Why do we no longer see the miracles that were prevalent before we could scrutinize them and subject them to inquiry?
Why is it easier to make excuses for why an omnipotent God is powerless to bring good to pass than it is to recognize he is a fictional character who could not affect our lives if he had an existence or will that wanted to?
I feel it's the inverse. We reasoned God put of existence by demanding a formless God can only exist if he's proven to have form. The enlightenment period comes to mind as to where on the horizon the shift occured.
I think you [not you, but the community of faith in general] posited a God who exists and who demonstrates his existence only to turn around and redefine existence so as to make it undetectable to account for the fact that he fails any test for existence.
If you ever get a chance, look up Carl Sagan's dragon in the garage and you'll see my point.
The Bible does not describe a God who will do His best to avoid detection as a test of faith. It describes a God who rewards those who diligently seek him with tangible evidence of his power.
****
For anyone not following threads, this thread is intended as the unbeliever's answer to a similarly titled thread in doctrinal. Because doctrinal is supposed to explore the Biblical answer to the questions raised therein, I chose not to respond there.
But why do we not see the same miracles today that we saw in the first century or in the 1970s when people told incredible [and coincidentally unverifiable] stories of miraculous healings? You guys are twisting yourselves into pretzels seeking an answer to the point of denying any such "scarcity" exists. My unbelieving ass is sitting here giggling vecause the answer is so painfully obvious: The scarcity of miracles is directly relate to the non-existence of a power behind them.
I just posted the following in the doctrinal budget thread. Maybe it fits better here?
Nomatter how (H-O-W) one parses the huckster's bullshonta, logical leaps, imaginary constructions, scriptural twistings and back door cop outs will always be required to make it fit. ALWAYS.
"You're missing a step... the definition has changed... that's not the right goal post... you didn't REALLY understand it the first time... the huckster didn't REALLY teach itthat way... the huckster didn't REALLY mean what he said... it's not in God's budget... there are other forces stronger than God.. but not REALLY... got to keep your realms rightly divided...."
Nomatter how (H-O-W) one parses the huckster's bullshonta, logical leaps, imaginary constructions, scriptural twistings and back door cop outs will always be required to make it fit. ALWAYS.
"You're missing a step... the definition has changed... that's not the right goal post... you didn't REALLY understand it the first time... the huckster didn't REALLY teach itthat way... the huckster didn't REALLY mean what he said... it's not in God's budget... there are other forces stronger than God.. but not REALLY... got to keep your realms rightly divided...."
Why do people fall for this bulls hit?
It's ALL bull$ hit. Occam's razor, to me, suggests it's ALL nothing more/less than rationalization.
Why do people fall for it? That's not an easy question to answer. I suspect academics (philosophers/psychologists/sociologists) have been pondering it for years. Maybe 200 years or more.
Why do we no longer see the miracles that were prevalent before we could scrutinize them and subject them to inquiry?
Why is it easier to make excuses for why an omnipotent God is powerless to bring good to pass than it is to recognize he is a fictional character who could not affect our lives if he had an existence or will that wanted to?
Personally for me I mean unless people are talking about parking space miracles which is another story completely I don’t have periods of time in my life of walking on water in any sense. And so other times where I sink in water are pretty much normal.
Should God make the Yankees or the Red Sox win the World Series? Which one would be bringing good to pass?
I think you [not you, but the community of faith in general] posited a God who exists and who demonstrates his existence only to turn around and redefine existence so as to make it undetectable to account for the fact that he fails any test for existence.
If you ever get a chance, look up Carl Sagan's dragon in the garage and you'll see my point.
The Bible does not describe a God who will do His best to avoid detection as a test of faith. It describes a God who rewards those who diligently seek him with tangible evidence of his power.
****
For anyone not following threads, this thread is intended as the unbeliever's answer to a similarly titled thread in doctrinal. Because doctrinal is supposed to explore the Biblical answer to the questions raised therein, I chose not to respond there.
But why do we not see the same miracles today that we saw in the first century or in the 1970s when people told incredible [and coincidentally unverifiable] stories of miraculous healings? You guys are twisting yourselves into pretzels seeking an answer to the point of denying any such "scarcity" exists. My unbelieving foot is sitting here giggling vecause the answer is so painfully obvious: The scarcity of miracles is directly relate to the non-existence of a power behind them.
