Why won't God heal amputees?

[NASpurs]

It bothers me that people still pretend that it does something.

You're an atheist who believes that prayer does nothing? Color me surprised.

I think prayer is just part of the problem that bothers you.

Yet I find it funny that Christians are supposed to be open minded for everyone else while *atheists can be closed minded and shrug everything off, yet still seem cool. What a ridiculous double standard.

And I'm not grouping everyone together here. I'm open minded.

*insert "some"

[redzero]

I think prayer is just part of the problem that bothers you.

Obviously.

Yet I find it funny that Christians are supposed to be open minded for everyone else

Since when were Christians supposed to be open-minded for everyone else?

while *atheists can be closed minded and shrug everything off, yet still seem cool.

Shrug what off? Supers ious nonsense?

What a ridiculous double standard.

I'm not seeing it. You are being incoherent.

[NASpurs]

Thanks for proving my point.

[redzero]

Oh, I got it. You make some vague accusations about me being close-minded, so when I ask for clarification, you give yourself a pat on the back and think, "There ya go! He's too close-minded to see my point!"

[NASpurs]

Oh, I got it. You make some vague accusations about me being close-minded, so when I ask for clarification, you give yourself a pat on the back and think, "There ya go! He's too close-minded to see my point!"

Being vague works with you. Why should I have to be specific for someone who's going to try and out everything I say?

I was going to explain before all of this why prayer works for some people psychologically at least and how praying doesn't equate to God snapping his fingers and making things appear out of thin air but why bother. You've said it three times how you think it's nonsense and you've already shut your mind in thinking otherwise. What's the point in being specific then?

[redzero]

I've made my mind up already because I already know that prayer is just wishful thinking.

Someone gets sick.
One of their friends prays for them.
If the person recovers, then "THANK JEEBUS!"
If the person doesn't recover, then "It must have been their time."

[mingus]

Some people find meaning/happiness in life through fairy tales. Other people do it through getting high or having the shrink listen to their babbling for hours on end. If it helps them though, good for them.

I agree that some get carried away and feel the urge to tell the rest of the world how revealing their experience was. I have no problem with them either, unless they can't take "not interested" for an answer. Then there's the nazi-like who wants to ream their core bull through everyone's throat (ie: your platform comment). Those are definitely a problem.

I think a lot of these people are not looking for 'truth'. They're just looking for something much less complicated, comforting and that provides a degree of meaning to their lives. We can discuss all day whether it's a bunch of baloney or not, but as long as they keep it to themselves and, as I like to say, "works for them", then good for them.

what is truth to you may not be truth to everybody. i believe that the spiritual is a very personal thing. i believe strongly that i have been in contact with a spirit once in my life. i was showering in my college dorm complex my freshmen year at 2 am. got out and started brushing my teeth, probably thinking about pussy or something. i feel something move at a fast pace right behind me, just rush past me. so naturally i turn around to see who was there. nothing. i find out later that a couple years ealier a kid had fell and died after hitting his head in the shower. make of it what you will. you'll probably say it was just wind. but there was no wind.

some people just wont admit something may exist if they can't see it with their own eyes. maybe they're the ones avoiding the truth.

[redzero]

Lol "avoiding the truth"
Lol "I know what I'll do! I'll run behind him very fast, because I'm a spirit and that is my idea of sending messages."

[ElNono]

what is truth to you may not be truth to everybody. i believe that the spiritual is a very personal thing. i believe strongly that i have been in contact with a spirit once in my life. i was showering in my college dorm complex my freshmen year at 2 am. got out and started brushing my teeth, probably thinking about pussy or something. i feel something move at a fast pace right behind me, just rush past me. so naturally i turn around to see who was there. nothing. i find out later that a couple years ealier a kid had fell and died after hitting his head in the shower. make of it what you will. you'll probably say it was just wind. but there was no wind.

some people just wont admit something may exist if they can't see it with their own eyes. maybe they're the ones avoiding the truth.

Sounds a case of confirmation bias, tbh. "Because I didn't know what it was, it must've been religious/spiritual!". Under that cir stance, "I really have no ing clue what that was" is just as plausible an explanation.

I think people simply have different bars to what they consider true/fact. Conversely they also have different bars on how they classify what they don't know/understand.

The 'eye test' is baloney. Plenty of chemical reactions/physics stuff that we can't see, yet they're testable and reproducible, and can be established as fact, at the very least, on a local level. Faith never enters that conversation (and boy, did I have had my exchanges with Phenomenaul about this! )

[mingus]

Sounds a case of confirmation bias, tbh. "Because I didn't know what it was, it must've been religious/spiritual!". Under that cir stance, "I really have no ing clue what that was" is just as plausible an explanation.

I think people simply have different bars to what they consider true/fact. Conversely they also have different bars on how they classify what they don't know/understand.

