BadBadBad

No kidding Rhea! I'd settle for any proof whatsoever! Let's look at the advertisement for this religious aspirin:

And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Mt 17:20

Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. Mt 21:21-22

And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. GJn 14:13-14

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. GJn 15:7

.... whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. GJn 15:16

This is my favorite:

Mt.6:5-6 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.


And now, let's look at the the results we've all seen:

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Ronin

That said...Muffinstuffer...you've become one of the most insightful of my theist friends.

...and I really do appreciate that.

Muffinstuffer

Well thank you. I truly appreciate the compliment.

Ronin

Man...I am so often right there...lol.

Make sure that they don't talk you into that extra $75.00 bullshit air filter change as well...they're instructed to add that kind of stuff, don't you know.

I've several court appearances to make on Thursdays...but, I may make it back here near the weekend.

Take good care...and stay safe.

~ Steve

Dr Rick

You can't.

Long ago, before we knew of things like germs, it was widely believed that illness was caused by evil spirits and demons, or inflicted upon the sufferer as some type of divine punishment, so it made sense to pray, fast, dance, incant and/or sacrifice for a healing and call it a "miracle" if it "worked," or the will of God/Allah/Shiva/Zeus or one of the other almost ten--thousand gods humans have at one time or another worshipped if it didn't.

Many people still do believe something similar to this, and people like Pat Robertson make a fine living off of them.

However, germs also have to "make a living," so to speak; they have to feed and replicate, and they can't just get-up and walk away from an infected person, and even if they could, they really don't have a reason to. Most infections in humans are resolved by the immune system killing the germs, but that never, ever happens with AIDS. Never.

It's conceivable that someone could clear the virus before it causes AIDS, but that has never been reported anywhere, except perhaps in churches and temples.

The relative risk of acquiring Hepatitis C from a single needle stick by a needle contaminated with the blood of an infected person is less than 5%, so it's unlikely that your aunt was ever infected based upon the information you have provided. No doubt, though, she, your wife, you, and perhaps hundreds of millions of others think that since an unlikely event did not occur, it must be a miracle. This is irrational thinking at it's worst, and yet it's the reason people like Pat Robertson can make a living. All the while, the hundreds of millions of really sick people and their families pray and send money to the self-proclaimed miracle workers, most of them never stopping long enough to question why the majority of their prayers go unanswered or why hundreds of thousands of people die from hepatitis every year, most of them after being prayed for.

Rhea

(Stuffer, noting your exasperation on my repeating Ronin - please note we may have cross-posted.)

On the miracles, I think it has been generally agreed (in principle) that a limb regrowing from a stump on a human would be a pretty good miracle with no known natural explanation.

Spontaneous remission, however, is not uncommon, is it?

Science News did a neat article on "hunches" showing how humans can process cues subconsciously and when the situation is studied later the people recall what cues they had acted upon.

Anyway, you're right. If there is a natural explanation, I'll tend to embrace that before a supernatural one.

But if the "proof" is 100%, there wouldn't BE a natural explanation.

Who was it who said there were crutches, slings and wheelchairs at the grotto, but not one single prosthetic limb?

God has a fabulous opportunity in front of him!!!

Muffinstuffer

And you know this because....? Not saying that I CAN for sure...which is why I said "And I'll verify this if I can."

That is definitely a possibility.

No doubt you are assuming you know what I am thinking. What I am thinking is more along the lines of "God was watching out for us." Although this is also 'irrational thinking' in your book, I'm sure, and that's fine with me.

Ronin

I gathered a more than probable concept of what your assertion was based on your written claim, Muffinstuffer...your subsequent crawfishing since that time remains as evidence as to your reliability.

Was this when He had her stuck with the needle to terrorize her?

Considering all of the ambiguous suffering wrought upon caring and loving people in the world, Muffinstuffer, this is not only irrational thinking...but typically Christian, arrogant and vain thinking.

Muffinstuffer

Part of the original response to the post by Dr. Rick was as follows:

My response was:

And your response to the first part was:

Please tell me what your 'gathering' of what I said, has to do with what I actually said. I said (emphasis mine),

Not past tense...PRESENT tense. I never jumped up and screamed "Hallelujah" or did cartwheels or any of that. Perhaps I left a bit too much to the imagination when I said "You can figure out what I believe." In light of the recent conversation (AND in light of the fact that I requestioned my wife, and she now says that "she didn't know for sure if my aunt actually tested positive" - feel free to pick me apart if you like) - I NOW believe that while this obviously was no miracle, God was indeed watching out for her.

(By the way, I find it interesting that in your post, you seem to feel that the 'God' you do not believe in was only around for the infliction of pain, and subsequently left. I would ask that you refrain from taking potshots at my beliefs. I am doing my best to have an honest conversation and jokes aren't helping.)

It would seem to me that you are doing nothing more than drawing attention to the events of the past day or two, and to my apparent unreliability as a witness due to my mistakes and my misrepresentation (although not deliberate, I'm sure you disagree) of the situation. If every discussion is going to contain some reference to just how reliable I am, or just how irrational I am, I don't see much of a point in discussing it. I screwed up and had it pointed out; I admitted it and apologized; I found out the TRUTH and reported that here. At least I had the honesty to do so. I would ask at the least that you respect that, and not continue to refer to things I can not change about the past.

Rhea

I don't understand the difference between God watching out for her (intervening in a non-random way) and a claim of a miracle. ANY intervention in a non-random way represents a NON-NATURAL cause which is, by definition, a miracle.

So it sounds like you are still claiming it is a miracle. "He was "watching out for her". I.e. something happened to her that would not have happened to someone else.

When in fact, we are back to her experiencing what 95% of the people in her shoes experience. namely, a stick by an infected needle did not cause an infection. Since this is true for 95% of people experiencing needle sticks by infected needles, how is this "god watching out for her"?

Two questions, I guess:
1. How is god watching out different from a miracle
2. How is a standard, non-surprising, high-probability event different from god NOT watching out?

Just trying to understand your definitions, I am confused by your words.


I think what that means is that since the good that happened to her is HIGHLY PROBABLE we are assigning that as "random", reasonably. While getting stuck with an infected needle is highy IMPROBABLE, then God must have been intervening, since you appear to be calling improbable results an act of god. I don't think he's joking. It seemed to make sense to me, too. And I'm not being funny, just trying to understand your view.

Thank you THANK YOU for accepting responsibility for your words.

Now (and I mean this with the gentlest voice) apply that lesson to your new claim that "God was watching out for her" and see how she runs around the corral.