Dr M's points on prayer, eternity, and a few other things

[mitchellmckain]

No aside from the problems in your use of the word "magically", that isn't quite right. I don't think that there is any doubt that Moonwood and Rian believe that God DOES have the power to heal people, just as I do.

If you believe that God does have the “power” (magic power??) to heal people can you , for the love of God, enlighten me on what process he uses to heal your cancer?

Why in the world would you dream that I can enlighten you on what process God uses to heal cancer. I can only say that I personally do no believe that God would use any method that violates the laws of nature. But since the laws of nature are not causally closed or deterministic that does not at all preclude a causal role of God in the healing of cancer.

Asking in your head, and then having an all “powerful” being remove any type of dieses from your body seems to be a whole lot like magic.

Not to me, unless you think that the asking guarantees the result as if you were in control.

Cancer does go into remission. Does that count as magical?

Does a flower growing in a garden count as magical? No its natural, our bodies are known to have processes in place to fight of infections, bacteria and dieses. Claiming that an entity with infinite power was responsible for the cancer diminishing from your body does count as magical though (at least to me).

Not to me. Because I know that the laws of nature are NOT causally closed or deterministic. Thus I know that there is no logical contradiction whatsoever between everything happening completely according the operation of natural laws and God being responsible for the remission of cancer in someone.

But regardless prayer can never be a magical means of healing people because people do not and cannot ever control what God does.

How do you know that people cannot control what God does?

It does not make any sense. Not of any God that I would believe in. If people can control something then that would automatically disqualify that as something that I would ever call God. Perhaps there are "things" that people can control in order to heal things, but I would call such things by the names of "technology" or "aliens" but certainly not by the name of "God".

it doesn’t mean that god cannot answer our prayers I know. It doesn’t mean that he can either, it doesn’t mean anything.

Not to YOU. But what has meaning and value to you is not anything like an absolute measure of meaning and value, anymore than what has meaning and value to me.

Now what would be silly is if you think that ALL you needed to do would be to pray and that this would cure your cancer. That would indeed be a magical type of thinking –

Wait a minute……. This is exactly what I was talking about this whole time.

It has been quite clear that the subtleties of this topic are escaping you completely.

So you think that somebody thinking of thoughts, and that a being that exists everywhere and can hear those and everyone else’s thoughts at the same time is easy for me to believe? How can you not understand that I find it extremely difficult to believe that?

Why in the world should I even believe that, since I know that you did once. It simply comes down the fact that you chose to believe that once and now you don't. I have absolutely no problem with the fact that we make different choices with regards to this objectively undecidable issue.

To me it is black and white with respects to my prior stamen. You either believe that, or you don’t. I don’t, I have no reason to.

LOL

You should look up this article I heard about today on the radio, "I was wrong and so are you". It shows how people get stupid when it comes to things that contradict their ideological stand on things. Insisting on such simpleton black and white understanding of things when things really are not that simple is an excellent example of how people make themselves conveniently stupid.

I do need you to clarify it for me though, Do you or do you not believe that the existence of God can be demonstrated or shown to be true so that we can all know it?

No the existence of God is NOT objectively demonstrable. BUT that does NOT mean that it cannot be known. The insistence that anyone can live their lives only based on what is provable or objectively demonstrable is unreasonable, because that just isn't possible. Proof and objective evidence is a comparatively rare occurrence and things happen all the time that provide nothing of the sort. It is absolutely ridiculous to insist that we act like things did not happen simply because one cannot prove it. The MOST that we can say is that without such evidence or proof we cannot reasonable expect other people to accept that it happened and NOT that we ourselves to whom it actually happened must believe that it did not happen.

The greatest being and creator of the universe has told us quite clearly that He is intimately concerned and involved in our personal lives.

how can you even say something like this.. quite clearly “told” us eh? How is that?

I think you know the answer to that question as it has already been discussed with KTR.

The point is that, it is NOT arrogance for people to decide what they believe based on their own experiences and judgements. The arrogance is insisting that everyone must believe as YOU do. I do not see Moonwood or Rian doing that. I see you doing that. What YOU believe on objectively undecidable issues is NOT the standard of rationality or arrogance!

[Aaron]

I don't believe that belief needs to be justified by argument in order to be valid. I keep saying that. If however someone claims that their beliefs are a consequence of critical thinking I expect them to be able to justify that claim. Actually I have said several times that I don't believe that beliefs are warranted by faith. I've said it to Aaron when he makes claims of that kind and I've said it to you when you say this is what Christian's believe.

