aChristian

Earlier I said,

You make so many factual errors that are dependent on your trust in the liberal scholarship that it would probably be better to focus on one point at a time. How about this one.
John 9:22 says synagogue (singular) and John 9:22 is the evidence to the contrary that you ask for. It doesn’t say they were kicked out of all synagogues world wide. An eyewitness (John) tells us what happen in Jerusalem around 32 AD and the fact that there were later explusions does not contradict the eyewitness testimony. Now what evidence to the contrary do you have?

And I now add,

Do you have any proof that John 9:22 is referring to the expulsion that you are talking about? Where is the expulsion that you are referring to documented?

aChristian

No the pastor saw the finger because the mom asked him to come over after the little boy, David, had his finger slammed in the car door. He came over and prayed for the God to heal the finger but admitted that he had no faith that God was going to answer his prayer in the affirmative. I think the pastor went with them to the doctor, but in any case he performed the amputation. A few days later, my pastor got another call from the mom and he was thinking, "What now God?". The mom said that David was out playing in the dirt and knocked the wrappings off of the amputated fingertip. She said that the finger had been restored. I think my pastor went with her to the doctor's office because he described the doctor's reaction. He was amazed and asked the nurse about it. He said, "I did amputate the tip didn't I?". She said yes. Then he said, "Do we still have the amputated fingertip?" She went and found the jar with the amputated fingertip. The doctor was amazed and said it was remarkable, but that of course the fingernail would never grow back. He also said he wanted the boy to come in just so he could look at it. As I said before, he was a good Jewish doctor. He was amazed. What amazed him more was that after a few weeks or months, the nail started growing again and eventually you couldn't see any difference between the finger he had amputated and the corresponding finger on the other hand. He had it recorded in a medical book of unusual occurrences. God just sovereignly performed a miracle.
There is really no other credible explanation. It is not credible that the pastor was mislead, he was too closely involved. Knowing the pastor, it is not credible that he was lying. The only logical explanation is that the finger was restored after the tip was amputated. If you go to some of the websites I mentioned, you can read of other present day miracles. In order to discount them, you will have to call some people fools or liars who just don't fit into either of those categories. If you are really serious about knowing the truth, I am sure some of those involved would talk with you.

youngalexander

Good grief! Is this still running? Left off reading the thread six weeks ago.

Tell me, did good old Aspirin99 get his dinner? Was it satisfactory? Anyone converted?

jakejonesiv

Hi aChristian,

What is a miracle? Let me provide a definition, and you can correct it if necessary.

A miracle is an event that can only be explained as a supernatural act of God. If any prosaic alternative can explain the occurance, then it cannot be deemed a miracle. A natural event, no matter how unusual or seemingly coincidental, or subjectively important, can qualify as a miracle. For example, a person misses a plane flight and the flight crashes killing all aboard. This is not a miracle, even though it may seem so to the individual, because people miss flights all the time.

Do you agree to this definition of a miracle?

Jake Jones IV

jakejonesiv

No

Jake Jones IV

Aspirin99

Dinner was fine, if not lacking in substance. A subsequent dinner did result in admission that my reasons for doubting the legitimacy of Christianity were logical, yet they chose to continue believing out of faith - regardless of proof or lack there of.

Equinox

aChristian wrote:

Back in that post I provided evidence, and your only response is name-calling? Now, assuming that Christianity is true and that I'll burn in Hell forever if I don't become Christian (again), then think of what your response means.

I'm sure you'll agree that if one person posts evidence and the other simply name-calls, then any objective observer is likely to believe the evidence poster (me) and ignore the name-caller (you). So you have acted in a way that contributes to peole not believing you, and hence rejecting Christianity. You have thus caused people to go to Hell. What a terrible thing to do! Will you stand before Jesus one day and say "yes, I caused some people to go to hell, a fate worse than if I had run their noses through a cuisinart, but please remember that I'm safe due to Jesus' death."?

If you believe your own stories, then how do you sleep at night if you care at all about other people?

