Miracle Poll
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Posted by blessing | Posted in Discussion | Posted on 20-01-2010
Tags: miracle, poll
Of the miracles proposed thus far, these rise to the top. Which one do you think most Americans would support? Or do you think something else is better? Vote in the poll!
(I know what you’re wondering. “Why, dear Blessing, won’t the text wrap in this poll?” If I knew, it would be wrapping, wouldn’t it?)
Vote. Comment. Share.
UPDATE: I see PZ Myers’ conversion is narrowly in the lead, followed closely by Stephen Hawking being cured, Osama bin Laden turning himself in (to what, I wonder? What’s that about, Blessing? That’d just prove he knew he was about to be caught!) and the pornographer walking again.
216 votes so far. I guess another day won’t hurt. – Shirlee
1) How ironic…you are praying for the reversal of an extra chromosome in a human, when the god you are praying to created him this way. This implies that your god made a mistake and therefore cannot be all powerful.
2) Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him”…If your god created man in his own image, then your god is afflicted with down syndrome as well. He should instead heal himself first so others will not be born with this awful condition from here on out.
You fundies really need to get a grip on reality and start understanding how silly and irrational you look to the rest of the world.
“When you understand why you dismiss all other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
Very well put, indeed.
How about a gigantic robot version of Jesus comes down and cures world hunger and gives us world peace? It would be both awesome and useful
I’m definitely against staring at the sun for three reasons: the hallucinations, the retinal damage, and the fact that some Irish guy got a few hundred people to do just that a few months ago.
Wow!
Do you believe that God has a plan and every event is the unfolding of that plan? If so, then what is the use of intercessory prayer?
Either what you are praying for will happen (i.e. your prayer has had no effect on God and His plan unfolds). Or, what you are praying for goes against God’s plan and you, in your hubris, are trying to get God to change His plan (which won’t happen because His plan is perfect).
In either case, your prayer has no effect except, perhaps, to annoy the recipient (like an incessant gnat’s whining).
Try thinking this stuff through, m’okay?
Jesus promised to answer our prayers. Are you calling Him a liar?
No…but He never said what the answers were to be.
If you believe that God has a plan which is unfolding before our eyes, then the only possible answers are either:
“OK. It’s already in the plan.”
Or:
“Sorry, no. It’s not in the plan.”
In either case, your intercessory prayer has had no effect on future events and ends up as an exercise in futility.
If you are less of a predestinationist in your beliefs then you might legitimately believe that your prayer can change God’s mind (which, of course, is against scripture: Mal 3:6, Jam 1:17, Num 23:19)…although the hubris required for that belief is incredible.
Martin -
Please see the post on the subject. Jesus did say what the answer would be . . . that whatever was asked, He would grant.
http://www.pray4healing.com/2009/07/22/jesus-made-a-promise/
Is hubris required to believe Jesus was telling the truth? I’d say it’s required to call Him a liar!
But I know that people have prayed for the end of cancer. So why is it still around?
You (and your co-religionists) have met the requirements of this condition:
…if multiple people pray for the same thing
with belief that they will receive it.
(from the article you referenced)
And the outcome is meant to be:
He will do what we ask,…
And yet…it’s not working, right? Trig is still a trisomy-21 child, Hawking still has ALS, people are dying in Haiti, and amputees are still missing limbs… despite all the prayers offered by sincere congregation of believers.
So either:
Jesus lied (not a position I am taking)
Or:
You and everyone else is doing it wrong
Or:
You have misinterpreted the scripture (much more likely)
It’s the same as faith “as small as a mustard seed” that can move a mountain (Mat 17:20). Have you seen of caused any mountains to “move from here to there”? Or perhaps the verses on prayer and faith should be taken allegorically, hmmm?
My take is that Jesus is *NOT* God (arianism) and can only attempt to influence Him when Jesus hears your prayers.
It’s the same as faith “as small as a mustard seed”
Circular logic is the weapon of the fool. You can’t use a part of the bible to answer a challenge against scripture.
