Quote:

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The point to make here is that if you take the position that God helps in unexpected ways, then there is no way to objectively evaluate the power of prayer. Believing that God helps in exactly the manner that He determines we need help is the ultimate in confirmation bias.

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It can be pretty reasonably, rationally and independently derived that is exactly how God operates.

I have personally experienced incredibly rare sequences of events that just so happened to answer prayers I had been having. But these things are only real to those who personally experience them. This is what I mean when I say prayer is personal and relational and not transactional. This isn't to say we might not "get things" as a result, but those things are derived in a way that brings us humbly closer to God.

My personal experience tells me its never really about me as an individual. It always involves submission to His glory.

If you read my posts carefully you would see I'm making the case for the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God that is worshipped globally by approximately 4.5 billion people. Not specifically Christianity.

So if you want to actually engage with the point I'm making, please do so. But if you want to keep insisting I'm saying something that I have explicitly stated I'm not, then you are, rather ironically, not engaging in the discussion in an intellectually honest fashion.

Silent For Too Long said:

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Quote:

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The point to make here is that if you take the position that God helps in unexpected ways, then there is no way to objectively evaluate the power of prayer. Believing that God helps in exactly the manner that He determines we need help is the ultimate in confirmation bias.

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It can be pretty reasonably, rationally and independently derived that is exactly how God operates.

I have personally experienced incredibly rare sequences of events that just so happened to answer prayers I had been having. But these things are only real to those who personally experience them. This is what I mean when I say prayer is personal and relational and not transactional. This isn't to say we might not "get things" as a result, but those things are derived in a way that brings us humbly closer to God.

My personal experience tells me its never really about me as an individual. It always involves submission to His glory.

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I'm having trouble following your argument. I'm not criticizing your position, I'm just trying to make sure I'm not getting your position wrong.

This is what I think you're saying:

It appears you are agreeing that God's M.O. is one that leads to confirmation bias.

You have prayed for "things" and sometimes you get them sometimes you don't. It's not transactional because you don't always get what you prayed for.

Prayer is personal and it brings you closer to God whether your prayers are answered or not.

You have experienced getting what you prayed for via a statistically unlikely string of occurrences. This statistical improbability combined with your personal prayer for divine intervention is proof to you of the power of prayer.

Your experience tells you it's not about you but rather about you submitting to God (I'm not following what "it" is in this sentence).

The closest you come to making an argument that the Judeo Christian god is the most likely one is that lots of people worship that god and have been for a long time. But I sincerely doubt you actually accept those criteria as legitimate proof of a religion to begin with, after all there was a time at which Christianity was new and had few believers. Did that mean it was false? The oldest faith is Hinduism and it has lots of believers as well. Doesn't that mean it has a better claim to truth than anyone else by those criteria?

I'm not making an argument at all, I'm relaying my personal experience with prayer.

"It" refers to prayer. I'm not sure how that was ambiguous.

Rocag said:

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The closest you come to making an argument that the Judeo Christian god is the most likely one is that lots of people worship that god and have been for a long time. But I sincerely doubt you actually accept those criteria as legitimate proof of a religion to begin with, after all there was a time at which Christianity was new and had few believers. Did that mean it was false? The oldest faith is Hinduism and it has lots of believers as well. Doesn't that mean it has a better claim to truth than anyone else by those criteria?

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Hinduism has been around longer and has mostly been confined to one section of the globe.

Are you honestly saying the case for Hinduism is equal to the Abrahamic God? Please make that case.

You are conflating my personal experience with prayer with my objective argument that if there is a personal God, its most likely the Abrahamic one.

If any of you wants to make a case that a different personal God is more likely to exist, please do so.

The "case" I was making is that I don't see the age of the religion or number of adherents as convincing evidence when it comes to judging the veracity of said religion. So yeah, by that metric I would judge the claims of Hinduism and Christianity as equivalent. I reject Christianity's argument that it has more adherents and Hinduism's argument that it's older. I don't see either as valid. If nothing else, it presumes that any god which might exist actively wants to be worshiped. Why assume that?

Generally these discussions revolve around a personal God. If God doesn't care, then the plethora of religions really doesn't matter.

If Hinduism is true, it would appear the Gods only care about Indians. That would be quite inconvenient for all of us.

Silent For Too Long said:

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You are conflating my personal experience with prayer with my objective argument that if there is a personal God, its most likely the Abrahamic one.

If any of you wants to make a case that a different personal God is more likely to exist, please do so.

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I saw that you stated that the Abrahamic God is most likely if there exists a personal God. I didn't see your argument for why beyond '2000 years of history'. I don't need a long explanation (unless you want to), but something more than 'history' would be good to know in order to help with engagement with the question.

Even though I did concede that if there is a personal God, the Abrahamic seems most likely. . . . I don't know how much weight we think that carries. Of the major religions that belief in a personal God (capital G), like 3 of 5 of them are Abrahamic. So, it amounts a claim that the Abrahamic religions are more likely than Bha i or Zoroastrianism. Okay, I don't think anyone here is going to jump on arguing against that.

The question, I think, would be more interesting if you said "If a Creator God exists, then which description of that God best matches our observation of reality" . . . . or something like that. Point is, I think I could formulate an argument that a non-interventionist 'Diest' description of God is more likely than the Abrahamic God.

Thats a fine argument, but it seems entirely tangential to an OP about the plurality of religious experience.

There's not a whole lot of religious adherents to a Deists God. Basically the only people who argue for Deism are areligious atheists.

Strangely enough, Voltaire actually organized a church service of sorts for his deists concenptualization of the divine. I truly wonder what they discussed each week. "God doesn't interact with creation, do whatever you want."

