SimplyAtheistic

I was thinking about the days of Jesus and his supposed miracles when I realized an obvious fact that I had once pondered as a child. It seems god was quite apt to perform various miracles when our science was yet so primitive, but who has seen a true miracle as of late ? ( the last 1500 years or so ) Some will say "But Jesus has worked miracles in my life!!" These seem to be along the line of "He provided me with cash" or "He has kept me from the wrong path and saved my life!". These are quite funny to analyze, because if you view them seperate from god, the exact same result would have come about. Take the money one for example, a christian gave me that one time and I asked him how he got the money, it turned out the church gave it to him so he could go to a christian college. Now lets see, how is that a miracle again? Or my favorite one about god changing your life for the better, if you believe in god, you try to do things better as to avoid hell. Now, substitute god with anything else that would be a reward for good works, and wouldnt your life change in the exact same way? But enough of the small stuff, where are the truly amazing miracles? The sun staying in the sky for 3 days, food multiplying in amazing quantities, or any of the other stories mentioned in the bible. Has god become lazy? Or is it because we have science these days to disprove any such BS that one might try and pass off as a miracle. And about those miracles in the bible, it seems many many people experienced them, and yet only a few wrote about them? That seems VERY odd, and gives further proof to discredit christianity for what it is, a false security blanket for the weak minded.
Jake

EvolvEarth

I remember a fellow in the deviantart.com forums told me how he was abducted by demons disguised as aliens and how he was saved by God by prayer or something and he had numerous encounters with demons. Also, his friends were there and he was not stoned nor drunk.

Either these people were very delusional, or this guy is a big fundamentalist liar.

frostymama

I have "seen" many (so-called) miracles. I've faked a couple too because a miracle was expected. You would be surprised what a congregation will swallow if they really want to believe something has happened.

Al Fresco

As far as "miracles" are concerned, God has now been pre-empted by David Copperfield.

christ-on-a-stick

Howdy (and welcome) Al Fresco... LOL. So true.

Frosty - Right there with ya. The power of group-think cannot be underestimated.

One thing I've asked theists before (always replied to with "I don't know"), is why on earth there is not one single documented case of a *real* miracle such as an amputated limb spontaneously regenerating, or a decapitated head rolling over and popping back on to it's body, etc., clearly attributable to the Xian God (i.e. recorded voice from the heavens saying "this is God. See my handiwork?!")

One super-duper miracle that an omnipotent God could easily have done would have been as one (or both) of the planes was headed toward the World Trade Center, and one of the passengers stood up and said to the hijackers "By the power of Jesus Christ, I command you to fail!!!" and in view of everybody, the terrorists found themselves rendered immobile (or struck dead with a booming voice from the heavens saying "I am the Lord!") I know if *I* had been a passenger on one of those planes and something like that happened, I'd be inclined to rethink my beliefs.

*sigh*... nothing like that ever happens though. I wonder why???

GeoTheo

I knew a woman who got healed from lupus and another from MS.
Most non-Christians would say they were misdiagnosed.
I heard accounts of angels appearing to people in concentration camps in Nazi Germany.

Al Fresco

Most physicians would likely say they were in remission.

TealVeal

The real miracle would be the angels saving all of them rather than just appearing.

christ-on-a-stick

GeoTheo -

The problem is that for every Christian/theists who "miraculously" recovers from such an illness, there is also a non-theist (or theist of another stripe) who has also had such an experience. A completely non-religious friend of my grandparents' was diagnosed (accurately and documented by the dr.'s) with a terminal cancer from which she "spontaneously" recovered... an extremely, EXTREMELY rare occurence which the doctors nonetheless admit *does* happen sometimes.

However, as I mentioned in my previous post, we never see any cases of the truly "miraculous" happening... i.e. spontaneously regenerating limbs, etc.

As far as people seeing angels in the concentration camps... you're kidding, right? Setting aside the obvious fact that people in such conditions (including starvation, etc.) are prone to hallucination, there are tons of people who "see" entities such as aliens, little bouncy elves and the like while under extreme pyschological duress or under the influence. Does this prove their existence??? In addition, it seems clear that when people *do* hallucinate, they often "see" the kinds of entities that they would expect to see (i.e. that they believe in.) Which explains why people's "near-death experiences" tend to reflect their belief systems and also what they expect they would experience based on others' accounts.

GeoTheo

I heard a story of two orphans in Romania or Latvia or somthing that lived in miserable conditions but were inseprable and really helped each other get through it all. They were a boy and a girl. An American couple wanted to adopt the boy and tried to adopt the girl but they couldn't because her Mom was in prison and didn't want to give her up. So they took home the Boy and brought him to America but he was really withdrawn and used to rock back and forth and call out her name and talk in Romanian.
Then one day they were at a Sizzler and they heard a child speaking in Romanian and it was her. The mother died in prison and this other American couple adopted her but she had the same withdrawl symptoms and would do the same thing and pine over the lost boy. They became reunited. The two couples lived a few blocks from each other in the same town. My mother told me this story. She may have gotten it in Reader's Digest or somthing.