nemesis wrote:
> Besides, non-believers will say miracles such as healing due to prayer are
> actually a matter of chance,

Only when it's not miraculous. That's kind of the definition of 
miraculous, you see. If praying results in the same number of healings 
as not praying (which it does when you actually take the time to count), 
then yeah, they're a matter of chance.

Now, show me legs growing back on an amputee due to prayer, and I'll be 
convinced.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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nemesis wrote:
> oh, really?!  care to cite your source?  yes, I demand proof.

GIYF. 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1072638.ece

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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nemesis wrote:
> Besides, righteous people who have not heard the Word of God are not going to Hell.

Care to cite me the bible passage that says that?

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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nemesis wrote:
> JHVH just
> demands faith, not sacrifices.  The ones who ally themselves with false gods or
> fallen angels are building their own ruin by allowing evil in their hearts...
> 
> 

JHVH never asked anyone to bring their own child up to a mountain top
and sacrifice them. No, something that important and sadistic would have
been written down.

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nemesis wrote:
>> A religion where everyone actually believed the same things, and who
>> always won wars of oppression against them.
> 
> not possible:  the devil won't let it happen.

So the devil is more powerful than God?

>> A religion where no baby of religious parents is born with birth defects.
> see original sin.

OK, we've established that baptism and acceptance of Jesus compensates 
for original sin. Which means this is a bogus answer.

>> Jesus said that moving mountains is easy for anyone with faith. So, move
>> a mountain. Put Mt Fuji off the coast of San Diego for a week, and I'll
>> believe faith can move mountains.
> 
> Mountains of problems.  Don't read things too literally:  Jesus used parables a
> lot to get his point across. 

OK, let me ask *this* then. People witnessed Jesus performing a real 
live honest-to-goodness miracle, namely using the evil eye to kill a fig 
tree that was behaving the way God had intended. They asked Jesus "Hey, 
how can *I* do miracles?"  Jesus answered untruthfully that all you had 
to do was believe in him and you could move mountains.

Firstly, I don't imagine the answer there was a parable. It wasn't a 
story, and it wasn't about morality. So I think you have the wrong word 
there.

Secondly, let's say that Jesus was trying to impart subtle wisdom rather 
than answering the question. What wisdom exactly do you think Jesus was 
trying to impart?  You say it wasn't "you can move mountains with 
belief." Also clearly, it wasn't simply "You can't do miracles, period." 
So what in between do you think he meant, precisely?

Because I'm pretty sure that whatever you come up with, it'll be 
factually incorrect.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:23:34 -0500, nemesis wrote:
> 
>> following the Adamsian thinking, it seems indeed He is God!  Because
>> He's trying His best to hide evidence of His existence by denying it in
>> a newsgroups! :))
> 
> Damn.  I've been found out. ;-)
> 
> Jim

Thou art God, drink water and be well.

There, now we've officially derailed to the topic of the thread started
to distract us from this one.

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nemesis wrote:
> Sabrina Kilian <"ykgp at vtSPAM.edu"> wrote:
>> In other words, if God is omnipotent and omniscient, why does his
>> planning suck?
> 
> His planning doesn't suck.  How can you say that when you don't even know it?
> 

I can look at the world around me and see suffering. I can see people
who are suffering praying for some kind of help, of any kind at all. I
don't need to know what the actual plan is to know that it isn't working
all that well at this point in time. You can believe that this is
temporary and the plan gets better, I don't believe.

Tell me how, in any way shape or form, a 2 year old getting cancer and
dying painfully fits into any plan to make the rest of the world a
better place. Mesh that with the fact that if a person were to suggest
the exact same end result, kill a few 2 year olds and the world will be
better, they would be ridiculed, mocked, and quite possibly stoned in
the streets.

