Creationism - Lazy Man's science?

[kopilo]

Well I base it on my own personal faith in the (Christian) God. I didn't need the bible to tell me it was God's words, although clouded with the translations.

Which logically goes in a circle because we have no scientific proof of God.

 

[JohnR7]

Which logically goes in a circle because we have no scientific proof of God.

There is evidence that if you do what the Bible says to do, that you will get good results. But people will always say: How do you know that it was God that did it? So even when they can see and even test the effect or the results, they can not always see or test the cause of those results.

 

[kopilo]

On the basis that it has been tested, tried and found to be true. If you do what the Bible says to do, it works and we get good results.

That's not how God works according to the bible and according to Jesus. Matthew 4:5-7

 

[kopilo]

There is evidence that if you do what the Bible says to do, that you will get good results. But people will always say: How do you know that it was God that did it? So even when they can see and even test the effect or the results, they can not always see or test the cause of those results.

Job.

 

[Beastt]

On the basis that it has been tested, tried and found to be true. If you do what the Bible says to do, it works and we get good results.

This claim, John, has been tested and shown not to be true -- many times. In fact, in a recent study on intercessory prayer, it was determined that those who were prayed for and knew they were being prayed for actually suffered a higher percentage of medical complications than groups which were not prayed for. Of course that doesn't mean that prayer causes medical complications. It was likely the knowledge that people had turned to prayer which caused people so much concern for their own welfare, that they suffered anxiety and the anxiety was likely responsible for the increase in medical complications.

But of the two main groups, neither who knew they were involved in this 3-year study, the group which didn't receive prayer showed no statistically significant difference in complications, recovery rates or any other medically significant factors over those who did receive prayer. So it doesn't work and this certainly isn't the first study to demonstrate that.

(Source: Scientific American; June 2006: "Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer" (STEP); "American Heart Journal", April 4)

You believe it works for you because you wish to believe that it works. So you utilize confirmation bias to support your belief. But when the bias is removed, the truth emerges. And the truth is that you gain nothing but comfort from the false sense of security from the belief you hold.

 

[JohnR7]

That's not how God works according to the bible and according to Jesus. Matthew 4:5-7

Matthew 4:5
Then the devil took Him into the holy city; and he had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple,

I am talking about what God does, not what the devil does. We have seen many, many, many of the miracles of God. We know what God is able to do. As my wife says, if we do our part, God will do His part.

Basicly what we are talking about here is covenant theology. Does your Bible college there offer a course on covenant theology? It might be something for you to look into.

WE do not make deals with God, at least that does not work for me. But God comes to us and He makes an offer. If we do our part, you can be sure that He will do His part. God always keeps the covenants that He makes with people.

Psalm 37:4
Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

Here is a example of scripture. If we delight ourselves in the Lord, then He will give us the desires of our heart. To be sure your going to have to figure out what it means to "delight" your self in the Lord. But if you do your part, then you can be sure that God will do His part. The Bible is jam packed filled with promises like this. God always keeps His promises, as long as we do our part of the covenant. He will never, ever disappoint us.

 

[JohnR7]

In fact, in a recent study on intercessory prayer

It will work if you find righteous men and women to pray. If you go to vegas and ask a bunch of sinners to pray you may not get very good results. If God answered their prayers they would all go home rich.

God does not honor the prayers of sinners, He honors the prayers of the righteous and those who live their life righteous before Him.

James 5:16 The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

The Bible makes it clear that God hears the effectual prayer of the righteous. The Bible is jam packed filled with promises. If you do your part, then you can be sure that God will do His part.

It is a shame that there are so many churches out there were people do not know how to get results. But I was blessed to be able to attend a church where we learned how to get good results when we pray. Also my wife was raised with people that taught her how to pray, so she knows how to get good results. She will be the first to tell you that if you do your part, God will do His part. But if you do not do what your suppose to be doing, then do not expect God to do His part.

 

[kopilo]

The phrase I remember is "Do your best and God will do the rest" and this is falliable to where our heart desire is seperate from delighting ourselves in the lord.

However the Bible somewhere does state that what we desire most is to be with God but I honestly can not believe in destiny prescripted by anything; unless when God gave man free will, God really wasn't giving man free will.

People who believe in God shouldn't require scientific evidence to know that God exsists.

 

[JohnR7]

You believe it works for you because you wish to believe that it works.

I believe it works because I see the results. You do not believe, because you do not know how to pray. God honors our faith. If you do not have faith to believe, then it is a pretty sure thing that God is not going to honor our prayers.

 

[Beastt]

It will work if you find righteous men and women to pray. If you go to vegas and ask a bunch of sinners to pray you may not get very good results. If God answered their prayers they would all go home rich.

