Lack of Divine Intervention

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Yes, and every day we are discovering that you are full of crap. See, I can can play the BS game too! (Seriously, if you're going to make such a ridiculous claim, at least have something to back it up.)

Yes, we (as in you and I) don't know much about medical science, but guess what? The doctors do; it's their job to know all the variables and predict what is most likely to happen in any given circumstance. Your example of the anti-biotics is actually a point for the doctors, as they know that they can become ineffective (and likely the probabilities for when, as in after how many treatments). As for the guessing, I might as well turn your own words (or possibly Gnarf's, I don't remember) from a previous thread on you and say that you only guess when you turn the key in the ignition that your car will start. You guess that you won't have an anneurysm during the night and never wake up. You guess that the chair you're sitting on won't spontaneously collapse.

But the difference is that these are all educated guesses. You know the probability is low that these events will happen, and you feel safe in thinking that they won't. The chair company doesn't warn you of the tiny possibility that it might spontaneously collapse. This is overconfidence. But doctors know that these low-probability events might cost someone's life, so they make sure that the patient knows every possible outcome. What you might call not knowing, I call being thorough and acknowledging that noone knows the future.

And one final note to think on: The doctor may be gambling on people's lives with known probabilities, but every religion (yes, including yours) gambles on people's eternal souls with no knowledge at all. Which is worse?

 

If it's well documented, provide a link. I'm pretty sure if someone who had been embalmed was ressurected from the dead, that would still be news.....even now. Unless, of course there is a reasonable, scientific explanation for it.

One of the first things I'd do if I was trying to fake the ressurection would be to, uh, hide the body.

People that never saw Jesus return from the dead because they weren't alive to see it were willing to die for it. The point you are making here isn't even remotely compelling.

Another possible explanation for the ressurection is that Jesus may not even have been dead when they took him down from the cross. Even 200 years ago our ability to tell if someone was actually dead left a lot to be desired. This was 2,000 years ago. Sorry, NOG, but the possibility that this whole thing was one big, elaborate hoax exists. It doesn't mean it was a hoax, or even than it happened differently from what is recorded in the bible. I make this point as a way of suggesting that you stop confusing fact and faith. We don't know what happened to Jesus of Nazareth 2,000 years ago. We only know what was written. I'll also point out that while Christ's passing is a matter of recorded (non-biblical) history, his "ressurection" was only recorded in the gospels. It is not an incontrovertible fact.

[ April 11, 2006, 19:43: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

NOG,

Do you know what they do when they embalm a body? Even if you weren't dead when they began the process, embalming itself would prove fatal, and there's no way you could later be "alive" in any way shape or form after the process.

I have a friend who is a mortician (he's a weird guy, and quite frankly, it's a rather weird profession). Among many things that are done is the chest and abdominal cavity is opened up, all the organs removed and placed in a plastic bag, and then that bag is placed back into the body, where it is sewed up again. All the blood is also drained from the deceased. The reason they do this is that there are a lot of fluids present in the human body, and they don't want these things leaking out during the viewing for sanitary reasons if for no other purpose.

Basically what I'm saying is if you have no blood, and you have all of your organs removed, placed in a plastic bag and then sewed back up inside you, even if you weren't dead at the start of the process, there's no way you could be alive afterwards! Chances are that the guy was never dead in the first place, but regardless, he certainly wasn't embalmed, because even if he was still alive he certainly wouldn't be after being embalmed.

 

It seems to me that we are defining God using human terms. Assuming that there is a being who cares what is going on in this minute spot of the universe he would have the power to destroy it in an instant. So he chooses not to. He lets the rain fall on the just and the unjust. Also the hurricane, volcanic eruption etc. Mistreatment of others, including wars but not limited to war, is done by human beings. If this being gave humankind free will then to step in and take sides would be to take away free will. He could if he so chose to do so but chooses not to. That does not mean (to me) that he is not infinite but has his own agenda and sticks with it.

As to prayer, I was taught that God answers all prayers but often says "NO".

But this whole thing boils down to personal belief and obviously we are not going to agree.

