Ellis14

There are many things in the bible that practicing devout Christians don't listen to, Magus!

converted

Conversely, if the results pointed to answers to prayer the 1000 atheists would say it is rigged.

converted

Where does it say that God is supposed to be "omni-benevolent"?

Did you ever think that there may be reasons in the grand scheme of things that bad things happen to good people, people have different strengths and weaknesses, there is starvation / disease / war, and everyone goes through some trials and tribulations in their life? It is because God is shaping our character in this life in preparation for the afterlife. The average life span is 75 years. Eternity is obviously a lot longer. Our lives are like a blink of an eye relatively speaking. We go through pain and suffering in our lives to build our character. That which does not kill us makes us stronger. Usually people that go through the most crap in life are those God is trying to pull towards him. God wants a personal relationship with each person. People who have faith in God and pray regualrly are building up a personal relationship with God. The more people pray the more answers are received. We are here in this life primarily to have a personal relationship with God. Those that reject or deny God will not be close to God. I have found often times those people are the ones that go through the most crap in life.

converted

God gave men brains and we are supposed to use them. There is nothing in the Bible that says " you can't go to a doctor or take medicine...". Only fools twist phrases in the Bible to invent rules like that.

blt to go

Hello, Magus55.

I am still looking forward to a response to the second portion of this post

This was the God in the presence of sin/Book of Job question. Thanks for the anticipated response.

blt to go

Actually, not correct. James 5:13-15 provides a specific remedy for sickness, and NOWHERE is the ability to use a doctor or medicine.

"Is any among you afflicted? let him pray...Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church;and let them pray over him, annointing him with oil in the name of the lord. And the prayers of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up..." [emphasis added. KJV]

Where does this allow doctors? And even more importantly, why would you bother? Doctors (and medicine) take time, effort, money, and are certainly not 100% effective. This is in-and-out with 100% results!

jbernier

As always, I think that we must located James within its context. In the first century, a large number of people would not have had access to physicians: That was a luxury reserved for the priviledged. Further, the medicine of the time was grossly inferior to ours. People often as not died from a physician's treatments rather than recovering from their illness. There were wonderfully good reasons to prefer the prayers of a religious community over a physician's care; truth is that either was a crapshot. It is not necessarily the case the James is saying "Forgo the medical treatments are very likely going to restore your health" as such treatments often did not exist and even when they did they were reserved to a small proportion of the population. This is very different from the contemporary situation in Western Europe and North America (while, Canada, anyways; not so sure that we can say that medical care is that readily available to Americans given the disportionate access to health care based upon socio-economic status).

blt to go

Ahh, jbernier. Once again you and I flirt with the authoritative value of scripture.

(At least I can take for granted an inerrantist will apply the WHOLE literally. Your errantist, yet authoritative position is more difficult to nail down what you accept and what you won't)

So, I would assume you hold James 5 as non-authoritative, in that regardless of how many faithful prayers over a sick person, this ritual is little more than a waste of time and Wesson.

If so, what do you do about the words "shall" that appear, at least to my mind, to be mandatory? At least at that time? Again, why bother going to a physician? Any authority as to how bad the doctors were, and the medical conditions? (not argumentative, but just curious) (now back to argumentative)

Can you pinpoint in time (at least within 200 years) that doctors became accessible and effective enough to eliminate James 5?

Any other passages of the bible that science has become more effective and accessible to ALSO eliminate their necessity?

Will science advance enough to the point to eliminate ALL of scripture?

["The answers to these questions and more, next time on.....SOAP"]

Mageth

Heh...what's really happened is that we all, including Christians, have discovered that modern medicine is incredibly more reliable and effective at curing disease than prayer and other superstitious methods.

Uni

while this may be true, i do not see 'in a church' within the verse...perhaps i am taking it out of context? but how would a fallible human be able to take the bible, which is supposedly infallible, out of context?

if a christian were to say to me what you did i would tell them to read proverbs 30:6...