God does not honor the prayers of sinners, He honors the prayers of the righteous and those who live their life righteous before Him.

James 5:16 The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

The Bible makes it clear that God hears the effectual prayer of the righteous. The Bible is jam packed filled with promises. If you do your part, then you can be sure that God will do His part.

It is a shame that there are so many churches out there were people do not know how to get results. But I was blessed to be able to attend a church where we learned how to get good results when we pray. Also my wife was raised with people that taught her how to pray, so she knows how to get good results. She will be the first to tell you that if you do your part, God will do His part. But if you do not do what your suppose to be doing, then do not expect God to do His part.

Fine, then let's have a look at the methodology applied to the aforementioned study. The study involved 1,800 patients and lasted 3-years. It is unquestionably the largest such study ever conducted. Those offering prayer were from church groups and each patient receiving prayer, was prayed for by approximately 70 believers.

So what you're telling me is that of the hundreds of patients and hundreds to thousands of those offering prayer, so few know how to properly pray that they were unable to show any significant difference provided by the prayer.

That puts you in very rare company, John -- very rare company indeed. Of course all we have is your claim and I must take into account your mulitple previous claims of evidence where no such evidence existed. So I find your claim to be insufficiently credible. So what can you offer to substantiate the claim that you know how to pray and receive results when so many studies, involving thousands of Christian believers, continue to show no result from prayer?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16569567

 

[JohnR7]

unless when God gave man free will, God really wasn't giving man free will.

We have free will, we can do it our way or we can do it God's way. I have learned that my way does not work, it just gets me into trouble. I have learned that I am far, far better off to do things God's way.

We do still have free will tthough. We can go back to making a mess out of our lives anytime we want to. It is like one pastor said: I can sin all I want to, but I don't want to. We do not want to because we know that the wages of sin is death and that is to high of a price to pay.

 

[kopilo]

It will work if you find righteous men and women to pray. If you go to vegas and ask a bunch of sinners to pray you may not get very good results. If God answered their prayers they would all go home rich.

God does not honor the prayers of sinners, He honors the prayers of the righteous and those who live their life righteous before Him.

James 5:16 The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

The Bible makes it clear that God hears the effectual prayer of the righteous. The Bible is jam packed filled with promises. If you do your part, then you can be sure that God will do His part.

It is a shame that there are so many churches out there were people do not know how to get results. But I was blessed to be able to attend a church where we learned how to get good results when we pray. Also my wife was raised with people that taught her how to pray, so she knows how to get good results. She will be the first to tell you that if you do your part, God will do His part. But if you do not do what your suppose to be doing, then do not expect God to do His part.

So when someone becomes sick with an illness it is because they are a sinner?

 

[JohnR7]

So when someone becomes sick with an illness it is because they are a sinner?

Not always, sometimes people get sick because Satan put sickness on them, even when he has no legal right to put that sickness on them. They teach us that he may try to deliever his package to your door, but you do not have to accept delivery of it.

Genesis 4:7
"If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it."

Sin does lead to sickness though. A lot of sin like drinking, drugs, and so forth can have some serious consequences.

 

[kopilo]

Not always, sometimes people get sick because Satan put sickness on them, even when he has no legal right to put that sickness on them. They teach us that he may try to deliever his package to your door, but you do not have to accept delivery of it.

Genesis 4:7
"If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it."

Sin does lead to sickness though. A lot of sin like drinking, drugs, and so forth can have some serious consequences.

So would you go out on a limb and say it is a sin going from hot to cold to hot to cold, which causes chill blades?
How about consuming too much water at a given time -> leading to water intoxication?

What about those who are born with genetic defects? I have a Christian friend who is shunned by many churches purely based on what she looks like.

 

[Beastt]

Not always, sometimes people get sick because Satan put sickness on them, even when he has no legal right to put that sickness on them. They teach us that he may try to deliever his package to your door, but you do not have to accept delivery of it.

Genesis 4:7
"If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it."

Sin does lead to sickness though. A lot of sin like drinking, drugs, and so forth can have some serious consequences.

You've given us some information about some recent, and very serious, health problems you've had, John. Can you tell us why you chose to "take delivery" of the package?

 

[JohnR7]

You've given us some information about some recent, and very serious, health problems you've had, John. Can you tell us why you chose to "take delivery" of the package?

I told you why, because I smoked for 40 years. My dad tried to get me to quit from the beginning. My doctor tried to get me to quit. The pastor tried for 10 years to get me to quit. But I left it all up to God and that is they way He decided to work it all out.

I was thinking about that for the medics at the fire department. They told my wife that my chance of living was not very good, but they would do their best. My chance was maybe 2%. If I did not have a small chance then maybe they would not have even tried.

