There is just one small step between this stubbornness and the parents who refuse medical treatment for their dying children - while they die! - because they believe in some supernatural force or natural cure.

In principle, it is the same.

~

One man's martyr is another man's asshole.

Which are you?

Russ said...

Rob R, you said,

It's CHRISTianity, not miraculanity

I prefer "It's CHRIST inanity," but to each his own.

The claim that it's not miraculanity is absurd since the entire assinine thing is based on miracle claims. It's unfortunate that more people can't be honest enough to look at the miracle claims of the Christianities and assess them in the context in which they were written. When the Christ of the Bible is claimed to have lived - there are a bunch of them living right now - virgin birth, death and resurrection, salvation, and other Christian claims were all the rage for gods that were be believed in. There are dozens of them.

The favorite miracle among the Christianities is not a virgin birth, walking on water, turning water into wine, or one of the dime-a-dozen resurrections so common among god-makers in that era. Nope. The favorite miracle among the Christianties is original sin, and it constitutes the very bedrock of the Christianties. Without the power to demean, belittle and psychologically abuse from cradle to grave you wouldn't have a religion at all.

As you've pointed out, answered prayers are not compelling; other miracles are not compelling. We outside the religion concur. But, when you inculcate a child with the notion that they are disease-ridden and the only cure is some form of Christianity, you've successfully compelled the innocent to serve the authoritarian and financial interests of the clergy.

Understand, Rob R, people don't serve a god, they serve some version of a god imagined by dimestore theologians like yourself as well as those dreamed up by the professional god makers having diplomas from esteemed seminaries and divinity schools. While most Christianities contend monotheism, as a whole the Christianities are polytheistic, having gods that run the gamut of human wishful thinking. There are even an ever-growing number of Christianities that are atheistic social groups.

So, the most important task for theistic Christianities that wish to survive is to burn into their children's minds the notion that they are inherently sinful - personally, I have never met even one such child - and that in some Christianity there awaits an elixir to redeem them from it. The Roman Catholics and many of the fundamentalist sects freely admit that their religions survive only through twisting a child's mind into servility, by so contorting a child's self-image that they embrace intellectual, emotional, and psychological slavery.

This favorite miracle of the Christianities, that cash-flow guarantor, Original Sin(OS), has the taste of homeopathy about it. Homeopaths have invented the miracle notion that water remembers molecules it has been shaken in the presence of. It remembers arsenic, strychnine, a goat's penis, that sort of thing. What's more, water passes on these remembrances to other water molecules as it is made increasingly more dilute, making the pure water even more powerful in the process. From molecule to molecule these aqueous memories, determined by the homeopath, are passed on.

So it goes with original sin. Just like homoepathy what is getting passed on is what the people who invented OS imagine, dream up or wish is being passed on in order to justify the church's existence. Just like homeopathy, the miracle of OS is passed on at the molecular level, but OS is far more miraculous than homeopathic remedies, which indiscriminantly afflict any and all nearby H2O, since it is only passed on to those molecules that make up human beings.

Russ said...

Somehow OS can distinguish between those molecules, the nucleotide bases, that will direct the formation of a human being and those that will make up a planaria, a toadstool, a carp, or a chimpanzee. When OS sees that a DNA strand will become a human being it jumps right in there, infecting the newly-instantiated soul. OS doesn't do this with oak tree or naked mole rat DNA. It leaves them alone. Only human DNA gets this special treatment, because, what?, a god loves human DNA molecules. Just as the human inventors of OS fantasized. I guess it's fortunate that most fertilized human ova get washed away in menstrual flow or there would be even more OS in the world. I'm sure you or one of your theological brethren have fabricated good theological reasons for why most humans souls and their all-important miraculous OS go right down the toilet, down the drain when the laundry's done, or rides on some feminine hygiene product to a landfill.

