Lack of Divine Intervention

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@ Nog,

It's precisely that kind of arrogance and narrow-mindedness that drives people to atheism and agnosticism. The whole "there's only one correct way to believe, and it's mine!" crap is exactly why I believe the way I do. I grew up in Utah, and have had that sh*t shoved down my throat by hardcore Mormons my whole life (I also lived in Texas, and southern Baptists aren't much better). There isn't a single religion on this planet that isn't 100% convinced that their way is the "correct" way to God. Who are you to say with such certainty that you're right and the rest of the world is wrong? You don't know. You may think you do, but you don't - and neither does anyone else. No matter how right you think you are, there's absolutely no way you will ever know for sure, and unless God decides to make a guest appearance down here to confirm or deny the veracity of any given faith's claim to him, you'll never get official verification either.

That's why it's called "faith," not "fact."

Of course, I was referring to faith in a higher power, so, this is just silly. Unless you've had some wild experience with mushrooms that I haven't.

Please, don't qualify with "the fact is" something that is clearly your opinion and you could never prove. You believe according to your own path, and I'm happy for you that you've found something that works for you. Let me stress, works for YOU (which is my whole point - faith is personal, not universal). But you have no right or qualification to dismiss out of hand the majority of the rest of the world who hold a different belief system than you do. I don't have any exact figures, but can't imagine that Baptists like yourself make up any more than 1% of the world's population. Being so sure that 99% of the remaining 7 billion people on Earth should be taking their cues from you is pretty arrogant, in my book.

[ April 07, 2006, 22:17: Message edited by: Death Rabbit ]

 

Right gods, wrong gods, false and true gods...

Either there is some divine engagement in all religions, or all are equally false, empty. Unless there is a multitude of gods, I dont see why the very same divine power should reveal him/herself to people in different guises (causing no end of strife), call for different worship... sometimes poses as one, sometimes as many.

Since none of them call a significance their own that others lack I cannot tell which side is right. But since all eagerly discredit the others (and thereby themselves), I must assume all are wrong, clueless, unrelated to the divine, and purely about control freaks, human jealousy and pettiness instead - thus becoming dispensable. There you have your lack of divine intervention.

[ April 07, 2006, 23:26: Message edited by: Dendri ]

 

Faith is truly the key. If one doesn't have faith in thier religion, it is not going to be an effective religion. The Muslims that crashed into the world trade center had extreme faith that thay would be with Allah when they died, and that they were acting as righteous martyrs for thier faith. I don't think there are to many people in this discussion that would aggree that those men are in "heaven". I know I certainly believe that it is very hot where they are, but they believed and had great faith. Obviosly this is an extreme case, but the principle still applies.

Faith in any God tends to be exclusive, although there are religions with more than one God. Then on the other end of the spectrum you have pantheists, that believe that everything is god, and god is in everything. My point is simple, we can argue (discuss) all we want, and we are not going to get anywhere with people. I could go to Death Rabbit's house and argue with him for weeks and at the end of that time, he still wouldn't believe the way I do. I am not so arrogant to believe that there is no chance that I am wrong, but I do have faith that I am right. With that said though, I think of the terrorists that flew planes into buildings in my country, praying to Allah the whole time.

 

That's not necessarily true - I wouldn't say that at all. I'd hate to think that anyone sees my views as so obtuse and closed-minded. Just because I've yet to be convinced that a particular religion is better than any other, doesn't mean I can't be. In fact, the likelyhood that I'm wrong about what I believe is the basis of how I came to these conclusions. It's the inability of some of the faithful to make the same concession that turns me off about organized religion.

As for the 9/11 terrorists - that's a good point, but according to everything I've read on the subject, what bin Laden and his followers believe and practice is a gross misinterpretation of the Koran. I think where they misstep is that their faith is driven by hate, rather than love.

 

Very true DR, the terrorists were following a perverted view of the Muslim faith, I was only using them as an example for faith.