The problem here is that of omnipotence vs omniscience. They are mutually exclusive; an all-seeing God, who knows all and sees the past, present, and future as a single entity cannot, by definition, be omnipotent, since he doesn’t have the power to change his mind. Similarly, an all-powerful God could not predict the future, since taking away all other options leaves him only semi-potent, as it were. Besides, of course Jesus lied, or at least did not tell the truth, when he said all prayers would be answered. Otherwise, there would be no cancer, no plague, no earthquakes nor war. If God DID have the option to not cause devastation by His hand, why does he choose not to?
Yay for theodicy!
Similarly the combination of omniscience and free will…they just cannot exist in the same reality.
Thank you Martin! My guess is we’re the only two who know the term theodicy, since it’s unbelievably niche.
For those who don’t know, it’s the explanation for human suffering in relation to an ostensibly good all powerful being. Or the lack of explanation, as it were.
Greg Egan addressed this very well in his novel “Permutation City”. The main character’s mother is an adherent of the Church of God Who Makes No Difference, which explicitly acknowledges this logical conclusion.
But God DOES make a difference. Pat Robertson can give many examples of God’s Divine Intervention.
Pat Robertson is a bigoted sexist asshole. Shall I quote him a few times?
“The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians”
“Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to evagelical Christians. It’s no different. It is the same thing. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media, and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians.”
Read that last statement again. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Did you see? HE COMPARED THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS TO THE HOLOCAUST! How dare you support this man!
Well, in his defense, think he’s saying the early years of Nazi Germany. When they started putting restrictions on what Jews could do for work, or say in public, or where they could live. He believes that the Democrat Congress will do the same to Christians, starting with the Hate Crimes bill they passed.
As opposed to the later years, with the mass executions and all. Which I’m sure Robertson expects to happen to Christians.
Hey, I didn’t say he was right all the time, did I? Just that he could give some good examples of Divine Intervention.
I still don’t think it’s defensible at all! Christians, the last time I checked, have the majority of Congress not to mention the majority of America! Despite what people like you like to pretend, you are not a minority under attack, but a majority with a persecution complex. Under what restrictions is congress trying to put Christians, other than preventing them from putting this country under a theocracy.
On to the Hate Crimes bill, let me see if I can get this straight in my head; you want people who kill homosexuals to spend less time in prison? Or do you simply think that killing a person because he practices something that you dislike is acceptable?
It’s always a jolt when I see anyone referring to Pat Robertson as anything other than evil. The man is obviously full of hate. Why else would he take such plain joy in the suffering of others? The fact that he has become extremely wealthy from spewing his venom is a reminder that half of every population has below average intelligence.
And Shirlee, I disagree with your attempted defence of his Nazi-Congress tirade. I think you’ll be safer in assuming he always means the worst in everything he says. We should just face it – some people are evil. Citing him as a source of authority will only damage your case.
PZ who ?
read this and then ask yourself what is christianity
but a second rate rip off of a much older religion!
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen048.html
Why doesn’t god heal amputees?
Yes, those are the people who are behind this parody website. I’m amazed that nobody in the comments here seems to have sussed that out yet.
Apparently, everybody but you is smart enough to realize that this is not a “parody” site put together by the atheists and God-mockers from Why Won’t God Heal Amputees.
Not to be mean, but why am I being welcomed at the top of this post as a “friend in Christ”? Christ’s followers have always revealed themselves to me as antagonistic to my own spirituality, and as such I do not count Christ among my friends.
I thought theodicy was the normal combination of theology and idiocy.
In regards to PZ, which god is the “OneTrueGod(tm)?” I don’t think this particular debate has been settled. (tee hee)
PZ Convert to Zoroastrianism? Not likely. Not even miraculously.
You want a miracle? How about when people come to their senses and realize that all religion is nothing but a colossal con-job.
2 hands engaged in labor can accomplish more than a million hands clasped in prayer.
I don’t understand: surely if miracles can occur (they obviously don’t…) then we should pray for the elimination of poverty? Or the end of war? Or something spectacular?
Converting Myers sounds like a bunch of theist ego’s having some kind of fantasy.
Wake up people: your god does not exist. If she did, she would tell us clearly and unequivocally. If you think she has done so, you need to get out more and just consider the possibility of opening your very firmly closed eyes.
