"Why won't God heal amputees?"

Thousandth Post! Cool!

Oh wait, erm, I need a reason for posting.

Here ya go:

http://noodlynation.blogspot.com/2006/10/congratulations-chaplains-in-schools.html

 

Ok stu - why dont you tell me about time for the first few moments after the big bang. Why dont you tell me about time before the big bang.

Now if by my defintion of God which can be supported by biblical vs is that that God is outside of time why dont you tell me how he is still governed by newtonian physics.

 

I fail to see why you think Christianity chokes on the verses you cited.

The mud flinging is typical of man. it is no different than the trend following delusion is shattered thread. men will argue tha they are correct in their views. I dont see that as a problem with Christianity. Some of Jesus most passionate words were about some jewish religious leaders that he saw as misrepresenting Gods word.

by the way as to your first point since you wrote this

The fact that I am no longer in the faith thus creates a conundrum. My own personal experience has conclusively invalidated--for me if no one else--a major pillar of theological teaching. Either 'once saved always saved' is simply not correct... or I was deluded and deceived by the God I loved for 15 years or so, even as I strove to selflessly glorify him during that time.

I used the words cosmic joke.

I was not speaking to the fact that atheist must have pointless existences. the famous atheist have written enough about that themselves.

 

Just an aside. I was searching for claims of healing of amputees, just for curiosity's sake. What I did come across is this exact thread under many many different forums, and started to wonder if this is an honest thread or an organized crusade? The arguments, many of them non sequiturs, are being repeated verbatim.

It makes me think that even if there were medically documented restorations of limbs, you would, by inevitable a priori assumption's conclude that it was somehow faked, so even if the proof were offered, I don't think you'd be able to believe it or accept it. You have already determined what to believe.

However, it is a good challenge in content, even if the attitude which motivates it is suspect.

I'm not sure what the motivation would be for the authors of scripture to fabricate Jesus' lack of ability and power, since it would tend to discredit his divinity. But in Nazareth, he 'could not' do many might works there because of the people's unbelief. What constituted unbelief? It was a mind set and a world view which a priori determined that Jesus was not a prophet. They thought they knew exactly who and what Jesus was... a carpenter's son. It appears that their close mindedness was the reason Jesus was limited in miraculous power. I also don't know how much our culture's mind set mimics that of Nazareth.

I'm not sure why specifically an amputee is any tougher than any of the other reported miracles of Jesus' day: restoring a withered hand, restoring sight to the blind, restoring hearing, or raising the dead. I assume, if you had documentation of any of these other miracles, they would be just as acceptable?
Just curious. The reason I wonder is that it sounds a little like: Unless God does it EXACTLY as I say and on MY terms, I won't believe...

Nevertheless, I regularly bring this complaint before God: "Where is the God of Elijah? If you have done so in the past, even now more so does the world need to see your strength and power... For look at what they say about you: 'That you are powerless, you care not, that you do not exist.' These charges are not against us, but against you, O Lord. How will you answer?"

And please! No response from "I Am" is desired or required.

 

But jefferies my man, that is exactly the point. Those miracles never happened either.
You have to open your mind to the possibility that the book is wrong to see truth as dictated by the evidence.
If by chance you can come up with a documented case of prayer raising a man from the dead i will accept that as proof also. Testimonial evidence is not enough. It must be documented by outside sources.
The reason why amputees are selected in this case is because there can be no faking it.

 

Jem if God is outside time and not governed by physics and never interacts with us except through our emotions and never answers prayers and seems not to even know we exist and refuses to show himself and threatens us with torture if we cant believe all of this why worship such a being? Fear?