Thanks for responding (i guess) to at least a tiny fraction of my posts.

-Equinox

John A. Broussard

Please. Time, place, photos if available. Above all, please give me the name and address of that doctor.

This is one of the most astonishing advances in modern medicine. The implications for amputees in VA hospitals is beyond measure.

Please, please! Give me all the details so that I can contact these people. There are a score of articles in medical journals waiting to be written on this miraculous event.

I'm very much looking forward to your answer.

John A. Broussard

I almost missed that.

Please give me the name of the book. I'll order it immediately from Amazon.

Thank you very much for all of your help.

aChristian

Okay, I have a little time now.

Telling different parts of the same story is not telling different stories. There are no contradictions in the NT, although we are lacking in our knowledge of history at some points and do not understand what the people who first read the NT completely understood since they were familiar with the times. We can come up with plausible explanations on points that we don't understand, and many have.

I'm not sure which people you are talking about in your response. Do you mean the heretics who didn't accept the gospels the fathers preferred? The church fathers were able to refute the heretics because they knew the apostles or knew those who knew them or those who knew them depending on how late of a church father you are talking about. The heretics couldn't produce a connection with the apostles like the church fathers could. It is true that you read of some people later on getting it wrong on a few books (and even there it is usually stated that there are questions about such and such a book, but that many or most accept it), but the general history of the church supports the books of the Protestant Bible. I believe the evidence shows that the early church knew the entire canon as soon as it was given and just as doctrinal questions arose later, so questions on the canon arose later and the true canon was just re-affirmed .

No, he got this wrong, but he probably knew John the apostle (not the elder) and knew who wrote what. He wasn't inerrant, just generally in the know.

No. As I said above, they were around at the time when things were happening and some of them knew the apostles. They were not inerrant, but provide enough good data to establish that the NT was written by the traditional authors and accepted as accurate history by those who lived through the times. After you get enough evidence from them to establish the credibility of the NT containing eyewitness accounts of Jesus' miracles and resurrection, you can use the NT to understand other things. It's like booting up a computer or cranking the engine on a car. Although there is intrinsic evidence from the NT alone (and OT for that matter), I am not using that here.

I've read reputable scholars with real credentials who agree with my positions.

You ought to read the introduction to The Genesis Flood by Morris and Whitcomb. It is written by a geologist, John C. Campell who was head of the geology department at the Univ. of Southwest Louisiana. He hoped for another explanation for the problems with Lyell's (a lawyer by the way) theory of uniformitarianism, but admits that Morris and Whitcomb present 'a strong case' and 'a serious challenge' to the uniformitarian position.


You are confusing the result of man's choices with God's acts. Read my previous answer concerning the problem of evil.



To quote your source,
"It would be wrong to infer from this list that all creationists have suspicious credentials. In fact, a good number of prominent creationists have legitimate -- even noteworthy -- doctoral degrees in scientific fields. For example, Duane Gish earned a doctorate in biochemistry from Berkeley, Steve Austin earned a doctorate in geology from Pennsylvania State University, and Kurt Wise earned his doctorate in paleontology from Harvard while studying under Stephen Jay Gould. So just because a few well-known creationists failed to earn their graduate degrees the traditional way does not mean that all or even most of them did."
I said someone was lying about ICR to you. I said this because I have followed ICR long enough to know that you comment that "Many at the ICR are well known to have fake credentials." is patently false. Actually, you have not represented the link very well. The link names three people from ICR who have Ph.D.s from small (or even very small) colleges. I believe both Slusher and Barnes were on the faculty at UTEP in the physics dept and both probably had MS in physics. That is not exactly a fake credential nor is the MS an undergraduate degree.

As I stated above, God has preserved his word. You are being illogical when you claim that the way he has preserved it somehow demotes him. Apparently you think your way would be better, but I don't.

I don't believe that you left Christianity for intellectual reasons. I actually don't believe you were ever a Christian. You may have gone to church a lot and even read the Bible and prayed, but that doesn't make one a Christian.

Thank you.