Scarcity.
Well then what power is it that brings the scarce ones to pass?
Why are there all the sick kids in the cancer ward? Yeah no answer here. I don’t really fully buy into the all Satan is unrestricted here for a time stories.
Maybe Satan is unrestricted here for a time. I just don’t fully know understand or trust that to the point of feeling I can use it in a discussion about proof.
I think you [not you, but the community of faith in general] posited a God who exists and who demonstrates his existence only to turn around and redefine existence so as to make it undetectable to account for the fact that he fails any test for existence.
Unfortunately, mainstream Christianity tends to go deep with the bullshonta. Whether, its the fake megachurches that basically have actors and performers on stage to the fundmentalist ideals and attitudes that are so freaking narrow minded and out to lunch that I just cant. So you make a valid point that the community of faith tends to play whack-a-mole with how God can pop-up here and there and the rest you have to take by blind faith. That's hucksterism 101. So, perhaps its more of a blend. On one hand you have ridicalousness in the Churches with fake miracles and various non-sensical doctrines and then you have the straigh secular side of things that allows nothing spititual because spirit cannot be physically verified. I mean, really, theres no easy pat answer to any of this and Im not trying to give one. For me, a grain of mustard seed type faith made the difference.
Churches should be taxed, just like any other profit driven business. When snake oil ceases to be a profitable commodity, the number of people selling it will "miraculously" shrink.
Churches should be taxed, just like any other profit driven business. When snake oil ceases to be a profitable commodity, the number of people selling it will "miraculously" shrink.
Maybe that should also apply to all "non-profit" foundations that are set up by celebrities, retired sports figures and the like where the administrative costs and payroll fees to family members are nearly 85-90% of the foundation.
Maybe that should also apply to all "non-profit" foundations that are set up by celebrities, retired sports figures and the like where the administrative costs and payroll fees to family members are nearly 85-90% of the foundation.
Personally for me I mean unless people are talking about parking space miracles which is another story completely I don’t have periods of time in my life of walking on water in any sense. And so other times where I sink in water are pretty much normal.
Should God make the Yankees or the Red Sox win the World Series? Which one would be bringing good to pass?
How about war? Do Gods people always win?
Who should God make win the next election?
”With great power comes great responsibility”
Peter Parker, Spider-Man
So continuing on in my folly - RAF for your benefit my proofs thus far have involved what you view as fictional characters, I will keep moving ahead. Lol.
I really don’t engage my brain on the “what God should do” side of things much. For me a simple faith approach works better. Jesus Christ as Lord means I need some help on some things - most things actually.
On the other side I engage the action like it’s me 100 percent responsible.
And I’m happy with the results.
As far as the scarcity of miracles, why is it that the only undefeated NFL team was the 1972 Miami Dolphins?
Maybe that should also apply to all "non-profit" foundations that are set up by celebrities, retired sports figures and the like where the administrative costs and payroll fees to family members are nearly 85-90% of the foundation.
Yes. Non profits protect all sorts of evil. Like the Jared from Subway one I watched a docu on recently.
On the other side they allow for some pretty beneficial community endeavors. I wonder if they could regulate the BS out of them or if it’s not worth the effort.
I think you [not you, but the community of faith in general] posited a God who exists and who demonstrates his existence only to turn around and redefine existence so as to make it undetectable to account for the fact that he fails any test for existence.
If you ever get a chance, look up Carl Sagan's dragon in the garage and you'll see my point.
The Bible does not describe a God who will do His best to avoid detection as a test of faith. It describes a God who rewards those who diligently seek him with tangible evidence of his power.
****
For anyone not following threads, this thread is intended as the unbeliever's answer to a similarly titled thread in doctrinal. Because doctrinal is supposed to explore the Biblical answer to the questions raised therein, I chose not to respond there.
But why do we not see the same miracles today that we saw in the first century or in the 1970s when people told incredible [and coincidentally unverifiable] stories of miraculous healings? You guys are twisting yourselves into pretzels seeking an answer to the point of denying any such "scarcity" exists. My unbelieving foot is sitting here giggling vecause the answer is so painfully obvious: The scarcity of miracles is directly relate to the non-existence of a power behind them.
