Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Roland · 07-06-2008, 04:06 PM

Just went to the Jesus Film Project site... but couldn't find any "miracle" stories. Where are they located? All I know is that it scares me when I read about an organization whose first response to the witchcraft hysteria in Africa is not to point out that witches don't exist but that you need Jesus to combat them. That's just substituting one irrational superstition with another.

I hope these miracle stories include well-documented (and preferrably videotaped) instances of amputees' limbs being restored and not just people in wheelchairs jumping up yelling "hallelujah." I went to a faith healer's revival meeting once in L.A. (when I was still a Christian) and had a lovely conversation with the woman sitting next to me. Halfway through the service, she suddenly jumped up when the preacher called for all the deaf people to be healed and ran to the stage. Either she was a damn good lip reader or she was part of a carefully orchestrated sham. I know which one is more likely (even then my natural skepticism got the better of me).

I don't understand what is supposed to be so great about "faith" anyway. Is there any more overrated commodity in this world? I think it was Sam Harris who once defined faith as "What you need when you don't have enough evidence for what it is you want to believe." (paraphrase). I love that!

Faith is for the gullible.

mountainman · 07-06-2008, 04:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flagg

For a nonbeliever, the job regarding the historicity of the Resurrection thus becomes an impossible route in disproving Christianity. Instead, the nonbeliever must take the path of showing that other tenants of Christian faith are contradictory, and by implication undermine the historicity of the Resurrection.

Any comments are appreciated. :grin:

Historicity does not need to be positive. For example consider the historicity of plain fraudulent account written in century x purporting to be written in century x minus 2. The fiction itself does not have any historicity until the century x. In this instance, until we have any evidence to the contrary, if the resurrection account was simply some theological romancer from a later century spinning a yarn for the sake of it, I have not yet been able to decide whether the measure of the historicity in centuries x-2 and x-1 of such an account is actually zero or indeed null.

Best wishes,

Pete

Deus Ex · 07-06-2008, 05:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aChristian

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deus Ex

You are giving me yet another example of anecdotal evidence, and not incontrovertible proof. I asked for your proof.

Let us examine the documented miracles that you are asserting.

If I tell you that I have been abducted by aliens, will you take my word for it? What if my neighbor vouches for my honesty? Will you still not believe? Would you require proof?

I gave you a couple of names to check out their websites. You can start there in your search. If you are honest and want to know the truth you can look them up.
As far as your alien claim, I don't know you or your neighbor. I do have reason to trust the pastor I referred to as well as other examples I have encountered.

In other words, you have no incontrovertible proof of your miracle claims. What you have are:

Hearsay stories from anonymous writers (Gospels)
Authority figures telling you what to believe (Parents, Pastors, Bible Study Teachers)
A culture of belief (Church, family, friends)

What you don't have is:

Compelling evidence that the supernatural events described in the Bible, ever really happened.

Roland · 07-06-2008, 05:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deus Ex

Quote:

Originally Posted by aChristian

I gave you a couple of names to check out their websites. You can start there in your search. If you are honest and want to know the truth you can look them up.
As far as your alien claim, I don't know you or your neighbor. I do have reason to trust the pastor I referred to as well as other examples I have encountered.

In other words, you have no incontrovertible proof of your miracle claims. What you have are:

Hearsay stories from anonymous writers (Gospels)
Authority figures telling you what to believe (Parents, Pastors, Bible Study Teachers)
A culture of belief (Church, family, friends)

What you don't have is:

Compelling evidence that the supernatural events described in the Bible, ever really happened.

And the interesting thing is that the hearsay miracle stories of the gospels aren't even verified by other early Christian writers, like Paul and the other epistle authors, who make zero mention of them.

aChristian · 07-06-2008, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roland

Just went to the Jesus Film Project site... but couldn't find any "miracle" stories. Where are they located? All I know is that it scares me when I read about an organization whose first response to the witchcraft hysteria in Africa is not to point out that witches don't exist but that you need Jesus to combat them. That's just substituting one irrational superstition with another.

I hope these miracle stories include well-documented (and preferrably videotaped) instances of amputees' limbs being restored and not just people in wheelchairs jumping up yelling "hallelujah." I went to a faith healer's revival meeting once in L.A. (when I was still a Christian) and had a lovely conversation with the woman sitting next to me. Halfway through the service, she suddenly jumped up when the preacher called for all the deaf people to be healed and ran to the stage. Either she was a damn good lip reader or she was part of a carefully orchestrated sham. I know which one is more likely (even then my natural skepticism got the better of me).

I don't understand what is supposed to be so great about "faith" anyway. Is there any more overrated commodity in this world? I think it was Sam Harris who once defined faith as "What you need when you don't have enough evidence for what it is you want to believe." (paraphrase). I love that! Faith is for the gullible.

I thought there would be more miracles sprinkled here and there in the stories. I get their newsletter and they report them from time to time. I think if you emailed them asking for some they would provide more information. The purpose of their website in not to tell miracle after miracle. I found a few on the Gospel for Asia website.

aChristian · 07-06-2008, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deus Ex

Quote:

Originally Posted by aChristian

I gave you a couple of names to check out their websites. You can start there in your search. If you are honest and want to know the truth you can look them up.
As far as your alien claim, I don't know you or your neighbor. I do have reason to trust the pastor I referred to as well as other examples I have encountered.

In other words, you have no incontrovertible proof of your miracle claims. What you have are:

Hearsay stories from anonymous writers (Gospels)
Authority figures telling you what to believe (Parents, Pastors, Bible Study Teachers)
A culture of belief (Church, family, friends)

What you don't have is:

Compelling evidence that the supernatural events described in the Bible, ever really happened.

