Do Christians actually believe in God?

[InterestedAtheist]

You actually raise some good questions.

I will get back to you when I have considered it some more...

I think you win a prize for saying that. I cannot remember ever having heard it before. And, honestly, there are times when I should use it myself.

Take as long as you need.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

The book of Matthew tells us
“Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.

When I pray it's for his will and the needs of others. Have I asked in the past, of course I have but I always feel bad about it because there are so many that have needs greater than mine.

You may have a point. But the question isn't really for me. The question is, why do Christians who DO believe that God gifts them never ask for anything impossible?

 

[Arc F1]

You may have a point. But the question isn't really for me. The question is, why do Christians who DO believe that God gifts them never ask for anything impossible?

Nothing is impossible it's that none of us are worthy enough. Even the most devout person can't escape the doubt or stop sinning. All God asks of us is to follow his word and not one single person past present or future is capable of doing that no matter how hard we try. He offers us everything and we still fail to meet his expectations. So people do ask and nothing happens then as we always do we blame everything except ourselves.

 

[Inkfingers]

I think you win a prize for saying that. I cannot remember ever having heard it before. And, honestly, there are times when I should use it myself.

Take as long as you need.

After thinking about this, I can only presume that either:
a) there is no God
b) there is a God but He will no longer intervene
c) there is a God but the vast majority of us lack the quality needed to qualify for God's intervention

Now, I know for a fact that that 'a' is not true (because when I look at an orderly universe, a controlling mind behind that order makes immeasurably more sense than any other proposed theory - Logos fits the universe like a glove).

So that leaves us with 'b' and 'c'.

Occasional intervention does still seem to occur (the Catholic Church certainly teaches that this is so, and the older I get the more I find attraction in Catholicism), so 'b' seems highly unlikely.

So all that remains is 'c'; where the vast majority of us lack the quality needed to qualify for God's intervention. In my experience of humanity, and of what little I can understand of the divine, this seems the most likely answer. For the sake of simplicity, we could say that its because we have nothing like as much faith in God as we like to claim. This would certainly explain why the Archbishop of Canterbury claims that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not strong enough and he needs to top them up with antidepressants....

Is that an honest enough answer?

 

[InterestedAtheist]

Nothing is impossible it's that none of us are worthy enough. Even the most devout person can't escape the doubt or stop sinning. All God asks of us is to follow his word and not one single person past present or future is capable of doing that no matter how hard we try. He offers us everything and we still fail to meet his expectations. So people do ask and nothing happens then as we always do we blame everything except ourselves.

Strange that you should say this, one a thread filled with people telling us that they do ask things of God, and that they do receive them. You say that people cannot work miracles through prayer - and yet I have examples in this very thread of people saying they did just that.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

Is that an honest enough answer?

Certainly is!

Now, I know for a fact that that 'a' is not true (because when I look at an orderly universe, a controlling mind behind that order makes immeasurably more sense than any other proposed theory - Logos fits the universe like a glove).

Have you ever heard of Dan Barker?

Occasional intervention does still seem to occur (the Catholic Church certainly teaches that this is so, and the older I get the more I find attraction in Catholicism), so 'b' seems highly unlikely.

I would say that, according to what Christians say they believe, interventions would seem likely. Indeed, many Christians in this very thread have told me about them.

So all that remains is 'c'; where the vast majority of us lack the quality needed to qualify for God's intervention. In my experience of humanity, and of what little I can understand of the divine, this seems the most likely answer. For the sake of simplicity, we could say that its because we have nothing like as much faith in God as we like to claim. This would certainly explain why the Archbishop of Canterbury claims that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not strong enough and he needs to top them up with antidepressants....

And yet this doesn't agree with what many Christians are telling me. that they do ask God for things, and do receive them.

 

[AV1611VET]

Do Christians actually believe in God?

Yes, we do.

As to the points you bring up, take Paul for example.

At one point, we see this:

Acts 19:11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:
12 So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.