 

Another good deconversion story:

How Questioning Changed Me
By Merle Hertzler
I learned early that I was not to question my religion. I grew up in a Mennonite home. When I was 14 years old, a liberal pastor was put in charge of our congregation. My family and I left this church to join a fundamentalist church, one that did not question the Bible. Fundamentalism became a way of life for me. Everything that entered my mind had to come through its filter. I soaked it all in, without serious questioning.
I was terrified of hell and would often lie awake at night worrying about it. Even in social settings, I would be sitting there worrying about hell. Fundamentalism offered a solution. It said that all one had to do was trust Jesus. So I did it. Did I do it right? I didn't know. So I did it again. I still wasn't sure that I had done it right. So I did it again and again in my mind. If I had counted every time that I mentally accepted Christ, I just might hold the world record. I prayed that God would be merciful to me a sinner. I pleaded for the blood of Christ. I begged for his amazing grace to save a wretch like me. I accepted him into my heart. Over and over I accepted him in any way I could think to accept Christ. Finally, I decided that Christ would indeed take care of it and tried to move on. I thought that everybody else surely had similar worries and needed to know this news of deliverance from hell.

In college, I joined an independent Baptist church, which then controlled every aspect of my life. I walked the streets of the Bible belt, witnessing to those who may have missed God's gift of salvation. Everybody at this church was told to be a soul winner. The pastor boomed his message from the pulpit, yelling at those who listened to rock music, stayed home on visitation night, gave less than 10% of their income to the church, or attended a movie theatre. We were told exactly how to live our lives, and we obediently followed. It was the only life we knew.

In my senior year of college (1978) the pastor [1] moved to another congregation, and the church deteriorated into disarray. I was confused. This was all I had to live for, and it had fallen apart. I saw the dark side of the church [2]. There was chaos at some church functions. Once when we were singing Just As I Am over and over as an alter call, people became so bored that the song died in the middle of the verse and we never finished it. I had thought that we were saving the world. Now I looked at the lives that had been "saved", and wondered if it had meant anything.
Meanwhile, I watched as the story of Jim Jones and the mass suicides in the Guyana massacre appeared on TV. The story of those poor people following every command of their leader seemed all too real to me. I had been living my life much like they had. I could understand why they followed so obediently. Religion can do that to a person. Had I been deluded also?
There was something else that bothered me. I had been reading through the Bible every year since I was in 11th grade--every word of every verse--and was finding a lot of problems. Have you ever read the tales of killing, greed, and arrogance that fill the Old Testament? Do you ever question their relevance? I was not sure that I could trust the Bible any longer. As my confidence in the Bible withered, apathy set in.
I graduated from college with no meaningful philosophy of life. My Christian hope had gone. I can not begin to describe the despair that filled my life for the first two years after graduation. There was nothing to live for. I wanted to be happy, but I didn't know why that would matter. Two hundred years from now, who would ever care if the bones left behind had supported a happy person or a sad person? Probably nobody would ever care. But somehow, I cared. And I wasn't sure why. I wanted to be happy. I knew apathy, bitterness, struggle, frustration, anger and confusion.
When my Christian hope had faded, why didn't I look for something else? I didn't know there was another way. I had grown up in Christian schools, Sunday schools, and Bible studies. The Bible was the only hope I knew about, and it now seemed inadequate. I never thought to look elsewhere--such is the grip that religion can have. I wish now that somebody had told me how to live the good life without the Bible. But I would not learn that until many years later.
In desperation, I turned to Christian books. I had no intention of going back to my fundamentalist Baptist days. But I thought that perhaps a milder brand of Christianity could help. As I read, my spirit was refreshed. Was God leading me back to himself? I thought that he was. And so I made a commitment to walk close to the Lord again. I found that Christianity worked much better for me than apathy. I would often go to a park and find a forsaken place alone with God where I could lie down and pray. I would pour out my heart to God, and I would leave refreshed. I took this as proof that Christianity was true.
I was introduced to the writings of C. S. Lewis, and I found them absolutely fascinating. His philosophy made sense to me. The best aspect was that he did not merely quote Bible verses to establish his points. One could see that he had actually thought about these things himself. I integrated his writings with the fundamentalist teachings I had heard in the past, and formed a philosophy of life.
Basically I saw myself and others as rebellious sinners. I believed that I had rebelled against God, and that this had brought on the two years of depression. When people did unkind things to me, my philosophy "explained" it--it was because they gave in to their evil, sinful nature. I would get bitter at those who had followed their inner sinful nature, sometimes snapping at people and letting them know how bad they were. I found religion helped me to keep my mouth shut. Instead of snapping out in anger, I learned to hold the anger inside, for I believed that it came from my fallen nature. And I did not want my fallen nature to express itself. I wanted only my new positive nature, as produced by the Holy Spirit, to come out. So the old, angry words were constrained. I believed that my "old self" was bad, and that every day I had to die to this self. So I set out to surrender my basic wants and desires to God.
These teachings may look strange when compared with the teachings of many of today's Evangelical churches, but I remember when this was the standard fare at many Evangelical churches. One of the most influential books in my life at that time was The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis. He writes:
A recovery of the old sense of sin is essential to Christianity. Christ takes it for granted that men are bad. Until we really feel this assumption of His to be true, though we are part of the world He came to save, we are not part of the audience to whom his words are addressed, [3]
Lewis assumed that we are bad people, and that God was angry with us for being so bad. And he thought that Christianity offered hope only to those who knew they were bad people. Lewis suggests that some Christians might ask, "What call has God, of all beings, to be angry with us?" Lewis declares that to be a blasphemous question. He responds:
Now at the moment when a man feels real guilt--moments too rare in our lives--all of these blasphemies vanish away... At such a moment we really do know that our character, as revealed in [some sinful] action, is, and ought to be, hateful to all good men, and, if there are powers above man, to them. A God who did not regard this with unappeasable distaste would not be a good being...When we merely say that we are bad, the "wrath" of God seems a barbarous doctrine; as soon as we perceive our badness, it appears inevitable, a mere corollary from God's goodness. [4]

