The great chess grandmaster from Brazil, Henrique Meckiing, was at death's door from a rare disease. He is alive and well at 71 todya, and attributes this to a divine healing when his disease was at its worst. A devout Roman Catholic in the charismatic movement, he had a rating of 2606 at the age of 60.
Does Jesus still heal? Here.
21 comments:
He heals relationships too. Happened to me in a very specific way.
Why does god get all the credit by none of the blame?
He did such a crummy job designing the human body, plus he filled the world with parasites, bacteria, and viruses. Then he made people with genetic predispositions to all sorts of defects, maladies, and deformations.
Why not blame him for all that?
Yet, he supposedly manages to patch up some of his botched up work for a little while and we are supposed to be all grateful?
If he has infinite powers, infinite goodness, and infinite love for us it would be kind of nice if he did not make this world such a cesspool of parasites and disease.
So the guy prayed. How does that work with an omniscient god? Doesn't god already know what he is going to do? What good does begging him do?
The guy said Jesus only heals when Jesus wants to, so he can't pray for others. Well, ok, that is about the only thing in the article that makes sense. No point in praying to god, he is gonna do what he is gonna do so your prayers are sure to fall on deaf ears.
I guess begging makes some kind of sense if you believe in a personal god that will change his mind like a person.
But how can an omniscient god change his mind? Makes no sense. If god knows everything he already knows what he is going to do.
So, suppose god is just going to let the bugs eat you inside out, then you beg god to kill off those parasitic bugs. At first, god psyches himself into saying nope, you are bug food and that is how you are gonna die, tough luck for you.
But then, god listens to you begging, so he gets all sorry and stuff and whips up some magic bug killer mojo so you are miraculously healed. Wow, lucky you!!!
But, wait, god already knows everything, right? So god knew he was gonna kill those bugs anyhow. Plus, why are you so grateful to the god bug killer? It is his bug farm, those are his bugs and he knew from the moment of creation those bugs were going to infect you and eat you inside out but he went ahead and made those bugs anyhow, so it was his fault in the first place, right?
Seth Andrews
Christianity Made Me Talk Like an Idiot
StardustyPsyche: "Pride made me talk like an idiot"
Well, the guy should be dead given what was the csae his disease. If materialism is true, how could he be alive?
He did such a crummy job designing the human body, plus he filled the world with parasites, bacteria, and viruses
The world doesn't revolve around you, or me, humanity, our comfort, our quality of life.
For some odd reason you're okay with an uncaring, unforgiving natural world because *shrug* "what are you going to do, that's the way life goes", but you get angry at your creator, God, who loves you and wants a relationship with you because he doesn't put your comfort at the top of his priority list. If you have children then I'm willing to bet that you've taught them this life lesson.
“I was at this time living, like so many Atheists or Antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world.” ― C.S. Lewis
Atheists hate this quote.
I don't begrudge an atheist who gets angry at a God who they think doesn't exist. We get angry at fictional characters in movies and books so I think that is a normal response. What I find odd is the imbalance. Wouldn't a stable person devote more of their emotional time and energy to reality?
Imagine a person who is mugged spending a week or two - maybe a few months - verbalizing their anger toward the mugger, and then imagine that same person going online to various blogs - for decades and decades - to verbalize their anger toward Harry Potter and Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter.
"For some odd reason you're okay with an uncaring, unforgiving natural world"
I never claimed the natural world is all good, infinitely powerful, or that we were created to have dominion over it.
Those are the sorts of claims commonly ascribed to god and our supposed creation by this supposed god.
"but you get angry at your creator, God,"
There is another example of Christianity making somebody talk like an idiot.
Uhm, you think I got angry at a non-existent being?
" If you have children then I'm willing to bet that you've taught them this life lesson."
I do not disown my children or torture my children or hide myself from my children or withhold assistance for my children that is easy for me to provide.
Torture as a sign of love is one of the sickest aspects of Christianity.
"I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world.” ― C.S. Lewis
Atheists hate this quote."
Why? It is clear evidence that Lewis was, in some very fundamental respects. a total idiot.
Christianity is not the only thing that can make a person talk like an idiot. There is plenty to go around.
How does one get angry at a non-existent being? A person has to suffer from some significant stupidity to think that way.