Why, hell, since theology has no standard to follow, even I could dream up a reason why all those Christian gods would just dump so many souls and so much of that Christianity-justifying OS. Let's see...God knows that all those fertilized eggs would develop into evil people and god only wants what's best for us, the living, and since god made them he can dump them as he pleases. That would work for most Christians. Maybe one more...Oh!, yeah! God wants to kill as many potential anti-Christs before they are born as possible. All the ones that are actually implanted have all passed the anti-Christ security check. I'll leave it to others to make up reasons for why so many of those are miscarried, stillborn, developmentally disabled, or have souls that end up in the wrong religion. But, again, not being tied to a standard, like science uses the natural world as a reference, good theological reasons - as conflicting and contradictory as can be(not that that ever bothers the religious) - will be easy to come by.

It's worthwhile to note though that having reasons is not the same as having truth or being right. Being logically consistent or rational within a set of assumptions does not mean that one has found truth. Novels of all sorts - sci-fi, horror, fantasy, and good ol' yarnspinning, are logical and rational within the assumptions they lay out. But, they're not real. Video games and movies are logical and rational but they too are not real.

So, not only is your religion CHRIST-inanity, it is also miracle-inanity.


and we have observed positive changes and in individual lives due to a Christian or religious framework.

Which is it, Christian or religious? Positive changes can be observed in people who find a social group in which they feel at ease and find support. Positive changes in people are not unique to Christian or other religious social groups. Also, Rob R, it's worth noting that you are claiming that the Christian or religious framework caused the change. This is testable and has been studied. Christianity does not cause positive benefit to a greater extent than does any other supportive environment.

Russ said...

You said,

But I know you don't care.

Ahh, but I do. Remember, religion actively kills people and justifies that killing with insights unavailable to the rest of humanity. Roman Catholics in Africa burn condoms by the millions so as to deny AIDS-infected people access to them. That concerns me. Christian Scientists let their children die from easily addressed injuries and illnesses. That concerns me. Fundamentalist Christians want to hurry along their wish for Armaggedon. That concerns me. People like you perpetuate the false hopes and broken dreams of religious belief while you provide cover for even more rancid religious incarnations. Religions are either actively harming people, or providing safe haven for those which do. That concerns me. That religions do not actively confront the harmful elements in their ranks demonstrates perfectly how religion fails as a moral guide. That too concerns me. So, yes, Rob R, I do care.

You said,

Your worldview already tells you everything you want to know about it because it is not purely observation driven.

I'm not exactly sure what that means.

You said,

Everything that disagrees with your world view is false.

Not true at all. When things conflict with a naturalistic take on things, I do ask for evidence. Thus far, that is, in the entirety of human history, nothing has ever been shown to conflict with naturalism. Up to this point, everything appears to be 100 percent supernatural-free. All specifically religious claims that have ever been investigated have been shown to be consequences of ignorance or outright fraud. Then, too, Rob R, remember that before the advent of science, your religious worldview was in complete control in the West, and mankind suffered terribly for it. If, in all that is, there exists a deity, there exists no evidence for it. What's more, if, in all that is, there exists a deity, there exists much conflict over what it is, how it works, what it thinks about or approves of. Isn't it ironic, Rob R, that with all the thousands of notions that pass as understandings of gods, you are almost certainly wrong. In religion, wrong is wrong. Faith counts for nothing. Ask the current Pope about whether you will make it into heaven being non-Roman Catholic. But, you don't care, do you?

You tell me that "Everything that disagrees with your world view is false," and yet when faced with truth as only Christians can define it for you, you will no doubt disagree yourself. Apparently, you consider yourself free to reject Christian ideas held by the majority of Christians, Roman Catholics, while at the same time you contend that "Christianity provides a more robust answer."

You said,

But I just have no reason to agree with that world view. It certainly isn't implied by science!

I am a complete materialist, Rob R. I'm convinced by the evidence that the material world is all that there is. Though the Christian worldview claims to be backed up by an entity that knows everything it's plain as day that the Christian world view is not reliable at all. For one thing they do not agree amongst themselves that a god exists, that a Jesus lived as described in the Bible, what anything written in the Bible actually means, or whether the Bible is to be believed at all. I know you actually agree with me since you reject much of what is called Christianity yourself, as every thinking person should. Each Christian variant just makes up its own god and its own theology to go with it. That points directly to gods being make-believe. And this is especially true when we consider that the different Christian gods share the biases, hatreds and proclivities of the founders of the sect. The religion is manmade, the god is manmade and the will of god is manmade.