 

Guilt is far too rare? Try saying that in a modern church! Modern Christianity is all about acceptance and self-esteem. You will look long and hard to find anybody who still teaches that guilt is too rare. But I remember when this view was prevalent. Lewis was not merely telling us that our actions are bad, but also that our very person is something that God hates. He was saying that God ought not only to hate our sin, but he ought to have wrath on us because at our very core we are worthless. He goes on to explain that we are vermin because of Adam's sin. Can God blame us for Adam's sin? Look at his response:
Theoretically, I suppose, we might say "Yes, we behave like vermin, but then that is because we are vermin. And that, at any rate, is not our fault." But the fact that we are vermin, so far from being felt as an excuse, is a greater shame and grief to us than any of the particular acts which it leads us to commit. [5]
So we find that we are vermin, through no fault of our own, but because of what Adam did. And Lewis says that it is a shame and grief to us that we are vermin, even though we were born that way. What is the Christian to do? Lewis continues,
Now the proper good of a creature is to surrender itself to its Creator--to enact intellectually, volitionally, and emotionally, that relationship which is given in the mere fact of its being a creature... In the world as we know it, the problem is how to recover this self-surrender. We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved: we are, as Newman said, rebels who must lay down our arms. [6]
He concludes,
Hence the necessity to die daily: however often we think we have broken the rebellious self we shall still find it alive...The human spirit will not even begin to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. [7]
Do you get the picture? Lewis describes both Christians and unbelievers as vermin, as nasty rebels who need to stop fighting God. He says suffering is the tool that God uses to accomplish this change. This book was the biggest influence in my philosophy of life at that time. I could have found a number of scripture verses to support this low view of humanity. (E.g. Job 42:6, Is 64:6, Lu.17:10, Rom. 3:10-19).
I look at it now, and do not think that I had a very healthy perspective. But this philosophy was mild compared with the Independent Baptist tradition that I had come out of. And it certainly worked better than apathy. This outlook gave me a reason to live. I assumed that it worked because it was right. (I now think that it worked because it gave me a purpose.) I had found this one great pillar to support my faith--Christianity must be true because it works, at least it works for me.
There was a second great pillar on which I based my faith. This pillar had stood firm even during the days of despair. I was quite familiar with the teachings of Henry Morris and the young earth creationists. I thought that this was the most logical explanation for how the earth began. They argued that the earth was created about 6000 years ago, just as the Bible said. During the time of Noah, a great flood supposedly covered the earth. This flood buried many animals, I was told, and these became the fossils we see today. I listened to this side only, and was convinced. Other things in the Bible may have been difficult to believe, but I had these two great pillars of my faith--a belief that Christianity as I knew it worked, and a belief that Genesis was the best explanation for how we got here.
In 1987 I moved to the suburbs of Philadelphia, and found an exciting Evangelical church. I met many wonderful people and quickly became involved in many aspects of the program. I had found a home, and was happy. I talked to God every day, and developed in my personal relationship with him.
In 1987 I moved to the suburbs of Philadelphia, and found an exciting Evangelical church. I met many wonderful people and quickly became involved in many aspects of the program. I had found a home, and was happy. I talked to God every day, and developed in my personal relationship with him.