We are simply

 

@Fel:
There are plenty of instances, just on this site, of people talking about doctors messing up, doctors making mistakes, doctors not even guessing that factor X would influence factor Y. Why do you think malpractice insurance is so high in the US? Its because the common man expects doctors to be miracle workers and if someone dies on an opperating table, it must be the doctor's fault. The only fault the doctor had was in being arrogant or foolish enough to not explain that we don't know everything.
My grandmother died because she went in for a routine opperation to clean out an artery they were worried about getting blocked. The doctors all but guaranteed she's be back home in a day. An infection got into her brain stem from this opperation and she went into a coma for several days before dying. Was it because the doctor wasn't prepared? Did he make a mistake he shouldn't have? No, we just don't know everything.

@Drew:
I already did: "Grocery list" (Religion) (Page 2)

I was actually talking about people like John, Matthew, Peter, all the other apostles, as well as at least 2 of the 3 Marys. These are people that lived with Jesus, walked with Him, talked with Him, and followed Him day in and day out for 3 years. If anyone stole the body, it would be them, but they still died proclaiming the ressurection.

I've heard this before, and it was just a stupid then. You do realize that they STABBED HIM IN THE SIDE WITH A SPEAR! This pierced the lung, and a mixture of blood and water flowed out, meaning HIS LUNGS WERE FLOOED before he was entombed. Also, He was in the tomb for three days. Even assuming He was alive when they took Him down, which is a miricle itself, there's no way He could survive in a tomb, with no food, no water, no medical attention, for three days with the kinds of wounds and bloodloss He suffered. And lastly, do you know what crucifixion did to a person? Jesus had nails driven through His ankles. There is no way a normal man would be in any contidion to be walking around three days after being taken off a cross. If Jesus somehow survived the cross and tomb, that was a bigger miricle than Him rising from the dead!

@Aldeth:
This was done in Africa, where modern medicine is a little behind and they have to preserve the body quickly before it starts to stink up the place. All they do is replace the blood with phermalerhyde(sp?). Yes, this would kill any human being, or any form of life we know for that matter. That doesn't matter, he was already dead. The point is he didn't stay that way. He still has the scars from where the embalming fluid was pumped in and his blood pumped out. Doctors don't know how it happened, but he has normal blood in his veins again today.
The post wasn't about someone surviving embalming, but about someone who was dead, really dead, coming back to life.

@Nakia:
I think we've come to as good an understanding of things as we ever will, and you're right, we are just beating a dead horse at this point. Peace?

 

@ Nog

Again, you demonstrate the fundimental flaw in your reasoning. You claim that your way of believing is the correct one, and you know this because God has made a guest appearance to yourself, your friends and your family to confirm this. You're right in that you can't prove it, so how am I to know if you're full of it, or at the very least you exercise some arrogance (sorry if that word sounds harsh, but it's the best one to fit the situation) in claiming God speaks to your group and not others. But by making this claim, you are essentially saying that the Catholic priest who claims the same is either a liar or delusional. Or the presbyterian minister. Or the mormon Bishop. Or the rabbi, the buddhist monk, the Shiite cleric, the hindi, bin Laden's followers, or anyone else who claims they know their belief is correct because God said so.

So which are they - liars or suckers? Because according to your logic, either they're wrong (and they must be, since they aren't Baptists) or everyone is.

All I ask is that you examine your own words, and really think about them: that your claim is true in a general sense, and who is right and wrong is all about faith and evidence. Do any of the other faiths have any less faith and evidence than yours? There isn't a clergyman on earth who wouldn't contest the veracity of his "faith and evidence" against your own. And how would one determine the winner of such a contest? Can it even be done? I don't believe so since, again, we're talking about faith - not fact.

 

Can you spare a link for a brotha? This should have been freaking headline news if we pumped a dude full of formaldehyde (I assume that's what you meant as I have never heard of a chemical called phermalerhyde, and as a chemist, that's pretty unusual) and he so much as batted an eyelash, never mind continued to produce blood of his own afterwards.

 

One more pick, I suppose:

There is a documented case of a skydiver who's shute didn't open hitting the ground full impact, bouncing 3 times, and walking away barely injured. Any physicist will tell you that an impact like that would liquify most human bodies on impact, but this man proved an exception.

Miracle or not, nothing's for sure - and Jesus surviving after the brutaility of the crucifiction is certainly not impossible. It's also not impossible that the details of that story were exaggerated, for obvious reasons.

