Interesting religious occurrence today, thoughts?

[stormstarter28]

Okay guys, I said I was just curious about your explanations, the sarcasm isn't necessary. Just because you believe things like this are coincidences doesn't mean you're right and I'm wrong. What about this one: my friend's parents both had cancer, and were both miraculously healed after prayer. The doctors couldn't explain it. That seems almost too unlikely to be blown off by coincidence, don't you think?

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
Okay guys, I said I was just curious about your explanations, the sarcasm isn't necessary. Just because you believe things like this are coincidences doesn't mean you're right and I'm wrong. What about this one: my friend's parents both had cancer, and were both miraculously healed after prayer. The doctors couldn't explain it. That seems almost too unlikely to be blown off by coincidence, don't you think?

[/ QUOTE ]

How about this, my friend had cancer, so he prayed to God to heal him, and then he died of cancer. This is too great to be simply blown off as coincidence, isn't it?

I don't know how you expected us to respond, really. You aren't making any arguments or anything. Can you explain to us how or why God did this, why this is evidence that God did it and NOT something else, and specifically why this is evidence that YOUR God did it and not Thor? Can you explain why only cases where good things happen are ever attributed to God? Isn't it miraculous that a family of four died in a 3-car accident on the freeway today? Truly this is evidence of God's existence.

You can't just look at things that happen and then, after the fact, decide which ones are evidence of God. And you ESPECIALLY can't do that when you are unwilling to consider anything evidence of NOT-God. This event occurred, and thats support of God, to you. So, if it hadn't happened, would you believe in God any less?

[alphatmw]

OP if you're going to make up stories, at least make them good.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
OP if you're going to make up stories, at least make them good.

[/ QUOTE ]

I prayed to God for a million bucks today. The trick is, I asked for it to be distributed to me over the course of the next several years, in the guise of a salary. Wish me luck!

[flipdeadshot22]

Guys, if you're going to make gimmick accounts, try to at least make them create plausible posts.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
Guys, if you're going to make gimmick accounts, try to at least make them create plausible posts.

[/ QUOTE ]

While funny, I really hope that isn't whats going on. If we are that low on material, in the SMP forum, we should seriously consider killing ourselves.

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
She said, "You might think I'm crazy, but God told me to come talk to you, and to tell you that I know something horrible happened in your past, but that if you don't stop looking in your rearview mirror, you're going to crash." The girl responded by saying, "When I was 19, I had a baby and gave her up for adoption, and I've regretted it ever since, and today is her birthday."

[/ QUOTE ] Being an atheist or an agnostic should not mean also being a crass materialist. Because this humble matter out of which we too are made is capable of many miraculous achievements.

A sudden premonition not to cross the street, while no car is coming; meeting a person for the first time and taking an instant dislike on him/her; waking up in the middle of the night "for no reason"; these are manifestations of what people call "instinct" but instinct is, in fact, thr result of the accumulation of experience, subconscious processes in our brain and sensory perceptions that work under the radar of our immediate understanding.

My dog lies next to my chair and I realize that it was Fido who must have destroyed my important book in the study, while playing with it (or something like that). I get very angry at Fido and before I move a muscle, the dog gets up and walks out of the room. What happened? On another occasion, I'm sitting at an outside coffee house and a stray dog approaches; and out of all the sitting people there, comes directly to me. I didn't so much as looked at him, yet he homes in on the person most likely to pet him and possibly give him some food among the crowd. I happen to own five dogs and really love animals, but how was the dog supposed to know this from afar? What happened here?

No example from the above (all are fictitious) proves the existence of God. All they show is that we, like all animals, possess abilities that extend beyond the mundane and the trivial; most other animals use those abilities all the time, because they depend on them for survival, getting food or doing battle. But we humans have taken to rely on our constructs (cars, phones, etc) for such endeavors, so we neglect them, even though they're there --still. And we are surprised when we realize that we can act on "instinct".

Then a charismatic talker comes along and amplifies them for us and makes us pay attention to them. We proclaim him a Holy Man and start throiwng money at 'im.

Mickey Brausch

[stormstarter28]

First of all, I didn't make the story up. I know you don't believe me, that's fine. Assume for argument's sake that it is true. I didn't say it proved God's existence, nor that any single act proved the existence or non-existence of God...you are all misunderstanding me. I just wanted to know how you explain things like this, and all I got in return was sarcasm. If these people really did get healed from cancer (which they did, believe it or not) then why did it happen if it wasn't God?

[Phil153]

Possibilities:

She looked at the girl and subconsciously sensed from her body language that she might be unhappy, creating a basic urge to help/comfort. Her conscious brain didn't register this fact, but her unexplained desire was rationalized through her belief system as an urge that God wanted her to help. It's similar to the feelings some women get with love. Their pussy is craving a particular guy's [censored], but they can't rationalize that with their belief that they're a "nice girl", so they get the feeling/rationalization of being in love.

Another possibility is that your friend filled in (or left out) certain parts of the story after the event. People do it all the time.

A third possibility (since we're talking supernatural possibilities) is that your friend was psychic and picked up a subconscious message from the girl, which she rationalized as coming from God.

[Phil153]

[ QUOTE ]
If these people really did get healed from cancer (which they did, believe it or not) then why did it happen if it wasn't God?

[/ QUOTE ]

Google "homeopathy cancer cure testimonial" or similar. Read the thousands of testimonials - most of them genuine - with the knowledge that homeopathy is nothing but water.