I guess there is one point I disagree with you on here. That being the Bible not describing a God who avoids detection and the rewards being tangible evidence of His power.
God doesn’t “avoid detection” He is spirit. Which is the essence of detection avoidance. Catch spirit on radar for me.
The Bible does describe the need to be a “spiritual man” to receive “spiritual matters” or whatever that natural man verse says.
So yes the Bible describes natural man as having detection avoidance in the makeup. This is not God doing any iota of anything.
Next “tangible evidence of His power”. To whom I say would the evidence be required to present? A “natural” jury? I mean the most spectacular miracles would make the bill but not the “budget miracles” lol.
So the non existence of power could just be describing living amongst the Amish for a modern person.
Do I see enough evidence of proof for myself? I do. I think that is part of faith. At least for me.
Why do we no longer see the miracles that were prevalent before we could scrutinize them and subject them to inquiry?
I think you may be assuming a lot of those that came before that may or may not be true. For example: miracles ... How do we know they didn't verify miracles? And find them miraculous? I think we assume that people in the past tended to be less...less learned..less intelligent...yet modern day technology still cannot replicate the pyramids, or even the architecture of some of our more archaic buildings. Our ancestors were advanced in ways we no longer comprehend. I don't buy history's view that everybody before the last few decades were primitive and ignorant. Fact of the matter is we assume what they called miracles weren't verifiable as miracles from our modern point of view, but at best it's conjecture because none us were actually there.
Who is to say that man hasn't become less learned and capable over the past few centuries even. History is only reliable to a degree because it's biased in favor of which ever culture was victorious so they could write history.
If you ever get a chance, look up Carl Sagan's dragon in the garage and you'll see my point.
The Bible does not describe a God who will do His best to avoid detection as a test of faith. It describes a God who rewards those who diligently seek him with tangible evidence of his power.
Raf, I gotta say you have a great point in comparing The Dragon in my Garage in relation to medern day Churchianity, such as the way international. The way Sagan describes those moved goal posts in his anaolgy is quite apt. There are many groups guilty of moving the goal (Christian or otherwise) and it's been my experience that Christian cults tend to excel at this maneuver. I can empathisize with how you have come to your position.
There is a lot of things I can't prove to someone else, so what? It's those things that forever keep me sane and knowing miracles and many other things. There are a few people who know I'm telling the truth, if anyone doesn't believe me, I don't really care that much about it. I'm not going to spend much time explaining what God can explain to you if you listen and haven't given up on answers to supernatural, spiritual and enlightening matters.
There is a lot of things I can't prove to someone else, so what? It's those things that forever keep me sane and knowing miracles and many other things. There are a few people who know I'm telling the truth, if anyone doesn't believe me, I don't really care that much about it. I'm not going to spend much time explaining what God can explain to you if you listen and haven't given up on answers to supernatural, spiritual and enlightening matters.
I mean, your POV is fine and it's not that Im in disagreement. Ive seen a lot from God and my life is a testimony and it would be easy enough to just plant my banner on the other side of Raf's position, and on one hand there would be nothing wrong with that (Im not even saying youve done that). But then we just wind up in opposite camps when we could try to understand how and why each other's positions developed. I do agree that is important not to give up on answers to the supernatural, etc. That grain of mustard seed kind of faith is what eventually kindled a relationship with Jesus Christ that I had been missing my entire life. However, I do fully understand how one get's fooled by false doctrines and Church hurt to the point of saying it's all Bologna. Empathy can rule the day because it's by understanding how someone arrives at the place they currently "reside" that allows me to be touched by their feelings and position(s). Yes, I want Raf and anyone else out there to have Jesus Christ in their lives as their Lord and these sort of issues come into focus.
Churches should be taxed, just like any other profit driven business. When snake oil ceases to be a profitable commodity, the number of people selling it will "miraculously" shrink.
10 hours ago, skyrider said:
Maybe that should also apply to all "non-profit" foundations that are set up by celebrities, retired sports figures and the like where the administrative costs and payroll fees to family members are nearly 85-90% of the foundation.