 

@NOG: Do you have any links to that story that are from recognized, credible sources of news, as opposed to a site with an overt Christian agenda?

 

You mean you were there? I didn't realise that you were 2,000 years old. Gee, I'm really sorry. I thought you just read it from a book of questionable historical accuracy. But it must be true. The only way you could be so sure of the events that occured would be that you were at his crucifixion. Again, awfully sorry.

 

Heck, Rally, I'll even take one from a Christian journal with a clear agenda, because this defies belief. If you believe this happened, scientology looks like a pretty reasonable belief set by comparison.

 

I hate to trot out a cliche, but the exception proves the rule. People get upset about these kinds of things because they rightly don't expect them to happen.

Why do you think they call it "malpractice" insurance? Because it was the doctor's fault. They are supposed to know everything, and if they prepare for their job properly they will. You are the one who does not give medical science enough credit, just as most people do not give computers enough credit, saying they screw up for no reason at all when 90% of the time it is user error. The same applies to the medical profession, where 90% of it is user (doctor) error. (The major exception being the brain, which we still don't know much about.)

Yes, it was. He should have sterilized the implements and taken proper precautions against infection. Had he done that, there would have been almost no chance of what happened occuring. He also should have given you the standard "barring complications" shpiel, and if he didn't, he clearly falls into the arrogant category. I hope you sued his a$$.

 

@DR:
It isn't a flaw of logic to say that I've seen evidence you haven't, it just isn't very convincing, and I'm honestly not supposed to convince you, the Spirit is. I'm only here to tell you what's happened to me. If you don't believe it then that's up to you.
As far as presbyterians go, I'm not totally familiar with their theology, but I'm pretty sure they're christians too. I've never claimed that baptists are the only ones that hear from God.
As for the other groups, the shi-ite cleric and such, I'm afraid I have to say yes, they're either lying or decieved by a demon (more likely of the two). If you want reasons to believe me and not them, look above at what I said about proof.
As for the division between faith and fact, you're making a dangerous assumption. This is faith in facts (for whoever's right). Just because something isn't scientifically reproducable doesn't mean it didn't happen.

@Aldeth:
I did spare a link. And thank's for the spelling, for some strange reason I always want to make it more complicated than it sounds.

@DR:
And you're claiming that this doesn't qualify in your books as a friggin miracle? A man jumps out of a plane with no effective parachute and bounces three times? Then gets up and walks away? And you don't call this a miracle? What does it take? I'll bet Jesus Himself could appear for you and sock you in the face and you'd chalk it up to a halucination.

DR & Drew:
First off, the Bible is daily being shown as a reliable historic source (the parts that talk about historic events and not a guy living wiht birds for 5 years). Second, the death of Jesus is doccumented in more than just the Bible. There was an earthquake, the sun was blotted out (eclipse?) and the guy died in about 1/6 the time it normally takes, and you think this would go unnoticed? There's extensive historic evidence backing up the biblical account of the death of Jesus, not to mention the general process of crucifiction.

@Fel:
The brain is the only major exception? What about comas in general? What about chemical effects in the body? Why do drug companies run so many experiments and still list all these horrible possible side effects if we understand what causes them and could simply screen the population? I'd also like to remind you of all those Lysol commercials that say 'kills 99.9% of bacteria'. That's a .1% chance that each bacteria survives against millions of bacteria. There is no guaranteed sterilizer in the world. We haven't found anything yet that something can't live in. Hell, we've even found bacteria in the magma of the mantle, alive.

 

OK, I lied. When I said I didn't care if it had a Christian agenda, I was hoping for something more than a personal account from a priest/pastor. My bigger question however is if this is something that was witnessed by dozens of people, then why did this not make it into any type of media source? Wouldn't a paper have reported it, if not via television, radio and internet? The mere fact that it didn't get reported somewhere is a reason to have some doubts regarding the account presented.

Now, obviously, there is no way that we could ever prove or document what he saw during those 42 hours where he showed no signs of life, and I don't expect any type of proof regarding that. However, if he was examined by several physicians who all thought he was dead, and a death certificate was issued, why can't this be documented/proven?