But by the end of his ministry, we see this:

2 Timothy 4:20 Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick.

These "special miracles" were given to confirm one's apostleship.

But with the completion of the Scriptures in AD 96, these special miracles were done away.

1 Corinthians 13:8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

That "which is perfect (i.e., complete)" came in AD 96 when John completed the book of Revelation.

 

[Tone]

Now I made the point that this is highly misleading. Just because hospitals, medical advances, human rights, etc. existed at the same time as Christianity, and just because Christians engaged in these activities, that does not mean they get credit for their invention or sole use. there were and are hospitals, charities and healers before Christianity and outside Christianity. And, rebutting your point about Christianity getting credit for universal human rights, I pointed out that the United States, one of the pioneers in social freedom, justice and equality, was deliberately designed as an entirely secular state.

Again, it is rather obvious that all of these things have been highly influenced and affected by Judeo-Christianity.

 

[Tone]

"The declaration of Christianity as an accepted religion in the Roman Empire drove an expansion of the provision of care. Following First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD construction of a hospital in every cathedral town was begun. Among the earliest were those built by the physician Saint Sampson in Constantinople and by Basil of Caesarea in modern-day Turkey towards the end of the 4th century. By the beginning of the 5th century, the hospital had already become ubiquitous throughout the Christian east in the Byzantine world,[3] this being a dramatic shift from the pre-Christian era of the Roman Empire where no civilian hospitals existed.[1] Called the "Basilias", the latter resembled a city and included housing for doctors and nurses and separate buildings for various classes of patients.[11] There was a separate section for lepers.[12] Some hospitals maintained libraries and training programs, and doctors compiled their medical and pharmacological studies in manuscripts. Thus in-patient medical care in the sense of what we today consider a hospital, was an invention driven by Christian mercy and Byzantine innovation.[13]"
(Emphasis mine)
History of hospitals - Wikipedia

 

[Tone]

"It was not until after the Middle Ages, however, that natural law became associated with natural rights. In Greco-Roman and medieval times, doctrines of natural law concerned mainly the duties, rather than the rights, of “Man.” Moreover, as evidenced in the writings of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, these doctrines recognized the legitimacy of slavery and serfdom and, in so doing, excluded perhaps the most important ideas of human rights as they are understood today—freedom (or liberty) and equality.

The conception of human rights as natural rights (as opposed to a classical natural order of obligation) was made possible by certain basic societal changes, which took place gradually beginning with the decline of European feudalism from about the 13th century and continuing through the Renaissance to the Peace of Westphalia (1648). During this period, resistance to religious intolerance and political and economic bondage; the evident failure of rulers to meet their obligations under natural law; and the unprecedented commitment to individual expression and worldly experience that was characteristic of the Renaissance all combined to shift the conception of natural law from duties to rights. The teachings of Aquinas and Hugo Grotius on the European continent, the Magna Carta (1215) and its companion Charter of the Forests (1217), the Petition of Right (1628), and the English Bill of Rights (1689) in England were signs of this change. Each testified to the increasingly popular view that human beings are endowed with certain eternal and inalienable rights that never were renounced when humankind “contracted” to enter the social order from the natural order and never were diminished by the claim of the “divine right of kings.”"
Human rights - Natural law transformed into natural rights
(Emphasis mine)

You just can't have those things, as we do today, apart from Christendom.

 

[Amittai]

Can we agree that a miracle is an act of God? Sure, some purported miracles could have happened in other ways, by luck or coincidence, and they could be harder to determine whether they were truly miraculous or not. But in principle at least, something is either a miracle or it isn't. Even if you have difficulty determining which it is, and may even never be able to do so, in principle it either is or it isn't ...

I truly think it isn't as sharply delineated as that. Most Christians and even (at former periods) some non-Christians have sometimes seen a "hand of providence" in occurrences of all kinds big and small, expected and unexpected. If God exists He will know which bits to chalk up to 53% miracle (whatever definition "He" Himself uses!), 28% accident, 11% serendipity, 17% clever effort, etc. We are just "grateful" or "glad" or "proud" (in the good sense) or "hopeful" or "longing" or "hanging in there" or "feeling like giving up", before we even begin factoring in time scales. I don't think we cheese-pare our attributions unless something is quite unusual, in which case some people's usage of the word "miracle" is still going to be far more extravagant than others'.