There is no such thing as a miracle. This poll is moot.
About the miracle:
PeeeZeeee ends his fascination with modern (or ancient) mythology and does some research on Cephalopods. This is not moot and may lead to some useful and interesting output. Teasing idiots gets old and tiresome.
Indeed they do, RM. Indeed they do.
(The teasing idiots, that is.)
“The majority of so-called ‘Christians’ in Congress are baby-killing Democrats”
Shirlee, this may be why some would think you’re joking. By the way, I don’t believe MikeTheInfidel really confused this with a humor site; I think he was just pointing out your inability to state your case without sounding like a parody.
Don, what do you consider someone who promotes legislation and funding of the killing of unborn children?
They want to kill babies. That’s what abortion is, the killing of babies. They suck them out with a little vacuum cleaner, tearing them limb from limb. That’s what most of those so-called “Christians” promote.
I’m not sure why people think that’s funny.
You promote the killing of unborn children, or don’t you remember your last few comments to me? God KILLS BABIES, even in the 3rd trimester, but to you rationalize that away by saying they wouldn’t be Christian so their lives are forfeit and don’t matter. You are arguing two mutually exclusive points here, which makes you not only a hypocrite but a promoter of the same thing you are trying to prevent.
God, in His infinite wisdom and complete foreknowledge of an individual’s choices, choosing either to actively execute someone or passively allow someone to die, and humans willfully killing humans because they want to are two very different things.
Are you unable to see the difference?
Are you? There is a term in the judicial system called homicide by criminal negligence. Or, in other words, passively allowing someone to die. If you say fetuses are human beings, then you must also agree that God kills them even more than we do. You can’t have it both ways Shirlee.
[...] stayed out of one. There was another poll out there that I studiously ignored, because I was on it: Which miracle do you think Americans would most support? One of the possible answers was “PZ Myers publicly converts from atheism to follow the One [...]
Dan, do you honestly believe that Bible-believing Christians, at something like 11% of the American population, are anything other than a minority??
The majority of so-called “Christians” in Congress are baby-killing Democrats, for crying out loud! They claim to be “Christian” to get votes, and nothing else! They could care less what GOD wants!
As for the hate crimes bill — do you think murder is more or less heinous and sinful an act if it is committed for money or if it is committed for political or emotional reasons?
The hate crimes bill doesn’t just add “thought crime” penalties to certain sentences, it also tells Christian ministers that if they tell the truth about what God’s Word says about homosexuality, they can be thrown in jail!! What happened to free speech, Dan?
First off, really? The majority of Christians are Democrats? That can’t possibly be true. Or is it that the majority of “Christians” are Democrats, and only conservatives can be actual Christians, sans quotes, and only they can understand Jesus’s divine message of giving to the poor and not being selfish, his speeches about tolerance and not being violent (hold on, those are all Democrat ideals! That can’t be right)
While your argument would be valid if the hate crimes bill targeted the preachers for their incendiary statements, it doesn’t . And as a matter of fact, a murder is indeed more heinous if done with hate or prejudice in mind. You would feel the same way, if there was a serial killer who targeted only devout christians, wouldn’t you?
In other words, you can’t see the difference between God, who has the right to execute whomever He chooses, and humans murdering.
No, as a matter of fact I do not. Because there is no difference. Especially since I don’t believe in God. But beside that, as I have said before, God CANNOT murder whoever he chooses based upon what they MIGHT do in the future, because then we do not have any free will. If our destiny is fixed, why then do we still insist on having choices. And you STILL refuse to answer my question; Why did your God, who apparently may kill anyone he chooses, with no complaint from you, NOT KILL HITLER. Or Osama Bin Laden. Or Stalin, or Pol Pot, or whoever you like.
Dan, if God knows what choices you will make, how does that obviate free will?
You can still make the choice; He just knows what you will do, and doesn’t interfere. If He interfered, then He would be denying your free will.