I certainly didn't mean to say that I thought you were close-minded either. I was only trying to point out that it is faith and not knowledge that leads one to God. Of course without knowledge, there could be no faith. Man cannot bring another man to God, only God can bring a man to Himself.

 

Why is it so impossible to believe that maybe the way God wants us to worship him is by treating other people in a nice way. "As you have done it unto one of these so you have done it to me."

I'm inclined to agree with the Quakers on this one. There is a spark of God in each of us and so we do to God as we do to each other.

To me, my personal belief, the rest is just finite humans trying to understand and interpret the infinite. This is what I mean when I say that we create our own gods. We want to understand God so we end up creating him/her/it in our own image and likeness.

Not sure that makes sense but at the moment it is the best I can do.

 

I'm just going to stick with the fact that prayer doesn't work because there is no god. There is no way to prove prayer works unless the result is obviously some type of miracle (holy light, angles, coming back from the dead, pretty much stuff that has been deemed scientifically impossible).

Now even if there was a god prayers might not work anyway. The god could simply choose to ignore them, deem them insignificant, greedy or arrogant.

On the whole belief being required for a god to exsist well that's true in a sense. God does exsist because people believe in him, but only in the same way that the story of Hercules exsists because people remember it. Also if that was the case then gods would be younger than sentient beings since it would require a sentient being to create one - to start believing.

 

First, The principles of Scientific study don't work for prayer. If the variables are to be standardized, then the prayers would have to be to. Repetition doesn't cut it. It has to follow the guidelines that Chev mentioned.

Further, it is impossible to control which patients are prayed over. If My grandmother was one of the subjects in the no prayer group, that would not stop me, my family or members of the ward from praying for her.

Another thing, Prayer is not about superceding God's will, but the strength to accept it, and comfort in doing so. If the person would suffer more from living after the procedure than passing away during it, then the Lord may call them to the next world...

Though I don't think the Lord ignores those of other faiths, I do feel that mine grants advantages, such as an understanding of fasting and Priesthood blessings which would improve the odds of a return to health, but again, these cannot supercede the will of God...

 

@Aldeth & DR:
Ok, here's how the logic goes. If I believe my way is the only way, and I'm right, then everyone who doesn't agree with me is wrong. If I believe it and am wrong, then I am wrong (still, someone is wrong). If God will accept everyone who seeks Him, then I am at least wrong in my 'only way' philosophy. The only other possibility I can think of is that God is something else that no one believes in and so everyone is wrong. Therefire, by logic, it is a fact that either some of us are right and the rest are wrong (whatever that some and rest may be), or all of us are wrong and none of us are right.

Also, DR, I'm only trying to prove to you that the above is true in a general sense. Who is right and wrong is all about faith and evidence. God has made guest appearances to me, my friends, my family, and many, many other Christians, we just can't prove it to you.

@Rally:
I'm still waiting for an explination as to where the idea that God is entirely infinite came from. Is God infinitely wrathful? That doesn't fit Judaism or Christianity, or many other faiths for that matter. Is God infinitely sinful? That's pretty much an oxymoron. If God isn't infinitely infinite, how can you assume He is infinite in any characteristic unless He tells you (presuming that showing us infinite power, for example, would not leave us in any condition to know anything )?

@Dendri:
You are making a dangerous assumption, here. You are assuming that God is the only power that has any interest in starting a religion. Even assuming that demons can't/don't/won't/aren't, there are still plenty of people who have trited to start their own. Iff God made one, and someone/something else made all the others, then doesn't it follow that there is only one right way?

@Brallrock:
I agree with you about the importance of faith, and the acceptance that I might be wrong (even though I'm pretty sure I'm not). Even if you go to the right church (or whatever you want to call it), say the right prayers, make the right sacrifices and choices and everything, if you don't have faith, it's all just a show.

@Ab:
There have been plenty of miricles in the past, even some in pressent day, including a man rising from the dead AFTER BEING EMBALMED! People still don't believe. No evidence in heaven or on Earth can force a man to believe.

@Gnarff:
Don't forget the whole, "Thou shalt not test the Lord thy God." issue. If you want to test prayer in a religion that doesn't have such a proscription, go ahead, but otherwise...

