welcome to the forum, rc. I hope you have a long and pleasant visit here. Most theists who come are shocked by the fact people do not accord their beliefs any reverence and stomp off in a huff or act out and get banned. Hopefully you acclimate well. On to your post...
You make some errors yourself.
You state that 3 out of 4 physicians believe that God performs medical miracles regularly. ...The mere fact that such learned men of science with expert understanding of the body's natural healing properties hold such a belief is itself compelling evidence of such miracles.
That's what is called an argument from authority. It is a fallacy. You are essentially saying because the smart guys say it, it must be true. But that is bad logic and a bad argument.
I would say that so many doctors believe in miracles is evidence of either someone misconstruing what doctors mean when they say "it's a miracle!" or evidence that the brain is poorly suited for many of the things we use it for. See my sig below.
I don't know that He doesn't; and neither do you.
Baloney. We both know amputees don't get healed. You are just being argumentative. Be honest instead. That will garner more respect.
I have heard of instances where individuals have had short or partial limbs and those limbs made whole instantly following prayer.
We both know those are baloney. They are not documented. When you hear a claim - even one far less outlandish than "yhwh heals amputees" - you need some kind of evidence to support it. That you accept anecdotal evidence suggests that this was something you would like to believe and you are not trying very hard to be skeptical. That's fine. That is your right. Just don't try to make it seem as if we are being irrational for mocking you for it.
You would have more weight if you had some rigorous documentation. That is evidence that counts. The question you should always ask is "how do you know?" How do you know those people saw what they say? How do you know they were not tricked? How do you know they are not deceiving you? What is more likely, that a person regrew a limb or the people you were talking to embellished (or outright lied) about what they saw? Again, be honest.
Your assertions are pure unsubstantiated supposition.
Really? Saying amputees do not miraculously regrow lost limbs is "pure unsubstantiated supposition"? That's rich. What would be more fair to say?
"We all know that amputated legs do not regenerate in response to prayer."
You do NOT know that; you ASSUME that merely because you have not witnessed it.
Baloney. You are just being argumentative again. If it happens it is unbelievably rare and happens only in remote, ass-backward places. Coincidence?
Says who? I know of many amputees who have received miracles from God.
Be more specific. What were the miracles? Who were the people? How do you know? Until I get some evidence, I have to call baloney.
As far as who suffers in this world and who does not, these are issues that have been discussed to death with the only resolution being that we do not understand God's ways;
Then you don't know your bible very well. The bible deals with the problem of suffering - sometimes called the problem of evil - in five or 6 ways. An opaque and incomprehensible deity is just one of them. Why bother using an opaque and incomprehensible deity as an explanation for anything? If it acts in unpredictable ways, how can you be sure it is not just random variation? And why would anyone want to worship an opaque and incomprehensible god? That is like my 9th grade girlfriend who would get pissed and give me the silent treatment but not tell me why.
There are NO innocent people. All have fallen short of God's glory and deserve far worse a fate than any we could imagine.
A atheists have a much healthier and kinder view of people.
How is it that people are so hideously terrible, unworthy of anything but unimaginable and unspeakable retribution, yet whenever you god botherers get on the topic of abortion you are all about how precious human life is and how murdering innocent babies is so terrible. Make up your minds.
The things that you claim make no sense simply make no sense to you. That doesn't make them "insane."
I agree with that. Weird.
What really does not make sense is your insistence upon making purely subjective personal assertions, and claiming them to be objective innate observations.
Oh, the irony.
"Why does the Bible contain so much anti-scientific nonsense?"
Are you kidding? Could you have possibly worded this question in a more loaded and biased manner? I have found nothing in the Bible that is not either naturally plausible or clearly not natural.
A talking snake.
Solid colored goats producing stripped offspring because they screwed within sight of stripped sticks.
A man living inside a whale or large fish for 3 days.
a man blowing a horn and demolishing a city.
the nile turning to blood.
magicians turning their staves into snakes.
zombies taking over Jerusalem.
a woman turning into a pillar of salt.
a talking donkey.
And you are the one all up in arms about the point of the site being irrational and illogical?
A major premise of God's word is that the very foundation of all existence is supernatural. Again, just because you don't believe it doesn't make it false.
And until I get better evidence than the say-so of you or some iron age goat herder, I will think that is a preposterous idea. How. Do. You. Know?
From a scientific perspective, there is no such thing as "nonsense." ...You have clearly demonstrated your total lack of scientific understanding.
I like the way you book end that sentence with irony.
"God did not create the world in six days..."
Says who?
"There was never a worldwide flood..."
Says who?
"Jonah did not live in a fish's stomach for three days..."
Says who?
"God did not create Adam from a handful of dust..."
Says who?
Now you are off the deep end. You are getting into the realm of believing anything that cannot be disproved. That is dangerous territory, man. Once you go there, how do you draw a line? There are no werewolves. Says who? No such thing as leprechauns. Says who? Mermaids are fiction. Says who? See where that leads? Once you open the door to that sort of thing, any hairy monster can walk through and you have no basis for saying it cannot. You have no basis for saying it is ridiculous.
Who says he did? You've made these last five statements as fact, having absolutely no indication of whether or not they are accurate.
That is not strictly true. Some pretty good science shows us the universe had been around for, what, 2 billion years?, before there was such a thing as a "day"
[1].
Geology indicates there is no evidence whatsoever of a worldwide flood. We have a member here who is an actual geologist. I do not recommend you argue the point with her, as it will only make you look bad.
And as for Jonah, you are just being argumentative. Try being honest.
...they are all clearly possible in the supernatural.
Myeah. So are vampires. Fortunately, that does not make Edward the sparkly vampire real or even plausible.
I would suggest that there is absolutely NO scientific evidence whatsoever supporting this conclusion;
Then you would be wrong.
I would challenge you to provide a single example where there is physically verifiable data suggesting that prayer has had no influence on an occurance.
My Babe Ruth batting average. I prayed before every at bat one year. Same BA as the previous. There were better studies done:
Prayer does nothing. In fact, in some cases, prayer made the outcomes for the subjects worse.
This site has the actual study.
How would it be even possible for such evidence to exist; even more so, how would one verify prayer's non-effect? Still another example of your inept scientific understanding.
Never took a college level statistics course, have you? You could do a design of experiments or a multivariate regression to understand what variables accounted for what percentage of the effects.
"How do we explain the fact that Jesus has never appeared to you?"
This question is based on a faulty premise. He has appeared to me.
Please explain this further. On the surface, if taken literally, this sounds preposterous. But I am curious to know more. I would also like to know more specifics on your degrees, if that is not too personal. What fields and what schools?