Of course it obviates free will; if the choice is determined ahead of time, then it is not a choice. There is a semblance of choice, but as long as the outcome is fixed, it is not a choice. Surely you see the difference. He doesn’t have to interfere, just by knowing what will happen, he obviates all other possible futures. To use physics terminology, by observing the situation, he make the waveform collapse, and there is only one possibility. That is not free will. That is fate, and they are opposites.
If God were to interfere with someone’s choices, THEN He would be obviating free will.
Simply knowing what someone is going to do does not cast the action in stone. It (whatever “it” is) WILL happen, but only because the humans involved choose to act as they will choose.
Shirlee, you’re smart enough to know that you’re being completely intellectually dishonest. If God knows that you will choose a certain way, that means that you cannot choose any other way. Thus, it’s not a choice!
I disagree. God knowing what you will choose to do isn’t God forcing you to do it.
I’m not saying God forces you to do it, but you are forced to do it, aren’t you. If your choice in a particular situation is know, and thus fixed, do you actually have a choice? Can you do a different thing than what God has seen? From what you tell me, that answer is no. Therefore, you don’t have the ability to do anything else.
God seeing is not the same as God making it happen. It’s not as though God tells us what is going to happen.
Suppose you somehow managed to jump forward in time one week and watch a football game. You could know every move every player would make.
Then you come back to today.
Do the players no longer have the ability to make their own decisions? Are you controlling them by knowing what they’re going to do?
Don’t you see? You’ve made my point for me. By knowing their actions, you take away their free will. They can’t perform any other actions, so they no longer have the ability to make decisions. They may think they do, but if the future is fixed, our actions must also be fixed.
So then you believe that if you were to travel through time and observe a football game, then come back to the present time, you would then be controlling all actions and events — the wind which blows the ball unexpectedly, the fan who throws a bottle onto the field, the quarterback wrenching his neck the day before the game when he got rear-ended at a stop light — by virtue of having seen the outcome.
That is by far the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.
No, I don’t believe that at all. But you do believe that, because you told me that’s what God does. To quote you, “God, in His infinite wisdom and complete foreknowledge of an individual’s choices”. And you’re right, it is by far the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard. But my point is that IF you posit an omniscient, future-seeing God, then the scenario you just described is correct. An omniscient God denies all randomness, all free choice, and all chance, if he can see the future, because then all things that will happen are fixed.
I disagree. Seeing something and knowing something doesn’t cause something.
This thread has taken a very philosophical bent, hasn’t it? Let me ask you a hypothetical then. Let’s take the football game again. You watch the game, writing down every little thing that happens (or otherwise record it, it doesn’t matter), then travel back in time to the start of the game. Now, in your opinion, will the game progress exactly the same as you have recorded it?
And a caveat; you are, in all intents and purposes, God. Assuming you do not intentionally alter the game, either by your presence or actions, will the game be the exact same the second time around?
It sure has, Dan . . . it sure has!
OK, I record the game (wait, I thought YOU were the time-traveler here?). As long as I record it without being observed (as God does) and do not tell anyone what I’ve seen (as God does), then the game would proceed exactly as I’d recorded it.
I didn’t make it happen, I just recorded what I observed. Observation is not causation.
Ah, I see where the problem lies. I’m sorry for being so obtuse Shirlee, because it’s really a semantics problem. You’re right, observation is not causation. But it does effect the real world. Look up Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle for the physical basis, but here’s the gist; since you observed the future, and the present played out exactly as you saw, then did those players actually have free will? The observation doesn’t actually matter, just the fact that the future, in this case, is fixed. And if the future is fixed, those players have no free will. Do you see where I’m coming from? If the future cannot change, then we cannot change out minds. If every choice we make is destined to happen, then they are not choices.
I see where you’re coming from, Dan, I just think it’s philosophical nonsense. Let’s remove people from the equation.
My observing a tornado in the future and then going back in time doesn’t force the destruction of a trailer park (if you’ll forbid a little levity).
Do you think tornadoes have free will?