Raf, I gotta say you have a great point in comparing The Dragon in my Garage in relation to medern day Churchianity, such as the way international. The way Sagan describes those moved goal posts in his anaolgy is quite apt. There are many groups guilty of moving the goal (Christian or otherwise) and it's been my experience that Christian cults tend to excel at this maneuver. I can empathisize with how you have come to your position.
Non overlapping magisteria. Man that is a mouthful. It separates science from religion into buckets. It seems to have been adopted by a couple of philosophers and would apply to ANY religion not just Christianity.
This is a topic that has seemingly been handled through the ages - I don’t have enough references on it yet.
Non overlapping magisteria. Man that is a mouthful. It separates science from religion into buckets. It seems to have been adopted by a couple of philosophers and would apply to ANY religion not just Christianity.
This is a topic that has seemingly been handled through the ages - I don’t have enough references on it yet.
Okay digging in deeper to this as it is more interesting than surface level commentary and arguments.
NOMA for short deals with the approach of separating science and religion into 2 different buckets as it is proposed they contain 2 different kinds of truth.
Albert Einstein dealt with the “is ought” problem. This is dealing with the fact science handles what “is”. Religion handles what “ought”.
I am just learning this NOMA concept and theological philosophy. Many of these arguments have been gone over before mostly with people with better resources and more developed positions than I have.
The problem with non-overlapping magisteria as a concept is that to adopt it, you have to ignore the fact that religion makes testable claims. The concept was popularized by biologist Stephen Jay Gould to neutralize debate between evolution v. creation. It was a deliberate effort to convince people that accepting the fact of evolution (his words) was not inconsistent with belief in God.
And it's not. As long as that God doesn't define himself. Once he does, non-overlapping magisteria becomes an inapplicable principle. You can't have all of mankind bottlenecked to two humans, Adam and Eve, roughly 10,000 years ago AND pretend that is not a claim that can be tested by science. It most certainly can.
Yes, there are certain things that can stay in the realm of religion without intersecting with science. The source and "objective" nature of morality, for example. The exact moment life begins and the deliberate abortion of a fetus becomes murder. Science won't answer that. Religion can, and its answer can be debated with a competing religion or with a humanist worldview. But science cannot make the moral judgment required.
But religion says concrete, testable things about the world that cannot simply be declared "non-overlapping" by fiat. When that football player collapsed on the field in January, thousands of people prayed for him. But no one got in the way of the medical team that was performing CPR and other measures to save his life. You didn't see the CPR team getting out of the way of the faith healers. Why not? Faith healing is a testable claim. Just don't test that $#!T on me! Call me a doctor, stat!
The problem with non-overlapping magisteria as a concept is that to adopt it, you have to ignore the fact that religion makes testable claims. The concept was popularized by biologist Stephen Jay Gould to neutralize debate between evolution v. creation. It was a deliberate effort to convince people that accepting the fact of evolution (his words) was not inconsistent with belief in God.
And it's not. As long as that God doesn't define himself. Once he does, non-overlapping magisteria becomes an inapplicable principle. You can't have all of mankind bottlenecked to two humans, Adam and Eve, roughly 10,000 years ago AND pretend that is not a claim that can be tested by science. It most certainly can.
Yes, there are certain things that can stay in the realm of religion without intersecting with science. The source and "objective" nature of morality, for example. The exact moment life begins and the deliberate abortion of a fetus becomes murder. Science won't answer that. Religion can, and its answer can be debated with a competing religion or with a humanist worldview. But science cannot make the moral judgment required.
But religion says concrete, testable things about the world that cannot simply be declared "non-overlapping" by fiat. When that football player collapsed on the field in January, thousands of people prayed for him. But no one got in the way of the medical team that was performing CPR and other measures to save his life. You didn't see the CPR team getting out of the way of the faith healers. Why not? Faith healing is a testable claim. Just don't test that $#!T on me! Call me a doctor, stat!
The “as long as God doesn’t define Himself” line of thinking indicates that once you see evidence of this from a scientific factual perspective that now you have something to disprove God with.
And facts can be manipulated enough to sway towards confirmation bias on either side of the argument.