Russ said...

Realize you do not represent what is Christianity as a whole. You misrepresent your religion as being Christian when it is really just a religious backwater with its own theology independent of the rest of the Christianities. The Wesleyans have what 400,000 adherents worldwide?

Rob R, this is all very sad. If you had something special it would show. It doesn't show. You don't have anything special.

When I suggested, "Rob R, maybe you could tell us what the town was where this miracle happened," you replied,

Do you really care? I will find out. This is a story that circulated in my church but I will speak to them personally for you when an opportunity arises.

This is another different telling of the story. Once you said these were persons you knew, and now "This is a story that circulated in my church," and "Actually, this is a story that I heard casually, not by pursuit in the context of my church community." You're not to be believed. You keep revising the story. You're just making it up. You're constantly revising your lie. If the town and the church have names then the story can at least be investigated. The internet has long tentacles, Rob R. Even many small towns have internet access and such an event would certainly make headlines. If such an event was ever even rumored to have taken place in some tiny village, it will have reverberations to this day. We might be able to determine if anyone was around who wasn't lying for Jesus, lying for a Christianity or lying for a god.

If this is a real miracle, Rob R, this would be the first one ever, so it's quite important.

Ross said...

Joshua,

With respect, I think you're drawing a pretty long bowstring there. I'm not being stubborn, but persistent.

I also don't see the connection between my stance and the attitude of parents who refuse medical treatment for their dying children while they die because they believe in some supernatural force or natural cure. I don't know if you're a reader, but if you are I can recommend a good book to you on mainstream Christian thinking about illnesses and healing. Without going into details, these issues are close to my heart because I have first hand experience of them. I'm not just being cold and theoretical.

To give another example, a married couple I know in my church were praying for a child for 20 years, and it was only this year that she fell pregnant, and is shortly due to give birth to her first child. I don't claim to understand God completely, but this reminds me He does answer prayer.

Jonathan said...

@Ross

This is strange you can recommend a book but you don't provide a link to amazon,barns nobles, or something similar and then you don't even mention the title or author, Huh?

Did you think you needed permission?

I am only guessing this couple was around 24 years of age so suddenly they both became fertile at 44.

They have been praying for 20 years.

Do you know how vague this is? So its 1990 when they got married apx. They never heard of fertility clinics? They weren't seeing a doctor?

Was she infertile, him or both?

Maybe the male switch from briefs to boxers and stopped using his laptop on his lap?


This is what I find odd the least likely event becomes the most likely event.

Suddenly God gets around to their prayer and how many people prayed for things and never get them?

Why does providing evidence rather than hearsay become so burdensome.

Russ said...

Ross,

There are a number of 100 percent supernatural-free reasons why a couple may have conceived after 20 years of trying. However, there is no good reason for us to seriously consider answered prayer as a likely reason the couple conceived.

1. The husband was infertile and she had sex with someone else who wasn't.

2. The husband was infertile and the woman conceived through artificial insemination.

3. The woman was born with no eggs and they used in vitro fertilization with a donor egg.

4. The woman's ovaries wouldn't release eggs on their own, but they responded to fertility treatments.

5. They finally switched from anal sex to vaginal sex. True story. Devout Christian couple couldn't conceive. He was fertile. She was fertile. After several years they sought help. Gynecologist discovered the woman had an intact hymen, but had the signs of regular anal sex. Their successful Christian upbringings had left them ignorant of how to go forth and multiply.

6. They spent 20 years faithful that prayer would work and then they got smart and sought all-natural medical intervention.

