Jackalope

It's also entirely possible to have a spontaneous remission from an autoimmune disease. Both lupus and MS are notorious for their remitting-relapsing pattern which means that any snake oil salesman can claim "cures" for those diseases. Hell, I've had two spontaneous remissions in my life, then one remission from medications, then another relapse. I also know another atheist who lurks around here who hung onto life for a couple years, then had a remission and has been free of lupus for over 35 years now. No god needed. Especially since you then have to explain why this "god" causes people to get such completely wretched diseases.

Vitalij

In my earlier message that you perhaps did not read I wrote about a terrific opportunity to tape and make public what people refer to as miracles.

I am planning to shoot the movie "Earth - the planet of biorobots", described in "Questions answered" section of the shock-site. Not sure about all the details yet and am trying to crystallize them. The movie is about the most burning for the Humankind issue and Knowledge that is currently really missing.

Any volunteers for extras?

That will be very practical experience, not just theoretical ravings one can see on the internet forums and discussion boards. Those interested should not hesitate to contact me.

Vitalij
shock-site "Earth - the planet of biorobots"

malookiemaloo

Yes, all true but what the Bible says is more important than how it came about, don't you think?


m

Rhea

Just wanted to touch on this "example of a miracle"

It seems you do not have a problem with believing completely a tale from a person who heard it from a person who read it in a book. You don't think it's possible that some details were sensationalized? By a company who makes money by selling tales? (no motive there...) You aren't bothered by the fact that the "orphan" had a mother who was in jail?

That tale doesn't raise any red warning flags at all in you? You report it as if it is a believable, true-as-written-as-told-then-told factual account with no possibility for embellishment, while staring in your face is the obvious contradiction that orphans don't have mothers in jail?


This kind of selective reading/telling/writing is exactly the kind of behavior that begets "miracles", IMO.

Take the story of Cassie Bernall. Saint?
The book written by her parents and celebrated by the christian community states how she was murdered. How the Columbine kiler pointed a gun at her head and asked if she believed in jesus. She said yes and was killed for it. They CELEBRATE this story. Including her parents.

YET.

Her parent know that it is NOT TRUE. It was _another_ girl who was asked that question. That girl lived. All Cassie heard was "peekaboo!"

YET.

Christians claim "but if the story will bring people to jesus, it is a good story. It doesn't matter if it's accurately told." Yet the book they wrote makes it out to be true. Even when they know it is not. 100 years from now, how much of the newspaper article showing that it is NOT TRUE will survive? How many copies of the "True Story" will survive? Another miracle formed. (Perhaps just like your Latvian orphans?)


Isn't it amazing to see myth-creation in action right before your very nose by Christians Lying For Christ™ ?

It seems to me that Christians have Very Good Reason to check each other's miracle stories Very Carefully.

Yet they don't. It's nuts. Go read up on Cassie Bernall. You'll see why and how you're being taken in by the Reader's Digest.

Radorth

I wish I'd seen this nonsense sooner. The entire premise is false. The miracles slowed to a crawl in the times of the very apostles who supposedly invented the stories about Jesus. We know Paul was sick, and Timothy had stomach propblems worthy of comment by Paul. Which means, unfortunately for many skeptics on this thread, their Jesus-myther theories and the conclusions of this thread are logically false, unless they can explain why the inventors miraculously and spontaneously stopped inventing.

And of course there were no notable advances at all in medicine for at least 1000 years after the apostles. Nice whack at logical thinking though. Hopefully enough attempts will produce fruit.

Rad

Rhea

So what are you saying. It's not clear.

Are you saying that because miracle also didn't occur after Jesus' death that it means the argument that they haven't happened since we got more science is false?

I'm not sure what you're actually saying here that's on-topic.

1. Big Miracles happened when humaninty was ignorant.
2. Big Miracles don't happen now.


Which of those two statements are you refuting? What part of that "premise is false"?

(still waiting for you to answer my questions in the other thread, BTW)

Radorth

I'm saying if they were just inventing stories about miracles, WHICH IS THE OBVIOUS POINT, why did they stop? According to the assertions made above, they would logically have continued to do so until at least 1000 AD. And that's just the problem with the logic. There still are miracles still occurring and even a rare one makes nonsense of the above logic. If he said "Far fewer healings are considered miraculous now that science can explain them," we might have something rational and provable to talk about.

I saw a program on DHC or DSC channel called "Medical Miracles" in which at least two doctors believed they had seen a bonafide miracle. According to the above assertions, they should know. One involved inoperable brain cancer, spreading rapidly and then simply disappearing in two days, and the other involved the spontaneous recovery of sight by a man struck by lightning who was declared permanently blinded. I have personally seen a completely deaf boy healed and beginning to make sounds which resembled what he began to hear, and I have seen the glory of God shimmering around a person's leg as it grew out well over an inch. (I'm casting pearlas here I'm afraid). My Catholic brother had a bad ulcer for 15 years which completely disappeared after he went to a "Women Aglow" meeting with his wife, which he would talk and smile about until he died of lymphoma (from almost daily woodworking).

I think God was trying to get him to switch, but even a miraculous healing in a Protestant church wouldn't get a Catholic's attention I suppose. He's have to ask himself some uncomfortable questions, like why God healed people making "grave errors."

And your questions have been well answered by me before. Still waiting for you to find my list of Christian examples, and provide atheist counter-examples, BTW.

Rad

Starboy

I guess the crux of the matter is that there are many ways that one can explain phenomena. One of them is to claim supernatural interventions and another is to explain them naturally. In this day and age the natural explanations are preferred the vast majority of the time (except on Sundays of course). It seems that the miracle is popular in those cases where a natural remedy is not available but something has happened to remediate the problem. IMO such occurrences are more likely to be evidence of our ignorance of the natural world than evidence of the supernatural. Natural explanations replacing that which was previously understood with superstition has been a recurring theme in science for the last several hundred years. Sticking to ancient superstitions is a throwback to another age. If a time machine is ever invented Radorth you might be able to get a ticket home. You don't belong in the twenty first century.

Starboy

nermal

Christ's image did show up in a billboard photo of a plate of spaghetti 6 or 7 years ago near Atlanta Georgia.
That's got to count for something.

Ed

Tercel

This makes me think you don't know what "god-of-the-gaps" actually is...