Silent For Too Long said:

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Thats a fine argument, but it seems entirely tangential to an OP about the plurality of religious experience.

There's not a whole lot of religious adherents to a Deists God. Basically the only people who argue for Deism are areligious atheists.

Strangely enough, Voltaire actually organized a church service of sorts for his deists concenptualization of the divine. I truly wonder what they discussed each week. "God doesn't interact with creation, do whatever you want."

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Huh? The original question was about why there are so many religions - not about what our opinion of the which is most likely given certain parameters. You started us on this tangent, I only suggested different parameters.

The Banned said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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Limbs re-attached is something that happens with a doctor. But never regrown.

The issue you have here is we DO have very clear areas where god appears powerless or indifferent. That's extremely difficult to justify given your argument for miraculous healing through prayer.

The examples I gave are important because they WOULD be something that would give me immediate pause if it's something that 100% kills people except in specific instances of miraculous prayers being answered.

Your presumption is ai would dismiss anything. That's isn't the case. This presents a real issue for your position and you haven't really even attempted to tackle it.

I would love to have miracles as something real. I'd love for people who are afflicted these ways to at least have some chance. I'd love for a god who loves us enough to heal us.

And again I'm not asking for "every" anything. I'm asking you why we have these specific scenarios where the answer is ALWAYS no.

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This limb was amputated two years prior, so it's not just another reattachment.

There is Jeanna Griese that survived full blown rabies back in 2004. Her parent chalk it up to prayer and call it miraculous. The treatment credited to helping her has not helped anyone else survive and is now considered ineffective. I would guess you'd say that there is a natural explanation for that we haven't figured out yet instead of agreeing with the parents? This is one of your always scenarios. What do you think?

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I think we are on severely different channels on what miraculous healing is or you simply didn't read much id anything about this story.

So let's talk about what happened. The Doctor, not magic not prayer, decided not to give up in a situation that typically calls for palliative care. They tried an experimental procedure of inducing a coma. This was a pure Hail Mary. It's been attempted many times. There are about a dozen survivors using this method and over 60 deaths. The methods used in each attempt were not exactly the same.

Where is the miracle here? A Hail Mary medical procedure works about as often as Hail Marys do? Is a football team catching a Hail Mary a miracle?

This doesn't answer the fundamental question, why is god apparently powerless in certain circumstances? You pray for healing for cancer, but which of you Christians pray for a limb to be regrown?

Aggrad08 said:

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The Banned said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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Limbs re-attached is something that happens with a doctor. But never regrown.

The issue you have here is we DO have very clear areas where god appears powerless or indifferent. That's extremely difficult to justify given your argument for miraculous healing through prayer.

The examples I gave are important because they WOULD be something that would give me immediate pause if it's something that 100% kills people except in specific instances of miraculous prayers being answered.

Your presumption is ai would dismiss anything. That's isn't the case. This presents a real issue for your position and you haven't really even attempted to tackle it.

I would love to have miracles as something real. I'd love for people who are afflicted these ways to at least have some chance. I'd love for a god who loves us enough to heal us.

And again I'm not asking for "every" anything. I'm asking you why we have these specific scenarios where the answer is ALWAYS no.

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This limb was amputated two years prior, so it's not just another reattachment.

There is Jeanna Griese that survived full blown rabies back in 2004. Her parent chalk it up to prayer and call it miraculous. The treatment credited to helping her has not helped anyone else survive and is now considered ineffective. I would guess you'd say that there is a natural explanation for that we haven't figured out yet instead of agreeing with the parents? This is one of your always scenarios. What do you think?

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I think we are on severely different channels on what miraculous healing is or you simply didn't read much id anything about this story.

So let's talk about what happened. The Doctor, not magic not prayer, decided not to give up in a situation that typically calls for palliative care. They tried an experimental procedure of inducing a coma. This was a pure Hail Mary. It's been attempted many times. There are about a dozen survivors using this method and over 60 deaths. The methods used in each attempt were not exactly the same.

Where is the miracle here? A Hail Mary medical procedure works about as often as Hail Marys do? Is a football team catching a Hail Mary a miracle?

This doesn't answer the fundamental question, why is god apparently powerless in certain circumstances? You pray for healing for cancer, but which of you Christians pray for a limb to be regrown?

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So what makes a Hail Mary work? Statistics alone (probability of success) is not a material force to cause it to happen. Luck? Why was this different?

But according to scientism there's some unknown cause behind it that just isn't understood. A God of the gaps, if you will, right?

But it's not completely unknown. The theory behind the procedure makes sense. It's desperate but it makes sense. Killing your cells with radiation and chemo and hoping the cancer dies before you do makes sense. It doesn't always work. But it's the furtherest thing from a miracle for an attempted medical procedure to work.

What makes a Hail Mary pass work? A perfect throw? Bad defense? A height mismatch? About a million small things that usually go the defenses way not happening. Where is the miracle?

Just because a system is complex or chaotic doesnt mean it's miraculous. Thats an absurd argument

Aggrad08 said:

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The Banned said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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Limbs re-attached is something that happens with a doctor. But never regrown.

The issue you have here is we DO have very clear areas where god appears powerless or indifferent. That's extremely difficult to justify given your argument for miraculous healing through prayer.

The examples I gave are important because they WOULD be something that would give me immediate pause if it's something that 100% kills people except in specific instances of miraculous prayers being answered.

Your presumption is ai would dismiss anything. That's isn't the case. This presents a real issue for your position and you haven't really even attempted to tackle it.

I would love to have miracles as something real. I'd love for people who are afflicted these ways to at least have some chance. I'd love for a god who loves us enough to heal us.

And again I'm not asking for "every" anything. I'm asking you why we have these specific scenarios where the answer is ALWAYS no.

---

This limb was amputated two years prior, so it's not just another reattachment.

There is Jeanna Griese that survived full blown rabies back in 2004. Her parent chalk it up to prayer and call it miraculous. The treatment credited to helping her has not helped anyone else survive and is now considered ineffective. I would guess you'd say that there is a natural explanation for that we haven't figured out yet instead of agreeing with the parents? This is one of your always scenarios. What do you think?

---

I think we are on severely different channels on what miraculous healing is or you simply didn't read much id anything about this story.

So let's talk about what happened. The Doctor, not magic not prayer, decided not to give up in a situation that typically calls for palliative care. They tried an experimental procedure of inducing a coma. This was a pure Hail Mary. It's been attempted many times. There are about a dozen survivors using this method and over 60 deaths. The methods used in each attempt were not exactly the same.

Where is the miracle here? A Hail Mary medical procedure works about as often as Hail Marys do? Is a football team catching a Hail Mary a miracle?

This doesn't answer the fundamental question, why is god apparently powerless in certain circumstances? You pray for healing for cancer, but which of you Christians pray for a limb to be regrown?

---

I read into it deeply. The treatment used for her (the Milwaukee protocol) has been labeled as totally ineffective. It has failed 64 out of the 65 times it's been tried. As to the other survivors around the globe, the majority of them had prior vaccines or received it close to the time of exposure. She did not. Of those that survived without prophylaxis, they led short lives with serious neurological damage. This girl is perfectly healthy and is now a mom. No one can explain why she and she alone made a full recovery where all others didn't.

But my main point still stands. You had a "never" event that would lead you to consider miracles. You have a case in front of you and you know for a fact there has to be a natural explanation for it. That's fine, but I think it shows you aren't as open minded to the idea as you think you are. I feel very confident that if someone was diagnosed with full blown rabies today and inexplicably recovered in 24-48 hours, you would point to this girl as proof people CAN recover from rabies, and the fact that this new person did it on a expedited timeline has a natural explanation that we'll figure out one day.

The same goes for radiation poisoning and regrowing a limb. If it actually happened, you will likely do exactly what you did here and settle on a natural explanation that one day we'll understand. You're already doing it for people the suddenly regain their sight, suddenly regain their hearing, suddenly have terminal stage 4 cancer disappear, suddenly walk again, are clinically dead for over an hour and come back with no negative health effects, and many more inexplicable situations. You claim confidently if these particular examples were to happen you'd reconsider. I think evidence points to the contrary.

And to be fair, I don't blame you. Past examples of people claiming something to be supernatural only to later have a simple scientific cause is a very solid argument for your belief. I'm not discounting your suspicion at all, and I hope I don't come across that way.

Also, I doubt you want to go this deep, but there is a theological basis for why limb regrowth would be something God would specifically avoid and why He would never perform that miracle.

Aggrad08 said:

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But it's not completely unknown. The theory behind the procedure makes sense. It's desperate but it makes sense. Killing your cells with radiation and chemo and hoping the cancer dies before you do makes sense. It doesn't always work. But it's the furtherest thing from a miracle for an attempted medical procedure to work.

What makes a Hail Mary pass work? A perfect throw? Bad defense? A height mismatch? About a million small things that usually go the defenses way not happening. Where is the miracle?

Just because a system is complex or chaotic doesnt mean it's miraculous. Thats an absurd argument

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Like I said, God of the gaps. A million small things without causality that just happen. Connected events prove…what? Why this person and not another? Which small thing is critical? What makes those break for these people? It's not statistics, or theory (since theory isn't causality). You're talking about a system like you know it's closed and understand all the variables.

AGC said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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But it's not completely unknown. The theory behind the procedure makes sense. It's desperate but it makes sense. Killing your cells with radiation and chemo and hoping the cancer dies before you do makes sense. It doesn't always work. But it's the furtherest thing from a miracle for an attempted medical procedure to work.

What makes a Hail Mary pass work? A perfect throw? Bad defense? A height mismatch? About a million small things that usually go the defenses way not happening. Where is the miracle?

Just because a system is complex or chaotic doesnt mean it's miraculous. Thats an absurd argument

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Like I said, God of the gaps. A million small things without causality that just happen. Connected events prove…what? Why this person and not another? Which small thing is critical? What makes those break for these people? It's not statistics, or theory (since theory isn't causality). You're talking about a system like you know it's closed and understand all the variables.

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Where exactly is the miracle. Not any single event you can point to lacks causality. Pick any play. And show me where the miracle was.

In response to the OP: It's because in countries with freedom of religion, the barrier to start a new one is pretty low.

Aggrad08 said:

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AGC said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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But it's not completely unknown. The theory behind the procedure makes sense. It's desperate but it makes sense. Killing your cells with radiation and chemo and hoping the cancer dies before you do makes sense. It doesn't always work. But it's the furtherest thing from a miracle for an attempted medical procedure to work.

What makes a Hail Mary pass work? A perfect throw? Bad defense? A height mismatch? About a million small things that usually go the defenses way not happening. Where is the miracle?

Just because a system is complex or chaotic doesnt mean it's miraculous. Thats an absurd argument

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Like I said, God of the gaps. A million small things without causality that just happen. Connected events prove…what? Why this person and not another? Which small thing is critical? What makes those break for these people? It's not statistics, or theory (since theory isn't causality). You're talking about a system like you know it's closed and understand all the variables.

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Where exactly is the miracle. Not any single event you can point to lacks causality. Pick any play. And show me where the miracle was.

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Infinite regression / connected events is not the same as causality. If it is, I might as well say you're only posting because I posted. Surely it's not that simple…or is it just complex and chaotic, and we don't understand everything behind forum threads?