7. One or both had health issues that were not directly related to reproduction. Some obese women stop ovulating.

8. Some lifestyle choices adversely affect reproduction. If a male spends 20 minutes in a hottub before sex, he significantly reduces the likelihood of conceiving. When I was running more than 100 miles a week, I had a very low sperm count. Women running high mileage sometimes stop ovulating. Many women stop ovulating if their percentage body fat gets too low.

9. Previous injury could effect reproduction. I have a friend from high school who was stabbed in the lower abdomen while he was in elementary school. The scarring left him infertile but, that was not discovered until he married almost 20 years after the injury. This can often be corrected with surgery.

10. Some people's reproductive tracts do not fully mature until later in life. A person might have all the correct secondary sex characteristics while internally not being fully mature.

11. For some women their hormone balances are off such that though they ovulate and the eggs get fertilized just fine, they do not attach to the uterine wall.

12. Some women's eggs do not permit sperm to fertilize.

13. Some women have a genetic defect that keeps the uterine cells from signaling that implantation has taken place, so that although fertilization and implantation have taken place, the woman still menstruates and flushes out any developing embryo.

14. Some women have a deformed reproductive tract that keeps sperm from reaching the uterus.

15. Some men are addicted to porn and they masturbate several times a day which keeps their per ejaculation sperm count rather low. Low sperm count significantly reduces likelihood of fertilization.

16. Some women's vaginal secretions are hostile to sperm. The sperm don't live to make it to the egg.

Ross, there are more than enough natural explanations for why she might not have conceived, any one or more may have been involved. When the obstructing factors were removed she conceived. Any praying directed at their baby-making cause would have been an irrelevant coincidence if all factors are actually taken into account.

You provide us no details with which to assess their particular circumstances, but we know there exist far better explanations than an answered prayer. Your answered prayer is just another instance of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, which you are choosing to consider miraculous.

Russ said...

Ross,

Having something happen that you have prayed for does not mean that the target of the prayer, one of the Christian gods for instance, had anything at all to do with making it happen. Good Christian mommies and daddies dupe their kids into believing in gods just as they do with Santa, the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny. The parents listen to their children's wishes, sometimes expressed as prayers, then the parents fulfill them and explain them as being from a god or Santa or the tooth fairy, leaving the child with false understanding of how things really come about.

Some of the commenters here at DC suggest that their version of a Christian god uses nature or people to perform its wonders. If that is their god, then, they have themselves reduced their god to a synonym for nature. That they choose to label nature with the title God is their prerogative, but it also tells us that answered prayers are superstition and nothing more.

Ignerant Phool said...

Russ,

I just finished reading what you just wrote and had my wife read it also because I mentioned what Ross just said, and wanted to see if she would believe his assertion.

I was telling her "please tell me that you don't think this is really God answering their prayers". And believe it or not, (I'm still laughing) she said it was partly the prayer and partly whatever they were doing to try to get pregnant. To which I LOL, and said "Oh my God! There you Christians go again always finding a way out". Truly amazing.

PrisonerOfChrist4Life said...

Mr. Loftus, God answers prayer but not in the way we expect or hope for.

The basic Christian teaching is:

1. God will answer prayer

2. God will not answer prayer

3. God will answer prayer only in His time.

For example, there are two farmers in two different locations and in the same climate.

There are clouds and minor sunshine!

One prays for rain to water his produce and the other one prays for sunshine for plant growth.

Since God's laws in nature can't be violated he might not answer none of their prayers because there's no rain or sunshine.

In the same way, that's how prayer works.

God answered for example, Hannah's Solomon's and Jabez prayer because it was according to His will.

As you already know God thoughts and his ways are not like ours. Only He knows what is right and what needs to be done.

We do not!

We live in a fallen world that is the reason there is suffering, diseases, pain and the like.

That will all end when the Jesus you believe is a fable returns back to this earth to establish His kingdom.

In your book, "Why I Became A Christian" in the chapter of prayer was well-thought out. I enjoyed it!

But don't be impressed with yourself.

You had your chance now is our turn!

Gandolf said...