Some of the Christians at this church came from a range of religious backgrounds. This was new to me. Some people disagreed with the way I understood Christianity. A few believed in evolution, or at least that the earth was billions of years old. Others told me that my religious philosophy did not work, that other philosophies worked better. There were big differences. I thought that we should despise our evil inner self--they thought that we should love ourselves. I thought that we must work hard to keep the evil anger inside of us from coming out--they thought that evil was there because we had not vented our anger, so we had better just let it all come out. I thought that we were evil on the inside--they thought that we were good on the inside, and were wearing masks that made us look evil. I thought that the big problem was overestimating one's self and overconfidence--they thought that the big problem was low self-esteem and a lack of self-confidence. I thought that we were to die to ourselves--they thought that we need to discover ourselves and self-actualize. I thought that many or our thoughts and desires were evil, and God made us feel guilty about that--they thought that these desires were natural feelings, and that it was the devil, not God, that wanted us to feel guilty about having such feelings. I thought that God allowed people to mistreat us because that was his way of molding our character and causing us to "die to ourselves"--they thought that mistreatment did not always help, but often damaged our psyche, often requiring counseling to overcome the effects. They told me that my philosophy was depressing.

Do you understand why this was a difficult pill for me to swallow? This was the one great pillar of my Christian faith--the belief that my Bible-supported philosophy worked. Now here were Christians telling me that it did not work. What did they mean it didn't work? Of course it worked! It worked far better for me than the depression I had been in. And I had scripture to back it up. It was not easy for me to accept that my way did not work. So I prayed about it and read the Bible. It seemed that God was telling me that I was doing the right thing. Seriously, who was I to go against what God was saying?

My experience and prayers told me that my philosophy worked better; their experience and prayers told them that their philosophy worked better. Who was right?

I met these people of many religions in the CompuServe debate forum. I began to participate in the religion section, and actively debated these issues with anybody that wanted to discuss them. This was to become the focus of my spiritual life.

The biggest lesson I learned during these computer bulletin board debates was how to form an argument. It was not enough for me to state that Jay Adams, C. S. Lewis, or Thomas Szasz had written something that agreed with me on a particular point. After all, one can find somebody who will agree with almost any religious viewpoint that he expresses. I needed a more effective argument. My favorite source was the Psychoheresy Awareness Ministry of Martin and Deidre Bobgan (offsite link). Their philosophy closely matched mine. They referred to psychological experiments to support their arguments, and often quoted scientific journals. I found that when I described experiments people often listened to what I had to say, and were less likely to attack my writings. I developed a love for scientific experiments and the scientific journals that described them. And so began a regular series of trips to the Philadelphia Public Library, and later, to the University of Pennsylvania. I would make lists of articles that favored my positions, and would go to the library to get more ammunition for my side.
These trips became time-consuming, and so, in 1992, I subscribed to my favorite journal, The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . At $247 a year, this represented a major desire to learn the truth. Having made the commitment, I was determined to learn something from each issue. I began to read articles, whether I thought they agreed with my position or not. This was a change for me. I was not merely reading to prove I was right. I was reading to learn. And I read some articles that were disturbing. I read that trying to suppress thoughts can make them stronger. [9] Were my efforts to keep my true thoughts under control making those repressed thoughts stronger? I learned more about the function of self-esteem. Was my viewpoint of myself as an evil sinner harmful? Slowly, microscopic cracks began to develop in the first great pillar of my faith. It was slow and subtle, but the cracks were beginning.