The entire idea about the new birth is accepting something you can’t see, believing in a relationship you can’t “feel” and waking out on trust in a higher power.
Thomas put his hand in the side of the resurrected Christ. He didn’t have the technology to make a Snapchat of it and publish it on the net so he could “prove” to everyone what he saw and get an objective confirmation.
If that was not the case then freewill is a farce. It’s just following a trail to an inevitable conclusion shown by the evidence that may or may not be true and may or may not have any causal effect.
With that said, Benny Hinn , Creflo and the like give off a really creepy energy. And are frauds that we have discussed along the lines of Branham. The two choices are not those clowns or no supernatural action at all. But that is how you frame the argument.
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waysider
Churches should be taxed, just like any other profit driven business. When snake oil ceases to be a profitable commodity, the number of people selling it will "miraculously" shrink.
skyrider
Maybe that should also apply to all "non-profit" foundations that are set up by celebrities, retired sports figures and the like where the administrative costs and payroll fees to family members are n
Raf
Why do we no longer see the miracles that were prevalent before we could scrutinize them and subject them to inquiry? Why is it easier to make excuses for why an omnipotent God is powerless to br
OldSkool
I feel it's the inverse. We reasoned God put of existence by demanding a formless God can only exist if he's proven to have form. The enlightenment period comes to mind as to where on the horizon the shift occured.
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Raf
I disagree.
I think you [not you, but the community of faith in general] posited a God who exists and who demonstrates his existence only to turn around and redefine existence so as to make it undetectable to account for the fact that he fails any test for existence.
If you ever get a chance, look up Carl Sagan's dragon in the garage and you'll see my point.
The Bible does not describe a God who will do His best to avoid detection as a test of faith. It describes a God who rewards those who diligently seek him with tangible evidence of his power.
****
For anyone not following threads, this thread is intended as the unbeliever's answer to a similarly titled thread in doctrinal. Because doctrinal is supposed to explore the Biblical answer to the questions raised therein, I chose not to respond there.
But why do we not see the same miracles today that we saw in the first century or in the 1970s when people told incredible [and coincidentally unverifiable] stories of miraculous healings? You guys are twisting yourselves into pretzels seeking an answer to the point of denying any such "scarcity" exists. My unbelieving ass is sitting here giggling vecause the answer is so painfully obvious: The scarcity of miracles is directly relate to the non-existence of a power behind them.
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Nathan_Jr
I just posted the following in the doctrinal budget thread. Maybe it fits better here?
No matter how (H-O-W) one parses the huckster's bullshonta, logical leaps, imaginary constructions, scriptural twistings and back door cop outs will always be required to make it fit. ALWAYS.
"You're missing a step... the definition has changed... that's not the right goal post... you didn't REALLY understand it the first time... the huckster didn't REALLY teach it that way... the huckster didn't REALLY mean what he said... it's not in God's budget... there are other forces stronger than God.. but not REALLY... got to keep your realms rightly divided...."
It's turtles all the way down.
Why do people fall for this bulls hit?
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Rocky
It's ALL bull$ hit. Occam's razor, to me, suggests it's ALL nothing more/less than rationalization.
Why do people fall for it? That's not an easy question to answer. I suspect academics (philosophers/psychologists/sociologists) have been pondering it for years. Maybe 200 years or more.
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chockfull
Personally for me I mean unless people are talking about parking space miracles which is another story completely I don’t have periods of time in my life of walking on water in any sense. And so other times where I sink in water are pretty much normal.
Should God make the Yankees or the Red Sox win the World Series? Which one would be bringing good to pass?
How about war? Do Gods people always win?
Who should God make win the next election?
”With great power comes great responsibility”
Peter Parker, Spider-Man
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chockfull
Scarcity.
Well then what power is it that brings the scarce ones to pass?
Why are there all the sick kids in the cancer ward? Yeah no answer here. I don’t really fully buy into the all Satan is unrestricted here for a time stories.
Maybe Satan is unrestricted here for a time. I just don’t fully know understand or trust that to the point of feeling I can use it in a discussion about proof.