PrisonerOfChrist4Life said... "As you already know God thoughts and his ways are not like ours. Only He knows what is right and what needs to be done"

No we dont know that at all.There is absolutely no real evidence to suggest its likely,its an assertion and the total guess work of folks with faith.Its all part of timeless assertions of faith that for thousands of years now have been completely void of absolutely any factual proof.

Its part of this lame excuse known as classic theism.

Rob R said...

post 1 of 2

Chuck,


Why do you think that a secular humanist worldview would presume that spiritual (e.g. consciousness, awareness, mindfulness) and relational needs are second to physical needs?

Chuck, I can't honestly claim that secularism or humanism is a monolithic group and I don't. What I said I believe to be a generalization which very well may have it's exceptions. But what I said, I don't see that starvation and psychological dissatisfaction (or mindfulness) would be weighed the same and given the same alarm. And in fact, I don't weigh them the same (psychological dissatisfaction is after all not exactly the same as spiritual poverty, it is as I said an analogue to even have this particular discussion of comparing the secular concern for the whole person with the Christian one). In Christianity, spiritual poverty and starvation are part of the same crisis, a world alienated from God and people alienated from each other. Perhaps your personal view is analogous to my description of Christianity, but I'd expect it to be in the minority or exceptional. If you want me to give more reasoning behind this, then I will just have to commit an epistemic sin (at least without further probing into the issue by you that seeks different angles in this particular matter for me to interact with) and say that these are my intuitions in response to my observations and reflections.

I can understand your desire to find a personal path towards what is truthful for you but, do you see the hazard in claiming a universal truth without some sort of observable standard available to all those you submit to your universal truth?

Well what are we talking about here? My claims of specific miraculous events or my claims for Christianity. For my claims of the miraculous, I agree that it isn't universally observable and would note that neither is much of in deepest scientific research today. On both grounds, much that is feasibly observable to just about anyone. But the interpretive matters that arise in response to those observations absolutely cannot be determined by observations alone. Besides the observations, there will be reasoning, there will be considerations of near universal assumptions, and there will be appeals to intuitions that are not fully comprehended (intuitions that even some particular atheist/agnostic/secularist may share with a believer and thus a fruitful dialogue may ensue).

I do not weigh the case (or cases) that can be made for christianity and the case for some specific miracles like these to be the same at all nor are they of the same value. If I'm wrong about this one particular instance of the miraculous, it really doesn't effect my view at all. Clearly, just because I believe there are authentic instances of the miraculous doesn't mean that there isn't fraud as well.

Rob R said...

Russ, miracles in and of themselves are not what Christianity is about. They are indispensible but not central. And I'm not going to follow you on some rabbit trail on a rant about depravity equalling a miracle. The principle miracle of Christian belief is the death and resurrection of Jesus, but the point is not that God can do miracles. The point is the meaning of the miracle itself.

As for the rest, it seemed to be more Russ style ranting, and while you do try harder than some, Russ, I'm not that interested in wading through much more conversation with someone who is consistently unwilling to understand a perspective that is not his own.

Happy New Year!

Russ said...

Rob R,
Wow! You said,

miracles in and of themselves are not what Christianity is about

I fail to see how anyone could be more intellectually dishonest than you are being with this statement.

Almost every Christianity is all about miracles. The miracle of changing lives. The miracle of answered prayers. The miracle of eternal punishment. The miracle of heaven. The miracle of forgiveness. The miracle of salvation. The miracle of prophecy. The miracle of divine conception. The miracle of walking on water. The miracle of turning water into wine. The miracle of a cosmic consciousness creating the universe from scratch and gettin' it all fine tuned. The miracle of resurrection. The miracles of genocide commanded and perpetrated by your deity. The miracle of blowing a horn and having the walls come tumbling down. The miracle of creating a soul in a human zygote exactly at the point that the human ovum is fertilized, but being sure not to make one in other species composed of exactly the same materials. The miracle of original sin which also follows only in human lineage. The miracle of the holy spirit. The miracle of transcendence. The miracle of faith.

You say,

the point is not that God can do miracles. The point is the meaning of the miracle itself.