I also agree that brain death usually occurs within minutes of when you stopped breathing, so his brain should have been mush. There must be witnesses that saw him get placed into the sealed coffin with minimal air inside.

All I'm saying is that there should be a lot of evidence to back up this claim, and that evidence doesn't even have to rely on a Christian faith, and yet I see none, other than something some pastor wrote down as a diary or memoire. Overall, the account is not very convincing.

EDIT:

Presbyterians are most definitely Christians. In fact, they are more generally Protestants, and in that regard, not much different from Baptists. I attended a christening at a Presbyterian Church once, and I liked it quite a bit. It was certainly different than what my Cathlic tradition was, but the prayers were very similar, and I was very impressed by the informal way that the priest addressed the parishoners. Before the service he walked up and down the ailes of the church, shaking hands with people, saying hello to people he knew, and introducing himself to people he didn't. He probably spoke to at least 50 people before the service. I don't know if that is part of the Presbyterian tradition, but he seemed so much more open and friendly than any other priest/pastor/minister I have ever met.

 

Nog,

Scientific reproduction isn't the standard by which we judge and declare "facts," reliable evidence is. Science is just one means by which we test evidence. And I hate to harp, but...if you can't prove something, it's not a fact. Theory or faith, even truth at best - but not fact.

Exactly my point. Names, dates and places, yes - I've never claimed otherwise. Miracles, divine events and supernatural acts, no. That's where I believe the exaggeration comes in, again, for obvious reasons. I have no doubt Jesus lived, was followed and loved, and was ultimately crucified. I acknowledge that it's certainly possible that Jesus survived the crucifiction, and because doing so was so unheard of even by today's standard's, people assumed it was divine intervention. Throughout human history, man has often assumed the Gods were intervening when something happened they couldn't explain. People used to think the moon and sun were gods. Or that the universe revolved around the earth. But I'd like to think we've evolved intellectually since then, and can at least admit that there were other possibilities for what happened to Christ other than the supernatural explanation.

I suppose if Jesus were torn limb from limb and still returned days later, walking and talking, I would feel differently. As it stands, I have my doubts as to the veracity of the biblical account. Were today's medical technology available back then, I would think it would make you wonder if what was interpreted as having happened then were actually the case. What's frustrating to me is your refusal to admit that there's even a possibility that this might be the case. It seems awefully closed-minded of you.

There is no evidence to suggest that it was, in fact, a miracle. Extreme unlikelyhood and luck, to be sure. But why automatically assume that God intervened? Healthy people die suddenly every day, and people involved in gruesome accidents walk away relatively unharmed - also every day, all over the world. I find it naive to claim these are all the results of God's intervention when there is usually a provable scientific/medical explanation for why this happened.

[ April 12, 2006, 18:43: Message edited by: Death Rabbit ]

 

@DR:
So you're saying that the Earth didn't revolve around the Sun until people proved it did? A fact is what is real, what is, regardless of who believes it or not.
I'm actually not refusing to admit I could be wrong. Paul himself says that if Christ did not rise from the dead, Christians are to be pitied above all others (though not so much in modern America, remember who he was writing to). I'm just telling you that, from what I've seen with my own eyes, the evidence is pretty strong.
And I doubt modern medicine could explain how a man born lame could be healed jsut by Jesus talking to him.

 

And this is where you'll always have trouble. Please tell me, in as much detail as you recall, what God looks like. Or whatever evidence you have seen with your own eyes that can't possibly be explained by other means. I'm anxious to see what this pretty strong evidence could possibly be, so much so that it makes the leap from faith to fact.

By the way - a six foot penguin just ran through my apartment, sang the theme song to "Full House" and healed the nasty cold sore on my lip with a touch from his flipper, all before leaving discretely and I am as yet the only witness. Nobody can prove it didn't happen, but to me, the evidence is pretty strong that it did. But I digress - what was this you saw with your eyes?

 

^Oh man, DR. When you die, if hell exists you're going straight there. Probably me too.

 

Maybe, Aldeth. Mind you, I'm not questioning the existence of God - just NOG's claims to have "pretty strong" evidence that his way of belief is correct over others.

I doubt I'm going to hell. If I do, God's far more petty than I ever could have imagined.

 

I am also fascinated to hear this pretty strong evidence is.