There's a God of the gaps in there somewhere that explains you posting and we'll discover it eventually, as infinite time and probability dictates. Scientism is the same thing: every time you assume an unknown cause or mechanism will be discovered (or shorthand a probability of it), you worship your god.

The Banned said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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The Banned said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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Limbs re-attached is something that happens with a doctor. But never regrown.

The issue you have here is we DO have very clear areas where god appears powerless or indifferent. That's extremely difficult to justify given your argument for miraculous healing through prayer.

The examples I gave are important because they WOULD be something that would give me immediate pause if it's something that 100% kills people except in specific instances of miraculous prayers being answered.

Your presumption is ai would dismiss anything. That's isn't the case. This presents a real issue for your position and you haven't really even attempted to tackle it.

I would love to have miracles as something real. I'd love for people who are afflicted these ways to at least have some chance. I'd love for a god who loves us enough to heal us.

And again I'm not asking for "every" anything. I'm asking you why we have these specific scenarios where the answer is ALWAYS no.

---

This limb was amputated two years prior, so it's not just another reattachment.

There is Jeanna Griese that survived full blown rabies back in 2004. Her parent chalk it up to prayer and call it miraculous. The treatment credited to helping her has not helped anyone else survive and is now considered ineffective. I would guess you'd say that there is a natural explanation for that we haven't figured out yet instead of agreeing with the parents? This is one of your always scenarios. What do you think?

---

I think we are on severely different channels on what miraculous healing is or you simply didn't read much id anything about this story.

So let's talk about what happened. The Doctor, not magic not prayer, decided not to give up in a situation that typically calls for palliative care. They tried an experimental procedure of inducing a coma. This was a pure Hail Mary. It's been attempted many times. There are about a dozen survivors using this method and over 60 deaths. The methods used in each attempt were not exactly the same.

Where is the miracle here? A Hail Mary medical procedure works about as often as Hail Marys do? Is a football team catching a Hail Mary a miracle?

This doesn't answer the fundamental question, why is god apparently powerless in certain circumstances? You pray for healing for cancer, but which of you Christians pray for a limb to be regrown?

---

I read into it deeply. The treatment used for her (the Milwaukee protocol) has been labeled as totally ineffective. It has failed 64 out of the 65 times it's been tried. As to the other survivors around the globe, the majority of them had prior vaccines or received it close to the time of exposure. She did not. Of those that survived without prophylaxis, they led short lives with serious neurological damage. This girl is perfectly healthy and is now a mom. No one can explain why she and she alone made a full recovery where all others didn't.

But my main point still stands. You had a "never" event that would lead you to consider miracles. You have a case in front of you and you know for a fact there has to be a natural explanation for it. That's fine, but I think it shows you aren't as open minded to the idea as you think you are. I feel very confident that if someone was diagnosed with full blown rabies today and inexplicably recovered in 24-48 hours, you would point to this girl as proof people CAN recover from rabies, and the fact that this new person did it on a expedited timeline has a natural explanation that we'll figure out one day.

The same goes for radiation poisoning and regrowing a limb. If it actually happened, you will likely do exactly what you did here and settle on a natural explanation that one day we'll understand. You're already doing it for people the suddenly regain their sight, suddenly regain their hearing, suddenly have terminal stage 4 cancer disappear, suddenly walk again, are clinically dead for over an hour and come back with no negative health effects, and many more inexplicable situations. You claim confidently if these particular examples were to happen you'd reconsider. I think evidence points to the contrary.

And to be fair, I don't blame you. Past examples of people claiming something to be supernatural only to later have a simple scientific cause is a very solid argument for your belief. I'm not discounting your suspicion at all, and I hope I don't come across that way.

Also, I doubt you want to go this deep, but there is a theological basis for why limb regrowth would be something God would specifically avoid and why He would never perform that miracle.

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Yeah that's simply not what happened here. And yes I lean towards natural explanations because the supernatural has proven time and time and time again to be impotent. Your best example is a doctor doing medicine.

For radiation poisoning or limb regrowth let's talk when it actually happens. For now you are left with no explanation for gods apparent indifference.

And yes we do that for people who heal from diseases that people regularly heal from. There is no statistical correlation with prayer. Bodies heal. Again where is the miracle? Where is the great faith healer with the faith of a mustard seed?

The basic fact is that the power of the miraculous is at best so rare as to not be statistically noticeable. And you really can't point to anything. Certainly nothing like what is claimed in the Bible.

I would love to hear your theological reason for why god wouldn't regrow a limb, heal severe radiation poisoning, or prion disease or rabies, or any such similar thing that people don't regularly heal from. Does god need plausible deniability?

This is like ten kinds of silly. The basic premise is that nothing can be understood well enough for an event not to be considered miraculous.

We assume nature is the cause because nature has proven to be the cause every single time. Religion is batting basically zero. Why should we assume a miracle when every single time we look from the ancients fearing lightning and disease and onward we've found another natural explanation.

When has god ever been the answer to the gap?

Aggrad08 said:

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This is like ten kinds of silly. The basic premise is that nothing can be understood well enough for an event not to be considered miraculous.

We assume nature is the cause because nature has proven to be the cause every single time. Religion is batting basically zero. Why should we assume a miracle when every single time we look from the ancients fearing lightning and disease and onward we've found another natural explanation.

When has god ever been the answer to the gap?

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I don't think we have to hold the bar that high on considering something miraculous. But biology is a field where I think its clear that there is a lot we don't understand. Even in a scenario where we accept both natural explanation and the possibility of miracles, we have to admit that human natural /material understanding of medicine and biology is very much incomplete.