You'll have to forgive me but I don't exactly know what you're talking about Moonwood. All that comes to mind is the discussion I had with KTR recently about asking for proof to validate the claims of Christianity and my insistence that the entire core of Christianity is based on faith in promises yet to be displayed in their full glory (this is not to say I do not think there is not good reason for belief and faith in Christ (attack of the nooooooooooooooot!), but if Christianity is what you're after then faith and belief must play their part). So as I said, you'll have to forgive my dullness but I don't really know what you're talking about.

[humanguy]

Asking in your head, and then having an all “powerful” being remove any type of dieses from your body seems to be a whole lot like magic.

Not to me, unless you think that the asking guarantees the result as if you were in control.

Cancer does go into remission. Does that count as magical?

Does a flower growing in a garden count as magical? No its natural, our bodies are known to have processes in place to fight of infections, bacteria and dieses. Claiming that an entity with infinite power was responsible for the cancer diminishing from your body does count as magical though (at least to me).

Not to me. Because I know that the laws of nature are NOT causally closed or deterministic. Thus I know that there is no logical contradiction whatsoever between everything happening completely according the operation of naturals and God being responsible for the remission of cancer in someone.

If that's true then there is no logical contradiction whatsoever between everything happening completely according the operation of naturals and extraterrestrial creatures being responsible for the remission of cancer in someone. For that matter there's no logical contradiction whatsoever between everything happening completely according the operation of naturals and any creature or thing one could imagine being responsible for the remission of cancer in someone.

[mitchellmckain]

Not to me. Because I know that the laws of nature are NOT causally closed or deterministic. Thus I know that there is no logical contradiction whatsoever between everything happening completely according the operation of naturals and God being responsible for the remission of cancer in someone.

If that's true then there is no logical contradiction whatsoever between everything happening completely according the operation of natural laws and extraterrestrial creatures being responsible for the remission of cancer in someone. For that matter there's no logical contradiction whatsoever between everything happening completely according the operation of naturals and any creature or thing one could imagine being responsible for the remission of cancer in someone.

No that is true regardless. Obviously any creature or being whose existence consists entirely of the operation of natural law can only be responsible the remission of cancer in someone via the operation of those same natural laws. We don't expect such beings to play a role in curing cancer in a way that would be magical. But when it comes to a being whose existence is outside natural law then it an entirely different question whether that being interacts with the world in a way that is consistent with natural law or not. There is no reason to think that God is not capable of interacting with the world outside the laws of nature. But I don't believe that God would interact with the world outside of those natural laws because He created them in the first place for a reason, and thus I don't think it makes sense for God to break laws which He Himself established in contradiction to those reasons for which He made those laws. But because the laws of nature are not causally closed or deterministic there is a loophole through which such a being outside the laws of nature can interact with the world without violating those laws. But what this most certainly does mean, is that this interaction will not be demonstrable or verifiable by scientific methods because those methods ARE dependent upon and limited to those laws of nature.

[Dr Mundo]

...But I don't believe that God would interact with the world outside of those natural laws because He created them in the first place for a reason, and thus I don't think it makes sense for God to break laws which He Himself established in contradiction to those reasons for which He made those laws.

haha wow. Okay sir, then I await a demonstration of how to turn water to wine, heal the sick by touching them, rise from the dead after 3 days. or walk on water unassisted by technology. Are you saying God wouldn't but he has and just doesn't want to do it again? or he wouldn't meaning he hasn't and he won't? You apparently know exactly what parts of the bible are figurative and which are literal, I am fully expecting you to tell me those things didn't really happen and that they are just stories. You also apparently know the exact character of God so I am confident that you will tell me what his thoughts are on this issue.

[Keep The Reason]

...But I don't believe that God would interact with the world outside of those natural laws because He created them in the first place for a reason, and thus I don't think it makes sense for God to break laws which He Himself established in contradiction to those reasons for which He made those laws.

haha wow. Okay sir, then I await a demonstration of how to turn water to wine, heal the sick by touching them, rise from the dead after 3 days. or walk on water unassisted by technology. Are you saying God wouldn't but he has and just doesn't want to do it again? or he wouldn't meaning he hasn't and he won't? You apparently know exactly what parts of the bible are figurative and which are literal, I am fully expecting you to tell me those things didn't really happen and that they are just stories. You also apparently know the exact character of God so I am confident that you will tell me what his thoughts are on this issue.

Maybe they are all analogies and you need to read them "in the proper context". Except for ressurection, of course. That one is literal.

[ReasonToFollow]

haha wow. Okay sir, then I await a demonstration of how to turn water to wine, heal the sick by touching them, rise from the dead after 3 days.

This obviously isn't the answer you're looking for because you have no faith but the way in which we can heal the sick and stuff is through the Holy Spirit. We walk in the fullness of Christ because we have the Holy Spirit in us which essentially is the spirit of Jesus/God. So it's not US doing the healing but God THROUGH us because we carry the Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus healed the sick in his days.

I just wanted to give you the background info on that one =)

[JustJim]

OMFG....

[Moonwood the Hare]

Hi Aaron You said

You'll have to forgive me but I don't exactly know what you're talking about Moonwood. All that comes to mind is the discussion I had with KTR recently about asking for proof to validate the claims of Christianity and my insistence that the entire core of Christianity is based on faith in promises yet to be displayed in their full glory (this is not to say I do not think there is not good reason for belief and faith in Christ (attack of the nooooooooooooooot!), but if Christianity is what you're after then faith and belief must play their part). So as I said, you'll have to forgive my dullness but I don't really know what you're talking about.

There are some approaches which I think are mistaken.
The first says we do not have any evidence that Christianity is true but we should believe it anyway. This is the religious irrationalist position advocated by Kierkegaard and some evangelicals. This makes a virtue of believing in spite of the total lack of evidence. I do not see any virtue in believing under these conditions.
The second says there is some evidence for Christianity but not enough to prove conclusively that it is true. This is okay because it puts Christianity in the same position as our best scientific hypotheses. Faith steps in and makes up the difference. The difficulty with this is that if we really were to put Christianity in the position of a scientific hypothesis we would have to accept it as something tentative and be constantly testing it. This is the position I have suspected you of holding.
The third position says there is absolutely convincing objective evidence for the truth of Christianity and it is only people's sinfulness that stops them seeing this. I do not think any of the traditional arguments for God's existence stand up to rigorous scrutiny and I take the view of Dooyeweerd that what could be proved would thereby not be God.

I take the view that we know God as a reality by our own direct experience. Faith can be defined as Abraham Kuyper says as

That function of the soul by which it obtains certainty directly without the aid of discursive demonstration. This places faith over against 'demonstration' not of itself over against knowing

It is in this sense and this sense only that I would regard faith as a type of knowing and so we know by faith there is a God because we directly experience God as a reality for us in much the same way as the materialist knows matter to be the ultimate reality. I often feel that by knowing by faith you are thinking of faith as believing a hypothesis on insufficient evidence and it is this I would disagree with.

[Keep The Reason]

It is in this sense and this sense only that I would regard faith as a type of knowing and so we know by faith there is a God because we directly experience God as a reality for us in much the same way as the materialist knows matter to be the ultimate reality. I often feel that by knowing by faith you are thinking of faith as believing a hypothesis on insufficient evidence and it is this I would disagree with.

I do not "experience god as a reality" nor do any atheists I know "Experience god as a reality". "Knowing by faith" is a misnomer; one cannot know by faith. We know by facts, and facts come about by empirical evidence. Even if it is an experience, that experience is empirical evidence. "I experienced a thrill by riding on the roller coaster" is not just a vague claim to "experience" -- one would have to be on the roller coaster first, and to actually experience it. It's demonstrable in some manner.

Theists cannot hope to demonstrate any experience with god. You certainly can claim it, but you cannot demonstrate it. At best you can offer hearsay to me, who simply does not "experience god" at all. It's like Aaron said (and I reject) -- if these "promises to come" are yet to come, I am perfectly justified in stating that until such time, I don't embrace the premise. Since I see no empirical evidence of this "experience" you lay claim to, and there's nothing about the history or ideology of Christianity that is particularly out of the realm of human devising, I see no reason to accept the undemonstrated premise. That doesn't give theists the right to conflate faith beliefs with knowledge. You do not have bona fide knowledge, you have belief, that is all.

[Moonwood the Hare]

It is in this sense and this sense only that I would regard faith as a type of knowing and so we know by faith there is a God because we directly experience God as a reality for us in much the same way as the materialist knows matter to be the ultimate reality. I often feel that by knowing by faith you are thinking of faith as believing a hypothesis on insufficient evidence and it is this I would disagree with.

I do not "experience god as a reality" nor do any atheists I know "Experience god as a reality". "Knowing by faith" is a misnomer; one cannot know by faith. We know by facts, and facts come about by empirical evidence. Even if it is an experience, that experience is empirical evidence. "I experienced a thrill by riding on the roller coaster" is not just a vague claim to "experience" -- one would have to be on the roller coaster first, and to actually experience it. It's demonstrable in some manner.

Theists cannot hope to demonstrate any experience with god. You certainly can claim it, but you cannot demonstrate it. At best you can offer hearsay to me, who simply does not "experience god" at all. It's like Aaron said (and I reject) -- if these "promises to come" are yet to come, I am perfectly justified in stating that until such time, I don't embrace the premise. Since I see no empirical evidence of this "experience" you lay claim to, and there's nothing about the history or ideology of Christianity that is particularly out of the realm of human devising, I see no reason to accept the undemonstrated premise. That doesn't give theists the right to conflate faith beliefs with knowledge. You do not have bona fide knowledge, you have belief, that is all.

Just to be clear - you are claiming that the only thing you can know are facts and facts can only be known empirically so only that which can be empirically demonstrated can be known. I think this claim can easily be refuted; so easily that I doubt you are actually making it.

[Keep The Reason]

Just to be clear - you are claiming that the only thing you can know are facts and facts can only be known empirically so only that which can be empirically demonstrated can be known. I think this claim can easily be refuted; so easily that I doubt you are actually making it.

When I say "know", I mean it as knowledge -- corroborated information. Not merely "aware of". I'm aware of brain surgery, but do not know it in any expert manner (I could if I applied myself to learning it, but that's a different issue).

You do not know there is a god-- because you do not have any demonstrable evidence to corroborate it-- if you did, you'd deploy it and end this debate in a thrice. You don't know Jesus saves you, you don't know you go to heaven or hell, you don't know that sin offends god, and so on. You certainly are aware of these claims, and you sure do believe these claims are true (or, you believe some version of them are true), but you do not have any demonstrable knowledge of them. That is why they are articles of faith, and not articles of empirical knowledge.

[Keep The Reason]

OMFG....

I vote this as post of the month.

[mitchellmckain]

...But I don't believe that God would interact with the world outside of those natural laws because He created them in the first place for a reason, and thus I don't think it makes sense for God to break laws which He Himself established in contradiction to those reasons for which He made those laws.

haha wow. Okay sir, then I await a demonstration of how to turn water to wine, heal the sick by touching them, rise from the dead after 3 days. or walk on water unassisted by technology.

LOL Why? Just because God can do such things in a way that does not contradict natural law does not mean that I can do any such thing as you suggest here. And your mention of technology is interesting because it means that your are aware of the fact that such things ARE possible within the limits of natural law.

Are you saying God wouldn't but he has and just doesn't want to do it again? or he wouldn't meaning he hasn't and he won't?

I mean the latter. I mean that I very much doubt that any of the miracles in the Bible were managed in a way that contradict natural law. This is why I do not accept the definition of the word "miracle" in such terms and that definiton is only used by some people and not all.

You apparently know exactly what parts of the bible are figurative and which are literal, I am fully expecting you to tell me those things didn't really happen and that they are just stories.

I certainly make my own decisions about this, not that this really has all that much relevance to our discussion. None of the miracles in the Bible explicitly say that they are in contradiction to natural law and natural explanations are easy for a great many of them and so your nonsense about things being figurative is silly. But yes there is quite a range of different types of literature in the Bible where some are quite clearly not meant to be taken literally. Jesus says as much about his own use of parables.

Besides the rather obviously symbolic language of Revelations, Ezekiel and Daniel, there is the interesting question about the nature of the oldest stories in the book of Genesis. Now some Christians do see much of this book as homiletical (and thus "figurative") in nature, but I am not one of them. I think the historical intent of the book is clear, but if that applies to the oldest stories which are about times before history, then we cannot avoid the question of how such stories could have come to be written down. It necessarily means that these are stories that would have to have been passed down orally for a very long time and thus we have to understand them in that context. This precludes them from being historical in any strict sense of modern definitions and best adjective has to be "mythical", so we should compare it to other mythical stories such as those of King Arthur and thus must see the historicity of the story to be of similar nature which certainly precludes an absolutely literal interpretation.

Anyway, your pretence at incredulity here is absurd, since I don't know how many times I have made it abundantly clear that I am and was a scientist before I was ever a Christian and that I could never have considered the question of whether there was any truth to Christianity EXCEPT based on the presumption that the discoveries of science were true and correct. THAT most certainly is an unavoidable filter through which I have read the Bible. I have explained that this can be called reading the Bible in context -- not only its parts in the context of the whole, but all of it in the context of what we know about the world by other means. So yeah that means that I haven't done this absolutely ridiculous and absurd charade of testing the Bible as a science textbook. Science is not the only kind of literature and human activity in the world and I think that only non-scientist ideologues who have tried to make science into some kind of ridiculous religion would do such a silly thing.

You also apparently know the exact character of God so I am confident that you will tell me what his thoughts are on this issue.

I certainly do know the character of the of the kind of God that I can believe in. We can just say that with regards to the other portrayals of "God" with a different character that I have heard, I am just as much an atheist as you are. But no I do not know what His thought are on this issue or any other.

[Dr Mundo]

OMFG....

could you elaborate a bit please? I am quite fond of your responses this one was to short to satisfy my cravings. Thanks in advance either way.