All in all, I understand why so many of you don't like what I've been saying. I don't agree with you, but I understand. It sounds intolerant, insolent, and arrogent, but bear with me for a hypothetical situation:
An unknown, unheard of doctor from Guatamalla discovers a cure for AIDS, an absolute cure. The AMA and FDA can't figure out any reason why it should work, it seems like non-sense to them, so they just throw it away and don't even test it. This doctor then comes to you, who have just contracted AIDS (however you want), and says he'll give you the treatment FOR FREE! All he wants is for you to go to the AMA and the FDA and tell them what happened to you. Now remember, this actually works, it IS a cure. Are you going to rail on him about him telling you this is the ONLY way, the ONLY cure? Well? Would you?

 

NOG,

I offer another possibility - what if God is willing to accept any and all that come to him, and is not as concerned about what you call him, or how you worship him but the fact that you believe in him. Is it not possible that whether we call him Jesus, God, Yahweh, or Allah, that we might all be praying to the same God?

Secondly, I find the fact that you don't like other Christian groups rather surprising, going so far as to label Catholics is Idolators. Coming from a Catholic background myself, I can tell you that while it is true that every Cathlic Chruch I have been in has a statue of Jesus, the people attending the Mass worship Jesus the person, not Jesus the statue. I was always of the opinion that the main criteria for being Christian was belief in the divinity of Jesus first and foremost, and intrinsictly involved with that is the further belief in his death and resuurection. All Christians believe in that, the rest is just window dressing.

 

Um, ditto?

If he said that it was the only cure that could ever work in the entire past, present, and future of man, yes I would. I also would not accept the cure, as he is only impersonating a scientist; a real doctor (scientist of human biology) would not discount the chance that there might be other cures, at the very least in the future. I might even report him to the local authorities for attempting to peddle unlicensed drugs, which may very well be poison for all I know (the easiest cure for any disease is death). In sum, your premise of comparing faith with science is pretty flawed. I believe the judge on the Simpsons said it best...

......................................................................

Um, Aldeth...NOG covered that.

When he says that someone's wrong, I don't think he means that they'll be automatically excluded from Heaven just for being wrong (unless he's the one that's right, of course ).

 

Thank you, Fel.
As for the analogy, what if it were the only cure that would ever exits, that this actually was the only way to cure it without killing you? And presume it didn't involve any controlled substances.

 

Yes, apparantly he did. I don't know how I didn't notice or didn't interperet that correctly the first time. Heck, I have a built-in excuse - I'm an idiot.

 

Regardless, I would never trust a doctor if he told me with absolute certainty that no other cure could ever exist. If he said it's the only option right now, that's believable (and quite common with some diseases), but saying it's the only one possible is just not right. As I said before, science does not work like that, and the premise is flawed. But in the hopes of actually being able to answer your question, I will say this:

Ironically, I would be slightly more inclined to believe a religious authority giving me the same cure and telling me the same thing. Believing that there never will be a scientific cure is not as much of a stretch as believing that there can only ever be one. Faith (not prayer, but faith in getting better) has remarkable restorative properties, as actually proved by study. It's one of the reasons why doctors are encouraged to have a good bedside manner, to help their patients recover. And personally I am a great believer of mind over matter, even taken to the extreme.

P.S. By "unlicensed drugs" I was not talking about controlled substances, but instead referring to what you had said about the FDA and AMA refusing to license it. Going around a ban can have some hefty consequences.

 

Ok, Fel, you aren't even getting the point of the analogy. The question wasn't, "Would you take it?" The question was, "Would you call the man intollerant for saying his way was the only way?"

So, since you seem to be so easily distracted (here, kitty kitty ), let me put it to you another way. You have just been diagnosed with cancer. The doctor, a real one, tells you that aggresive chemotherapy is the only cure, but you've heard of some holistic and herbal remidies that are supposed to work. You ask the doctor about it and he tells you it is all a sham, that those people don't really get better, but just feel better until the cancer kills them, that if you just want to give up and die that's the way, but if you want to be cured, his therapy is the only way in existance today. Would you call him intollerant?

