is there a "God test" that can be viewed as proof?

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

Feb 18, 2013 13:26:31 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

But why would he do that? Surely the guy was just as happy with his withered leg, right?

...well, as the story goes, the guy was asking for help... maybe he took a Sharpie and made a cardboard sign reading, "Can't work. Need food."? ...idk... but what we do know is that Peter said, "silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk." and the guy went walking and leaping and praising God...









eta ...I see that you recently edited your post to add the quote, which means you were asking Virgil and not me about "why would he did that?" ...I'll keep my post in, anyway...

[weltschmerz]

eta ...I see that you recently edited your post to add the quote, which means you were asking Virgil and not me about "why would he did that?" ...I'll keep my post in, anyway...
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Sorry about that. After I posted, I realized it was confusing in light of your new post, so I edited.

[swamp]

Feb 18, 2013 11:33:57 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

Feb 18, 2013 5:24:25 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

It does work for amputees. Just not in any 'documented cases'.

And regenerating a limb would be at the pinnacle of miraculous. There's absolutely no other way to explain it. For anybody it does happen to, they'd have to have an utterly exceptional degree of faith, as well as an extremely pressing need to get the limb back.
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Still waiting for your undocumented cases.

I already gave you one. My friend's anecdote about the healing he witnessed in the 1970's, about a man with a leg withered and atrophied since birth, being anointed and gaining full use of his limb.

Yes I know that only falls in the broader category of "limb regeneration", but it's what I was referring to.

Your friend's anecdote is what we call hearsay, not proof.

[weltschmerz]

And regenerating a limb would be at the pinnacle of miraculous. There's absolutely no other way to explain it. For anybody it does happen to, they'd have to have an utterly exceptional degree of faith, as well as an extremely pressing need to get the limb back.
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What was the extremely pressing need for this guy whose withered leg was miraculously healed? He was born like that, but all all of a sudden, he really needs his leg? Was he about to take up ballet? He was invited on the Olympic high-jumping team?

[Virgil Showlion]

Your friend's anecdote is what we call hearsay, not proof.

Which is why it's not documented.

Incidentally, God hates lies (consider Proverbs 6:16-19, Revelation 21:8, Proverbs 12:22) and has no use for liars in His Kingdom.

As I said to Weltz, I trust the fellow delivering the testimonial not to lie as much as I trust the sun to come up in the morning. You and Ms. Weltz are hearing the tale via double-hearsay now, making me a second liability in that respect, but I know just as well that liars won't inherit the Kingdom.

What was the extremely pressing need for this guy whose withered leg was miraculously healed? He was born like that, but all all of a sudden, he really needs his leg? Was he about to take up ballet? He was invited on the Olympic high-jumping team?

I don't know.

But why would he do that? Surely the guy was just as happy with his withered leg, right?

Again, I don't know. The healing might not even have been granted for his sake, or in response to his prayers. The effects would ripple out into his family and the wider world. Chaos theory tells us quite plainly that we have no way to tell who and what it affected, and the butterfly effect tells us that the entire world has been irrevocably changed as a result of God's intervention.

I shouldn't have said there "has" to be an emergent need, since that isn't scriptural. But if you do a Bible study of prayers that were granted, you find that humility, patience (i.e. enduring supplication, sometimes even for years), and emergent need are almost always present in the granting of "big" miracles.

[swamp]

Incidentally, God hates lies (consider Proverbs 6:16-19, Revelation 21:8, Proverbs 12:22) and has no use for liars in His Kingdom.

<br><br>I don't have much use for liars either.   It doesn't mean that your friend didn't lie.  <br>

[weltschmerz]

Again, I don't know. The healing might not even have been granted for his sake, or in response to his prayers. The effects would ripple out into his family and the wider world.
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You're all over the place. You posited that the reason God won't heal amputees is because there would be chaos in the world if he started healing them.
I know, I know. God works in mysterious ways.

[grits]

The God test will happen when you die.  It will either be, "I was right" or "Oh No!".

[weltschmerz]

Feb 18, 2013 15:23:39 GMT -5 grits said:

The God test will happen when you die.  It will either be, "I was right" or "Oh No!".

There are other options, like "Oh, how COOL! I never expected THIS!"

[Deleted]

Feb 18, 2013 15:39:53 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

Feb 18, 2013 15:23:39 GMT -5 grits said:

The God test will happen when you die.  It will either be, "I was right" or "Oh No!".

