Freethought & Rationalism Archive

IamMoose · 08-10-2005, 06:41 AM

If we have free will and God doesn't intervene any form of petitionary prayer, even just for faith or strength or whatever is useless. If God DOES intervene then we have to ask why he lets earthquakes and tsunamis happen. I just don't see any logical answer here

Stephen T-B · 08-10-2005, 06:43 AM

There is no logical answer.

IamMoose · 08-10-2005, 07:06 AM

Maybe not. I don't really understand why people BOTHER with petitionary prayer though.

And yet, the bible seems to support it.

Biff the unclean · 08-10-2005, 08:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ManM

Why assume that miracles are unnatural? I find it far easier to believe that there are flaws with our current knowledge about the world.

Our current knowledge of the world includes the fact that there are con artists and charlatans a plenty. And there are even more gullible dupes to be taken by them.
There is nothing about miracles that is beyond our knowledge, we don't have to wait a thousand years for science to learn about bull-shit, it knows about it already. No one, except the terminally dim-witted, thinks that there is anything the slightest bit unnatural about them.

Stumpjumper · 08-10-2005, 09:49 AM

I'm inclined to agree on that one Moosie. It was one of the things that drove me away from the Church in my teenage years (that and the fact that my parent's didn't really care anyway). I mean God's only going to cure your illness if enough people pray for you or if you pray to the correct saint? It all seemed pretty silly. I think the most logical answer is that God has set up a universe that runs on natural laws and allows us the freedom to make our own decisions. But there are some passages that support petitionary prayer but I'm inclined to interperet them as calls to faith in the will of God. It really pisses me off when you have preachers saying that the Indian Ocean Tsunami was the will of God, though.

Vinnie · 08-10-2005, 09:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IamMoose

Am rereading Stephen King's 'It' right now - excellent book - and one of the characters makes an interesting observation .. this is my paraphrase cos I don't have it in front of me right now:

'You can go to your churches and read about your Jesus walking on water but if I saw a man do that, I wouldn't call it a miracle. I would call it an offence .'

That really struck me because that puts into words something I have felt subconsciously for years but have never really been able to articulate. Walking on water, feeding five thousand with one loaf and a cpl fishes, coming back from the dead .. these things are offences against logic. I would not, if I saw them, fall down and praise God - I would be frightened, and wary, but also .. yeah, offended because they would be things that went against everything that I understand and believe about the world.

More to the point, I sometimes think there's an element of doublethink involved in the ability to read and believe the bible. Christians might believe, on the conscious level, that these things happened but on the subconscious level I wonder if they really expect to ever see such a thing themselves.. if they really believe that such things can really BE.

Am i making any sense? *looks slightly unsure*

If a man claimed to be God's agent and then walked on water, regenerated missing and amputated limbs, fed thousands with a few morsels and so forth, I would take any of his teaching and preaching very seriously. In fact, I might give up everything just to follow and learn more about this man.

I would of course have a ton of qs. FE, why don't you feed all the starving childen in the word? Needless to say, if he is willing to discuss with me an interesting dialogue is definately in the works.

Vinnie

DaMan121 · 08-10-2005, 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IamMoose

Really? that's dead disappointing, I was imagining something complex to do with magnets. Still, when I saw it on TV people were watching him from the front and they seemed impressed. You'd have to be fairly dumb to be convinced he was levitating if he was just rising up on his toes.

Yep - They spliced the people's reactions in with a different scene they filmed later with wires. The original scene did the very old 'levitating' trick that only works at a certain angle. I guess none of them tried to move

Infact all of his tricks are old, and equally dissapointing in their implementation - His endurance stuff though, are definetly not tricks - Still entertaining.

sharon45 · 09-11-2005, 05:54 PM

Quote: