It doesn't matter, the number of possible yous is finite, god's knowledge is not. It's not a case of saying it doesn't matter, you still don't have free will, as god is aware of every alts choice everywhere before he makes it, thus there is no real choice. Just saying somehow you become someone elses person if you take another decision means nothing at all, to all intents and purposes, the you that makes up you, and the alt that makes up the alt are just as hamstrung as if there were only one Universe from Gods perspective. All you are doing is making a problem finitely removed but still the same from Gods perspective.
Ask a Christian
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It doesn't matter, the number of possible yous is finite, god's knowledge is not. It's not a case of saying it doesn't matter, you still don't have free will, as god is aware of every alts choice everywhere before he makes it, thus there is no real choice. Just saying somehow you become someone elses person if you take another decision means nothing at all, to all intents and purposes, the you that makes up you, and the alt that makes up the alt are just as hamstrung as if there were only one Universe from Gods perspective. All you are doing is making a problem finitely removed but still the same from Gods perspective.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
Sidhe, it;s kinda hard for me to argue from a perspective that is not mine, so I'll drop it. To me it's like disregarding the free will paradox in favour of satisfying my curiousity.
I still am curious about:
I still am curious about:
So, if any christian would like ...The reason for prayer always seemed a bit strange to me.
God allready knows of your plight, right? Or could it be that in his 'decisionmaking' the prayer gets involved? Maybe beforehand. If this feller prays for X, he will get Y. If he doesn't he will get Z. Sort of like the great plan, but with options.
We do have free will after all, but it's not certain that Z is better then Y.
I'm always so easily confused by this.
It's hard to argue because it doesn't make any difference how you want to look at it, even with infinite possible futures, which there aren't, God still knows every single one of them, and every single action every single atom in every single universe will take, ever. So you're not arguing anything. No matter how many universes and possibilities you want to add, you can't add anything to infinity and make it bigger. Infinite knowledge/omniscience is infinite, there is nothing larger.
So in essence your argument is redundant whether it's yours or anyone elses.
People can't comprehend infinite anything though, many can't even begin to grasp it. It's not an argument you can make. There really is only one solution known, and that was stumbled upon by scientists and philosophers.
Put simply if there is only ever one possible outcome to every action, and God knows it, it doesn't matter how you want to fenagle it or add dimensions, the outcomes are always known and always known exactly and faultlessly. The belief or illusions you describe are no different from the illusions the religious describe. They are just more complicated. Ultimately they are the same though. You have no free will if a being already knows what any outcome is infinitely. For free will to truly exist then a person or alts or anything's choices must not be limited to one. Saying you have 4^1000000 choices when there are only 1 outcome to any consciousnesses reality, no matter how diverse the multiverse, is beside the point. There is still nothing free, because God knows the path of any and all consciousnesses in any and all realities.
So in essence your argument is redundant whether it's yours or anyone elses.
People can't comprehend infinite anything though, many can't even begin to grasp it. It's not an argument you can make. There really is only one solution known, and that was stumbled upon by scientists and philosophers.
Put simply if there is only ever one possible outcome to every action, and God knows it, it doesn't matter how you want to fenagle it or add dimensions, the outcomes are always known and always known exactly and faultlessly. The belief or illusions you describe are no different from the illusions the religious describe. They are just more complicated. Ultimately they are the same though. You have no free will if a being already knows what any outcome is infinitely. For free will to truly exist then a person or alts or anything's choices must not be limited to one. Saying you have 4^1000000 choices when there are only 1 outcome to any consciousnesses reality, no matter how diverse the multiverse, is beside the point. There is still nothing free, because God knows the path of any and all consciousnesses in any and all realities.
Actually I was asking the Christians that decided to engage in a conversation with me.
classical_hero
In whom I trust
He does answer all prayer and sometimes he says no to certain prayers. Prayer is basically us talking to God. The whole point of prayer is not what we want but what is the best we can do for God. It is to be connected to God's will not getting things you want done. Too many times people view God as a genie and demands things for themselves. God only gives us things according to his will, not according to what we want.
The reason for prayer always seemed a bit strange to me.
God allready knows of your plight, right? Or could it be that in his 'decisionmaking' the prayer gets involved? Maybe beforehand. If this feller prays for X, he will get Y. If he doesn't he will get Z. Sort of like the great plan, but with options.
We do have free will after all, but it's not certain that Z is better then Y.
I'm always so easily confused by this.
I stuggled with this one for a while, too.
I don't think it's a matter of changing God's mind. "He's not a man that he should change his mind." But prayer lets you examine your own motives by voicing them to God. If you really want something, maybe God just wants you to ask for it.
Hezekiah in the book of Isaiah was told he would die, but prayed and God relented. Did God change his mind, or did he want Hezekiah to repent and humbly ask for his life?
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
You are very much in the right direction I feel. One that I didn't consider before.
Courses on decisionmaking always focus on you mapping as many factors as possible to make the right decision. Just by doing that, it will improve your decisionmaking. I suspect prayer works the same way for an individual. Maybe that explains the effectiveness of it. Like talking to a friend about your problems makes the solution more clear. While the friend does nothing but listen. Only this time, God is the friend.
Prayers are spells.
A prayer is the evolution from a nonChristian religion's spells (incantations with some physical component, typically), into a Christian prayer. A Christian prayer is an attempt to gain some change in the world via invoking some spirit. In other words, it's a spell.
A prayer is the evolution from a nonChristian religion's spells (incantations with some physical component, typically), into a Christian prayer. A Christian prayer is an attempt to gain some change in the world via invoking some spirit. In other words, it's a spell.
The question remains: how do we know when God answers our prayers and actively provides us with our request, and when God decides to say no to that certain prayer, but circumstance and coincidence leads to it being fulfilled, or some alternate situation happening that can seem like God answered our prayers?
I've asked similar questions. It basically comes down to this response: the prayor simply has faith that god is answering the prayers in question.
I'll get to that when a Christian himself/herself answers like that.
I see so you want only people who are Christian are who you want to speak to? Or do you object to me posting on some other grounds? Needless to say, I don't think ask a Christian has any rules about who can ask what and who can reply to anything, I can only assume then that if you would like to phrase your questions in such a way as it states categorically, you only want to hear opinions from Christians and you wont want conversation with anyone else, then it might save a bit of time. Not that anyone will necessarily take any notice unless you're the thread starter or a mod, but you can but ask.
Homie
Anti-Lefty
Defiant, Christian guy here. I´ve been posed with the challenge of coming up with an example of a limb being regenerated through prayer by El Mac before, on this very forum. God doesn´t throw out miracles on a daily basis, so this would be pretty darn rare. At the same time, nothing is impossible to God, so I´m sure it has happened somtime. The only example I could come up with for El Mac is a saint from (I don´t remember exactly when at the moment) hundreds, or maybe it was over a thousand years ago. A "documented" case of a person whose limb was regenerated. Of course it was a long time ago and so he didn´t believe it. I´ve also heard from a preacher who was in a muslim country praying for people, that he saw a deformed foot grow into a normal foot before his eyes. But I´m sure you want a video, which I don´t have.
As for what someone said, that it might be important for an amputee to remain an amputee - I believe that´s BS.
As for what someone said, that it might be important for an amputee to remain an amputee - I believe that´s BS.
Homie
Anti-Lefty
I think it is more likely that why people do not get healed is because of lack of faith. Jesus talks about this in Matthew.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Except for the point where non-christians shouldnt be answering questions that christians should actually be answering....
It is 'ask a christian' after all....
I don't remember you providing an example, or me refuting it, actually. You might have presented it during my time away.
Still, if you'll remember the mindframe you were in when I originally presented the challenge: at the time, you thought such events would probably happen all the time (such is the power of prayer and God), I don't think you would have predicted being completely unable to come up with a refutation. I think that your mindset has now changed. We're getting quite a few amputees from the two wars going on: none of them are being healed, despite any Evangelical intervention. Your conception of God has certainly changed, since before you (I think) believed in a God who commonly and obviously intervened.
*star*I've heard of dozens of such reports, as well. But none of them were the least bit verifiable. I'm not requiring an actual video. But a medical history before and after the miracle would be necessary, as well as a documentation of the severity of the injury. 'Tis why I focused on an amputation, that way it's nice and obvious
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roCounjrXf8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRa5tTCJVso
Now imagine this happening a thousand years ago. Surely many people would claim this being a miracle.
Even video evidence can be tricky. Allthough a regenerating foot (under supervision, else CGI could come into play) would be quite convincing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRa5tTCJVso
Now imagine this happening a thousand years ago. Surely many people would claim this being a miracle.
Even video evidence can be tricky. Allthough a regenerating foot (under supervision, else CGI could come into play) would be quite convincing.
So sometimes Jesus heals people if they have enough faith, eh?
Then why won't Jesus heal amputees? Some people claim to have been healed by god and through prayer. However, this has NEVER happened to amputees.
Why does Jesus hate amputees?
Let's face it the number of modern miracles compared to renaissance miracles and those compared to classical miracles and so on appear to have a disparity per capita let alone without taking population into account. I'm sure the rise of philosophy and later science has more than a little to do with that. Most old miracles were not well documented, not rigorously tested, and not subject even to the scrutiny and attention the Catholics place on miracles these days. That explains a lot.
Most of them were no doubt fraudulent, subject to Chinese whispers, and based on a poor understanding of the way things work. Faith is no different than the power of suggestion in it's ability to skew results. Hell witchcraft and Voodoo work on the fact that if you can convince someone something is going to happen, or if they are religiously primed it's easy to see occurrences as magical or miraculous even if they are not.
Miracles that Jesus did? Well to be honest there aren't any documented cases from the time of Jesus form eye witnesses, so a lot of that even is subject to academic and historic scrutiny. If he did do it, fine it's miraculous, but there are accounts of him never having performed miracles, ok they are all lies and heretical
, but then everything outside of organised religion is heretical and lies broadly, so it's hard to take things with a critical eye, when your remit is to deny anything that doesn't agree with your own dogmatic interpretation. Never makes much sense to me to do so.
Any account has it's bs and fact, to take one account as Gospel absolutely, seems to be the opposite of what historians do, which is to sift all accounts for bs and fact accordingly. Religion seems to be exempt from the usual critical process, this to me sends up all sorts of warning signals. Especially knowing how fallible any account is, which is based on word of mouth, second hand testimony or anything that is not part of the original testimony. Hell even that is subject to error, as policemen around the world know. You can get several different interpretations even from those present at the time, and outside of religion, take some religiously primed and somewhat more fanatical adherents, and well?
Ok I know I'm not allowed on this thread by decree of not being a Christian, but frankly that's lame. If you don't want to talk about anything openly then go join a private forum that only let's the adherents in. This is A forum not a private club for the discerning Christian, I couldn't care less for your half arsed rules.
Most of them were no doubt fraudulent, subject to Chinese whispers, and based on a poor understanding of the way things work. Faith is no different than the power of suggestion in it's ability to skew results. Hell witchcraft and Voodoo work on the fact that if you can convince someone something is going to happen, or if they are religiously primed it's easy to see occurrences as magical or miraculous even if they are not.
Miracles that Jesus did? Well to be honest there aren't any documented cases from the time of Jesus form eye witnesses, so a lot of that even is subject to academic and historic scrutiny. If he did do it, fine it's miraculous, but there are accounts of him never having performed miracles, ok they are all lies and heretical
, but then everything outside of organised religion is heretical and lies broadly, so it's hard to take things with a critical eye, when your remit is to deny anything that doesn't agree with your own dogmatic interpretation. Never makes much sense to me to do so. Any account has it's bs and fact, to take one account as Gospel absolutely, seems to be the opposite of what historians do, which is to sift all accounts for bs and fact accordingly. Religion seems to be exempt from the usual critical process, this to me sends up all sorts of warning signals. Especially knowing how fallible any account is, which is based on word of mouth, second hand testimony or anything that is not part of the original testimony. Hell even that is subject to error, as policemen around the world know. You can get several different interpretations even from those present at the time, and outside of religion, take some religiously primed and somewhat more fanatical adherents, and well?
Ok I know I'm not allowed on this thread by decree of not being a Christian, but frankly that's lame. If you don't want to talk about anything openly then go join a private forum that only let's the adherents in. This is A forum not a private club for the discerning Christian, I couldn't care less for your half arsed rules.
Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
No.Prayers are spells.
A prayer is the evolution from a nonChristian religion's spells (incantations with some physical component, typically), into a Christian prayer. A Christian prayer is an attempt to gain some change in the world via invoking some spirit. In other words, it's a spell.
No, no, no, no, no.
Pretty much since the beginning of Judaism there has been a ban on magic in general and a clear distinction that a magician says "I have power, I can cast spells", while a Jew or Christian says "I do not have power. God does".
Yes, of course.Defiant47 said:
On the discussion that began around free will:
I take free will on faith, and I think there's nothing that can be identified as freewillitude by experiment. As ESY puts it, free will is the "game-theoretical unit of moral responsibility"... not an object, but a quantity.
Well I'm sorry, but I seem to be taking up two miracles here all by myself and we mostly have anecdotal evidence on this count anyway, any survey that asks something like "Have you ever had a miracle happen to you?" is going to get horribly muddled answers.Sidhe said:
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