That's just not true, Rob R, and you know it. Without the a continuous infusion of new miracles like changed lives, answered prayers, and heaven, Christianity would be gone.

Rob R, your version of Christianity, the Wesleyan type, is all about miracles. You even suggest that your Christianity is miraculously causally responsible for changing lives. Your dependence on miracle claims to prop up your religion induces you to trot out your regularly-altered version of your Central or South American miracle. You defend the miracle of answered prayer as a reality.

Miracles permeate the songs, the rituals, the holy book, the prayers, and the perpetuation of the doctrine of each person being inherently sinful. Every version of Christianity thinks it a miracle that their god has shown them the way to salvation while the same god has left all others lost. If it were the case that miracles were not the point, the miracles, past and current, would not be placed front and center as proof for the veracity of Christianity's claims.

You say,

I'm not that interested in wading through much more conversation with someone who is consistently unwilling to understand a perspective that is not his own.

I'm always attempting to understand other's perspectives, especially when they differ from my own. What you appear not to be interested in, however, is honest assessment of how your silly claims stack up against reality. If your religion had merit as per your claims for it, it would be obvious. Wesleyans don't stand out as an especially blessed group. If your god favors you or other Christians over non-Christians, no evidence exists to demonstrate it; your god favors you in your mind only.

I really do understand your lack of interest in what I have to say: you are yourself someone who is consistently unwilling to understand a perspective that is not his own. Most of the world's people do not understand the world the way you do, yet you contend that they are mistaken, that you are embracing the correct epistemic risk, the correct Christian epistemic risk, that makes the most sense.

Russ said...

You say Christian, but you don't mean Mormon. You say Christian, but you don't mean Eastern Orthodox. You say Christian, but you don't mean Westboro Baptist Church. You use the word, but you certainly don't care what the word Christian actually means. You use the word Christian as a synonym for "what Rob R believes," but Christian is much broader than "what Rob R believes," and very often incompatibly so.

Rob R, I have two brothers who are professors of philosophy of religion. Neither embraces religions or the supernatural since they know how it's fabricated. As they see it, even for the professionals, theology, Christian or other, is an intellectual philosophy game. Assume this stuff; get one kind of god. Assume this other stuff; get a different kind. Assume original sin is a fact; get one kind of Jesus. Assume original sin is metaphorical; get an altogether different Jesus.

I see you as wanting to play the game, while you maintain your implicit assumption that it's true. Realize that almost anything can be finagled to play out as logically consistent if you choose the right starting assumptions. But, logically consistent does not mean real. Video games work that way. Novels work that way. Fortunate for all of us, you included, reality does not.

Radically differing Christianities are like different video games. With the distinct ad hoc assumptions pasted on by apologists to explain the Bible you get different gods, different Jesuses - totally different theologies.

So, Rob R, I understand that you would prefer for me to accept your theological assumptions so you can play philosophy games. Frankly, I don't give a shit about the games you would like to play. You can't show me that your notions of the world confer any benefit, but I can show that they can, do and are causing harm which includes the harm of expecting and waiting for miracles. I care deeply about people - my fellow man in all his magnificent diversities - who are being actively harmed by people acting out of religious motivation. Don't bother with the "humanitarian aid proves the claims of the Christianities are true" argument. All human communities - atheistic, theistic, or other - provide humanitarian aid. The Christianities are not special in that regard.

You talk about Christianity having the power to change lives. In Africa when a mother beats her two-year-old witch-child to death with a hammer, Christianity changes lives - permanently. In the US when a mother drowns her five children because her Christian god told her to, Christianity changes lives - permanently. When Christian Science parents watch in prayerful vigil while their child screams out her last few hours of life in agony, Christianity changes lives - permanently. When people of your ilk neglect much of the real world so you can pretend that miracles happen and prayers are answered, Christianity perniciously changes lives - too often, permanently.

Rob R said...

I fail to see how anyone could be more intellectually dishonest than you are being with this statement.