The claim that something MUST be a miracle also requires an extremely high level of confidence in one's knowledge of the natural. So, attributing miracle to an unexpected cure from an illness could also presume an unearned and unreasonable level of knowledge about natural process. This point is relevant because its such an obvious pattern in human history. We see something we don't understand, we say God did it, and then eventually we find evidence to suggest it may be explainable through natural process. There is reason for skepticism when we hear stories about miraculous recoveries.

I think this is why the limb regrowth is an example that is used. I think most doctors and professional biologists would agree that there does not appear to be a natural mechanism for regrowing a limb in humans. It is an example that, if it occurred, would be the biggest medical story of any of our lifetimes, would be studied for centuries and would be absolutely revolutionary.

I understand your concern about setting the bar so high on 'miracle' so as to make it impossible to believe a miracle happened. But again, patterns. . . . Natural disasters were attributed to miracles and then we understood natural disasters better. When an earthquake occurs along a known fault line, its somewhat understood, expected, and even predicted and we don't presume it was directly caused by God. God's involvement in the earthquake sorta retreats back into first causes and initial causation. In other words, the miracle retreats back to where we don't understand.

The same could be possible for medicine. We don't attribute illness to demons or natural healing processes to God. Rather, the application of miracles in medicine has generally retreated into places where our medical and biological knowledge is most incomplete.

All of this is not to say that miracles do not exist. It is to defend skepticism of the pattern of how and where miracles are attributed. Miracles seem to always be completely unverifiable or they exist at the very edge of our knowledge and never in the realm of the very well understood. And you may think there are counter examples, which is fine. I only mean to point at what I feel is pattern.

Aggrad08 said:

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This is like ten kinds of silly. The basic premise is that nothing can be understood well enough for an event not to be considered miraculous.

We assume nature is the cause because nature has proven to be the cause every single time. Religion is batting basically zero. Why should we assume a miracle when every single time we look from the ancients fearing lightning and disease and onward we've found another natural explanation.

When has god ever been the answer to the gap?

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You just said the same thing but called it 'nature'. You believe there is this all encompassing thing called 'nature' that we discover progressively and explains everything. Why do these laws exist? Who knows. What brought them into being? Why do they have to be? No idea, but if you keep finding the preceding event it's the same as finding a cause. I'm sorry, this falls just as flat as what you're making fun of.

I assume you'll post again because I posted, yes?

Yeah I don't see an argument hidden in there. We are talking about intercession by the divine into the ordinary course of nature. We are talking about prayer being powerful and effective.

If you think it's a criticism of science to admit it doesn't have an explanation for why a universe exists…fine I guess. I don't think that's in any way relevant to this discussion. For the purposes of this discussion we can 100% grant that the ordinary course of nature and the universe is divine. Now tell me what exactly a miracle is and show me

Aggrad08 said:

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Yeah I don't see an argument hidden in there. We are talking about intercession by the divine into the ordinary course of nature. We are talking about prayer being powerful and effective.

If you think it's a criticism of science to admit it doesn't have an explanation for why a universe exists…fine I guess. I don't think that's in any way relevant to this discussion. For the purposes of this discussion we can 100% grant that the ordinary course of nature and the universe is divine. Now tell me what exactly a miracle is and show me

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Have you read CS Lewis' essay, Miracles? You're what he calls a naturalist. You believe in this system and everything submits to it (including God, by the way). Because you've decided nothing exists outside this system, the supernatural is always precluded. So yes, you're 'because nature' is your own God of the gaps even if you don't want to call it that. You worship human understanding and science and believe it infinitely capable of fully comprehending the system eventually: this human reason and understanding is your god of the gaps.

Edit: one of the arguments he makes is that a miracle may start natural processes, thus any 'miracle' such as a virgin birth allows nature to take over (after the Holy Spirit, Mary's body does what a woman's does with life inside it). A miracle healing doesn't mean someone doesn't die, it returns the body to the 'natural' state (without trying to over complicate that word).

AGC said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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Yeah I don't see an argument hidden in there. We are talking about intercession by the divine into the ordinary course of nature. We are talking about prayer being powerful and effective.

If you think it's a criticism of science to admit it doesn't have an explanation for why a universe exists…fine I guess. I don't think that's in any way relevant to this discussion. For the purposes of this discussion we can 100% grant that the ordinary course of nature and the universe is divine. Now tell me what exactly a miracle is and show me

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Have you read CS Lewis' essay, Miracles? You're what he calls a naturalist. You believe in this system and everything submits to it (including God, by the way). Because you've decided nothing exists outside this system, the supernatural is always precluded. So yes, you're 'because nature' is your own God of the gaps even if you don't want to call it that. You worship human understanding and science and believe it infinitely capable of fully comprehending the system eventually: this human reason and understanding is your god of the gaps.

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Yeah that's not what's happening here. The argument fails because you are unable to defend your miracle claims you then assert things which I must believe so you cannot be accountable for the impotence of your own prayers.

I also love people who very liberally throw around "worship" of everything while simultaneously asserting they "don't worship Mary". I don't worship science or nature. I trust and believe in it as a matter of evidence. I don't need nature to be everything, frankly I don't even want that to be true.

I have not, and am not predetermining that only nature could exist. In fact I've said I'm willing to grant a creator god who's responsible for nature. Now define a miracle and show me them. Perform them. Demonstrate them…

Aggrad08 said:

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The Banned said:

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I read into it deeply. The treatment used for her (the Milwaukee protocol) has been labeled as totally ineffective. It has failed 64 out of the 65 times it's been tried. As to the other survivors around the globe, the majority of them had prior vaccines or received it close to the time of exposure. She did not. Of those that survived without prophylaxis, they led short lives with serious neurological damage. This girl is perfectly healthy and is now a mom. No one can explain why she and she alone made a full recovery where all others didn't.

