Atheism
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The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
nathan1977
Rock n' Roll Doggie
But some stories have the benefit of being true.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
Galeongirl
Galeonbroad
This thread is awesome to read though, if only I had popcorn it'd be even better.
Please keep going guys!
PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
There are a lot of things that can be improved if God was removed from them.
PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
I don't have to be there to know you're story telling. Just like I don't have to have been there in Biblical times to know the Bible's filled with story telling.
PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
Truth is subjective.
But you're being difficult or you're being delusional. I'm still not sure which.
I think humans have a tendancy to try and fill in gaps of the unknown.
Take your friend's crooked legs or back. Your story may very well be true, and doctors could not explain how they were cured or feeling better......but that doesn't mean jesus christ or whatever God you believe in cured them.
it's just that whatever it is, hasn't been found yet. We're so scared of the unknown that in order to make ourselves feel better, we find comfort knowing that some creator/being is watching over us.
You can bet those doctors were going to present those cases of "unknown healings" onwards to be studied and proven. Cause that's the honest thing to do.
Just saying God healed me is a very lazy way of resolving something that you can't explain. It's a damn good thing most of our jobs/societies don't function this way.
Take your friend's crooked legs or back. Your story may very well be true, and doctors could not explain how they were cured or feeling better......but that doesn't mean jesus christ or whatever God you believe in cured them.
it's just that whatever it is, hasn't been found yet. We're so scared of the unknown that in order to make ourselves feel better, we find comfort knowing that some creator/being is watching over us.
You can bet those doctors were going to present those cases of "unknown healings" onwards to be studied and proven. Cause that's the honest thing to do.
Just saying God healed me is a very lazy way of resolving something that you can't explain. It's a damn good thing most of our jobs/societies don't function this way.
toscano
Refugee
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Bingo. took the words right out of my mouth.
the fact that I personally have no fucking clue as to the origin of life, the universe and everything does NOT therefore mean that the bible's version must be true.
As smart as humanity is right now, it still does NOT have the answers to a lot of shit, and all things medical in nature have not yet been fully understood.
nathan1977
Rock n' Roll Doggie
PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
You're intentionally missing the point.
My point is that your truth isn't really a truth, it's just something you made up in your mind to comfort yourself. I've no idea why you've done this.
I think it's totally irrational, irresponsible, and disrespectful to the medical professionals who undoubtedly aided your friend and healed him.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Why were they going to the doctor if no modern medicine was being used or needed?
toscano
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Does the fact that they were confounded mean that it automatically was PRAYER that did it ?
Some things just can't be explained with the amount of limited understanding we have of our world at the moment.
You know, centuries ago it wasn't prayer that kept ships from falling off the edge of the world..........(psst....it was knowledge they didn't yet have)
Some things just can't be explained with the amount of limited understanding we have of our world at the moment.
You know, centuries ago it wasn't prayer that kept ships from falling off the edge of the world..........(psst....it was knowledge they didn't yet have)
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
there's no question that prayer and meditation can have untold positive effects on the individual, and there are links between mind/body that are continually being discovered. however, to say that "prayer works" = "existence of a deity" is not correct, and that precisely is putting a narrative over something we don't yet understand.
also, let's not forget about this:
Parents in Prayer Death Get 6 Months in Jail - ABC News
i don't think that anyone is advocating this approach to healing at all, and i also don't think it's entirely fair to dismiss the positive things that spiritual practice can offer to those who are sick and suffering.
also, let's not forget about this:
Parents in Prayer Death Get 6 Months in Jail - ABC News
i don't think that anyone is advocating this approach to healing at all, and i also don't think it's entirely fair to dismiss the positive things that spiritual practice can offer to those who are sick and suffering.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
and, apologies, i mean this light-heartedly, but i can't help but post this:
toscano
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I believe what's being 'dismissed' is that prayer alone is responsible straightening crooked legs and backs
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
agreed. but i do think that spiritual practices can be a very important part of healing from sickness and injury in even a physical way.
toscano
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Whatever gives each of us strength.
But ultimately any unexplained recovery from a debilitating condition just means that we're not yet smart enough to know, medically what happened.
Thousands of years our medical practices will probably be probably be looked upon as being as barbaric as we regard dipping suspected withces in water.
I can just hear it - "They actually used radiation to cure cancer, slice open people's skulls and ripped bits of brain out to get rid of tumors, and when (insert unknown as of yet bodily behavior here) happened they thought it was due to prayers......
"
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
A God that is capricious enough to let a random sample of people survive a disaster isn't admirable, and the concept that God is in human goodness steals our finest qualities.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
Don't surrender the argument like that, the facts are not a free for all and we should emphasise some truths (for instance intercessory prayer doesn't work in clinical trials).
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
Clinical studies show that being prayed for (and knowing about it) increases post-operative complications from heart surgery; and whatever benefits we find for prayer I would wager are an example of the placebo effect rather some entirely undiscovered mechanism.
PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
I wasn't surrendering. Merely recognizing that the whole exchange was going to become a game of semantics and bullshit passing as "truth" because "I wasn't there."
It's hard to find a logical way to describe how Nathan is wrong to Nathan himself.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
It is a challenge, in that case I think its worth highlighting not only how incredible the claim is (thoughts in one persons brain being picked up by a higher power who fixes another persons body) but how arbitrary such interventions are.
Innocent children with pious parents die from cancer while paedophiles go into remission (I only have 24 years on this planet and I've already come across examples of this with friends and relatives - so it's unlikely to be that rare).
If we give God a role in some small good then we have to admit its responsibility in a lot of evil, it makes problems where there are none.
I can understand and make sense of viruses, parasites, mutations, and accidents in our Godless universe, I would be very disturbed if there was a guiding force behind all that suffering - and if somebody wants to make the argument that sin causes all human disease kindly pay attention to harlequin ichthyosis (and other design failures) and go fornicate with yourself.
Innocent children with pious parents die from cancer while paedophiles go into remission (I only have 24 years on this planet and I've already come across examples of this with friends and relatives - so it's unlikely to be that rare).
If we give God a role in some small good then we have to admit its responsibility in a lot of evil, it makes problems where there are none.
I can understand and make sense of viruses, parasites, mutations, and accidents in our Godless universe, I would be very disturbed if there was a guiding force behind all that suffering - and if somebody wants to make the argument that sin causes all human disease kindly pay attention to harlequin ichthyosis (and other design failures) and go fornicate with yourself.
PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
I have for years dismissed any idea of an interventionist God as nothing but lunacy.
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
Ironically, so have I. This perennial atheism debate probably brings out the worst in me and I'm conscious of that, but the last page or so did call this back to my mind.
Perhaps a better way to put it, for me personally, is that if there are unexplainables that might in some rare case be miraculous, they are always the exception to the rule.
But I know, the argument isn't with religious faith (right), it's with fundamentalism. Right? Yeah.
Perhaps a better way to put it, for me personally, is that if there are unexplainables that might in some rare case be miraculous, they are always the exception to the rule.
But I know, the argument isn't with religious faith (right), it's with fundamentalism. Right? Yeah.
PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
Like I said, I have no problem with religious faith that isn't harmful.
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