Isn't that amazing, they jump up out of their warm bed and rush to someone's house 100 times and in those 100 times they are able to save two or three people. But for them that makes it all worth their while.

You know, actually I did not care. When you are that close to death you do not care at all if you live or die. But my wife was the one who called 911 and she was the one that got people to pray for me.

The doctor saw I had a 8 year old son and he thought that maybe my son needed a father to be around at least until he graduated from high school, so the doctor decided to do all he could do to help me. I think he would have done it if he got paid or not, because he felt it was the right thing to do at the time.

 

[JohnR7]

So would you go out on a limb and say it is a sin going from hot to cold to hot to cold, which causes chill blades?

Can you tell me just what Bible scripture you are talking about?

 

[Beastt]

While you're working on that, John, let me tell you a little about my own health experiences. Nothing dramatic at all, but I have noticed a change. I used to get about the same number of colds each year as seemed common for other family members, co-workers, friends, etc. Then I experienced some rather difficult times in my life which pressed me to the point of beginning to question whether or not God really existed. At first it just seemed like a natural question to ask under the circumstances, but very quickly, I found that exploring the possibility that God didn't exist provided much clearer and more logical answers for the things I was experiencing than any concept of God seemed to offer. But I wasn't ready to abandon my beliefs or the security I had always found in believing that there was an all-powerful entity, truly concerned for my welfare as well as being affected, to a degree, by my behavior. So I continued to apply every possible situation, first to a scenario with God, then to one without. The no-God scenario was pretty consistent with logic, while the pro-God scenario always required some form of confirmation bias before any sense could be made of it at all.

That was 13-years ago and, as I mentioned, since that time I have noticed some changes in my general health. I no longer get the "average" number of colds each year. In fact, I seem to get one about every 5 or 6 years. I feel better, stronger, more energetic and have a clarity about the world I'd never had before.

I don't attribute the change in my health to a change in beliefs, though. I attribute it to having engaged in a regular exercise program and diverting ever further from the diet God is supposed to have approved in the Bible. So how might you explain that?

 

[kopilo]

Can you tell me just what Bible scripture you are talking about?

I'm not talking about any scripture more then life. I gather you meant that all illness is caused by sin or the devil?

 

[Beastt]

I told you why, because I smoked for 40 years.

I'm sorry if I forgot the details. You certainly have your right to privacy but I'm going to ask anyway; feel free not to answer if you'd rather not. Did you suffer a heart attack, stroke or other serious illness?

My dad tried to get me to quit from the beginning. My doctor tried to get me to quit. The pastor tried for 10 years to get me to quit. But I left it all up to God and that is they way He decided to work it all out.

I was thinking about that for the medics at the fire department. They told my wife that my chance of living was not very good, but they would do their best. My chance was maybe 2%. If I did not have a small chance then maybe they would not have even tried.

Isn't that amazing, they jump up out of their warm bed and rush to someone's house 100 times and in those 100 times they are able to save two or three people. But for them that makes it all worth their while.

I used to do this myself, John. I was a firefighter/engineer/EMT working with the local fire department and Ambulance company so I'm familiar with the reasons, procedures, etc.

You know, actually I did not care. When you are that close to death you do not care at all if you live or die. But my wife was the one who called 911 and she was the one that got people to pray for me.

If she had called 911 in the area where I live, the odds aren't bad that I'd have been the one to take the call. And in doing this for 24-years, I've found that the best way to assure a positive outcome is to remove myself emotionally from the call. It becomes a series of tasks and decisions leading to other tasks. I've seen others who become emotionally involved and it often leads to a less orderly response, and slower receipt of the proper aid. Put another way, sealing off the emotion and superstitious bias and replacing it with cold logic offers such an improvement in patient outcome that this is the standard for dispatch training. No prayer, no tears, just good solid, logical choices and the use of reason over emotion.

The doctor saw I had a 8 year old son and he thought that maybe my son needed a father to be around at least until he graduated from high school, so the doctor decided to do all he could do to help me.

Do you think the doctor would have done less had you not had a son?

I think he would have done it if he got paid or not, because he felt it was the right thing to do at the time.

So you're always telling us about the wisdom and knowledge you've received from God, the Bible and the Holy Spirit. Yet you didn't seem to understand the reason that you should quit smoking. And as we saw earlier in this thread, you promote other habits which are known to be incredibly detrimental to one's health. That other thread still awaits. Time after time I see claims from believers about how they used to drink to excess and were involved in illegal drugs before they "found God" and how God delivered them from their self-destructive ways. Yet you had to nearly die before God helped you to quit, (I assume you have quit smoking). Can you see why I have more than enough reason to doubt your claims? They simply don't stack up to reality.