There are other options, like "Oh, how COOL! I never expected THIS!"

or this:

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

...lol, Arch...

[Green Eyed Lady]

I don't get it, Archie.  I see noth....



Nevermind.

[weltschmerz]

Good point, Archie.

[weltschmerz]

Or even this......


I swear to Ganesh, I never bought any ivory!"

[Virgil Showlion]

You're all over the place. You posited that the reason God won't heal amputees is because there would be chaos in the world if he started healing them.
I know, I know. God works in mysterious ways.

I'm gave you what I felt were predictable negative side effects if miracles were more commonplace. In terms of the attitudes and behaviours God values, it's quite easy to see the downside.

I will summarize my argument as follows (this is my opinion, and not necessarily scriptural):

• The vast majority of amputees have no emergent need to get their limbs back. Their general happiness is mean-reverting in the long term. Furthermore, the Bible emphasizes the importance of a joyful attitude that is free of complaining, and it clearly instructs us not to test God. If there is no emergent need, how many cases are left that involve neither complaining nor testing, so that God isn't rewarding behaviours He specifically condemns?
• How many amputees 'do their part' when praying? The Bible tells us to pray night and day without ceasing. It tells us to fast regularly, to feed on God's Word, and to put out all sin from our lives. These are signs of living, real faith. Hence, of the amputees that have an emergent need, how many have demonstrated faith to this extent? Many scriptures tell us that God does not heed the prayer of an unrighteous and unrepentant man. Obviously we're all unrighteous to some extent, but if we look to Christ's righteousness and faith compared to our own and realize that even he wasn't able to heal in certain places, it gives us an idea of the commitment God is looking for for a supernatural intervention of this magnitude.
• Of the amputees meeting all of the above criteria, how many would actually benefit from getting a limb back? What are the downsides? Will getting a limb back really fix the greater problem? We don't know. Only God knows. If the emergent need is that a man can't work and he's praying to get his limb back to restore his livelihood, could this not come just as easily in the form of an unexpected new desk job, or a landlord uncharacteristically cutting rent by half for a year, or dozens of other contingencies? God isn't going to perform a miracle of miracles just because it's 'super cool'. The less drastic kinds of assistance that you sneer at as coincidence or the placebo effect can have a remarkable impact too.
• From all of the above, how many times is God going to say 'no'? Although God is merciful, He often does say 'no', especially when our problems are our own fault. If an amputation is the result of going to fight in a war zone--guess what? The Bible says not to do that. If a man repeatedly ignores safety directives at work and cuts his arm off? Guess what? God told you to obey your superiors and you didn't. You lose a limb to a car accident or sporting accident that's your fault? Guess what? God tells us to be good stewards of our bodies, and you were deliberately reckless. Sometimes there's a lesson to be learned and a price to pay for our mistakes.

So after examining all of the above, how many people are we left with? A dozen? A hundred? A thousand? I don't know. Perhaps God, by His grace and mercy, performs miracle-of-miracles for people who don't meet the above criteria.

What we can be reasonably certain of is that the number of true, legitimate healings would be dwarfed by false claims, and that no sane editor of a medical journal would ever print an article about 'miracle healings' if the only evidence was an excited doctor and a bunch of excited people. You might get various churches going out to investigate the incidents, but none of their findings would be considered scientifically defensible. In short, miracles remain miraculous.

[swamp]

So you're saying that these people aren't hpgetting their legs back because they didn't pray hard eopnough, or they really didn't want them anyway?  

Please tell me you don't say that to people who have lost a loved one to cancer 

[weltschmerz]

What we can be reasonably certain of is that the number of true, legitimate healings would be dwarfed by false claims, and that no sane editor of a medical journal would ever print an article about 'miracle healings' if the only evidence was an excited doctor and a bunch of excited people.
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Not a problem. It can go in Natural News, along with Dr Mercola's "Don't eat real food but buy my supplements".
Or they can go on the Dr. Oz show, where they always have a miracle du jour.

[Virgil Showlion]

So you're saying that these people aren't hpgetting their legs back because they didn't pray hard eopnough, or they really didn't want them anyway?

Please tell me you don't say that to people who have lost a loved one to cancer

As I explicitly pointed out to Ms. Weltz:

• just because you desire something with all your heart and soul does not mean that you need it
• if you want to characterize the actions and behaviours in the list of Reply #106 as "praying really hard", be my guest. I'll say 'yes' because I have better things to do than address facile replies from the peanut gallery.