I think levity is a good idea at this point ^_^ The idea, Shirlee, is not that observing it makes it happen. It’s that a fixed future denies free will. Let’s forget the possibility that God caused that tornado in the first place, and concentrate on free will here. Why is it hard for you to accept that a fixed future, destiny, fate, God’s plan, whatever you want to call it, prevents free will? People are the integral part of the equation, because only people ostensibly have the ability to make choices. But if you fix their choices ahead of time, then they cannot act any different, and thus do not have free will. Remember that at the beginning of this discussion, you still had not answered why God, in his apparent infinite foreknowledge, did not kill Hitler? If you ask me, it’s better to say God cannot see the future at all, since that removes the question of free will from the equation. (Let’s also not forget that you said God kills unborn babies just because he didn’t think they would become Christians.)
I speculated what God may or may not do with unborn babies and why. I don’t pretend to know His Will.
As for Hitler, there are many who think God let Hitler live so that Israel would be re-formed. I don’t subscribe to that belief myself, but it is probably true that if the Holocaust (which I fully agree was horrific, I don’t want you to think otherwise!) hadn’t occurred, European countries wouldn’t have banded together to re-create Israel.
You still haven’t convinced me that the ability of someone (God or a hypothetical invisible time-traveler) to observe a future event, thereby knowing the choices someone will make, forces someone to make those choices.
The unknowable will of God is a cop out argument, and hypocritical in a sense anyway, since you make the assertion of God’s will in other matters (re. abortion, gay marriage, etc).
To be honest, is Israel worth it? I don’t subscribe to that theory any more than you do, and I certainly think that they country was not worth WW2. So, if you don’t subscribe to that theory, which one do you subscribe to?
I’ll do my best to convince you this time then, if you’ll follow along. The future that you posit, is one viewable by God, yes? And IF (not when, but if) one were to view this future, then travel back to the past and watch it happen again, it would proceed exactly as before, correct? This could only happen if the stream of events, the timeline as it were, was fixed, and all events were set to happen at a given moment. Otherwise, the QB at the game could decide to make a running play rather than a pass, and the future would be different than the one witnessed. Having established a fixed timeline, we can see that the choices made by the individuals are also fixed. Therefore, free will (meaning the freedom to choose) cannot exist in a fixed timeline, because the ‘freedom’ to choose one preordained action is not free at all. See? Once again, the viewing action doesn’t actually matter. It’s the viewable NATURE of this timeline that matters.
Knowing the will of God with regard to a particular incident is not generally possible; for example, why did He cause/allow Trig Palin to be born with Down Syndrome? I don’t know, do you? I can’t tell for sure by reading the Bible.
Abortion and gay marriage are pretty clean-cut. Killing an unborn baby is murder, and murder is forbidden. Homosexual relations are forbidden, so gay marriage is pretty well out, as well.
I try to avoid discussions of Israel, as they’re generally divisive. My take on it is, if God wants to re-establish Israel, does He require billions of American dollars and any number of American lives to do so?
Back to the future . . . The QB at the game would only decide to make a different play if something changed that influenced him to think a different play was appropriate, yes? After all, he’s making his decisions based upon the various conditions on the field, how his teammates are playing, how he perceives the other team’s strengths and weaknesses, wind, whatever. Right?
So, he will select a particular play based upon weighing of whatever factors he considers appropriate. Unless those factors are changed — for example, I go back to today, then sneak into the opposing team’s locker room and put a thumbtack in Player X’s shoe, disabling him and changing how the game plays — then his decision will not change.
I agree with you about Isreal Shirlee. I don’t think 60 millions lives are worth any nation, to be honest.
As for gay marriage, there are only two real options; you follow every law in the bible to the letter, or you do not. Do you eat shellfish, Shirlee? Does your husband shave? Both of those are also in Leviticus, and both are described in the same way as homosexuality; an abomination, punishable by death.
I see where you’re coming from, in a behavioral sense; we make decisions based upon the conditions around us. I agree with you; that’s the universe I’m supporting, one with chance and free will because of it. But in the universe in which the future is fixed, each of that QB’s decisions is fixed ahead of time, and thus while it may FEEL to all of us that the decisions we make are free and we can make any one we want, they are not. A universe in which a disturbance in the past can change the future and a universe in which God is omniscient and has set in motion a grand unchanging plan are mutually exclusive.