But my main point still stands. You had a "never" event that would lead you to consider miracles. You have a case in front of you and you know for a fact there has to be a natural explanation for it. That's fine, but I think it shows you aren't as open minded to the idea as you think you are. I feel very confident that if someone was diagnosed with full blown rabies today and inexplicably recovered in 24-48 hours, you would point to this girl as proof people CAN recover from rabies, and the fact that this new person did it on a expedited timeline has a natural explanation that we'll figure out one day.

The same goes for radiation poisoning and regrowing a limb. If it actually happened, you will likely do exactly what you did here and settle on a natural explanation that one day we'll understand. You're already doing it for people the suddenly regain their sight, suddenly regain their hearing, suddenly have terminal stage 4 cancer disappear, suddenly walk again, are clinically dead for over an hour and come back with no negative health effects, and many more inexplicable situations. You claim confidently if these particular examples were to happen you'd reconsider. I think evidence points to the contrary.

And to be fair, I don't blame you. Past examples of people claiming something to be supernatural only to later have a simple scientific cause is a very solid argument for your belief. I'm not discounting your suspicion at all, and I hope I don't come across that way.

Also, I doubt you want to go this deep, but there is a theological basis for why limb regrowth would be something God would specifically avoid and why He would never perform that miracle.

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Yeah that's simply not what happened here. And yes I lean towards natural explanations because the supernatural has proven time and time and time again to be impotent. Your best example is a doctor doing medicine.

For radiation poisoning or limb regrowth let's talk when it actually happens. For now you are left with no explanation for gods apparent indifference.

And yes we do that for people who heal from diseases that people regularly heal from. There is no statistical correlation with prayer. Bodies heal. Again where is the miracle? Where is the great faith healer with the faith of a mustard seed?

The basic fact is that the power of the miraculous is at best so rare as to not be statistically noticeable. And you really can't point to anything. Certainly nothing like what is claimed in the Bible.

I would love to hear your theological reason for why god wouldn't regrow a limb, heal severe radiation poisoning, or prion disease or rabies, or any such similar thing that people don't regularly heal from. Does god need plausible deniability?

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You're doing the exact thing you're saying you're not doing: excluding anything supernatural from the start. It's fine if you want to exclude that, but you would be better served if you dropped the facade of being open to the possibility.

If you truly read her case, and the follow up studies over the years, then you'd know the medical consensus is that her treatment had nothing to do with her healing. Hence the reason the next 64 attempts failed. The best natural guess for why she and she alone recovered was because they kept her alive long enough for her body to heal itself, so the only medical intervention that might have helped was the coma that gave her that additional time. Again, that's fine. But you have a single, truly unique recovery from one of the diseases you claimed might change your mind and you've already moved on.

You act as if stage 4 cancer disappearing in 24 hours without any medical treatment is just another "well yah. bodies heal. It's normal". Eucharistic miracles where human heart tissue is intertwined with a piece of bread, that also has white blood cells that should have died out 15-20 minutes after exposure to air: natural explanation we just don't know yet. Blind person waking up able to see with no medical intervention: natural explanation we don't know yet. Parkinson's disappears overnight: natural explanation we don't know yet. People with no oxygen going to their brain for over an hour coming back to life with no serious side effects: we'll understand it one day.

But you expect me to believe that if a case of Prion was healed, you'd change your mind then? If acute radiation poisoning was healed, you don't think you'll immediately default to some natural cause we don't understand yet? And I am to believe that this default you have doesn't affect your assessment of how rare miracles are or are not?


Maybe it's better for me to ask you this: what do you expect a miraculous healing to look like? Not what specific disease or condition. I mean if someone survived prion disease tomorrow, what would that need to look like medically for you to say "yep, definitely a miracle and not a case of someone with a one in a billion immune system that got lucky"? If someone regrew a limb tomorrow, what would that need to look like medically/microscopically for you to say "yep, definitely a miracle and not something we'll be able to explain in the future"?

We want to believe there is a higher being and it's easier to synthesize a means to solve that which we cannot explain. It's part of being a high level thinker. It is not important to me which god any one person decided to follow…what is most important to me is that over the evolution of our species, there is rarely a group that doesn't follow some higher being or calling. That is far more significant than anything in my opinion.

Allah, Vishnu, Jesus, Jupiter, Ra, Odin…all are likely fictitious but the fact we all believe "something" exists is a bigger deal than which one may or may not actually exist. These evolved for money, control, and power.

The Banned said:

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You're doing the exact thing you're saying you're not doing: excluding anything supernatural from the start. It's fine if you want to exclude that, but you would be better served if you dropped the facade of being open to the possibility.

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No I'm not. This is something religous people struggle with. You have a hard time looking at your own arguments objectively to see how weak they are. I'm not dismissing the possibility. I'm just not giving it special credence. I'm giving it the same credence as if someone claimed to have spoken to the dead and asked them for healing, or spoken to aliens who came down for healing. How would you respond to such claims? What would convince you?

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If you truly read her case, and the follow up studies over the years, then you'd know the medical consensus is that her treatment had nothing to do with her healing. Hence the reason the next 64 attempts failed. The best natural guess for why she and she alone recovered was because they kept her alive long enough for her body to heal itself, so the only medical intervention that might have helped was the coma that gave her that additional time. Again, that's fine. But you have a single, truly unique recovery from one of the diseases you claimed might change your mind and you've already moved on.