But that is not to say Lewis was generally of low intelligence, manifestly he was not. People are highly segmented, multifaceted, and capable of compartmentalized thinking. A person who is extremely good at one sort of thing might also be a terrible idiot at some other sort of thing.
This is all pretty obvious stuff, so again, why would any atheist supposedly hate that Lewis quote?
"We get angry at fictional characters in movies and books so I think that is a normal response."
What? Who does that? I mean, are you angry at Darth Vader or the Joker or something? Really? Are you daft?
"and then imagine that same person going online to various blogs - for decades and decades - to verbalize their anger toward Harry Potter and Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter."
Right, sounds like C.S.Lewis, according to the quote upthread here from Victor that he claims "atheists hate".
Apparently Lewis was that much of an idiot, to go around being angry over an extended period of time at a fictional character.
Imagine indeed.
So, a guy figures X does not exist, but is angry at X for not existing, then later decides X really does exist after all?
Imagine what an idiot that guy was.
I don't see why atheists would hate that Lewis quote, since it shows an apologist who had a screw loose, a very big screw that was very loose.
People who don't believe in God spend large portions of their life debunking belief in God. Why? Why not build onwhat you do believe instead of criticizing what others believe. It's not as if we're going to hell for believing in God falsely. If you are right we will die and rot, and you will too.
Why?
Because, in their eyes, someone on the internet is wrong and being wrong, or irrational, is a great offense to so-called rationalist atheist. But then we are back to the issue posed in the other topic: subjective values. One person values X, someone else values Y. The rationalist knows (because they are smarter than you) that both are of equal value but their irrationality gets the best of them and they can't accept that they are equal - so they visit blogs on a daily basis to talk about which one is more valuable. Around and around the crazy train goes.
P1
People who don't believe in God spend large portions of their life debunking belief in God.
P2
(it is good or reasonable or productive or somehow positive to) build on what you do believe instead of criticizing what others believe.
Your question seems to suppose there is some sort of conflict such that
If P1 then ~P2
Yet atheists act according to both P1 and P2.
The answer is simple, the conditional is false.
P1 and P2 are mutually compatible.
"It's not as if we're going to hell for believing in God falsely."
So, it would be reasonable to to argue against your belief if you would go to hell for holding that belief, but pretty much pointless otherwise. Wow, are you a Christian or what?
This is manifestly odd or strange or pointless to you, but fear of going to hell or lack of fear of going to hell is irrelevant for many people. Apparently you are having a lot of difficulty grasping that fact about others.
"If you are right we will die and rot, and you will too."
Hmmm...you seem to be expressing some sort of general pointlessness to life absent an afterlife.
See, I feel just the opposite. If there is an eternal afterlife then this life is virtually insignificant. I mean, it is not very significant to me what I did 194837829 seconds ago, or any particular second of my life in my distant past.
This lifetime, on an eternal afterlife, will be like some tiny brief moment for me by comparison to the the trillions of years of my future existence.
It is the realization that this is my only life that makes this life so very important to be.
Now it is true that I do not spend much time debunking Oden or Gaia or Ra but then followers of those ancient superstitions don't sit on the supreme court, or fly planes into buildings, or continually blow each other up in the Middle East, or put their superstitious nonsense into the American public schools or on American money.
The unfortunate fact is that the Abrahamic religions infect this world and are a powerful force for a very great deal of ignorance and destruction.
Besides, I keep looking for some sort of argument for god. I mean, any argument that does not fall apart immediately. There are none on offer.
The Five Ways of Aquinas are nonsense. I can refute them all without any trouble at all.
Kalam, fine tuning, EAAN, and on and on. They are all either total nonsense arguments or simply push the problem back a step and pretend to solve something that nobody has ever solved.
Lewis doesn't seem to ever make arguments, just long diffuse screeds. Like that piece you posted where his message was that we were somehow lost of doomed or something if there is no objective morality. He didn't provide any argument for objective morality. He didn't show how subjective morality is not the case, in fact he went on at length demonstrating that subjective morality is the case.
And what is the argument from reason?
You might recall the old thing, back in the day...Where's the Beef???
What argument from reason? EAAN? Like, somehow, there is no selection pressure toward sound reasoning? Mechanical systems somehow cannot take motor actions based on reasoning from sense data?
The unfortunate fact is that the Abrahamic religions infect this world and are a powerful force for a very great deal of ignorance and destruction.