No, as I said, I have eyewitness reports from men who are not liars, nor gullible. You are just ignorant when you make that accusation.

Adonael · 07-06-2008, 06:20 PM

I'd like to point out that even if we grant that miracles are possible, it would not mean that we can infer that miracles did happen from either first, second or third hand accounts.

dr lazer blast · 07-06-2008, 06:44 PM

Actually I found some documented proof of miracles. I posted this in GRD but it was met with the usual fallacious reasoning with over simplifications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_miracle

Quote:

The miracle of Lanciano

In the city of Lanciano, Italy, around A.D. 700, a Basilian monk and priest was assigned to celebrate the Eucharistic sacrifice in the Latin Rite in the small Church of St.Legontian. Usually celebrating in the Greek Rite and using leavened bread and having been taught that unleavened bread was invalid matter for the Holy Sacrifice he was disturbed to be constrained to use unleavened bread and had trouble believing that the miracle of transubtantiation would take place with unleavened bread. During the Mass, when he said the words of consecration (This is my Body...This is my Blood), he saw the bread change into live flesh and the wine change into live blood, which coagulated into five globules, irregular and differing in shape and size. He was frightened and confused by the miracle, and stood a while as if in divine ecstasy, but eventually he turned his face to the congregation, and said "Behold the Flesh and the Blood of our Most Beloved Christ." At those words, the congregation members ran to the altar and began to cry for mercy. This miracle proved to him that unleavened bread was acceptable matter for the Holy Sacrifice. Years later other Basilian monks stole the documentation that was in the archives of the parish church. The Byzantine rejection of unleavened bread eventuated in the schism of 1054 that started out as a disagreement concerning the "azymes" between Patriarch Michael Keroularios and Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida acting for the already deceased Pope Leo IX.

Various ecclesiastical investigations have been conducted upon the miracle since 1574, and the evidence of the miracle remains in Lanciano to this day. In 1970-71, Professor Odoardo Linoli, eminent Professor in Anatomy and Pathological Histology and in Chemistry and Clinical Microscopy, and Professor Ruggero Bertelli of the University of Siena, conducted a scientific investigation into the miracle. The report was published in Quaderni Sclavo di Diagnostica Clinica e di Laboratori in 1971, and reaffirmed by a scientific commission appointed by the Higher Council of the World Health Organization in 1973.[1] The following conclusions were drawn:[2]

* The Flesh of the miracle is real Flesh and the Blood is real Blood.
* The Flesh and the Blood belong to the human species.
* The Flesh consists of the muscular tissue of the heart, which would be highly unlikely to "fake", given that only an expert hand could have done it, and not without serious difficulties.
* In the Flesh we see present in section: the myocardium, the endocardium, the vagus nerve and also the left ventricle of the heart for the large thickness of the myocardium. The Flesh is a heart complete in its essential structure.
* The Flesh and the Blood have the same blood type, AB, which is also the same blood type found on the Shroud of Turin and all other Eucharistic Miracles.
* In the Blood there were found proteins in the same normal proportions (percentage-wise) as are found in the sero-proteic make-up of the fresh normal blood.
* In the Blood there were also found these minerals: chlorides, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium and calcium.
* There is no trace whatsoever of any materials or agents used to preserve the Flesh or Blood.

The Flesh and Blood of the miracle can still be seen today. The Host-Flesh, which is the same size as the large Host used today in the Latin Church, is fibrous and light brown in colour, and becomes rose-coloured when lighted from the back. The Blood consists of five coagulated globules and has an earthly colour resembling the yellow of ochre.

Teams of scientists have already looked at it

Quote:

In 1970-71, Professor Odoardo Linoli, eminent Professor in Anatomy and Pathological Histology and in Chemistry and Clinical Microscopy, and Professor Ruggero Bertelli of the University of Siena, conducted a scientific investigation into the miracle.

dr lazer blast · 07-06-2008, 06:45 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun

theres another one as well.

Deus Ex · 07-06-2008, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aChristian

No, as I said, I have eyewitness reports from men who are not liars, nor gullible. You are just ignorant when you make that accusation.

Prove that the gospel writers were eyewitnesses. Here is a hint. You cannot.

All you have is faith. It is a belief in things without evidence. If you had evidence, you would not need faith.

Faith is not enough for some of us.:banghead:

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07-06-2008, 04:06 PM	#11
Roland Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: California Posts: 748	Just went to the Jesus Film Project site... but couldn't find any "miracle" stories. Where are they located? All I know is that it scares me when I read about an organization whose first response to the witchcraft hysteria in Africa is not to point out that witches don't exist but that you need Jesus to combat them. That's just substituting one irrational superstition with another. I hope these miracle stories include well-documented (and preferrably videotaped) instances of amputees' limbs being restored and not just people in wheelchairs jumping up yelling "hallelujah." I went to a faith healer's revival meeting once in L.A. (when I was still a Christian) and had a lovely conversation with the woman sitting next to me. Halfway through the service, she suddenly jumped up when the preacher called for all the deaf people to be healed and ran to the stage. Either she was a damn good lip reader or she was part of a carefully orchestrated sham. I know which one is more likely (even then my natural skepticism got the better of me). I don't understand what is supposed to be so great about "faith" anyway. Is there any more overrated commodity in this world? I think it was Sam Harris who once defined faith as "What you need when you don't have enough evidence for what it is you want to believe." (paraphrase). I love that! Faith is for the gullible.

07-06-2008, 06:20 PM	#17
Adonael Banned Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: S. Canada Posts: 1,252	I'd like to point out that even if we grant that miracles are possible, it would not mean that we can infer that miracles did happen from either first, second or third hand accounts.

07-06-2008, 06:45 PM	#19
dr lazer blast Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: charleston sc Posts: 1,622	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun theres another one as well.

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