The 'eye test' is baloney. Plenty of chemical reactions/physics stuff that we can't see, yet they're testable and reproducible, and can be established as fact, at the very least, on a local level. Faith never enters that conversation (and boy, did I have had my exchanges with Phenomenaul about this! )

well neither of us know what that was. we (should) believe we know what that was. and it sure as well wasn't confirmation bias. before that incident happened i sort of scoffed at all that supernatural stuff. maybe we just don't have the tools to effectively explore reality in its entirety. you could be denying reality and i could be making up. but both of us would be fooling ourselves if we thought we actually had enough of a grasp of anything to just flat state with 100% certainty that what we don't percieve as reality "baloney." or conversely what we do percieve as reality a truth.

[Leetonidas]

itt: believers attempting to justify their stupidity and lack of responsibility for their own lives as "God's will"

gots

[Blake]

well neither of us know what that was. we (should) believe we know what that was. and it sure as well wasn't confirmation bias. before that incident happened i sort of scoffed at all that supernatural stuff. maybe we just don't have the tools to effectively explore reality in its entirety. you could be denying reality and i could be making up. but both of us would be fooling ourselves if we thought we actually had enough of a grasp of anything to just flat state with 100% certainty that what we don't percieve as reality "baloney." or conversely what we do percieve as reality a truth.

Lol denying reality

[mingus]

i'll ask this question to you Leetonidas, and maybe you wont run away from it like the other got did.

if you were tied up and Jerry Sandusky said he was going to put his up your ass. and you asked him why he would do such a thing, and he said who cares there's no God. what i'm about to do to your ass has no consequences if i can get away with it. would you proceed to try and convince him that there's an afterlife and there will be consequences for his actions? or would you just let him butt you?

(tbh your probably not the right guy to ask since you probably take it up the ass with enjoyment anyway)

[Leetonidas]

You're a ing idiot, what a stupid question stupid religites and their re ed nonsensical scenarios

[mingus]

you going to run away from it like that?

[ElNono]

well neither of us know what that was.

But only one of us would classify it as "I don't know what that was". The other associated it with something religious/spiritual.

[redzero]

wow, that question is re ed.

[RandomGuy]

Most if not all of the theists on the board have readily admitted that they derive their belief in God from faith. Some reasoning, is involved, but, basically, it's faith.

The atheists on the board admittedly built their belief structure from reason.

So, if you set the determination of winner and loser from "reasoning behind our belief", you have predetermined the winner, haven't you?

There is literally no point to this (which I have known all along, but wanted to illustrate with this post)

However, I cannot leave the thread without one more observation:

I don't believe that extra terrestrials have ever visited our planet. Many people do believe that. It doesn't bother me, and I certainly don't start threads to discredit their beliefs. Why do atheists continually start, and prolong (rough estimate - atheists are responsible for 70%+ of the posts in this thread) these threads? What is urging you to keep asking over, and over for believers to justify their beliefs to you - asking, pleading, over and over again for us to explain our faith to you.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I truly hope and pray that one day you find what it is you are searching for.

Does it take more or equal faith to disbelieve Bigfoot as it does to believe in Bigfoot?

[mingus]

wow, that question is re ed.

just answer it, got.

[mingus]

But only one of us would classify it as "I don't know what that was". The other associated it with something religious/spiritual.

but is still don't know what it is. faith is not knowing.

[redzero]

A person might say anything to avoid being sodimized. Your question is re ed.

[ElNono]

but is still don't know what it is. faith is not knowing anything.

That makes no sense. Faith involves associating it with something. Be it god, ghosts, the flaying spaghetti monster, etc.

Not knowing means not knowing. There's nothing wrong with not knowing. It also requires no associations.

[mingus]

A person might say anything to avoid being sodimized. Your question is re ed.

exactly. sodomy is just one instance where someone might use God to give themselves comfort. there's suffering everywhere. if people feel they have to invoke God to help them pull through it wtf are you to call them and idiot?

[RandomGuy]

Your problem isn't with faith per se, but with the human use of it. Has bad been done in the name of religion? Absolutely. But you can say the same thing of science - i.e. the whole eugenics movement.

People suck. Religion and Science give them excuses to suck. Doesn't mean something is wrong with Religion or Science. Just that something is wrong with people.

Faith in and of itself isn't bad. Faith in something actively illogical and contrary to available evidence is not somthing I can hang with.

[mouse]

Lol "
Lol ""

I notice you like to Lol allot. I wonder if you will be Lol'ng this much when your 10 minutes away from death




Charles Darwin Became a Christian on His Deathbed and Renounced Evolution

Charles Darwin, the author of THE SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION in 1859 and the champion of evolution, renounced his evolutionary theory and became a Christian on his deathbed. This was reported by noblewoman Lady Hope who said she visited Darwin at his home in England at the close of his life. She described him as reading the book of Hebrews in the New Testament of the Bible. She also said that he regarded his writings about evolution to be questions that people made into a religion. Lady Hope said Darwin asked her to conduct a meeting outside a summer house he owned so he could hear the singing of the hymns.