• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

  • CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.

Proof???!!!!!

Carey

Contributor
Aug 17, 2006
9,624
161
61
Texas
✟40,839.00
Faith
Non-Denom
Politics
US-Others
Dead organic matter.



Are you a Bible literalist? If you are then take dust at face value, where dust is minute particles of rock. I'm interested into what the original word was so it can be compared. After all, some meaning is always lost in translation.


I would call anything that has the consistency of ground flour dust.

And if any stuff with the consistency of dust, flour,baking soda, anthrax or "organic matter" its still dust.^_^

I guess that makes me a literalist.
 
Upvote 0

Patashu

Veteran
Oct 22, 2007
1,303
63
✟31,793.00
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Single
I would call anything that has the consistency of ground flour dust.

And if any stuff with the consistency of dust, flour,baking soda, anthrax or "organic matter" its still dust.^_^

I guess that makes me a literalist.
Hmm, you've raised an interesting problem with literalism; that is, that there is no absolute meaning of words, therefore there can be no one 'best' interpretation of the Bible.
After all, if dust is what you say it is, then the same could apply to any word in the holy book. Tada, unfalsifiable view!
 
Upvote 0

FishFace

Senior Veteran
Jan 12, 2007
4,535
169
37
✟28,130.00
Faith
Atheist
Healing success depends on the faith of the one with the gift and the faith of the one being healed.

Sometimes God wants the faithful to not be healed too.

But you have the statistics which show you're more likely to be healed if you're faithful, right? Right??

Oh, you mean you don't? You mean you base your belief on a once-off event that could just as well have been coincidence, but which you, due to the culture in which you've been brought up, interpreted as having spiritual significance?
That's no argument at all. That's like someone presenting you with a stone and saying, "This stone has healing powers - it healed my cold last week!" When in fact they'd already had the cold for several days, so it probably just got better. Unless you can actually show that God (or the stone) significantly increases your chances of getting better quicker, then all you've got is a coincidence.
 
Upvote 0

FishFace

Senior Veteran
Jan 12, 2007
4,535
169
37
✟28,130.00
Faith
Atheist
c3 through c7 fractured. spinal cord bruised.

3 years of constant pain on pain killers and physical therapy with no improvement.

1 prayer by a lady with the gift of laying of hands all pain gone in 2 weeks.

Fractured bones mend, so do nerves - it takes time. Notice that you'd already been unwell for 3 years, and it was two weeks between your miracle worker doing something and the pain going. I might have been impressed if it was instantaneous, or within a day, and if she could do it again. But it was probably a combination of the placebo effect and blind luck.

Like I say, did no-one pray for you before this woman? Did they all lack faith? Or why else can you ignore their efforts? God just didn't fancy healing you those times?

It makes no sense.

I was speaking of the fear of going to hell keeping a person of faith faithful.

The same concept is why do we not cheat or steal when we need money and cannot work because of say............. a broken neck ??

You don't cheat or steal because you fear hell?

If so, you are morally bankrupt.
 
Upvote 0

AV1611VET

SCIENCE CAN TAKE A HIKE
Site Supporter
Jun 18, 2006
3,858,120
52,924
Guam
✟5,248,984.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Republican
There are hundreds to choose from. So why not this one?
[bible]2 Samuel 24:1[/bible]
[bible]1 Chronicles 21:1[/bible]

Did God incite David to perform the census, or did Satan?

They both did --- it went like this:

1. Satan provokes David to number Israel.
  • [bible]1 Chronicles 21:1[/bible]
2. David issues the order to do so.
  • [bible]1 Chronicles 21:2[/bible]
3. Joab balks --- citing issues with God.
  • [bible]1 Chronicles 21:3[/bible]
4. David must have been vacillating --- as now God enters the picture.
  • [bible]2 Samuel 24:1[/bible]
5. David insists --- and Joab and company comply.
  • [bible]2 Samuel 24:4[/bible]
Thus Satan provoked --- and God prodded.

Now --- why did God do this?

In the context, David is nearing death, and he has two major jobs yet to perform.
  1. Choose a successor.
  2. Have the Temple built.
God knew that David didn't have time to hem and haw, and evidently He also knew that David would eventually decide to number the people --- so He prodded David to make up his mind right then and there.