I know you feel this way russ and for that, I fail to see the need or point to interact with you further. There are others who are more serious about interaction and understanding what and who they criticize than what your statements convey. You don't get to demand to me what it is that I believe. I tell you, you criticize according to that or there's no point at all. If you said something of more value after that, sorry, but I didn't read it and I love my time too much to spend it looking for such discussion points from you. Bye.

Russ said...

Rob R,
When the time comes for you to put up or shut up, we know where you stand.

The Christianities live off their continual influx of miracles, answered prayer and the rest. To claim otherwise is intellectual dishonesty trying to hide itself under the label "Apologetics."

So, Rob R, pack up your intellectual dishonesty and play your game elsewhere.

Rob R said...

Russ, are you telling me to leave the discussion with you or just the blog thing in general. Well, Already done with the first. As to the second, now why on earth would I do that when so many of the others are willing to engage in fruitful discussions? Do pay attention to your fellow skeptics. They have managed it better than you have.

bye again!

Chuck said...

Rob

Your unwillingness to engage Russ causes me to question the real world commitment you have to the theological claims you assert reduce epistemic risk. Your responses make it seem like you are a pitchman unwilling to defend your wares. Sad.

Russ said...

Goodness no, Rob R.

I was not suggesting you leave this or any other blog.

Best of luck.

Rob R said...

Chuck, Thus far, I'm willing to discuss whatever you want. And I wonder if you are willing to discuss what you just said there.

Chuck, as of late, you are willing to take what I say on the terms that I give it and critisize accordingly. Is Russ? No he isn't. I told him that God's miraculous power is not the essence and heart of Christianity and then I explained that. He went on to change the topic after insisting on my intellectual dishonesty calling the doctrine of depravity a miracle and ranted about that. Look, if you want to criticize depravity, great, write a blog topic, but the perpetual tossing out of new topics doesn't lead to fruitful discussions. It only leads to discussions that don't get anywhere because no one ever comes to grips with the points that are made because they are perpetually tossing out new distractions.

I'll take up the distractions because they are worthwhile, and yet not when they are perpetual.

The topic was answering prayer, from their we went on to the topic of miracles. I was game. From there, I'm supposed to quarrel with Russ about whether original sin is the central miracle of Christianity? At that point, I have to ask where the madness ends. Lets see what other red herrings Russ wanted to bring up... dualism (at the zygote level), the Holy spirit, the varieties of Christianity, witch hunts in Africa, the eterprise of working out logical consistency, and that's just in his last couple of posts. What's worse is that I've discussed some of these things with russ (such as the plurality of Christian faith) and he still brings them up with out responding to what I have said.

Russ doesn't discuss. He quarrels.

Now, maybe you think it's fitting for me to stay on the merry goround with russ and you can judge my thought and efforts on my refusal to do that. It's unfortunate if you do because Chuck, it was real with you and I value your input as you were willing to adapt to what is said, advance the discussion.

The fact is, it isn't worthwhile for just any two people to have just any discussion. Russ may come along some people who are better capable of communicating with him than I am. But if we have to discuss just anything with anyone, I expect you to call John Loftus out on that one who's censored people for precisely the reason that I won't discuss the issues further with one with Russ's style. They just can't advance the discussion, they cannot adapt to what is said in a meaningful way. They can't hop of the merry go round and get deeper in the discussion.

Rob R said...

2nd post

Best of luck.


And blessings to you Russ!

Chuck said...

Rob,

I understand your points.

I also find Russ' challenges to you to be blunt but, valid (I think I also descend to cognitive bias and identify with his POV that Christianity extrapolated is dangerous.)

But, you make good points and my challenge to you is not a worthwhile action towards discussion.

I would encourage you to set up a blog of your own and lay out in a systematic and iterative fashion the components that construct your confidence that Christianity compels the least probable epistemic risk. As yet, I haven't seen how that is possible.

Your claims to confidence in Christianity's best possible truth (e.g. lowest epistemic risk) concern me based on my personal experience with contemporary Christians, what history has shown revealed truth to motivate, and my respect for our society's secular protections.

Hope all is well with you.

Peace.