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OldSkool
Unfortunately, mainstream Christianity tends to go deep with the bullshonta. Whether, its the fake megachurches that basically have actors and performers on stage to the fundmentalist ideals and attitudes that are so freaking narrow minded and out to lunch that I just cant. So you make a valid point that the community of faith tends to play whack-a-mole with how God can pop-up here and there and the rest you have to take by blind faith. That's hucksterism 101. So, perhaps its more of a blend. On one hand you have ridicalousness in the Churches with fake miracles and various non-sensical doctrines and then you have the straigh secular side of things that allows nothing spititual because spirit cannot be physically verified. I mean, really, theres no easy pat answer to any of this and Im not trying to give one. For me, a grain of mustard seed type faith made the difference.
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waysider
Churches should be taxed, just like any other profit driven business. When snake oil ceases to be a profitable commodity, the number of people selling it will "miraculously" shrink.
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skyrider
Maybe that should also apply to all "non-profit" foundations that are set up by celebrities, retired sports figures and the like where the administrative costs and payroll fees to family members are nearly 85-90% of the foundation.
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waysider
You won't see me argue with that.
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chockfull
So continuing on in my folly - RAF for your benefit my proofs thus far have involved what you view as fictional characters, I will keep moving ahead. Lol.
I really don’t engage my brain on the “what God should do” side of things much. For me a simple faith approach works better. Jesus Christ as Lord means I need some help on some things - most things actually.
On the other side I engage the action like it’s me 100 percent responsible.
And I’m happy with the results.
As far as the scarcity of miracles, why is it that the only undefeated NFL team was the 1972 Miami Dolphins?
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chockfull
Yes. Non profits protect all sorts of evil. Like the Jared from Subway one I watched a docu on recently.
On the other side they allow for some pretty beneficial community endeavors. I wonder if they could regulate the BS out of them or if it’s not worth the effort.
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chockfull
I guess there is one point I disagree with you on here. That being the Bible not describing a God who avoids detection and the rewards being tangible evidence of His power.
God doesn’t “avoid detection” He is spirit. Which is the essence of detection avoidance. Catch spirit on radar for me.
The Bible does describe the need to be a “spiritual man” to receive “spiritual matters” or whatever that natural man verse says.
So yes the Bible describes natural man as having detection avoidance in the makeup. This is not God doing any iota of anything.
Next “tangible evidence of His power”. To whom I say would the evidence be required to present? A “natural” jury? I mean the most spectacular miracles would make the bill but not the “budget miracles” lol.
So the non existence of power could just be describing living amongst the Amish for a modern person.
Do I see enough evidence of proof for myself? I do. I think that is part of faith. At least for me.
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OldSkool
I think you may be assuming a lot of those that came before that may or may not be true. For example: miracles ... How do we know they didn't verify miracles? And find them miraculous? I think we assume that people in the past tended to be less...less learned..less intelligent...yet modern day technology still cannot replicate the pyramids, or even the architecture of some of our more archaic buildings. Our ancestors were advanced in ways we no longer comprehend. I don't buy history's view that everybody before the last few decades were primitive and ignorant. Fact of the matter is we assume what they called miracles weren't verifiable as miracles from our modern point of view, but at best it's conjecture because none us were actually there.
Who is to say that man hasn't become less learned and capable over the past few centuries even. History is only reliable to a degree because it's biased in favor of which ever culture was victorious so they could write history.
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modcat5
Some things are better said than argued.
Let the reader decide. Well argued, friends. Feel free to continue.
Raf
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OldSkool
Raf, I gotta say you have a great point in comparing The Dragon in my Garage in relation to medern day Churchianity, such as the way international. The way Sagan describes those moved goal posts in his anaolgy is quite apt. There are many groups guilty of moving the goal (Christian or otherwise) and it's been my experience that Christian cults tend to excel at this maneuver. I can empathisize with how you have come to your position.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Dragon_in_My_Garage#Overview_of_the_analogy
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cman
There is a lot of things I can't prove to someone else, so what? It's those things that forever keep me sane and knowing miracles and many other things. There are a few people who know I'm telling the truth, if anyone doesn't believe me, I don't really care that much about it. I'm not going to spend much time explaining what God can explain to you if you listen and haven't given up on answers to supernatural, spiritual and enlightening matters.