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That's not the "medical consensus". The entire theory behind the treatment is that rabies doesn't immediately kill brain cells, it disrupts their function. If you can protect the brain long enough the immune system might by able to fight off the virus in time. Full stop, that's the entire notion behind it. And look at what I said. You seem so incapable of being critical of your own views you missed what I said. I asked why god was seemingly incapable of conquering various conditions. You still haven't answered. At best you argue for one rabies case ever? What about every other instance for all those diseases. You hinted there might be a theological reason you would put forth but never attempted it. Rabies is resisted by the immune system just not well enough, that's why we vaccinate. It would be less remarkable for someone to have a peculiar immunity than for just once god to answer a rabid man's prayers. I will say, that doesn't mean everything wouldn't give me pause. One clear example I already gave. Limb regrowth. Human bodies simple don't do that and don't have a mechanism to do that. That would change my mind.. For rabies, if there was a particular faith healer that went around repeatedly healing it without people surviving via a milwakee protocol, or other attempts at actual medicine that would give me pause also.

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You act as if stage 4 cancer disappearing in 24 hours without any medical treatment is just another "well yah. bodies heal. It's normal".

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At a certain statistical rate it is normal. That's just the thing. For most diseases this is the case.

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Eucharistic miracles where human heart tissue is intertwined with a piece of bread, that also has white blood cells that should have died out 15-20 minutes after exposure to air: natural explanation we just don't know yet.

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I believe you tried making this argument before on this board and it turned out to be a pretty weak claim, revisit that thread.

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But you expect me to believe that if a case of Prion was healed, you'd change your mind then? If acute radiation poisoning was healed, you don't think you'll immediately default to some natural cause we don't understand yet? And I am to believe that this default you have doesn't affect your assessment of how rare miracles are or are not?

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You are powerless. You know this. You are simply trying to argue some other people's prayers are not. Statistically you know people aren't running from hospitals to priests. It doesn't work this way. You wouldn't have loved ones do the same. I'm not an anomaly here. Even you must admit they are exceptionally rare so as to explain them not being obvious and available. Miracles are batting zero. So yes, in order to start looking more plausible they are going to need more evidence that the terrible things you've been able to muster. I give miracles the same weight you give alien healing or alternative supernatural explanations. You just aren't used to your beliefs not being treated special. So what would make you believe in a muslim faith healer? I think limb regrown would be a perfect example because yes, where natural explanations are plausible I would find them more likely based on the entire history of miracles being parlor tricks and things that occur at a regular statistical rate or with natural explanations.

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Maybe it's better for me to ask you this: what do you expect a miraculous healing to look like? Not what specific disease or condition. I mean if someone survived prion disease tomorrow, what would that need to look like medically for you to say "yep, definitely a miracle and not a case of someone with a one in a billion immune system that got lucky"? If someone regrew a limb tomorrow, what would that need to look like medically/microscopically for you to say "yep, definitely a miracle and not something we'll be able to explain in the future"?

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How did it work in the bible? What did they do? A simple ritual, laying of hands ect. and sudden miraculous healing right? So if someone does that with a lost limb it's pretty damn hard to explain away.

Now why don't you answer. Why is it that there are specific diseases that god seems unwilling or unable to help with? Why should the diagnosis matter to god?

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You have a hard time looking at your own arguments objectively to see how weak they are.

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I have acknowledged that the supernatural was invoked to explain natural phenomena in the past. I have acknowledged that your suspicion of the supernatural is warranted. What else do I need to do to show that I acknowledge a weakness in the argument

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That's not the "medical consensus". The entire theory behind the treatment is that rabies doesn't immediately kill brain cells, it disrupts their function.

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Have you read any recent analysis of the Milwaukee protocol? It's clear the protocol was not the cure. The protocol went 0 for 64 outside of this particular case. Her recovery is a one of kind event. If I was diagnosed with full blown rabies today, no doctor is going to put any weight behind the Milwaukee protocol as a cure. They would still be telling my family to expect my death. Any drug or treatment that went 1 for 65 would be written off entirely. You know that as well or better than I do.

You are 100% convinced that there is a natural explanation that this one individual survived. Yet again, THAT IS FINE!!! But you have yet to acknowledge that this disease that you said could "never" be defeated (naturally or supernaturally) has in fact been defeated more than "never". You just move on.

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I asked why god was seemingly incapable of conquering various conditions. You still haven't answered. At best you argue for one rabies case ever?

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I'm using your criteria. You said never and were adamant about that never. If you'd like to change your criteria to greater than X% of the time, ok. As far as I'm concerned, 1 > never. And if a human survived rabies once, why would you believe a 24 hour turnaround from rabies is anything more than particularly lucky human with an amazing immune system?

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At a certain statistical rate it is normal. That's just the thing. For most diseases this is the case

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Can you provide me the statistical rate for stage 4, terminal cancer disappearing in 24-48 hours without medical intervention? Maybe this happens all the time and I've never heard about it.

You skipped this one: Blind person waking up able to see with no medical intervention

And this one: Parkinson's disappears overnight

And this one: People with no oxygen going to their brain for over an hour coming back to life with no serious side effects

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Statistically you know people aren't running from hospitals to priests. It doesn't work this way. You wouldn't have loved ones do the same. I'm not an anomaly here. Even you must admit they are exceptionally rare so as to explain them not being obvious and available.

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If they weren't statistically rare, would you believe them to be "miracles"? For example, if people routinely prayed for healing and received it, do you really believe that you'd agree the healing was from God and not some humanistic idea that humans have an innate ability to heal that can only be unlocked under certain conditions?

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You just aren't used to your beliefs not being treated special. So what would make you believe in a muslim faith healer?