>> If Evil is outside of God's control, then God is not omnipotent. If he
>> simply does not stop evil, but allows it to happen when he could act to
>> stop it, then he is not Good. And if he can not interact with us to stop
>> it, then why get upset that some people choose not to believe in
>> something that can not even interact with this existence?
> 
> enough with Epicurus.  He didn't knew God's plans either.  He presumes life =
> good, death = bad; which is not necessarily right in all cases.  I'm not saying
> this as justification for genocides committed by men's hands, but applying it to
> tragedies out of men's control.  Also, it may take time,  but justice is
> eventually made.  Epicurus talked as if suffering was continuous on the same
> victims no matter what and the criminous was allowed a life of happiness
> thereafter.  Most criminous against humanity have had some terrible deaths or
> tragedies in their families or mental illness in the last days or whatever.
> Hitler suicided,  his partner Goebbels killed his 6 children and suicided,
> Saddam saw his 2 sons die and then was eventually executed.  God directly
> influences this world via men's actions too.
> 

Knew I was quoting that argument from someone, but I couldn't remember
Epicurus by name. Thanks for reminding me.

However, I was not making the same argument. I made no connection to
what good and evil are. There are some cases where death is good
compared to the alternatives. One person dying to save someone else,
while painful to have happen to someone you know, could be said to be
better then both of the people dying.

We have, supposedly, eaten from the tree of knowledge, we should know
what good and evil is. Why, then, is something that we could all agree
is evil allowed to happen at all?

Can God stop it if he wanted to?
Why doesn't he?
Why should I worship some one/thing that wouldn't stop these things from
happening?

> Besides, non-believers will say miracles such as healing due to prayer are
> actually a matter of chance, so I don't see the relevance of them trying to
> find proof of God's interactions in the world when every said interaction can
> be ultimately traced to quantum fluctuations, which IMO is precisely God's way
> of interacting with the physical world...
> 
> 

Show me an actual miracle. They were so common in the OT days, and Jesus
performed them on street corners. Why, all these years later, are we
asked to take it on faith that one book tells the truth and other books
tell lies?

And my reason for not believing in the healing power of prayer is that,
simply, it never worked from where I saw it. I haven't seen cancer
disappear from prayer alone. I never saw limbs grow back, scars
disappear, or painful injuries simple go away.

Even if God does just act through quantum fluctuations, why doesn't he
do something about the things that are going on. Why bother putting the
face of Jesus in a tree when he could put his face in Darfur after
suddenly providing some food for people there. We argue around in
circles about this for a long time. The problem that I see, is that
while I disagree with your belief and simply don't agree with it, the
few quirky statements offering to pray for the 'non-believers' shows
that you don't really respect those who don't share your belief.

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Joel Yliluoma wrote:
> This is just an example. The point is, valid reasons may often exist
> beyond the immediate and obvious interpretations, even if you don't
> see them.
> 

Can you offer just one?

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On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:52:23 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> The book, from what I've heard of it, uses the idea of a clockwork as
>> its premise - something so mechanically complex that it must have been
>> created rather than evolved or grown.
> 
> Well, mechanical devices don't evolve because they're not alive. It's
> very difficult to have darwinian evolution without birth and death and
> genetics and such.
> 
> But if you set up an ecosystem with gears and hands and weights and
> rachets and things like that, and apply selection pressure for accurate
> watches, suddenly you get pretty accurate watches evolving.

Essentially that video you pointed me at.  Fascinating stuff, of course - 
but because a watch is an inanimate object, it can't evolve, and that's 
the point those who think the book I referenced is a good explanation for 
God's existence do.  I happen to disagree with them.

Jim

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On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:56:32 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>> Therefore there is no Hell.
> 
> Yep. And all the carvings on the cathedral where Jesus is guesturing to
> Satan (who surprisingly looks *just* like Loki, Pan, and Bacchus) to
> drag the unbelievers off in chains to hell?  That's just decoration.

Well, "artists interpretation" and through much of Europe, I've heard, 
the designs were approached from a "hey, this might look cool" idea.

And where they weren't, it was more of a "scare people into submission".  
IMHO, organized religion isn't about God, it's about controlling people.

Jim

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