Note that He did the same thing with Pharaoh, when Pharaoh vacillated. The longer Pharaoh took to decide, the more Israelites died under Pharaoh's administration; so God just sped up the decision-making process.
 
Upvote 0

Carey

Contributor
Aug 17, 2006
9,624
161
61
Texas
✟40,839.00
Faith
Non-Denom
Politics
US-Others
Fractured bones mend, so do nerves - it takes time. Notice that you'd already been unwell for 3 years, and it was two weeks between your miracle worker doing something and the pain going. I might have been impressed if it was instantaneous, or within a day, and if she could do it again. But it was probably a combination of the placebo effect and blind luck.

Like I say, did no-one pray for you before this woman? Did they all lack faith? Or why else can you ignore their efforts? God just didn't fancy healing you those times?

It makes no sense.



You don't cheat or steal because you fear hell?

If so, you are morally bankrupt.

I actually did not know if God wanted to heal my neck but that lady did not have a doubt he did want to.

Yes many had prayed for my neck and so had I. But my faith was weak and so was theirs. This lady had no doubts that is why I had zero improvement for years of Doctors treatment and was completely healed in a couple weeks after someone with strong enough faiths prayer and laying of hands.
Jesus healed in different ways. So my healing not being instantaneous is not unusual.

The reason some prayers are not answered is because of weak faith.

Jesus repeated this many times to his followers when they failed at casting out demons , healing the sick, Even Peter walked on water but started to sink when he second guessed his faith that he could at Jesus suggestion to get out of the boat and walk to him.

People are for the most part morally bankrupt without God. There are exceptions of course the Bible says so.
 
Upvote 0

Carey

Contributor
Aug 17, 2006
9,624
161
61
Texas
✟40,839.00
Faith
Non-Denom
Politics
US-Others
Hmm, you've raised an interesting problem with literalism; that is, that there is no absolute meaning of words, therefore there can be no one 'best' interpretation of the Bible.
After all, if dust is what you say it is, then the same could apply to any word in the holy book. Tada, unfalsifiable view!


:doh: So because God did not bother to tell us all of the exact ingredients of the dust he used , as he did not tell us the process he used makes this confusing for you??:scratch:
 
Upvote 0

Chalnoth

Senior Contributor
Aug 14, 2006
11,361
384
Italy
✟43,653.00
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Single
:doh: So because God did not bother to tell us all of the exact ingredients of the dust he used , as he did not tell us the process he used makes this confusing for you??:scratch:
It's not about confusion, it's about the statement made being so vague that it could be made to fit any reality, no matter what that reality happens to be.
 
Upvote 0

FishFace

Senior Veteran
Jan 12, 2007
4,535
169
37
✟28,130.00
Faith
Atheist
I actually did not know if God wanted to heal my neck but that lady did not have a doubt he did want to.

Yes many had prayed for my neck and so had I. But my faith was weak and so was theirs. This lady had no doubts that is why I had zero improvement for years of Doctors treatment and was completely healed in a couple weeks after someone with strong enough faiths prayer and laying of hands.

What you've got there is what's called an unfalsifiable belief. No matter what we say, you're still going to believe that God healed you. Even though studies of cardiac patients show that intercessory prayer doesn't work, you will still believe that, with enough faith, people can be healed. The numbers just aren't there, though, so whatever you believe, you can surely see why no rational person would be convinced?

The reason some prayers are not answered is because of weak faith.

How do you know? Is there some way of quantifying faith? Because it seems to me like this is just an excuse for prayer not working most of the time. When something gets better, then whoever just prayed for you must have had lots of faith - that's not an explanation, it's just ad hoc foolishness, I'm afraid. We can get a sort of explanation by accepting that we don't know everything about the human body, and that diseases just get better. Your idea of prayer doesn't explain the data any better because it makes no predictions. Seriously, if you could find me someone whose faith was so strong they could heal people with a greater success rate than we would expect from random cures, I would be listening. Then you could predict that they would heal someone, it would happen, and we'd have to find an explanation.

But all you have is some people who seem to just have randomly "got better" and then you attribute that to someone's prayer.

Jesus repeated this many times to his followers when they failed at casting out demons , healing the sick, Even Peter walked on water but started to sink when he second guessed his faith that he could at Jesus suggestion to get out of the boat and walk to him.