 

If he said it that way, yes I would; the words smack of arrogant dismissal without facts. And yet again, the premise of comparing religion with science is faulty, as the two are completely unalike. You can do studies with science, but you cannot do anything to go towards proving religion.

 

Once every month or so I pray to the White Porcelein god that the illness in my stomach will disapear. The White Porcelein god then sends down a cleansing bolt on me expunging all the bad spirits and after some rest I am fine again. Prayer works and all hail the White Porcelein god!

You might see this as a silly joke post, it isnt, this is said in an equally serious matter as someone suffering from whatever disease and praying to some more established god and claiming to have been saved. The connection to reality is in both cases tenous and the entire concept is irrational, improbable and outright stupid.

 

I read about that. In the bible. It was 2,000 years ago, only had a few witnesses, and there is no way of wvwe proving it happened. There is also no way of proving that Christ ever rose from the dead, either. That he was crucified and why is a matter of recorded history (it was recorded by a Roman historian as well as showing up in the bible). The Jews believe he was a charlatan. The muslims believe he was a prophet who's words were twisted by his followers who then blasphemed further by deifying him. I believe he was a man. The point, my friend, is that just because a book says something doesn't make it true. Eyewitness testimony isn't even accurate, as we have proven time and time again that people misidentify perpetrators of crimes mere hours later. You can't hold up miracles from dusty tomes as examples of modern day miracles. It doesn't hold any water. Unless God tells me what I'm supposed to believe about God, I'm going to believe the only thing that I logically can- that I don't know who or what God is......and I certainly don't know what God wants. Neither do you, unless God has appeared to you and spoken to you. If God has, great! Congratulations. It doesn't mean that anyone will believe you, though. There are a lot of people that have said God talks to them.....and most of them were insane. Many of them were Charlatans out to make a buck. I'm not gonna buy what your selling unless God makes his presence know to me or the person telling me about God's world manages something that Copperfield couldn't.

 

It comes from God's Name, YHVH, which has been variously translated but most commonly comes down to "I am what am" or "I will be what will be". God is infinite potential.

And I definitely agree with Fel, that I would call a doctor who dismissed all other possible treatments as not even worth investigating - let alone using in parallel with traditional methods - intolerant. I would do so right as I walked out of his/her office and informed him/her that I would be getting my treatment elsewhere from then on.

I also agree that your analogies between science and religion are tenuous at best. You and I faced the same dilemma in the "Battlefield God" game, making a distinction between applying the rules of rational evidence to the physical world as opposed to things spiritual, and yet here you are trying to play the same game. Naughty, naughty!

 

Fel:
You give modern medicine too much credit. Every day we are discovering that what we thought cured you actually kills you and what we thought kills you actually cures you. A doctor's 'prognosis' is actually his best guess. We really don't know that much about medical science, mainly because there are so many variables. Sure, anti-biotics may cure the illness once, but if you take them too much other illnesses become immune, etc.

@Drew:
Actually, the case I'm talking about was in africa just a few years ago. Well documented, too.
The fun thing about the Jews claiming he was a charliatan is that all they had to do 2000 years ago to kill the religion was produce Jesus's body. And the idea that the disciples twisted his words to their own ends, faked the ressurection, etc is all bogus simply because these same people were willing to die horrible deaths for this religion. If you had stolen the body of Jesus and lied about Him ressurecting, would you really be willing to be tortured and killed just to keep up a pointless lie?

@Rally:
It just seems to me that there's a big difference between "I am what I am." or even "I am that I am." or any way you could validly interpret that statement, and "I am all things that you could ever imagine me to be." As I said, God isn't infinitely wrathful, nor sinful, so He can't be infinite in ALL characteristics.

I actually didn't have a contradiction of requiring evidence in one case, but not the other. My problem was that I said faith can be rational. Atheists disvelieve in God by faith. It is rational and reasonable, but it is still faith because there is no proof God doesn't exist.