[swamp]

Apparently disagreeing with Virgil will mow get you relegated to the peanut gallery.  Next, I'm anticipating him damning me to hell for disagreeing with him. 

And for the record, I have no idea whether there is a heaven or a hell. 

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

Feb 18, 2013 18:06:15 GMT -5 @missmargarita said:

Wow... Condescend much?  Should the peanut gallery just refer to you as the blow hard bible thumper? 

...wow... that's pretty condescending right there, MM...

 

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

Feb 18, 2013 18:15:19 GMT -5 swamp said:

Apparently disagreeing with Virgil will mow get you relegated to the peanut gallery.  Next, I'm anticipating him damning me to hell for disagreeing with him. 

And for the record, I have no idea whether there is a heaven or a hell. 

...maybe MM thinks so... not me... fwiw...

[swamp]

Virgil can dress his response up in a tux, but it still boils down to "you didn't pray to God enough or in the way he wanted.". 

[Virgil Showlion]

Miss M., if I come into your thread about climate change and say "So you're saying that a whole bunch of cows farting will destroy the world?", you have every right to throw my 'condescending attitude' back in my face.

Virgil can dress his response up in a tux, but it still boils down to "you didn't pray to God enough or in the way he wanted.".

Well maybe we can let other members read it and come to their own determination of whether your three-word summary of "praying really hard" is accurate.

[swamp]

Your thread?!  Chiver started it, not you. It's also very egocentric of you to think only you have the right to post on a thread. You said you'd provide proof god exists, and frankly your proof is lacking. You can't whine when youre called on it. 

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

...I didn't miss that part... swamp paraphrased his post in such a way that prompted him to "roll his eyes" at her... he posted in similar fashion to her earlier response to him... a tit for tat, true... it's just that your condescending post about his condescending post to her condescending post is what actually caught my attention... fwiw...

[swamp]

Feb 18, 2013 18:31:57 GMT -5 Virgil Showlion said:

Miss M., if I come into your thread about climate change and say "So you're saying that a whole bunch of cows farting will destroy the world?", you have every right to throw my 'condescending attitude' back in my face.

Virgil can dress his response up in a tux, but it still boils down to "you didn't pray to God enough or in the way he wanted.".

Well maybe we can let other members read it and come to their own determination of whether your three-word summary of "praying really hard" is accurate.

They're free to comment. I don't get all butt hurt when people disagree with me. 

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

Feb 18, 2013 18:25:41 GMT -5 @missmargarita said:

Virgil can't seem to provide anything but his opinion and bible verses as his so called "undeniable proof"...

...but Monday's not over yet, and he did mention it would probably take him until today...

[weltschmerz]

Maybe if he teams up with Ned Flanders, proof will be forthcoming.

[Virgil Showlion]

Feb 18, 2013 18:37:23 GMT -5 BeenThere...DoneThat... said:

Feb 18, 2013 18:25:41 GMT -5 @missmargarita said:

Virgil can't seem to provide anything but his opinion and bible verses as his so called "undeniable proof"...

...but Monday's not over yet, and he did mention it would probably take him until today...

I was going to send a PM to chiver78, but I might as well post it here.

I deferred to today specifically because I needed to speak with several individuals at church services to get info on where to find certain videos and publications--online, if possible.

But circumstances were such that I didn't go to services this past Sabbath. And even if I had, I likely wouldn't have had time to compile the rest of the material by today.

So I'm going to ask chiver specifically to hold me to my commitment, but the material will have to wait until next Monday, after I've met with these individuals. This is a low-priority side project for me, and nobody will suffer if it has to wait a week.

The arc about healing wasn't offered as proof. It was dredged out of the ether by Ms. Weltz who claimed that lack of miraculous limb regeneration documented in medical journals was proof of God's nonexistence, and I was simply pointing out to her the flaws in her reasoning.

I don't get all butt hurt when people disagree with me.

Neither do I. And in addition to that, when people tell me I've made a facile argument, I don't jump to the conclusion that they're "all butt hurt".

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

...I'm curious about what expectations of evidence and verification that some of you require... are two testimonies enough? twenty? two hundred? ...is five examples of empirical evidence for supernatural (aka divine) order enough? ten? fifteen? ...or might you simply reject a metaphysical study as "hokie science" since it might not fit your description of natural science? or even agree that many scientists disagree about these limitations?

...just curious...