A church that canonises specific happenings (e.g Rome) does so solely for organisational purposes (to declare ceremonies in honour of particular personalities) and this does not (genuinely) bind the church members to perceiving the circumstances any way other than what they want.

I also think i) we ask God for anything we feel like and ii) it may be less than random to see whether what appears in prayer request threads is representative on a wider scale. In other words I'm sure there are "steep" requests of God that don't make it to the threads. Also, I expect the circumstances underlying prayer requests are often more unpredictable than you are allowing for. I'm not proving you are asking a bad question to begin with, but I'd like to help you shift your search for answers (which will make some Christians uncomfortable) to firmer ground. This will be several posts as I'm not sure how to combine the responses like you did.

 

[Amittai]

Amittai said: ↑
You don't need to believe and you need to assert with people that they have got to back off if they want to assert that you do.
A couple of minor points: it may not be of concern whether anyone (other than those I've just described) are mistaken; and if a faith were relatively worthwhile it would be par for the course in terms of human life and culture that some people would subvert and debase it for others.
I am baffled by lots of the responses that assume that christianity and the experience and appraisal of it are uniform, because that is not so.
So many things in life are relative, really. Don't let people stop you looking after yourself.​

... I'm sorry. That sounded very interesting, but I didn't really understand what you meant. Could you clarify? ...

I note you are sometimes citing a certain book which I haven't followed up yet (apologies) but looks like it would be very interesting. It's natural that we would be in empathy with the person testifying. It may also be the case that you were told the same things he was told. While the phenomenon we group as "Christianity" contains many elements from nonsense upwards, depending who, when and where, we cannot treat it as a monilith but try to identify from what might be thought its firmer (if neglected) internal principles what miracles are really supposed to be about.

I'm not into "apologetics" but I gather miracles are sometimes adduced as demonstrating the truth of the faith to outsiders? Scripture doesn't mention miracles except a few of Jesus or some apostles or prophets. I think works of God are addressed to those already having some faith or belief, and they always have a parallel meaning on top of the concrete one. I think the purpose of belief is that the members strengthen the gifts in each other ("trading with the talents", which bad church authority, such as I infer the book author had, tries to quash *).

Perhaps this more or less touches on your last three questions. I am trying to help you not get sucked down a "miracle" rabbit hole exclusively whereas Christians acting - and also not acting but only appearing to an outsider to act - like they don't believe is perhaps slightly wider than that.

At the same time if we sense the purpose in another's life, we show we want that to succeed by asking for God's help when an outcome would be quite uncertain. There is going to be a future dimension one day - none of us can say we shan't face greater difficulty in future - and as we see it we will never know what we ask for really is "steep" or not, and we see it as good that we care and that others will care on our behalf (a large part of "trading with the talents").

* I promise I'll research the book author's situation as best I can in the next few minutes / hours.

 

[Amittai]

...

You talk to God, but does God talk to you? Or is it just that things happen that you then interpret as being God's replies?

If we think it is a relationship, we think He "speaks" through occurrences, including anodyne ones. Or a Scripture passage might "jump out", and our "interpretation" might depend variously on our understanding of its various meanings as well as our appreciation of dimensions of our relationship with Him. If we have human company / communication, we may or may not get good-ish guidance that way also.

 

[Amittai]

... And to answer your last question, a miracle that would be satisfactory to me would be one where there is no other answer for how did it happen than "The Christian God did it." ...

You wonder why quite a lot of Christians appear to act as you expect them to look as if they would be acting if they believed what they seem to claim to believe - a genuinely good though complex question.

The person with scoliosis reported that it "as good as" wasn't going to immediately disappear. I argued that miracles attributable as "The Christian God did it" are relative rather than absolute. Relatives do exist - they are like approximations. Your atheistic agnosticism is 6.9 out of 7.