A strange twist of fate put me right into the middle of the creation-evolution debate. That was not where I wanted to be, for these fights were often quite nasty. I couldn't believe that I was there in the middle of it all. But I was not about to leave a good debate. I decided to let people know that evolution was a bad idea. I made some progress arguing that the complexity of genes made evolution difficult, but somebody wanted to know where all of those fossils had come from, if not from hundreds of millions of years of evolution. I suggested they might have been caused by Noah's flood. My argument was defeated in one round. I was asked to explain how it is that we find rocks made of wind-blown sand in the midst of all these rocks under the earth. I had no answer.


(more)

http://www.geocities.com/questioningpage/index.html

 

The verses I cited were in reference to Calvinism and God's omnipotence, i.e. why the Calvinist interpretation of God's omnipotence, and thus of Christianity on the whole, is the most biblically and philosophically consistent. Those who attempt to absolve God of ultimate responsibility for hell are the ones who 'choke' on said verses.

The problems with Christianity are myriad, and certainly not approximated by a few verses. You asked me why I considered Calvinism a logical proxy for Christianity overall; I answered you in that context.

If you ask why I no longer believe Christianity is true, that is a much broader question... and one that cannot be answered in a single reply, because the question is simply too large.

I have, however, addressed the question in many different ways, via multiple angles, on this very thread, as have lkh and stu and others. In fact answering the broad question of why Christianity is not true seems to be a central thrust of this thread's existence in the first place.

Ask and ye shall receive; knock and the door shall be opened unto you. There are many points to ponder here as to why Christianity is a false path. There is also a big difference between saying "I don't see your argument" and actually seeking to uncover and understand the opposition's argument.

One is little more than posturing; after all, it is the easiest thing in the world not to see. All you have to do is put your hands over your eyes. The other route, of genuinely putting one's faith to the test in pursuit of truth, requires seeking out the arguments of the opposition and genuinely contemplating them, rather than approaching hostile viewpoints from a wholly defensive shoot-em-up perspective.

And as long as I'm typing yet another long post on this thread, here's a little pet peeve of mine: the concept of "hard heartedness" as bandied about by Maverick1 and others.

What is hard heartedness, really, other than an obstinate refusal to listen to inner reason? What other definition makes sense? The religious definition of hard heartedness implies that the truth is there, available to the non-believer, and that the non-believer is obstinate in his / her refusal to embrace it.

But who is being obstinate here, now, on this thread?

If anything those with a willingness to question, to challenge assumptions no matter how much it hurts, are the ones with a "soft heart" for truth.

In contrast, those who will unthinkingly defend a dogma to their last breath, without considering the logical merits of their defense; those who would not change their minds in the face of any evidence whatsoever; those who pretend not to see because they haven't looked -- these are the truly "hard hearted" in my opinion. They are the ones who show remarkable obstinacy.

Is it the thinking nonbeliever's fault that the philosophical and material evidence is overwhelmingly against Christianity? What happens when the inner voice whispers, nay shouts, that there is a better way?

Is it not the ultimate act of soft heartedness to commit to pursuit of truth no matter what, to commit to accepting truth no matter the consequences? I fear many Christians would rather go down to the death defending a false God than commit to truth at all costs... if they could fathom what such a commitment actually meant.

Unvarnished pursuit of truth was my shining ideal during all my religious days; it is still my shining ideal here and now. The only addiction I have is addiction to clarity. Who can genuinely call me "hard hearted" in light of this?

 

Follow that Voice. You will anyway.

Symbols, such as words - words like "Christianity" - are easily twisted. The Voice is the only Word that matters. It is this Voice I referred to when I said, "Man does not live on bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of God". The Voice is the "daily bread" of which I spoke otherwise. He will guide you to the "peace", and into the power of an undivided mind. It is the Voice of Truth in a world upside down. There are those who hear from the Holy Spirit every single day. Others several times a day. Still other's embody the Voice as one. The more you listen and apply, the more the mind is healed, until salvation is complete without compromise.

It's a bit like threading a needle, making your way through the cacophony of the many little voices who speak loudly.
Peace,

Jesus