| Here's a thought...can prayer ever be proven wrong? No it can't, well at least in the eyes of believers it can't and here's why.
Let's say a Muslim is praying for the recovery of her baby who was just diagnosed with terminal Cancer. If the baby dies then the Muslim can just shrug her shoulders and say " It was Allahs will for her to be taken away " but if the baby lives then she can say " Praise Allah HE has healed my baby! ".
Now this is a very interesting position religious people are in because you really can never know if prayer is working or not because no matter what the out come is ( good or bad as the above case mentions ) God is still the one supposedly in control because He has some mysterious higher plan and just maybe his higher plan didn't coincide with your prayer request. So just maybe he wants your baby to die of cancer, or your friend who is off on a mission trip to mugged and abused, or the African children to starve because it serves some higher purpose..
I'm sorry but that answer is pathetic. Now you could go the route of " but we have free will! so my god can't help all these bad things from happening because WE cause them " oh but he can just like we can feed the poor and bring health to the sick through our efforts, she can do the same, there's nothing stopping her.
Anyways my point is that it's thought provoking how prayer can't prove anything nor will it ever.
|
| |
| As some of you know I am dating a Mormon ( No I am not a Mormon and yes I am still an Atheist ) and since I've been dating this wonderful girl I have been doing a lot more reading on the subject of Mormonism and I must say that it has been a very interesting read thus far. What I find most interesting is that Mormons have just as much evidence to believe in their religion as Christians do theirs. We've all heard it before right? Christianity changed my life, I just know Christianity and God are true because I have this overwhelming feeling, yada yada yada.
Now I have nothing against Mormons at all, just like I have nothing against anyone who chooses to follow a certain religion but I still find it mind blowing that the majority of evangelical Christian believes think that God will send me and my girlfriend to hell because we don't believe something...that simply blows my mind.
Well for your reading ( and viewing ) pleasure here are some Mormon testimonies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdPT5oVtG9E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBNOc5Ifogc
" The last chapter in the Book of Mormon offers an inspired key to exploring the validity of the text. We are counseled by Moroni
to ponder the book, to contemplate the great things described therein,
and then to ask the Lord with real intent to know if it is true. In my
case, at age 14, I decided to read the book. I should say that at that
point, there was no doubt in my mind that God was real and that prayers
could be answered - I had had many positive experiences with prayer and
truly knew of the reality of God. But what of the Church itself? I
would read the Book of Mormon and then pray to get an answer...I then approached the Lord in prayer one evening, sincerely asking for
guidance about the text and explaining what tentative conclusions I had
been able to draw, then asking if this text was true...I walked away with a powerful and profound personal testimony that God
loved me, that Christ was real, and that the Book of Mormon was indeed
a divine testament of Christ, a second witness for His divinity "
Why believe Evangelical Christianity over Mormonism? Well when you really get down to it it all really is just a matter of faith and what turns you on, nothing more nothing less.
|
| |
|
“The world would be astonished if it knew how great a
proportion of its brightest ornaments, of those most distinguished even in
popular estimation for wisdom and virtue, are complete skeptics in religion”
John Stuart Mill
The reason I have added this quote is to try and shed some light on the truth on people who are skeptical ( atheist/agnostic ) when it comes to religion. We are not evil, on the contrary we are more likely to NOT break the law and end up in prison. We are more likely to NOT get divorced compared to religious people and we are MORE likely to give money to charity organizations like the red cross.
We are not evil, we are only trying to be honest.
The truth no matter what, at all costs.
|
| |
| For right now I think it should suffice to describe a miracle as some event which breaks the natural laws as we know them. This is a very simplistic definition and in fact after reading a bit I know there are a lot of philosophers that would disagree with it but for practical purposes I think it will do.
With this working definition of something that breaks natural laws then I think we will be able to proceed further along our path and next time I post I want to look more at suppossed modern day miracle claims such as healings, providence, etc. and try to determine what kind of evidence one would need to believe in a miracle.
I'll try try to add more substance next time but I've been swamped with school and work so it leaves me very little time to update this as much as I like so until then keep thinking.
Daniel
|
| |
| It's been a long time since I've written here and a lot of different things have occurred in my life since then but I won't bore everyone with the details just yet. Instead I have different questions to ponder and as always they are related to religion in general and Christianity in particular.
Now the question that I am going to be investigating is whether "miracles" occur today or not and also why type of evidence can a miracle give if it actually is occurring? The funny this is that before this discussion begins we must first define what exactly a miracle. I know must of you must be saying " But Daniel EVERYONE knows what a miracle is " but I would beg to differ and my next post will be dedicated towards defining what a miracle is so we can all have keener understanding of what it is that we are talking about.
Until then, keep thinking!
|
| |