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OldSkool
I mean, your POV is fine and it's not that Im in disagreement. Ive seen a lot from God and my life is a testimony and it would be easy enough to just plant my banner on the other side of Raf's position, and on one hand there would be nothing wrong with that (Im not even saying youve done that). But then we just wind up in opposite camps when we could try to understand how and why each other's positions developed. I do agree that is important not to give up on answers to the supernatural, etc. That grain of mustard seed kind of faith is what eventually kindled a relationship with Jesus Christ that I had been missing my entire life. However, I do fully understand how one get's fooled by false doctrines and Church hurt to the point of saying it's all Bologna. Empathy can rule the day because it's by understanding how someone arrives at the place they currently "reside" that allows me to be touched by their feelings and position(s). Yes, I want Raf and anyone else out there to have Jesus Christ in their lives as their Lord and these sort of issues come into focus.
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Nathan_Jr
Amen and amen.
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chockfull
Well from my biased perspective it’s more fun quoting Spider-Man 1:17 than it is quoting Mike 3:20 sooooo…..
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chockfull
Yes digging into the dragon in the garage it cuts across this concept:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Non-Overlapping_Magisteria
Non overlapping magisteria. Man that is a mouthful. It separates science from religion into buckets. It seems to have been adopted by a couple of philosophers and would apply to ANY religion not just Christianity.
This is a topic that has seemingly been handled through the ages - I don’t have enough references on it yet.
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chockfull
Okay digging in deeper to this as it is more interesting than surface level commentary and arguments.
NOMA for short deals with the approach of separating science and religion into 2 different buckets as it is proposed they contain 2 different kinds of truth.
Albert Einstein dealt with the “is ought” problem. This is dealing with the fact science handles what “is”. Religion handles what “ought”.
I am just learning this NOMA concept and theological philosophy. Many of these arguments have been gone over before mostly with people with better resources and more developed positions than I have.
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Raf
The problem with non-overlapping magisteria as a concept is that to adopt it, you have to ignore the fact that religion makes testable claims. The concept was popularized by biologist Stephen Jay Gould to neutralize debate between evolution v. creation. It was a deliberate effort to convince people that accepting the fact of evolution (his words) was not inconsistent with belief in God.
And it's not. As long as that God doesn't define himself. Once he does, non-overlapping magisteria becomes an inapplicable principle. You can't have all of mankind bottlenecked to two humans, Adam and Eve, roughly 10,000 years ago AND pretend that is not a claim that can be tested by science. It most certainly can.
Yes, there are certain things that can stay in the realm of religion without intersecting with science. The source and "objective" nature of morality, for example. The exact moment life begins and the deliberate abortion of a fetus becomes murder. Science won't answer that. Religion can, and its answer can be debated with a competing religion or with a humanist worldview. But science cannot make the moral judgment required.
But religion says concrete, testable things about the world that cannot simply be declared "non-overlapping" by fiat. When that football player collapsed on the field in January, thousands of people prayed for him. But no one got in the way of the medical team that was performing CPR and other measures to save his life. You didn't see the CPR team getting out of the way of the faith healers. Why not? Faith healing is a testable claim. Just don't test that $#!T on me! Call me a doctor, stat!
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chockfull
The “as long as God doesn’t define Himself” line of thinking indicates that once you see evidence of this from a scientific factual perspective that now you have something to disprove God with.
And facts can be manipulated enough to sway towards confirmation bias on either side of the argument.
The entire idea about the new birth is accepting something you can’t see, believing in a relationship you can’t “feel” and waking out on trust in a higher power.
Thomas put his hand in the side of the resurrected Christ. He didn’t have the technology to make a Snapchat of it and publish it on the net so he could “prove” to everyone what he saw and get an objective confirmation.
If that was not the case then freewill is a farce. It’s just following a trail to an inevitable conclusion shown by the evidence that may or may not be true and may or may not have any causal effect.
With that said, Benny Hinn , Creflo and the like give off a really creepy energy. And are frauds that we have discussed along the lines of Branham. The two choices are not those clowns or no supernatural action at all. But that is how you frame the argument.
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