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I have had my beliefs challenged numerous times. I challenge my own beliefs at times. It's the human condition. And, depending on the details, I have no problem if a miracle occurred in a muslim setting. Most muslims are severely repressed but believe they are giving the God of Abraham right worship. Same for any other monotheistic religions. Just because they have been deprived of the full truth due to earthly matters does not mean God cannot provide for them

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How did it work in the bible? What did they do? A simple ritual, laying of hands ect. and sudden miraculous healing right?

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Sudden healings still happen today (even though you downplay this). Now if you're saying the healing procedure should be formulaic, and every healing prayer should be answered or else God doesn't exist, you've entered into a materialistic magic where God is just a genie we can control. Not much different than a well trained dog that always follows it's orders

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Now why don't you answer. Why is it that there are specific diseases that god seems unwilling or unable to help with? Why should the diagnosis matter to god?

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What diagnosis does He refuse to heal, carte blanche? Rabies can be healed naturally, according to you, so even if He healed rabies that's off the table. Prions disease was coined in 1984, so there is no way of knowing if this particular issue had ever been healed before then. Even so, Parkinson's disappearing overnight means nothing to you, so I doubt Prions will either.

That leaves us with limb regeneration. I'm happy to give a theological explanation as to why this particular miracle may never happen. Problem is I fully expect you to write this off a religious/theological mumbo jumbo so I'm not going to bother unless you're actually open minded to evaluating it, in good faith, through a lens that you already believe to be inaccurate. I'm not asking you to agree with me from the start. But I sense your default will be to dismiss it all as laughable nonsense and my time will be wasted because the theological premises the argument is founded on will be ignored.

You didn't seem to be willing to engage in anything I wrote.

The Milwaukee protocol has worked in other cases. In some of those people had partial immunity. In Jeannas case she showed she developed measurable antibodies earlier than most and would still be dead without ICU care. So she may have had an unusually strong natural defense or unusually low viral load. But this isn't sudden or miraculous or even unique for all we understand the condition. I knew about the Milwaukee protocol before this case. I didn't say rabies "never" could be cured. Rabies is the least extraordinary of the conditions listed and we have regular vaccines for it. The immune system fights it just not well enough without help.

It's medicine even if bad medicine. And again, your assertion is that god has healed rabies once ever? Prion disease never, every single kind of amputation never, and severe radiation poisoning never. You continue to offer zero explanation. You seem to be asking what god refuses to heal I keep telling you and you keep not engaging with it. You dismiss prion diseases yet 7-15k people die each year. Just how rare are miracles in your opinion for god to not answer one prayer. And the mechanism of a prion was discovered 45 years ago but the diseases were recognized before that. So why is god impotent? I'm not sure what you are talking about with Parkinson's as you offer no context on that and say it doesn't matter to me out of the blue.

If you have a reason put it forward.

For stage IV cancers spontaneous remission rates are low, about 1/60k ish depending on what cancers we are talking about. But it does happen. It's a big planet and rare repeatable events do regularly occur.

And you tell me how miracles should work. Why not like in the Bible you believe in?

And if miracles occurred at a statistically significant rate (they don't, no explanation from you) and only did so for ONE faith that would be good evidence. If they occurred uniformly across all faiths and worked also for meditation and other thought exercises that would tend to inform a different explanation.

I asked you what it would take for you to believe in a hindu faith healer. Or alien healer, or a healer who calls the dead ect. Any thoughts? I see you would accept any abrahamic, but actually engage, what about a miracle claim the is contrary to your faith presuppositions. Are you less credulous towards these events than I am towards your miracles?

And you seem to be missing the point. Yes an amputee being healed would be incredible evidence of a miracle. But for some of these conditions which even natural explanations wouldn't defy all credulity god still doesn't heal them. Why are there exceptions for miracles in certain diseases?

Aggrad08 said:

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AGC said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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Yeah I don't see an argument hidden in there. We are talking about intercession by the divine into the ordinary course of nature. We are talking about prayer being powerful and effective.

If you think it's a criticism of science to admit it doesn't have an explanation for why a universe exists…fine I guess. I don't think that's in any way relevant to this discussion. For the purposes of this discussion we can 100% grant that the ordinary course of nature and the universe is divine. Now tell me what exactly a miracle is and show me

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Have you read CS Lewis' essay, Miracles? You're what he calls a naturalist. You believe in this system and everything submits to it (including God, by the way). Because you've decided nothing exists outside this system, the supernatural is always precluded. So yes, you're 'because nature' is your own God of the gaps even if you don't want to call it that. You worship human understanding and science and believe it infinitely capable of fully comprehending the system eventually: this human reason and understanding is your god of the gaps.

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Yeah that's not what's happening here. The argument fails because you are unable to defend your miracle claims you then assert things which I must believe so you cannot be accountable for the impotence of your own prayers.

I also love people who very liberally throw around "worship" of everything while simultaneously asserting they "don't worship Mary". I don't worship science or nature. I trust and believe in it as a matter of evidence. I don't need nature to be everything, frankly I don't even want that to be true.

I have not, and am not predetermining that only nature could exist. In fact I've said I'm willing to grant a creator god who's responsible for nature. Now define a miracle and show me them. Perform them. Demonstrate them…

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You basically use nature to mean 'everything'. Thus, there must be an explanation subject to laws we don't know or haven't identified. If you don't worship something that you subject God to (show me evidence, perform a miracle, demonstrate one), what else would you call it? These questions are contradictory: if God is supernatural what natural explanation exists? Wha evidence would you have us bring?

You operate on the assumption that God is a genie or something isn't a miracle. The transactional idea of prayer that devout Christians reject, non-theists believe. Again, you set the terms and scoff at those who contest them. The God you seek to interrogate doesn't exist, but that's because you reserve the right to define God.

Continue.