Can you not see this, for a second, how a sceptic would see it - as a handy excuse for when miracles don't work out? It's a great get-out - you make all this high-faluting claims and then - oh, sorry, you have to have faith. Can't speak in tongues? Can't heal folks? Not enough faith, mate.

People are for the most part morally bankrupt without God. There are exceptions of course the Bible says so.

If you look at the numbers, people are morally bankrupt to roughly equal degrees whatever religion or lack of it they ascribe to.
 
Upvote 0

Carey

Contributor
Aug 17, 2006
9,624
161
61
Texas
✟40,839.00
Faith
Non-Denom
Politics
US-Others
What you've got there is what's called an unfalsifiable belief. No matter what we say, you're still going to believe that God healed you. Even though studies of cardiac patients show that intercessory prayer doesn't work, you will still believe that, with enough faith, people can be healed. The numbers just aren't there, though, so whatever you believe, you can surely see why no rational person would be convinced?



How do you know? Is there some way of quantifying faith? Because it seems to me like this is just an excuse for prayer not working most of the time. When something gets better, then whoever just prayed for you must have had lots of faith - that's not an explanation, it's just ad hoc foolishness, I'm afraid. We can get a sort of explanation by accepting that we don't know everything about the human body, and that diseases just get better. Your idea of prayer doesn't explain the data any better because it makes no predictions. Seriously, if you could find me someone whose faith was so strong they could heal people with a greater success rate than we would expect from random cures, I would be listening. Then you could predict that they would heal someone, it would happen, and we'd have to find an explanation.

But all you have is some people who seem to just have randomly "got better" and then you attribute that to someone's prayer.



Can you not see this, for a second, how a sceptic would see it - as a handy excuse for when miracles don't work out? It's a great get-out - you make all this high-faluting claims and then - oh, sorry, you have to have faith. Can't speak in tongues? Can't heal folks? Not enough faith, mate.



If you look at the numbers, people are morally bankrupt to roughly equal degrees whatever religion or lack of it they ascribe to.

Can we quantify the actual percentage of all types of cancer treatment patients that recover because of the treatment??

Is so please post those stats.
 
Upvote 0

Carey

Contributor
Aug 17, 2006
9,624
161
61
Texas
✟40,839.00
Faith
Non-Denom
Politics
US-Others
Upvote 0

Carey

Contributor
Aug 17, 2006
9,624
161
61
Texas
✟40,839.00
Faith
Non-Denom
Politics
US-Others
Upvote 0

Loudmouth

Contributor
Aug 26, 2003
51,417
6,143
Visit site
✟98,025.00
Faith
Agnostic
Upvote 0

Loudmouth

Contributor
Aug 26, 2003
51,417
6,143
Visit site
✟98,025.00
Faith
Agnostic
Quote:
People are for the most part morally bankrupt without God.

If people can not decide for themselves what is and isn't moral then you can not claim that God is a moral being. If one can not judge whether or not God is moral then following God's edicts can not be considered moral or immoral. You become nothing more than an automaton following orders. That is not morality, that is obedience. My dog can do that.
 
Upvote 0

Carey

Contributor
Aug 17, 2006
9,624
161
61
Texas
✟40,839.00
Faith
Non-Denom
Politics
US-Others
It does no such thing. It's a conspiracy theory site, and even more importantly it spreads very dangerous lies about medicine and health.

No western medicine spread very dangerous propganda and lies about medicine and health and has since inception .

Did you know astrology was taught as part of western medicine in its beginnings.

Did you know prior to becoming a mystic Nostraddaamus was considered a great doctor??

Guess what one of his greatest accomplishments was.

He started using ascirbic acid ( vitamin c ) and Rose hips to treat black plague and people started getting better.
 
Upvote 0

Carey

Contributor
Aug 17, 2006
9,624
161
61
Texas
✟40,839.00
Faith
Non-Denom
Politics
US-Others
If people can not decide for themselves what is and isn't moral then you can not claim that God is a moral being. If one can not judge whether or not God is moral then following God's edicts can not be considered moral or immoral. You become nothing more than an automaton following orders. That is not morality, that is obedience. My dog can do that.

Yes God commands obedience.

Charles Manson, Hitler, Saddam Hussein etc. seemed to be able to judge what is and isn't moral , right??;)

Your dog can also show compassion ,love and , remorseand can greive the loss of a loved one. But thats a different topic.
 
Upvote 0