Good. So basically, you concede my position. There's no reason why such a thing shouldn't happen again, and plenty of reasons why it should; and therefore the fact that it has not happened is very puzzling if you believe that God actually exists as Christians describe Him. But if you think that God is a fictional character, then it makes perfect sense that He only actually interacts with people in stories.
My evidence for the claim is that we can all see how Christians act. It's not like they do so in secret. I chose the Prayer Wall because it's a public display of prayers, there for all to see. Apparently you can't take me up on the challenge, and I don't blame you. Because what we can see there, as well as everywhere else, is that Christians frequently ask God to do things - but never things that could
only happen if God existed.
All you have to do to prove me wrong is show examples of Christians asking God for actual bona fide miracles. But you can't. Okay. Fine by me. Thanks for your time.
You are wrong.
And from the discussions I can see, there are plenty of non-Christians on this forum that I agree with and who agree with me. It would be impolite to drag them in to our little discussion, so I won't, but as far as I can tell, calling out Christian mistakes and explaining why they are mistakes is the reason we're all here; and having Christians stare the facts in the face and deny them is par for the course.
Take a look at this:
25 Reasons We Don’t Live in a World with a God (Part 7)
An article by an atheist, a well-known member of the Patheos website.
"
Because not even Christians take their religion seriously"
If you skim through the article, you'll see this atheist blogger is in complete agreement with me, as is the American Humanist article it quotes. I can also inform you that Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchen agree with me. I fact, I'd be surprised to find any person who identifies as an atheist who did not agree with a statement like:
"If God proved His existence in the Old and New Testaments, and if Christians claim that God works miracles all the time, it seems strange that we never have evidence of these miracles."
So, Sanoy, if you want to say that I am a discredit to atheists everywhere, I suspect that most atheists will not be impressed by your claims.
Of course I am. I can remark on all of these things, because they're obvious. We can all see what Christians do and say. We can all see that Christians habitually fail to treat god like He's actually going to work a miracle. Your job, Sanoy, is now to prove what you say. You've spent quite a but of time dodging the challenge, and I don't blame you.
Here, have a look at this:
Christianity makes bold claims: that prayers are answered. That God protects his own. That Jesus heals disease. It’s one thing to blithely support these claims, as some Christians feel obliged to do, but it gets messy when those claims crash into real-world facts.
Take, for example, the claim that Jesus miraculously heals disease. A New Zealand church put up a billboard in 2012 that said, “Jesus Heals Cancer,” but if you’re advertising an important claim, belief is not enough. You need the evidence to back it up, and the government authority in charge of advertising unsurprisingly concluded that the evidence wasn’t there. One observer objected, “As the mother of a three-year-old boy who has spent the past 18 months fighting against leukemia, I find the above billboard offensive and upsetting.”
Most Christians expect a cultivated person to have the decorum to avoid actually testing Christianity’s claims (even if they’re begging to be tested). The problem arises when someone doesn’t have the good taste to resist that temptation.
In another example, a Pennsylvania couple let their two-year-old child die of bacterial pneumonia in 2009 when they chose prayer instead of medicine. Knowing first hand that prayer doesn’t heal, they did it again with another child in 2013.
Contrasting a similar series of preventable childhood deaths in Oregon with the national motto “In God We Trust,” an American Humanist article made an incisive observation. In response to Oregon’s removing laws protecting parents who reject medical care for their children in favor of prayer, it said,
[These changes to the law are] tantamount to the state saying, “Sure, it looks great on a coin, but come on you idiot, it’s not as though this god stuff actually works.”
It's perfectly correct. Christianity does make bold claims. But not only is there no proof that prayers are ever answered, there's plenty of evidence that Christians don't even ask for miracles. They are being very sensible. On the rare occasions (such as those outlined above) that they do act as if God exists (
Jesus will heal my child, I don't need medicine) God does not help, sometimes with tragic consequences.
It really is interesting, that Prayer Wall, as it completely explodes what you're saying. I find it fascinating. Do they not realise that God is all-powerful, works miracles, and has promised to help them? Well, they say they realise it, and I'm sure that they believe it. But, quite simply, they also know that God doesn't actually answer impossible prayers.
And the simplest explanation for that is, He can't. Story characters can do amazing, incredible things - but only in stories.