This person testified to attributing this occurrence to their God. I'm not sure it is a sound enough argument on your part, in itself, to categorically deny the unlikelihood of the occurrence.

This person has a belief in God in other circumstances also, both before and after that time. While the question of relative miracles does come in somewhere, I'd like to see you enquire a little more widely about your original question. I think there is a belief gap (from some people) but it's not the one you are saying. (Also don't forget the hypothesis of things that don't make it to threads.)

If people in your vicinity have been over egging the (relative) miracle pudding over the years I wonder what purpose they thought it would serve. It is just as worthwhile to critique "apologetics" - or more so - than to imply belittling of powerful testimony by random Christians - which places you under no objective obligation whatsoever by the way.

(I'm not sure whether I'm breaking the rules by stating my views thus.)

I think I know why it is necessary for many like you to assert, as far as we might be concerned genuinely, that you are not under objective obligation. But I don't see why you let any probable errant apologists dictate the terms. I'd prefer you to turn some tables that can be turned rather than try to turn some that can't. This is why I (probably) have the answer in underlying though not formal logic.

 

[Amittai]

SeventyOne said: ↑
I'm not sure what your personal bar for a miracle would be, but as I said, one can't 'prove' God to you over a forum.

You do have the option of just going to Him and asking ...​

Do I actually have that option? ... We never heard back from God.

You may have taken that option. Now you are faced with the conundrum of sifting out hypothetical (partial) answers from the multifarious "Babel" of thread responses (perhaps with the addition of anything you may serendipitously encounter elsewhere). 71 does point out as I did, the question of your "bar" for "miracles": how absolute or exclusive do either of these have to be, logically?

 

[Amittai]

Ironic, then, that religion created the instrument for its demise... 1

...

Can I invite you to think about this carefully for a moment.

Point 1: ...
Point 4: Therefore, Christians Set A believe that God only answers(at least sometimes) the prayers of Christians. For all other people in the world, either they are not praying (atheists) or they are praying to the wrong God (members of other religions) and will not get answers.

All in agreement so far? 2

Hey, don't talk to me. Talk to your fellow Christians and tell them they're wasting their time asking God for things. 3

1, 2 I see what you are attempting to argue but your materials don't sufficiently support that conclusion because your points 1 to 4 in real life don't closely equate or coincide (however some people have told you they do). The fault is in what you were told rather than in the conduct in praying of (quite a lot of the) people who pray.

3 You appeared to be arguing that quite a lot of Christians who say they expect God to answer in various forms - "positively" fairly often - are in fact reporting this. Which they actually are.

An answer isn't the same as a relative "miracle" (and doesn't have to be) and a relative "miracle" isn't the same as an answer (and doesn't have to be).

An unknown proportion of them may be wasting their time, for a different reason.

 

[Amittai]

Do you do all your debating like this? It's remarkably ineffective.

If you used lateral thinking, you would not be evading.

 

[Amittai]

... I pointed out that the United States, one of the pioneers in social freedom, justice and equality, was deliberately designed as an entirely secular state ...

By categories, a secular state may sometimes be designed by anyone and Christians may sometimes help design a secular state. Anybody could take some inspirations from anywhere, hence this particular point takes us neither forwards nor backwards.

 

[Amittai]

... people telling us that they do ask things of God, and that they do receive them. You say that people cannot work miracles through prayer - and yet I have examples in this very thread of people saying they did just that.

Receiving from God may not be the same as "miracle" and vice versa.

 

[Amittai]

Barker was overexposed at a young age to Kathryn Kuhlmann, of whom there are frightening pictures, and then was made preacher for a relatively unsteady denomination.

Not many forum members are Kuhlmannists which is why Kuhlmann's literal and inaccurately defined argument doesn't stick well enough for you.

Are you reacting in empathy with him over his having inappropriately been pressurised? So am I.

But why would you be dictated to by Kuhlmann? Some of us aren't.