One person values X, someone else values Y. The so-called 'rationalist' knows that both are of equal value, objectively, but their irrationality gets the best of them - because their actions are driven by their emotions - they can't accept that they are objectively equal - so they visit blogs on a daily basis to talk about which one is more valuable.
Filed under: Unfortunate facts
They can chalk it up to as much "rationality" as they want, but the evidence indicates they simply don't like God or the idea of God, and they can't tell the difference between their own opinion and fact. Thus the internet is infected by New Atheism's drivel.
I assume based on SteveKs quote that SP offered yet another inane post equating the average American Christian to Muslim terrorists because they are "Abrahamic" (not reading it myself because it will possess nothing of value). I counter with the leftwing atheist ideology of Communism, which has a far higher body count, that DP must answer for.
Wish the New Atheists could offer anything new, let alone not obviously wrong. Just once.
Kevin,
"the evidence indicates they simply don't like God"
I admit that I did not realize how prevalent this sort of irrational thinking is.
I mean, it takes a certain sort of profoundly confused person to claim to be an atheist and also not like god, or be angry at god.
Well, atheists are not all rational people, some of them go on to convert to theism. So, I suppose in that case they can stop being angry at a non-existent god and start directing their judgments toward something they imagine exists.
Alternatively, this is all in the imagination of irrational theists. In that case atheists are rational enough to not be angry at something that does not exist, but theists are so irrational that they project their irrationality onto others, falsely.
"Wish the New Atheists could offer anything new, let alone not obviously wrong. Just once."
It takes a special sort of irrationality to explicitly state not reading a statement only to then go on to critique the imagined contents of that unread statement.
But by all means, can somebody say what the argument from reason even is?
Does Lewis actually make an argument someplace? I mean specifically. What I have read of Lewis so far is just long winded diffuse commentary opinion. But, I am not a Lewis expert.
Is there someplace where Lewis makes a specific argument that somehow we reason and therefore god exists?
I see why so many people have grown tired of Dusty. I haven't been back for very long and I've already become bored with all of her nonsense. I'm interested in learning who has the better ideas and a better way of understanding reality. I actually want to hear competing thoughts that are different than mine. Hal was a good person to engage for that, but he disappeared. There are others too and I enjoy reading their comments - but Dusty is not one of those people. She has horrible ideas and a horrible way of understanding reality. Her reality is one that nobody recognizes because it's about as unreal as any one person can imagine. It must take a lot of mental energy to convince yourself that such anti-realism is real.
I admit I have some degree of difficulty remembering things that don't make sense.
So, Wiki to the rescue. According to this entry we have:
One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the naturalistic worldview].... The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears.... [U]nless Reason is an absolute--all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.
— C. S. Lewis, "Is Theology Poetry?", The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses
OK, keep in mind that this is coming from a guy who at one point in his life was angry at god for not existing, so one should not be surprised to find disjointed reasoning from a person like that.
"The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts."
An "inference" is, by one definition "a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning."
Ok, so, naturalists are being accused of using reasoning to reach conclusions based on observational evidence. Guilty as charged.
"Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears.... [U]nless Reason is an absolute--all is in ruins."
Huh? This is where Lewis lapses into his trademark linguistic drivel. What is supposedly "in ruins"?
Why would reason need to be somehow "absolute"? Makes no sense.
"They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based."
This is just a rehash of the old "you are using your senses to confirm your senses" tripe.
Duh, so are you!
Adding a magic man to the situation only makes it worse.
You still only have your reason and your senses to figure out about the magic man, except there is no scientific evidence for the magic man.
We are all in the same boat.
All we have is our senses and our reasoning.
Then we die.
Tough luck for us then.
There is no circularity in my naturalism because the basic reliability of the human senses is a provisional postulate, not an asserted absolute fact.
The fact that I am self consciously aware that the basic reliability of my senses is not absolutely certain eliminates circularity from my naturalism.
So, I am being accused of circularity from a guy who was angry at god for not existing. Really? Lewis would not understand circularity if it bit him on the ass.
There is zero circularity in my naturalism because I am fully aware that the basic reliability of my senses is not an absolute certainty. Pretty simple.
SteveK,
I didn't realize that Stardusty was a female until now. This explains a lot.
bmiller: it certainly does explain a lot. Happy New Year to you!
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